Species Proposal: Ugly Things (Ug)

[Mandragora]

EDIT: Updated proposal based on feedback. Details below.

I am not an active dev, so the following is just my opinion. Nothing authoritative.

Healing on mutation is not going to work, since it means "find a shining eye and drag it around as a source of free healing". Healing plus the unique mutation mechanics also gets rid of a lot of the penalty from contam. I imagine you could get away with being permanently hasted. Tmut miscasts will also be a lot nicer, although with +5 tmut you won't worry about miscasts for very long. I think heavy tmut miscasts might actually be a net gain in HP.

Deterioration is just a nuisance, get rid of that mutations-from-stat-loss mechanic and just give them a permanent evolution mutation if you want something like that.

In general you shouldn't take mechanics designed as punishments and try to twist them into rewards. Building a race around the concept of mutations is fine, but don't tie it to things like stat loss or magical contamination. If you want to do something like that, find a POSITIVE mechanic (healing, exp gain, etc) and tie it to that instead. For example, the evolution mutation already exists (giving mutations as exp is gained), so a permanent version of it could be created. This also allows working off existing mechanics rather than inventing completely new ones, helping to simplify the design.

Likewise, the colour shifting should not be tied to anything negative (this includes the passing of time, such as by resting in the Temple), unless you want players to scum for the colour they want. You could do this by parking an ugly thing on a safe level and sitting next to it for a while.

Thanks, evilmike! It’s often hard to think yourself of the best ways to break something you’ve imagined. With that in mind, I’ve thought up a few changes which should hopefully address the scumminess and fiddliness of the original while making things a bit simpler on the coding front…

Ugly Things (Ug) Revision-1

Starting Stats & Backgrounds:

Strength = 10, Intelligence = 9, Dexterity = 6 (before background modifiers)
+1 to strength or intelligence every 4 levels.
Normal HP.
+10% MP.
+4 magic resistance per level.

WARRIORS: Fighter, Gladiator, Monk
ZEALOT: Berserker, Abyssal Knight
WARRIOR-MAGE: Transmuter
MAGE: Fire, Air, Ice, Earth Elementalist, Venom Mage

Innate Abilities & Characteristics

-Silver vulnerability (“You are a chaotic being and vulnerable to silver.”)
-Deformed Body (“Armor fits poorly on your misshapen body.”)
-Gelatinous Body I (“Your rubbery skin absorbs attacks.”)
-Boots unavailable (“Your lower body is a mass of ooze.”)
-Gloves unavailable, auxiliary tentacle-slap (“You have strong tentacles in place of arms.”)
-At XL6+, you will begin to cycle through various elemental colors on mutation (fire, ice, pois, elec, acid, stone) granting resists and a brand to your auxiliary tentacle-slap. ("Your body glows with a shifting array of colors.")
-Genetic Tide I*: Similar to evolution-II, gives you mutations (50% good / 50% bad) as you gain experience. Full mutation ranks are Devolution III-I, Genetic Tide I-II.(“Your amorphous body exists in a state of balanced growth and decay”).

-Active ability “Recombination”: costs hunger, exhaustion, devolution*. Receive a mutation based on your current genetic tide odds and heal self (TBD, based on XL), then receive a rank of devolution. Cannot be used at Devolution-III.

Other restrictions:
-Head-slot restricted (no helmets)
-Cannot worship Zin.
-Dithmenos will prevent you from turning red.
-Mutations from external sources will be random (50/50), but malmutation effects will (or have a chance to) apply a rank of devolution*. If you are at devolution-III, malmutate will function normally.
-When you receive a mutation, you have a chance to also remove an existing mutation based on the number of mutation slots currently filled. (keep that purple wheel rolling)
-Amulet of Resist Mutation only provides protection from external sources of mutation.**
-Cannot acquire mutations: hooves, talons, claws, mutation resistance, evolution
-Can acquire special mutation: tentacle spike, color-cloud immunity, gelatinous body

You gurgle horribly for attention! The six-headed hydra roars!

*Gone are the stat-drain and polymorph-based mutations, and in its place we have a special tunable innate evolution feature. While it is 50/50 by default, exposure to negative sources (malmutation, or by using your healing ability) will down-rank it to Devolution I-III (“Your amorphous body exists in a state of disorder/decay/disintegration.”), which will shift the odds of your future mutations toward the negative. Of course, whenever you receive a mutation through your genetic tide, you have a chance to move a rank back towards the mean 50/50 state.

This should remove a great deal of the scumming opportunities of the previous proposal, while allowing you the chance to trade future malmutations for short-term benefits (burst healing, color gambling). I should note that the mutations are no longer transient-on-XP, since increasing the turnover rate through co-occurring mutation removal (far fewer “you feel extremely odd”s) has the same ultimate impact.

This system also provides a possible unique interaction with Jivya – his gifts could come with a chance to shift their genetic tide up a rank (up to a benemut-weighted Tide-II, with the same regression to the mean).

**Currently not sure how feasible this is code-wise.

Aptitudes

Fighting +1
Short Blades -1
Long Blades -1
Maces & Flails +1
Axes 0
Polearms 0
Staves +1
Unarmed Combat 0

Bows -1
Crossbows -1
Slings -1
Throwing -1

Armour -2
Dodging 0
Shields 0

Spellcasting +1
Conjurations -1
Charms -2
Hexes -2
Necromancy -1
Summoning -2
Translocations -1
Transmutations +3
Fire Magic +1
Ice Magic +1
Air Magic +1
Earth Magic +1
Poison Magic +1

Invocations +1
Evocations +1
Stealth +1

Summary of Changes

-Removed warper, added fighter to recommended classes
-Slightly increased MR/level (3 -> 4)
-Removed deterioration-I.
-Removed start with wand of polymorph.
-Removed mutation on stat drain and polymorph; added intrinsic racial evolution with weighted negative or positive alternate ranks.
-Removed heal-on-mutation; added active ability which mutates and heals for hunger, exh, and devolution.
-Clarified how malmutate works with new system, tried to prevent “stand next to a shining eye until ultimate lifeform” Haifisch-class scenario
-Color now only changes on mutation.
-Rmut amulet now works normally, but only on external mutations.
-Cmut potion now works normally and doesn’t murder you, no real reason for that except flavor
-Short/Long blades -2 -> -1
Unarmed Combat +1 -> 0 (??)
Bows -3 -> -1 (If octopodes can do it…)
Armour -3 -> -2
Shields -1 -> 0
Spellcasting 0 -> +1
Transmutations +5 -> +3
Stealth 0 -> +1

So there’s an alternate proposal based on everyone’s feedback. Still to be brainstormed in this version:
-making colors more distinct (more color-based mutations?)
-should we have another auxiliary attack, a headbutt or such?
-should unarmed be put back up a peg?

Looking forward to your thoughts.


EDIT: One idea - instead of having color mutations as part of the pool, they could receive some at certain levels. XL6, they start changing color and receive only the aux-brand effect. XL12, they get added resistance pip and cloud protection. XL18, they get "Very Ugly Form", a temporary form costing hunger, MP, and devolution, but gives them an additional/alternate resist (e.g. another rF+, or rSticky, for red), a chance for added effect on the auxiliary hits (red-> sticky, green -> curare, cyan -> static, etc.) and a spell enhancer for their color, to play on the relationship/differences between the ugly and very ugly monsters in-game.

Spoiler: show

Inspired by this thread and others: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=13081

I’ve been brainstorming a way to tap into the “mutation species” idea without the result being either unacceptably RNG-based/gimmicky while also trying to avoid stomping on the toes of demonspawn and draconians. The result I’d like to throw out there, while still gimmicky, tries to add some degree of control and strategy to the loss/acquisition of mutations, while drawing flavour inspiration from a source already present in-game.


Starting Stats:

Strength = 10, Intelligence = 9, Dexterity = 6 (before background modifiers)
+1 to strength or intelligence every 4 levels.
Normal HP.
+10% MP.
+3 magic resistance per level.

Innate abilities:

-Silver vulnerability (“You are a chaotic being and vulnerable to silver.”)
-Deformed Body (“Armor fits poorly on your misshapen body.”)
-Gelatinous Body I-II (“Your rubbery skin absorbs attacks.”)
-Deterioration I (“Your body is slowly deteriorating.”)
-Boots unavailable (“Your lower body is a mass of ooze.”)
-Gloves unavailable, auxiliary tentacle-slap (“You have strong tentacles in place of arms.”)
-All mutations you receive are random (50% good/bad), temporary (XP timer scales downward with XL), may also remove other mutations*, and heal you for [2d(XL) + XL/3] on acquisition. (“Your body thrives on constant changing.”)
-In addition to regular sources of mutation (contam, chunks, potions, malmutate) you mutate instead of polymorphing and have a (low) chance to mutate from stat drain. (“Your body is susceptible to changes in form.”)
-At XL6+, you will begin to cycle through various elemental colors, explained in more detail below. ("Your body glows with a shifting array of colors.")

To clarify, the scaling of the temporary mutations would be such so that in the early game (when XL gains are plenty) a mutation might last an entire XL or two. In the late game, with massive time in-between XL gains, you might expect to see 2-3 mutations turn over between levels or level equivalents of experience. The chance to mutate from stat loss rises substantially with the magnitude of the loss; their intrinsic deterioration-1, more an annoyance than a true malmutation in its current state, provides the species with a level of background mutation even in the absence of potions, wand charges, or chunks.

On Colors: Beginning at XL 6, Ugly Things will change color when you receive a mutation (high chance), are stat-drained (low chance), or stand next to monster Ugly Things when they change (high chance) into one of the six ugly thing colors: brown/acid, red/fire, white/ice, cyan/elec, green/pois, or purple/phys (the default color). They will gain a pip of resistance to their current color (+3 AC in the case of purple) and an appropriate brand (or extra base damage for purple) to their auxiliary tentacle slap, as well as a wizardry bonus to spells of the appropriate school for the colors except brown/acid.


*As an arbitrary formula, whenever you gain a new mutation, the chance to remove a previous mutation could be ([# current mutation slots occupied - 4] / 6) so that the mutation wheel will keep spinning instead of simply fizzling as most characters find when they gather too many mutations.



Other restrictions:

Head-slot restricted (hats & crowns only).
All Ugly Things, regardless of class, begin the game with a Wand of Polymorph.
Cannot worship Zin.
Cure Mutation potions work, but deal damage to you for each mutation removed.
Amulet of Resist Mutation: Interaction undecided. Possibly reduce chance to gain & rate of loss by 90%?
Cannot acquire mutations: hooves, talons, claws, mutation resistance
Can acquire special mutation: tentacle spike

A gurgle rips itself from your throat!

Aptitudes:

[size=85]Fighting +1
Short Blades -2
Long Blades -2
Maces & Flails +1
Axes 0
Polearms 0
Staves +1
Unarmed Combat +1

Bows -3
Crossbows -1
Slings -1
Throwing -1

Armour -3
Dodging 0
Shields -1

Spellcasting 0
Conjurations -1
Charms -2
Hexes -2
Necromancy -1
Summoning -2
Translocations -1
Transmutations +5
Fire Magic +1
Ice Magic +1
Air Magic +1
Earth Magic +1
Poison Magic +1

Invocations +1
Evocations +1
Stealth 0

Rationale: Lacking the fine motor control of proper hands and having to regularly re-adjust to new body shapes leaves the ugly things poorly-suited for weapons requiring finesse, with more straightforward combat (SMASH! CHOP!) being preferable, though many find that their tentacles perform just as well as any club or spear.

While they are innately magical creatures (the result of their breeding), their affinity for the arcane is focused on the elemental schools whose powers lie dormant within their bodies. Other than a savant-like understanding of shapeshifting, the higher arcane arts are somewhat lost on them.


Recommended Starting Backgrounds:

WARRIORS: Gladiator, Monk
ZEALOT: Berserker, Abyssal Knight
WARRIOR-MAGE: Transmuter, Warper
MAGE: Fire, Air, Ice, Earth Elementalist, Venom Mage

So we have a race well-suited for elemental magic and melee, whose poor defensive aptitudes come with the ability to self-heal by inflicting mutations on yourself - with thrilling side-effects! While the bonuses from your color are too transient to be anything but a background luxury at the moment, I'm toying with the idea of being able to influence the odds of your color wheel; maybe by XP invested into elemental schools, maybe by taking enough damage from one type. Anyhow, I'd love to hear your thoughts on designing a mutant race whose gameplay will variable and a little frightening both within and across games.

Code-wise, I'm not sure how Wretched Stars and Demonspawn Corrupters would work in tandem with their mutations also being temporary, but I'm not quite at that stage yet.



As a side note, I've been reading the development forums and playing crawl for some time, and I've tried to keep the forum rules, proposal precedents, and a reasonable degree of the design philosophy in mind. Hopefully you won't tear me to shreds for this being my first real post. [/size]

[Tiktacy]

That was a really good first post, we don't get many new people here coming in with creative and interesting ideas for species.

The mutations thing seems a little complicated and lacks any interesting game interactions as it is. However, the general idea of what you are suggesting(morphing based on stat drain mostly) sounds like it could work with some tweaking. The character aptitudes are good, I like the direction you took with them, its very flavorful and none of the stats seem like they would negatively impact the versatility of the species.

If I had to suggest a way to improve it, I would say making each color have a significant effect on gameplay(factoring in both good and bad) is a good place to start.

[TeshiAlair]

Here are my thoughts:

Things I like:
General premise
Tie-in with ugly things
Deterioration flavor

Things I'm not a huge fan of:
Solely temp mutations
Some of the fiddly-ness
Tying so much to exp

My tweaks:
All aptitudes same, color changing system same.
Stat drain now causes a temp mutation. Healing a point of stat drain removes a temp mutation, either over time or from quaffing.

Bigger suggestion:
To make this feel more like a very new race and less like a draconian with bad xom luck, here's my major change: Each level after level 6, give them a special UG only mutation that's very game-changing, to force adaptation. They have an innate ability of -2.5% max hp permanently to shuffle their UG mutations (Each UG mutation has a 50% chance to change, a 25% to stay the same, and a 25% chance to disappear.

On level up:
If 0 mutations: 75% chance gain 1 mutation, 25% chance gain 2
If 1 mutation: 50% chance gain 1 mutation, 25% chance change one mutation, 25% chance both gain and change.
If 2 mutations: 25% chance gain 1 mutation, 25% chance change one mutation, 25% chance both gain and change, 25% chance lose one mutation
If 3 mutations: 50% chance change one mutation, 25% chance change 2 mutations, 25% chance lose one mutation change one mutation.

UG mutation ideas (just spitballing some crazy ones):
Dense ooze: +5AC, slow
Elastic ooze: +noise, fast (it bounces around :3)
Two headed: +1 LOS (you can see farther, but you are more noticeable) and +1 amulet slot
Slippery body: +5EV, -3 Slay
Magical surge: +10%MP, HP regen faster at >75%MP, slower at <50%MP
Magically stable: -10%MP, +MR.
Consuming ooze: +Acid aux, auto-eat all corpses, +hunger

[Tiktacy]

Great ideas TeshiAir. The only one thats flawed is Elastic ooze, fast speed can be game breaking. Maybe instead of just being fast, you have a chance to go faster or slower based on tension? Also, slowness is a pretty bad penalty, maybe add in permanent CTele or something fancy like that?

If we want to keep these guys different from demonspawns, they sort of need to be constantly changing in interesting and substantial ways, and thats no small feat.

[TeshiAlair]

I'd rather just spike the +AC or also give bonus HP for the slow one, almost naga-fy them. And yeah speed is probably way overpowered.

[xentronium]

The healing on mutations needs to be toned down somewhat.
As described, potions and wands of mutation are better than heal wounds at high XL (compare 2d(XL) + XL/3 to 9+3d28/3). Wands of polymorph are common and have lots of charges, so you'd get a ton of healing. Maybe reduce it to 2d(XL/3) + XL/3.

The transient mutation theme seems interesting and distinct from demonspawn permanent mutations.

[Lasty]

I've seen a few Ugly Thing species, and I think this is probably the best one I've seen. I do think some of the numbers need tweaking, as xentronium says.

Also, UC is almost certainly the right choice for all ugly thing (UT) characters, since it not only has an aptitude bonus and a gigantic transmutations apt bonus, but you even effectively get brands on it. I generally don't like species being railroaded into a certain type of combat (c.f. ogre, merfolk, etc), but in this case ignoring UC also means ignoring one of the differentiating factors of the race -- something like TeshiAlair's suggestion would make that somewhat less the case, but it bears consideration.

This is also a low defense race (bad armour apt + deformed body, mediocre dex and Dodging, average HP), and it will go through a midgame filled with yaktaurs with silver-branded ammo doing massive damage.

Aside from that, I'm a little worried about how the constantly-changing aspect will play, but it might be great for all I know. I'd have to see it in action.

Edit: the massive healing might be intended to be a compensation for the bad defenses, and if so, that might work, but I suspect it would not.

[Tiktacy]

I've seen a few Ugly Thing species, and I think this is probably the best one I've seen. I do think some of the numbers need tweaking, as xentronium says.

Also, UC is almost certainly the right choice for all ugly thing (UT) characters, since it not only has an aptitude bonus and a gigantic transmutations apt bonus, but you even effectively get brands on it. I generally don't like species being railroaded into a certain type of combat (c.f. ogre, merfolk, etc), but in this case ignoring UC also means ignoring one of the differentiating factors of the race -- something like TeshiAlair's suggestion would make that somewhat less the case, but it bears consideration.

This is also a low defense race (bad armour apt + deformed body, mediocre dex and Dodging, average HP), and it will go through a midgame filled with yaktaurs with silver-branded ammo doing massive damage.

Aside from that, I'm a little worried about how the constantly-changing aspect will play, but it might be great for all I know. I'd have to see it in action.

Edit: the massive healing might be intended to be a compensation for the bad defenses, and if so, that might work, but I suspect it would not.

UC is such a powerful skill that having positive aptitude in it AND having branded attacks AND having +5 transmutations just seems unfair. Maybe try putting UC at -2 and putting staves at +2(since not a lot of races can have higher aptitudes for it). The +5 transmutations still seems a bit odd in terms of design, but this species is such a glass cannon that using a shield and branded whip might prove to be a superior choice to using transmutations and UC, so maybe giving them better shield aptitudes to encourage that would be a good idea. I would suggest making the branded UC be changed to branded attacks, so all attacks gain the bonus from the brand(even already branded weapons).

Maybe with these changes, the player won't be so railroaded into the UC+transmutations strategy and will be more open to using other strategies to win. Thoughts?

[Mandragora]

Wow, thanks for all the ideas!

UC is such a powerful skill that having positive aptitude in it AND having branded attacks AND having +5 transmutations just seems unfair. Maybe try putting UC at -2 and putting staves at +2(since not a lot of races can have higher aptitudes for it). The +5 transmutations still seems a bit odd in terms of design, but this species is such a glass cannon that using a shield and branded whip might prove to be a superior choice to using transmutations and UC, so maybe giving them better shield aptitudes to encourage that would be a good idea. I would suggest making the branded UC be changed to branded attacks, so all attacks gain the bonus from the brand(even already branded weapons).

Looking at it now, I agree there should be some more incentive to go non-UC given the siren's call of a high transmut aptitude (+5 might be a little dramatic).

To clarify, the branding on coloration was intended to apply to the auxiliary tentacle-slap only (similar to the venom brand on draconian stingers), not to normal attacks. Acidic punches would be a bit bonkers by any standards.

To make this feel more like a very new race and less like a draconian with bad xom luck, here's my major change: Each level after level 6, give them a special UG only mutation that's very game-changing, to force adaptation. They have an innate ability of -2.5% max hp permanently to shuffle their UG mutations (Each UG mutation has a 50% chance to change, a 25% to stay the same, and a 25% chance to disappear.

I hadn't considered giving them species-specific mutations to toy with. That could add a lot of flexibility to the mutation cycling, whether they would come in via the normal purpleation or, like you suggest, can come in at certain milestones during the game.

These would also allow some leeway to add to the effect of Ug color by putting in mutations whose effects are dependent on it - i.e. granting immunity to clouds of your current color (flame/ice/poison/etc., maybe petrification for the purple guys). It would mean coding six mutations for every one of these, but you have to admit it would be pretty cool. We'd have to be careful given the presence of the acid element in their roster, though..

[Tiktacy]

I request to see a devs opinion on this proposal, and are there any devs/programmers willing to try making a patch for a species like this?

[rockygargoyle]

How would this species work with jiyva?

[Tiktacy]

How would this species work with jiyva?

There would probably be some flavor tacked on with Jiyva, but thats a detail that isn't worth discussing this early on.

[XuaXua]

Are these just restricted from the good gods (being chaotic) or would other gods dismiss it?

I wonder how well the color-changing defense would work in conjunction with Quazlal's acquired defenses. The transference seems similar from a 100-foot view and might be very complimentary.

[Lasty]

Of the good gods, only Zin hates chaos.

[XuaXua]

Of the good gods, only Zin hates chaos.

Cool. I know deity concerns are last, but I wonder what the interaction might be if the Ug turned red under Dithmenos, etc.

[Lyrick]

but I wonder what the interaction might be if the Ug turned red under Dithmenos, etc.

Just remove the possibility of turning red if you are under Dith.

Upon conversion

  Code:

Dithmenos says: "Preventive measures, volatile one."
Dithmenos tinkers with your genes!
You feel blue.

[tasonir]

+1 for the overall race design, I really like them, and would love to see them added to the game.

Some minor feedback: The +5 transmutations and +1 unarmed does seem to be pushing them to unarmed fairly strongly. I'm a huge unarmed fan, but maybe just +3 transmutations would still get the point across Unarmed could be 0 or +1, but if I know the devs around here, they like keeping unarmed as low as reasonable. Some races do have +1, but gargoyles have had their unarmed nerfed twice. They started at +2 in early development, saw +1 for a while after that, before finally going to 0. If they'll let us get away with +1 I won't mind, though

Similarly -3 bows seems a bit odd. If they're bad with ranged weapons, I'd just make them all -1, although I'm not sure why they're bad at ranged weapons aside from possible tentacle reasons. Octopodes have 0 in all ranged weapons, though.

I do like the deterioration 1 and mutations on stat drain system, but it is a bit complex. I wonder if simply giving them a permanent evolve 1 mutation wouldn't do mostly the same thing and be a lot more clear to players. You may have less control over the rate of mutations in that case, however.

While I don't mind either way, I find it funny they have -2 summoning when there's a popular summon ugly thing spell, making it hard for them to summon some friends

Edit: summon ugly thing has been removed! Shows you how often I play summoners. Boo.

[Roderic]

Currently the repulsiveness card is the only mean to summon an ugly thing

[godzilla]

I'm not a dev, but I like this idea. I'll see if I can write a patch later. No promises, though.

[johlstei]

This is a good suggestion I think, clearly well thought out, though it does seem like it steps on Jiyva's toes a little bit. I'd love it to be a color-based spellpower bonus instead of a wizardry one but maybe that would be too strong. Careful design around how to prevent scumming for colors/mutations is definitely needed. I haven't thought enough to say whether the things you've stated are sufficient for that.

I would probably make the melee weapon aptitudes flat(not counting UC or short blades - handle those how you will, UC is obviously very compelling with your proposal as it is). I don't see any compelling gameplay decisions coming out of making them bad with long blades and extra-good with maces. All 0 there is probably what I'd do, maybe a bonus to staves or something as suggested above. Same for the -3 on bows.

I don't like that they have better dodging aptitude than armour by a long shot, but have more starting str than dex. I don't really know the distribution of background starting stats though, so maybe it still works out okay.

[XuaXua]

I would probably make the melee weapon aptitudes flat(not counting UC or short blades - handle those how you will, UC is obviously very compelling with your proposal as it is). I don't see any compelling gameplay decisions coming out of making them bad with long blades and extra-good with maces. All 0 there is probably what I'd do, maybe a bonus to staves or something as suggested above. Same for the -3 on bows.

I agree with flattening out the melee and improving staves/UC. I see bows (and crossbows? Why penalize bows, but not crossbows?) as requiring finer manipulation than an Ug might be capable of.

[XuaXua]

Of note, it looks like the restrictions may remove the ability to use Beastly Appendage. Is that by design, or does a "tentacle spike" replace that?

[evilmike]

I am not an active dev, so the following is just my opinion. Nothing authoritative.

Healing on mutation is not going to work, since it means "find a shining eye and drag it around as a source of free healing". Healing plus the unique mutation mechanics also gets rid of a lot of the penalty from contam. I imagine you could get away with being permanently hasted. Tmut miscasts will also be a lot nicer, although with +5 tmut you won't worry about miscasts for very long. I think heavy tmut miscasts might actually be a net gain in HP.

Deterioration is just a nuisance, get rid of that mutations-from-stat-loss mechanic and just give them a permanent evolution mutation if you want something like that.

In general you shouldn't take mechanics designed as punishments and try to twist them into rewards. Building a race around the concept of mutations is fine, but don't tie it to things like stat loss or magical contamination. If you want to do something like that, find a POSITIVE mechanic (healing, exp gain, etc) and tie it to that instead. For example, the evolution mutation already exists (giving mutations as exp is gained), so a permanent version of it could be created. This also allows working off existing mechanics rather than inventing completely new ones, helping to simplify the design.

Likewise, the colour shifting should not be tied to anything negative (this includes the passing of time, such as by resting in the Temple), unless you want players to scum for the colour they want. You could do this by parking an ugly thing on a safe level and sitting next to it for a while.

[Tiktacy]

I am not an active dev, so the following is just my opinion. Nothing authoritative.

Healing on mutation is not going to work, since it means "find a shining eye and drag it around as a source of free healing". Healing plus the unique mutation mechanics also gets rid of a lot of the penalty from contam. I imagine you could get away with being permanently hasted. Tmut miscasts will also be a lot nicer, although with +5 tmut you won't worry about miscasts for very long. I think heavy tmut miscasts might actually be a net gain in HP.

Deterioration is just a nuisance, get rid of that mutations-from-stat-loss mechanic and just give them a permanent evolution mutation if you want something like that.

In general you shouldn't take mechanics designed as punishments and try to twist them into rewards. Building a race around the concept of mutations is fine, but don't tie it to things like stat loss or magical contamination. If you want to do something like that, find a POSITIVE mechanic (healing, exp gain, etc) and tie it to that instead. For example, the evolution mutation already exists (giving mutations as exp is gained), so a permanent version of it could be created. This also allows working off existing mechanics rather than inventing completely new ones, helping to simplify the design.

Likewise, the colour shifting should not be tied to anything negative (this includes the passing of time, such as by resting in the Temple), unless you want players to scum for the colour they want. You could do this by parking an ugly thing on a safe level and sitting next to it for a while.

Sounds like some very good feedback, thank you evilmike.

Evolution sounds like a fine way to go, but adding in lots of species exclusive mutations might prove to be a lot more interesting and might make it more similar to the original proposal.

[Siegurt]

I would remove the heal-on-mutation, and add a small chance of mutating on damage (larger with larger amounts of damage)

[johlstei]

"Lots of species exclusive mutations" is pretty much demonspawn though, I don't think that's differentiated enough.

[Leafsnail]

And I know I say this a lot but demonspawn used to be basically like that.

The temporary mutations thing seems like what Jiyva already does too.

[Mandragora]

Update moved to first post.

[Greyr]

I don't think this species has an alibi tbh

[XuaXua]

Mandragora -

You can update the main post with the revised version and use spoiler tags to hide the old version if you feel the need to keep it.

[Psiweapon]

I would play this like a madman.

Really, I'd love to see this become a(n ugly) thing.

[Greyr]

(^ same)

I would at least like play around with it... But lack the knowledge (or motivation, or time) to make a patch for this.

[Quazifuji]

I like the idea of this race, but it seems very similar to Demonspawn, or the mutation components of Xom or Jiyva. The "constantly gaining and losing mutations, including some unique ones" thing happens to Jiyva worshippers already, and the "race that gets a bunch of special mutations" idea already exists with demonspawn.

On the other hand, demonspawn are my favorite race and I thoroughly enjoy constantly mutating under Jiyva, and Jiyva and Xom both come with major baggage and downsides (and Jiyva altars can be a pain to find). So a race that lets me mutate like a Jiyva worshiper without the item destruction or altar diving and the ability to worship some other god sounds awesome to me, and I'd probably play them like crazy. But the whole "constantly mutating" idea isn't really unique, only the ability to do so from the beginning without jellies roaming around eating your items is.

Supplementing that with the color changing mechanic might make them more unique, but I'm not sure how that would work. Just changing the brand on your tentacle slap aux attack feels very minor to me. If the tentacle slap does a small amount of damage, then a varying brand wouldn't mean a ton (and some brands would be much better than others), but if it did a large amount of damage then it could be too powerful. Having it affect your weapon and not just your tentacle is interesting, but I'm not sure how that would work, flavor-wise or gameplay-wise.

I think the trickiest thing with the color change is that ideally, it's something that would require you to adjust your tactics on the fly as you change color. But I'm not sure what effect could accomplish that, and I don't think changing brands would, aside from poison brand letting you poison enemies and then run. Maybe if we took them further from monster ugly things and had color changes sometimes come with abilities or stat changes (maybe one color includes wizardry, one includes an EV boost, one gives constriction, etc).

There's also the issue of when color changes happen. Having them happen over time encourages resting until you get a color you like, which is bad. Having them happen with mutation feels too rare. Maybe have them happen with experience, or randomly in high tension?

Overall, I love mutations, so I'm all for another mutation-based race, but I think the mutation component needs a way to distinguish itself from Jiyva and Demonspawn (unless being a racial version of Jiyva's mutations is enough), and the color change needs something to make it tactically interesting.

[Bloax]

randomly in high tension?

As some of us (it's been a while now) have seen with LO (Lava Orcs), then high tension can be kept just by kiting an ogre or something alike around forever.
And thus you would be able to do exactly the thing you were trying to avoid in the first place, except now you'd also have to kite something.

tension is kinda broken like that, yeah

[Quazifuji]

randomly in high tension?

As some of us (it's been a while now) have seen with LO (Lava Orcs), then high tension can be kept just by kiting an ogre or something alike around forever.
And thus you would be able to do exactly the thing you were trying to avoid in the first place, except now you'd also have to kite something.

tension is kinda broken like that, yeah

Makes sense. Maybe tying it to experience would work? It could become another short-term strategic effect, similar to the shifting mutations. Even if it's not tied to tension, I think it would be very hard to create a color change that often occurs mid-combat that can't be abused in some tedious scummy and/or spoilery way. Experience gain can remove a tactical adaptation aspect but makes scumming it much more difficult and pointless.

I wonder if there's a way to more heavily tie mutations to color in order to make both mechanics more interesting and differentiate Ugly Thing mutation from Jiyva mutation. Not sure what it would be, though, and it seems in danger of becoming scummy/spoilery like the rest of the issues with the color changing.

[Psiweapon]

Why not just randomly over time? With random intervals, too.

You might wait for a particular color, but then again it might just change again right away.

Or why not combine two or three factors, to make it as unpredictable as possible?

After a random and hidden amount of turns, your color will change. Upon gaining XP, your color might change too. If basking on mutagenic energies, the countdowns run faster (0.85 interval for yellow contam, 0.70 for red)

[Quazifuji]

Why not just randomly over time? With random intervals, too.

You might wait for a particular color, but then again it might just change again right away.

Optimal play would still theoretically consist of resting until you got the best color for you whenever you could safely do so, at which point the color changing becomes purely a mix of picking the best color and occasionally adapting to getting switched mid-fight.

Whether anyone would actually go through the trouble of doing it exactly this way, I don't know, but even if people didn't rest constantly to maintain the right color, there could be cases where one color is particularly bad/useless that someone might rest away every time it comes up.

[bisonbisonbison]

If the color changed on every XL+ (and at every XL+ equiv when you're at XL27), it seems like it would encourage strategic but not super scummy play.

[Quazifuji]

If the color changed on every XL+ (and at every XL+ equiv when you're at XL27), it seems like it would encourage strategic but not super scummy play.

Yeah, I think having the color change with XP (doesn't have to be every level, just at certain increments) is the least scummable option. The only reason that I can think of not to do this is if mid-combat color changes are meant to be a key tactical aspect of Ugly Things. If reacting to color changes is meant to be primarily a short-term strategic matter, switching it with XP is the way to go.

There's still the question of how to make the colors interesting enough that you benefit from taking them into account without being so radically different that you can have serious problems if you get one that doesn't fit your playstyle. If all they change is the element of your aux attack, then they don't seem very exciting strategically - just seems like they'd occasionally require being a bit more careful against enemies that resist your aux attack or maybe delaying a branch a little bit if your current color isn't right for it (e.g. if you normally do Crypt as soon as you find it, but you're on a color that undead resist, maybe keep clearing Vaults until you shift). The question is, is there a good set of modifiers that involve interesting but not overwhelming strategic adaptations if you switch between them randomly?

[XuaXua]

What, exactly, are the colors that the UT could change into, alongside their various effects/resistances, and would it be possible to have special color combinations appear at higher XP levels if you're going with the "XP = color change" mechanic?

[Psiweapon]

Why not make colors simply a part of what genetic tide can throw at you? That way the species' gimmickiness would be moar condensed.

[dranichekk]

Like the Idea very much! thank you

here is a green one:

Spoiler: show

[Psiweapon]

Like the Idea very much! thank you

here is a green one:

Spoiler: show

[OT]
Infidel, how can you dare to underestimate the sacred effigy of our Dark Lord and Saviour??!!
[/OT]

[Brannock]

I think this is a rather fun-seeming idea and I could probably even do without the Genetic Tide/Recombination abilities and keep everything else and still enjoy playing this race.

[Mandragora]

bisonbisonbison wrote:If the color changed on every XL+ (and at every XL+ equiv when you're at XL27), it seems like it would encourage strategic but not super scummy play.



Yeah, I think having the color change with XP (doesn't have to be every level, just at certain increments) is the least scummable option. The only reason that I can think of not to do this is if mid-combat color changes are meant to be a key tactical aspect of Ugly Things. If reacting to color changes is meant to be primarily a short-term strategic matter, switching it with XP is the way to go.

There's still the question of how to make the colors interesting enough that you benefit from taking them into account without being so radically different that you can have serious problems if you get one that doesn't fit your playstyle. If all they change is the element of your aux attack, then they don't seem very exciting strategically - just seems like they'd occasionally require being a bit more careful against enemies that resist your aux attack or maybe delaying a branch a little bit if your current color isn't right for it (e.g. if you normally do Crypt as soon as you find it, but you're on a color that undead resist, maybe keep clearing Vaults until you shift). The question is, is there a good set of modifiers that involve interesting but not overwhelming strategic adaptations if you switch between them randomly?

Why not make colors simply a part of what genetic tide can throw at you? That way the species' gimmickiness would be moar condensed.

I think this is a rather fun-seeming idea and I could probably even do without the Genetic Tide/Recombination abilities and keep everything else and still enjoy playing this race.

Thanks again for all the feedback - I've been poking around the git interface a bit, but once exams are finished next month I can look into learning the rest of its moon-language and writing a patch for Uggos. Not sure if they fill a philosophically appropriate niche for DCSS proper, but it'd be fun to play around with.

Regarding the tentacle-slap and/or the offensive aspect of coloration, what about retooling it as a more powerful feature? Vine Stalker bites are powerful enough (due to branding and their scaling with attack speed and XL) to be a focus point of some short-blade strategies. Giving Ugs a similar unique auxiliary might make them more appealing.

[and into]

Here's another out there idea:

Instead of the usual armor slots, your highly flexible and adaptable body can morph to wear a wide variety of objects. You have two arm slots, one slot for body armor, then aside from that, four slots in total to wear any combination of jewelry and non-shield, non-torso armor.

This would be substantially different from the other monstrous and "deformed body" species.

[Psiweapon]

+0 helmet of intelligence
+1 helmet (on secondary head)
+2 boots of running
+2 boots of stealth (on seconday pseudopods)

[Quazifuji]

Here's another out there idea:

Instead of the usual armor slots, your highly flexible and adaptable body can morph to wear a wide variety of objects. You have two arm slots, one slot for body armor, then aside from that, four slots in total to wear any combination of jewelry and non-shield, non-torso armor.

This would be substantially different from the other monstrous and "deformed body" species.

This sounds like the Giant Orange Brain race that was proposed a while back.

I like the idea, but does it fit with the flavor of ugly things? I imagine them basically being writhing masses of tentacles, but this sounds more like something amorphous that can change its shape to fit whatever. Ugly things randomly gaining or losing slots with their mutations would make sense, but ugly things just always being able to wear any slot is different. But maybe I'm wrong about how I imagine them and they're supposed to be more amorphous than that.