Ziggurat Zagger
Posts: 6418
Joined: Friday, 6th July 2012, 12:48
Bring itemdest back (and corrosion, maybe)
I am not arguing about bringing old itemdest back. Old itemdest was pretty bad, even if (and I will argue about that) it had redeeming qualities. However, I feel like I am missing that mechanic. Why?
It added variety to Crawl enemies, and variety is something Crawl's mid-endgame thrives upon. The tactics remain mostly the same as in early game (don't fight too much dudes, throw stones, avoid with hard dudes), except less pronounced since you have a billion of escape options and a powerful character. This sounds as a completely another concern, and a call for shortening midgame (and midgame should be shortened, IMO), but even shortening it won't remove the concern, and removing midgame is probably not an option I would even like.
It added emotional response to certain monsters - in some case, unwarranted, but in some case it was good. Orc wizard popping one of your two HW potions in early game was cool, orc wizard popping one of your 6 HW potions in midgame wasn't. But by that time there were other monsters with freezing attacks.
Now, the obvious negatives: it encouraged stashing strategic consumables, it scaled badly with damage and actual threat level of enemies, it encouraged partially stashing consumables (which might've been even a design goal at some point). The first one might be addressed in 0.16 by splitting consumables into tactical and strategic, the latter being unaffected by itemdest; the second one I would suggest to address by scaling it with actual damage done (and not damage reduced solely by AC); the third one might be addressed by limiting it to one item per stack per hit (the top scroll/potion burn/freeze). As for conservation, it should not exist outside of Jiyva and probably Maxwell's Patent Coffin.
Now, about corrosion. The arguments for it are going to be even more emotional, so bear with me. I'm just going to come out and say that lemuel's infamous acid trip was one of my favorite vaults of all time. The sheer "fuck you" of putting a bunch of corrosive monsters on your way to the orb is immense. I still fondly remember getting it as a KeAE and winning with around -3 AC. Ultimately, new corrosion is a better effect - it's much more relevant tactically. However, it doesn't elicit a strong response such as DAMN YELLOW DRACONIANS CORRODING MAH CLOAKS. There is no reason anymore to LCS the bastards! Now they're just another drac subtype you mow down. That, to me, is a loss. So, I would suggest adding a small chance to perma-corrode an item to new corrosion; probably make it independent of enchantment (though artifacts should be immune).
I also wanted to talk about weight, but then I realized that I can't say anything positive about that mechanic. I am glad it's dead. I really am.
Now, I gotta admit: I know the ideas in this post have literally no chance of being ever implemented. I just felt like posting a lot of text about a thing I feel strongly about. As a side effect, this might ignite a discussion about alternative to itemdest mechanics (I remember liking a proposal about fiery/cold attacks applying a status that would have a chance to destroy a scroll/potion if you tried to use it under said status). Such mechanics were supposed to be discussed during 0.16 development, but I can't find anything about it on devwiki.
Anyway, thanks for reading this poorly written wall of text, now feel free to call me wrong.