Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice


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Post Sunday, 3rd August 2014, 00:44

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

you know what would be a cool penalty to Cataclysm? you destroy every wall in los. blam, you pretty much killed everything, but also lost every chokehole you had and drained your skills.
"the walls crumble under the pressure of your aura"
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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 13:23

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

I put out a few patches last night, though they aren't applied to the experimental branch yet:

* Sac Sanity requires at least two "tough" monsters in LOS or one "nasty" monster to apply the Horror status, making it a little less spammy. The Horror scaling for nasty monsters was made slightly more severe, but it effectively only applies when the nasty monster is in sight together with other tough or nasty monsters.
* The Horror status applies a spellpower malus instead of a spell success malus. The documentation around the status has been improved to be more clear about the -Slaying and -spellpower mali.
* Fixed the crash after abandoning Ru, as well as the erroneous message about Ru not appreciating deserters.
* Improved some ability text Ru's active abilities.

Remaining items on the to-do list that I'll try to get to as soon as I can:
* Rejecting a Ru sacrifice uses a turn, but it shouldn't.
* sacrifice love is missing a period between the text "hostile" and "If".
* In the % screen, "cannot use pummoning magic"
* Suppress demonic guardian demonspawn mutation under Sac Love
* give extra piety for slow healing 2 and 3.
* make draw out power free you from webs, nets, constriction, petrify, slow, and confusion.

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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 16:50

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Hirsch I wrote:you know what would be a cool penalty to Cataclysm? you destroy every wall in los. blam, you pretty much killed everything, but also lost every chokehole you had and drained your skills.
"the walls crumble under the pressure of your aura"

I would not call it a penalty - there are actually situations where you want to destroy some walls.

Lasty, I'd be happy to test Ru more if it gets into trunk - CDO is too slow to play for me.
Any chance to see Ru in trunk soon?
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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 17:21

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

+1 to some destruction of walls, currently the cataclysm seems like a neutron bomb, just affecting living things and I was expecting something like a thermonuclear bomb, a big kabooom. How loud is it, by the way?

Another issue, have you changed the altar colour in console? I've found a Ru altar with a colour that resembles a Qazlal one.
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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 18:05

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Cataclysm may get some light wall destruction just so that Ru worshippers who sacrifice Earth Magic, Evocations, and Translocations still have a way to get at the Slimy rune. I don't want it to have heavy wall destruction, since that would be a lot like Shatter.

I'm hoping Ru will go into 0.16 trunk after the 0.15 tourney is over (in order to avoid distracting from the tourney), but that's not guaranteed -- basically, Ru will go into trunk if and when devs want it in trunk.

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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 18:10

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Ah, you're right -- the altar seems to have been accidentally changed to be Qazlal's colors. It initially had it at brown, since that color wasn't yet taken, but I'm open to suggestions, including shifting between colors as some other gods do.

Edit: the cataclysm noise is as loud as Shatter.
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Post Thursday, 7th August 2014, 18:22

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

To me the humble and dour brown was fine. Which is the description, rock, carved stone? It also conditions the tile art...
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Post Friday, 8th August 2014, 12:55

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

The Ru experimental branch has been updated with the updates I mentioned above as well as:

* Fixed typo: In the % screen, "cannot use pummoning magic"
* Fixed typo: sac love ability description missing period between "hostile" and "If"
* Fixed typo: "Ru asks you to sacrifice your ability to go unnoticed.."
* Fixed erroneous message on power leap: "Really blink to the * trap?"
* Power Leap noise cut in half.
* Slow Healing 2 and 3 are worth extra piety, other purity sacrifices are worth slightly less.
* Suppressed demonic guardian demonspawn mutation under Sac Love
* Rejecting a Ru sacrifice no longer wastes a turn
* Draw Out Power frees from nets/webs/constriction/confusion/petrify/slow.

Thanks to everyone finding bugs and offering ideas, particularly rchandra, who is a bug-finding machine.

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Post Wednesday, 13th August 2014, 07:14

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

That's just because this god is too much damn fun!

Completed a NaIE giving up both dodging and armour (statue form OgEE is another fun way to do this but you will have to find statueform). Sacrifice Sanity is pretty interesting - in common situations it just encourages playing better but it's quite awful in a Ziggurat, or when fighting anything that summons tough enemies, and in Zot:5.
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Post Wednesday, 13th August 2014, 13:09

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

"Awful" as in "awful to play with" or as in "punishing to an interesting and reasonable degree"? If the former, do you have a suggestion for improving it, or would you advocate removing it?

Edit: I looked through the log you posted, and it looks like a really fun game. Nice work on 15 runing/full-zigging a Ru character w/o Armour or Dodging skill!
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Post Wednesday, 13th August 2014, 21:37

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

I wouldn't advocate removing the current version of Sacrifice Sanity, just be open to changing the details of it with more testing. It definitely feels awful to play with if you are using a poorly enchanted weapon and have no exterior slaying - I had a very difficult Depths floor where I was using a +2 vampiric demon blade instead of my stronger weapon, to little effect. However, better approaches would have not had so many monsters in sight at once, so probably with less Horror and my better weapon it would have been fine. My Fighting skill was a bit low at the time too, making accuracy problems worse.

There's a nice synergy with Long Blades and Ru and new crosstraining - since you get various stab chances, you might as well carry a dagger to make them better. (I think 15 long blades gives 10 shortblades skill for free)
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Post Saturday, 16th August 2014, 21:22

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Some new patches are out for Ru. Aside from bugfixes, the highlight is a refactoring some of the randomized sacrifices (health, essence, and purity) that also replaced the Deformed Body sacrifice with No Device Heal, and adjusted the purity sacrifices to increase the piety values for second and third ranks, since they all get significantly nastier at the higher levels.

The other changes are:
* Prevent out of sight monsters from being redirected.
* Fix another erroneous cannot memorize message.
* give message when you're too healthy to use Draw Out Power
* don't give horror for submerged monsters.
* Fold sacrifice wiz command into offer gift command
* correct the uselessness of summoning evokers.
* fix god description typo.
* fix name of no dodging mutation
* reset Ru altar to brown.

When it's live on CSZO I'll update the post. It looks like Ru is likely to be moved to trunk after the tournament. Let me know if you see other bugs or balance issues.

Edit: added also acquirement improvement.
Edit2: The patches are all now loaded on the experimental server.
Last edited by Lasty on Tuesday, 19th August 2014, 13:28, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Monday, 18th August 2014, 11:44

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote:Cataclysm may get some light wall destruction just so that Ru worshippers who sacrifice Earth Magic, Evocations, and Translocations still have a way to get at the Slimy rune. I don't want it to have heavy wall destruction, since that would be a lot like Shatter.

wall destruction is cool, because making lots of noise, draining skills and getting rid of chokeholes is a very interesting drawback. you solve your problems, but you better solve them fast, because more problems are heading this way, and you got nowere to hide, kid. but on the other hand, you can use it TO destroy walls, if needed, wich is a very cool double edged sword. akin to the most interesting ability in the game (Lugonu's Corrupt). but if you leave some walls, it becomes much more of an advantage, as you normally only need to destroy one or two tops. if it becomes too similar to shatter, I'd say remove the damage, and stick to the status effects. it is the most interesting part anyway.
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Post Tuesday, 19th August 2014, 07:09

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

I haven't seen anyone else comment on Formacid of Ru yet, but I think its important thematically that they can still wield 2 handed weapons after sacing a hand because they would only be giving up their shield hand and can normally wield a shield with a 2-hand weapon.

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Post Tuesday, 19th August 2014, 11:41

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

They can.
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Post Sunday, 24th August 2014, 17:21

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

What happens if you abandon Ru and return? Do you keep piety for the previous sacrifices?
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Post Tuesday, 16th September 2014, 12:43

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Ru is now in trunk for all to (hopefully) enjoy.

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 02:28

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Won a TrMo of Ru, marking the third Ru win on the servers (the first two being a TrGl and a GhWn)

http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/darkli/morg ... 012935.txt

Might as well leave my thoughts on Ru here while I'm at it.

As it is, it's kind of too easy to raise piety via just sacrificing all the magic-related stuff, but on the other hand that can be absolutely crippling for a character (sacrificing charms is a really big deal for almost everybody, for an example). For a Troll, sacrificing anything related to magic may be an easy choice and effectively read "FREE PIETY", but for most other races it's at least something not to take lightly. So he might be a very strong pick for a troll, but trolls are already inherently ridiculous and basing balance on them doesn't really mean much when trolls tend to skew god balance severely since they're so strong from the start.

Also, the Sacrifice Stealth thing makes enemies spot you literally immediately, which makes it more severe than one would think even for a character who doesn't care about stealth at all. And seeing as stealth helps you pick fights and get away from bad situations before they develop, giving that up is quite a hit to a character.

First two abilities mostly worked in the background, but having a chance for a spellcaster to cast crystal spear on himself or having a titan get paralyzed is definitely a sight for the eyes. I had Khufu come into LOS, torment me, and get muted in the space of 1 turn, turning what would normally be a reason to abandon the floor and never return into a walking experience pinata.

Draw Out Power definitely would be a godsend for a hybrid or pure spellcaster. As a troll with absolutely no knowledge of spells, it generally served as a potion of heal wounds, but it does scale up very well with piety and helped conserve my heal wounds supplies.

Power leap is amazing even with it's 3 range limit, especially since it still works on -cTele levels. Whether you're using it to close in on a spellcaster faster or using it to get away from a bad situation it's always good. Damage isn't exceptional though, although it's pretty good against really agile+fragile things like spriggans.

Cataclysm is from my experience basically shatter except anything still alive is usually stuck with at least one debilitating status effect; it's not as flashy as disaster area, but it still is a really strong capstone ability and often helps pay off it's own draining cost quickly.

All in all, 10/10 would sacrifice to again

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 12:42

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Some quick thoughts after playing a MiAs of Ru till D:15 and Lair:8.
Overall I thing it's a really nice addiction to the pantheon, because Ru can strongly affect the gameplay in interesting ways - and his different piety's mechanism is a welcome news too.
For now I've noticed small things may worth to be adjusted:
- already accepted sacrifices should be listed somewhere - I'd say in the description of Ru(^ key)
- horror's effects should be more clear: like now I think it's impossible to get any idea about the current level of -slaying and -spellpower, while it's quite important to know if you're fighting with -3 slay or -12. I'd say it should be displayed like corrosion effect
- -Scroll (no idea about -pot, I haven't taken it yet) is too much swingy, I don't think it's currently working very well. While it's good it doesn't trigger the same turn a ood monster shows up (so generally you have some turns to use consumables), it often fails to trigger in an actually dangerous situation (like a D:10 Hill Giant heavily hitting you). Moreover it often triggers for totally trivial monsters (like a D:10 orc wizard's puff of flame or a green rat's bite on Lair while having 40ac and 140hp)
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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 12:52

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

You can see your accepted sacrifices on the A screen that lists mutations. Is that acceptable, or does it need to be displayed in a different form?

Currently the chance of getting -potion or -scroll is 1 - (115 - [your_after_damage_health_percent])/100, meaning that the more injured you are, the more likely the status is to be applied. You're guaranteed to receive -potion/-scroll after taking a hit that reduces you below 15% hp, and you should never receive it after taking a hit that leaves you at or above 85% hp. Do you have a suggestion for a better formula?

Edit: the Horror suggestion sounds fine to me.

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 13:09

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Oh, I didn't think about A screen. It's totally questionable, but I don't think it really fits in that screen - sacrifices don't "sound" like mutation, but rather an "inability" given by the God (like chei's slow movement) which thematically is more suited on the ^ screen. But that is a minor question, the important thing it's they're displayed somewhere ;)

Unfortunately, I can't give you a new formula - I've no experience of the numbers in the game code wise, so whatever I could come up would be likely more unbalanced of the current one.
Theoretically, what about lower the threshold? 85% seems really high to me, what about 70% or something like that? In DCSS there's a lot of prolonged trivial fights where the char can lose even a decent chunk of health against lots of weak monster (e.g. orc or lair) but he's never actually threatened by them becase he can just walk away and they can't actually take more than 2 or 3% hp per turn - so e.g. fighting 10 plain orc at 100% health is likely fight them at 70% (ok in the second case you're more in danger if a orc high priest or a stone giant appear, but *those* should apply the status, not the weak orcs themselves.
Furthermore, I'd add a check to guarantee the stasus if a single big hit is suffered (no idea about the exact percentage, maybe 15% or 20%) . E.g. if a stone giant hits you for 15% of health with a rock, taking you from from 100% to 85%, you should always get -scroll, because you're actually fighting someone who can kill you fast and easily. Likewise, i'd add a check which prevent from adding the status if the hit is negligible (like 1 or 2%) unless you're already a low health (like 40% or so)

edit: I also think the description of some sacrifices could be improved. For instance, Sacrifice Health says " have their health pool
decreased, suffer penalties to Evasion, or suffer penalties to AC" but how much exactly? I suppose the hp is -10% and I could get the info about ac and ev in the thread or learndb, but I think it would be better to state that directly in the game.
Likewise, if I try to take that, I get "Ru asks you to corrupt yourself with vulnerability to harm."... But does actually mean I'm losing hp, ac or ev? Each one means I'll be more vulnerable to harm (I suppose is hp loss but no way for me to be sure)

2nd edit: somewhere that formula is broken, I've just got -scroll with 135/147 hp while the 85% threshold should be at 124,95 (no idea how rounding is in DCSS) (yup, it happens often to get the stasus while being at >= 85% hp)
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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 13:38

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

I could see doing a combined approach with a lower percentage threshold like you propose combined with a check on the amount of damage done as a percentage of your max health. That would probably be much better.

Erg, yeah, "vulnerability to harm" isn't great. I couldn't think of a better way to describe "-3 AC" as a condition of the character (at least not in a way that fits with other mutations and the contexts in which they get used). I'm open to suggestions!

I suppose instead of using the names of the mutations being offered I can write some custom text about each one -- it'd improve the grammar. It just feels inelegant, from a coding standpoint. I suppose adding another field to mutations might be an option . . .

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 13:47

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Mutations which change AC and EV clearly display the amount in their description so there should be nothing wrong in displaying "-3 AC" IMHO

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 14:52

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

A bug: despite the description, you can't cure confusion with draw out power - if you try to access abilities menu you get the classical "you're too confused!". I've tested it works with slow - so I suppose it works for other effects fine.
While on the argument: shouldn't it have also restore abilities' effect? Sure, it's a edge case, but you can get stat-drained AND -pot in a fight, and it's a very dangerous situation.

And a very minor "spoiler bug" : you can a message like "You redirect the lorocyproca's attack!" (the demon was invisible and I had no sinvis). While most of time you already know what is invisible I suppose getting the knowledge through Ru's aura isn't among the excepted effects
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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 14:58

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Sandman25 wrote:Mutations which change AC and EV clearly display the amount in their description so there should be nothing wrong in displaying "-3 AC" IMHO

And it does display -3 AC in the abilities menu, but not in the name of the mutation. See MUT_DISTORTION_FIELD in mutation-data.h for reference.

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Post Wednesday, 17th September 2014, 21:57

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

nago wrote:Oh, I didn't think about A screen. It's totally questionable, but I don't think it really fits in that screen - sacrifices don't "sound" like mutation, but rather an "inability" given by the God (like chei's slow movement) which thematically is more suited on the ^ screen. But that is a minor question, the important thing it's they're displayed somewhere ;)


I think they should stay in the abilities menu because they stay after you abandon the god. Once you've made the sacrifice, it's just a trait you have, it's not a power the god is granting you, and that trait will stay with you. If you put it in the ^ menu, it makes it seem like a drawback the god is giving you for worshipping them, not a permanent change you made to your character (which happened to be for piety).

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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 12:52

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Ok, just finished my game with Ru. I can't really comment about his balance, as I chose both strong race and background, and after I've found a D:12 IceCave with a cpa and a +5 elec. d.whip I've had just to tab until the end game. Certainly, it's very fun to play with a "melee" guy, as just with the aura you got lot of strong disabling effect (paralyzing a a.lich is a very neat thing to do) plus a kinda blink and a exceptionally strong AoE attack.

Probably I'll play again later with a "magic" guy, for now I've a couple of annotations:

-Sacrifice stealth could use some adjustment: even with that sacrifice and a cpa, often the monster entered in LOS in wandering status (aka with ? mark). That means I still could pull one at time with stones, or retreat at least one time if I wanted. Plus, it seemed to me that they used to lose my track as fast as "normally" in the cases I broke the LOS.
I'm not saying enemies should be on pursue of the char like Qzlol, but like now it has little effect for a guy in a heavy armour - anyway , it could be fine even like this, considering things like sacrifice arcana (at least if it isn't charms) and words is pretty much also free piety for a "melee" guy.

- Power leap is extremely strong and interesting ability: it is extremely good to move around battlefield, which make it extremely good for its noncost. Cataclysm is like die everything. Draw out is very underwhelming. But, the most important things is that I really disliked the fact all three abilities had the same cooldown. Considering they have very different effect, it's quite constraining to be able to use only one for each combat. It isn't a powaaarplay iussue, but the idea (for me) that the god is less fun, and interesting to play, because you can indeed use his power one time and than it's the usual tab/zap feast.
Especially draw out power suffers from this unique cooldown: after you've got power leap and cataclysm, it is really bad to use an ability which is pretty much equal to ?curing or ?heal wound (unless you're slowed or confused in a extremely crap situation and got -pot or things like that.).

I'd suggest that either:
- remove the ext status of draw power and cataclysm, eventually increase draining cost - maybe the cost could increase the more is used in short amount of turns (like, you used it 1 time in the last 10 turns? Then its price is 1.5x the base one. 2.5x if you already used 2 times and so on) . Do you want to keep healing despite the overwhelming situation (or just save your ass?), or wipe an extremely difficult foe with Ru's big shot? Fine, but you will be significantly weakened for many successive combats. Power leap could keep the ext status (1 free semi controlled blink for combat is very powerful and being able to use lots of those would totally unbalance the combat positioning)

- Change a bit draw power, to be a more valid and interesting alternative to power leap and cataclysm: scaling with piety (and level?) it could give phase shift,agility, might and eventually even haste (maybe at max piety even 2 effects of those). Therefore, you could actually choose between buff yourself, positioning/escaping quickly or use a strong attack.

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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 16:01

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Thanks for the feedback, nago! I don't think the exhaustion timer can be removed from Cataclysm -- w/o a timer, you could use it and it alone to kill all monsters w/ no risk for the entire game -- skill levels don't matter. I suppose it would be possible to have your existing drain level decrease Cataclysm damage to prevent that, but I think it's far more interesting to force players to make a choice about which "free" power they use.

Draw out power definitely needs some help right now. I'm currently thinking I will cut the exhaustion timer on it significantly and slightly buff the healing/mana restore. If it needs more, I like the idea of adding a buff, but the buff I'd choose would be one that enhances your existing passive abilities -- it'd be thematic and unique.

edit: I'm going to put some effort into making sure that monsters -always- notice you under Sac Stealth, and also make it relatively hard to shake them.

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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 17:23

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

mmm, yup I didn't think there isn't a cap to drain...
Well then just adjust draw out power :) - at the moment there are pretty much only two powers to choose from ;)
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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 17:34

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Draw power has seemed really strong when I've been using MP and/or wearing guardian spirit (and makes gspirit even better with Ru characters).
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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 18:13

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote: I'm going to put some effort into making sure that monsters -always- notice you under Sac Stealth, and also make it relatively hard to shake them.


Perhaps use some of the Alarm trap functionality?
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Post Thursday, 18th September 2014, 23:56

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote:edit: I'm going to put some effort into making sure that monsters -always- notice you under Sac Stealth, and also make it relatively hard to shake them.

Here are the places you want to edit:

mon-behv.cc
  Code:
                ASSERT(mon->foe != MHITNOT);
                if (mon->foe_memory > 0)
                {
                    // If we've arrived at our target x,y
                    // do a stealth check.  If the foe
                    // fails, monster will then start
                    // tracking foe's CURRENT position,
                    // but only for a few moves (smell and
                    // intuition only go so far).

                    if (mon->pos() == mon->target
                        && (!isFriendly || !crawl_state.game_is_zotdef()))
                    {   // hostiles only in Zotdef
                        if (mon->foe == MHITYOU)
                        {
                            // infallible tracking in zotdef
                            if (crawl_state.game_is_zotdef())
                                mon->target = PLAYER_POS;
                            else
                            {
                                if (x_chance_in_y(50, you.stealth())
                                    || you.penance[GOD_ASHENZARI] && coinflip()
                                    || mons_class_flag(mon->type, M_VIGILANT)
                                       && !one_chance_in(3))
                                {
                                    mon->target = you.pos();
                                }
                                else
                                    mon->foe_memory = 0;
                            }
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            if (coinflip())     // XXX: cheesy!
                                mon->target = menv[mon->foe].pos();
                            else
                                mon->foe_memory = 0;
                        }
                    }
                }


shout.cc

  Code:
bool check_awaken(monster* mons)
{
...
    if (x_chance_in_y(mons_perc + 1, stealth))
        return true; // Oops, the monster wakes up!
...


(note: check_awaken() is called by view.cc seen_monsters_react() which is called by main.cc player_reacts() and stairs.cc up_stairs() , and it is responsible for both sleeping AND wandering monsters spontaneously noticing you just from being in LoS, as opposed to due to hearing noise that was perceived to be centered within 3 tiles of you, or things like mark)

effects.cc (this one isn't related to stealth but it's related to monsters remembering you)

  Code:
// Move monsters around to fake them walking around while player was
// off-level. Also let them go back to sleep eventually.
static void _catchup_monster_moves(monster* mon, int turns)
{
...
    // After x turns, half of the monsters will have forgotten about the
    // player, and a quarter has gone to sleep. A given monster has a
    // 95% chance of forgetting the player after 4*x turns, and going to
    // sleep after 10*x turns.
    int x = 0; // Quiet unitialized variable compiler warning.
    switch (mons_intel(mon))
    {
    case I_HIGH:
        x = 1000;
        break;
    case I_NORMAL:
        x = 500;
        break;
    case I_ANIMAL:
    case I_REPTILE:
    case I_INSECT:
        x = 250;
        break;
    case I_PLANT:
        x = 125;
        break;
    }
...


mark/pathfinding related stuff:

mon-behv.cc

  Code:
            // Creatures not currently pursuing another foe are
            // alerted by a sentinel's mark
            if (mon->foe == MHITNOT && you.duration[DUR_SENTINEL_MARK]
                && (!isFriendly && !mons_is_avatar(mon->type) && !isNeutral
                    && !isPacified
                    || mon->has_ench(ENCH_INSANE)))
            {
                new_foe = MHITYOU;
                new_beh = BEH_SEEK;
                break;
            }


mon-behv.cc

  Code:
                // If their foe is marked, the monster always knows exactly
                // where they are.
                if (mons_foe_is_marked(mon) || mon->has_ench(ENCH_HAUNTING))
                {
                    mon->target = afoe->pos();
                    try_pathfind(mon);
                    break;
                }


mon-behv.cc

  Code:
            // During their wanderings, monsters will eventually relax
            // their guard (stupid ones will do so faster, smart
            // monsters have longer memories).  Pacified monsters will
            // also eventually switch the place from which they want to
            // leave the level, in case their current choice is blocked.
            if (!proxFoe && !mons_is_avatar(mon->type) && mon->foe != MHITNOT
                   && one_chance_in(isSmart ? 60 : 20)
                   && !mons_foe_is_marked(mon)
                || isPacified && one_chance_in(isSmart ? 40 : 120))
            {
                new_foe = MHITNOT;
                if (mon->is_travelling() && mon->travel_target != MTRAV_PATROL
                    || isPacified)
                {
#ifdef DEBUG_PATHFIND
                    mpr("It's been too long! Stop travelling.");
#endif
                    mon->travel_path.clear();
                    mon->travel_target = MTRAV_NONE;

                    if (isPacified && e_index != -1)
                        e[e_index].unreachable = true;
                }
            }
            break;


mon-pathfind.cc

  Code:
int mons_tracking_range(const monster* mon)
{
    int range = 0;
    switch (mons_intel(mon))
    {
    case I_PLANT:
        range = 2;
        break;
    case I_INSECT:
    case I_REPTILE:
        range = 4;
        break;
    case I_ANIMAL:
        range = 5;
        break;
    case I_NORMAL:
        range = LOS_RADIUS;
        break;
    default:
        // Highly intelligent monsters can find their way
        // anywhere. (range == 0 means no restriction.)
        break;
    }

    if (range)
    {
        if (mon->can_cling_to_walls())
            range += 4;
        else if (mons_is_native_in_branch(mon))
            range += 3;
        else if (mons_class_flag(mon->type, M_BLOOD_SCENT))
            range++;
    }

    if (player_under_penance(GOD_ASHENZARI))
        range *= 5;

    if (mons_foe_is_marked(mon) || mon->has_ench(ENCH_HAUNTING))
        range *= 5;

    return range;
}

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Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 09:55

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

I'm casually streaking, so I rolled a banal TrHu and I said why not Ru again? :D

Some other feedback:

- it come to my mind that sacrifice artifice would block also wand digging. That would broke the access of some areas - notably slimes' vault (very easy if you're out of tele scroll or you lack charms/ctele) - but also some vaults. I don't know if it is an intended behaviour, but I don't like the idea to be forcibly put out areas of the game, maybe could be worthwhile to find a workaround this problem.
- It's a bit annoying to get the same sacrifice again and again (I just got twice or thrice the sac MR-) . Is reasonable to put a check so if you "refuse" a sacrifice like two times in a row, you get a different one?

- bug: getting slow healing with a Tr will crash the game. I suppose fast healing and slow healing are mutually exclusive :) . Probably there is the same bug with similar cases too (like frail and Ds robust).

Questions:
-how do faith and forlon interact with Ru?
- sacrificing a skill could means nothing or a big loss of exp (e.g. I sacrifice dodging while I've already 15 point in it). Does Ru consider that? I think those sacrifice should be also more valuable the more experience already spent you're going to forfeit.

- Kirke's swines rose me a question: have you considered neutral monsters' case if you sac Love? (I couldn't check myself yet, sphynx with shitty MR isn't a nice sight :D )

edit: kudos for making horror status more clear xD
Have you tweaked draw out power too, right? Just a very summary opinion: ext duration (5ish turn?) maybe it's even a bit too fast, while draining effect is totally negligible already by Lair (you can restore it with a single skeletal warrior or a yak pack - practically after a couple of combat at most). Unless you want to keep the draining cost as drawback for the very early game, maybe it could be worth to totally remove it?
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 25

Joined: Saturday, 26th July 2014, 22:01

Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 12:02

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice


- it come to my mind that sacrifice artifice would block also wand digging. That would broke the access of some areas - notably slimes' vault (very easy if you're out of tele scroll or you lack charms/ctele) - but also some vaults. I don't know if it is an intended behaviour, but I don't like the idea to be forcibly put out areas of the game, maybe could be worthwhile to find a workaround this problem.


This was one of the reasons why wall destruction was added to Cataclysm.

- sacrificing a skill could means nothing or a big loss of exp (e.g. I sacrifice dodging while I've already 15 point in it). Does Ru consider that? I think those sacrifice should be also more valuable the more experience already spent you're going to forfeit.


This is considered, you gain more piety the more you have invested into sacrificed thing.

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Dungeon Master

Posts: 3160

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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 15:14

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Regarding Sac Stealth, thanks for the detailed breakdown. I've already pushed a patch to ensure that with Sac Stealth you always awaken monsters, but the other devs felt strongly that I shouldn't change how stealth fundamentally works under Sac Stealth, which means that monsters still won't see you until they get a turn while you are in LOS, which means that when a monster wanders into sight and you get to react before it acts again, you can prevent it from seeing you by moving out of sight.

lrvs wrote:This was one of the reasons why wall destruction was added to Cataclysm.

Actually, it hasn't yet. It's been discussed, and I think maybe it should be done, but I haven't done it yet. Adding it wouldn't solve another issue: if you sac Air or Charms and also sac Evo, you can't fly under any circumstances -- unless you can still use boots of flying. That means 1) a potential lock with Obsidian Axe and 2) potentially not being able to get through Cocytus unless you get lucky with teleports or there is a land bridge accessible with Power Leap. I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done about it.

Faith/forlorn change the speed with which you are offered new sacrifices, but do not impact piety directly in any way.

Edit: adding the Troll crash to the ru todo list.

Dungeon Dilettante

Posts: 1

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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 16:25

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Does sacrificing Love lock out spectral weapon? The description says that "creatures" will become hostile, which seems like it might not include a mindless ghost weapon.

Barkeep

Posts: 3890

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Location: USA

Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 16:59

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote:
lrvs wrote:This was one of the reasons why wall destruction was added to Cataclysm.

Actually, it hasn't yet. It's been discussed, and I think maybe it should be done, but I haven't done it yet. Adding it wouldn't solve another issue: if you sac Air or Charms and also sac Evo, you can't fly under any circumstances -- unless you can still use boots of flying. That means 1) a potential lock with Obsidian Axe and 2) potentially not being able to get through Cocytus unless you get lucky with teleports or there is a land bridge accessible with Power Leap. I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done about it.


Wall destruction to cataclysm would just be cool, and useful. That it would also prevent some Ruers who made specific combinations of sacrifices to access vaults and whatnot is a good side benefit, though.

As for flight... There are potions of flight (I know, I pretend they don't exist for the most part, also). But theoretically someone could make three independent sacrifices and not be able to fly, or two if they are a mummy (though one could define that choice as a sacrifice as well, albeit one Ru does not count for piety).

Since flying is important simply for game progression reasons in certain areas/vaults, and thus would be annoying to have it blocked (however rarely), perhaps it is not too much of a kludge to simply add something like this as a passive ability, either upon joining or at * piety:

  Code:
Path of Sacrifice: Though your path will be difficult, it shall always be unbarred. You can move across shallow water, deep water, and lava [and mud...? -- leda's liquefaction -- just for consistency?] without penalty.


Since this won't count as flying, you can have it activated permanently, as it affects nothing aside from movement and is strictly beneficial. For Merfolk, obviously, this only gives them the ability to move over lava as if it were a normal land tile, they get their usual bonuses while in water of any kind.

PS: Nice new paint job on the username, Lasty. :)
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 17:13

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

OOD can break walls, right?

Lasty wrote:Actually, it hasn't yet. It's been discussed, and I think maybe it should be done, but I haven't done it yet. Adding it wouldn't solve another issue: if you sac Air or Charms and also sac Evo, you can't fly under any circumstances ... I'm not sure what, if anything, should be done about it.


Sac breathing, or is this lava?
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Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 18:24

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

A solution to both issues proposed in ##crawl-dev: Apocalypse temporarily destroys all rock walls/liquids in LOS.

Edit: I think we're going to not apply any solutions for now and just say "that's the consequence of making those sacrifices."
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Location: Itajubá, MG, Brazil.

Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 19:54

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

wow, you are orange now!
looking good.
my posts are to be read in a mildly playful tone, with a deep, sexy voice.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Wednesday, 23rd October 2013, 07:56

Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 22:29

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote:Edit: I think we're going to not apply any solutions for now and just say "that's the consequence of making those sacrifices."


Yeah, I was just thinking to myself that the word sacrifice has a meaning. The 'side effects' of the sacrifices are actually quite interesting.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 22:50

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

One time a person came on irc who was worshipping trog and said "I have no digging and can't get in the slime vault". They were told something like "You could drag a deep troll earth elementalist(or Jorgrun) to slime:6 and have them dig it." They proceeded to drag Jorgrun to Slime:6 and had him do it. I think this is really funny and should be encouraged.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 19th September 2014, 23:45

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

As Be I couldn't get into a huge vault in Zot because I had no source of flight (and ran out of potions of flights due to Shoals). It wasn't funny (at least to me).
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 00:07

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Well if sources of flight (or dig or whatever) should always be available, we could just as well give every character innate abilities to fly (and dig etc.). The fact that you can sometimes be out of flight (or digging) proves that these item properties have some value.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 01:03

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Sandman25 wrote:As Be I couldn't get into a huge vault in Zot because I had no source of flight (and ran out of potions of flights due to Shoals). It wasn't funny (at least to me).

Was this with Ru/Sac Evo? Was the vault mandatory to progress deeper into Zot? If it was mandatory, it might need to be reevaluated.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 03:18

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Lasty wrote:Was this with Ru/Sac Evo? Was the vault mandatory to progress deeper into Zot? If it was mandatory, it might need to be reevaluated.


No, it was just an optional vault so I guess it is acceptable. Price for being unlucky berserker.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 08:09

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

imo the fix to the flying thing is to remove flying from crawl entirely!

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 10:50

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Personally, while I don't mind certain combinations of sacrifices banning the player from certain vaults that require digging or flight, I don't like the fact that they can make it impossible to get the Coc or Slime runes (at least not without ridiculously extreme measures). If I've already lost conjurations and translocations (eliminating the possibility of using OoD for destruction or translocation for control teleport), then sacrificing evocations is already an interesting choice. Adding in the fact that it also makes getting the Slime rune nearly impossible makes it a less interesting choice, not a more interesting one, to me. If I could still get the Slime rune, it's "am I willing to sacrifice any magical ranged options I could ever have?" which is an interesting choice. Without a way to get the Slime rune, before I ask the question of whether I'm willing to sacrifice ranged options, I ask myself if I want the option of going for 15 runes, and if the answer's "no" then any interesting strategic decisions are irrelevant. The same is true of Cocytus and sacrificing both evocations and air magic/charms.

Basically, I think sacrificing any chance of getting certain runes is an extremely lame and uninteresting strategic decision, and by adding it into the equation, you overshadow the much more interesting strategic decisions that are involved in those combinations of sacrifices. I don't like the idea that a certain playstyle can render a 15-rune game almost literally impossible (yes, if you have enough potions of flight you can still do Coc, and it's theoretically possible to lure Jorgrun or a Deep Troll EE to Slime 6, but you should't have to do those).

I could have sworn I also once got a Depths entrance that was surrounded by lava and required flying, which could make it impossible to win at all, but that would also make it impossible to win if you just get horribly unlucky with flight-enabling drops and is its own issue.

Although, to be perfectly honest, I'd rather have Coc 7 no longer require flying and Slime 6 no longer require digging or cTele. 99% of the time anyone trying to do Coc 7 has a source of flight anyway, but the idea that it's theoretically possible to be unable to do a 15 rune game because you never got a ring of flight seems really lame to me.

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 15:01

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

crate wrote:imo the fix to the flying thing is to remove flying from crawl entirely!


Evocable flying provides an interesting choice when you face monsters with Airstrike and Shatter/LRD at the same time. Also it is interesting to choose whether you want to spend a turn to stop flying sometimes or just continue fighting.
I agree about flight spell and potions, they are boring, especially the spell which makes Shoals much less enjoyable because you are recasting it all the time and then cannot stop flying even when a drake with airstrike comes into view.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 20th September 2014, 16:57

Re: Proposal: Ru, god of balance and sacrifice

Evocable flying provides an interesting choice when you face monsters with Airstrike and Shatter/LRD at the same time

It doesn't affect LRD, and there is exactly one monster in crawl with shatter, I think, and that monster can only generate up to once per game. (Said monster does not have airstrike).

In fact flying is pretty much purely a negative status unless you are 1) a tengu 2) in the process of crossing otherwise impassable terrain
and why should a status that lets you cross impassable terrain exist? particularly when there is already a passable-but-you-dont-want-to-stand-in-it terrain in crawl! (shallow water)

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