Show piety cost for invocations

[Sandman25]

Qazlal provides Upheaval, Elemental Force and Disaster Area, ^ screen shows their cost as "4 MP, piety", "6 MP, piety" and "7 MP, piety".
I suggest to show exact piety which is spent. It is extremely useful to know that Upheaval costs 3 Piety, Elemental Force costs 6 Piety and Disaster Area costs 9 Piety (according to learnDB) because it affects player decisions. For example, 3 Upheavals were not enough to kill a Cacodemon with 27 Invocations and max piety.
If piety cost is randomized for some abilities, it can be displayed as 0-1 piety, 2-3 piety etc.

I checked Trog and Makhleb, they have the same problem.

[Pollen_Golem]

especially since the ratio between MP and piety cost varies from invocation to invocation

[duvessa]

piety cost is randomized for all abilities

[Sandman25]

piety cost is randomized for all abilities

I failed to find it in learnDB. One more reason to show the cost in the game IMHO, 0-9 (or is it 7-9?) vs 0-3 can change the way I play.

[chequers]

You'd also need to show the amount of piety you have, rather than relying on the * method. I think that makes this method unworkable.

[bel]

There is already a vague description like "Piety cost:Small" or large or something like that. Since piety is never actually shown as a number anywhere in the game, it wouldn't make sense to show piety cost as a number for abilities.

[mps]

Unless piety were shown as a number somewhere...

[Lasty]

Piety cost is randomized for most abilities; a very few, like Beogh smite, have fixed piety costs. Randomized piety costs are the norm because they make it harder to get an exact sense of where your piety is or how many uses of a divine ability you have before going down a star. The goal of the system is, I believe, to make gods feel more like an entity you have to work with and less like a resource you can quantify; it could also be just to prevent calculation paralysis.

The learnDB is wrong about Qaz's abilities. The first two plug the values 3 and 6 (respectively) into this formula: val + random2((val + 1) / 2 + 1). Disaster Area instead uses a defined range of 10-14 piety.

[Sandman25]

You'd also need to show the amount of piety you have, rather than relying on the * method. I think that makes this method unworkable.

Current piety is not necessary, my main complaint is that I can't compare usefulness of invocations because I don't know their cost.

[Lokkij]

Maybe have it differentiate between large and small piety costs? A general large - medium - small categorization should be enough of an indication.

EDIT: apparently it's already in the detailed description of god abilities. Maybe also show it in the 'a' screen?

[Sandman25]

The first two plug the values 3 and 6 (respectively) into this formula: val + random2((val + 1) / 2 + 1). Disaster Area instead uses a defined range of 10-14 piety.

So they cost 3-5, 6-9 and 10-14. Average 4, 7.5 and 12. Triple Upheaval is roughly equivalent to a single Disaster, good to know.

[Pollen_Golem]

The goal of the system is, I believe, to make gods feel more like an entity you have to work with and less like a resource you can quantify; it could also be just to prevent calculation paralysis.

It that's the goal of the system, I don't think you're doing a particularly good job, except with Xom. If the player can find the average, long-term piety cost of each ability, he can just use that. He just needs to know the 120/160/200 breakpoints in piety. Calculation paralysis actually sets in when you have little way to estimate any cost vs benefit at all, so I fail to see how these intentionally obfuscating features do anything to ease calculation paralysis. Unless I'm misunderstanding the term 'calculation paralysis'.

You could have piety cost for each ability vary game-to-game. It could slowly vary, over the course of 10,000s of turns or 10s of invocations. This way, any many-game long-term piety cost of any one divine ability would be rather meaningless, and Sandman wouldn't even be posing questions like this.

You could have 2 piety counters: 1 delayed, "true" piety counter that is kept track of, but not directly used for calculating divine powers. The other, "transient" piety counter is used for powers, uses a different formula for piety cost of divine powers. Both are bumped up equally when you gain piety. For example, the transient piety counter user lighter cost than normal for a few invocations, and heavier cost if the player really starts spamming it (dozens of Kiku's delivery, say). I'm sure you have some S-curves handy for that. The transient piety counter keeps shifting slowly toward the "true" piety counter. The goal is to keep the piety cost opaque and mysterious, and have the gods feel like an entity, right?

[Sandman25]

If we want to make gods special, we can have some random invocations. For example, Makhleb's Destruction should invoke either minor or major one, Trog's hand should randomly give BiA or MR and Regen, Oka's Become Hero should randomly give either Heroism or Finesse etc.

I don't see calculation paralysis with spells (should I use Magic Dart or IMB? even if we know exact cost in MP) or weapons (should I use sabre or quickblade even if we know exact cost and time/damage), current piety is effectively a resource, even if its value is not displayed.

[Pollen_Golem]

If we want to make gods special, we can have some random invocations. For example, Makhleb's Destruction should invoke either minor or major one, Trog's hand should randomly give BiA or MR and Regen, Oka's Become Hero should randomly give either Heroism or Finesse etc.

Sandman25, I find your sarcastic replies generally hard to parse. Perhaps I'm experiencing sarcasm paralysis. Nobody mentioned making gods special. What are you making fun of exactly, and what's the problem with it? Btw I'm guessing you're not the biggest Nemelex fan.

[Sandman25]

If we want to make gods special, we can have some random invocations. For example, Makhleb's Destruction should invoke either minor or major one, Trog's hand should randomly give BiA or MR and Regen, Oka's Become Hero should randomly give either Heroism or Finesse etc.

Sandman25, I find your sarcastic replies generally hard to parse. Perhaps I'm experiencing sarcasm paralysis. Nobody mentioned making gods special. What are you making fun of exactly, and what's the problem with it? Btw I'm guessing you're not the biggest Nemelex fan.

Sorry, I am really bad at English. There was no sarcasm in my message, I was 100% serious. I even think it could make crawl more enjoyable. Invocations are currently somewhat similar to evocations: they can be used with all characters, require 1 skill to train and you always get what you ask.

[Sar]

I think turning all gods into Xom is a questionable idea.

[Sandman25]

I think turning all gods into Xom is a questionable idea.

The goal of the system is, I believe, to make gods feel more like an entity you have to work with and less like a resource you can quantify

[ion_frigate]

There's a reason that Xom has a 122k file all to himself in the source code. I'm guessing that if you want other gods to be more like Xom, you'd need to code it yourself: it's a lot of work making gods actually behave like entities, as opposed to sets of abilities and passive benefits.

As for the issue at hand: what about a visual display (like with spell hunger/power) for average piety costs? Those are usually more helpful than qualitative descriptions.

[Pollen_Golem]

we can have some random invocations. [randomize the ability Makhleb/Trog/Oka/etc grant you when you invoke something.]

Sorry, I am really bad at English. There was no sarcasm in my message, I was 100% serious. I even think it could make crawl more enjoyable.

Well, when a suggestion is so out-there, it is usually prefaced with "I know this sounds crazy but..."

Incidentally, I think crawl could be made enjoyable by having a few aspects of crawl work like that, and the first 2 of my 3 proposed gods do that.

It sounds like you would enjoy having procedurally generated Gods. This could be a Demigod thing that slowly becomes available, like with Demonspawn and Draconians. You develop a random selection of divine abilities. You use 'divine power' instead of piety. Divine power is accumulated by harvesting a resource that is also randomly determined - for example, killing a specific type of monster. Of course, nerf demigods in some way to compensate.

[tasonir]

My favorite part about Chei piety is that it's easy to get up to 200 piety so you do know about how many slouches you can toss around before you lose stats. This should be considered desirable, imho, as it's not problematic in any way I can see. You don't know exactly when you've recharged back up to 200 but as long as things are going well and you aren't needing to heavily slouch every floor or two, you're probably back at 200.

[Sandman25]

I am trying experimental god Pakellas with DD and once again I see why hidden piety/mechanic is bad. Neither wiki nor learnDB/game have detailed info about Pakellas abilities and it results in me being unable to reach max piety and being afraid to use 3 out of 4 abilities because I can end with no healing. I am not even sure if I need to train more Evocations (17.2 after Orc).

[Pollen_Golem]

I was afraid of using 4 out of 4 abilities, and could not reach the max piety level, so I came to the conclusion that Pakellas piety gain is bugged, when I was testing the god: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=16111

[WingedEspeon]

Not showing piety costs to avoid paralysis by analysis is a terrible idea as long as crawl is open source. If the piety costs are shown I can overanalyze the situation. If they aren’t shown, I have to scource dive to get even a rough Idea of what abilities cost or use the wiki/learncrawlDB, both of which can be incorrect. Forcing players to source dive is terrible design.

[bel]

Not showing piety costs to avoid paralysis by analysis is a terrible idea as long as crawl is open source. If the piety costs are shown I can overanalyze the situation. If they aren’t shown, I have to scource dive to get even a rough Idea of what abilities cost or use the wiki/learncrawlDB, both of which can be incorrect. Forcing players to source dive is terrible design.

Nobody forces you to source-dive. The somewhat vague "Piety cost:small", "large" etc. are enough to get by, as is simply watching your piety go up and down in a game. If you really crave actual numbers, you can source-dive or use wiki or whatever.

[Pollen_Golem]

Except small large etc are very vague terms. Maybe 1 and 4 are small and moderate, or maybe 5 and 9 are small and large. Ratios would be more helpful, so you'd know e.g. that 2 heroisms ~ 1 finesse.

[ion_frigate]

Nobody forces you to source-dive. The somewhat vague "Piety cost:small", "large" etc. are enough to get by, as is simply watching your piety go up and down in a game. If you really crave actual numbers, you can source-dive or use wiki or whatever.

This attitude is why so many players think GDR is something you should base decisions on. "Guaranteed damage reduction" is a similarly vague description that sounds awesome in theory - and until you go through and crunch all the numbers, you won't realize how insignificant the effect tends to be outside of certain edge cases.

And for things that aren't used all the time, or in particular, aren't used alone all the time, the player may never gain a good sense of their magnitude. GDR is confusing because you don't know how much damage it actually protected you against - there are so many factors, many entirely random, it's impossible to tell. In a similar vein, it's not easy to get a good sense of how much piety a god ability drains unless you're using it all the time - and most god abilities are calibrated to be more occasional.

No, we shouldn't throw numbers at players willy-nilly, but for many things, a rough sense of the numbers *is* a good idea, and vague descriptions often make the situation worse, not better. Another example would be the old descriptions of spell hunger: "choko"/"ration" etc - technically it corresponded to something like 1/5 of the satiation value of that food item, but it was rightfully decided to be weird and unintuitive, and replaced with a visual indicator.

[Pollen_Golem]

You miscast the spell. You feel hungrier by 1/5 of a choko. lol.

@those who oppose numbers: why are you so complacent, then, with the HP/MP/AC/EV/SH/STR/DEX/INT numbers? Go forth, guys, championing to change them to descriptors of "small", "large", and so on. You already know what arguments to use: it's enough to get by, you can source-dive if you want, etc.

[Sandman25]

Yes, EV is useless when you don't see monster's to_hit. Try fighting monsters in different armour and notice which one results in more misses for monsters.

[bel]

In a similar vein, it's not easy to get a good sense of how much piety a god ability drains unless you're using it all the time - and most god abilities are calibrated to be more occasional.

I will ignore the GDR part because I didn't comment on that. I disagree that it is not easy to get a good sense of how much piety a god ability drains. You use the ability a few times, you see the piety stars, and it is good enough. Fedhas worship, for example uses piety very actively, and it is easy to see the piety going up and down. With Kiku, if you receive corpses a bunch of times, you will see that very easily as well. With Trog, I can pretty easily tell the difference between piety cost of Brothers in Arms and Trog's Hand. I use the former rarely, while I use the latter all the time. With some gods (like Vehumet, Sif, Ash or even Chei) once my piety goes to max stars, I hardly ever fall below max, so it is rarely relevant. Of course this is all subjective, I just gave my own anecdotal evidence.

[bel]

You miscast the spell. You feel hungrier by 1/5 of a choko. lol.

@those who oppose numbers: why are you so complacent, then, with the HP/MP/AC/EV/SH/STR/DEX/INT numbers? Go forth, guys, championing to change them to descriptors of "small", "large", and so on. You already know what arguments to use: it's enough to get by, you can source-dive if you want, etc.

Where did I say that I oppose all numbers? Btw, there are already descriptors for monsters AC, EV and player stealth using bars and I find them good enough in most cases. I can easily figure out that a curse toe has huge AC and low EV by looking at the bars without actually knowing that the AC is 25 and the EV is 1, which is almost totally irrelevant to my choice of attack.