Deep Dwarf heal patch


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bel

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Post Sunday, 21st June 2015, 18:51

Deep Dwarf heal patch

I have submitted this patch on Mantis. Copy paste from there:

  Code:
This is my first time submitting a patch, apologies if this is in the wrong place etc.

-------------

Remove DD passive HP healing. This includes TSO, Makhleb and
 Jiyva HP healing. (MP gain still works for TSO and Jiyva). Also, remove
 healing from vampiric drain and vampiric weapons (they still damage the
 monster, but don't heal).

Instead, DD get 50% of their max HP whenever they visit a new dungeon level (suggested by KoboldLord). DD can heal with consumables, namely wands, potions and Elixir card. Trog/Ely/Ru active abilities still work, because they are "consumables" which cost piety or drain. DD do not start with a "wand of heal wounds (5)", instead they start with 5 heal wounds potions. Device recharging is still kept for flavour reasons, but perhaps should be eliminated.

This will remove the scummy and boring aspects of DD while opening them to a wider variety of gods.

See also Tavern discussions:

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15838&p=216561&hilit=koboldlord#p216561

and

https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15161&hilit=elyvilon

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Post Sunday, 21st June 2015, 20:19

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Have you playtested it? I suspect it's unwinnable/unplayable.

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Post Sunday, 21st June 2015, 20:29

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Not too far into the game. I tried DDBe, looked pretty easy on the first few floors. Same as DDBe normal.

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Post Sunday, 21st June 2015, 20:33

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:Not too far into the game. I tried DDBe, looked pretty easy on the first few floors. Same as DDBe normal.


If I understand OP properly, DDBe got a free healing bonus (50% HP when entering every level) and lost wand of healing, of course it is pretty easy.
Here is my DDBe
  Code:
Action                   |  1- 3 |  4- 6 |  7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 | 22-24 | 25-27 || total
-------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++-------
 Abil: Device Recharging |       |       |     1 |       |       |     4 |     2 |     5 |     7 ||    19

As you can see I didn't use recharge ability early.
Have you tried other gods (not Makhleb/Trog/Jiyva/TSO)? My understanding is you tried to make other gods viable, not to make life of Be easier.

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Post Sunday, 21st June 2015, 20:35

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

No, as I said, I haven't tested it much. I basically made it since I wanted to tinker with the code for some time and this seemed a worthy suggestion which was very easy to implement.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 01:19

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

much better to have an unwinnable species than an unloseable one
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 01:46

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Seems pretty cruel for Hell & Abyss. I feel like DD would deserve some form of torment mitigation too.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 02:27

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

A slightly more involved (but still simple) suggestion was made by Siegurt in the other thread.

Basically exploration healing: you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover. This way, nothing is "wasted": you still have the potions for later. While keeping the theme of "no healing while resting" intact.

This is essentially how DD of new Ely works, since you get piety from exploration, and spend it on healing. I might just implement this based on Ely piety and healing numbers.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 02:35

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

This makes it optimal to leave some "easy" floors in case you need to heal later.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 02:47

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Sar wrote:This makes it optimal to leave some "easy" floors in case you need to heal later.

Are you referring to the OP? I think there are not enough side branches in the game anyway. Most people do lair, side branches (except slime), orc, elf (sometimes), vaults, depths, zot anyway. So you only have elf:1, slime:1, crypt:1 and temple (maybe) as "free" levels, which is not too much I think. Also you thanked KoboldLord's suggestion in the other thread, I thought you agreed with him :P

Anyway, this point seems to be not palatable to many people, including elliptic who commented on mantis raising this exact issue. Perhaps the other idea which I mentioned addresses this issue more satisfactorily.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 02:58

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Sar wrote:This makes it optimal to leave some "easy" floors in case you need to heal later.


I would say that if somebody wants to bank Temple just let them. Floors are a finite resource for most of the game, and if some players sometimes choose to switch up their branch order by doing a Rune branch before Orc or Lair 7-8 so they can have a breather level handy to heal themselves with, this should be considered a benefit and not a flaw. The Orc 4 shops and the Lair 7-8 xp is not a trivial reward to put off in exchange for that healing.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:00

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

There is also the idea of healing proportionate to XP. That would make DD healing more like Makhleb, I guess. Maybe it has other flaws I haven't thought of (leaving monsters alive for later healing?).

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:22

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

DD's problem is that it has intrinsic snowball effect: when you are unlucky with armour/weapon and get high damage, you become even weaker because you cannot heal all that damage. All other species can fix the issue by tactics (luring/retreating/stairdancing/using god to kill) to regenerate HP.
I don't enjoy current DD but it is much more forgiving than "explore dangerous floors at low HP" (if HP is regenerated by exploring) or "play speedrun or you are dead" (if HP is regenerated by entering new levels). IMHO the best solution is intrinsic "heal on kills" because you can scum easy areas if you are really desperate though I am not sure how it is different from resting.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:24

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

I was talking about "you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover" proposal.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:26

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Sar wrote:I was talking about "you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover" proposal.


It does not solve "snowball" effect IMHO. When DD is weak, it is dead. (Somewhat similar to starving when you see it's coming but you can do nothing about it).

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:29

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:A slightly more involved (but still simple) suggestion was made by Siegurt in the other thread.

Basically exploration healing: you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover. This way, nothing is "wasted": you still have the potions for later. While keeping the theme of "no healing while resting" intact.

This is essentially how DD of new Ely works, since you get piety from exploration, and spend it on healing. I might just implement this based on Ely piety and healing numbers.

There's several ways to implement this that would work.
If you wanted to have something that appeared very close to the current implementation, You could even give DD's a healing wand with 0 charges, and let them bank a recharge wand use every X spaces explored (Not banking them would suck though, having to keep unexplored areas in the bank for later recharging would be dumb, you should never be discouraged to save a level for later so you can get exploration credit for it, this happens a little with exploration piety, but only if you don't really need your god, at which point who cares.)

I think the simplest would be the heal wounds potion stack generation (Besides, something about dwarves brewing droughts as they explore the dungeon feels thematic and a little awesome) a little bit of suppressible flavor messages about adding ingredients they find as they explore would probably help communicate the point, and sell the idea as well.

Actually nowadays I'd probably make it brew potions of ambrosia instead of heal wounds, as DD can use those out of combat to heal, and it somehow seems more appropriate to boot.
Last edited by Siegurt on Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:30, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:30

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Sar wrote:I was talking about "you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover" proposal.

Why would that make it optimal to save levels for later exploration, you get the same number of potions whether you uncover them now or later, it's not like the potions evaporate if you don't use them.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:36

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Siegurt wrote:
Sar wrote:I was talking about "you get a potion of heal wounds for every X amount of tiles you uncover" proposal.

Why would that make it optimal to save levels for later exploration, you get the same number of potions whether you uncover them now or later, it's not like the potions evaporate if you don't use them.

Indeed, this is why I wondered if he was talking about OP.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 03:54

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Oh, for some reason I thought it means it as effect of potion, not an actual potion you can store in your inventory. Sorry.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 07:32

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

So the idea is that as DD progress, they earn a stash of potions that they can use to heal, but their ability to heal is limited by the potions and if they run out of potions they can't heal anymore.

Isn't that how Vampires work already?

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 08:24

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

There are differences, though. Vampires are more heal-on-kill type, as you have to draw the blood from corpses. Also blood rots and some branches don't have a lot of corpses.

Gaining ambrosia instead of heal wounds sounds interesting imo.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 09:12

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

I think that waiting-for-heal, both for MP and HP, is a pretty bad mechanic (almost in general, but if a game has a really tight clock then it might get away with it, such as Brogue). That's why we came up with Vampires (you can test no-innate-healing with them) and then later I suggested Deep Dwarves. The starting wand always felt like a crutch, but I think the species plays differently enough to keep it.

The OP's proposal would definitely work in a roguelike, but I'd suggest it should be a linear one (and I am sure there are games which use this mechanic).

I like Siegurt's suggestion a lot. Something like this (just stick to !healing, flavour be damned) might work very well and should be tested.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 09:24

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

The problem with limited healing is it results in one of two outcomes:
  • You are a strong character who doesn't need as much healing as is available. This result is functionally equivalent to resting-to-heal, since whenever you need to heal you can.
  • You are a weak character who needs more healing than is available. This result leads to an excruciating, inevitable death over tens of thousands of turns.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 11:47

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Berder wrote:The problem with limited healing is it results in one of two outcomes:
  • You are a strong character who doesn't need as much healing as is available. This result is functionally equivalent to resting-to-heal, since whenever you need to heal you can.
  • You are a weak character who needs more healing than is available. This result leads to an excruciating, inevitable death over tens of thousands of turns.

Are you sure there can be no middle ground? A medium strength character who occasionally has to struggle with less healing than would be comfortable.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 11:52

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

The size of that middle ground is approximately the size of the DD maxHP pool.

It's not very big.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 12:10

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Berder wrote:You are a strong character who doesn't need as much healing as is available. This result is functionally equivalent to resting-to-heal, since whenever you need to heal you can.


Even worse, you have functionally unlimited potions of heal wounds to use during battles. Strong DD characters will be even more ridiculous than they are currently.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 13:36

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Berder wrote:The problem with limited healing is it results in one of two outcomes:
  • You are a strong character who doesn't need as much healing as is available. This result is functionally equivalent to resting-to-heal, since whenever you need to heal you can.
  • You are a weak character who needs more healing than is available. This result leads to an excruciating, inevitable death over tens of thousands of turns.


This is the whole point of DD. You are turning HP from a tactical to a strategic resource. This leads to "puzzle-like" games where you figure out how to minimize your HP damage.

I recently played DDEE of new Ely, and while it was a bit slow and I had to think a bit more than usual, I kind of liked it. I had to use LRD a lot early, which cut into my food supply a fair bit, but now it has stabilized. It is now at full piety and has good spells and gear. (It is the comborobin account on CAO trunk, if you want to check it out).

If you have heal on kills etc., as Sandman mentioned, it is hard to see how this is different from heal on resting, since you can scum for easy monsters. You might as well remove DD then.

I am currently implementing Siegurt's proposal. It is also very easy to implement. I will create a patch, hopefully soon. I am also thinking of just removing the Trog/Ely/Ru healing as well, just to make it cleaner. No god healing whatsoever.

Also, perhaps it would be better to create potions of ambrosia instead of potions of heal wounds, to make sure it has to be used outside combat? Though then, Ash is out of the equation.

As to Quazifuji's point, Vampires can drink blood and become non-bloodless, so they heal naturally by resting, so that is not equivalent. Also, they heal with vampiric weapons and stabbing in general. Also, Makhleb will work on them, so will jiyva. And they can use vampiric draining spell.
Last edited by bel on Monday, 22nd June 2015, 13:45, edited 2 times in total.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 13:39

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Regarding using AMBROSIA as the default heal for DD, while I like it thematically, it has a couple of flaws. Namely:

1) No Ashenzari, and a DD that gets clarity mutation is boned.

2) Currently the interface for !HW and !Ambrosia are very different, for Ambrosia I have to press . for 4-6 times instead of instaheal. Small but very significant annoyance if I need to heal 3-4 times each floor.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 13:54

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:This is the whole point of DD. You are turning HP from a tactical to a strategic resource. This leads to "puzzle-like" games where you figure out how to minimize your HP damage.


How about making DD being unable to heal with monsters in LoS? That would make HP really strategic resource.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 14:12

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Sandman25 wrote:
bel wrote:This is the whole point of DD. You are turning HP from a tactical to a strategic resource. This leads to "puzzle-like" games where you figure out how to minimize your HP damage.


How about making DD being unable to heal with monsters in LoS? That would make HP really strategic resource.

You mean, in addition to slow healing 3, you can't heal with potions of heal wounds when monsters are visible? Because otherwise you can just kill the monster and rest to heal. It is a decent idea.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 15:05

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:You mean, in addition to slow healing 3, you can't heal with potions of heal wounds when monsters are visible? Because otherwise you can just kill the monster and rest to heal. It is a decent idea.


Yes, in addition. Not a big deal of course, but still can make some difference when you are waiting for teleport. DD can take a nerf.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 16:59

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

I have created a new patch implementing Siegurt's proposal. All god healing including Trog/Ely/Ru has been removed. Sandman's latest suggestion is not included for now.
  Code:
All god healing is now removed, active and passive. This includes Ely, TSO, Makh, Jiyva, Ru and Trog. The other god abilities and their effects like MR++ for Trog's hand still function as normal. Vampiric drain and vampiric weapons don't heal DD.

Instead DD "brew" a heal wounds potion every so often while exploring (idea by Siegurt). The rate is constant (this can perhaps be tweaked). Currently it comes out to a bit more than 1 HW per dungeon level. It is kept constant so as to not (more) incentivize leaving easy areas for later. DD get 5 heal wounds potions instead of a heal wounds wand in the beginning. Device recharging ability is still present for flavour reasons, but perhaps should be removed.

The model is old DD of new Ely, where you gain piety by exploration and spend it on healing. Except, there is no "overflow". Heal wounds potions are never "wasted".
The basic theme of "no healing while resting" is preserved.

[ From discussion in this Tavern thread: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16648, [^] comments by dpeg there and the comments by elliptic on the previous patch: https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=9800 [^] ]

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 17:13

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Actually I think this is highly unbalanced and unplayable barring using extremely annoying tactics to minimize all sort of damage (even more than actual DD not of makh ecc may require) : early on a hw is a lot of heal (even full hp) but gradually it becomes less and less powerful both because your hp becomes significantly higher and monster are able to deal much more damage.
E. G. You may lose 30hp in 4 floors early on, but later after fighting a stone giant you may need to quaff a couple of hw even if played well if rolls go badly.
Probably 1 hw per floor could be enough to win for a very good (or patient) player , but I don't think that understress DD not healing characteristic, which I don't think really work with crawl system , is a good improvement
Last edited by nago on Monday, 22nd June 2015, 17:18, edited 2 times in total.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 17:17

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

As I said, the rate can be tweaked. One could perhaps increase the rate of brewing depending on XL. As I said, the model is DD of Ely, where exploration gets you piety and piety gets you healing. The healing does scale later on, with higher invo, so perhaps increasing the rate makes sense.

Note however, that the early "easy" HW potions are not "wasted", they are still there, if you want to use them later.

The correct rate can only be determined with a bit of playtesting, which I have not done.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 17:49

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:The correct rate can only be determined with a bit of playtesting, which I have not done.

The wrench in the works is that different deep dwarf characters can have wildly varying power levels. One deep dwarf can have hugely better defenses than another - including resistances/RMSL. Or, one deep dwarf can kill things at range without taking damage. Or, one deep dwarf has invisibility and can stab many things without taking damage.

I think if you went about it systematically, somehow analyzing ttyrecs to see how much total damage different DDs take over the course of a 3 rune game, you would find one DD might take 5x as much damage as another. If you manage to make it a tricky challenge to conserve HP for some DD, you make it either easy or impossible for the majority. There's no perfect level of healing that would work for every character.
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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 17:55

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

berder wrote: an excruciating, inevitable death over tens of thousands of turns


fairly accurate description of an RL, or life in general.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 18:01

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

(To Berder)
This thread is not generally a thread on the merits of DD in general. What you say is of course true in a narrow sense: characters take a lot of differing damage. That is of course the main problem with DD, so there is actually no solution except to remove DD. In that case, the whole thread is meaningless.

However, it is not so simple as that. Suppose we actually want to keep DD in the game as a unique species, instead of an overpowered human who worships Makhleb. The key issue is the counterfactual: how would one play under the new rules?

For instance, if I am a DDFi of Makhleb, I can simply tab a herd of yaks in lair, confident that the damage I take would be healed by Makhleb. On the other side, if I couldn't heal like this, I could run to a chokepoint and tab them there. For a DDEE, I can't tab them, so I have to split them up, or use LRD and so on.

Also keep in the mind that the melee characters (who will presumably take more damage due to just being in melee range), are typically much more highly armoured, so that will reduce the damage. Also, keep in mind the damage shaving aspect, which reduces the damage from multiple small hits (more common with high AC) to 0. Melee characters can have other strategies like killholes, to reduce damage taken. It all comes down to using appropriate tactics.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 18:32

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

EDIT: Oops, thought we were in CYC
Last edited by dowan on Monday, 22nd June 2015, 19:17, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 18:49

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:I have created a new patch implementing Siegurt's proposal. All god healing including Trog/Ely/Ru has been removed. Sandman's latest suggestion is not included for now.
  Code:
All god healing is now removed, active and passive. This includes Ely, TSO, Makh, Jiyva, Ru and Trog. The other god abilities and their effects like MR++ for Trog's hand still function as normal. Vampiric drain and vampiric weapons don't heal DD.

Instead DD "brew" a heal wounds potion every so often while exploring (idea by Siegurt). The rate is constant (this can perhaps be tweaked). Currently it comes out to a bit more than 1 HW per dungeon level. It is kept constant so as to not (more) incentivize leaving easy areas for later. DD get 5 heal wounds potions instead of a heal wounds wand in the beginning. Device recharging ability is still present for flavour reasons, but perhaps should be removed.

The model is old DD of new Ely, where you gain piety by exploration and spend it on healing. Except, there is no "overflow". Heal wounds potions are never "wasted".
The basic theme of "no healing while resting" is preserved.

[ From discussion in this Tavern thread: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=16648, [^] comments by dpeg there and the comments by elliptic on the previous patch: https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=9800 [^] ]


You should also make healing from Gozag have no effect, if that hasn't happened already. They are flavored as potions but are actually a divine ability, after all, and this would be the most consistent way to go given that all other god-given HP has no effect.

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bel

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 20:09

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:As to Quazifuji's point, Vampires can drink blood and become non-bloodless, so they heal naturally by resting, so that is not equivalent. Also, they heal with vampiric weapons and stabbing in general. Also, Makhleb will work on them, so will jiyva. And they can use vampiric draining spell.


If you changed the HW potions to ambrosia as you suggested, then a vampire heals by killing something to get a potion of blood, drinking it, and resting until they have more health, while a DD heals by exploring until they get a potion of ambrosia, drinking it, and pressing . until they have more health.

I'm not saying there are no differences, I just thought it was worth bringing up the similarities to vampires for the discussion.

bel

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Post Monday, 22nd June 2015, 23:32

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

I made a couple of tweaks to the patch.

a) Gozag's potion petition does not give curing or heal wounds. They are flavoured as potions but are really god ability, so shouldn't be able to heal.
b) Heal wounds brewing rate now depends on depth (env.absdepth0 in the source code). It grows now as logarithm of depth. This should partly address the problem of later game having more difficult monsters, while not incentivizing easier areas to be explored later (since it doesn't matter when you explore them).
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 7th July 2015, 03:31

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

how about a full heal on an xp timer
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Pandemonium Purger

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 01:35

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Regarding the brewed-ABROSIA discussion, Deep Dwarves can be changed to have a special affinity for it: it doesn't confuse them, it bypasses clarity, and curing doesn't remove the ambrosia status effect.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 17:08

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

If you change ambrosia to not confuse you're basically making it a different potion entirely. You might as well just call them regeneration potions at that point.
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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 17:40

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

OK, but it would seem weird that Deep Dwarves find regeneration potions on Spider:4 when all other species find ambrosia potions there, instead.

bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 17:58

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

The patch had a bit of an isssue that it needed to keep track of when the "last heal wounds potion" dropped in the save file. This would make old save files invalid. Otherwise, it seems to work ok. I tried some more formulae for heal wounds drops. I found that logarithmic drops are a bit too tight. I made it linear, which seemed ok. (haven't put up these latest changes on Mantis yet)

Anyway, I don't see the point of ambrosia potions not confusing you. Why not just use heal wounds potions? DD can heal MP naturally anyway. Ok, it does make a bit of sense in that it is less useful in combat.

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 18:54

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Is this actually increasing DD's god choices in a meaningful way?

Makhleb and Elyvilon are probably out because their strength is so much about the healing and in Mak's case the abilities consume hp.

Ru is iffy, the heal is one of the best parts of Ru. The other abilities are great too, but the heal makes it a complete package and Ru's sacrifices one way or another usually push you towards taking extra damage by being locked out of something (be it stealth, xp levels, a hand, whatever)
Yred is less appealing because you can't drain life, though the god still offers a fair bit of other stuff.
Kiku is less appealing because no vampiric draining. On top of that the 1st spellbook seems like it will have a fair amount of stuff not really viable to use (Sublimation of Blood, Regen/Vampiric Draining). Though long term you at least have more stable healing option (both for Kiku and Yred).

Other than Mekhlab it seems like the gods DDs like to use currently are at least skewed towards gods that are a little more situational or a departure from common gods on other races (other than Makhleb). Won't this change just drive DDs towards generic gods you see often on other races because they no longer have their own special god concerns?
Last edited by Slogo on Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 19:15, edited 1 time in total.

bel

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 19:15

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

Slogo wrote:Is this actually increasing DD's god choices in a meaningful way?

Slogo wrote:Won't this change just drive DDs towards generic gods you see often on other races because they no longer have their own special god concerns?

I am confused about your point.

Yes, Makhleb and Ely are less useful. Rest are more useful. Also, no more boring behaviour like vampiric draining monsters you could easily kill by whacking it with an axe, or scumming some place for HP.

As mentioned above, the model is DD of Ely. You gain HP through exploration: you don't gain HP while resting. It is implemented through heal wounds potions so that you don't "waste" the healing.

Temple Termagant

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 19:30

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

bel wrote:
Slogo wrote:Is this actually increasing DD's god choices in a meaningful way?

Slogo wrote:Won't this change just drive DDs towards generic gods you see often on other races because they no longer have their own special god concerns?

I am confused about your point.

Yes, Makhleb and Ely are less useful. Rest are more useful. Also, no more boring behaviour like vampiric draining monsters you could easily kill by whacking it with an axe, or scumming some place for HP.

As mentioned above, the model is DD of Ely. You gain HP through exploration: you don't gain HP while resting. It is implemented through heal wounds potions so that you don't "waste" the healing.


What's confusing? The patch makes it seem like the new DD will still pick certain gods based on their ability to prevent taking damage in a way that's still pretty restrictive. It just seems like it's trading gods like Makhleb, Ru, and Ely for ones that do consistently well at preventing the player from taking damage.

Not scumming vampiric effects is great, so that's a nice plus.

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Post Wednesday, 8th July 2015, 22:12

Re: Deep Dwarf heal patch

God choices will certainly change, so previously Mak/Ely will be replaced with Ash/Chei/Veh/Okawaru. This is more or less a neutral change, the positive of the patch is removing vampiric weapons/draining, adding potions. Mak would be very nearly pointless but I think it'd still be decent to pick up Ru or Ely, although not ideal.

The number of gods who offer direct healing (Mak, Ely, Trog, Ru, Yred, TSO) is roughly half the gods that don't offer direct healing, so overall god choice is increasing. As you said some of those like Ru/Yred are still decent enough options, where as before picking a god not on that list meant you had to spam vamp draining/vamp weapons. I won a DD^chei, who used vampiric draining 2618 times in a 3 rune game. It's not something I'd really recommend.

My main concern with this is I'm worried about how it will scale with depth, as imho the later floors are considerably more damaging, but that's a balance issue, not a design issue. It's been addressed, it'll just have to be playtested.
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