Level 9 Translocation: Navrim's Erratic Void

[File200]

Creates a floating gravity warp on top of you that pulls in enemies in a 3-5 tile radius. The warp is intangible (like a dungeon feature) and moves erratically. It lasts for 6-10 turns and rapidly disappears (duration halved) while out of your LoS. It doesn't damage most enemies directly, but they take damage if they collide with each other or a wall/dungeon feature. Immobile enemies are damaged instead of being moved. The warp has a chance of destroying dungeon features like doors, statues and fountains. This spell gives the translocations school a useful high-investment spell without breaking its theme. Like other translocations, it doesn't kill enemies by itself, but combos well with other spells. It groups up enemies for AoE spells like firestorm keeps them in range for melee fighting. If it's too powerful, make it mess with your teleportation while you stand in its radius. i.e. it pulls you towards it when you try to blink.

[Berder]

That sounds pretty weak, like singularity minus the damage and the ability to target it. I'd like to see a level 9 translocations spell that doesn't do direct damage, but it needs to have a very strong effect to compensate.

[bcadren]

...nope; no one would use it.

[tabstorm]

Why would you cast this spell and get the required XP for it voluntarily? I don't get it.

[File200]

That sounds pretty weak, like singularity minus the damage and the ability to target it. I'd like to see a level 9 translocations spell that doesn't do direct damage, but it needs to have a very strong effect to compensate.

Spoiler: show

Exactly, it's singularity minus everything good (read: problematic) about the spell. This is what a "Balanced" and "Thematic" level 9 Translocation would look like if one ever made it into stable.

[duvessa]

I assume the historical obsession with adding level 9 spells whether they are remotely interesting or not (see: tornado, summon dragon)* comes from a desire to make training spell skills to 27 a non-completely-terrible idea, but it demonstrably doesn't do that. Which should have been obvious since level 9 spells already existed. The only other way giving a level 9 spell to every school would make sense is if there was some sort of existing or desired symmetry in the number of spells of each level in each school, which, again, there demonstrably is not. Hopefully tornado and glaciate can go the way of singularity some day.

*IIRC singularity was added less because of this obsession and more because grunt is completely nuts

[File200]

I assume the historical obsession with adding level 9 spells whether they are remotely interesting or not (see: tornado, summon dragon)* comes from a desire to make training spell skills to 27 a non-completely-terrible idea, but it demonstrably doesn't do that. Which should have been obvious since level 9 spells already existed. The only other way giving a level 9 spell to every school would make sense is if there was some sort of existing or desired symmetry in the number of spells of each level in each school, which, again, there demonstrably is not. Hopefully tornado and glaciate can go the way of singularity some day.

*IIRC singularity was added less because of this obsession and more because grunt is completely nuts

I don't care about symmetry. Tornado and Singularity are fun. I have no idea why you think any of these spells aren't interesting. Is it because they aren't "Optimal?" Maybe you should work to make fun things usable instead of trying to make optimal play fun. Hint: optimal play will never be fun. If the dev team has decided that fun isn't a design goal, then I guess we'll never see eye to eye.

This post killed any enthusiasm I had for coding, or even playing Crawl. The Chicken Chopping is the best thing to come out of these forums ever, and it's all downhill from here.

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[Greyr]

More like Navrim's Erotic Void.

[duvessa]

Tornado, glaciate, and singularity don't offer anything interesting that fire storm doesn't (in particular the current incarnation of tornado was designed specifically to be tactically bankrupt, first version was better but still had no reason to coexist with fire storm).

Hint: optimal play will never be fun.

That's a pretty brash claim, and suggests to me that games with win conditions just aren't your thing. There are certainly many games where I find optimal play fun, such as chess, Go, Dustforce, and Super Smash Bros. Melee. Although I don't think Crawl is at that point yet, I see no reason it shouldn't aspire to it. It also has nothing to do with the subject, I don't dislike these spells being in the game because they are bad, I dislike it because they are redundant with an existing feature (fire storm) that works better. If it was about being bad then I would be campaigning equally for removing fire storm, shatter, and all the other terrible spells, but spells being bad for winning is actually pretty easy to change without removing them, whereas spells being bad for the game's design is a lot harder to change without removing them.

[File200]

Tornado, glaciate, and singularity don't offer anything interesting that fire storm doesn't (in particular the current incarnation of tornado was designed specifically to be tactically bankrupt, first version was better but still had no reason to coexist with fire storm).

Hint: optimal play will never be fun.

That's a pretty brash claim, and suggests to me that games with win conditions just aren't your thing.

I like winning and I like having fun. Most of the time those things go together. But in Crawl's case, playing to win gets tedious.

Sometimes I want to blow stuff up with big, flashy effects. Sometimes I want some tactical depth that makes me think. There are a shocking number of games that have tactical depth and flashy effects, but Crawl seems to be moving in a weird direction without either of those things. If the dev consensus is that tornado and glaciate should be removed they aren't considered interesting, then I'm worried for the future of the game. Well, maybe not 'worried,' but I might feel bad for the people who like those spells and still want to play Crawl. I'll be playing other games that are more fun.

I don't dislike these spells being in the game because they are bad, I dislike it because they are redundant with an existing feature (fire storm) that works better. If it was about being bad then I would be campaigning equally for removing fire storm, shatter, and all the other terrible spells, but spells being bad for winning is actually pretty easy to change without removing them, whereas spells being bad for the game's design is a lot harder to change without removing them.

Aesthetics are a big part of what makes games enjoyable, even if those games don't have graphics. Sometimes having the same thing with a different coat of paint makes people happy. Humans, even those who play Crawl, aren't tactical robots that derive pleasure from finding efficient solutions.

super smash bros. melee

Who's your main? Do you/did you make it to regional tournaments?

[Siegurt]

I'd rather have something like this:

  Code:

Summon dimensional void: Level 9 Summoning/translocation

This spell opens a dimensional rift at a location of your choosing, the rift lashes out violently at anything nearby.
You can sustain at most one creature summoned by this spell.

Smite targeted at any unoccupied tile in LOS.

Dimensional Rift: HD:30, HP:150, AC 20:EV 20, Speed 20, immobile non-living, see invisible, Res: magic(immune), fire+++, cold, elec+++, poison+++, rot+++, neg+++, torm, napalm,  Attack 20(Distortion), Spells: Blink other close, Slow


Myself.

[bel]

A bit offtopic, but tornado offers same tactical options as fire storm? Perhaps I have been using it wrong, but I use tornado when I am surrounded, fire storm when I don't want to get surrounded.

[Sar]

I am conflicted because I like Tornado, but I despised Singularity when it existed and couldn't be happier with it being removed...

[duvessa]

If the dev consensus is that tornado and glaciate should be removed they aren't considered interesting, then I'm worried for the future of the game.

its not lol, im probably the only person who wants both of those spells removed

Who's your main? Do you/did you make it to regional tournaments?

ganondorf, and i just go to nearby ones (and don't place well); for medical reasons i don't travel far from home

[File200]

ganondorf, and i just go to nearby ones (and don't place well); for medical reasons i don't travel far from home

I tried playing G-dubs in Brawl and it was painful. Even when you can zero->death with thunderstomp you just lose. Keep the dream alive, bro. (I play Sheik in Sm4sh because I'm a bandwagoning scrub.)

[dowan]

Gdorf is really fun to play, but quite suboptimal. His high damage and weight are just a newbie trap, since he is too slow and lacks the projectiles needed for optimal play. I'm glad the SSB devs didn't remove him because of that, because he's my favorite character.

Tornado is an excellent and fun spell. I cleared extended with a HEAE, and it made perfect sense to get tornado after already having chain lightning castable, and tornado was extremely effective whenever I cast it.

I just hate ice magic for some reason, so I can't speak to glaciate's effectiveness or fun. I have a similar disdain for earth magic, so no experience with shatter, although I notice you left it off your list of desired removals.

[Cerekov]

IMHO, though the time that reason for a single school to be usable though the terrifying uncertainty principle.

[dynast]

Hey, this spell at least makes title farming interesting, unlike poison, slings and short blades that have no purpose other than cripple the player.

[duvessa]

I tried playing G-dubs in Brawl and it was painful. Even when you can zero->death with thunderstomp you just lose. Keep the dream alive, bro. (I play Sheik in Sm4sh because I'm a bandwagoning scrub.)

I main dedede in sm4sh because tricking people into breaking their shields is by far the most fun thing in that game.
edit: lol, just noticed you said brawl, he is literally the worst character in that game. melee ganondorf is still ass against every top tier (unless you count ICs as top tier which I don't) but not anywhere near as bad as he is in brawl or ssb4

Gdorf is really fun to play, but quite suboptimal. His high damage and weight are just a newbie trap, since he is too slow and lacks the projectiles needed for optimal play. I'm glad the SSB devs didn't remove him because of that, because he's my favorite character.

Well yeah, that would be the equivalent of crawl removing every species except deep dwarf. It's like saying optimal play is picking the easiest difficulty level. I also play Zelda a lot, who I'm pretty sure is the Melee equivalent to mummy.
Also fwiw, in the current metagame, kirby in 64, marth in melee, and sonic in sm4sh are all considered top characters despite lacking projectiles, though I'm sure all three will fall out of favour as people get better at pikachu/fox/sheik respectively, and meta knight in brawl is the deep dwarf of that game yet has no projectile

[xentronium]

Time warp: You travel back in time about 10 turns. HP, MP, XP, items, monsters, are all the same as they were 10 turns ago, but you get a massive amount of contamination.

[dowan]

That's actually pretty interesting. It's kinda like revivification, except you only pay contam instead of max HP, and only get back the HP you had 10 turns ago. Still, it's a tough sell at level 9, since controlled blink would already be quite castable long before this spell.

[daggaz]

Time warp sounds kind of fun, I think, though with Zin it might be a bit OP.

[dowan]

Zin should get quite angry that you knowingly contaminated yourself like that. But then, I don't think Zin currently cares if you cast haste or invis 100 times in a row
(By the way, I've never thought of this before, but does a max piety zin allow you to be permanently hasted with no ill effects, due to mutation immunity?)