Shard shrike in depths


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 377

Joined: Friday, 1st February 2013, 21:08

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 17:05

Shard shrike in depths

After finding home in cocytus, shard shrikes also started to appear in depths. I think they are a threat inadequate to this place. Let me explain in few points:
- Shrikes are capable of delivering huge damage per attack and they might attack more than once per turn. I will not do maths here, but I think something around 150 is completely within their range (with no rC). I doubt anything can top that without buffs.
- Player cannot reliably escape shard shrikes even with blink/teleport scrolls because of speed 30.
- A single source of rC is mandatory, but even with it throw icicle isn't something to sneeze at.
- Shrikes tend to park themselves at a distance. They cannot be killed with weak auxiliary ranged weapon; they have too high HPs for that.
- Player does not have a guaranteed access to rC in depths. Even if rC can be attained by e.g. ring swapping, accidental stumbling upon shard shrike can lead to instant death. One entering cocytus knows that rC is mandatory and can prepare beforehand; one entering depths cannot prepare for every type of attack (fire/cold/elec/more).

I do not think that any other monster shares such properties at this point of game. Fast monsters have mediocre attack strength; strong monsters are relatively slow. Here we have a case of a strong, extremely fast monster, tricky to fight in a melee and with ranged attack that requires a specific resistance.

Can we consider removing shard shrikes from depths? I believe they are more suited to Zot, if you really want them in non-extended game.

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2229

Joined: Sunday, 18th December 2011, 13:31

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 17:23

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Are you sure they're allowed to spawn in depths? I only found one alone once, and it was probably due to some weird vault
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1613

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 21:54

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 18:09

Re: Shard shrike in depths

As far as I can tell they only appear in profane_halls (since November), and now they don't appear there either, good catch.

For this message the author Kate has received thanks:
Bart

Slime Squisher

Posts: 377

Joined: Friday, 1st February 2013, 21:08

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 18:29

Re: Shard shrike in depths

http://crawl.xtahua.com/crawl/morgue/co ... 204155.txt
grunt_profane_halls was it indeed. Thank you!

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2229

Joined: Sunday, 18th December 2011, 13:31

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 22:54

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Yup I'm pretty sure I got it in profane halls too.
And I had found a rc+++ ring like a floor earlier, and it was still scary as hell (I had to teleport one or two time before managing to kill it!)
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Sar

User avatar

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6418

Joined: Friday, 6th July 2012, 12:48

Post Saturday, 6th June 2015, 22:59

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Throw Icicle uses beam_ice which is 65% irresistible so yeah, rC+++ doesn't do as much as one would expect.

Edit: 60%, actually. Still a lot!

Dungeon Master

Posts: 388

Joined: Monday, 18th August 2014, 20:04

Post Sunday, 7th June 2015, 00:02

Re: Shard shrike in depths

I had one in Zot:1 recently, though it's conceivable I pulled it down stairs (it doesn't have a log entry and pf_coc_iceberg on Depths:5 looks suspicious). On Zot:1 the only vault I see is hangedman_zot_spectrum. Even in Zot, I'd suggest that a shard shrike is a bit much. full morgue with vault names here.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 1051

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 05:19

Post Sunday, 7th June 2015, 01:32

Re: Shard shrike in depths

advil wrote:I had one in Zot:1 recently, though it's conceivable I pulled it down stairs (it doesn't have a log entry and pf_coc_iceberg on Depths:5 looks suspicious). On Zot:1 the only vault I see is hangedman_zot_spectrum. Even in Zot, I'd suggest that a shard shrike is a bit much. full morgue with vault names here.

pf_coc_iceberg has no monsters; hangedman_zot_spectrum is in fact the culprit. It also places various other nasty things, e.g. electric golems, acid blobs, and Tiamat.

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 431

Joined: Saturday, 9th November 2013, 14:34

Post Tuesday, 8th December 2015, 23:50

Re: Shard shrike in depths

I just ran into a shard shrike on Vaults:1 in trunk. The only thing that saved me was having rC+++ (made the damage merely horrific rather than immediately lethal) and getting a lucky amulet of dismissal proc. I'm thinking I'll clear Vaults later than usual...

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3160

Joined: Sunday, 5th August 2012, 14:52

Post Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 15:42

Re: Shard shrike in depths

That was most likely a shapeshifter. By the time you go back, it'll be something else.

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 431

Joined: Saturday, 9th November 2013, 14:34

Post Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 16:39

Re: Shard shrike in depths

That's a really nasty shape for a shifter; those icicles are no joke and it's really hard to run away from a shrike.
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 17:50

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Shapeshifters should absolutely turn into awful things sometimes; that's their whole point. Maybe glowing shifters should be reserved for really nasty things.

Anyhow, IIRC /Poly forces them to change shapes, though this might be signposted a little more clearly. And it might be good to hint at their underlying nature, so you don't need to wonder "hey is this a crazy thing from a vault or a shifter, let's try polying it to see."
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

For this message the author njvack has received thanks:
Jarlyk
User avatar

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1111

Joined: Monday, 18th March 2013, 23:23

Post Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 19:27

Re: Shard shrike in depths

This isn't exactly on topic, but I do find considerable overlap between regular shifters and glowing shifters. I'll routinely see mind-bogglingly low level monsters in depths (iguana, worker ant, etc.) and kill them then see a glowing shifter corpse. On the other end of the spectrum, I ran into a regular shifter on D:2 a couple weeks ago that started as an eye of draining and turned into a black mamba (leaving aside how OOD that is for D:2, that feels like roughly the space of threat level a normal shapeshifter should be at). On D:10 yesterday, I had one that started as a hornet, then after teleporting and coming back it was a death drake. I fled and came back again later, and presumably I killed it when it was something more "normal" for that area and it didn't leave a corpse. I would think it was a glowing shifter, but I really have no idea.

Anyway, I do agree that shapeshifters should have the ability to turn into pretty nasty things, otherwise they're no threat at all, but I think there should be a bit more delineation between what each type of shifter can turn into.

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 431

Joined: Saturday, 9th November 2013, 14:34

Post Wednesday, 9th December 2015, 19:50

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Okay, yeah, it was a shapeshifter. Went back down to V:1 and it was a golden dragon this time. Thankfully much easier to deal with than a shard shrike.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Thursday, 10th December 2015, 02:35

Re: Shard shrike in depths

Guys, shapeshifters and glowing shapeshifters don't polymorph into different things. Both of them always polymorph randomly. The difference is that the chance of a regular shapeshifter polymorphing decreases as its current HD increases, whereas glowing shapeshifters polymorph at the same rate regardless of their current form (faster than the regular shapeshifter rate unless the regular shapeshifter has 1 HD).
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 1788

Joined: Saturday, 29th June 2013, 16:52

Post Thursday, 10th December 2015, 02:39

Re: Shard shrike in depths

I had no idea there was any difference at all. Why is there any difference at all?
User avatar

Barkeep

Posts: 4435

Joined: Tuesday, 11th January 2011, 12:28

Post Thursday, 10th December 2015, 15:37

Re: Shard shrike in depths

duvessa wrote:Guys, shapeshifters and glowing shapeshifters don't polymorph into different things. Both of them always polymorph randomly. The difference is that the chance of a regular shapeshifter polymorphing decreases as its current HD increases, whereas glowing shapeshifters polymorph at the same rate regardless of their current form (faster than the regular shapeshifter rate unless the regular shapeshifter has 1 HD).

Wait, doesn't that make glowing shifters less dangerous than regular ones, at least in theory?
I am not a very good player. My mouth is a foul pit of LIES. KNOW THIS.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 411

Joined: Saturday, 9th March 2013, 14:22

Post Thursday, 10th December 2015, 15:45

Re: Shard shrike in depths

except they heal upon shifting so glowing ones are more of a dps check

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 22 guests

Powered by phpBB © 2000, 2002, 2005, 2007 phpBB Group.
Designed by ST Software for PTF.