Change potion of degeneration and poison

[TeshiAlair]

These are the only two unequivocally bad potions in the game, and as such are wildly uninteresting. The creation of ambrosia and lignification were both really awesome (Lig has both saved me and killed me multiple times) and I think these two can be moved in a similar direction.


Degeneration -> Chaos. Same effect as being hit by a weapon of chaos twice. The potion of chaos scalds your throat! You feel faster.
Poison -> Potion of fumes. Same effect as mephetic clouding yourself, but shorter duration.

[Lasty]

Changing unequivocally bad potions into sometimes-not-bad potions means strengthening the player, as they get a few more options. It also means making the quaff-ID game less actively dangerous. Last, it could mean more inventory pressure if the new effects are worth intentionally using. The first and last are bad things, but the second isn't necessarily.

That said, I like the new effects you've chosen here: the first is generally going to be both bad and dangerous, since most of the effects hurt you, but there is some chance to get powerful effects instead; it's still a potion I'd only drink in the most desperate of circumstances, but it could lead to some entertaining and dramatic moments. I'm less sure about the latter effect, since it's fairly strong, especially for races that start with rPois, but for characters that lack rPois it also has the potential for interesting situations.

[daggaz]

Only newbies and people who are probably going to die anyhow because of early adders getting lucky and no !cure do the quaff-ID thing.

As for 'making the player stronger', that is rather weak argument considering OP outlined specifically how the addition of choice-inducing potions creates situations that may either save or kill the character, and then went on to give some pretty decent examples of how to implement that situation. Your argument is made even weaker by the fact that, again, only newbies and people who are probably going to die anyhow ever end up quaffing !poison or !degen, after which point those potions are entirely pointless and only serve as obnoxious waste of inventory space and !ID in the situation that potions are common and the RNG is being somewhat stingy with !ID. So it is pretty hard to see how they make the game more dangerous in any significant manner for the vast majority of play-throughs.

If anything, quaffing !poison is just an unfun way to die when you are already poisoned, and at a point in the game where dying incurs no real cost to the player other than the frustration of having to go thru the menu and the first couple levels of the game, again.

[Lasty]

daggaz, I already said that making the potion ID game less dangerous isn't necessarily bad. Why spend more words attacking a point I clearly don't care about than I spent in my entire post?

[Piginabag]

If anything, a potion of chaos sounds fun. As if some adventurer before you spent his last moments fervently mixing the residue of all his remaining potions and created a concoction that only xom knows the effects of. You feel more experienced! Your stomach evaporates. You die...

[Tiktacy]

Only newbies and people who are probably going to die anyhow because of early adders getting lucky and no !cure do the quaff-ID thing.

I regularly advocate for quaff IDing early game while you have potions in stacks of more than 1 to allow yourself easier access to resources in the event of a bad situation. A run in with a spriggen enchanter player ghost, sigmund, or an unlucky run in with an ogre are all situations that become a lot easier to deal with when you don't have to waste valuable turns using potions that won't help you.

But lets put the argument of correct gameplay decision aside, I'm not saying its optimal play, what I AM saying is that "nobody quaff ID's unless its an emergency" is far from the truth. A newbie strategy is tabbing on d:1 with 2 hobgoblins on the opposite end of your LoS(lets ignore speedruns here), a newbie strategy is pillar dancing a player ghost, it is NOT a newbie strategy to choose to identify potions through quaff IDing based on personal preference. Very rarely is the life of your character going to depend on that potion of might you drank on D:2 simply because you were curious what that stack of 3 potions was, its very common for players to choose to do sub-optimal plays for the sake of maintaining their sanity. If anything, you are more likely to die of boredom than a lack of consumables in most cases.

I for one think potion of degeneration and poison should be removed and replaced by 2 more instances of mutation potions, since quaffing a mutation potion is far more interesting and actually leads to interesting decision making unlike the other 2. Normally I try to find positives and counters to my own viewpoint simply for the sake of showing I put genuine thought into my response, but I really don't see the need for these potions to exist no matter how I look at it. I've never once been killed as a result or even partly the result of potions of poison or degeneration, and I've died a lot of times. The biggest threat they pose is costing people a turn when quaff IDing in an emergency situation on the first few floors, but at that point you might as well just have potions of random uselessness.

I think I can see where the devs were going with this early on, but they seem really out of place now, like traps but much much worse and harder to grasp on their original intentions.

For the record, I dislike both suggestions in the OP because they generally are going to end up serving the same purpose as poison and degeneration do now. You quaff or ID them out of battle and laugh a little when you realize your stack of 6 mystery potions were poison you got from the orc mines entry vault.

[TeshiAlair]

I for one think potion of degeneration and poison should be removed and replaced by 2 more instances of mutation potions, since quaffing a mutation potion is far more interesting and actually leads to interesting decision making unlike the other ...

...For the record, I dislike both suggestions in the OP because they generally are going to end up serving the same purpose as poison and degeneration do now. You quaff or ID them out of battle and laugh a little when you realize your stack of 6 mystery potions were poison you got from the orc mines entry vault.

Completely disagree. The rate of !mut is really good right now: if you accidentally quaff ID one when you don't want to, it has some meaning, but they are frequent enough (plus sky beast chunks) that if you want to mutation roulette you absolutely can to your heart's content. I mutation roulette almost every chance I get because I find it super fun, but once you get a few good ones even I generally stop.

In contrast, my suggestions both have last-ditch-effort uses ala lig or ambrosia (heck even ?tele has some risk to it; if you haven't cleared the floor yet you'd almost always rather ?blink instead). Chaos is just plain fun if stupid to use 99% of the time, while Mephetic can be risky in some hands and a powerful tactical tool in others if you have rPoison.

[duvessa]

How about replacing all potions of degeneration and poison with no item at all? There's enough inventory clutter as it is, and the only thing they do is make scroll-identifying potions a bit worse.

[ydeve]

How about replacing all potions of degeneration and poison with no item at all? There's enough inventory clutter as it is, and the only thing they do is make scroll-identifying potions a bit worse.

This please.

[TeshiAlair]

How about replacing all potions of degeneration and poison with no item at all? There's enough inventory clutter as it is, and the only thing they do is make scroll-identifying potions a bit worse.

While I normally disagree with duvessa's 'remove this thing/don't add new things' posts, yeah, this is also better than having them in the game. At least ?random uselessness is entertaining and noise is satisfyingly negative because it can put you in an interesting situation.

[Kate]

Note that potions of poison were already removed, a couple of months ago.

To be more accurate: potions of degeneration were removed, then potions of poison were removed instead and replaced with slightly tweaked potions of degeneration.

[amaril]

While I normally disagree with duvessa's 'remove this thing/don't add new things' posts, yeah, this is also better than having them in the game. At least ?random uselessness is entertaining and noise is satisfyingly negative because it can put you in an interesting situation.

Nah, ?random uselessness and ?noise are just as bad. ?Noise just encourages blind reading stacks of scrolls on explored levels, which is spoilery (although not too egregious)--if you need to blind read scrolls mid-combat because a fear/blink/teleport would save you (this is the only time ?noise is interesting--random uselessness is just a gag), then reading an irrelevant scroll is consequence enough. The risk of reading immo/torment/silence is an even greater deterrent than ?noise.

[Sprucery]

?noise also has a useful function, it breaks mesmerization.

[duvessa]

Zapping a wand of lightning also breaks mesmerization so who cares.

[Sprucery]

Zapping a wand of lightning also breaks mesmerization so who cares.

Someone who has ?noise but not wand of lightning might care.

(To be fair I'm not sure if I've ever used ?noise for that, in fact I don't bother breaking mesmerization at all except by killing the mesmerizer...)