Flavor proposals


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

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Slime Squisher

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 10:56

Flavor proposals

1. Make PDA a holy item - cannot be used by undead and demonspawns. Cannot be cursed.
2. Make Gastronok a high priest of Cheibriados: give him shadow creatures instead of spammals and give him slouch. When in LOS, he asks you if you want to join Chei (as orc priest asks HO players). If you worship Chei, he becomes neutral and drops his hat as a sign of respect.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 11:56

Re: Flavor proposals

Please no I need PDA with Ash

I could see Gastronok being a Chei worshipper. I honestly thought he already was, actually. Not having to fight Gasty when he only has to cast one spell to be faster than you (instead of two) certainly sounds useful. I don't know if he should give you his hat though. At least not at low piety.

Cocytus Succeeder

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 13:00

Re: Flavor proposals

1) http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a= ... f2725d8dc3

2) I don't see a reason supporting this proposal except "why not". And then, "why not" Wiglaf doesn't work like a Oka priest, as it's in his lore, and perhaps even other uniques I don't remember right now.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

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dracos369

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 15:46

Re: Flavor proposals

ololoev wrote:1. Make PDA a holy item - cannot be used by undead and demonspawns. Cannot be cursed.

IIRC, this was considered and rejected. And then flavored as desecrating the corpse of a holy creature should not result in a holy item.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 16:04

Re: Flavor proposals

Isn't Gastronok's lore that he was a slug, he ate a wizard and took his powers... Being slow, because he is a slug, not because he worships anyone? He also has little trouble casting swiftness on himself.

And why would he give away his hat to the first measly Chei worshipper he comes across if he was a high priest of Chei? Wouldn't he have given it away long ago?

The few god-related interactions there were got removed some time ago (angels becoming neutral to TSO worshippers) so I don't think they will be coming back anyway.

Now, I still think it would be cool to have a Chei worshipper unique that actually used Chei powers to blast Spriggan players

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 16:17

Re: Flavor proposals

Airstrike is already a great way to blast early game Spriggans.

Blades Runner

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 12:19

Re: Flavor proposals

When worshipping Makhleb:
The spells summon demon and summon greater demon do not result in hostile demons or do the demons become hostile over time.

When worshipping Ely/TSO/Zin:
Hostile Angels will still be hostile as they are now, but the gods will not assist them when they attempt to smite you.

When worshipping Beogh:
Hostile priests will attempt to smite you, but Beogh will ignore their attempt.

When eating ice cream:
Chunky Monkey

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 12:28

Re: Flavor proposals

svendre wrote:When worshipping Makhleb:
The spells summon demon and summon greater demon do not result in hostile demons or do the demons become hostile over time.

When worshipping Beogh:
Hostile priests will attempt to smite you, but Beogh will ignore their attempt.

That would result in worse flavor, not better.

Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 13:04

Re: Flavor proposals

Sar wrote:
svendre wrote:When worshipping Makhleb:
The spells summon demon and summon greater demon do not result in hostile demons or do the demons become hostile over time.

When worshipping Beogh:
Hostile priests will attempt to smite you, but Beogh will ignore their attempt.

That would result in worse flavor, not better.


Ok, but why do you think so?

My reasoning was, Mak is the god of demons, so if you're in great standing with him then demons in general would regard you slightly better (but not outright hostile ones.), you are a worshipper of *the* demon god after all. I suppose unless you take the stance that Mak wants you to suffer a bit and perhaps die, but that doesn't explain why he heals you then when you kill stuff. Summoning demons to kill stuff should be satisfying his evil nature to begin with. If he's that crazy and chaotic (like Xom) then shouldn't there be a chance of him hurting you instead of healing you occasionally, when you kill something? If demons shouldn't have any loyalty at all, then isn't it poor flavor and inconsistent that the ones summoned via invocations do not ever become hostile?

With Beogh, well pretty much the same thing as ely/tso/zin.. I just find it weird that a god you're worshipping will participate in the attack against you. My understanding of a smite is that the priest is essentially asking the god to put the hurt on the target, but the damage is actually coming from the god. The orc priests you're fighting presumably also worship him right, but they don't like you because they want to be the big cheese messiah. By that same token, why should your own smite work against another follower of Beogh? I can understand if Beogh is a bit evil and views it like - let them kill each other over being my prized messiah, as long as they have the mana and piety to spend.

Anyways, I was just curious - you didn't explain why.

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 13:18

Re: Flavor proposals

Makhleb is a chaotic god (your final piety title is, explicitly, Champion of Chaos), his gifts are dangerous and unpredictable. Wrt Beogh, you aren't his only messiah, see Saint Roka. Might makes right, and whoever is left standing will be the true messiah, not whoever starts the game and has the power of being a player character.

I don't like angels attacking good god followers because those always seemed lawful to me, but that is a lost battle.

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Rast

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 15:13

Re: Flavor proposals

The flavour of holies attacking tso/ely/zin followers is bad, but the gameplay of having them sometimes friendly-neutral and sometimes hostile was bad, unless you pretty much relegate them to only vault decoration (in which case no one cares since they're not real enemies).

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 15:36

Re: Flavor proposals

Holies are pretty much non-existent outside of very rare spawns in Abyss and Pan, Mennas, holypan. holyzigs and a few Depths vaults. I don't think rare spawns occasionally being friendly was a big problem gameplay-wise and friendly Mennas was always cool, especially if he spawned in Tomb. Holypan and holyzigs were special-cased not to appear to good god followers, but apparently it was too complicated.

I agree the exact mechanics of how they'd determine friendliness was too complicated. Should've been Jiyva style "if you follow a good god, all holies you meet are friendly". Oh well.

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Rast, Shard1697

Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 22nd April 2016, 22:00

Re: Flavor proposals

svendre wrote:
Sar wrote:
svendre wrote:When worshipping Makhleb:
The spells summon demon and summon greater demon do not result in hostile demons or do the demons become hostile over time.

When worshipping Beogh:
Hostile priests will attempt to smite you, but Beogh will ignore their attempt.

That would result in worse flavor, not better.


Ok, but why do you think so?

My reasoning was, Mak is the god of demons, so if you're in great standing with him then demons in general would regard you slightly better (but not outright hostile ones.), you are a worshipper of *the* demon god after all. I suppose unless you take the stance that Mak wants you to suffer a bit and perhaps die, but that doesn't explain why he heals you then when you kill stuff. Summoning demons to kill stuff should be satisfying his evil nature to begin with. If he's that crazy and chaotic (like Xom) then shouldn't there be a chance of him hurting you instead of healing you occasionally, when you kill something? If demons shouldn't have any loyalty at all, then isn't it poor flavor and inconsistent that the ones summoned via invocations do not ever become hostile?

With Beogh, well pretty much the same thing as ely/tso/zin.. I just find it weird that a god you're worshipping will participate in the attack against you. My understanding of a smite is that the priest is essentially asking the god to put the hurt on the target, but the damage is actually coming from the god. The orc priests you're fighting presumably also worship him right, but they don't like you because they want to be the big cheese messiah. By that same token, why should your own smite work against another follower of Beogh? I can understand if Beogh is a bit evil and views it like - let them kill each other over being my prized messiah, as long as they have the mana and piety to spend.

Anyways, I was just curious - you didn't explain why.


Makhleb's god powers can summon hostile demons (particularly with low invo), so I don't see why he would protect you from summoning hostile demons through other methods.

TSO/Ely/Zin not smiting their own followers makes sense, but Beogh explicitly encourages infighting betweeen worshippers -- he likes it when you kill Orc Priests, and I think there are special flavor messages for when an orc priest kills you as a beoghite.

There are also demons which can smite, presumably by invoking the power of Makhleb. I think those should also continue working on Makhlebite players, for the same reason hostile Greater Servants happen - Makhleb doesn't really care about your well-being.

Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 25th October 2012, 03:19

Post Monday, 25th April 2016, 23:32

Re: Flavor proposals

Makhleb's god powers can summon hostile demons (particularly with low invo), so I don't see why he would protect you from summoning hostile demons through other methods.


You're right. I said earlier protecting from summoning hostile demons and that the demons summoned don't become hostile. What I should have said (to be consistent) was only that if they were summoned as non-hostile, that they wouldn't become hostile at a later time only.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Wednesday, 27th April 2016, 01:00

Re: Flavor proposals

Sar wrote:Holies are pretty much non-existent outside of very rare spawns in Abyss and Pan, Mennas, holypan. holyzigs and a few Depths vaults. I don't think rare spawns occasionally being friendly was a big problem gameplay-wise and friendly Mennas was always cool, especially if he spawned in Tomb. Holypan and holyzigs were special-cased not to appear to good god followers, but apparently it was too complicated.

I agree the exact mechanics of how they'd determine friendliness was too complicated. Should've been Jiyva style "if you follow a good god, all holies you meet are friendly". Oh well.


The argument I remember seeing for removing neutral holies was roughly "From a gameplay standpoint, the only thing it does is take an encounter that might be interesting, and make it not interesting instead."

Sar

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 27th April 2016, 06:23

Re: Flavor proposals

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commit;h=2f8e1e877b38c09d97707a372a66cc74d4e18c6e
  Code:
Don't turn holies neutral when worshipping a good god

It's almost never relevant (with Mennas being possibly the only edge
case), and has a number of negative effects: dungeon generation depending
on the player's god in Pan, strange interactions with getting additional
chances to convert on piety breakpoints, and generally a lot of code for
a pretty questionable gain. Flavour-wise it seems perfectly reasonable
that the holies in the dungeon just all see you as insufficiently pious,
or some kind of a heretic (as is the case for non-holy religious
monsters).

Kept some of the holy speech for the case where an Elyvilon worshipper
pacifies a holy.

I was talking about the "a lot of code for a pretty questionable gain" line.

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