DCSS TrunkWatch™: new Protection brand, two small removals

[tedric]

The Protection brand is about to receive an overhaul that makes it sort of like a defensive Song of Slaying: instead of a passive flat AC boost, each time you hit an enemy you get a temporary +1 AC which fades quickly once you stop hitting things. There's currently no cap on the AC you can stack this way, which means if you can keep a fight going long enough you can become basically invincible to most attacks -- I'm curious to see how this synergizes with things like Qazlal, Mark status, etc., and whether it will incentivize tediously scraping away at things with fast, accurate, low-damage weapons.

Well, that didn't last long...it's now just a flat +7 AC when you've recently hit an enemy. In the commit notes this is described as "mostly a buff" compared to the incremental version, but I GUESS WE'LL NEVER KNOW WHAT COULD HAVE BEEN.

Original commit link: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/7 ... 194c4d01e2
Alteration commit link: https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/9 ... 9155c2454a

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Also, boulder beetles have been exterminated and somebody swept away all the cobwebs in Crypt.

Commit links: (https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/7 ... d6472d5855, https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/d ... b0c9a9eeaa)

[shnurlf]

Kinda sad to see the Boulder beetles go, if only because I used them as a budget "Learn to dodge OoDs" when I was a new player.

[fearitself]

I liked protection brand early on as a mage. Also, liked for a stabber since stabbing kills most anything regardless of brand

Now it seems like an axe users dream.

[nago]

I don't think protection is an eligible brand for an axes unless using ?brand weapon

[BabyRage]

I've never seen an axe of protection.

[fearitself]

Hmm. Yes. I'd say I didn't think that through.

[Arrhythmia]

protection brand has already been changed to just give +7 AC on hitting a dude, rip

[tedric]

well, nuts

[Lord Haart]

protection brand has already been changed to just give +7 AC on hitting a dude, rip

That sounds really… What's the common word around here? Grindy? So you're a caster, you find a protection stick, congratz, you get a Stoneskin that you can only cast while in melee range, and you need to hit a monster for it to work so it's only a Stoneskin against low-EV enemies; so optimally you have to explore with a protStick, meet a strong enemy while there's some popcorn nearby, hit the popcorn, spend 0.5 auts more to switch to an enhancer staff or a resist-stick or a staff of power or whatever.
Not sure if even "+1 per hit" version in the first post prevents the problem of dragging an ogre zombie around for optimal easy AC boosts when needed.

[lethediver]

Could just make the buff disappear if you unwield the protstick. In fact, if that isn't already the case, i'll be surprised.

[Sprucery]

Could just make the buff disappear if you unwield the protstick. In fact, if that isn't already the case, i'll be surprised.

Yes, it is the case.

[Sar]

I don't really get the reason for change apart from maybe making protection a bit better for melee dudes. Like, why are casters making a choice to fill their melee weapon slot with a defensive item bad? Are resist sticks ("sky weapons") bad too? Should the randarts that give any kind of elemental protection (or even stat bonuses) give those only when the wielder engages in melee? Because if you really want to crusade against the resist/defensive sticks, that seems like the most logical follow-up to newprotection.

[nago]

For what's worth I'd like the removal from weapon unrandart of anything isn't +rage, +inv, or anything else related with combat.

[Sar]

I'm definitely not advocating it, though I can see that being a devteam decision.

[stickyfingers]

+Str and +Dex are related to combat, but also help with defenses. And regarding protection brand, I'd rather have it removed.

Oh, and one more thing:

Dowan hits Eadwine with a dagger of protection.
_Your weapon exudes an aura of protection.

[Lasty]

This point came up in discussion yesterday, and my response is:

  Code:

10:30:01 <Lasty_> In my view, weapons of protection are a bigger issue simply because they're not artifacts. They're designed to trade offense for a passive defensive bonus. Artifacts may end up doing the same, but they aren't designed with that goal in mind.
10:30:38 <Lasty_> Every sky artefact also has an offensive brand on it


[Sar]

Every sky artefact also has an offensive brand on it

If anything, it makes it even worse. People using randarts as resistance sticks aren't just using a defensive brand to improve their defenses, they're literally playing the game the wrong way! Do something about it!

[VeryAngryFelid]

If anything, it makes it even worse. People using randarts as resistance sticks aren't just using a defensive brand to improve their defenses, they're literally playing the game the wrong way! Do something about it!

I hope you are kidding. I like to use weapons with Int+6 as caster, do you suggest to trigger the boost after casting a spell?

[Shard1697]

Why is wielding either artifacts or protection weapons an issue? I don't think I've ever been bothered by using protection weapons on caster characters, and I'm more easily bothered than a lot of people on here.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I think a better solution would be to make protection brand start working after a delay, similar to gourmand or dismissal (in some way, equipping protection brand might give you negative AC and increase it to +5 in 30 turns or so).
So switching in a fight would not make much sense but you would not need to hit anything in melee to get the boost.

[Shard1697]

Why should switching to protection be disincentivized in the first place?

[VeryAngryFelid]

Why should switching to protection be disincentivized in the first place?

Because it is annoying to switch to and from protection multiple times during a single fight.

[njvack]

Are resist sticks ("sky weapons") bad too?

I think they're pretty bad, yeah. In general, I really dislike defensive tactical swaps. There's rarely a reason *not* to swap something if you can — swapping weapons and rings is fast, and it's pretty rare to be thinking "I don't know what element is about to hit me" so defensive swaps on those slots mostly represents a "am I willing to do this somewhat tedious thing" UI tax rather than a meaningful decision.

I don't have a good solution in mind, but it's definitely high on my list of "things in Crawl I wish were a bit different."

[njvack]

I think a better solution would be to make protection brand start working after a delay, similar to gourmand or dismissal (in some way, equipping protection brand might give you negative AC and increase it to +5 in 30 turns or so).
So switching in a fight would not make much sense but you would not need to hit anything in melee to get the boost.

This still encourages you to swap to protection somewhere safe, rest, and use it as a defense against ranged attacks.

Could be an XP ramp-up, maybe? You need to kill dudes with the weapon to get your bonus?

[njvack]

@tedric by the way, thanks for these threads!

[VeryAngryFelid]

This still encourages you to swap to protection somewhere safe, rest, and use it as a defense against ranged attacks.

I don't see it as problem. You can use protection brand or any other sky weapon. Or you can use blowgun with curare in case you meet something dangerous. Or staff of energy. Or rod etc.

[nago]

But, what is a sky weapon?

[Sar]

https://loom.shalott.org/learndb.html#sky_weapons

[njvack]

This still encourages you to swap to protection somewhere safe, rest, and use it as a defense against ranged attacks.

I don't see it as problem. You can use protection brand or any other sky weapon. Or you can use blowgun with curare in case you meet something dangerous. Or staff of energy. Or rod etc.

Yeah, sky weapons are bad (and I think resist rings are bad too) like I said above.

I don't think offensive weapon swaps are nearly as big a problem. I guess swapping enhancer staves / better melee weapons for spell power / melee damage is kind of annoying.

[WingedEspeon]

I don't have any problem with sky weapon or the protection brad as it was before as long as you are committing to kill thing with other means than melee like spells and/or throwing. I don't like the protection weapon change is it probably makes it worse for melee dudes that want to use a protection weapon because you want the extra defense when a centure shows up.

Definatly a nerf from the previouse version. Imagine a VS^mak with a quick blade of pretection fighting a huge pack at a choke point.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Yeah, sky weapons are bad (and I think resist rings are bad too) like I said above.

Do you mean we should remove elemental damage? I agree but it was discussed recently and devs won't change it.

I don't think offensive weapon swaps are nearly as big a problem.

Why? As caster you can use a sky weapon for many floors, you can even hit popcorn with it sometimes. While for non-caster you need to swap weapon relatively often (damage, antimagic, holy, venom vs insects, launcher etc) and unlike caster you really should do it because this is your main tool for dealing with monsters.

I guess swapping enhancer staves / better melee weapons for spell power / melee damage is kind of annoying.

Well, we can treat it as extra cost for hybrids. Use staff of power, then switch to staff of conjurations, then switch to melee weapon, then staff of energy for channeling MP between fights, all that requires in-game turns and real time too. But you get the most powerful character for that, optimal play is often not fun.

[edgefigaro]

Removing weapon swapping significantly changes the game. You lose the ability to pick up a sling, tag an adder with stones until it is close to you, and then swap to a melee weapon. I have never felt this was unreasonable, rather, I feel using multiple weapons in fights is crawl's natural state.

I play with 2 or 3 weapons always. Generally, Melee is on a, Ranged is on b (this could be an enhancer staff), and I use ' to swap between them quickly. Sometimes there is a 3rd weapon (dagger), and I map that to w so I can double tap w to switch to it.

Later on with casters I may find it more common to switch between two staves.

Certain weapons really lend themselves to having swaps, notably ranged weapons.

[njvack]

Do you mean we should remove elemental damage? I agree but it was discussed recently and devs won't change it.

Goodness no. I think getting resistance to elemental damage should involve a more interesting choice than "here's a red ugly thing, do I think it will do enough elemental damage that I feel like pressing P*T< to resist it?"

In general, I think using "I need to do this annoying thing" as a way to make a combo stronger is not very good.

I could imagine things that would make resistance choice some kind of tactical thing (adding *drain to all jewelry, some kind of "combine jewelry into randarts with more chance of drawbacks the better they get" system) but nothing has been really compelling and it's not that bad (really you mostly don't need resistances if you have other defenses and good tactics) but it could definitely be better.

[HardboiledGargoyle]

Remove boulder beetles

Orb spiders and regular IOOD casters are a much better use of projectiles -
rolling boulder beetles were almost always trivial to avoid.

This sounds odd. If you like how an IOOD moves, and don't like how a rolling boulder beetle moves, wouldn't you make boulder beetles move with IOOD mechanics?

[duvessa]

IOODs are also trivial to avoid despite what that commit implies. What should be done is that IOOD should move like a regular monster (think giant spores), and boulder beetles should remain removed.

[Shard1697]

I don't find IOOD trivial to avoid, though I usually do not get hit by them.

I wonder if unchanged boulder beetles could be fun in an area that was all corridors... would probably make for waiting around corners a lot though.

[ydeve]

FR: add boulder beetles to linesprint.

[Sprucery]

Sounds like labyrinths should have lots of boulder beetles.

[Lord Haart]

Is the mini-vault with a pressure plate and a boulder beetle eliminated as well? That's been fun.

[CypherZel]

Why not just not give weapons resistances and stat boosts in the first place, and make randarts purely offensive besides for weapon brands such as protection and vamp?

Makes the game harder I guess