Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp


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

Spider Stomper

Posts: 247

Joined: Friday, 5th August 2011, 13:18

Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 16:08

Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

Blink + Decent HP + EV+++ + quick regen + weak attack makes crimson imps an exercise in tedium for low level characters without any real threat, except in the rare cases where they spawn with a wand or the like (if they even still can in recent versions). You can mash tab, but that introduces danger if you walk into unexplored territory, another monster comes along, etc. while doing so. The correct choice is always the tedious one - either park them up a level, or carefully wait to strike, over and over again until you get a few lucky shots and overcome their defenses.

If their regen were removed, they'd be just as easy for higher level characters, and less of a tedious fight for lower level ones.

If that makes them too much like bats, get rid of them.

For this message the author minstrel has received thanks: 6
bel, duvessa, NhorianScum, papilio, Shard1697, VeryAngryFelid

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1739

Joined: Tuesday, 13th March 2012, 02:48

Post Friday, 3rd February 2017, 20:07

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

Or just walk away.

Imps are good in the same way bats are good, you can use them like walls.

A lot of these remove threads could be shortened to "remove fun"

Slime Squisher

Posts: 377

Joined: Thursday, 12th June 2014, 06:56

Post Saturday, 4th February 2017, 00:00

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

"Just walk away" is precisely equivalent to "park them up a level," unless you want to have to deal with autoexplore and autotravel being broken all the time. These aren't oklob plants - they're speed 10 monsters that will attempt to follow you. Even if their habit of blinking means you'll eventually lose them, it's still tedious as hell, and still prevents you from using autoexplore on that level.

I've been playing since 0.4. In that time, I have never once found a standard crimson imp to be anything resembling "fun." Fighting them feels like fighting the shitty high-AC, low-damage HP buckets that infest the latter half of NetHack. They force engagement but rarely put you in any actual danger.

Honestly, crimson imps' best moment was when they could pick up a bow and annihilate you with it. I'd suggest removing the regen, and guaranteeing them a weapon (one that has a decent chance of being a bow with arrows). Melee imps would then be an early introduction to blink frogs, while ranged imps would help teach the player that having some sort of ranged weapon of your own is a good idea. One could even make them appear first individually, and then in groups, as happens with gnolls and ogres.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 386

Joined: Thursday, 26th March 2015, 01:22

Post Saturday, 4th February 2017, 00:44

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

packs of crimson imps... wtf dude

Seriously, crimson imps only exist because the call imp spell exists. They do a worse job teaching players about enemy blinking than orc wizards and phantoms (which are basically just as annoying as crimson imps except that they can maybe actually kill you if you ignore them... unlike crimson imps) do, and they do a worse job blocking passages than the aforementioned monsters + bats do.

Call imp doesn't need to create blinking monsters. Arguably, that could be the 'point' of the spell, but it summons other non-blinking monsters, so... nope. IMO the summons could always be 'good' imps that expire quickly, so they aren't so great at protecting you from enemies for extended periods of time. Plus if they expire quick the spell can remain lv 2. So, I'm in favor of removing crimson imps (and quazits and hungry/player ghosts, while we're on the topic of early game monsters that are annoying and can't actually kill you).

For this message the author amaril has received thanks: 3
duvessa, nago, Quazifuji
User avatar

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1762

Joined: Monday, 14th October 2013, 01:05

Post Saturday, 4th February 2017, 01:23

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

Rast wrote:A lot of these remove threads could be shortened to "remove fun"
crimson imp regen is... fun???

For this message the author Shard1697 has received thanks: 3
nago, papilio, VeryAngryFelid

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 724

Joined: Tuesday, 29th November 2011, 11:04

Post Sunday, 5th February 2017, 18:12

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

Being annoying is kinda the point of Crimson Imps, isn't it?
"Damned, damned be the legions of the damned..."

Spider Stomper

Posts: 247

Joined: Monday, 10th November 2014, 21:32

Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 02:31

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

kuniqs wrote:Being annoying is kinda the point of Crimson Imps, isn't it?


Is "Being annoying" really a good design goal, though?

I'm vaguely sympathetic to the idea that Crimson Imps are "useful" as an early, nonlethal example of how sometimes it's better to run from monsters than fight them, though they do so by being 100% nonthreatening but shouting "You must do X DPS for autoexplore to work on this level" is stupid, but just keeping them as they are because they are annoying seems dumb.

For this message the author milski has received thanks:
VeryAngryFelid

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5382

Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36

Post Monday, 6th February 2017, 23:50

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

Being annoying is bad design. Please remove red devil's "leap back" ability as well.

Blades Runner

Posts: 548

Joined: Monday, 23rd March 2015, 05:29

Post Thursday, 9th February 2017, 18:44

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

yes but also spawn them with wands, slings, and bows, imo

or merge crimson and shadow imps, give crimson imps pain

Tartarus Sorceror

Posts: 1822

Joined: Thursday, 31st May 2012, 15:45

Post Thursday, 9th February 2017, 19:02

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

The only time crimson imps kill me is when they spawn with a wand. That sucks a lot because the blink and regen makes it nearly impossible to kill them before the wand kills you.
Won (52). Remaining (15): 5 species: Ba, Fe, Mu, Na, Op; 5 Backgrounds: AM, Wr, Su, AE, Ar; 5 gods: Jiyv, newNem, WJC, newSif, newFedh

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 714

Joined: Saturday, 5th December 2015, 06:56

Post Thursday, 9th February 2017, 19:26

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

surely there must be a better way for crimson imps to teach players not to fight everything they encounter other than them being really annoying and tedious to kill

For this message the author lethediver has received thanks: 2
duvessa, nago

Slime Squisher

Posts: 395

Joined: Wednesday, 6th July 2016, 02:40

Post Thursday, 9th February 2017, 23:46

Re: Remove fast regen from Crimson Imp

lethediver wrote:surely there must be a better way for crimson imps to teach players not to fight everything they encounter other than them being really annoying and tedious to kill


D:1 worms already greatly serve that lecture for noobs.
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/papilio.html

Done 15-rune wins with all playable species, backgrounds, gods!

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 32 guests

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