Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces


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

Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 14:03

Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I understand that this proposal is radical and tricky to balance, but it'll add tons of new starting characters.

Basically I offer to remove 5 races and make them subraces, so after you choose a race you get a new choice:

a) Mundane
b) Demonspawn
c) Demigod
d) Mummy
e) Ghoul
f) Vampire

Human + b, c, d, e or f should be identical to the current races.

Race X + b, c, d, e or f should differ from race X as much as demonspawns, demigods, mummies, ghouls, vampires differ from humans

Troll demigod - same as troll except -1 to aptitudes , no god, better attributes, even slower leveluping
Spriggan demonspawn - same as spriggan except adjusted aptitudes, restricted gods, mutations, slower leveluping

and so on

The biggest problem is that if you simply add aptitudes there are would be some very very sick combos, like deep elf\vampire\enchanter with +7 hexes. Note that this problem exist only with vampires

Another problem is HP\MP levels and attribute gains but I think a right formula can be found

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 14:22

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I came in my pants thinking about it. But it's a pipedream, I don't think the higher powers would allow such a thing.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 15:20

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

From a certain viewpoint, this idea makes a lot of sense. And from my non-expert opinion, I think the balance issues could be addressed. The major hurdles I see:

- It would be a TON of work. Let's remember that the devs are not getting paid to do this.
- It would add another level to character selection, something that I think they are actually wanting to streamline.

So even if it is a really cool idea, I'd guess it's a very long shot.

I think the 2nd issue would be a bigger one than it sounds like at first.

Snake Sneak

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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 22:09

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

Yes it's really a long shot. Surely not for 0.8

Maybe it could be limited to demonspawns\demigods only?. They have far less problems with balancing than undeads. No headaches like troll\ghoul (what claws should they get? ) or sprrigan\vampire (herbivore vampire?) or deep dwarf\vampire (do they regenerate when full?)

BTW maybe game design should split in two sections? One for the ideas\feedback for th current version in development, and one for proposals that require a lot of work and aren't planned
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Post Friday, 14th January 2011, 22:13

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

Strongpoint wrote:BTW maybe game design should split in two sections? One for the ideas\feedback for th current version in development, and one for proposals that require a lot of work and aren't planned


Not a bad idea.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 16th January 2011, 00:36

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

God no.
Strongpoint wrote:it'll add tons of new starting characters.

Not a good thing unless there's real variety - having a gazillion different combos for races would only make character creation needlessly convoluted without adding anything meaningful.
Note that it's also inevitable that there would be an uber combo that would be completely broken in a system like this.

If playing a demigod half-elf half-felid vampire (dual-classed berserker/death knight) sounds interesting to you there's always ToME.

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evktalo

co

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 16th January 2011, 06:19

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I agree with coolio, new unique races is good, ~60 new races that are only slightly diffrent from our current races will just clutter up the character creation process and be confusing to new players. Another problem is that you will have very little control over this system many will be brokenly good, some will be boring and many will be too much alike.
This is why we removed gray elves and hill dwarves. If there is any particular combo of appitutdes you would like, you are better off proposing a new race with those appitudes.

Sorry if I sound harsh. :)

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Snake Sneak

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Post Sunday, 16th January 2011, 14:09

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

If playing a demigod half-elf half-felid vampire (dual-classed berserker/death knight) sounds interesting to you there's always ToME.


Did I offered that?

~60 new races that are only slightly diffrent from our current races will just clutter up the character creation process and be confusing to new players.

I can't disagree more...
It's not 60 new races, It's not hybrids between races. It's an option for existing races. Onetime decision. High elf\mundane and High elf\mummy is not more different races than High elf of Trog and High elf of Vehumet. Halfling\demonspawn and Kobold\demonspawn is not more same races than Halfling of Jiyva and Kobold of Jiyva.

It's trade off. Godless for attributes\stats. Hungerless for no potion and RF- and so on. It's like a second god that you can't abandon and can combine with normal gods

Taking kenku\mummy to blast thing with high level conjurations early or troll mummy to get rid of constant hunger but keep insane regeneration is interesting, playing vanilla Mummy... not so

Taking deep elf\demigod\wizard for high Int or troll\fighter\demigod for high str is interesting, vanilla demigod...

Some combos would be not viable, some very strong, but you can say that about race\class and race\god combos

And I really don't understand that part about confusing new players, In most RPGs character creation is a long process and it's never was a problem

Another problem is that you will have very little control over this system many will be brokenly good, some will be boring and many will be too much alike.


Same can be said about the gods, no? MdBe, MnBe, HoBe aren't really different. Deep drawf of Mackleb is very good. Okawaru is boring. Felid of Che is practically useless
BTW, the temple is very confusing for new players, you need to play a lot to learn how to use gods properly.

co

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Mines Malingerer

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Post Sunday, 16th January 2011, 16:01

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

The gods are not as game defining as the races and when you reach to the temple you get to read about the gods and make a informed decision.
Many combos would be overpowered (such as troll mummy) and to balance that we would have to make special exceptions and special exceptions are hard to make transparent .

Other problematic combos:

Naga Vampire (extra stealth + fleeing as a quick bat).
Draconian Demonspawn (mutation fest).
Deep Dwarf Mummy (almost no heal).
Kenku Demigod (better than kenku at almost everything?)
Felid Demonspawn ( Most appitudes doesn't matter + mutations)

I think the right way to go about to do this is to identify the combos you think are interesting, and use that as a base for a new race proposal/brainstorm, that way we can balance as needed.

I like the fact that each race is in crawl is rather unique.

For this message the author co has received thanks: 5
coolio, evktalo, GameKnut, mageykun, psyshvl
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 03:14

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

Apart from balance issues, I find it enough of a puzzle trying to put together good builds with the existing level of choice. Having yet another level of character creation that was this significant would cripple me with second-guessing.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 03:18

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I like the idea but yeah this would never work in crawl.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 04:06

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

Yeah. It's as I said; personally I'm all for it and I love the idea and I want to have your babies, but it's too good to be true.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 04:12

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I'd hardly call it too good to be true; it's a nice concept, yes, but it would break crawl horribly, regardless of any interface complications and dilution of variance.
Could be fine in a different game, though; particularly one designed to work nicely with it.

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 04:22

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

Well I define 'too good to be true' as, say, I imagine it and the idea of playing it makes me giddy. I don't tend to take into account if it'll 'break' the game, per se, but it does just -sound- fun as all hell.

Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 17th January 2011, 13:36

Re: Demigod, demonspawn, undead as subraces

I've had this idea in my personal notes of ideas for Crawl since 2000.. and it took me years to realize how it's not really very good. ;) I also had construct races in there. Where you could choose if they were elven made, or dwarven made, or human made etc... dwarven iron golem!

co wrote:I think the right way to go about to do this is to identify the combos you think are interesting, and use that as a base for a new race proposal/brainstorm, that way we can balance as needed.


That's an excellent notion (and also very constructive!).

--Eino

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