Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were given.


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

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Sunday, 10th December 2017, 22:23

Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were given.

I guess this goes hand-in-hand with goldifying spell-books in general, but still it's a topic of it's own.

Right now Sif Muna keeps giving you books even after every single spell in the game has already been given.

This is rather annoying because it serves no purpose and also keeps you from using all the piety that goes into "gift" on actual useful abilities like channeling instead.

For this message the author Tamiore has received thanks:
Fingolfin

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 24

Joined: Tuesday, 9th August 2016, 14:03

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 09:50

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

FR: replace Sif Muna's book gifts with the Request a Book ability.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 09:59

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Ge0ff wrote:FR: replace Sif Muna's book gifts with the Request a Book ability.

Well, I'd say it would be a very reasonable thing to do to replace ALL god gifting from being "by default" to being "on demand".
Or better yet make it a toggle-able state (like Sif Muna's divine energy).
If it's ON — piety goes into gift timeout. If it's OFF — piety goes into the *

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4432

Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 10:25

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

If gifts are changed to be on demand, we might make them cost something else in addition to piety. Like after requesting a weapon from Trog you cannot use its abilities (including free berserk) until you earn some XP.
Underestimated: cleaving, Deep Elf, Formicid, Vehumet, EV
Overestimated: AC, GDS
Twin account of Sandman25

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 11:28

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

VeryAngryFelid wrote:If gifts are changed to be on demand, we might make them cost something else in addition to piety. Like after requesting a weapon from Trog you cannot use its abilities (including free berserk) until you earn some XP.

Technically we CAN, but... why?
Adding an ON/OFF toggle for gifts does not exactly give player anything NEW, so why do we need to balance it out?

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4432

Joined: Friday, 8th May 2015, 17:51

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 11:43

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Tamiore wrote:Technically we CAN, but... why?
Adding an ON/OFF toggle for gifts does not exactly give player anything NEW, so why do we need to balance it out?


Because otherwise you can request multiple weapons during just a few turns.
Underestimated: cleaving, Deep Elf, Formicid, Vehumet, EV
Overestimated: AC, GDS
Twin account of Sandman25

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 12:10

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
Tamiore wrote:Technically we CAN, but... why?
Adding an ON/OFF toggle for gifts does not exactly give player anything NEW, so why do we need to balance it out?


Because otherwise you can request multiple weapons during just a few turns.

Um, no?

Gift timeout will work exactly the same as now as long as the option is toggled ON.
You will just have an option to turn OFF gift timeout renewal and direct all piety into *
As long as it's off the gift timeout will not "tick" and will be frozen at whatever value it was on.

For this message the author Tamiore has received thanks:
VeryAngryFelid

Slime Squisher

Posts: 419

Joined: Monday, 12th September 2016, 16:25

Post Monday, 11th December 2017, 22:32

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Tamiore wrote:If it's ON — piety goes into gift timeout. If it's OFF — piety goes into the *


It would be an awkward fit with the proposal (which I think there's a pull request in for) that Zin cures your muts - good or bad - on the gift timeout. The idea there is definitely that you can't use Zin, who hates muts, to lock in a good set.
Ascension reports with too many words since 2016.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 212

Joined: Monday, 3rd April 2017, 11:44

Post Tuesday, 12th December 2017, 00:34

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Does receiving gifts use up piety? I wasn't aware that it did so.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Tuesday, 12th December 2017, 08:36

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

damerell wrote:
Tamiore wrote:If it's ON — piety goes into gift timeout. If it's OFF — piety goes into the *


It would be an awkward fit with the proposal (which I think there's a pull request in for) that Zin cures your muts - good or bad - on the gift timeout. The idea there is definitely that you can't use Zin, who hates muts, to lock in a good set.

The idea is, as far as I can tell, to make mutation removal CONSTANT feature of Zin instead of current once-per-game.
Which makes sense since right now Zin's protection from mutations is not absolute (so you will get malmutated sooner or later) and potions of cure mutation are gone.
Making mutation removal an OBLIGATORY feature may or may not be intended.
Even Trog does not FORCE you to destroy all spell books and forget all your previous training in spellcasting.

Anyway, making an exception for Zin with his "gifts" of mutation removal being obligatory is fine by me because, presumably, Zin will STOP using piety for it once all of your mutations are gone. So it will still have a natural "OFF" condition.
Last edited by Tamiore on Tuesday, 12th December 2017, 08:39, edited 1 time in total.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Tuesday, 12th December 2017, 08:38

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Plantissue wrote:Does receiving gifts use up piety? I wasn't aware that it did so.

As far as I can tell from my personal experience and from wiki, it does:
>gift timeout begins the turn you receive a gift, and decreases every time you gain piety (this piety is only applied toward ending the gift timeout)

Maybe I'm wrong about it, but I don't get what the "piety is only applied toward ending the gift timeout" part refers to, then.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Tuesday, 12th December 2017, 19:24

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

The wiki is lying. Not all piety goes towards reducing gift timeout, and gift timeout is reduced even when piety taper stops the piety gain anyway. Sif's gift timeout is 40+random2avg(19,2), so you miss an average of 16.333... piety as a result of a book gift, provided you stay at or above 160 piety for the duration.

A "turn gifts off" option is something that only spoiled players could use effectively, since Sif is pretty much the only case where it would ever make sense to use it (gifts do not deprive you of very much piety at all). Everyone else would be hurt by it.

Anyway I wouldn't mind Sif gifts stopping once all spells are available. All spells being given is different - a book gift received in the Abyss, Pan, a portal vault, etc. and left there is no longer accessible, so after you've been gifted all the spells in the game, you not actually have all of them available to learn. So if this is implemented, it should check which spells the player can currently access without buying them from shops, not which ones have been given. But it's probably not worth adding the extra complexity in the first place.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 45

Joined: Monday, 2nd March 2015, 11:55

Post Wednesday, 13th December 2017, 15:07

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

duvessa wrote:The wiki is lying. Not all piety goes towards reducing gift timeout, and gift timeout is reduced even when piety taper stops the piety gain anyway. Sif's gift timeout is 40+random2avg(19,2), so you miss an average of 16.333... piety as a result of a book gift, provided you stay at or above 160 piety for the duration.

Well, 16 piety is still ~6 uses of Sif's new and awesome channeling ability, so it's far from worthless.


duvessa wrote:A "turn gifts off" option is something that only spoiled players could use effectively, since Sif is pretty much the only case where it would ever make sense to use it (gifts do not deprive you of very much piety at all). Everyone else would be hurt by it.

Anyway I wouldn't mind Sif gifts stopping once all spells are available. All spells being given is different - a book gift received in the Abyss, Pan, a portal vault, etc. and left there is no longer accessible, so after you've been gifted all the spells in the game, you not actually have all of them available to learn. So if this is implemented, it should check which spells the player can currently access without buying them from shops, not which ones have been given. But it's probably not worth adding the extra complexity in the first place.

Hence I think it will be nice to pair this with goldifying the spell books. Once spell books are pseudo-items that don't take up space there will be little difference between available and given.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5382

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

Post Wednesday, 13th December 2017, 23:15

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

duvessa wrote:A "turn gifts off" option is something that only spoiled players could use effectively, since Sif is pretty much the only case where it would ever make sense to use it (gifts do not deprive you of very much piety at all). Everyone else would be hurt by it.

It's been a while, but I seem to recall felid beserker having a great deal more trog piety to summon brothers with, which was actually quite powerful. If I was playing Trog I think I'd turn off weapon gifts after finding/being gifted an endgame weapon, and then focus on brothers in arms/trog's hand with my piety.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 212

Joined: Monday, 3rd April 2017, 11:44

Post Saturday, 16th December 2017, 22:03

Re: Stop Sif Muna from giving books after ALL spells were gi

Surely the simpliest "fix" would be to make it so gifts don't cost piety. Gifts need piety to be gained, but don't take any away from the player; a faster gain would give faster time between gifts, which was how I assumed it worked in the first place.

For this message the author Plantissue has received thanks: 2
duvessa, Ge0ff

Return to Game Design Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 23 guests

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