Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]


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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Post Tuesday, 3rd December 2019, 19:02

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I played with foxfire a little and it felt like the damage scaling was a little weak (perhaps particularly so for early targets with nonzero AC, since it presumably applies twice now). I would suggest thinking of foxfire as a replacement for both flame tongue and throw flame, scaling both the damage and the range from the low end of flame tongue to the high end of throw flame with spellpower. It's fine for it to be cheap. Direct damage spells eat too much mp anyway.
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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 11:09

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Feedback of CWZ community

[Fire]
Fox Fire: This is a good spell, but not being able to use it in the aisles makes us hard. We need another low-level fire spell.
Conjure Flame
1. If I get slow, I can't use it.
2. If I faith the Cheibriados, it is difficult to use it because it slows down.

[Ice]
Freese: Of course, this is a strong spell. But for too long, this alone has to attack the enemy. This is a little painful. We need a low level of spell between Freese and Hail Storm.

[Air]
Airstrike: I wish I could see graphically the improved effects of airstrike.



This is my personal opinion. I tried playing the Gr FE. It was a fun game. I especially like the Inner Flame. In early games, this spell was the core of tactics.
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Starbusrt: It's a good spell. I used this often. I used this spell when the enemy was in the right position, or moved toward the enemy and used this spell. In my case, there have been many times when I was in danger while moving to use it, even though I was Gr. Perhaps more fragile wizards won't be easy to move around to use it.
Damage and hit rate are already enough. I think it would be better to increase the range by one. I feel this measure is rather strong, but I think this magic trick is acceptable as a counterweight to it because it has a lot of penalty.

Ozocubu's Refrigeration: This spell is too strong even if penalty is taken into account. If you don't intend to rollback the damage, I think this spell suits level 7.

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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 19:00

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I think refrigeration is still the worst level 6 spell. Sure it does 1/3rd more damage now (4d(5+power/10) instead of 3d(5+power/10)) but the damage was really bad in the first place.

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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 19:06

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

re: complaints about using firefox in 1-tile corridors, it would be preferable to reduce dungeon generation's use of this kind of feature.
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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 19:41

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

tealizard wrote:re: complaints about using firefox in 1-tile corridors, it would be preferable to reduce dungeon generation's use of this kind of feature.

Reducing it does nothing. As long as *any* corridors exist *anywhere* they're the best place to fight for any non-FE, and not being able to use them puts FE at a distinct disadvantage over everyone else. Reducing their generation just adds tedium as you have to do more shouting/luring to get critters into the less-frequently generated locations. (The less frequent you make them the more tedium you're adding)

If you want to reduce their use, you need to add something that's tactically *superior* to corridors (or ideally, add a variety things that could be tactically superior for different reasons in different situations, making corridor use one of a number of options that might be better for different reasons) That's actually hard to do in a 2d environment.

Note that this particular feature (corridors being superior, tactically) is shared by a vary large number of games that take place on a grid, have multiple enemies that take up space and have walls that restrict movement (It's not limited to RPGs or Roguelikes, or even computer games).
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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 21:21

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

As long as players don't find themselves in very long corridors or large systems of corridors, players will be able to maneuver around the behavior of spells. I'd be all for total elimination of 1-tile hallways though. It's not a crazy or infeasible thing to do.

As for the theory that this would add luring or whatever, I doubt that and I think your suggestions about the limits of grid-based play are ill-conceived. There are already many crawl layouts that have few or no 1-tile corridors. Many of the layouts that rely heavily on 1-tile corridors could be reworked not to use them pretty easily. Beyond just fattening up straight corridors to have width 2, you can also make them bend and meander so that even where two opposite walls are separated by only one tile of open space, any given open tile is adjacent to at least 3 other open tiles, a very different geometric and tactical situation.
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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 21:28

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Partial agree and disagree with tealizard wrt corridors. The game uses them a ton, especially early on. There are advantages to this for the player, but it also increases likelihood for long LoS unbroken with crap like orc priests/centaurs where running/managing LoS isn't an option anymore. You have to just fight them or have teleport ID'd already.

Also, shorter corridors *does* implicitly reduce tedium of movement wrt spells like foxfire.

Luring remains a strong tactic regardless of the presence of corridors; if you can pull a monster 15+ tiles away from unexplored territory and shank it 1v1 that's still useful even if you're completely in the open. Arguably more so, because there's less of an alternative between that and getting surrounded.

I do like it as a feature in some areas of the game though, because it does change movement considerations a bit. It could probably do with being a bit less frontloaded + distributed extremely heavily where it appears though (Dungeon and Elf). Depths has them and they're okay there because they're not overdone, and there's plenty of ranged + much faster stuff that will punish you if you rely on just running to a corridor all the time.

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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 23:28

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

tealizard wrote:As for the theory that this would add luring or whatever, I doubt that and I think your suggestions about the limits of grid-based play are ill-conceived. There are already many crawl layouts that have few or no 1-tile corridors. Many of the layouts that rely heavily on 1-tile corridors could be reworked not to use them pretty easily. Beyond just fattening up straight corridors to have width 2, you can also make them bend and meander so that even where two opposite walls are separated by only one tile of open space, any given open tile is adjacent to at least 3 other open tiles, a very different geometric and tactical situation.

I'm not saying you *couldn't* eliminate them, I am saying reducing them *without completely removing them* means it's optimal to lure packs even further.

I *already* lure packs of yaks from the beginning of the lair up to a cleared dungeon floor with a corridor if there's no convenient 1 square choke point early on. If there was only 1 such location every 3-4 levels or so I would *still lure packs all the way back to it* unless it was clear that they were trivial or there was some other reason I shouldn't do so. When I come across those open layouts, I get annoyed, because I know I'm in for a long, boring time shouting and luring things back to stairs and pulling them onto levels where I won't get surrounded.

Presently choke points are nearly always the best choice tactically, if there's a choke point, and a non-choke point in which I could fight, I will chose the choke point unless there's some other large overriding consideration, even if it's a lot of tedious luring to get things to fight me there (half a level is trivial in terms of the lengths to which I will go to fight something one on one)

My *preference* would be to find ways to make other things as good as choke points are tactically, without significantly weakening the players (FE's present take is to just make them outright weaker) making *everyone* weaker by the same amount certainly does fix the FE balance problem, but doesn't really solve the tactical problem at a real level.

Right now, there's *no* advantage to being in the open, and the more open you are, the more disadvantage you're at. Completely removing 1 tile corridors does reduce the problem, but it really just kicks it down the road a little way, there's still some "optimal" fighting area, and you should still optimally lure things to whatever that is and not fight everything in the open. A more robust solution would be to do some actual design work and come up with ways in which fighting in different places would be optimal in different situations and make those all balanced against each-other in a broad-strokes kind of way. I don't know what that might look like, but if that was the case, then removing corridors would become a non-issue.
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Post Friday, 6th December 2019, 23:52

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Well, you're describing scenarios that take a lot of turns and involve crossing between dungeon levels and branches. If the number of turns it takes to do these things gets big enough, it may become possible to control them with clock mechanics. There are also possibilities for breaking up the dungeon structure in ways that prevent some of these things, such as shaft-stairs and shaft branch entry.
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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 00:26

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

tealizard wrote:Well, you're describing scenarios that take a lot of turns and involve crossing between dungeon levels and branches. If the number of turns it takes to do these things gets big enough, it may become possible to control them with clock mechanics. There are also possibilities for breaking up the dungeon structure in ways that prevent some of these things, such as shaft-stairs and shaft branch entry.

Yes, there's absolutely a whole panoply of options (from removing all 1 square corridor things outright, to introducing new tactical options, to doing nothing about choke points and just fixing FE so they aren't weirdly penalized compared to every other background)

I was just saying that the band-aid of reducing the 1 square corridor frequency *by itself* with no other mitigation, would be worse than the current situation.
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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 01:02

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

This thread was doing so well sticking to playtesting feedback. Maybe we can get back to it. I’m especially grateful to Sydney for translating cwz feedback.

The issue with cflame and slow has been fixed.

Foxfire was literally designed with the expressed purpose of being bad in corridors; that FE as a background now has a more different start from others is a feature. Besides, a starting FE isn’t helpless in a corridor: you’ve got fists/claws/tentacles/paws.

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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 07:56

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Foxfire: Mainly, the constant prompts that pop up when you move into it is incredibly annoying and tedious. Being unusable in corridors is secondary to the annoyance of the prompts. Just make it swappable. Also, it seems to spawn on top of allies or something and turns them hostile.

Conjure flame: Yea, it was one of the more OP spells, but turning it into unusable garbage seems extreme. It just takes too many turns to use it and most of the use cases are simply not there anymore.

Inner flame: Very powerful now and worth using. Some synergy with foxfire as you move back and let it explode. Good change.

Starburst: Mini ignition. Its great on stairs. Hits a lot of guys in places like spider if you are not squishy like a mofo. Works fine as a bolt spell too since you usually lined monsters in straight lines before anyways. My favorite change from fire.

Ice has a very noticable lack of spells after freeze. Hailstorm takes very long to get online and you will be using nothing but freeze for way too long.

Hailstorm: Really like it. A bit finicky to use and AOE is really small at low spell power. Once you get the power high enough, you got the work horse for Ice magic. Good synergy with ice beast, spire, and IMB.

IMB: Good change. Range is a bit short, but it does a bunch of things. Aoe, pushback, decent damage. I used this quite a lot on FE, IE, Cj.

Searing ray: Pretty much your main spell for a very very long time on Cj. Straight buff with the tracking.

Dazzling: Garbage. I don't know what the blind chance is but it damn near never works. I had a guy with max power dazzling flash, and it didn't work most of the time. Previous version at least had passable damage for like SpEn to shoot stuff with. This version will be useless as far as I can tell. Also, wasn't the old targeter more positional than the current one?

Bog: Its a cool and novel spell. Seems underpowered in practice for being a lvl 6 spell. A bit like conjure flame in that it takes too long to set up if you are trying to be fancy. Mostly just used in corridors. Prompts are always annoying. Spell should give you +Bog status and make you immune to bog for the duration, then remove all bog tiles when you lose +Bog.

Clutch: Its... fine. The commit notes are pretty absurd in their reasoning, but whatever. Nerfed because you can't tank a group and get all adjacent guys with one cast. Its still vile clutch and OP. It's more annoying to aim it now tough. Strange how most bolts were removed because reasons, but clutch turned into a bolt.

Have not played with range 1 necro spells but I fail to see how turning spells into melee fits a positional magic theme. If its just a nerf, so be it.

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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 10:24

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

gameguard wrote:Have not played with range 1 necro spells but I fail to see how turning spells into melee fits a positional magic theme.
Positioning to use a range 1 spell is harder than positioning to use a range 7 spell

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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 10:29

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I guess there's been no uptake on the option spell, but maybe a way to fill out the fire set would be to make foxfire also spawn fire guys around clouds made by cflame. That would deal with the damage scaling thing to some extent as well. edit: hell, you could make duplication of spell effects on fire clouds the whole theme of the school.
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Post Saturday, 7th December 2019, 16:24

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I played a bunch of mages recently, and since there's some more activity in this thread, here's some more actual playtesting feedback:

I think refrigeration is in a good place right now. The damage is low for level 6 but considering how many things it can hit at the same time and that it never misses, and is silent, it's still worth using. I think it would be too strong but for the -Potion effect, which keeps you from using it too recklessly.

I still feel IE needs a level 2 or 3 spell that works at range. Literally anything that does damage or impedes movement. Ensorcelled Hibernation would work fine. Being able to make a block of ice like you get with Glaciate -- if not creating one directly, as a debuff that guarantees one appears when you kill a monster that's affected with it. Bring back Throw Frost. Make a patch of ice on the ground that slows monsters. Throw snowflakes that take time to travel at range, like OOD. Summon Ufetubi. Start with a limited supply of freezing-branded rocks i.e. snowballs. Just *something*. Right now it feels like a hybrid start without a weapon, which is fine if you happen to come across a good one and you're a non-frail species, or you have nothing really hard until you get Ice Beast going, but really not reliable otherwise.

Foxfire is potentially quite dangerous at the very beginning of the game, but fine after that. The game I played online recently was the 2nd or 3rd time I had used it, and the first one I finished. It didn't take long until I intuitively got a sense for where I should be using it and where I should be moving. I think it further encourages luring, but luring is so strong and prevalent that that doesn't really matter. You probably don't like the idea of starting FE with a wand of flame that has like 5 charges but it would solve the game opening problem pretty well IMO.

Conjurer feels weird since Searing Ray is a lot stronger now and IMB is much more situational, but it's fine. I think the new searing ray feels *less* positional: I didn't care where I was in relation to things, just that they were in range. I personally don't mind though. I tried Dazzling Flash a few times with poor results, and then ignored it entirely.

Starburst is great, Bog is great, new VM is great.

I think a more interesting idea for Agony would be to have it max range, but then successfully hurting something with it makes them immune to it for some time, like after you put something to sleep with EH. Anyhow Necro is still strong but the changes to it are all stick and no carrot so I didn't really play with it much.

tealizard wrote:I guess there's been no uptake on the option spell, but maybe a way to fill out the fire set would be to make foxfire also spawn fire guys around clouds made by cflame.


I really love this idea.
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Post Monday, 9th December 2019, 17:16

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

[Bug report]
dazzling.png
dazzling.png (31.73 KiB) Viewed 15497 times

Dazzling Flash is a bug that cannot be aimed at the far enemy.

[CWZ's Feedback]
Dazzling Flash: Dazzling spray could have tried up to six times to make the target blind before the enemy came. However, new spells can have up to 3 chances, and the farther you are from the enemy, the lower the chance. It doesn't matter how many enemies can be hit. It is more important to me how fast I can blind a single target.



This is my personal opinion. I thought about the idea of ​​turning Dazzling Flash into an Channeling method. While maintaining the chance and range of this. Hmm... is it too strong?

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Post Monday, 9th December 2019, 19:08

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Re: that bug report; I suspect what's going on is that you don't have enough spell power to hit range 3. At low spell power, Dazzling Flash is only 2 range.
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Post Monday, 9th December 2019, 20:03

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

It is a valid opinion, but it is not. I set all skill levels at 27. Therefore, Spellpower of Dazzling Flash is the full.

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Post Monday, 9th December 2019, 22:07

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

The range bug should be fixed now, and you can also get around it in the meantime by casting with Z instead of z.

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Post Wednesday, 11th December 2019, 11:46

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I've played a bit of IE start and I feel the background is a very bad spot right now - both gameplay and powerwise.

1) They lack something in-between freeze and lv.4 spells.
Freeze is the best damage lv.1 spell, but missing a ranged option until lv.4 is a huge gap. Not considering the difficulties related to that, it doesn't feel to play a "book background" after the first floors until ice beast.

2) I find Hailstorm an extremely bad spell.
Powerwise, it's probably good when you're almost surrounded by enemies, but that's contrary to the fundamental rule you don't want ever to be surrounded by enemies.
Gameplay wise, it synergies well with ice beasts, but I think the gimmick of "don't hit closest square" forces too much luring and annoying tactics. The high variance of the damage and the fact it is best used with a summoning spell - which already boost degenerate tactics - don't help.
E.g. the basic is to have some ice beasts between you and the monster, and retreat a couple of squares everytime it get too close to avoid getting to melee range.
At worst, against speed 10 monsters, if there isn't a ice beast in good position to swap with and the monster it's still a good health you most probably want to retreat to the upper floor and try again the fight, because you can't use anymore when it get close to you. Very very bad.
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Post Wednesday, 11th December 2019, 12:12

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

The problem with hailstorm does not hitting adjacent places is that it is already good to not let monsters next to you most of the time and you can avoid it at the same time with degenerate tactics. So it just leads to a lot of tedium for monsters that you could have let step next to you with throw icicle and kill quickly. Instead, you need to use the degenerate distance keeping tactics for every single monster, and play much slower.

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Post Wednesday, 11th December 2019, 18:02

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

ebering wrote:Foxfire was literally designed with the expressed purpose of being bad in corridors; that FE as a background now has a more different start from others is a feature. Besides, a starting FE isn’t helpless in a corridor: you’ve got fists/claws/tentacles/paws.


Probably we should make FE a not-recommended background for any race that doesn't start with an advantage in unarmed, untrained combat, notably DE and possibly DG/HO, although the latter at least have more HP and higher strength and HO at least have an aptitude for fire (so they can train physical skills earlier) starting unarmed DEFE have like a 50% chance against a hobgoblin in a corridor (and some starting vaults have a significant amount of corridors before you encounter any open space in which one could use foxfire)

Maybe instead start FE with a dagger or short blade or other weapon and a point of skill if they're going to be relegated to using melee attacks in some circumstances (that leans into using melee with sticky flame later)? (Possibly moving them into the warrior-mage category as well?)
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Post Wednesday, 11th December 2019, 23:37

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Foxfire is only less useful in the middle of a corridor. If you're in a corner and the monster is still some distance from you, it works fine, because there are two free squares adjacent to you where they can spawn and path to the enemy.

Besides, hobgoblins are speed-10, so it's usually always possible to get to an open area.

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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 00:53

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

bel wrote:Foxfire is only less useful in the middle of a corridor. If you're in a corner and the monster is still some distance from you, it works fine, because there are two free squares adjacent to you where they can spawn and path to the enemy.

Besides, hobgoblins are speed-10, so it's usually always possible to get to an open area.


Actually, foxfire is about half as useful in a 1 square wide corner as it is in open area, you can't cast the spell *again* after the first time; you can only cast it every other turn. It requires at least 4 open squares to make maximum use of foxfire (plus possibly one for the monster itself, and of course a square for the player).

It's 3/4 as useful if you're at a T junction (or at a cross junction with a creature adjacent), as you only get 2 balls every other time (if you only have 3 open squares adajcent you only have 1 square to summon things into after the first pair) This is also true if you're backed into a corner of a room with only 3 open squares adjacent to you, or have 4 open squares adjacent and one has a monster. (or if you have 5 open squares, two of which have monsters in them, etc. etc.)

If you're in a corridor and *not* at a corner (and the creature is more than one square away), firefox is less than 1/4 as effective, you can only cast it every other time, *and* it only does half damage, plus it also delays you from retreating further if things go poorly.

It's also 1/4 as effective if the thing is adjacent to you in a 1 square corridor corner, and of course it's completely useless against things that are adjacent to you in a non-corner corridor.

You can retreat from hobgoblins (or all the other speed 10 stuff on D:1) unless you can't, because there's a creature in the other direction (If I'm backing away from a hobgoblin I meet in a corridor, and encounter a rat or goblin coming from the other direction I'm pretty well stuck unless i get very lucky and kill them both in one or two casts), or there's not another direction to retreat to, which is definitely *not* the majority of the time, but there's no forewarning that the corridor you're about to step into is a dead end and you'll have to fight your way back out of it because a wandering monster followed you in. It's *not* a very large amount of the time, but *in the small minority of cases when it happens* FE are at a large disadvantage over other background.

Additionally as an early spell-caster sometimes you just fail to kill something before it gets adjacent to you with the amount of mana you have available. This is normal, and happens with bad rolls pretty often. For all non FE the thing to do is to find a nice reasonably safe place and walk around in circles until you regen enough mana (and possibly health) and try again. FE, however have a much smaller set of "safe" options for a lot of layouts, making the background harder than the alternatives (particularly if you're below average at fighting things without spells).

To be clear my point about corridors is definitely about a small minority of cases over the span of maybe the first level or two, but corridors are *really* powerful in that time-span, and it's one of the parts of the game where you have the least control, cutting it off from FE means they're at a serious disadvantage for that time-span, which is fine (not all backgrounds need to be equally viable in all portions of the game) The fact that it's *also* worse against more than one creature when they're surrounding you *also* makes the background a little harder (for comparison freeze doesn't get notably worse if you encounter robin, for example)

I think it's completely fair to say "Hey this background is a little harder in the early game than the other ones, particularly if you're not above average at killing things without access to your spells" to the point of making it not one of the *recommended backgrounds* for races that don't have the staying power to handle the (fairly rare) unavoidably bad situations.
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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 02:05

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I wouldn't say "half as useful", but I get your point that Foxfire is indeed less useful even in a corner.

However, I feel that DEFE is completely fine as a recommended background. I didn't have any problems with it when I tried it. I don't know about HOFE.

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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 05:05

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

bel wrote:I wouldn't say "half as useful", but I get your point that Foxfire is indeed less useful even in a corner.

Well, I mean what else would you call "you can only use this spell every other turn" if not "half"?
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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 10:32

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

A bit out of topic but as dev are reading this topic: I played a VM to try new sting and so on and used ignite poison I think for the first time.
I'm pretty positive its power should be tuned down: i've used it as main kill spell in conjution with toxic radiance and until Vaults it's broken. It utterly destroys humans guard, elves, footaurs, ogre packs - and with some shaningans with meph cloud you can also kill rpois things like hydras. It is actually better later than earlier, because the char has more mp to spend on it - its only drawback it requires a good amount of mp.

I'm still using in depths with things like deep trolls and spriggan packs (man it obliviously annihilates fucking enemies with high EV and no hp!).
Probably at this point it isn't the 100% best attack available but being an unresistible, full LOS attack it doesn't matter because killing things at the edge inefficiently it's much better than being efficient at close range.

e.g.

The ettin seems to burn from within!!!
The ettin is almost dead.


edit: I've killed most orb guardians and killer klowns in 3-5 cast of ignite posion :lol: . That means usually toxic radiance - ignite poison x2 - toxic radiance - ignite poison x2 - repeat third time if necessary.
It is good also against draconians, if you wonder.
And I've ######.. spellpower, I'd be curious to test it at full spellpower.


The way the "combo" works it also made me think a potential lv.6/7 poison spells: a long range - 6 or so range - attack that check HD or MR instead of rpois - in order to affects anything alive or demonic, with a decent high spellpower intrisic bonus similar to agony. If the monster is afflicted, he starts to take good damage every turn - like ignite poison. Every turn there's a chance the diseas spreads to nearby monsters - range 1, 3? - with lower spellpower. The spreading effect could work only for the original target or also for the sub-sequential ones.

A spell like that would encourage a lot luring, but all poisons spells work like that, so...
Last edited by nago on Thursday, 12th December 2019, 15:21, edited 1 time in total.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Zot Zealot

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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 11:41

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

It would be funny if you could 'poison' the undead by affecting nearby natural creatures with the plague...

Spider Stomper

Posts: 200

Joined: Sunday, 11th May 2014, 11:26

Post Sunday, 15th December 2019, 12:19

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Agony, Dispel Undead: It was a bizarre experience for me to use this. This required me, the wizard, to act like a warrior. Is it worth me? No. It's too dangerous for the effects. And, I'm in favor of the idea of Positional Attack Magic, but... I don't think that means the wizard acts like a warrior with a club of magic.
My opinions.
Idea 1. Both maintain the power and increase the range to 3.
Idea 2. Agony: Channeling method. During the duration, the player inflicts agony random targets among the enemies in sight. The target change every time. This spell disappears when the player moves.
Idea 3. Dispel Undead: This spell attack the nearest target among enemies in sight. It's a smite method, but player can't targeting target.

Crypt Cleanser

Posts: 724

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

Post Monday, 23rd December 2019, 19:40

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

There were a lot of redundant bolt/projectile damage spells with a lot of range so pure caster backgrounds left at the 100% mercy of RNG/Gods to find stronger spells had much higher chances of finding something to kill monsters before they got in meele range and annihilated their no-defence asses.

Now, I got some bizarro 1-range conjurations or weird shit like Hailstorm which doesn't work when you're surrounded, and lots of fun direct-damage spells removed.

I like to play DEWi and honestly those new spells are useless to me. Playing a mage was a lottery enough, now it's hopeless. Renaming Force Lance to IMB and turning it into a bad-breath range spell (instead of just removing Force Lance which was usefull for nothing exactly) was the straw that made me play 0.24 instead of trunk.

Thanks.
"Damned, damned be the legions of the damned..."

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Spider Stomper

Posts: 200

Joined: Sunday, 11th May 2014, 11:26

Post Wednesday, 25th December 2019, 10:33

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

[Bug report]
IMB: IMB does not harm plants when belief Fedhas, but a warning window appears. For your information, this window also appears in Cloud wand, Scattershot wand, Freezing Cloud, Shatter.
bug1.png
bug1.png (51.09 KiB) Viewed 14786 times

bug2.png
bug2.png (4.91 KiB) Viewed 14786 times

Temple Termagant

Posts: 14

Joined: Tuesday, 22nd March 2016, 01:58

Post Friday, 10th January 2020, 20:15

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Actual conversation:

Gerad: Trunk isn't too bad!
Me: That's because you don't play casters.
Gerad: Do too!
Me: Play FE, hate life
Gerad: I honestly think Foxfire is a pretty good L1 spell.
Me: Foxfire is literally useless in a corridor. AKA when you need it most.
Gerad: Lure things out into the open.


I feel like there's a balance point between "seventy thousand beam spells" and "zero beam spells" that's not being hit in trunk, and if the changes get pushed I expect players to start dropping off. Casters are already hard enough for new players to get into, and making "bizarro 1-range conjurations or weird shit like Hailstorm which doesn't work when you're surrounded" the default is going to make that problem worse. By eliminating, not restricting, player options in this way, you move from the stated goal of "differentiating magic and ranged combat" to "completely invalidating magic and moving towards its eventual removal." People are going to stop playing casters, and when devs look at the player statistics and see these results, magic is going to start going away completely. And that's not even touching on the fact that so many active participants on the boards, including members of the devteam, have expressed a vehement disdain for luring tactics and anything that promotes them.

I think that, if "Positional Magic" is going to be a priority, then new spells need to start from a place of "this spell is literally functional and justifies its cost in MP, hunger, spell levels and AUTs in the default use case" and look for ways to make it scale up from there when the desired conditions are met. Right now, a lot of these spells do not justify their costs, both material and opportunity, unless you're willing to jump through some pretty obscene hoops, and if you happen to get caught up against a wall (literally, in the case of Foxfire), the new spells are often close to useless, and even actively harmful in a couple cases. Dispel Undead is especially egregious--the use case of the spell is "oh god there's an ancient lich or a curse toe or some other such horrible beast and I can't afford to spend the AUTs to close into melee range, KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT NOW," and limiting its range to melee completely invalidates the use of the spell as intended. It's honestly insulting--I'd rather the spell straight-up be removed entirely, rather than give me the option to waste [s]5 spell levels[/s] NEVER MIND THEY MADE IT SL4 OH THAT MAKES IT SOOOOOO MUCH BETTER I THINK I MIGHT ACTUALLY MEMORIZE IT, NOT on something so utterly non-functional.

I'd say that adding Ignite Poison to VM's starting book almost makes up for all the nonsense, because I've played a lot of VM in my day and, until recently, only won with the background, but I sincerely expect that if the change sticks, it'll last for a version before the spell is either removed from the book, nerfed into unusability, or even deleted altogether, as befitting this devteam's prior track record.

Reason Number 427 Why Foxfire Sucks:
Spoiler: show
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Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 454

Joined: Thursday, 1st November 2018, 02:33

Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 02:25

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

lmaooo
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 8786

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

Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 02:28

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

yeah the balance point is at zero beam spells and its not being hit. #removeboltofmagma

Temple Termagant

Posts: 14

Joined: Tuesday, 22nd March 2016, 01:58

Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 02:53

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

You would, if you had half a chance.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 124

Joined: Monday, 14th March 2011, 11:14

Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 10:16

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

sdynet wrote:Agony, Dispel Undead: It was a bizarre experience for me to use this. This required me, the wizard, to act like a warrior.

Gandalf, one of the most iconic wizards in fantasy literature, casually carries a sword around and fights like everyone else. What are your counter-examples?

Zot Zealot

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Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 15:47

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I just played a couple of random/FE to Temple.
Some comments:

Foxfire is pretty fun, and generally powerful enough.
Foxfire means I have to think more in the early game (eg: when our of mp, should I run into a corridor?), and that's also fun (to me).
However, it's a bit confusing when the foxfires just disappear. Are they blocked by AC? Do they time out? Do they collide with the player character? I don't see any information when a foxfire disappears without dealing damage. It's also non-obvious whether they can deal damage out-of-LOS, or what happens when a monster is around a corner.

Conjure Flame is garbage.
I though I had found a use case: at then end of a corridor I cast CF when an orc was 3 tiles away, so that I could bombard him & the monsters behind him with Foxfire. So I walk out when the orc is 2 tiles away. And the orc steps into the smoke and extinguishes it. 3mp, a turn, and positioning down the drain. I was a Barachi if that matters. I won't be memorising this spell again.

Not having any spells which do anything when you're surrounded until Sticky Flame is really annoying. Some dungeon floors are full of thin corridors, and autoexplore goes into those corridors, and when you meat an enemy near the end of a corridor it's really tempting to step out into the unknown. Which led to a few of my untimely deaths.
I think it would be ok if Foxfire could spawn on top of (and immediately damage) enemies.

Inner flame is kinda worth using, but the MR check is annoying.
I like that monsters can get hurt by the clouds produced by their own inner flame, and the option of trying to get them to stand in that flame without getting caught in the blast yourself.

FoFE is nice (and currently not recommended) because of the ability to munch through walls (which makes foxfire better)

It would be nice if you could cast hexes (inner flame) through Foxfire
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 16:32

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

About corridors, as I keep saying, the answer is to reduce the incidence of corridors (many corridor-heavy layouts could simply be removed without any loss to the game), but also you don't have to explore corridors fully. Just like skipping dangerous monsters, you can skip dangerous terrain and come back for it later if that seems necessary to you. Even the worst corridor layouts can be explored to the tune of 80-90% without diving deeply into long corridors.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

Zot Zealot

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Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 16:41

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

petercordia wrote:autoexplore
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Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 454

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Post Saturday, 11th January 2020, 17:21

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

It is well known that using autoexplore, especially early in the game, frequently gets you killed. That has always been true, probably always will be. More than that, a big part of the motivation for autoexplore is these ridiculous systems of corridors whose generation we can literally just turn off.
This is where mechanical excellence and one-thousand four-hundred horsepower pays off.

Spider Stomper

Posts: 193

Joined: Wednesday, 13th March 2013, 20:38

Post Sunday, 2nd February 2020, 12:06

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

just my 2 cents.
Searing ray too powerful for L2 spell.
Conjure flame is too weak for L3 spell.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 139

Joined: Friday, 13th March 2015, 13:33

Post Wednesday, 12th February 2020, 17:24

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

frozen rampart is too strong. Needs to lose the slow effect or irresistable part.

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nago

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 39

Joined: Saturday, 9th December 2017, 19:14

Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 01:43

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Simply put, the change to Conjure Flame has made it nearly useless for me. Nerfing things out of existence is silly; get rid of them, if you dislike them so much, instead of this Death of a Thousand Cuts -.-' . I completely agree with Kautzman on this; the devs have fallen into the trap of catering to a very small group of players, and it shows.

No, mages are not particularly OP. Please stop making them less fun to play than mindlessly Tabbing through the game, FFS.
Last edited by Bozobub on Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 01:56, edited 1 time in total.

Ziggurat Zagger

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

Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 01:55

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

ebering wrote:In this thread please don't comment with: complaints about nerfs just because they're nerfs, complaints about your favorite spell being removed, or off-the-wall theory crafting.

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Mines Malingerer

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Joined: Saturday, 9th December 2017, 19:14

Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 01:59

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

duvessa wrote:
ebering wrote:In this thread please don't comment with: complaints about nerfs just because they're nerfs, complaints about your favorite spell being removed, or off-the-wall theory crafting.

Try reading what I actually posted. The problem is with the current implementation of Conjure Flames, in re: Positional Magic. I also notice a definite lack of any actual counterpoint(s) from you, here or anywhere else.

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petercordia

Zot Zealot

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Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 17:32

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Yes, the problem with the new CF isn't that it's a nerf, it's that the new spell is extremely hard to use. And therefore basically useless to players like myself.

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2229

Joined: Sunday, 18th December 2011, 13:31

Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 18:52

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Why is it hard?
I think it is extremely annoying - much more than before - an still a bit spoiler to use, but at least personally don't understand how it is hard.
screw it I hate this character I'm gonna go melee Gastronok

Zot Zealot

Posts: 1004

Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Sunday, 23rd February 2020, 20:03

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

Because you can't use it after playing on autopilot. (Which I do because over 90% of the game can be completed on autopilot.)
If I've played on autopilot and a scary monster is next to me... can't use CF anymore.
If I've played on autopilot and a scary monster is in view whilst a weak monster is 3 tiles away... I still can't use CF reliably.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 124

Joined: Monday, 14th March 2011, 11:14

Post Thursday, 27th February 2020, 17:07

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

You know, I have doubts about the positional spell system for DCSS as a whole. In Brogue, Staff of Lightning works like the most straightforward DCSS bolt spell. Nothing is immune. And it's likely one of the worse staves.

It's just that Brogue doesn't have many monster-swamped corridors. Monsters are far less numerous, and more crunchy. Those that appear in groups usually avoid entering corridors and set up a double whammy at its end. Spears and war pikes hit two monsters in a row anyway, and that's quite a lot in Brogue. And outside corridors? Monsters rarely line up for a good shot, have a totem that heals them (ogres), or a goblin mystic who applies shield spell. And Brogue has plenty of long corridors. I imagine inability to walk diagonally around corners is a large part of the story.

In DCSS, waiting in a corridor or around a corner works 90% of the time. Bolt spells are simply the right tool for the job. You may remove most of them, but they will still be a very desired. In the context of DCSS, they're great.

I think it would be more interesting to make players want non-bolt spells. Teaching monsters more corridor tricks and not just Smite could help. These positional spells are a bit of a solution looking for a problem.

I'm not saying DCSS should just mimic what Brogue does. But maybe make half of corridor levels have 2 square wide corridors and see how that works? There are many possibilities.

Zot Zealot

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Post Sunday, 1st March 2020, 21:47

Re: Positional Attack Magic Implementation [Now Playable]

I've played through the early game of an IE.
Frozen Ramparts is strong, and Hailstorm is weak. Also, FR is fun whereas Hailstorm is not.
I would suggest slightly increasing the range of FR and making it level 4, and making Hailstorm level 2. (If you make it level 2 you'd also have to tone the damage down a fraction, but not much.)
Also the feature where Hailstorm doesn't damage ice-immune enemies is annoying. Just commit to making it a summoner spell and make it not damage allies. Call it 'Icy Drizzle' or 'Sleet Shower' or something like that.

Ice Elementalists are beginning to get a theme as Elementalists who benefit from fighting a little hand-to-hand, which is actually pretty fun.
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