Jiyva

I am starting from scratch again. Old stuff is below the lines. — dpeg 2010-03-10 15:41

Page redone by dpeg 2010-09-20 00:25. Please note something that a few commentators on IRC were obviously not aware of:

• Jiyva is not a temple god. First, the god is not very useful early on (especially compared with the temple gods) and second, using the god is really different to all the other gods (including the odd ones). So we leave it to specialists. For perspective: the slime god dominates your game as much as Nemelex does (i.e. totally) but giving much less power in return.
• Jiyva provides flavour (to the Slime branch) and hopefully spice for players. Jiyva is also useful for speedruns but it is not necessary to design around that.

Players are not supposed to bother with stashing useful items. Currently, this is achieved by randomly sacrificing items without a jelly necessarily being there (4% chance of happening whenever handle_time() is called). — 78291 2010-09-20 03:53

We may want to check whether the 4% are enough. — dpeg 2010-10-07 22:13

It probably isn't because the effect isn't noticeable. And the more trash in the dungeon, the less likely it is to destroy items in the player's stash. Also, there are a few ways to prevent jellies from eating your stash on-level like stashing on the temple upstairs, or on a teletrap. — galehar 2011-03-21 11:48

Prayer can be used to get items before the jellies do. This is a nice touch, but removes the fun race to the item. If we keep prayer, it should have a severe piety cost (so severe that you will not do this for something mundane) like 10-20 piety.

It is currently 5 piety for each jelly in LOS so Slime:6 will have a large cost but usually it is moderately inexpensive. It doesn't seem to be used frequently in the Jiyva games I've watched but from some of the reactions I suspect some don't know about it. — 78291 2010-09-20 03:53

We are in the process of turning such 'p'rayers into 'a'bilities. If we want to keep the power (and I'd say we should, for the time being), this would make players more aware of the option. — dpeg 2010-10-07 22:13

All boosts proposed so far are about abilities (all but one of these are passive).

New in 0.8: To make up for lack of stashing, Jiyva redirects some of the nourishing and healing that fellow slimes get by eating things to the player. In other words, slurping can lead to increasing HP, MP or (these two being full) satiation.

Note an interesting gameplay effect of this: items on a level now become a much more relevant resource: you want important battles to happen quite early, so as to get most of the slurps. After a while, the level becomes barren and you'll better speed up to make most use of the healing. In other words, this adds a minor clock to clearing levels, which is good. (When jellies eat items off-level, you would get the piety, but not the healing, I'd assume.)

The effect is also thematic since the god allows you to profit from slurping just like all the ordinary slimes do.

The only active ability in this list: Temporary, and for a piety cost, this makes nearby walls slimy. I would like it if walls would get slimy after the player or his slimes have touched them, but I don't know how feasible that is (coding and interface wise).

This needs at least some AI work, so that monsters try to get away from slimy walls. (This AI will also be useful in other places, too.)

This is not really a boost, but just flavour: slime creatures could leave a slimy trail which often disappears after a while, but sometimes stays (like blood). Chance for leaving a trail (and its lasting) should depend on the weight of a slimy monster. Similarly, the player could leave such a trail (which will be more persistent the higher his piety is). This wouldn't need gameplay effects.

eronarn:

• The player leaves a non-removable slime trail, with chance depending on number of (piety-influenced, obviously) slimy muts (but even with none, always a low chance as a Jiyvaite).
• The trail is left even on standing still, blinking, levitating, etc. — there is no way around leaving one.
• There is also chance of piety/200 that your spilled blood will come out as slime instead.
• The slime trail decays rapidly, but some patches never decay.
• Jiyva slimes will only appear randomly on top of patches.
• Permanent patches grow as you gain Jiyva piety (regardless of level).
• Patches can grow on/through walls.

So, in other words, Jiyva will only summon slimes in places that you've been to. Flavor-wise, this means that the player is the one spreading Jiyva across the dungeon, and rather than just being 'barren' dungeon levels would also become slimy from the growth (on the run back, earlier dungeon levels would probably look a lot like Slime). Mechanically, this gives you at least a chance to look at/pick up important items, making a switch to Jiyva feasible much earlier in the game.

In exchange for the above, Jiyva should lose the 'halt jellies' prayer, possibly lose the conservation effect (it feels like a poor fit for the god, anyways), and stashing items should become impossible (via the methods described above). You only get the one chance to look at an item — but even then you have to explore quickly, because the jellies will wander after they spawn. This primarily just prevents such things as jellies spawning inside of treasure chambers before you get a chance to open them (but if there's one behind a normal door, and they find it first, it makes sense that they'd eat it).

I realize that this may seem like “nerf Jiyva's item-eating”, but it's really not. I agree that Jiyva shouldn't permit stashing at all, but the on-level slurp ability just cannot make up for that loss, given how important some consumables are. Since I want to see more people play Jiyva, not even less, this seems like a good way to remove the ability to stash without making the god even harder due to a lack of consumables. — Eronarn 2010-09-28 19:30

I don't understand the ”…just cannot make up for that loss” part: this clearly depends on how much HP and MP we dole out for slurps? Eronarn's proposal would take Jiyva in a completely different direction, away from frantic exploration and towards a more careful approach. I think I like the frantic mode better. (The bit about slime instead of blood, the trail and the slimy patches are flavour. They can be used in either system.) — dpeg 2010-10-07 22:13

Currently, some players tend to startscum for an early Jiyva altar (although that is surely because of the god's usefulness for speedruns, which may disappear). Here is a proposal to change altar placement:

• Make dungeon altars much more rare.
• Guarantee an altar among the Slime entrace (in Lair), Slime:1 and Slime:2.
• If someone is up for it, there could be an early portal vault centered around jellies and containing an altar to Jiyva.

OG17 wants either no random early Jiyva altars at all, or a guaranteed one (like an overflow altar). He also suggested that there could be early altar vaults whose altars are the non-funtional shrivelled kind described in the death section below: “That'd keep them around as curiosities without encouraging scumming, and it'd make enough sense flavor-wise for Jiyva to only have “healthy” altars in his haven of the slime pits.” I think I actually like that idea (but I would still also allow living altars, they should just be rare.) — dpeg 2010-09-20 20:06

Jiyva benefits from your playtesting. Some topics that are particularly interesting: penance, wrath, mutations, stat shuffling.

As discussed by Lemuel, dpeg, and zipcode this consists of a two components, both generally agreed upon:

• Acid damage. This could take the form of an acid “brand” on unarmed attacks (aux as well?). dpeg favors a passive acid splash ability, which should corrode monster armor or weapon; this should apply to the yellow draconian breath weapon as well.
• Acid resistance. zipcode notes that rCorr is already included for Jiyvaites, but that resistance to acid damage could be increased further.

Eronarn favors as a series of new slime-related, but not Jiyva-specific, mutations that have effects like this. See Slime Mutations.

Lemuel and dpeg agree that this ability is clunky. Eronarn agrees and extends that observation to Jelly Shield (the current prayer effect). See prayer for options.

Lemuel finds mutations to be too frequent and would prefer that they be reduced by an order of magnitude. zipcode notes that the timer on these may change anyways after he examines Jiyva's piety/gifting. Eronarn disagrees based on the current mutation system: fast and totally random does produce an interesting dynamic. That being said…

Lemuel and Eronarn both favor a biased mutation system instead of a totally random one.

Lemuel proposes a bias towards good and multiple-level mutations, and a bias against Jiyva-granted mutations.

Eronarn generally agrees with the approach but thinks it may work better if “outcome-based”, that is, where Jiyva gives you mutations subsets based on some “intent” in order to make your mutation set seem more cohesive. This is not based on what you want or need at the moment (and the mutations do not have to all be good mutations) but is just a grouping along a theme: “tough mutations”, for example. Components of these subsets are mutated individually, but not independently; that is, they all show up within a short time of each other, last a similar timeframe, and then disappear around the same time. Note that unlike the components of a subset, the subsets themselves are totally independent from each other and can even be contradictory.

Racial and demonspawn mutations shouldn't be considered when checking if a player is too mutated when receiving a random mutation. — 78291 2010-09-20 03:53

Lemuel thinks that stat shuffle should not favor equal stats because this is highly suboptimal. dpeg intends for it to preserve your high stats over most of the time, but wonders if it is broken currently.

Eronarn finds the stat shuffling very annoying in the current implementation, particularly because of encumbrance issues. He does consider it a good concept, however.

Stat shuffling is pretty useful, but from my experience a while ago and from watching a recent game it sounds like Jiyva can reduce your stats far too low. Somebody (Eronarn I think) had +5 strength gear on but still only 8 strength, which implies Jiyva takes your items into account when calculating how low to shuffle your stats. It'd be a lot better if a natural value of 8 (ignoring items and mutations, which of course Jiyva can give you) was the lowest anything could be shuffled. — marvinpa 2010-09-20 18:58

Not sure about fixed limits… the chance to lose stats further should become really small if you approach low numbers. Note that instant statdeath does not exist anymore and that Eronarn won his all runer of Jiyva :) — dpeg 2010-09-20 20:06

The current implementation requires a melee attack, but works with a wielded weapon. Lemuel supports requiring an unarmed attack, like Confusing Touch. Eronarn agrees with this and favors a name change to something like Jiyva's Touch to be more evocative.

Eronarn notes that Slimify may be too powerful in parts of the game. Only the most powerful creatures seem to be able to resist it.

Lemuel, dpeg, and Eronarn note the various problems with Summon Jelly and Jelly Shield. Lemuel suggests that either Prayer is what creates jellies, or that it forces them to halt. dpeg is in favor of halting but zipcode has some interface-related reservations.

Eronarn notes that piety could use some tweaks. It's easy to max it, and you usually don't need to spend any. The times that you do spend it, however, it goes away very quickly. This can be a pain given that Jiyvaites will need to head to a fresh level to gain piety and then come back to finish the hard one.

Eronarn notes that Jiyva penance is vastly annoying and requires hand-feeding items to jellies. Additionally, it may be scummable.

Eronarn notes that Jiyva is very weak in the end game. The loss of items can unpredictably deprive your character of staple items normally taken for granted. Slimify is powerful but expensive, and not useful against the game's toughest enemies. Mutations are useful, but not necessarily capable of providing raw power and unpredictable.

Lemuel: Note that greatly reducing mutation frequency would help address this problem, since it would guarantee Jiyva worshipers a strong, reliable set of mutations in the endgame. (It's not surprising the god is weak in the endgame currently, since the extremely high mutation rate makes the mutations largely color, instead of the major asset they were intended to be.)

Eronarn: Not sure about this. The actual amount of mutations doesn't seem to be a problem as much as the randomness/lack of cohesion. For example, the subsets I propose earlier could have a fair amount of “flicker” yet remain useful as long as the core point of that subset stuck around for a long duration.

Lemuel: Well OK. But this seems like just a complicated and inflexible way of producing the same basic result that much less frequent mutations would. And it seems to me that a big part of the fun of the mutation game is the possibility of getting all sorts of interesting, unexpected mixes, not just predefined sets.

Eronarn: It could be some combination of sets, which don't necessarily have to have anything to do with each other. Or half of the mutations could come from sets, and the other half totally randomly. Or mutations addition could be totally random, but having random mutations converge on a defined set could make them stick around for longer. I definitely think it's beneficial to have a more ordered sub-system within the overall randomness, though: simply making mutations less frequent means more time for using random interesting sets, but also more time for being stuck with boring sets.

Unique slimes exhibit strange behavior, such as summoning demons that gain the friendly slime status. Perhaps they should lose their identities entirely.

Friendly slimes don't do much of anything. You also can't really do anything to them. This is rather boring, and it feels not like you're a Slime Lord but just an adventurer in a particularly clean dungeon.

As noted by Lemuel, neutral jellies should go after items instead of sitting there. This is possibly fixed in 0.7?

As noted by Lemuel, Xom and Jiyva shouldn't overlap in being mutation gods. Correspondingly, Xom has had his mutation frequency drastically decreased.

Currently the race for items is limited. Make the player aware of the places where slimes have been so that he can rush the other places. The slime god could also give hints about the presence of valuable items in a similar way that portals advertise themselves. “Jiyva sees a tasty item, all slimes shiver in delight” “Some slimes start to segregate acid as they aproach a special treat” “You hear a distant hiss as a well crafted weapon/armor is being dissolved in acid” — Fed 2012-05-05 20:07

There is probably room for several slimy mutations, rather than just one. Jiyva could be strongly weighted to provide these mutations, and to not remove them as often. Pulsating Lumps or Shining Eyes could be likely or only able to cause these mutations, rather than causing totally random ones. Jiyva's Remove Bad Mutatons should not apply to bad slime mutations.

Many of these are accessible to non-Jiyvaites, but not all. For Jiyvaites, these should be displayed in the same elemental brown/green of Jiyva's altar and be unremovable with Remove Bad Mutations (the name could reflect this better). Having enough of these slime mutations should change your glyph from a @ to a J.

These mutations are already in:

• Gelatinous body: a simple +AC mutation
  1. Your rubbery body absorbs attacks (AC +1).
  2. Your pliable body absorbs attacks (AC +1, EV +1).
  3. Your gelatinous body deflects attacks (AC +2, EV +2).

• Eyeballs: +Acc bonus and a mutation level in 20 chance of trying to inflict a mutation level * 30 power confuse spell on a monster attacking in melee range. SInv at level 3.
  1. Your body is partially covered in golden eyeballs (Acc +3).
  2. Your body is mostly covered in golden eyeballs (Acc +5).
  3. Your body is completely covered in golden eyeballs (Acc +7, SInv).

• Translucent skin: Level 1 does nothing, level 2 is a 20 point stealth boost, level 3 is a 40 point stealth boost and monsters receive a -5 to hit penalty in melee.
  1. Your skin is partially translucent.
  2. Your skin is mostly translucent (Stlth).
  3. Your transparent skin reduces the accuracy of your foes (Stlth).
  • >This flavor makes no sense whatsoever. — OG17 2010-09-22 21:53

• Pseudopods: Auxiliary unarmed attack that carries the penalties of deformed body and does 4 * mutation level base damage.
  1. Armour fits poorly on your pseudopods.
  2. Armour fits poorly on your large pseudopods.
  3. Armour fits poorly on your massive pseudopods.

• MUT_FOOD_JELLY: a nutrition value in 12000 chance of spawning a neutral jelly when eating a food item.
  • You occasionally spawn a jelly by eating.

• Acidic bite: gives auxiliary bite attacks that do 2d4 extra damage and can corrode
  • You have acidic saliva.

— 78291 2010-09-22 19:20

Brainstorm:

• Deformed Body (Jiyva) Jelly-flavored variant (identical other than description) on an old classic. Incompatible with Deformed Body; this replaces it 90% of the time for Jiyva mutations, 10% of the time for other mutations.
  1. Armor fits poorly on your rubbery body.
  2. Armor fits poorly on your gelatinous body.
  3. Armor fits poorly on your amorphous body.

• Generic Scales (Jiyva) some of the scale mutations should be gelatinous in nature. Again, Jiyva scale mutations are one of these 90% of the time. Other scale mutations are these 10% of the time. For effects see below.
  1. You are partially covered in (thick/ /thin) (yucky colors/translucent/transparent) (ooze/jelly/sludge/gelatin/gunk/yuckiness)
  2. You are mostly covered in (thick/ /thin) (yucky colors/translucent/transparent) (ooze/jelly/sludge/gelatin/gunk/yuckiness)
  3. You are totally covered in (thick/ /thin) (yucky colors/translucent/transparent) (ooze/jelly/sludge/gelatin/gunk/yuckiness)

• Special Scales Some scale mutations, in line with the DS change, will not be “simply” +AC. There is precedent for this: yellow scales give rCorr+. We probably don't want +AC scales, as that fits the sliminess badly. Here are some possibly Jiyva-flavored (but not necessarily Jiyva exclusive) ones:
  • (type) eyeballs: No AC, but +Acc, or +SInv for L3. Eyeballs with flavours that have a chance to stare at opponents for appropriate effects, e.g. giant (paralysis), shining (?), golden (confusion).
  • (color) (ooze): You have a fellow slime growing on you! Certain combos are barred from the “scales” above, and have further effects: green slime [creature] (regeneration), red jelly (weaker acid effect), azure jelly (cold damage or resistance), brown ooze (stronger acid effect), bright green [acid] blobbiness (strongest acid effect), pulsating flesh (?). The types of these could change over time.
  • skin (Jiyva): eronarn's proposal for the Thick Skin class of mutations is that they intersect with scales and so on. Thus, “thick skin” means that your skin gets thicker… but so do your scales, fur, or so on. Jiyva could provide versions of this: gelatinous flesh (+AC; perhaps only vs. crushing attacks), transparent flesh (what effect?)

• Pseudopods Gives an extra crushing attack, perhaps equivalent to a Draconian tail. It's only given with at least one level of Deformed Body (Jiyva) — and thus the corresponding penalty to wearing armor. It doesn't cause loss of a slot:
  1. You can extrude pseudopods from your body.
  2. You can extrude large pseudopods from your body.
  3. You can extrude huge pseudopods from your body.

• Acidic Body Reduces acid damage taken by 33%, 66%, or 100%. Gives bonus acid damage on unarmed strikes proportional to the number of jelly mutations you have. This proportionality is represented by both damage and chance to kick in on any given attack. The mutation can display your net acidity: “drips [very weak/weak/ /strong/very strong/deadly] acid constantly”. The chance to kick in is applied to the acid's attempts to corrode your own worn equipment. Note that anything subject to corrosion will fall off when this mutation is gained: “Your gloves start to smoke! You take them off in a hurry.”. Receive a warning prompt if you try to put it on.
  1. Your hands drip acid constantly. (Bonus damage to pseudopod, hand, and claw attacks; corrodes gloves or weapons that aren't immune to corrosion.)
  2. Your extremities drip acid constantly. (Bonus damage is extended to kicks, talons, tails; corrosion is extended to boots.)
  3. Your entire body drips acid constantly. (Bonus damage is extended to any non-bite unarmed strikes; corrosion is extended to all slots. Note: this could be implemented as a “skin” mutation instead.)

• Acid Blood This mutation provides the “acid splash”, rather than Acidic Body. Checks total level of jellification, as per the Acidic Body mutation, to describe the nature of the acid. The levels indicate the chance of the splash happening…
  1. Your wounds trickle acidic blood.
  2. Your wounds splash acidic blood.
  3. Your wounds gush acidic blood.

• Acid Maw Damage and description, but not chance to kick in (it happens on all bites/spits), are calculated the same way as for acidic body. This shouldn't use the unlimited yellow draconian spit mechanism - players hate it. Use a breath weapon timer.
  1. Your mouth drips acid constantly. Bonus acid damage is applied to bites.
  2. You can dribble acid. An acid spit with low range and accuracy, and high acc falloff.
  3. You can spit acid. An acid spit with a medium range and accuracy, and high acc falloff.

• Item Eating Only given if you have at least one level of Acid Maw. Like Carnivore, but for item eating. Unsure on the mutation description. Possibly a Jiyva-only mutation? Should give piety to Jiyvaites as if any other jelly had eaten items.
  1. All items give equal, very low nutrition. Food items give an additional bonus proportional to, but less than, their normal nutrition.
  2. All items give equal, low nutrition. The food item bonus is diminished further.
  3. All items give equal, moderate nutrition. Food items give no extra bonus.

• Jelly Regeneration Only given with at least one level of Item Eating. Each turn of eating should heal you three times as much as an equivalent level of the Regeneration mutation would've healed you in that time. Possibly a Jiyva-only mutation?
  1. Eating items heals you a little.
  2. Eating items heals you.
  3. Eating items heals you rapidly.

• Slime Creature Only one level, only accessible to Jiyvaites, and only given with three levels of Deformed Body (Jiyva). Very powerful, but very rare and very temporary!
  1. You can merge with your fellow slime creatures.

• Power from slurp Three level, guaranteed mutation.
  1. You gain nutrition when your fellow slimes digest items.
  2. You also gain magical power.
  3. You also gain health.

Building off 2276, Jiyva's dying-if-alone gimmick should go. It creates no interesting gameplay effects, as if the player intends to convert, it's easier to dodge the royal jelly than it would be to kill it, and if the player's just there for loot like normal, he's neither going to consider converting nor care that he's unable to convert in the future. However, it does punish unspoilered players who want to try the god but first naturally kill TRJ for loot and experience.

I like the idea of dying gods. It's a bit of background building we get for (almost) free. — dpeg 2010-09-20 17:55

Also, the flavor doesn't even work:

• As in the FR, Jiyva ignores the existence of Dissolution, despite the unique's visible and pious nature. This is presumably necessary to prevent the “exploit” of killing TRJ and later converting.
• All slimes “join your prayer” as flavor for the paralysis effect; if they respect the god and are capable of worship, why is the also-unintelligent TRJ needed for survival? The dungeon is full of slimes, never mind what may be in the outside world.
• As in the FR, if a Jiyva follower kills TRJ and then abandons Jiyva, he's placed under wrath. Having Jiyva hang onto life long enough for vengeance is fine in itself, though the player joining back up after “mollification” isn't, as the god shouldn't exist (nor should his altars, going off TRJ behavior).
  • If the player kills TRJ but stays a worshipper (and is therefore the only thing keeping Jiyva alive), Jiyva will actively excommunicate him through penance at low piety - is Jiyva suicidal? What's worse is that Jiyva piety decays over time, so he's able to kill himself out of boredom. I'll admit that the notion of the player extorting the god in this situation is both amusing and more reasonable, but maybe it'd be better to avoid it altogether?
  • If Jiyva can survive without worshippers long enough to attack an ex-follower, why does he instantly vanish when a passing adventurer kills TRJ, and with it, the god himself? Surely he'd be a bit angry about that, too?

I'm sure that having a god die is totally cool, but it's a play problem despite only being there for flavor, and that flavor has many problems of its own. This is bad for the game, and it's questionable if such flavor-heavy behavior even belongs in Crawl to begin with. — OG17 2010-09-20 14:51

By the grace of Jiyva, the rhetorics seminar is on the loose again. There are some valid points here: there should be no mollification; when the wrath is over, that's it for the god. And after Jiyva's death, there should be no “altars to Jiyva” left; they should be replaced with (nameless!) altars which could be called “withered” or “atrophied” or “forgotten” or “shrivelled”. (All these nice words from the IRC channel.) — dpeg 2010-09-20 17:55

That would fix some of the more mechanical problems, but Dissolution and other slimes still make for open inconsistencies, while suicide and quietly being killed is at least very strange. I'd think that a flavor feature should be more careful with its flavor. — OG17 2010-09-20 18:53

How about this: tie Jiyva' power to the presence of the slimy rune instead of just to alive worshipers. When you take the rune, Jiyva starts to die, over some few thousand turns - unless you convert (and if you abandon later, the death countdown resumes). Dissolution could be out for vengeance if you run across it later. — Eronarn 2010-09-22 18:06

codrus 2012-02-10 09:43:

For me, what would have made this god fun and interesting to play would have been if by using piety up you could transform into progressively powerful slimes/blobs/oozes. The power I would have based on piety level (maybe a couple or few types at each piety level to randomly become) so the more piety the better type of slime/blob/ooze you would turn into when the god's power was evoked. And I would have restricted the player's senses in these forms; they are blind and use other means to sense so you could have them, for example, sense walls, objects (green triangles?) and lifeforms (colored ”{” like with Ashenzari's sense?). Maybe lava and water only when near. Or such similar things, maybe even having the lower slimes having poor senses and the greater slimes having better senses. There's so many options you could have fun with here. I can't imagine why you guys didn't do this. It would have been so much fun being an azure jelly for a time, for example.