Hi, crawlers! Here’s the latest changes in trunk:
- Cleaving now functions while confused. Ctrl-attacking does not (except when a tree); in compensation, you can no longer stumble into deep water/lava while confused.
- You can no longer open/close doors while confused.
- Jellies will no longer eat items you’ve seen, unless you follow Jiyva. (This does not include items at the bottoms of stacks which you haven’t stepped on – you haven’t seen those items yet!)
- The Serpent of Hell is now somewhat weaker.
- Apporting the Orb of Zot now causes the orb run to begin (spawns, etc). You can now apport the orb in Sprints.
- The Storm card can no longer summon twisters.
- With the default rc, getting drained by an invisible ghost moth or missed by an invisible creature’s attack should now stop autoexplore/resting.
- New negative randart property: *Drain, which causes drain when un-equipped.
- New negative randart property: *Confuse, which causes a chance of confusion when taking damage.
- New negative randart property: *Corrode, which causes a chance of corrosion when taking damage.
- The mountain dwarf population has doubled! Jorgrun is no longer a deep dwarf, and now regenerates normally.
- Faith is now useless for Gozagites.
- Giant spores no longer appear normally in the dungeon.
- Dropping items now takes 10 aut apiece (as most actions do), instead of 0.8.
- The Flight spell has flown away forever. Replacements: Silence in the Book of Dreams, Flame Tongue in the Book of the Dragon, Lightning Spire in the Book of the Sky, and nothing in the Book of Air.
- Cigotuvi’s Embrace is now somewhat stronger in most circumstances, but will probably no longer provide hundreds of points of AC/SH in ziggurats.
- The Horn of Geryon is now worth somewhat less gold.
Happy crawling!
1. Comment by Brickman
16/May/2015 at 20:22
You can’t fall in water while confused anymore? But that was most of what made swamp drakes scary. Couldn’t you just say that you can’t fall into water/lava if you’re *trying to attack an enemy* while confused?
The jelly change should remove a huge source of annoyance from the game, but it also defangs them a bit too much. Maybe give them back the ability to eat corpses and ammunition to heal? Those were the only cases that were really relevant in combat.
The other changes sound cool. The new artifact things sound fun.
2. Comment by Fusha
16/May/2015 at 21:05
Jellies being so oddly selective about eating only the stuff that some random intruder into the dungeon hasn’t yet seen seems incredibly non-immersive and silly. This is arguably even more of an annoyance than them eating everything on the floor.
3. Comment by 15RunesOrBust
17/May/2015 at 00:16
Going to echo Brickman here a bit. I also am very appreciative of the new artifact negative properties. What about, as another thought along those lines, one that gives you a temporary malmutation (similar to those damn stars) after taking damage?
Not liking the sound of the jelly change either. The whole reason they worried me is now gone (the standard ones don’t corrode enough anymore to be a concern and you don’t see the truly corrosive sorts outside Slime and Zigs).
Not falling in water/lava when confused is another one of those changes that feels like it’s neutering crawl to become too easy and without enough nailbiting.
Storm card’s summoning of twisters was one of the coolest deck effects, period. Why not get rid of something lame like Water instead?
Giant spores were just too annoying and rarely a useful entertainment/fear to really miss. Good riddance to them.
Why the removal of Flight? Were gargoyles not considered overpowered enough that they needed to become one of the only races that could fly without finding an item for it, period? Or is this meant more as a stealth Tengu/lucky Drac/Vamp buff?
4. Comment by Zazu2006
20/May/2015 at 01:51
I agree with Brickman on the jelly and confuse changes, you guys have gone total easy mode on this game lately. I don’t understand what you are trying to fix.
5. Comment by mummy
20/May/2015 at 03:02
THEYRE FIXING CONFUSE AND JELLIES BEING BAD
6. Comment by wheals
20/May/2015 at 13:48
I honestly don’t understand the complaints about not falling into water/lava when confused. I’ve never run into a situation where I couldn’t just ctrl-attack to swing without any danger — since you can’t do that anymore, it really is a net nerf in almost all cases!
@15RunesOrBust: The issue with Flight really wasn’t that it was too strong, it was just that the spell effectively made water into not-water. Kind of boring, though as you say it’s also true of some other species intrinsics.
7. Comment by Doome
22/May/2015 at 20:51
As much as I like Crawl and appreciate the work devs do, I cant stand latest buffs and simplification of gameplay. With every patch devs remove things that made this game somewhat unique. It makes me quite sad.
8. Comment by Werehound
24/May/2015 at 00:14
I have to say that at first I thought crawl was becoming way too easy. Playing through the changes though, it becomes obvious the developers are removing the micro management that plagued all mid game characters. I no longer have to run all the way back to my stash to grab that scroll or potion I needed. I don’t need to drop rotten chunks so to make room for that sword I want to ID. Now, I don’t have to Ctrl click something I’m not even mildly worried about. The solutions for these problems are certainly not obvious; but I’m happy with the direction that’s being taken to fix them.
9. Comment by 15RunesOrBust
24/May/2015 at 13:43
@wheals: Unlike species intrinsics, the flight spell can run out, and since you can’t typically renew it mid-flight, this makes that not-water a potentially extremely dangerous terrain. I find that much more interesting than perma-flight, and even that is interesting on account of being able to use terrain for tactical advantage rather than (otherwise) nearly always have it work against you (namely when you’re not aquatic and, typically, enemies are).
10. Comment by hasnt_won_crawl_once
25/May/2015 at 09:56
i think a fork is coming along real soon. if all this ‘crawl is too hard, let’s remove everything that makes it real and make it into a computer rulebook simulation’ stuff keeps going on, i’ll be attempting one in a few months myself, after some groundwork and research.
11. Comment by PleasingFungus
26/May/2015 at 00:37
@hasnt_won_crawl_once: Godspeed! If you have any trouble, feel free to come into ##crawl-dev on chat.freenode.org – we’re here to help.