Hi crawlers! Sorry for the downtime earlier this week; the database died, and then the backup database died while attempting to restore the primary. Thankfully, our admin was able to recover almost everything. So here’s a fresh pile of changes, seized from the heart of a dying sun!
- Beogh gifting has been somewhat revised:
- Beogh will now improve allies’ equipment, enchanting them and improving their base type. (The latter would sometimes occur before, but very rarely.)
- And he’ll gift weapons, armour, shields, and ammo to orcs who lack them.
- And he’ll bless weapons and armour that the player has gifted.
- And he’ll give some extra ammo to any orc that the player chooses to gift a ranged weapon to.
- And orcs won’t drop their melee weapons when the player gives them a ranged weapon, or vice versa.
- The Trident of the Octopus King now gets an additional +1 for each Ring of the Octopus King its wielder wears, up to a maximum of +16. (But good luck getting that!)
- Godless hill orcs can now convert to Beogh with ‘p’ when orc priests are nearby, as an alternative to using the option from the abilities menu.
- The Deck of Wonders is back to giving mainly strategic effects (e.g. Helix, Mercenary, etc), rather than duplicating the Deck of Battle.
- New monster: torpor snails, found in Lair and Spider. Their enemies are slowed on sight, somewhat like ancient zymes.
- Weapons and armour which aren’t visibly enchanted no longer have enchantments higher than +0.
- The Staff of Air now activates its extra melee damage as often as other elemental staves.
- Brown oozes and pulsating lumps have oozed off to the great slime pit in the sky.
- The dragonslaying brand has been slain. (Except for Wyrmbane, of course.)
- Scrolls of Enchant Weapon are now rarer, and always succeed on use.
- Most randomly-placed teleport traps now disappear after one use.
- Lost souls now make enemies into ghosts instead of specters.
- Skullcrusher now gives +7 STR.
0.15 will be released in mid-August.
Happy crawling!
1. Comment by Sudarshan S
27/Jun/2014 at 08:03
Weapons and armour which aren’t visibly enchanted no longer have enchantments higher than +0
^ Finally!
2. Comment by Eight_of_Tentacles
27/Jun/2014 at 11:31
>Weapons and armour which aren’t visibly enchanted no longer have enchantments higher than +0.
Yay!
3. Comment by Roderic
27/Jun/2014 at 11:58
*Wonder*ful
4. Comment by BeardTony
27/Jun/2014 at 16:57
In this new series of patches (version .15), it seems like you have pretty much cleaned up everything that was obnoxious about the UI, and have made the game much more straight forward which I truly do appreciate.
Most of these changes do make the game easier for less patient players, (Ex: Now I don’t drop all of my scrolls when I see a mottled dragon, or drop all of my potions at entrance to the ice cave), but I think that was almost necessary with as you guys have removed “safe zones” in the mid to end game.
There is no longer an easy floor 15-26 to grind out levels before tackling the tough branches and some of the branches that were 5 to 7 floors deep have been trimmed down to 3.
The new weapon scroll mechanics are super nice, and now every one of them has value, and a like that. It does streamline the game in a way that is a less “hardcore” though, and I can completely understand why people are upset, but I just wanted to tell you that getting rid of acc and the weapon scroll failure % was the right way to go.
The removal of the encumbrance system, I have mixed feelings about, because in correlation with the removal of item destruction it changes some of the core mechanics of the game. On my last win, I had something on the order of 70 potions and 100 scrolls, which is a level of safety and opulence that just doesn’t feel right in dungeon crawl. I do like it though, because it means I’m better at dungeon crawl, but I feel it takes away some of game’s teeth. Should Spriggans really be able to carry around 100 potions and 100 scrolls with 6 strength?
My suggestion would be to reapply item destruction, add 50-75% more carry weight to the old carry weight algorithm, and also allow for characters a 20% larger “pack”, because the “pack is full” message is the real annoyance that I think players would love you forever for getting rid of.
That is all.
– BeardTony
5. Comment by PleasingFungus
27/Jun/2014 at 17:28
We’re going to be lowering consumable generation in the near future.
6. Comment by warren
28/Jun/2014 at 05:44
Absolutely. The combination of removing encumbrance AND item destruction means there is no disincentive to carrying huge stacks of scrolls and potions. This definitely dumbs down the game. Personally, I love the removal of item destruction, but encumbrance is necessary to maintain some balance. Encumbrance also encourages different play styles for different size races. It makes sense that an ogre could carry tons of stuff while an elf needs to be more selective.
One of the great things about Crawl is how different the play style needed to be in order to succeed with different classes/races. I would hate to see this become a game where every class boils down to blast and loot.
7. Comment by somebody
28/Jun/2014 at 21:20
Good news, everyone!
8. Comment by warren
28/Jun/2014 at 21:30
I would not like to see item destruction reintroduced. It was a prime example of the type of annoying mechanic that is being eliminated. Reducing scroll/potion frequency to counteract elimination of item destruction makes sense. Please don’t turn down identify scroll frequency though, since ID scrolls now never ID more than 1 item.
9. Comment by old_akakaraka
30/Jun/2014 at 00:20
As a huge fan of Orc Jesus / Orcus Christus, I am thrilled to see changes in Beogh mechanics; however, some of the features described above don’t seem to be included in current trunk i just downloaded (crawl_tiles-0.15-a0-1668):
- And he’ll gift weapons, armour, shields, and ammo to orcs who lack them. => did not see that happen.
- And he’ll give some extra ammo to any orc that the player chooses to gift a ranged weapon to. => did not happen. I gave my orc knight an awesome randart crossbow, which he never used due to lack of ammo.
- And orcs won’t drop their melee weapons when the player gives them a ranged weapon, or vice versa. => when i gave my orc knight a crossbow (see above), he dropped his melee weapon and went unarmed in close combat.
- Godless hill orcs can now convert to Beogh with ‘p’ when orc priests are nearby, as an alternative to using the option from the abilities menu. => I still had to use the ‘a’/'Y’ mechanic
- Weapons and armour which aren’t visibly enchanted no longer have enchantments higher than +0. => picked up a lot of plain armor that has +1/+2 modifiers.
Maybe trunk is not up-to-date? Or is this just planned to be released in the 0.15 release in August?
10. Comment by PleasingFungus
30/Jun/2014 at 00:26
The version of trunk on the download page (0.15-a0-1668-g49c5cce) is from Jun. 23 – the Beogh changes are from a few days after that.
11. Comment by Tristian
1/Jul/2014 at 21:14
Loving most of the changes that have come about recently. But I have to agree with some of the previous comments on bringing back encumbrance/item weight. It doesn’t seem right that a Felid or Spriggan can now carry the same amount of stuff as an Ogre or Troll.
The encumbrance factor made you think a little more about what was important enough to lug along with you.
12. Comment by Joe
4/Jul/2014 at 04:03
Is it just me or does eating chunks off the ground no longer work?
13. Comment by Nick
5/Jul/2014 at 22:16
Qazlal is something else, goodness gracious.
14. Comment by reaverb
8/Jul/2014 at 03:44
Eating chunks off the ground was briefly removed from the game. This change, however, was reverted 2-3 days later. (so players can now eat chunks off the ground again.)
15. Comment by Sudarshan S
11/Jul/2014 at 07:25
Can we please have the next development update? It’s nearly two weeks now!