00:31:40 Fork (bcrawl) on crawl.kelbi.org updated to: 0.23-a0-5014-gf9597c7f93 00:50:41 Fork (bcadrencrawl) on crawl.kelbi.org updated to: 0.03-2223-g2789cbef32 03:06:38 <03semi_tonal> @gammafunk i'd be curious to hear what your dith ideas are too, if you have them written up anywhere? dith had been on my list for a while too, but just with the very vague idea of "steal a bunch of stuff from sil, the only roguelike with good stealth mechanics" (in particular i wonder if the partial xp-on-encounter mechanic could work in crawl somehow, probably a pretty big/complicated project though) 03:08:59 <03semi_tonal> for less ambitious stuff i'd also been meaning to rework spell mimic to be more like battlesphere, because mimicking individual spells doesn't really work (but it could e.g. have a few different shadow spells of its own and use them based on spell school/flags of what the player does) 03:22:51 Experimental (bcrawl) branch on underhound.eu updated to: 0.23-a0-5014-gf9597c7f93 05:20:33 Unstable branch on crawl.akrasiac.org updated to: 0.31-a0-473-g61b50ae (34) 05:38:54 -!- kate-- is now known as kate- 07:04:59 wow, the build got noisy when I upgraded to clang-15… 07:14:22 <06pleasingfungus> DO: think the issues you outlined last night are all worth targeting, with the possible exception of tmut and Yred - not sure what you mean by the latter. Re tmut, I had initially been planning to cut the school, following a somewhat different line from what r-i suggested. (irrad & yaras go to poison (radiation poisoning), wereblood is cut, other stuff loses tmut or is tweaked as appropriate.) @hjklyubn persuaded me to keep tmut 07:14:22 around for now. might be nice if it got a mechanical identity beyond ‘tax school’ and/or some high level spells, but it doesn’t seem urgent. I also have some thoughts about dith, but like kate, they’re very vague. Would be nice to nail the sense of a predator stalking the dungeon unseen, ambushing unsuspecting foes, and running away if caught, but not sure how to get there from here. all I know is that I want to cut shadow mimic, the least 07:14:23 stealth related, most complex and most boring dith effect. 07:20:05 <04dracoomega> (And yet, I would argue, that traditionally it was the ability that actually had the most actual impact (for particular counterintuitive characters >.>)) But no, I sort of agree that while I'd first thought about tweaking low-hanging fruit, I don't think the god has ever been especially powerful or beloved or a flavor slam-dunk on anything it feels like it's trying to do, so it wouldn't hurt to be a little more comprehensive about 07:20:05 changing things. But I didn't really have specific thoughts on what that should be yet. (I'll admit I'm actually a little partial to having your shadow do things, but current mimic implementation is a bit troubled and if we make it anything more independent, it risks rubbing up against Hep's domain) 07:22:05 <04dracoomega> Arguably some 'Do things when you do things' role that is less mimicing and more a predictable set of triggered behaviors might be a better niche? 07:32:45 <06pleasingfungus> oh i definitely agree that mimic is the biggest draw for dith at present 07:32:58 <06pleasingfungus> but that’s awful 07:33:20 <06pleasingfungus> i think dith’s high level flavor of ‘god of shadow’ is great 07:33:32 <06pleasingfungus> very clear what the god is trying to do 07:33:53 <06pleasingfungus> and the umbra and shadow form both play into that nicely 07:34:48 <06pleasingfungus> but the god just never comes together as a ‘stealth god’ package 07:35:26 <06pleasingfungus> most powerful effect is mostly a wordy damage boost, other gods are more helpful for ‘stabbers’… tragic 07:37:18 <04dracoomega> An honest question: should it be primarily a stealth god package? Is that actually a worthy design goal compared to something less niche (even if 'also being useful for stabbers' makes sense) 07:38:28 <04dracoomega> Being hard to find and hard to catch and tripping up opponents with shadow tricks doesn't have to boil down to that either, I think? 07:46:15 <06pleasingfungus> perfectly reasonable question 07:46:32 <06pleasingfungus> i think it depends on what you mean by stealth 07:47:29 <06pleasingfungus> like i think it’s possible to be a stealth god without being a stabber god, for example 07:47:57 <06pleasingfungus> if by stealth we mean a broader concept of how you enter fights, rather than just a means of getting bonus damage 07:49:01 <06pleasingfungus> maybe we’re saying the same thing 07:49:20 <06pleasingfungus> i do think dith should be useful for stabbers, if dith continues to exist 07:49:39 <06pleasingfungus> like the theme just aligns extremely well, it’s really fighting player intuition otherwise 07:50:05 <06pleasingfungus> but i agree dith probably shouldn’t be stabber exclusive, unless dith broadens what being a stabber means 07:50:17 <04dracoomega> Yeah, I mean... I can agree with 'should be useful', sure. But it would also be good, imo, if it was useful to others in a clear way also 07:50:27 <04dracoomega> So I guess we more or less agree? ^^; 07:51:16 <04dracoomega> (Honestly, after playing with it a bunch, I feel like Wu Jian may be the best direct stabber support god in the game right now) 07:52:27 <04dracoomega> And it wouldn't surprise me if 'stab things 1-2 turns earlier' is a stronger effective stealth bonus than Dith's actual stealth bonus, in practice 07:55:00 <06pleasingfungus> yeah wjc and usk are stabber popular 07:55:39 <06pleasingfungus> folx seem to agree they’re stronger than dith for stabbers 07:55:45 <06pleasingfungus> heartbreaking imo 07:55:57 <04dracoomega> Yeah, I don't think Dith was ever particularly good for stabbers, tbh 07:56:26 <04dracoomega> Umbra's stealth bonus just doesn't do enough to meaningfully help with a pure stealth approach and your other tools aren't doing enough on that front either 07:57:36 <04dracoomega> (I think some of the idea is that the melee mimic's attacks could distract monsters for you to get distraction stabs in, but I feel like this just didn't actually work often enough?) 07:58:29 <06pleasingfungus> probably yeah 07:58:31 <09hjklyubn> I wanted transmutation school to stay, just because I didn't want dcss to have fewer spell schools than now and I didn't want to lose another school that worked well for hybrid char. (btw, it would be nice to have new spells for hybrid char in the future becuase forms are no longer spells and that made hybrid char a little poorer. hybrid is fun!) But I also agree that thematic grab bag school is not a very good design. About 07:58:31 wereblood, I don't think it necessarily needs to be removed. Wearblood is really interesting spell because it encourage players to fight with multiple monsters at once, and to keep fighting even when they're not at full HP. I know buff spell is bad in dcss. But the main reason is that many buff spells are(were) always beneficial, right? If it has enough risk, it's not too bad that it's a buff spell. (for example, silence is buff spelll, but it's fine 07:58:32 because it is not always beneficial because of huge risk.) Wereblood has noise penalty (this can be dangerous enough penalty when you use ?tele), so I think it is not always beneficial spell. If you think noise penalty is not good enough, you can just give a larger penalty. 07:58:43 <06pleasingfungus> and makes no sense for ranged/cj ofc 07:59:27 <06pleasingfungus> yeah, agree with wanting more hybrid spells - i always want more of those! always on the back of my mind 08:00:05 <06pleasingfungus> think we had this conversation re wereblood a month ago, i personally have a hard time using it but i appreciate that others do 08:00:12 <06pleasingfungus> not currently planning a cut 08:00:37 <06pleasingfungus> i do wonder if it’d work better with more slaying per kill and a lower cap 08:02:48 <04dracoomega> The 'identity' of transmutation as a school is a little troubled at the moment, though, I think. The thing is, spells that aren't in starter books kind of need some compelling reason for anyone to pick them up. Cross-over with schools they're already training does help with that, but even with training half of it, you still have to answer the question of "Why is this worth it to someone?" if it's not a low-level spell that they're 08:02:49 in earlygame for. There's a bunch of situations where like... sure, you have partial training on a skill, but is this offering enough that you can't already do with the schools that you have? 08:03:15 <06pleasingfungus> i mean 08:03:25 <06pleasingfungus> many tmut spells are very popular 08:03:32 <06pleasingfungus> so i’m not very concerned 08:03:34 <09hjklyubn> It's probably buff to wereblood, but I'm not sure if it will make it more fun in the sense that it's more fun to fight with larger number of monsters at once, not fewer. 08:04:48 <06pleasingfungus> i guess my feeling is that there’s not that many opportunities to fight huge enemy counts early 08:04:54 <06pleasingfungus> and wereblood is a lvl 2 spell 08:05:06 <06pleasingfungus> maybe this is less relevant now that it’s not a startbook spell 08:05:25 <06pleasingfungus> ??spells by school[transm 08:05:26 <04Cerebot> list_of_spells_by_school[12/12]: Transmutation: beastly appendage, passwall, wereblood, spider form, alistair's intoxication, ice form, ignite poison, petrify, blade hands, irradiate, yara's violent unravelling, statue form, sting, dragon form, necromutation 08:06:23 <04dracoomega> Completely separate of any of this, with form-shifting all moved out of transmutations, I do kind of quibble slightly at the name of it. >.> 08:06:29 <06pleasingfungus> pass, were, ignpois, petr, irrad, yara.. all popular, i think. sting is fine as a start spel. only intox and bog are really troubled 08:06:29 <04dracoomega> Not that this is an important point 08:06:32 <09hjklyubn> just increasing its level can be a good idea to solve the problem 08:06:41 <06pleasingfungus> yeah folks have wanted it changed to alchemy or something 08:06:43 <06pleasingfungus> idk 08:06:48 <06pleasingfungus> tmut still makes sense to me 08:06:54 <06pleasingfungus> you’re transmuting things 08:06:59 <04dracoomega> I mean specifically Wereblood when form-changing stuff isn't in the same school as it 08:07:04 <06pleasingfungus> just not yourself (except wereblood) 08:07:06 <04dracoomega> Not Transmutation 08:07:11 <06pleasingfungus> yeah wereblood’s theme is a mess now 08:07:13 <06pleasingfungus> i have a note 08:07:37 <06pleasingfungus> acrobat: what problem does raising the level solve, sorry? 08:07:39 <04dracoomega> Calling the school Transmutation is about as fine as it ever was, I think 08:08:03 <09hjklyubn> > i guess my feeling is that there’s not that many opportunities to fight huge enemy counts early and wereblood is a lvl 2 spell 08:08:22 <06pleasingfungus> hm, now that wereblood isn’t a start spell, i wonder about cutting the little healing i stapled onto it 08:08:32 <04dracoomega> Being shifted a little higher level would make it more appealing to learn outside of a starter spell (which it no longer is) 08:08:38 <06pleasingfungus> since that was very much intended as an early game thing 08:08:53 <04dracoomega> Er, like, with some power increase to go with that, I mean 08:08:53 <06pleasingfungus> and can bolster the slay aspect in some way to compensate 08:08:57 <06pleasingfungus> yeah sure 08:09:27 <06pleasingfungus> move to lvl 3-4 maybe, give out slay faster and or to a higher cap, remove the tiny heal 08:11:56 <09hjklyubn> + larger penalty (if you think it will be used in most battles) 08:13:04 <04dracoomega> ....honestly, though, I was actually kind of appealed by Index's idea to retheme it to necromancy or something (and maybe even just give it to necromancer). I am still unclear how the flavor is working if self-changing is on a different skill entirely, but maybe some theming can still make it fit there 08:13:41 <04dracoomega> I might save something about actively (and loudly) honing your weapon's form if not for the fact that it still has to work with fists here ^^; 08:13:51 tw 08:14:12 <04dracoomega> And taking a metaphorical whetstone to your hands sounds... uncomfortable 08:15:26 <06pleasingfungus> yeah i did consider moving it to necro, seems easy to theme power on kills 08:15:47 <06pleasingfungus> what does ne start with these days anyway! 08:15:52 <06pleasingfungus> ??ne 08:15:52 <04Cerebot> necromancer[1/3]: A mage background (abbreviated as Ne) that starts with the spells {Necrotize}, {Vampiric Draining}, {Animate Dead}, and {Agony}. Also starts with a +0 robe. For the monster, see [3. 08:16:16 <06pleasingfungus> hm 08:16:20 <06pleasingfungus> awkward with allies 08:16:23 <04dracoomega> I've been trying out new necromancer just this morning, in fact. ...does anyone else feel like agony being melee range now is kind of miserable?? >.> 08:16:29 <06pleasingfungus> popular opinion 08:16:42 <06pleasingfungus> ebering will argue with you :p 08:17:01 <06pleasingfungus> sdynet (?) suggested giving agony and DU Scorch targeting 08:17:01 <04dracoomega> (And especially as a starting spell, where the early focus on raising spell skills means you tend to be pretty fragile for a while) 08:17:50 <04dracoomega> I.... I don't know that that actually feels like an improvement. Agony is hugely diminishing returns when cast on the wrong target, for instance. 08:18:15 <06pleasingfungus> can comp by also solving the problem of ne still having a lvl5 spell 08:18:46 <09hjklyubn> It might also be a good idea to swap spell levels of animate dead and agony 08:18:46 <06pleasingfungus> (moving to lvl4) 08:18:48 <04dracoomega> Like, it one wants to keep Agony as close-range, that seems okay, but not that close-range, imo 08:19:11 <06pleasingfungus> it’d be really nice to have a necro ally spell between level 1 and 5 08:19:23 <06pleasingfungus> that’s a big friendless gap 08:19:26 <04dracoomega> Yeah, if animate dead ends up at 5, then I think necromancer is deeply troubled 08:19:31 <06pleasingfungus> for a core theme of the school 08:19:48 <06pleasingfungus> might want another ally for spell there anyway 08:19:50 <04dracoomega> (It's maybe already somewhat? But that feels like it would be bad) 08:19:53 <06pleasingfungus> would help kiku 08:20:18 <04dracoomega> Well, kind of weird thing is that we have multiple necro ally spells at 6, and if this was at 5, that's a really weirdly awkward clustering, imo 08:20:24 <06pleasingfungus> mm 08:20:52 <06pleasingfungus> dchan and… is simu 6 or 7? 08:20:57 <09hjklyubn> 6 08:21:00 <06pleasingfungus> haunt is 7, right? 08:21:02 <06pleasingfungus> ok 08:21:42 <06pleasingfungus> anyway, think i’d lean more toward nerfing anime dead than raising level, if we think it’s too strong atm 08:22:04 <06pleasingfungus> (no opinion whether it is) 08:22:05 <04dracoomega> Because right now, necro start sort of feels like (just quick initial thoughts here)... Necrotize is better pain, but the ally is sort of just a bonus. Vampiric draining remains good. New animate dead feels fairly good even in its new awkwardnesses, and Agony is ?? 08:23:10 <06pleasingfungus> gamma wants necrotize to make a spectre on hit rather than a skele on death 08:23:12 <04dracoomega> If I went to the trouble to make zombie meatshields, I'd really rather not put myself in front of them before things have been weakened 08:23:23 <06pleasingfungus> to make the pal more relevant 08:23:39 <06pleasingfungus> mini haunt 08:23:41 <06pleasingfungus> baby haunt 08:23:48 <04dracoomega> It's kind of funny. As a replacement to Pain, it's fine. As a replacement to old Animate Skeleton, it's deeply awkward. Now, I'm not sure if that's exactly a problem or not 08:24:30 <04dracoomega> Spectral on hit seems... strong? 08:24:44 <04dracoomega> For a level 1 spell 08:25:19 <06pleasingfungus> it really does yes 08:25:30 <06pleasingfungus> even with a will check 08:25:35 <06pleasingfungus> i’m nervous about it 08:25:40 <06pleasingfungus> but noting for reference 08:26:01 <04dracoomega> I am wondering a little at the idea of that as an inbetween level summon as you mentioned, though 08:26:06 <04dracoomega> Something riffing off that 08:26:12 <06pleasingfungus> yeah i still want that 08:26:56 <06pleasingfungus> btw have you seen my ridiculous slush pile of dcss ideas 08:27:00 <06pleasingfungus> https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T15RrIUJ7H2AS7eowmXrQVJOUVUN_DO1kIRk1NB_3MA/edit 08:27:14 <04dracoomega> I have not! 08:27:24 <04dracoomega> Wow, lots of things here 08:27:29 <06pleasingfungus> most of these ideas are bad 08:27:40 <06pleasingfungus> but maybe some inspire something good! 08:27:40 <09hjklyubn> wow 08:27:41 <04dracoomega> Will have to give this due diligence later 08:27:44 old haste> we took the Gooncrawlism of making it level 9 Charms 08:28:02 <04dracoomega> I mean, bad ideas are often just good ideas that haven't been quite refined yet 08:28:35 <06pleasingfungus> mainline dcss also ensured there are no charms spells that are higher level than Haste 08:28:38 <04dracoomega> A lot of things start with "Oh, this is cool! ...oh, this is really troubled, actually. Okay, how do we make this still cool while less troubled?" 08:28:53 PF> indeed :-) 08:29:05 <06pleasingfungus> yeah i get that, just noting that there’s a reason i haven’t implemented most of this stuff 08:29:16 <06pleasingfungus> and not just lack of time :p 08:29:17 <04dracoomega> I mean, also implementing things isn't free ^^; 08:29:40 <04dracoomega> ...god, when I started opening up the code again the other day to try and start on testing something, I have a lot to derust on 08:29:53 But whether it's Charms or not I thought they were basically right about making it an l9 capstone in a school you'd never normally pump all that high made it less dominant. So now we need a reason Haste is Poison Magic :-) 08:30:06 <06pleasingfungus> adrenaline poisoning 08:30:11 <04dracoomega> Megacaffeine 08:30:25 In Commonwealth English a "punt" is a flat-bottomed boat, but maybe that wasn't to be the actual name 08:32:16 <09hjklyubn> > Unique enemy that turns into a shop when defeated/pacified > “Giant construct animated shop; magic inside got too strong” lol 08:32:42 * Pinkbeast laughs at "Your own severed head" 08:32:52 <06pleasingfungus> think those two were both from nicolae! 08:33:17 <06pleasingfungus> re punt: 08:33:18 <06pleasingfungus> https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/747522859361894521/1137770379729965107/image0.jpg 08:33:19 <04dracoomega> Of course the wierd shop thing is nicolae 😛 08:33:47 <06pleasingfungus> we also have the boat meaning, but rarely refer to it, because… why would we 08:33:53 PF: I know (but no complaint, I'd rather be told things I know than not told things I don't know) 08:34:54 I like the spell riposte mask 08:38:38 <09hjklyubn> > consumable or god effect that gives a big damage boost of some kind briefly, then drops you to ddoor level hp (or 1?) [slay the spire blasphemy] 08:39:34 <09hjklyubn> this sounds fun. what if xom's chess pieces had this ♟️ 08:41:35 PF: thanks, anyway, I showed this to the other two Stoat Soupies 08:42:17 <06pleasingfungus> no prob! glad you like it 🙂 08:42:32 <06pleasingfungus> feel free to steal whatever, in whole or in part 08:42:46 <09hjklyubn> there's a lot of really fun stuff here 08:43:28 <04dracoomega> Yes, this definitely feels like something I need to read slowly and a few times 08:43:53 <04dracoomega> Let things percolate instead of just skimming 08:43:57 <06pleasingfungus> re blasphemy, i’ve been vaguely thinking about an xp evoker that puts you in some temporary form, like a super lig pot. maybe those ideas could work together in some way 08:45:07 <04dracoomega> Borrow strength from your own future 08:45:14 <04dracoomega> So naturally when you reach the future, there's not much of it left 08:45:35 XP loanshark, gives you a level now, takes 10% of your XP forever ;-) 08:45:57 <04dracoomega> Much like real loansharks, this feels like a bad deal 😛 08:47:04 (and while it's not a serious idea it's also done better by B's Revivification) 08:47:30 <06pleasingfungus> dcss strongly discounts future power vs current power, but how far does that hold..? 08:47:57 <06pleasingfungus> xp loanshark feels like a trove, almost 08:48:19 <04dracoomega> Regardless of actual effective EV, I feel like "You are worse for the whole rest of the game" will just always feel bad 08:48:44 Harm's effectiveness changes daily based on the proportion of games finished while wearing it 08:49:51 (Slightly more seriously, I think of my list "monsters could read torment, immolation, fog, holy word, vulnerability" is the only thing that's remotely vanilla-applicable) 08:51:47 <06pleasingfungus> we just cut monster scroll/pot use 08:51:51 <06pleasingfungus> so probably not :p 08:52:07 Oh, so you did, whoops 08:52:32 <06pleasingfungus> monsters reading immo does sound very funny 08:52:34 (on reflection, it was you doing that which gave me the idea, so er double whoops) 08:52:39 <06pleasingfungus> but that’s because immo is very funny 08:54:26 <04dracoomega> Incidentally, I typed up an elaboration on the Yred thoughts I mentioned a tiny bit last night, in response to you asking, and then promptly got talking about other things, but I think I'll just paste it now 😛 08:54:51 <04dracoomega> I haven't played quite enough with his new incarnation yet to have as nuanced a view as I'd like (though I rather enjoyed the old one, I admit), but while the 'trade zombies for abilities' seems like a neat idea, I feel some of it may be working at fundamental cross-purposes with itself? Firstly, exchanging zombies for other undead feels like the math just doesn't work in its favor most of the time. You're often trading multiple 08:54:51 long-lasting undead for other undead that are both weaker and short-lasting. Yes, the high end gifts are very strong, but that requires a ton of invocations and struggles with the fact that your zombies already scale with the part of the game you're in quite strongly. Earlygame zombies are often better than low-level gifts, but then lategame zombies are STILL better than high-level gifts. And even if you somehow trade up in the short-term, the fact 08:54:52 they go poof again soon (and cannot be banked for anything else later) makes them probably still a downgrade. (Also, for some sad reason, things that always spawn in bands and used to be gifted in bands now come solo. The saddest lonely flying skull...) Even Drain Life I feel is in an awkward position, where the ability itself is by far at its best against large crowds of smaller things, but getting enough souls to fuel it often means that the smaller 08:54:52 things are already dead. And it just isn't worth using against small numbers of targets in almost all cases. Remember: all trading of souls must be weighed against the opportunity cost of not just holding onto the bodies. 08:54:54 <04dracoomega> Bind Soul remains conceptually cool, but is even harder to trigger than it used to be because not only do you need to hit a threshold of souls, but you need to get rid of a chunk of your power at the same time as you activate a clock that would benefit greatly from them being there, especially on a weaker character. Which is doubly bad since Bind Soul is now the only benefit you can pull with you to handle the start of a new floor. 08:54:54 Which I honestly feel is another problem. Is there any god that offers you less when you're starting a new floor or when the chips are down? If you aren't strong enough to kill things without Yred's help, then Yred offers you nothing at all. And if you ARE strong enough, then you... get a bunch of free zombies, which is genuinely helpful and then... probably you're usually better off not interacting with half the rest of his systems? Bind a soul for 08:54:55 yourself if the stars align and hope it doesn't die at a bad time. I don't mean to be snippy, but I think that regardless of any intent to move away from a 'large persistant army' design, there's fundamental opportunity cost issues with the current system AND it has power curve awkwardnesses where it regularly dips down to offering the player very little, without equally commensurate spikes. 08:54:58 ow! 08:57:01 <04dracoomega> Sorry ^^; 08:57:59 <03implojin> >Holy monsters as strict ‘rule-setters’, ala mtg white, ffta judges (ophanim as prototype) 08:58:03 <03implojin> very much like this idea 08:58:18 <03implojin> rulechanges were some of the best things in disgaea 08:58:59 <06pleasingfungus> DO: most of that sounds like tuning, ie lowering costs or increasing rewards? only fundamental part is the start of floor issue, which is what i hear about from other players 08:59:53 <06pleasingfungus> do think people still enjoy bind soul, see folks posting about it on the regular in the roguelikes discord , though always possible that costs etc need adjustment 09:00:26 <04dracoomega> I mean, bind soul is cool. I'm not saying there aren't cool ideas here. I'm not even saying the god isn't useful. But I do feel there are some troubled aspects to the design. 09:00:32 <06pleasingfungus> implojin: i also really like the idea but never came up with a solid plan for how it’d work. modern Sap might fit well, actually 09:01:57 Praise from ceb and hilarita for Nametaker, targetted clouds, electromagnet, megabat 09:02:05 <04dracoomega> I do sort of feel like the opportunity costs of trading in (possibly very strong!) zombies wasn't properly factored into it, and I wonder slightly if there's some way to get across the whole 'trade in temporary victories for more temporary power' that isn't quite as troubled? 09:02:29 <04dracoomega> I don't have like.. A Specific Plan or anything yet, though. 09:02:34 <06pleasingfungus> sure 09:02:57 <06pleasingfungus> would love to hear @ebering ‘s take when he has time 09:03:17 <04dracoomega> Was the current esign their work? 09:03:24 <06pleasingfungus> ya 09:04:32 <09hjklyubn> > You're often trading multiple long-lasting undead for other undead that are both weaker and short-lasting. Yes, the high end gifts are very strong, but that requires a ton of invocations and struggles with the fact that your zombies already scale with the part of the game you're in quite strongly. > Even Drain Life I feel is in an awkward position, where the ability itself is by far at its best against large crowds of smaller 09:04:33 things, but getting enough souls to fuel it often means that the smaller things are already dead. And it just isn't worth using against small numbers of targets in almost all cases. strong agree on these. I think bind soul is in a good state though 09:05:20 <09hjklyubn> I mean 09:05:21 <04dracoomega> Honestly, while I think it's only one piece of an overall adjustment, I wondered a little at removing the 'trade zombies for other undead' thing entirely, and make it so that the first time you step into a new floor, Yred just immediately gifts you a bunch of these undead, scaling to xl and invocations. A sort of 'take a fraction of my army and gain a foothold in a new area' kind of thing. I think the biggest problem is the chance of 09:05:21 like... somehow landing in a sufficiently safe area that you don't find anything to do with them before they poof, though 09:05:44 <04dracoomega> Attempting to address opportunity costs and new floor problems at once 09:05:53 <09hjklyubn> bind soul has another problem (Forcing players to keep looking at the monster's HD) 09:09:45 <03implojin> >Which is doubly bad since Bind Soul is now the only benefit you can pull with you to handle the start of a new floor. >Which I honestly feel is another problem. Is there any god that offers you less when you're starting a new floor or when the chips are down? If you aren't strong enough to kill things without Yred's help, then Yred offers you nothing at all. 09:10:48 <03implojin> fwiw, i think a large part of yred's current utility is folded into being able to use that passive ally generation to save consumable use in every encounter on every floor past the first couple of them; this leads to a snowball effect in not-using-consumables where you end up with a bunch more consumables available 09:11:20 <03implojin> broadly agree with most of the rest of that take on yred 09:13:04 <04dracoomega> I mean, that is a fair point, and honestly the passive zombie reaping is quite meaningful. But ideally the whole kit feels cohesive and good to use, right? ^^; 09:13:14 <03implojin> very true 09:14:52 <06pleasingfungus> wait lol 09:15:12 <06pleasingfungus> did you know that there's special code for the case in which you bind a monster's soul, then you get yred penance, then you kill the monster 09:15:18 <06pleasingfungus> what on earth 09:15:51 <09hjklyubn> but yred has no penance, so it is just code thing? 09:16:14 <09hjklyubn> oh wait 09:16:21 <06pleasingfungus> abandon 09:16:23 <04dracoomega> Looking at the code here, it seems that the zombies you pay with are selected entirely at random, with no attempt to favor paying weak things over strong things things if you have both. And maybe the logic of doing that would be somewhat opaque to the player, but it does feel additionally awkward if you have a few bits of chaff and several strong things and they're all the same value. Is that ally summon worth a wizard or a 09:16:23 juggernaut? ^^; 09:16:25 <06pleasingfungus> also yred used to have penance 09:16:40 <09hjklyubn> I forgot that 09:16:54 <06pleasingfungus> like it'd probably be simpler to just remove the bind soul enchantment when you abandon 09:16:56 <06pleasingfungus> but this is very funny 09:17:06 <06pleasingfungus> (the monster still turns into a bound soul... but a hostile one!!!!!!) 09:17:24 <06pleasingfungus> DACT_OLD_CHARMD_SOULS_POOF love that someone decided to save exactly one character by removing an E here 09:17:31 <06pleasingfungus> would be too long a name otherwise 09:17:35 <04dracoomega> Haha 09:21:43 <06pleasingfungus> @hjklyubn what's a monster with high HD and low HP? 09:21:57 <06pleasingfungus> or vice versa 09:23:01 <04dracoomega> 'A twister' 09:23:09 <04dracoomega> (I am not sure of a 'real' thing off the top of my head, though) 09:23:38 <06pleasingfungus> rip 09:25:17 <04dracoomega> I feel like some of these things I am checking may have been more normalized over the years 09:26:59 <06pleasingfungus> trying to decouple derived undead HP from HD 09:27:00 <04dracoomega> I wonder if war gargoyle is about the best one can do for 'lower hp than usual for their hd' on a normal creature? 09:27:16 <04dracoomega> But they're also nonliving 09:28:34 03PleasingFungus02 07* 0.31-a0-474-ga17b723721: Dedent 10(11 minutes ago, 1 file, 26+ 25-) 13https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/a17b723721b1 09:28:34 03PleasingFungus02 07* 0.31-a0-475-g4fc774d21a: Don't change bound soul HP (acrobat) 10(10 minutes ago, 1 file, 0+ 8-) 13https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/4fc774d21a5a 09:28:51 <09hellmonk> Spriggan defender maybe 09:29:27 <04dracoomega> I checked, but they're frankly not much off death yaks in that regard 09:30:00 <04dracoomega> I was expecting it to be a big more dramatic 09:31:09 <06pleasingfungus> yeah i'm always surprised by how much hp spriggan monsters have 09:31:12 <06pleasingfungus> feels wrong 09:31:14 <06pleasingfungus> @??spriggan air mage 09:31:15 <04Cerebot> spriggan air mage (i) | Spd: 10 (move: 60%) | HD: 14 | HP: 41-56 | AC/EV: 3/24 | Dam: 16 | weapons, items, doors, spellcaster, see invisible, fly | Res: will(140) | Corpse | XP: 852 | Sp: b.lightning (3d19), airstrike (2d(12-28)), repel missiles | Sz: little | Int: human. 09:31:27 <06pleasingfungus> that seems more reasonable 09:31:31 <06pleasingfungus> @??death yak 09:31:32 <04Cerebot> death yak (Y) | Spd: 10 | HD: 14 | HP: 65-88 | AC/EV: 9/5 | Dam: 30 | Res: will(100) | Corpse | XP: 811 | Sz: Large | Int: animal. 09:31:43 <06pleasingfungus> yeah almost half? 09:32:07 <04dracoomega> Huh, air mage HD is about the same as defenders. Kind of assumed they were lower. 09:32:30 <04dracoomega> Scariness does not intrinsically translate to HD, of course 😛 09:32:34 <09hellmonk> Not sure about highest hp to hd ratio aside from whichever panlord is hd 16 09:33:48 03advil02 07* 0.31-a0-476-gb56e7cad85: feat: prompt popup consistency for tiles 10(20 minutes ago, 7 files, 75+ 24-) 13https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/b56e7cad850b 09:34:06 <09hellmonk> tfw you rule an entire realm of pandemonium and have less hd than a very ugly thing 09:34:22 <04dracoomega> "Am I... am I not ugly enough??" 09:34:23 <06pleasingfungus> @??ugly thing 09:34:23 <04Cerebot> purple ugly thing (u) | Spd: 10 (move: 90%) | HD: 12 | HP: 55-76 | AC/EV: 4/10 | Dam: 22 | doors | Res: will(40) | Vul: silver | Corpse | XP: 556 | Sz: Medium | Int: animal. 09:34:30 <06pleasingfungus> @??very ugly thing 09:34:30 <04Cerebot> purple very ugly thing (u) | Spd: 10 (move: 90%) | HD: 18 | HP: 83-117 | AC/EV: 6/10 | Dam: 36 | doors | Res: will(40) | Vul: silver | Corpse | XP: 1093 | Sz: Large | Int: animal. 09:34:42 <09hellmonk> same hd as a golden dragon btw 09:35:25 <03implojin> @??titanic slime creature 09:35:26 <04Cerebot> titanic slime creature (J) | Spd: 10 | HD: 11 | HP: 255-350 | AC/EV: 1/4 | Dam: 110 | amphibious | Res: will(40), poison, blind, drown | XP: 1165 | Sz: Giant | Int: brainless. 09:35:36 <09hellmonk> Oh that's a good one 09:35:55 <03implojin> i cheated and looked for anything special cased in exper_value 09:36:11 <04dracoomega> I can't help but wonder if there's a way to decouple Yred ability costs from zombie sacrifices that isn't just 'piety under a different name' and still feels like it has the spirit of the thing. (Though for what it's worth, the cost in 'souls' I first thought was something entirely separate of living zombies around you, when I picked up the new version first) 09:37:15 Unstable branch on crawl.kelbi.org updated to: 0.31-a0-475-g4fc774d21a (34) 09:38:00 03PleasingFungus02 07* 0.31-a0-477-g9002559900: Sometimes give Josephina a talisman of death (acrobat) 10(9 minutes ago, 1 file, 4+ 0-) 13https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/9002559900b9 09:38:00 03PleasingFungus02 07* 0.31-a0-478-g4fd37da4f0: Reduce early-game talisman frequency slightly 10(2 minutes ago, 1 file, 1+ 1-) 13https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/4fd37da4f041 09:38:56 <04dracoomega> Like, it anything, the souls aren't in the shambling bodies walking around. You took them. Where did they go? ^^; 09:39:20 <06pleasingfungus> implojin: cheating ftw 09:39:34 <06pleasingfungus> DO: that's a very philosophical question 😛 09:39:42 <06pleasingfungus> where do our souls go when we die........? 09:40:24 <04dracoomega> Like, I am sort of imagining a kind of... ghostly soul mass sort of loosely following you around as you reap things 09:40:31 <09hellmonk> Our body disappears without a glow and our soul becomes one with the heart of the cards 09:40:35 <09hellmonk> Nemelex gang 09:42:00 <04dracoomega> ...clearly the black torch that Yred talks about is that soul mass you carry around with you 09:54:21 "Scroll that takes the ‘daze’ effect from holy word & applies it to more enemies" noise does this to silent spectres (and dazed spectres aren't silent) in Stoat Soup 09:55:21 <09hjklyubn> This is a list of dangerous monsters(there are some missing) in S branchs, in order of HP. - unique monster HP / HD arachne 204 / 17 saint roka 198 / 18 nikola 189 / 18 bai suzhen 185 / 20 vashnia 160 / 16 polyphemus 152 / 16 ilsuiw 152 / 16 lernaean hydra 150 / 30 mara 144 / 18 aizul 140 / 14 frances 133 / 14 asterion 127 / 15 jorgrun 120 / 15 rupert 120 / 16 kirke 112 / 16 louise 104 / 13 agnes 99 / 11 azrael 88 / 11 donald 84 / 14 09:55:22 josephine 70 / 10 - normal monster HP / HD kraken 208 / 16 alligator snapping turtle 144 / 16 broodmother 140 / 12 tentacled monstrosity 126 / 23 emperor scorpion 109 / 14 jorogumo 85 / 12 nagaraja 82 / 15 sun moth 80 / 9 bunyip 80 / 12 eleionoma 80 / 16 merfolk impaler 78 / 12 entropy weaver 71 / 7 ghost moth 71 / 13 hydra 71 / 13 salamander tyrant 67 / 15 spark wasp 66 / 12 satyr 66 / 12 fenstrider witch 66 / 16 anaconda 60 / 11 shock serpent 55 / 10 09:55:22 spriggan berserker 54 / 12 spriggan air mage 49 / 14 goliath frog 42 / 12 imo, correlation between HP and HD is not strong enough, so I have to search for HD every time I consider bond soul. 09:55:52 <09hjklyubn> oh you already changed it! 09:58:17 <06pleasingfungus> haha sorry 09:58:39 <06pleasingfungus> funny that donald is so low HP 09:58:42 <06pleasingfungus> i guess he has other defenses (shield) 09:59:02 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> and hasting 09:59:04 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> thanks wiglaf 09:59:12 <06pleasingfungus> does seem like newer monsters aren't obviously higher hp than older ones, which seems good in terms of danger inflation 09:59:21 <06pleasingfungus> monster haste is offense! 09:59:34 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> offense is defense. 09:59:40 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> they can't die if you're dead. 10:01:41 <06pleasingfungus> wow 10:03:11 <09hjklyubn> mm sorry but what do you mean danger inflation? 10:03:20 <09hellmonk> @??hydra 10:03:21 <04Cerebot> hydra (D) | Spd: 10 (swim: 60%) | HD: 13 | HP: 59-82 | AC/EV: 0/5 | Dam: 18 per head | amphibious, cold-blooded, regen | Res: will(60), poison, drown | Corpse | XP: 862 | Sz: Giant | Int: animal. 10:03:31 <09hellmonk> wow I thought they were higher than 13 10:04:00 <09hellmonk> they're famously a don't polymorph because they turn into things that are much worse 10:04:24 <09hellmonk> ig it's just that other stuff is lower than I thought 10:04:30 <03implojin> @??grinder 10:04:31 <04Cerebot> Grinder (5) | Spd: 10 | HD: 6 | HP: 33-45 | AC/EV: 3/11 | Dam: 11(pain) | demonic, items, doors, evil | Res: will(20), cold++, poison, miasma, neg+++, torm | Vul: holy, silver | XP: 277 | Sp: pain (d14) [!sil], paralyse [!sil], blink [!sil] | Sz: little | Int: human. 10:05:11 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> (hypothetically, the damage inflation of e.g. bunyip existing versus previous concerns of swamp hydras, or how normal liches feel quite weak without the sgd chance versus finding a frostbound tome) 10:05:45 <06pleasingfungus> don’t want to be in a situation where new monsters are always scarier than old ones, so player has to get buffed to fight them, so new monsters have to be even scarier etc 10:06:16 <09hjklyubn> thanks 10:06:26 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> or when old monsters get trimmed out of areas for being chaff 10:06:35 <06pleasingfungus> the trick is that some old areas were just not threatening really 10:06:49 <06pleasingfungus> like swamp did not have a ton going on 10:07:02 <09hellmonk> orc 2 gnolls would like to know your location 10:07:06 <06pleasingfungus> hard to fix that without raising average danger level w/in the branch 10:07:18 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> I should have been less cowardly and put, like, three druids per swamp non-gimmick ruin vault 10:07:46 <06pleasingfungus> but goal is to at least not overshoot, say, shoals 10:07:58 <06pleasingfungus> and we did nerf shoals a bit! 10:08:01 <04dracoomega> ....another Yred discovery that bothers me. So... ability cost is in flat number of zombies sacrificed, and this is discrete and knowable. But your piety level, which affects what abilities you can use, is based on the total HD of visible zombies. Which zombies are sacrificed to pay for abilities is entirely random, unrelated to their HD, such that even if you have 9 souls to throw at something, you can't actually tell how many 10:08:01 times you can use Drain Life, despite it costing 3 of them 10:08:29 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> like having ends that toss out the entirity of shoals:$ being open 10:09:32 <06pleasingfungus> my hot take is that bunyips are the insubstantial wisps of new swamp 10:09:33 <09hellmonk> ya but in compensation you make the player fight a storm dragon 10:09:38 <09hellmonk> That's what we call Balance 10:09:41 <06pleasingfungus> very distracting but don’t get that many kills 10:10:03 <04dracoomega> I expected bunyips to be a lot more dangerous than they feel like they've been in practice, when I saw their stats first 10:10:10 <04dracoomega> I'm not entirely sure why they aren't, tbh 10:10:30 <09hellmonk> bunyip is sort of cheesable with certain things but they show up early enough that you might not have those things all the time, unlike juggernauts where you probably do 10:10:47 <09hellmonk> pretty gud imo 10:11:19 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> (DO is back from making porridge so I will tone down the snippyness of bad sleep and admit I'm not going to rake my infinite claws over vaults added before me because I've got enough to work on regarding vaults before me) 10:11:32 <06pleasingfungus> i think it's at least partially because their damage is split over more low-damage attacks, so ac is pretty good against em 10:11:36 <06pleasingfungus> @??bunyip 10:11:37 <04Cerebot> bunyip (x) | Spd: 15 (atk: 450%) | HD: 12 | HP: 63-91 | AC/EV: 6/10 | Dam: 40(claw), 40(claw), 40(claw) | amphibious | Res: will(60), poison, drown | Corpse | XP: 992 | Sp: warning cry [!AM, breath] | Sz: Large | Int: animal. 10:11:42 <06pleasingfungus> !lg * swamp recentish s=cikiller 10:11:44 <04Cerebot> 11231 games for * (swamp recentish): 1252x a spriggan druid, 813x a will-o-the-wisp, 751x a hydra, 607x a spriggan rider, 585x a goliath frog, 530x a bunyip, 479x an eleionoma, 448x, 438x an alligator, 438x a shambling mangrove, 351x the Lernaean hydra, 342x a bog body, 326x a thorn hunter, 284x a swamp dragon, 283x a fenstrider witch, 283x Nikola, 275x bloated husk, 259x a swamp worm, 200x a tyr... 10:11:49 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> recentish? 10:11:51 <06pleasingfungus> also their defense aren't that good 10:11:57 <06pleasingfungus> i could do recentishish instead 10:12:05 <09hellmonk> Oh yeah it is a 40/40/40 ig some characters have enough ac for that in swamp 10:12:05 <04dracoomega> I mean, that goes even more for hydras, and hydras are still more dangerous (but also a bunch more common, I guess) 10:12:06 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> more of 10:12:06 <06pleasingfungus> also lol at those spriggan druid numbers 10:12:09 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> ??recentish 10:12:10 <04Cerebot> I don't have a page labeled recentish in my learndb. 10:12:15 <06pleasingfungus> !kw recentish 10:12:16 <04Cerebot> Keyword: recentish => cv>=0.28 10:12:19 <06pleasingfungus> !kw recentishish 10:12:19 <04Cerebot> Keyword: recentishish => cv>=0.27 10:12:24 <04dracoomega> Unrelatedly, we were actually looking at spriggan druid stats last night 10:12:33 <06pleasingfungus> the spriggan druid thing is very misleading i think 10:12:36 <04dracoomega> They get credited for all the other beasts they attract, by the way 10:12:38 <06pleasingfungus> yes 10:12:46 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> using ikiller makes me wonder if, actually, the most dangerous bunyip context is being called by a druid. 10:12:47 <09hellmonk> Druids own but I'm a bit sad that summon forest shuts off their awaken forest 10:12:48 <04dracoomega> The kills they get themselves is actually quite a ways down the list 10:12:53 <06pleasingfungus> yes 10:13:02 <04dracoomega> Honestly, I was kinda feeling like they don't activate awaken forest often enough 10:13:04 <09hellmonk> esp since summon forest is already absurd in swamp 10:13:09 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> we were talking about basically never noticing awaken forest or druids in general and then, uh, 10:13:14 <04dracoomega> (Hence looking at the kill stats) 10:13:15 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> saw the stats 10:13:43 <09hellmonk> will o wisp being that high is pretty funny 10:13:46 <06pleasingfungus> yeah i think you need ktyp to see awaken forest deaths 10:13:53 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> !lg * swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid s=ckiller 10:13:54 <06pleasingfungus> will o wisp was crazy busted when i first added it, still very strong 10:13:54 <04Cerebot> 1565 games for * (swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid): 292x a hydra, 264x a spriggan druid, 240x an alligator, 221x a bunyip, 206x a goliath frog, 119x a swamp worm, 117x a tyrant leech, 59x a spriggan rider, 28x a swamp dragon, 4x a spark wasp, 3x a death drake, 3x a spriggan, 2x a +0 spectral quarterstaff, 2x a lindwurm, an anaconda, a swamp drake, a steelbarb worm, a dire elephant, a f... 10:13:56 <04dracoomega> On the one hand, they are responsible for a lot of threat already, clearly. On the other, it's a more interesting vector that maybe could be dialed up just a little notch in terms of cast frequency 10:14:01 <06pleasingfungus> !lg * swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid s=ktyp 10:14:03 <04Cerebot> 1565 games for * (swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid): 1185x mon, 263x beam, 112x acid, 2x cloud, 2x collision, constriction 10:14:10 <06pleasingfungus> !lg * swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid s=ckaux 10:14:11 <04Cerebot> 1565 games for * (swamp recentishish cikiller=spriggan_druid): 1200x, 124x stone arrow, 89x by angry trees, 51x spear, 43x harpoon shot, 31x quarterstaff, 4x spectral quarterstaff, 3x spear of flaming, 2x foul vapour, 2x blast of flame, 2x blast of poison, 2x some deep water, 2x rapier, vampiric spear, bolt, foul pestilence, heavy spear, poison gas, quarterstaff of draining, quarterstaff of speed... 10:14:14 <06pleasingfungus> angry trees 10:14:15 <06pleasingfungus> there we go 10:14:18 <06pleasingfungus> good ckaux 10:14:19 <04dracoomega> And it's not like making awaken forest cast frequency high does a lot to their other stuff, since they can only activate it once every long time 10:14:23 <09hellmonk> bog body on the board is very nice to see 10:14:26 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> just trade 2.5% casting frequency on call for 2.5% casting frequency on awaken, clearly 10:14:30 <09hellmonk> Good job with that one 10:14:30 <06pleasingfungus> ya just turned up those numbers 10:14:33 <06pleasingfungus> tyty 10:14:36 <06pleasingfungus> not a big brain change 😛 10:15:09 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> crawl gets to have dozens of bolt of fire bots, why not have a few more cold ones 10:18:20 Unstable branch on crawl.kelbi.org updated to: 0.31-a0-478-g4fd37da4f0 (34) 10:21:31 <04dracoomega> It's kind of funny, when I think about it, that druids get credited for monsters they pull from the rest of the floor, but convokers don't 10:21:37 <11⸸※ of starspawned spite> scrolling back enough to remember to say, oh right, been ages since I've seen the beetle slush pile, its very existence maybe I should just commentate my immediate plans list some more and toss it up again whilst draco is getting big energy around and going 10:21:42 <04dracoomega> Even though I wrote both of those things myself 10:23:15 <06pleasingfungus> consistency is the hobgoblin of lesser roguelikes 10:27:24 <04dracoomega> // Assign blame (for statistical purposes, mostly) mons_add_blame(beast, "called by " + druid->name(DESC_A, true)); Maybe it only occurred to me the second time? 10:29:13 <06pleasingfungus> 🤷 10:29:34 <06pleasingfungus> vaguely unclear to me whether it’s more helpful than unhelpful 10:29:36 <06pleasingfungus> statistically 10:30:04 <04dracoomega> I kind of agree? 10:30:26 <04dracoomega> It's interesting, but also easy for it to be misleading if one doesn't know the context of the numbers they're looking at 10:30:57 <04dracoomega> Probably I wanted to see how well yet-another-revamp was actually threatening people, though 10:31:25