Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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fool of sound: Oct 10, 2012

fool_of_sound posted:

I have a suggestion:

Delete Nemelex, re-add Pakellas

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:23

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# ? May 30, 2024 10:36

PleasingFungus: Oct 10, 2012; idiot asshole bitch who should fuck off

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:24

Whaleporn: May 6, 2007; This is me on my bike pretty cool huh?

PleasingFungus posted:

no. all dev resources are focused on a much more critical task: newnewnewnewnewnewnewnewNemelex

*reads from the necronomicon, summoning a sludge elf hand clutching a deck of wonder with three exp cards in it. The damned whisper 'degenerate game play' 'hypothetical fun haverssssss' as corpses erupt from the ground and then boil into potions of confusion*

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:36

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

PleasingFungus posted:

no. all dev resources are focused on a much more critical task: newnewnewnewnewnewnewnewNemelex

I support this, only unironically.

Nem is so...uninspiring right now. I'm not sure what's supposed to persuade you to pick them over any other god. Decks are okay, but normal god powers tend to be better and more predictable.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:49

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Princey posted:

So I just got my second rune with a DEWz, and I have literally never gotten a caster even close to this far before, so I am left awkwardly wondering what to do next and simultaneously terrified of loving up.

Any tips/suggestions/help?

You have spellforged servitor and magic dart memorized.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:55

someone awful.: Sep 7, 2007

I really hate they nem uses invo instead of evo for card power now. Like, a lot.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 04:56

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

I know that vaccuuming up all the items in the dungeon was Bad and Unfun, but losing that influence over what decks you get hurt. That and removing the good cards - I get the 'cards shouldn't have permanent player effects' logic, but I can't remember if they ever buffed the other cards to compensate. It mostly functioned as a straight nerf to using decks.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 05:07

Darth Windu: Mar 17, 2009; by Smythe

Haifisch posted:

...straight nerf...

You dont say

# ? Mar 7, 2017 05:11

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Is the whole str/dex weighting thing gone from the game? I'm trying to use a longbow and I'm not sure if my low damage hits are from not having enough dex or not.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 06:57

Haifisch: Nov 13, 2010; Objection! I object! That was... objectionable!; Taco Defender

It's been gone for over a year. Now dex only affects accuracy and str only affects damage.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 07:02

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

fool_of_sound posted:

Delete Nemelex, re-add Pakellas

This, but chang Pakellas's name to Nemelex. Then everyone* is happy

*might not include everyone

# ? Mar 7, 2017 07:27

Johnny Joestar: Oct 21, 2010; Don't shoot him?

...
...

i still think nemelex should just offer you 'internal' decks and you use god abilities to stack them and shuffle through for cards you want and whatever, so that you don't have to carry the things around and worry about being gifted crap

# ? Mar 7, 2017 07:35

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

jon joe posted:

Wu Jian council character: Warlock's Mirror or Shield of the Gong? Gong shield provides rN and MR, both of which I'm lacking, plus the huge shield boost is good with my high strength, but warlock's mirror is so good and the lack of EV penalty is better for getting off my parries.

For a serious answer, I'd have to know your race and how much magic you're using if any (or, just press # and share a dump via pastebin or selective copy/paste). Wiser option: Warlock's Mirror. Ballsy option: Gong. I find Heaven on Earth pretty claustrophobic/nebulaphobic, not knowing what monsters are just out of site when Gong is busy drawing everything to your location? Priceless. Of course, the limited LOS helps you deal with the oncoming hordes at the same time as it increases the shock value.

Like world famous w says, if you have to ask, the only true goon answer is Gong.

LordSloth fucked around with this message at 09:32 on Mar 7, 2017

# ? Mar 7, 2017 08:44

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

Gong. Always Gong. Even if you find it in Zot 5 with zero Shields you use the Gong.

Because it is hilarious.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 09:16

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

don't use gong if you want to win. also don't use magic reflect buckler if you want to win, a normal shield is better than both

Haifisch posted:

I support this, only unironically.

Nem is so...uninspiring right now. I'm not sure what's supposed to persuade you to pick them over any other god. Decks are okay, but normal god powers tend to be better and more predictable.

Nem powers are definitely stronger than other god powers, ranging from things like "flood the screen with summons" to "tornado" to "friendly pan lord in lair". Less predictable, yes, but that's the point.

only big issue with nem right now is inventory management, which sucks

# ? Mar 7, 2017 12:12

Panic! at Nabisco: Jun 6, 2007; it seemed like a good idea at the time

I've found myself mostly playing characters with some form of item restriction (spriggans' almost no equip slots, or mummies' no potions, etc) a lot lately just because item management is kind of a pain from midgame on with most races, especially if you keep around extra jewelry for swaps, or more than like 2 or 3 wands.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 12:18

Obfuscation: Jan 1, 2008; Good luck to you, I know you believe in hell

Nemelex is awesome as is, please don't ruin him.

Also I usually stick with stable versions but sounds like I need to get some trunk time with the council god before he's nerfed into ground.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 13:24

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

IronicDongz posted:

Nem powers are definitely stronger than other god powers, ranging from things like "flood the screen with summons" to "tornado" to "friendly pan lord in lair". Less predictable, yes, but that's the point.

only big issue with nem right now is inventory management, which sucks

Nemelex powers are good while also having unpredictable strength and this is fine, but it's less fine when two of the decks have cards that can very potentially kill you when drawn. Destruction has degeneration and wild magic, several summoning cards can potentially spawn hostile summons. Escape isn't as bad but I guess an illtimed blind tomb draw could trap and kill you.

With old decks of wonder Nem was like a stronger, less crazy Xom, now he's like Makhleb with everything turned up to 11.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 14:57

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

IronicDongz posted:

don't use gong if you want to win. also don't use magic reflect buckler if you want to win, a normal shield is better than both

Are you sure about that? Because I won with the magic reflect buckler. It was quite helpful.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 16:46

Heithinn Grasida: Mar 28, 2005; ...must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel...

IronicDongz posted:

don't use gong if you want to win. also don't use magic reflect buckler if you want to win, a normal shield is better than both

Bucklers are really good if you want to cast a lot and don't want to invest in shields. If you find the warlock's mirror early, it might just be worth it to stop training shields and invest your XP in other things. Of course, if you already have the shields skill to use a normal shield, then yes, a normal shield is probably better.

Edit: That is to say, warlock's mirror at 4-6 shields plus silence and/or mana vipers, or shadow creatures and aura of abjuration, just to name a couple possibilities, is better than a normal shield at 14-16 shields.

Heithinn Grasida fucked around with this message at 17:07 on Mar 7, 2017

# ? Mar 7, 2017 17:04

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Haifisch posted:

It's been gone for over a year. Now dex only affects accuracy and str only affects damage.

Thanks. I will have to just keep lookng for more +slay gear then.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 17:16

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Heithinn Grasida posted:

Bucklers are really good if you want to cast a lot and don't want to invest in shields. If you find the warlock's mirror early, it might just be worth it to stop training shields and invest your XP in other things. Of course, if you already have the shields skill to use a normal shield, then yes, a normal shield is probably better.

Edit: That is to say, warlock's mirror at 4-6 shields plus silence and/or mana vipers, or shadow creatures and aura of abjuration, just to name a couple possibilities, is better than a normal shield at 14-16 shields.

That's true, but when they said their character had high str I assumed they were playing a heavy armor character not investing much in int/spells.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 18:05

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

I never tried Nemelex before because managing decks sounds hellish, but since it's already been simplified somewhat so I figured I'd give it a go.

Needless to say, I definitely don't "get" Nemelex yet, there's a pretty jarring level of abstraction going on when you go from Deck Type->Possible Card->Chosen card outcomes. I can see how their proper use can make the god very strong, but it feels like you can benefit a lot from doing your "homework" and pulling up each individual card effect's details so you can get a better idea of when and how to draw cards. The wikis help a bit but they're outdated

Still, I'm curious enough to want to win before Nemelex changes, it's not like it can be worse than going atheist in any case.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 18:41

Zarick: Dec 28, 2004

Serephina posted:

Council god giving explicitly stronger melee abilities sounds a-ok. There is a very big decision for using them over tabbing: your opportunity cost as a god. Whirlwind being better than tabbing is fine, because heroism and tabbing is stronger than just tabbing, TSO's halo and holy brand and tabbing is stronger than just tabbing, and so on. Also, Tab was invented&implemented for the very reason that dcss has super boring melee combat with a huge midgame slog (the latter is being addressed). So council god's decision making is a bit more meta; it's taxing your brainpower to play optimally.

I'd rather have strong optional content added instead of more felids.

This seems like the best point to me. WJC didn't seem that strong to me the several times I tried it until you get to like 4* at least for the special abilities... slightly better melee all the time just doesn't really compare to stronger melee in bursts when you need it (Trog/Oka).

# ? Mar 7, 2017 19:11

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

Zarick posted:

This seems like the best point to me. WJC didn't seem that strong to me the several times I tried it until you get to like 4* at least for the special abilities... slightly better melee all the time just doesn't really compare to stronger melee in bursts when you need it (Trog/Oka).

Yeah Trog and Oka give a huge boost in survivability by having berserk and heroism available as soon as your first pip of piety; the only thing somewhat comparable from WJC is walljumping at ** piety which lets you create distance for ranged options and/or escape a lot of bad situations. There's a lot of potential danger you have to endure before you get to that point, however.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 19:31

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

apple posted:

I never tried Nemelex before because managing decks sounds hellish, but since it's already been simplified somewhat so I figured I'd give it a go.

Needless to say, I definitely don't "get" Nemelex yet, there's a pretty jarring level of abstraction going on when you go from Deck Type->Possible Card->Chosen card outcomes. I can see how their proper use can make the god very strong, but it feels like you can benefit a lot from doing your "homework" and pulling up each individual card effect's details so you can get a better idea of when and how to draw cards. The wikis help a bit but they're outdated

Still, I'm curious enough to want to win before Nemelex changes, it's not like it can be worse than going atheist in any case.

I'm indifferent on Nemelex. I prefer many other gods over Nem (I'm the person who likes Oka as is and likes picking Oka often), but I would snap Nem up in a heartbeat over Fedhas or Elyvilon despite it being a weaker choice. I would add Sif to that list as well, but I haven't given new Sif a shot yet.

Definitely better than atheist, though. I think only Xom, Chei, and Qazlal are worse than atheist at worship, and Chei and Qazlal grow out of it with enough piety/experience.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 19:36

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

That's only because you're playing too boring for XOM to have fun. Whereas my loose and risky plays..get me killed. But at least XOM roars with laughter a lot!

# ? Mar 7, 2017 19:51

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

apple posted:

I never tried Nemelex before because managing decks sounds hellish, but since it's already been simplified somewhat so I figured I'd give it a go.

Needless to say, I definitely don't "get" Nemelex yet, there's a pretty jarring level of abstraction going on when you go from Deck Type->Possible Card->Chosen card outcomes. I can see how their proper use can make the god very strong, but it feels like you can benefit a lot from doing your "homework" and pulling up each individual card effect's details so you can get a better idea of when and how to draw cards. The wikis help a bit but they're outdated

Still, I'm curious enough to want to win before Nemelex changes, it's not like it can be worse than going atheist in any case.

Nooblex Goonbeh. I did my first 'serious' retry of Nem after the rework a few weeks back when I was trying to try out all the gods with HoFi. Here's a guide written by a noob for noobs, quality not guaranteed.

Decks come with 4-13 cards. This will be important later.
The learndb and wiki pages are both outta date and poo poo, which is why I'm writing this lovely noob guide rather than linking to something better written.
Decks come in four flavors: Destruction, Escape, Summoning, and Punishment. The last one does not exist as an actual item, and ties into wrath and draw four, which I'll touch on later. You can look up these decks with item lookup "?/i deck" in any game, and the cards with "?/c". Once you're worshipping Nemelex, you can pull up the exact relevant card information any time you use draw three or stack five, which is quite convenient.
Draw four is always fantastic with Summoning, occasionally amazing with destruction, and why would you even with escape. It is important to note that if you draw four and do not have enough cards in the deck, then you'll draw from punishment. Ideally your first use of a new deck of summoning will always be Draw Four. It never backfired on me, though I did train Invocations which might have helped. Any hostile demons are drowned out by friendlies as long as it's your opening move. Drawing four after that is a gamble, a pretty good one if you have no other options, but a crappy one if you're not desperate. Deck of Destruction drawing four can be awesome if you get the right cards, but the odds of any useful outcome plummet once punishment is included in the mix. Even degeneration isn't quite that bad if you get a few, because it morphs them to lower "HD" monsters. Occasionally, a lower HD monster can be more dangerous, but in many situations it can still be beneficial. It's trickier to get a feel for than a wand of polymorph other, but stacked in your favor, rng spite aside. http://imgur.com/hTvsvKE
Draw three doesn't draw from punishment if you run out.
Stack five appears to use up quite a lot of piety. You probably want to use it as often as you can - you can't really use it that many times from max piety, and I probably wasted a lot of opportunity not using it till after piety maxed out for a while. That said, I think piety influences outcome as well as invocations... but you probably don't want to hold it in reserve.
While I used escape occasionally, as a HOFi^Nem with a great invo apt I didn't use it often enough and Summoning+Axe&Shield prevented most situations from degenerating to that point.
Nothing is more beautiful than summoning a screen of allied dragons to deal with a unique. That said, once you've broken the seal on your new deck, their value drops pretty significantly since draw four starts to risk drawing from punishment - and even if punishment doesn't turn out that bad, it's still 25-75% less effective than a full draw four.
Destruction is the first deck I draw from in a normal encounter, be it once or three times. The ordinary decks can be a little underwhelming at times even with a high invocations, or they can punch above their weight class. There's no particular reason to be conservative with them or keep them 'virgin' for a draw four. It's when you get ornate or legendary that these start showing their real value - I remember spawning like three or four orbs of destruction in a single turn and absolutely wrecking a unique.
TL;DR - virgin decks are valuable, but once you've broken that cherry, hurry up and use them to free up more inventory slots.
My hill orc fighter of Nemelex solved the inventory problem in the end quite simply. I turned off Evocations and toggled off the autopickup of ALL wands. I was quite happy and pleased with how this worked out though this is trunk post wand-overhaul.

LordSloth fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Mar 7, 2017

# ? Mar 7, 2017 20:10

vOv: Feb 8, 2014

Here's my semi-serious Council suggestion: bake whirlwind into all melee regardless of god but with reduced effectiveness and no slow; give axes 100% effective whirlwind (while keeping the existing cleave). WJC's ability gives you 100% effective slowing whirlwind.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 20:36

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

LordSloth posted:

This is really useful and concise, thanks!

I pissed off a lot of ghosts including my own apparently

# ? Mar 7, 2017 20:40

Darth Windu: Mar 17, 2009; by Smythe

Found a swastika vault, the devs secret nazis confirmed

# ? Mar 7, 2017 20:54

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Darth Windu posted:

Found a swastika vault, the devs secret nazis confirmed

Have you casted Tornado yet?

# ? Mar 7, 2017 20:57

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

tomb card+elixir card is super super loving good.

one easy trick to stay alive, doctors hate him

# ? Mar 7, 2017 21:21

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

I'm never going to win DsSu. Got back on to play while stuck waiting on a CAT scan for appendicitis. Turns out 3 levels of claws and heroism early is not helpful when Joseph shows up on D7 and hits you for 15-20 pts a turn through blockers.

I am also sick as hell of heavy armor and axe player ghosts. Ghosts, good idea. Making them so unbalanced that they are either a massive boost of free xp or an unkillable murder monster, bad idea. Can we not cap the power by dungeon level or SOMETHING? If you get stairs close together you basically either have to skip that level (which is really lovely to have to do early on) or spend hundreds of turns fleeing which makes OOD monsters spawn.

Why is this a thing? Why not just have the game roll a 20 sided die every time you enter a level, it it's a 20 you get a pot of xp and if it's a 1 a meteor hits the dungeon and you die? That would be about as fun and meaningful for my game play.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 21:32

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

Tomb card + ambrosia is a nice alternative. Can't wander around aimlessly if you're locked away!

# ? Mar 7, 2017 21:36

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

I tried playing a game with Nem recently and ditched her because holy poo poo inventory management is horrible.

Doesn't matter how strong she can be; until something gets done about that I'm not touching her again. Its straight up not fun.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 21:39

LordSloth: Mar 7, 2008; Disgruntled (IT) Employee

There are only two ways to enjoy Nemelex, really. Either play a mummy who can't use a whole category of items, or just seal an entire class of items (wands), so you can carry thirteen decks or so w/o trouble. Wands didn't turn out to be much of a sacrifice.

Lazy rear end Idea: Newnewnewnewnewnewnewnewnew Nemelex is brought back at the same time as an overhauled Pakellas. Nemelex worshipers cannot use any wands (evokables including rings maybe?) at all in exchange for decks. Divinely gift Nemelex with an additional completely new four letters of the alphabet just for decks. Ability to sacrifice a deck to add cards to another. An ordinary deck merged into another will add two for every three sacrificed. Into an ornate deck it would offer one for every three. Ordinary decks could not be directly merged into legendaries, but ornates could.

Downside: more micromanagement of your decks/interface fiddling but on the other hand you'd extend the life of "Draw Four" on your decks while simplifying inventory.

Better Idea: Any more comprehensive idea than what I type up a couple hours after a dentist visit.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 22:04

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

I want nemelex to have a "hand" of cards disconnected from inventory, in the abilities screen(or evoke screen, whatever). you gain them for gaining piety(and get 2 on joining) and only have 5 cards in your hand max, so you are incentivized to use them regularly to avoid wasting potential card draw.

abilities tied to piety can be things like drawing a card for hefty cost, mulliganing multiple cards, playing your whole hand at once, etc

# ? Mar 7, 2017 22:33

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Araganzar posted:

I'm never going to win DsSu. Got back on to play while stuck waiting on a CAT scan for appendicitis. Turns out 3 levels of claws and heroism early is not helpful when Joseph shows up on D7 and hits you for 15-20 pts a turn through blockers.

I am also sick as hell of heavy armor and axe player ghosts. Ghosts, good idea. Making them so unbalanced that they are either a massive boost of free xp or an unkillable murder monster, bad idea. Can we not cap the power by dungeon level or SOMETHING? If you get stairs close together you basically either have to skip that level (which is really lovely to have to do early on) or spend hundreds of turns fleeing which makes OOD monsters spawn.

Why is this a thing? Why not just have the game roll a 20 sided die every time you enter a level, it it's a 20 you get a pot of xp and if it's a 1 a meteor hits the dungeon and you die? That would be about as fun and meaningful for my game play.

code:

2392  | D:4      | Noticed SSCheezBurger's ghost (novice MiBe)
7169  | D:7      | Noticed UpsideDownChuck's ghost (novice MiBe)
28867 | Orc:1    | Noticed lightheart's ghost (journeyman MiBe)
32998 | D:15     | Noticed christiangoth's ghost (journeyman MiBe)

# ? Mar 7, 2017 22:36

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# ? May 30, 2024 10:36

Zarick: Dec 28, 2004

LordSloth posted:

Nooblex Goonbeh. I did my first 'serious' retry of Nem after the rework a few weeks back when I was trying to try out all the gods with HoFi. Here's a guide written by a noob for noobs, quality not guaranteed.

Draw four is always fantastic with Summoning, occasionally amazing with destruction, and why would you even with escape. It is important to note that if you draw four and do not have enough cards in the deck, then you'll draw from punishment. Ideally your first use of a new deck of summoning will always be Draw Four. It never backfired on me, though I did train Invocations which might have helped. Any hostile demons are drowned out by friendlies as long as it's your opening move. Drawing four after that is a gamble, a pretty good one if you have no other options, but a crappy one if you're not desperate. Deck of Destruction drawing four can be awesome if you get the right cards, but the odds of any useful outcome plummet once punishment is included in the mix. Even degeneration isn't quite that bad if you get a few, because it morphs them to lower "HD" monsters. Occasionally, a lower HD monster can be more dangerous, but in many situations it can still be beneficial. It's trickier to get a feel for than a wand of polymorph other, but stacked in your favor, rng spite aside. http://imgur.com/hTvsvKE

I had a similar experience where I turned Gastronok into a shard shrike who instantly one-shotted me from full health.

# ? Mar 7, 2017 22:37

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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