Crawl 0.17: Corn enemies no longer popcorn

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl 0.17: Corn enemies no longer popcorn

Prism: Dec 22, 2007; yospos

HisMajestyBOB posted:

I liked using Rods of the Swarm to create chaff as a DD of Pakellas. Plus wasps could paralyze and bee poison was great in Spider.

Boo.

You can still use sacks of spiders, though those are less unlimited. I've gotten an emperor scorpion out of them if I use the surge ability Pakellas gives.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 01:54

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:31

Angry Diplomat: Nov 7, 2009; Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging

Sack of Spiders still exists, so good riddance to the Rod of Crappy Bugs imo

e: beaten. Anyway the real Sack superstars are Tarantellas. A few of those things and a huge pile of beefier spider types can chump a demon lord with a little patience.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 01:55

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

Finally got a win off Vampire and with Kiku. Branded a quick blade, managed to pivot into Summons and Malign Gateway (no Haste, no Invisibility spellbooks spawned but I made do) and dashed my way through a hectic Orb run.

Didn't like Abyss this time around, which is strange. I think it's because my short blades weren't outputting enough damage to take out key adversaries like wretched stars and starcursed masses. Might have to train more in that weapon skill and use the cross-training for a long blade on switch if I do that again.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 03:01

Mystery Prize: Nov 7, 2010

Wow, okay, I did not expect a titanic slime creature to be able to hit me for 72 damage through 70 AC and 54% GDR. I've NEVER had those hit that hard, and I've fought them with characters who had quite a lot less AC/GDR.

That was a really promising GrCK

# ? Feb 6, 2016 07:13

Angry Diplomat: Nov 7, 2009; Winner of the TSR Memorial Award for Excellence In Grogging

Titanic slime creatures can hit for well in excess of 100 damage IIRC. Don't let them hit you ever.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 07:23

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

"Deal up to 110 damage a swing in melee. You will die."

Slime creatures are one of those enemies that doesn't seem dangerous later on until you lose a character to one. Then you feel really dumb.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 07:35

Mystery Prize: Nov 7, 2010

Yeah, lesson learned. I tabbed through a half dozen of them, but that one landed a lucky roll

# ? Feb 6, 2016 07:37

the Orb of Zot: Jun 25, 2013; Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

Oh thank god, I'm free.

code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.18-a0-1249-gd1621d3 (console) character file.

1643004 darkli the Blinker (level 27, 200/200 HPs)
             Began as a High Elf Skald on Feb 6, 2016.
             Was the Champion of Okawaru.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes!
             
             The game lasted 03:30:55 (76863 turns).

darkli the Blinker (High Elf Skald)                Turns: 76863, Time: 03:30:55

Health: 200/200    AC: 49    Str: 13    XL:     27
Magic:  28/39      EV: 51    Int: 23    God:    Okawaru [******]
Gold:   2292       SH: 22    Dex: 29    Spells: 13 memorised, 14 levels left

rFire  + . .      SeeInvis +    a - +9 double sword (vamp)
rCold  + . .      Gourm    .    r - +5 steam dragon armour
rNeg   . . .      Faith    .    j - +5 shield "Qyphir" {+Blink rC+ SInv}
rPois  .          Spirit   .    n - +0 mask of the Dragon {MR+ Slay+3 SInv}
rElec  +          Dismiss  .    c - +1 cloak "Byngua" {rElec MR+++ Str-3 Stlth+}
rCorr  .          Reflect  .    M - +2 pair of gloves {archery}
SustAt .          Harm     .    C - +2 pair of boots {run}
MR     +++++                    l - amulet "Goethepn" {RegenMP rF+ SInv Stlth-}
Stlth  ++........               V - +6 ring of protection
                                X - ring of Robustness {AC+8}

Decided to after the MiAr win go back to trying to win HESk like a masochist, and mercifully first game after the MiAr I pulled it off.

With heroism, ozo's, and phase shift up, I had 43 AC (I usually was not wearing the +6 ring of protection), 44 EV, and 21 SV. In Steam Dragon Armor. 40/41/19 without heroism if I remember correctly. The point being I was an absurd supertank nigh impossible to hit or damage even before factoring in deflect missiles, my +9 vampiric double sword healing me, or regeneration.

Just wanted to get this out of the way before the devteam goes through with their current plans regarding charms. Thankful I did!

the Orb of Zot fucked around with this message at 11:08 on Feb 6, 2016

# ? Feb 6, 2016 11:06

meatpath: Feb 13, 2003

Mystery Prize posted:

Yeah, lesson learned. I tabbed through a half dozen of them, but that one landed a lucky roll

Juggernauts should set your same alarm bells off. They are terrifying.

quote:

juggernaut
They hit extremely hard (120 max damage!) and have very high AC and HP. They also move fast. However, they swing very slowly. Make the most of the time you get after a swing.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 15:31

ZeeToo: Feb 20, 2008; I'm a kitty!

Statue Form AC bumped up to mostly cover the loss of stoneskin.

# ? Feb 6, 2016 15:56

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

ZeeToo posted:

Statue Form AC bumped up to mostly cover the loss of stoneskin.

Oh okay stone skin being dead is fine now.

VVV Stupid. The trade off to using ozo's armour is that you don't get to use heavier armour. Giving it another downside is dumb.

Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 03:50 on Feb 7, 2016

# ? Feb 6, 2016 23:04

the Orb of Zot: Jun 25, 2013; Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

code:

Make Ozocubu's Armour give Ponderous 1

Such that it's not wise to keep it running 100% of the time. (90%,
maybe.)

If this feels insufficiently situational in practice, the ac &
ponderousness can be increased, or the spell can be replaced
entirely.

Discuss.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 03:44

resistentialism: Aug 13, 2007

Kinda, random? Mixed message maybe thematically? I thought it was armour for your light and airy types.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 03:48

cheetah7071: Oct 20, 2010; honk honk; College Slice

Makes sense to me. Still worth it in combat, but now kind of lovely to have up when you round a corner.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 04:10

Indecisive: May 6, 2007

are mountain dwarves back in yet

# ? Feb 7, 2016 04:14

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Indecisive posted:

are mountain dwarves back in yet

They're in the great big hive in the sky.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 04:15

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...

the Orb of Zot posted:

code:

Make Ozocubu's Armour give Ponderous 1

Such that it's not wise to keep it running 100% of the time. (90%,
maybe.)

If this feels insufficiently situational in practice, the ac &
ponderousness can be increased, or the spell can be replaced
entirely.

Discuss.

Fine as long as you can turn it back off after casting it. It's certainly not the solution I would choose, but I suppose it improves the spell.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 04:50

Can Of Worms: Sep 4, 2011; That's not how the Triangle Attack works...

It's Statue Form's littler, colder sister!

# ? Feb 7, 2016 05:26

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...

I just finished my first .18 character. Yet another DEAM, my favorite bad combo. Here are some thoughts, I don't know how other people feel about these things:

-The wand of iceblast is still a little weak. I understand the motivation to change wands, but I wish iceblast and lightning bolt were more useable. The reason people didn't use lightning bolt and fireball before wasn't because they were overshadowed by fire and cold, rather that fire and cold were just strong enough to be worth using, while lightning bolt and fireball simply weren't. I carried around a wand of iceblast in the early game through parts of lair and zapped it a few times, and regretted doing so each time. Maybe just bad luck on my part. I didn't use the wand of acid all that much because I didn't find one until later, but it seemed more worthwhile. Iceblast doesn't need a large buff, but it and lightning bolt should do a little more damage or just be removed outright.

-Arcane marksman is still incredibly weak, but Gell's Gravitas is a little better. It still doesn't do much damage, but it's a major step up from doing nothing at all and it's nice for sucking enemies into clouds or re-positioning enemies to make them easier to hit. If the stars align just right, you can pull off fun combos with it and inner flame, where you blow someone up, then inner flame someone else, suck them into the flame cloud and make them blow up too for double the carnage. Both spells are still much too situational for the book of debilitation to feel like a complete starting book, though.

-Yara's Violent Unraveling is great. I didn't learn it until around elf: 3, and only really used it to strip repel/deflect missiles off of annoying enemies, but I regretted dropping it even after I had Tornado. I imagine I will be able to use it much more effectively in the future.

-To combine those two previous points, I suggest adding Yara's to the AM starting book, possibly in place of Leda's liquefaction, which, while not entirely useless, is pretty close and is only helpful in occasionally letting you take less damage in a fight you would already win. I don't think Yara's would be unbalanced, since it requires pretty substantial investment to cast, and it would give the class a way to deal reliable AoE damage in the mid game.

-The new Elf is really good. I like all the enemies there a lot now. Each fight feels fairly meaningful because every enemy can potentially do something dangerous without being overwhelming (until elf: 3, of course). The changes to elf: 3 didn't impact me at all, because I never really cheesed it to begin with.

-The new amulets are cool. I wore MP regen for most of the game, which was very powerful for my character, switched to harm for a little while, which was fun, but didn't seem worth it, especially compared to MP regen, then found a ridiculous randart amulet of regen in depths and wore that for the rest of the game.

-Song of slaying is much better now. It's still situational and it's hard to find the right time to use it. I think, ideally, it would be much noisier, but last even longer. But when it works, it works very well. A reliable +9 slaying in lair branch ends is no joke. However, I'm pretty unclear about what counts towards it. Tornado and Gell's did, chain lightning and Parrow didn't, I think ball lightning did. It's very unclear.

-How many cMut potions are people finding now? I found three over the course of the game, which was just enough, but extended would have been a major hassle if I felt any inclination to do it.

-What exactly are the proposed changes to charms? Other than just removing them all, of course. I'm apprehensive that the devs will go mad with power and mess up my favorite character archetype. I do think the way Crawl handles buffs is outdated and needlessly cumbersome, but the problems aren't nearly bad enough as to require such a radical solution as just removing all buffs entirely!

-All in all, .18 is has a bunch of really cool stuff! I like it a lot.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 06:33

kaschei: Oct 25, 2005

Heithinn Grasida posted:

-What exactly are the proposed changes to charms? Other than just removing them all, of course. I'm apprehensive that the devs will go mad with power and mess up my favorite character archetype. I do think the way Crawl handles buffs is outdated and needlessly cumbersome, but the problems aren't nearly bad enough as to require such a radical solution as just removing all buffs entirely!

I think they're going to be combined with Hexes into one school called "Enchantments"

# ? Feb 7, 2016 06:39

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

# ? Feb 7, 2016 07:16

World Famous W: May 25, 2007; BAAAAAAAAAAAA

kaschei posted:

I think they're going to be combined with Hexes into one school called "Enchantments"

_{_{_{_{So this ain't just an empty quote, Bring back Crown of Eternal Torment.}}}}

# ? Feb 7, 2016 07:53

Mystery Prize: Nov 7, 2010

Play a maces character, find nothing but good non-maces, every time.

I found two runed double swords, several fairly good randart long blades, a +7 randart battleaxe with the speed brand and +6 str, and the lajatang of order, with no 1H maces better than a +0 morningstar of protection :shepface:

# ? Feb 7, 2016 12:03

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Have brand weapon scrolls always been able to roll chaos since their remake? Because it happened to me for the first time ever.

Are all the god brands possible or is it just Xoms one? I've never seen any of the other four god brands from brand scrolls either, but considering how long it took to roll chaos they could just have a tiny chance.

Related, can you roll speed? Never seen that before either. I thought I knew that it could only roll basic brands but apparently I was mistaken.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 12:09

Mystery Prize: Nov 7, 2010

Darox posted:

Have brand weapon scrolls always been able to roll chaos since their remake? Because it happened to me for the first time ever.

Are all the god brands possible or is it just Xoms one? I've never seen any of the other four god brands from brand scrolls either, but considering how long it took to roll chaos they could just have a tiny chance.

Related, can you roll speed? Never seen that before either. I thought I knew that it could only roll basic brands but apparently I was mistaken.

IIRC it can roll any brand except speed, distortion, holy wrath, pain and antimagic, with varying chances to roll each. Flaming, freezing and venom are the most common, with vorpal, electrocution, protection, vampiric and chaos being successively more rare (chaos is like 2% I think?)

# ? Feb 7, 2016 12:50

rchandra: Apr 30, 2013

Darox posted:

Have brand weapon scrolls always been able to roll chaos since their remake? Because it happened to me for the first time ever.

Are all the god brands possible or is it just Xoms one? I've never seen any of the other four god brands from brand scrolls either, but considering how long it took to roll chaos they could just have a tiny chance.

Related, can you roll speed? Never seen that before either. I thought I knew that it could only roll basic brands but apparently I was mistaken.

Sequell posted:

rands melee weapons to: 19.0% flaming, 19.0% freezing, 15.8% vorpal, 12.7% venom, 9.49% drain, 9.49% electrocution, 7.59% protection, 5.06% vampiricism, 1.90% chaos. Ranged weapons: 25% flame, 25% frost, 16.6% venom, 16.6% vorpal, 10% evasion, 4.2% electrocution, 2.5% chaos. Reroll if same as current brand or disliked by your god.

Between the low chance and chaos being disliked by many gods, not too surprising. No other fancy brands unless you count vampiric. Elec/chaos on longbows is quite nice, though.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 12:52

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

So it's exactly as I thought it worked plus a tiny 1.9% chance for chaos. I guess that's neat, considering chaos is fighting with pain for the title of rarest brand. At least Kiku can ensure you get pain on a worthwhile weapon.

Another brand question: Can chaos spawn at random? All the other brands can show up in the wild, but chaos only seems to appear on special vault enemies.

e: FR: Replace the distortion brand on the three special weapons in discopan with chaos brand. Discopan predates chaos brand, and it's more thematic & funny giving people high tier chaos weapons at a point where they are almost totally irrelevant.

Darox fucked around with this message at 13:56 on Feb 7, 2016

# ? Feb 7, 2016 13:37

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I just finished my first .18 character. Yet another DEAM, my favorite bad combo. Here are some thoughts, I don't know how other people feel about these things:

-The wand of iceblast is still a little weak. I understand the motivation to change wands, but I wish iceblast and lightning bolt were more useable. The reason people didn't use lightning bolt and fireball before wasn't because they were overshadowed by fire and cold, rather that fire and cold were just strong enough to be worth using, while lightning bolt and fireball simply weren't. I carried around a wand of iceblast in the early game through parts of lair and zapped it a few times, and regretted doing so each time. Maybe just bad luck on my part. I didn't use the wand of acid all that much because I didn't find one until later, but it seemed more worthwhile. Iceblast doesn't need a large buff, but it and lightning bolt should do a little more damage or just be removed outright.

I think it does like 17 max damage or something, which is. pretty dang bad. I don't really care about 40% of 17 damage being unresistable

# ? Feb 7, 2016 15:28

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

IronicDongz posted:

I think it does like 17 max damage or something, which is. pretty dang bad. I don't really care about 40% of 17 damage being unresistable

To be clear, that's the number for 0 evo skill. It scales up to ~50 max dam, though ofc you're not gonna have that much skill in lair or w/e.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 16:53

mossyfisk: Nov 8, 2010; FF0000

God, I'm trying both Pakellas and Deep Dwarf for the first time, and this feels crazy. I've got so much toolbox and protection I feel invulnerable. Bumped into two Hydras on D5 and got away fine, then met another one and polymorphed it into a storm dragon. I've made so many stupid mistakes but I'm still just wandering about shotgunning everything in sight.

The Fire Dragon Armor and +5 Freezing rP rE war axe I found on D3 probably also helped. I love the way in Crawl something happens to make it seem crazy every run.

# ? Feb 7, 2016 17:26

the Orb of Zot: Jun 25, 2013; Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

Condensation Shield got removed, RIP. Note that also applies to monsters (so deep elf knights are a bit easier to kill now as a result)

On the bright side, it was balanced out with a much cooler change: Yred's Enslave Soul now works on DEMONS. Enslave Cerebov to do your bidding!

# ? Feb 7, 2016 22:18

heard u like girls: Mar 25, 2013

Excellent, keeping these spells up is a pain in the rear end and annoying.

So, whats going in the Ice-book to compensate ?

# ? Feb 8, 2016 00:13

Orv: May 4, 2011

D&D, Pikel and Sigmund all just chilling in one room on D6. I knew finding that randart trident on D2 was bad.

# ? Feb 8, 2016 00:26

the Orb of Zot: Jun 25, 2013; Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

Humans Among Us posted:

Excellent, keeping these spells up is a pain in the rear end and annoying.

So, whats going in the Ice-book to compensate ?

Nothing: IE is considered the strongest spellcaster start and behind only Be for strongest start in the game.

If Ozocubu's Armor itself is removed (which could still happen!), there will probably be a replacement spell for it since otherwise there would be no level 3 ice magic spell, but outside of that nothing.

# ? Feb 8, 2016 00:41

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

There was some talk about cooking up a new replacement spell (some suggestions were tossed around), but it's very much up in the air right now.

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:25

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

PleasingFungus posted:

To be clear, that's the number for 0 evo skill. It scales up to ~50 max dam, though ofc you're not gonna have that much skill in lair or w/e.

50 max damage for a limited resource (unless you run a specific god) at (presumably?) 27 skill is hella weak

correct me if i'm wrong on the last one

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:28

resistentialism: Aug 13, 2007

Well it is AoE and almost impossible to miss with, barring an invisible monster in your way or a misclick.

It's also a "limited resource" that you can't possibly burn any other way, except for dropping it to free up an inventory slot.

resistentialism fucked around with this message at 02:35 on Feb 8, 2016

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:31

Tollymain: Jul 9, 2010; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

with a lot less investment in other skills i can do far worse things, repeatedly

hell, i can do far worse things with less investment in evocations with other tools

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:34

SirSamVimes: Jul 21, 2008; ~* Challenge *~

Between ozo nerf and condshield removal, rip my favourite MfIE of Chei start.

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:39

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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:31

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

SirSamVimes posted:

Between ozo nerf and condshield removal, rip my favourite MfIE of Chei start.

how is ozo nerf even a problem for chei..........

# ? Feb 8, 2016 02:41

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