Some thoughts about prerelease 21

[_Ln_]

I would like to hear more comments about this. It might be a temporary side effects as the upcoming new quests should prolong the game and require more time. The idea behind the tuned down rate was that you have more time to explore levels instead of just power diving. Maybe there still need to be more incentives for exploring :-^

Blasphemous is absolutely correct. Background corruption is now almost gone. I've cleared two greater vaults (one on D:46 and one on D:41 - GUV with hoards of summons). Back in the old days I would have probably picked about 4 corruptions from this whole thing for my L+ character. This time - 1 corruption. I suppose it had to do something with my stellar Ap score (in the 30s), but it's still remarkable.

The character is still not finished, cleared Maze, BDC, aforementioned vaults, on the way to Scintillating Cave and she had 3 corruptions overall (turncount is something about 80k in the game, majority of it in the corrupting areas) and used 1 SoCR from Khelly. If I get to finish the ultra, I'm going to drink a lot of potions of raw chaos I'm afraid.

[BenMathiesen]

I agree with Blasphemous that this is the way to go.

In p20 I really enjoyed the feeling that stealth mad a major effect on the game. I also had the experience of glee when I could just walk past the first corridor of golems in DF with some characters.

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

I had no idea that armor/boots affected the stealth mechanic, but if so then I think this is a good way to control stealth too. I would also be OK with making this "superior" stealth a (documented!) class power for thieves and assassins (maybe rangers too), which other characters can get through the Stealthy talent. I'm not sure this should be extended to mindcrafters, since stealth works well on constructs and undead.

Eventually all characters have easy access to invisibility, but stealth is a very nice differentiator between the classes in the early to mid game, and it's also handy in the late game to be naturally stealthy rather than relying on spells or items that increase your food consumption.

[Stingray1]

Well said, in the late game you should be able to walk around perma-invisilized without food issues. I did so in my playthrough from the casino. Just saying food is not an issue in the game most of the game, especially the late game.

[Blasphemous]

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

This is exactly my line of thought. Stealth as it was in pre20 allowed you to avoid unwanted battles.
If I opened a tension room of titans, I could just close it and move on without them noticing me. Now that's virtually impossible.

As for my 100 stealth + stealthy talent, it was always about getting past the first line of golems.
It makes it possible to clear the weapon and armor rooms by only destroying the two guardian golems (unless some are generated inside as they often are these days) without having to face all of them.
That is assuming you wont trigger any of the traps (additional challenge) as a single one activated may very well bring four more golems on your head.
Having only 3-4 missiles of slaying or construct slaying as well as 90ish HP, 20 PV and no good weapon is really not enough to destroy all of the golems but it *might* be enough to take out two or three of them.

Once again I have to stress this out - stealth in pre20 worked wonderfully when maxed because it allowed you to evade enemies rather than face them every time.
There are archetypes in RPG games - there is a warrior, a rogue/archer and a spellcaster. With stealth nerfed as it is right now, you're effectively removing the middle type leaving you with the only option to blast your way through hordes of monsters.
Of course you can teleport but even a full-blown elven wizard will be hard pressed to teleport all the time in deeper CoC. Stealth gives you the third option and that is great.

EDIT: In response to Ln's comment, I played two gate closers in pre21 and both were gray elven so obviously I had 20+ appearance that got even higher later in the game, this might have had a significant impact on perceived accumulation of corruption effects.
I gotta play a trollish barb and see how that goes

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

This. I agree.

[anon123]

Due to work I haven't been able to play the new prereleases as much as I'd like, but I wanted to say I like the increased monster generation, as it helps you get experience and items early on. However, I can see why it would be nerfed if it works the same way deep in the CoC, where lots of high-DL monsters are generated.

Monsters sometimes being generated non-hostile and thus attacking each other (to the point finding corpses and item drops from these fights seems to happen relatively frequently) is a very welcome change, simply to alter the monotony of everything trying to kill you a little.

Getting item drops from summoned rats and jackals once more is also refreshing

[JellySlayer]

I agree with Blasphemous that this is the way to go.

In p20 I really enjoyed the feeling that stealth mad a major effect on the game. I also had the experience of glee when I could just walk past the first corridor of golems in DF with some characters.

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

If this were a unique effect to thieves (or thieves and assassins), this argument might have a point. Stealth can be easily acquired/mastered by any R/C, and many classes/races start with it by default.

As far as the corruption is concerned, I think that nerfing the corruption rate overall was a good idea, but perhaps the change is just a little too extreme. Some fine-tuning is probably required. If you can finish an ultra practically without corruption removal, I think that's taking it too far in the other direction. Maybe split the difference between 1.1.1 and pre22?

[BenMathiesen]

Wow, I finally got a character into the late game in p22 so I can now comment intelligently on the monster distribution.
The character was a human weaponsmith, with no stealth skill.

In deep levels, there is definitely a preponderance of giants. I was fighting molochs, titans, ancient karmic dragons, and lich kings on a regular basis, and encountering greater karmic wyrms and emperor liches from time to time as well. The regular levels are more difficult than the temples. Fortunately I had Grod, which helped against the giants and demons.

There is an issue with variety: the fights are difficult but most of them are against some variety of giant or dragon.

There is also an issue with the tempo: this character rarely had time to rest. This is actually pretty interesting and made the end game a new experience for me, more than the types of monsters I was fighting. Each level below D40 felt like a real ordeal, to the point where I had made the decision to dive quickly and not try to explore them all. So it encourages the same behavior as earlier versions but for a different reason. In early versions I spent as little time as possible on D40-D48 because I was racing against corruption. In this version I wanted to conserve resources--monsters were coming at me from all sides, and I didn't have that many potions of xtra healing available for emergencies. Even with regeneration I was constantly at around half HP. So I figured, since I'm getting my ass kicked I might ass well get it kicked at the gate.

Personally, I think this level of tension and challenge is desirable in the late game, but maybe it would play better if the number of monsters per level were reduced to ~30 and the background corruption rate on deep levels were increased by about 50%.

I did not notice an issue with item drops--I didn't have enough potions or corruption removal. At some point I had a stack of almost 50 giant slaying quarrels but I was eating through them pretty quickly! 90% of the drops are still junk at that stage, even from all the ancient dragons.

This character was a real brick, with armor at around 100/50 (with Big Punch and shield) or 60/50 (with Grod), and the Bracers of War (from the casino). He could go toe-to-toe with titans and molochs, no problem. He got the first 4 orbs, but eventually died i n the Mana side dungeon when he got cornered between a greater moloch and a greater titan.

Other thoughts:

The Master Summoner teleported next to me and tried to engage me in melee. Nice of him! He didn't last long.
An emperor lich summoned Ancient Karmic Wyrms. He made a better summoner than the Master Summoner.
There were tons of ghost lords and ghost kings wandering around--not sure if that was from the lich summons or from the background monster distribution. I don't think an orc or troll could survive down there even with high shield skill. The kings at least should be made rarer, and/or more difficult to summon. Do liches summoning undead take into account monster rarity?
Riurry starts friendly enough that you swap places with her rather than attacking her.