Nexus: remove stat swap effect

[Zikke]

Very amusing

But what's the fun in a menage if you're always trying to *destruct* the trois?

Sometimes breaking LoS can help in that situation.


.....


>_>

[Nemesis]

Although come to think of it, nexus breath is the only breath that can really destroy you without actually killing you. Disnechanted, burned, or otherwise destroyed things can be re-enchanted or replaced. I guess in the end I'd say I'm on the fence about it, but I'd lean toward keeping it as is.

Won't you undo any harm done to you by maxing your stats (while at the same time permanently protecting yourself from stat swap)??

But I guess it depends a bit on your class, scumming for stat gain potions to get your character on its feet again would be a bit dangerous for those who can't detect monsters and those who can detect monsters are much less likely to suffer from stat swap in first place...

[Derakon]

Nemesis: the problem here is that nexus stat swapping can occur at level 27 (1350'; Nexus Hound native depth) while stat gain, at least for the characters I play, isn't generally all that far along until I hit 2500' or so. If you expect every character to stop and hang out in the 1600-1800' region until they've maxed their stats, then you aren't accounting for more aggressive playstyles. And I don't think it's reasonable to have an attack that enforces scumming for stat potions until the effect has been negated. In the amount of time that would take, I could get a brand-new character most of the way to where I was when I was hit by the attack. That's why this is an "instadeath": it causes me to no longer have any interest in playing the character.

Nexus is an oddball here because it has this massively overpowered effect (effectively, permanently draining one of your stats by a massive amount), well before you can reasonably be expected to resist it. But that effect is rare, so the majority of the time you never see it. The standard in Angband is for effects to be temporary and common (normal stat drain, experience drain). This gives players an incentive to avoid the effect without ruining the game if they fail.

[Hariolor]

Nexus is an oddball here because it has this massively overpowered effect (effectively, permanently draining one of your stats by a massive amount), well before you can reasonably be expected to resist it. But that effect is rare, so the majority of the time you never see it. The standard in Angband is for effects to be temporary and common (normal stat drain, experience drain). This gives players an incentive to avoid the effect without ruining the game if they fail.

How about making Nexus swaps a semi-permanent effect - maybe reversable with use of the currently almost-obsolete remove curse effect?

[miyazaki]

How about making Nexus swaps a semi-permanent effect - maybe reversable with use of the currently almost-obsolete remove curse effect?

I would prefer mushrooms of vigor, potions of life, rods of restoration (things which restore all stats) to un-swap stats, if the consensus is for a fix. Personally, I think this discussion is much of a muchness. Nexus is easy enough to avoid.

[Derakon]

Nexus is easy enough to avoid, assuming you're playing something other than a warrior, paladin, or priest, and you aren't unlucky enough to enter a level in the same room as a group of hounds. Those three classes have much more trouble since they don't get generic-monster detection until late (counting -Detection for warriors), and almost certainly don't have telepathy when Nexus hounds first show up.

Similarly, fixes for nexus swap that rely on items that are completely unattainable anywhere near nexus hound depth are useless for purposes of making the swap not be an instadeath.

[EpicMan]

But it is that pseudo-instadeath that makes Nexus hounds what they are. They are one of those few monsters where they probably won't kill you, but you avoid them like the plague anyway because they will mess you up. Disenchanters would be another example of this.

Disenchanters are similar, they can drain the pluses of objects beyond what you can expect to recover with enchant scrolls/spells if you have an object that is particularly good.

You could remove both the nexus stat-swap and make sure objects can always be re-enchanted back to their former values (like stats), but that makes the game and those enemies easier, and I think less interesting.

Angband is a harsh game where the biggest challenge is survival, and that is what makes it (and permadeath in general) so enjoyable - you really start to care what happens to your characters and winning feels like such an accomplishment. I'm not saying this won't be the case without stat swapping, but every time you remove something that worries you you lessen the thrills the game has to offer.

[Derakon]

I'm not saying Nexus hounds shouldn't be dangerous, just that their current effect is overpowered. There have been several suggestions of nasty-but-still-reasonable effects that the current stat swap could be replaced with, that would ensure that you still stay the heck away from them without making them game enders if you screw up. Just like you stay the heck away from disenchanters, but if you screw it up, you aren't done for.

By way of comparison, the next really instadeath-capable monsters are the bigger dragons and drolems, which don't show up for another dozen levels. And they're evil, so everyone except warriors can trivially detect them. And they don't show up in packs, so your odds of getting breathed on (even with the higher per-monster odds of breathing) are greatly reduced.

[Sirridan]

By way of comparison, the next really instadeath-capable monsters are the bigger dragons and drolems, which don't show up for another dozen levels. And they're evil, so everyone except warriors can trivially detect them. And they don't show up in packs, so your odds of getting breathed on (even with the higher per-monster odds of breathing) are greatly reduced.

Unless something changed really recently, drolems aren't evil (although they sure act like it.)

If a priest/paladin has godly insights though, that's a different story. The bad thing is, telepathy can't find them either.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Nexus hounds also fall into the other general issue: hounds are *such* a PITA.

Perhaps, if hounds were toned down generally, the stat-swap would become less of a problem.

[RogerN]

IMO, stat-swapping doesn't even fit the theme of Nexus hounds. Nexus is all about teleportation, isn't it? How does randomly mutating your character fit in with that?

Bizarre idea: What if Nexus could randomly teleport items from your inventory across the level?

The Nexus hound breathes Nexus.
Your Scrolls of Word of Recall disappear!
Your Staff of Teleportation disappears!

[Derakon]

I just realized that I said something false earlier: big dragons and drolems do not have a higher chance on any given turn of breathing on you than nexus hounds do. Nexus hounds breathe 1 turn in 5. Drolems cast spells 1 turn in 5, but they have 5 spells to pick from (blind, slow, confuse, missile, breathe poison), rendering their actual chance 1 in 25, or 1 in 12.5 player turns assuming the player isn't fast. Similarly, ancient green dragons cast spells 1 in 6 turns and have 4 spells to pick from (blind, confuse, scare, breathe poison), for a 1 in 24 chance per monster turn or 1 in 12 per normal-speed player turn.

This is a bit skewed for ethereal dragons and AMHDs, since they have multiple breath weapons to pick from (3 of 5 magical attacks for ethereal dragons, 5 of 8 for AMHDs), which help explain why they're comparatively so much more dangerous than their lesser kin: they're far more likely to bring their big guns to bear. It's also skewed if you're playing with smart monsters, since they'll favor attack magic over "annoyance" magic (including blind, confuse, etc.).

Sirridan: thanks for the correction.

RogerN: yeah, teleporting your items away is one of the suggestions that would make Nexus Hounds very dangerous without actually making them outright deadly. The question in my mind is if it'd be worse if they stripped your equipment away or your consumables...

[fyonn]

I'd love to see nexus resist defend me against teleport to, and teleport away attacks. saruman is ruining these glyph filled ASC's I keep creating!

[fizzix]

It's also skewed if you're playing with smart monsters, since they'll favor attack magic over "annoyance" magic (including blind, confuse, etc.).

Which is probably why 'smart monsters' is unbalanced unless you also include SP for enemies and require cool down times between breaths

RogerN: yeah, teleporting your items away is one of the suggestions that would make Nexus Hounds very dangerous without actually making them outright deadly. The question in my mind is if it'd be worse if they stripped your equipment away or your consumables...

teleporting equipment would be worse because you can't carry a back up for everything. Imagine if you had your light source teleported away. Well, you're screwed.

Teleporting iventory items seems much better, but please don't teleport entire stacks. Instead remove them in the same way that you destroy objects from elemental attacks. I hate that draining monsters drain entire stacks and not each individual staff/wand.