[Crawl-ref-discuss] Vampire feedback

[Lemuel P. <lem...@gm...>]

I just played a VpNe through about half a full game: Dungeon,
Lair/Snake/Swamp/Slime, and Vaults/Crypt/Tomb. Sadly, it vanished in a CDO
update before I could finish -- I would have liked to try the Hells -- but
it was enough to get a decent idea of how they play. And....

Vampires are great! The game feels genuinely different, the powers are
interesting, and bloodless like alive often feels like a real choice. Bat
form is an effective escape tool but limited by the inability to attack or
cast spells and the delay before switching back. Very nice design. Bloodless
is generally stronger, but an early amulet of rage, a good mutation or two,
or other considerations can make alive attractive too. Still, bloodless is
probably a bit too strong, both compared with alive and compared with other
races. I'd say Vampires are still a little overpowered in general. So, some
suggestions:

* Get rid of the innate Necromancy boost. Vampires are perfectly good
Necromancers without it. Better to leave this for Mummies, especially since
right now bloodless Vampires get almost all the same perks Mummies do. It
would make for a cleaner distinction between the undead races if Mummies
were clearly the necromancy specialists.

* Get rid of the bottling blood mechanism. One of the most distinctive and
exciting parts of a vampire game is being at bloodless and low on hp, and
running around looking for something to eat while avoiding anything too
dangerous. Potions mean you have to do this much less often. And they're not
needed -- in this game, I don't think I ever drank one -- when doing e.g.
the Tomb I would just return to the Vaults when hp got low. Basically they
take the edge off Vampire play, make it less special, and turn a really
interesting and distinct game situation into another resource management
problem. Plus it's cumbersome and not flavorful. (And I couldn't help
wondering why they would last forever until I picked them up, and then go
bad.) I would say dump potions of blood entirely -- Vampires are great
without them. Alternately, they could be found in  the dungeon but not made
by the player, in which case they should not coagulate, and probably get
their healing effect back.

Basically, bottling blood takes the edge off the central challenge of
vampire play -- managing the blood level. By making it eaier to reverse the
choice to go bloodless, they make that choice less consequential, and
therefore less interesting.

Getting rid of blood bottling might make Pan impossible for non-Makhlebite
vampires, tho. If that's a problem, one solution could be:

* Eliminate time and fighting hunger at nearly bloodless. I.e. you only get
to bloodless by using spells or abilities with a hunger cost. That would
give you three blood-level options instead of the effective two you have
now, and would let people continue healing in foodless areas if they gave up
some resistances and managed their hunger carefully.

A few other minor suggestions:

* Bloodless vampires should not heal stats (except via potions -- and maybe
the half effect from potions should apply to Restore Abilities too.)

* See Invisible should be limited to bloodless, or maybe even eliminated.
Two other races get it, and Vampires have lots of other cool toys to play
with.

Overall, though, great work! This addition is totally up to the high level
we expect from Crawl game design.

Lemuel