WONAFYT

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WONAFYT

Postby q 3 on Fri Aug 12, 2011 2:45 am

At the moment I think this is by far the least useful glyph. Although it can be an important part of some puzzles, and occasionally some puzzle-like situations in dungeons, as well as an early source of piety when you have nothing better to spend your mana regeneration on and of course conversion fodder, I can't think of any situation in which I've found WONAFYT where I wouldn't have been much happier to have found just about any other glyph.

- It only summons monsters of your level or lower. Most of the time I'm exploring at full HP/MP (wasting tiles) it's because I think there are higher level monsters out there that I can kill for the bonus experience. There aren't many situations in which I am in need of a lower level monster, and when I do need one they're usually plentiful, in large part because the dungeon spawns more lower level monsters than higher level monsters.

- It's expensive. At six MP, even in situations where it might be useful, it's generally not worth six tiles of regeneration. Pretty much every other spell is more cost effective.

- It's unreliable. Many of the hard dungeons have enemies that resist magic, and since WONAFYT selects its target completely randomly, it's perhaps the most likely spell to fail as a result of monster resistance (e.g., the player is smart enough not to target a Frozen Troll with WEYTWUT, if it can reasonably be avoided, but WONAFYT is just as likely to pick a high magic resist enemy as any other type). If it fails, you've just spent 6 MP for nothing.

- It doesn't add any value. If I found a same-or-lower level monster by exploring six more tiles, I would be in the exact same position as if I had used the glyph. The weaker spells from the alpha - WEYTWUT, ENDISWAL, PISORF, and IMAWAL in particular - all got secondary effects that make them useful even when you don't need their primary effect. If you don't need to summon a low level monster, there's no particular reason to cast WONAFYT.

In light of these problems, and desiring every glyph to get some love rather than going straight to the conversion pile, I think it would be worth considering a few possible changes to WONAFYT.

First, you could have it summon monster of a higher level than the player. Not only would this make the glyph incredibly more helpful for nearly every class, it would have the added advantage of making it more literal - don't use this spell unless you really want a fight.

Second, you could reduce the cost. If it's going to remain the same spell as it is currently, I'd say it's worth two MP, maybe three at the very most.

Third, you could make it ignore magic resistance, or if the first target successfully resists have it pick a second target. WONAFYT is currently the only glyph that can fail for reasons entirely outside the player's control, which is a very poor mechanic considering that it's also the least useful glyph in most circumstances.

Fourth, you could add additional effects besides summoning. It could cause the same slow status that WEYTWUT does. It could give an experience bonus to the monster that it summons - to prevent abuse, I would make it something like +2 or +25% experience but the effect wears off if you summon another monster, attack another monster, or regenerate via exploration (i.e., you have to kill whatever is summoned right away to get the bonus).

Obviously implementing all of those changes would make the glyph overpowered, but I think making one or two of them would be a significant improvement to the glyph and to the game's balance.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby Hero of the Beach on Fri Aug 12, 2011 4:01 am

I agree with most of this. In particular, it definitely needs to ignore magic resistance, since it's ridiculous to cast it, only to have the game pick a golem and have it fail for you. Alternatively, you could have the spell automatically select another target if the first target successfully resists it.

With regards to calling higher leveled enemies, I think this would only work if the order of preference were to deliver one only if no enemies of your level or lower still live. So if you were level 5, the spell would have a series of preferences to grab enemies in this level order: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. This wouldn't really improve the glyph's usefulness, but enemies one level above you are generally the most valuable, and having a glyph that reliably brings them to you would be broken.

One fun possibility could be to give the glyph a low but not trivial chance (like 15%) of acting as a Monster Whistle.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby Darvin on Fri Aug 12, 2011 4:15 am

WONAFYT should definitely ignore magic resistance. If the player doesn't get to choose the target, they shouldn't be penalized for a poor target selection. Period.

I'd agree it should add a secondary effect, either making the monster it targets easier or granting bonus experience for fighting it. A lower mana cost would also be quite reasonable in either case; 6 is quite high.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby Galefury on Fri Aug 12, 2011 8:56 am

I think the most important thing to change about WONAFYT is to make the main effect useful. As q 3 said, you almost never need to summon a low or same level enemy. Slowing or otherwise debuffing the summoned enemy is not going to change that. So either WONAFYT should be able to summon higher level enemies (completely random unseen enemy for example), or it should give an exp bonus to the summoned enemy (q 3's idea of having to kill it right away to reap the bonus is great). Maybe both. If you can beat a +1 enemy when you're already down 6 mana you deserve a cookie. I agree that MR should be ignored.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby flap on Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:41 am

Well, I am not sure that it is that useless. Quiet a few times, I found it very useful to be able to summon a monster of my level, to level without having to explore.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby TigerKnee on Fri Aug 12, 2011 9:53 am

In the freeware version, at very early levels, it isn't very possible to kill higher level opponents at those time, while on the other hand fighting similar level enemies generally did not really need glyphs (and you probably don't have fireball anyway)

In those situations, Wonafyt is kind of useful to save regeneration tiles from exploration.

On the other hand, in the new context of DD beta, with the ability to instantly start with Fireball or bring in a Sensation Stone or etc, it's a lot easier to immediately start killing level 2 or even crappy level 3s like Medusa or Goats from the start.

That's my 2 cents.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby fall_ark on Wed Aug 24, 2011 8:26 am

What if WONAFYT not only ignores magical resistance, but also lowers the summoned monster's resistance by, say, 50% or even 100%?

Or perhaps it removes enemy's detrimental abilities like poison, mana burn, corrosion and weaken for one attack.

You know, because they want to fight you and you can prepare and find the perfect attack or something.

Lowering resistance will make the glyph strong (maybe too strong) in late game, where it provides a completely new way to deal with tough high-level enemies and even the boss. Since it's still random, its uses in early game is confined, but with either lowering resistance or ignoring detrimental abilities, it will ensure a rather easy battle and don't accidentally hurt the user that much.

Just some crazy thoughts.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby Galefury on Wed Aug 24, 2011 12:45 pm

Making it bring back enemies that blinked away after your last attack would give it an interesting niche. Not very intuitive though.
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Re: WONAFYT

Postby MeVII on Wed Aug 24, 2011 6:54 pm

Greetings:

I agree that WONAFYT is not the most functional of spells.
However, I do not agree that it should ignore magic resistance.
That solution fixes the mechanics of the game, but at the same time breaks the philosophy of the game.
"Magic resistance = magic wont work ... except for WONAFYT for no reason other than its a lame glyph if it cant."
Its thoes sorta things we all hate in our favorite movies, TV shows and books. Something that obviously breaks or bends the rule to force itself to fit.

Here are some of my ideas to throw in along with the many good suggestions in this thread...
1. Since the enemy just got teleported outta nowhere, for only your first attack, its physical defense is reduced to zero (assuming magical defense is innate), and your first attack is free, it dosent get a counter attack.

2. It works the same way, but it teleports you, not the creature. Removing the issue of magic resistance all together.
This would be diffrent than the other teleport spells as it would always bring you adjacent to a equal or lower lev creature. If there are non left, the spell would fail.
2.2. On top of the above it could also force you to attack this random creature once. Something lady chaos would love.

3. The creature could be randomized in this way. 25% of the time it is a creature that is lower in lev than you, 50% of the tiem its a creature of = level, 25% higher lev.

I definitely agree that there is strong argument that it should have the same effects as WEYTWUT, another creature teleporting spell.

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Re: WONAFYT

Postby Dunno on Sat Aug 27, 2011 9:20 pm

How about making it a targeted spell with effect "Show location of a nearest monster 1 level higher than the one you cast it on"?
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