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[Mindmaker]

I don't consider any of them worthless. Those "worthless" mechanics are what make up roguelikes after all.

I agree with Retropunch here. For me DCSS was a complex roguelike, that didn't have instadeath around every corner like Nethack did and had a lof of variety.

[Robsoie]

Looking on variants of Dungeon Crawl , i found this page :
http://web.archive.org/web/20120320114806/http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/u/kielosto/crawl_patches/crawl_patches.html
(archive as the original one seems to be gone)
I'm really liking the cooking idea to give more depth to the food system and more things to do in the game.

[Leafsnail]

I don't see how any of these changes have impacted the strategic or tactical complexity, though.  The fundamental strategic choices are still there - which skills should I train, which items should I use/aim to use, which items should I improve/recharge.  "Which chunk should I eat" has never been a major consideration on par with those.

The same goes for tactical decisions - you still have all the important ones, like how can I take as little damage as possible during this fight, do I have an escape route if things go wrong, which item should I use now that I'm in danger.  "I guess I should walk away from that mottled dragon and come back without any scrolls" is not an interesting addition to that list.

If there's a good part of a mechanic then that can be kept or modified - this is what they're attempting to do with corrosion, nemelex and food.  But if the mechanic is flawed to its very core or if there is an obvious better way to achieve what that mechanic is going for then you might as well just get rid of it, and continue adding new content without those flaws to the rest of the game.

Personally, I find distortion weapons to be meaningless. I mean, if you wield one early, you just never take it off, making it basically the same as a cursed item.

...The fact that you can't safely take it off makes it completely different to a cursed item, which you can easily take off at any point after like D:2 (Ash notwithstanding).

Also actual distortion effects are really unique and powerful.  "Should I wield this pretty decent distortion weapon or wait and see if I get something even better" is a meaningful decision.

Incidentally, how exactly is Chunkless currently implemented? Is there no food clock apart from Hunger costs, or a greatly reduced one, or what?

Permafood only.  Players start with more rations and enemies sometimes drop meat-based food.  It will likely need more balancing but I think this system will actually make food matter a lot more if it's done right (it's now a limited resource rather than something you can avoid eating most of the time).  Afterall, Sp probably has the most meaningful foodgame right now, at least if you get unlucky.

[monk12]

Incidentally, how exactly is Chunkless currently implemented? Is there no food clock apart from Hunger costs, or a greatly reduced one, or what?

Permafood only.  Players start with more rations and enemies sometimes drop meat-based food.  It will likely need more balancing but I think this system will actually make food matter a lot more if it's done right (it's now a limited resource rather than something you can avoid eating most of the time).  Afterall, Sp probably has the most meaningful foodgame right now, at least if you get unlucky.

So... they're just switching the food supply of the dungeon from "near-infinite raw corpses" to "meaningfully limited?"

Why are we arguing again?

[motorbitch]

Personally, I find distortion weapons to be meaningless. I mean, if you wield one early, you just never take it off, making it basically the same as a cursed item.

thats something else that harms only casters.
early, a caster will  equip id a lot of weapons, to find something of protection. later youll want a stave. so youll have a good reason to unequip that mace of distortion.

[Dr Feelgood]

Personally, I find distortion weapons to be meaningless. I mean, if you wield one early, you just never take it off, making it basically the same as a cursed item.

I take them off immediately, if I'm not playing a stabber. I've never died from an unwield effect.

[Retropunch]

Why are we arguing again?

because of things like (from the dcss site):

• The special diets of centaurs (fast metabolism 1, herbivorous 1) and halflings (slow metabolism 1) have been removed.
• Vampires always get the full effect of all potions, can always mutate, and always get the full effect of all mutations.
• Corrosion affects all of your equipment, but only temporarily.
• Nemelex now only gifts decks of war and escape.

All these changes do is homogenize stuff and reduce functions for no other reason than that they take a bit of thought to play with. I enjoy that extra challenge of working with the fast yet vegetarian diet of centaurs, but now they just play exactly like a fast high elf. I don't find that fun at all.

 

[Mindmaker]

You have most of those "fundamental" decisions in your basic RPGs though. Why would you want to turn a Roguelike into one of them?
Roguelikes have alway been about managing limited resources (which is where food and item destruction come in), as well as heaving various abilities to screw the player over unless he knows how to deal with them or has the means to do so.

[monk12]

Why are we arguing again?

because of things like (from the dcss site):

• The special diets of centaurs (fast metabolism 1, herbivorous 1) and halflings (slow metabolism 1) have been removed.
• Vampires always get the full effect of all potions, can always mutate, and always get the full effect of all mutations.
• Corrosion affects all of your equipment, but only temporarily.
• Nemelex now only gifts decks of war and escape.

All these changes do is homogenize stuff and reduce functions for no other reason than that they take a bit of thought to play with. I enjoy that extra challenge of working with the fast yet vegetarian diet of centaurs, but now they just play exactly like a fast high elf. I don't find that fun at all.

It looks like those special diets have been removed because they're rejiggering the entire balance of the food system; not changing the centaurs would super nerf them, while the halflings would get their little flavorful trait turned into a massive buff since they would effectively ignore the food system.

Temporary corrosion is very strange to me fluff-wise, but mechanically it's sound; instead of a minor nuisance that makes you switch to an off weapon for as long as it takes to kill the jelly (and at worst makes your current weapon somewhat worse forever) you instead have to contend with potentially significant losses to your damage and defenses, but only for a while. It's a more potent threat that might kill you right now, instead of an equipment-attrition sort of threat. Or so I imagine; I haven't been playing in Trunk since I'm going for my first 15 rune in a version I know well.

I was really worried about the Nemelex changes when I first saw them come down the pipe, since I've always enjoyed FeTms of Nemelex, but looking at it it's a net buff. You lose summons and the possibility of an Experience card from Wonders (about the only useful thing in there unless you enjoy mutation roulette) and you get decks which are generally more useful and have a bunch of new cards in them (yes please, Illusion of my player character!)

I've never played Vampires, so I have no comment there. In general, though, every character still seems pretty unique to me; Centaurs "play exactly like a fast High Elf" is quite a stretch, even ignoring the fact that being fast is by itself a huge gamechanger.

[Leafsnail]

All these changes do is homogenize stuff and reduce functions for no other reason than that they take a bit of thought to play with.

No.  None of the changes were made for that reason, and the fact that you're misrepresenting them is silly considering that the reasoning for every commit is generally spelled out.  In any case, how exactly do dietary requirements "take a bit of thought"?  All it does is make you chop up slightly more or fewer corpses, and that process is either directly automated or mentally automated for almost all players.

We've already discussed item destruction but I'll say that the Nemelex changes and the reasons for changing him are a lot more complicated than you're making out.  The god in its old form had a lot of problems that made it frustrating to use (mindlessly sacrifice everything on the floor, deck weighting system was incredibly opaque, have to read spoilers to know how to deal with each deck, once spoilers were read you knew which decks to mindlessly draw and which decks to mindlessly triple draw, decks wasted tonnes of inventory space which made managing them a chore) and you should be happy that they're making a serious attempt to reform him (with new cards and deck dynamics) rather than just taking him out.

I enjoy that extra challenge of working with the fast yet vegetarian diet of centaurs, but now they just play exactly like a fast high elf. I don't find that fun at all.

Sorry but I actually laughed out loud at this.  The vegetarian diet/fast metabolism did absolutely nothing other than make you have to chop up corpses more often.  Centaurs did not starve to death under the old system.  The idea that they're remotely like High Elves is also ridiculous.  Speed and HP are the two most important distinguishing factors for vanilla species, and centaurs beat the shit out of high elves on both counts (that's why they're an incredibly strong race).  Then there's also the fact that their defenses and apts are entirely different... I'm actually struggling to think of similarities beyond "They can both used ranged combat quite well".

You have most of those "fundamental" decisions in your basic RPGs though. Why would you want to turn a Roguelike into one of them?

This is an arrogant and elitist view to take, and also it makes no sense because "basic" RPGs can include food systems, item destruction and limited resources.  Maybe "basic" RPGs do some things right?  Dungeon Crawl will still maintain all the actually interesting parts of being a roguelike so who cares?

Roguelikes have alway been about managing limited resources (which is where food and item destruction come in), as well as heaving various abilities to screw the player over unless he knows how to deal with them or has the means to do so.

You'll still have to manage limited resources - the number of items you can use is limited by the number of items you have found, and this has always been the important limit.  If item destruction really was massively reducing the number of items available in the game then that can be easily fixed by reducing the spawn rate of scrolls/potions.

It will take some balancing, but food under the new system may actually feel like managing a limited resource eventually (a thing which it has never succeeded in being in the past).  See: Spriggans.

[Mindmaker]

This is an arrogant and elitist view to take[...]

I could talk about hypocrisy but I won't.
It wasn't supposed to be a devaluation of RPGs, I just wondered about why you would want to make the two generes less deistinct from each other.

Crawl will still maintain all the actually interesting parts of being a roguelike so who cares?

Argueable. It's turning into the bare bones that make up a roguelike, without having the quirky, interesting, little meaty bits that make up the whole.

You'll still have to manage limited resources [...]

But with less overall management involved.
I know it's probably absurd for people like you, but there are people that enjoyed things like organizing their stashes, inventories and all the things that you consider "meaningless and tedious". People that have been playing DCSS many, many versions ago.

[Robsoie]

This heating exchange is a good proof that people play rogue-like games for (very) different reasons and so expect different things from the gameplay.
That's probably why it is very hard to modify things in a game like Crawl without leading to clashes.

The additional problem is that both sides of the argument are actually right, because if you like or dislike a specific change, the result is that it will lead the game experience to a better or worse direction for your personal taste.

Out of going to play another roguelike fitting one interests more , or just going to play an older version from before the disliked change (as fortunately older versions do not suddenly cease to exist when a new one come), the other solution would be a fork to make a new variant of dungeon crawl .

But a fork would require the people forking to have actual coding ability to modify, revert, maintain their new variant of the game, like it happened with Stone Soup that itself is a variant of the classic Linley's Dungeon Crawl.

[Retropunch]

It is a subjective issue, and I can certainly understand why people enjoy a more stripped down version - I just personally don't.
I agree that a lot of the mechanics aren't wonderful - hunger and item destruction definitely could have done with work - what annoys me though is how rapidly this is happening without mechanics to take the place of the ones taken out.

Playing the game now, I have a lot less to worry about (worry = enjoy in the dwarven sense) and so it's diminished my enjoyment. I believe a happy balance can be made, but it seems as though DCSS has gotten someone at the helm now who is rigorously pushing it in one direction without the balance from the 'other side'. I don't begrudge them this - some direction is better than none - but I just personally dislike it.

[Niveras]

Permafood only.  Players start with more rations and enemies sometimes drop meat-based food.  It will likely need more balancing but I think this system will actually make food matter a lot more if it's done right (it's now a limited resource rather than something you can avoid eating most of the time).  Afterall, Sp probably has the most meaningful foodgame right now, at least if you get unlucky.

Curious about ghouls. Do they just eat meat now to restore rot? What about the healing aspect of rotten chunks?

[Leafsnail]

Ghouls are currently unchanged.

It wasn't supposed to be a devaluation of RPGs, I just wondered about why you would want to make the two generes less deistinct from each other.

I don't care about the distinction (and I don't see why you would unless you regard "basic" RPGs as inferior), and I also don't see why one game dropping traditional roguelike elements makes the two genres less distinct anyway.  I just want the game to lose the unfun parts so that it plays better.

I know it's probably absurd for people like you, but there are people that enjoyed things like organizing their stashes, inventories and all the things that you consider "meaningless and tedious". People that have been playing DCSS many, many versions ago.

You know what?  Yes, I do think that's absurd - inventory management due to item weights and destruction took a relatively long time and had incredibly little strategic depth/importance.  I guess I can't tell you what to enjoy, but I'd point out that the vast majority of players (and in particular developers) do not think that way, and therefore you can't really expect them to cater to people who like just messing around with items for the sake of it.