Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Retropunch]

Urgh some of these recent changes are pretty bad though. I hate to be that person, but it's gotten a lot more dumbed down recently and it's really been pissing me off.

All of the trunk changes recently seem to be about removing features that gave the player choice - something which is supposed to be a main tenant of crawl - and homogenizing everything else.

I get not wanting the obscure stuff like fountain drinking, but it's losing a lot of it's strategic/tactical excitement just to be 'less confusing'.

[frostshotgg]

What does "dumbed down" mean in this context? You say they're removing choice, but is that choice meaningful at all? You referenced the MD removal, so let's start from there. What did they actually add to the game? When was the last time you had actually played one before finding out they were being removed? Frankly, any race that's just a human with slightly different aptitudes really doesn't need to exist, because there's no actual distinction apart from "Oh, I'll be playing this class, so this version of the human has better aptitudes for it". Hell, when was the last time you even played a human?

I'd love to keep going, but I'm a little pressed for time now. If you'd care to be patient for a couple hours then I'll happily continue this conversation, but I hope you at least see the point I'm making here. It's a loss of choice, yes, but not of a meaningful one.

[Duuvian]

Mountain Dwarves weren't removed for being too strong, they were removed for not being distinct from other races.

But removing racial equipment instead of making it better makes those races less distinct! Let's remove those too!

The problem is that it seems to me to be contradicting justifications for decisions.

Frankly, any race that's just a human with slightly different aptitudes really doesn't need to exist, because there's no actual distinction apart from "Oh, I'll be playing this class, so this version of the human has better aptitudes for it". Hell, when was the last time you even played a human?

That's at least 3 more of the races that don't need to exist then, and up to 6 or so if you include races with minor differences like kobold meat eating or Tengu flight or Merfolk swimming. If it's really such a big deal that races are similar then you could always lobby to have something unique added to them and not remove them.

In addition I use humans quite a bit, they make good monks or other class that doesn't start with weapon skill as you can just pick up anything nice you find and train that 0 aptitude skill.

MD's were my most used race before they were removed. Heavy fighters weren't very good back then but I was still too new to know what magic was a good idea to use with different types of character so I just went heavy tank.

[Retropunch]

What does "dumbed down" mean in this context? You say they're removing choice, but is that choice meaningful at all? You referenced the MD removal, so let's start from there. What did they actually add to the game? When was the last time you had actually played one before finding out they were being removed? Frankly, any race that's just a human with slightly different aptitudes really doesn't need to exist, because there's no actual distinction apart from "Oh, I'll be playing this class, so this version of the human has better aptitudes for it". Hell, when was the last time you even played a human?

I'd love to keep going, but I'm a little pressed for time now. If you'd care to be patient for a couple hours then I'll happily continue this conversation, but I hope you at least see the point I'm making here. It's a loss of choice, yes, but not of a meaningful one.

I didn't mention MD removal...

That really wasn't a choice that bothered me - MD was ages ago and I would definitely agree that it was pretty pointless to have in.
What bothers me are the new changes like removing pretty much all the 'bad' consumables, not having to choose a recite book, the undead regenerating the same as everything else - all of the new changes (since .14/15) have been geared towards simplifying mechanics and that's eaten in to a lot of the choice/danger. Now it's just a slugging match rather than a tactical RL.

Furthermore, it seems as though they're removing item weights entirely (as seen in the forums), which is yet another push towards it being a sort of arcadeRLlite, rather than a complex strat/tact game.

[Leafsnail]

Mountain Dwarves weren't removed for being too strong, they were removed for not being distinct from other races.

But removing racial equipment instead of making it better makes those races less distinct! Let's remove those too!

The problem is that it seems to me to be contradicting justifications for decisions.

Mountain dwarves were removed because they weren't distinct enough from other races (note that the fact that they were able to use dwarven items slightly better did not save them).  Racial armour was removed because it wasn't distinct enough from other armour.  I see no contradiction.

Racial equipment didn't add any real differentiation between races - it would never cause you to play differently (except it might cause you to spend a little while looking up racial bonuses before realizing they're trivial).  Making it matter more wouldn't even help this, it would just mean "sometimes you will be better with this race if you find a certain random item".  How is that interesting?

What bothers me are the new changes like removing pretty much all the 'bad' consumables, not having to choose a recite book, the undead regenerating the same as everything else - all of the new changes (since .14/15) have been geared towards simplifying mechanics and that's eaten in to a lot of the choice/danger. Now it's just a slugging match rather than a tactical RL.

How has the removal of bad consumables (although I'm not actually sure which ones you're referring to, the game still has plenty) removed tactics from the game?  You'd never want to chug a potion of slowing before a fight (unless you misunderstood how Chei piety works) but you might want to use Lignification.  Aren't there more tactics available if you aren't just dropping stuff on the ground then never touching it again?

The other two just seem strange.  Choosing a book almost never presented you with an actual decision, it just used up a bit more time (although the current implementation is sortof annoying).  And how does giving zombies regen relate to this at all?

[Robsoie]

There is nothing that can't be improved, removing something because it does not work great according to some people/devs instead of trying to improve them sounds very odd to me.

The mountain dwarf wasn't unique enough in comparison to orcs or minotaur ? why not trying to improve it by giving it some racial abilities (like the deep dwarf gets by example) to make it more unique instead of +1 somewhere -1 somewhere else like some other races can get ?

About the "bad consumable" example, yes you will find many potion of slowing, many potion of poison, many potions of confusion, etc that obviously none will ever want to drink and you'll then leave them on the ground.

An improvement that would them actually tactical useful would be if potion throwing was a possibility , some other RL does that and it works good because it is giving more tactical option for the player.

But for some reason throwing potion as a tactical option is something the devs do not want

[frostshotgg]

Evaporate used to be a spell that "threw" potions. It was overpowered, so now it's not a spell any more.

Anyways, racial equipment made almost no difference to anything. The only piece of gear that had racial that possibly mattered was elvish armor for a caster, but even then it's of relatively low value anyways. A lot of the "choice" wasn't much of a choice at all. There's a large distinction between cleaning up old relics of the past that were there for flavor and getting rid of meaningful choice. In terms of racial items, does this item have higher stats than other item? If it's between a executioner's axe and an orcish war axe, the executioner's is going to win every time, because orcish means fuck all of actual use.

I'm not really sure what bad consumables you're talking about, but bad consumables are again, of no meaning to gameplay. Their absolute most important point is when you're pressed in combat and have a pile of, for example, unID'd potions and you can't tell which is healing or cure wounds based on the size of the stack. That's one single situation that probably wouldn't even happen to any player who knows what they're doing, and in every other conceivable situation bad consumables don't do anything but get ignored.

I can't really speak on the undead too much given how bad I am at playing, so I don't stair dance around them or whatever, but I never noticed them not regenerating so to me that's just them normalizing something.

[Mindmaker]

I need to take some time and read this "Campbell and the Removals" thing that is going on here right now.
Wonder what bay12 has to say about it.

[Dr Feelgood]

Mountain dwarves were removed, because they're boring and the devs don't like Tolkien. I think dpeg said he was sick of standard fantasy races. And he said high elves might also get the axe one day. Fulsome Destillation and Evaporate were removed, because potion throwing is Bad for some reason. And, because it made meph cloud/corpse rot useless.

Most of the changes in 0.15 are minor. Nemelex is getting nerfed pretty hard. They removed several cards, including experience, trowel, and shuffle. There are two new gods, but one of them is iffy. Item weight is apparently an issue. Set rotten chunks to auto-drop, increase your strength up to 8 or 10, and play the game. I guess removing item weight will help out hoarders who refuse to use ctrl-f.

[Leafsnail]

I'm not so sure about potion throwing, I guess the main objection is that it wouldn't really add anything that wands/darts/needles don't already do.

The Nemelex changes aren't really meant to be a nerf, it's more of an attempt to make him less horrible to play (so getting rid of having to sac everything + manage dozens of decks + burn through tactically useless decks for piety/XP).

Item weight is apparently an issue. Set rotten chunks to auto-drop, increase your strength up to 8 or 10, and play the game. I guess removing item weight will help out hoarders who refuse to use ctrl-f.

The fact that you can describe how to deal with it so trivially helps show how little effect it has on actual gameplay

[frostshotgg]

Well, nemlex for me was more turn off destruction sacrifices, and sacrifice everything in sight except stuff that's useful. I never had issues managing dozens of decks with that.

[beorn080]

Evaporate used to be a spell that "threw" potions. It was overpowered, so now it's not a spell any more.

This is something that is a good example of choices being removed and losing tactical play. And it wouldn't be impossible to balance.

"New" Spell, Evaporate.
Fling a small quantity of magically enhanced potions at your foes, causing either a cloud of gas or the direct infliction of ailments. Level 2 spell.

Mechanics.
Choose between 1 and (size based number) potions to throw. For each potion chosen, increase the radius of the potential landings by one. So, for example, throwing a single potion will always hit where you aim. Throwing 2 potions will have a cross shaped landing area. Three would have a fireball shaped one, and so on. However, this doesn't mean that the cloud fills the area. Each square in that landing area would have a chance to be hit by a potion, and either cause a cloud, or if there is a foe there, directly inflict the ailment onto it without making a cloud. The chance to hit a foe would be standard for most magical spells, and if it misses it rerolls to see where it makes a cloud. Clouds would linger, block LOS, but have reduced damage or effects based on the sort of cloud.

The effects would be similar to the old clouds. Steam would be dropped to be about halfway in power between magic dart and the level 2 attack conjurations on a direct hit, about the same power as magic dart as a cloud. The poison and confusion clouds would have about a half chance to inflict their ailment on a foe as a cloud, and if it hit, would inflict it.

So, if you need to hit something, you throw a single potion at it. If there is a crowd, you start flinging potions like mad to try to block LoS and maybe inflict some confusion or such. Actual damage output would be lower then other level 2 spells due to increased versatility.

Oh, and the size thing is to make it less attractive to Spriggans. Fulsome Distillation was interesting for them as it effectively allowed them to eat clean corpses. Spriggans would be able to throw one at a time, maybe 2, whereas a troll could fling 6-10 potions. Note, yes this is meant to be in the turn.

[frostshotgg]

Evap has been out since .12 IIRC, so that part of choice being removed has no bearing on this discussion.

[forsaken1111]

Evap has been out since .12 IIRC, so that part of choice being removed has no bearing on this discussion.

So you're saying that if enough time has elasped, a topic is not eligible for discusson?

Seems to be on-topic to me, and I can tell you I always enjoyed flinging poison potions in people's faces.

[Leafsnail]

The issue with evaporate is that it was several level 6 spells masquerading as a level 2.  I don't see how the new proposal fixes that, really.

Also I'm not sure what value potion throwing brings in anyway.  I can already carry around wands and curare for inflicting statuses on monsters, and if I want to do it to a large group then I can learn a cloud spell.  What does making me carry around tonnes of almost useless potions in addition to these things add to the game?

There's definitely a pattern of game mechanics being tweaked to nerf something to the point of triviality, and then using that as an argument to remove it entirely. It's happening now to identification - ID scrolls were ridiculously common in 0.14, especially given that wands auto-ID. Now with jewellery being auto-ID as well, there'll be no tactical choices to make regarding IDing things (removing the occasional multi-ID won't offset this). So soon enough there'll be calls to just remove identification as a mechanic entirely.

There was actually very little reason to ever ID non-artifact jewelry anyway (other than curiosity), for the most part you could find out which ring was which by just allowing weak enemies to attack you while wearing your un-ID'd rings in turn.  Potions, artifacts and to some degree wands were and will continue to be the main part of the ID game.

Rather than remove things that are deemed trivial, like racial armour, the option always exists to rebalance those things so they actually matter.

Even if racial armour mattered it wouldn't be interesting (well ok, you could make a race need completely different items in those slots with different stats, but those already exist and they're called bardings).  I don't see what the reason for saving it would be, except for a pathological desire to never remove any mechanics from the game.