Print

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

[Grek]

Transmuter is indeed a good class, even without Evaporation. But they could have just removed the spell from the Book of Changes, raised Evaporate's spell level to 3 and left it in the Book of Stalking. Then you'd have two transmutations classes, Transmuter, who gets lots of form powers and Stalker, who gets the non-form powers.

Some of the spells got replaced. That's good. But Dig, Scorpions, Shielding, Demon Horde and Summon Ugly Thing were just cut. That's bad. As far as I can tell, Dig went away because Formians got it and Summon Elemental went away because they're putting in a new elemental clouds god. That's really really dumb. Just because something is a god/species power doesn't mean it can't also be a spell.

Two stars of TSO piety is Divine Halo and Divine Shield. In addition to some restrictive conducts, you get an aura of no-stealth and an activated power. Two stars of Zin piety is Recite and Vitalization. Less restrictive conducts, but you get two active abilities and quickly get a third. That's a significant starting advantage and, at least in TSO's case, a major gameplay difference (no stabbing). Makhleb is less of a gameplay advantage, but it was one of the four playable Deep Dwarf starts (the other three being Healer, Berserker and Necromancer).

Summoning has always been kindof boring, they're trying to make it so that using them has some meaningful strategy other than "Spam allies, hang around (possibly even out of LoS) while they kill things".  I'm not sure how successful their efforts have been so far but I appreciate that they're working on it.

There's lots of better ways they could have done it, for sure. Off the top of my head:
-Make it work more like Necromancy, where you exchange a semi-renewable resource (food) for a semi-permanent benefit (minions). Summoning uses permafood instead of chunks. You might sacrifice a Choko to get a permanent bat, or a sausage for a jackal, or some bread for a trio of harpies.
-Make all summons durable, but have their loyalty time out instead. If you summon more monsters than your enemies can kill, you have to fight the remainder. Casting spammals 20 times in a row means you'll end up having to fight 15 or so rats on 0 mana.
-Summonings give permanent allies, but only work on down stairwells and only allow one casting per stairwell. As a result, each spell can be cast at most three times per level. Thematically, the things you summon come from deeper in the dungeon.
-Summoned creatures are naturally disobedient and need to specifically be told what to do using the shout menu. Doing so costs 1 mana per summon per shout. If you don't have enough mana to control all your creatures, some of them ignore you and wander off as if they were neutral.

[Retropunch]

I don't think there's any point in carrying around multiple plate mails considering how long they take to swap (if you have enough time to swap it you have enough time to escape, go back to your stash and pick it up in 99% of cases) and I think weapon swapping to that degree is of dubious value.  But even if I accept all of these examples as things I want in the game then I'd say they'd be better achieved by limits on tactical item slots - you've failed to come up with any example where weight would actually be meaningful.  That would have the side benefit of not having to walk back and forth constantly to refresh your stacks, and also of not screwing over heavy armour users for no reason.

I think there's plenty of examples of that. I remember many, many games where I've thought 'I'd like to carry around a fire branded axe for hydras, an icebranded axe for cold blooded stuff, and a holy axe for demons/undead' but only been able to take two, meaning that I've had to play more tactically if I come up against what I don't have damage/resists for. Same with armor with stuff like see invisible/status that Covenant mentioned. This isn't the most amazing of tactical options, but you have to admit it adds a layer of complexity which will now be lost to just 'do I have enough slots for that'.

[Leafsnail]

Covenant: I am confused by your argument.  In your first paragraph you seem to be saying you only want item weights to apply to equipment/evocables, but you later on talk about how maybe you'd want to drop potions under your system.  The thing is, even if the weights of consumables aren't that significant you're still being strongly encouraged to drop stacks of them if you're pushing against the weight limit with something else.  For instance, in the dilemnas you bring up there I could instead maybe solve it by dropping all my strategic scrolls, reducing all my stacks to one and making a lot more trips back and forth.  So my point about consumables stands, regardless of whether you're upping the weight of potions.

I also think the slots system is a lot less arbitrary than weight.  Each tactical item in your inventory kindof represents an option.  It makes more sense to limit those options than to limit some number derived from the real life masses of those objects.

And again I think the times when it's advantageous to carry around multiple pieces of armour are vanishingly rare, considering how long it takes to swap them.  If you have enough time to swap to GDA then you have enough time to go and pick it up off the floor, period.  So all your system would really do is limit the number of weapon swaps people have and evocables (although realistically I would take an evocable over a weapon swap 99/100 times, considering that I can go back and pick up that weapon if a need for it arises most of the time), which I don't think is enough to justify the system's existence.

I think there's plenty of examples of that. I remember many, many games where I've thought 'I'd like to carry around a fire branded axe for hydras, an icebranded axe for cold blooded stuff, and a holy axe for demons/undead' but only been able to take two, meaning that I've had to play more tactically if I come up against what I don't have damage/resists for. Same with armor with stuff like see invisible/status that Covenant mentioned. This isn't the most amazing of tactical options, but you have to admit it adds a layer of complexity which will now be lost to just 'do I have enough slots for that'.

How exactly were you limited to only two axes?  What the heck did you have in your inventory?  Thousands of stones?  Yeah I know weapon swapping can be useful sometimes since it's fast.  But if you want to limit that then you should do it with slots.  Because if weapon weight << armour weight then you could probably carry as many weapons as you like providing you aren't carrying any additional armour.

Invisible helmet is the one case where I can see an in-fight armour swap maybe making sense, but even then you could probably just run away and pick up your helmet from the stash when you notice the invisible monster.

[Leafsnail]

Transmuter is indeed a good class, even without Evaporation. But they could have just removed the spell from the Book of Changes, raised Evaporate's spell level to 3 and left it in the Book of Stalking. Then you'd have two transmutations classes, Transmuter, who gets lots of form powers and Stalker, who gets the non-form powers.

Evaporation would probably still be massively overpowered at 3.  It can mimic several (good) level 6 spells.

Some of the spells got replaced. That's good. But Dig, Scorpions, Shielding, Demon Horde and Summon Ugly Thing were just cut. That's bad. As far as I can tell, Dig went away because Formians got it and Summon Elemental went away because they're putting in a new elemental clouds god. That's really really dumb. Just because something is a god/species power doesn't mean it can't also be a spell.

Dig just isn't a fun spell in general, and Shielding was awful to the point where almost no-one would want to use it.  Those summon spells didn't receive a direct analogue, no, but they were replaced with level equivalents that the devs judged to be more interesting.  Do you think stuff should be kept in the game just for the sake of it even if replacements for it have been designed and implemented?

Basically I'm confused since you aren't making any arguments as to why the removed stuff was good.  If it sucked then what's the problem with taking it out?

Two stars of TSO piety is Divine Halo and Divine Shield. In addition to some restrictive conducts, you get an aura of no-stealth and an activated power. Two stars of Zin piety is Recite and Vitalization. Less restrictive conducts, but you get two active abilities and quickly get a third. That's a significant starting advantage and, at least in TSO's case, a major gameplay difference (no stabbing). Makhleb is less of a gameplay advantage, but it was one of the four playable Deep Dwarf starts (the other three being Healer, Berserker and Necromancer).

It takes ages to get two stars with either TSO or Zin, I'm not sure if you'd even get that before temple.  Deep Dwarf is strong enough that it can easily survive any godless start too.

There's lots of better ways they could have done it, for sure. Off the top of my head:
-Make it work more like Necromancy, where you exchange a semi-renewable resource (food) for a semi-permanent benefit (minions). Summoning uses permafood instead of chunks. You might sacrifice a Choko to get a permanent bat, or a sausage for a jackal, or some bread for a trio of harpies.
-Make all summons durable, but have their loyalty time out instead. If you summon more monsters than your enemies can kill, you have to fight the remainder. Casting spammals 20 times in a row means you'll end up having to fight 15 or so rats on 0 mana.
-Summonings give permanent allies, but only work on down stairwells and only allow one casting per stairwell. As a result, each spell can be cast at most three times per level. Thematically, the things you summon come from deeper in the dungeon.
-Summoned creatures are naturally disobedient and need to specifically be told what to do using the shout menu. Doing so costs 1 mana per summon per shout. If you don't have enough mana to control all your creatures, some of them ignore you and wander off as if they were neutral.

This is weird because you haven't actually said what the problem with their current approach is, other than the fact that their approach involved changing a few spells.

Like, if you don't like the new spells then you're welcome to argue that they should have done something different, but the argument you're making right now seems to be very much "Removing or replacing things is bad in any context".

[Grek]

Evaporation would probably still be massively overpowered at 3.  It can mimic several (good) level 6 spells.

Realistically, at 3 mana, Evaporate is going to be used as a slightly more costly version of Mephetic Cloud or a really cheap version of Poisonous Cloud. While theoretically you could produce Freezing, Mutagenic and Flame clouds, in practice you weren't because you didn't have an unlimited supply of those potions. I can see the argument that 3 mana is too cheap for Poisonous Cloud, but you have to keep in mind that you're expending limited resources (poison potions) to pull that trick off. It's not like you could spam it freely at that price.

Dig is a situationally fun spell/ability. If you have some way to see through walls (Ashenzari, Deep Dwarf, a lucky Demonspawn mutation, or, more recently, Formicids) then being able to path through said walls is highly useful. If you don't have that ability, you're basically only going to use it for digging boltholes, which is less exciting, but still a valid tactic in my eyes.

Summon Scorpions was important for Venom Mages wanting transition into Summoning instead of Conjuration. It was also the go-to tactic for Summoners facing the Spider Nest, an early Ant Vault or Killer Bee swarms, given that it was the only summon with poison you're guaranteed to have access to. It also had the advantage of letting you put out a buttload of chaff at once, since it could do up to 8 scorpions.

Demonic Horde was the high level version of Summon Butterflies, Putting 8 imps in between you and the Executioner in one turn was much more useful than laying down 8 butterflies, since they had actual resistances and could occasionally take more than one hit to kill.

Shielding and Ugly Things, were admittedly, not very useful. I could see cutting them, if there really wasn't a way to make them useful.

It takes ages to get two stars with either TSO or Zin, I'm not sure if you'd even get that before temple.

You'd start with two stars of piety, just like Healers do.

This is weird because you haven't actually said what the problem with their current approach is, other than the fact that their approach involved changing a few spells.

The issue with summoning is that the dev team hates it when players use tactics to minimize their exposure to danger. They hate pillar dancing, they hate hiding in corridors, they hate attacking stuff that can't see you and they hate anything that can be used as a barrier between the monsters and the character. With summoning, that's all there is to the school. The whole point of summoning monsters is so that you can hide behind them and not get attacked, or use them to break chases, or get them to eat hits for you. Players want to use the spells for things the devs don't want the players to be able to do.

The current approach to "fixing" this appears to be: A] sharply limit the number of summons a player can have, and B] replace all of the good chaff summoning spells with silly gimmick spells like Guardian Golem and Lightning Spire. That doesn't really fix the problem at all, it just means that players need more spell types and to spend more mana to get the desired amount of chaff going. A better solution would be to make the chaff itself dangerous (disloyal summons), to introduce a choice between being safe and being able to kill things (summons that ignore you if you run out of mana) or to give players a reason to not treat summons as expendable (permanent costs for permanent summons).

[Robsoie]

Of all the change i found contributing in lowering the fun i have with the game, the most prominent to me was the  heavy summoning nerf and the related dumbing down of the summons AI (so they can't attack thing you don't see or will not attack if you don't ask them), if there's something in Crawl i had always enjoyed was (on my characters that managed to survive long enough to reach that point) the fun delivered by the big battles you could have, even out of sight, between your legions and their legions.

[frostshotgg]

The problem with that is, it was ridiculously overpowered, and it's well within the dev's rights to rebalance their game as they see fit. But being able to kill an enemy without them being able to ever see you is kinda unfair, isn't it?

[forsaken1111]

I don't like this apparent trend of "Hey these guys are having too much fun with a specific feature. Remove it!"

[Dr Feelgood]

By "arcadey", I think people are worried that Crawl will eventually turn into an 8 hour long Dungeon Sprint game. There are tactical considerations in those maps, but it's a very simplified experience. You don't have to worry about item weight, food, IDing stuff, etc. The sole focus is combat.

Anyway, item weight doesn't matter much. There are options you can tweak to effectively ignore it. It's the same with food. You can setup the game to automatically eat and drop chunks, and sacrifice unwanted corpses. The only thing you have to do is press 'c' once in awhile. And there's enough permafood in the game that you'll never starve. If they're removing item weight, item destruction, and scrambling, then they should also remove the hunger and food system.

The goal of the summoning changes were to encourage players to fight alongside their summons, instead of hiding behind a wall and waiting to win. It doesn't help that the AI sucks against summons, especially when you're out of sight. You can still use summons to kill everything. My FoEE cleared Zot by spamming Shadow Creature and channeling. My biggest issue with the summoning changes is that you have to waste turns constantly shouting commands at your summons.

[Robsoie]

The problem with that is, it was ridiculously overpowered, and it's well within the dev's rights to rebalance their game as they see fit.

The same as it's well within my right to still play 0.11 and enjoy it.

The nerf to experience gain when the summons were killing things while you were hiding was enough to warrant you not staying out of sight or not participating in battle 100% of the time, as after a while you would simply be under-leveled in comparison to how the challenge was rising.
It was auto balancing itself.

But being able to kill an enemy without them being able to ever see you is kinda unfair, isn't it?

You have probably forgot, but the same applied to the enemy summoners : their summons could kill you without them seeing you.
And even better : their summons could still kill you even after you killed their summoners.

[Retropunch]

By "arcadey", I think people are worried that Crawl will eventually turn into an 8 hour long Dungeon Sprint game. There are tactical considerations in those maps, but it's a very simplified experience. You don't have to worry about item weight, food, IDing stuff, etc. The sole focus is combat.

That is exactly my fear. Whilst I definitely think some of the systems were a long way from perfect, just ripping them out and shouting 'CLARITY!' doesn't seem to be a good direction to go down, especially whilst there's nothing new to take their place mechanics-wise. We just gradually get reduced down to a sort of turn based diablo-game, which isn't the direction I want it to go in personally.

[Mindmaker]

I really can't play Crawl anymore these days. The playthroughs almost never hold any suprises (which is supposed to be the strong point of roguelikes).
When was the last time they worked on the post game? After being to Hell, Abyss, Pan, Tomb, Slime once those places lose all novelty an become another "gib rune pls"-place if you go for 15.
They spend more time on pruning the game from content that people enjoy than actually adding new stuff. I mean it can be justified in some cases. Cataclysm has an awful lot of flavour items and variations that can obstruct gameplay at times, but that isn't the case here.
Would it be too much work to simply rebalance stuff if it doesn't fit your design philosophy, instead of straight up removing it?

So while we may have one of the most "balanced" and beginner friendly roguelikes, it's also one of the most bland ones in many aspects.
Funnily enough it's also the only one I've ever beat, out of the classical ones at least.

[Darkening Kaos]

     Do what I have done and go back to version 0.10, which is my favourite version, though I also play 0.11 sometimes.

[Robsoie]

For those interested by this dcss variant, i just noticed that Crawl Light got new builds in April
https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=5602#p162712

some of the difference from Crawl Light :
https://github.com/dtsund/crawl-light/blob/cl-trunk/crawl-ref/docs/changelog.txt

[Dr Feelgood]

Linesprint (|||||||||||):

Code: [Select]

Dungeon Sprint DCSS version 0.14.1 (tiles) character file.

11683335 Demos the Invulnerable (level 22, 105/169 HPs)
             Began as a Gargoyle Fighter on May 23, 2014.
             Was the Champion of Zin.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 5 runes!
             
             The game lasted 01:45:05 (14184 turns).

Demos the Invulnerable (Gargoyle Fighter)          Turns: 14184, Time: 01:45:05

HP 105/169       AC 61     Str 41      XL: 22   Next: 11%
MP  42/42        EV 28     Int 19      God: Zin [******]
Gold 953         SH 62     Dex 18      Spells:  0 memorised, 52 levels left

rFire  + + .     SeeInvis +     w - +5 bastard sword of Prescription {elec, rElec rN+}
rCold  + . .     Clarity  .     t - +4 gold dragon armour
rNeg   + + .     Conserve +     n - +1 large shield
rPois  +         rCorr    +     y - +2 helmet {SInv}
rElec  +         rRot     +     L - +2 cloak {rCorr, Cons}
SustAb . .       Spirit   +     A - +1 pair of gloves
rMut   .         Warding  .     g - +0 pair of boots {run}
Saprov . . .     NoTele   +     v - amulet of Schoiff {Spirit +Inv Str+3}
MR     +....                    r - ring of protection from fire
                                l - +0,+3 ring of slaying

@: vitalised, quick, somewhat resistant to hostile enchantments, very unstealthy
A: able to fly continuously, large and strong wings, life protection 1,
electricity resistance, unbreathing, petrification resistance, AC +16
a: Fly, Recite, Vitalisation, Imprison, Sanctuary, Cure All Mutations, Renounce
Religion, Evoke Invisibility
0: Orb of Zot
}: 5/15 runes: decaying, serpentine, barnacled, silver, gossamer


You escaped.
You worshipped Zin.
Zin was exalted by your worship.
You were not hungry.

You visited 1 branch
You collected 1974 gold pieces.
You spent 52 gold pieces at shops.
You donated 969 gold pieces.

Inventory:

Hand weapons
 b - a +0 blowgun
   (You took it off Sonja in the Dungeon)
 m - a +2,+2 scimitar of flaming
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 w - the +5,+5 bastard sword of Prescription (weapon) {elec, rElec rN+}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   Occasionally, upon striking a foe, it will discharge some electrical energy
   and cause terrible harm.
   
   It insulates you from electricity.
   It protects you from negative energy.
 G - a +5,+6 bastard sword of slicing
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
Missiles
 o - a throwing net (quivered)
 C - 3 curare-tipped needles
Armour
 g - a +0 pair of boots of running (worn)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 n - a +1 large shield (worn)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 t - a +4 gold dragon armour (worn)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 y - a +2 helmet of see invisible (worn)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 A - a +1 pair of gloves (worn)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 H - the +0 pair of boots "Kloackie" {Dam+3}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   It affects your damage with ranged weapons and melee attacks (+3).
 L - a +2 cloak of preservation (worn)
   (You took it off Nikola in the Dungeon)
Magical devices
 z - a wand of magic darts (7)
   (You took it off Eustachio in the Dungeon)
 K - a wand of hasting (0) {!d}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
Comestibles
 d - 6 bread rations
 q - 40 strawberries
 s - 11 meat rations
Scrolls
 h - 3 scrolls of remove curse
 j - 2 scrolls of fog
 J - a scroll of fear
Jewellery
 a - an uncursed ring of wizardry {unknown}
   (You took it off a yaktaur captain in the Dungeon)
 c - the ring "Vuekhe" {Ice Str+1 Int+3}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   [ring of ice]
   It affects your strength (+1).
   It affects your intelligence (+3).
 f - the amulet of Sudghubeo {Gourm Dex+2 Dam+3}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   [amulet of the gourmand]
   It affects your dexterity (+2).
   It affects your damage with ranged weapons and melee attacks (+3).
 k - the amulet of Amorality {rMut rC+}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   [amulet of resist mutation]
   It protects you from cold.
 l - a +0,+3 ring of slaying (left hand)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 r - a ring of protection from fire (right hand)
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
 u - the ring "Laisihah" {Fire Dex+3 Int+1}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   [ring of fire]
   It affects your intelligence (+1).
   It affects your dexterity (+3).
 v - the amulet of Schoiff (around neck) {Spirit +Inv Str+3}
   (You found it in the Dungeon)   
   
   [amulet of guardian spirit]
   It affects your strength (+3).
   It lets you turn invisible.
 F - an uncursed ring of invisibility
   (You found it in the Dungeon)
Potions
 p - 2 potions of restore abilities
 B - a potion of brilliance


   Skills:
 O Level 27 Fighting
 O Level 27 Long Blades
 O Level 27 Armour
 O Level 27 Dodging
 O Level 27 Stealth
 O Level 27 Shields
 O Level 27 Unarmed Combat
 + Level 15.8 Spellcasting
 O Level 27 Invocations


You had 52 spell levels left.
You didn't know any spells.
Convokers are the biggest threat. They can recall demon lords and zot inhabitants. Otherwise, it's very straightforward. Oh, and you have to backtrack through the entire hour-long map to reach the exit.

Anyway, only 2 maps left to beat: Fedhas' Mad Dash and Ten Rune Challenge.