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[Retropunch]

So, now that Crawl's stumbling, we need unormal to sweep in with a finished version of Caves of Qud and steal top spot amongst the roguelikes.

The things I'd do for that...the terrible, terrible things...

[motorbitch]

i agree on the food part.
as by now, food is just something that increases the str requirement.

[Leafsnail]

All of these changes seem good because they've been gradually forced out into specific cases and annoyances. Food used to be a hell of a lot more important and strategical, but now it's been gradually edged off so it feels as though it's completely unimportant now. Same with item destruction - it used to be a key part of the game that you had to plan around, now it's just the odd thing with sticky flame that destroys everything in your inventory.

You ignored me last time, but I will directly challenge you again: when was food ever a meaningful strategic consideration?  Give me a version number.

I contend that it never was.  Sickness and nausea only served to waste your time, no-one starved to death back then either.  Also remember that up until 0.9 there was a branch that gave you basically infinite food, so you could play if anything even more cavalierly (even as a spriggan!) because you could always restock on food from Hive later.

Same goes for item destruction - give me a version number.  Be careful, because until relatively recently item destruction was laughably trivial (it could only burn X scrolls/potions per hit, so you could just carry tonnes of junk to make it miss your important stuff).  So it would have to be after that point, but the only actual change that I remember being made to item destruction after that was the reduction of sticky flame's (frankly ridiculous) burning power.  But you seem to be implying that things other than sticky flame used to matter, so I'm curious as to why you think that.

e: Actually I guess AC started (slightly) mitigating item destruction at some point, but that was just to make it so that AC-based characters weren't constantly boned by the mechanic in a way that EV characters weren't.

There could be all sorts of better ways to accomplish it, without just ditching the mechanic. Resistances could help shield items, items could only be damaged for a while (this was an idea and was nearly implemented I do believe) so you couldn't use them whilst you were on fire/for a while after and all sorts of more creative ideas.

They did try that, but I think it screwed with game balance too much (replacing a basically meaningless mechanic with an actually dangerous one is likely going to cause some problems).

Just removing stuff makes it simpler and simpler, with nothing exciting to take it's place.

What about all the new gods, spells, items, species and monsters that are added constantly?  Does it not count as content if it's not supporting the tedious inventory juggling minigame?

[Retropunch]

At this point it's pretty clear that there are two different camps on this. The last couple of pages worth of arguments about it didn't go anywhere, so what's the use in a rehash of things we've already argued about?

I have to agree, Leafsnail obviously comes at crawl from a completely different direction to me/others - and that's fine - I'm genuinely glad they enjoy the direction that it's going in. I however don't, and  feel that many agree. I don't have exact examples to hand, and If you want to take that as 'winning' the argument that's fine, but as I said, it's because it's a general make-up of everything, rather than individual mechanics (some of which were admittedly poorly done).

Regardless, I don't think it all needs going over again, as I've made the point I wanted too.

Now, HOW OP IS QAZLOL OH MY GOD CAN ANYONE SAY ROFLSTOMP.

[Robsoie]

Crawl is a game i only enjoy nowadays during a period of time, after a long pause out of it i re-enjoy it again, then i when i feel like i'm starting to run into things and design decision i don't like, i know it's time for another pause.
For now i'm enjoying it fortunately as i came back only recently (though i'm starting to replay some DF adventure mode and found it hooking me again).

The good thing is that there are plenty of really good games in the RL genre, so there's no problem in switching from one to another, when i come back to Crawl usually enough of it have changed to warrant me giving it more playtime, until the circle of things start again and i move to something else.

So in the end, change is good i guess

[tompliss]

I like how you make a point, retro.
Like, really really.

Now, i'm gonna go play a great game that many people agree it's a great game.
It's called DC:SS.

[beorn080]

All of these changes seem good because they've been gradually forced out into specific cases and annoyances. Food used to be a hell of a lot more important and strategical, but now it's been gradually edged off so it feels as though it's completely unimportant now. Same with item destruction - it used to be a key part of the game that you had to plan around, now it's just the odd thing with sticky flame that destroys everything in your inventory.

You ignored me last time, but I will directly challenge you again: when was food ever a meaningful strategic consideration?  Give me a version number.

I contend that it never was.  Sickness and nausea only served to waste your time, no-one starved to death back then either.  Also remember that up until 0.9 there was a branch that gave you basically infinite food, so you could play if anything even more cavalierly (even as a spriggan!) because you could always restock on food from Hive later.

Same goes for item destruction - give me a version number.  Be careful, because until relatively recently item destruction was laughably trivial (it could only burn X scrolls/potions per hit, so you could just carry tonnes of junk to make it miss your important stuff).  So it would have to be after that point, but the only actual change that I remember being made to item destruction after that was the reduction of sticky flame's (frankly ridiculous) burning power.  But you seem to be implying that things other than sticky flame used to matter, so I'm curious as to why you think that.

e: Actually I guess AC started (slightly) mitigating item destruction at some point, but that was just to make it so that AC-based characters weren't constantly boned by the mechanic in a way that EV characters weren't.

There could be all sorts of better ways to accomplish it, without just ditching the mechanic. Resistances could help shield items, items could only be damaged for a while (this was an idea and was nearly implemented I do believe) so you couldn't use them whilst you were on fire/for a while after and all sorts of more creative ideas.

They did try that, but I think it screwed with game balance too much (replacing a basically meaningless mechanic with an actually dangerous one is likely going to cause some problems).

Just removing stuff makes it simpler and simpler, with nothing exciting to take it's place.

What about all the new gods, spells, items, species and monsters that are added constantly?  Does it not count as content if it's not supporting the tedious inventory juggling minigame?

For food? Casters. Managing risk vs reward early on of "Do I magic dart that goblin and waste some food? I'm a bit injured, and at best it'll give me sickness, negating at least a bit of the food drain." A bit later, "Do I mephetic cloud that group? I'm already hungry, but I should be able to get chunks out of it." No, warriors with their beatsticks don't worry about food, but managing it as a caster used to be an issue. It was the only reason Mummies ever got played, really.

Item destruction, again, comes down to risk management. Do I carry 3 scrolls of blink or leave two behind. If I leave them behind, they can't be destroyed, but what if I run into a dragon. If I carry three, then one or two might not get burned in the initial flame breath attack. But then I'd lose more just escaping.

[Mindmaker]

Apparently webtiles doesn't have to be slow as fuck.
What am I doing wrong?

[Elephant Parade]

I drank a potion of mutation and got blurry vision, frail, and magic-resistant. Should I drink a potion of Cure Mutation? I'm playing a Gargoyle Fighter.

[Rex_Nex]

Yes

[monk12]

Blurry vision is pretty awful, and frail isn't doing any favors to a race already low on delicious hps. Quaff'm if you got'm.

[Elephant Parade]

It doesn't really matter now. I got sent to the Abyss by a unique on Swamp:1 and was killed by demons.

[Retropunch]

For food? Casters. Managing risk vs reward early on of "Do I magic dart that goblin and waste some food? I'm a bit injured, and at best it'll give me sickness, negating at least a bit of the food drain." A bit later, "Do I mephetic cloud that group? I'm already hungry, but I should be able to get chunks out of it." No, warriors with their beatsticks don't worry about food, but managing it as a caster used to be an issue. It was the only reason Mummies ever got played, really.

Item destruction, again, comes down to risk management. Do I carry 3 scrolls of blink or leave two behind. If I leave them behind, they can't be destroyed, but what if I run into a dragon. If I carry three, then one or two might not get burned in the initial flame breath attack. But then I'd lose more just escaping.

I didn't really want to chime in on this again, but you hit the nail on the head. Food used to be a much bigger issue when meat chunks could give you nausea (which meant you couldn't eat until that wore off, but you still got more hungry) and then sickness which caused stat drops and stuff (possibly version 10ish?). That made casters a lot more vulnerable and you just could not go round blasting everything with fireballs due to immense hunger restrictions. You were forced to get spell casting up to negate the hunger costs, which stunted your damage/other skills.

Granted, melee only fighters weren't going to be that bothered, but they used to have other problems like more likely corrosion/item destruction which balanced out the difficulty for them (although they were admittedly a lot more straight forward).

Now hunger is hardly a problem as all chunks give you nourishment, and I do think that's a step backwards in terms of making a deep and strategic game, but I am glad that it appeals to some people more now. To be honest, I'm just glad it's got direction, even if it's not one that I like, as I feel that's a really big problem with open source RLs these days.

[motorbitch]

its not as if a higher risk for casters would be necessary. especially early on.

[Gamerlord]

For food? Casters. Managing risk vs reward early on of "Do I magic dart that goblin and waste some food? I'm a bit injured, and at best it'll give me sickness, negating at least a bit of the food drain." A bit later, "Do I mephetic cloud that group? I'm already hungry, but I should be able to get chunks out of it." No, warriors with their beatsticks don't worry about food, but managing it as a caster used to be an issue. It was the only reason Mummies ever got played, really.

Item destruction, again, comes down to risk management. Do I carry 3 scrolls of blink or leave two behind. If I leave them behind, they can't be destroyed, but what if I run into a dragon. If I carry three, then one or two might not get burned in the initial flame breath attack. But then I'd lose more just escaping.

I didn't really want to chime in on this again, but you hit the nail on the head. Food used to be a much bigger issue when meat chunks could give you nausea (which meant you couldn't eat until that wore off, but you still got more hungry) and then sickness which caused stat drops and stuff (possibly version 10ish?). That made casters a lot more vulnerable and you just could not go round blasting everything with fireballs due to immense hunger restrictions. You were forced to get spell casting up to negate the hunger costs, which stunted your damage/other skills.

Granted, melee only fighters weren't going to be that bothered, but they used to have other problems like more likely corrosion/item destruction which balanced out the difficulty for them (although they were admittedly a lot more straight forward).

Now hunger is hardly a problem as all chunks give you nourishment, and I do think that's a step backwards in terms of making a deep and strategic game, but I am glad that it appeals to some people more now. To be honest, I'm just glad it's got direction, even if it's not one that I like, as I feel that's a really big problem with open source RLs these days.

Yeah. Back when chunks gave nausea staves of energy were actually useful. Now I just hold them until I get a staff of wizardry/whatever I'm specialising in.