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The angry face on trees is one of my favorite recent additions. Not only does it make things much clearer what's going on when a spriggan druid wants to ruin your day, the graphic is just so much fun!
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Mar 23, 2017 13:09
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| # ? May 14, 2024 00:17 |
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+1 m&f apt for Ogres +0 for Trolls Malmutate reform for all.
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Mar 23, 2017 14:18
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Speleothing posted:+1 m&f apt for Ogres
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Mar 23, 2017 14:40
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I won a game with the new nerfed Ghoul. They suck. Zero regeneration is really unpleasant, any encounter is do or die and if things go wrong you need to be able to make distance so you can flee to some stairs and restore health. It makes any drawn out encounters far more dangerous, you're effectively missing a bunch of health. I picked Makhleb for healing so I could actually stay in combat, which worked out pretty well. I wouldn't want to try playing them again with any other god. Ghouls are not as awful as Deep Dwarves, but they feel really restrictive now. Chunks taking only 1 turn to eat helps a bit but the healing they give seems to scale with health so there isn't really any point where they will actually help you salvage a failing fight, they just help you recover faster in downtimes. Also Mnoleg managed to be threatening for the first time ever. Thanks to malmut and neq drain I tanked to -9 int and had to fight three pan lords while brainless. Mnoleg himself was still a huge baby even while brainless, but the two random lords I met while recovering were really close calls.
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Mar 23, 2017 15:03
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Why did ghouls of all things need a nerf?
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Mar 23, 2017 15:36
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Speleothing posted:Why did ghouls of all things need a nerf? They had a unique mechanic, which increased fun, which had to be balanced against. The tedium and usefulness of said mechanic were deemed irrelevant.
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Mar 23, 2017 15:58
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Speleothing posted:Why did ghouls of all things need a nerf? It was an indirect nerf caused by moving Slow Regen 3 to a DD only No Regen (because it was too harsh to acquire normally) and removing Slow Regen 1 (because it was meaningless).
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Mar 23, 2017 16:00
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Captain Monkey posted:They had a unique mechanic, which increased fun, which had to be balanced against. The tedium and usefulness of said mechanic were deemed irrelevant. This joke definitely gets funnier every time it gets repeated.
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Mar 23, 2017 18:39
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Floodkiller posted:It was an indirect nerf caused by moving Slow Regen 3 to a DD only No Regen (because it was too harsh to acquire normally) and removing Slow Regen 1 (because it was meaningless). Huh. Wonder if it would be better to also give Ghouls their own unique mutation like they did with Deep Dwarves. Indirect buff in turn because then they wouldn't be able to get Inhibited Regeneration, which matches their tenacious natures.
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Mar 23, 2017 18:58
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Sage Grimm posted:Huh. Wonder if it would be better to also give Ghouls their own unique mutation like they did with Deep Dwarves. Indirect buff in turn because then they wouldn't be able to get Inhibited Regeneration, which matches their tenacious natures. Give ghouls a bite attack with a chance to restore some hp.
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Mar 23, 2017 19:32
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weirdly chilly pussy posted:Give ghouls a bite attack with a chance to restore some hp.
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Mar 23, 2017 19:36
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Also  at this change happening a week after Ghouls got listed as "Simple"
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Mar 23, 2017 19:53
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weirdly chilly pussy posted:This joke definitely gets funnier every time it gets repeated. Thank you.
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Mar 23, 2017 19:53
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Floodkiller posted:However, other spellcasting based species usually also have a draw to the player to that would make them interesting and 'fun' to choose: You've made a list of reasons why people could choose a species for spellcasting to which I could easily add: "Ogres give you the best HP in the game as a spellcaster and have an excellent spellcasting skill aptitude". Ogres will be one of the strongest species you can choose for a spellcaster, especially in the early game, where mages die a lot. Many spellcasting characters have "garbage defenses" for quite some time since they're busy developing spells; having HP and benefits from spellcasting is helpful. Seriously, you're arguing that Centaurs are a compelling spellcasting species but somehow Ogres are not. Since the change, ogres are are as popular as Merfolk for mage starts, and more frequently chosen than: Humans, Demigod, Spriggan, Hill Orc, Vampire, Kobold, Felid, Centaur (in order of popularity). quote:If no large species are actually encouraged to use GC/GSC over other weapons, then why have them in the first place? There is a species that's encouraged to use GC: they're called Ogres. GC are the best 2h weapon you can use, generally speaking, in terms of damage/XP tradeoff. And not surprisingly, it's still the most popular weapon class for Ogres who get 15 skill or more in a weapon class. Part of learning the game is learning how to evaluate weapons. We don't want to use apts mostly as indicators to new players to do or not do a specific thing, but rather for there to be different decisions to make as you choose different species and classes. There are instances where species don't do this well (Merfolk, Trolls), and those things tend to get looked at and adjusted over time. quote:Speaking of best weapon aptitude, how many of those polearm wins are likely because polearms/staves are now Ogre's highest weapon aptitude? Many players don't really experiment with the lower weapon aptitudes on species (even if they are still positive, like Hill Orcs), and will just pick the best aptitude, or pick from among the highest ones (if there is no specific highest aptitude) with the best weapon they find within the first five dungeon floors or so. Additionally, you say "There is really no reason for them not [to pick up a polearm with a shield or a latajang]"; forgive me if I'm interpreting this wrong, but doesn't that mean that you personally expect Polearms/Staves to be the default/optimal weapon type, and that only gimmick players will pick anything else? This seems just completely confused. Now you seem to be arguing that, yes, people are sometimes deciding to use polearms but that's "just" because we made polearms have a higher aptitude. That was precisely the change we made, for the exact reason of letting players decide to use other weapons, which you argued wouldn't work! If a weapon's aptitude is higher, you might choose that weapon class at start or when you find that weapon on the ground, as opposed to a weapon skill with a lower aptitude. Polearms are generally the strongest class of weapons already, and lajatangs are one of the best 2h weapons in the game, so I don't think it's surprising if people choose these weapons sometimes. My "no reason for them not to.." statement wasn't saying "people will only choose polearms or staves", it was saying that people have no reason exclude these when deciding which weapon to use; they are good endgame weapons and Ogres have reasonable aptitudes in those skills. I don't think GC/GSC are really problematic, but it might be nice if Trolls would consider something other than UC. You would probably have to nerf claws in some way, which could be reasonable.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:05
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weirdly chilly pussy posted:This joke definitely gets funnier every time it gets repeated. Unironically agreed
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Mar 23, 2017 20:06
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World Famous W posted:So vampires that can also eat chunks? What are vampires?
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Mar 23, 2017 20:49
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gammafunk posted:-snip- I don't think I'm going to come to an agreement with the current design for Ogres having a lower M&F aptitude than other weapon aptitudes despite your arguments being sound, probably because I'm attached to old Ogres with a big club and I've never really liked using spells outside of glass cannon Deep Elves and Skalds. Thanks for replying regardless, even though I was just tossing arguments out shotgun style over a specific approach. As an aside, gammafunk posted:We don't want to use apts mostly as indicators to new players to do or not do a specific thing, but rather for there to be different decisions to make as you choose different species and classes. There are instances where species don't do this well (Merfolk, Trolls), and those things tend to get looked at and adjusted over time. I don't really see this as an achievable goal unless you find a way to continuously spell it out for newer players through gameplay in a way that can't be missed or misinterpreted. From watching newer players (my friends) play the game, they always stick to the highest aptitude weapon class unless there's a tie (which leads to them picking their favorite weapons). They also never swap weapon classes for other strong weapons found early on or splash train something like Short Blades with an early dagger of poison. It's easier for them to just pick the biggest number and stick with it regardless of luck, spending their time learning other things about the game. From my own experiences, I only really learned to mess around with using the lower weapon aptitudes on a species through meta accomplishments like playing Nem Choices in tournaments and attempting win streaks, not from any actual learning/pressure in the game itself. If this is a goal that is being aimed for, I think it would be better accomplished by just merging all the weapons (except maybe Unarmed) into a single Melee Weapons aptitude for each species.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:50
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I think it's fine if people learn to use lower-apt weapons only with much experience, as it's way easier to make a terrible mistake that way.Floodkiller posted:If this is a goal that is being aimed for, I think it would be better accomplished by just merging all the weapons (except maybe Unarmed) into a single Melee Weapons aptitude for each species. This sounds bad, as then every character would want to carry a weapon of each type for the special abilities.
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Mar 23, 2017 20:52
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weirdly chilly pussy posted:What are vampires? Wait, poo poo...
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Mar 23, 2017 21:07
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rchandra posted:This sounds bad, as then every character would want to carry a weapon of each type for the special abilities. Will it decrease the Fun Quotient?? Sounds great then!
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Mar 23, 2017 21:51
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Feature request: red barrels lying around the dungeon that you can shoot with your uncursed hunting sling +0, killing all of the kobolds standing next to them
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Mar 23, 2017 22:35
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gammafunk posted:I don't think GC/GSC are really problematic, but it might be nice if Trolls would consider something other than UC. You would probably have to nerf claws in some way, which could be reasonable.  I see you sneaking that in there
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Mar 24, 2017 00:19
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gammafunk posted:I don't think GC/GSC are really problematic, but it might be nice if Trolls would consider something other than UC. You would probably have to nerf claws in some way, which could be reasonable. I... why would that be nice? Like, isn't the whole point of having so many races that you can have some races that are really good in certain areas? Like, by this reasoning, why are there +/- aptitudes at all? Every time a species is good at something it encourages them to use it, and every time a species is bad at something it encourages them to avoid it. Why is having an Unarmed Species bad? e: I don't play trolls, no personal stake in this (unlike Conjurer losing Battlesphere, which remains awful). LogicNinja fucked around with this message at 00:42 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 00:40
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In order to encourage variety, all races should have equal aptitudes in everything. They should all be removed and replaced with humans to accomplish this.
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Mar 24, 2017 02:47
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Conjurer lost battlesphere what what the gently caress are the devs doing
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Mar 24, 2017 02:53
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LogicNinja posted:I... why would that be nice? Like, isn't the whole point of having so many races that you can have some races that are really good in certain areas? Like, by this reasoning, why are there +/- aptitudes at all? Every time a species is good at something it encourages them to use it, and every time a species is bad at something it encourages them to avoid it. Why is having an Unarmed Species bad? Having choices reduces the amount of choices available to the player
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Mar 24, 2017 03:18
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If you don't want a race's special skills and aptitudes to point to the recommended way to play the race than what the gently caress is the point of them at all. Like, that's not only an unattainable design goal but it's an inherently boring one.
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Mar 24, 2017 03:24
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gammafunk posted:it might be nice if Trolls would consider something other than UC. You would probably have to nerf claws in some way, which could be reasonable. haha for sure my man
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Mar 24, 2017 03:38
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Is it also a problem that people don't pick Minotaur to play a conjurations-based spellcaster?
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Mar 24, 2017 03:38
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gammafunk posted:We don't want to use apts mostly as indicators to new players to do or not do a specific thing, but rather for there to be different decisions to make as you choose different species and classes. There are instances where species don't do this well (Merfolk, Trolls), and those things tend to get looked at and adjusted over time. I feel like we're missing a couple steps in the logic that leads to these decisions.
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Mar 24, 2017 03:41
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Linley is rolling over in his grave at these despicable devs!!!
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Mar 24, 2017 03:44
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I mean honestly, I'm not a fan of races like trolls. I don't like races that are completely inflexible and pretty much have to go one route. Trolls are so poo poo at everything other than punching that's all you will want to do with them. Nerfing claws wouldn't solve that problem. It would just make people want to play trolls even less since they are now worse at the only thing they were good at. Its not like a nerf to claws would even make people try other stuff when unarmed is still overwhelmingly better for a troll than anything else. And if you nerf claws too dramatically then you're loving over monstrous demonspawn and ghouls in the process anyways. That all being said, I don't get why this is even a major problem. I may not like trolls, but there are tons of other species to play. That's the cool thing about crawl. It has a lot of different options right from the start screen for you to pick from. There are races that are specalized for specific roles and then ones that can do pretty much everything. I'm not sure why you would view this as an issue.
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Mar 24, 2017 03:55
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Trolls can do other things (Necromancy!) but the only reason they can get away with it is because their unarmed is good enough that they don't have to go all in. Without claws, high health & regeneration trying to make a hybrid unarmed/caster character is terrible in the best case, trying to do so with Troll int/apts would be a nightmare. Trolls being good at unarmed gives them more options, not less.
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Mar 24, 2017 04:13
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gammafunk posted:Part of learning the game is learning how to evaluate weapons. We don't want to use apts mostly as indicators to new players to do or not do a specific thing, but rather for there to be different decisions to make as you choose different species and classes. There are instances where species don't do this well (Merfolk, Trolls), and those things tend to get looked at and adjusted over time. Other than the GC/GSC issue, clubs/LBs/axes are totally identical. Short Blades have stab, polearms have an incredibly tedious optimal use scenario (that at odds with the dcss credo), staves are balanced in the same way poison magic is, and short blades are off doing their own thing. But clubs/LBs/axes are a totally generic hit-guy-with-stick skill with some very tiny perks. As much as I love Axe's cleave and personally prefer them, it's hardly character-defining. Giving any species a different apt in these skill from each other is a almost false choice (if that's the right term); barring a spectacular drop like an early enough unrandart, the player is going with the best weapon apt and never look back. It's a 'no-brainer'. So what floodkiller said; Floodkiller posted:It's easier for them to just pick the biggest number and stick with it regardless of luck, spending their time learning other things about the game. From my own experiences, I only really learned to mess around with using the lower weapon aptitudes on a species through meta accomplishments like playing Nem Choices in tournaments and attempting win streaks, not from any actual learning/pressure in the game itself. If this is a goal that is being aimed for, I think it would be better accomplished by just merging all the weapons (except maybe Unarmed) into a single Melee Weapons aptitude for each species. rchandra posted:This sounds bad, as then every character would want to carry a weapon of each type for the special abilities. As an aside, the tern 'no-brainer' being pushed with nothing but negative connotations, and as a thing to be avoided at all costs, can/has been taken too far, imo. Everything in moderation and all that. There are umpteen scenarios that a player reflexively makes the best choice because the alternative is laughable. "I'm a DE^Veh in zot and a GDA just dropped, I have 5 armour and 2 str, should I wear it?' - And so on, all trivial. Which leads us to species apts: some species are terrible at certain things. Decisions are being made about how to build your char before the first turn. Big decisions. The @ spawns with customized apts, xp, god, and inventory - this sure as hell isn't brogue. So when two major items drop early, the player already has an idea of which he wants to commit into. No need to act as if a meaningful choice is needed every step of the way. 'No-brainer' can be seen as having clearly communicated mechanics and pathways. Serephina fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 04:28
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This thread is pretty depressing to read and post in lately. But the discussion on aptitudes is an interesting one, at least if gammafunk can be bothered to filter out some of the less productive posts. First, I'll say that I probably can't accurately or succinctly express what seems to be the "dev consensus" or the function of weapon aptitudes. Second, I'm not sure my own views on that are fully developed. Third, I think weapon skills in general are not well designed and very rarely provide interesting choices: you almost always pick the ideal weapon for your character by a variety of simple metrics and then train the skill until it reaches a magic number. There are more interesting choices about how much to put into the skill and when, but rarely are there interesting choices about which skill to pick. Sometimes weapon aptitudes work, though. I think Hill Orc is the best design, since choosing between a polearm and an axe is a legitimate and interesting choice for some backgrounds. A book start might well want to ignore the +3 axes and use a mace or long blade if they find a good one early. In light of that, I'm sympathetic to the ogre aptitude change and I think it was a step in the right direction, but I also think it went to far. On the surface, if makes sense in that giant clubs (I pointedly do not say giant spiked clubs), are still the best choice for them in most situations. They're available early, don't require huge investment and do tons of damage. This means that while they will still choose their special weapon type most of the time, it's no longer the only reasonable choice for them. However, I think the -1 aptitude is too low because of two related points. First, species selection is weapon selection in many cases. Certain species are inexorably linked in players minds with certain weapons. This is completely understandable behavior that necessarily results from the burden of needing to process so many species as well as the images that those species evoke. For example, most players probably think, "If I really want to play a polearm character, I choose Mf. If I really want to use a bow, I choose Ce; an axe, I choose HO and a GSC, I choose Og." Certainly that's still the case with Og simply because of lack of other options, if nothing else. And I can definitely put my minmay hat on and say "GCs are still the most efficient weapon choice for ogres from the perspective of xp to damage ratio and -1 is in fact already too generous." But that won't be satisfying for most players. They chose Og to be good at smashing things with tree trunks and there is no surprise if they feel the design is discordant and unpleasant when the smashing-things-with-tree-trunks species has a low aptitude, however objectively strong that skill might still be for them. The second point is directly connected to that: weapon aptitudes have an important aesthetic role. This role seems to be completely overlooked by the developers, at least on the basis of what I read them posting here and in the tavern. I'm sure this is an absurd simplification, but let's say there are two kinds of aesthetic experiences you can have when enjoying a game of DCSS. The first is a type of analytic pleasure at solving problems skillfully. Og's M&F aptitude addresses this experience directly. The second is a visceral, intuitive pleasure of having big numbers, doing lots of damage and blowing things up. It's associated not with decisions like "I choose a polearm this time on my ogre because I'm playing OgWz and I found a trident of venom", but rather, "I want to play a big fat brute that smashes my puny foes", or "I want to play a fancy elf with pointy ears that frolics around my enemies and pokes them with a shiny sword". Rightly, the second type of experience is treated as less important than the first. Good games are mostly defined by the first type and good roguelikes even more so. But the second type cannot be ignored. While some might be tempted to say to the crawling plebeians "DCSS is no roleplaying game! Remove yourselves from my elegant decision creating engine" that would be foolish and hypocritical, because whoever really doesn't like roleplaying games wouldn't play DCSS either, he'd go play Go or Chess. The visceral experience cannot be abstracted out of a fantasy roleplaying game and its importance cannot be denied. Weapon aptitudes play an important role in connecting the analytic and visceral experiences during play. They are vital for defining the image of the character you're playing. So when players complain about a -1 smashing aptitude on the primary smashing species, they are not just whining about a nerf, but complaining about a legitimately discordant and unpleasant aesthetic experience resulting from a design misstep.
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Mar 24, 2017 05:16
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 Lemme give you some props tech team to make you feel better 1. The new mutation system is FUCKIN GREAT and is 100000% the way the game should be moving (it's fun even if it's not entirely "balanced" maybe). 100 new mutations should be added so it's even more random and makes each single game more unique. 2. As ever, QOL changes are almost all great. Auto cutting+eating of chunks when VHungry is dope. 3. The changes to frogmen took them from boring and dull to pretty cool since they are comfortable with hybridization, good job this is cool
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Mar 24, 2017 05:23
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Speaking independently here, not as a dev, if I was creating a game from scratch I probably wouldn't have aptitudes at all (in the implementation which Crawl uses, anyway, where aptitudes determine how quickly (or slowly) you become skilled at doing something). At the very least, I would make aptitudes super super coarse, something along the lines of only these three: -3 / 0 / +3, and nothing finer than that. Ideally I probably would have it be flat out "Minotaurs are better at using weapons no matter what than Deep Elves" without the weird leveling system. It's notionally 'cool' that a maxed out Deep Elf is as effective as a Minotaur at using Long Blades (or a maxed Troll as good as a Merfolk at using Polearms), but in practice it ends up causing a lot of problems on the journey of getting to that point. This is something that a brand new game is better suited to address, though, or at least 4-5 versions of Crawl, so don't expect anything like this to actually happen. I just want to lodge my dissatisfaction with the aptitude system in general. While I do agree that aptitudes are a great way of "orienting" players for many species, I've long disliked, even before I became a dev, the minimal effect that minor aptitude tweaks had on actual play. Major deficiencies like Mummy or major advantages like Minotaur were much meatier and had more of a true impact on gameplay. +1 vs 0 vs -1? Not so much. Heithinn Grasida posted:The visceral experience cannot be abstracted out of a fantasy roleplaying game and its importance cannot be denied. Weapon aptitudes play an important role in connecting the analytic and visceral experiences during play. They are vital for defining the image of the character you're playing. So when players complain about a -1 smashing aptitude on the primary smashing species, they are not just whining about a nerf, but complaining about a legitimately discordant and unpleasant aesthetic experience resulting from a design misstep. I encourage you to repost this to Tavern or, more productively, crawl-ref-discuss.
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Mar 24, 2017 05:33
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I would 100% argue that game feel is more important than game balance literally every single time. Edit: It's been my #1 problem with the game as of late, and it goes back entirely to one point and has been expanding since then: the removal of rMut made the game feel worse to play because I was getting more permanent damage to my character more often than I used to. It was a complete swing in the opposite direction that the game had been taken up to that point, since up until that point, the game had been mostly taking away sources of permanent damage, like item destruction and corrosion. The thing is, like always: these things were not actually all that big of a deal from a balance standpoint, really. But they felt really bad. The game has as of late been swinging back to those decisions, and it's made me not want to play it. Removing rMut was basically like telling me you were putting item destruction back into the game. An overly-great focus on balance has made things feel less fun. I think this is unavoidable if that's the primary motivating factor behind a change. I know that it isn't true, but it's like some of these changes are being done by someone going "well, this is mathematically more appropriate here" without ever considering if it made the game less fun. mdct fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 05:44
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I'm probably on ignore from all.the devs by now because I disagree with them a lot, but what is the point of a perfectly balanced game? Like, what do you get out of it when even -fun- is less of a consideration than the almighty balance? Like, why make it? This is a real question. I don't understand the mindset. Its a bad design goal.
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Mar 24, 2017 06:03
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| # ? May 14, 2024 00:17 |
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tote up a bags posted:
 Also the apt stuff is a pretty interesting discussion, I'm on the boat that the current apt system as a whole is fine but changes that attempt to create more deliberation with weapon choices doesn't feel as good as simply having a big weapon do big boy DPS quickly thanks to big apts. E: I also don't think these are necessarily mutually exclusive, either, like you could improve Ogre's M&F apt again to like +1 and still have reason to go for a good staff/polearm, but you preserve some of that "good feel" of a big apt on a weapon. apple fucked around with this message at 06:26 on Mar 24, 2017 |
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Mar 24, 2017 06:16
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