Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

tomb was never a good idea for 3rd rune

# ? May 6, 2017 06:16

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# ? May 14, 2024 17:22

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

If you're a character that is immune to torment a lot of the danger got sucked out of it. You still had to deal with large amounts of smite spam but that is manageable when your HP isn't getting cut in half constantly.

# ? May 6, 2017 06:28

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

IronicDongz posted:

tomb was never a good idea for 3rd rune

It's alright if you have the tools, there are builds where you're better equipped to do Tomb over Slime, Vaults or Abyss (seriously!), though for 3rd it might only be some variation of having Kiku + dispel undead, while anything else that may do Tomb as 3rd rune could also just do an easier 3rd rune instead. For 4-5th it also used to be good if you were still missing something for Zot.

# ? May 6, 2017 06:39

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Mummies are a fine enemy type. Their burst damage potential is really low compared to anything else in the lategame, but they can grind you down with torment/summons/smite. They're kinda gimped if they can't torment you but otherwise they're a decent threat that is different from the other big extended dangers.

The problem is still the layout of Tomb, especially the entry to Tomb2. 8+ durable tormentors on screen at the same time is always going to cause problems, expecting the average character to deal with that level of bullshit is silly. Players never choose to fight 8 fiends or 8 orbs of fire at the same time, stairdancing is obviously the outcome.

e: It's like trying to convince people to actually fight Hellion Island head on instead of cheesing it.

Darox fucked around with this message at 06:57 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 06:47

someone awful.: Sep 7, 2007

I personally feel like an enemy that punishes you for killing all of them too quickly is a design misstep, but that's just my opinion

# ? May 6, 2017 07:29

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

gammafunk posted:

Even if we send "blink is boulder beetle rolling" all of our meme energy, it won't save our beloved beetles from extinction. They're a lair monster whose defining gimmick is a worse version of blink! And so they were on all sorts of lists of "worst monster designs" people had made over the years, rip in peace. Maybe some day someone out there will make a patch with a version that's somehow both hilarious and functional, we'll just have to hope.

They're not a bad monster design in the first place. You could up their impact damage or make them trail shrapnel or just make them immediately uncurl as soon as they roll past their target rather than keep going, but even without any of that stuff they made fights with other monsters trickier and more interesting than they would have if they were just more guys that walk toward and bite you.

# ? May 6, 2017 09:06

SteelNeuron: Feb 23, 2017

Let me put my constructive criticism hat on for a second. I know some devs thing that I've just gone bitter due to the WJC difficulties but I really want to see DCSS evolve in the best way possible, and I know devs have that goal too.

I've always said that rework is always preferable to removal except in the case of extreme thematic clashes. The reason (and I think the devs and more experienced players miss this point very often) is that for many people roguelikes are story builders. The reason why many players enjoy the systemic interactions of a roguelike instead of more scripted content is because it gives them memorable, unique stories. If a fun story involved a particular element (say, a boulder beetle), it's not the mechanics of the beetle that were dear to them, but the fact that it took part on their personal experience. That player will be happy the next time they see a boulder beetle, and by removing it you are denying them that re-encounter. These things add up.

The reason why experienced players have trouble seeing this is because they've progressed to a point where they perceive the game only from a mechanical perspective. This is not a problem per se, and I'd say it's a cornerstone of good design that once you squeeze all the flavour out of a game it remains interesting by revealing a robust underlying system. When you have that perspective however, it's hard to see the value in the more superficial aspects of a feature that new or casual players are interested in. These aspects do have value, and it's not that difficult to respect that value through a rework.

I really doubt that talented developers couldn't make the boulder beetle work. It's not a difficult concept. Iterating on its mechanics until it works would be more valuable than removing it and adding an unrelated monster. Even in the (very unlikely) case that no dev can come up with a way to salvage a monster or species, the ideas being thrown around in this thread are a prime example that the community will do that legwork and converge towards something given enough time. Let them do it!

As a caveat to this, I can understand that the devs draw a line when a particular feature is considered boring because of its theme. That's a whole different thing, and I don't feel that strongly about high elves because I can see the argument about the theme being anemic, but this is not the most common cause of removals.

SteelNeuron fucked around with this message at 10:19 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 10:11

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Boulder beetles home like IOoDs do.

There, I made boulder beetles threatening while maintaining their unique quirks. If you're worried about them becoming OP just make them a little worse at turning and easier to dodge.

# ? May 6, 2017 10:35

Devlan Mud: Apr 10, 2006; I'll hear your stories when we come back, alright?

I'm gonna believe that changing tomb stairs to trap doors will lead to "more meaningful tomb changes" as soon as removing rMut leads to the promised "more meaningful malmutate changes."

# ? May 6, 2017 11:07

tweet my meat: Oct 2, 2013; yospos

I'm going with a demonspawn for my melee/necro hybrid to attempt a 15 rune win. Should I go with a fighter class and branch into necromancy with kiku or go the other way around and start with a necromancer then branch into fighting?

# ? May 6, 2017 11:15

gammafunk: Dec 19, 2015

Boulder beetles were definitely a bad monster design; the one thing that was specially coded for them was completely ineffective to the point where it actually made the monster weaker compared to a version simply without that gimmick.

Saying "we must always prefer a rework" doesn't make sense as no coherent rework existed and crawl has no shortage of monsters with unique mechanics (including in Lair). Pulling out the "experienced players don't appreciate lore" trope is a lazy defense of a badly designed aspect of the game. If you actually play DCSS a lot, you get an appreciation of all the references and flavor the game currently has, both good and bad. Sometimes a bit of flavor is lost when something terrible gets removed, but this is a small cost, as there's always a new feature around the corner that adds some new bit of lore.

Anyone in the community is welcome to "do that legwork" and submit a patch or propose a good design on GDD for boulder beetles 2.0. Good would mean that the monster's unique attack is tactically interesting most of the time the player encounters the monster in Lair and is reasonably balanced.

# ? May 6, 2017 11:50

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

Speaking of flavour costs, can you explain why Entropy Weavers have sInv?

Not how they received sInv, I know that. They got flavoured as formicids and got given all the formicid tags in a batch (sInv & burrowing being the important ones) then like a week later people realised how dumb that was and they lost their formacid flavouring and the burrowing tag was removed, but sInv got ignored.

I'm asking why they still have sInv, because I don't get it.

e: Basically I hate that Spider and Zigs have become horrible garbage for fighter characters because they have no counter play against weavers, and that this was apparently accidental.

e2: I'm sure 'no counter play' will cause some derisive snorting and dismissal but if you are fighting a weaver your only options are breaking LoS for a dozen turns to clear corrosion and trying to damage race it or using something that ignores corrosion (Which limits you to spells, evocables and invocations that you may not have)

Darox fucked around with this message at 12:43 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 12:25

gammafunk: Dec 19, 2015

Well entropy weavers are supposed to be higher-tier Spider threats, and having them along with a few other Spider monsters not susceptible to invisibility is reasonable enough. I don't think entropy weavers having sInv makes Spider significantly harder for melee chars, since you can still easily deal with those monsters without using invisibility.

# ? May 6, 2017 12:58

Carados: Jan 28, 2009; We're a couple, when our bodies double.

Is the desolation of salt still incredibly laggy in .20?

# ? May 6, 2017 13:45

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

gammafunk posted:

Well entropy weavers are supposed to be higher-tier Spider threats, and having them along with a few other Spider monsters not susceptible to invisibility is reasonable enough. I don't think entropy weavers having sInv makes Spider significantly harder for melee chars, since you can still easily deal with those monsters without using invisibility.

Easily?
They're not emperor scorpion tough but they have great defensive stats for their area, they do a lot of damage, and every time they land their ability you lose 4 damage, 4 accuracy and 4 AC. They're also fast, for good measure. God help you if you get an early ant vault. If you can't rain invocations or evocables down on it you're trapped into starting the fight as close as possible and hoping RNG doesn't dick you. Admittedly 'hoping RNG doesn't dick you' describes a lot of fights but it's especially bad for weavers because they can screw you with stacking corrosion in addition to high rolling damage and dodges. If you get 12-16 corrosion on you without winning the fight is just over and you'll probably be forced to teleport away.

I still think a better way to make sInv a thing in Spider is to readd it to jumping spiders (sense invisible was very nearly see invis) and let websense enemies see webbed invisible targets.

_{Also Zigs are a joke for melee, Spider floors are now hellish and super common. Good luck if three weavers get a bead on you. Throw in ghost moths to prevent invocations and spells and you're in for a real fun time.}

# ? May 6, 2017 14:03

Speleothing: May 6, 2008; Spare batteries are pretty key.

SKULL.GIF posted:

. . . the game's community has increasingly developed a culture of "perfectionism" (not the best word for it, but will have to do for now) which tends to drive off these idealistic people and into their own side projects and experiments. This is not something that I think we can really blame anyone in particular about . . .

This leads into the issue that such an old game has an incredibly established ethos and standard that has to be met for most additions. Over time this standard becomes higher and higher and higher, which makes adding things increasingly difficult.

Ban duvessa and watch the community become less toxic overnight.

# ? May 6, 2017 14:47

Heithinn Grasida: Mar 28, 2005; ...must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel...

SKULL.GIF posted:

This leads into the issue that such an old game has an incredibly established ethos and standard that has to be met for most additions. Over time this standard becomes higher and higher and higher, which makes adding things increasingly difficult. For instance, I have a few new wizlabs that I've been picking at on and off (and I am considering just making Wizlab a guaranteed branch in the game). If this was the single digit version days then I could probably just push these as-is no problem. But now that we have years of quality, that means I have to make sure that they aren't poo poo garbage which takes much longer and much more work to make sure that they meet the established standard of quality.

I really appreciate this post, but it raises some serious questions to someone on the outside. What is the definition of quality? That is surely at least partially subjective, and from my, and other's perspective, occasionally arbitrary. It is very difficult to know what is "quality" according to certain members of the DCSS team, since there are well reasoned arguments both for and against certain pieces of content. How do we know that "quality" isn't an increasingly idiosyncratic vision of how the game should be, rather than an objective measure of an enjoyable leisure experience. For example, I think there are multiple strong positions to take arguing that what seems to be the current criteria of quality diverge widely from solid principles of game design. This ties into the next point:

someone awful. posted:

seeing the work of someone who does have a strong vision and executes it in an interesting way get torn up for seemingly-arbitrary "doesn't adhere to our specific idea of balance" reasons (WJC) in a game where trog and okawaru exists is probably pretty off-putting to others who might want to get involved, also

I've thought several times about trying to contribute to the game, but feel very discouraged even thinking about it. I believe the dev team is too concentrated on an extreme vision of design that excludes my concepts of what makes a good game. I don't want to invest the emotional energy into building something that I think is good, only to see it roundly criticized and dismantled based on well-reasoned, but in my opinion, fundamentally misguided ideas of what makes a fun game. From lurking on IRC for a time, reading the mailing list and chatting with outside contributors, my sense is that only a certain set of arguments are considered, and how the boundaries of that set are defined is completely opaque.

gammafunk posted:

Anyone in the community is welcome to "do that legwork" and submit a patch or propose a good design on GDD for boulder beetles 2.0. Good would mean that the monster's unique attack is tactically interesting most of the time the player encounters the monster in Lair and is reasonably balanced.

For the reasons I listed above, it's unlikely anyone will actually do that and more unlikely it would be accepted. This isn't a nonsense statement, but it's close enough to one to be rejected out of hand by anyone who follows development, but is outside the mainstream.

gammafunk posted:

Pulling out the "experienced players don't appreciate lore" trope is a lazy defense of a badly designed aspect of the game. If you actually play DCSS a lot, you get an appreciation of all the references and flavor the game currently has, both good and bad. Sometimes a bit of flavor is lost when something terrible gets removed, but this is a small cost, as there's always a new feature around the corner that adds some new bit of lore.

You are posting at cross purposes. What you are describing is game defined flavor, and what SteelNeuron is describing is player created flavor. I don't fully agree with his argument, but you are not representing it in good faith.

gammafunk posted:

The DCSS design process is good and has worked reasonably well as a volunteer project for many versions now, from before I first played crawl in 0.9 through the current release. Compromise allows us to continue adding features, refining gameplay, and removing the bad gameplay even when there are disagreements.

There will always be players and outside contributors who are unhappy that their particular vision of the game isn't being realized and want to move elsewhere. But more than enough people stay with the game, including devs and outside contributors.

As far as releases feeling like they're arbitrary feature cutoffs, that certainly is roughly the case, since we do releases with some kind of regularity so that we can hold the tournament. There are features each dev might have in mind to develop near the beginning of a new release, and when everyone has their set of main things in some kind of final state (which may be either implemented or the idea abandoned), that does make a feature freeze easier, but it often boils down to "every six months or so".

I appreciate the insight into development. I have no desire to comment on whether the process is good or not or whether it could be improved because I simply have no idea. But I will say that of course you, as an active dev, think it works. The perception that it doesn't isn't automatically wrong because those involved in it don't agree. My only access to information about the attitude or population of the community is through SA, which certainly seems to be growing increasingly negative. That is not for no reason, and it is not because the posters here are just getting tired of Crawl. The design of the game has absolutely shifted, the shift seems to be accelerating in a direction away from what this community values, and the developer response is typically a more or less well phrased "too bad". I detest the current negativity of this thread, but I think it absolutely has its proper root, and even if it's only occasionally expressed well, that view point can be supported by logic and good design sense.

# ? May 6, 2017 16:18

Heithinn Grasida: Mar 28, 2005; ...must attack and fall upon them with a gallant bearing and a fearless heart, and, if possible, vanquish and destroy them, even though they have for armour the shells of a certain fish, that they say are harder than diamonds, and in place of swords wield trenchant blades of Damascus steel...

Speleothing posted:

Ban duvessa and watch the community become less toxic overnight.

Completely separate from the topic of my previous post, which was already long enough. I hate about 60% of Duvessa's posts, but a minority of them (perhaps a growing minority, even?) are insightful and very constructive. Even if she is overall a negative influence on Crawl, it would be a shame to lose the positive impact of what she brings, which is also considerable.

What's more, this thread is thoroughly "anti-Duvessa" and plenty toxic enough in spite of it. The toxicity is coming from something else, and that's the topic for another post.

# ? May 6, 2017 16:27

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

gammafunk posted:

Well entropy weavers are supposed to be higher-tier Spider threats, and having them along with a few other Spider monsters not susceptible to invisibility is reasonable enough. I don't think entropy weavers having sInv makes Spider significantly harder for melee chars, since you can still easily deal with those monsters without using invisibility.

The problem is not so much difficulty as much as it's mostly running away and stairdancing until you can isolate it which is not very fun. I could burn through piety and maybe power through the enemies and get to the weaver/s but the resource drain and risk associated with being in double digit corrosion is not worth it so I deal with the annoyance instead. Blaster mages make for a much more fun experience because despite the added pressure from corrosion you can still hang around and fight if you know what you're doing and avoid ghost moth drain.

IMO their sInv doesn't need to go necessarily (invisibility potions are rare anyway), but they could stand to have some chinks in their armor; for example MR 60->40 would make it so a melee character has more incentive to plow through enemies and hex them with a wand.

Darox posted:

_{Also Zigs are a joke for melee, Spider floors are now hellish and super common. Good luck if three weavers get a bead on you. Throw in ghost moths to prevent invocations and spells and you're in for a real fun time.}

Well, you *are* using melee on a Ziggurat

Heithinn Grasida posted:

I've thought several times about trying to contribute to the game, but feel very discouraged even thinking about it. I believe the dev team is too concentrated on an extreme vision of design that excludes my concepts of what makes a good game. I don't want to invest the emotional energy into building something that I think is good, only to see it roundly criticized and dismantled based on well-reasoned, but in my opinion, fundamentally misguided ideas of what makes a fun game. From lurking on IRC for a time, reading the mailing list and chatting with outside contributors, my sense is that only a certain set of arguments are considered, and how the boundaries of that set are defined is completely opaque.

Thanks for putting this into words! I've felt a certain unease about contributing for a long time and this is the closest way I can explain it.

(kind of off-topic, but for those who care I haven't forgotten about adding a blurb about expectations in regards to contributing stuff in DCSS, but I want to see how WJC ultimately plays out)

apple fucked around with this message at 16:48 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 16:37

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

gammafunk posted:

Sometimes a bit of flavor is lost when something terrible gets removed, but this is a small cost, as there's always a new feature around the corner that adds some new bit of lore.

Killing a child and replacing it with a different one is not a small cost to their mother or friends, even if the new child is better conceived and more balanced.

Most new lore is not well integrated and does not play against and depend on other game lore. The game was created as a giant hodgepodge and by now the various hodges and podges are for the most part long disconnected from their creators and the reasons they wanted them to be part of the story. This makes it hard to prune since there is no thematic imperative, and when you do so you are more likely to chop off something that has accidentally become important.

Some players loved the little boulder beetles and some of the clever trap vaults set up with them. Their value to me was that their mechanic created an extraordinary number of unique and memorable interactions with other dungeon fauna. I also personally got attached over many games to the fuckery of the disjointed levels in orc, looking at the staircases and figuring out where the last ones are, getting a portal and having to figure out how to get there, etc. Climbers not given solid handholds are likely to find unexpected ones.

It's a trope that much of the backstory is mysterious and unrevealed to the player of roguelikes. This is good, as it's a game that's very dependent on the players' imagination and boxing people too much defeats that. But as a player I want there to be SOME meaning. Even if I can see just the tip of the iceberg, I want there to BE an iceberg. What is the orb of zot? Why are people coming into the dungeon? Who is building down staircases in the middle of the ocean? I don't need to know but I want there to be someone who has SOME clue. Doesn't leave much to integrate new lore into. The Salt of Desolation is cool as gently caress but it's like a disconnected chapter taking place in another universe.

People get attached to misfits and eccentricities. If they have to go to have a game that makes any goddamn sense I'm all for that. But I want there to be a purpose in it other than game balance. I don't see any point in getting mad at the current devs for this, or being angry with them for fixing quite a lot of broken poo poo. This is an open source game and I could be fixing what I perceive instead of lamenting that no one is doing it.

# ? May 6, 2017 17:04

Decrepus: May 21, 2008; In the end, his dominion did not touch a single poster.

Remember when 5 blink frogs decided not to blink but instead all attacked ilu simultaneously causing him to die instantly? Lol

# ? May 6, 2017 17:34

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

Araganzar posted:

Killing a child and replacing it with a different one is not a small cost to their mother or friends, even if the new child is better conceived and more balanced.

this thread has officially gotten way too loving serious about boulder beetles

# ? May 6, 2017 18:29

Carcer: Aug 7, 2010

Its a poorly chosen metaphor but don't dismiss his entire argument based solely on that.

# ? May 6, 2017 18:40

Chakan: Mar 30, 2011

Heithinn Grasida posted:

What's more, this thread is thoroughly "anti-Duvessa" and plenty toxic enough in spite of it. The toxicity is coming from something else, and that's the topic for another post.

All vitrol in this thread that's directed towards devs is, as stated earlier, because they continue to remove things that players enjoy and ignore most everything that desperately needs changing. I don't play very frequently right now, and almost never online, but I won't be going for more than 4-5 runes until mutations and torment are given another serious look and I doubt I'm alone in that. Meanwhile, High Elves bite the dust despite being proven mechanically distinct, and (imho) thematically acceptable.

Even if many of the changes were fine, it's like the devs are washing dishes but they feel the need to scrub down the sink in-between each dish.

# ? May 6, 2017 18:48

Ferrinus: Jun 19, 2003; i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

gammafunk posted:

Boulder beetles were definitely a bad monster design; the one thing that was specially coded for them was completely ineffective to the point where it actually made the monster weaker compared to a version simply without that gimmick.

Saying "we must always prefer a rework" doesn't make sense as no coherent rework existed and crawl has no shortage of monsters with unique mechanics (including in Lair). Pulling out the "experienced players don't appreciate lore" trope is a lazy defense of a badly designed aspect of the game. If you actually play DCSS a lot, you get an appreciation of all the references and flavor the game currently has, both good and bad. Sometimes a bit of flavor is lost when something terrible gets removed, but this is a small cost, as there's always a new feature around the corner that adds some new bit of lore.

Anyone in the community is welcome to "do that legwork" and submit a patch or propose a good design on GDD for boulder beetles 2.0. Good would mean that the monster's unique attack is tactically interesting most of the time the player encounters the monster in Lair and is reasonably balanced.

It is not a bad design. It does what's intended: create a pressure on the player to move out of position or else take substantial damage. Not every monster needs to be able to solo a PC; it's okay if some just make other monsters harder.

However, making them more dangerous is extremely easy: make them home like orbs of destruction and make them uncurl as soon as they've passed the player without impact. Now you have a monster that, if it sees you from afar, charges you in a way that demands active counterplay (rather than the "oh well it'll just reach me and start biting sooner" of alligators or whatever) and that otherwise is a regular melee threat. It's like how it'd be really simple to give Singularity a second spell school and a mana drain or something.

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 19:20 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 19:17

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

While we're talking about entropy weavers, please explain how its fair and balanced for ant vaults in Lair to have 3 of them. As an OOD monster they are insanely deadly and brutal. With their speed, durability, and resistances the usual ways of dealing with OOD monsters don't work on them. When there are 3 of them crawling around, you pretty much have to abandon the level or die.

Devlan Mud posted:

I'm gonna believe that changing tomb stairs to trap doors will lead to "more meaningful tomb changes" as soon as removing rMut leads to the promised "more meaningful malmutate changes."

Pretty much.

Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 19:39 on May 6, 2017

# ? May 6, 2017 19:29

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

Carcer posted:

Its a poorly chosen metaphor but don't dismiss his entire argument based solely on that.

I chose a child as a metaphor for a feature because I wanted a strong connection to conception and individuality. Gamma knows my style well enough that he won't take it the wrong way, and in fact would probably be suspicious if I didn't throw in a bit of hyperbole somewhere.

Besides, I don't know why you can't be unserious in playing a game and serious when discussing substantive change to it. My point was that adding new stuff incoherently is does not adequately substitute for removing old stuff players have built their own coherence around. One way I see this could be relieved somewhat is by trying to connect more of the game features and elements to common backstories or conceits.

I see that as an opportunity to build something rather than bemoan losses. Crawl already has a strong foundation to world build and provide context through item descriptions ala the dark souls or drakengard/nier games. Crawl item text is definitely spotty in a few places but it's mostly filled in it's well written with some really interesting quotes. A stronger internal framework would also reduce the references to the real world or common fantasy literature tropes.

I don't know how much of an effort has been to tie the various branches and stuff like artifacts and wizlabs into the same narrative flow already, though. It would have to be done with considerable nuance to avoid overexplaining things or placing the player's imagination on rails. I guess you'd also leave some disconnected threads to reinforce the community feel the game has always had. I'm going through some dumb medical stuff and can't even find the focus to finish crab language but I think it would be an interesting summer project.

# ? May 6, 2017 20:48

apple: May 18, 2003; Jose in the club wearing orange suspenders

So I tried hellcrawl and got a win:

code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version v3.01-hellcrawl-74-g7a863a7 (webtiles) character file.

0 bananaken the Sorcerer (level 27, 140/170 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Elf Fire Elementalist on May 6, 2017.
             Was the Champion of Vehumet.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 9 runes!
             
             The game lasted 04:44:08 (51596 turns).

bananaken the Sorcerer (DEFE)                      Turns: 51596, Time: 04:44:09

Health: 140/170    AC: 16 (0%)Str:  9   XL:     27
Magic:  20/55      EV: 23    Int: 34    God:    Vehumet [******]
Gold:   3776       SH:  5    Dex: 15    Spells: 7/79 levels left

rFire    + . .     SeeInvis +   b - +8 lance "Wyrmbane" {slay drac, rPois rF+ rC+ AC+3}
rCold    + . .     Faith    .   M - +0 buckler
rNeg     . . .     Spirit   .   W - +2 robe {Archmagi}
rPois    +         Reflect  .   (helmet restricted)
rElec    +         Rnd*Rage +   m - +2 cloak {+Inv}
rCorr    .                      J - +2 pair of gloves {Str+3}
MR       ++...                  o - +2 pair of boots {Fly}
Stlth    ++++++....             d - amulet of magic regeneration
Regen    1.4/turn               u - ring of see invisible
MPRegen  1.1/turn               P - ring of Morality {*Corrode *Drain rElec EV+6 Str+6}

@: flying, regenerating, deflect missiles
A: hooves 1, horns 1, berserk 1, weak, wild magic 1
0: Orb of Zot
}: 9/15 runes: slimy, silver, bone, demonic, glowing, magical, fiery, dark,
gossamer
a: Renounce Religion, Evoke Invisibility, Stop Flying

I had a blast but it definitely feels like a harder game; hellmonk took some measures to help but lack of upstairs makes it so you're often dumped into messed up situations.

Also, I enjoyed no food, no ID game and no energy randomization!

# ? May 7, 2017 01:40

the Orb of Zot: Jun 25, 2013; Apport: the Orb of Zot
The orb shrieks as your magic touches it!
Yoink! You pull the item towards yourself.
You see here the Orb of Zot.

Internet Kraken posted:

While we're talking about entropy weavers, please explain how its fair and balanced for ant vaults in Lair to have 3 of them. As an OOD monster they are insanely deadly and brutal. With their speed, durability, and resistances the usual ways of dealing with OOD monsters don't work on them. When there are 3 of them crawling around, you pretty much have to abandon the level or die.

Pretty much.

Entropy weavers are at the absolute top of my list of "enemies I like to see the least", with them putting into me a sense of "oh god this is going to suck" that even orbs of fire . There's absolutely no real recourse to dealing with them quickly and safely when you first start running into them at all unless you have absurd amounts of magical firepower to just kill it dead immediately, in between their smite-targeted corrosion that only barely is affected even by rCorr (it halves the odds of each individual attempt, but one or two layers is almost certainly going to happen before one goes down), higher than normal player speed (so you can't just walk away from them), and potentially very high melee damage output.

If it wasn't for them being 8 speed slower, they would actually be comparable to executioners, trading the haste in exchange for the ability to gently caress over your melee and defenses.

Honestly, the bigger issue is that ant vaults have absolutely no reward for actually venturing into them from what I've seen. You see one, you just go away from it because there's no prize for fighting through countless ants.

# ? May 7, 2017 02:22

Darox: Nov 10, 2012

apple posted:

Well, you *are* using melee on a Ziggurat

Before Entropy Weavers were added non-caster Zigs were more difficult but entirely doable if you took things carefully and made heavy use of ranged weapons on dangerous floors. After they got introduced you couldn't just equip vampiric and tab through spider but you had invisibility as an out (just like casters do if they get mothed) so it was still fine.

Now you have to treat Spider floors more cautiously than Tomb or Pan and hide in the corner while fogging liberally because if you get too many weavers on you without a break to clear corrosion you're just screwed. Your only out at that point is basically Makhleb, because his invocations don't require mp and ignore corrosion. Lair branch floors are super common too, so you're going to encounter Spider a lot more often than the typically dangerous floors. e: Apparently Chaos has the same spawn rate as regular branch floors, but it's still more common than Fire/Holy/Air and Weavers appear in Earth and Mixed Lair too just for extra fun.

The only other monster that completely screws a build type like that is Silent Spectres, and at least they have the good grace to be a rare fragile enemy that only really appears in one extended zone.

Darox fucked around with this message at 03:20 on May 7, 2017

# ? May 7, 2017 02:46

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Boy I sure hope nobody playing a caster gets placed in a Tartarus layout with silent spectres behind walls in 0.20. I'm not sure what they're expected to do in that situation other than pray the game doesn't spawn anything nasty before they can walk out of the radius.

# ? May 7, 2017 06:50

Araganzar: May 24, 2003; Needs more cowbell!; Fun Shoe

There was an OpMo of Chei camping the Spider 1 entry. 45 EV and only spells were regen, blink, and repel missiles. How the hell are you going to kill something with 45 EV that's keeping regen and rmsl up and blinking all over the goddamn place, then when you catch him he pounds the poo poo out of you? Had resists to all my wands, zerk and lamp of fire failed because of blink. I had to go back and grab a +8 battleaxe from my stash and then go to d15 to get brilliance options so I could cast spec weapon in plate to kill him through 45 EV and regen.

What a pain. Not to mention mdk has been making more ghosts than Stalin only they're all in 0.18 and they're all deep elf or spriggan conjurers with dazzling spray.

You wanna know what I think should be on the chopping block instead of boulder beetles? How about player ghosts? For every time I've chuckled at a boulder beetle there have been fifty games where I had a lovely start and wasted a ton of time and consumables because some idiot couldn't get a minotaur with Trog past D4.

# ? May 7, 2017 07:56

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

The typical response to a difficult player ghost is just to ignore it. Sometimes they are in a spot that makes it a pain to do so. Best bet is to either dive past it or just burn strong consumables to take it out.

Honestly, I like player ghosts later in the game because they have more variety but early on they are usually a big wall of HP and nothing else. I'd never want to see them removed but if they didn't spawn on the lower dungeon floors I wouldn't object.

# ? May 7, 2017 08:04

Ramc: May 4, 2008; Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Araganzar posted:

There was an OpMo of Chei camping the Spider 1 entry. 45 EV and only spells were regen, blink, and repel missiles. How the hell are you going to kill something with 45 EV that's keeping regen and rmsl up and blinking all over the goddamn place, then when you catch him he pounds the poo poo out of you? Had resists to all my wands, zerk and lamp of fire failed because of blink. I had to go back and grab a +8 battleaxe from my stash and then go to d15 to get brilliance options so I could cast spec weapon in plate to kill him through 45 EV and regen.

What a pain. Not to mention mdk has been making more ghosts than Stalin only they're all in 0.18 and they're all deep elf or spriggan conjurers with dazzling spray.

You wanna know what I think should be on the chopping block instead of boulder beetles? How about player ghosts? For every time I've chuckled at a boulder beetle there have been fifty games where I had a lovely start and wasted a ton of time and consumables because some idiot couldn't get a minotaur with Trog past D4.

My friend have you considered...

quote:

<mibe> hey if you guys are sick of dealing with ghosts check this out
<mibe> ??shaftrobi
<Sequell> shaftrobi ~ shaftrobin[1/2]: An account that automatically selects formicid and has shaft macro'd to 1. Hold down 2 to die. Use it before playing when you dont want to see any ghosts!
<mibe> i only set up the rc and macros for cbro atm
<mibe> for best results run it several times each time you are about to descend to a new D level
<yesno> lol
<yesno> ridiculous
<mibe> !lg shaftrobin x=avg(dur)
<Sequell> 25 games for shaftrobin: avg(dur)=0:00:53
<mibe> takes under a minute
<yesno> i know but just ridiculous that ghosts exist
<mibe> i agree
<yesno> and are so bad that you did this thing
<mibe> its 100% ridiculous that shaftrobin is possible
<yesno> yes
<mibe> i dont believe any positive that ghosts bring to the game can be greater than these metagaming implications
<rumflump> mibe: I have been pondering further automating it. so that you can play your normal game in one window, then log shaftrobin in the other window and have it do a run

# ? May 7, 2017 14:47

Ramc: May 4, 2008; Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Ramc posted:

My friend have you considered...

For real though Araganzar if you don't like player ghosts start a whispering campaign with devs about how vengeful ghosts of main characters are all, at their core, rip-offs of Guan Yu's force ghost helldunking those who wronged him in life. Once the idea takes root amongst the plurality of them that Player Ghosts are some sort of exotic eastern mysticism they are as good as gone.

# ? May 7, 2017 14:57

Devlan Mud: Apr 10, 2006; I'll hear your stories when we come back, alright?

Ghosts were in Tolkien, plz delete

# ? May 7, 2017 14:59

Carcer: Aug 7, 2010

They're essentially uniques without the fun.

# ? May 7, 2017 15:10

Ramc: May 4, 2008; Bringing your thread to a screeching halt, guaranteed.

Write down the name of a feature you don't like then go into the bathroom and turn out the lights.

Look into the mirror and mutter "Tolkien Eastern Mysticism Degenerate Optimal Scumming Flavor" three times and Duvessa will post about it on tavern until it is removed.

# ? May 7, 2017 15:28