Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

LazyMaybe: Aug 18, 2013; oouagh

fool_of_sound posted:

I mean, I agree with this, but it's really frustrating that the devs keep loving with stuff that isn't a major problem when issues like 'all of extended sucks' and 'heavy armor trivializes the game' and 'food and identification are barely mechanics anymore' exist.

I think this thread wouldn't actually be happy with a heavy armor nerf at all considering how many people here say things like "stop making the game harder" on the reg and HAM is the easiest playstyle

magic buff, maybe, but kinda hard to make a change that globally buffs all magic playstyles without making any of them busted and also being fun

# ? May 30, 2017 04:39

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# ? May 15, 2024 15:20

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

Maybe they could buff EV?

# ? May 30, 2017 04:51

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

jon joe posted:

Maybe they could buff EV?

Just makes things worse if not coupled with either stronger armor penalties or a straight up AC nerf.

# ? May 30, 2017 05:01

odiv: Jan 12, 2003

Honestly the game's been all downhill since they fixed the melee bug.

# ? May 30, 2017 05:07

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

well poo poo

edit:

code:

1743886 araganzar the Grand Master (level 27, 262/262 HPs)
             Began as a Tengu Transmuter on May 29, 2017.
             Was the Champion of Cheibriados.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes on May 30, 2017!
             The game lasted 07:00:35 (80955 turns).

Clan is in 2nd place, at least until holdouts like Yermack get signed. I hear he's working out for some teams that didn't get to take a look at him during the combine.

Araganzar fucked around with this message at 06:25 on May 30, 2017

# ? May 30, 2017 06:06

tote up a bags: Jun 8, 2006; die stoats die

jon joe posted:

Maybe they could buff EV?

Hmm, no, this would promote bad player behavior like not nearly dying to every enemy. Remove demonspawn.

# ? May 30, 2017 06:35

gammafunk: Dec 19, 2015

Araganzar posted:

Edit: doing the new transporter vaults the LRD way...

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to make dungeon repairs after one of you geomancers comes deconstructing through the place?! Incidentally:

code:

.gfgtr @shummie spen -tv:<8

For a great TV of someone almost successfully waltzing through that vault.

Points master of our team advised me to go for a ~2h realtime run with DDFi. Not bad for a first attempt, but I'll have to go for a solid 1h win eventually:

code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.20.0-7-g3b7b877 (console) character file.

2400116 gammafunk the Executioner (level 24, 214/214 HPs)
             Began as a Deep Dwarf Fighter on May 29, 2017.
             Was the Champion of Makhleb.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 3 runes!
             
             The game lasted 02:03:58 (34678 turns).

gammafunk the Executioner (Deep Dwarf Fighter)     Turns: 34678, Time: 02:03:58

Health: 214/214    AC: 38    Str: 24    XL:     24   Next: 4%
Magic:  4/4        EV: 19    Int:  8    God:    Makhleb [******]
Gold:   1664       SH:  5    Dex: 18    Spells: 23/23 levels left

rFire    + + .     SeeInvis .   a - +9 executioner's axe (freeze)
rCold    + . .     Gourm    .   (shield currently unavailable)
rNeg     + . .     Faith    .   g - +10 plate armour {rF+}
rPois    .         Spirit   .   F - +0 helmet {Int+3}
rElec    .         Reflect  +   r - +2 cloak
rCorr    +         Harm     .   c - +0 pair of gloves "Sysmual" {rCorr}
MR       ++++.     Rnd*Rage +   I - +0 pair of boots
Stlth    ..........             A - +5 amulet of reflection
Regen    0.0/turn               i - ring of Divine Intervention {*Corrode rF+ rC+ MR+ Dex+2 Stlth+}
MPRegen  0.1/turn               Y - +4 ring of slaying

@: non-regenerating, studying Armour
A: damage resistance, heal wounds, berserk 1, blurry vision 3, clumsy 1,
deterioration 2, dopey 2, frail 1, low mp 3, negative energy resistance 1, sense
surroundings 3, weak 1, MP-powered wands, no regeneration
0: Orb of Zot
}: 3/15 runes: decaying, silver, gossamer
a: Heal Wounds, Minor Destruction, Lesser Servant of Makhleb, Major Destruction,
Greater Servant of Makhleb, Renounce Religion

Next up we have OgAE of Sif, which I hope to win in the 5-7 hour range in a single upcoming twitch stream.

Some basic tourney stats after 3 days:

code:

<gammafunk> !tstats 3
<Sequell> Stats after 3 days (t): 1483 players, 474 runers, 235 winners, 421 wins, 15271 games, winrate 2.76%, total player time 340d+6:44:03.

Compared to our last summer tourney (participation tends to be higher in winter tournaments):

code:

<gammafunk> !tstats 3 t0.18
<Sequell> Stats after 3 days (t0.18): 1333 players, 353 runers, 166 winners, 254 wins, 12877 games, winrate 1.97%, total player time 262d+23:46:03.

Then compared to the last two Winter tourneys:

code:

<gammafunk> !tstats 3 t0.19
<Sequell> Stats after 3 days (t0.19): 1533 players, 450 runers, 212 winners, 344 wins, 16427 games, winrate 2.09%, total player time 327d+14:42:10.

<gammafunk> !tstats 3 t0.17
<Sequell> Stats after 3 days (t0.17): 1536 players, 416 runers, 200 winners, 313 wins, 17167 games, winrate 1.82%, total player time 350d+9:26:45.

Winrate tends to strictly increase with each new version, most dominant cause of that is players tend to stick around over many version and get better as they play. Sometimes weird things like meleebug happen that throw things out of wack, but even when normal major balance changes that actually affect the player winrates happen, going back to 0.12 (which is as far as I checked), you'll see this strictly increasing winrate, basically because players get better at the game regardless of what is thrown at them.

Not sure about the marked increase in winrate this time, which could be influenced by a number of things ranging from how many top players are competing this time to character choice tendencies to buffed attack wands (which have big early influence). Always-wand Ijyb aka the Goblin of Death and the heal/haste/tele wands removals should have some impact in the downward direction, but we'll have to see how things even out towards the end of the tourney.

gammafunk fucked around with this message at 08:18 on May 30, 2017

# ? May 30, 2017 07:37

Canine Blues Arooo: Jan 7, 2008; when you think about it...i'm the first girl you ever spent the night with; Grimey Drawer

IronicDongz posted:

magic buff, maybe, but kinda hard to make a change that globally buffs all magic playstyles without making any of them busted and also being fun

This is a very real problem and for that reason, I'm not really willing to offer up a suggested solution because messing with magic is pretty dangerous.

Here's the experience I've had over the last decade, having played this game since 0.4.5, when myself and all my friends collected our first wins ever with MDFi.

Casting used to be 'harder', because there was a barrier of knowledge (in a genre already 7-layers deep in barrier to knowledge issues). Not only did you need to what spells did, but when to use them, and what support stuff was 'good', and when to use it, and the esoteric mechanics around spells like 'Conjure Flame' (Which enemies would pass through it? When? Did you know you can trap a lot of enemy types with staggered placement and abuse polearms?). It asked the player to study the game, but in return, it gave you this almost godhood status when you achieved mastery. Spells like cTele and Teleport Self were around. You could stack Swiftness and Haste, and Swiftness had no penalty. Necro and Statue Form were around to round out the list. At some point, you were functionally immortal because utility spells were *so* strong.

That, of course, was not a good thing.

So things got changed (for the better): The personal teleport spells were removed, Swiftness got a nerfed, Haste got nerfed, there was more XP in the dungeon so putting a lot of levels into Enchantments was a non-issue, which later got split into Charms and Hexes. Regeneration got nerfed, cross-training got nerfed (and then reverted), support Necromancy got nerfed, smite-Abjure got removed, and the list goes on.

Beyond that, a bunch of monsters got added that were especially threatening to casters (and often not threatening to high AC). Ghost Moths, Caustic Shrieks, Harpies, Everything in Shoal, Everything in Spider, Anything that moves fast, attacks fast and hits for moderate amounts of damage. The mid and end game started to get scary for casters, and they were now without their ridiculous toolset to deal with them.

I don't really know when it was, but casting drifted from a game about managing long-term resources + planning to a game about rolling dice and hoping they turn up favorably. That might sound like a harsh accusation, but follow with me here.

Crawl's mana system is such that you have a finite amount of resources*, and spending them wisely is a big part of playing well as a caster. Herding monsters for a more efficient fireball, or into the path of a Bolt is an important skill, because eeking out the maximum damage/MP is important when you can cast 5 - 10 spells before having to exit combat entirely to replenish the pool. This is problematic though when for most damage-dealing spells, you have to roll to see if it succeeded, to see if it hit, and then to see how much damage it does. In the earliest parts of the game, you can very easily drop games by simply low-rolling a couple times. This is alleviated as you progress with consumables. TPs, Blink, Fear, Haste Pots, Healing etc. all can buffer you from short-term low-rolling. But if you low roll on your TP and you TP into another dangerous situation, you have to burn *another* consumable to not die. Over time, you low-roll enough, and you start to run out of your consumable buffer. This leads to some really tedious gameplay in the name of preserving those consumables.

If you compare this RIPed 'pure' caster to this 15-rune derp-tier melee character, there are a couple things I want to point out. The most important thing I want to compare is Turn Count and Time Played. "How is it you can finish a 15-rune game with a melee character, in the same time and turn count that it takes to just barely get 2 runes with a caster"? Because 2 hours and 25k turns were spent stair-dancing and Sticky Flame kiting.

I spent literally an hour clearing Spider on that caster. I spent so much time stair-dancing and kiting Demonic Crawlers that by the time I had finally cleaned up everything I pulled upstairs, more poo poo spawned on that floor that I had to clean up before I carefully and meticulously pull another moderate threat to the staircase on Spider:4, because if I ran into a single Ghost Moth + one other thing, and the OOD I would send didn't connect the first time, I was going to die. I'm honestly very curious to see how many extra mobs I spawned on Spider:3 in the time I spent kiting there, waiting for another 4 mana to show up so I can cast another Sticky Flame on an HP sponge that might last between 1 and 10 turns, doing between 1 and 4 damage per turn, before regeneration is taken into account. All this while hoping that I wasn't going to get hit on cast, because I could only take 4 or 5 hits before I had consider casting blink, which might just put me in melee range again, where he gets another swing, where I have to then decide whether or not to use a very limited consumable because somewhere along the way, the RNG shat on me. God forbid something moderately threatening spawn mid-kite...

This experience sucked. It's so incredibly tedious and so mentally fatiguing that I honestly don't want to deal with it ever again. The end result is a death due to said mental fatigue where I literally forgot I had castable blink. In fact, the !tv of that death is a string of foolish errors. Compare this to my GrFi game where I think I spent most of the game sleeping on the tab key (The opposite problem!)

Beyond the short-term RNG that casters have to deal with due to their MP pool, they also get to deal with long-term RNG! If you notice, I don't have Bolt of Fire in that caster game. I really, really wanted it, but I didn't get it, and so the most powerful spell I played with up until the very end of that game was Fireball, which means I get to spend a lot of time pulling as few mobs as possible up stairs and down hallways so I don't have to burn up consumables. I think there was a book of earth in that game, but I didn't find it until I had a lot invested in Fire/Conj and since LRD doesn't pool into Conj, that severely limits its usability. Would it have been wise, at that moment, to start pooling XP into Earth? Maybe, but it would have depended on if and when I found a Dragon or Fire, really. You would never know at the moment, so you get to roll to dice on that too!

But let's say you make it to the late game. You probably need to start thinking about a better way to generate resources rather than spamming the '5' key and hoping to not get rudely disturbed. Well, you can channel, which at 15 Evo puts you at a slightly better than 50/50 success, which then generates 7~ MP/ turn. Or it can just fail. And if it fails you have 20% of suffering a divinations miscast which is just super duper! Another option is Crystal Ball, which you have to use proactively since it's success rate is dependant on your current mana. Well, even at max evocations, you still have a 1/20 chance of draining your mana pool and another 1/30 chance to confuse you for several turns. Since you'd be using both of these in combat, or in Hell, failure will usually force the use of a consumable.

Wands were kind of the last great buffer for casters. Recharges meant +4~ TP/Haste/Heal. They were a huge deal and were the glue that kind of held the caster archetype together since it meant that you had to low roll *a lot* before you started having to do extreme things to conserve your inventory (assuming you got one, of course). I'm not sure I'm sold on their removal.

Melee doesn't have to deal with this. Because their resource is HP, and because they naturally have effective HP in spades, if they miss a swing, it doesn't really matter. Since AC works the way it does, you can tank an Executioner with 40 AC and 12 EV and 16 Armor Skill almost indefinitely. A caster-equivalent to a Formicid couldn't work in crawl, because as a caster, you are guaranteed to need to get out of a sticky situation that you simply do not have the resources to deal with. But as a melee character, you have so much room for error and so much room for moderately bad things to happen that I'm honestly surprised it's even considered a 'hard' race. In my active Formicid, I don't think I've even had to shaft myself once yet.

Low rolls don't wreck games as melee. They just make them last one turn longer.

---

This ended up being a lot longer than I intended it to be when I started writing this, so apologies to the forum for my wall of text. I don't want to leave the impression that I want casters to be in the state they were in 0.6, nor do I want to imply that I think GrFi should be the gold standard for character power level. I also don't want to leave the impression that I think DC:SS is 'bad' or even in a 'bad state'. I'm splitting hairs over some specific things and nothing in DC:SS is fundamentally broken, which is not something I can say for any other roguelike. This kind of stuff is really, really hard to get right, and because of the number of systems at play, it's probably only a matter of time before someone figures out how to break it again.

Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 08:45 on May 30, 2017

# ? May 30, 2017 08:25

rchandra: Apr 30, 2013

Casting Ball Lightning when you meant to cast Refrigeration and taking 113 damage while you have -Potion status from earlier Refrig is not ideal. RIP Wyrmbane god.

Maybe I need to rethink "spells that hit everything" as a keybind set, or at least never put CBL in there.

# ? May 30, 2017 09:29

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

Canine Blues Arooo posted:

Effortpost

I like the chain of thought, and while I do agree that spellcasting has been nerfed away from 'win at everything cuz you have mana', the example you chose of a DgFE is not one I'd ever recommend to anyone, ever. Demigods are terrible at everything in the most literal way possible, with no crutches to carry them but for high stats (meh). If both chars where Dgs, or the caster was a DE, they'd be more comparable.

But yes, this is a historical problem with Crawl and RLs in general, these games reward you for being tricky and eking the most out of your actions and resources, and spells typically do just that. I'm not proposing any solutions or giving criticism regarding blaster-mages, just noting that it's a nontrivial issue.

# ? May 30, 2017 09:47

Serephina: Nov 8, 2005; 恐竜戦隊
ジュウレンジャー

rchandra posted:

Casting Ball Lightning when you meant to cast Refrigeration and taking 113 damage while you have -Potion status from earlier Refrig is not ideal. RIP Wyrmbane god.

Maybe I need to rethink "spells that hit everything" as a keybind set, or at least never put CBL in there.

Or maybe not have CBL memorized ever if you're not wearing rElec 24/7

# ? May 30, 2017 09:48

rchandra: Apr 30, 2013

Serephina posted:

Or maybe not have CBL memorized ever if you're not wearing rElec 24/7

Also valid! It had been really good for a long time (with staff of air for both enhancing and safety) but as chain lightning/refrig/wyrmbane became available it was less and less useful. I still found it the best way to deal with juggernauts (slows them down like butterflies, but exploding).

# ? May 30, 2017 09:59

tote up a bags: Jun 8, 2006; die stoats die

If only someone woudl come up with a god that rewarded not sitting on the tab key

# ? May 30, 2017 10:03

dpeg: Jul 18, 2008; As far as I see it, you should never go to SA to look out for useful feedback or even interesting ideas; I certainly don't

Canine Blues Arooo posted:

This is a very real problem and for that reason, I'm not really willing to offer up a suggested solution because messing with magic is pretty dangerous.

Here's the experience I've had over the last decade, having played this game since 0.4.5, when myself and all my friends collected our first wins ever with MDFi. [snip from here]

That was very interesting to read. Would you mind me linking or just sending this to the c-r-d mailing list? I am not sure how many developers are aware of this channel, and I think it makes for good food for thought.

# ? May 30, 2017 12:21

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

Alright so you're running from a Minotaur berserker ghost, you go up some stairs and there's just all the orc boys. On the other side of them is the stairs out. You got 27 health left, an immolation scroll and dagger of venom. One blink scroll. Do you do it?

# ? May 30, 2017 14:16

I am Otis: Sep 22, 2003

You do

# ? May 30, 2017 14:39

Yngwie Mangosteen: Aug 23, 2007

dpeg posted:

That was very interesting to read. Would you mind me linking or just sending this to the c-r-d mailing list? I am not sure how many developers are aware of this channel, and I think it makes for good food for thought.

You could fix this by implementing a god for melee characters who required you to do more than just tab ir something.

More serioulsly, that isn't a hot new take on a problem, that post is just the slightly more polite version of what this thread has been saying for ages. You've been killing the fun ans interesting things in favor of some false idea of balance.

# ? May 30, 2017 14:45

Razzled: Feb 3, 2011; MY HARLEY IS COOL

was playing Bradwarden build and ripped on zot 3 due to double storm dragon with no relec and a deathcob slowing me

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/razzle/morgue-razzle-20170530-024053.txt

I guess I shouldn't have been wearing crystal plate

# ? May 30, 2017 14:48

FulsomFrank: Sep 11, 2005; Hard on for love

Canine Blues Arooo posted:

Great magic effort-post

Thanks for writing this up.

I've 15-runed casters about three or four times since I've been playing and without a doubt, things have gotten really difficult with the recent releases to accomplish this. My major concern seems to be a lack of XP available to get the big spells online in time to actually make a difference. As someone who's currently trying, yet again, to get a Mummy Wizard of Gozag going (I know, I know they suck) but has run into similar problems with running Elves too, it just seems that XP is so sparse that you really have to either get lucky with some shops or spell book RNG drops, or you better start hybridising. This isn't even taking into account what you've mentioned, the nerfs to escape/"oh poo poo" options. The bottom-line is that playing a caster is currently an advanced version of the game for people with the patience and knowledge that I think only veterans of Crawl have.

# ? May 30, 2017 15:26

a star war betamax: Sep 17, 2011; by Lowtax; Gary’s Answer

Is food the next game play element in the chopping block? Or is anybody working to do something interesting with it?

# ? May 30, 2017 16:01

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

They should introduce making GBS threads.

# ? May 30, 2017 16:02

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

I'm imagining throwing poop based on the last thing you ate. Poison poop for poison chunks, blinding and confusing poops, more powerful poops the more you eat

# ? May 30, 2017 16:44

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

Canine Blues Arooo posted:

a bunch of monsters got added that were especially threatening to casters (and often not threatening to high AC). Ghost Moths, Caustic Shrieks, Harpies, Everything in Shoal, Everything in Spider, Anything that moves fast, attacks fast and hits for moderate amounts of damage. The mid and end game started to get scary for casters, and they were now without their ridiculous toolset to deal with them.

I think this is a good trend - there should be challenges and scary monsters. I would also add to this a number of monsters that change your position relative to your enemies (iron giants, draconian shifters, guardian serpents, more monsters with blink, blink to, and blinkbolt).

The problem is most of these monsters are as you say not threatening to high AC. This is an issue with AC, not magic. Everything you say is pretty much true for stabbers, evasion, or low defense builds. Mages are gated from high AC by both stats and encumbrance so if they do invest in defenses it has to be evasion until late game. As long as 20AC 5EV is vastly superior to 5AC 20EV you are going to have this disparity.

quote:

Beyond the short-term RNG that casters have to deal with due to their MP pool, they also get to deal with long-term RNG! If you notice, I don't have Bolt of Fire in that caster game. I really, really wanted it, but I didn't get it, and so the most powerful spell I played with up until the very end of that game was Fireball, which means I get to spend a lot of time pulling as few mobs as possible up stairs and down hallways so I don't have to burn up consumables.

That randomness is there so every game is not cookie cutter. You can and probably have had the same issue with a game where a good set of chain or plate never arrived or a good weapon never did. I think the simple act of adding Book Amnesia back into the game would solve a lot of this. You'd still have the skill investment issue but that's comparable to the weapon switch dilemma. Maybe drops could be adjusted as well, but regardless that variability is in there for a reason and the game would suffer were it to be removed or significantly changed.

quote:

Melee doesn't have to deal with this. Because their resource is HP, and because they naturally have effective HP in spades, if they miss a swing, it doesn't really matter. Since AC works the way it does, you can tank an Executioner with 40 AC and 12 EV and 16 Armor Skill almost indefinitely.

I would compare MP, a limited resource, to attack stamina, which is infinite. Fighters don't have skills that cost MP and the cost of evocations and god abilities is kept low to allow casters to also use them. Also, you will get tons of heals and cures and other ways to replenish HP like vampirism, regeneration, and god abilities while ways to replenish MP are limited and tend to come at a higher cost.

I don't like this because it practically demands the use of Sif or Vehumet which severely limits the variation in play. This could be somewhat alleviated if starter elementalists books had a 0 range spell that costs no MP or their first spell (magic dart, flame tongue, etc) could be cast at melee range with lowered effectiveness for 0 MP.

I think this last part pretty much hits the nail on the head though. Limited resource with limited replenishment leads to any sequence of low roles placing you in a bad situation with limited and mostly boring options. My questions would be:
- What would you change to alleviate these perceived issues?
- Are there data that back up a drop in frequency with which players both play mages and win with mages due to these changes?

# ? May 30, 2017 17:25

kickascii: Mar 30, 2010

I've got a decent Spriggan enchanter of gozag going, lair and orc cleared. What's a good "plan B" to branch into for things I cant Hex? What kind of non hex spells compliment the playstyle? I have found ozus armour, is that thing worth it? It doesnt feel like tabbing things down is going to be feasible with this guy.

# ? May 30, 2017 17:36

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

In other non-wall-of-text news, is anyone good at low turn count wins? I tried a few DDFi^Mak last night but I had a hard time getting it going skipping a lot of the levels. Maybe finding Mak late and never finding an ego weapon contributed, is it helpful to just keep rerolling until you get a good start?

My biggest issue was deciding when I was "done" with a level. I'm not sure if I want a sub-40k turn win in 3 runes what my breakpoints are for reaching Lair, Branches, Vaults, Depths, etc. It feels like you need to explore the early levels more for a decent weapon and a Mak altar if you don't start as a Be. Is there another good combo for this?

edit: goddamit I had an ammy of rage at 16% and died to a 2 headed ogre that showed up as berserk was running out and hit me every turn for more damage than I could heal with permanent mp. D6 Mak or I'd have had full hits, what a bad break.

Araganzar fucked around with this message at 18:09 on May 30, 2017

# ? May 30, 2017 17:37

Indecisive: May 6, 2007

well I feel like an idiot, pulled a +6 broad axe of fire from a shop for sub 200g on floor 4, two-shotting uniques left and right, then i get buttfucked by generic rear end gnoll pack that nets me and pokes me down in like 3 turns :argh:

# ? May 30, 2017 17:45

Floodkiller: May 31, 2011

Heavy armor fighter is strong for the same reason Trog is strong: you focus most of your XP into a handful of skills because the rest are off limits (because it isn't worth the effort to learn to cast spells in heavy armor without Chei stats). Trog just makes it better by giving you free, strong powers in exchange for skills you were never going to use.

Disregarding XP spreading, however, spellcasters have the issue that Int is simultaneously mandatory and lovely. Spellcasters need a ton more Int to be good at damage spells compared to how much Str a heavy armor fighter needs to throw on plate mail and swing an axe. At the same time, there are less ways for a spellcaster to compensate for lovely Int compared to a melee person compensating for lovely strength. Most spell enhancers are attached to equipment slots so it becomes a trade-off between good spells and good equipment, while compensating for lovely melee just means grabbing better equipment anyway.

Making Int be more valuable per point to reach a similar soft caps that other stats have (around 25-30, without requiring enhancers) would be a good step towards making spellcasting more attractive again.

# ? May 30, 2017 17:49

rchandra: Apr 30, 2013

Floodkiller posted:

Making Int be more valuable per point to reach a similar soft caps that other stats have (around 25-30, without requiring enhancers) would be a good step towards making spellcasting more attractive again.

This is an excellent suggestion. Str and Dex have both been improved in recent years.

On book amnesia, I have an alternate one:

Amnesia is free to all characters (could be either an 'a'bility or happen when you try to memorize beyond current capacity).
_Learning_ a spell removes the page from the book.

# ? May 30, 2017 18:19

FulsomFrank: Sep 11, 2005; Hard on for love

Floodkiller posted:

Make Int Great Again

This is a great idea

# ? May 30, 2017 18:29

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...

Captain Monkey posted:

More serioulsly, that isn't a hot new take on a problem, that post is just the slightly more polite version of what this thread has been saying for ages. You've been killing the fun ans interesting things in favor of some false idea of balance.

I'm not shy to criticize new versions. I generally feel considerably less excited about updates now than I did in the past. While certainly that's partly because I've burned out on the game, I also think there is a marked change in development style that depresses my enthusiasm.

But, and I can't bring myself to phrase it any more delicately, your post is nonsense. The content of what someone says matters a lot. Canine Blues' post was not just more polite, it explained precisely, and with examples and clear reasoning, some issues with the game, while admitting to a lack of absolute knowledge and asking for further dialogue. The difference between that post and yours is the difference between an essay on the relationship between poverty and drug abuse and the phrase "make America great again". I'm right there with you in saying that I'm disappointed by some recent changes and I think that, as Araganzar put it extremely well some time ago, there aren't enough mad poets on the dev team. But if you want to engage with people about what you feel dissatisfied with, you have to make meaningful statements that successfully fill the role of communication.

To make my own, minor, contribution, I'll say that I think the moment it became very clear that heavy armor melee is the best play style is the moment Haste was removed. I'm not criticizing that change. But, in the past, there was a good chance that in a three rune game, characters in light armor with reasonable int or spellcasting aptitudes, or any character doing significant spellcasting at all, could become 50% more powerful on demand at any time. That was dependent on finding the spell, but it happened with enough frequency to matter, and when it happened, characters that could fairly easily cast Haste in a three rune game felt vindicated in their build choices. There is no current spell that is anywhere close to such a significant force multiplier, which is surely the point. But the loss of that spell, as well as the loss and weakening of many other utility spells, has left casters at a clear disadvantage, even prior to their more punishing resource system. Adding a number of powerful utility spells might help even the loss. Reworking the MP system might help as well, but would be far harder and more controversial. An AC nerf (e.g. reverse GDR), with a light buff to EV at high values and a buff to intelligence might also make things better.

# ? May 30, 2017 18:39

Canine Blues Arooo: Jan 7, 2008; when you think about it...i'm the first girl you ever spent the night with; Grimey Drawer

dpeg posted:

That was very interesting to read. Would you mind me linking or just sending this to the c-r-d mailing list? I am not sure how many developers are aware of this channel, and I think it makes for good food for thought.

Yeah, that'd be fantastic!

A lot of the time I post in this here thread, I'm critical of the game, but I do want to emphasize how much I appreciate the work you guys do. I've played, and will continue to play Crawl longer than any other game I've ever played and I hope that my appreciation for this game isn't lost in the noise.

# ? May 30, 2017 19:24

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

Haste also provided casters with an escape option with a spell you were already memming anyway. And in a tough fight it gave both combat effectiveness and escape in one cast. But it's important to remember this game was a huge mess a few releases ago, and haste was part of that.

There's probably a good substitute or two cooked up by some clever creatives, as well as replacements for flawed but fun features like boulder beetles. But who in their right mind would willing run the gauntlet of nitpickery and condescension that presently lies between idea and implementation?

# ? May 30, 2017 19:44

Emmideer: Oct 20, 2011; Lovely night, no?; Grimey Drawer

Does Cheibriados block the random rage effect from *Rage items?

# ? May 30, 2017 21:40

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

Average Bear posted:

Alright so you're running from a Minotaur berserker ghost, you go up some stairs and there's just all the orc boys. On the other side of them is the stairs out. You got 27 health left, an immolation scroll and dagger of venom. One blink scroll. Do you do it?

I am Otis posted:

You do

It worked, gently caress yeah

# ? May 30, 2017 22:50

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

oh then i got cocky and poked the last inner flamed orc. he died instantly and so did I LMAO

# ? May 30, 2017 22:52

odiv: Jan 12, 2003

Got a dump so I can watch that replay?

# ? May 30, 2017 22:53

Sage Grimm: Feb 18, 2013; Let's go explorin' little dude!

Average Bear posted:

oh then i got cocky and poked the last inner flamed orc. he died instantly and so did I LMAO

Sage Grimm posted:

DEFryant until the end.

# ? May 30, 2017 23:03

Average Bear: Apr 4, 2010

odiv posted:

Got a dump so I can watch that replay?

I don't know how to do that

edit: here's the morgue file though http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/AverageBear/morgue-AverageBear-20170530-215114.txt

Average Bear fucked around with this message at 23:18 on May 30, 2017

# ? May 30, 2017 23:11

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

odiv posted:

Got a dump so I can watch that replay?

All his games are at http://dobrazupa.org/tournament/0.20/players/averagebear.html - I think it might be the one that says "blasted by an orc (exploding inner flame) (hexed by the player character)"...

Here is my dilemma - I started a nem's choice MUAM as a total joke to play on Jorgun when Beartato is lagged and he's somehow lived. I was going pure melee but I picked up ring of Hudaj {Wiz MR+ MP+9 Str+4} in my first shop and that shop also has The ring "Ikhiaj" {Fire +Blink rElec Int+6 Slay-3}.

I now am doing hexes again in +1 FDA. I just found book of conjurations so taht ring has me thinking I could change into a caster. Wiz, +9 MP, Fire, and Int 6 would be a nice combo. I just don't have a single great weapon, just some okay randarts that are stuff like hand axes and falchions.

code:

Health: 91/91      AC: 19    Str: 27    XL:     12   Next: 65%
Magic:  37/37      EV: 12    Int: 13    God:    Gozag
Gold:   82         SH:  0    Dex: 12    Spells: 3/21 levels left

rFire    + . .     SeeInvis .   b - +7 hand axe "Oluxab" {venom, rN+ Str+5}
rCold    . . .     Gourm    .   (no shield)
rNeg     + + +     Faith    .   f - +1 fire dragon scales
rPois    &#8734;         Spirit   .   C - +2 helmet
rElec    .         Reflect  .   y - +0 cloak
rCorr    .         Harm     .   F - +1 pair of gloves
MR       ++...                  t - +0 pair of boots {Fly}
Stlth    ..........             w - amulet of regeneration
Regen    0.7/turn               s - ring of magical power
MPRegen  0.3/turn               G - ring of Hudaj {Wiz MR+ MP+9 Str+4}

Seems like with my hexes I could do quite well with fulminant prism, inner flame, and fear and I could buy a book shop or probably find one in Orc. But as noted recently in this fine thread, casters have a hard time especially without Sif, Vehumet, or a staff of energy. Counterpoint, strong conjurations/hexes stops a lot of poo poo before it can confuse me.

I'm only on Lair 2 and I feel like this guy already has all the tools to win if I can play it right. Strong Hexes, Melee with hex support, or Hexer/Caster?

# ? May 30, 2017 23:31

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# ? May 15, 2024 15:20

Chakan: Mar 30, 2011

jon joe posted:

Does Cheibriados block the random rage effect from *Rage items?

I think he just protects you from moving quicker when stuff like that happens.

# ? May 30, 2017 23:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Crawl .20: Home of the Frog Dog

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