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"Awesome retro style artwork(will be upgraded soon)."

dpeg wrote:I think it'd be best if items disappear when left on the ground for a while (artefacts exempted, of course).

Wouldn't this encourage players to pick up all strategic items, drop them, then pick them up again before the disappearance clock ran out? In that case, management becomes a lot worse.

I'd run away and come back when it wasn't 'zerked.

I've made two proposals for ways to shorten the mid-game, particularly the Lair sub-branches, so if you want to get a sense of arguments for and against such changes, you can check them out: https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14850&p=203683 https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/vi...

Fun fact: the Bible has a number of (unknown) authors, most scholars seem to agree on four authors, and there are aspects of the Christian god in Beogh, Elyvilon, Zin and the Shining One. I'm not sure where you're getting that number. The NT has 4 different gospels traditionally attributed to diffe...

The game should not allow you to cast Animate Dead if there are no corpses or skeletons in LOS. Or at least offer a y/n prompt. It's boring to check every pile to see if a corpse exists or not.

STR: Gives me better EV and spell success if I'm wearing heavy armor. #1 pick if my str is significantly less than the EVP of my body armor (or whatever it's called these days) DEX: EV. #1 pick if I don't cast damaging spells, and I'm not wearing or plan to wear armor with EVP significantly higher ...

PS: I am getting too angry over this, so I'll just make a note about coarser stats and call it a day. I'm confused about dpeg's anger, but more confused because no one in this thread has advocated making stats coarser. If anything in the thread has broad consensus, it's that stats should be more tr...

9 stat points (or 18 for dgs) allows you to have another layer of customization, which allows for character diversity, even within the same races and backgrounds. Racial stat bonuses allow certain races to peform better or worse at certain tasks, even at the same skill level. This is the rub: does ...

we don't want characters with maxed skills be the same. What happens to characters with maxed skills is pretty unimportant: at that point, they've won. For the part of the game that matters, both skilling and stat growth are about choosing how to allocate a limited resource. I think skilling does t...

The choice of stats made when leveling up are spoiler-y (it is not at all intuitive that increasing str can be good for casters or dex for melee brutes). Moreover, they replicate the choices already being made with skilling. Given two mechanics that basically do the same thing (skilling and choosing...

The only sensible argument I've seen for stats value is that they help differentiate races. If that's the case, why not remove stat rings and chosen stat increase on level up? Both of those make races less distinct and are basically redundant w/other, better aspects of the game (ac/ev/slay rings and...

Why do some of these more obscure values for stats even need to exist? After a year of playing, I had no idea that str impacted constriction until chequers' above post.

I think plenty of reasons have been given in this thread for changing/removing stats. That said, I understand dpeg's point that the ratio of work required to make the change vs. how much it improves the game makes this a lower priority than other changes.

If stats are going to be kept, I at least wish that what they did be more focused and more clear. Like, I think it would be an improvement if dex were a dodging bonus (or even a bonus to dodging, ac, and shields), str were a bonus to hitting things with weapons, and int a bonus to casting spells. Th...

Stats also differentiate the races, and I think it's a good thing that a DE with 36 int and 20 conjurations casts a more powerful spell than a troll with 5 int and 20 conjurations. Consider that at some point additional skill investment will overtake stat bonus, so for example let's say the troll n...

I would also like to try a base speed 11 branch.

I think this discussion is getting bogged down by a conflation of two different phenomena, luring monsters and escaping/avoiding dangerous fights. Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt many people would disagree with Sandman that the former is tedious. It shouldn't be a no brainer that the best choice is alw...

dpeg: on the other hand, why not put up an experimental branch with large cuts? it would give devs and players a chance to learn, see what works and doesn't with a shorter midgame, what other changes would be necessary, how much harder the game really is, etc.

I'd like to say once more that Crawl is intentionally a big game. You (as a player) pay for this with redundancy and some tedium (large levels to explore, many not so interesting fights), but you gain a bit of strategical depth. I think Crawl's strategic depth is limited because of a contradiction ...

I much prefer D, V, and U to any of the S's, L, or O. The former offer a much greater variety of threats while still being distinctive.

Lair: 6 floors
S's: 3 (ahem, I also support only having to complete 1 of these)
Zot: 3

dpeg: thanks for the in depth reply! I want to be clear that I in no way support getting rid of any of the existing S's or of having to make branch order decisions. I disagree that my proposal taken to its logical conclusion is an argument for that. As I say above, I really *like* the place the curr...

Even if shoals and swamp were of comparable difficulty, I still don't think it's a good idea to let the player go to zot on the strength of just two lair branches. A swamp game still has the problem of not having enough variety. The player should have to do vaults or something more exotic, imo. I a...

It's already the case that games that generate Shoals are more difficult than those that generate Swamp. A comparison: In the current standard three rune game, the player chooses between V, M, and A for the third rune. Imo this is an example of how branch decisions should work--each offers its own c...

I agree that 4 floors for S (or even 3) is an improvement. Still, though, it forces the player to do two branches of equal difficulty, which imo gets repetitive and unchallenging. I thought this change allows for the best of both worlds: players who want to do both S can, but if they don't they can ...

This thread is being derailed by comments on speedrunning and proposals for one S-branch. Speedrunning does not matter to crawl design and one S-branch has its own threads elsewhere. Any criticism on the proposal?

bel: this proposal still generates 2 S-branches per game. It just does not require you to complete both.

Rast wrote:It's been suggested that lair drop down to one S-branch per game..

I not only like this idea, I've proposed a version of it myself! It's linked in the OP. It got a lot of feedback, and this proposal is meant to address the concerns people had.

--Require only two runes to enter Zot. One of the runes must be from a non-S-branch. (If you like, give flavorful names to distinguish S- and non-S-runes, like "beastly runes" and "ancient runes," and divide them on the "}" screen. A message upon branch entrance can tel...

At some point, Patashu (what happened to her?) had a detailed post explaining basic tactics, even with some ascii illustrations iirc. I remember it being quite helpful when I was trying to get my first ascension.

I don't understand why Hu isn't baseline. Or why Mf isn't niche. And why does species popularity matter to this?

Perhaps a better guide to learning crawl would consist not of a list of combos, but of tactics and topics. There is a huge amount to learn, and a new player can easily get overwhelmed and focus on the wrong areas first (eg. combo). So the list might go something like 1. Melee Positioning, 2. Recogni...

mps wrote:1 non-slime lair branch instead of 2

Dpeg has twice said he's intrigued by this idea... other devs?

appropriate pronouns for crawl gods: she, he, it, they, zhe, etc.

inappropriate pronouns for crawl gods: ones you imagine refer to an actual gender the god has.

If any casual groups are still looking to fill a spot, I'm interested.

Berder wrote:data > anecdotes

Until you can statistically prove statistics are better than other forms of argument without making any (non-statistical) recourse to those forms of argument, I refuse to accept your claim here as valid.

berder wrote:what else would you call a race that can worship itself?

humanity?

Playing optimally with permanent allies (trying to keep them alive) is really, really annoying. Also, permallies with near unlimited supply is broken.

Your proposed fix changes this to, "If I enter a branch and it is too hard, then I die. Or I switch to Depths and then die there, because even a relatively easy Depths 1 is harder than anything the S roulette branches have to offer." Knowing when to bug out and switch plans is a valid ski...

To clarify, I'm suggesting that cutting more dead levels is preferable to eliminating a major midgame choice. I frequently do choose Shoals first over Snake or Spider, depending on my current character. I also frequently change my mind partway through one of the S branches when I get an unfavorable...

Another option is to make Swamp as difficult as Shoals. It is fine that Spider/Snake will always be done first, we don't do Slime first either (unless Jiyva of course). That's fine, too. I guess an unstated assumption behind my proposal is that crawl currently has too many floors, and so I'd prefer...

I don't see how removing a branch creates more meaningful decisions. Where you would instead in the past go to the second S branch, now you just ... don't. Because it's not there. And the game is otherwise identical. So what's your real goal here? Reduce xp (by removing one branch)? Force players i...

Counterproposal: Cut the first three levels of Lair, the first two levels of Orc, the last three levels of Dungeon, and trim all S branches to three levels apiece. Fix the remaining level of Orc so it's a better intro to the last level, rather than the useless clumps of vanilla orcs it usually turn...

Either they are the same difficulty, in which case the decision doesn't matter, or the player chooses the easier of the two. um, yes, that seems to cover everything how do you propose you make such a decision interesting? you don't just go to difficult places in crawl when you can go to easy ones I...

## Problem: Choosing which of the S branches (throughout this proposal meaning Snake, Spider, Shoals, and Swamp) to complete first tends to be fairly uninteresting. Either they are the same difficulty, in which case the decision doesn't matter, or the player chooses the easier of the two. Furthermor...

Hunger is what's used to balance Ely and prevent you from just pacifying everything. I don't know of any ways to reduce hunger cost, but there are certainly ways to reduce the amount you use pacify-- just find another way to kill things, usually a melee weapon. Amulet of the gourmand will also allow...

I just finished lair with Wuln. I quite enjoy the no-stair conduct--it's simple, more meaningful than the conduct imposed by most deities, and has a significant effect on my gameplay as someone who regularly uses stairs as an escape option from hydras, blink frog packs, and uniques. I also like 'ble...

Playing Wulndraste with a Migl and I am unable to train Invocations.

Xom is not a fan of Pikel.

Code:: [attachment=0]rottenpickel.png[/attachment]

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