YAV? P gargoyle ice elementalist

[crate]

So I recently figured out that I actually just really dislike a few things about crawl, but there's an easy way for me to fix a lot of these problems. Here's the solution:

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 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13-a0-2471-gf2498f4 (console) character file.

146699 crate the Brawler (level 17, 99/99 HPs)
             Began as a Gargoyle Ice Elementalist on July 18, 2013.
             Was the Champion of Sif Muna.
             Got out of the dungeon alive.
             The game lasted 03:19:04 (60354 turns).

crate the Brawler (Gargoyle Ice Elementalist)      Turns: 60354, Time: 03:19:04

HP  99/99        AC 37     Str 12      XL: 17   Next: 42%
MP  34/34        EV 15     Int 22      God: Sif Muna [******]
Gold 1099        SH  0     Dex 11      Spells: 10 memorised,  0 levels left

Res.Fire  : . . .   See Invis. : .     - Unarmed
Res.Cold  : + . .   Warding    : .   n - +4 mottled dragon armour
Life Prot.: + . .   Conserve   : +   (no shield)
Res.Poison: +       Res.Corr.  : .   j - +1 spiked helmet
Res.Elec. : +       Clarity    : .   A - +2 cloak
Sust.Abil.: . .     Spirit.Shd : .   P - +2 pair of gloves
Res.Mut.  : .       Stasis     : .   S - +2 pair of boots of Makhleb's Approval {Ac
Res.Rott. : +       Flight     : +   q - amulet of conservation
Saprovore : . . .                    F - ring of protection from cold
                                     O - ring of protection from magic

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
a - Repel Missiles        Chrm/Air       ####......   1%          2    None
b - Freezing Cloud        Conj/Ice/Air   ######....   17%         6    ######.
c - Ozocubu's Armour      Chrm/Ice       ######....   1%          3    None
d - Throw Icicle          Conj/Ice       ######..     1%          4    #......
e - Condensation Shield   Ice            ######....   1%          4    #......
f - Swiftness             Chrm/Air       ####......   1%          2    None
g - Summon Ice Beast      Ice/Summ       #####.....   3%          4    #......
i - Apportation           Tloc           ####......   1%          1    None
l - Bolt of Cold          Conj/Ice       ######....   8%          6    ######.
R - Ozocubu's Refrigerat  Ice            ######....   2%          6    ######.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/crate ... 080549.txt

I'm not going to play full crawl games any more. I do not like most of the end of the game, and I feel that in any case games of crawl are too long (partly because of the former). I do not like like the direction that crypt and forest and elf seem to be going, I do not like the vaults that infest late D, I do not like extended, I do not like the lair rune branches except for snake, and the fun that's in Zot:5 is plain not worth slogging through all these things I dislike (plus Zot:1-4). The orbrun is an annoyance too.

So now I play crate_crawl, where the goal is to reach d:20 as if you are playing a full crawl game, and then go leave the dungeon alive. I will probably define some actual rules for myself at some point, since the end is very arbitrary right now; I was going to clear d:20 but I ran into Boris there and having less than 100 maxhp I was not comfortable trying to kill him, so I left. Rules I've decided on so far are that lair branches, elf, vaults, and d below 20 are off-limits, and just straight diving to d:20 is not permissible (play in a fashion that would be conducive to winning a full game of crawl).

There are some things I definitely found that I liked while playing this way. Experience is dramatically more limited, and in particular getting anything more than one spell school is a big, big investment. But there's still enough experience and it still matters enough. The fact the game is shorter leads to encouraging using enchant scrolls and recharge scrolls on worse items, which I like. It is still a reasonable challenge to complete.

Anyway I enjoyed this game dramatically more than most of my other recent crawl games, and I'm pretty sure that a lot of this is because I get to not even think about the parts of the game I dislike the most.

[Sandman25]

I suspect crate_crawl is too easy for some characters like all Death Knights, all Trolls or SpEn. I tend to die in Vaults lately.

[Amnesiac]

I think that you have played too much. I remember that at first everything was new and exciting, like shoals with a bit of their unrealness (I mean.. what's the principle of multi-leveled and excesibely bright(tiles) shoals in the dungeon) and everything else. I think that snakes are also boring, though, because they are... drab.

[crate]

oh actually I like shoals too, I forgot about that

I suspect crate_crawl is too easy for some characters like all Death Knights, all Trolls or SpEn.

I don't see how it's really any easier than a full game for these characters.

[Sandman25]

oh actually I like shoals too, I forgot about that

I suspect crate_crawl is too easy for some characters like all Death Knights, all Trolls or SpEn.

I don't see how it's really any easier than a full game for these characters.

1) Yred does not grant piety (=allies) for killing demons/undead. Allies (even Bone Dragons) die too fast in extended.
2) Trolls have low defences and high regeneration does not help much vs torment and other damage sources which hurt too much (regeneration does not scale with game stage).
3) Many late game monsters see/sense inv, are immune to EH and thus SpEn cannot rely on stabbing as easy as early game.

I am not really sure why I am writing this, I know you know it.

I guess you feel late game is easier (or at least not harder) than crate_crawl so you don't like spending time on the "already won" game.

[crate]

whats an extended

[Sandman25]

whats an extended

Hell/Pan/Tomb/Abyss and maybe Slime Pits.

[Mankeli]

I do not like like the direction that crypt and forest and elf seem to be going, I do not like the vaults that infest late D, I do not like extended, I do not like the lair rune branches except for snake, and the fun that's in Zot:5 is plain not worth slogging through all these things I dislike (plus Zot:1-4). The orbrun is an annoyance too.

I've had similar thoughts in regarding some of your dislikes and I'd like to know why do you feel that especially concerning forest, vaults, elven halls and spider.

For me, the forest branch felt too gimmicky. First of all is the monster AI of spriggan enchanters and those thorn things in water. I can tolerate and actually kind of like orb spiders because I know that spider is the only place I'll have to deal with them if not going zigging later. However, if I'm forced to deal with these kind of "intelligent monsters" in other branches it seemed to get annoying really fast. Also the new kind of special attacks (by special attacks I mean inflicting a status on a player or teleporting the player into water etc.) some monsters have there didn't have the "oh shit wtf is that" feeling that I got from the "new" 0.12 vaults monsters for example. Maybe there is a saturation point for those special attacks as well or maybe the forest just was too easy but still less tabbable than crypt because some of those special attacks.

Secondly, while I like vaults of different kinds, there definately is a saturation point after which they add nothing to the game and can actually start to be annoying and boring as well. I think late dungeon is a perfect example of this. Profane halls is cool and all but it felt like it took a lot of time to clear for melee characters. On my ongoing GrFi I had d:25 profane halls and d:27 was pure vaults too. Wouldn't it be best if the random dungeon generator was so good and produced such interesting layouts that you would only need a few vaults? Aren't vaults also, at least to a certain extent, spoilery?

[crate]

A lot of it is that there are absolutely zero monsters which summon that I find fun to fight, and DracoOmega does apparently like monster summons a lot, and he is responsible for all of newcrypt, much of forest, and the recent tweaks to elf. I can't say they're necessarily bad design, but they're very un-fun to deal with as a player imo.

My entire Forest experience is: I go in, I kill some enemies, note that it has trees and shallow water (both things I dislike; the trees were expected, obviously). I then find an elemental wellspring. I had encounted elemental wellsprings in a vault on d:24 or something in the same game, and abandoned the level when I saw what they did. I immediately leave forest and vow never to return. The things I have heard about the branch from other players leave me with no desire to experience these things for myself.

With crypt it is many things, and I decided to quit crypt before the recent curse skull changes, which I have been told makes them pretty much the least fun monster in the entire game. Jiangshi annoy me because they have weird rules for what they do and this is not obvious to the player (it doesn't work well with sixfirhies either imo, but at least those are totally ignorable most of the time), vp mages still summon, ancient champions have the most obnoxious summon spell in the game 1/4 of the time, dddk enemies exist and are still tedious to deal with.

Elf is probably still good but I don't like that deep elf mages now summon things for no reason and that makes me nervous about what other future changes may happen.

With V it is mainly that it's just long and I'm past the fun part of the game. Convokers and sentinels are kind of annoying to deal with but they're less bad than other things, and I might actually add v:5 and the silver rune to the game again since I actually really like v:5 and it would be a good conclusion instead of the arbitrary one I have now.

Spider is pretty simple: if it had no monsters at all, I would still look for ways to avoid it. Webs are the worst terrain feature in the game, and in fact they are so bad that they are worse than every other terrain feature in the game combined (and I have quite a dislike for glass, trees, and shallow water). To make it worse they don't actually do anything, except for the web melee of jumping spiders ... but those are different entirely. If spider had no webs I would actually probably like it. However it has webs so it is the most annoying rune outside of abyss and demonic by a lot.

With vaults (as in the human-created things in the dungeon) probably the biggest thing I dislike is how a large number of them have tons of enemies. There are also a few vaults which have layouts designed specifically to make them take as long to clear as possible (at least grunt_runaround and grunt_twisty_little_passages), and crawl being too long is specifically something I am trying to avoid, and removing lots of vaults from the game is a way to make it shorter.

[mikee]

congratulations; you've finally turned into me

[Amnesiac]

I don't know, I don't like some of branches or some levels for another reason - they are monotonous. I agree that webs are annoying, but that's kinda realistic and I like that the layout is not as simple as in Vaults and most dungeon levels and spiders are often dangeous, which I like, because snakes are boring and it's boring to have just packs of snakes and nagas everywhere, because it lacks the variety.

I see experienced players getting bored, but thats their fault. You can always make a game more thrilling by taking chances instead of a calculated sure way. Of curse you'll get bored, when you know what's dangerous and avoid it entirely. You need to challenge those uniques that have a high chance to kill you(but usually not unreasonably high, it's just a chance) you need to take a step into the vault on elf:3 early on or something(..or not, because it'll probably kill you), things like that. Dying this way is frustrating but it's thrilling and keeps me not bored and wanting to play more. And this way games usually end early

[Mankeli]

Thanks for the thorough response, crate. Interesting points.

[Baldu]

Interesting posts! Maybe i can try to make a little recommendation? I almost always play now demigod wanderer and dont enter elf/blade/spider/shoals/crypt/forest/hell/pan/abyss. It's always pretty different, mostly exciting, and pretty short (i die most of the games but even the wins are pretty quick, takes me 2-3 late evenings or about two weeks of lunch breaks to win). I also always do slime, heading to it with a pile of wands/replacement gear/food and dump the extras at the entrance, always going for it before entering vault or d20 (so before XL20). It's a very fun puzzle to solve in that kind of situation!

With this combo there's no OP god to carry me, no possible plans to make and follow every game and huge variety, my dudes are about right strength for a good zot experience, and I avoid all the places I don't like and see all the places I enjoy. Maybe try something like this? Your self rules look a little weird and confusing!

[Lightli]

crate, what do you not hate about crawl at this point

[diviton]

Most of your complaints and annoyances are pretty bizarre.

[Amnesiac]

Not badly, but boldly.

[crate]

dying because i know i am doing something dumb is not fun at all, sorry

[Amnesiac]

dying because i know i am doing something dumb is not fun at all, sorry

Are you sure? I think it's thrilling to take on dangerous enemies and if I win I feel good.

[nooodl]

I've made crate_crawl into a variant inspired by this post: https://gitorious.org/~nooodl/crawl/cra ... rate_crawl

D is now 20 levels long, Zot is now a single level. Lair branches and Vaults are still there, but they might later be removed, or reduced to single levels as well. The way it's implemented right now, though, you need to clear only one of the branches to get one rune and enter Zot, but due to the lack of XP in the dungeon Zot is probably very hard. I might end up either making Zot easier, or just increasing the XP rate a bit. I played a test game (MiBe) that "won" (cleared D:1-20, Lair, Orc) in about 1h20m, which is a pretty reasonable length. (One nice thing about the game being shorter was not needing to worry about keeping this or that item until the endgame—I got abyssed, for example, and didn't feel annoyed about having to use up some heal wounds or speed potions.)

[Sandman25]

Not badly, but boldly.

Maybe I am in minority here but I find early game actually easier than middle (Vaults and late D) and extended: there are only a few dangerous monsters and you know how to deal with them, you are not surrounded by 10+ monsters, your consumables are not destroyed by fireball/hellfire, you don't depend much on finds (no source of MR caused me serious troubles at this point vs paralysing/banishing/slowing monsters). You can just enjoy the game because everything is under your control and you know what you are doing (this is what most call "not stupid").
I encountered first elemental wellspring in my game yesterday, I was so scared by crate's description that I called BiA immediately and killed it and Water Elemental it called really fast. I am not sure if it was a good decision, perhaps I could kill it alone (if it respects player's EV unlike Fireball)

[crate]

I am not saying that wellsprings are dangerous, since I really have no idea if they are.

But the ones I ran into really really liked summoning water elementals, and I just didn't want to deal with that many summons. So I didn't.

[Sandman25]

I am not saying that wellsprings are dangerous, since I really have no idea if they are.

But the ones I ran into really really liked summoning water elementals, and I just didn't want to deal with that many summons. So I didn't.

Well, do you get golden rune usually?

[crate]

i see you didn't understand my comment earlier

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<Sequell> 146 games for crate (won): 98x 3, 17x 4, 9x 15, 5x 14, 4x 9, 3x 7, 2x 5, 2x 13, 2x 11, 2x 6, 10, 8

[Sandman25]

i see you didn't understand my comment earlier

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<Sequell> 146 games for crate (won): 98x 3, 17x 4, 9x 15, 5x 14, 4x 9, 3x 7, 2x 5, 2x 13, 2x 11, 2x 6, 10, 8

I see. You always hated summons. Then the latest changes are not as bad as they look to me based on your feedback.

[zardo]

if any part of the 3-rune game drags for me currently it's Lair. of course crate you've won probably literally 20x as many times as me so I guess you find different things overexposed.

pan and abyss runes are definitely a slog but, well, at least you don't have to. hell is cool for the endings

swamp is the worst lair branch

I don't usually bother with forest either

[nago]

I've just lost a great DjBe in Elf - while the death itself it's totally my fault, the experience in the halls has been probably the most frustrating ever in all my crawl games: being entangled, confused, redpoisoned, freezed, ganged by summons summoned by a shadow demon summoned by a summon summoned by whatever from the turn I entered elf to the turn of my demise has been a nightmare. It felt like a worse and more annoying Tomb.

Also considering the annoying new status affecting attacks of many monsters (drain, new undead abilities, etc) I really dislike the actual balance of game - it's like everything I find stupid and annoying of extended has been has been added to normal game too.

Probably I'm going to switch back to .12, and keep playing it hoping some changes are reverted.

[rebthor]

nago it's interesting that you feel that way because I'm leaving toward playing mostly .12 too. I don't play nearly as fast as most of you guys, but after winning a game in .13 I went back to .12. Partially that was to win SE and Pr but even after that, I played a few more games. While I like not having nausea on my LOIE but I'm not sure I like many of the other changes in .13 so far.

[BlackSheep]

I was really on the fence about whether to switch to 0.13 full time or to stick with 0.12. The new races didn't interest me, and while I was looking forward to the various tweaks and changes (nausea, stabbing, traps, etc.), they weren't enough to make me switch. Then someone replaced Force Lance in the Cj starting book with Searing Ray and I had to try it out.

(Please someone make a nice tile for that spell.)

[Sandman25]

I like new Crypt. Old Elven Hall was boring except the final vault. 0.13 looks much harder than 0.12 but I personally like it (maybe because extended is still my favorite part of the game).

[crate]

i will never go back to 0.12 because it has nausea which is almost as bad as webs

[tcjsavannah]

i will never go back to 0.12 because it has nausea which is almost as bad as webs

Yes, we really need 0.12.1 which has nausea removed but everything else intact.

[pratamawirya]

The way crawl has been progressing as a whole package of a game is in line with the way "games" have been produced since Pong or Space War or what have you (that is by the developers adding new contents and exploring new ideas).

Therefore, the fact that many experienced players (pretty much the ones you should listen to if you want consistently good tips on tactics and strategies) of crawl hate 0.13 shows that... well, that crawl is a somewhat strange game, kind of.

I mean, seriously. Think about this: the better players of the game are the ones who hate the EXPECTED progression of the game. Now what does that make the game, seriously?

[Amnesiac]

Still, Crawl is a great game. I'm almost sure that the first 15-rune'er will be a refreshing and exciting experience for most players. Is it even ment to be as entertaining for a hundred of times? Is it even possible?

[absolutego]

there are many players with dozens of wins (or even a hundred) who keep coming back:
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/best- ... score.html
so yes

for what's worth i'm with crate on pretty much everything, with an emphasis on crypt/forest and late D taking longer and being more annoying than they used to be. i think the xp changes could've been handled simply removing floors and late-D vaults. i do like V a lot though so maybe i'll try to play silver-rune crate-crawl.

p.s. you might be surprised by the number of players who don't give a damn about 15-runers

[Amnesiac]

I mean for the first time you want to see everything, it was the case for me at least. I don't give a damn about x-rune games myself. But usually just 3 runes are not satisfying for me. I want 5 at least to have played enough, to have enough fun and challenges. I usually go for more and stupidly die, though.

[Sandman25]

It is often said that if you can clear ZoT5, you have already won the game. So maybe if player sees current character is very powerful and is not likely to have problems in extended, he does not go for more runes and just wins the game.
At least I have this experience with foo storm users in lichform - I got 15 runes with both storms and I will never do it again, it will be boring.

[absolutego]

uhm i just meant that many people don't like extended much.

<Sequell> 99 games for absolutego (won): 67x 3, 12x 4, 10x 15, 5x 6, 2x 5, 2x 10, 9

also it was just an off-hand comment, i know i started it but let's keep things on-topic (pls)

[TeshiAlair]

I've mentioned in a few threads now my desire for more variability in crawl, usually in the form of new spells. It seems the overall design direction in crawl tends to be add variety through adding new things rather than adding more interesting challenges to preexisting things.

With races that works quite well- you don't want something like that constantly changing. With classes, I personally think there should be a bit more variability so that every game with a certain class doesn't have the exact same early game, but I'm in the minority in that.

However, just adding new branches and making old branches smaller doesn't really add that much variety in the game. It tends to be "do I want to deal with this new thing or not?" I really like variety in branch endings, but I feel spider and shoals suffer a bit in that regard. (Also, seconding Spider being disappointing as hell. Seriously, we took out Hive yet put in something even more repetitive?)

[Mankeli]

I complained above about the new "intelligent behaviour" of some monsters and recently noticed that at least red devils now try to kite players with polearms by hopping backwards *sigh*. I didn't notice that kind of behaviour in 0.12 so I assume it is new. Why an earth would we want to add such things like polearm kiting and massive spamming of trash monsters to monsters' AI (the elf mage or whatever change) if we agree that it is stupid as player behaviour??

I don't want to sound as a whining shithead because I think crawl has come a looong way from 0.6 (when I jumped in, well I played the original too but never won, best character died on zot:5 IIRC) to now and kudos to devs for that. I just don't like some of these new changes at all.

[ackack]

I've mentioned in a few threads now my desire for more variability in crawl, usually in the form of new spells. It seems the overall design direction in crawl tends to be add variety through adding new things rather than adding more interesting challenges to preexisting things.

Some of the bigger changes of .12 and .13 include Vaults and Crypt reforms, so I don't think I agree with this.

Your suggestion of more variability in starting books has the problem of rewarding startscumming until you get a good book. Crawl has moved away from that sort of thing, it seems (e.g. stats used to be randomized, now starting stats are fixed) so that type of change is extremely unlikely to happen. EDIT: I see you didn't mention books, but that is probably the simplest example. Same deal for starting equipment or skills, obviously.

[absolutego]

well, also

there should be a bit more variability so that every game with a certain class doesn't have the exact same early game

this doesn't make any sense, unless you like play defe^veh every game or something

[radzia]

what we need is a Fast crawl, ultra-hard, where every fight is crucial (in "late" dungeon too!), where every action counts.

lets see:

17 lvl dungeon
2 lvl valuts
2 lvl lair
2 lvl zot + orb lvl
rest branches 1 lvl

[Sandman25]

Let's not make crawl fast. There is Dungeon Spring already. Some players may enjoy long games.
Let's not make crawl ultra-hard unless there are difficulty levels. You can always play TrCj and never melee or play DEGl and never cast spells.

[brendan]

I do not like green eggs and ham.

[TeshiAlair]

The Vaults reform is EXACTLY the kind of thing that needs to be continued. New Vaults is much better overall.

Also, do people really have a different experience each time they go through D1-5 with the same class? Cause, unless I'm a wizard, I will have exactly 1 set of options each time. I feel that midgame tends to be the most varied overall.

Startscumming is a problem, and one that I don't have an answer to. I guess you could have a choice of starting book just like you have a choice of weapons, but that requires doubling or tripling the number of spells per school, which is hairy as hell.

[Amnesiac]

I would like Vaults to be more colourful in tiles.

[absolutego]

i played a game of "crate extended"
http://rl.heh.fi/morgue/orangebox/morgu ... 184140.txt
there's still a ton of xp (and probably takes a bit too long for my taste, but i'm slow so who knows)

Also, do people really have a different experience each time they go through D1-5 with the same class? Cause, unless I'm a wizard, I will have exactly 1 set of options each time.

if that means "meph everything" we're talking about another problem.
also well, drwz or dgwz are quite different from dewz. as i said before if you play the same char with the same god... then probably the games tend to be similar? and even then you still have to adapt to some degree (you shouldn't ignore a good early altar, a good weapon, etc). i do my best to win every game i start and they generally feel quite different from one another.