Which are the more challenging/difficult backgrounds?

[RoGGa]

When selecting a background before a species, the "Please select a background" screen (in v.15.x) doesn't offer any indication as to which backgrounds are innately much more difficult/challenging than others.
Berzerkers are often referred to as an easier background especially for new crawlers, and Wanderers and Chaos Kniights are meant to be quite challenging.
While the choasforge wiki offers the "Difficulty of Play" (Easy • Moderate • Hard) for species, it doesn't do the same for Backgrounds.

Q: Which background are innately more difficult/challenging especially for new crawlers?

[SaidTheAlligatorKingToHisSon]

The wiki is fickle, I remember trolls used to be considered a "hard" species. Concerning backgrounds "challenging" is a subjective term but for new crawlers general consensus is that melee backgrounds are easier than spellcasting ones. This is probably because a mage has more things to consider such as MP and balancing spell skills and melee defense, plus they're squishy early on. There are challenge backgrounds like CK (due to Xom) or Wn (due to randomness) which are harder for any player, plus some backgrounds like Tm or Wr are trickier to play imo. You also have to consider species when considering background, a DEFi is harder to play than a DEFE for example, even though Fi is an easier background for newer crawlers.

If you're simply looking for the hardest possible combo, that dubious honor would probably go to MuCK. Xom confusion+mummy=painful death.

[KoboldLord]

I don't think there's any real consensus as to which backgrounds are the hard ones. There are a couple that are generally accepted as hard, particularly chaos knight, and a few that are generally accepted as easy, but I doubt you'll get much agreement as to exactly where the lists are broken up and what the order within those lists are.

I don't think there's nearly as much swing between backgrounds as there is between species, though. We might suppose that fire elementalists are a stronger start than air elementalists, or that hunters are a stronger start than monks, but either way you're not ending up with a mummy unless you also choose that as a separate choice.

[John Milferton]

I find skald/warper/transmuter difficult starts for the simple reason that your starting skills are spread thinly across the board i. e. you suck at fighting AND magic.
It's like playing a gimped gladiator/gladiator/monk with worse stats and a worse weapon, only good thing is that you spawn with a book that EVENTUALLY comes in handy.

[lrvs]

Here is Sequell data on win% for each background:
Wn - 0.28%
Tm - 0.36%
Wz - 0.37%
Sk - 0.46%
En - 0.51%
Ne - 0.54%
Mo - 0.55%
Ak - 0.56%
Ck - 0.56%
Cj - 0.62%
Fi - 0.62%
Su - 0.62%
As - 0.63%
Ae - 0.70%
Fe - 0.73%
Hu - 0.78%
Wr - 0.80%
Ar - 0.83%
Ie - 0.83%
Dk - 0.85%
Vm - 0.85%
Am - 0.90%
Ee - 0.93%
Gl - 0.93%
Be - 0.96%
He - 1.41%

[Magipi]

I find skald/warper/transmuter difficult starts for the simple reason that your starting skills are spread thinly across the board i. e. you suck at fighting AND magic.
It's like playing a gimped gladiator/gladiator/monk with worse stats and a worse weapon, only good thing is that you spawn with a book that EVENTUALLY comes in handy.

Well, I think a skald's or a warper's starting weapon is better than a monk's starting UC. And their stats are roughly the same.

[KoboldLord]

Monks can start with claws, though. Troll monk does not compare to troll fighter in remotely the same way as human monk compares to human fighter. Which set of assumptions are supposed to be used?

[Magipi]

Monks can start with claws, though. Troll monk does not compare to troll fighter in remotely the same way as human monk compares to human fighter. Which set of assumptions are supposed to be used?

Well, when I compared monks and warpers, I assumed that the species is not troll. The reason is that the majority of species are not troll

[RoGGa]

Great feedback! Thanks
Obviously the combo is the most important, since it is the character that is "viable" for the early game; backgrounds and species on their own cannot be "viable" (and therefore the "Viable" option should be deactivated when a background or a species has not already been selected).

From your comments, it seems to me now that a heuristic relating to backgrounds (especially wrt advice for new crawlers) is:
* The weaker backgrounds are the ones that do not allow for the creation of a strong combo (as some sort of specialist) from the start of the game (such as Wanderers) or have an obvious challenge/handicap (Chaos Knights).
I'm assuming in this heuristic, we could add: ...and is fairly easy to play (for new crawlers).

This heuristic seems to then include: Tm, Wr, Sk since they are more generalists as their starting skill points are distributed over many trades. Am I way off?

[Lasty]

I would offer this species-ignoring heuristic:

* Classes that start with gods are among the strongest, because gods offer a huge amount of power with a built-in solid power growth curve. Exception: Xom, because Xom.
* Classes that start with strong equipment that is not easily found tend to be the next-most powerful: wands, blowguns, and books in particular. The best books have a mix of strong offensive and defensive options, followed by books with strong offensive options, followed by books with strong defensive options. The Book of Frost is particularly noteworthy, IMO, since it has an exceptionally good mix of strong offensive and defensive spells that work well as a combined toolkit.
* Classes with extremely spread-out skills tend to be hard.

Wanderers deserve some special mention because they range from challenging to easy starts depending on what they get. A wanderer that starts with the Book of Frost, a blowgun, a quarterstaff, and some relevant skills will generally outperform most other non-god starts.