Difficulty settings

[danr]

It seems to me it would be pretty easy to add a difficulty setting to the game. Monsters generate with more HP, less item generation - whatever seems to make sense. Let newbies play at level 1, and the players who need more of a challenge can play at difficulty setting 2 to 4. Setting 5 just places a balrug in the entry vault with you.

[Sandman25]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

I think it can be achieved with lua. When HP reaches 50% of max HP, the game would automatically quit (Ctrl+q) the character. My autosave feature is similar.

[Sprucery]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

I think it can be achieved with lua. When HP reaches 50% of max HP, the game would automatically quit (Ctrl+q) the character. My autosave feature is similar.

OK, but instead a boring quit it should be a dramatic suicide. "Disappointed at you own performance, you commit seppuku."

[Siegurt]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

I think it can be achieved with lua. When HP reaches 50% of max HP, the game would automatically quit (Ctrl+q) the character. My autosave feature is similar.

Torment would suck though, insta-kill doesn't sound like much fun to me.

[johlstei]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

This would be kind of an uneven difficulty shift between races. I feel like not all HP are created equal, and the marginal value of each additional HP goes down as you get more of it. Halving one's HP as a spriggan is much worse than halving it as a minotaur, even though they lose less total HP.

I guess it doesn't matter much though and would still be fun to try.

[Sandman25]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

I think it can be achieved with lua. When HP reaches 50% of max HP, the game would automatically quit (Ctrl+q) the character. My autosave feature is similar.

Torment would suck though, insta-kill doesn't sound like much fun to me.

Yes, you are right. lua cannot help here

[dpeg]

I don't know if you noticed at all, but some of you have ruined a perfectly nice thread. You can get a hint by comparing the first half and the second.

Now, nothing is designed on the forum anyway. But it really seems as if I am better off in private communication.
To end on a positive note: I've copied some ideas onto my Crawl sheet... perhaps something can come out of it. Thanks for the ideas!

[Sandman25]

Sorry about "ruining" the thread. Providing a way to increase difficulty is not off topic here and it's hard to discuss it when difficulty levels is in "won't do" list for some weird reason.

[duvessa]

What the hell is going on? I left overnight and suddenly posts are getting split and deleted, people are quoting something that I never said, dpeg is playing the victim again, and danr apparently suggested something on the won't do list for the 10th or 11th time. Goddammit I just wanted to remove cTele, people.

[Pereza0]

I dislike the idea of having a difficulty setting that messes around with spawns and stuff like that a lot. I feel it would be a lot more work, you now have more difficulties to balance, with different philosophies (are instakills are valid in the hardest difficulty, for example?) and having harder difficulties kind of delegitimizes easier runs a bit IMO. Races provide enough challenge as it stands.

Having a race that can't take much punishment and can't quaff potions at all is to me a more interesting challenge than having the game spawn hardier monsters and less consumables overall.

What I would tolerate, and actually enjoy a lot, would be having an entirely different dungeon as an alternative to the regular one for more hardcore players. A dungeon with a completely different layout (eg: no Lair early), somewhat different monster set (and especially, the order at which stuff shows up - but also new stuff. Maybe even randomized to a certain extent) and a different objective (some other Mc Guffin, no runes, probably). This dungeon would basically be an entirely different game. It could get stuff like a far more strict turn limit (floors start getting flooded with demons from top to bottom since the very beginning, and it doesn't have to do with how much time you have spent on that particular level, rather with the overall turns), having different damage types like negative energy or corrosion being more significant early on, demons showing up earlier, etc...

I know its crazy, but it is the only way I would enjoy seeing a harder difficulty implemented

[Sandman25]

I dislike the idea of having a difficulty setting that messes around with spawns and stuff like that a lot. I feel it would be a lot more work, you now have more difficulties to balance, with different philosophies (are instakills are valid in the hardest difficulty, for example?) and having harder difficulties kind of delegitimizes easier runs a bit IMO. Races provide enough challenge as it stands.

Having a race that can't take much punishment and can't quaff potions at all is to me a more interesting challenge than having the game spawn hardier monsters and less consumables overall.

HP-related difficulty levels are extremely easy to implement. Devs would need to support balance for only one difficulty level (default=normal=current). Races as balance tool are boring and limited, for example I stopped playing some species because they are too powerful, new players can stop playing some species because they are too weak early game. It could be fun/good to play Tr with 50% HP or Fe with 150% HP.
I love games where last difficulty level is almost impossible to win, it means I can play the game much longer. In crawl I had to use some crazy conducts to stay interested.

[scorpionwarrior]

For a difficulty setting I propose what I've proposed before: an rcfile option to scale your HP. Try beating the game with 50% maxHP, should be harder.

I think it can be achieved with lua. When HP reaches 50% of max HP, the game would automatically quit (Ctrl+q) the character. My autosave feature is similar.

OK, but instead a boring quit it should be a dramatic suicide. "Disappointed at you own performance, you commit seppuku."

throwing javelins at yourself is always a great way to go

[Moose]

If people really need varying difficulty levels, character/class combos can provide quite a bit of that.

eg GrGl vs TeEe

[johlstei]

people are quoting something that I never said,

My bad, I must have messed up editing out parts of quotes. It's fixed now.

[Sandman25]

If people really need varying difficulty levels, character/class combos can provide quite a bit of that.

eg GrGl vs TeEe

It is not enough IMHO. What should a player do after winning TeEE/DEBe/FeBe/MiWz?

[cerebovssquire]

There wouldn't be my "hardest character combinations" of choice (FeBe and MiWz, in particular, are both really easy) but there are other ways to challenge yourself than simply winning. You can move on to streaking or speedruns (realtime or turns), especially turn speedruns will require a high level of skill.

[Sandman25]

There wouldn't be my "hardest character combinations" of choice (FeBe and MiWz, in particular, are both really easy) but there are other ways to challenge yourself than simply winning. You can move on to streaking or speedruns (realtime or turns), especially turn speedruns will require a high level of skill.

For me any speedruns are like playing a different game, I don't like them. Streaking is not enough to interest me and I am already streaking anyway.
Could you please advise any interesting characters to play? Without conducts like play TrFE as pure caster who uses nothing but magic, it's too luck-dependent (similar to speedruns by the way).

[tasonir]

Speedrunning (for high score, aka min turns and 15 runes) is a new favorite of mine, but if you don't like that, here's some unusual characters:

Most anything of Chei. Popular with transmuters, and my personal favorite, so that's why this is #1. Suggestions: Ogre or Naga (more odd); gargoyle or VS (more powerful).

Felid or Octopode statue form of any god. Armor is overrated.

Warpers played with a high interest in actual translocation spells - recommended Sif Muna to ensure you get access to singularity, controlled blink, disjunction, etc. Pick something with a good translocation and spellcasting aptitude and try to actually get singularity going for the end game. It's a fun spell.

Deep dwarf without a healing god - it's been done. Not sure if I'd say it's fun, though.

A slinger who remains with slings all game long. They aren't that bad, really, just a little.

For more fun, play anything and learn hydra form, because hydra form is reason enough. #JustTransmuterThings

[Bloax]

Deep dwarf without a healing god - it's been done. Not sure if I'd say it's fun, though.

It's very tense, and I liked that. It's certainly not something everyone likes as you can witness by the amount of people playing DD^!Ru/Makh/Trog/Ely.
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As for difficulty settings, then I wouldn't mind settings to variate the amount of monsters that spawn (or even disabling passive spawning and instead spawning a lot of monsters a single time) and how much they chase you.
Decreasing player health and increasing monster health seems like a concept that really doesn't have place in this game, and certainly the game would be made harder if corridor generation was lowered alongside an increased amount of monsters that roam the floors just as well.

[KoboldLord]

It seems to me it would be pretty easy to add a difficulty setting to the game. Monsters generate with more HP, less item generation - whatever seems to make sense. Let newbies play at level 1, and the players who need more of a challenge can play at difficulty setting 2 to 4. Setting 5 just places a balrug in the entry vault with you.

I don't think this is a good method of creating difficulty levels. Hit point inflation might be good enough for AAA games, but for most monsters in Crawl it means you just waste a larger amount of time dealing with them. A few get genuinely harder because they get more times to attempt their gimmick, but this means they get bumped into 'not worth it, just avoid' territory rather than resulting in a more interesting encounter. Similarly, reducing player hit points by a significant percentage means you get a random roll every level on at least some characters that results in you autoexploring into instant death.

Difficulty levels are a very difficult game design problem, and I don't think a slapdash solution would be good for the game. Implemented difficulty levels would need to be carefully play-tested to ensure the game remains fun at each and every single one of those difficulty levels, and every new feature or change would need to be verified to not break enjoyment in every difficulty level. This would be a huge timesink for developer hours and I can hardly blame them for having other things that they'd rather do.

[Sandman25]

Most anything of Chei. Popular with transmuters, and my personal favorite, so that's why this is #1. Suggestions: Ogre or Naga (more odd); gargoyle or VS (more powerful).

Felid or Octopode statue form of any god. Armor is overrated.

Yes, I know Armour is overrated, my OgTm sacrificed both Armour and Dodging and died stupidly because I felt it was impossible to die with 340HP, AC40+ and haste spell. Won 6 Felids, most used Transmutations.
I am playing OpTm now, unfortunately I found Oka on D2.

Warpers played with a high interest in actual translocation spells - recommended Sif Muna to ensure you get access to singularity, controlled blink, disjunction, etc. Pick something with a good translocation and spellcasting aptitude and try to actually get singularity going for the end game. It's a fun spell.

My last game was NaWr of Kiku, I tried Singularity with another character (before recent changes though, Sif Muna didn't grant me the spell by the way despite I had 20+ Translocations).

Deep dwarf without a healing god - it's been done. Not sure if I'd say it's fun, though.

I played DDNe of such god, it died stupidly in Vaults. It wasn't painful, Vampiric Draining is great.

A slinger who remains with slings all game long. They aren't that bad, really, just a little.

HaAs of Trog with Slings

For more fun, play anything and learn hydra form, because hydra form is reason enough

That's how my OgTm died, I forgot to switch from Statue Form without Haste to Hydra Form with Haste until too late.
Thank you for the ideas! I think I will play FeWr of Chei in statue form with new Singularity to combine all of them

[Sandman25]

I don't think this is a good method of creating difficulty levels. Hit point inflation might be good enough for AAA games, but for most monsters in Crawl it means you just waste a larger amount of time dealing with them. A few get genuinely harder because they get more times to attempt their gimmick, but this means they get bumped into 'not worth it, just avoid' territory rather than resulting in a more interesting encounter. Similarly, reducing player hit points by a significant percentage means you get a random roll every level on at least some characters that results in you autoexploring into instant death.

Yes, increased HP for monsters does not lead to instant deaths, it encourages playing more carefully. Currently some characters can rush to monsters and kill everyone even without cleaving, that would be punished by death at higher difficulty

[KoboldLord]

Yes, increased HP for monsters does not lead to instant deaths, it encourages playing more carefully.

I think you might have misread my post. I'm not entirely sure what you thought I meant.

Currently some characters can rush to monsters and kill everyone even without cleaving, that would be punished by death at higher difficulty

More likely, I'll just spend three times as long mashing tab to get rid of monsters that aren't actually any more dangerous. One of the ways that Slash'EM tries to make Nethack harder is to flood the monster list with inflated hit points and damage. If you tried it out, you'd see just how badly number inflation actually works in practice.

[Sandman25]

More likely, I'll just spend three times as long mashing tab to get rid of monsters that aren't actually any more dangerous. One of the ways that Slash'EM tries to make Nethack harder is to flood the monster list with inflated hit points and damage. If you tried it out, you'd see just how badly number inflation actually works in practice.

No, I haven't tried Slash'EM but I've seen HP/XP inflation makes wonders in Eador, where character should defeat a pack of monsters to proceed. Avoiding some monsters is already present for most combos especially early game. I guess you don't like Fe.

[cerebovssquire]

There wouldn't be my "hardest character combinations" of choice (FeBe and MiWz, in particular, are both really easy) but there are other ways to challenge yourself than simply winning. You can move on to streaking or speedruns (realtime or turns), especially turn speedruns will require a high level of skill.

For me any speedruns are like playing a different game, I don't like them. Streaking is not enough to interest me and I am already streaking anyway.
Could you please advise any interesting characters to play? Without conducts like play TrFE as pure caster who uses nothing but magic, it's too luck-dependent (similar to speedruns by the way).

Not much you can do if you don't want to speedrun, I think, other than quitting crawl (maybe pick it up again in a later version where there's a lot of new content). That's what I am doing. If you haven't won a MuCK yet you could try that, but it isn't particularily hard anymore since clarity works and it also isn't really fun, either. MuAK is an actually fun and relatively challenging character, I suppose, but I probably simply didn't use Banish/Corrupt enough and therefore thought it was hard when it didnt have to be. Maybe try a branchless win.
I got bored and switched to doomrl for a while. Got bored with that too and now I guess I'll focus more on uni or something, ugh.

[duvessa]

There's no arguing it. The change in PC is too much these days. I am being overwhelmed by the sheer face of the tidal wave of shit-wave tech obscuring my vision of the real PC gaming scene that I knew from way back. Someone has to fight it. What can stop the scene from changing its own colors? Nothing until no body is doing the job. People need a hero, maybe not the hero they deserve but a sole champion can change the dramatically bad Call of Duty sequelitis. The next Call of Duty ought to feature next generation space warfare not the same damn scenario rehashed. Where is the innovation in every modern FPS having a tec-9 gat with a flashlight or some other grinder-only item. For instance, PC gaming was rich with atmosphere and tension before Madden showed up and took a shit on the separation between sports games and REAL games. With deep mechanics that take ages to uncover all the whilst kindling interest with random encounters, superfluously difficult monsters (for when you are higher level, of course), and dialog that didn't force you to mash skip (until all of the times after your first reading, because cutscene-type behavior wasn't bound up with the gameplay). The good old days that's a time when a man has to look back and then look forward and then down and say damn it. Where are the good videogames? What is this world coming to? Do I have to return to reading books? I agree, why is PC gaming so bad now days?

Best Regards,
RG