The alternative to pillar dancing is dying

[Berder]

You might have been livid, but you'd have little justification for it. The devs have been pretty clear that speedrunning, highscores, streaking -- basically any player goal except "grab runes, win game" -- are not important design concerns. They're a meta-game that the player base invented, and as such the player base will have to adapt to the trickle-up effects.

So your reasoning is, the devs have been pretty clear about something they're doing (so you claim), so there's no justification to get angry about it?

That kind of social hierarchical reasoning rubs me the wrong way. What happened to thinking and judging for yourself? If a mugger is pretty clear he's going to mug you, would you say you have no justification to get mad about it? Just because they're devs doesn't mean you don't question and think for yourself whether what they're doing is right.

Apply it to politics. A politician might be "pretty clear" about some policy they want to push through, but if you disagree with the policy, that shouldn't stop you from thinking and dissenting.

[Sar]

mugger is, like, just a victim of society, man

[archaeo]

I misunderstood you, my point was that crawl is not a game that encourages experimentation. I agree that suggested changes would discourage experimentation even more. You probably should not assume that everything else stays the same, there could be other changes to compensate the "never-ending war".

I can't really imagine any "compensation" that would affect how much these changes would transform Crawl's gameplay. I guess you could give all players swiftness as a "run" ability? Buff them so that being unable to retreat for big swaths of the early and midgame isn't such a big deal?

Every idea I've seen either requires significantly rebalancing the game, which just creates a new set of problems, or piling up a bunch of really complicated mechanics designed to let players accomplish roughly the same tricks without calling it "pillar dancing." The only change that avoids the worst of these issues is removing energy randomization, which still doesn't really fix pillar dancing in any meaningful way. If anything, it just makes some kinds of pillar dancing more reliable, while introducing a bunch of other changes throughout Crawl.

So your reasoning is, the devs have been pretty clear about something they're doing (so you claim), so there's no justification to get angry about it?

I'm pretty sure there's never any justification for getting angry about video games. If you disagree with the devs, being pissy about it isn't going to do you any favors, anyway.

The devs have lots of good reasons to focus on the core game and not worry much about speedrunning and other self-imposed challenges. A vanishingly small percentage of Crawl players really bother with trying to do either very seriously, and I think it's pretty reasonable that devs should be focused on making Crawl a fun game in and of itself.

(Also, I love the "so you claim," as if tedric were making stuff up. The devs have been pretty open about the fact that they don't take speedrunning strategies or streakability into consideration when making changes.)

[Berder]

The devs have lots of good reasons to focus on the core game and not worry much about speedrunning and other self-imposed challenges. A vanishingly small percentage of Crawl players really bother with trying to do either very seriously, and I think it's pretty reasonable that devs should be focused on making Crawl a fun game in and of itself.

That argument would make sense if it took the devs extra effort to accommodate speedrunning/streaking. But this discussion has been about changes that would take work to implement and would be actively worse for speedrunning/streaking. So it's not a question of limited effort, it's a question of whether the design choices are good or bad.

Also, although a vanishingly small percentage of Crawl players get to the level of speedrunning/streaking, these players constitute a large percentage of total Crawl playtime, because they are the most dedicated players.

(Also, I love the "so you claim," as if tedric were making stuff up. The devs have been pretty open about the fact that they don't take speedrunning strategies or streakability into consideration when making changes.)

I said "so you claim" because he didn't present any evidence. Which devs have made such statements? Are they unanimous about that?

Here's one piece of evidence: the scoring formula has been changed in the past e.g. to eliminate gold as part of score, which proves they have taken speedrunning strategies into account at least once.

[Sandman25]

I can't really imagine any "compensation" that would affect how much these changes would transform Crawl's gameplay. I guess you could give all players swiftness as a "run" ability? Buff them so that being unable to retreat for big swaths of the early and midgame isn't such a big deal?

Every idea I've seen either requires significantly rebalancing the game, which just creates a new set of problems, or piling up a bunch of really complicated mechanics designed to let players accomplish roughly the same tricks without calling it "pillar dancing." The only change that avoids the worst of these issues is removing energy randomization, which still doesn't really fix pillar dancing in any meaningful way. If anything, it just makes some kinds of pillar dancing more reliable, while introducing a bunch of other changes throughout Crawl.

What do we have now? Pillar dancing for HP/MP regeneration and luring for splitting packs. What countermeasures do we have for that? Energy randomization, monster shouting, spell/melee noise and monsters spawning near stairs.
I am not a dev but let's assume HP/MP does not regen while moving and there is no stairdancing, also we want to discourage luring in some way.
First monster who noticed you keeps shouting all the time while you are moving in its LoS. Thus it does not make much sense to pillar dance/lure unless you know what you are doing, you can wake up too many monsters. Of course you can still run 20 tiles to corridor but then be ready to fight twice as many monsters if you like. But only first monster shouts for balance reasons, there can be an icon in tiles or special color in console. If the first monster is killed, there is a chance that another monster in your LoS will start shouting but again only one monster can do it. To compensate for this difficulty increase more monsters could be sleeping instead of wandering, stabbers might choose to throw a stone at a monster to make it shout (it is easier to kill shouting plain orc than shouting orc warlord). Some players complained that maps are huge in crawl, this idea makes a single level floor similar to a combination of smaller floors provided you are not moving much: you kill monsters, heal and move forward.
Removing stair dancing is not that game-changing IMHO, we do have Abyss/Pan/Hell. If being unable to stairdance with monsters in LoS is unplayable early game, we might change it being unable to do it with adjacent monsters. Also we might increase number of ?fear, ?fog, !haste etc. or even introduce a new consumable which allows to stairdance, let's call it "scroll of magic stairs" .

[all before]

The game manual's philosophy section makes pretty clear that streaking is not a goal because it states that there will be unavoidable deaths, particularly in the early game.

The notions of balance, or being imbalanced, are extremely vague. Here is our definition: Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an arbitrary matter of luck: the skill of players will have the largest impact. So, yes, there may be situations where you are doomed - no action could have saved your life. But then, from the midgame on, most deaths are not of this type: By this stage, almost all casualties can be traced back to actual mistakes; if not tactical ones, then of a strategical type, like wrong skilling (too broad or too narrow), unwise use of resources (too conservative or too liberal), or wrong decisions about branch/god/gear.

The possibility of unavoidable deaths is a larger topic in computer games. Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect play. This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides much more fun in the long run.

[Berder]

The game manual's philosophy section makes pretty clear that streaking is not a goal because it states that there will be unavoidable deaths, particularly in the early game.

That isn't an accurate summary of the manual section you quoted. The passage unequivocally states that unavoidable deaths are bad, but may be justified in order to create challenge and randomness. That doesn't change the fact that eliminating all unavoidable deaths would be the ideal - according to the passage - just an ideal that cannot be achieved.

Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect play. This goal seems out of reach

So first it sets up the ideal. Ideally, every game of crawl should be challenging and random, yet winnable, according to the manual.

This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides much more fun in the long run.

The ideal cannot be achieved perfectly, so the compromise is that unavoidable deaths can occur. The manual makes no statement about the number or proportion of unavoidable deaths; greater than 0 is the only concession it makes.

A change that increases unavoidable deaths without sufficiently increasing the skillful challenge or the random layout of the game is undesirable according to this passage.

[archaeo]

That argument would make sense if it took the devs extra effort to accommodate speedrunning/streaking. But this discussion has been about changes that would take work to implement and would be actively worse for speedrunning/streaking. So it's not a question of limited effort, it's a question of whether the design choices are good or bad.

Ok, but I don't see how that really changes what I said; obviously, the devs want to make good changes and not bad ones. It isn't that it takes "extra effort to accommodate speedrunning/streaking," though, it's that the goals of speedrunners and streakers can be antithetical to making Crawl a better game. The devs certainly aren't purposefully trying to make it harder to speedrun or streak, it's just that, when you have to make a choice between "improving the game" or "protecting a mechanic speedrunners/streakers use," the former should win out.

Also, although a vanishingly small percentage of Crawl players get to the level of speedrunning/streaking, these players constitute a large percentage of total Crawl playtime, because they are the most dedicated players.

So? We typically give plenty of deference to good players, many of whom have contributed to Crawl's development along the way. But being a dedicated player doesn't make one a good game designer.

I said "so you claim" because he didn't present any evidence. Which devs have made such statements? Are they unanimous about that?

Here's one piece of evidence: the scoring formula has been changed in the past e.g. to eliminate gold as part of score, which proves they have taken speedrunning strategies into account at least once.

Uh, are you sure about that? elliptic's commit message sure doesn't bring up speedrunning strategies.

I don't think it's really worth digging up a bunch of old forum posts or ##crawl-dev logs to prove this point. Go ask a dev, and if you find out I'm totally wrong, please let me know.

...or even introduce a new consumable which allows to stairdance, let's call it "scroll of magic stairs" .

I think you're missing my point. Yes, those kinds of changes would "fix" luring, pillar dancing, and stairdancing. But, in the process, it would make Crawl into a very different game, no matter how many new consumables you add in to paper over the changes. It would require rewriting an enormous amount of code and redesigning the entire game around the new paradigm, all in the name of preventing players from doing a very small number of somewhat tedious things.

This is what tabstorm was talking about upthread. It would be easier to make a new roguelike than it would be to make Crawl into this other game.

[Berder]

Here's one piece of evidence: the scoring formula has been changed in the past e.g. to eliminate gold as part of score, which proves they have taken speedrunning strategies into account at least once.

Uh, are you sure about that? elliptic's commit message sure doesn't bring up speedrunning strategies.

It most certainly does.

It was insignificant after the early game and led to strange behavior for
the extremely small subset of games that cared about optimizing early game
score (gold acquirement, not purchasing from shops).

It explicitly mentions that it led to strange behavior for high score runs, and that was the reason for removing it.

[ydeve]

The arguments I'm hearing about removing pillar dancing seem odd to me. The proponents seem to be claiming that having pillar dancing being possible in the game somehow detracts from their enjoyment of it. There is a simple solution to this problem: If you don't like pillar dancing, don't use it in your own games, and let other people enjoy the game the way they want to. If you don't mind your character dying and restarting in the early game, good for you. Other people don't like their characters having the possibility of unavoidable death in the early game, assuming perfect play. So they pillar dance. You don't have to.

[ydeve]

Anyway, I'm in the camp that thinks a correctly designed rougelike should idealy be winnable no matter what the game throws at you. Yes, you occasionally get nethack's gnome-with-the-wand-of-death, but those should be very, very rare.

[archaeo]

It most certainly does.

It was insignificant after the early game and led to strange behavior for
the extremely small subset of games that cared about optimizing early game
score (gold acquirement, not purchasing from shops).

It explicitly mentions that it led to strange behavior for high score runs, and that was the reason for removing it.

Are you trolling me? I think if elliptic had meant "high score runs," he probably would've said so; it's not like he had a good reason to bury the lede. Instead, the commit talks about "optimizing early game score," which I assume was in reference to weird challenges or cratecrawl or other silly metagames that involve leaving the dungeon early.

If you don't mind your character dying and restarting in the early game, good for you. Other people don't like their characters having the possibility of unavoidable death in the early game, assuming perfect play. So they pillar dance. You don't have to.

On the other hand, the developers have been pretty clear that one of the design goals is removing things that are tedious but optimal. If it's optimal to pillar dance, but it's incredibly tedious, then it's not good design. It should be abundantly clear from this thread, however, that nobody agrees whether pillar dancing is optimal or tedious, or even what it precisely is.

[Arrhythmia]

The arguments I'm hearing about removing pillar dancing seem odd to me. The proponents seem to be claiming that having pillar dancing being possible in the game somehow detracts from their enjoyment of it. There is a simple solution to this problem: If you don't like pillar dancing, don't use it in your own games, and let other people enjoy the game the way they want to. If you don't mind your character dying and restarting in the early game, good for you. Other people don't like their characters having the possibility of unavoidable death in the early game, assuming perfect play. So they pillar dance. You don't have to.

Which is why Mountain Dwarves are still in right? Don't like them just don't play them. Same with Death Knight, the Enslavement spell, Hive, etc.

[Sandman25]

all in the name of preventing players from doing a very small number of somewhat tedious things.

I would say a very small number of tedious things which are done very often. Optimal play consists in luring every remotely dangerous monster, early game has lots of pillar dancing even without optimal play, it is extremely time-consuming and repetitive.

It would be easier to make a new roguelike than it would be to make Crawl into this other game.

Yes, probably

[ydeve]

The difference between mountain dwarfs and pillar dancing, which you neglected to mention, is that there is are many alternatives to mountain dwarves other than unavoidable death. The alternative to pillar dancing is dying! The devs want to remove things that are tedious but optimal. I agree with them. I would love to see pillar dancing go. But when you remove something, you change other things so you don't move further away from your other design goals (ie: skill vs. luck). Are the people posting here trying to come up with a solution or make intelligent conversation, or are we just trying to argue with people that disagree with our viewpoints?

Edit: removed personal comment

[Sandman25]

The difference between mountain dwarfs and pillar dancing, which you neglected to mention, is that there is are many alternatives to mountain dwarves other than unavoidable death. The alternative to pillar dancing is dying! The devs want to remove things that are tedious but optimal. I agree with them. I would love to see pillar dancing go. But when you remove something, you change other things so you don't move further away from your other design goals (ie: skill vs. luck). Are the people posting here trying to come up with a solution or make intelligent conversation, or are we just trying to argue with people that disagree with our viewpoints?

Edit: removed personal comment

We are trying to convince people that removing pillar dancing is not end of the world and that players should not expect to survive a goblin as DEFi or TeEE if they miss all the time. There must be challenge combos for most species, not just for Na.

[Berder]

We are trying to convince people that removing pillar dancing is not end of the world and that players should not expect to survive a goblin as DEFi or TeEE if they miss all the time. There must be challenge combos for most species, not just for Na.

So your position is that if a DEFi or TeEE gets unlucky and misses a few times, they should simply die. You call this act of random fate a "challenge." Remind me how this is different from flipping a coin after character creation and dying if it fails to come up heads?

[Sandman25]

We are trying to convince people that removing pillar dancing is not end of the world and that players should not expect to survive a goblin as DEFi or TeEE if they miss all the time. There must be challenge combos for most species, not just for Na.

So your position is that if a DEFi or TeEE gets unlucky and misses a few times, they should simply die. You call this act of random fate a "challenge." Remind me how this is different from flipping a coin after character creation and dying if it fails to come up heads?

How is it different from Banishment/Paralysis at 1% chance, max LCS from Ancient Lich, teleport trap or adjacent player ghost with distortion weapon after using stairs? At least death from pillar dancing will happen on D1-3. If you need pillar dancing after that, the character most likely deserves to die.
If you tell me that presence of those unavoidable deaths does not mean that we should not try to remove unavoidable deaths on D1-D3, I will tell you that pillar dancing is special, it results in very annoying gameplay (yes, I feel stupid for dying when I know I could have just lured and/or pillardanced).

[duvessa]

The alternative to pillar dancing is dying!

People keep claiming this, but have yet to provide any evidence of it other than "I tried to fight a club hobgoblin at xl1 and only survived because of pillar dancing". This anecdote is not good enough evidence in my opinion because it presumes bad play. When dancing and other forms of stalling are removed there will still be the option of simply not fighting the monster you can't fight in the first place.

[lobf]

You might have been livid, but you'd have little justification for it. The devs have been pretty clear that speedrunning, highscores, streaking -- basically any player goal except "grab runes, win game" -- are not important design concerns. They're a meta-game that the player base invented, and as such the player base will have to adapt to the trickle-up effects.

So your reasoning is, the devs have been pretty clear about something they're doing (so you claim), so there's no justification to get angry about it?

That kind of social hierarchical reasoning rubs me the wrong way. What happened to thinking and judging for yourself? If a mugger is pretty clear he's going to mug you, would you say you have no justification to get mad about it? Just because they're devs doesn't mean you don't question and think for yourself whether what they're doing is right.

Apply it to politics. A politician might be "pretty clear" about some policy they want to push through, but if you disagree with the policy, that shouldn't stop you from thinking and dissenting.

Hyperbolic , but I agree with you for the most part. It's not good logic to say that an idea is justified because the devs believe it thus it must be right.

Edit- But I don't know who I agree with here. Crap.

[Siegurt]

The alternative to pillar dancing is dying!

People keep claiming this, but have yet to provide any evidence of it other than "I tried to fight a club hobgoblin at xl1 and only survived because of pillar dancing". This anecdote is not good enough evidence in my opinion because it presumes bad play. When dancing and other forms of stalling are removed there will still be the option of simply not fighting the monster you can't fight in the first place.

Well, right, but there's a reasonable chance that your first 10-20 fights will be fights that you *should probably win* (Like nearly all the time) but might not.

Literally attacking *anything* on D:1 is potentially deadly (Not very likely with a robust race with an ok weapon, but if you don't have both those things your chances of dying go up significantly), if you miss and they hit you, you now have gone from a small chance of death to a very large one, and if the the only solution is "Just suck it up and die now" That hardly qualifies as "good" or "bad" play, that's not play at all, that's just flipping a coin to decide if you get to start playing the game.

I'm not even talking about fighting a hobgoblin, which is one of the harder D:1 things, I'm talking about you are a HuGl and literally the first thing you encounter is a weaponless goblin. Is attacking it "bad play" is not attacking it "good play" how do you not engage a goblin that moves the same speed as you in a 10% explored first level where your options are retreat to the entrance, or flee into blackness and hope you don't run into something that cuts off your escape before you luck into a place where you can break LOS long enough to escape? How is that any *less* tedious that fighting it and maybe having to retreat if you do get very very bad rolls (Because with even with below average rolls a HuGl should beat a goblin, but there *is* a chance of dying to it, and HuGl isn't by far the worst combo you could start with)

[archaeo]

at this point, I literally don't know what people mean by pillar dancing. At what point does "player running away correctly from the enemy" turn into "abusive pillar dancer"? This isn't a rhetorical game that I'm doing, I'm just sincerely puzzled.

[duvessa]

Unless you picked unarmed or something you're not going to lose against an unequipped goblin with hugl. Sure, bad luck does happen - old versions had an entry vault that explicitly placed a hobgoblin, for example - but games in which stalling is required to survive are much rarer than new players often think. Of course removing it increases the game's difficulty a bit, but that doesn't seem like it should be a deciding factor. I can think of a lot of things that would make the game easier but also make it worse, such as Elbereth or detect creatures or starting characters at xl2.

at this point, I literally don't know what people mean by pillar dancing. At what point does "player running away correctly from the enemy" turn into "abusive pillar dancer"? This isn't a rhetorical game that I'm doing, I'm just sincerely puzzled.

I'm guessing running in order to regenerate or get favourable energy randomization, rather than running in order to get better terrain or escape with stairs. Fun fact, randomized energy was introduced in order to get rid of "pillar dancing", that sure worked great...

People call it "pillar dancing" because prior to randomized energy it was most common to use a single wall tile to do it against orc priests, guaranteeing they wouldn't cast any spells during the cycle (until another monster appeared). And crimson imps and phantoms I guess. Now that randomized energy exists it is no longer useful against orc priests but has probably become more common against nearly everything else...

[Berder]

How is it different from Banishment/Paralysis at 1% chance, max LCS from Ancient Lich, teleport trap or adjacent player ghost with distortion weapon after using stairs?

First of all, deaths from that kind of thing are much less common than missing a few rolls on D1-3. So it's a much smaller problem.

And importantly, dying to an alich, teleport trap, disto weapon, etc. is really almost always avoidable. When I look at my late game deaths there's almost always some specific wrong tactical decision I made that I should have done differently, that would have resulted in survival if I had.

So the number of truly unavoidable deaths to such things in the late game is vanishingly small, almost negligible. It's only a little problem.


The majority of truly unavoidable deaths are on D1-3, primarily D1. That's where it really matters and that's why we need pillar dancing.

Of course removing it increases the game's difficulty a bit,

Wrong, it increases the game's random unavoidable deaths by a bit. That's not difficulty because there's no skill involved.

I think if elliptic had meant "high score runs," he probably would've said so; it's not like he had a good reason to bury the lede. Instead, the commit talks about "optimizing early game score," which I assume was in reference to weird challenges or cratecrawl or other silly metagames that involve leaving the dungeon early.

It's possible that's what he meant, but either way, the patch was motivated by "metagaming" considerations.

[archaeo]

I'm guessing running in order to regenerate or get favourable energy randomization, rather than running in order to get better terrain or escape with stairs. Fun fact, randomized energy was introduced in order to get rid of "pillar dancing", that sure worked great...

Well, isn't that kind of the issue? It seems like a hard thing, figuring out a mechanic that allows "good running" but punishes "bad running" at the same time.

[duvessa]

if you removed energy randomization and regeneration while moving it would pretty much do it
or if you made no monsters the same speed as the player

[tedric]

You might have been livid, but you'd have little justification for it. The devs have been pretty clear that speedrunning, highscores, streaking -- basically any player goal except "grab runes, win game" -- are not important design concerns. They're a meta-game that the player base invented, and as such the player base will have to adapt to the trickle-up effects.

So your reasoning is, the devs have been pretty clear about something they're doing (so you claim), so there's no justification to get angry about it?

That kind of social hierarchical reasoning rubs me the wrong way. What happened to thinking and judging for yourself? If a mugger is pretty clear he's going to mug you, would you say you have no justification to get mad about it? Just because they're devs doesn't mean you don't question and think for yourself whether what they're doing is right.

Apply it to politics. A politician might be "pretty clear" about some policy they want to push through, but if you disagree with the policy, that shouldn't stop you from thinking and dissenting.

My reasoning is that the devs are putting in their time and energy with absolutely zero compensation so that the rest of us can enjoy a video game entirely for free, and it is more or less explicit that a game in active development will change in accordance with whatever design goals or philosophy the current devs are applying, and it is rather obvious that if I felt strongly about influencing the path of either the guiding philosophy or the day-to-day development itself I could offer my own contributions to the effort -- and therefore it would be childish of me to throw a tantrum whenever the current devs apply the current design philosophy and decide to change this freely given game in a way that makes it harder for me to derive some kind of secondary satisfaction out of an idiosyncratic set of external rules that I invented for myself.

Let's apply this to muggings, and politics:

Mugging

• "Stealing is immoral and illegal, and if you mug me I will press charges." -- Justified.
• "How dare you follow through on your stated intention to mug me!" -- Unjustified.
• "You're interrupting my game of tag, you knife-wielding bastard!" -- Childish.

Politics

• "Your policy is poorly conceived and ineffective and should be changed in the following way...and you should listen to me because I'm a voter in your district and my taxes pay your salary." -- Justified.
• "I'm mad that you're trying to follow through on your campaign promise!" -- Unjustified.
• "Your policy ruined my game of Town Hall Bingo, and now I hate you!" -- Childish.

Which of these does our hypothetical speedrunner most resemble? Everybody knows the devs aren't making Dungeon Crawl: Speedrun Soup. (Nor Streak Soup, nor Highscore Soup.)

But really, my reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with social hierarchies or flawed analogies, and has everything to do with gratitude (for the free game I can easily play in a way that feels fun to me) and pragmatism (because I lack the time/skills/inclination to join the development effort myself) and respect (for the choices the devs make, which on the whole seem to have improved the game immensely since I started playing back around version 0.8).

the number of truly unavoidable deaths to such things in the late game is vanishingly small, almost negligible. It's only a little problem.

The majority of truly unavoidable deaths are on D1-3, primarily D1. That's where it really matters and that's why we need pillar dancing.

I'm sincerely curious about the numbers here, because I have a suspicion that the number of truly unavoidable deaths in any part of the game is vanishingly small, almost negligible. I don't doubt that the majority of truly unavoidable deaths are on D1, but is the raw number actually significant? Significant enough that we'd notice if one of the changes suggested previously in this thread were to, say, double it? Two times a very small number is still a very small number! But I don't think there's any possible algorithm that can quantify "unavoidable" for us -- so it's every player's anecdotes for themselves. Personally, I think the vast majority of my D1 deaths (and literally all of my post-D1 deaths) are completely avoidable, and I wouldn't care if they happened twice as often in exchange for a more tightly designed game overall.

[daggaz]

If you don't like pillar dancing, you should just slam doors instead. This is optimal because it is a lot more fun when I picture it in my head.

character flees from angry hobgoblin
slams door behind him
door opens
'come on, let me kill you'
NO! slams door
door opens
'come on, let me kill you'
NO! slams door
feeling better now
door opens
punch hobgoblin in face, cover in liquid flames

[Sandman25]

The majority of truly unavoidable deaths are on D1-3, primarily D1. That's where it really matters and that's why we need pillar dancing.

No, we need a way to guarantee there will no be too many misses. For example, HoMM3 has this mechanic, it guarantees that you cannot miss (or hit) 3 times in a row when attacking wraiths (if I am not mistaken with the name). Then you cannot blame RNG, if you engaged in a fight where you can die with bad luck, it is your decision (or fault) as you always can run into unexplored territory looking for stairs
Again my point is that there should no be such situation where the only way to die is to do a mistake because it would mean that all combos are OP.
What's the difference between OpBe/MuBe/FeBe and TrBe/MiBe/HOBe if you cannot die anyway?

[bel]

The alternative to pillar dancing is dying!

People keep claiming this, but have yet to provide any evidence of it other than "I tried to fight a club hobgoblin at xl1 and only survived because of pillar dancing". This anecdote is not good enough evidence in my opinion because it presumes bad play. When dancing and other forms of stalling are removed there will still be the option of simply not fighting the monster you can't fight in the first place.

As one of the givers of the anecdote of "hobgoblin on D:1", I do not see how what duvessa's point about "bad play" is. If you are near death because of a few bad rolls, this means you had "bad play" because you engaged a monster which had a small chance to kill you instead of running away? That would rule out almost all the monsters on D:1.

The discussion about politics etc. is too abstract for my taste, but I would make the following points:
a) pillar dancing exists and has existed for a long time, so this is not something that devs think is unambiguously bad
b) pillar dancing is not risk-free, and therefore not a no-brainer, because other monsters might find you
c) nobody is forcing anyone to pillar dance. If it truly saves a very small fraction of deaths, you are free to not engage in it, and save yourselves the tedium. Removing it would force other people to play as you do.
d) The discussion about "truly unavoidable" deaths is misleading. In a game filled with thousands of encounters, even a small chance of bad decisions add up. Sure, you might have made a mistake in a particular case, but we are not aiming for a pixel-perfect coordination of perfect moves here.

[Sandman25]

The discussion about politics etc. is too abstract for my taste, but I would make the following points:
a) pillar dancing exists and has existed for a long time, so this is not something that devs think is unambiguously bad
b) pillar dancing is not risk-free, and therefore not a no-brainer, because other monsters might find you
c) nobody is forcing anyone to pillar dance. If it truly saves a very small fraction of deaths, you are free to not engage in it, and save yourselves the tedium. Removing it would force other people to play as you do.
d) The discussion about "truly unavoidable" deaths is misleading. In a game filled with thousands of encounters, even a small chance of bad decisions add up. Sure, you might have made a mistake in a particular case, but we are not aiming for a pixel-perfect coordination of perfect moves here.

a) item destruction has existed for a long time, so this is not something that devs thought was unambiguously bad
b) pillar dancing is the only way to survive often, and therefore is a no-brainer, because it is the only way
c) nobody was forcing anyone to retreat from a monster with fire/cold attack to drop scrolls/potions on the ground before fighting. If it truly saves a very small number of items, you are free to not engage in it, and save yourselves the tedium. Removing it would force other people to play as you do.
d) I am not sure how to reply to this because I don't understand your point. Truly unavoidable deaths exist. You start as Fe in a 1 tile room, open the only door and get an ooze and two goblins who block your only way outside (this is my anecdote).

[bel]

I was replying to tedric and duvessa. I have replied to you in the other thread and don't want to repeat it here.

I can't really reply to you because point (b) "pillar dancing is only way to survive often" and point (c) "it saves truly a small number of deaths" are inconsistent.

[Sandman25]

I was replying to tedric and duvessa. I have replied to you in the other thread and don't want to repeat it here.

I can't really reply to you because point (b) "pillar dancing is only way to survive often" and point (c) "it saves truly a small number of deaths" are inconsistent.

That's because it saves from a large number of deaths. As I wrote before it makes weak combos almost immune to dying and this is why it is used very often.

[dynast]

Apparently crawl is not the game i thought it was, i didnt know you were not supposed to be able to disengage from fights without the use of consumables or a ring of teleportation. Oh well, i guess i am gonna start treating ogres, giant frogs and killer bees with the indifference they deserve.

[Sandman25]

Apparently crawl is not the game i thought it was, i didnt know you were not supposed to be able to disengage from fights without the use of consumables or a ring of teleportation. Oh well, i guess i am gonna start treating ogres, giant frogs and killer bees with the indifference they deserve.

Have you missed "if you removed energy randomization and regeneration while moving it would pretty much do it"?

[dynast]

Do what? other than making moving hazardous so that optimal play is now shouting from the stairs after clearing d:1 and throwing stones at everything.
Also you left out the "made no monsters the same speed as the player" part for some reason...

[Sandman25]

Do what? other than making moving hazardous so that optimal play is now shouting from the stairs after clearing d:1 and throwing stones at everything.
Also you left out the "made no monsters the same speed as the player" part for some reason...

I meant that nobody is going to make you unable to disengage from fights, all we want to do is to remove pillar dancing for HP/MP regeneration and for "get away from adjacent monsters due to energy randomization".

[dynast]

And i meant that you encourage stair dancing that way. So im just gonna assume that you gonna deny that now and my next response is:

If you cant run to regen, which is the definition of "disengage" and if you cant go upstairs because an enemy caught up with you, THEN YOU CANT DISENGAGE.

[Sandman25]

And i meant that you encourage stair dancing that way. So im just gonna assume that you gonna deny that now and my next response is:

If you cant run to regen, which is the definition of "disengage" and if you cant go upstairs because an enemy caught up with you, THEN YOU CANT DISENGAGE.

Probably my understanding of disengaging is wrong, I thought it is a synonym of escaping (i.e. you no longer have the monster in LoS and can rest with 5).
Yes, if you underestimated a monster and now it is adjacent to you and you cannot kill it, you should use blink/consumable/ability. What is wrong with it?

[archaeo]

Man after a good sleep this all just seems really dumb to me.

I find it really hard to understand why "pillar dancing" is so bad, in part because everybody who thinks it's a serious design flaw seems to think so for different reasons, and also because as far as "tedious things I'd like to remove from Crawl" go, "occasionally retreating to regen HP or to gain a little distance to read a scroll" is pretty far down the list. That's fine, I've been wrong about game design before, and I'll be wrong again, so whatever.

I find it equally hard to understand those opposed to the change, because it really isn't that big a deal and probably won't make the game play much more differently. If anything, it'll just encourage better play because players will be forced to start running away sooner if they want to make it up the stairs unaccompanied. If it ends up creating a massive upswing in D:1 deaths, that can be addressed in a way that isn't a sloppy mechanic that keeps duvessa and Sandman25 up all night, fretting about how tedious everyone's crawl games are. It's really easy to imagine Crawl turning into this horrifyingly difficult game where everyone is worshipping a mini-Chei that makes everything in the dungeon slightly faster than you, but given that the devs aren't purposefully trying to make an unplayable game, I bet it will be better than that.

So, in conclusion: whatever. Put stuff in Trunk, let's see how it plays in the actual real game. Then we can stop arguing about what we think will happen and can argue about what's actually happening, just kidding we're going to keep arguing.

[Sandman25]

I am up all night because I suffer from time zone shift and not because I cannot sleep as long as pillar dancing exists

[dynast]

Like i said, im gonna treat monsters the same way, im gonna be throwing stones more, im gonna be sticking close to stairs, im gonna over value summons, zombies, blinking and teleport ring less for their main purposes and more for their escaping mechanisms, im gonna watch as VS, troll, centaur, felid and spriggan get removed and from that im gonna conclude the strategic value of the game will have decreased.

[Siegurt]

The thing is we actually have 3 different games we're talking about here:

1. You are XL1, and have no tools at your disposal, the options which you have at your disposal are *extremely* limited, there's "fight something and win", "Don't fight and run away (provided you have explored space enough that this is plausible)" and "Fight something you should win against most of the time, and if things go poorly use pillar dancing to reset the fight, and hope you don't die to energy randomization while doing so (or that energy randomization works in your favor and you can use it to escape altogether)"
2. You are in the very early game but not XL1, you have *some* choices, but they're fairly limited, what kind of choices you have depend on what consumable's you've found, what equipment you've found, if you have spells in your starting spellbook which might help etc. A well built early game character will often but not always have more choices than an XL1 character (possibly some risky choices like drinking unid'd potions), and moreover the separation between "fight that you should win" and "fight you might not win" is much clearer once you have a couple more XL's of HPs. So you're not nearly as likely to lose a fight you would expect to win.
3. You are not in the early game, you should definitely have some sort of (possibly in limited supply) escape options, you can end up in a fight that you should win, which is unluckily going poorly for you, and still win or escape, so as long as your decision making about what to engage is solid, you shouldn't die to bad luck.

Sandman's position seems to be that in game 1, it *should* just be a crapshoot, binary unanticipatable death should be encouraged and that going from 3 options to 2 would be better, I'm guessing that his contention stems from the fact that having the third option available in all games, makes game 3 (the one you play for longer) potentially tedious.

After 25+ years designing games for myself and my friends, one thing I can tell you is that if you want anyone to enjoy your game, you *always* include some hope, the hope can be slim and unlikely, it can be unreliable, it can be difficult to pursue, it can even be tedious, (it can even be false as long as no-one finds out) but a game with no hope at all is simply frustrating. With no outlet to hope for at all, it's only interesting as an academic puzzle, to be completed once and then put down forever.

Note that the hope I'm talking about also has to be a choice, something that the player can *do or not do* it can't be the default activity and hoping that the dice roll in your favor (In the case of a fight, it can't be "just keep fighting and hope things work out" for instance).

HP/MP regeneration while moving isn't *required* to provide that hope, energy randomization alone would be sufficient, if it were random enough that it would actually be possible to escape otherwise hopeless situations with some frequency, it would also be sufficient if every character started with a scroll of teleport, or some sort of costly ability that would let them escape in some fashion, or you could have every creature move slightly faster than the player, but have the possibility of being distracted and wandering off if you didn't hit them for a while. You could even do something silly like have HP/MP regeneration while moving be a thing at XL1, but go away by the time you're in game 3. (I feel like that would be inconsistent and awkward as hell, also counter to the whole "Gaining XP shouldn't ever make you worse" but it would work)

There's lots of possible solutions, however removing *all* hope from situation 1 characters will make me (and a lot of other people) not enjoy the game at all any more, therefore I feel it's appropriate to talk about if pillar dancing does go away, what should replace it, because with nothing replacing it, you no longer have a game.

Changes don't and shouldn't happen in a vacuum, good game design means you look at how to take out things that are boring or detrimental, but you also figure out how to replace them, when they provide something valuable to the game.

[Siegurt]

And i meant that you encourage stair dancing that way. So im just gonna assume that you gonna deny that now and my next response is:

If you cant run to regen, which is the definition of "disengage" and if you cant go upstairs because an enemy caught up with you, THEN YOU CANT DISENGAGE.

Probably my understanding of disengaging is wrong, I thought it is a synonym of escaping (i.e. you no longer have the monster in LoS and can rest with 5).
Yes, if you underestimated a monster and now it is adjacent to you and you cannot kill it, you should use blink/consumable/ability. What is wrong with it?

What's wrong with it is that the situation we're talking about is before you have any of those things, and we're not talking about "you underestimated a monster's ability to kill you" we're talking about "You correctly estimated you had a 99% chance of killing this creature, and you happened to roll in the 1% this time" Since you often fight more than 100 creatures before you have access to "blink/consumeable/ability" this comes up more often than you seem to be implying.

[Sandman25]

After 25+ years designing games for myself and my friends, one thing I can tell you is that if you want anyone to enjoy your game, you *always* include some hope, the hope can be slim and unlikely, it can be unreliable, it can be difficult to pursue, it can even be tedious, (it can even be false as long as no-one finds out) but a game with no hope at all is simply frustrating. With no outlet to hope for at all, it's only interesting as an academic puzzle, to be completed once and then put down forever.

I spent 10+ turns at 1 HP adjacent to hasted Wiglaf and a spider killing both as a character with average defences (I was berserking and attacking Wiglaf all this time), another character was a confused mummy who survived 10+ turns adjacent to rats and Yaks (again having 1 HP all this time), please don't tell me that pillar dancing is the only hope. I suspect the game might be more exciting even if it means more deaths and more skill required.

[Siegurt]

After 25+ years designing games for myself and my friends, one thing I can tell you is that if you want anyone to enjoy your game, you *always* include some hope, the hope can be slim and unlikely, it can be unreliable, it can be difficult to pursue, it can even be tedious, (it can even be false as long as no-one finds out) but a game with no hope at all is simply frustrating. With no outlet to hope for at all, it's only interesting as an academic puzzle, to be completed once and then put down forever.

I spent 10+ turns at 1 HP adjacent to hasted Wiglaf and a spider killing both as a character with average defences (I was berserking and attacking Wiglaf all this time), another character was a confused mummy who survived 10+ turns adjacent to rats and Yaks, please don't tell me that pillar dancing is the only hope. I suspect the game might be more exciting even if it means more deaths and more skill required.

Did you read the rest of the post? I was saying that you have no hope in what I was referring to as "Game 1" and possibly "Game 2" that is to say *the very early game before you have any other consumables* It doesn't apply to that situation at all. (And how does 'Waiting out the confusion and maybe not dying' qualify as either exciting or skillful?)

[Sandman25]

HP/MP regeneration while moving isn't *required* to provide that hope, energy randomization alone would be sufficient, if it were random enough that it would actually be possible to escape otherwise hopeless situations with some frequency

So I have 1 HP and the monster has 99 HP. With fighting I have 1% chance to win (let's call it "hope"), with pillar dancing I have 50% chance to escape. Is it good?

[tabstorm]

i still don't understand what (if anything) this thread is trying to convey after I read all of it again. Is it really a problem for people to run around in a circle to regenerate MP/HP?

[Sandman25]

Did you read the rest of the post? I was saying that you have no hope in what I was referring to as "Game 1" and possibly "Game 2" that is to say *the very early game before you have any other consumables* It doesn't apply to that situation at all. (And how does 'Waiting out the confusion and maybe not dying' qualify as either exciting or skillful?)

Yes, I have read the whole post after replying
I like your other ideas to give a scroll of teleportation or potion of haste.
Waiting out the confusion was really exciting, I don't remember which characters I have won or tried but I remember very well that moment, it was a pleasant shock.

Edit. I stop participating in the thread. Hopefully my position is clear.

[Siegurt]

HP/MP regeneration while moving isn't *required* to provide that hope, energy randomization alone would be sufficient, if it were random enough that it would actually be possible to escape otherwise hopeless situations with some frequency

So I have 1 HP and the monster has 99 HP. With fighting I have 1% chance to win (let's call it "hope"), with pillar dancing I have 50% chance to escape. Is it good?

I didn't say it was, I just said that removing it and replacing it with nothing at all would be bad. The reason that pillar dancing is bad is because it's boring and tedious, not specifically because of it's odds of letting you escape/win.

I personally think it's odds of letting you escape/win are a bit too high (At least considering that it's infinitely usable), and the tedium involved is WAY too high, there should be negligable tedium and some but not overwhelming odds of escaping or winning (being clear that I'm talking about in the very very early game when you don't have any other options at all yet, and randomness has the greatest impact on the results of your fight), which means replacing it with *something*, rather than simply removing it.