Anyone else gotten worse over time?

[Malevolent]

I don't know - I feel like this, or maybe it's just that I had a lucky streak, but I currently have 14 wins - 1 online and 13 offline. My first 8 or so wins came pretty quickly after one another. It took me quite a while to get my first win, but it didn't take much time at all after that to get my second, and for a while, I won so often, I was actually starting to wonder if Crawl was getting too easy for me. (And it wasn't that I was streaking MiBe's either, I never really wanted to do the "boring stuff" so I experimented with various medium-hard combos.) However, eventually, this run kind of ended, and while I've been steadily getting wins since then (could have gotten a few more, but I generally do 15 rune runs nowadays, unless I'm totally bored with the character or I'm doing one of the casual challenges) I tend to die a lot more nowadays. I think I know the explanation - I used to put in a lot of effort for each character, being really careful at every step, but nowadays... I pretty much play from muscle memory up until Vaults or so with all but the squishiest characters (ever watched a Demise video? Yeah, I play at a similar speed in the early game), and even later I tend to hurry a lot more, which means that I do a lot more careless and frivolous stuff. I guess that after a dozen wins, I can't bring myself to do the hyper-optimal action every encounter, or to stairdance every single time I am "supposed" to. But yeah - while I've gotten better at the game in some ways, it seems that my winrate is actually dropping quite significantly.

Does anyone experience this? I sometimes see people playing online who never use autoexplore, calculating every step, and generally taking forever to play. I wouldn't have the patience for that. Often, I know that I'm not playing optimally even as I engage in a fight I should be running away from, but I just can't be bothered to do the optimal kiting stuff. And the thing is, my threat assessment generally works, more or less, so I don't die all the time, but it does claim a few of my characters. I'm not sure how other people can relate to this - do you also have the patience to do your best with every character, or do you also get sloppy? Is your winrate lower now than it used to be?

[Moose]

So if your play-style is reckless (nothing really wrong with that), you have to accept that if you play squishy characters, your chance of losing is going to be much greater.

Fast play is fun, and certain races work better for that, those typically with good defence aptitudes/capabilities (gargoyles, demonspawn).

Also with a lot of things in life, learning has awkward points in the curve. Sometimes you actually take many steps backwards before you can go forwards again. Just keep at it, and keep learning, and keep building play-patterns that will serve you as you grow.

If you want to train yourself to dial back on the recklessness factor, take part in challenges. Try the weekly casual-league challenge, and actually try to win it on the first try. Try streaking! Careful play can be fun too, however optimal play doesn't look like any fun at all.

[and into]

Also, if you have been playing a lot of Crawl lately, take a little breather. I find if I play too much over a short time I start getting impatient, which ultimately screws with the frustration-to-fun ratio.

[dynast]

I suggest you adjust your pacing, theres no point in rushing, get used to playing slower instead of faster.

[Hellmonk]

Whenever I die in a dumb way I tilt (for lack of a better term) and usually lose a bunch more to sloppy play if I don't force myself to take a break.

[lethediver]

If you are going to play lazy, you should look into heavily modded configs with lua. I've coded mine to stop and force me to enter "y" if i encounter 3+ enemies, hit 30% hp or lower, and some other stuff. Stops me from tab or move spamming myself into bad situations.

I completely understand your dilemma btw, once you get enough dcss experience you kind of can't help internalizing the fact that like less than .1% of all turns are actually dangerous ones requiring serious tactical thought.

[BabyRage]

I've gotten better over time.

[dowan]

Sometimes I get into a character, and then I'll play well for a while, maybe get a few wins. Once I lose the streak I tend to play a lot of silly combos, and play very sloppily. Then I die a lot until I take a break, or my sloppy play results in a character winning, at which point I generally sharpen up again for a while.

I know I'm playing a LOT worse right now than I was during the tourney...

[mopl]

...but I currently have 14 wins - 1 online and 13 offline...

Here is your problem, playing offline is evil. The installer is configured to check your online account and increase difficulty over time if you don't connect... Get some online games and all will be fixed...

Seriously, I feel like deaths appeal more deaths : frustration, quick playing, adder, dead...

Also having some wins under your belt makes you want to try some challenging char, and thus increases difficulty. Trust me, MuWn can be harder than MiBe...

[Malevolent]

Cheers for all the replies. I did actually play Crawl a lot recently, perhaps even overplayed it - but on the other hand, I did also just recently take a break before my latest string of characters. So I don't know.