First impressions 0.8.*

[roguelikedev]

Ashenzari is a very fun god. She feels kind of Nemelex-ish in that you're playing an item subgame, but unlike Nemelex that game is actually fun. I've played to Lair2/D12.5/Orc4 on one of those ridiculous deep elves the RNG gives you when you've been playing kenku fighters in order to make you feel like an idiot. I claim no credit whatsoever for his success. He got a +2 greatsword of slicing from Rupert immediately before I posted this though, so there's a good chance he will not see Elf.

I normally raise strength to 10 for the carrying capacity, but am feeling no pinch whatsoever at only 8 on this guy. The fact that everything IDs at first glance meant I completed Orc in entirety without ever opening my inventory screen, which by itself is enough reason to worship her. Whoever made the orc 4 with all the crossbow orcs/centaurs-- very good job. It played excellently, and the shopping mall in the center is the perfect reward after Orc. I would have been very excited to see that on a different character.

Being able to pick fights, which I am very much capable of doing at ****--, DRASTICALLY decreases item use/burn. I think I've used all of three or four safety items so far this game, which is a good thing considering only two scrolls of teleport have dropped. Carrying ~10 potions and scrolls feels like overkill-- granted, I'm wearing conservation. (As previously mentioned, this guy is a Gates.) Devs, I'd keep an eye on that-- although my current character admittedly hails from the flat northern tundra of the bell curve, anything that increases the amount of healing in the game makes DE more powerful post-Vault. I'm very much not a fan of the Ascension Kit, and the biggest box on it through 0.7.* has been potions. It's been measurably easier to do Tomb/Hell/Pan in order of difficulty rather than resource delta since Kiku got torment/necro resistance, and although I haven't looked at Ashenzari's wrath I can't foresee it deterring.

I don't follow this board, so if this was discussed elsewhere please let me know and I'll edit this paragraph out to come off as smarter, but why not tie her piety to the number of cursed items you currently have equipped rather than the slow accrual thing? Cursing garbage to yourself on D4 or whatever seems like an interesting decision.

[dpeg]

On piety gain: We want to make sure that species with fewer slots are not hampered. That's why we came up with the "boundedness" rules.
In my games, it _did_ lead to cursing garbage. One of best experiences was me having just two rings: hunger and sustenance. So I cursed them both to have at least one level of boundedness.
Glad you like Ashenzari! I always felt that knowledge (as in tactical knowledge) is a bit underrated in some parts.
What do you mean about the Ascension Kit? We vey surely don't want anything like this. But I am sure that there are a number of opinions on what the best amulet for winning would be. (As usual, Crawl has won if the answer is "it depends".)
Thanks for feedback!

[roguelikedev]

Isn't there existing code which rates 'boundedness' on the proportion of slots which are cursed (>50%?) in each of the three equipment types, rather than the total count? What I was referring to was flat ****** if every slot you have is filled with a cursed item, ------ if nothing is, sliding scale yadda. I'm currently traipsing around Crypt with ****** and 'not bounded,' which I do not believe is the intention.

Sorry, was unclear-- by Ascension Kit (AK) I wasn't referring to what is required to win. Winning requires +5 or higher tooth skin (for a firm grip when hanging onto one's life by it) and almost nothing else; I once ascended a kenku hybrid armed with a +6 orcish battle axe of chopping out of sheer bloody-minded refusal to allow the RNG to shut me out. The AK I spoke of were the much firmer requirements for a smooth transition to the (vestigial) late game.

If one's been careless or unlucky up to that point it's perfectly doable to show up at Zot5 with a dozen or less healing items and still win, and I would argue that this is A Good Thing, but the game is rather precariously balanced at that point. Many winners are desperate, heavily mutated freaks with half their stats rotted off and two honeycombs left in the dungeon. The AK as it stands right now goes something like--

1. Stumble onto a source of resist mutation before stumbling onto a Zot trap which gives you red glow.
2. Early source of conservation, extremely high EV/SH, or leave all potions in stash and cross fingers until deflect missiles is found.
3. Either A) 20+ fighting, 20+ weapon skill, 7+ holy/speed weapon, resists etc. or B) standard idiot with 10 enchantments, abjuration, iron bolt, worshiping Kiku or TSO.

As previously mentioned though, the late game has always been an afterthought.

[galehar]

Isn't there existing code which rates 'boundedness' on the proportion of slots which are cursed (>50%?) in each of the three equipment types, rather than the total count? What I was referring to was flat ****** if every slot you have is filled with a cursed item, ------ if nothing is, sliding scale yadda. I'm currently traipsing around Crypt with ****** and 'not bounded,' which I do not believe is the intention.

Piety is something you gain and spend. Scrying and reskilling cost piety. If piety = boundedness, then you can't really spend it. Thus, piety gain depends on boundedness.
AK is something I've heard only about nethack, and refers to equipable stuff, not consumable, spells or skills. Having everyone crave for heal wounds or cure mutation is normal and not a design problem. We do have a lot of variety in equipment, so I don't think there's a problem here neither. We do have a few spells that almost every winners use but we are slowly making progress there.

[roguelikedev]

Piety is something you gain and spend. Scrying and reskilling cost piety. If piety = boundedness, then you can't really spend it.

I'll admit, I hadn't even considered that. I'm very shy about anything that costs piety or hunger, to the point that I use nutrition/attack as an excuse not to use speed brand.

AK is something I've heard only about nethack, and refers to equipable stuff, not consumable, spells or skills.

It's kind of a roguelike trope; you hit the "soft cap" of max character level, all race/class combinations homogenize into a single play style (Angband's, last time I checked, was "stand next to unique, invulnerable, with a swimming pool worth of 5000 GP potions and hit it for 45 minutes of real time"), then you collect the AK and ascend.

We do have a few spells that almost every winners use but we are slowly making progress there.

Progress? That's not progress, that's time better spent elsewhere. Speaking as one of those "almost every winners," if something else was more powerful we'd use that instead. I hate using buffs, I think they do nothing but detract from any game I've ever used them in, but every dwarf I've taken to late game has dutifully shown up at the gates of Pandemonium casting haste at great in their gold dragon armour because that was more or less the price of a ticket. I don't see the drop to 1.5x speed changing that, it's still obligatory at 6 mp/cast and <100k experience up front. I personally put off learning haste as long as possible, so in my case it doesn't even change when I'd start raising enchantments, or glamours or whatever they're called now.

It does seem like it'd make it less of a rush for the player who's only ever gotten four runes total when he finally gets a wizard who can cast haste at excellent, though. I'd have to ask one.

[Kate]

I don't think Crawl winners homogenize into a single playstyle at all, and I don't really see how "find healing potions and try to conserve them" or "find good items" or "have good defences" qualifies as being an ascension kit. Plenty of people die horribly on V:8 or Elf:5 or wherever despite having all sorts of nice equipment and consumables saved up, those still won't always save you from nasty situations in the late game. Not really sure what you're getting at here.

[KoboldLord]

The necessity of an Ascension Kit in Nethack is greatly overstated by the community there, too. You need a source of magic resistance, a source of reflection, a source of poison resistance… and that's it. Everything else is negotiable, although of course plenty of stuff is common enough that there's no reason not to pick it up.

An example Crawl Ascension Kit for one of my conjurations-focused casters would be:

the strongest hungerless direct damage spell I can find, preferably one that works on everything
a big direct damage spell, preferably hitting multiple opponents
some form of reusable and reliable escape, preferable multiple redundant forms
two pips of fire resistance, one of cold resistance, one of poison resistance, and one of electric resistance, although not necessarily all at the same time
mutation resistance

There's quite a bit of stuff that I like to have but don't strictly consider necessary. This is the same as in Nethack. I like my teleport control in Crawl, but I wouldn't refuse to enter Zot just because it hasn't generated. Similarly, I've ascended in Nethack without a bag of holding, even though I'd very much prefer to have one if one is available.

[roguelikedev]

I don't think Crawl winners homogenize into a single playstyle at all ... die horribly on V:8 or Elf:5 ...

I agree, there are many ways to get the Zot. The AK I was referring to was the one necessary for a full clear.

There's quite a bit of stuff that I like to have but don't strictly consider necessary. This is the same as in Nethack. I like my teleport control in Crawl, but I wouldn't refuse to enter Zot just because it hasn't generated. Similarly, I've ascended in Nethack without a bag of holding, even though I'd very much prefer to have one if one is available.

My checklist for going to Pandemonium is very long, because so many of the dangerous things there have very specific solutions. I've always brought enough trash randarts to get up to incredibly magic resistant after getting chain-paralyzed by some generic Pan lord at extraordinarily, something with maximum range or very near to it after losing a dwarf who could cast LCS at excellent in full plate by trying to LCS the hellion island, and orb of destruction if I don't have LCS after deleting two characters who got Cerebov on their first trip and couldn't kill him.

[evilmike]

If one's been careless or unlucky up to that point it's perfectly doable to show up at Zot5 with a dozen or less healing items and still win, and I would argue that this is A Good Thing, but the game is rather precariously balanced at that point. Many winners are desperate, heavily mutated freaks with half their stats rotted off and two honeycombs left in the dungeon. The AK as it stands right now goes something like--

1. Stumble onto a source of resist mutation before stumbling onto a Zot trap which gives you red glow.
2. Early source of conservation, extremely high EV/SH, or leave all potions in stash and cross fingers until deflect missiles is found.
3. Either A) 20+ fighting, 20+ weapon skill, 7+ holy/speed weapon, resists etc. or B) standard idiot with 10 enchantments, abjuration, iron bolt, worshiping Kiku or TSO.

People have addressed this already, but I feel the need to point out just how wrong this is. You'd be right to say that some winners are as you describe, but most (at least, most who know what they are doing) aren't that badly mutated, have plenty of food, and no stat rot. Resist mutation and conservation are also totally unnecessary, although they are nice to have. Deflect missiles is good, but also not necessary (repel missiles is enough, although you don't need that either, especially with high EV). 20+ weapon skill is ridiculous unless you're using an executioners axe or something similar to that. Abjuration is mostly a convenience. I can go on and on. (I know you said that none of these things are literally necessary, but I think you overstate their importance)

You don't even need a source of healing (and if you play a mummy, it's possible that you will never have one).

Crawl really doesn't have any sort of ascension kit or anything approaching that. The closest thing I can think of is a source of fire resistance (doing zot without at least rF++ is a bad idea) and electric resistance (for electric golems). This list gets a bit longer if you count the extended endgame (for that you'll want cold resistance, at least).

Even then, the only thing I'd say is actually necessary in crawl is having a means of escaping trouble (or avoiding it entirely), and there are so many ways of doing this that it's impossible to list them all. Still, if there's any one thing that unifies the majority of winning character's it's this. Winning characters can survive and escape when they get into a bad spot (or are able to avoid it in the first place). This can mean healing, teleporting, blinking or just picking your battles wisely.

I think the crawl lategame/endgame is actually in pretty good shape, and not at all "vestigial" or an afterthought. The types of characters that can win crawl are quite varied (just look at the logs on crawl.akrasiac.org to see what I mean).

Sorry if I am coming across as arrogant. Part of the reason why I'm making this post is that I used to have opinions like this too (or even worse, really).

[seth]

People have addressed this already, but I feel the need to point out just how wrong this is. You'd be right to say that some winners are as you describe, but most (at least, most who know what they are doing) aren't that badly mutated, have plenty of food, and no stat rot. Resist mutation and conservation are also totally unnecessary, although they are nice to have.

How can you avoid getting badly mutated without a source of resist mutation? If there's a secret, I'd love to know it.

[KoboldLord]

My checklist for going to Pandemonium is very long, because so many of the dangerous things there have very specific solutions.

Blink at excellent with a ring of teleport control on solves almost all of them. Pan is routinely one of the first post-endgame branches I do, because there's absolutely no pressure to rush and you can always flee from anything remotely threatening.

I've always brought enough trash randarts to get up to incredibly magic resistant after getting chain-paralyzed by some generic Pan lord at extraordinarily,

An amulet of stasis is much more efficient if you absolutely must. A better idea is just to run away from the random Pan Lords that are actually dangerous. The next one along will probably be a weakling.

something with maximum range or very near to it after losing a dwarf who could cast LCS at excellent in full plate by trying to LCS the hellion island,

Why are you trying to clear Hellion Island? It's schmuck bait. Okay, technically I've cleared it before, too, but the reward is completely inadequate compensation for the risk, so you might as well check the next level instead.

and orb of destruction if I don't have LCS after deleting two characters who got Cerebov on their first trip and couldn't kill him.

The only reason to kill Cerebov is if you're trying for a tournament banner. Lure him away and ninja his Rune.

[evilmike]

People have addressed this already, but I feel the need to point out just how wrong this is. You'd be right to say that some winners are as you describe, but most (at least, most who know what they are doing) aren't that badly mutated, have plenty of food, and no stat rot. Resist mutation and conservation are also totally unnecessary, although they are nice to have.

How can you avoid getting badly mutated without a source of resist mutation? If there's a secret, I'd love to know it.

Don't fight things that mutate you. Summons are helpful in these cases.

[galehar]

The OT was already quite vague, but we're now all over the place. I'm moving this thread to crazy yiuf's.

[snow]

If you ascend as a berserker you don't need any spells.

All my characters look completely different endgame and some don't even acquire poison resistance and still do fine so nothing is really required. Here are some examples:

My felid berserker didn't know any spells and just spammed berserk all the way down.
My deep elf wizard used a combination of utility spells, melee, and damage spells for a very interesting game.
My spriggan abyssal knight corrupted the world and banished foes.