Strong races

[Magipi]

mummies ... pretty good in extended

what

Well, compared to felids in extended they might be not as awful as compared to any decent species

[khalil]

They are immune to torment spam, which is one of the more annoying endgame things.
Just a shame they suck at everything else.

[damiac]

They get many of the necromut benefits without necromut, they can channel spam all they want, and by that point even with the terrible apts you should have your killdudes and utility stuff all castable. My point is mummies would be ranked lower than felids for win%, but higher for 15 runes.

Perhaps I overestimated their advantages in extended though. Maybe instead of "pretty good" I should have said "not the absolute worst". Oh well.

[Leafsnail]

They still can't drink potions and are locked out of several good extended builds

[KoboldLord]

I love when clarity doesn't spawn and my mummies meet something in the endgame with confusion.

[Arrhythmia]

I wonder what makes so many people think everything can be linearly ordered, i.e. put in neat lists.

Every set can be well-ordered (if you accept the axiom of choice).

[khalil]

They get many of the necromut benefits without necromut,

Yes, but by the time the necromut benefits are useful, any necro based build would be able to cast it anyway.

[diviton]

DD, Sp and Ce seem to be the strongest races overall.

When played optimally, I would imagine a felid to have a higher win rate than centaur.

I would imagine players like duvessa prefer centaurs because he doesn't make mistakes. Ever. Because he is duvessa. But overall, Felids are probably stronger.

Other than their lives, I can't imagine why. Even considering their lives, Centaur seem preferable.

[damiac]

They get many of the necromut benefits without necromut,

Yes, but by the time the necromut benefits are useful, any necro based build would be able to cast it anyway.

Well yeah, but mummies don't have to be a necro based build, that was my point, they save that XP. Not that necromutation is the only, or best strategy for extended, but it's a nice thing to get without any XP investment. Instead they can spend that XP overcoming their bad apts.

And I've retreated from my original position of "good for extended" to "not the absolute worst for extended" simply because I believe they're probably somewhat better off than a felid. But yes, I'm also assuming an amulet of clarity will exist somewhere, because without that you've got even bigger problems than torment.

[Leafsnail]

I don't think being immune to torment is really enough to make up for all of their other deficiencies, they still seem the worst for extended unless I'm missing some reason why another race becomes really awful there.

[dck]

I don't really know how you can look at Fe and then Mu and decide Mu are at any point better than Fe.

[damiac]

I was mainly looking at the low HPS of felids, along with the inability to wear any armor.

Anyway, weren't you the one who said you felt Mummies were the second best designed race, after humans? Did you mean they were designed to be terrible? That's how I felt about them at first, but after playing a few, I thought they might be semi-decent if you could survive to the end game.

Admittedly, this is all just theory, as I've never gotten a mummy or felid to extended.

[duvessa]

Did you mean they were designed to be terrible?

That's pretty much exactly how it is, yes.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Power level and good design aren't dependent on each other. Demigod and Draconian have the best design of any Crawl race imho, and those designs just happen to be very strong as well. I think High Elf has excellent design as well, it just happens to be a less effective design for the specific task of winning the game.

[damiac]

I would argue that since the point of the game is to win, any race that is not effectively designed to be able to win the game is poorly designed. But then, I suppose some people would say that about Chei...

[Sar]

Let's say there was a race that started with orb in the inventory... fuck it, it's CYC, let's say "Orb of Power" would be a playable race. Would that race be good for winning (assuming you can press < as your turn 1 action and win)? Would it be designed well?

[and into]

I would argue that since the point of the game is to win, any race that is not effectively designed to be able to win the game is poorly designed. But then, I suppose some people would say that about Chei...

There is a big difference between viability and effectiveness, though. All species/background combos—well the ones that you can actually select, obviously—are winnable. They vary greatly in effectiveness, however, with some species and backgrounds being more challenging, on their own or in certain combinations. This leads to a great deal of diversity in game play, which is more important than equality of win chances amongst all possible species/backgrounds. It also gives the game a much more interesting (albeit less straightforward—I think that's okay here) "difficulty setting" that you tweak based on character selection, without changing anything else in game play. The hints mode recommends CeHu, DeFE, and MiBe (as I recall) and the other recommendations at character selection have been somewhat improved/rationalized. I'm not really sure what more one can ask for in terms of pointing very new players to starts that give them the best odds (even if the odds are still bad).

[dck]

Well I don't see how you could look at Mu and think "this was not carefully put together to be awful at all possible points", so yeah.

[khalil]

Well yeah, but mummies don't have to be a necro based build, that was my point, they save that XP. Not that necromutation is the only, or best strategy for extended, but it's a nice thing to get without any XP investment. Instead they can spend that XP overcoming their bad apts.

But Necro is the only thing mummies don't have a bad apt in, so they're encouraged to use it.

All species/background combos—well the ones that you can actually select, obviously—are winnable. They vary greatly in effectiveness, however, with some species and backgrounds being more challenging, on their own or in certain combinations. This leads to a great deal of diversity in game play, which is more important than equality of win chances amongst all possible species/backgrounds.

Yes, except you get problems where people like the gameplay of one of the terrible races, but doesn't like the sucking that comes with it. If mummies had better apts, they'd still be fairly different from other races due to being able to ignore the hunger clock. Being bad at everything isn't required for diversity.

[Sar]

Clearly what we must do is to extend ghouls food mechanic to mummies. That will solve everything.

[damiac]

Let's say there was a race that started with orb in the inventory... fuck it, it's CYC, let's say "Orb of Power" would be a playable race. Would that race be good for winning (assuming you can press < as your turn 1 action and win)? Would it be designed well?

No, that would be the stupidest race ever, obviously.

But, let's assume any race in the game should probably be designed to be able to win. As mummies can. I was disagreeing with this:

I think High Elf has excellent design as well, it just happens to be a less effective design for the specific task of winning the game.

The task of winning the game is the game.

Please don't just assume I'm saying "hurr durr mummies shud start with firestorm and at xl27 and immune to damage and also they breathe swords at enemies"

[tedric]

The task of winning the game is the game.

It's hard to put numbers to it but I'd say that "winning" is <10% of the reason I play Crawl.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

If mummies had better apts, they'd still be fairly different from other races due to being able to ignore the hunger clock. Being bad at everything isn't required for diversity.

Mummy hunger clock is the least interesting thing about them, because it basically never matters. Because hunger doesn't actually matter like 95% of the time. Even when it does matter it only barely does so.

Every single distinct and interesting thing about mummy is a disadvantage. That of course includes their aptitudes; humans, demigods, and mummies are all very different purely on the basis of their aptitudes. And you can say the same thing of stats, as all the Chei fans are so quick to bring up.

Yes, except you get problems where people like the gameplay of one of the terrible races, but doesn't like the sucking that comes with it.

I like the sunny days in July, but I don't like the heat that comes with it. Sucking IS the mummy 'gameplay'.

The task of winning the game is the game.

Then WHY would a race that instantly wins be "stupid"? And why do races that aren't Centaur exist, since by your reasoning, they all have bad design?