Gods Fun Survey

[Klown]

Results


Sorry, too busy sleeping

Gozag
Sif Muna
Beogh

Yawn

Elyvilon
Nemelex Xobeh
Yredelemnul
Zin

Average

Qazlal
Vehumet
Trog
The Shining One
Okawaru
Makhleb
Lugonu
Kikubaaqudgha
Dithmenos
Ashenzari

Interesting

Cheibriados
Fedhas Madash
Jivya

More fun than a demonspawn wearing a sombrero

Xom

[Hopeless]

It would be nice if we could see the numbers after we take the survey.

[sgrunt]

I demand entries for the two newest members of our pantheon.

[Klown]

I demand entries for the two newest members of our pantheon.

I'd like to stick with stable stuff since trunk is less played & such things can go the way of the lava orc.
But if the feedback helps with their design, then yay.
Poll is updated for Gozag and Qazlal.

I'm pretty sure those who did it already can click the link, vote on those 2 and submit again and it should work.

[Hirsch I]

while I was voting, I noticed almost no gods are terribly fun (to me) and most are very boring.
someone else thinks that way?

[Magipi]

while I was voting, I noticed almost no gods are terribly fun (to me) and most are very boring.
someone else thinks that way?

Trog is definitely fun to me, he is my favourite god. Fedhas, Ashenzari also. A wide variety of useful god powers is fun.

The problem with gods on the "unfun" end of the spectrum is not that they are boring, but that they are annoying. Xom is an excellent example, but Beogh is also here (mostly due to the stupid AI of allies).

[Magipi]

The problem with gods on the "unfun" end of the spectrum is not that they are boring, but that they are annoying.

And this is a huge problem with the survey. It is impossible to rate Xom here because the answers are inadequate.

[Hopeless]

Retook it and probably gave entirely new answers since it didn't remember me and since I didn't remember what I wrote before. Keeping in mind that even ignoring the completely inadequate flavor of the entries the rating of 1-5 doesn't really do the question justice. Least to most fun changes based somewhat on mood. More interesting would be a more complex survey about what qualities each God has that are fun/unfun.

[dck]

Gods aren't bad overall but since their impact can be so incredibly huge on any given character, eventually worshipers of X god played with a more or less focus on winning tend to have the same sort of tools at their disposal and thus blur together. It's not exactly gods' fault but a result of how long crawl is and how many many different things one is supposed to face (normally multiple times).
It's also the reason why Dg are fun.

[tasonir]

I rated Chei and Jiyva as 5. I gave Beogh a 4. Almost everyone else was about a 2. I really liked my beogh game, it felt very much like having a band of friends going through the dungeon. Most of them survived a very long time, and you get all attached. Yeah, managing them is more work, but I liked it. I probably wouldn't do it again, though, so I gave him a 4 instead of 5. I'd like if he was available to more races, ah well. I'll do Yred soon, but it's not the same when you can't level them up and give them gear, imho.

[Lasty]

Most gods aren't actively "fun" for me because they don't radically alter my gameplay or my decision-making process, so they don't change the amount of fun available in the game. The gods which do radically alter my gameplay and decision-making process mostly irritate me, because they mostly force me to play a god-specific mini-game that I either don't enjoy or only enjoy in small quantities (see: Nemelex, Beogh, Evy, Xom). So I ended up rating most of the gods 3, but honestly most of my favorite gods are among the ones I rated at 3.

[vengefulcarrot]

Fun for me is having to think less and put less effort as far as DCSS is concerned. Oka, chei, ash, TSO, makhleb do a great job of that. I think gods do change a lot of the decision making. If I chose a makhleb dude with axes I just hold tab all game. Sure you can do it with any god, but its easier with olde makky/oka and hence to me a lot more fun.

I do not find minigame gods fun no matter how creative they are cause of the same reasons above - too much effort for an impatient guy like me.

[tasonir]

Gods aren't bad overall but since their impact can be so incredibly huge on any given character, eventually worshipers of X god played with a more or less focus on winning tend to have the same sort of tools at their disposal and thus blur together. It's not exactly gods' fault but a result of how long crawl is and how many many different things one is supposed to face (normally multiple times).
It's also the reason why Dg are fun.

Couldn't you say the same thing about races, or characters of the same playstyle? ie, casters, hybrids, or melee end up looking a lot like other characters of the same type. Maybe you switch out fire for ice, but everyone's picking up a core of useful spells...

[cerebovssquire]

A lot of races allow for very different playstyles (Hu, Dg, Ds, Mu, Na etc). The races with design problems are often ones that limit viable playstyles too much.

[Klown]

Last call. Will post results tomorrow.

[WalkerBoh]

I like dudes with interesting abilities mostly, by which I mean abilities that change how you can handle tough situations. I think Lugonu has a really neat set of abilities, and Zin is also one of my faves. Jiyva too cuz slimify is sweet. I also rate Trog highly.

Ash, mak, Xom, TSO, Oka, are gods that are okay to me. Not too interesting, not too boring. Dith falls in here too.

Boring gods are anything with ally management or other tedious crap. Fed, kiku, yred, nem, beogh are all awful to me. Veh is here too because casting spells is awful.

Bottom tier is sif and ely. I will never worship either, they are the worst.

Edit: oh and Chei is fun to me, but only because I notice the difficulty increase makes me pay more attention and engage with the game more.

[TeshiAlair]

For me, none of them are really "fun", but some are more "satisfying."

I love Ash and Veh and Trog because they let me do the things I want to do better. Most of the others are too complex for my taste, too simple, or too boring to use.

[Sandman25]

A god who does not change my play much is not fun for me, that's Makhleb, Ashenzari and Sif Muna to name a few. Fun gods are Xom, Chei, Nemelex, Beogh etc.

[Igxfl]

A god who does not change my play much is not fun for me, that's Makhleb, Ashenzari and Sif Muna to name a few. Fun gods are Xom, Chei, Nemelex, Beogh etc.

That's funny -- I've always thought Ashenzari to be really fun since the skill boosts and lack of direct powers make for super-adaptable, floor-loot reliant games.
Xom, on the other hand, doesn't change my strategic gameplay much, since I can't rely on any particular effect.

I agree with the others, though, aside from Beogh, who I've virtually never tried.

[Sprucery]

Most fun (5): Nemelex, Fedhas. Next (4): Ash, Oka, Chei, Kiku, Jiyva, Lugonu. The rest are 3. I haven't played Beogh, Dith or the non-stable G and Q. Atheist (Demigod) would also be 5.

[Klown]

Hi~
Results in the first post.


Going by this survey, death knights and healers should be replaced by Snail Knights(Cheibriados, better background name needed), and Botanists(Fedhas).

[cerebovssquire]

Fedhas is incredibly strong in the Temple-Lair part of the game. If you allow players to pick him as a starting god the result would be stronger than berserkers (D:1 mushrooms, provided that they start with * piety), which is probably too much.

[NessOnett]

These results confuse me so much. I can't help but feel like a lot of people confused the word 'fun' with other words like 'good' and 'effective.' Either that or they are confusing the God being fun with the character who worships said god being fun(aka. "I like playing Conjurers, therefore Vehemet is fun.") Offering incremental improvements to things you're already doing is not adding fun by any definition of the word. They are just riding the coat-tails of what you are already doing which may or may not be fun.

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone. Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite, which drags him overall down very far. So it ends up at the bottom despite being one of the most unique, and to many the most fun by far, because the God itself is fun, because the God does something. It is not merely 'fun by association' to people having fun with other parts of Crawl.

As an aside, I like both the name and concept of 'Snail Knights' and would argue strongly to have them added to the list since I despise almost every God in the current incarnation of the Zealot category. (Also, can we get Jesters back too?)

[cerebovssquire]

Offering incremental improvements to things you're already doing is not adding fun by any definition of the word. They are just riding the coat-tails of what you are already doing which may or may not be fun.

To give an example, I wasn't enjoying Poison Arrow as much when it didn't have full range. With Vehumet it does and now I am having more fun. How is Vehumet not "adding fun"? Not to mention that I wasn't already receiving spell gifts or regenerating MP on kills before worshipping him.

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone.

The point of surveys like this is to find out which gods appeal to what number of people. This "main problem" exactly the reason why surveys like this are interesting.

[Sandman25]

That's because fun is subjective. I didn't rate Vehumet fun but I understand why some players might find him/her fun - being able to spam level 9 spells in Vaults without much care about MP/noise can be fun.

Edit. Also what cerebovssquire said.

[Klown]

As an aside, I like both the name and concept of 'Snail Knights' and would argue strongly to have them added to the list since I despise almost every God in the current incarnation of the Zealot category.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Gotta love a nice thoroughly worthless poll.

Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite

IMO micro-managing equipment, getting --more-- prompts every 2 seconds, never having any good reason to enter combat personally except to perform babysitting duty, and having an ability to walk on water that I can't use because it has a rather high chance of instantly killing me, are not fun things.

Possibly you enjoy babysitting creatures that are dumber than field mice???

Unique is an interesting word choice because Yred/Beogh are more alike than any other pair of gods.

Just FYI the reason I find most gods unfun is that I have played them many times. The first few attempts at playing a new god are usually by far the most fun, and then the novelty wears off and you realize that most of them pretty much amount to part-time jobs.

[duvessa]

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone. Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite, which drags him overall down very far.

i rated beogh as the least fun because i find beogh to be the least fun god, jesus fucking christ

[zardo]

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone. Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite, which drags him overall down very far. So it ends up at the bottom despite being one of the most unique, and to many the most fun by far, because the God itself is fun, because the God does something. It is not merely 'fun by association' to people having fun with other parts of Crawl.

Half a dozen people are going to jump to cover this, but I've won Beogh and though he's a really fun *concept* I'd rate him as "actively irritating" to play for the same reason as everyone else - I just think ally management is a pain. Yred has this problem too (and ranks only a little higher) but is a little better because optimal play does not require you to micromanage dropping equipment for your stupid idiot allies to use. Plus I think the variety of undead and their abilities ends up being somewhat more interesting than orcs, really. Both of them are best played by leaving your army somewhere safe so it doesn't die and you can play normally, then recalling it in for emergencies.

edit: I would note I don't have nearly as much of a problem with *disposable* allies - again a point for yred but really a point for necromancy and summoning spells. but with beogh if you don't take great pains to make sure your orcs survive you aren't playing as well as you could be. I Also know what it's like to feel like people just haven't really tried your favorite feature (see the demigod arguments) but I said what I said because people claimed Dg is underpowered like a mummy which is just easily seen to be false. Are you going to claim Beogh doesn't involve ally micromanagement?

[Klown]

Sorry, too busy sleeping

Gozag
Sif Muna
Beogh

[tasonir]

I liked beogh because he changed the way I went into combat, trying to think about actually keeping my allies safe, and the theme and named summons made me care about them. It was an awesome game. At the same time, I don't think I'm going to bother to ever play Beogh again, mostly because of tedium, but also because it'd mean replaying HO, a race I don't really care for and now that I've won, will also not play again.

Glad to see Chei and Jivya on the top, though, so overall I still think the poll was pretty accurate, even though it is of course entirely subjective.

[tasonir]

Sorry, too busy sleeping

Gozag
Sif Muna
Beogh

Sif Muna has a reform thread, although there isn't that much productive coming out of it. She'll no doubt stay around though as she's rather established, and eventually redone. The other two may very well be on the chopping block if Gozag doesn't shape up soon!

[NessOnett]

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone. Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite, which drags him overall down very far.

i rated beogh as the least fun because i find beogh to be the least fun god, jesus fucking christ

Then that God isn't for you? Just because you dislike it, doesn't stop it from being fun. What part of this is so complicated.

Jumping out of planes(Skydiving) is fun. People pay thousands of dollars to do it on a regular basis because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, nobody would be willing to pay so much to do it. But a lot of people are scared, lazy, poor, etc. And therefore don't do it. And in this context, those people would rate it as "I'm sleeping" because it's "not for them"...not because it's "not fun."

So you can get a situation where "Watching Paint Dry" is more "fun" than "Skydiving." Which, if were true, would mean that the Skydiving industry wouldn't exist. As nobody would pay so much to do something so much less fun than something free. My point was that the basis of the survey and the options given were very flawed.

Notice how I have an actual argument, with you know, logical thought, and reasoning. Tends to get your further than spouting "jesus fucking christ" at anyone who thinks differently than you. Take notes.

[Sar]

fun is literally subjective

[dck]

"Fun" as a quality is by definition not an inherent property of something but an appreciated one; thus objective fun cannot exist and you're being almost as much of a tosspot as it gets so congratulations on that.
I mean bringing up that a certain industry exists to monetize a certain activity that can be found fun proves what exactly, other than major level of tosspottery?

[cerebovssquire]

Though I suppose the main problem with surveys like this is that the point of the game is to have variety because not everything will appeal to everyone. Gods like Beogh are super fun, unique, and interesting, for a select group of people. But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite, which drags him overall down very far.

i rated beogh as the least fun because i find beogh to be the least fun god, jesus fucking christ

Then that God isn't for you? Just because you dislike it, doesn't stop it from being fun. What part of this is so complicated.

Jumping out of planes(Skydiving) is fun. People pay thousands of dollars to do it on a regular basis because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, nobody would be willing to pay so much to do it. But a lot of people are scared, lazy, poor, etc. And therefore don't do it. And in this context, those people would rate it as "I'm sleeping" because it's "not for them"...not because it's "not fun."

So you can get a situation where "Watching Paint Dry" is more "fun" than "Skydiving." Which, if were true, would mean that the Skydiving industry wouldn't exist. As nobody would pay so much to do something so much less fun than something free. My point was that the basis of the survey and the options given were very flawed.

Notice how I have an actual argument, with you know, logical thought, and reasoning. Tends to get your further than spouting "jesus fucking christ" at anyone who thinks differently than you. Take notes.

jesus fucking christ

[basil]

Just because you dislike it, doesn't stop it from being fun. What part of this is so complicated.

But the vast majority who don't play Beogh(many of whom have never tried him, or had 1-2 attempts that went badly because they didn't know how to make him work) rate him the lowest possible out of some unexplainable spite

Instead of considering that there might be legitimate complaints, you're chalking "many" people's dislike of Beogh up to incompetence, not using him, and/or spite. Just because you like Beogh, doesn't mean that others have to. Seriously, what the fuck.

[dck]

what do you not know how to identify objective fun?
back to fun school with you then.

[NessOnett]

fun is literally subjective

And? Just because something is subjective, doesn't have any impact on the data gathering method being flawed.

Example:
Q: How much do you like Dungeon Crawl?
1. It is the worst game ever.
2. It's pretty bad.

This is a subjective question. But the possible answers can lead to very wrong conclusions being drawn from the data. Because then the resounding opinion will be it being pretty bad among the crawl community. And yet...

[WalkerBoh]

"It's better to sit in silence and be thought an idiot than to speak up and remove all doubt." Take notes.

Too bad Beogh will never get removed, because as a friend pointed out, many people unfamiliar with Crawl just know it as the game where you get to be orc jesus fucking christ. And that's great marketing.

[Arrhythmia]

So you can get a situation where "Watching Paint Dry" is more "fun" than "Skydiving."

Well it's a good thing we're not in this situation, or something even approximating this situation

[cerebovssquire]

And? Just because something is subjective, doesn't have any impact on the data gathering method being flawed.

Example:
Q: How much do you like Dungeon Crawl?
1. It is the worst game ever.
2. It's pretty bad.

Can you draw a connection between this example and the survey? I'm not seeing it. This survey allows you to rate gods "fun", not just "unfun" and "terribly unfun", so the most glaring error of the survey in your example doesn't apply. There doesn't seem to be any other big problem with this question. Unless the point was just that surveys can have biased questions, in which case we are probably all aware and are more interested in how this specific survey is problematic.

Also all good players™ hate crawl and want everything removed anyway so this question will probably provide accurate results, just saying

[zardo]

Jumping out of planes(Skydiving) is fun. People pay thousands of dollars to do it on a regular basis because it's fun. If it wasn't fun, nobody would be willing to pay so much to do it. But a lot of people are scared, lazy, poor, etc. And therefore don't do it. And in this context, those people would rate it as "I'm sleeping" because it's "not for them"...not because it's "not fun."

So you can get a situation where "Watching Paint Dry" is more "fun" than "Skydiving." Which, if were true, would mean that the Skydiving industry wouldn't exist. As nobody would pay so much to do something so much less fun than something free. My point was that the basis of the survey and the options given were very flawed.

Man I was writing my whole reply then other people filled in the same questions. So I'm not ganging up on you, I just don't want my effort to go to waste!

If lots of people who have never played Beogh in fact decided to vote him down for some reason that would in fact distort the poll, but here in the comments several of us are lining up to say that we've played and won games with Beogh and still voted him low. We're not the people who were too scared or poor to go skydiving, we did and we didn't enjoy it compared to other activities.

I don't have any objection to there being niche gods and I bet Beogh is here to stay due to his unique flavor and interaction with the orcish race. But the "jesus fucking christ" is because here we've got this silly obviously subjective poll and you're getting mad that your pet favorite is unpopular and telling us we must be doing it wrong. "Well thought out and presented logically" - man, the best I can get from your skydiving analogy is that since some set of players exists who enjoy Beogh, we must all recognize that Beogh is objectively fun and vote accordingly? Despite that the whole point of the poll is to figure out how big that set is? And that (admittedly less than rigorous) results seem to indicate that it's in fact quite small? The question is "do you like this god?" unless "fun" is some sort of sacred concept that transcends the aggregation of individual preferences, and if you think that you're going to have to fill me in on the actual rules of "fun" because I'm having a hell of a time understanding how we're supposed to vote to make this poll more accurately reflect "fun" other than by giving the answer that you want us to give.

edit: things that are *actually* wrong with the survey:
-well, we don't even know how big the sample size is or how well it reflects the player base
-i'm not even totally sure how the numbers get translated into the different ranks that Klown put them in, though i think he's just taking the most popular option for each one?
-no idea how that site enforces voting limits, or anything

so if devs were actually looking at this poll and saying "ok time to remove Beogh" - which they aren't - you could say "wait a second that's a silly fucking poll" but you're going on about how we don't understand fun properly or something?

[Hopeless]

"It's better to sit in silence and be thought an idiot than to speak up and remove all doubt." Take notes.

Too bad Beogh will never get removed, because as a friend pointed out, many people unfamiliar with Crawl just know it as the game where you get to be orc jesus fucking christ. And that's great marketing.

I happen to think that is one of the charming things about the game. There are many but I would not be happy to see it removed.

[cerebovssquire]

On Beogh - in my opinion, this is one of the cases where the "if you don't like it, don't play with it" argument actually applies. He doesn't affect any game unless you worship him. Beogh isn't particularily strong, certainly not to the extent that I would consider him the best choice for any character, so you aren't compromising your character's strength in order to enjoy the game more when you don't pick Beogh. It would be a bigger problem if e.g. Trog was this unpopular.

[Klown]

So do a lot of you just dislike allies?

[cerebovssquire]

In my case, yes. I don't think the crawl interface supports it very well (a lot of keypresses to achieve not much, toggling moving at ally speed/normal speed, the 't' menu, etc). I only have experience with allies in console play so this might be a factor here, I have no idea how the tiles interface works.

More importantly, the gameplay doesn't seem well-suited for allies either. In many cases, they are strong enough to handle pretty much everything, which often leaves you walking around trying not to get hit while your allies take care of everything, while a lot of good crawl gameplay comes from being in combat yourself. Your having little control over what they do - compared to strategy games and the like - leads to you making less tactical decisions yourself, which is bad when interesting decisions are a major design goal.
The fact that allies are often very strong - most non-Beogh sources are - adds to this annoyance because you are often making your character weaker if you don't use allies in some form. If you do, the game is significantly less challenging and thus feels boring, e.g. when you have a good undead army as a Yred follower.

[zardo]

So do a lot of you just dislike allies?

I think the answer is "yes" but I explained my specific stance. For all allies, even very temporary ones, there is one AI problem, which is that enemy AI is not really equipped to deal with a whole horde of things coming at it and filling up tiles, least of all when that horde acts as a damage-absorbing distraction to allow the player to bash its head in. With expendable allies (necro and summons) this has traditionally combined with spammability problems to allow the player to abuse the AI and avoid harm. But I don't even mind the expendable allies that much (summoning has certainly progressed at least a little in the right direction lately and necro has... won me a lot of games at least) because "permanent" allies turn out to be much worse. With Yred and Beogh you have the second AI problem of making sure your allies, who have no concept of threat level or safe positioning, don't get themselves killed, because they aren't as easily replaceable. Not to mention that they will start fights willy-nilly and defeat your attempts at stealth and clever positioning. So you have to micromanage them, except there's not even a real interface for doing that. No that there should be necessarily, because Crawl is long enough taking turns for *one* character. Beogh shows the worst of all of this, because the fact that your allies level up and pick up equipment, while being cool in concept, makes them in reality the least expendable of all and requires managing items through what is again a pretty bad interface. There's an option that lets them take care of equipment on their own, but then they will pick up stuff that *you* want and you can't force them to drop it.

I'm actually playing Yred right now and it's not so awful, except that I do what I said above and treat "allies" as an ability I can invoke when in danger and otherwise leave them up the stairs. You can do this with Beogh too, but again it conflicts somewhat with the experience and equipment mechanics. In order to really improve Beogh you'd have to make your orcs... I dunno, smarter and much fewer? Set a certain guaranteed number you will have based on your piety level, in a manageable range? With this lower cap on orcs introduce more direct management of equipment or even of behavior? Again I'm okay with a niche god just thinking over the standing issues that make Beogh so niche. It just seems like it is kind of a basic principle of crawl that most combat is really meant to be done by the player. If you make allies smart enough not to get killed, you end up with enemies not being able to handle them. If you make your allies more directly controlled by the player, that just multiplies the length of the game. I really don't know.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

So do a lot of you just dislike allies?

I'll just repost this:

The issue is the mere existence of allies. They clutter up the screen, make tons of message spam, ruin +/- key targetting, drown important monsters out on the monster list, and that's assuming they stand politely out of the way for the whole battle. When they actually do things, all your actions are basically forced to revolve around them, partly because they directly interfere with your normal tactics, and partly because allies as a crawl concept are so overwhelmingly powerful that any desire to win mandates taking full advantage.

The best change that ever happened to either Beogh or Yred was cross-level Recall, because it allows you to easily not have allies most of the time, without giving up the advantages of allies when you find yourself in a dangerous situation.

I love having allies/minions (Chaos Legion is one of my favorite games), but as they exist in Crawl they are extremely problematic, probably the most problematic thing. The best allies - Lightning Spire, Summon Hydra, Fedhas stuff - are the best because they sidestep a lot of the problems.

[nogardark]

don't hate me please, but I don't understand how is okawaru average in the FUN department. He gives two invisible no drawbacks powers, and the gifts are, most of the time trash. I guess he is fun in the way a slot machine is fun: you win big one day and keep playing expecting to win more. Then you are broken and have to sell your kids.

Disclaimer: I don't hate okawaru.