Have you ever felt like in Crawl the game just gets harder?

[Pollen_Golem]

It's considered a truism around here that the difficult part is the beginning. That once you get a character to Lair the game is won. But I've found that some players have experienced the opposite, and I can relate. Have you at any time in your Crawl career felt like the game just gets harder from D:1 on? That Crawl is like one of those classic arcade games like Tetris and Snake, where you're bound to fail eventually, and the only question is how far you will get? And what happened that made your perspective flip?

[nago]

Never, unless doing extremely shitty training choices (on purpose or less) and things like that. And even in those cases D:1\2 were probably the most difficult part

[Bart]

Definitely I had the feeling.

Naga has an extremely easy D1-D2 due to poison spit and high HP, but without decent findings mid game can be terrible due to poor defenses and slow movement.

Recently I played a deep elf that had very easy start thanks to Fedhas altar on d:2 and had no problem getting to the lair, but then problems started to arise - no good armour, very low HPs and no fruit. I managed to get one rune in pain. Eventually vaults killed me because I had no resists and three fire giant's attacks ended my trip in 3 seconds.

[Sar]

megazigs

[nago]

Uh right zigs. But they shouldn't be considered normal game, should they?

[Sar]

Well neither should postend but I feel like OP might've meant it as well since I can see some builds feeling much weaker there, since a lot of gods and items basically stop working.

[Sandman25]

I have the feeling in most games. D1 cannot have packs of gnolls, Sigmund, Grinder, Erolcha, Black Mamba, Vault Sentinel, Titan, Tiamat, Ancient Lich, OoF, Hell Sentinel, 6 Ice Fiends with Antaeus.

[dpeg]

I am also sitting in that camp. I've got a pretty good feel for the early game, but I play too rarely to be at home in the later areas. New monsters/uniques often kill my characters (I play completely unspoiled, as funny as that may sound). Of course, I don't mind dying much.

I really like that sinking feeling when all remaining branches seem to hard, and your skill set seems woefully underprepared for the upcoming monsters. Then again, good players all agree that the game is won after Lair, so I am sure I'm playing highly inefficently.

[Sandman25]

Then again, good players all agree that the game is won after Lair, so I am sure I'm playing highly inefficently.

Damn, I am not a good player

Lair does not have any requirements to be reached. If character is unlucky and found no MR, it can be banished/paralyzed and die easily. If character found no rF+/rMut/rCorr, it can die in Depths/Vaults5/Slime 6/Abyss/Zot easily too.

[dowan]

I wonder if those players actually play the game after lair. A lot of the people who say things like that also say they find the full crawl game too long, and only play until their character is established. The crawl mid and late game has only gotten harder since I've been playing, with the harder monsters in snake, the depths, then the upgraded monsters in depths (shrikes and those corrosion prayer guys).

But, it really depends on the character. And, once your through the lair, you have had time to build the character, regardless of your starting background, into something you're comfortable playing. So naturally if you don't have enough crawl experience to know how to build a character you're comfortable playing, you won't get that benefit.
Another thing about the mid and late game is that it take a lot more crawl games to get to know them. It doesn't take many games to know what to expect on D1.

[dpeg]

Then again, good players all agree that the game is won after Lair, so I am sure I'm playing highly inefficently.

Damn, I am not a good player

You have to learn the art of the hyperbole!

Lair does not have any requirements to be reached. If character is unlucky and found no MR, it can be banished/paralyzed and die easily. If character found no rF+/rMut/rCorr, it can die in Depths/Vaults5/Slime 6/Abyss/Zot easily too.

I agree that post-Lair could pose more problems, but at least as far as my playing style is concerned, mid-game and onwards has become considerably harder than it was.

[Sandman25]

I agree that post-Lair could pose more problems, but at least as far as my playing style is concerned, mid-game and onwards has become considerably harder than it was.

I have the same experience. There are only a few fast monsters before Lair (Adder, Centaur etc.), there are no many monsters on the levels and 3 stairs so player can easier pick fights.
Entering Depths/Vaults can be very hard when you have no MR/resistances.

[advil]

It's considered a truism around here that the difficult part is the beginning. That once you get a character to Lair the game is won. But I've found that some players have experienced the opposite, and I can relate. Have you at any time in your Crawl career felt like the game just gets harder from D:1 on? That Crawl is like one of those classic arcade games like Tetris and Snake, where you're bound to fail eventually, and the only question is how far you will get? And what happened that made your perspective flip?

Maybe try MiBe or HOGl for a while instead of FeMo of Nemelex / KoHu of Trog with a hand crossbow in pan / etc.

(This is partly just a flip response, but also partly serious based on the other Pollen_Golem threads. Fe in particular is basically designed to feel shaky the entire game, the low AC and -40% hp roughly cancel out any normal or strong char power curve, and just isn't a good starting point for anyone IMO.)

[Siegurt]

Fwiw I am one of those that disagrees with that 'truism' I have actually analyzed my own games, and my percent chance of death remains about the same (or did, I don't have that set of logs or the scripts I used to scrape them any longer) However it still feels true to me, for whatever that is worth.

Of course we had this discussion at the time and it was argued that the reason I died later in the game wasn't because the game remains just as dangerous, it's because I make more mistakes because I grow disinterested, bored or flat out tired. I am not sure I agree with that, but that was the counter argument presented.

The statement that the game is "pretty much won" after the lair strikes me as hyperbole. In my head it refers to the fact that you should, by that point, have enough types of tools to handle just about any particular situation if you set up your situations properly at that point, and it is pretty much a question of executing.

Of course those tools include consumables, and if you consume them as needed, you may or may not actually have enough of an appropriate number to actually win, and you may not actually use them appropriately, either because of imperfect knowledge or lack of skill, or a lack of setting situations up properly in the first place either because it is tedious or again because of a lack of knowledge or skill.

Of course I would argue that "do a thing perfectly once" is a skill, and "do it perfectly 100 tomes in a row" is a different skill, but that is not an argument that anyone can win since it is all about philosophy and belief at its core.

[Blobbo]

I think the truism that the game gets easier as you get more tactical options applies only more to highly skilled players that make almost no tactical mistakes. As the game gets more predictable, the impact of randomness decreases allowing a skilled player to be significantly more assured of a win - I would argue that this is due to player action: skilled strategic play optimizing for a decrease in variability.

An unskilled player like me, on the other hand, just gets to see more and more complex situations for me to make blunders and die in.

[treerex5]

I usually don't sweat easy game. It goes pretty well, and it's pretty relaxing. When I hit lair, though... that's when my inexperience really kicks in. I can navigate lair pretty well, only dying occasionally to a hydra, but when I hit the sub-branches it gets harder. I can do swamp pretty well, but I've never been to shoals, and spider, snake, and slime terrify me. The hardest point of Lair onwards is the terrifying uncertainty of not knowing what's ahead. The game just gets harder from Lair onwards.

[savageorange]

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Blobbo. I think that the game gets easier but I get stupider.
(like, my options keep expanding and getting stronger, somewhat faster than my opposition improves , and because they are getting stronger I start relying too much on one or the other, stop thinking as much as I need to, and die. Usually after cleaning up Lair, Orc, and a Lair branch.)

I usually don't sweat easy game

Interesting typo you have there

[Sprucery]

After Lair it's usually certain uniques that can cause very dangerous situations in my experience. I also usually try to kill uniques even when it's not sensible (except Mara and Mennas I leave alone if possible).

Shoals usually feels dangerous, unless I do it with invisibility. Vaults:5 is always fun and challenging. Entering Depths likewise, because sometimes you get a really nasty entrance and there's only one way in and out. Zot:5 must be taken carefully.

Of course if your unlucky and have no MR, many monsters are quite dangerous. Then there's banishment by disto weapons, getting shafted to a dangerous spot etc. edit: especially shadow traps.

[Magipi]

Then again, good players all agree that the game is won after Lair

This is just a bon mot, it should not be taken seriously. I have seen several good players lose in the late game (and I'm not talking about speedrunning).

Second, I think that this witticism was born a long-long time ago, when the late Dungeon, the Lair rune branches and the Vaults were mostly harmless. This is not the case since 0.12.

Third, consider psychology. It is surely true that D:1 is the deadliest, but what of it? If you lose then, you just shrug and start again, unless you are on a streak (and care about it).

[dowan]

especially shadow traps.

What? Why aren't you playing trunk, where they've been removed for some time?

Stupid shadow traps...

[dpeg]

Thanks everyone for feedback! I feel less bad about it now... We've been reducing midgame for so long, and monsters have come and went out again, it's good to see that it actually improved matters (not just for us, that is!).

Magipi: point about psychology is very valid. Of course, there'd be an outrage if V:5 (say) actually was deadlier than D:1

[Sandman25]

Of course, there'd be an outrage if V:5 (say) actually was deadlier than D:1

But it is deadlier. Zot 5 is deadlier than D1 too.

[Sar]

Much more of my chars died on D:1 than in Zot:5.

[Sandman25]

I think we should compare percents, not absolute numbers. How high percent of characters who reached Zot 5 died there?
Walking away works vs almost all monsters on D1. Player still needs some luck to have path for pillar dancing and no Adder/Jackals pack as first monster of course.
There are plenty of monsters in zot5 where it's impossible to walk away, they are too fast and/or have strong ranged attack.
You don't need any resistances on D1 (rPois is useful vs 1-2 monsters), in Zot you need MR/rF/rElec, rMut is nice to avoid teleportitis/berserkitis. Teleporting/blinking on D1 is safer than on Zot 5 though it is unlikely that you have the scrolls identified that early.

Edit. Also probably you play much more carefully on Zot5 than on D1, it's not a big deal to lose D1 character for some players.

[Sar]

I generally do not play very carefully.

[Sandman25]

Even in Zot5? I think all my characters would die in Zot5 if there I used autoexplore and tab only

[Moanerette]

I die a lot in mid/late game too. I think it's because I find threat assessment harder later on, in terms of being aware of how quickly a situation can kill me. I also (I think) get a bit more careless regarding stuff like drawing off enemies one at a time, probably through a combination of tiredness, complacency (god knows why, with 1 win in 650 attempts, but there it is) and eagerness to push on. It's aggravating - I feel like I'm not as bad a player as my winrate suggests, but them stats don't lie...

[Sandman25]

The same here, I can spend 40+ minutes to reach D4 sometimes but I am not going to play this way all game so later I use autoexplore mostly.

[Sar]

Well I don't use tab and autoexplore only on D:1 as well.

[pickled_heretic]

For me it's been all the new stuff since I last played, e.g. Oh, a pearl dragon. Never seen one of those guys before. I wonder how dangerous that thing is against my MuFi. Whoops, look at that, he just did like 40% of my life in 1 hit. Welp.

I don't think the difficulty has increased that much but the diversity of threats plus the extra new stuff that I haven't been spoiled on is really dragging me down in the late game.

[dowan]

Pearl dragons aren't very new. They are extremely rare though.

[pickled_heretic]

[bel]

With normal games, I do not generally find later game more difficult than earlier game.

With speedruns, it is slightly different story: I die a lot in early game (obviously), but in later game, the problem is different. I might not have found enough consumables or resists or books to play comfortably. Lack of decent attack or defences really starts to show up in Depths, sometimes in the Lair runes branches.

In general, it is only natural to have later game easier than early game in a game with permadeath, just for psychological reasons. It feels much worse to lose a character on which you have spent a lot of time, than one which has just started.

[Sprucery]

My current high score list has:
15 victories
1 death during Orb run
1 death in extended,
1 on Zot:2,
1 on Depths:1,
1 on Vaults:1
1 on Snake:1
1 on Shoals:1
1 in the Abyss,
2 on Lair:8,
2 in an Ice Cave,
4 on Lair:1,
52 on D:2 - 9, (most dangerous D:4 has 14)
4 in a Sewer,
1 in an Ossuary
12 on D:1 but obviously there would be at least a dozen (if not 2) more, because the high score list ends (last score is 22).

Yes I try to play very carefully on Zot:5 and Vaults:5 but still D:1 is clearly the single most dangerous level for me.

[duvessa]

If you watch pretty much any frequent player's games I suspect you'll find that they start playing much faster past the first few dungeon levels, unless they are legit startscumming or realtime speedrunning or something. Crawl, like most similar games, is distinguished by an overwhelming number of encounters that are easily won with really simple input, a small to moderate number that are easily won with minimal thought but difficult to automate, and a small number that are difficult and dangerous; the latter becomes vanishingly rare around reaching Lair, and the "easily won with really simple input" grows compared to the "easily won but difficult to automate" over the course of the whole game, pretty much. A typical winning 3-rune game kills several THOUSAND monsters, nobody wants to pay attention to every rat on d:4 and soon you stop wanting to pay attention to every yak and every stone giant, and even from the beginning virtually everybody would rather use autoexplore than play optimally around traps and terrain (instant deaths after like d:2 are basically impossible if you explore in a remotely safe way, unfortunately autoexplore does not). I've watched a ton of Crawl deaths, and assuming you exclude said trap/boltbounce/whatever deaths (because they are easily avoided with minimal thought but not by autoexplore), deliberately bad play (branchless, orbrun tomb, etc), and obviously unspoiled play (terribly built charaters, every kraken death, every slime death, etc), I haven't seen even a single "difficult and dangerous" encounter in Lair or later. They've all been "easily won but difficult to automate" encounters where the player was on autopilot due to the "simple input" encounters and made a long sequence of bad actions due to it.
I'm not saying this to pick on Crawl, because it's also how every character dies in nearly every other roguelike and the majority of roguelikelikes, not to mention any other game that has lots of safe/grindy options available (or "RPG elements" as they're called now). That's why Super Mario Bros. has a timer, otherwise you could just go slowly enough that youd never die to a goomba

[Sandman25]

You cannot play fast when you can be killed by a single Yak in Lair so one of possible solutions is to play weaker combos (alternatively increase monster HP in crawl from my signature if you want to have hard time with MiBe).

[Berder]

Octopodes have an early game that's about as easy as other races' early games, but a late game that's much harder.

  Code:

<halberd> !lairratio tenpercenters op
<Sequell> tenpercenters (op) has reached Lair in 410 of 1502 attempts: 27%
<halberd> !woniflair tenpercenters op
<Sequell> tenpercenters (op) has won after reaching lair 161 out of 410 times: 39%
<halberd> !lairratio tenpercenters *
<Sequell> tenpercenters (*) has reached Lair in 8808 of 26390 attempts: 33%
<halberd> !woniflair tenpercenters *
<Sequell> tenpercenters (*) has won after reaching lair 4754 out of 8808 times: 54%


Explanation: lairratio tells you how often the player reaches lair. woniflair tells you how often the player wins, after he enters lair. tenpercenters are greatplayers with winrate>10%, usable as a reasonable approximation to decent non-speedrun play.

[Sandman25]

So 46% characters played by tenpercenters die after Lair... "Game is won after reaching Lair" is a lie, let's remember that.

[duvessa]

tenpercenters are greatplayers with winrate>10%, usable as a reasonable approximation to decent non-speedrun play.

tenpercenters includes syraine for fuck's sake, how can you say that's usable

[Berder]

tenpercenters are greatplayers with winrate>10%, usable as a reasonable approximation to decent non-speedrun play.

tenpercenters includes syraine for fuck's sake, how can you say that's usable

No it doesn't. syraine has a 3.10% winrate.

[Sandman25]

Does not http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players show correct data? http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/syraine says 0 wins in 1 games.

[Berder]

Does not http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players show correct data? http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/syraine says 0 wins in 1 games.

That display does exclude certain games. I'm not sure what the specific reason is why his games aren't showing up there.

  Code:

<halberd> !won syraine
<Sequell> syraine has won 177 times in 5708 games (3.10%): 4xMDFi 3xDDCK 3xDsBe 3xDsFi 3xHOPr 2xDDEE 2xDDHe 2xDDNe 2xGhMo 2xHEWz 2xHOAE 2xMfCr 2xMiAr 2xMiBe 2xNaTm 2xSENe 2xSpEn 2xTeAE 2xTeAr 2xVpSu 2xVpWn 1xCeAr 1xCeAs 1xCeEn 1xCeFE 1xCeGl 1xCePa 1xCeTm 1xCeWz 1xDDAs 1xDDFi 1xDECj 1xDEGl 1xDEMo 1xDEWz 1xDgCj 1xDgRe 1xDgSt 1xDgWz 1xDrAE 1xDrCr 1xDrEE 1xDrHe 1xDrIE 1xDrMo 1xDrSu 1xDrTm 1xDrVM 1xDsAM 1xDsAr
<Sequell> 1xDsCK 1xDsGl 1xDsHu 1xDsMo 1xDsVM 1xDsWn 1xDsWz 1xFeAK 1xFeMo 1xFeNe 1xGhAE 1xGhAs 1xGhGl 1xHEAr 1xHECj 1xHEGl 1xHEHe 1xHEMo 1xHOEn 1xHOFE 1xHOHu 1xHOVM 1xHaAs 1xHaBe 1xHaDK 1xHaFE 1xHaFi 1xHaNe 1xHaPr 1xHaVM 1xHuCK 1xHuPr 1xHuSt 1xHuVM 1xHuWr 1xKoAE 1xKoAr 1xKoBe 1xKoEn 1xKoHu 1xMDBe 1xMDEE 1xMDGl 1xMDNe 1xMDPa 1xMfBe 1xMfIE 1xMfPa 1xMfPr 1xMfSt 1xMfTh 1xMfVM 1xMiCK 1xMiGl 1xMiHe 1xMiMo 1xMuAr
<Sequell> 1xMuJr 1xMuMo 1xMuVM 1xNaPr 1xOgAM 1xOgEE 1xOgFE 1xOgJr 1xOgMo 1xOpAE 1xOpEE 1xOpFE 1xOpGl 1xOpMo 1xOpWr 1xSEDK 1xSEGl 1xSEHe 1xSEIE 1xSEVM 1xSpIE 1xTeCK 1xTeCj 1xTeFE 1xTeGl 1xTeHe 1xTePr 1xTeWz 1xTrAE 1xTrAM 1xTrAr 1xTrAs 1xTrCr 1xTrEn 1xTrHe 1xTrIE 1xTrPr 1xTrWn 1xVpAE 1xVpAr 1xVpGl 1xVpIE 1xVpTm

[Sandman25]

Probably those were played in experimental branches.

[Sprucery]

So 46% characters played by tenpercenters die after Lair... "Game is won after reaching Lair" is a lie, let's remember that.

Interesting! In my current high score list (from 0.13 onwards) I have 16 deaths after reaching Lair and 16 victories. Surprisingly similar statistics.

From now on I will think that the game is half won upon reaching Lair :)

[tasonir]

There are certainly times when the late game gets harder, but they're less common then the general case, where it's easier. Examples:

Playing a mummy - having -2 apts to everything makes it hard to get far ahead of the power curve, as most races can. You still have more escape options, although no potions cuts off about half your emergency kit.

FeBe - Assuming you stay with trog, there's a very limited amount of room to grow in the late game. Once your fighting/UC/dodging are all over 20, you're basically done, and you may not be super strong compared to depths/zot packs. You are still strong enough to win, but not strong enough to "steamroll" the late 3 rune game, as most other combos will.

Less well run DD's of not makhleb - this is probably as much player error as it is "crawl truth", but it's certainly possible for players who aren't playing terribly carefully to run low on piety for gods which require piety to heal: trog, elyvilon, etc. Makhleb's healing not requiring piety means you're usually fine, but if you need a lot of emergency burst heals, you could also run out of mana to recharge your wand with, and eventually run entirely out of healing resources.

As for those OP's - I'd say that octopodes aren't as clearly won at lair, and there's probably a fair amount of octopodes dying to early hydras, as well as possibly mambas/spiny frogs or even water moccasins. Normally having ~10 ac takes off a decent chunk of their damage, and if you have 15 or 20 ac you will block most of it. Octopodes will block less and have -10% hp, so you're probably not feeling secure until after you complete lair, rather than entering it. I'm biased towards melee octopodes, and consider statue form to be the ideal case for melee octopodes, so I'm comfortable in calling it a won game once I have statue form, and not before then. This wouldn't apply as much to mage octopodes, but I tend to avoid those.

[duvessa]

tenpercenters are greatplayers with winrate>10%, usable as a reasonable approximation to decent non-speedrun play.

tenpercenters includes syraine for fuck's sake, how can you say that's usable

No it doesn't. syraine has a 3.10% winrate.

syraine plays on mikee

[Berder]

syraine plays on mikee

greatplayers go by accounts, not by nick mappings. mikee is the only actual greatplayer account that syraine has. mikee is a tenpercenter, syraine is not.

  Code:

<halberd> !nick syraine
<Sequell> Mapping syraine => xenene serenityrade cat mikee bat rat dog
<halberd> !won mikee
<Sequell> mikee has won 208 times in 482 games (43.15%):


At 43.15% winrate I would say mikee's games are definitely examples of good non-speedrunning play.

[Lasty]

So 46% characters played by tenpercenters die after Lair... "Game is won after reaching Lair" is a lie, let's remember that.

This is another case of misusing game statistics, though not a directed and personal one. It fails to control for the level of attention and interest that players invest in different parts of the game, as duvessa mentioned above. To use my personal experience as an example of why it's misused, consider this:

  Code:

<Lasty_> !lg lasty !won place=D:1|D:2|D:3|D:4|D:5|D:6|D:7
<Sequell> 158. Lasty the Cudgeler (L4 OpBe of Trog), slain by laxity's ghost on D:4 on 2015-06-08 12:55:30, with 98 points after 2201 turns and 0:04:48.

<Lasty_> !lg lasty !won place!=D:1|D:2|D:3|D:4|D:5|D:6|D:7
<Sequell> 128. Lasty the Basher (L11 DrAK of Lugonu), slain by a four-headed hydra on D:10 on 2015-06-07 13:47:01, with 11783 points after 15603 turns and 0:42:02.


Most of my deaths are before Lair, but a significant number are after. If you look at this data without context, it might appear that a conclusion like Sandman25's is warranted. However, I know that in the overwhelming majority of my Lair and post-Lair deaths, they were avoidable with a trivial level of care that I didn't invest. I tend to play this chunk of the game pretty fast and loose, because I play crawl mostly to relax, because I play crawl mostly while also watching TV or listening to radio, and because I have more fun with crawl when I let myself get into trouble and then try to figure out how to get back out.

The pre-Lair game I generally play much more carefully, because when I don't, I lose a huge number of my characters to it -- for example, when I was playing while also feverish, I lost something like 24 out of 27 attempts at a character in the early game.

Because I have context, I know that my distribution of wins and losses across different areas of the game does not prove what the data stripped of context would seem to imply.

For the record, I do think that the early game is typically the most dangerous part of the game, but I also think the magnitude of this difference is often somewhat exaggerated. Good play will generally give you sufficient resources to handle whatever the late game throws at you, barring exceptionally bad luck combined with a bit of carelessness or extremely weak characters.

[Sandman25]

Lasty,

Sorry, I am not sure what your point is. Do you mean that "46% characters die after Lair via unavoidable death" is wrong? Yes, I agree, it is wrong, though I wrote nothing about it. Unavoidable deaths happen very rarely after Lair but it does not mean that a game is won after reaching Lair, you still can be hit by distortion from non-unique, paralyzed by Rupert, banished by Erolcha/Louise/Psyche/Sonja, Vaults/Depths/Zot can be nasty too. Unavoidable deaths are pretty rare before Lair too, most characters die via avoidable death even on D1.

[Lasty]

I didn't say or mean anything about unavoidable deaths, tho it is true that very few deaths after d:2 can truly said to be unavoidable. What I'm saying is that I pay close attention to the early game because I have to in order to get past it, whereas I very rarely pay close attention to any specific scenario post-Lair; in fact, I deliberately play a little sloppy post-Lair in order to create situations where I have to stop and think. What I'm saying is that more than 90% of my Lair and post-Lair deaths would have been prevented by playing with the level of care I use in the first few levels of D. What that says to me is that early D is harder than most of the rest of the game, since it almost always demands care and attention, and the rest only sometimes does.

It's possible that some people feel that the late game is harder in part because during the more-rare times when you do need to pay attention you need to make a correct choice from a much larger pool of possible choices, but I don't see that as a factor in the difficulty level of those chunks of the game; having more choices makes it more likely that you have at least one very good choice.