scrolls of blinking remove tedium

[Pollen_Golem]

scrolls of blinking remove tedium because they allow you to play in a slightly sub optimal manner without significant risk of death in the later part of the game. For example, my SpEn was able to melee Jory because I had scrolls of blinking for when he hit me for over 80 damage with LCS though deflect missals. Without scrolls of blinking I would have had to kite him on the edge of my line of sight to deal with the slight chance of being hit by an 80+ damage LCS. Was it optimal to kite every user of LCS at the edge of my line of sight? Probably. Would it be supper tedious? Yes.

And no, cBlink would not be a reliable replacement for scrolls of blinking for this. Good luck getting the failure rate to 0% especially with the resent cBlink nerf.

I knew what you meant about scrolls of blinking removing tedium but your explanation is commendably lucid.

This is more a problem with the design of Jory's LCS and similar mechanics. That in the very likely event you don't get hit by it with a high damage roll, you can safely tab away. And in the very unlikely event that it hits you for over 80 damage, you are suddenly in a very precarious situation... except that there is such a disgustingly reliable and accessible method of rendering the encounter meaningless.

[chequers]

Reduce randomness of damage rolls

[bcadren]

I'm honestly with chequers; even if it made the game harder it wouldn't make it so...suddenly hard where it had been easy.

Really though it's hard to do, I mean EV characters (Felids, Spriggans, most Deep Elves, etc.) rely on NOT getting hit and EV existing at the same time as attacks that do significant damage means you could have a situation where you have a 90% chance to take no damage at all; then 1% or so of being killed (bad damage roll) from full HP with LCS.

[reaver]

Guys the ~obvious degenerate thing~ with WingedEspeon's scenario is that Sp have fast move speed.

If players could never become faster than monsters without using a consumable than kiting would never occur without the decision of whether to use a consumable beforehand.

[Pollen_Golem]

What? The example is applicable to normal speed species too, low-HP species like Spriggan especially. Kiting is just the most appealing degenerate way of dealing with, say, users of LCS. Admittedly, Jory specifically has mesmerize and blink close to complicate matters.

Isn't the more degenerate thing that you can completely/immediately/reliably leave the threatening monster's LOS from any position?

Like, the biggest danger of using dead-end killholes is that you can't use scroll of blinking to escape if you start losing the attrition battle.

(Not that fast movement speed isn't "degenerate".)

[WingedEspeon]

I fail to see what is degenerate about disengaging from a fight where you have rolled one of the top 1% most unlucky rolls that you could have rolled.

[chequers]

Jory is one extreme example. There are more common scenarios of "x% of the time this fight is trivial, but sometimes it's life threatening". For instance: ettins against any sort of fighter in mid-dungeon. (FWIW, I think trolls are similar danger level but much more consistent in their damage application).

[Pollen_Golem]

@WingedEspion: not just disengaging from a fight, but having a reliable way to completely leave a threat's LOS without skipping a turn.

[Doesnt]

I had this happen to me a while back: http://i.imgur.com/JkooGtM.png

Was it degenerate of me to immediately use a scroll of blinking to go as far west as I could?

[WingedEspeon]

@WingedEspion: not just disengaging from a fight, but having a reliable way to completely leave a threat's LOS without skipping a turn.

Crawl is supposed to be winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake. Scrolls of blinking are very limited and let an attentive player compensate for very bad rolls and not die an unavoidable death. I don't see a problem with them. I could still have died if a gold dragon had wandered into the cleared area I blinked into, hit me for max damage with a fire/ice breath though my 30+ EV and 20+ AC and deflect missiles (and for the record, I took 80+ damage even with spirit shield. I was buff enough to tank two average LCS in a row, just not two high rolls).

Ely and Zin both give even more reliable "ok, now I don't die" methods than scrolls of blinking. I really don't want every streak character to end up with Ely/Zin, because you need a reliable panic button very when you get very unlucky and scrolls of blinking are not reliable.

[Rast]

Crawl is supposed to be winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake. .

Where does it say that?

[Sar]

Crawl is supposed to be winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake.

It's a common misconception. Here's what the in-game manual says, under "Philosophy":

  Code:

The notions of balance, or being imbalanced, are extremely vague. Here is
our definition: Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also
renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an
arbitrary matter of luck: the skill of players will have the largest
impact. So, yes, there may be situations where you are doomed - no action
could have saved your life. But then, from the midgame on, most deaths are
not of this type: By this stage, almost all casualties can be traced back
to actual mistakes; if not tactical ones, then of a strategical type, like
wrong skilling (too broad or too narrow), unwise use of resources (too
conservative or too liberal), or wrong decisions about branch/god/gear.

The possibility of unavoidable deaths is a larger topic in computer games.
Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random
layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect
play. This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the
sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this
means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a
human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense
that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides
much more fun in the long run.


[WingedEspeon]

Crawl is supposed to be winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake.

It's a common misconception. Here's what the in-game manual says, under "Philosophy":

  Code:

The notions of balance, or being imbalanced, are extremely vague. Here is
our definition: Crawl is designed to be a challenging game, and is also
renowned for its randomness. However, this does not mean that wins are an
arbitrary matter of luck: the skill of players will have the largest
impact. So, yes, there may be situations where you are doomed - no action
could have saved your life. But then, from the midgame on, most deaths are
not of this type: By this stage, almost all casualties can be traced back
to actual mistakes; if not tactical ones, then of a strategical type, like
wrong skilling (too broad or too narrow), unwise use of resources (too
conservative or too liberal), or wrong decisions about branch/god/gear.

The possibility of unavoidable deaths is a larger topic in computer games.
Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random
layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect
play. This goal seems out of reach. Thus, computer games can be soft in the
sense that optimal play ensures a win. Apart from puzzles, though, this
means that the game is solved from the outset; this is where the lack of a
human game-master is obvious. Alternatively, they can be hard in the sense
that unavoidable deaths can occur. We feel that the latter choice provides
much more fun in the long run.


I meant you game would have no anaviodable deaths in a perfect world. Yes there will be unavoidable deaths in crawl, but that doesn't mean that we need to remove something that greatly deceases the number of unaviodable deaths. scrolls of blinking are a very limited resource and will not save you if you routinely get in situations where you need one.

[tasonir]

Guys the ~obvious degenerate thing~ with WingedEspeon's scenario is that Sp have fast move speed.

If players could never become faster than monsters without using a consumable than kiting would never occur without the decision of whether to use a consumable beforehand.

#CheiReasons. Doesn't even let you use the consumable, either

[WingedEspeon]

Guys the ~obvious degenerate thing~ with WingedEspeon's scenario is that Sp have fast move speed.

If players could never become faster than monsters without using a consumable than kiting would never occur without the decision of whether to use a consumable beforehand.

#CheiReasons. Doesn't even let you use the consumable, either

another reason for keeping scrolls of blinking.

[lazorexplosion]

Don't tell me there's a serious proposal to remove scrolls of blinking, because that's the worst. Why give the game less counter-play, more tedium, more unavoidable deaths, and for what, masochism? I seriously doubt I would ever update to version with no blinking, it would just suck, playing any weaker than average or squishy race would just become a nightmare.

[archaeo]

Don't tell me there's a serious proposal to remove scrolls of blinking

There isn't a serious proposal to remove scrolls of blinking.

[Sojiro]

Crawl is supposed to be winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake.

It's a common misconception. Here's what the in-game manual says, under "Philosophy":

Not really a misconception. Here's the specific bit of your quote:

  Code:

Ideally, a game like this would be really challenging and have both random layout and random course of action, yet still be winnable with perfect play. This goal seems out of reach.

So being winnable 100% of the time if you don't make a mistake really is the goal. It does not seem to be possible to do that, but that doesn't change that it's what the game should be striving for, which is the issue here.

So it's true the game isn't expected to be winnable 100% of the time, but only because it's too hard to make it that way. That's still the way the ideal crawl is supposed to be.

[Sar]

@Sojiro: it's a goal, but it's not a goal SS team wishes to purse, if you read the entire text I posted.

[dpeg]

I wrote that snippet you're scrutinising here. It's trivial to achieve 100% winnability, our point is just that most ways to do that are less fun: if you compare the frustration from unfair deaths (a negative for current Crawl) with the challenge (a positive), then we believe it's better to err towards the difficulty side. One reason is that we have long-time replayability in mind. Anyway, this is a very subjective notion, and there's no clear answer to that. Every developer (team) must find their own answer to this. Perhaps I am too optimistic in thinking that everyone contemplates the issue.

So that's one point about actual DCSS development: how rare should the scroll of blinking be, what level should the spells have etc.