CXC chat: Do you remember...?

[Turukano]

In an actual game of bart, a naga of Ash, we were talking about "good old times"...
I copied some of the chat.

11 spectators (Esc: back to game)
bart, 4thArraOfDagon, emiel, Gravenous, Hedron, Raultor, tabstorm, Turgon and 4 Anon

[...]

tabstorm: also re: 2011 scores, I bet you could do a sub-25k in 0.11
tabstorm: Not many people tried to do melee then
4thArraOfDagon: yea well it was that there was only one speedrunner back then which is elliptic
Turgon: yes, melee was weaker than casting
tabstorm: Was it really that much worse?
tabstorm: I did not play till .13
Turgon: This switched when evos were introduced
Turgon: Like lamp, lantern
Turgon: Then fighters got better
bart: mollified
tabstorm: I feel like you could still get 4 runes by 10-11k as a meleer in .11-.12
tabstorm: its not like evokers spawn that often
4thArraOfDagon: you can get all lair by 6k as well
tabstorm: though item destruction could be a problem
4thArraOfDagon: that was horrible
tabstorm: your consumables would be shit on.. lot more scumming for an early pres
4thArraOfDagon: however ball of seeing was the thing
tabstorm: But OTOH you could go right to vaults.. without any of the vault humans
tabstorm: and you could cast dig..
Turgon: yes, silver rune as 1st was interesting
tabstorm: .Playing VSBe in .11 would be pretty interesting

[...]

4thArraOfDagon: ohh that vault
4thArraOfDagon: reminds me nightmares
bart: killed you recently, didn't it
tabstorm: Remmeber when this was good for -10 permanent AC
bart: not if you wore full artifact set ^^
tabstorm: hmm
Gravenous: or dwarven gear xD
tabstorm: allegedly we're getting elf:3 stone walls in .18
bart: haha
tabstorm: so no more digging hter elol
tabstorm: Im surprised it took this long
bart: old people can deal with many things
Gravenous: i thought there was also a change in monster ai on elf:3
bart: but I feel bad for new players
tabstorm: Maybe.. it would not surprise me
bart: otoh, they don't know these tricks
tabstorm: Wouldnt surprise me if digging got removed altogether at some point
Gravenous: dunno about that
tabstorm: The only necesary place for it is slime:6
Gravenous: there's a lot of minivaults that use it
Gravenous: well... a few
bart: they're not worth keeping
bart: if we can keep players from digging
Turgon: Do you remember - dig was a spell!
Turgon: Identify was a spell
Gravenous: I remember teleport self was a spell
tabstorm: hmm
bart: man, dig is nothing
tabstorm: tele self lol
bart: INSULATION was a spell!
Turgon: Berserk was a spell!
bart: oh yes
Turgon: sInv was a spell
Gravenous: rip crusaders
bart: this was a great time for skalds.
4thArraOfDagon: ball of seeing+tele self ftw!
tabstorm: Man, if we still had skald with berserk
tabstorm: just imagine how good vssk of makh would be
tabstorm: for a speedrun
Turgon: Skalds are still strong after you get them running
tabstorm: or of chei
tabstorm: oh wait chei hates berserk
bart: sure they are
tabstorm: What level was tele self
4thArraOfDagon: 4 or 5?
tabstorm: hmmm
bart: also polymorph selph

[Sar]

bring back itemdest

[nago]

Fuck I remember all of those things. Maybe it's time I stop to play.

[Sprucery]

I remember when OoFs where Swords.

[tabstorm]

But seriously, get rid of rune lock. I don't like some of the recent-ish changes force you to play the game a certain way. Sometimes I think excessive concern over optimal play leads to railroading players into particular routes through the game. Crawl is very easy, so why not let people challenge themselves if they want to?

Basically, let me do Vaults first again without the baggage of earlier versions. Also, remove food.

[pubby]

I was expecting Earth, Wind, and Fire.

[dpeg]

tabstorm: Not doing Hive was also an optional challenge. Do you want Hive back?
The question is not rhethorical -- where is the line? Why not remove the rune lock on Zot, that's preventing you from getting the orb before rune branches.

[tabstorm]

Hive dosen't have a rune in it, so doing V first is more of a sequence-break than an optional challenge in the way that Hive is. It's like Elf but without the good items in it.

Most characters will get the silver rune at some point.
The line was drawn at Zot before, and it worked fine until rune lock was deemed necessary. If I remember correctly, it was due to concern that letting players get to XL20+ before doing a Lair branch end made them insufficiently interesting. To me, this seems like excessive concern with hypothetical optimal play - Why would I want to make the game less interesting by accumulating as much XP as I can before doing a branch end, if I'm capable of just doing the branch end when I get there? Just for a small increase in win probability?

Maybe I just can't wrap my head around it.

[dynast]

If you want to runelock something, runelock Snake pit and throw the rune away.

[tabstorm]

Also, even with the lock, you can still get to XL18-19 or so before entering a branch end, without even doing Elf. There's not that much difference between that and like, XL23 in terms of difficulty except maybe in Shoals. I think this is more of a Shoals issue, since it's much harder than the other 4 branches. This is why I think it makes more sense to have the two easy branches (Swamp and Spider) and the two hard branches (snake and shoals) paired, rather than the current situation. I will take my chances in Swamp:4 before Shoals any day.

[Sar]

The question is not rhethorical -- where is the line? Why not remove the rune lock on Zot, that's preventing you from getting the orb before rune branches.

Why not remove Zot runelock? Make runes just additional tokens. If you worry people will go for them too late, made them disappear after some reasonable time (probably counted from the moment you enter the branch) and also place some loot in rune chambers. Or something like that. Maybe make Dungeon/Depths shorter and contain less XP.

It's not like most people will just dive straight to the Orb anyway.

[bcadren]

The question is not rhethorical -- where is the line? Why not remove the rune lock on Zot, that's preventing you from getting the orb before rune branches.

Why not remove Zot runelock? Make runes just additional tokens. If you worry people will go for them too late, made them disappear after some reasonable time (probably counted from the moment you enter the branch) and also place some loot in rune chambers. Or something like that. Maybe make Dungeon/Depths shorter and contain less XP.

It's not like most people will just dive straight to the Orb anyway.

Making runes disappear an amount of time after entering a branch sounds evil. No more doing [in this order] V:1-4 C:1-3 U:1-5 then, maybe V:5 (sometimes I do pan before V:5). Forcing you to go for the rune on first entry of the branch (if it was a semi-short timer) would be a pain in the ass...NOT saying it's bad; saying it'd be HARD as fuck.

[Sar]

Well, in my proposal runes also give you nothing but bragging rights.

[bcadren]

Well, in my proposal runes also give you nothing but bragging rights.

And score, obviously. It sounds decent; though a -huge- difficulty jump.

[Sar]

How is it a difficulty jump? I don't get it, sorry.

[bcadren]

How is it a difficulty jump? I don't get it, sorry.

Make it much harder to get runes if the timer is short enough that you MUST go Snake 1-4 in a row with no time to go snake 1-3, elf 1-3; then snake 4. it enforces order in it's own way.

[Sar]

But runes are optional, like high scores now, meaning most people won't go for them, unless we make the timer on the Lair ones really lax.

[bcadren]

But runes are optional, like high scores now, meaning most people won't go for them, unless we make the timer on the Lair ones really lax.

You wouldn't kill the tradition of 3 rune and 15 rune wins; people would still go for these fairly frequently though the fifteen rune (without caring about score just to be "Full Extended" could get really hard).

[Greyr]

But runes are optional, like high scores now, meaning most people won't go for them, unless we make the timer on the Lair ones really lax.

You wouldn't kill the tradition of 3 rune and 15 rune wins; people would still go for these fairly frequently though the fifteen rune (without caring about score just to be "Full Extended" could get really hard).

I doubt tradition will have much bearing on what drives the player. Especially new players, speedrunners, etc.

While I'm here, I would like to throw in my lot with the "remove the runelock(s)" group. Regardless of the reasons behind it's implementation, I don't really see it as anything but a minor nuisance. There are times when I feel obnoxiously high above the power curve and want to take on Zot as soon as possible.

And speaking of new players and speedrunners!:
If the runelocks were to be removed I doubt it would change the behavior much of a new player/a player simply trying to win since winning reliably involves grabbing as much safe XP as possible before Zot. Assuming that branches stay the same, with the toughest level being the last (usually by a great margin), the optimal strategy will be to dip into each branch wipe up the floors for XP then bail before the last one. This doesn't save much time, but theoretically makes the game easier?

Speedrunners OTOH, would love this change... For obvious reasons. But they are a minority and shouldn't have the game changed on account of their bourgeois sensibilities.
... I am so sorry I just used that word.

Edit:
At the risk of undermining my own point, I would like to point out that new players may not know what the "optimal strategy" is in terms of where to go when. This isn't a bad thing. One of the fun things about Crawl is not knowing exactly what is the best thing to do and dying as a result (while in the process learning, of course). This makes the game more fun.