Dungeoneer wrote:goodcoolguy wrote:I jump for joy whenever I get swamp. Please keep it easy.
i agree. not all people are pros and what about new players? in the recent updates the game is getting less and less new player friendly
See, I can get behind goodcoolguy, but I think you're off base, Dungeoneer.
I don't really have a huge problem with the S-branches having variable difficulty. What's the point of having randomized branches if it's basically a cosmetic change? I've had characters where Swamp presented lots of problems, and characters for whom Shoals was a breeze, but sure, most of the time, it's the other way around, and that's cool and fine with me. I don't think it's a great use of designer resources to balance them for balance's sake.
But I think the devs have really only made the game more "new player friendly" since I started playing, and the vast majority of that comes from interface and quality-of-life improvements. I'd say the bigger obstacle for new players remains the huge amount of stuff in the game and the huge spike in complexity from tutorial to hints mode to the full game. Difficulty itself isn't and shouldn't be a big consideration, imo; lots of games have reached way bigger audiences despite being more difficult and unforgiving than Crawl, after all.