The Tavern

Making ogres +3 at maces and flails settles all the interesting weapon decisions because you should always pick maces. Also, GSC are the most damaging weapons in the game so they should require a lot of training and effort to use them.

Maybe just turn ogres into shitty mages or something idk

og still has some of the most damaging melee in the game

Actually today Ogre's apts are greatly changed. (M&F -1, Staves +0, Magic schools -1)

I would never use GSCs after today's Ogre rework. Eveningstar + Large shield combo would be optimal for Ogres.

papilio wrote:Actually today Ogre's apts are greatly changed. (M&F -1, Staves +0, Magic schools -1)

Oh it looks like the devs implemented my suggestion already.

I've thought about it some more, though, and I think that ogres should just be removed entirely.

Ogres are now a relatively uninteresting species in terms of gameplay, feeling somewhat like trolls but with better magic aptitudes. Their theme originates from Tolkien, a source of lore that crawl is trying to borrow less from these days. Their ability to throw large rocks not withstanding, this particular Tolkien reference isn't particularly interesting.

After rework, Ogres are indeed distinctive/unique as 'casting giants'.

Yet I don't know their gameplay would be fun cause CWZ's trunk branch is not up-to-date... hmm.
But at least they don't seem weak for me. I think today's patch is like completely removing Ogre and bringing back Ogre Mages.

Ultraviolent4 wrote:
papilio wrote:Actually today Ogre's apts are greatly changed. (M&F -1, Staves +0, Magic schools -1)

Oh it looks like the devs implemented my suggestion already.

I've thought about it some more, though, and I think that ogres should just be removed entirely.

Ogres are now a relatively uninteresting species in terms of gameplay, feeling somewhat like trolls but with better magic aptitudes. Their theme originates from Tolkien, a source of lore that crawl is trying to borrow less from these days. Their ability to throw large rocks not withstanding, this particular Tolkien reference isn't particularly interesting.

Where did you find this kind of ogres in Tolkien? They don't appear directly in his books, they only are casually named once, possibly as legendary, and there is no reference to their magic and melee or what they do in general.

Shtopit wrote:Where did you find this kind of ogres in Tolkien? They don't appear directly in his books, they only are casually named once, possibly as legendary, and there is no reference to their magic and melee or what they do in general.

Are you trying to troll me? Please don't be a troll in a thread about ogres.

http://lotr.wikia.com/wiki/Ogres wrote:Ogres were a race mentioned only fleetingly once, in The Hobbit.

Ultraviolent4 wrote:Are you trying to troll me? Please don't be a troll in a thread about ogres.

A bit rich of you to be calling other people "trolls", don't you think

papilio wrote: Eveningstar + Large shield combo would be optimal for Ogres.

Why would an eveningstar be preferable to a demon trident?

Also hey guys an average m+f apt doesn't mean "stop using giant clubs"

Ah, I had not noticed that it was a reference to the reasons for removal. Ogres aren't tolkienesque, but orcs totally are (orc was a long unused Old English word that he revived for his works). Halflings also are an obvious reference, the fact that they are good at slings is a reference to Bilbo throwing rocks, and their resistance to mutation is a reference to the fact that hobbits were somewhat resilient to the effect of the Ring.

Other races may not have come into standard fantasy through the Tolkien bottleneck, but it is his version that is predominant. So "high fantasy" elves (that don't have much to do with the Elfin Knight), or dwarves - a plural form that was made popular by Tolkien, who battled against editors to keep it that way, because they kept changing it to "dwarfs", and his dwarves are quite different from those of chivalric novels.

Bottleneck nr 2 is D&D, which however is a lot more flattening and has a tendency to turn all races into one trick ponies or stereotypes, while Tolkien races generally contain more nuances each.

Note to mods: I know you don't like it when somebody just posts a picture w/o text but this expresses my opinion better than any words ever could.

Legit question: What was wrong with Ogres being good at clubbing things? If I was playing an Ogre, it was probably because I didn't want to think much about weapons and just wanted to use the shiniest mace I could.

Interesting weapon-type decisions still exist for most other races, and Ogres themselves had to make decisions about which spells they're picking up. Now they just feel like off-brand humans; if I wanted to play a human I'd pick Human at the start of the game, not Ogre.

(also they're better at polearms than clubs now which seems somewhat insane?)

Crawl Design Philosophy wrote:Major design goals
* challenging and random gameplay, with skill making a real difference
* meaningful decisions (no no-brainers)
* avoidance of grinding (no scumming)
* gameplay supporting painless interface and newbie suppor

Ultraviolent4 wrote:Are you trying to troll me? Please don't be a troll in a thread about ogres.

Well, by my definition a troll is a guy who first asks to make ogres similar to other species and then in the same thread asks to remove ogres as being too similar to other species after the first change...

I played old ogres often, now there is no reason to play them indeed.

duvessa wrote: * meaningful decisions (no no-brainers)

Geez, looks like the devteam are immediately disqualified for not following Crawl's design philosophy most of the time.

duvessa wrote:
Crawl Design Philosophy wrote:* meaningful decisions (no no-brainers)

guess i should get my troll games out of the way now while i can

Dioneo wrote:A bit rich of you to be calling other people "trolls", don't you think

Oooh, new DemiseAU! I don't watch his gameplay videos, but the ones where he talks about Crawl are great.

Doesnt wrote:If I was playing an Ogre, it was probably because I didn't want to think much about weapons and just wanted to use the shiniest mace I could.

That's the thing.
They tried to make them more plain in attemt to encourage variablity, which in normal Ogres being only Giant Spiked Clubs vs Smaller Spiked Clubs, with an occasional Chei sorcery. With -3 aptitudes for everything else there wasn't much a choice.
Since an attempt at more magical giant with Basajaunak seemingly sucked balls, they fused them.
Ironically enough, the result turned out exactly like the long deleted Ogre-mage, who had very similar aptitudes. Or was that intentional?

Rast wrote:
Dioneo wrote:A bit rich of you to be calling other people "trolls", don't you think

Oooh, new DemiseAU! I don't watch his gameplay videos, but the ones where he talks about Crawl are great.

Yea Demise is pretty good but I'm not sure about that other guy

Here are the aptitudes for the last stable version with ogre-mage (0.4).

Code:: Arm Ddg Sth Stb Shd T&D Inv Evo Exp --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human 100 100 100 100 100 100 75 75 100 High Elf 110 90 90 110 110 100 75 67 150 Grey Elf 140 75 70 100 140 100 75 67 140 Deep Elf 140 70 65 80 140 100 75 67 140 Sludge Elf 140 70 75 100 130 100 75 82 120 Mountain Dwarf 60 110 150 130 70 80 75 45 130 Hill Orc 90 140 150 100 80 100 75 75 100 Merfolk 160 60 90 70 100 120 75 75 120 Halfling 150 70 60 70 130 100 75 67 100 Gnome 150 70 70 80 120 70 90 45 110 Kobold 140 70 60 70 130 100 75 60 100 Spriggan 170 50 50 50 180 60 97 52 130 Naga 150 150 40 100 140 100 75 75 120 Centaur 180 170 200 170 180 150 75 97 140 Ogre 140 150 200 150 110 200 97 127 140 Ogre-Mage 170 130 100 130 150 150 75 75 150 Troll 150 130 250 150 150 200 112 135 150 Minotaur 80 80 130 100 80 120 97 127 140 Kenku 90 90 100 80 100 100 120 75 130 Draconian Red 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 White 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Green 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Yellow 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Grey 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Black 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Purple 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 67 130 Mottled 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 75 130 Pale 200 120 120 100 100 100 75 67 130 Demigod 110 110 110 110 110 110 82 82 160 Demonspawn 110 110 110 110 110 110 60 82 140 Mummy 140 140 140 140 140 140 105 105 150 Ghoul 110 110 80 100 110 120 82 97 120 Vampire 140 90 50 90 110 100 120 75 150 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Arm Ddg Sth Stb Shd T&D Inv Evo Exp Fgt SBl LBl Axs M&F Pla Stv U C Thr Slg Bws Crb Drt --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 High Elf 100 70 70 130 150 150 100 130 80 140 60 100 90 Grey Elf 140 90 95 140 160 160 100 130 80 130 70 100 90 Deep Elf 150 100 105 150 165 165 100 130 80 135 75 75 75 Sludge Elf 80 110 110 130 140 140 100 80 70 100 100 100 100 Mountain Dwarf 70 80 90 65 70 110 120 100 120 120 150 90 120 Hill Orc 70 100 80 70 80 80 110 90 100 130 120 120 130 Merfolk 80 70 90 140 150 50 130 90 100 150 140 140 100 Halfling 120 60 100 120 150 160 130 140 60 50 70 90 50 Gnome 100 75 100 100 130 140 130 110 100 80 100 90 60 Kobold 80 60 100 110 140 150 110 100 60 70 80 90 50 Spriggan 150 90 140 150 160 180 150 130 90 70 70 100 70 Naga 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 100 120 120 120 120 120 Centaur 100 120 110 110 110 110 110 100 60 75 60 85 80 Ogre 100 140 120 100 100 110 120 130 100 150 150 180 150 Ogre-Mage 100 110 100 100 100 100 100 100 150 150 150 150 150 Troll 140 150 150 150 130 150 150 100 130 180 180 180 180 Minotaur 70 70 70 70 70 70 70 80 90 90 90 90 90 Kenku 100 75 75 75 75 75 75 80 90 100 80 80 90 Draconian Red 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 White 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Green 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Yellow 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Grey 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Black 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Purple 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Mottled 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Pale 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 120 120 120 120 120 Demigod 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 Demonspawn 100 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 Mummy 100 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 Ghoul 80 110 110 110 110 110 110 80 130 130 130 130 130 Vampire 110 90 100 110 140 110 140 90 140 140 140 140 140 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Fgt SBl LBl Axs M&F Pla Stv U C Thr Slg Bws Crb Drt Spc Coj Enc Sum Nec Trl Trm Div Fir Ice Air Ear Poi --------------------------------------------------------------------- Human 130 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 High Elf 91 90 70 110 130 90 90 110 100 100 70 130 130 Grey Elf 78 90 50 90 130 80 80 80 90 90 60 150 110 Deep Elf 71 80 50 80 70 75 75 75 90 90 80 100 80 Sludge Elf 91 130 130 90 90 100 60 130 80 80 80 80 80 Mountain Dwarf 208 120 150 150 160 150 120 130 70 130 150 70 130 Hill Orc 195 100 120 120 100 150 160 160 100 100 150 100 110 Merfolk 130 140 90 100 150 140 60 80 160 80 150 150 80 Halfling 169 130 100 120 150 100 150 140 100 100 90 100 120 Gnome 156 100 100 110 130 130 120 120 100 100 170 60 130 Kobold 143 110 110 105 105 100 110 130 100 100 100 100 100 Spriggan 78 160 50 150 120 50 60 70 140 140 120 120 100 Naga 130 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 60 Centaur 182 120 110 120 120 120 120 130 120 120 120 120 130 Ogre 286 180 220 200 150 200 200 200 150 150 200 120 150 Ogre-Mage 91 100 80 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Troll 260 160 200 160 150 160 160 200 160 160 200 120 160 Minotaur 234 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 170 Kenku 130 60 160 70 80 150 150 180 90 120 90 120 100 Draconian Red 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 70 135 100 100 100 Green 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 70 White 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 135 70 100 100 100 Yellow 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Grey 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Black 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 70 135 100 Purple 91 100 90 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 Mottled 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 80 100 100 100 100 Pale 130 100 120 100 100 100 100 100 90 100 90 100 100 Demigod 143 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 110 Demonspawn 130 100 110 100 90 110 110 110 100 110 110 110 100 Mummy 130 140 140 140 100 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 140 Ghoul 156 130 130 120 100 120 120 120 150 90 150 90 100 Vampire 130 160 90 100 90 140 90 120 140 100 100 120 120 --------------------------------------------------------------------- Spc Coj Enc Sum Nec Trl Trm Div Fir Ice Air Ear Poi

Code:: Arm Ddg Sth Stb Shd T&D Inv Evo Exp --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ogre 140 150 200 150 110 200 97 127 140 Ogre-Mage 170 130 100 130 150 150 75 75 150 0.5 Ogre 150 120 150 150 120 150 75 120 110 Fgt SBl LBl Axs M&F Pla Stv U C Thr Slg Bws Crb Drt --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ogre 100 140 120 100 100 110 120 130 100 150 150 180 150 Ogre-Mage 100 110 100 100 100 100 100 100 150 150 150 150 150 0.5 Ogre 70 200 180 180 90 110 120 110 80 180 180 180 180 Spc Coj Enc Sum Nec Trl Trm Div Fir Ice Air Ear Poi --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ogre 286 180 220 200 150 200 200 200 150 150 200 120 150 Ogre-Mage 91 100 80 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 0.5 Ogre 91 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160 160

(HP and MP gain per level were very different in old versions; they were randomized. 0.4 ogres and trolls got +1.5 hp per level, -0.66 mp per level, and +1 strength every 3 levels. Ogre mages got +1 hp per level and +1 intelligence or strength every 5 levels. 0.5 ogre got +1 hp per level and +1 strength every 3 levels. Note that strength did almost nothing in these versions.)

It's true that the new version of ogre resembles 0.4 ogre mage a little more than it resembles last week's ogre, but ogre was just ogre-mage with worse aptitudes until 0.8 when it got fighting, maces, and hp buffed. And giant clubs/GSCs/maces in general have been buffed since 0.4, and ogres' experience aptitude and the effect of strength have been greatly buffed since 0.4. Now ONE of those aptitudes has been dialed back and people are mad.

duvessa wrote:Now ONE of those aptitudes has been dialed back and people are mad.

Yea, I don't get it either. If Ogres really have to stay in the game, polearm Ogre sounds like a good way to go.

Now that I think about it, we could apply the same fix to other species that have similar obvious-weapon-type issues. Maybe dial back Polearms on Merfolk to be -1 as well?

Merfolk don't get a unique merfolk-only polearm.

chequers wrote:Merfolk don't get a unique merfolk-only polearm.

Then they should.

The main concern, as I see it, is that we should be looking to remove no-brainers from crawl. Indeed, this is a stated major design goal of the crawl devs and for good reason; almost everyone would agree that an obvious decision is a boring one.

When Ogres have a +3 M&F aptitude and a special weapon of that type, you should train that skill every time. However, by dropping the M&F aptitude to -1 and keeping the special weapon, a much more interesting choice arises. Should an Ogre train M&F, with the ultimate promise of a GSC, when they have a slightly disfavoured aptitude for it or should they just use a polearm or staff which they have a standard aptitude for?

Off the top of my head, the same no-brainer problem exists for Trolls and Merfolk. Trolls start the game with a kind of special weapon in the form of claws 3 and their best aptitude is Unarmed Combat. This makes the use of their claws the obvious choice every single time. As you say, Merfolk don't have a special form of polearm but their +4 aptitude for Polearms is so overwhelmingly strong that it's still a no-brainer.

The devs could apply the same kind of solution to Trolls and Merfolk as they just did with Ogres. If we drop the Unarmed Combat aptitude of Trolls then the decision wouldn't be so obvious to always use their claws. Merfolk are a little bit trickier because, if you only lower their Polearms aptitude, there is no longer an incentive to use that type of weapon. The further step of adding a Merfolk-only polearm would once again present an interesting dilemma and remedy the no-brainer which currently exists.

Re: Mf, an anecdote.

I was playing a MfSu and found a dagger of elec early. Mf have +2 short blade apt and the dagger can get in stabs with summons around. I think the optimal way to play would have been to use dagger early and perhaps switch to polearm later in the game. In the meantime, one can use a polearm with 0 or low skill in the cases where one needs to poke monsters from behind the summons.

Ultraviolent4 wrote:
Then they should.

The main concern, as I see it, is that we should be looking to remove no-brainers from crawl. Indeed, this is a stated major design goal of the crawl devs and for good reason; almost everyone would agree that an obvious decision is a boring one.

When Ogres have a +3 M&F aptitude and a special weapon of that type, you should train that skill every time. However, by dropping the M&F aptitude to -1 and keeping the special weapon, a much more interesting choice arises. Should an Ogre train M&F, with the ultimate promise of a GSC, when they have a slightly disfavoured aptitude for it or should they just use a polearm or staff which they have a standard aptitude for?

Off the top of my head, the same no-brainer problem exists for Trolls and Merfolk. Trolls start the game with a kind of special weapon in the form of claws 3 and their best aptitude is Unarmed Combat. This makes the use of their claws the obvious choice every single time. As you say, Merfolk don't have a special form of polearm but their +4 aptitude for Polearms is so overwhelmingly strong that it's still a no-brainer.

The devs could apply the same kind of solution to Trolls and Merfolk as they just did with Ogres. If we drop the Unarmed Combat aptitude of Trolls then the decision wouldn't be so obvious to always use their claws. Merfolk is a little bit trickier because, if you only lower their Polearms aptitude, there is no longer an incentive to use that type of weapon. The further step of adding a Merfolk-only polearm would once again present an interesting dilemma and remedy the no-brainer which currently exists.

That's the personalities and characteristics of species.
Old crawl originally differentiated apts on different weapon types, because the old devs thought that doing so would "depict" the "characteristics" of species.

You're saying every apts of weapons must be flatten down or unified, then why the fucking aptitudes of weapons do exist?
Merge all apts of attacking skills to three. Fighting, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat. Are all of you happy now?

Next logical step is to remove size and armour/dodging aptitudes, currently it is no brainer to use light armour with Te or heavy armour with HO. Then remove skill/HP aptitudes and introduce what they really are i.e. difficulty levels. #roadtoperfectcrawl

I'm sick of those ridiculous "no-brainer" rhetorics.

Remove minotaurs, because almost all Mi's plays as warriors. Hey! They're no-brainers!
Remove deep elves, because almost all DE's plays as mages,
Remove sizes, remove aptitudes, ...

Oh! Then the ideal crawl would only have one combination available, Human Wanderer!

Guess I should bring up this post again.

duvessa wrote:It's true that the new version of ogre resembles 0.4 ogre mage a little more than it resembles last week's ogre, but ogre was just ogre-mage with worse aptitudes until 0.8 when it got fighting, maces, and hp buffed. And giant clubs/GSCs/maces in general have been buffed since 0.4, and ogres' experience aptitude and the effect of strength have been greatly buffed since 0.4. Now ONE of those aptitudes has been dialed back and people are mad.

I'd say they resemble them now more than a little. Besides, even Ouga mages had better aptitudes at Maces, why -1? Outright discouraging from a racial gimmick, while actually pushing to use magic/staves to compensate seems like a retarded idea. +1 Maces, 0 Staves and Axes seem more reasonable, if the purpose is variability.
As is raising spellcasting back to +2 or even 3, while keeping schools penalties. Not only does this somewhat encouraging spellcasting, but also keeps ogre flavour image stable.
Mages ARE supposed to be a rare thing.

papilio wrote:
Ultraviolent4 wrote:
Then they should.

The main concern, as I see it, is that we should be looking to remove no-brainers from crawl. Indeed, this is a stated major design goal of the crawl devs and for good reason; almost everyone would agree that an obvious decision is a boring one.

When Ogres have a +3 M&F aptitude and a special weapon of that type, you should train that skill every time. However, by dropping the M&F aptitude to -1 and keeping the special weapon, a much more interesting choice arises. Should an Ogre train M&F, with the ultimate promise of a GSC, when they have a slightly disfavoured aptitude for it or should they just use a polearm or staff which they have a standard aptitude for?

Off the top of my head, the same no-brainer problem exists for Trolls and Merfolk. Trolls start the game with a kind of special weapon in the form of claws 3 and their best aptitude is Unarmed Combat. This makes the use of their claws the obvious choice every single time. As you say, Merfolk don't have a special form of polearm but their +4 aptitude for Polearms is so overwhelmingly strong that it's still a no-brainer.

The devs could apply the same kind of solution to Trolls and Merfolk as they just did with Ogres. If we drop the Unarmed Combat aptitude of Trolls then the decision wouldn't be so obvious to always use their claws. Merfolk is a little bit trickier because, if you only lower their Polearms aptitude, there is no longer an incentive to use that type of weapon. The further step of adding a Merfolk-only polearm would once again present an interesting dilemma and remedy the no-brainer which currently exists.

That's the personalities and characteristics of species.
Old crawl originally differentiated apts on different weapon types, because the old devs thought that doing so would "depict" the "characteristics" of species.

You're saying every apts of weapons must be flatten down or unified, then why the fucking aptitudes of weapons do exist?
Merge all apts of attacking skills to three. Fighting, Melee Combat, Ranged Combat. Are all of you happy now?

This is actually good though, Sil does it and it's fine. Weapon aptitudes are power levels and nothing else. How often do you say "Oh man, I seriously need to Make An Interesting Decision Between Long Blades And Axes?" Hint: never. You can almost always count on drops and acquirement to give you a weapon of sufficient quality, in the basetype you started with, to enchant to +9 and use to finish the game. If you can afford to allocate XP to a skill for zero returns for quite some time, as in, transitioning to a new weapon skill based on a drop, you really do not need the power level boost from the new weapon type! This is because the concern of finding a suitable long-term enchant target is not a real concern. I take issue with the idea that "what weapon type do I use" is an interesting decision. There is not really a big difference between how you play with each weapon type except Polearms to some extent, and Axes are good for lazy people like me.

With that said, I doubt there will ever be a consolidation of melee aptitudes into one skill, so I think it's fine to have a non-decision on weapon type for some races. You want to use polearms, play a merfolk, cool. Or if you want to use a gsc play an ogre and so on.

duvessa wrote:Guess I should bring up this post again.

The design philosophy can be and is ignored when it's convenient, see floor traps

tabstorm wrote:This is actually good though, Sil does it and it's fine. Weapon aptitudes are power levels and nothing else. How often do you say "Oh man, I seriously need to Make An Interesting Decision Between Long Blades And Axes?" Hint: never. You can almost always count on drops and acquirement to give you a weapon of sufficient quality, in the basetype you started with, to enchant to +9 and use to finish the game. If you can afford to allocate XP to a skill for zero returns for quite some time, as in, transitioning to a new weapon skill based on a drop, you really do not need the power level boost from the new weapon type! This is because the concern of finding a suitable long-term enchant target is not a real concern. I take issue with the idea that "what weapon type do I use" is an interesting decision. There is not really a big difference between how you play with each weapon type except Polearms to some extent, and Axes are good for lazy people like me.

Some combos are very powerful early game so they can afford investing skill points into skills they currently don't use hoping that will make their late game easier. Typical example is SpEn, you don't need Conjurations, Tornado, Necromancy or Summonings before very late game but getting some of those is a very good idea.
Similarly, I can be fine with OgHu using dagger of electro early game (and I will train some Short Blades for that) but in the long run I know that G(S)C deals crazy damage so I will try to get it to min dealy eventually, because it will make fighting orbs of fire and alike much easier.

Also I choose between axes and non-axes all the time, actually I get 2 (and sometimes 3) high end weapons from different categories quite often. My last 3 online non-Felid games, for example:

HOAr

Code:: Level 9.6(12.1) Short Blades Level 13.0(14.3) Long Blades - Level 20.6 Axes

MiAr

Code:: Level 3.5(7.5) Short Blades - Level 11.7(20.2) Axes - Level 25.6(26.2) Polearms

FoFi

Code:: + Level 22.7(26.7) Axes - Level 25.0(27) Polearms

Ogre's no brainer was never weapon related, unless you count big rocks as a weapon, and those things are a no brainer at -5 aptitude ffs. The apt flattening just kills what was a pretty distinctive book start D1-1st Sbranch hybrid game.

M&F has the same "variety" as flat apts weapon choice, you are either going big 2 hander, heavy 1 hander and board, or fast one hander and board with staves as an option on all of the above.

Please explain how sacrificing flavor and gameplay for the super facinating decision of "axes for heavy mele, swords for mid armor mele, poles for summons, m&f for board, shorts for stabbing" at the loading screen is an improvement? Is making okatrog even more of an obvious temple pick "variety" now?

Edit: Please do not say big caster with flat apts, that exists, is named naga and is hella distinctive. Alternately draconians and formicids offer pseudo bigflatcaster play for those who dislike naga drawbacks.

tabstorm wrote:The design philosophy can be and is ignored when it's convenient, see floor traps

You've been around long enough that you should know better than this. I assume you're well aware that the dev team has been talking about the problems with floor traps for a while now. We tend to move a bit slowly and not always in a linear direction, since a) we're a team of volunteers with differing opinions and b) we tend to take a conservative/incremental approach to major design changes, but I believe that eventually we'll come up with a change to floor traps that will be a net improvement over the status quo. My hope is that we'll have one in 0.20, but I can't promise anything at this point.

A design philosophy is a useful thing for keeping disparate people with different opinions moving overall in the same direction, but it's not a magic spell that instantly makes the game the Platonic ideal of itself. Real people have to do the work, and real people who want to work together need to have some level of consensus.

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
tabstorm wrote:This is actually good though, Sil does it and it's fine. Weapon aptitudes are power levels and nothing else. How often do you say "Oh man, I seriously need to Make An Interesting Decision Between Long Blades And Axes?" Hint: never. You can almost always count on drops and acquirement to give you a weapon of sufficient quality, in the basetype you started with, to enchant to +9 and use to finish the game. If you can afford to allocate XP to a skill for zero returns for quite some time, as in, transitioning to a new weapon skill based on a drop, you really do not need the power level boost from the new weapon type! This is because the concern of finding a suitable long-term enchant target is not a real concern. I take issue with the idea that "what weapon type do I use" is an interesting decision. There is not really a big difference between how you play with each weapon type except Polearms to some extent, and Axes are good for lazy people like me.

Some combos are very powerful early game so they can afford investing skill points into skills they currently don't use hoping that will make their late game easier. Typical example is SpEn, you don't need Conjurations, Tornado, Necromancy or Summonings before very late game but getting some of those is a very good idea.
Similarly, I can be fine with OgHu using dagger of electro early game (and I will train some Short Blades for that) but in the long run I know that G(S)C deals crazy damage so I will try to get it to min dealy eventually, because it will make fighting orbs of fire and alike much easier.

Also I choose between axes and non-axes all the time, actually I get 2 (and sometimes 3) high end weapons from different categories quite often. My last 3 online non-Felid games, for example:

HOAr
  Code:
Level 9.6(12.1) Short Blades Level 13.0(14.3) Long Blades - Level 20.6 Axes

MiAr
  Code:
Level 3.5(7.5) Short Blades - Level 11.7(20.2) Axes - Level 25.6(26.2) Polearms

FoFi
  Code:
+ Level 22.7(26.7) Axes - Level 25.0(27) Polearms

Just because you did something doesn't mean it was actually a good idea. There are also crucial differences between spells and weapons, namely that you can in principle win with level 6-7 spells, without too much difficulty, but you are absolutely going to gimp yourself if you choose to stop using Polearms once you have a halberd at min delay, for example.

Lasty wrote:
tabstorm wrote:The design philosophy can be and is ignored when it's convenient, see floor traps

A design philosophy is a useful thing for keeping disparate people with different opinions moving overall in the same direction, but it's not a magic spell that instantly makes the game the Platonic ideal of itself.

No kidding, and this is actually good, but let's not pretend that philosophy isn't willingly ignored at times when the feature in question is deemed sufficiently interesting to warrant it. I'm pretty sure I've seen the same argument against the current iteration of traps since I started playing in around 0.13, and yet we had new traps added in 0.16, for example, and just had a thread explicitly defending shafts as being interesting enough to overlook the degenerate play they encourage.

tabstorm wrote:Just because you did something doesn't mean it was actually a good idea. There are also crucial differences between spells and weapons, namely that you can in principle win with level 6-7 spells, without too much difficulty, but you are absolutely going to gimp yourself if you choose to stop using Polearms once you have a halberd at min delay, for example.

If I don't have a glaive yet, I stop training polearms, yes.
Early game is not crowded with monsters and has many corridors so I can use polearms just fine.
Late game you get Vaults with Vault Warden and without narrow corridors, open levels of Depths with monsters everywhere and in packs, Zot has draconian shifters etc. so cleaving attacks become much more useful.
So I use the best weapon for every specific situation.
I am not sure how you spend XP late game, do you think an extra point in AC or a couple of extra HP are more useful than cleaving? Or training Charms/Hexes/Necromancy does anything while you are trying to get Spectral Weapon/Animate Dead/Regeneration castable in plate armour?

Edit. MiAr game, you can see I got Axes from 0 to 11 during a single XL level because an electro battleaxe dropped and I needed crowd control, that gave me min delay for battleaxe (I had bardiche at almost min delay at this point also). Also I used lajatang at min delay despite having literally 0 skill in staves. Crosstraining is broken mechanic.

Code:: Halberd | 43 | 123 | 448 | 863 | 1525 | 396 | | | || 3398 Glaive | | | | | | 1565 | 664 | | 321 || 2550 Bardiche | | | | | | | 1217 | 1457 | 1428 || 4102 Battleaxe | | | | | | | 13 | 66 | 252 || 331 Lajatang | | | | | | | | 227 | 1456 || 1683 Skill XL: | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 | ---------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----- Short Blades | 2 3 | 3.5 Polearms | 2 4 6 8 9 11 12 13 15 16 17 20 23 25 | 25.6 Axes | 11 | 11.7

Well, assuming I'm playing a warrior type character, I almost always just go Axes in the first place unless I have a high apt in something else, because I'm lazy. You can usually count on finding a battleaxe of freezing or elec somewhere, and usually I manage to acquire an executioner's axe or good battleaxe often enough, get gifted one, or buy one through Gozag. In open areas, I can just walk back to a corridor. Fighting two enemies at once is usually okay provided I have heavy enough armor. I don't even bother going for any spells outside of translocations and rmsl any more unless I have Chei, I'm too lazy to remember to cast them and it doesn't seem to have any real effect on me living or dying late game. My spectral weapon tends to die too quickly for it to really be noticeable. On a non-speedrun I've died about two times ever in Depths and both of them were mages, so I think this strategy is good.

There's no reason to worry about open areas in Zot when the walls are diggable.

Instead of training a bunch of different weapon skills, you can just train Fighting and have better accuracy with weapons of venom or elec you find on the ground in the early game. Even 0 skill melee with these is fine.

Axes are different (they are universal, the best weapon category IMHO), I cannot argue vs ignoring other types unless you find vampiric glaive or something. I am glad we are on the same page now

Edit. I had Fighting 20 when I started training Axe, please don't tell me I needed more for accuracy

HOAr is probably even more interesting. Though again you can see I got 11 levels in Axes during a single XL and from 1 to 20 in just 3 XLs. HO's aptitude in axes is broken again

Code:: Skill XL: | 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 | ---------------+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+----- Fighting | 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 15 16 18 19 20 21 22 23 27 | 27.0 Axes | 1 12 17 20 | 20.6 Short Blades | 2 4 5 7 9 | 9.6 Evocations | 4 6 8 9 11 13 14 | 14.9 Long Blades | 5 7 9 10 12 13 | 13.0

So here is the problem with reducing ogre m&f apt: it doesn't make the choice to use m&f any less of a no brainer, it is still always optimal to use a gc if you aren't using a shield, if you were going to use a shield, then the best one handed weapon you could find was already optimal regardless of aptitude.

The reason that this is so is that *the best weapon you can use is the primary determiner of what weapon you should be using, not your aptitude*

What this does, in effect, is simply lower non shield using ogres available xp to spend on non weapon skills, making the choice of what to spend xp on outside of weapon skill more constrained, and less flexible (assuming you want to survive)

If ogres were overpowered then this was a decent nerf. I personally dont think they were and the net result of this change for me is that i spend more time luring and more time resting (which was already a problem for ogres being low defenses, high hps, and normal regen)

I wonder how it would be if weapon aptitudes were more like resistances currently are; there is not a skill of "poison resistance" which constantly increases in tiny increments, you either have it or you don't. What if weapons were like that? Rather than "leveling" your skill with axes or whatever, you'd just be given axe proficiency at character creation which would allow you to use axes without penalty. Attack delay would be fixed for each kind of weapon and damage would scale with XL/Str/Dex or something like that.

Backgrounds would grant proficiencies, so that a fighter would be proficient in all melee and throwing weapons (since they're all about fighting) while a conjurer could only use short blades, staves and slings without penalty. This would be a good way to differentiate backgrounds, where some characters could freely choose from what the dungeon gives them, while others are more restricted, it would mitigate the tendency for all characters to converge towards the endgame and it would get rid of worrying about mindelay and such.

In addition, species would have their own proficiencies added onto the background ones, Orcs always have axe proficiency, and Merfolk can always use polearms (for example) even when playing as conjurers. Gods like Okawaru and Trog could also grant certain weapon proficiencies, and finding a skill tome would permanently give you proficiency related to its weapon type.

How stupid is that

Dioneo wrote:I wonder how it would be if weapon aptitudes were more like resistances currently are; there is not a skill of "poison resistance" which constantly increases in tiny increments, you either have it or you don't. What if weapons were like that? Rather than "leveling" your skill with axes or whatever, you'd just be given axe proficiency at character creation which would allow you to use axes without penalty. Attack delay would be fixed for each kind of weapon and damage would scale with XL/Str/Dex or something like that.

Similar concept was implemented in some crawl fork (Fighting was the only factor to increase attack speed for all weapons, Str was the only factor to increase weapon damage, Dex was the only factor to increase accuracy, I don't remember what Weapon skill did, probably decreased stamina cost for attacking). It was awful, all melee characters were alike having polearm, axe, short blade, M&F and a couple of laucnhers in inventory and switching between them very often.

tabstorm wrote:
Lasty wrote:
tabstorm wrote:The design philosophy can be and is ignored when it's convenient, see floor traps

A design philosophy is a useful thing for keeping disparate people with different opinions moving overall in the same direction, but it's not a magic spell that instantly makes the game the Platonic ideal of itself.

No kidding, and this is actually good, but let's not pretend that philosophy isn't willingly ignored at times when the feature in question is deemed sufficiently interesting to warrant it. I'm pretty sure I've seen the same argument against the current iteration of traps since I started playing in around 0.13, and yet we had new traps added in 0.16, for example, and just had a thread explicitly defending shafts as being interesting enough to overlook the degenerate play they encourage.

Sure, sometimes individual contributors have done things that, at least arguably, violate the design philosophy, but overall it isn't ignored and it's used as a guidepost to help keep us moving in the right direction. Regarding shafts specifically, I believe the defense was of the effect "being shafted" rather than the specific implementation "hidden shaft trap tied to a specific tile". As far as I know, the dev team as a group understands that there are problems with hidde traps being tied to specific tiles, even if the trap effects are desirable.

Siegurt wrote:If ogres were overpowered then this was a decent nerf

They were not. Ogres and Trolls are balanced by the fact that they can only wear robes, TLA and dragon armors that they can only mostly get in either Vaults, Depths, and Swamp. along with very few aux slots and they can't even wear helms. Hats are rarer than Helms despite giving 1 AC less and 0 AC while unenchanted.

Early game especially Lair are quite difficult for Ogres. Trolls have ridiculous hp regen to last on encounters and claws along with very good attack delay to offset its weakness but they can still get wrecked as fast as they regenerate if their positioning are poor. Nagas have the ability to wear armor of all kinds, spit poison for those gorillion of non-poison resistant monsters in Dungeon and constriction for melee in Lair but their very slow movement speed all throughout the game balances that. Ogres have... nothing except large clubs. If they found some large rocks or get a ton early from worshiping Okawaru/Trog, then great but RNG and God worshiping is not always like that so it's invalid to assume that an Ogre is always going to have large rocks.

b-but large clubs drop like hotcakes

That is unfortunately not enough for Ogres to still be the weakest among the 3 large races considering the above statement.

Well considering that ogres are way better than nagas and that trolls are objectively overpowered I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you have no idea what you're talking about.

Ogres are only better than Nagas if you consider earlygame to be important, which makes zero sense.

Hellmonk wrote:Well considering that ogres are way better than nagas

Your inability to play Nagas does not count here. Ogres can compete with them and be superior to them only during early game but since Naga apts on both melee/magic schools are decent as well as their AC that could only go higher as their aux slots are so many + more freedom on which body armour/headgear to wear + [my previous post] Nagas always completely outclass Ogres.

Pure melee Ogre is much easier than any Naga. +3 aptitudes in fighting/m&f are crazy powerful. I currently have an Ogre with 196 HP and GSC at min delay at XL 17 (before getting any runes). Defenses are not important yet since you can run away from everything unlike Naga.

removeelyvilon wrote:Note to mods: I know you don't like it when somebody just posts a picture w/o text but this expresses my opinion better than any words ever could.

Is this a thing?

The Tavern

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