Remove Trog, increase rage pot generation to compensate.

[removeelyvilon]

Berserk works better as a consumable than an ability. Don't know why, but that hasn't stopped anybody in the past.
Infinite berserk ins obvously problematic and bad for the game.
Thus Remove Trog and items with evokable wrath; increase rage pot ratio to compensate.

[n1000]

Remove Trog as a starting god and give Be an amulet of rage and some evocations skill to compensate. (I'm hijacking your thread)

Berserker is a good starting role for beginners because it provides a powerful tool (berserk) and a simple pre-temple game. Berserker, however, is presently an unbalanced and inflexible starting background. Zealot roles have been pruned because they tend to destroy the flexibility of character development that is a hallmark of crawl design.

Trog is a good god, but the extra piety at the start and early part of the game skyrockets --Be characters into having way too powerful weapons as early as the first floors of lair. It's not good that the benefits of such an easy start are compounded by extra piety: an easy early game is followed by an extremely easy middle.

The biggest problem with Trog as a starting god isn't how easy it makes everything, though. It removes interesting choices. Your starting weapon type can (and probably will) be your main weapon skill for the rest of the game. By the time a normal character is looking to upgrade to a decent weapon (IME, sometime in Lair or Orc if it hasn't happened already this becomes a big priority) but with Trog from D:1, you have enough weapon skill that Trog is just gifting you exactly what you want.

By changing Berserker to have an amulet of rage and no Trog, you get characters who can destroy early D with berserk, but still have the flexibility to worship at D:2-3 altars. Trog is still a good choice for these characters! In short, this change would increase the flexibility of the Berserker start, and also will make the Trog-worshiper "power curve" match up better with the challenges in the middle-game.

[Siegurt]

Remove Trog as a starting god and give Be an amulet of rage and some evocations skill to compensate. (I'm hijacking your thread)

Berserker is a good starting role for beginners because it provides a powerful tool (berserk) and a simple pre-temple game. Berserker, however, is presently an unbalanced and inflexible starting background. Zealot roles have been pruned because they tend to destroy the flexibility of character development that is a hallmark of crawl design.

Trog is a good god, but the extra piety at the start and early part of the game skyrockets --Be characters into having way too powerful weapons as early as the first floors of lair. It's not good that the benefits of such an easy start are compounded by extra piety: an easy early game is followed by an extremely easy middle.

The biggest problem with Trog as a starting god isn't how easy it makes everything, though. It removes interesting choices. Your starting weapon type can (and probably will) be your main weapon skill for the rest of the game. By the time a normal character is looking to upgrade to a decent weapon (IME, sometime in Lair or Orc if it hasn't happened already this becomes a big priority) but with Trog from D:1, you have enough weapon skill that Trog is just gifting you exactly what you want.

By changing Berserker to have an amulet of rage and no Trog, you get characters who can destroy early D with berserk, but still have the flexibility to worship at D:2-3 altars. Trog is still a good choice for these characters! In short, this change would increase the flexibility of the Berserker start, and also will make the Trog-worshiper "power curve" match up better with the challenges in the middle-game.

Yeah, I agree that Be being a background that starts with an amulet of rage would be a better-designed background, although it would *also* not be a "beginner start" particularly if it still started with the "worse-than-fi-or-gl" equipment.

A minor thing, but one that probably deserves some thought, is that enough EVO to reasonably activate an amulet of berserk would be a big skill bonus. An even more minor thing is that berserk is better with trog, than it is with just an amulet of rage.

[bel]

Remove Trog as a starting god and give Be an amulet of rage and some evocations skill to compensate. (I'm hijacking your thread)

Berserker is a good starting role for beginners because it provides a powerful tool (berserk) and a simple pre-temple game. Berserker, however, is presently an unbalanced and inflexible starting background. Zealot roles have been pruned because they tend to destroy the flexibility of character development that is a hallmark of crawl design.

Trog is a good god, but the extra piety at the start and early part of the game skyrockets --Be characters into having way too powerful weapons as early as the first floors of lair. It's not good that the benefits of such an easy start are compounded by extra piety: an easy early game is followed by an extremely easy middle.

The biggest problem with Trog as a starting god isn't how easy it makes everything, though. It removes interesting choices. Your starting weapon type can (and probably will) be your main weapon skill for the rest of the game. By the time a normal character is looking to upgrade to a decent weapon (IME, sometime in Lair or Orc if it hasn't happened already this becomes a big priority) but with Trog from D:1, you have enough weapon skill that Trog is just gifting you exactly what you want.

By changing Berserker to have an amulet of rage and no Trog, you get characters who can destroy early D with berserk, but still have the flexibility to worship at D:2-3 altars. Trog is still a good choice for these characters! In short, this change would increase the flexibility of the Berserker start, and also will make the Trog-worshiper "power curve" match up better with the challenges in the middle-game.

First, let me talk about beginners: It seems to me "decreased flexibility" and "ahead of the curve compared to the dungeon" are features rather than bugs. The former is useful because it supplies a viable path without overwhelming them, and the latter is useful because beginners will make suboptimal choices.

For an experienced player, starting with an amulet of rage would still help a lot in the early game, with the added flexibility that they can take a god with doesn't hate magic (Makhleb or Okawaru, for instance). Against this, (assuming the player takes Trog) there is the disadvantage of not having more powerful berserk ability from the start and lower piety at a comparable stage. Loss of magic is a fairly serious disadvantage, and in my opinion, the result might well be a wash.

So I don't like this. Of course, Be is strong, probably better than all other classes, but it's not a big deal if one class is unbalanced. If one wants flexibility, one can simply play Fi or Gl.

[tabstorm]

If flexibility is such a concern, what is the point of the damn character select screen?

[VeryAngryFelid]

Infinite berserk ins obvously problematic and bad for the game.

It isn't obvious to me. We need some easy mode for new players and having one is good for the game.

[prozacelf]

Not to mention that past a certain point in the game berserking is often a lot more dangerous than just whaling on dudes with your big axe and turning on Trog's Hand or summoning some bros.

[dynast]

--Be is for new DCSS players what the drake sword is for new Dark Souls players.

[Shtopit]

I would go a different direction than the OP did. Make Berserker start with an amulet of rage, some point in evo, same weapons as now and maybe a ringmail, but without Trog. So you still have Be as "melee with rage", but also the chance to go into spells and whatever god you want. It helps in the early game, and doesn't turn beginners away from magic while teaching something about evokables.

[Shtopit]

Oh snap, my idea isn't original at all!

[Shard1697]

--Be is for new DCSS players what the drake sword is for new Dark Souls players.

drake sword is bad later on though(and not super good early either), Be is great forever

[prozacelf]

--Be is for new DCSS players what the drake sword is for new Dark Souls players.

Really good until you realize you completely wasted resources upgrading it because the damage scales like shit?

EDIT: Alas, I should have scrolled all the way down and noticed that Shard already commented on this.

[dynast]

The point is that you dont learn jack shit because you just power through things. So eventually you have to stop and learn how to play the game, or you can just use trog forever, but how good are new players at winning --Be and why should a new player ONLY play --Be?

[thevogonpoet]

The point is that you dont learn jack shit because you just power through things. So eventually you have to stop and learn how to play the game, or you can just use trog forever, but how good are new players at winning --Be and why should a new player ONLY play --Be?

Who are all these Trog only beginners you seem to dislike so? I played a lot of Be when I was a noob, my first rune was with a Be (KoBe I think maybe?). I also played *a lot* of doomed SETm, SpEn, DeFE and doomed DDNe (SETm were definitely, definitively, the most doomed mind). Even with Trog, I still had to learn all about positioning, and which monsters are actually dangerous, and when Berserk is safe to use, etc. My first 7 wins were not Be, but now Be is my most won background, followed very closely by En. I don't see the problem tbh. Trog is cool, he's a bro.

/love you Trog
//I love Ash more though

[dynast]

Who are all these Trog only beginners you seem to dislike so?

Where did you get that from?