The Tavern

It seems like most posts here are about removing certain features,races or spells or shortening the content in the game, presumably so they can finish the game faster... and do something actually exciting? Are all these attempts at reducing 'tedium' simply because crawl is, at it's core, not a fun game to play normally?

Once you get the 'winning formula' down, every run seems to be about going through the motions unless you intentionally gimp yourself through a certain conduct or choosing to divert your character from the path with the most chance for success.

Looking at the first page of GDD, I only see 4 "remove" posts out of maybe 40. Many of the "remove" posts aren't serious. They are just riffing off the High Elf removal commit. Even if they were serious, the chances of them being implemented are slim.

As for additions, I see many new feature requests, gods, branches and so on. For instance, the Ieoh Jian thread, the dynamic monsters thread, the cyno species thread, frog thread and so on. There are also other threads, many of them want features added to the game (like Abyss difficulty increasing with each visit, improving QDA).

Also keep in mind that removing things is easier, but adding things is more fun (at least for the person adding them). Therefore, there are in-built tendencies towards adding more stuff.

I think you don't need to worry about removals hollowing out the game. IMO, Crawl is very big; some pruning now and then is good.

run while you still can

Do you actually enjoy playing crawl?

good question

ayyy lmao

I think the game gets harder on each revision. I would like to get great player but it appears harder to accomplish this on the new rules. I think I may stay on .19 or .18. I am here to have fun and I don't find the new version fun. Removing levels removes xp, removing items like heal wounds removes opportunities, removing spells does the same.

Great game but I don't like the directions it's going. At this point maybe they should eliminate everything but ruin levels and all non damage spells. So you chose swamp or snake and off you go. Not a game I would play. Maybe instead of changing this game they should make a new game called coffee break dcss.

Good news is I don't have to play the new versions. I can play any version I want as long as I want.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I agree with you sage1234, I don't really like the direction this game is heading either, and as time goes on I find myself drawn more and more to previous verisons of Crawl. It seems the majority of the community, or at least the vocal online portion of it, is happy with the way the game is progressing and like these kinds of content removals, so it seems that I am in the minority. Crawl becomes much more formulaic with every iteration. Lately when I play this game it becomes hard to distinguish between individual games; every character I make starts to feel more and more identical to the last, no matter what race or class I play.

I'm not sure if it's just because I've been playing for years or because the game is growing more stale, but one thing I can say for sure is that when I first got into it I used to look forward to every new version of Crawl, but at some point I started looking at new releases with hesitancy. It went from "what's new this time around?" to "what did they remove this time?"

Yes, there have been additions in content over the years and some of them have been rock solid additions, but quite a lot of it is just fluff and doesn't really change the way you experience the game. Meanwhile, there are so many things that have been in the game for years and never even crossed my mind as being a problem get removed, a lot of the time for what I would consider rather arbitrary reasons. A lot of interesting mechanics are axed because they aren't performing perfectly, and only occasionally replaced with something else - something usually very homogeneous and uninteresting.

For example, instead of increasing the damage of monster sticky flame so that it becomes relevant, it was instead removed and replaced with acid. Now instead of being covered with liquid flames and lit on fire, you just get shot at by another generic bolt spell. Sticky flame was unique in being a DOT that could only be purged by playing around certain parts of the map environment (water), but couldn't be removed with a simple pop of a consumable like poison. Now that entire dynamic is gone and what's left - another damage bolt - isn't really interesting or exciting. Magic rods were cool, they were unique magical artifacts that gave you access to cool new spells and drew from their own pool of regenerating power. They were fun - I enjoyed them. But most of them got completely axed and the few that remained became limited-use wands, because some people thought they required too many keystrokes. Now I hear that charms is on the table for getting removed for some of the same reasons... I just don't know anymore.

I love this game to death, but the crawl community seems to have a very different definition on what is "fun" than I do. And that's perfectly fine. But it's really a sad feeling when I start to feel a disconnect from what I used to consider one of my favorite games of all time.

Please re-implement Dj so that I can actually greatrole VM.

I want to be free of this pain.

Nah I'm with the devs on this. You can have a game that is chock full of features, like Skyrim. If you are really good at game design, maybe some of those features will even be compelling or interesting.

Alternatively, you can have a game that is strategically interesting - that does not devolve down to a handful of abusive strategies (pudding farming, say).

What you certainly cannot have is a game that is both full of interesting features, and strategically interesting. If you are playing to win, and you want to derive enjoyment from a game primarily from playing to win - then the simpler the ruleset, the better. See Go, Chess.

lethediver wrote:What you certainly cannot have is a game that is both full of interesting features, and strategically interesting. If you are playing to win, and you want to derive enjoyment from a game primarily from playing to win - then the simpler the ruleset, the better. See Go, Chess.

I disagree. See DOTA.

lethediver wrote:Nah I'm with the devs on this. You can have a game that is chock full of features, like Skyrim. If you are really good at game design, maybe some of those features will even be compelling or interesting.

Alternatively, you can have a game that is strategically interesting - that does not devolve down to a handful of abusive strategies (pudding farming, say).

What you certainly cannot have is a game that is both full of interesting features, and strategically interesting. If you are playing to win, and you want to derive enjoyment from a game primarily from playing to win - then the simpler the ruleset, the better. See Go, Chess.

Maybe I should go play Skyrim or find another rich RPG roguelike. Thing is I don't play chess or go anymore because they got boring, only playing a game to win gets boring. I still love DCSS and it won't be the first game I stopped playing, if and when I stop playing and it won't be the last. I don't think there is anything wrong with not liking a game and moving on if it's not going in a direction that you want.

I have been thinking about playing Might and Magic VI (the original, not heroes), which has in comparison to dcss horrible game mechanics.

I stopped playing crawl: tired of luring, fighting popcorn and stairdancing. Hopefully they will be removed one day.

Laraso wrote:Crawl becomes much more formulaic with every iteration. Lately when I play this game it becomes hard to distinguish between individual games; every character I make starts to feel more and more identical to the last, no matter what race or class I play.

I feel the same way. Found Animate Dead? Train Necromancy. Found Blink? Train Translocations. Train Fighting and Dodging on every character, train some Armour on every character. I suggested to move overpowered spells to higher levels and limit number of skills so that you cannot have both fire storm and glaciate at the same time but it didn't get much support.
So yes, many characters are very similar to each other and even if they are not, they are still very similar to other characters of the same god (see Trog in 3 rune games or TSO in extended).

lethediver wrote:a game that is chock full of features, like Skyrim

ayyy lmao (again, but louder this time)

Laraso wrote:Magic rods were cool, they were unique magical artifacts that gave you access to cool new spells and drew from their own pool of regenerating power. They were fun - I enjoyed them. But most of them got completely axed and the few that remained became limited-use wands

Magic rods have been removed completely in trunk.

I love the way of Crawl's progress. Simply because I love to be part of roguelike community but I hate this nerdy stuff like the main features of ADOM or NetHack. I hate thinking abouy each step that I do, because it's boring. I hate this stupid micromanagement, because I'm not a robot to remember about all little, but "incredibly important" things. I want to be able to achieve my goal (win the game) as fast as possible, because longness is simply a burdensome legacy of old games, modern games should last shortly.

Especially I like the ambition of Crawl to become cybersports-oriented. Who's gonna be proud of win in a single game, where everybody can cheat? I love sharing my achievements, I love conquering with others, and Crawl gives me such an opportunity.

I'm pretty satisfied with 0.18 or 0.19 myself (the icons appealed to me more in 0.18 - can you select just a different icon set?).

I don't know about the upcoming stuff. I try to enjoy the version I'm sitting on and I'm not in a big rush to go into trunk. It takes me long enough to get anywhere near extended just playing with halfway familiar rules. But I've always liked deep dwarves and rods (though wielding can sometimes be a pain, that's a mechanics issue but the effects were cool). I liked item destruction back when and mobs picking up dropped stuff, but apparently no one ever was happy with the mechanics/balancing or something. I don't understand why it's "heroic" to train Fighting forever through the early levels "as a rule" but it's "annoying" to lose a few items in predictable, realistic situations. Or is it just more fulfilling to get paid the same amount for doing the same exact job every day?

I don't really understand why if pure simplicity is your model, you would need a game featuring fantasy themes at all. Chess and go have already been done, and they will always be more simple and black and white. Anyone can go play them. Making a fantasy themed game too streamlined also removes the flavor. Before you take out whole races, explain to me why it's fun for full-on casters to be getting non-cast artifact drops with super Int? That's much more boring to me than having a touch of overlap in so many races. Or is it the game's way of telling us that casting only is not an "approved" profession?

Personally I'd like to see less removals and more work on varied and engaging (not always slamdunk-dominating like Torment, but slightly feisty) AI - continue balancing drops (that part seems to be getting somewhat better), a slight boost in some mobs' tactics or smarter Beogh allies or yeah, a few mobs picking up stuff again. That stuff isn't as easy as just tossing in another deity with flashy melee tactics that (while fun, granted) doesn't ultimately change my play much so far or an ancestor that hasn't been thought out over the length of the game any better than the stuff that's been removed was (I'm thinking of the wiki entry for Hep that says, wow interesting but only one of these ancestors has any kick in late game). Having more variety in the game - even with slight overlap in races/items - and having more reactive mobs and fragile stuff makes things more interesting to me turn by turn, and more lifelike.

If I wanted black and white I'd get an old tv. It isn't necessarily a choice between chess and Munchkin... Although Munchkin is a lot more fun to me than chess. I never would have bothered with Crawl if I only wanted chess. That may mean I'll always enjoy the Dungeon more than extended judging from the usual advice, but whatever.

I did recently stop playing Crawl, though it had nothing to do with the particulars of its development nor really with a lack of "enjoyment".

Yes, I do enjoy playing crawl. Mostly old versions though, particularly 0.14.2 Only fire up new ones to check out something new, but quickly become disappointed and go back to the game I like.

In a typical non-challenge run I only enjoy the game up to Lair, maybe up to Lair's ending vault. Then it sometimes gets interesting again in Lair branches and Vaults as depending on your build you might get a difficulty spike there. After that it's just boring and extended feels like a chore.

StupidBerserker wrote:
Laraso wrote:Magic rods were cool, they were unique magical artifacts that gave you access to cool new spells and drew from their own pool of regenerating power. They were fun - I enjoyed them. But most of them got completely axed and the few that remained became limited-use wands

Magic rods have been removed completely in trunk.

That's what I said... The ones that weren't removed became wands. Rod of Iron Shot, Rod of Clouds.

Sure but I don't play as often. The game is too easy to be fun to play more than occasionally, but it's hard to increase difficulty in a way that is not unfun.

Do I enjoy playing DCSS...yes I do, in a masochistic kind of way, since it's simultaneously frustrating and challenging without being overly tedious and pedantic (like tabletop rpgs tend to be, ugh).

Although at first, it was the casual world-building aspect and funky console aesthetics that really gave the game a sense of wonderment. Eitherway, I'd say playing Crawl is worth nearly flunking out of college, no doubt.

I enjoy playing crawl, but not as much as I enjoy thankscumming the tavern.

I have just come back after about 3/4 of a year not playing crawl very much and it is still a lot of fun. There is an incredible variety of ways you can play the game but it remains challenging. The UI is almost peerless in the roguelike arena. The tiles are fantastic. It is constantly evolving and gaining new things to play with.

It's interesting that rods were used as an example of a disliked removal when that same change made the game more fun for me. Rods had a lot of fun interesting effects but actually using rods was pretty horrible. You pretty much had to use macros to use more than one rod with any degree of sanity. That might be considered normal in an Angband variant but was out of place in DCSS. The fun effects of the rods were preserved and when combined with the recent wand removals made using wands overall more fun for me.

stoneychips wrote:I'm pretty satisfied with 0.18 or 0.19 myself (the icons appealed to me more in 0.18 - can you select just a different icon set?).

As a matter of fact, you can! In your RC file, it is one of the example settings.

Laraso wrote:majority is happy with the way the game is progressing

What a delusion

But this doesn't matter one bit. It's either satisfy yourself with playing obsolete versions or adapt.

As I arrive home from work, I dejectedly head towards my computer and take a seat. I power it up and readjust my state-issued webcam to identify that I am present for today's mandatory game of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.76. Today's combo is displayed on the screen: Mandrake Weaver. I briefly contemplate splatting the character on D:1 in a small display of protest, a fate that has been all but impossible since 0.43. However, I reconsider when I think about the consequences: my children and grandchildren do not deserve the required penance of one hundred 58-rune victories for my transgression. Putting on a false exterior for Big Dev, I enter the Dungeon as I have for the last 25 years, praying that one day I may find release from the clutches of the Rogue State.

You should write a novel and title it "Reddit Canon"

It's interesting, over time I've been enjoying the game more and more- I've been playing for 7+ years now (without any noticeable improvement) and there have been so many good changes. Draconian tweaks, vine stalkers, the new gods, enemy variety, shorter levels. It's genuinely been on average going up.

But I'm getting a bit...worried about some of the recent changes. HE removal wasn't nearly as vital as MD removal; rod removal still confuses me, the high-tier wand changes feel very targetted towards a specific demographic of player. Restrictions should be more focused on player choice than outright removal- nobody's forcing you to play Pak, or HIgh Elf, or use healing wands. Particularly, some of these changes feel like treating the symptoms rather than the disease: Extended is boring for the people who bother to play it.

RBrandon wrote:It's interesting that rods were used as an example of a disliked removal when that same change made the game more fun for me. Rods had a lot of fun interesting effects but actually using rods was pretty horrible. You pretty much had to use macros to use more than one rod with any degree of sanity. That might be considered normal in an Angband variant but was out of place in DCSS. The fun effects of the rods were preserved and when combined with the recent wand removals made using wands overall more fun for me.

If that's the general experience I might not mind... I don't play Trunk, so the jury is still out for me on whether all of the effects I most liked will in fact be preserved (including into actual deployment of the next version, when I'll probably get around to seeing it myself). So far I've gathered from reading, that some are still there and others are more nerfed or gone.

Floodkiller wrote:As I arrive home from work, I dejectedly head towards my computer and take a seat. I power it up and readjust my state-issued webcam to identify that I am present for today's mandatory game of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.76. Today's combo is displayed on the screen: Mandrake Weaver. I briefly contemplate splatting the character on D:1 in a small display of protest, a fate that has been all but impossible since 0.43. However, I reconsider when I think about the consequences: my children and grandchildren do not deserve the required penance of one hundred 58-rune victories for my transgression. Putting on a false exterior for Big Dev, I enter the Dungeon as I have for the last 25 years, praying that one day I may find release from the clutches of the Rogue State.

imagine a boot stamping on an elvish face - forever..

Generally speaking yes, I really enjoy playing crawl, although at this point I've played it enough that I tend to take fairly long breaks. I'm one of those fools who is still playing pokemon go after 80% of players gave up, so that had cut into my crawl time. Looking to do another run soon, made a few attempts but lost them to obvious errors.

But if you just take breaks when you're getting tired, coming back is always fun

But do you actually enjoy playing pokemon go!?

Gozigzag wrote:But do you actually enjoy playing pokemon go!?

I enjoy this: https://youtu.be/6-RerthVB54

Siegurt wrote:
Gozigzag wrote:But do you actually enjoy playing pokemon go!?

I enjoy this: https://youtu.be/6-RerthVB54

You enjoy fake videos?

I like territory control, yeah. I attack gyms mainly - I don't really spend as much time catching pokemon. I have a fairly strong team at this point, although you can pretty much always improve - getting rare pokemon to high levels is incredibly slow. Still I have about 8 or so tier one defenders (lapras and snorlax only) as well as ~4 dragonite defenders (they have steel wing) and a lineup of vaporeons to fill out extra gyms. Those are about the only gym defenders really worth it, although there's some which are close to as good (gyarados, rhydon, exeggecutor, maybe one or two more). I mostly attack with dragon breath dragonites, or with something with a type advantage if applicable.

After that, I'm basically just trying to be walter white - I'm not in the meth business, I'm in the empire business. This is made much more hardcore because I'm on team instinct - aka the smallest team, in numbers. Still, I'm coordinating with other instinct players in the area to hit gyms. We've been pretty successful. I usually collect from 10 gyms a day, although they're spread out. I'm working on trying to build up more level 10 gyms in my area - there's three by my house that I'm defending, but I want to expand that to 5 and then 7 eventually (I have specific gyms targeted).

So yeah, I probably play too much pokemon go.

The Tavern

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