0.20 is so hard that crawl is no fun any longer

[Turukano]

Topic says all, doesn't it?

And I have played this game for many years.

And well, this belongs to GDD but it would probably be moved here.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I'm interested in your experience. Could you elaborate a bit about what is more difficult? I.e. specific changes and consequences?

[Shard1697]

Compared to what version?

[Turukano]

I'm interested in your experience.

You die...
You die...
You die...

Could you elaborate a bit about what is more difficult? I.e. specific changes and consequences?

There are many things which want me to play 0.19 again. (After my char was killed with an orc's wand of acid, I'm actually not in the mood to talk about details. But there are many more problems.)

That's from CXC chat 3 days ago:

  Code:

Turgon: Good morning! Am I wrong or has this game become incredible hard in 0.20?
4thArraOfDagon: morning
4thArraOfDagon: oh yes, you are certainly right haha


0.20 is horrible! We could rename it to "hell crawl" but this name already exists.

Up to now, a) removal of mountain dwarves and b) rune lock for vaults were the most serious mistakes in crawl development.

But the difficulty gap from 0.19 to 0.20 surpasses both.

[Magipi]

(...) were the most serious mistakes in crawl development.

You forgot about shadow traps. They completely ruin 0.16, which would have been a great version otherwise. Thanks god that shittraps were removed soon after.

Of 0.20: the worst is the lack of escape options (because tele and healing and haste wands were removed). Orb status in whole Zot is a nightmare. And newTomb is just awful.

[Turukano]

You forgot about shadow traps. They completely ruin 0.16

I agree that shadow traps were a serious mistake as well.

[Turukano]

Thanks for starting the 0.20 tourney...

... but I'm out.

I continue with 0.19.

[Malevolent]

I'm actually glad that the yellow wands were removed and 100% disagree with all of your complaints. The only difficulty increase I disagree with is the changes to the Tomb, not because I think one-way stairs in Tomb are a bad idea or that Tomb was good before, but that now it has become too hard and frustrating at the same time, and with no other measures taken to temper this change, even fewer builds are able to do it than before. I had much more fun with 0.20 (and the trunk versions that had its major features) than 0.19.

[Queen Cassie]

I disagree that .20 is all that much harder. Maybe for some builds but it's been just fine to me. I've racked up two wins on it, one with a melee and one with a caster. But I do agree that the one-way stairs in the Tomb are a mistake. My build that was just creaming and lolling at the entire rest of the game (except for shard shrikes in Cocytus those almost killed me a couple of times) had no chance whatsoever in the Tomb.

[Shard1697]

removal of yellow wands does not change difficulty much because you didn't usually have those by very difficult parts of the game

if you required those to win(why? in what context?) I'm not sure why you played tbh because playing a game where you need a rare item to win sounds very unfun.

There are many things which want me to play 0.19 again. (After my char was killed with an orc's wand of acid, I'm actually not in the mood to talk about details. But there are many more problems.

Enemies with powerful wands have existed in just about every version, and if you go back a bit they'll become more common, not less.

[Magipi]

if you required those to win(why? in what context?) I'm not sure why you played tbh because playing a game where you need a rare item to win sounds very unfun.

Nobody said anything like this, you are imagining things.

[Shard1697]

Then why would removal of yellow wands be something which made the game so hard it is no longer fun to play?

[Magipi]

Then why would removal of yellow wands be something which made the game so hard it is no longer fun to play?

First, I don't exactly know what Turgon was thinking about, I speak only for myself.

The problem is available escape options. So, say, you get into some serious trouble, and you really want to teleport. In some games it happens only a few times, in some games it happens more often (especially when you are in Vaults without MR and you are marked). Let us say that the number is 5-20, depending on the game, the character, and my play's quality.

In some games, you only get into deep shit 5 times and you have 20 tele scrolls. No problem here. In other games, however, you get into deep shit 20 times, and you only find 5 tele scrolls. In these games, having or not having a tele wand at the second part of the game is the question of life or death. I actually had a game when I used up all my tele scrolls and hasting potions, the last ones on the orb run, and when another fast panlord appeared with a couple of fiends, I simply died. It is not fun. Reserving your consumables and therefore dying earlier is not fun either.

Right now I am doing okay in the tournament, playing only the strongest combos, but still, this version is hard and annoying and bad. When the tournament is over, I will go back to better versions for sure.

[Shard1697]

You're basically saying you want to play versions where you can eventually get so much escape consumables(via wands and recharge) that you will realistically never run out, and survive playing sloppily in the lategame repeatedly... the whole point of consumables is that they are powerful, but limited, so using them up is a choice with consequences.

[duvessa]

Oh look, it's the same complaint that happens after literally every major version release

[Magipi]

You're basically saying you want to play versions where you can eventually get so much escape consumables(via wands and recharge) that you will realistically never run out...

I can run out if a really play recklessly or really unlucky, but otherwise yes, I wanna play just that. Crawl's difficulty was just fine in, say, 0.17, and making it more difficult (just because a handful of top players play too much crawl and got bored) is a huge mistake. But luckily there's no harm done, better versions are still available.

[Magipi]

Oh look, it's the same complaint that happens after literally every major version release

I don't think anyone complained (at least not seriously) when 0.17 came out and shittraps were removed. That was a glorious day.

[Turukano]

Alright, let's talk about the 0.20 problems from a point of an octopode player who wants to get 15 runes.

Some things have been mentioned above:

• Removal of wands of
  
  • hasting (most important)
  • teleportation
  • healing (imo not that important - you usually find it late in the game when you don't need it too much)
• Early strong wands like acid in the hands of your foes. Has this really been in earlier versions?
• Orb status in whole zot. I personally don't mind too much because zot is not that hard when you have 15 runes.
• New tomb. Well, my octopodes never reached it in 0.20, so I don't know. But it probably means that you have to do tomb as your last rune as default. And btw, the figurine you find there is not that important any longer - when you can do new tomb you don't need another zig to prepare for zot.

Furthermore:

1. Removal of rMsl spell - this is a catastrophe for octopodes (1 AC). Amulets of reflection are quite good although they occopy the amulet slot. And no, octopodes can't wear scarves.
2. Wands of disintegration no longer work for digging emergency tunnels or kill holes. So your chance to get a kill-hole-wand has been halved.
3. Afair I noticed two-headed ogres on *every* D:8 I went to. Has this been in earlier versions as well? And I saw 2h ogres on D:6 too.
4. In 0.20 I had situtations when I went down stairs and was surrounded by 5 or 6 yaks (dungeon), ogres (vaults) or whatsoever. Was this only bad luck? Has this been in earlier versions?
5. Foes seem to behave more intelligently. If my char is in a kill hole they won't walk in (I can see them as I'm with Ash.) They wait until I come out and then shoot me with missiles or spells.
6. Although I always look for low turncount I never liked mutation gambling. I tried to keep my chars mutation free. Just guess what shoutitis or teleportitis means when you have 1 AC. Now we have one new mutation pot with dubious results. The problem that "good" mutations (3rd effect of the new potion) are sometimes bad has been discussed in this forum before.

[Siegurt]

Alright, let's talk about the 0.20 problems from a point of an octopode player who wants to get 15 runes.
[*]Early strong wands like acid in the hands of your foes. Has this really been in earlier versions?

Yes, literally wands of acid just replaced wands of fire, they don't have any greater or lesser chance of being in the hands of monsters in .20

[*]Removal of rMsl spell - this is a catastrophe for octopodes (1 AC). Amulets of reflection are quite good although they occopy the amulet slot. And no, octopodes can't wear scarves.

Not that it's of huge comfort, but dMsl does still exist.

[*]Afair I noticed two-headed ogres on *every* D:8 I went to. Has this been in earlier versions as well? And I saw 2h ogres on D:6 too.

Two headed ogres do spawn earlier, they replaced some other less interesting monster (Hill giants maybe?) they are definitely not "set encounters" and if you saw them on d6 it was probably an OOD spawn (because you were playing too slowly)

[*]In 0.20 I had situtations when I went down stairs and was surrounded by 5 or 6 yaks (dungeon), ogres (vaults) or whatsoever. Was this only bad luck? Has this been in earlier versions?

Bad luck, the chances of being surrounded on going down stairs hasn't changed.

[*]Foes seem to behave more intelligently. If my char is in a kill hole they won't walk in (I can see them as I'm with Ash.) They wait until I come out and then shoot me with missiles or spells.

Monster AI didn't change (Well, it did a long time ago regarding ranged attackers, but not between .19 and .20) they probably just didn't notice you, try shouting to draw their attention.

[*]Although I always look for low turncount I never liked mutation gambling. I tried to keep my chars mutation free. Just guess what shoutitis or teleportitis means when you have 1 AC. Now we have one new mutation pot with dubious results. The problem that "good" mutations (3rd effect of the new potion) are sometimes bad has been discussed in this forum before.[/list]

Yes, mutations have been changed from a "you can probably avoid them, and get rid of them if you get them" to "If you get them, you are probably going to have some, but you can probably switch out the ones you have with different ones" This is probably not a net difficulty increase (unless you are imposing some kind of challenge condition on yourself like "win with 0 mutations") as potions of mutation are much more common than cure mutation ever was, and you can most often swap out mutations that don't work for you with other ones.

[duvessa]

Early strong wands like acid in the hands of your foes. Has this really been in earlier versions?

Yes.

  Code:

*Sequell* 8160 games for * (place=d:1|d:2|d:3 ckaux=wand_of_lightning|wand_of_fire|wand_of_cold): 799x 0.20-a, 608x 0.19-a, 540x 0.17-a, 459x 0.18-a, 437x 0.9, 418x 0.19, 398x 0.14-a, 392x 0.17, 333x 0.8, 323x 0.18, 309x 0.16-a, 298x 0.15-a, 268x 0.13-a, 266x 0.10, 257x 0.16, 246x 0.15, 237x 0.11, 201x 0.14, 195x 0.12-a, 147x 0.13, 132x 0.12, 119x 0.9-a, 101x 0.10-a, 96x 0.11-a, 96x 0.8-a, 81x 0.20, 78x 0.7, 71x 0.5, 69x 0.4, 41x 0.21-a, 39x 0.3, 35x 0.2, 30x 0.6, 21x 0.6-a, 12x 0.1, 8x 0.7-a

Afair I noticed two-headed ogres on *every* D:8 I went to. Has this been in earlier versions as well? And I saw 2h ogres on D:6 too.

No, you got hill giants instead. Before 0.20:

  Code:

{ 10, 18, 1000, FLAT, MONS_HILL_GIANT },
{  8, 17,  300, SEMI, MONS_TWO_HEADED_OGRE },

After 0.20:

  Code:

{  8, 17,  750, FLAT, MONS_TWO_HEADED_OGRE },

Guess which monster could generate with throwing nets? Hill giant. Guess which monster can't? Two-headed ogre.

In 0.20 I had situtations when I went down stairs and was surrounded by 5 or 6 yaks (dungeon), ogres (vaults) or whatsoever. Was this only bad luck? Has this been in earlier versions?

Yes.

Foes seem to behave more intelligently. If my char is in a kill hole they won't walk in (I can see them as I'm with Ash.) They wait until I come out and then shoot me with missiles or spells.

AI hasn't changed, you just have too much stealth.

I don't think anyone complained (at least not seriously) when 0.17 came out and shittraps were removed. That was a glorious day.

Doesn't matter what you think, it's a matter of public record:
http://crawl.develz.org/wordpress/crawl-0-17-squaring-the-circle#comments
https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=18253
https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=19761
https://archives.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3750248&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post452383599

[Queen Cassie]

Alright, let's talk about the 0.20 problems from a point of an octopode player who wants to get 15 runes.

*snip*

[*]Although I always look for low turncount I never liked mutation gambling. I tried to keep my chars mutation free. Just guess what shoutitis or teleportitis means when you have 1 AC. Now we have one new mutation pot with dubious results. The problem that "good" mutations (3rd effect of the new potion) are sometimes bad has been discussed in this forum before.

Actually I think this is a fantastic change. I didn't care for it at first because I was afraid I'd be stuck with awful mutations no matter what, but that's proven not to be the case in my games. In fact I'm regularly running around with useful mutations now, and I typically have ten or more mut pots in my inventory by the end of a three rune run, let alone fifteen. As was pointed out by the devs in their commit log the whole point is to involve the player more in the mutation game, to make it actually matter to the player in a way other than "quaff curemut when you get a bad one." In my opinion the end result tends to make things easier, not harder, like my GrEE that got her flying ability at like level four instead of fourteen.

[watertreatmentRL]

Yes, I was also initially skeptical about the cmut/mut -> mut change, but I am definitely sold on it now. Reduction in number of potions is great and while I don't really think the new effect is particularly good, it's not worse than old mutation + cmut, so it's clearly a good thing for the game on balance.

About the thread generally, I think it's too bad there's so much unhinged, reactionary complaining with every version. It's strange that players who have been engaged with the game for such a long time have such a tenuous grasp of what's going on from version to version and such imperceptive criticisms.

[Queen Cassie]

Yes, I was also initially skeptical about the cmut/mut -> mut change, but I am definitely sold on it now. Reduction in number of potions is great and while I don't really think the new effect is particularly good, it's not worse than old mutation + cmut, so it's clearly a good thing for the game on balance.

About the thread generally, I think it's too bad there's so much unhinged, reactionary complaining with every version. It's strange that players who have been engaged with the game for such a long time have such a tenuous grasp of what's going on from version to version and such imperceptive criticisms.

It's not strange at all. This is normal human behavior; while we are adaptable creatures, we are also creatures of habit and dislike change. Some more than others.

[watertreatmentRL]

Indeed, but I would expect more reasoned and substantively founded criticisms, even if the sentiment behind them is grounded in simple resistance to change.

[Queen Cassie]

You can't expect reasoned debate most of the time. People don't want to debate with reason and logic. They want to win arguments, and show they're superior.

[watertreatmentRL]

Love too feel superior.

[Splatt]

imo the tomb changes and the removal of /haste are great moves by the devs. Extended endgame has some serious issues and was pretty tedious to play, so now with these additional disincentives i can just pretend that that part of the game doesn't exist, and WA LA it's fixed.

[upsidedownchuck]

I will weigh in that I like the changes, especially in Zot, and I think making the mid/late game harder is a good direction for the game to be going in.

[Shard1697]

I don't really see how it's a move in the wrong direction to take optional content(tomb) that wasn't hard, but was very tedious, and make it less tedious but much harder. It's purely optional like all of extended so if you think it's too dangerous for your character you can just not do it, and if you do do it it will be a meaningful challenge instead of just a slog.

Even not just talking about tomb, I think it would be better in general for extended to be scary, because right now all of it(minus new tomb) is a big timesink instead of a challenge-if you have the patience, you can do it. Wouldn't extended being really dangerous make it so much more meaningful when people actually do it? Rather than just "you were willing to sit through all that, huh?" It's optional extra content to a normal ascension, what's the point in having it be easy(but long)?

It seems a lot of people are accustomed to having it be just one long victory lap, but if you want to just grind through popcorn and watch numbers go up without much real tension, normal RPGs already scratch that itch.

[tabstorm]

imo the zot teleport change made the game harder than removing yellow wands

[Queen Cassie]

I don't really see how it's a move in the wrong direction to take optional content(tomb) that wasn't hard, but was very tedious, and make it less tedious but much harder. It's purely optional like all of extended so if you think it's too dangerous for your character you can just not do it, and if you do do it it will be a meaningful challenge instead of just a slog.

Even not just talking about tomb, I think it would be better in general for extended to be scary, because right now all of it(minus new tomb) is a big timesink instead of a challenge-if you have the patience, you can do it. Wouldn't extended being really dangerous make it so much more meaningful when people actually do it? Rather than just "you were willing to sit through all that, huh?" It's optional extra content to a normal ascension, what's the point in having it be easy(but long)?

It seems a lot of people are accustomed to having it be just one long victory lap, but if you want to just grind through popcorn and watch numbers go up without much real tension, normal RPGs already scratch that itch.

Those are fair points indeed. I concede my objections to the one-way stairs, because yeah, the rest of extended was a piece of cake next to the Tomb.

[Internet Kraken]

I don't really see how it's a move in the wrong direction to take optional content(tomb) that wasn't hard, but was very tedious, and make it less tedious but much harder. It's purely optional like all of extended so if you think it's too dangerous for your character you can just not do it, and if you do do it it will be a meaningful challenge instead of just a slog.

Even not just talking about tomb, I think it would be better in general for extended to be scary, because right now all of it(minus new tomb) is a big timesink instead of a challenge-if you have the patience, you can do it. Wouldn't extended being really dangerous make it so much more meaningful when people actually do it? Rather than just "you were willing to sit through all that, huh?" It's optional extra content to a normal ascension, what's the point in having it be easy(but long)?

It seems a lot of people are accustomed to having it be just one long victory lap, but if you want to just grind through popcorn and watch numbers go up without much real tension, normal RPGs already scratch that itch.

Extended is scary though. You just need to not be using one of the hyper optimal builds that's built to stomp it. It doesn't need to be harder, it needs to have the chaff cut out. Then the focus can be on the actual fun and challenging parts. For example, the final floors of each Hell pose a challenge, while the 6 floors that precede them are mostly just a waste of time.

Tomb is a different case though because it didn't really have chaff. It was stuffed with dangerous monsters, and the new layout makes it even more dangerous to attempt a clear of it. The problem is its never been enjoyable to clear it because its a mountain of mummies slamming you with torment, smite, and unavoidable death curses. You could at least safely clear it most of the time through patience, but it was never fun to do so. Now its still not fun, just deadlier.

[bel]

Alright, let's talk about the 0.20 problems from a point of an octopode player who wants to get 15 runes.

If you find the game too hard, try playing an easier race. Op is meant to suck.

[Shard1697]

Now its still not fun, just deadlier.

Clearly that's what you think, but you are not the only person who plays this game. I think new tomb is more fun than old tomb. Doing the loop of running to the uphatches on tomb 3 from where you are dropped, killing some dudes on the way, is neat because you have to play differently depending on how enemies follow you and move into the corridor-your use of space matters a lot, because dragging them into one side can make the other side safer to go to(but you need to be able to get through the door each time if you want to take it slow instead of teleporting).

Extended is scary though. You just need to not be using one of the hyper optimal builds that's built to stomp it. It doesn't need to be harder, it needs to have the chaff cut out. Then the focus can be on the actual fun and challenging parts. For example, the final floors of each Hell pose a challenge, while the 6 floors that precede them are mostly just a waste of time.

I don't think I've ever done extended with a "hyper optimal build"-you do not need anything remotely optimized for extended to be pretty easy with how much XP is available. Many of my 15 rune wins are with Ash, some are with Lugonu, Okawaru, Cheibriados, Ru, Sif Muna, Fedhas... I have never felt like it was scary for any of them. The only times I have died in extended I have always looked back at what I did like "that was fucking stupid, why did I do that"(because I got sick of how long it is)-always obvious mistakes like tabbing into an eldritch tentacle. Challenging situations are few and far between, it's mostly just a matter of staying awake and not throwing.

[Internet Kraken]

I don't think I've ever done extended with a "hyper optimal build"-you do not need anything remotely optimized for extended to be pretty easy with how much XP is available. Many of my 15 rune wins are with Ash, some are with Lugonu, Okawaru, Cheibriados, Ru, Sif Muna, Fedhas...

5 of them are with The Shining One so you're straight up lying about never doing it with optimal builds.

EXP only goes so far since by the time you reach extended you've likely hit the critical points of power for your character. The glut of exp can help you get some utility spells up and if you were aiming for something difficult to cast like necromutation, you might need the boost extended provides to get it running reliably. But for a lot of characters I've run the extra exp didn't make a massive difference at that point since I'd already reached the critical points of power such a min weapon delay.

I have never felt like it was scary for any of them. The only times I have died in extended I have always looked back at what I did like "that was fucking stupid, why did I do that"(because I got sick of how long it is)-always obvious mistakes like tabbing into an eldritch tentacle. Challenging situations are few and far between, it's mostly just a matter of staying awake and not throwing.

So you agree with me then? You're saying that parts of it can be challenging, but it has a problem with how much chaff it has. That's why I said it needs to have the amount of it cut down and more focus placed on the actually difficult parts.

Plus once you're that far into the game, any death should be entirely your fault and something you should be reflecting on. If the game could still pull incredibly cheap moves that late that kill you with little to no chance of escape, it would just be badly designed.

[Shard1697]

I don't think I've ever done extended with a "hyper optimal build"-you do not need anything remotely optimized for extended to be pretty easy with how much XP is available. Many of my 15 rune wins are with Ash, some are with Lugonu, Okawaru, Cheibriados, Ru, Sif Muna, Fedhas...

5 of them are with The Shining One so you're straight up lying about never doing it with optimal builds.

I don't think I would consider any and all 15 rune games where the player chooses a god which is good for 15 rune as games with a "hyper optimal build"(your words, which I was quoting)-to me, "hyper optimal" describes something beyond the obvious stuff like choosing useful gods and leveling relevant skills. Like figuring out exact skill breakpoints for spending XP to just barely get failure rates where you want them, stop training armor/dodging right after points where your EV increases, etc. Would you call every 3-rune game where you take Oka or Trog "hyper optimal"? I wouldn't. And I wouldn't call my games where I played TSO to lazily tab through extended while leaving on whatever skills seemed alright for pretty arbitrary lengths of time "hyper optimal" either.
And either way that doesn't really change that I don't think extended is scary with or without gods that are suited to it.

So you agree with me then? You're saying that parts of it can be challenging, but it has a problem with how much chaff it has.

No, I'm saying it's easy(bar certain very rare situations) unless you play stupidly because you get bored of how long it is... that's not "challenging".

[Internet Kraken]

TSO is tailored to trounce extended. Going with him is absolutely the optimal build most of the time and sets yourself up for a mostly effortless clear. Of course Tomb isn't gonna be hard when you do immense effective damage to almost every enemy and get healing for every one you kill.

[Shard1697]

A build is more than god choice.

And again, you are ignoring my actual point-I have done extended with a wide variety of gods, and do not think it is challenging as any of them.

[Internet Kraken]

A build is more than god choice.

And again, you are ignoring my actual point-I have done extended with a wide variety of gods, and do not think it is challenging as any of them.

The point is TSO is built to make extended insanely easy, so to act like you've never done it under ideal circumstances when you've followed him multiple times is misleading.

As for your actual point, I can't really convince you otherwise. I've done extended with every species and god with a lot of different builds. There are some things (certain gods, necromutation, statue form) that suck almost all the danger out of it. But doing it outside of builds that incorporate those elements has been very challenging. I have to put a good amount of thought into how I go about tackling it usually regardless. I think its at least as challenging as the rest of the game, and depending on what you're going into it with can be a major struggle. So based on all that experience I can't agree with your sentiment that extended is easy.

I can definitely agree with it being tedious though!

[bel]

About this point of "you died due to your own mistakes". In a certain sense this is often true. However, let's unpack the concept.

"Mistake" could involve not using a blink scroll. Or not using a particular god ability. Also, hindsight, when you know that the monster did so and so. However, that is not the correct way to look at it. You need to look at all situations where you had a choice to use a particular consumable and/or god ability etc. Say, on a given turn you have 10% chance of dying. Using a particular consumable might reduce it to 1%. Should you use the consumable or save it for when you have a 20% chance of dying? How about to reduce the chance from 5% to 3%? The numbers are made up, but you get the idea. It might well be possible that if you play super-conservatively, you may run out of blink scrolls or piety. The game can still be "challenging" even if every single time you die, it was "because of your own mistake". It's a matter of probabilities, threat assessment and so on.

With this in mind, we can then give a more reasonable definition of "challenging": if you play super-conservatively, does the game have enough consumables/other methods to get you through, with high probability? I believe many people think that "extended" is not "challenging"' in this sense, because you have plenty of XP to spend on various skill, lots of options, and plenty of consumables to reduce your chance of dying to near zero. Assuming you pay attention, that is.

[duvessa]

Extended is scary though. You just need to not be using one of the hyper optimal builds that's built to stomp it.

Gosh I never realized MuMo of Trog was a hyper optimal build built to stomp extended

[Turukano]

That's a lot of feedback, thanks to all of you for your answers!

There are three categories of criticism I made above:

1. Facts that made the game harder for a weak species: removal of rMsl spell (ouch!), removal of dig ability of wand disint, removal of yellow wands, orb status in zot.
2. Things I can't judge exactly as I never reached extended in 0.20: new tomb, new mutation system.
3. Things that have been questioned or disproved by you: monster AI, early monster wands, packs of foes waiting next to stairs.

You encouraged me to start another game in the tourney. Well, I'll take the best non-Trog start (maybe the best overall start) for an octopode which is OpIE. Let's see how it will be.

If you find the game too hard, try playing an easier race. Op is meant to suck.

I know.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Removal of teleportation wand is the most important change for me. I used to be a very conservative player late game, teleporting away at the slightest danger. I had to change my attitude in 0.20, it feels unusual to have just 5 scrolls of teleportation left in 4 rune game. Zero teleportations in the whole Zot.

[stoneychips]

Gut feeling so far... Compared to 0.17 and 0.19-ish mostly, I feel like the total lack of yellow wands is a bit of a wallop. A perfect player probably won't notice, but the "stupid" rest of us like me (tysm) are definitely noticing only having a handful of teleports by Vaults/Depths (I'm not even getting to Zot yet, bad luck and some fatigue/weak decisions). Surely there could be some middle ground between having often seen around 12-25 teleports available before, and now usually only 4-8 by deep dungeon. Removing the yellow wands has also meant that when you're silenced, you're more often just stuck.

As far as mobs having wands, I think it's worse in the sense that acid can be less often resistable than fire? Or has that changed? I do feel like the drop rate of rCorr may have increased too (?), but not sure how early those items start arriving versus how early monsters get super wand.

For what it's worth, I remember shadow traps. They could be annoying sure, but I didn't want them gone that much. And if that's a slim minority opinion that is totally fine and whatever, I don't really care that much. If it were up to me, I would have kept them (possibly made them spawn a little less or make the spawns worth XP).

Now I suspect (?) perhaps for a really minority opinion: As a matter of flavor and more predictable physics existing in the world, I miss item encumbrance and destruction more than I miss those traps (though destruction might have been rebalanced to be a touch less random/annoying imo). Just saying!


Oh... Btw I DO like the mutation potion game changes.

[Factorialite]

I originally thought removing yellow wands was a horrible decision, but it actually makes the game easier (by giving you access to pots of haste earlier than you normally would). The HW and Tele wands are a wash given you generally had some measure of those before you saw those wands. That wasn't really true for haste, which is the single most powerful buff in the entire game. A player should absolute trade 20 shots of haste when they reach depths for even 3 pots of haste when they reach lair. This is a simplification, but for the most part it holds.

If I'm going to complain about anything for 0.20, it's pots of mutation, and that's only because each potion of mutation actually reduces your mutation levels, which does not make sense in a flavor, intuition, or gameplay standpoint. My current crawl wishlist is headed by the following changes:

Removes 2-4 mutations, weighted 2:1 in favor of removing bad mutations.
Adds 3-5 mutations, weighted 2:1 in favor of granting good mutations.

It would utilize the following algorithm:

Generate a number between 2-4. Compare that number with the total number of current mutations. Return whatever number is higher (you can't remove muts you don't have).

For each mutation you need to remove, roll a number from 1-3. If one, remove a good mutation at random. If two or three, remove a bad mutation at random. If you try to remove a mutation from the bad pile that you don't have (and vice versa), instead remove a mutation from the other category.

Generate a number between 3-5. For each of these mutations, roll a number from 1-3. If one, add a bad mutation at random. If two or three, add a good mutation at random.

Increase mutation potion generation by roughly 1/3.

This would encourage playing the mutation roulette without making the optimal strategy "mutate until you get one very positive mutation, hold the rest of your potions in case you get frailty/blurry vision/very bad mutation." Right now, there is no inherent risk to the this strategy, because you can always "zero out" your mutations. With this change, you can't zero out, but you do have some ability to manage your bad mutations, but it's not a sure thing (and it shouldn't be!)

[advil]

If I'm going to complain about anything for 0.20, it's pots of mutation, and that's only because each potion of mutation actually reduces your mutation levels, which does not make sense in a flavor, intuition, or gameplay standpoint.

[...]

Right now, there is no inherent risk to the this strategy, because you can always "zero out" your mutations. With this change, you can't zero out, but you do have some ability to manage your bad mutations, but it's not a sure thing (and it shouldn't be!)

Maybe I'm not understanding, but if I am this isn't correct. Current !mut is guaranteed to apply a minimum of two mutations, one random and one good, and the average result is actually closer to 3 if I'm calculating it correctly (I'm using a mutation potion simulator I wrote as part of the lua test suite). Specifically, the mean is just under 3 for ~1-2 quaffs, settling around 3.2 for more quaffs, with some variance around that. There is a rare chance that the mutations will cancel out (like if you get 2, and they are frail 1 + robust 1) giving you 0, though it's vanishingly rare. It is true that if you have >3.2 mutations it will tend to remove some of them, though.

(I'm not going to weigh in more generally on this thread right now but the winrates for the tournament so far don't really seem to support the premise.)

[Factorialite]

If I'm going to complain about anything for 0.20, it's pots of mutation, and that's only because each potion of mutation actually reduces your mutation levels, which does not make sense in a flavor, intuition, or gameplay standpoint.

[...]

Right now, there is no inherent risk to the this strategy, because you can always "zero out" your mutations. With this change, you can't zero out, but you do have some ability to manage your bad mutations, but it's not a sure thing (and it shouldn't be!)

Maybe I'm not understanding, but if I am this isn't correct. Current !mut is guaranteed to apply a minimum of two mutations, one random and one good, and the average result is actually closer to 3 if I'm calculating it correctly (I'm using a mutation potion simulator I wrote as part of the lua test suite). Specifically, the mean is just under 3 for ~1-2 quaffs, settling around 3.2 for more quaffs, with some variance around that. There is a rare chance that the mutations will cancel out (like if you get 2, and they are frail 1 + robust 1) giving you 0, though it's vanishingly rare. It is true that if you have >3.2 mutations it will tend to remove some of them, though.

(I'm not going to weigh in more generally on this thread right now but the winrates for the tournament so far don't really seem to support the premise.)

I think I didn't explain correctly. Right now, mut pots clear (on average) 4 mutations, and then bestow (on average) 2 mutations. That means that every time you quaff a mut pot, you are losing, on average, 2 mutations. It leaves you with the default state of one good and one random mutation. That's what I mean by "zeroing out." It isn't technically zero, you just get to zero and then add one good + one random. To me, it does not make sense that you can quaff a potion of mutation and end up with fewer mutations, which is the current status unless I'm very mistaken. I think your mut pot sim is incorrect in this regard. Happy to be proven wrong.

[advil]

I think I didn't explain correctly. Right now, mut pots clear (on average) 4 mutations, and then bestow (on average) 2 mutations. That means that every time you quaff a mut pot, you are losing, on average, 2 mutations. It leaves you with the default state of one good and one random mutation. That's what I mean by "zeroing out." It isn't technically zero, you just get to zero and then add one good + one random. To me, it does not make sense that you can quaff a potion of mutation and end up with fewer mutations, which is the current status unless I'm very mistaken. I think your mut pot sim is incorrect in this regard. Happy to be proven wrong.

Almost right. Mutation potions (i) clear between 2 and 6 random mutations, then (ii) add between 1 and 3 random mutations, and then (iii) add 1 good mutation. If you have less than 3 mutations, on average it will add mutation levels, and if you have more than 3 mutations, on average it will lower the number of mutation levels. So they clear an average of 4, and bestow an average of 3. The simulated numbers don't work out to be exactly 3 because of complex interactions among mutations, I think. I guess you are worried that the churn of mutations is too high, but there's no guarantees that any one quaff of !mut will eliminate your current mut set entirely (and that hasn't been my experience as a player). It's of course reasonably likely if your only entry into the mutation game is !mut, which I don't personally see as a problem. If I were to tweak this in that direction, I would probably suggest lowering MAX_REMOVED, rather than doing anything more complex that what the current potion does.

[Factorialite]

I guess you are worried that the churn of mutations is too high, but there's no guarantees that any one quaff of !mut will eliminate your current mut set entirely (and that hasn't been my experience as a player). It's of course reasonably likely if your only entry into the mutation game is !mut, which I don't personally see as a problem. If I were to tweak this in that direction, I would probably suggest lowering MAX_REMOVED, rather than doing anything more complex that what the current potion does.

That isn't exactly what my worry is. If you have 7 mutations, quaffing one obviously isn't getting rid of them all. I just think it isn't weird or tactical sound that you could literally quaff 100 potions of mutations and end up with 3 (and I did miss that it's 1-3 + 1, not just 1-2 + 1 which was my understanding). And yes, lowering MAX_REMOVED would get you there as far as making mutation potions more "mutatey."

It's sort of the philosophical argument of mutation. Should you be allowed to easily get to a very low number of mutations (and generally good ones)? Before this change, that wasn't necessarily the case, as cure mut pots were pretty rare. If the development philosophy is that mutations should be easily managed, the current status quo certainly does that. With rare exceptions, you shouldn't be carrying around a large amount of negative mutations, and that's different than 0.19 and earlier (where you could just get blasted with bad muts and have little to no recourse). The problem with this current philosophy is that it makes it the right decision in nearly every case to avoid mutagenic chunks until you get 2 or more mutation potions, then to eat mutagenic chunks until you get either get a really good set of mutations or you have to quaff mutation potions to get back to zero, and then you stop eating mutagenic chunks until you get 2 or mutation potions. Of course, this is the furthermost logical conclusion of mutation and almost nobody would follow that to the letter, but it's hard to see how that isn't the optimal management of the mutation game. If the development philosophy is that mutation should be hard to manage, the current status quo certainly DOESN'T do that. There is almost no way to be badly mutated at any stage in the game with the exception of being Abyssed early. If you get mutated badly, you can quaff a mutation potion to get rid of them (and mutation pots aren't ubiquitous, but they are close). The problem with this philosophy is that you probably should avoid ever intentionally mutating yourself, because it's easy for that to get out of hand (every mutation you acquire makes it less likely that you can rid yourself of any specific one). That's the reason why I included the bit about making pots lean towards removing bad muts and adding good ones, and maybe it's too clever.

When I get home, I'll try to wizmode 10 mutations on a character and see how long mut pots take to get rid of them all.

[Magipi]

I think that the new mutation system does not make the game harder, it just makes it more annoying. The whole mutation nonsense is a terrible idea to begin with. Is it a legacy of Nethack?