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Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Friday, 19th January 2018, 17:36
by HawkI
Are the developers ok with me taking advantage of the Monster AI? I can only seem to get further in this game if I get them to narrowly follow me into single corridors and if I go downstairs into a horde and then go upstairs and fight some of them and repeat.


I just feel like I'm not playing as intended :(

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Friday, 19th January 2018, 19:00
by tasonir
No, that's the two largest strategies that everyone uses, with the third probably being pillar dancing (running around in circles with a monster of the same speed (or slower) as you following, while you regenerate).

Yes I just nested parentheses; I have a problem.

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Friday, 19th January 2018, 19:14
by HawkI
What a relief! I had a run earlier today that had me encountering a bunch of five headed dragons a handful of swamp dragons and a fistful of bog warriors with a handful of thorn creatures, I stood in the water powered my self up with Okwarrior Demi God Ability, drank a potion to turn me into a tree, then drank a potion of Berserk for an epic last stand, although I knew I could have just used the stairs dancing to easily win. I lost and then I felt confused so I listened to a podcast with one of the designers and that helped my emotions a bit, but this makes me feel much better :)

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Friday, 19th January 2018, 23:48
by tasonir
As an aside, even if developers didn't like these strategies, you don't need developer's blessings to use them. Several players don't like 'luring' which is the broad category these tactics fall under, so they'll recommend changes to the game to counteract them. But until/if those changes go in, it's your right (and in your best interests, in terms of win rate) to abuse all of the tactical advantages you can.

Some people choose not to do things they consider tedious or unfun (using summoning/allies is a common example), but that's their choice.

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Saturday, 20th January 2018, 00:14
by Siegurt
FWIW I very rarely use pillar dancing, pulling things around corners and whacking on them one or two at a time is usually sufficient (this gives you 2-3 swings at one thing at a time), and running low on hps/mana should only happen if you've planned poorly (Typically when you pull too much aggro) if you pull too much aggro, usually it's better to take one or two things out as you retreat (using the aforementioned corner technique) and then go upstairs and come down somewhere else (possibly after killing one last thing that followed you and resting) Obviously this means that if pillar dancing is your last resort, you're going to do it more on D:1 than elsewhere.

Ideally you want to fight as few things at once as possible, and while corridors kind of force that to happen, you can also lure things apart from their friends before murdering them, preferably somewhere you know doesn't have anything nearby to be alerted by your combat noise. It's better to fight one thing at a time in a serial fashion in a corridor than to fight several things in the open, but it's better still to fight one thing, and have no other things around at all.

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Saturday, 20th January 2018, 04:32
by amalloy
HawkI wrote:What a relief! I had a run earlier today that had me encountering a bunch of five headed dragons a handful of swamp dragons and a fistful of bog warriors with a handful of thorn creatures, I stood in the water powered my self up with Okwarrior Demi God Ability, drank a potion to turn me into a tree, then drank a potion of Berserk for an epic last stand, although I knew I could have just used the stairs dancing to easily win. I lost and then I felt confused so I listened to a podcast with one of the designers and that helped my emotions a bit, but this makes me feel much better :)


I hereby authorise you to continue stairdancing, but only if you continue to use these adorably wrong names for everything.

Re: Are the developers OK with me playing like this?

PostPosted: Saturday, 20th January 2018, 04:36
by severen
I never use pillar dancing and Hellcrawl has no stair dancing and I have won it a number of times. Getting stuff in corridors or otherwise reducing how many things are "simultaneously" hitting is just good tactics and I would say is something that the Devs would actively encourage. However excessive luring (say spending 50 turns just luring things into position, the definition is not well formed either) is not something they particularly like but there has not been any successful implementation that limits it yet.

For normal crawl stair dancing is a very common and widely used tactics to an extent I think many players would freak somewhat out if it was stopped. However Hellcrawl basically proves its not necessary per se.