Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?


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What do you think about shaft effects?

Shaft effects are alright as they are
19
49%
Probability should be slightly reduced
4
10%
Probability should be reduced
3
8%
Probability should be strongly reduced
5
13%
Shaft effects should be removed
8
21%
 
Total votes : 39

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 12:31

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

sanka,

The "no retreat" part of shafts still can be fixed by difficulty levels/options. For instance, there can be an option to make PC slower (or faster) by 0.1 or 0.2 before game starts.
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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 12:45

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

With naga I tend to stairdance more than with other races. I am not convinced that would help, although decreasing speed by 0.1 could make the game better in other ways.

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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 13:00

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

That's because Naga has high AC and HP. Stair-dancing with Sp/Fe/Ko/Ha would not be a great idea, especially if they are slow due to taking the slow option and thus it takes more auts to use stairs. Also in my experience Na cannot rely on stair-dancing anyway, stairs are too far often.
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Post Thursday, 12th December 2019, 16:44

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

sanka wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:Also I believe it is not off topic in this thread, shafts are trying to solve a problem which does not exist in games with explicit difficulty levels i.e. to make the game not-so-boring for experienced players. At the same time shafts create problems which are not present in games with explicit difficulty levels i.e. if I choose easy difficulty (kind of like MiBe), I want the game to be easy, there is no need to throw me in random crazy situations "just because you can". The problem is DCSS does not know if the MiBe is controlled by a new player trying to win their first game or it is a top player trying to win in 8k turns and then throws shafts just because. Add the difficulty levels or at least provide customization options (no shafts, no teleportation traps, no mutations, no torment etc.).


I think shafts try to alleviate a little bit more specific problem than that: the problem that in most situations you can simply retreat.

A long time ago an experienced player in this forum told us that he used a simple fact to distinguish experienced and beginner players: simply check whether they move towards monsters. Shafts has a promise to create a situation where you do not have a choice in this simple test, therefore you need to come up with more clever solutions.

I think that the negative critique of shafts addresses a different property of it: that it can place you close to severly OOD monsters (compared to the character level). I think that your critique addresses the possiblity of OOD monsters, and does not focus on the positioning challenge. I think this second property of shafts (that it may place you close to severly OOD monsters) is not a good one, because it would be much better to simply generate OOD monsters if we want it, and not to combine two kinds of challenge into one feature. This combination just makes it harder to balance the challenge.

Unless there is an explicit difficulty level that somehow removes upstairs (which would be really strange and I have no idea how to balance), I fail to see how explicit difficulty levels solves the retreating problem.


You don't have to "remove" upstairs entirely, could always take that "Zelda inspiration" and lock them until floor clear, allowing backtracking for items and stuff later. But this gets awkward if the player dives for some reason.

Using a surprise mechanic that mimics player mistakes is probably not the best way to deal with players retreating as an "issue", when player retreating is central gameplay + obvious choice given game mechanics. It would likely be better to make it more routinely a wrong choice, rather than replicating mistake outcomes at random. Problem is a lot of things in crawl + item drop rate are presently balanced around the fact that you cam move away from stuff that 1-2 shots you.

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Post Friday, 13th December 2019, 20:03

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

VeryAngryFelid wrote:That's because Naga has high AC and HP. Stair-dancing with Sp/Fe/Ko/Ha would not be a great idea, especially if they are slow due to taking the slow option and thus it takes more auts to use stairs. Also in my experience Na cannot rely on stair-dancing anyway, stairs are too far often.


I think you misunderstand the best role of stairs, although here I am to blame for choosing the wrong word: "stairdancing". What I usually do with a week character is to stay close to a stair so that I can disappear, and climb down on *another* stair for a better position. And the weaker the character the more likely I am to do this.

Also, about stairs being too far: that's why you make a lot of noise to lure monsters close to the stairs.

The fact that you can simply disappear from monsters on a stair is a very powerful ability, that ruins many other things in crawl if you are patient enough to use it.

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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 08:04

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

sanka wrote:I think you misunderstand the best role of stairs, although here I am to blame for choosing the wrong word: "stairdancing". What I usually do with a week character is to stay close to a stair so that I can disappear, and climb down on *another* stair for a better position. And the weaker the character the more likely I am to do this.

Also, about stairs being too far: that's why you make a lot of noise to lure monsters close to the stairs.

The fact that you can simply disappear from monsters on a stair is a very powerful ability, that ruins many other things in crawl if you are patient enough to use it.


I think you used a wrong word indeed. Fighting near stars is not stairdancing. All species except Naga can retreat to stairs from normal speed monsters if needed so there is no surprise here that Naga is scared to move too far from stairs.
It actually helps that Naga has high AC and HP, I don't think shouting near stairs is a good idea as KoEn :)
But it is off topic. As usual devs ignore difficulty level suggestions :(
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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 14:09

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

The irony in this thread is rich.

This is a game where you can lose to rng, regardless of shafts, so its not like shafts add anything to the game. That on its own should have made you realise how irrelevant this discussion is(because thats the main topic, thats shafts are bad, not that the whole rng aspect of the game is atrocious) yet here we are.

But Muh skill level. Skilled players who are self aware already quit because its pretty dumb to play a game for skill when it ultimately boils down to luck and while DCSS is a game with depth, the meta is a shallow as it gets due to simplifications to things like wands and the complete neglect to adress melee being too good(im speaking in general, dont take this literally and start bringing up your mage winrate).

But... but... people play slay the spire. Some people like poker and some people dont, some people are more skilled at it, some are more lucky. The main difference between DCSS and slay the spire though is that one takes between 50-200k imputs per game. Thats too many imputs just to pull a lever on a slot machine.

DCSS was never developed towards the elite and never will be. Thats why you are stuck here trying to outsmart each other in pointless discussions.

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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 16:48

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

^ Yet the "elite" are the primary justification for arguing in favor of things like shafts and early RNG, ironically. I've not seen a heavy representation of elite players preferring trap effects though.

While you can lose to pure RNG just off a really bad D:1 layout and such, there's no reason to create mechanics that do this more often without adding significant extra depth.

There should be a distinction between "rare combinations of procedural generation might be unfair" vs "mechanic intentionally designed as a cheapshot". Early traps, TP into lungs, Klown pies, are among a short list of things that are straight up designed to be unfair and gear/consumable check you (though having them won't save you vs rare bad polymorphs with some enemies around).
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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 17:08

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

"onepostman," the conversation about crawl is not just about DCSS. Also, you're wrong with this talk about "the elite," but who cares.
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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 19:07

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Dynast did quit recently, as did Demise between the two most recent tournaments. I'm not sure what kind of retention can be realistically expected in a single player game though. How many thousands of hours do players like him, Yermak, UV4, Demise, Manman, Malcolmrose, Elliptic, Pedritolo, etc have? At some point people move on from a particular game, especially so if it lacks competitive MP. I don't think just looking at elite player attrition is useful. There is some value in as at least considering their takes on how a particular change might impact the game. Though they do lose sight of how many choices they make which became automatic to them.

Also note that those names are outliers among outliers. Balancing DCSS around what they can do sets a baseline expectation that a crushing majority of players will never reach...I've yet to see convincing rationale that such makes the game better.
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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 20:14

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

The game is played out. Anyone who's serious about learning and grinding it out can produce long streaks. This became very clear about two years ago, with lots of players turning in long streaks to rival what were previously "legendary" or whatever. People who still think winning at this game makes you some kind of genius are living in the distant past.

Yet belief in the mystery and romance of the game lingers, fueling arguments grounded in outdated thinking and nostalgia. That is why you see so many "crawl classic" type forks. If people could get away from the nostalgia and mewling about games they've lost, maybe these conversations could be salvaged and produce something worthwhile.
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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 20:35

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

I think it is not just the players become better, the game also become easier, and I think mostly in a good way (although I personally do not like some ways in which it become easier).

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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 21:05

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

sanka wrote:I think it is not just the players become better, the game also become easier, and I think mostly in a good way (although I personally do not like some ways in which it become easier).


Most recent patch changes don't have things that suggest the game is easier. I'd weight much more on part of the player base "figuring the game out". But even so the data suggests most players struggle to win at all.

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Post Monday, 16th December 2019, 21:42

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

I do not talk about recent changes, I do not feel they changed the difficulty much. Long streaks were pretty common a long time ago.

Most players struggle to win, but there are different kinds of difficulty. The game being opaque about key mechanics does not help beginners, as well as being very large. These kinds of difficulty, however, do not really help with replayability, which is the design goal.

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bel

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Post Tuesday, 17th December 2019, 10:54

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

I doubt anyone knows anymore what this thread is about. I would say random pointless sniping, but that would be too accurate.

Usually when threads get this way, I suggest that people realize that there's no referee on this forum, so just declare victory and go home.
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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 00:15

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

bel wrote:I doubt anyone knows anymore what this thread is about. I would say random pointless sniping, but that would be too accurate.

Usually when threads get this way, I suggest that people realize that there's no referee on this forum, so just declare victory and go home.


Well, there's that poll at the top. Considering the results, I'd say the current codebase wins by a large margin.
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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 05:14

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Sorcerous wrote:Well, there's that poll at the top. Considering the results, I'd say the current codebase wins by a large margin.


At this very moment, there are 17 votes for leaving shafts as they are, and 16 votes for reducing them. Is this really a large margin to you?

By the way, I am really surprised that 33 people read this forum. I would have guessed a smaller number.

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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 06:34

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Magipi wrote:
Sorcerous wrote:Well, there's that poll at the top. Considering the results, I'd say the current codebase wins by a large margin.


At this very moment, there are 17 votes for leaving shafts as they are, and 16 votes for reducing them. Is this really a large margin to you?

By the way, I am really surprised that 33 people read this forum. I would have guessed a smaller number.
That's actually pretty good considering how biased and poorly worded that poll is
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Slime Squisher

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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 09:32

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Magipi wrote:
Sorcerous wrote:Well, there's that poll at the top. Considering the results, I'd say the current codebase wins by a large margin.


At this very moment, there are 17 votes for leaving shafts as they are, and 16 votes for reducing them. Is this really a large margin to you?

By the way, I am really surprised that 33 people read this forum. I would have guessed a smaller number.


In the first few responses to the thread, @Fingolfin pointed out that there is no option for increasing the odds. With the five available answers, you choose to treat four of them as a cohesive group, which they are not. There are nine total votes for reduction, and seven for outright removal*. 52%, with three others combined making 27%. Considering the difference by percentages is in the double digits compared to shafts being as they are, it is a large margin. If there were options for increased odds of shafts activating or increased odds of placing the PC closer to danger / further away from stairs I can guess that at least half of the status quo votes would be for the increase, and then the vote distribution would be more even.


*While we could argue that removal can be seen as a 100% reduction, it still can't because calling for something to be changed is not the same as wanting it completely gone. CRUD operations are the most widely applicable analogy I can think of.
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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 16:00

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Magipi wrote:
Sorcerous wrote:Well, there's that poll at the top. Considering the results, I'd say the current codebase wins by a large margin.


At this very moment, there are 17 votes for leaving shafts as they are, and 16 votes for reducing them. Is this really a large margin to you?

By the way, I am really surprised that 33 people read this forum. I would have guessed a smaller number.


Not to mention that poll's location here creates a fairly huge selection bias. Other than a gauge of "most active forum people's preference" it has basically no predictive value.

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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 16:43

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Worse yet, Magpi's interpretation of lumping the various "tone it down slightly/somewhat/lots" with "remove them altogether" creates a false dichotomy and misrepresents some votes. I voted for "tone it down slightly" (because I feel like the frequency is maybe just slightly on the high side) However between "keep them as is" and "remove them altogether" I would definitely vote for "keep them as-is" (Indeed I would vote for "keep them as-is" over any option other than the one I voted for).

"Keep the current codebase" definitely wins over any of the individual *provided* options, (In the obviously highly biased poll of "preference of people who frequently read this forum") re-interpreting it to mean "almost as many people would prefer a change to no change" is a very poor and misleading interpretation.
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Post Wednesday, 18th December 2019, 17:39

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

I started writing an answer that I still think that what I said is correct (even though yes, I did not consider secondary preferences). Then I suddenly realized that this is a forum that only 3 dozen guys read, and nothing that is written here has any significance... so yeah.. it's not worth it. Let's just move on.

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Post Wednesday, 25th December 2019, 07:58

Re: Poll: What do you think about shaft effects?

Whoever recommended Slay the Spire, thanks.
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