Ziggurat Zagger
Posts: 5382
Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36
Friday, 22nd March 2013, 20:38
Aspects of crawl that are perfect
I was thinking about things in crawl that I really like, and figured why not start a thread for it? Systems that are elegant, challenging, and rewarding. What is your favorite?
Mine? Player ghosts.
They tend to be stronger than your character early on and I've lost lots of characters to them. However if you can kill one, they are frequently an early boost to experience that can make the next few floors noticeably easier. Being unable to take stairs makes them easier to run away from and teaches the concept that you should not be fighting all fights as soon as you find them. Come back later. Later on the ghosts are more manageable on fight sight but still scale well with your power and can make any situation much more tricky when they spawn near other monsters.
There is also an incredible amount of variation and the encounters are unexpected as you don't know ahead of time what their spell list is, their resistances change (although you can check those with x-v), etc. I'm still kicking myself over losing a nice draconian to a fellow draconian player ghost - the ghost had slow memorized, slowed me, I tried to inch back to some stairs and then he double breathed me for 40 damage, when I was at about 40/75hp. Hit 0 hp exactly. Nasty draconian ghosts!
But even when you die to them, I still can't help but feel they're really perfectly executed. What do you feel the same way about in crawl?
Mine? Player ghosts.
They tend to be stronger than your character early on and I've lost lots of characters to them. However if you can kill one, they are frequently an early boost to experience that can make the next few floors noticeably easier. Being unable to take stairs makes them easier to run away from and teaches the concept that you should not be fighting all fights as soon as you find them. Come back later. Later on the ghosts are more manageable on fight sight but still scale well with your power and can make any situation much more tricky when they spawn near other monsters.
There is also an incredible amount of variation and the encounters are unexpected as you don't know ahead of time what their spell list is, their resistances change (although you can check those with x-v), etc. I'm still kicking myself over losing a nice draconian to a fellow draconian player ghost - the ghost had slow memorized, slowed me, I tried to inch back to some stairs and then he double breathed me for 40 damage, when I was at about 40/75hp. Hit 0 hp exactly. Nasty draconian ghosts!
But even when you die to them, I still can't help but feel they're really perfectly executed. What do you feel the same way about in crawl?
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/tasonir.html
Officially ruining greatplayer statistics since Jan 18th, 2015.
I wrote the Melee Naga Guide.
Recording of my 15 rune 40k turn VSMo^Chei speedrun!
Officially ruining greatplayer statistics since Jan 18th, 2015.
I wrote the Melee Naga Guide.
Recording of my 15 rune 40k turn VSMo^Chei speedrun!
