Thank you and good bye

[Sandman25]

My previous character died to freezing clouds in Ice Cave. The game does not display how much damage every cloud deals, how long it stays, how often it generates, how fast it spreads.
My last character died to Sun Demon in Volcano. Sun Demon is vulnerable to Cold. I had Freeze, Throw Icicle and Halberd of Freezing. Again the game does not display how much damage I can deal with every spell/item, how likely I am to hit with that Halberd.
Why does the game display HP for character? Why not just "almost dead", "heavily wounded" etc.? To make it possible to see your luck when you naturally cure poison at last HP?
Crawl is a great game but I am tired of gambling. Thank you developers, thank you forum members, I really enjoyed playing DCSS, learning it and discussing it. It is likely to always stay the best game I ever played.

[Amnesiac]

Come back, when you have withdrawal symptoms or when you want some adventures

[Baldu]

Little trick for when you need your fix next time: use abilities on you, you'll get a rather precise precise idea on exact numbers since you can see precisely your own HP.

Laters and thanks for your time here!

[Sandman25]

It took 15 minutes to modify crawl to display this:

  Code:

A giant cockroach comes into view. max hp = 7
Found 12 stones.
You hit the giant cockroach.
Lost 1 out of 7, max hp = 7
The giant cockroach is lightly wounded.
You block the giant cockroach's attack.
You hit the giant cockroach.
Lost 1 out of 6, max hp = 7
The giant cockroach is moderately wounded.
The giant cockroach bites you but does no damage.
You slash the giant cockroach!
Lost 8 out of 5, max hp = 7
You kill the giant cockroach!

Don't tell me seeing the data will make me worse player

[Amnesiac]

it won't make you a bad player, but it will make it a bit different game

[Sandman25]

it won't make you a bad player, but it will make it a bit different game

Very true. Now I can see when I get (un)lucky shots, compare spells to weapons, see effect of Fighting/Weapon on damage increase etc.

  Code:

A worm comes into view. max hp = 30
Base damage 5 out of 8; Monster decreased damage fby 1
You hit the worm.
Lost 4 out of 30, max hp = 30
The worm is lightly wounded.
Base damage 7 out of 8; Monster decreased damage fby 1
You hit the worm.
Lost 6 out of 26, max hp = 30

[Baldu]

It took 15 minutes to modify crawl to display this:

  Code:

more numbers!

Don't tell me seeing the data will make me worse player

I actually agree with you and would like to have exact damage numbers on weapons and spells but i got used to it and i don't care much about it anymore.

Maybe you just need to play a little less like i do now, i play about 5-10 lunch breaks a month and 2-3 evenings. That's roughly 1 win/death on my serious "high" (for me) win rate account and maybe 1 win but usually 2-5 deaths on my experimental account.

[Sandman25]

Maybe you just need to play a little less like i do now, i play about 5-10 lunch breaks a month and 2-3 evenings. That's roughly 1 win/death on my serious "high" (for me) win rate account and maybe 1 win but usually 2-5 deaths on my experimental account.

I had the same problems in other games I played, I think it is determined by personality. For instance, I could not play Homm1-3 after Homm5, the latter displays detailed info.

[and into]

Maybe you just need to play a little less like i do now, i play about 5-10 lunch breaks a month and 2-3 evenings. That's roughly 1 win/death on my serious "high" (for me) win rate account and maybe 1 win but usually 2-5 deaths on my experimental account.

I had the same problems in other games I played, I think it is determined by personality. For instance, I could not play Homm1-3 after Homm5, the latter displays detailed info.

That's a shame, because Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is the best one! (None is perfect; some of the campaigns in all HoMM games have flaws, and a few basically require redundant abuse of power spells (Town Portal especially) and faking out bad AI scripts, unless you are literally willing to micromanage external creature dwellings to the brink of death by boredom. Great game nonetheless, some of the maps are very well designed and the basic game mechanics are excellent, aside from a few repetitious things that should have had automation via better UI.)

[Sandman25]

That's a shame, because Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is the best one! (None is perfect; some of the campaigns in all HoMM games have flaws, and a few basically require redundant abuse of power spells (Town Portal especially) and faking out bad AI scripts, unless you are literally willing to micromanage external creature dwellings to the brink of death by boredom. Great game nonetheless, some of the maps are very well designed and the basic game mechanics are excellent, aside from a few repetitious things that should have had automation via better UI.)

Sorry, I don't feel ashamed, Homm was my most favorite game before I discovered DCSS and I have been playing it since last millennium Homm3 was the best strategy wise but Homm5 is better as RPG and is more user friendly (at least for me).

[savageorange]

I wanted to point out that DCSS hides numbers for a better reason than 'it will make you a -better- player':

Personally I find that the more numbers I see, the more munchkin-like I behave. I don't prefer to spend my time optimizing numbers, but this is a well known, natural human tendency (to want your numbers to go up, and also to have a terrible sense of scale and importance of numbers). Which I appreciate DCSS developers' rare recognition for.

The way DCSS works around those tendencies is to hide the numbers. This makes sense as it is a complex game with many numbers that you could spend lots of thought on optimizing.

Brogue, OTOH, works around those tendencies by simplicity - having few numbers, with a clearly defined relationship between them.

Having more numbers in a complex game will make you a more calculating, micromanaging, and grindy player.
IOW the real point of hiding numbers is to make you a player who has more -fun-.

[and into]

That's a shame, because Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is the best one! (None is perfect; some of the campaigns in all HoMM games have flaws, and a few basically require redundant abuse of power spells (Town Portal especially) and faking out bad AI scripts, unless you are literally willing to micromanage external creature dwellings to the brink of death by boredom. Great game nonetheless, some of the maps are very well designed and the basic game mechanics are excellent, aside from a few repetitious things that should have had automation via better UI.)

Sorry, I don't feel ashamed, Homm was my most favorite game before I discovered DCSS and I have been playing it since last millennium Homm3 was the best strategy wise but Homm5 is better as RPG and is more user friendly (at least for me).

Agree about HoMM 5 having more of an RPG feel, I was more into the series for strategy so it was easy to overlook some of the flaws cause a lot of the design in 3, in terms of how strategy played out etc., was fantastic. I liked 5 too, even though I liked the classic graphics of 3 more. (I grew up on Civ 2 and the like, I'm not a luddite or against advance in the area of graphics, but good art direction and consistent aesthetic trumps technical considerations for me, every time.)

As for DCSS and numbers, I don't think I could have said it better than savageorange.

[dpeg]

I wanted to point out that DCSS hides numbers for a better reason than 'it will make you a -better- player':

Personally I find that the more numbers I see, the more munchkin-like I behave. I don't prefer to spend my time optimizing numbers, but this is a well known, natural human tendency (to want your numbers to go up, and also to have a terrible sense of scale and importance of numbers). Which I appreciate DCSS developers' rare recognition for.

Thank you! I really like the way you put it. Sometimes I feel my insistency to hide (or at least not disclose randomly) numbers is misguided, there are so many complaints about it. I know why I want that (and you just said something quite like that in your own words) but it could be that we're a small minority? However, I believe that the tendency to give in to munchkinism is actually widespread: grind when you can, optimise when you can. I played Nethack a lot, and I know for sure that I am prone to all these things, and that's why I don't want them in Crawl.

It's good you bring up Brogue: I absolutely love that game, and it conveys the information extremely well. However, its system cannot be easily transported to Crawl. Brogue is much smaller (e.g. only very few attacks per monster), and Crawl has higher variance (so that the numbers would be less meaningful). Also, Brogue has been designed with elegant minimalism in mind, something which cannot be said about Crawl

I think players should get all the information needed to play the game sensibly (and Crawl isn't nowhere near there yet). But it's important to not to give in to temptation and just print numbers -- that is the simplest thing to do because internally everything is numerical, but most sloppy in terms of interface and design (here I am thinking of focus and information load).

[Sandman25]

Agree about HoMM 5 having more of an RPG feel, I was more into the series for strategy so it was easy to overlook some of the flaws cause a lot of the design in 3, in terms of how strategy played out etc., was fantastic. I liked 5 too, even though I liked the classic graphics of 3 more. (I grew up on Civ 2 and the like, I'm not a luddite or against advance in the area of graphics, but good art direction and consistent aesthetic trumps technical considerations for me, every time.)

As for DCSS and numbers, I don't think I could have said it better than savageorange.

Civ 2 is my second best game I still play http://c-evo.org/ sometimes (it's a great civ2 "sequel" without random elements with strong AI).

[Sandman25]

I wanted to point out that DCSS hides numbers for a better reason than 'it will make you a -better- player':

Personally I find that the more numbers I see, the more munchkin-like I behave. I don't prefer to spend my time optimizing numbers, but this is a well known, natural human tendency (to want your numbers to go up, and also to have a terrible sense of scale and importance of numbers). Which I appreciate DCSS developers' rare recognition for.

The way DCSS works around those tendencies is to hide the numbers. This makes sense as it is a complex game with many numbers that you could spend lots of thought on optimizing.

Brogue, OTOH, works around those tendencies by simplicity - having few numbers, with a clearly defined relationship between them.

Having more numbers in a complex game will make you a more calculating, micromanaging, and grindy player.
IOW the real point of hiding numbers is to make you a player who has more -fun-.

My last game which caused me to abandon DCSS was finished when I had Freeze, Throw Frost, Throw Icicle, Halberd of Freezing and no information what is best and how much HP enemy has. I am very glad that I can see this now, it makes me want play crawl again:

  Code:

You throw a dart.
Rolled 2 out of 1-2; Beam rolled 2 out of 2, postac 0
Beam attack: 5, defence: 4; After roll attack: 2, defence: 2
The dart hits the scorpion.
The scorpion is moderately wounded.
Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Throw Frost
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - scorpion
Aim: a scorpion (moderately wounded)
Rolled 2 out of 2-10; Beam rolled 2 out of 10, postac 0
Beam attack: 9, defence: 2; After roll attack: 0, defence: 0
The puff of frost hits the scorpion. The scorpion appears unharmed.
The scorpion is moderately wounded.
To hit: 9; ev: 10; random ev: 13
The scorpion barely misses you.
Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Freeze
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - scorpion
Aim: a scorpion (moderately wounded)
You freeze the scorpion.
Rolled 3 out of 1-9; The scorpion lost 3, current 12, max 20
The scorpion is heavily wounded.
Rolled 0 out of 1-0
To hit: 6; ev: 10; initial ev: 10
You barely miss the scorpion.

I just can see feedback and make decisions without guessing. I believe it is not bad.

[Turukano]

Come back, when you have withdrawal symptoms

I guess it will be like this. However, here is a - maybe temporary - farewell for Sandman25.

[Sandman25]

Come back, when you have withdrawal symptoms

I guess it will be like this. However, here is a - maybe temporary - farewell for Sandman25.

Thank you. I suspect I will be playing my own version of crawl so it is considered cheating and thus there is no point in discussing my characters.

[Amnesiac]

I suspect I will be playing my own version of crawl so it is considered cheating and thus there is no point in discussing my characters.

Actually, I'm quite interested in how your characters will progress and how this mode will affect the way you play. For example "I knew that I had 80% to hit it and it had 4 hp left, so I decided to finish it of with my dagger that deals 5 dmg on average" and stuff like that.

[Sandman25]

I suspect I will be playing my own version of crawl so it is considered cheating and thus there is no point in discussing my characters.

Actually, I'm quite interested in how your characters will progress and how this mode will affect the way you play. For example "I knew that I had 80% to hit it and it had 4 hp left, so I decided to finish it of with my dagger that deals 5 dmg on average" and stuff like that.

  Code:

The orc wizard lost 4, current 8, max 15
The orc wizard is heavily wounded.
The orc wizard zaps a wand.
Beam attack: 16, defence: 17; After roll attack: 12, defence: 9
Beam attack: 16, defence: 17; After roll attack: 12, defence: 9
Beam attack: 16, defence: 17; After roll attack: 12, defence: 9
The bolt of lightning hits you!
Rolled 14 out of 3-33
Huge Dmg: -26%(-14hp) hp: 74%(38hp)

As you can see Orc Wizard has 8 HP, I have 38 HP. Can it kill me in one shot with that Wand of Lighting? No, because I see precise range 3-33. So I decide to fight without quaffing potion of Heal Wounds.

  Code:

Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Throw Frost
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc wizard
Aim: an orc wizard, wielding an orcish dagger, wearing an orcish robe and carrying a wand of lightning {zapped: 3} (heavily wounded)
Rolled 6 out of 2-10; Beam rolled 6 out of 10, postac 3
Beam attack: 9, defence: 8; After roll attack: 5, defence: 0
The puff of frost hits the orc wizard.
The orc wizard lost 3, current 5, max 15
The orc wizard is severely wounded.
The orc wizard zaps a wand.
Beam attack: 16, defence: 17; After roll attack: 11, defence: 14
The bolt of lightning misses you.
Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Throw Frost
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc wizard
Aim: an orc wizard, wielding an orcish dagger, wearing an orcish robe and carrying a wand of lightning {zapped: 4} (severely wounded)
Rolled 4 out of 2-10; Beam rolled 4 out of 10, postac 2
Beam attack: 9, defence: 11; After roll attack: 5, defence: 10
Beam attack: 9, defence: 11; After roll attack: 5, defence: 10
The puff of frost misses the orc wizard.
Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Throw Frost
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc wizard
Aim: an orc wizard, wielding an orcish dagger, wearing an orcish robe and carrying a wand of lightning {zapped: 4} (severely wounded)
Rolled 5 out of 2-10; Beam rolled 5 out of 10, postac 3
Beam attack: 9, defence: 6; After roll attack: 2, defence: 3
Beam attack: 9, defence: 6; After roll attack: 2, defence: 3
The puff of frost misses the orc wizard.
Casting: Throw Frost
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Freeze
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f/p - orc wizard
Aim: an orc wizard, wielding an orcish dagger, wearing an orcish robe and carrying a wand of lightning {zapped: 4} (severely wounded)
You freeze the orc wizard.
Rolled 5 out of 1-11
The orc wizard lost 5, current 0, max 15
You kill the orc wizard!

Though there is some cheating indeed - I see HP for zombies and it makes kiting much easier. I will try to modify my code to avoid displaying it.

[savageorange]

I just can see feedback and make decisions without guessing. I believe it is not bad.

Dude, I am in no way saying that you're doing anything wrong. I just wanted to point out the different priorities: The people who want numbers have a higher priority on winning, and the people who don't particularly want numbers have a higher priority on fun (that is, moment-to-moment/relatively immediate fun). Since DCSS explicitly prioritizes fun and depreciates grindiness, it is obligated to be careful about handing out numbers. What you're doing is essentially a minor fork that's saying "I prefer being a bit more grindy if it can bring me closer to winning."

It's good you bring up Brogue: I absolutely love that game, and it conveys the information extremely well. However, its system cannot be easily transported to Crawl.

Yes, that's exactly why I mentioned it, because people sometimes suggest that Brogue's style of info should be simply added to DCSS. It works in Brogue because the system as a whole fits that approach.

But it's important to not to give in to temptation and just print numbers -- that is the simplest thing to do because internally everything is numerical, but most sloppy in terms of interface and design (here I am thinking of focus and information load).

Yes. I'm coming at it from a different angle (cognitive science) and seeing that, for example, percentages are good, as numbers go -- people are good at understanding ratios; and bars (like spell hunger/power) are good for the same reason.

Raw numbers are more "magical" -- when I'm choosing what stat to raise, I can't afford to look at the actual numbers, because I only have a vague grasp of what they mean. Instead I have to make a binary choice "Am I currently suffering for lack of X?". (same thing for skills, EV, SH. AC is one of the only common 'raw numbers' that is simple enough to not be magical -- I know I can expect 30 points of AC to, on average, nullify 15 points of damage)

[Amnesiac]

Though there is some cheating indeed - I see HP for zombies and it makes kiting much easier. I will try to modify my code to avoid displaying it.

I believe that zombies don't have hp bar because they don't regenerate, so their current hp = their maximum hp. So I don't think it's cheating, you wanted the game to display this kind of information like in Diablo and such, so it's ok to have their hp displayed, it's your mod, so you decide what's ok. Personally I don't see any difference in displaying hp of a zombie or any other monster.

You provided some interestion info, I'm looking forward to more, but don't you see the damage after you do it, not before? Which kinda beside the point.

[Sandman25]

I just can see feedback and make decisions without guessing. I believe it is not bad.

Dude, I am in no way saying that you're doing anything wrong. I just wanted to point out the different priorities: The people who want numbers have a higher priority on winning, and the people who don't particularly want numbers have a higher priority on fun (that is, moment-to-moment/relatively immediate fun). Since DCSS explicitly prioritizes fun and depreciates grindiness, it is obligated to be careful about handing out numbers. What you're doing is essentially a minor fork that's saying "I prefer being a bit more grindy if it can bring me closer to winning."

Exactly, it's all about fun. I don't mind losing if it was my own fault but I hate losing if it was caused by lack of info, I feel unfun to spend 2 hours on character who dies because I don't know how much damage it can receive from Summon Demon (it's technically possible to know this data from wiki) and how much damage my spells/weapon can deal (again, it's technically possible to know this data from wiki and my stats). But I really doubt there is a single player who calculates it for every monster, that would be grinding

[Sandman25]

Though there is some cheating indeed - I see HP for zombies and it makes kiting much easier. I will try to modify my code to avoid displaying it.

I believe that zombies don't have hp bar because they don't regenerate, so their current hp = their maximum hp. So I don't think it's cheating, you wanted the game to display this kind of information like in Diablo and such, so it's ok to have their hp displayed, it's your mod, so you decide what's ok. Personally I don't see any difference in displaying hp of a zombie or any other monster.

You provided some interestion info, I'm looking forward to more, but don't you see the damage after you do it, not before? Which kinda beside the point.

Unfortunately crawl does not provide easy way to calculate the damage before. I suspect that is one of reasons why devs don't want to display it. But you can try it once and see the roll. You basically do the same thing in standard crawl.
My way of playing crawl is very useful for newcomers, when they don't know monsters/spells. Experienced players don't need it as much because they "feel" it but I still learn something new.
I will modify my code to display rolls for monster attacks, it may prevent underestimating monsters, at least after their first attack

[TeshiAlair]

Wacky, almost-definitely-bad-idea: what if you gradually got more stats on monsters/damage over time? Perhaps based on a combination of int/skill/number of that monster you've splatted. This would allow better handling of "trivial but swingy" fights such as stone giants, but keep boss monsters still threatening.

Additionally, it could open up some design space, for instance, a Rakshasa cousin that could make itself appear larger/more threatening by altering your perception of the effectiveness of your attacks.

[dpeg]

I just wanted to point out the different priorities: The people who want numbers have a higher priority on winning, and the people who don't particularly want numbers have a higher priority on fun (that is, moment-to-moment/relatively immediate fun). Since DCSS explicitly prioritizes fun and depreciates grindiness, it is obligated to be careful about handing out numbers. What you're doing is essentially a minor fork that's saying "I prefer being a bit more grindy if it can bring me closer to winning."

Exactly, it's all about fun. I don't mind losing if it was my own fault but I hate losing if it was caused by lack of info, I feel unfun to spend 2 hours on character who dies because I don't know how much damage it can receive from Summon Demon (it's technically possible to know this data from wiki) and how much damage my spells/weapon can deal (again, it's technically possible to know this data from wiki and my stats). But I really doubt there is a single player who calculates it for every monster, that would be grinding

It would really help if you realised that different people have different ideas of fun. Yours is, for whatever reason, not quite compatible with the one of the devteam. That means you have to fork (as you did) or turn away. This is sad, but it's absolutely impossible to cater for everyone. It's been said so often why there are drawbacks to showing all the numbers. Of course, I think that HoMM3 was the pinnacle of the series (and almost of the genre) and that HoMM5 was unworthy of a strategy game -- just to show how big differences in assessment can be.

[Bloax]

I could not play Homm1-3 after Homm5, the latter displays detailed info.

Are you telling me that HoMM2/3 doesn't have enough numbers because you haven't calculated the average damage based on the enemy attack/your creep's defense of the probable next enemies' attacks on the creature you're planning to send in for the attack, along with whether or not there's a good chance that you'll score enough damage to kill the stack, or kill enough so that the retaliation won't kill one of your creeps?

It's full of numbers, but you have to actually calculate them yourself! Fun times.

[Amnesiac]

I think even a middle schooler can easily calculate that kind of stuff. Also, homm3 is unbeatably beautiful, art and music. I couldn't look at sequels without sorrow...

[Sandman25]

It would really help if you realised that different people have different ideas of fun. Yours is, for whatever reason, not quite compatible with the one of the devteam. That means you have to fork (as you did) or turn away. This is sad, but it's absolutely impossible to cater for everyone. It's been said so often why there are drawbacks to showing all the numbers. Of course, I think that HoMM3 was the pinnacle of the series (and almost of the genre) and that HoMM5 was unworthy of a strategy game -- just to show how big differences in assessment can be.

Yes, I had realized everything you said here before, except regarding Homm5 maybe which is still a good strategy for me.
I am not trying to convince anyone, that would be a different game indeed.

[Sandman25]

Are you telling me that HoMM2/3 doesn't have enough numbers because you haven't calculated the average damage based on the enemy attack/your creep's defense of the probable next enemies' attacks on the creature you're planning to send in for the attack, along with whether or not there's a good chance that you'll score enough damage to kill the stack, or kill enough so that the retaliation won't kill one of your creeps?

It's full of numbers, but you have to actually calculate them yourself! Fun times.

Yes, I was constantly calculating numbers when playing Homm3 for many years but Homm5 made me lazy

[Sandman25]

I think even a middle schooler can easily calculate that kind of stuff. Also, homm3 is unbeatably beautiful, art and music. I couldn't look at sequels without sorrow...

Well, Homm5 is a more fair game, it does not have Crag Hack/Tazar. Late game heroes feel much more varied in Homm5, you cannot just have Expert Earth for everyone, each town has unique play style(s) also. I like Homm5 more even without taking into account displaying more detailed info.

[rebthor]

Wacky, almost-definitely-bad-idea: what if you gradually got more stats on monsters/damage over time? Perhaps based on a combination of int/skill/number of that monster you've splatted. This would allow better handling of "trivial but swingy" fights such as stone giants, but keep boss monsters still threatening.

Additionally, it could open up some design space, for instance, a Rakshasa cousin that could make itself appear larger/more threatening by altering your perception of the effectiveness of your attacks.

This is how angband treats monsters. As you fight more of them, you learn their capabilities, HP and more.