Shoals, Spider, casters

[Hurkyl]

Edit: what <redacted> are skillpoints. I show you a dude who had huge HP and could beat up everything in melee and also cast FStorm and all that on 3 runes of XP and you talk to me about some points.

"Skill points" are those things that you use to increase your skills. I talk about skill points, because it had appeared you were trying to defend your claim that HO was a race with "great magic apts".

But what you showed is not a character who could beat up everything in melee and cast FStorm because of great magic aptitudes -- in fact, it's exactly the reverse. You managed this feat because this character was a race with a good HP aptitude and also has decent-to-good aptitudes in fighting/armour so that you didn't have to spend so many skill points on being able to beat everything up in melee, thus leaving enough skill points left over that you could still manage to cast firestorm despite below average magical aptitudes.

I assume now that you never meant to say anything about aptitude for magic, and just meant to say that some high HP races can still use magic with some level of effectiveness.

[Sar]

I dunno about you, but I just kill dudes to increase my skills, not use some points or whatever. And +1 to Fire and +0 to Conj are very good magic apts for one planning to cast Fire spells. I didn't raise Spellcasting over 10-13 or so until I went for FStorm IIRC because I could just eat dudes I killed so what if I get hungry?

[One-Eyed Jack]

Why do you compare mindelay on glaive with sticky flame? Pop quiz: which takes more exp, getting mindelay on Bardiche or Fire Storm to 1%?

Your argument was that "non-casters train just one weapon skill (melee, unarmed or ranged) while casters train at least one magic school and spellcasting" so they have more xp for defenses. This argument is unsound; they may train "just one skill" but that doesn't imply at all that they have to spend less xp on it to get an adequate offense. There's no magic number for either; you can cast sticky flame at 7% failure (or higher) and you can use a glaive at 1.0 delay and kill stuff just fine, but it's definitely not "obvious" that you always spend less xp on the latter to get it to an adequate level.

This isn't about game design

The entire point of this thread is that lair branches were too hard for XL15ish casters because they were "fragile" for the lair branches and this being a game design issue about the runelock. This thread was broken off from GDD. If all you want to say is, "players who don't train fighting on casters die in melee" then fine, whatever, but when they die they should blame themselves, not the game

But what you showed is not a character who could beat up everything in melee and cast FStorm because of great magic aptitudes -- in fact, it's exactly the reverse. You managed this feat because this character was a race with a good HP aptitude and also has decent-to-good aptitudes in fighting/armour so that you didn't have to spend so many skill points on being able to beat everything up in melee, thus leaving enough skill points left over that you could still manage to cast firestorm despite below average magical aptitudes.

First of all, 14.0 spellcasting is much less important in casting firestorm than the 24.0 conjurations you ignored. Second and more importantly, when you get skills is extremely important - being able to cast sticky flame on D4 instead of D5 because you have +1 fire is a lot more important than having 14 spc instead of 18 or whatever on Vault 8 or whatever point your skills barely matter anymore

[Sar]

Wait, does this mean I was in fact arguing pro runelock? Damn.

[Sandman25]

Why do you compare mindelay on glaive with sticky flame? Pop quiz: which takes more exp, getting mindelay on Bardiche or Fire Storm to 1%?

Your argument was that "non-casters train just one weapon skill (melee, unarmed or ranged) while casters train at least one magic school and spellcasting" so they have more xp for defenses. This argument is unsound; they may train "just one skill" but that doesn't imply at all that they have to spend less xp on it to get an adequate offense. There's no magic number for either; you can cast sticky flame at 7% failure (or higher) and you can use a glaive at 1.0 delay and kill stuff just fine, but it's definitely not "obvious" that you always spend less xp on the latter to get it to an adequate level.

1) Weapon skill 10 is as good as single magic school skill 10 (I guess that's where we disagree). If you play a melee character with -4 aptitude for specific weapon category, you spend the same XP a caster with 0 aptitude spends on one magic school and Spellcasting (that's for Conjurer mostly). With second magic school (AE/IE/FE/EE) it becomes worse.
Why 10 weapon skill is as good as 10 magic skill? Because it allows to have your weapon close to min delay while caster still spends 1 turn per spell and can run out of MP.
2) Don't rush to 1.0 turn for glaive. Even at 15 Polearms skill halberd is better and it is optimal to improve some defense instead (for casters it's true also, Centaurs start appearing very early)
3) I don't cast Sticky Flame at 7% without training Dodging first especially on low HP species.

[crate]

this thread is amazing

[Sandman25]

this thread is amazing

Yes, crawl has potential to become much harder game if players with completely different approach to playing the same combos still win. There should be only one way to play HOFE for example, if you trained Armour to only 3 instead of to 4 at specific floor, you should die to next Centaur pack

[Sar]

dude what

[Sandman25]

dude what

I mean crawl is too easy.

[Hurkyl]

This isn't about game design

The entire point of this thread is that lair branches were too hard for XL15ish casters because they were "fragile" for the lair branches and this being a game design issue about the runelock. This thread was broken off from GDD. If all you want to say is, "players who don't train fighting on casters die in melee" then fine, whatever, but when they die they should blame themselves, not the game

And as I had said earlier, I neither agree or disagree with the OP's thesis -- I'm railing against the mystifying lack of comprehension that a character could be squishy, and *gasp* might even be a good idea: e.g. that a character who sees little melee combat might be better served to train skills in a way that makes them squishier than a character who does nothing else.

There are all sorts of varieties about how you can build. e.g. the fire elementalist build that likes to mix it up in melee by putting up a cloud of flame, attach a sticky flame, and then tank the monster until it's dead (I would be hard pressed to call such a character a "caster", though) would obviously be very interested in training up melee defense, and relatively uninterested in continuing their magical training, as compared to a conjurer who is obliterating everything with searing ray, battlesphere, and occasionally IMB, and is looking to keep their MP and spell power up to keep up with the increasing difficulty and to get a level 5/6 nuke online.

But what you showed is not a character who could beat up everything in melee and cast FStorm because of great magic aptitudes -- in fact, it's exactly the reverse. You managed this feat because this character was a race with a good HP aptitude and also has decent-to-good aptitudes in fighting/armour so that you didn't have to spend so many skill points on being able to beat everything up in melee, thus leaving enough skill points left over that you could still manage to cast firestorm despite below average magical aptitudes.

First of all, 14.0 spellcasting is much less important in casting firestorm than the 24.0 conjurations you ignored. Second and more importantly, when you get skills is extremely important - being able to cast sticky flame on D4 instead of D5 because you have +1 fire is a lot more important than having 14 spc instead of 18 or whatever on Vault 8 or whatever point your skills barely matter anymore

Hill Orc has average conjurations aptitude, so it didn't affect anything.

It may or may not be interesting to note the below, since it's the right time frame for the original topic. Recall HO has -3 spellcasting and -1 charms aptitude. (and 0 conjurations, +1 fire, +2 fighting, +1 shields)

  Code:

 17512 | Lair:4   | Reached skill level 10 in Conjurations
 17710 | Lair:3   | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting
 21063 | Lair:6   | Reached skill level 12 in Spellcasting
 24567 | Lair:7   | Learned a level 6 spell: Bolt of Fire
 25213 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 10 in Fighting
 25984 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 13 in Spellcasting
 26521 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 10 in Fire Magic
 26731 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 1 in Shields
 27858 | Lair:8   | Reached skill level 5 in Shields
 33626 | Orc:4    | Learned a level 7 spell: Orb of Destruction
 35243 | D:10     | Reached skill level 10 in Maces & Flails
 35552 | D:11     | Reached skill level 14 in Spellcasting
 40774 | D:13     | Learned a level 6 spell: Haste
 41816 | D:14     | Reached skill level 10 in Charms
 42209 | D:15     | Entered Level 15 of the Dungeon


[One-Eyed Jack]

1) Weapon skill 10 is as good as single magic school skill 10 (I guess that's where we disagree).

It depends a lot. 10 Tloc isn't very useful. 10 long blades isn't very useful if you have a +0 falchion and nothing else. 5 conj 3 poison 3 air is very useful for a character with mephitic cloud; 10 earth is very useful for a character with stone arrow, etc.

If you play a melee character with -4 aptitude for specific weapon category, you spend the same XP a caster with 0 aptitude spends on one magic school and Spellcasting (that's for Conjurer mostly). With second magic school (AE/IE/FE/EE) it becomes worse.

Only if you do something like training spellcasting as much as your important magic skills before training defenses.

[Sar]

Edit: whatever.

[Hurkyl]

Only if you do something like training spellcasting as much as your important magic skills before training defenses.

Actually, I think the conditions of the hypothetical were to train exactly as you would a pure melee character, but take the skill points you would have assigned to {weapon skill} and instead split them equally among spellcasting and conjurations.

[Hurkyl]

I have a goal of playing a melee character that spams Tornado to clear out dangerous crowds or for boss fights.

For a bit of amusement, I decided to try how melee+air magic works early on, as a bit of topical thing to put the emphasis on physical skills that everybody seems to think so obviously belong on a "caster" just as much as a fighter. After all, double-zaps and static discharge benefit from being in melee range anyways, so this would surely work out right?

Here's my stats:

  Code:

 Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.13.0 (tiles) character file.

Kelly the Nimble (High Elf Air Elementalist)       Turns: 13336, Time: 01:08:50

HP  42/72        AC 10     Str  7      XL: 11   Next: 18%
MP   5/25        EV 20     Int 23      God: Vehumet [****..]
Gold 421         SH  0     Dex 16      Spells:  6 memorised,  3 levels left


   Skills:
 + Level 9.0 Fighting
 - Level 8.4 Short Blades
 - Level 11.2 Dodging
 - Level 5.0 Stealth
 - Level 4.0 Spellcasting
 - Level 5.9 Conjurations
 - Level 6.0 Air Magic


You have 3 spell levels left.
You know the following spells:

 Your Spells              Type           Power        Failure   Level  Hunger
d - Mephitic Cloud        Conj/Pois/Air  ###.....     1%          3    ###....
f - Shock                 Conj/Air       ####         1%          1    None
g - Static Discharge      Conj/Air       ####....     1%          3    ###....
h - Lightning Bolt        Conj/Air       ####......   3%          5    #####..
l - Apportation           Tloc           #.........   4%          1    None
s - Swiftness             Chrm/Air       ###.......   1%          2    #......


This has gone pretty much exactly as I would have predicted: I can't stand up to anything rough in melee combat, and I starve myself trying to blast the nastier things down... and sometimes don't even manage that before running out of MP. Swiftness is some amount of safety buffer... but you can't outrun wolves and black mambas.

As an added bonus, if I had a dagger of electrocution, that wouldn't change much: so far, the only real effect would have been better odds on my last-ditch desperation maneuvers (I've survived three near-death encounters so far), but would have done absolutely nothing to prevent me from getting into those situations in the first place.

I'm pretty sure I'd be much better off with 12 points in spellcasting, and 0 in short blades, and much less fighting and dodging. (even if I had an Awesome!! dagger)

[One-Eyed Jack]

just let this thread die

[Sandman25]

AE is stronger when going for ranged instead of melee. I've been told it a long time ago by Psieye (if I am not mistaken) and my longbow/melee/Tornado HEAE got 15 runes after I killed about 15 melee/conjuration TeAE without even getting to Lair 8.

[mikee]

Can we look at some of my cablaster morgues too? I am apparently a notoriously suboptimal player.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/mikee.html

[Sandman25]

Can we look at some of my cablaster morgues too? I am apparently a notoriously suboptimal player.

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/mikee.html

Why should I lose a chance to criticize one of the best players if he asks?
That's your last pure caster (DECj)

535 | D:1 | Learned a level 2 spell: Throw Frost
680 | D:1 | Reached skill level 5 in Conjurations
1380 | D:1 | Learned a level 3 spell: Mephitic Cloud
1729 | D:2 | Reached skill level 1 in Poison Magic
2126 | D:2 | Reached skill level 1 in Air Magic
3414 | D:4 | Reached skill level 6 in Conjurations
4473 | D:4 | Reached skill level 5 in Spellcasting
5049 | D:4 | Reached skill level 1 in Ice Magic
5893 | D:4 | Reached skill level 7 in Dodging
6234 | D:4 | Reached skill level 1 in Shields
9448 | D:6 | Reached skill level 5 in Shields
9595 | D:6 | Reached skill level 8 in Dodging
9927 | D:7 | Reached skill level 9 in Dodging
11019 | D:7 | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging
12199 | D:8 | Reached skill level 1 in Traps & Doors
12307 | D:8 | Learned a level 5 spell: Lightning Bolt
12584 | D:9 | Reached XP level 10. HP: 42/50 MP: 23/28
14221 | D:10 | Learned a level 2 spell: Repel Missiles
14224 | D:10 | Learned a level 2 spell: Swiftness
14686 | D:10 | Reached skill level 1 in Fighting
15678 | D:11 | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting
17003 | Lair:1 | Reached skill level 5 in Traps & Doors
17154 | Lair:1 | Reached skill level 10 in Spellcasting
17450 | Lair:1 | Learned a level 3 spell: Flight
19173 | Lair:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Conjurations
20965 | Lair:4 | Learned a level 6 spell: Bolt of Cold
21159 | Lair:4 | Reached skill level 5 in Ice Magic
21523 | Lair:5 | Reached skill level 12 in Conjurations
22331 | Lair:5 | Reached skill level 13 in Conjurations
22776 | Lair:6 | Learned a level 6 spell: Freezing Cloud
24900 | Lair:7 | Learned a level 4 spell: Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
26275 | Lair:8 | Reached skill level 14 in Spellcasting
27466 | Lair:8 | Reached skill level 15 in Spellcasting
28116 | Lair:2 | Reached skill level 15 in Conjurations

That's enough I think.
What do we see here?
1) Really high dodging early. I learned that from you and now I do it also, it really helps, thanks again
2) Early Fighting is useless, you trained it when HP was about 50. I do the same.
3) Early training of Traps and Doors. I did the same.
4) Spellcasting IS important, you have it higher than Conjuration despite you are DE who has high Int for high spell power and +40% MP bonus. I play this way too, but some players believe Spellcasting should not be that high. Of course I disagree with them.
5) No weapon training. This is ok, good weapon can be used without any training.

No, I don't see any suboptimal things, sorry That was expected though

[Hurkyl]

An interesting point to note is exactly where the dodging training comes in. There are three key points in his magical training:

• Mephitic Cloud is reliable
• Lightning bolt is reliable
• Bolt of Cold is reliable

I know from my DEWz that Magic Dart is is usually enough to get you to lair (with CF and MC backup, at least), so there is no particular rush to get Lightning Bolt online. There is a nice lull where you can do other things safely, if you like.

I confess that I've found Lair harder than I would like when lightning bolt is my primary nuke, although it's manageable with conjure flame or fast movement speed (Black Mambas are still scary, though!). We see the price of training dodging/fighting/shields in that bolt of cold doesn't come up until halfway through lair. I would have been very unhappy training that much dodging/fighting/shields because of that result. Although, we do see that mikee has Swiftness: that would mitigate much of my unhappiness!

[Lasty]

This thread is seriously off-topic, and we already know that different people have different play preferences, and each one has tradeoffs, and each one will suit certain players more than others, regardless of the ephemeral question of which approach is the Best Approach.

Here's the opening question: can players who choose magic backgrounds and then choose to play their characters as blaster-only characters acquire runes now that there is a runelock? Can players who choose magic backgrounds who make different choices acquire runes now that there is a runelock?

Answering these questions does not involve checking HP totals for certain background/race combos at certain levels of fighting, or knowing how many skill points get lost on a -1 aptitude, or determining how high Spellcasting must be trained, or whether picking up a weapon is desirable. Answering these questions involves demonstrating whether or not your preferred style of play can get a magic background to a rune.

So, if you want to make the point that your play style is able to get a rune under runelock, go do it and give us a character dump. If no one from any play style can do it, then we can safely say that it is too hard for characters from magical backgrounds.

[Sandman25]

Lasty,
I am afraid it will not work. Some players get 15 runes as spell-less god-less FeFi or as Fe of Chei, I am sure such players will solve rune lock problem with literally any character.

[Lasty]

If you'd like, you can ignore any results presented by players who are known to be able to win under all circumstances. Most results will probably be posted by players in a more reasonable range of skill, and when they do, each of us will be able to see how they succeeded and see if it may have been despite contradicting our personal sense of what is or isn't a good choice.

[tazoz]

I just have to point out that a. having a potion of might and speed by spider 5 happens around 9 in ten games or more frequently, there is also bersek rage that combines the two. There are also cure wounds potions and other potions that can improve the odds in your favour b. mana leach doesn't stop the use of wands and other misc items that should be used in such a situation, for example wand of fireballs and lantern of fire. c.if the battle isn't going in your way you can use teleport or scroll of blinking. d. morning star of flame is not a very good weapon in such a situation considering the use of potion of might and as a caster you don't really have to save EW scrolls meaning that typically your weapon would be stronger than a figher of the same level, precluding god gifts e. a caster can in fact handle the first two levels of elf fairly easily after lair and orc if really pressed for resources, just move slowly and carefully.

[Sandman25]

tazoz, you might be interested to see first page of the thread where Siegurt proved that agility + might don't allow to kill a Ghost Moth, even with speed you can be really low on HP and will die to just next monster. Also I am not sure it is a good idea to enter Elf 1-2 with low MR, moving slowly and carefully does not help when you are banished as soon as you enter LoS of some banisher.

[Siegurt]

Note that all I proved was that *with certain reasonable training and equipment assumptions at given level* it wasn't possible to kill a ghost moth *with only melee* for someone who was very focused on spellcasting, and not hybrid-y at all, using only might and agility potions.

There are a lot of other consumables out there (Including wands) which could easily tip the balance in favor of defeating, or at least escaping from, a ghost moth.

[and into]

*If* ghost moths specifically are found to be a huge issue, they could be weakened somewhat. They'd still be dangerous as hell in Zot because mana drain while around Zot monsters is extremely dangerous. (By comparison: Moth of wrath is much wimpier than ghost moths outside of the whole bersker thing, and they are plenty dangerous as is. As would be Zot ghost moths, if they were toned down a bit in melee.) Alternately, make a "juvenile ghost moth" that has same mana-drain effect, still invisible, but much more reasonable in melee. Ghost moths stay in Zot and ziggs and certain other late game areas, the younger variety are swapped in to Spider. Or just remove the damn things from spider entirely and slightly tweak some of the branch ends with other dangerous critters to compensate.

What I'm saying is, it seems like some people in this thread don't like runelock and want to use ghost moths as a "proof" of the unfeasibility of runelock—but that's fallacious. Perhaps ghost moths (like certain unique spawns) is *unfairly* challenging, rather than just very challenging, with runelock in place. If so, there are a wide number of options for how to deal with that.

Frankly: runelock is a great idea though and small tweaks to the branches to make it work would be justified, because it really makes the post-lair, post-orc segment of the game actually somewhat interesting, as numerous people have attested. (Personally: My two experiments with it were a lot of fun, though they were started before I had a chance to download Trunk, so they were self-imposed challenges, but replicated runelock anyway so whatever.)

And it seems to be in the cards for D15 and beyond to be redesigned as "the Dungeon Depths" with tougher enemies spawning a bit earlier, to compensate for the higher level at which characters will be doing them. So *that* portion of the game will be cooler than it is now, too.

Boringness in the mid-game up until branch ends (occasionally), Vault:5 and Zot + extended had been a persistent (and justified) complaint, as the game does lag considerably during that period except for some challenge builds or difficult self-imposed conducts. Personally, I'm very glad that the devs are addressing this. Give it some time and I expect these changes will prove to be as good as the Vaults redesign, which also involved a meaningful uptick in challenge, by the way, and took a little while before a very good balance of "consistent level of real, but fair challenge" vs. "limiting the possibility for *unfairly* challenging situations" was achieved.

[dck]

You had fun on those two characters of yours and find it a great idea, I've had two runelock wins as well and it interfered greatly with my desired path, so I didn't have as much fun as I could have.
Lair is extremely long and its rune branches are very long as well and these places do not have a whole lot of variety of enemies to provide for how damn long they are.
D could be shorter as well, but it's for the most part fine as long as you don't force people to go through all eight levels of lair and all five levels of a lair branch every game before they can even contemplate to do something a bit daring or interesting, because by then good players who wanted to do interesting things are just bored and sick of having to slog through those thirteen samey levels every damn game.

[and into]

You had fun on those two characters of yours and find it a great idea, I've had two runelock wins as well and it interfered greatly with my desired path, so I didn't have as much fun as I could have.
Lair is extremely long and its rune branches are very long as well and these places do not have a whole lot of variety of enemies to provide for how damn long they are.
D could be shorter as well, but it's for the most part fine as long as you don't force people to go through all eight levels of lair and all five levels of a lair branch every game before they can even contemplate to do something a bit daring or interesting, because by then good players who wanted to do interesting things are just bored and sick of having to slog through those thirteen samey levels every damn game.

This is a fair assessment, but I think then we can both agree that ghost moths and specific uniques or whatever are really beside the point, which is why this thread has gone pretty badly off-topic.

This is in advice, and there is no reason to make (yet another) GDD thread [edit: yes, I know, my last post contributed to the derail and I don't mean to suggest that I'm not guilty of this too]. I like the idea of runelock, I don't think it is perfect yet, its imperfections aren't going to bother me too much unless (and until) it is added to 0.14, by which point many other things can and will be changed.

So: Putting aside the kvetching (and even the sometimes well-articulated and perhaps justified kvetching) about the *fact* that runelock is currently in Trunk—what are some of the actual strategies that people have used to deal with the runelock? I'm curious to hear about this, and it would be a welcome change from the multiple threads that have devolved into pseudo-GDD talk.

[dck]

Well my FeFE's strategy was to use nemelex and as if that was not overkill enough apportation and invis too.
My SpFi's strategy was to jump down the shaft which was great but felt a bit stupid because I had to lug everything I wanted to the shaft prior to that.