What's your favorite branch and why?

[AzuredreamsXT]

Based on anything; theme, convenience, rewards or whatever. Just kinda curious!

[cerebovssquire]

Dungeon because the early game is tactically interesting, the monsters are varied and there is little annoying stuff like spider webs or water. If that doesn't count as a branch I'd say Vaults, for similar reasons and because of the last level in particular (interesting structures for positioning, lots of exp and lots of loot). I also like baileys, ziggurats and wizlabs but they're portals.

[dpeg]

Slime and Abyss.

Slime because there are no items (apart from last level), I like the threat level, and I absolutely love the boss fight!
Abyss because I am a sucker for the kind of madness where anything can go wrong in minutes. I know it's not very popular but from the start, as a pre-DCSS player, I was overwhelmed by the sweaty, cathartic experience of forced Abyss runs.

[Amnesiac]

It's thrilling to clear elves with a low level character and there is a treasury in the end. This is the real adventure! I don't know if someone will agree with that, but I find elf:3 one of the most exciting level. Some people visit elf:3 very late in the game, though. I also love most of the portals, because they are dangerous but rewarding.

Yeah I like dungeon, too. The whole Lair is boring and The Vaults are dull, expecially because of stone tiles and monotone maps. I like holy pandemonium levels for their relative freshness.
Soals are ok, I guess. What else... Maybe the vestibule of hells.

[Mattchew]

D is usually the best, lots of variety and many well designed vaults.

For the lair branches, probably Shoals, though (because?) it tends to get out of control fairly often for me.

For portals, I like labyrinths (exploring is fun and the loot is exciting too). Baileys can be fun but I rarely finish one without retreating (player ghosts, if nothing else). Some of the ice caves are clever and good at tempting you to push just a little further. (Volcanoes much less so, I sometimes don't even peek into a volcano.)

I also think Abyss is very cool, though I usually only go there on purpose when playing Ash (or I suppose Lugonu but that's been forever). It's scary, it's exciting, and the new monsters are nasty but not outrageously so. (I do think vault sentinels ought not spawn in Abyss, or at least not on Abyss 1, though.)

[duvessa]

Dungeon, for everything.

[diviton]

Elf and Vaults. I also really like Orc if the shops are good.

For portals, I love Bailey and Wizlab's, mostly because they're the ones I see the least. Does anyone know the likelihood of all the portals, because those two seem to almost never appear. Sewer, Ossuary, Volcano, Ice Cave and Labyrinth are all pretty common, on the other hand.

[and into]

D:1 to D:12 and Zot. As far as "extended" goes, Slime and Pan.

[HenryFlower]

D:1 to D:12 and Zot. As far as "extended" goes, Slime and Pan.

+1, but -Pan.

[Wahaha]

D:22-26, because it has the most fun monsters, and has fun positioning tactics. Doesn't exist anymore.

[Sar]

Early-mid Dungeon, absolutely.

@Wahaha: what about Depths?

[Tedronai]

I really like the Depths. They made the late game interesting again.

[Bart]

Cocytus and Gehenna. I can almost feel their freezing/burning air.

[Sprucery]

Dungeon, because it offers a nicely increasing challenge in the early game. Later it is a reasonably safe place to gather experience and equipment for the more dangerous parts. Then Vaults:5, because I love the challenge and layout. Then Zot.

[Amnesiac]

I like depths, but I want them to be 5 levels deeper, to have exactly 27 levels of dungeon+depths.

[daggaz]

Early dungeon for reasons mentioned first, especially maps with structure like hogoblin villages and orc/gnoll mini-fortresses. Crawl needs a lot more of this kind of thing if you ask me.

I love portals and mini vaults, tho I detest the volcano level where the lava comes up and destroys everything. Totally anti-climatic, especially if you dont have apportation and are in sight of good items.

Spider has to be my last favorite. Just too hodgepodge and webs are annoying.

[Magipi]

I like depths, but I want them to be 5 levels deeper, to have exactly 27 levels of dungeon+depths.

I guess right now the math is:
Dungeon + Depths + Zot = 27

[Klown]

Dungeon.

Abyss is kind of interesting since it's either running recklessly for my character's life, or Berserking everything.
I like the look of many branches, though. Slime, Hell, etc. Very pretty :3

[daggaz]

Funny thing, I like abyss only if I go there on purpose. Anything else is pure hell and frustration.

[moocowmoocow]

Ecumenical temple. Only place where dudes aren't attacking me... and gods are my favorite part of the game.

[Amnesiac]

Funny thing, I like abyss only if I go there on purpose. Anything else is pure hell and frustration.

Aimlessly wandering in the Abyss is extremely draining.

I guess right now the math is:
Dungeon + Depths + Zot = 27

makes sense

[elwin]

The Lair, because reaching it means I've survived to the midgame and am likely to survive longer.

[Siegurt]

Elm, I just love that white bark, although I admit there's nothing quite so classic as a hickory switch.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

If item destruction/corrosion ever get removed, Zot will be my favorite branch hands down. Unfortunately right now your inventory takes more damage in Zot than you do

Shoals is right behind Zot, with great terrain and monsters, excellent use of water, and the ability to be scary sometimes without being unapproachable for underlevelled characters. The only problem is that for some reason someone thought it would be good to have a summoner with maintainrange that runs out into deep water, thus combining everything annoying and bad about summoners, ranged AI, water, and rock worms (which were removed!) into one awful monster that sucks every ounce of fun out of the branch the instant it enters your LOS. So now Shoals is borderline unplayable.

D:22-26, because it has the most fun monsters, and has fun positioning tactics. Doesn't exist anymore.

+1

@Wahaha: what about Depths?

imo rename Depths to GiantTown. That way I can stop wondering why every other enemy is a giant. God, what a tedious branch.

The first level of Depths is the hardest one, and the entrance can put you immediately in sight of multiple titans etc. So it is pretty much crazy to enter Depths at all unless your dude is so strong that all of Depths is easy and uninteresting.

[Sar]

Well, there are also yaktaurs (I don't mind Depths).

[dck]

What is tedious about fighting giants? Also I've never seen a depths entrance that placed the player near the vault and the first levels have weaker monsters anyway.
My problem with depths would be the necromancers with huge zombies bands, trash like nagas, salamanders and non-reaver tengu and little more.
D is still the best branch that said.

edit: oh right and spriggans god damn those spiggans, scum of the earth.

[Wahaha]

If Depths kept the monster set from D:22-26, and stuck to the promise of one guaranteed big vault per level, it would be a really good branch, but it didn't. The main culprit is spriggans, which are very unfun to fight. Then there are also elemental wellsprings, nagas??? (yeah you cleared Snake 6 levels ago, but those nagas might get you this time!!!), tengu except reavers (reavers are ok as rare stronger fire/ice giants), ravens which are the equivalent of a rat on D:10, too many hill giants (I've been killing them before nagas), merfolk (are those still in there? Same comment as nagas). Demon vaults should lose the endless iron imps and have stronger enemies instead. Some other monster weight changes that are noticeable and result in a less fun experience. The increased chance of water generating on the level. Basically a lot of not fun monsters were added. Giants are good enemies, they have simple strong ranged attacks and don't have stupid mechanics like 30 EV.

My other favorite branches are Pan when doing it with a character that's not prepared to do Pan. It requires sneaking around in smart ways to not get killed by tier 1 demons. And Swamp in 0.13 because it has strong melee enemies that catch up to the player because of water and catch him in bad positions.

[Sar]

I can agree with that except maybe for water.

Also wellsprings were removed.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

and the first levels have weaker monsters anyway

I've never experienced anything like this in Depths. If there was any sort of progression at all it would be much more enjoyable. But as far as I can tell it is exactly the same level 6 times in a row, except that the first one is significantly harder because it has only one <, and the last is often easier(!) because it is full of dragons instead of being full of giants and seems at least anecdotally less likely to have demons.

Also I've never seen a depths entrance that placed the player near the vault

The fact that the entrance doesn't need to be near a vault to have multiple titans in LOS really says all there is to say about how awful Depths is.

What is tedious about fighting giants?

Nothing, the first dozen times. 52 ettins in one game is too many. But the more important thing is the sheer concentration of them. Giants are fine in D and Vaults because they are mingling with a wide variety of threats like convokers and centaur warriors. But in Depths you hack away at one big melee threat with tons of HP, only to kill it and have 10 more big melee threats with lots of HP lined up behind it. The tentacled monstrosities and tengu reavers contribute to this, but the endless waves of giants are the main culprit. And then for some reason lategame necromancers have undead packs consisting entirely of giant and dragon skeletons, just in case you weren't asleep yet from killing the alive versions.

I actually prefer the random nonsensical inclusion of nagas and merfolk, because by the time I am strong enough to do Depths, naga/merfolk/giants are all equally uninteresting, but giants require more keystrokes to get rid of.

Essentially the problem is that Depths has no sense of pacing at all.

[Sandman25]

Giants are fine, otherwise Depths would be boring to any character with source of invisibility.
My favorite is Lair. This is where most my characters become what they really are. Enchanters go invisible, mages start fireballing, rangers forget about melee, melee fighters forget about ranged weapon.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

Giants are fine, otherwise Depths would be boring to any character with source of invisibility.

Clearly we should add fire giants to every branch, since apparently this is the only way to keep characters with Invis from getting bored.

[Sandman25]

Giants are fine, otherwise Depths would be boring to any character with source of invisibility.

Clearly we should add fire giants to every branch, since apparently this is the only way to keep characters with Invis from getting bored.

Exactly. Ilsuiw would be 10 times more dangerous if she (or at least some monsters from her band) could see invisible.

[XuaXua]

Wizlabs.

[Amnesiac]

Speaking of branches. Are there any plans to make orc:1-3 something that is not just tabbed through in 1 minute?

[dpeg]

Ammesiac: I wonder if questions like there are posed seriously. No idea. But you deserve a reply: No, there are no such plans, because we're really happy with Orc:1-3 being tabbable in less than a minute. It's a design goal.

[duvessa]

orc:1-3 is already more dangerous than lair:1-8

[TehDruid]

Orc 1-3 isn't particularly tabbable in 1 minute if you haven't done Lair 1-8. Especially if some nasty uniques spawn in there.

[Amnesiac]

Well, I've just played a game with MuWz^dith(not the strongest build). I cleared L1-8 since it's efficient and there were no dangerous monsters other than a sorcerer or two, which is not that much of a problem if you cleared the Lair. But you wouldn't want to deal with those before the Lair, either. So either way there is something bad in it's own way whichever you do first. I find this to be the case in most games.

I wonder if I should change the sequence or skip something. But shops in orc and maybe even the vault on elf:3 is not something I would like to skip.

[TheDefiniteArticle]

just put off orc until after V:4

that way you can tab all 4 levels

the only reason to do orc is gold/shops, anyway, may as well wait until you have more gold and have seen more shops

[diviton]

just put off orc until after V:4

that way you can tab all 4 levels

the only reason to do orc is gold/shops, anyway, may as well wait until you have more gold and have seen more shops

I always go Dungeon > Lair:8 > Orc:4 and I've never gotten to the shops on Orc:4 and not had way more than enough gold. When finished with Orc:4 if you explored all the floors, you should have about 2,500 gold on average.

[Hirsch I]

I love the abyss. not knowing if you will be able to get out soon is Fun, and if you manage it, the feeling is great.

[Sar]

Except Orc 1-3 is not really "tabbable in less than a minute" because it uses spotty level generator and you need to check all up and down stairs if you don't want to miss any shops with potentially good items. Well, that and sometimes Really Bad Things spawn outside of O:4. Quite often, actually.

I don't mind a part of Orc being a slaughterfest, as I understand (and dpeg's post confirms it I think) the purpose is to make player feel badass, he survived grind of earlygame, he got Lair experience and now is able to slaughter those pesky professional orcs en masse. I just think 3 levels of that (with occasional really tough monster) is maybe a little too much.
It also lulls the player with its mindlessness, which can be a result of a YASD too.

[Sprucery]

I had a pretty intense Orc:1 experience with a FeBe. Granted, I played it far from optimally, but when you enter the Mines and there is a huge crowd with several priests etc. it can be interesting.

[Amnesiac]

There is nothing interesing about plain orcs, though. Maybe if there are more warriors and priests and more are generated with plate+battleaxe.

I'm sorry I started this, maybe all the talk about orcs should be moved to another topic? We need some moderator with some time on hands.

[Senban]

It also lulls the player with its mindlessness, which can be a result of a YASD too.

Maybe teaching players not to snooze-tab all their Minotaurs to death is a design goal here. Crawl can get hairy at any point and orc 1-3 have some of the most marked tempo shifts going. Aside from the way it throws spanners in the works of the more reliable stair dancing techniques and finds ways to keep orc priests relevant to characters with over 100 health it's also a great place to meet new and interesting uniques just when you least expect it.

I think my favorite branch is Shoals though. The silliness of having an underground archipelago of idyllic sun drenched beaches full worse snakes than anything in snake and turtles that take more health off you than a hydra is always fun. Plus crawl tends to be a bit austere on the chainmail bikini front so having a bunch of mermaids running about helps me avoid migrating to sidebar advertised MMO's run by the Russian mafia.

[dpeg]

For the record: my reply to Amnesiac was absolutely not serious. I absolutely detest the way he posed the question, it's so condescending and really reduces posters' credibility for me. (This is not meant to degrade Amnesiac, but while the question was obviously directed at a developer in some sense, the tone and context comprise exactly what I hate about forum communication on Crawl: a snotty, supposedly witty one-liner, no in-game context, let alone any actual ideas. I should learn to ignore those; sorry for replying.)

On Orc: Of course does the branch become very easy (barring some fortunate circumstances) if you postpone if for very long. That's exactly the kind of issue we've finally, slowly and mildly been starting to address with the rune lock. If you do Orc early enough, then it is an interesting branch. Giving Orc:4 branch end vaults with guaranteed (if random) content in the form of shops was one attempt to make storming Orc more attractive. Myself, I do it sometimes and like it.

[Sar]

Well the problem with Orc is that it really is not worth it because you can meet lovely things like warlords (often spawn with xbows and do huge damage with them) and sorcerers (that can paralyze you as soon as you enter their LoS) on level one, and for a pre-Lair character those can be fatal; furthermore, the loot, barring a rare shop, is gold, which usually of no use. Orc:4 has more of warlords and sorcerers and also have sometimes things like stone and temperature giants. Regular orcs, on other hand, stop being trouble way before you reach Orc (and they used to appear as low as what current Depths is!). So yeah, the correct way is to do Lair before Orc, which now is even punctuated by Orc spawning lower on average. However, I'd say Orc:4 is a decent challenge (with a decent reward) for post-Lair characters. It's Orc:1-3 that aren't.

[daggaz]

On Orc: Of course does the branch become very easy (barring some fortunate circumstances) if you postpone if for very long. That's exactly the kind of issue we've finally, slowly and mildly been starting to address with the rune lock. If you do Orc early enough, then it is an interesting branch. Giving Orc:4 branch end vaults with guaranteed (if random) content in the form of shops was one attempt to make storming Orc more attractive. Myself, I do it sometimes and like it.

There are three reasons I will dip into orc a bit earlier than usual, but most games this does not happen. 90% of the time, it is because there is a very nice item in a shop for which I am missing gold. The orcish gold piles is a great feature for this. If shops in general werent so highly variable from game to game, the gold would be more of a consistent draw. 9% of the time, it is because I am missing a decent melee weapon (usually an axe but sometimes a good shortblade) by the time I reach Lair. The remaining 1% is because something horrible is blocking my progress in Lair, often in convolution with not having a decent melee weapon.

I like Orc, but it could be made a bit more interesting with more 3D maze aspect, points where digging/destruction are more beneficial, and definitely a little more minivault structure action. Make it more fortressy with moats n stuff, also having it more common to pop a bailey or a wizlab where the wizard mutilates orcs. If the 3D maziness is enhanced, obviously digging gets more useful and scrolls of mapping get more valuable. One way to ensure digging is useful would be to make more use of hordes of monsters waiting near the tops/bottoms of stairs. Another way would be putting some weak points into the some of the larger structures, as it is they are often solid stone which kills many characters use of environment manipulation. Also, there is no reason not to up to the number of high level orc units in the lower floors.. sometimes orc4 is just a tabbing cakewalk depending on the monster loads.

I think a well designed orc (and I do like it now too) would allow low level players some decent access with intelligent play/resource use/bit of luck, but would also include areas where you were definitely more exposed. Mazey interconnecting tunnels, roamed by groups of guards which are occasionally very powerful, interspersed with large caverns also sporting well defended fortresses would support this concept.

[Amnesiac]

For the record: my reply to Amnesiac was absolutely not serious. I absolutely detest the way he posed the question, it's so condescending and really reduces posters' credibility for me. (This is not meant to degrade Amnesiac, but while the question was obviously directed at a developer in some sense, the tone and context comprise exactly what I hate about forum communication on Crawl: a snotty, supposedly witty one-liner, no in-game context, let alone any actual ideas. I should learn to ignore those; sorry for replying.)

On Orc: Of course does the branch become very easy (barring some fortunate circumstances) if you postpone if for very long. That's exactly the kind of issue we've finally, slowly and mildly been starting to address with the rune lock. If you do Orc early enough, then it is an interesting branch. Giving Orc:4 branch end vaults with guaranteed (if random) content in the form of shops was one attempt to make storming Orc more attractive. Myself, I do it sometimes and like it.

Sorry if I offended you. You may "absolutely detest" what I say, but I meant that and I really felt this way after completing ors for a thousandth time(I mean I've JUST completed orcs before that post, so I might have made my post a bit more emotional). We(meaning you, devs ) could just spice orcs a bit. Like what I said, just a bit more warriors and priests might at least stop me from tabbing 95% of orc 1-3 and 90% of orc 4. Yes there are uniques sometimes, but that doesn't make orc mines special, you just stop tabbing and use some tactics, maybe burn some consumables if necessary like you can for any other unique, the difference being that mines are cramped and there are mostly harmless orcs around, while you are fighting that unique.

You say about doing them earlier, but the way things are now, I would need to stop clearing Lair midway for orcs to be of some threat, that would be strange and non-optimal.
What if we put orc mines in the middle of the lair, like lair:4-5? Maybe splitting or reducing number of levels in the Lair would do. IMO there is WAY to much exp in Lair with low AI animals serving as exp-bags. Even a Mu can learn enough of desired skills there and it gains half of skill levels of most of normal species with some high apts(most of them have something and that what they are chosen for, usually)

[dpeg]

Amnesiac: It's not the message I dislike (if your Orc was trivial, you've got all right to say this) but the tone. There was really no constructive way for me to react to this. Your explanation afterwards is very sensible. I believe that in the end, Crawl is too open for it's own good: it's a given players will reduce risks at any costs, and that it does lead to trivialised branches indicates an overabundance of content, or at least xp.