Dearest whoever can edit the wiki

[tasonir]

I know you brought up a non-Tm morgue, which is in fact completely useless because we were talking about advice given about a supposed synergy between Tm, bh and chei.
Losing haste isn't the worst thing Chei does, speaking of which, can you please stop trying to turn the thread into a crusade about chei?

The thread is about Chei, not about TM's, and bringing up a non-TM morgue is valid. Granted that when you're talking about blade hands I can see why you'd think the character is a transmuter, but that isn't strictly true. I was talking only about the effectiveness of blade hands and Chei, not transmuters.

[duvessa]

Transmuters who use Unarmed Combat in particular benefit greatly from the boost in stats, as the Unarmed Combat damage from Blade Hands is greatly improved by the boost to dexterity and strength.

[and into]

Unlike the other gods, successfully worshiping Cheibriados greatly magnifies the deadliness of your mistakes. Remember to always use shift-direction key or auto-explore while exploring, as that will automatically stop you when you spot an enemy. One careless step while worshiping Cheibriados could translate to two or three needless enemy attacks, which could very well be lethal.
Those who worship Cheibriados should try to take advantage of their stat boosts as much as possible. Ranged combat gets a large boost from high stats; a well-enchanted longbow or crossbow in particular will deal high damage to your enemies. Devotees of Cheibriados should cast spells, can wear protective heavy armor (the penalty of which will be reduced by their high strength), and get high EV by training dodging thanks to their dexterity. If you are using Unarmed Combat and Transmutations, the damage output of many forms (particularly Blade Hands) will be increased greatly from the boost in stats.
All the above notwithstanding, it is worth noting that a character without Chei's stat boosts, but with access to Haste, would in many cases get greater damage output per turn than a character that forgoes haste in order to worship Chei.

If you have any recommendations for how to rephrase any of this, I'm all ears, duvessa.

[tasonir]

Transmuters who use Unarmed Combat in particular benefit greatly from the boost in stats, as the Unarmed Combat damage from Blade Hands is greatly improved by the boost to dexterity and strength.

Point taken. Still, you don't have to be a transmuter to use blade hands, so I don't see the need to limit it to this background. The background itself has no effect on the result, it just means you have the spellbook on turn 1. The edits to the page have already removed the reference to transmuters from this line.

[dck]

Hi tasonir!
You must've indeed misunderstood the point of the thread. This thread is not about Chei in particular, it is about improving the wiki by making concise edits that remove misinformation, mostly with the idea of trying to get some of the most malicious of it out of the sight of new people who turn to the wiki for help as their first reaction when they are having trouble.
Thanks for your understanding!

[tasonir]

Hi dck!
No, I was and am aware that we're talking about the wiki! However, you shouldn't assume that just because it said transmuters, that it would stay that way. It's already been removed. When talking about blade hands and unarmed, it's possible you might have blade hands ready while unarmed is very low, in the case where you were previously killing with some other method, such as the hunter example. Admittedly this is a very rare case, but I did not want the claim "when your UC is really low (coincidentally when you shouldn't be using BH at all)" to be added to the page. Remember, this is the Cheibriados page, not a page about transmuters.

[tasonir]

Apologies for a minor thread necroing, but I don't have access to edit the wiki myself, and I thought there should be more information about temporal distortion on Chei's page. Step from time has two bullet points, so I figure temporal distortion can have a second bullet point:

  Code:

* Temporal distortion has a number of powerful tactical uses which may not be obvious at first.  The most direct one is to pull in ranged attackers so that melee characters can fight without having to walk towards monsters or take damage resting.  It can also be used for the opposite effect: if you are resting on stairs and monsters are in melee range, distortion can be used to possibly move them away from you so that you can escape up the stairs without being followed.  Additionally, it can be used to dodge enemy orbs of destruction, which will pass through you and likely hit a wall or another monster if you are not in a wide open area, making orb spiders much more trivial to face.

Of course, feel free to discuss/edit this before posting it to the wiki, but I think it's fairly straightfoward, and shouldn't be too terribly long. It's a very powerful ability and one that should be used often in situations that aren't always obvious to notice.

[Bloax]

It's also pretty good for splititng slime creatures and expiring low-duration clouds. (Like say, fire crab breath.)

[GlassGo]

But playing Tm and Chei at the same time is also likely to be harder than 95 percent of ways to start a character - even if the synergy outweighed the loss of haste this would be an example of the fallacy of building for the later game (if you want to win)

I feel myself pretty sure while playing such combo.

And why are you talking about Blade Hands? Isn't Statue Form much much better?
I tried BH a few times - it isn't worth it to use against hydras or deathyaks, only SF can offer a reliable way to deal with them.
Even Ice Form is better.

[zardo]

And why are you talking about Blade Hands? Isn't Statue Form much much better?

Probably not. And it's not in your starting book anyway.

I tried BH a few times - it isn't worth it to use against hydras or deathyaks, only SF can offer a reliable way to deal with them.
Even Ice Form is better.

I have no idea what you mean. Blade hands annihilates death yaks and even with the obvious drawback against hydras it does enough damage to kill them just fine. Not to mention that most characters will not have found Statue Form in the part of the game where hydras and death yaks are a threat.

[GlassGo]

Probably not. And it's not in your starting book anyway.

The point is it's dangerous to use - deathyaks come in packs, and hit hard. You can kill 2, or even 3 of them, then you should escape or die.
So there is no sence to use it. Whait untill you can cast SF, then kill all pack of deathyaks at a stretch.
it's not in your starting book - yes, so what?

Not to mention that most characters will not have found Statue Form in the part of the game where hydras and death yaks are a threat.

Of course, but you can always move to another part, and find SF there. I mean 1.13 version.

I forgot to note - my char was OpTm of Chei.

[KoboldLord]

Statue Form is not actually more damaging than Blade Hands against most opponents. 50% slower attack speed is an enormous penalty. You are getting two attacks with Statue Form You when you would have gotten three attacks with Blade Hands You or Anything Else You. That's rather a lot.

Ice Form is indeed extremely suitable for most opponents in Lair, but if you've found Blade Hands to be disappointing I'd speculate that this has more to do with the skills of the character you test it on than any issue intrinsic to Blade Hands. If you develop some support skills backing it up, it should be able to take care of pretty much any issues you have between Lair and Zot. Statue Form is sometimes useful, but in many situations it is much worse than not having a form up at all.

[GlassGo]

...

Sorry, but I can't say anything except

50% slower attack speed is

not a big deal, when SF give me enormous survivability. Char have high AC, boost to HP pool, boost to dmg, very good resist set.

if you've found Blade Hands to be disappointing I'd speculate that this has more to do with the skills of the character you test it on than any issue intrinsic to Blade Hands

And what it could be? I was playing OpTm of Chei, I has high UC, high Dodge, even a little bit of Fighting.
What are right skills to effectively use BH?
What I've learned, it's BH didn't worth to use it against strong opponent - run or die.

Btw, can anyone supply me with the correct damage formulas in case OpTm of Chei, UC=27 F=27, that used BH and SF? Wiki seems to be a bit outdated about it.

[crate]

re: statue form:
viewtopic.php?p=162460#p162460

[zardo]

if you've found Blade Hands to be disappointing I'd speculate that this has more to do with the skills of the character you test it on than any issue intrinsic to Blade Hands

And what it could be? I was playing OpTm of Chei, I has high UC, high Dodge, even a little bit of Fighting.

That you were an octopode does put this in a perspective that makes more sense. Those are pretty much the skills you want but I'm going to guess that your defenses were on the poor side not just from being Op but from Dodging and Fighting not actually being all that high, and as crate suggests this is a situation in which you *do* get a lot out of Statue Form.

Of course, but you can always move to another part, and find SF there. I mean 1.13 version.

By "the part of the game" I mean "the early-mid part," not a particular branch. And there aren't a lot of characters who want to leave Lair to look for a spellbook (?) But again being Op explains some of your experience, for example having problems with hydras.

[Turukano]

Dearest whoever can edit the wiki,

I have always defended the wiki although I know there are mistakes. I know that reading guides is "at your own risk" - but sorry, is it possible to edit this ogre guide?

"Enchant [a giant spiked club] to +2 [...]. Save the rest of your enchant weapon scrolls for a potential treasure trove fee."

Saving enchant scrolls for a potential treasure trove? Please, no.

[Sar]

Request strength at every level-up unless you need to counter negative stats from an artefact.

Once you find a gold dragon hide, blow all your enchantment scrolls on it and wear.

make it stop

[and into]

Alas, here we hit on the major problem, but also the one that will be hardest to alter, because at least in the past there were some users who really don't want their guides changed.

Nearly all of the guides are hopelessly out of date, however, in addition to any timelessly bad advice also contained in them.

In Serfuzz's Ogre Hunter guide, for example, it suggests dropping a brother in arms or two on the Royal Jelly, then teleporting away. With the summoning changes introduced in the *last* version (not just most recent), this won't work. This is just one example of dozens and dozens.

I will be very busy tonight and tomorrow, but perhaps I can strike at the heart of the matter this weekend. My plan would be to move the vast majority of character guides to some sort of different namespace ("the museum" or something) devoted to historical relics of Crawl's ancient past. An index full of curiosities, so to speak, containing wondrous tales of amulets of controlled flight and primordial talismans that could resist slowing, the ritualistic dancing of the victorious in primitive Dungeon Crawling societies, etc.

This little archive would not purport to give any kind of applicable or relevant information about how to play the game. Not just a disclaimer at the top, no; readers would be told to give these articles absolutely zero credibility when it comes to stuff you should do in your DCSS 0.14 game. For the purposes of honoring our ancestors and for our idle amusement, only.

Individual articles that can be salvaged as guides and are not just outdated curiosities could be argued over on a case by case basis, if the author or anyone on Tavern lobbies to do so. But even the good ones will probably need some revisions and updates. The others, very very substantial ones, or else they take their place in the reliquary.

[Magipi]

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

This is pretty common: the guy wins his first game and immediately writes a guide. And the wiki is happy to have it.

[DracheReborn]

and into: sounds like a plan. Hope you've cleared it with MoogleDan or Flun at least so you don't get into a revert war.

To be honest, I'm not sure it would help much. I mean, if you google "ogre hunter guide", that link comes out on top, with few other relevant links (3 of 4 relevant links are badwiki guides, the 4th is a tavern post). Not sure if other newbies search in this way, but I certainly did before I just think that In the absence of good guides, bad guides will flow in to fill the vacuum. And if it appears to be a choice of bad guide vs no guide at all, I think plenty of people would still follow the bad guide.

Certainly your plan won't hurt though, so wish you good luck.

[Sar]

Yeah I had the same thought (about Google). I think it would be nice to finally decide on what the purpose of Crawl wiki actually is: to help new players or to ego-stroke people willing to invest time into writing guides regardless of quality of said guides. If it's the former, that guide should be just deleted, plain and simple. If it's the latter then it should stay.

[Turukano]

Some additional thoughts why I mentioned this point in the ogre guide, I didn't read further btw.

"Enchant [a giant spiked club] to +2 [...]. Save the rest of your enchant weapon scrolls for a potential treasure trove fee."

I sometimes look at the guides as they might have interesting ideas. With some experience in the game I'm able to reflect on what I read.

But here's a crucial strategic mistake: "save this consumable you actually need". That's like "don't quaff your potion of heal wounds when low on HP, you could need it later". (The stone giant throws a large rock. The large rock hits you. Ouch! etc)

So how to deal with the guides in the wiki? In my opinion the actual discussion is a step forward. I wouldn't like the guides to be removed. There are players who are proud they finally won a game, and they put lots of work in the game and the article.

Maybe it's possible to remove the name "guide" and find a better name?

[Sar]

It's also hilariously wrong because enchant weapon scrolls are super-common (you normally don't notice it due to taking a weapon to +9 requiring so much attempts) and troves who ask for enchanted weapons ask for +4-5 ones. That's even if we pretend that weapon-desiring troves exist in every game!

There was a "Crawler's Diary" category, but it was removed IIRC. I don't see what's wrong with just making a YAVP after winning a character instead of writing a (most likely awful due to inexperience) guide. And back in my days, winning felt good without writing walls of text. Grumble-grumble.

[Mankeli]

if you've found Blade Hands to be disappointing I'd speculate that this has more to do with the skills of the character you test it on than any issue intrinsic to Blade Hands

And what it could be? I was playing OpTm of Chei, I has high UC, high Dodge, even a little bit of Fighting.
What are right skills to effectively use BH?
What I've learned, it's BH didn't worth to use it against strong opponent - run or die.

Btw, can anyone supply me with the correct damage formulas in case OpTm of Chei, UC=27 F=27, that used BH and SF? Wiki seems to be a bit outdated about it.

OpTm has a terrible start in general. And Chei certainly doesn't make it easier. So if you want to use blade hands before your char dies, I'd advice to try with a different species first.

Edit. I'm not sure if I understood what you meant in your post. Another note: I actually like statue form for octopodes if you insist on constantly being melee range bashing enemies with an octopode.

[flun]

and into: sounds like a plan. Hope you've cleared it with MoogleDan or Flun at least so you don't get into a revert war.

I've talked with MoogleDan and we are both fine with and into's plans.

I'd also like to take this moment to thank and into for his substantial contributions lately on cleaning up the species pages.

[Sandman25]

deleted

[arcanist]

Yeah I had the same thought (about Google). I think it would be nice to finally decide on what the purpose of Crawl wiki actually is: to help new players or to ego-stroke people willing to invest time into writing guides regardless of quality of said guides. If it's the former, that guide should be just deleted, plain and simple. If it's the latter then it should stay.

may i disagree? just put the disclaimer that says "I, Sar, who had won many many games think this guide is bad and do not recommend you to use it". I don't think that removing someone's guide without at least consulting with them makes good sence.
disclaimer - i did not wrote any guides so far. But used many of them and they actully helped me.

[Sandman25]

If I was an author of some guides, I would prefer my bad guide removed instead of having a big red disclaimer "This guide sucks (probably as much as its author)" above my guide.

[dck]

to be fair, I've always thought the big message about how you should read guides "at your own risk!" that crowns every single guide is hilarious.

I looked at jello's page yesterday and pretty much the whole strategy part is garbage so hopefully I can get something written up later today so our resident dearest whoever can make the god entry not awful.

[Sar]

Wow, you are correct, that "Strategy" part is awful. I should not be surprised at this point, but I am.

[tasonir]

Thanks to Flun for setting up my wiki account again; thanks to (presumably) and into for adding the temporal distortion comments. I'd be willing to go over and edit Serfuzz's Ogre Hunter guide, it wouldn't be that hard. It's a very simple combo, and a lot of things that are wrong I'd just cut. It may wait until after .14's tournament, but I'd be happy to make another round of cleanup on the wiki once I'm done splatting promising characters

[Hopeless]

It's also hilariously wrong because enchant weapon scrolls are super-common (you normally don't notice it due to taking a weapon to +9 requiring so much attempts) and troves who ask for enchanted weapons ask for +4-5 ones. That's even if we pretend that weapon-desiring troves exist in every game!

There was a "Crawler's Diary" category, but it was removed IIRC. I don't see what's wrong with just making a YAVP after winning a character instead of writing a (most likely awful due to inexperience) guide. And back in my days, winning felt good without writing walls of text. Grumble-grumble.

*gets off your lawn* (But walls of text are merely prose not formatted properly...)

But seriously I agree with the YAVP idea but with the addon concept: Lessons Learned. So that people can critique and improve those "lessons" over time and we can see how someone passed through a particular area and what they did to accomplish it with a particular combo without having to think "oh that's the way it must be done!" and more "Oh that's a tactic I didn't think of...nicely done!" or "Oh, hmm that worked but it could have gone badly with a minor adjustment to the RNG output..."

Personally I like the name "Crawler's diary" from the immersion/rpg standpoint but I guess that implies a story telling part that some may not be very good at?

[GlassGo]

To be fair, when I read these guides, I always understood that its more "outdated curiosities", than anything else.

And something else - DCSS wiki is the best of all that I have seen. That's it.

[Sar]

Well I only read one of those diaries ("read" as opposed to, "glanced over"), written by Elynae (cerebovssquire here on Tavern), and I remember it being more of a description of things that happened in that game and not some kind of dramatic fanfic.

@GlassGo: what about this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?

[GlassGo]

@GlassGo: what about this one http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page?

Had never seen it before. I mean seriously.

[and into]

Cool.

I can use all the help I can get, dck. Ditto for tasonir respecting the guides. Thank you both kindly.

If you got an account, just post a quick overview of what you've changed in the discussion section. With really outdated stuff don't bother explaining, though, just start cutting.

As it turns out a friend's bachelor party that I thought was next week is actually this weekend, so... there goes my free time. But I'll get back to editing the wiki early next week. I'll try to wrap up species pages and then do a big push to move the guides.

@Sandman25: Yes some will be removed probably, and I'm not going to put a big "This guide sucks" banner at the top of any page. But we gotta triage this somehow and while not perfect this seemed like the best way to go. The ratio of "updated guides" to "extremely outdated guides," even putting aside other concerns for quality for the moment, is really bad. What exact namespace they should go in and what to call it / how to describe it—I'll think about that. (Open to suggestions though of course.)

[Sandman25]

Elynae (cerebovssquire here on Tavern)

Are you sure about that?

[cerebovssquire]

Elynae (cerebovssquire here on Tavern)

Are you sure about that?

Yes

[Klown]

Hooray for the new elite wiki.

[pickled_heretic]

Rather than eliminating information entirely, it should be presented in a more objective manner. It is in fact true that cheibriados piety accrual is faster for nagas and slower for centaurs and spriggans. It is also true that slouch damage is higher for nagas, and their constriction damage is entirely based on str, which is raised by the cheibriados stat bonus; whether or not this is enough to make a certain race choice better or worse for the player is not for the wiki to decide.

My first or second ascension was with a boringly easy NaFi worshipping cheibriados so my decision is already made. For a simple 3 rune game there is no reason to run or move around in combat if you cannot die anyway. People who want to be tacticool ninjas might not agree, but why would they pick cheibriados in the first place?

[mikee]

Rather than eliminating information entirely, it should be presented in a more objective manner. It is in fact true that cheibriados piety accrual is faster for nagas and slower for centaurs and spriggans. It is also true that slouch damage is higher for nagas, and their constriction damage is entirely based on str, which is raised by the cheibriados stat bonus; whether or not this is enough to make a certain race choice better or worse for the player is not for the wiki to decide.

I think to a large extent you're trying to get a rise out of people, but I want to comment on the perspective I'm quoting for the benefit of others.

When you're trying to teach or guide somebody, it's important to consider the effect that the information you're giving them will have. For instance, imagine that you're trying to learn how to do something and I'm telling you 50 or 60 small pieces of information, and I'm not even emphasizing a single one. Are you likely to remember all 50 or 60 facts? More importantly, are the 50 or 60 facts going to form any kind of cohesive picture in your mind or make you more able? Probably not.

On the other hand, you should also consider how new players will respond to being told something like, "nagas get faster piety gain and increased slouch damage with chei." They will probably be excited by this information and will not have any experience in the game with which to refine that excitement. In fact, that is exactly what happens for many players, guide writers and readers alike. So if it really is the case that this effect is not strong enough that it should influence your decision making (and it's not), then a new player does not need to know it right now. This isn't a conspiracy where someone is deciding to keep you in the dark. It's just pedagogy.

[Hopeless]

I'm pretty sure what Pickled was saying was not "present facts without any color or context at all". Because that would be as misleading as giving incorrect information. Context is still very important. Also, whilst you are concerned with teaching people nonharmful things, it may be that not having enough information holds them back even though they aren't making the crucially bad mistakes an incorrectly posted wiki might suggest. The game is complex enough (lots of levers, some of them not obvious) that no matter what information is given players may feel misled or make poor assumptions.

Heck, even with the correct information, players will still make horrible mistakes. Giving them "Chei nagas get this and that as a benefit, and here are the drawbacks: x,y and z" is no more likely to be disastrous than: "Play NaXX of Chei because you will slaughter everything with Slouch." (Which admittedly is always going to be terrible advice.)

I suggest saying instead "Playing NaXX of Chei requires a different tactical mindset than many more powerful and obvious combos and lots more patience. It has a different toolset for dealing with crises because you CAN NOT run effectively from danger." and then go into how each tool works. And emphasize that movement is lethal in the face of overwhelming odds. Unlike some combos where movement (away) is what saves your butt. The shift and ctrl keys are even more important than ever.

But saying "Don't play NaXX of Chei unless you are a masochist" is not helpful even if some find it to be factual, and that is what I think Pickled was getting at. In my own experience, I found that advice to be offensive (because it was inaccurate and seemed trollish) and didn't stop me from being curious as to why people play NaXX Chei if it was so bad, and how are they winning if it can't be done without years of skill? Watching Tasonir and others play various builds convinced me to try it and yes it is hard. And damned if it isn't fun! (Though I have yet to win so perhaps "it isn't easy winning with this combo" is a key thing to mention.) I guess that last is subjective since "what is fun??" is a perennial topic in many games. My point is, it seems like teaching people to fear trying things is not any better for them than teaching them bad information that they will quickly discover is wrong/inaccurate, though both are bad and I agree you should not allow inaccuracies to go unchallenged.

[KoboldLord]

Drowning inconvenient information in a torrent of irrelevant data is a common trick used by advertisers and con artists. A random stranger who floods you with information in real life is probably not your friend, and you should not buy the insurance policy he is trying to sell you even if it sounds really good.

Advice to newbies should cover only the important bits, because those bits are the important ones. Extraneous data will, at best, send them off on a completely random tangent. At worst, it will be actively damaging.

[and into]

No one's being taught to fear things and obviously there's lots of room for people to have fun playing different kinds of games with different combinations of gods/religions/species. It would be nice though if the wiki actually helped people with all those builds, including relatively more challenging ones.

What mikee said is very true, but at present the wiki has lots of outdated info and really bad advice; honestly if the only problem with the wiki was that it gave a lot of good accurate information but without sufficient context, that would be a *lot* better than now. However frankly if we are going to go through the trouble of editing the wiki and improving it—and that's what I've signed myself up for—then I'm not going to simply change it into an info dump. Rather I'll try to make it as useful a resource for good advice as I can. Otherwise it isn't worth the effort, honestly.

I think it is fine to say "this combo should be considered a self-imposed challenge." People will discover what they find fun and enjoy it. I don't think people need the wiki to figure that out. I do think they are turning to the wiki in the hopes of learning the game and getting better at it.

I'm fine with nitty gritty details existing in some places on the wiki but on the whole the wiki should be geared toward helping new-ish players. Give the most important stuff first, emphasize it, emphasize it again, and put the more recondite info about the source code and whatnot in some other place that, at most, you link to at the very bottom of the newbie-friendly page. Honestly one of the good things about the wiki format is that it is pretty easy to organize info in this way.

[Knight9910]

Okay, even though this topic is kind of past, I want to bring up... I like that Serfuzz's Ogre Hunter guide suggests that it might be a good idea to worship Okawaru so you can dabble in spells, while also insisting that you wear Gold Dragon Armor and use a shield, which will put your spell failure rate to near 100% for most spells.

So +1 point to this guide for making my head explode.

[pickled_heretic]

A wiki is not a guide compilation, it is a wiki. It may have guides posted in it, alongside formulas, tables, and factoids that would be irrelevant to new players only looking for beginner guides.

[cerebovssquire]

Okay, even though this topic is kind of past, I want to bring up... I like that Serfuzz's Ogre Hunter guide suggests that it might be a good idea to worship Okawaru so you can dabble in spells, while also insisting that you wear Gold Dragon Armor and use a shield, which will put your spell failure rate to near 100% for most spells.

So +1 point to this guide for making my head explode.

Suggesting casting+shield+GDA isn't the problem there (it is actually quite possible), it's suggesting shields and GDA in the first place - the former because you should pretty much always use a GSC, and the latter because, while GDA isn't bad for OgHu under all circumstances, a lot of other dragon armours are just as good or better.

[reaver]

The extinct "moon trolls" the item gets its name from were an aborted type of troll. Permanently invisible and surrounded by a Tornado effect, they would have been found in a moon-themed mini-branch that was never released.

hahahahahahaha

From the Moon troll leather armour page. May or may not be an intentional joke.

[mikee]

No actual developmental resources have ever gone into moon trolls - that passage in the wiki is apparently informed by a joke entry that I added to the learndb years ago.