Demise Talks Crawl: Strats, Tips, Theories

[Rast]

This guy has started a new video series, good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... x4J_UBj9_I

[Sandman25]

Well, I am not sure I can agree. His main point is something like "If you are not winning often, you don't have a playstyle, stop calling what you are doing a "playstyle" and work on your tactics instead." Why? My "playstyles" are using autoexplore, training several skills after early game, going for some spells just for fun, switching weapon categories for unrandarts, worshiping first god I find. Does it mean those would not be playstyles if I lost games because of them?

[andreas]

@Sandman25:

I think his stronger point is that people use the "playstyle" concept to justify not improving, and in particular to ignore the weakness in their grasp of fundamental tactics. There's not necessarily any problem with having a "style" that lowers your winrate---it's a game, play how you like---but it's foolish not to realize what you're doing. I hear demise warning players not to deceive themselves about their deaths by falling back on excuses like "it's just my playstyle."

(He does talk a bit about what literally counts as a playstyle, but I don't think it's the central point or what he's really trying to get across. I agree with you that his trying to legislate the boundaries of the definition of "playstyle" is not the most convincing thing.)

I don't think the advice was really directed at you, Sandman. You're an exceptionally good player already, and demise is talking about the psychological blocks that hold people back. Just like any skilled endeavor, really, people are slow to admit their weaknesses and that makes it hard to improve.

[Sandman25]

Yes, I agree, making excuses for poor play is bad, it's like lie to yourself, at least when player really wants to win and not just "see how much I can achieve without using any weapon/evocables".

[TonberryJam]

In a game where it's one vs. many, the name of the game is to control how many monsters are allowed to attack you. Or even notice you for that matter.

[HANFGEIST]

That video just made me want to look for my Demise-Rise of Ku'Tan CD.

[Leszczynek]

"I'm not saying your way of playing is bad, but play in the way I consider the best or I'll make a 15 minutes video displaying my superiority over you."

What's even the point? Just have fun with the game. Then he goes on making a lot of valid points later but the overall tone of the lengthy introduction is stupid.

[pumpyscump]

There's a widespread phenomenon where you can skip the first chunk of any youtube video. Someone named it, and others have even made browser addons that automatically skip the appropriate amount of the video's intro.

Though this is an especially bogus preamble in a medium filled with bogus preambles!

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Demise seems like a decent player, but some of the advice is a bit odd.

In his second video he recommends to combine strong races (Mi, Gr and Ds) with strong backgrounds (Fi, Gl, Be and Mo). The idea is good, but the choices are questionable.

Mo is a very weak background, especially without claws. Fi is decidedly average. I'd also argue that Ce and DD are significantly stronger than Ds.

As for the god recommendations, I'm not sold on Gozag as top tier, and of course Fedhas is missing.

[ZoFy]

Spoiler: show

Demise is just like duvessa except one is a greatminotaur and the other is a greatmummy.

[Sandman25]

Ds was recommended by Demise for fun factors, not because of its power.

[Sar]

who?

[goodcoolguy]

Demise was one of the top scorers in the last tournament and has one of the fastest non-bot realtime wins...

I think his choice of best species, backgrounds, and to a lesser extent gods is a bit idiosyncratic, but frankly it's better than some of the advice you see around here, for example people who think Vehumet is good, DE is good, VM is good, etc. He's also got a lot of people's number on the "playstyle" thing too.

[Magipi]

who?

The new leader of China.

[Sar]

people who think Vehumet is good

Guilty as charged!

[Sandman25]

goodcoolguy (nice nick by the way, I should have called myself "NotStubbornFsimUnawareWoman") cannot see my messages but could anyone else tell me what is wrong with DEFE of Vehumet? It's my default for easy caster, what am I doing wrong provided "for example people who think Vehumet is good, DE is good"?

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Well, some people think only strong melee characters with strong early game gods are 'good'. What are you gonna do?

I guess the traditional line of thinking is this: DEFE is DE. DE has -20% HP and -2 fighting. They really are quite fragile. You miscast or miss a couple of spells against an adder and you're (probably) dead. Veh doesn't help here. FE isn't great against adders before conjure flame. Often stealth will save you instead.

In my view, once you're over that hurdle, i.e. you can murder or avoid adders and jackals sufficiently casually, DEFE is fine. Conjure flame will take care of that not too long after hitting xl 3. It will also take care of the midgame. And then Vehumet is gonna hand over whatever is needed for the endgame. I guess I agree with you.

[Sandman25]

Well, some people think only strong melee characters with strong early game gods are 'good'. What are you gonna do?

I am gonna tell them "git gud". If player thinks DE caster is not good, the player is bad with casters and should learn to play them.

Consider a god who would give you an extra life and did nothing else. Would that be a good god for caster? Yes, for bad players who don't recognize dangerous situations and don't play carefully (restore MP, split packs, lure dangerous things, train defenses/weapon etc.) for whatever reason.

[Magipi]

what is wrong with DEFE of Vehumet? It's my default for easy caster

What is your definition of "caster" in this sentence? I recall vaguely that it is something that makes sense but not what you might expect.

[Demise]

Mo is a very weak background, especially without claws. Fi is decidedly average. I'd also argue that Ce and DD are significantly stronger than Ds.

On this point I considered throwing in Mo because I assumed by the time the video got any traction it'd be changed, as I believe it provides a weapon in trunk now. Letting someone be able to pick their god and not have to go through the pain of having 0 piety on gods like Okawaru was the idea behind its recommendation.

Fighter is pretty good because of the early might potion, early shield and second-tier starting weapon. An early scale mail is pretty good as well for a guy who wants to fight stuff, compared to, say, leather armour. Comparing this to Gladiator, I feel like there'd be a temptation to train throwing because of the nets (which are kind of RNG-ish and slightly less straightforward to use) which I would have to mention, which would then force me to talk about Gl more which I didn't want to do.

Ce comes with the problem of tedium, since your best strategy is always "play polearms and kite", which makes the game more fiddly and frustrating to play. DD was initially on the recommendations list, but I replaced it with Gargoyle because DD makes the game different compared to the other recommended species which I felt would be, again, unnecessarily fiddly. I basically wanted to pick races that weren't too gimmicky so players wouldn't have to worry about things other than the raw "crawl experience": Skilling, positioning and evaluating items.

[Sandman25]

what is wrong with DEFE of Vehumet? It's my default for easy caster

What is your definition of "caster" in this sentence? I recall vaguely that it is something that makes sense but not what you might expect.

Easy caster is a character who cannot die while still using spells to kill monsters (the latter to exclude combos like TrWz who is NOT a caster, at least on D1).