Remove either orb run or digging

[crate]

I like digging in hell, pan, and abyss. The idea of 'use a consumable to make exploration faster and terrain more favorable' is not, I think, fundamentally bad. But I do think killholes are kind of terrible, so maybe it is. Partly, though, this may be that digging is common enough that it's only kind of a consumable.

Because using dig for better terrain during fights is much more beneficial than the other uses, all limiting charges would do is reduce its use outside of fights. This does end up removing the orbrun-dig problem that brought up this topic, but if you think that killholes are not a good thing then you still have a problem.

[Malevolent]

I also like deep troll digging, but monsters should probably lose it if players do to prevent players from doing horrible things like kiting earth mages around.

Holy shit, by this point we really are treating the common cold with a bullet to the head.

By the time someone's finishing a game they'll probably have enough charges to do it anyways, and even if they don't, that won't prevent them from doing it, it just means they'll dig shortcuts until they run out, and then do the orb run.

I would say that it is better to retain some charges for flexible use. Instead of your hypothetically optimal pre-dug tunnels that might get swarmed by pan lords and shit as you go back up, you'd be going through normal terrain but would be able to dig away from a threatening situation every now and then.

If it's a tool that leads to degenerate play, making it more rare doesn't help anything...

Yes, it does - it makes an already irrelevant issue even less of a problem. And if a problem is turned into a smaller problem with no other problems springing up (making digging rarer doesn't really cause any problems, considering you can probably complete the game just fine with 10 charges altogether without having to sacrifice any utility), then that means some improvement occurred.

[njvack]

I also like deep troll digging, but monsters should probably lose it if players do to prevent players from doing horrible things like kiting earth mages around.

Holy shit, by this point we really are treating the common cold with a bullet to the head.

I don't think so. If the problem is "predigging the orb run is tedious but optimal" then leaving another way to do it that is even more tedious is probably not very good.

[njvack]

if you think that killholes are not a good thing then you still have a problem.

Random thought: if digging had a different-shaped beam (say, minimum width 2 or cone-shaped or always clearing a 3-tile circle around the digger), it might disallow killholing while still allowing faster exploration.

[duvessa]

Making a killtunnel over a killhole (the difference being that a killhole only has the player and one open tile) is that a killtunnel leaves you more vulnerable to blinking enemies (say, deep elf annihilators) and summoners creating a worse situation with the extra open space.

this only happens if you dig the tunnel wrong...it should change direction

[Malevolent]

I also like deep troll digging, but monsters should probably lose it if players do to prevent players from doing horrible things like kiting earth mages around.

Holy shit, by this point we really are treating the common cold with a bullet to the head.

I don't think so. If the problem is "predigging the orb run is tedious but optimal" then leaving another way to do it that is even more tedious is probably not very good.

This is ridiculous. You guys would cut 99% of the content of the game so that the remaining 1% would fit some ridiculously convoluted standard of Great Game Design(TM). I guess I'll give up trying to convince you all - I can only hope that the devs will not remove the orbrun or something insane like that because of this pointless waste of effort to "purify" the game.

[Shard1697]

Holy shit, by this point we really are treating the common cold with a bullet to the head.

I don't think so. If the problem is "predigging the orb run is tedious but optimal" then leaving another way to do it that is even more tedious is probably not very good.

This is ridiculous. You guys would cut 99% of the content of the game so that the remaining 1% would fit some ridiculously convoluted standard of Great Game Design(TM). I guess I'll give up trying to convince you all - I can only hope that the devs will not remove the orbrun or something insane like that because of this pointless waste of effort to "purify" the game.

I love how every time people talk about removing anything in Crawl, it's always apparently cutting the majority of the content of the game. No, removing digging would not do whatever it is you're saying it would. It would be removing specifically something which is a no brainer and makes certain areas of the game(elf 3) a lot more boring. (By the way, the elves who turns walls into earth elementals do not prevent murderholing at all, just make it slightly more involved since if one shows up you gotta kill him then back up a bit and dig one more tile. I would love to see digging removed and then subsequently elf elementalists removed, because their whole "cast spells outside of LoS" is a really awkward bandaid solution which doesn't follow the rules of the rest of the game, and they're kinda chumps in general)

[crate]

elf:3/digging is super easy to fix by the way, just make the endvault into a portal vault (and if the player leaves the portal closes forever, like other portal vaults)

[duvessa]

digging does very little on elf:3 tbh, except maybe for a couple of the worst endvaults

[Shard1697]

You can do it without it but it's still considerably safer to fight the ones that summon when only 1 tile can have an enemy on it

[Speleothing]

if you think that killholes are not a good thing then you still have a problem.

Random thought: if digging had a different-shaped beam (say, minimum width 2 or cone-shaped or always clearing a 3-tile circle around the digger), it might disallow killholing while still allowing faster exploration.

Replace wands with scrolls, probably about as common as ?tele, and give them cone targeting (ed: but not dig every tile in the cone). Still good for escaping, but rare enough not to waste on shortcuts. Make /disint as rare as /HW, but have it randomly target one additional tile adjacent to the one you highlight (which also makes it better for zapping into crowds, but scarier in melee).

Of course, I like killholes because I'm a filthy casual player who crawls with a bottle of whiskey.

[Siegurt]

Yeah i was thinking that a digging wand could target a wall and remove all walls in a 3x3 square around the target (meaning extra charges would need to be used to get long corridors and it would be useless for creating kill holes. )

Or a scroll could remove all walls adjacent to the player

Of course that doesn't actually remove the problem, kill holes still do occur naturally, and without the ability to create then you are just incentiveized to pull mobs back to them. Not that that should stop us from doing something like this, but it might not remove as much tedium as people imagine it will.

[WingedEspeon]

Solution to the problem presented by OP: make dug walls revert when the orb is picked up, add an additional warning about it when picking up the orb, and add a warning about it to the in game description of wand of digging. It isn't spoilery if the description of the wand lets you know it will happen.

[infinitevox]

Yeah i was thinking that a digging wand could target a wall and remove all walls in a 3x3 square around the target (meaning extra charges would need to be used to get long corridors and it would be useless for creating kill holes. )

Or a scroll could remove all walls adjacent to the player

Of course that doesn't actually remove the problem, kill holes still do occur naturally, and without the ability to create then you are just incentiveized to pull mobs back to them. Not that that should stop us from doing something like this, but it might not remove as much tedium as people imagine it will.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you think this would ramp up the difficulty level of crawl?
Since not being able to create killholes would vastly affect the way people play this game, especially in Lair.

Just fyi, I'm in the camp that digging and orb running are perfectly fine and this is such a niche problem that it isn't actually a problem.

[duvessa]

It really wouldn't increase difficulty that much. You already don't have digging in the hardest part of the game unless you are a formicid or very lucky, and people are really overstating the importance of "killholes" here (how does anyone do Vaults without LRD/Shatter???).
But if all the beneficial uses of digging are viewed as degenerate then it makes more sense to remove it and adjust the vaults that require it, instead of "soft-removing" it by getting rid of all those uses.

[Siegurt]

Yeah i was thinking that a digging wand could target a wall and remove all walls in a 3x3 square around the target (meaning extra charges would need to be used to get long corridors and it would be useless for creating kill holes. )

Or a scroll could remove all walls adjacent to the player

Of course that doesn't actually remove the problem, kill holes still do occur naturally, and without the ability to create then you are just incentiveized to pull mobs back to them. Not that that should stop us from doing something like this, but it might not remove as much tedium as people imagine it will.

Just out of curiosity, how much do you think this would ramp up the difficulty level of crawl?
Since not being able to create killholes would vastly affect the way people play this game, especially in Lair.

Just fyi, I'm in the camp that digging and orb running are perfectly fine and this is such a niche problem that it isn't actually a problem.

Well, it wouldn't vastly effect how *I* play crawl, and not at all in the lair, the only place I really use kill holes is elf:3, but I also fully acknowledge that I am totally willing to sacrifice optimal play for my own enjoyment. I don't know how popular it is to make killholes everywhere (sans formicid)

I'm not sure it's *needed* but I think that a fireball-sized hole would be more fun to play with than no digging at all, or even the status quo, actually.

[infinitevox]

Just make wand of digging more rare then?

I personally enjoy the hell out of digging and would hate to see it go :/

[duvessa]

Making digging more rare accomplishes nothing. It does nothing to solve the problem this thread is about, it does nothing to solve "killholes" (if you view them as a problem), it just makes the game a little harder. You might as well say "just make divinations more rare" or "just make alter self more rare" or "just make mountain dwarves more rare" or "just make lantern of shadows more rare" or "just make orb run more rare". If a design problem is identified with a feature, whatever that problem might be, making that feature rarer doesn't solve the problem, it just badly attempts to hide it. Making an item or monster more rare only makes sense if you have a design problem with the game that is specifically of the form "this item or monster is too common", for example, when elephants were made less common and when the Haste spell was made rare recently. Nothing in this thread is remotely in the vicinity of that form.

[Psieye]

I personally enjoy the hell out of digging and would hate to see it go :/

That's ok, you can still play with digging by grabbing the source code and reverting the "remove digging" commit then compiling. You can also re-add other features you've enjoyed that were removed too. If this is too much effort, then you didn't really need digging.

[casserol]

I personally enjoy the hell out of digging and would hate to see it go :/

That's ok, you can still play with digging by grabbing the source code and reverting the "remove digging" commit then compiling. You can also re-add other features you've enjoyed that were removed too. If this is too much effort, then you didn't really need digging.

Right, then why are we even talking about it if we can all just code our own Crawls ?

I'll suggest to you an even simpler solution : ignore digging while you play, and VOILA ! problem solved for you. don't thank me.

[Psieye]

why are we even talking about it if...

The community is talking about it because they want to influence the usage of dev time, underlined by the fact most participants can't do it[1] themselves. But this is a non-commercial, open-source software project. That means the users don't have access to the power of money to apply leverage. The devs do this because they want to and if force of argument fails then you cannot influence what they want to do. The users are free to leave but as this is non-commercial, the devs are unaffected. Since this is open-source, the users have the option to learn how to dev themselves. If they don't want to do that and they can't persuade the devs, then they must decide for themselves whether to tolerate the change or drop the game.

[1]Nitpick: managing commits on git is not quite the same as actually coding, but your point stands you need some know-how.

[ZipZipskins]

Right, then why are we even talking about it if we can all just code our own Crawls ?

I'll suggest to you an even simpler solution : ignore digging while you play, and VOILA ! problem solved for you. don't thank me.

a problem with Crawl is a problem and if removing something fixes the problem the devs (sometimes with any luck) will remove it.

there is a long, storied, and beautiful history of removals in Crawl that people get very, very upset about. I understand that you're being facetious, but saying something along the lines of "ignore digging while you play and the problem is solved for you" does not address the issue, and it could be said about any of the other myriad things taken out of the game.

for me, this proposal and its subsequent discussions has been enough to wholly convince me that the game would be better off without digging. ontoclasm in particular hit many nails on their heads.

can we really have a long thread about how luring is too powerful and not want take a single, decisive step to end killholing once and for all? killholing is garbage.

I'm squarely in the remove digging camp.

[phloomp]

Removing digging will make luring even more important. And when someone uses digging in a non-degenerate way it is pretty cool. Besides escaping and briging in summons, I've also dug out convoluted rock formations when playing an OoD-reliant caster, and felt pretty smart. Therefore I'd prefer if digging stayed in.

Making wands of digging dig out wider and/or unpredictable paths seems uncontroversially good to me. Not requiring digging on Slime:$ also seems uncontroversially good.

I am squarely in the "remove orbrun" camp. The mechanic that makes the orbrun interesting (enemies spawning around you, few reasons to stay in one place) already exists in abyss and hell. The orbrun + digging problem that Duvessa brought up is going to be unfixable without removing shatter etc. or making the orbrun even more spoilery.

[casserol]

Right, then why are we even talking about it if we can all just code our own Crawls ?

I'll suggest to you an even simpler solution : ignore digging while you play, and VOILA ! problem solved for you. don't thank me.

a problem with Crawl is a problem and if removing something fixes the problem the devs (sometimes with any luck) will remove it.

there is a long, storied, and beautiful history of removals in Crawl that people get very, very upset about. I understand that you're being facetious, but saying something along the lines of "ignore digging while you play and the problem is solved for you" does not address the issue, and it could be said about any of the other myriad things taken out of the game.

That was an answer to Psieye "edit-and-recompile if you're not happy with what I propose" suggestion.

[ZipZipskins]

Right, then why are we even talking about it if we can all just code our own Crawls ?

I'll suggest to you an even simpler solution : ignore digging while you play, and VOILA ! problem solved for you. don't thank me.

a problem with Crawl is a problem and if removing something fixes the problem the devs (sometimes with any luck) will remove it.

there is a long, storied, and beautiful history of removals in Crawl that people get very, very upset about. I understand that you're being facetious, but saying something along the lines of "ignore digging while you play and the problem is solved for you" does not address the issue, and it could be said about any of the other myriad things taken out of the game.

That was an answer to Psieye "edit-and-recompile if you're not happy with what I propose" suggestion.

Actually the suggestion was edit and recompile if you're not happy with changes the devs make, which is obviously different

[ZipZipskins]

Removing digging will make luring even more important.

No it won't. Luring will remain exactly as important as it is now, you'll just be forced to use your naturally occurring terrain to do it.

I am squarely in the "remove orbrun" camp. The mechanic that makes the orbrun interesting (enemies spawning around you, few reasons to stay in one place) already exists in abyss and hell. The orbrun + digging problem that Duvessa brought up is going to be unfixable without removing shatter etc. or making the orbrun even more spoilery.

I'm in the remove orbrun camp as well. I just also think digging sucks.

[infinitevox]

I personally enjoy the hell out of digging and would hate to see it go :/

That's ok, you can still play with digging by grabbing the source code and reverting the "remove digging" commit then compiling. You can also re-add other features you've enjoyed that were removed too. If this is too much effort, then you didn't really need digging.

I already do this for offline play, and to test out my own species and mutation ideas.
I'm also in the slow process of making a 3d dcss-like game for myself in Unity

[Siegurt]

Removing digging will make luring even more important.

No it won't. Luring will remain exactly as important as it is now, you'll just be forced to use your naturally occurring terrain to do it.

You are correct, luring would remain exactly as important, it will, however, become more tedious.

You could easily argue that the additional tedium is worth the removal of functionality that can be (and is) used in a way that is considered degenerative.

Of course "degenerative" is an opinion, even if it is a shared one.

[kroki]

by the way a simple solution to kill-holing whole vaults/floors would be to have vaults enemies be leashed to the vault - once they get too far from it they are instantly teleported back inside with their hp/status effects reset

[crate]

by the way a simple solution to kill-holing whole vaults/floors would be to have vaults enemies be leashed to the vault - once they get too far from it they are instantly teleported back inside with their hp/status effects reset

This doesn't really work very well, which you can see when it was tried in elf:$.

I mean, yeah, it means you don't dig, but you accomplish the same thing (actually I never bothered digging in elf:$ to begin with, since just walking backward accomplishes the same thing unless you are a naga or worshipping chei).

[ZipZipskins]

You are correct, luring would remain exactly as important, it will, however, become more tedious.

This is kind of silly since luring without digging would work (and does work) exactly the same as luring with digging except you wouldn't dig


edit: having to pull further and find a more optimal position on the map + not having a perfect 1-monster-in-LOS position does not equal more tedious

[Siegurt]

edit: having to pull further and find a more optimal position on the map ... does not equal more tedious

Well, maybe we have different definitions of tedious, mine says that if you make me take more meaningless actions for the same result, it is tedious, the larger the number of meaningless actions, the more tedious it is.

Depending on your tolerace for tedium, and how slavish you are to optimal positioning, you might drag every single critter to that one optimal kill spot you found the levels ago. There is nothing stopping you from doing that without digging, but digging can create those situations with less back tracking and therefore less tedium.

Note that i don't claim that the marginal reduction in tedium that digging provides, is worth the possibility of degenerative behavior. (I make no claims about the relative *value* of this reduction in tedium, i only point out is existence)

I am not actually sure that kill holes are actually degenerative, but there are solutions mentioned above if they are.

I am also not sure that pre digging orb run short cuts are degenerative or even optimal.

Therefore it is very dubious to me to claim that removing digging is unambiguously beneficial.

[andreas]

The arguments about whether it is strictly speaking optimal to pre-dig are a red herring. If it's not optimal, it's by a margin such that reasonable and informed people will disagree about whether it is or not. (They have, in this thread.) If the point is that the game's mechanics shouldn't encourage scummy and boring tactics, they shouldn't encourage such tactics even for those who are mistaken, if the mistake is reasonable, not dramatic, not based on outright misinformation about how the mechanics work, persists through conversation with those with the opposite view, isn't the result of simply forgetting to account for some consideration, etc.

(I don't really know how to fill in the ''etc.'' adequately and exhaustively. I think we all have the concept of a ''reasonable disagreement,'' though, as opposed to one where one party is clearly and objectively making some mistake in reasoning.)

[Siegurt]

The arguments about whether it is strictly speaking optimal to pre-dig are a red herring. If it's not optimal, it's by a margin such that reasonable and informed people will disagree about whether it is or not. (They have, in this thread.) If the point is that the game's mechanics shouldn't encourage scummy and boring tactics, they shouldn't encourage such tactics even for those who are mistaken, if the mistake is reasonable, not dramatic, not based on outright misinformation about how the mechanics work, persists through conversation with those with the opposite view, isn't the result of simply forgetting to account for some consideration, etc.

(I don't really know how to fill in the ''etc.'' adequately and exhaustively. I think we all have the concept of a ''reasonable disagreement,'' though, as opposed to one where one party is clearly and objectively making some mistake in reasoning.)

You also have to define what you mean by 'encourage' is that the same thing as 'allow'?

In this case the argument against it being optimal is that it wastes turns which are valuable to not waste, however the only real significant waste here is piety (since the food clock is laughable, and there is pretty much no other significant time pressure)

An equally valid response to the perception that pre digging is optimal is to say "there isn't enough obvious pressure on the player to move forward and not lolligag around doing questionable things and wasting lots of turns" which is also an argument that has been made lots of times in the forum, and one i am more inclined to agree with, personally.

[Sprucery]

How about this:
1) Remove wand of digging.
2) Change stone of tremors so that you can target it (no shockwave) and it clears like a 3x3 area (and creates elementals as usual).

As a bonus, this would make stone of tremors usable.

[andreas]

'Encourage' isn't synonymous with 'allow,' and I think I am using the word in pretty much a standard way.

If there were a real food clock, one could adjust duvessa's original idea to compensate by digging the passages on the way down instead of doing it all just before the orb run. You should probably then dig less thoroughly than duvessa seemed to be picturing in the original post, since you do not want to cut into digging you might use tactically before taking the orb, and you should be conservative in your estimate of what you will find as you go lower. Still, there is so much diggging and recharging available that you can usually safely start to think about this as you descend, say, post lair branches; just stop the practice if it looks like it will cut into pre orb run use. (And of course it is not a problem if you have ood or a strong LRD.) Then there will not be a heavy cost in turns (less than consistently using autoexplore, for example). This helps if you are concerned with piety loss as well.

[dpeg]

This thread sure got a lot of traction. Here's my assessment:

(1) The game will keep ending on D:1.
This is almost pure flavour, and I will defend it as such: a game of Crawl is long enough that the orb run is not a burden [1]. Moreover, you may opt to completely ignore this point, but I find it very satisfying when a story ends where it starts.

(2) The orb run will stay.
This is not quite pure flavour: players, and not just hapless newbies, die to it. Admittedly, quite rarely, but I am fine with that. Of course, the function of the orb run itself is flavour: it brings in Pan lords even for players who don't enter ziggurats or Pandemonium. This is a nice way of adding Crawl lore without words, but through gameplay. The orb run also makes the orb feel a bit less like an arbitrary item and more like something powerful.

Bottom line: I know that there are players who would like to sacrifice all flavour that's in the way of 100% pure gameplay. However, flavour is important to us and it is a very subjective matter when/which flavour is too expensive/cumbersome. If you like your Crawl 0% flavour, 100% gameplay, I suggest forking.

(3) Digging.
The OP has a valid point which should be discussed, and probably addressed (i.e. I don't think it's too esoteric to matter). Then again, the first posting in this thread suggests there are exactly two choices how to go about it. This is wrong. There are very many things that can be done. It would be have been more accurate to state that these are the two *simplest* solutions, and even this is not exactly clear (What does "simple" mean? See below)
In general, I think that it'd behoove very well to the "remove this, remove that" faction of forum users to develop some ingenuity. There is a lot more than removal [2]. But perhaps that's the basic difference between developer and player?

Removing digging isn't completely trivial either, as it would necessitate a bunch of follow-up changes. So I'll assume here that the orb run is unchanged, and that wands of digging still exist. How to prevent players from preemptively digging shortest paths on all levels? Disclaimer: I didn't read the whole thread, and I don't even feel like replying (I only do so out of a strange feeling of obligation). Here are two things that can be done; I have the additional desire to make the orb run more interesting for me:

• Relocate < staircases to random (known) squares when entering a level with the orb. This solution is *really* simple (code, interface, flavour).
• Put orb guardians on spaces the player has ever dug out. (The aim is not to kill the player through that, but simply to make it not worth digging in turncount. Apply this to freshly dug out walls, too.) There are not even messages necessary, the effect is self-explaining. This is simple as well.

[1] This is my personal opinion. If you're a serial ascender, or perhaps also if you're not, feel free to disagree.

[2] Of course, Crawl development did remove a number of features. It is funny to note how the usual reaction to removals is: "Why did they have to cut? Couldn't they have come up with an improvement?!" I believe that the Tavern is unique (among the Crawl discussion places that I am aware of) in having developed a "removal first" fervour.

[duvessa]

I believe that the Tavern is unique (among the Crawl discussion places that I am aware of) in having developed a "removal first" fervour.

...

...are we talking about the same Tavern?

[ZipZipskins]

Relocate < staircases to random (known) squares when entering a level with the orb. This solution is *really* simple (code, interface, flavour).

Would this happen every time you enter a level with the orb or just the first time (I assume just once but have no idea how difficult that would be to code since I am but a humble musician and teacher)

I like the idea a lot though

Also, it's pretty disingenuous to suggest that the argument to remove either or both of the orb run and digging is an argument for removing all flavour in favour of gameplay. Surely not all Crawl flavour is contained within those two things- in fact, there are many flavourful things in Crawl that are good for gameplay (many gods, many backgrounds, many species, the existence of uniques) or have no net effect on gameplay (item and creature descriptions, combat text) and those things are a delight to me, and I will lobby for them to remain if they are on the chopping block. I just don't like things that are flavourful AND boring or annoying, like the orb run.

edit: misread re: digging flavour (not a point in your post) but my argument still stands

[Shard1697]

I just don't like things that are flavourful AND boring or annoying, like the orb run.

Many people disagree with you about that, though. I'm one of them, and I know I'm not alone-I like the orb run a lot, despite it being not hard the majority of the time.

[ZipZipskins]

I just don't like things that are flavourful AND boring or annoying, like the orb run.

Many people disagree with you about that, though. I'm one of them, and I know I'm not alone-I like the orb run a lot, despite it being not hard the majority of the time.

Yes, this is my opinion. We can go back and forth all day. For basically any change at all that happens to the game, whether it removes tedium or bad design or not, there are people who support the removal and people who do not, and it's just differences of opinions on both sides.

I know some (maybe a lot) of people like the orb run- but to me, it's just a tedious run back up through territory I've already mapped, and as has been noted, has some pretty degenerative interactions with other mechanics. So I'll continue to say that I don't care for it!

Edited because my first post was wayyy too terse

[Sprucery]

Relocate < staircases to random (known) squares when entering a level with the orb. This solution is *really* simple (code, interface, flavour).

Can this be implemented so that autotravel still works? Of course it wouldn't know the optimal route from Zot:5 to the D:1 exit anymore. But it would be nice if autotravel would still take me through multiple levels in one go when no monsters show up (so just go from '>' to the nearest '<' on each level).

[casserol]

I, for one, would take flavour over gameplay any day. Just since we're "counting" opinions.

Anyway I think a lot of the optimal-but-tedious problems that have cropped up recently are all due to the same change : food has become overabundant. There's so much food we can waste lots of turns doing lots of silly things without (negative) consequences. Which used to be much more of a gamble when food was scarcer.

I say bring back inventory weight and accelerate food consumption.

[archaeo]

I, for one, would take flavour over gameplay any day. Just since we're "counting" opinions.

It's not a dichotomy. It's not one versus the other. Flavor is how you narratively contextualize and justify gameplay. Many people here have proposed alternatives to the current orb run that would still offer tons of opportunities for flavor. Frankly, I think one of the biggest problems with the current orb run is how tepid its flavor is.

Relatively few players who have posted to the Tavern, as far as I can remember anyway, have ever really argued for removing flavor; the closest we really get is an indifference to flavor as a design consideration, and even that seems pretty marginal.

Anyway I think a lot of the optimal-but-tedious problems that have cropped up recently are all due to the same change : food has become overabundant. There's so much food we can waste lots of turns doing lots of silly things without (negative) consequences. Which used to be much more of a gamble when food was scarcer.

When was this?

And tedium isn't solved by not giving players enough time to do things tediously. That's a kludgy design decision. Instead, just make it so players don't have tedious things to do. That's a harder problem to solve, but it leads to better games, imo. The only reasonable justification for giving players a strict time limit is that it makes the game more fun, and while I disagree in the context of Crawl, it's at least a legitimate design argument to be having.

[all before]

Flavor-wise, I'd much prefer the game to end after I surmount one of its most difficult challenges than after a lot of tedious walking and avoiding battles. If it's really desirable for the game to end where it began, I suggest placing the Zot entrance next to the entrance to D with a runelock.

Design-wise, "not as challenging as Zot:5 but still occasionally kills characters who have completed Zot:5" is a pretty weird and contradictory goal. I can't think of many games that place a "victory lap" after the final battle that can still kill the player.

[Siegurt]

?

And tedium isn't solved by not giving players enough time to do things tediously. That's a kludgy design decision. Instead, just make it so players don't have tedious things to do. That's a harder problem to solve, but it leads to better games, imo. The only reasonable justification for giving players a strict time limit is that it makes the game more fun, and while I disagree in the context of Crawl, it's at least a legitimate design argument to be having.

Any game without an enforced set of limited game play choices has the possibility of tedious action, to remove any possibily of tedious play from crawl, you have to remove things like movement and positioning, since it's possible to move tediously.

I suspect what would be considered the pinnical of anti-tedium would be if no tedious choices had the appearance of giving you a benefit. Trying to remove *all* possibility of tedium ultimately ends you up with something that is less of a game and more like an interactive story.

To that end, if doing time consuming tedious things had a clear drawback, one possible example of which is a present and observable clock (whether it's called food or something else) then doing those tedious things becomes more obviously not a good idea. I am not sure why that is any more kludgey than any other solution.

[casserol]

Well, the original problem, if I remember correctly, was that pre-run digging is tedious but optimal, which goes against Cralws' design.

We would then aim to make it non-tedious, or non-optimal, or simply not possible. Let's review some of the solutions proposed.

The not possible solution by removal of digging doesn't seems to gather much favor since many people (including I) are happy with the current uses for digging, although a several-tile-wide or randomly shaped dig would limit "degenerate" uses without impacting other uses too much.

The not possible solution by "abyssing" the floors/shifting or blocking stairs/having monsters gang around stairs after picking up the orb doesn't seem to reach consensus either, many player apparently find the run long enough as it is and don't want complications of it (I'm personally happy with this as well. I'm pretty much happy with everything that is not a flat removal).

There is no "non-tedious" solution.

Accelerating the clock would make it non-optimal.

Although I think this is a non problem anyway, the impact of pre-digging is close to nil, the "tediousness" of it seems limited as well (i never tried, but it doesn't seems too bad, at worst players are kind of punishing themselves with it). On the theme of "tedious but optimal" we could also consider keeping a weapon of each ego permanently, checking each monster for lowest resistance, and switching accordingly. That would be sort of optimal but this is so insanely tedious and the actual gain is so little I hope nobody's doing it and it's not worth fixing.

PS: and I think I stopped starving from 0.15 or 0.16 . I don't know if its the food clock or the food spawn rate that changed, though.

[TeshiAlair]

I like the idea of digging in all cases producing rubble which causes you to traverse it much more slowly. It is consistent throughout the whole game, so there's no orb run specific issues, and it makes digging tunnels much less viable in orb run cases because the slowdown will create a much higher chance of being surrounded

[svendre]

I don't agree that pre-digging has to be optimal.

Opening up terrain between the stairs at point A and B that you need to traverse means that monsters can wander into it. A pack of monsters which may be isolated by terrain could be set free. Also, terrain which is un-dug is guaranteed to not have anything in it at least at the time you dig it. Furthermore, if you are being chased having the ability to dig or not dig terrain can have tactical advantages. If the terrain is already pre-dug, you do not have the choice to open it up or leave it closed. Another example is if you have the ability to sense monsters on the other side of walls, you can lose that. If the walls are closed and you have two nearby sets of stairs in a couple of directions, if you know where the monsters are on the other side of the walls, you can choose which set of stairs to head for. Terrain can be useful when using passwall, if you haven't pre-dug it... you can't LRD on a pre-dug tile.... you can't bounce a lightning bolt off terrain that no longer exists.....etc.,etc.,etc. Claiming that your best chances for success is a pure minimization of number of turns between stairs is an oversimplification. More often what is optimal is based on information about threats at the present time.. not 1,000 turns ago while you were screwing around going up and down the dungeon (which you didn't always even fully clear, so if you didn't, that introduces risk also.)

Using the orb run as an argument for removing digging is ridiculous. Removing or changing how digging works to counter kill-hole style play seems a bit more realistic, however that also is debatable in many circumstances.

[Floodkiller]

Flavor-wise, I'd much prefer the game to end after I surmount one of its most difficult challenges than after a lot of tedious walking and avoiding battles. If it's really desirable for the game to end where it began, I suggest placing the Zot entrance next to the entrance to D with a runelock.

Design-wise, "not as challenging as Zot:5 but still occasionally kills characters who have completed Zot:5" is a pretty weird and contradictory goal. I can't think of many games that place a "victory lap" after the final battle that can still kill the player.

I think a special trapdoor staircase on Zot:1 that goes back up to a random spot on D:1 (and is only unlocked when carrying the Orb) would be a good addition, as I feel the most dangerous part of the Orb run (aside from a random Pan Lord or Tier 1 demon spawn in the way) is ascending back through Zot, especially if it hasn't been cleared out. This would preserve the Orb run's most tense section (as well as a final unpredictable run on D:1 from a random spot, which stops pre-digging unless the entire level is dug out) and shortens it to a reasonable length, limits the pre-digging problem to Zot itself (and the toughness of the walls in Zot can be examined if it and killholing are an issue for Zot), and also still leaves the option for crazy people to have fun taking the Orb to Tomb or Zigs or whatever if they really want to by leaving the normal way.