Don't make ogre a fat human

[pseudopseudonymous]

(In 0.20, Ogres are scheduled to get their Mace and flail aptitude nerfed from excellent (3) to below average (-1), in exchange for get better ability to focus individual spell schools (-3 to -1 for all individual spell schools). https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/8 ... 4f59bc6b8b )
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Design goal:

Many different species
This is partly due to the skills and aptitude system. Similarly important are the built-in starting bonuses/handicaps of species; these often have great impact on play. To us, balance does not mean that all combinations of background and species play equally well! Some are much more challenging than others, and this is fine with us. Each species has at least some backgrounds playing rather well, though.

Ogres are a well defined species at the moment, they're fat, strong creatures who have a natural talent for clobbering things. Everything about them is intuitive. They are ogres. Like trolls but a little less nasty, but also quite a lot more talented in the art of clobbering.

Most of the ogres you see will be wielding giant clubs or spiked clubs. I assume this isn't a coincidence.

When you enter the dungeon, Just like a fat strong ogre off the street who can't wear armor or dodge things, you start off quite vulnerable, scavenging for a weapon appropriate to your particular talents, and unusual build. Well, or whips, but that's just a categorisation artifact, and always good for a bit of comedy.

Once you can start practicing your art, things start to flow more smoothly. It's a great rhythm to start a game with, and great thematically/in-universe.

Your intuitive grasp of basic magic manifests itself in your ability to train many low level utility spells at once via the 'spellcasting' skill.

Certainly more could be done with this, but just raising all of their individual school aptitudes is the absolute opposite, taking away flavour rather than adding it: They're supposed to be intuitive spellcasters, which implies more general ability and less ability to focus a particular domain. If their spell ability is buffed it should be in giving bonuses to their spellcasting skill, and/or (less preferably) higher aptitude, not giving them an increased ability to focus spell schools, i.e. studied magic.

_

Ways to make ogres more 'distinguished' from other species

1. See title. Don't destroy this species just to add a generic fat caster. Nor even to add something new and brilliant. Ogres occupy a unique and flavourful niche. There's no reason to delete one awesome (and unique) thing to make room for another. Ogres are already a good race, and they have plenty of additional potential.

__

Some other random ideas to improve flavour, gameplay, etc:

2. Ogres are lazy or slobbish, and are liable to misplace their precious clubs, hence their entering the dungeon without one. -Ogre's current gameplay and lore is wonderful, but it can't hurt to introduce it to the player more clearly. Could also put something in troll description to make it clear how central of an asset their claws are and to leave the clobbering to the maestros.

3. More can be done with ogre's 'natural talent' for basic magic. For example ogres could get an increasing affinity to a randomly chosen school or schools as they level, and/or level spellcasting, representing a school the ogre feels intuitively guided to to in their natural dabbling. (which they have no control over). Or increasing the spellcasting attribute could give ogres access to random spells at higher spell success rates, again representing spells they're drawn to in their natural dabbling and playing with magic and their strong intuition for, but poor understanding of, magic. Just two pretty similar examples, but hopefully it's clear that there's a lot more interesting things that can be done than just raising aptitudes, especially all individual school aptitudes.

4. High hp with low defences and no regen can make food conservation a bit harder. Adding a level or two of fast metabolism could exacerbate this and give ogres another thing to strategise about that makes perfect sense with how they are and what an ogre is. There's also something hilarious about the flavour of ogres having no levels of carnivore gourmand etc, basically being the gourmets of the monstrous races, but still having comparable (though lesser) need to eat. (due to their bulk rather than metabolism). Also flavourwise this could explain why ogres have such a high spellcasting aptitude: 'failures die fast'

5. To go with both the ogre's natural affinity for magic, and their love of clobbering things, ogres could gain the ability to imbue clubs with abilities and power as they level, or perhaps as the club is used. If this can't be made to work gameplaywise I think it should still be added for flavour's sake as a mostly flavor very high level ability. You could also do stuff like generating all clubs as negatively enchanted randarts which the ogre has some means to restore and level.

6. Ogres could have a special EV or other defence penalty beyond trolls. Savage troll manouverability>slobbish ogre. -Ogre is currently the 'mountain-of-health-with-no-defence' ..-iest class and could be made more so if desired.
7: small flavour thing, maybe questionable: given all the demons and so forth, Ogres could have some kind of minor but explicit relationship with sloth and gluttony. Or just sloth


One other thing worth noting is that the start of the game for ogres is great. If there's a point in the game where they lack flavour it's some time after they get awesome club and health mountain skills, and a club. I can't imagine it growing old for me personally, but there's a timing for you where ogres could have a bit more stuff going on if the simple pleasures are to be supplemented. And really please just don't forget or ignore that high hp low defence natural clobberer intuitive spellcaster is fucking distinct as all hell. Like the design philosophy, I'm not in favour of removing races anyway, but Ogres are absolutely nothing like high elves in this respect. Not that I'm saying high elves need the axe, but ogre is one of the most distinct races.



TL:DR Keep the clobbering. Keep natural magic natural. Ogres are cool.

[syringe]

"fat caster" is not generic and GC with -1 apt is almost exactly the same as GSC with +3 apt

[duvessa]

The average maces aptitude is about -0.7. -1 isn't very far below average, and giant clubs are still a no-brainer on ogres, anyway (which is why I suggested nerfing it to -2 or -3, not -1).

[Elitist]

"fat caster" is not generic and GC with -1 apt is almost exactly the same as GSC with +3 apt

Fat caster was great with Basajaun. Ogres are in an uncomfortable place where they step on Draconian's toes as the lightly armored casters, which would usually be grounds for removal... BUT since Ogres were unique before, they're not going to be removed or adjusted.

duvessa: Please for the love of all that is good flatten out Ogre melee aptitudes to -1, or just give them 0 to M&F.

[CanOfWorms]

draconians are not "lightly armoured" casters considering they naturally get +4-13 ac over the course of the game (without even counting gloves/boots or the extra ac from gray dracs)

[pratamawirya]

@pseudopseudonymous: "A generic spellcaster with huge hp" is much more fun than you make it out to be. Currently the newogres are my most played race, especially as transmuters.

[pseudopseudonymous]

"fat caster" is not generic

Sure, it doesn't have to be, but the new ogre happens to be.

More imporantly, there's no reason to delete something great for even something else great.

Personally, I feel that the new ogre sucks, but maybe I'm biased or wrong or stupid, or all 3. It doesn't matter. My main point is that current ogre is unique, distinct, has cool gameplay, and fits great with the general lore, themes, etc. And that it has a lot of potential in that direction as well.

No one has adressed that. Ogre is cool. Don't delete cool stuff for no reason. It's in the design document.



If it was a choice between ogre and vine stalker, I'd be saying why not both, ogres are cool, even if not quite as cool, and they could be made cooler. The fact that I think it's a choice ogres and generic fat casters is something we can ignore.

Also everyone that likes 0.19 ogre likes it for being a fucking ogre, so deleting it except for the name is worse than just deleting it.

Don't forget that the lore about ogre's being intuitive spellcasters is being completely thrown out the window, and replaced with absolutely nothing. Rather than developed. -They're no longer intuitive casters, just decent casters for a monstrous species.

and GC with -1 apt is almost exactly the same as GSC with +3 apt

Sorry what? 3 is a lot more than -1.

The average maces aptitude is about -0.7. -1 isn't very far below average

Yeah I know. In 0.19 they're at 3, which is way above average. Ogres in DCSS are clearly themed around mace family weapons, just like in all of fantasy. Specifically, the giant clubs- just look at all basic monsters ogres carrying mace family weapons, most commonly giant clubs and spiked clubs. These changes essentially delete the current ogre gameplay and theme, but only on the player side, leaving an absolutely needless inconsistency between player and monster ogres. There's no reason to take an ogre and make it into something else rather than adding something new, and delete the ogre, if that's what you want to do. Also note that trolls have the unarmed savages niche covered (also decent necro and earth), while minotaurs have the weapon generalist niche. Monstrous weapon specialist is a distinct role they're filling. If there needs to be a big spellcaster just add them seperately, why shoehorn them into the a skin which went with something else?

and giant clubs are still a no-brainer on ogres, anyway (which is why I suggested nerfing it to -2 or -3, not -1).

That may be true, but it's not really relevant. Moving from being defined by giant clubs, to happening to use them because they're numerically optimal, is 95% the same thing in gameplay terms. (edit: -as axing them outright)

It would also now be a boring no brainer rather than an awesome, flavorful, no brainer that feels good.

Actually a better way to put it would be that it's not a no brainer at all, because it's not a choice, it's part of the conditions/environment that ogres operate in, defining how their game works much like vampire's blood does for them.

High aptitude + access to special weapon is essentially a special ability. Access to special weapon + mediocre aptitude isn't. Weapon choice is far less interesting than the option to play a race with that special ability (and how it works so well with all of the other things ogres are). Not to mention available on literally every other goddamn race. This change gets rid of ogre's unique rhythm rather than building on it, making it more like all the other races. Refer to design document.

_


Anyway what is even the reason for this change? Is there some fundamental flaw in the 0.19 design? I haven't heard it enumerated.

Has their been a lot of player feedback that ogres are boring? I don't know, but if there has, then why not try pursuing the avenue they're currently on? or getting rid of them if it's deemed unviable, rather than axing the things that make them what they are while keeping the same name. If the change was from ogres to ogre mages, that would make a lot more sense, but has a high level decision been made that 'Ogre (as it currently exists) needs to go'?

And if there hasn't been either of those, why make sweeping changes to something that isn't broken?

[pseudopseudonymous]

@pseudopseudonymous: "A generic spellcaster with huge hp" is much more fun than you make it out to be. Currently the newogres are my most played race, especially as transmuters.

Well why not zoidberg both?

[syringe]

and GC with -1 apt is almost exactly the same as GSC with +3 apt

Sorry what? 3 is a lot more than -1.

GC with -1 apt and GSC with +3 apt get to 0.7 delay with virtually identical XP investment, and the difference is only 9-10% base damage and 6 levels of weapon skill without impact on delay. If you know what it is like to use GSC on oldogres, that is how GC is like on newogres.

[Speleothing]

and GC with -1 apt is almost exactly the same as GSC with +3 apt

Sorry what? 3 is a lot more than -1.

GC with -1 apt and GSC with +3 apt get to 0.7 delay with virtually identical XP investment, and the difference is only 9-10% base damage and 6 levels of weapon skill without impact on delay. If you know what it is like to use GSC on oldogres, that is how GC is like on newogres.

Except now it takes 2x as much XP to get GC to min-delay, if you were planning to clear midgame with a GC instead of a GSC. Ogres need to get their offence online ASAP, since they haven't got any defenses.

[syringe]

somehow i doubt there would be these fat human threads if ogres merely had their plain giant clubs taken away and still had +3 m&f

[chequers]

Here are some stats on the changing play styles of Ogre pre- and post-change:

Query: !lg * !newogres og thisyear / <kw>

  Code:

    |warrior|berserker|warriormage|mage|other|
old |    40%|      33%|        13%| 10%|   5%|
new |    40%|      14%|        23%| 19%|   4%|

I think it's clear this change made non-meleedude Ogres significantly more viable, while still leaving meleedude ogres the >50% default.

[pseudopseudonymous]

Here are some stats on the changing play styles of Ogre pre- and post-change:

Query: !lg * !newogres og thisyear / <kw>

  Code:

    |warrior|berserker|warriormage|mage|other|
old |    40%|      33%|        13%| 10%|   5%|
new |    40%|      14%|        23%| 19%|   4%|

I think it's clear this change made non-meleedude Ogres significantly more viable, while still leaving meleedude ogres the >50% default.

Replace deep elves with thin humans and you'll see the same increase in background diversity. Or give formicids the ability to teleport, and you'll see less anti-warper polarisation

[chequers]

Your original post quotes the Crawl Philosophy, but you didn't quote the part that said decisions which aren't really decisions ("no-brainers") should be removed. The aptitude rebalance for Ogre was a step towards making their build plan less single-noted. That some of Ogre's power was moved from M&F to spells is certainly making them more like other "flattish aptitude" species, but that's not Ogre's only point of differentiation.

[pratamawirya]

Also if we wanna argue about flavor, I'd say newogre's flavor is on par with oldogre's. Huge, burly mages are weird and cool, because they clash with the traditional image of spellcasters, in a good way.

[ontoclasm]

Here is the thing about arguments based on flavor:

You can argue in favor of literally anything based on flavor, because flavor is entirely subjective.

What the heck does "intuitive spellcasting" even mean, for instance? Last I checked Crawl didn't have an Intuition stat. You realize this amazing flavor was literally made up out of whole cloth by a dev in the past to handwave away their weird apts, right? Here, look: ogres cast intuitively. There, flavor preserved. They have good magic apts despite their size and general lack of intelligence because of ~~intuition.~~ High spellcasting and low schools? Why would that have anything to do with intuition?

See how easy that was? Fitting flavor to good mechanics is easy and results in good mechanics and good flavor. Fitting mechanics to flavor gives you bad mechanics -- such as, for instance, an absolutely one-note species that does nothing but use one weapon class no matter what.

[NhorianScum]

Previously ogres weilded 2 hander, light 1 hander and shield, or heavy 1 hander with shield.

Now they all weild light 1 hander with shield.

Weapon choice has been diversified.

Edit: intutive spellcasting falls under the old tabletop trope of "npc" class mages who could cast but were totaly untrained and lacked metamagic access to high level spells etc. Ogres were a bit closer to theruge's and skald archetypes but the flavor and gameplay were both very solid and semi unique. Now they're just the go to fat mage.

[ontoclasm]

Yes, it certainly is easy to describe the version you like in glowing, positive terms and the version you don't like in negative ones, that is definitely true. Watch:

"Ogres were cookie-cutter brutes who were crap at magic but vaguely claimed that they weren't (they still were). Now they're closer to a conflicted, shamanistic archetype, with solid, unique flavor and gameplay."

Pointless. What you think is good flavor, I think is bad flavor. If you want ogres changed back, come up with a mechanical reason to do so. But good luck: the ogre you want is "use GSCs and large rocks, every game," and that's a dull thing for a species to be, no matter how many ~treasured fantasy archetypes~ you paint it up with. You say "they had access to low-level magic, but no access to higher levels!" Yes, that describes a species in Crawl who is bad at magic. That is what being bad at magic in Crawl looks like. Vis: minotaurs and trolls. Ogres were marginally better at magic than those guys, but "marginally better at magic than a troll" does not equate to "skald archetype."

[pseudopseudonymous]

Here is the thing about arguments based on flavor:

You can argue in favor of literally anything based on flavor, because flavor is entirely subjective.

What the heck does "intuitive spellcasting" even mean, for instance? Last I checked Crawl didn't have an Intuition stat. You realize this amazing flavor was literally made up out of whole cloth by a dev in the past to handwave away their weird apts, right? Here, look: ogres cast intuitively. There, flavor preserved. They have good magic apts despite their size and general lack of intelligence because of ~~intuition.~~ High spellcasting and low schools? Why would that have anything to do with intuition?

See how easy that was? Fitting flavor to good mechanics is easy and results in good mechanics and good flavor. Fitting mechanics to flavor gives you bad mechanics -- such as, for instance, an absolutely one-note species that does nothing but use one weapon class no matter what.

I don't think Good flavor is inherently subjective: it' needs to be consistent, which is an objective, almost purely logical thing. (also a major design goal) Some portion of flavour is inherently subjective, but a large part of it is in the informational complexity, depth, and intertwinedness (and harmony, but that's more subjective) of the world that's presented to the player. It's possible to get flavour wrong, and it's possible for it to be generally done well.



"aside" aside:

Weapon choice is utterly inconsequential in comparison to having a unique class, and is available on most other species.

Having one more species where weapon-class choice isn't a decision doesn't take away any choices away from your game, unless you choose to go with that species over something apparently more interesting, like a human or minotaur, or one of the other literally 20-or-so that have weapon choices. It's not a zero sum game where, if Ogres don't suit your tastes, you have to play them. Compared to the option to play an actual Ogre, the weapon skill choice is laughably inconsequential. It's the equivalent of losing chunk management on spriggan.


Note that other races do in fact give up meangingful decisions for good returns, like: "should I just walk away" on naga, "should I tank this" on a felid, "should I wait and regen" on a deep dwarf, etc. In none of those cases is it an accident that one small thing is being sacrificed to give the species its own distinct gameplay.

'Incredibly talented at clobbering' is a special power, whether or not it's partially expressed in terms of aptitudes. It gives Ogres unique strategic considerations, makes the game play out very differently, and is yes, great flavour, especially in the early early game where you're scavenging for your special weapon so you can feel safe again, just like a big dumb ogre who's lost his club.

If you find this flavour meaningless, who cares? it wasn't costing you anything.


This other generic bigdude could have been added seperately. (or something like basajaun). New Ogre doesn't have a single unique trait, not even on the level of minotaur horns. He's just a big dude who happens to not be retarded at magic. Literally

This would be like deleting kobold to add halfling. If halfling didn't have mutation resist. It's nice that halfling exists, but kobold is way more interesting, and (evidently) the game is big enough for the both of them.

You realize this amazing flavor was literally made up out of whole cloth by a dev in the past to handwave away their weird apts, right?

Have you asked that dev? If the original dev made Ogre entirely by accident, I guess I'm on a weaker standing. But did you just make that up?

There's nothing specifically intuitive about decent spellcasting aptitudes. It just means they are decent with magic. 'Intuition' somewhat fits newogre, but only like it fits a lot of things, because it's a very vague word that can mean a lot of things. It doesn't in any way define them or make them more distinct, or different to play in terms of gameplay.

Intuition does have a central meaning amongst all the fluff: figuring things out, by feeling them out, -or 'subconciously', rather than by thinking them out. If something is intuitive it's something you can grasp naturally, just by looking at it, without having to study it out.

Hopefully by now you've spent two to five seconds thinking about how that relates to high spellcasting low individual schools, but If you still don't see the link, I refer you to my posts in this thread, where I spelled it out.

Your original post quotes the Crawl Philosophy, but you didn't quote the part that said decisions which aren't really decisions ("no-brainers") should be removed.

I also didn't quote a lot of other things in favour of my point- I wasn't about to quote the whole document. I'll go into more detail here:

The reference subtitle for the "no no brainers" part is "meaningful decisions". I take it as an assumption that eliminating no brainers is supposed to be a way of acheiving meaningful decisions, not something to mindlessly apply until everything is a decision- formicids don't need to be able to blink, even at great cost. Meaningless decisions and lack of structure are also to be avoided.

Having some things not be decisions at all is a legitimate way to shape the game. You don't get to decide if you want to get the orb of zot or not, and still win, for instance. Some things are set in stone, and thereby shape the game.

Note that Ogre isn't the only weapon specialist species (trolls, unarmed. merfolk, polearms. vine stalkers, fast weapons. Ghouls, unarmed. Formicids, 2h and shield. Centaurs, bows.)

Other races have a more even (weapon) skill variety. The option to go for one or the other is itself a highly meaningful decision, imo far more so than picking which weapon to use, which is mostly a question of TOME4 style optimisation. (which don't get me wrong, is fun, but isn't 'meaningful', and is often a no brainer.)

Different classes are also more or less encouraged to go with armour, dodging, shields, etc. Note that 0.19 ogre is in a unique position of defending using a combination of offence as defence, and health mountain facetanking, which leads to very different gameplay and contributes to to picking (0.19)ogre being a highly meaningful decision in terms of flavour, feel, and (mechanical) gameplay.


Other design goals than the single one of avoiding no brainers:

Clarity: Ogres clobbering things with clubs is as old as time. You pick it up, you look at the aptitudes, and you know what to do. Everything is intuitive. They are ogres. Like trolls, except a little less nasty, and more talented in the art of clobbering.

(note the lack of claws) (note every 'ogre' in the game carrying some kind of clobbering instrument)

New Ogre isn't an ogre at all. It's a basajuan/ogre-mage, and reading through some old threads it seems like this was the underhanded intention all along. I'm not saying this kind of (ridiculous) subterfuge is acceptable, but if the class is to stay as it is, it should at least be renamed.

consistency mostly the same problems as with clarity, as a lot of the clarity problems are springing from inconsistent and illogical(within context) use of ogres, (as they exist in DCSS).

replayability: "whenever there are choices to the player, be that choice of species, god, weapon or spell, the various options should be genuinely different". "To us, balance does not mean that all combinations of background and species play equally well"[/b]

"Related to, but encompassing, species, background, god are fundamentally different playing styles like melee oriented fighter, stabber, etc." This one is a bit unclear, but I take it to be saying it's good to have sharply distinguished playstyles. It also says "Deciding on whether (and when!) to make a transition of style can make or break games", but I don't think this means every game is intended to have a choice of style transition, as 0.19Ogre is not the only race encouraged to take a certain basic approach. (which then informs other aspects of their game.)


Minor things: "balance" -avoiding unavoidable deaths. Ogre is weaker early now, so unavoidable deaths are a little more likely.
"anti grinding" branch Ogre isn't at bad for grinding, but, small thing 0.19Ogre actively discouraged grinding, by gettings its main skillset online very quickly.


Stuff like flavour or feel isn't mentioned directly (unless I missed it), but these are undeniably important to every game. There's a reason the game has a tileset and animations and little lore snippets for everything. It makes the game feel more or real. (/immersive)

It's also closely related to "consistency". So even if it's not directly a priority, it's still important for every game. Cool flavour and flavour-enhanced-feel are a natural extrapolation of having a consistent in game universe, because what else is a consistent-in-game universe for, than to immerse yourself in and appreciate?


So yeah:

0.19Ogre wins on the meaningful decision front by a mile, because choosing which set of class twists you want to play your next game of crawl with is a massively meaninful decision. Like weapon skill choice, it's one decision, but it hugely effects the mechanics, flavour and feel of your entire upcoming game. Meanwhile weapon choice mostly effects flavour, a lot less, and is usually dictated by what you find, so often is hardly, or not, a choice. Equally importantly, it's available on most other classes. Ogres not having to make that choice doesn't take that choice away from crawl. Variety is not only good for replayability, it directly creates, or perhaps simply constitutes, meaningful decisions in and of itself.


Going giant clubs wasn't a decision at all, it was a racial ability/restriction. (that it so happens you could optionally ignore if you wanted to play ogre with a knife (a sword) or pin (a knife), or something). Calling this a no brainer might not be technically 100% incorrect, but it is worse than useless for understanding what it actually is/was.

Note that the same operating principle applies for many of the most interesting species abilities. A restriction, which takes away some choice, in exchange for an ability, which encourages certain approaches, between the two shaping how the species plays, thus making it a more distinct and worthwhile alternative to other species. As far as I can see that's literally just how species work, and how they're supposed to work.

That includes humans by the way, who I don't actually dislike at all. In exchange for their versatility it must be noted that they give up power, so they force a player to play in a different, more adaptable way, taking that choice away from the player.

Except that the choice hasn't been taken away. It has been MADE -on the character selection screen.



Then in other aspects: clarity, consistency, replayability, as well as in the always-important feel and flavour, 0.19ogre blows trunk ogre out of the water.

[NhorianScum]

You can argue unique flavor i guess? The gameplay for newogre is not remotely unique though. Strictly vannila. Also weaker, on book starts.

[NhorianScum]

Turns out the reason Ogres had a +3 weapon apt was to con the player into making a meaningful decision past the character creation screen that encompassed every viable arms/spell/armor setup in the game.

[pseudopseudonymous]

Yes, it certainly is easy to describe the version you like in glowing, positive terms and the version you don't like in negative ones, that is definitely true. Watch:

"Ogres were cookie-cutter brutes who were crap at magic but vaguely claimed that they weren't (they still were). Now they're closer to a conflicted, shamanistic archetype, with solid, unique flavor and gameplay."

Pointless. What you think is good flavor, I think is bad flavor. If you want ogres changed back, come up with a mechanical reason to do so. But good luck: the ogre you want is "use GSCs and large rocks, every game," and that's a dull thing for a species to be, no matter how many ~treasured fantasy archetypes~ you paint it up with. You say "they had access to low-level magic, but no access to higher levels!" Yes, that describes a species in Crawl who is bad at magic. That is what being bad at magic in Crawl looks like. Vis: minotaurs and trolls. Ogres were marginally better at magic than those guys, but "marginally better at magic than a troll" does not equate to "skald archetype."

Ogres are supposed to be brutes. Cookie-cutterness, no. (Cookie cutter would actually be fine for an ogre, but) They were one of the most unique species, as I've argued at quite some length. Their magic description did in fact describe how magic worked for them. The power level is a different question, but when something is underpowered the default response isn't usually to axe it and replace it with something else in the same skin. There is such a thing as buffing or expanding things, rather than flattening them and making them stronger.

Your description of new ogre isn't glowing, and is arguably.. barely.. even positive. I described how 0.19ogres are cool, how they played out, how it worked in practice, and in genuinely glowing terms. You just strung together a bunch of words that aren't even actually positive.-

'conflicted' -bad thing, shamanistic, -neutral, unless you're a new-ager, (or negative if you hate commies). "Solid" -positive but empty. "Unique" untrue, there's nothing unique about them.


So basically your descriptions are shit. Which isn't surprising given what you have to work with.

If someone can put trunk ogres in remotely as glowing terms as I have for 0.19, with just "big" and "casts spells" to work with, I'll be really fucking impressed.

Not that that would matter though, because, unlike you're implying, my glowing positive terms were decorations, and occasionally illustrations, for my arguments, not the sole content of the hundreds possibly thousands of words I've written in this thread.

You say "they had access to low-level magic, but no access to higher levels!

No, actually the idea is that they have easy access to low level magic, and that they get it in a way different from other species. Can you follow that? Also note I never said it was done perfectly. 'It was underpowered' isn't a reason to axe something, without even trying a buff first, or better yet an expansion if they're currently quite straightforward.

If you want ogres changed back, come up with a mechanical reason to do so.

It sure is easy to be full of shit. I gave a million mechanical reasons. Flavour was just one of my arguments. What are you even playing at?


On the subject of surreptitiously sidestepping points, none of;

sarcastic comments, cat smileys confessions, or complaining about complaining, are arguments.

So if you're not capable of saying anything interesting, why don't you just save yourself the time, next time, and type "fuck you buddy, I like new ogres", or "fuck you buddy, that's my change you're pointing out the problems with"

(my sincerest thanks to the person who commented that they like new ogres, and to the person with the backwards statistical argument. Thank you for engaging with the topic in question.)

[yesno]

just introduce npc ogres with shields and spears, then everyone will be happy. also introduce a "giant sharpened club" item that is a very large spear.

you're welcome.

[pseudopseudonymous]

p.s. I never said anything about large rocks. Personally I can take them or leave them. They're cool but not unique to ogre, and imo a better fit for trolls, who are that bit more monstrous. I wouldn't mind a bad aptitude there.

And G(S)C every game is only minus weapon skill choice. If weapon choice is one of your favorite things, most classes have more of it. Having one big dumb OGRE class that's really into clubs doesn't prevent you picking minotaur.

[NhorianScum]

You'd need to lower throwing to -5 with the current apts to actually create a meaningful decision. Not a terribly complex choice, just a binary "do I want throwing or other thing" choice.

At most there are 4 weapon related options on any species. Everything else is decided at character creation.

[duvessa]

So I know this is a troll post but it does touch on something interesting that I've wanted to talk about.

People often justify lopsided aptitudes and other species-specific no-brainers by saying that they're just tradeoffs, consequences of a decision made on the character creation screen. But if you treat species, background, and god selection as an interesting and meaningful decision, you cannot ignore the fact that species, backgrounds, and gods are blatantly unbalanced. For winning any imaginable role/"playstyle", the optimal choices for species/background/god are clearly going to be one of centaur, deep dwarf, spriggan, troll; berserker or an elementalist; and Trog, Fedhas, or Kiku. If you treat species choice as a decision of the same kind as skill training or spell selection, then you have to admit that you're saying 80% of the current options are irrelevant because they're clearly inferior. Hell, 0.19 ogre specifically was worse than trolls at every background!

That's why you hear stuff like "species are difficulty levels", why the terms "challenge race" and "challenge god" exists, "gods don't need to be balanced", etc. etc. Feel free to debate whether this is an intentional design or a post-hoc rationalization of bad balance. That doesn't really matter, because either way it means that one of these two things must be true:
A. people don't and shouldn't choose their species based on power trade-offs; they pick the species they want the experience of playing
B. people who don't choose Ce or DD every time are wrong
I am unwilling to entertain option B.
Now if you happen to want the experience of playing a species that makes as few difficult decisions as possible, there's nothing inherently wrong with that. But in the context of Crawl, the design goals are quite explicitly against that!

[syringe]

au contraire: "big dude who happens to not be retarded at magic" is quite unique; uber-clobberer wasn't

why would ogres be "incredibly talented" at using maces and flails? traditional representations show ogres and ogre-like creatures being slow and clumsy, yet threatening because they are big enough to swing tree trunks, much like newogres, as opposed to being over-grown Bruce Lee types like oldogres

original ogres were no better at clubs than axes

your beautiful descriptions of 0.19 ogres apply nicely to 0.20 ogres imo tbqf

[tabstorm]

Why do people still fall for the "weapon choice" meme? it's a dice roll. Assuming that you started with a warrior class, when you continue to invest in your starting weapon skill, you're rolling the dice that you'll get a series of weapon drops culminating in a viable full-enchant target or high-end artefact. You don't really sit and deliberate over whether you're going to take swords or maces with 0 apts, there is no functional difference between them. These types of decisions almost only occur when you have found an extremely early, high quality weapon (in which the choice is a no-brainer) or you have cross-training and have found a high-quality weapon. Seriously, how often do people switch weapon schools past D:8 or so (without crosstraining)? Almost never, and don't reply with "Past D:8 is not a game but a key-mashing exercise".

You don't start using different melee tactics because you used a mace over a long blade. Reaching is the only case in which the function of the weapon conforms to a particular archetype (reach over summons, reach + kiting). It's not like we're playing Sil where different weapon types can be more effective based on your stat distribution, and different weapon types can be better against certain enemies based on their evasion and protection scores. Crawl has explicitly purged this sort of thing, its combat is not nearly as refined.

You just roll the dice and hope for the best with drops. With skewed apts, you simply get rid of this dice roll, which is why apts are a power level and nothing else.

There are only so many ways you can bump into an enemy.

[ONIchinchin]

If you want ogres changed back, come up with a mechanical reason to do so"

Spells are inevitably more interesting than anything, no? Even if you add 1 or 2 or 4 unique weapons exclusively wielded by 1 or 2 species, the multitude of imbalanced spells would still be better and numerous than mere tabbing. Anyone can easily dismiss the value of tabbing due to spells' numerical advantage in both quality (player interest and powerlevel) and quantity (DUDE just look at all these effects wow!).

[edgefigaro]

When I play a Hu, Ds, or Dg I appreciate the meaningful decisions of flat apts.

I really like rolling trolls and ogres sometimes because sometimes I want to shread things wand sometimes i want to club things with a brute. I'm not playing every character to experience meaningful weapon decisions.

The design space in crawl is large enough to have straightforward races. Ogres being good with the biggest club in the game is a straightforward and playable choice. That choice is meaningful and is made on the character select screen. It is a useful choice that does well to define the margins in which the flat apt Hu/Na/ect live in more centrally.

If you are going to have large rocks and GSCs as the unavailable heavy physical novelties in the game, may as well have a race that is good for them. That race will specifically exist as a novelty simply because GSCs and Large Rocks already are novelties.

Not all meaningful choices are good. For instance, you have a +0 giant club and a +0 Giant spiked club, Which one do I enchant with my first ?enchant weapon? This choice is meaningful in a real gameplay sense but horrible in a game design sense. As a player, I am enchanting the GSC every time because I am playing an ogre, something i do very rarely, and and want to hit things with the biggest, spikeiest club I can find. Changing apt from +3 to -1 makes this choice more meaningful from a real game play sense and horrible in a choices I don't want to make as a player sense. (GC and GSC both existing is the source of this trouble)

I think a Crawl is large enough to have races that exist more on the margins of meaningful in game decisions in terms of aptitudes. I don't think crawl lacked from having a straightforward GSC using race, and I don't believe the addition and changes of basajuan is reason enough that this particular character niche should be watered down to the extent a -1 apt does.

[tasonir]

A. people don't and shouldn't choose their species based on power trade-offs; they pick the species they want the experience of playing

I played ogre transmuter before it was cool. This is probably throwing off that old/vs new chart of backgrounds

P.S. No, not even I can explain why I simultaneously went for statue form and wore GDA. I guess I proved it was possible?

[huiren]

Here is the thing about arguments based on flavor:

You can argue in favor of literally anything based on flavor, because flavor is entirely subjective.

What the heck does "intuitive spellcasting" even mean, for instance? Last I checked Crawl didn't have an Intuition stat. You realize this amazing flavor was literally made up out of whole cloth by a dev in the past to handwave away their weird apts, right? Here, look: ogres cast intuitively. There, flavor preserved. They have good magic apts despite their size and general lack of intelligence because of ~~intuition.~~ High spellcasting and low schools? Why would that have anything to do with intuition?

See how easy that was? Fitting flavor to good mechanics is easy and results in good mechanics and good flavor. Fitting mechanics to flavor gives you bad mechanics -- such as, for instance, an absolutely one-note species that does nothing but use one weapon class no matter what.

I don't really agree with the OP. But I do think having a species called "ogre" with a -1 in maces & flails will always be uncomfortable to a large number of players however many reasonable arguments you give to the contrary, and that people who feel uncomfortable about that aptitude are well justified in doing so.

But regardless of my opinion, I simply cannot agree with this post. Flavor is partially subjective, but it is simply absurd to say it is entirely so. It's very clearly based in shared linguistic and cultural understandings that create a verifiable connection between a word and an image. Why are trolls called trolls and not fairies? Why are elves casters? Why do orcs use axes instead of rapiers? Why are minotaurs brutes? Why do draconians have breath attacks? Why do vampires drink blood? The list is endless. Not only do you ignore the basic feature associated with the word "ogre" that everyone has had in their brain far before they ever heard of DCSS, you nitpick a auxiliary feature that nobody particularly associates with the concept.

Fantasy fiction is necessarily grounded in pre-constructed, mostly universal images, or else it is useless. You might be able to subvert those archetypes sometimes, but even in doing so you must acknowledge them. And to subvert them requires context, subtlety and skill. The current design of Og is better (for a given value, as tabstorm pointed out, weapon choice is largely an illusion and weapon skills are far from interesting) than the old design in terms of giving options to the player. But it runs contrary to the image almost every player will have of an ogre when they start the game. It is of no surprise whatsoever and by no means deserving of criticism that players find the current design jarring: it fails to match the very definition of the word it purports to describe.

[Psieye]

I do think having a species called "ogre" with a -1 in maces & flails will always be uncomfortable to a large number of players however many reasonable arguments you give to the contrary

Change name of species. Problem solved if it needs solving. The phenomenon of players expecting crawl to be like most other non-roguelike games is a common one. It won't go away.

[Siegurt]

I do think having a species called "ogre" with a -1 in maces & flails will always be uncomfortable to a large number of players however many reasonable arguments you give to the contrary

Change name of species. Problem solved if it needs solving. The phenomenon of players expecting crawl to be like most other non-roguelike games is a common one. It won't go away.

I would personally be in favor or renaming it, i think the cultural expectations that go with "ogre" are too strong for the race as it is. I also think that the current race makes a better note playable species than one that did conform (even vaguely) to our cultures expectation.

My first choice would be "Oni"

[mrob]

My first choice would be "Oni"

It doesn't much help because oni are frequently depicted using clubs too.

[Elitist]

What happened to Basajaun? I liked the difference between Basajaun and Ogre, even if Ba had the issue where if they found a really good club, it was optimal to use it.

[Hurkyl]

I always thought fantasy ogres used clubs because they're big and stupid; a large club is relatively easy to make and requires little sophistication in its use.

And they were effective with large clubs simply because of their massive strength and the size of the weapon, not because they were particularly skillful club users.

[stickyfingers]

I agree, though having polearms higher feels weird. I'd flatten all their apts to -1 now, with maybe UC at 0. That would be in line with their ranged apts, and also with the idea that ogres are bad at using tools.

[Siegurt]

I agree, though having polearms higher feels weird. I'd flatten all their apts to -1 now, with maybe UC at 0. That would be in line with their ranged apts, and also with the idea that ogres are bad at using tools.

I think the idea behind the increased polearm apt is to make gc/gsc not the hands down winner for weapon choice, with flat apts i think gc/gsc still trump all other weapon types, with polearms higher, at least there is some competative reason to go with not-m&f

[Shard1697]

Why shouldn't gc/gsc trump all other weapon types? If they don't, what's the point of playing ogre? That's the whole reason people do it, or at least the vast majority of people who play ogres.

[Siegurt]

Why shouldn't gc/gsc trump all other weapon types? If they don't, what's the point of playing ogre? That's the whole reason people do it, or at least the vast majority of people who play ogres.

I think the intent was to change the reason people play ogres. Instead of great clubs being the only or overwhelming reason, it is intended that it still be an ok reason, with some other viable reasons sprinkled around as possibilities.

[Shard1697]

Why, though? What's wrong with having a species where you're great at smashing everyone with huge clubs?

Single species don't really have to be all that varied when the game contains a variety of species, if you want a different experience you can play a different species. I don't see the problem that needs changing with the strong focus of old ogres.

[tasonir]

From way back up in the thread someone said high hp caster is a fairly unique niche, and I'd agree, we don't really have any very high hp casters, and ogre can do a pretty good job of it. Draconians are the usual "sturdy caster" with +10% hp, but I think new ogre at +30% is a meaningful difference, as well as all the other differences between the two (size, body slot, breath attacks, etc).

So in general I support new ogres as is, but I'd wonder if pushing their magic aptitudes more heavily towards spellcasting might reinforce the generalist caster idea? So currently they're (if I remember correctly) +2 spellcasting -1 everything else, how about +4 spellcasting -2 everything? That said, either one seems interesting to me, and I'll probably get around to playing a new ogre transmuter to compare to the old ogre one of these months.

[Siegurt]

Why, though? What's wrong with having a species where you're great at smashing everyone with huge clubs?

Single species don't really have to be all that varied when the game contains a variety of species, if you want a different experience you can play a different species. I don't see the problem that needs changing with the strong focus of old ogres.

Well, to be fair, they are still better at smahing things with huge clubs than any other choice, if you want huge club smashing game play, ogre is still your go to for that.

If you would like to play an ogre for some non giant-club-smahing purposes, those other options are now not totally overshadowed by the possibility of giant club smahing.

Now if your complaint is really "but ogres are not as powerful as they were" that is true.

But imagine for a moment, you had never played an old ogre, and were exploring racial choices for the first time, which sounds better:

"this is the race that you use for smashing things with giant clubs, any other choice for this race is sub par"

or

"this race can be used for smashing things with giant clubs, or makes a good transmuter, or can be played like a high hps polearm fighter with low ac, or can be used used as a fighter with magic support, or really in any of several roles that take advantage of high hps, low armor, and ok spell casting apts"

[Shard1697]

Their M&F apt doesn't need to be lowered to buff their spell skills(or other weapon apts), is the thing. The nerf alongside the buff was unneeded.

[bel]

If one option is so good that it dominates all the others, then the desirability of pursuing the other options is limited (unless one wants to roleplay or something). This is why even though trolls can also use giant clubs, you don't see anyone using them. The only way to get meaningful options into the builds (if that's a desirable goal) is to nerf the former option together with buffing the others.

I think most of the issues would be much less jarring if player ogres were simply renamed.

[sooheon]

If one option is so good that it dominates all the others, then the desirability of pursuing the other options is limited (unless one wants to roleplay or something). This is why even though trolls can also use giant clubs, you don't see anyone using them. The only way to get meaningful options into the builds (if that's a desirable goal) is to nerf the former option together with buffing the others.

I think most of the issues would be much less jarring if player ogres were simply renamed.

I don't really understand this argument. Going caster on a deep elf is so good that it dominates all melee options. Should we nerf casting and buff melee on deep elves so that both paths are equivalent strength wise? The thing about races is that they are one of the only guaranteed choices you can make. If you want to even be able to *wield* a giant club, you *have* to choose either troll or ogre. If you also want to cast some spells, ogre is your only option.

I don't get the deference to "meaningful choice", when the way that people play does not really follow this. Most melee starts pick a weapon to start with, and once you get over ~14 points in anything, even nice artefacts give you pause before you switch. Besides, why even give people the choice of weapons at chargen? Why not a randomized set of weapons lying on the floor, to make for "meaningful choice"? Why have different aptitudes? Weapon apts should be zeroed out across the board for true meaningful choice.

edit:

I should add that I think Ghouls are an apt comparison here. They have claws to start the game, *and* clearly better apts for UC. Does this remove meaningful choice? If so, by virtue of starting with claws, they should get -2 or lower UC to compensate. If we think Ghouls are at a good place, I think we'd be justified to give Ogres +1 for clubs. Not ridiculously high like +3, but not a clear negative either.

Remember that one of the reasons a player would pick ghoul in the first place is for the guaranteed access to claws, just like one of the reasons someone would pick ogre at all is for the (nearly guaranteed) access to giant clubs. Only one other species can even wield them.

[bel]

I don't really understand this argument.

Spoiler: show

Going caster on a deep elf is so good that it dominates all melee options. Should we nerf casting and buff melee on deep elves so that both paths are equivalent strength wise? The thing about races is that they are one of the only guaranteed choices you can make. If you want to even be able to *wield* a giant club, you *have* to choose either troll or ogre. If you also want to cast some spells, ogre is your only option.

I don't get the deference to "meaningful choice", when the way that people play does not really follow this. Most melee starts pick a weapon to start with, and once you get over ~14 points in anything, even nice artefacts give you pause before you switch. Besides, why even give people the choice of weapons at chargen? Why not a randomized set of weapons lying on the floor, to make for "meaningful choice"? Why have different aptitudes? Weapon apts should be zeroed out across the board for true meaningful choice.

edit:

I should add that I think Ghouls are an apt comparison here. They have claws to start the game, *and* clearly better apts for UC. Does this remove meaningful choice? If so, by virtue of starting with claws, they should get -2 or lower UC to compensate. If we think Ghouls are at a good place, I think we'd be justified to give Ogres +1 for clubs. Not ridiculously high like +3, but not a clear negative either.

Remember that one of the reasons a player would pick ghoul in the first place is for the guaranteed access to claws, just like one of the reasons someone would pick ogre at all is for the (nearly guaranteed) access to giant clubs. Only one other species can even wield them.

The only way to get meaningful options into the builds (if that's a desirable goal) is to nerf the former option together with buffing the others.

Operative part bolded. If you think the goal isn't worth pursuing, then that's a different matter. People can differ on this point.

In general, there are many ways to play. Some people have a fixed weapon (and god etc.) right at the beginning of the game, while others prefer to play based on what they find. I'll give a simple example illustrating this. Read this thread.

From what little I've played with new Ogre, Ogres with giant clubs are still very good, just not as good as before. So people who still have a fixed weapon in mind can still play Ogre like before (though with less power).

The rest of the post is dealing with various other parts. In general, I think Crawl has too many weapon types. Many new players have no idea which weapon is superior, or what you should train; you can find at least one post per week in DCA proving my point. I think weapons system would gain if some of the superfluous variety is culled, and the weapon aptitudes simplified. I have some half-baked ideas on this point, but no time to elaborate right now.

[Shtopit]

I think that ogres being bad casters was a problem in design. They were the only low ac start race which was going to have a hard time with magic.

Now they have their own niche as strong unarmoured casters with lots of hp, shield affinity and bad evasion. Weapon skills are high enough to have a supporting role. Polearms mean support for use of allies. It sounds well defined to me.

You can in theory give them high m&f. This way you get a fat orc instead of a fat human. But it wouldn't make sense as a race. I mean, I don't think that old ogre made much sense, either, since there are many ways to make a monorail race, and making a monorail race that has very strong melee but no ac and no magic to make up for it doesn't strike me as creating a fun experience. Giving high m&f to new ogres seems to me like taking them to a totally different area than they were thought for, with totemic adoration for big maces like old ogre mixed with a magic playstile rolling around powering up melee for the sake of the mace. The mace would be the default best option, and everything else revolve around it.

The problem isn't new ogre, the problem is that big spiky maces are still there, they are very frequent, occur early on, very few can use them, and no one can expect to use them well until very late in the game.

So give formicids the ability to give up their shield for them, so that large spiked clubs also have a place.

[Floodkiller]

If it is impossible design wise to either raise Ogre M&F to 0 or reduce the higher weapon apts to -1 to match without ruining decision making for alternative weapons, then I recommend giving Trolls a higher M&F that matches or exceeds UC instead. People who want a species that is good at hitting things with a big stick can be happy, and people who want to create more decisions for a species can be happy that Trolls get more options than always UC. It's a win-win!