Pandemonium Purger
Posts: 1341
Joined: Monday, 24th October 2011, 06:13
Trunk: rate of change
twelwe wrote:Too many changes this trunk. Getting impossible to make any meaningful notes comparing to stable because there are so many things flipped upside down. Four new playable races, countless new monsters and mechanics, a complete overhaul of the dungeon itself. Slow down.
The current trunk has got to hold a record for the amount of new stuff and changes that makes it look more like a variant of DCSS than anything. Lite had a multitude of great ideas and changes but most would agree those changes were more deserving to be in a variant than integrated into trunk. Replacing the hunger system with contamination no longer seems like such radical change.
When testing new races, it helps to have a constant with which to compare. Testing something like a regen3/no heal device/guardian spirit package becomes less meaningful the more variables are thrown in the mix, meaning that as more monsters are changes, new hostile mechanics introduced, layouts changed or completely removed and replaced with experimental ideas, the less we are able to make meaningful comparisons to the previous branch.
One thing is clear: there is an incredible motivation to put new and inspired changes into the game. I would suggest to compensate ramping up the development cycle to three or even four releases per year, where the current trend is about two per year. VS and dith could probably alone make a good release, perhaps along with some branch changes like snake. Otherwise I can see people switching from .13 to .14 and having no clue what game they're playing anymore.
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