Lair Larrikin
Posts: 18
Joined: Friday, 13th June 2014, 15:15
Making resistances more fine-grained
recently I succesfully escaped with the orb for the first time. However, playing so far into the late game for the first time got me thinking about this game and led me to the following thoughts:
1.The resistances-system in Crawl is very much binary-like. The different "stages" of resistances consist of either three or even just one positive level of resistance.
2.This is especially annoying for the player in branches that are a lot easier to do with a certain resistance. Most prominently this is probably Snake/Spider with Poison resistance. ( I know, there are, in fact several levels of rPois, however, the player can see and influence only one.)
3. Most sorts of resistance in this game are acquired through items. Getting decent Items is however almost entirely (not counting acquirement, Trog, Oka) dependant on luck. So if you happen to find a swamp dragon armour somehow on D:8, you are good to go for the lair. If not, well, your problem.
4. Currently, I have the impression, that Races with lots of instrinsic Resistances (Gargoyles, certain Demonspawn) are usually very strong. Changing the way resistances work would perhaps tone those down a bit.
5. One level of vulnerability (of any resistance) is right now pretty much a death sentence, if you happen to run across Pikel with a flaming whip before the RNG gave you some rF+. (Looking at you, mummies.)
6. One Level of any of rF+, rC+ and rN+ (any of the three-parted resistances) is pretty much enough for the basic game, more specific branches (Volcano, IceCave...)
are doable with just two levels, and should be seriously avoided without one level of resistance. This leads to the already mentioned very binary feeling of resistances.
My Proposal: Pretty much the title of this thread: Simply increase the different stages of the resistances from 3 -> 5 (rF, rC, rN) and/or from 1 -> 3 (rPois, rElec). Also this would reduce the penalty of one or two (currently the same, I think) levels of vulnerability.
In my opinion this would really benefit the gameplay because having resistances is no longer a gamble over life and death. Also this allows for more interesting item intrinsics (read: interesting= more), and therefore more and more interesting choices in equip. Perhaps even some base types of certain armour or weapons could give certain resists or vulnerabilities, e.g. Platemail giving rElec-.
In addition this would allow to spice some species up, by giving them perhaps one or two levels of a resistance (only if it makes sense flavour-wise, of course), and therefore would make some species more different from each other (e.g. Kobolds get rPois+, Merfolk rC+,..). That one or two levels would probably not be sufficent for the late game but give the early game and the races more flavour.
If the levels of vulnerability subsequently get increased as well, this could also allow perhaps one level of that for some species (rPois- for Formicid, anyone?), since, with reduced effect of a single level of a certain vulnerability, vulnerabilities are no longer an instant death sentence.
The numbers for this are not set, of course. Also, I am aware, that this is a rather major change, especially because it would have some major impact on all undead races due to their countless resistances. Changes here have to be tested and some races probably have to be rebalanced.
Altogether, those changes could make DCSS a more fun and also less luck-dependant gaming experience.
TL;DR Resistances in Crawl are very simple, and therefore highly item-drop dependant. Also, the third level of e.g. rF is mostly obsolete. Even worse with "binary" resistances, (e.g. rPois), where the possession (and therefore just one lucky item drop) can open up (or prevent you from doing) entire dungeon branches.
I hope it is clear what my proposal is, please tell me what you think, (if it is worhty of consideration, or total nonsense, if so, explain why) and excuse my English, as I am not a native speaker.