Major Background Trimming

[Cragspyder]

Removing features is not something I particularily approve of in any game. I think it is always preferable to retune or remake a feature then just ditch it entirely.

I especially dislike the way that the game tends to remove backgrounds (or races) that seem thematic and interesting to me, such as Priest, Death Knight and Healer. The fact that they are "too easy" or "uninteresting" would still be better served with a retune, IMO.

HOWEVER, I am not posting this as a whine thread.

If this is the intended direction for the game, then I am not sure why we keep backgrounds that have trivial differences from each other, but remove ones that make major differences in playstyle.

With that said, I think the following should occur:

[*] Gladiator can be merged into the Fighter background by simply expanding the weapon options, and giving the option to choose between heavy armour (and thus Armour skill) and light armour (and Dodging skill). With the new option to take Unarmed as your chosen weapon, the Monk Background can safely be rolled into Fighter as well. Stat distribution can be the 7 Str/5 Dex of current Gladiators.

[*] Likewise, Assassin can be merged into Hunter by allowing Blowguns as a ranged weapon option. Stats of 3 Str/3 Int/6 Dex.

[*] As Berserker is a Fighter with a starting temple god that makes the early game significantly easier, similar to Death Knight, it can safely be removed as well.

[*] Abyssal Knights have a god not regularly available in the Temple, so can be kept. Chaos Knights, as a challenge or 'joke' background, can be kept as well.

[*] All Mage classes can be merged easily. Simply provide a book choice option at character creation, similar to Fighters and weapons. The stat distribution can be changed to 8 Int/4 Dex.

[*] Skald, Enchanter, and Transmuter can be merged into one background, by providing choice of book and melee weapon. Stats of 3/5/4.

[*] Likewise, Warper, Arcane Marksman and Artificer can be combined by providing choice of ranged weapon (which would include wands) and book. Stats of 2/5/5.

[*] Wanderer, as a challenge or 'joke' background, can stay, as the randomness it provides is not available through other means.

Thus, the final list of backgrounds would be Fighter, Hunter, Abyssal Knight, Chaos Knight, Battle Mage, Arcane Marksman, Mage and Wanderer.

Please let me know what you think.

[crate]

Your gl/fi (probably) and book choice (almost definitely) suggestions will not be implemented. There's a reason all book choices are gone from crawl backgrounds. The devs have decided that the current way is preferable.

[duvessa]

Removing features is not something I particularily approve of in any game. I think it is always preferable to retune or remake a feature then just ditch it entirely.

Then you wouldn't be able to add any features, either. The game would be constrained to bug fixes and only the very smallest balance tweaks. While this is a good end goal for development I think Crawl is still very much unfinished, so locking features would be a bad idea right now.

[*] Gladiator can be merged into the Fighter background by simply expanding the weapon options, and giving the option to choose between heavy armour (and thus Armour skill) and light armour (and Dodging skill). With the new option to take Unarmed as your chosen weapon, the Monk Background can safely be rolled into Fighter as well. Stat distribution can be the 7 Str/5 Dex of current Gladiators.

[*] All Mage classes can be merged easily. Simply provide a book choice option at character creation, similar to Fighters and weapons. The stat distribution can be changed to 8 Int/4 Dex.

[*] Skald, Enchanter, and Transmuter can be merged into one background, by providing choice of book and melee weapon. Stats of 3/5/4.

[*] Likewise, Warper, Arcane Marksman and Artificer can be combined by providing choice of ranged weapon (which would include wands) and book. Stats of 2/5/5.

You aren't removing or merging any backgrounds here. All you're doing is moving the choice of background off of the "background" screen and onto a new "choose book" or "choose armour" screen, which is gross and terrible. Starting book/god choices within backgrounds were removed for this exact reason, and weapon choice only stays because weapons in crawl are all the same.
Also the biggest difference between Fi/Gl is potion of might+shield vs. nets+weapon skill. Not armour/dodging.
Monk still existing is definitely absurd though.

[*] As Berserker is a Fighter with a starting temple god that makes the early game significantly easier, similar to Death Knight, it can safely be removed as well.

This isn't why death knight was removed. Death knight was like a necromancer on d:1 but with slightly less bad melee instead of pain. If animate skeleton were not a spell I suspect it would have been kept for longer. There is no other background with D:1 berserk. While there are reasonable arguments for removing Be, none have much in common with the ones for removing DK.

[*] Abyssal Knights have a god not regularly available in the Temple, so can be kept.

This also isn't why abyssal knights have been kept; you might recall that Beogh priests were removed, and Jiyva is unlikely to ever be added as a starting god. Abyssal knights are basically only kept because of abyss.

[*] Likewise, Assassin can be merged into Hunter by allowing Blowguns as a ranged weapon option. Stats of 3 Str/3 Int/6 Dex.

This definitely makes sense except for changing the starting stats, which makes no sense.

[and into]

The current process for character creation is, by design, "front-heavy." This has the advantage of keeping to a minimum the distance between starting screen and game play. While this is less subtle, I think it also has the advantage of being less misleading. How I play a necromancer or summoner (of most species) versus how I play a conjuror is very different. Currently those backgrounds are all under one heading, but putting them all under some "mage" group would, I imagine, lead people to think that there are clear and well defined backgrounds in Crawl, when actually one of the ways that DCSS distinguishes itself from some other games in the genre is in how free one is to develop a character. Not all, but most "Backgrounds" in Crawl are closer to "starting points" than "classes."

All that being said, removing "assassin" and making "blowgun" an option under hunter weapon choice makes a lot of sense to me, given that hunters already start with a short blade.

[Cragspyder]

Thank you all for your reasonable responses.

Then you wouldn't be able to add any features, either. The game would be constrained to bug fixes and only the very smallest balance tweaks. While this is a good end goal for development I think Crawl is still very much unfinished, so locking features would be a bad idea right now.

I am afraid I do not understand this logic. Why does retuning old features (instead of removing them) prevent the addition of new features? Perhaps you can explain further (I might be slow).

You aren't removing or merging any backgrounds here. All you're doing is moving the choice of background off of the "background" screen and onto a new "choose book" or "choose armour" screen, which is gross and terrible. Starting book/god choices within backgrounds were removed for this exact reason, and weapon choice only stays because weapons in crawl are all the same.

Fair enough, I was not aware that they had already tried this method. However, my point regarding this was that these backgrounds, particularily the Mage backgrounds, have no functional difference aside from the book and the appropriate skill. Every mage background aside from Wizard even has the same initial stat distribution. However, they are maintained as seperate backgrounds, whereas backgrounds with major playstyles differences are discontinued entirely.

Also, I am not clear why 'choose book' or 'choose armour' is 'gross and terrible' when 'choose weapon' already exists, nor why 'weapons in crawl are all the same'.

Also the biggest difference between Fi/Gl is potion of might+shield vs. nets+weapon skill. Not armour/dodging.

This is fair enough.

This isn't why death knight was removed. Death knight was like a necromancer on d:1 but with slightly less bad melee instead of pain. If animate skeleton were not a spell I suspect it would have been kept for longer.

I am sorry this bridge has already been crossed, because if you are saying that Death Knight was removed before it was too similar to a Necromancer, I don't know what to say other then that I disagree wholeheartedly. Seeing as backgrounds are merely meant to be starting kits and not true classes, saying that they are similar is like saying that a Cleric of evil alignment is too similar to a Necromancer in D & D. Do they have similarities? Yes. But if these backgrounds are too similar then why does Yredelemnul even exist, when Kiku can simply grant Necromancy spellbooks? The answer is that they are not really very similar at all. Not the least because Yred worshippers can get summons that follow them through levels, enslave uniques, and can use their abilities in full plate with no penalties, whereas Necromancers can deal spell damage from range, regenerate, turn themselves undead, and flat out become invulnerable for a short time.

Note I am not actually advocating for Yredelemnul's removal, since I quite enjoy him. At this point all I guess I can say is that I think this was a bad decision, since it has already been made.

There is no other background with D:1 berserk. While there are reasonable arguments for removing Be, none have much in common with the ones for removing DK.

Okay then. At this point four other Zealot backgrounds have been systematically removed. Paladins, Priests, and now Death Knights and Healers, and all apparently for different reasons. Is having a diety at the beginning of the game really so toxic? What is it about THESE dieties that is more game-changing, at the beginning of the game where background actually matters, then D:1 Berserk?

There is no need for overarching balance since the game is not meant to be played competitively. There will BE no overarching balance in backgrounds if Chaos Knights and Wanderers exist. And if the background is too dull, or too similar, then that diety needs a retune.

This also isn't why abyssal knights have been kept; you might recall that Beogh priests were removed, and Jiyva is unlikely to ever be added as a starting god. Abyssal knights are basically only kept because of abyss.

This seems like a poor reason to keep a background. 'Because of abyss'. Though I see that they are changing the Abyssal Knight start in 0.16 so that the masochistic among us can try to get a rune without ever leaving the Abyss. Is that really important?

This definitely makes sense except for changing the starting stats, which makes no sense.

3 Str/3 Int/6 Dex are the current starting stats for Assassins. It could, of course, be 4/4/4 as Hunters have currently,

[duvessa]

I am afraid I do not understand this logic. Why does retuning old features (instead of removing them) prevent the addition of new features? Perhaps you can explain further (I might be slow).

If you can't remove features, then adding a new feature permanently increases the total number of features.

Also, I am not clear why 'choose book' or 'choose armour' is 'gross and terrible' when 'choose weapon' already exists, nor why 'weapons in crawl are all the same'.

"Choose weapon" is okay because all weapons in crawl are the same, and if you've played crawl it's pretty obvious that they are.

I am sorry this bridge has already been crossed, because if you are saying that Death Knight was removed before it was too similar to a Necromancer, I don't know what to say other then that I disagree wholeheartedly. Seeing as backgrounds are merely meant to be starting kits and not true classes, saying that they are similar is like saying that a Cleric of evil alignment is too similar to a Necromancer in D & D. Do they have similarities? Yes. But if these backgrounds are too similar then why does Yredelemnul even exist, when Kiku can simply grant Necromancy spellbooks? The answer is that they are not really very similar at all. Not the least because Yred worshippers can get summons that follow them through levels, enslave uniques, and can use their abilities in full plate with no penalties, whereas Necromancers can deal spell damage from range, regenerate, turn themselves undead, and flat out become invulnerable for a short time.

You said it yourself, backgrounds are starting kits. None of this stuff happens on D:1, yred worshippers just have animate remains and bad melee, and necromancers just have pain and animate skeleton.

There is no other background with D:1 berserk. While there are reasonable arguments for removing Be, none have much in common with the ones for removing DK.

Okay then. At this point four other Zealot backgrounds have been systematically removed. Paladins, Priests, and now Death Knights and Healers, and all apparently for different reasons. Is having a diety at the beginning of the game really so toxic? What is it about THESE dieties that is more game-changing, at the beginning of the game where background actually matters, then D:1 Berserk?

Except for Healer those were all removed for the same reason, and that reason is that they were not game-changing on D:1. Berserk is, it's why Be is the strongest background in the game.

This also isn't why abyssal knights have been kept; you might recall that Beogh priests were removed, and Jiyva is unlikely to ever be added as a starting god. Abyssal knights are basically only kept because of abyss.

This seems like a poor reason to keep a background. 'Because of abyss'. Though I see that they are changing the Abyssal Knight start in 0.16 so that the masochistic among us can try to get a rune without ever leaving the Abyss. Is that really important?

I agree that abyssal knight should be removed. I'm just sharing the official reason for is continued existence.

[PleasingFungus]

Merging assassin into hunter would solve a major problem I've always had with the class, specifically that its name & kit very strongly imply a playstyle that does not exist in crawl.

[kroki]

not after i almost got greater player, sorry

[celem]

Merging assassin into hunter would solve a major problem I've always had with the class, specifically that its name & kit very strongly imply a playstyle that does not exist in crawl.

Needles and stabbing is quite a common playstyle and fits well with how I see an assassin. The As kit is quite effective in the early dungeon.

That said I would also support making him a blowpipe hunter, I wouldnt use As for that playstyle anyway (En). Needles and blowpipes are one of the few things i can reliably get on everyone before lair.

[bel]

(tangential joke)

That said I would also support making him a blowpipe hunter, I wouldnt use As for that playstyle anyway (En). Needles and blowpipes are one of the few things i can reliably get on everyone before lair.

spas[1/1]: I don't have a page labeled spas in my learndb. Did you mean: spen

[Sprucery]

To me, As has a different playstyle than Hu. Sneak and stab, if that fails (or is too risky), poison and kite.

At least give the cloak and stealth to blowgun hunters.

[Lasty]

I especially dislike the way that the game tends to remove backgrounds (or races) that seem thematic and interesting to me, such as Priest, Death Knight and Healer. The fact that they are "too easy" or "uninteresting" would still be better served with a retune, IMO.

Backgrounds are removed when no one is able to offer a retune that makes the background worth keeping. New backgrounds should generally fulfill the following criteria: 1) Is not identical or functionally identical to an existing background, 2) provides something of use in the first few levels of the dungeon, and 3) does not provide equipment that obsoletes significant amounts of what you find (end-game weapons, armour, rings, and evokables in particular), since backgrounds are meant to be a starting point, not an ending point.

Is having a diety at the beginning of the game really so toxic?

Frankly, yes. Finding altars and choosing a deity is an interesting aspect of the early dungeon and a meaningful milestone as well. Starting the game with a god makes the religion aspect of the game significantly less interesting. To my mind, the fewer zealot backgrounds we have, the better. I'd happily remove berserkers if they weren't iconic and beloved, but I suppose it's good for crawl to have an easy mode. Chaos knights and abyss knights I mind less because they serve unique purposes, whether or not you think those purposes are worthwhile.

[njvack]

I'd happily remove berserkers if they weren't iconic and beloved, but I suppose it's good for crawl to have an easy mode. Chaos knights and abyss knights I mind less because they serve unique purposes, whether or not you think those purposes are worthwhile.

Iconic and beloved features do get removed from Crawl from time to time. I think the biggest argument for keeping berserkers now that healers are gone is that if you're going to have zealot backgrounds, it's nice to have a "normal" god amongst them.

But you know? If there were another way to worship Lucy (say, a guaranteed altar-depth portal to Lucy's Special Starting Abyss), then AK could go away. And CK is silly enough that it can stand alone. Oddly, I feel like CK alone is enough, but AK and CK together kind of want Be to balance them out.

tl;dr maybe axing be is a good idea, it's not like trog altars are rare

[XuaXua]

I feel that CK is not necessary, as early Xom altars seem to be the most frequent encountered.

[Sandman25]

Be/CK are difficulty levels, please don't remove them.

[Pereza0]

I like Berserker, not because I actually play it much but because it is something you can point at to get new players into the game.

That background lets a newbie start and end a game without having to worry about magic nor other gods other than Trog.

Removing it would mean they would have no entry point as obvious, if they didn't spoil themselves they would pretty much have to check every god description to know what it did before choosing - provided they even made it to the temple in the first place...

[njvack]

IIRC, the tutorial introduces religion and is actually quite good.

As far as difficulty levels go: so are Troll and Octopode.

I don't know that removing Be would be worth the Mountain Dwarf-sized pile of hate it would garner, but... huh. I think that if religion is a meaningful choice players are supposed to make after the game starts, there should be a pretty high bar to letting them choose at the start. (Or a god who is really there for silly fun, like Xom.) I don't know that Trog passes that bar any more than Beogh or Yred or Makhleb did.

[Pereza0]

The tutorial introduces to god abilites, but it does not really say anything about what particular gods or what roles they are a better fit for.

Also, that background is a less defining choice than deity (or race!) is probably not obvious at all for new players. Having backgrounds that also define god choice is probably helpful in this aspect.

Berseker probably doesn't do much for veteran players, but they are great for players that might have trouble getting to the temple in the first place. They also force a quite narrowing conduct that makes them incompatible with the majority of backgrounds, a good reason for giving them their own background (unlike Death Knights for example, they work with pretty much everything other than necromancy because of overlapping, not because it is restricted)

[duvessa]

Xom as a challenge condition would be basically pointless without CK existing (and like Beogh, Gozag etc., Xom is basically not a useful god, so the point of it continuing to exist at all is questionable). It's not really much of a difficulty level at the moment though, monk is basically as bad as CK. I'd support removing Be and AK but I know it's never going to happen so I don't bother talking about it. There would still be an auto-win background, IE.

[tasonir]

Monk is a pretty powerful background these days. I don't recall specifics, but didn't they get their starting skills upped? I don't think they always had the 4 unarmed and 3 fighting they start with these days. Those two skills combined makes D:1 very smooth for them, imho. Of course the real unique part is the piety bonus, which also contributes a lot to them. They are my most won background, tied with hunters, followed by transmuters in third.

Another thing that sets monks apart is they are the only fighter background not set apart by giving them more items. They instead get the least items, and rely on their skills/god effects. It's arguably one of the best designed backgrounds.

[Cragspyder]

If you can't remove features, then adding a new feature permanently increases the total number of features.

Why is this a problem? We are adding two gods in 0.16. Do you suggest that we remove two gods to compensate, otherwise we will have too many features? More features is good, especially if balance is not a concern (which it is not in Dungeon Crawl).

"Choose weapon" is okay because all weapons in crawl are the same, and if you've played crawl it's pretty obvious that they are.

Well, implied insult aside, short blades and axes are notably different from the other weapons.

You said it yourself, backgrounds are starting kits. None of this stuff happens on D:1, yred worshippers just have animate remains and bad melee, and necromancers just have pain and animate skeleton.

Having a god seven to ten dungeon levels (and several character levels) earlier, and being able to gain piety for this time, makes a different in my opinion. Regardless, I will leave the Death Knight section of this discussion to die peacefully (hilarious!).

Let me be honest:

My post was intended as a bit tongue-in-cheek, and I thought the reaction would be people jumping in to defend their favourite backgrounds from being removed, which to an extent has happened (Berserker, Monk, etc). However, what I didn't expect was people jumping over themselves to toss these backgrounds. I wanted to get people talking about why we are removing them in the first place.

In essence, why do we remove backgrounds?

Every video game forum I've ever seen talks about 'balance' and making things fair. In a competitive environment, this makes sense, and explains why for every new ability added to World of Warcraft or every new character added to League of Legends, there are hosts and hosts of balance tweaks to make old characters viable, make new characters less 'overpowered' and other such problems that consume thousands of hours of developer time.

And the overarching conclusion that I have seen is that it is never good enough. Not just from the player's perspective, which is always going to be skewed towards their favourites, but from an actual mechanics perspective as well. The classes of WoW have gone in cycles though the expansions: now Druids and Warlocks are underpowered, Rogues and Warriors are overpowered, now its Warlocks and Mages, now Death Knights, now Monks, now Hunters suck, etc. ad infinitum. League of Legends professionals still have a pool of twenty or so 'best' characters to pick or ban, with maybe another twenty for shock value or to counter particular playstyles, but there are over a hundred characters total. The pool doesn't get larger, it simply shifts around with balance patch after balance patch.

So how does this relate to Dungeon Crawl? Well...

In a game where balance is not an issue, and competitive play is not an issue, why bother to remove features at all?

According to the information provided to me in this thread, these Zealot backgrounds we have been discussing were removed because they made very little difference at D:1 (save for Healer).

My answer to this is "who cares?"

The existence of these 'extraneous' backgrounds damages nothing and hurts no one, except it adds FLAVOUR to the game. The fact that you are a Paladin instead of a Fighter or Death Knight instead of a Necromancer might make little difference in terms of mechanics (a fact which you all seem to take for granted, and of which I am not convinced), but it does add theme.

Even if a background is notably easier (such as Berserker) or harder (such as Chaos Knight), why does that make a difference in a game like Dungeon Crawl? Players, much better players than me, regularly challenge themselves by not taking dieties at the Temple on purpose, or only using melee weapons, or other such nonsense because playing optimally makes no difference to anyone but yourself.

I read on these forums, in the past, some talk of Halflings being removed because Kobolds are flat out superior in most scenarios. Maybe that's true. Why does it matter? A Kobold is not a Halfling, and perhaps you wanted to play a Halfling. I propose we (continue) to let you.

Perhaps you all agree with Duvessa, who has kindly pointed out my ignorance and has notified me that 'all weapons in Dungeon Crawl are the same'. Therefore, why have different weapons at all? Just make them all swords, and give each race better or worse Long Blade skill depending on their specialization. Problem solved. The world of Dungeon Crawl is much duller for it, but as long as we have removed irrelevancy, then it's a victory, right?

Unless we are running up against some sort of hard limit on game features, I propose we simply let flavourful choices alone, until such time as someone can figure out how to make them both flavourful AND interesting. What is the harm?

[crate]

If you look just at monsters (which is one subset of the "features" in crawl):
If you only ever add and never remove monsters, you increase the number of things a player must learn about. Since one primary (intended) method for really learning about monsters in crawl is to die to them, I hope you can see how adding monsters without bound is a problem. This is one example of limiting features being important. (Of course, if you look at crawl development, you will notice that the number of monsters continues to increase every version, despite this being arguably the most important place to limit feature creep. So although I personally agree with the philosophy of removing choices that are not distinct enough to warrant retaining, I will not argue if you claim the devs don't follow their own philosophy very well and would like a different explanation.)

In general, more features makes crawl somewhat less approachable to new players (this is even true with backgrounds and races and gods!). If you want crawl to continue to draw in new players, this is an important consideration.

Therefore, why have different weapons at all?

The answer here is "because Linley made that decision and no one has changed it yet". That's not a very good answer (from a design standpoint), but it's the true one and this is also the case for a lot of other things in crawl. It's also probably important to note that removing DK is a lot easier than removing a weapon type.

[duvessa]

If you can't remove features, then adding a new feature permanently increases the total number of features.

Why is this a problem?

Because players don't have the infinite time required to learn about infinite features. Every time a feature is added the game gets inherently worse because it takes more time to learn. Unless the feature makes the game better in some other way by a greater degree, adding it is clearly bad for the game. Now consider that the absolute decision space introduced by adding a new feature tends to decrease the more features already exist, whereas the absolute increase in learning time stays the same. I'm personally disgusted that the total numbers of monsters and gods in DCSS are increasing, I stopped recommending DCSS to people several versions ago because the complexity is so high now that I don't consider it worth learning.

[wheals]

The existence of these 'extraneous' backgrounds damages nothing and hurts no one, except it adds FLAVOUR to the game. The fact that you are a Paladin instead of a Fighter or Death Knight instead of a Necromancer might make little difference in terms of mechanics (a fact which you all seem to take for granted, and of which I am not convinced), but it does add theme.

Does it? I've always liked that backgrounds had no permanent effect on you, since once the game starts you can do whatever the hell you want. Giving you that freedom is pretty cool from a flavour perspective, in my mind. And god backgrounds take away from that since you'll usually be keeping that god for at least most of the game. In the same way, getting to pick a god is a great "make your own story" aspect that gets lost from zealots.

[mechanicalmaniac]

The existence of these 'extraneous' backgrounds damages nothing and hurts no one, except it adds FLAVOUR to the game. The fact that you are a Paladin instead of a Fighter or Death Knight instead of a Necromancer might make little difference in terms of mechanics (a fact which you all seem to take for granted, and of which I am not convinced), but it does add theme.

Does it? I've always liked that backgrounds had no permanent effect on you, since once the game starts you can do whatever the hell you want. Giving you that freedom is pretty cool from a flavour perspective, in my mind. And god backgrounds take away from that since you'll usually be keeping that god for at least most of the game. In the same way, getting to pick a god is a great "make your own story" aspect that gets lost from zealots.

Most people pick a god at or before the Ecumenical Temple. That's pretty early in the game. Zealots just move the choice to character creation. Is a choice made there really all that different from a choice made about five dungeon levels later?

[scorpionwarrior]

Most people pick a god at or before the Ecumenical Temple. That's pretty early in the game. Zealots just move the choice to character creation. Is a choice made there really all that different from a choice made about five dungeon levels later?

Yes, because monsters aren't trying to kill you on the character creation screen and circumstances in the dungeon often influence your choice of god (if you know whats good for you) :p

If you want a particular god you risk making the hardest part of the game harder and I think that's fine. Most gods are super powerful and I don't think access to them should be guaranteed more than they already are.

[Ayutzia]

If you can't remove features, then adding a new feature permanently increases the total number of features.

Why is this a problem?

Because players don't have the infinite time required to learn about infinite features. Every time a feature is added the game gets inherently worse because it takes more time to learn. Unless the feature makes the game better in some other way by a greater degree, adding it is clearly bad for the game. Now consider that the absolute decision space introduced by adding a new feature tends to decrease the more features already exist, whereas the absolute increase in learning time stays the same. I'm personally disgusted that the total numbers of monsters and gods in DCSS are increasing, I stopped recommending DCSS to people several versions ago because the complexity is so high now that I don't consider it worth learning.

oops I clicked thank instead of report

[ebering]

The real reason current zealots are getting axed is to free up space in that column for a farmer start, a Fedhas zealot with boots, robe, a scythe and fruit (no bread, do you eat or use god powers??? INTERESTING CHOICE!).

[n1000]

Now consider that the absolute decision space introduced by adding a new feature tends to decrease the more features already exist, whereas the absolute increase in learning time stays the same.

Can you explain this? It's not obvious to me that this is true. Indeed, perhaps naively, the opposite seems true. Additional mechanics or features in an already complex game potentially have a multiplicative effect on the depth of decision making, while being just as easy to learn, at a basic level, as a new mechanic in any game.

Consider the religion mechanic in Civ IV (an extremely complex game) which makes the game take a bit longer to understand as a beginner, but increases strategic choices dramatically.

I stopped recommending DCSS to people several versions ago because the complexity is so high now that I don't consider it worth learning.

My friends are tantalized by complexity, and relish it. The same basic tactical advice we have always been giving still helps new players get started. Crawl isn't harder to pick up, unless when you recommend a game to someone you also tell them to read about every god and every monster in the game, which would be incredibly lame. I don't really understand the aversion to complexity in any case. Do you avoid recommending new games over old ones in general? Is Crysis not "worth learning" because it's so much more complex than Doom? Do the third dimension and incredible scope of GTA V have too high a marginal cost in "learning time" over the top-down shooting in GTA II? Taken to either extreme this argument seems ridiculous. Would you recommend playing Seven Words to someone doing a crossword puzzle because it's even easier to figure out? Complexity is obviously good!

[Cragspyder]

Because players don't have the infinite time required to learn about infinite features. Every time a feature is added the game gets inherently worse because it takes more time to learn. Unless the feature makes the game better in some other way by a greater degree, adding it is clearly bad for the game. Now consider that the absolute decision space introduced by adding a new feature tends to decrease the more features already exist, whereas the absolute increase in learning time stays the same. I'm personally disgusted that the total numbers of monsters and gods in DCSS are increasing, I stopped recommending DCSS to people several versions ago because the complexity is so high now that I don't consider it worth learning.

Sorry for continuing to quote you directly, I don't mean to attack you personally but we seem to disagree about nearly everything which makes for the most interesting dialogue.

Taking your thesis to an internet-level absurd conclusion, why are you playing Dungeon Crawl when you could play online Checkers instead? It is much simpler, easier to learn and has far less features.

Dungeon Crawl is ALREADY double to triple the complexity (and difficulty) of most video games out there. The GUI is primitive and there are a hundred hotkeys or commands to learn if you want to use those. 'O' is autoexplore and TAB is autoattack??? For cripes sake, there is important gameplay information THAT IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE THROUGH THE GAME. An example:

Did you know that a +1 robe is NOT flat out better then +0 leather armour? Find that out through the game? YOU CAN'T. I was randomly flicking through the Crawlwiki article on armour when I found out, by accident, about Guaranteed Damage Reduction. If you click on a piece of body armour in game, it makes NO MENTION OF THIS. The only hint to this feature is in the items section of the manual:

"On the other hand, body armour will have some guaranteed reduction against melee attacks, and heavier armours are better at this."

One line of one massive text file, and even then there is no information IN GAME to say for sure how MUCH GDR leather armour provides compared to a robe.

No one gets into Dungeon Crawl in the first place unless they like enormous complexity, difficulty and scale! There are dozens or hundreds of more accessible dungeon crawlers or even video games in general that people can pick. I have true difficulty understanding your point of view in this matter, I honestly do.

Looking at it from the other direction, how much complexity does an extra background add for a player learning the game? I would argue ZERO. Because that extra background has no effect outside of character selection. If they added, let's say "Wild Mage", to the game tomorrow, how does that change your Minotaur Berserker on his next game? It doesn't. It only adds complexity if you actually want to play the background, and even then not much, considering the backgrounds are merely meant to be starting kits anyways!

I will agree that adding enormous amount of features will greatly increase the delay between updates and the bug and beta testing required to make them function, which is why you simply prioritize the most important or interesting of these additons. If new backgrounds aren't interesting, do not add any! But we were (initially) talking about removing EXISTING features; the work has already been done! The bugs have already been squashed, sometimes for years! I ask again: Does removing a background truly improve the game?

If you want a particular god you risk making the hardest part of the game harder and I think that's fine. Most gods are super powerful and I don't think access to them should be guaranteed more than they already are.

Now HERE is the really interesting part, ScorpionWarrior. These Zealot backgrounds are removed because of the OPPOSITE of what you said. They are being removed BECAUSE THEY PROVIDE NO SUBSTANTIAL GAMEPLAY DIFFERENCE FROM OTHER BACKGROUNDS at the early parts of the game.

Does it? I've always liked that backgrounds had no permanent effect on you, since once the game starts you can do whatever the hell you want. Giving you that freedom is pretty cool from a flavour perspective, in my mind. And god backgrounds take away from that since you'll usually be keeping that god for at least most of the game. In the same way, getting to pick a god is a great "make your own story" aspect that gets lost from zealots.

Well, this was kind of my point in the first post. If you have a design goal, stick to the design goal! If the point of a background is to provide starting kit and nothing else character-wise, then (taken to the extreme), why have backgrounds AT ALL? Pick a race then give the person 12 points to put into their stats (as the current background influence on stats is 12). Give em an abstract point budget for equipment, tune the starting skills to whatever they picked for equipment and set em loose!

And if a background is only meant to be a one-click version of the method I listed above, then having every possible option in the form of a background choice simply makes sense. The only question left is "Are gods something you can pick at character creation"? I propose "Yes." ALL OF THEM. Because it has, in my opinion, no downside, assuming again that balance between backgrounds is irrelevant.

[kroki]

Most people pick a god at or before the Ecumenical Temple. That's pretty early in the game. Zealots just move the choice to character creation. Is a choice made there really all that different from a choice made about five dungeon levels later?

when you see an ogre on d2 as a non zealot start you run away most times. when you see an ogre on d2 as a berserker you press "aa" and kill it. by the time you reach temple you are already ***** piety most of times. id say it makes a major difference. don't get me wrong though - i love berserkers and trogs my fav god.

[duvessa]

Taking your thesis to an internet-level absurd conclusion, why are you playing Dungeon Crawl when you could play online Checkers instead? It is much simpler, easier to learn and has far less features.

Second sentence of my post, features can still be good for the game if they add enough to make up for the complexity drawback. I obviously do not believe this was true of any of the backgrounds that have been removed so far.

[roctavian]

I frequently see that "why balance a single player game" question. Game balance doesn't just provide parity in multiplayer, it also shapes player experience.

[Sprucery]

With Healer and Death Knight removed, we have 24 backgrounds if I counted them right. So there's room for 3 more. Any ideas?

The best argument for removing backgrounds is to make space for new more interesting backgrounds.

I know I won't be getting the Jiyva zealot I wanted.

[bel]

'O' is autoexplore and TAB is autoattack??? For cripes sake, there is important gameplay information THAT IS NOT EVEN AVAILABLE THROUGH THE GAME.

Press ??. (? is the help key, and ? is available from the menu, pretty much the first thing you should read is the commands for various keys)

If the point of a background is to provide starting kit and nothing else character-wise, then (taken to the extreme), why have backgrounds AT ALL? Pick a race then give the person 12 points to put into their stats (as the current background influence on stats is 12). Give em an abstract point budget for equipment, tune the starting skills to whatever they picked for equipment and set em loose!

Wanderer already exists. Background is there to guide new players into developing their character. My first character was a Be, and I very much liked that I did not need to know any spells at all.

In general, you are vastly underestimating the importance of what new players should be made to go through before actually playing the game.

[basil]

With Healer and Death Knight removed, we have 24 backgrounds if I counted them right. So there's room for 3 more. Any ideas?

27 is nice, but adding classes solely to hit that number is pretty bad. Similar for suggesting things just to replace removed things.

[Sprucery]

27 is nice, but adding classes solely to hit that number is pretty bad. Similar for suggesting things just to replace removed things.

I agree. We have room for 3 interesting, well-designed backgrounds.

[kroki]

bring back stalker please. i want to play a vine stalker stalker

[mechanicalmaniac]

Yes, because monsters aren't trying to kill you on the character creation screen and circumstances in the dungeon often influence your choice of god (if you know whats good for you) :p

Circumstances in the dungeon do influence your choice of god, yes. Those circumstances include whether or not you already have a god. Because not every god has a zealot, players are given a choice between being a zealot and having a god from the get-go with some starting piety to boot, or waiting until the Ecumenical Temple so they have a wider selection of gods. This is an interesting choice.

[njvack]

I've always liked that backgrounds had no permanent effect on you, since once the game starts you can do whatever the hell you want.

Backgrounds affect starting stats, which does have a permanent effect. I see why this is there for balance, but it still has always seemed like an inconsistency in the design of backgrounds.

[Lasty]

According to the information provided to me in this thread, these Zealot backgrounds we have been discussing were removed because they made very little difference at D:1 (save for Healer).

That's a fairly selective reading of the ranges of responses you got. As I said before, starting with a god is, in the absence of any other considerations, a bad thing for the game, not because it's boring or has no impact, but rather because you've made an end-game choice before the game even started. To explain further, since the point seems to have been missed the first time, choosing a religion in crawl has huge impact on your gameplay, and generally the religion you choose will be with you for the rest of your game. Having a few gods offered on each floor until you hit the Temple, and then potentially still having a few choices locked out until you go deeper, means that you have to make an interesting choice between getting the power of worshipping a god now (and getting to start building its piety) when you need the boost most, and getting the god that you might consider to be ideal for the character you're building. Additionally, what happens to your character in the first few floors of the dungeon might change what you're looking for in a god from what it would have been at the character creation screen, giving even more interesting decision points.

Circumstances in the dungeon do influence your choice of god, yes. Those circumstances include whether or not you already have a god. Because not every god has a zealot, players are given a choice between being a zealot and having a god from the get-go with some starting piety to boot, or waiting until the Ecumenical Temple so they have a wider selection of gods. This is an interesting choice.

These sorts of choices are interesting to the extent that you're choosing between distinct things of comperable value. They're also interesting to the extent that context may change the choice you make from the choice you would make without context. On the character creation screen, you have no context, and you don't have options of comperable value: would you rather start the game with Trog, or with a shield and a might potion? Obviously Trog. Would you rather start the game with Trog, or a few wands and a short blade? Obviously Trog. Trog is just so much better an option than other starts that being able to choose it from the starting menu does not provide an "interesting" choice, unless you mean the choice between a narrow and easy game versus a more challenging and wide game.

The existence of these 'extraneous' backgrounds damages nothing and hurts no one

Not true -- having more choices on the start screen means new players have more things to consider before even getting a chance to play. It also means making future code and design decisions based on having that role already eating screen real estate and design space.

And if a background is only meant to be a one-click version of the method I listed above, then having every possible option in the form of a background choice simply makes sense.

If you actually had the option to pick any possible combination of traits from the starting screen, I think you'd quickly change your mind about this assertion. It's possible you're one of the few people who would enjoy sorting through a list of millions (depending on what you mean by every possible option) of choices looking for the exact one you want, but that would make the game unplayable to almost everyone else. Having a few distinct choices is much, much better than an infinity of almost identical choices from both an interface standpoint and also from a game design standpoint.

[nicolae]

Now consider that the absolute decision space introduced by adding a new feature tends to decrease the more features already exist, whereas the absolute increase in learning time stays the same.

Can you explain this? It's not obvious to me that this is true. Indeed, perhaps naively, the opposite seems true. Additional mechanics or features in an already complex game potentially have a multiplicative effect on the depth of decision making, while being just as easy to learn, at a basic level, as a new mechanic in any game.

Consider the religion mechanic in Civ IV (an extremely complex game) which makes the game take a bit longer to understand as a beginner, but increases strategic choices dramatically.

I stopped recommending DCSS to people several versions ago because the complexity is so high now that I don't consider it worth learning.

My friends are tantalized by complexity, and relish it. The same basic tactical advice we have always been giving still helps new players get started. Crawl isn't harder to pick up, unless when you recommend a game to someone you also tell them to read about every god and every monster in the game, which would be incredibly lame. I don't really understand the aversion to complexity in any case. Do you avoid recommending new games over old ones in general? Is Crysis not "worth learning" because it's so much more complex than Doom? Do the third dimension and incredible scope of GTA V have too high a marginal cost in "learning time" over the top-down shooting in GTA II? Taken to either extreme this argument seems ridiculous. Would you recommend playing Seven Words to someone doing a crossword puzzle because it's even easier to figure out? Complexity is obviously good!

While I don't agree with duvessa that new monsters and gods make the game intractably complex, I'm not sure that it's necessary to get on his case about his personal complexity preferences. (And complexity isn't always good or desirable to every player; I have no desire to even try Dwarf Fortress, for instance.)

[mechanicalmaniac]

Obviously Trog.

That sounds like a problem with Trog, not a problem with zealots in general.

unless you mean the choice between a narrow and easy game versus a more challenging and wide game.

That's exactly what I meant.

(And complexity isn't always good or desirable to every player; I have no desire to even try Dwarf Fortress, for instance.)

tha fuck you say 'bout mai waifu

[Lasty]

Obviously Trog.

That sounds like a problem with Trog, not a problem with zealots in general.

I used Trog as an example, but any other zealot aside from Xom is the same case: you start with something incredibly powerful and game defining (god worship and piety).

unless you mean the choice between a narrow and easy game versus a more challenging and wide game.

That's exactly what I meant.

In that case you should be perfectly content with the way you can already make that choice.

[mechanicalmaniac]

In that case you should be perfectly content with the way you can already make that choice.

I am, but evidently some people aren't; that's why I was putting in a good word for zealots.

[and into]

I wouldn't go quite as far as duvessa—I would still recommend DCSS to people—but yeah, there have been lots of enemies added that don't actually bring much to the game. Note that it is this second part (which duvessa brought up, also) that is the problem.

The special vault guards are examples of strong design: Each of them has one very noticeable ability that alters your situation markedly (pardon the pun), but on their own they aren't very strong for the time when you come across them. Thorn hunters in Swamp are not great—the brambles are a nice aesthetic touch in tiles but have never made me play differently—however they do at least serve a niche, in giving Swamp a credible ranged threat that is not shut down by rpois, so I am fine with them serving that purpose. By contrast, I'm not even sure what most of the demon spawn in Pan even do, despite having won a few 10 and 15-runers since they were added, nor do I know exactly what all the different flavors of spriggans do. In terms of game play, killing them feels just like killing tougher elves with differently flavored tricks that achieve very similar effects in terms of game play. So, no, I don't think they add anything to the game. And in the case of spriggans, the "low AC, low HP, high EV" model is just particularly annoying, to boot.

Keeping things in for "flavor" or just because they aren't actively harmful and terrible, even when they do not add much to the game, is an excellent approach if you want a bloated mess of a game three or four versions down the line. Fortunately that isn't what DCSS is going for, and it has not reached that point. So I do at least take heart in the fact that the devs are willing to cut extraneous things from the game, and thus, it is possible that a purge of unnecessary enemies might be on the horizon in the next version or two. (One can hope.)

As for backgrounds, probably a good rule of thumb is, "Does this background actually offer different game play, compared to what else is currently available?" Some of the current backgrounds are borderline redundant, there's definitely some overlap, but I don't think there are any glaring problems at the moment: over the last few versions some backgrounds have been better differentiated, and the worst offenders (like DK) have been removed.

New backgrounds would be cool, provided they really do offer something distinct that you cannot closely replicate already. Too much customization puts the onus on the player to figure out what combinations are viable, powerful, and/or fun. Crawl intentionally avoids that, for reasons already well articulated.

[crate]

I actually think vault humans are a good example of the flaw with how crawl has been adding monsters.

Even if you think they're good monsters (I think the ideas are mostly good but have some problems with implementation in some cases), the problem is that they are the only monsters in crawl that use their specific gimmicks. In addition, there are weird things about how some of them work: convokers can be interrupted with curare (seriously how are you supposed to know this? It doesn't stop any other spell in the game!), wardens not only make doors close they also make doors harder to destroy (at least this one is easy to figure out, but I still don't think it's necessary to do). Mark also confuses a lot of players, partly because of the fact that sentinels have both mark and a separate "shout" that is super loud (so it's often not clear that mark by itself doesn't wake things up, and this is actually reasonably important to know!). (Alarm traps are also super loud, so they have the same problem.)

As I've said several times, having single-use gimmicks like this in crawl is a huge increase to how much players have to know. In particular the protector (whatever those are called, I probably have the wrong name) ability set would work perfectly fine elsewhere, and combining them with a different monster set (for instance, perhaps with a splitting monster like starcursed masses) would lead to the desired effect of fights in Vaults feeling different from fights in Dungeon etc. without adding nearly as much of a burden of knowledge on players.

But, instead what happens is you just get more monsters with unique abilities.

[and into]

^ I agree that special abilities like that should probably be used more than once, and also that the very obscure effects (e.g., curare both interrupts and prevents recall) should be removed.

[Sandman25]

This is not a problem with monsters, it is a problem with lack of description. Write "can be stopped by curare", "You are marked. All non-sleeping monsters know your location as long as you are marked", "Warden locked all doors and made them harder to destroy" etc.
In my current game Thorn hunter created a bramble right on the upstairs when I was adjacent to the stairs (it has very high MR and see invis, quite a problem for En). Spriggan Rider in open terrain is even worse because of high speed. Demonspawns are very interesting too but they don't clearly state effect (Sap - what is it?, Black Mark?)

[bel]

I actually think vault humans are a good example of the flaw with how crawl has been adding monsters.

Even if you think they're good monsters (I think the ideas are mostly good but have some problems with implementation in some cases), the problem is that they are the only monsters in crawl that use their specific gimmicks. In addition, there are weird things about how some of them work: convokers can be interrupted with curare (seriously how are you supposed to know this? It doesn't stop any other spell in the game!), wardens not only make doors close they also make doors harder to destroy (at least this one is easy to figure out, but I still don't think it's necessary to do). Mark also confuses a lot of players, partly because of the fact that sentinels have both mark and a separate "shout" that is super loud (so it's often not clear that mark by itself doesn't wake things up, and this is actually reasonably important to know!). (Alarm traps are also super loud, so they have the same problem.)

As I've said several times, having single-use gimmicks like this in crawl is a huge increase to how much players have to know. In particular the protector (whatever those are called, I probably have the wrong name) ability set would work perfectly fine elsewhere, and combining them with a different monster set (for instance, perhaps with a splitting monster like starcursed masses) would lead to the desired effect of fights in Vaults feeling different from fights in Dungeon etc. without adding nearly as much of a burden of knowledge on players.

But, instead what happens is you just get more monsters with unique abilities.

But one is not supposed to know every obscure detail about monsters. I never knew the stuff about curare and convokers, but I handle them just fine (I just confuse them).

To me, having these gimmicks is a good thing, even if it is single-use. I don't feel like the game is just rolling bigger numbers with same monsters.

(edit)

This is not a problem with monsters, it is a problem with lack of description. Write "can be stopped by curare", "You are marked. All non-sleeping monsters know your location as long as you are marked", "Warden locked all doors and made them harder to destroy" etc.
In my current game Thorn hunter created a bramble right on the upstairs when I was adjacent to the stairs (it has very high MR and see invis, quite a problem for En). Spriggan Rider in open terrain is even worse because of high speed. Demonspawns are very interesting too but they don't clearly state effect (Sap - what is it?, Black Mark?)

In trunk, you can simply xv on the monster and read the spell description. By the way, about thorn hunters, indeed, my experience with them is the same. MR immune, see invisible, very tough for enchanters. I usually dread meeting them whenever I play SpEn.