Why no more random deck generation?

[ololoev]

http://s-z.org/neil/git/?p=crawl.git;a=commit;h=43665f35dd8ee3fee8c3fdf460a4701eb3b854d3

Remove decks from random generation

They're in a better place as Nemelex-only items than as random
dungeon loot; there's plenty of fun evocable effects without decks
around, especially now that decks have lost their niche as
permanent benefit engines.

Decks have a lot of fun and powerful effects that cannot be achieved via other items (huge HP&MP heal from alchemist at power 2, elixir, wild magic, fortitude damage shaving, awesome support from Rangers card, Crusade that charms nearby opponents, Tomb and warpwright as the ultimate escape tools). Personally I don't see how this act of removing may affect players who doesn't use decks, but it surely have an impact on those who do.

[Hurkyl]

Personally I don't see how this act of removing may affect players who doesn't use decks,

They no longer clutter the inventory if you autopickup miscellaneous.

(also, optimal play is no longer encouraged to waste time fiddling with decks to obtain usable consumables)

[ololoev]

They no longer clutter the inventory if you autopickup miscellaneous.

So, adding "decks" section to pickup options isn't better than removing an interesting game aspect? Or it will clutter autopickup screen?

[KoboldLord]

Decks are intrusive and fiddly, and they are better off as Nemelex-specific flavor or out of the game entirely. To make a potion or scroll into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it. To make a deck into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it, and then you calculate the odds of getting a useful consumable out of a deck of that type, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it, and then you identify that deck again, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it again, and then identify again, and maybe after multiple repetitions you'll finally get a good consumable that you wanted. Or maybe there will be nothing you care about in the whole deck and you will have wasted a few minutes of your time.

Nemelex at least gives you abilities that work with cards to make them somewhat less terrible gameplay, basically being another generic random direct damage/summoning deity only with no upper limit on piety.

[dynast]

This change does not affect the players it was aimed at because the players who dont like fiddying with decks dont do so. Please devs, work on your aim, stop making the game less fun for some people in order to make it fun for nobody.

[Siegurt]

Decks are intrusive and fiddly, and they are better off as Nemelex-specific flavor or out of the game entirely. To make a potion or scroll into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it. To make a deck into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it, and then you calculate the odds of getting a useful consumable out of a deck of that type, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it, and then you identify that deck again, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it again, and then identify again, and maybe after multiple repetitions you'll finally get a good consumable that you wanted. Or maybe there will be nothing you care about in the whole deck and you will have wasted a few minutes of your time.

Nemelex at least gives you abilities that work with cards to make them somewhat less terrible gameplay, basically being another generic random direct damage/summoning deity only with no upper limit on piety.

How i make a deck into a useful consumable:

I pick it up and use id it to figure out what kind of deck it is, is it is summoning or destruction i am done.

If it is any other type then i decide if the number of id scrolls i have is work issuing in that type of deck, often it isn't (unless i am so far into extended that i have literally anything else i could want) if it is, then i spend an id scroll on it, if the top card is crap, usually i drop the deck and am done, once in a great while i am interested in some effect from a deck, but it isn't the one on top, enough to spend more than one id scroll on it, but that is vanishingly rare.

Since this sequence happens perhaps one every two or three winning games, i consider it a vaguely interesting event, it simply doesn't happen often enough to me to have it be tedious.

I have never once come across a randomly generated deck and thought "oh what kind of stupid crap is this going to be, now i have to spend precious time, wasted on this stupid item in order to be technically optimal"

Now how i read argument in the *commit* seems to be much more of "these don't contribute much to regular game play, and making them nemelex only makes the god more unique and interesting" i disagree with the premise slightly but i find the logic to be sound (if anything, the decks gifted by nemelex are boring, and the ones found in non nemelex play are interesting, plus when they exist, they give you something to do with your id scrolls)

If this is to stay, i would suggest one or of the following complimenting changes:

Wand can no longer be use id'd to discover number of charges.

(Slightly) Reduced generation of id scrolls.

[duvessa]

Removing decks makes the game more fun to me.

[Tiktacy]

Decks should still spawn in zigs. Also, does nemelex now gift a larger variety of decks?

In any case, I approve of this change as long as zigs still spawn them and you can keep the decks after you abandon nemelex.

[green]

"Remove" is not how you improve a game. Add an option to stop autopicking decks on evocables, so the players like me that enjoy using decks in no-Nemelex runs, even if like you are arguing they suck, can still have fun with evocation characters. Decks of summoning or destruction are really fun to play with and you know that most of the time you'll get something interesting.
Just because your inventory is full of wands, decks and stuff you don't have to REMOVE the feature that someone before you has added to the game. Make a work around it, add the option to stop autopicking decks. Removing features from the game to make it even more straightforward is not fun.

[crate]

RIP tome of destruction

[dpeg]

"Remove" is not how you improve a game.

This is not true. Different devteams will do this differently but for us, removal is definitely an option to improve the game. (To be sure, note that a lot more content gets added each release than we cut.) There are different reasons to remove things. The most important one is if the change *increases* variety; this happens if the removed option was dominating. Another good reason for removal is lack of differentiation between options. Yet another is if we decide that the costs (learning, interface, code, whatever) outweigh the gains (gameplay, choice generation, flavour).

That last one applies to decks. I think the change is unambiguously good: cards and decks are not only fiddly (players seem very concerned about inventory space, but that's not my main gripe with decks). As long as Nemelex is around, there will be the decks of cards, everyone else does not have to bother.

Just because your inventory is full of wands, decks and stuff you don't...

I don't think this was the main motivation anyway.

... have to REMOVE the feature that someone before you has added to the game.

This social argument is iffy: everything has been added by someone, including some pretty bad ideas (I know what I am talking about). *If* decks ever really disappear, then we'll have a long discussion about which card effects to preserve in other forms. This has happened before; for example, the Tomb card used to be the Tomb of Dorokhloe spell.

Removing features from the game to make it even more straightforward is not fun.

Removing has nothing to do with straightforward. I play the board game Go, which has an extremely slim rule set. It is far from straightforward.

[duvessa]

I'd love to watch these people play a version of crawl that never removed d:1 zot traps, amnesia traps, orc priests with distortion weapons, 0.6 randomized energy, or nausea

[Rast]

Decks are intrusive and fiddly, and they are better off as Nemelex-specific flavor or out of the game entirely. To make a potion or scroll into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it. To make a deck into a useful consumable, you pick it up and identify it, and then you calculate the odds of getting a useful consumable out of a deck of that type, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it, and then you identify that deck again, and then you flip a card off the top to get rid of it again, and then identify again, and maybe after multiple repetitions you'll finally get a good consumable that you wanted. Or maybe there will be nothing you care about in the whole deck and you will have wasted a few minutes of your time.

Or you can spam the deck. Better with certain deck types than others.

This is unequivocally a nerf, because any deck of summons is a pretty solid item for winning a fight or running away from a fight.

[all before]

I don't really have an issue with decks so much as much as deck and card identification. If the design goal of decks is to provide random but useful effects in certain tactical situations, then identification is directly counter to that goal. In other words, I think it would be fine if decks remained in the game, but the type of deck was automatically identified to the player and there was no ability to id top cards. Likewise, I can enjoy Nemelex only if I pretend that her rearrangement and identification abilities don't exist and treat her as a god that allows me to spam random but good effects. So restricting decks to Nemelex doesn't solve this problem, in fact it just means I can only use decks in situations where I optimally should care a lot about fiddling with identifying as many cards as possible before using them.

All that said, I think there are too many evocables in the game already, and it's true that the number of unique card effects at the moment is a big cognitive load on the player, so I don't care too much. But I think the design aim of cards is a good one, just implemented poorly.

[Arrhythmia]

"Remove" is not how you improve a game. Add an option to stop autopicking decks on evocables, so the players like me that enjoy using decks in no-Nemelex runs, even if like you are arguing they suck, can still have fun with evocation characters. Decks of summoning or destruction are really fun to play with and you know that most of the time you'll get something interesting.
Just because your inventory is full of wands, decks and stuff you don't have to REMOVE the feature that someone before you has added to the game. Make a work around it, add the option to stop autopicking decks. Removing features from the game to make it even more straightforward is not fun.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

[duvessa]

But I think the design aim of cards is a good one, just implemented poorly.

the mistake you're making here is assuming that cards had a design aim

[Leszczynek]

(To be sure, note that a lot more content gets added each release than we cut.)

Oh really? It certainly doesn't feel like it. It's only true with gods and probably vaults (not sure about those), monsters stay about even, items and spells are in negatives.

Please don't remove decks, just make them stackable and make a separate autopickup option for them. Sure, they aren't the most reliable means leading to a win, but so aren't potions of mutation/mutagenic chunks, and you don't remove those. If decks seem useless to characters that aren't Nemelex worshippers, wouldn't it be better to rework them (decks, not worshippers)? I certainly find them more interesting than elemental evocables at the very least.

[duvessa]

monsters stay about even, items and spells are in negatives.

this is possibly true for player spells but I am certain it is not true for monsters, items, or especially monster spells

never mind the number of new abilities, status effects, etc.

[duvessa]

please do remove decks

[andreas]

It's hard to design good spells, monsters, etc.; it's easier to identify and remove badly done ones. But the solution is to design, suggest, and code up good ones (and yes, also, ways to fix the badly done ones), not to complain about removing badly done ones.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.

I've been trying to write up an idea recently. Who knew that the empty file I've been staring at was already perfect!

[Sprucery]

Linley's Dungeon Crawl had about 143 (player) spells, DCSS 0.18 has about 130 spells. But of course the current spell list is much better.

[Arrhythmia]

I've been trying to write up an idea recently. Who knew that the empty file I've been staring at was already perfect!

Willful misinterpretation is not cool, friend.

[njvack]

Linley's Dungeon Crawl had about 143 (player) spells, DCSS 0.18 has about 130 spells. But of course the current spell list is much better.

For the purposes of that comparison, I'd absolutely consider species and divine abilities (active and passive), equipment effects, evokable effects, and consumable effects "player spells." I'm willing to bet there are waaaaaaay more of those now than there were in the original Crawl.

But of course the raw numbers really don't matter anyhow.

[Leszczynek]

I'd also consider looking at changes from, say, last 3-5 major releases instead of comparing to some ancient version most of the current playerbase have never seen. Maybe then a dev trend towards removals would be more apparent.

[Rast]

Linley's Dungeon Crawl had about 143 (player) spells, DCSS 0.18 has about 130 spells. But of course the current spell list is much better.

Still too many.

[andreas]

Willful misinterpretation is not cool, friend.

Sorry, it was a (not very good) joke. Still, the serious point was that I don't know what the right interpretation is of what you say, since it does seem clear that sometimes additions improve things. I don't see why I should think either one or the other of removal and addition is more likely to improve things, in general, without more specific information. I thought it relevant since there does seem to me to be a bit of fetishization of removal and simplification for its own sake around here.


edit: now I regret the loaded word choice ''fetishization,'' which is probably more combative than I meant to be. Maybe something like ''knee jerk reaction'' would have better conveyed what I meant.

[all before]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone advocate "removal and simplification for its own sake," and the opposition between adding good content and removing bad or extraneous content is a false one. If anything, there is a fetishization for adding or retaining bad features due to a sunk cost fallacy or a misguided notion that complexity is in itself good design.

You might be right that inventing genuinely good new content is more difficult than noting problems with existing features. But it may also be a sign that crawl is currently an overlong and overstuffed game, and that it could improve by weeding out its annoying, extraneous, or broken content.

[andreas]

I don't think I've ever seen anyone advocate "removal and simplification for its own sake,"

To appearances someone did in this thread? Off the top of my head, a while ago someone suggested merging the two sorts of bardings, and the argument seemed to entirely be that it would be simpler. I'm... surprised at your impression of GDD, but I don't think it is worth anyone's time to go sorting through past threads.

and the opposition between adding good content and removing bad or extraneous content is a false one.

Nothing I said suggested you can only do one.

If anything, there is a fetishization for adding or retaining bad features due to a sunk cost fallacy or a misguided notion that complexity is in itself good design.

''There is a fetish for x around here'' is compatible with ''there is a fetish for the opposite of x around here;'' and in this case, I think, they are actually both true (among different people).

You might be right that inventing genuinely good new content is more difficult than noting problems with existing features. But it may also be a sign that crawl is currently an overlong and overstuffed game, and that it could improve by weeding out its annoying, extraneous, or broken content.

Yes, I agree that annoying, extraneous, and broken content should be weeded out (who wouldn't?) and with the only slightly more controversial claim that crawl is currently overlong and overstuffed.

[ydeve]

I don't understand how some people think that removal is unnecessary for good design. Has anyone else seen someone's Magic deck where they only added cards, never taking any out? Aimless chaff is bad for the whole, even if you think that they're fun individually.

[all before]

Off the top of my head, a while ago someone suggested merging the two sorts of bardings, and the argument seemed to entirely be that it would be simpler.

Is there a reason to reduce item base types, besides trying to reduce this kind of cognitive load and avoid player confusion?

[andreas]

If I understand rightly what you intend to point out, and if I remember that thread correctly, then I think you are misinterpreting my posts there. That said, I cannot imagine a more tedious conversation than exegesis of past Tavern threads, so I suggest we just agree to disagree and drop it.

edit: word choice

[Tiktacy]

I don't understand how some people think that removal is unnecessary for good design. Has anyone else seen someone's Magic deck where they only added cards, never taking any out? Aimless chaff is bad for the whole, even if you think that they're fun individually.

I almost made this my signature just now.

[PleasingFungus]

I'd love to watch these people play a version of crawl that never removed d:1 zot traps, amnesia traps, orc priests with distortion weapons, 0.6 randomized energy, or nausea

what was 0.6 randomized energy?

[duvessa]

cast spell at adjacent yak/hydra/whatever -> yak/hydra/whatever may get two melee attacks

[ololoev]

I'd love to watch these people play a version of crawl that never removed d:1 zot traps, amnesia traps, orc priests with distortion weapons, 0.6 randomized energy, or nausea

Removing features can make the game easier and/or less tedious to the players disregarding in what matter do they play. Whether you use this freaking decks or not, you will step into zot trap or face orc priest of distortion wielding weapon of lol. Also, some stuff are definitely OP and should be removed or nerfed (e.g. firestorm).
But some stuff can be left in the game without any impact on the gameplay: random decks, trovel/exp cards in the deck of oddities, hammers, etc. This items can spawn random opportunities that makes some games unique, while devs are trying to make every game the same.
If you want to talk about optimal playstyle, I can say that nobody plays optimal. There are too many aspects to do it. If one wants to play as optimal as it is possible, then it is up to him to decide what to do.

[green]

I'd love to watch these people play a version of crawl that never removed d:1 zot traps, amnesia traps, orc priests with distortion weapons, 0.6 randomized energy, or nausea

Removing features can make the game easier and/or less tedious to the players disregarding in what matter do they play. Whether you use this freaking decks or not, you will step into zot trap or face orc priest of distortion wielding weapon of lol. Also, some stuff are definitely OP and should be removed or nerfed (e.g. firestorm).
But some stuff can be left in the game without any impact on the gameplay: random decks, trovel/exp cards in the deck of oddities, hammers, etc. This items can spawn random opportunities that makes some games unique, while devs are trying to make every game the same.
If you want to talk about optimal playstyle, I can say that nobody plays optimal. There are too many aspects to do it. If one wants to play as optimal as it is possible, then it is up to him to decide what to do.

This guy gets it. I don't mind if the game gets rid of broken features like d:1 zot traps, but, what is the point on removing decks on all characters but Nemelex followers? The main argument is that they were not as good as other items and that you had to blow identify scrolls in them. Then don't use them! Decks are a fun feature, why do you have to make the game more simple? What is the point? Crawl is fun because most games are different, getting rid of "useless" stuff just for the sake of it won't lead anywhere. Don't do to scythes what you did to hammers either.
When decks make the game grindy or way too simple and becomes a negative feature of the game then go ahead and remove it, but right now it is something I enjoy playing with and makes cool stories, unless, of course, you just want to make every game the same.

[Lasty]

[...]what is the point on removing decks on all characters but Nemelex followers? The main argument is that they were not as good as other items and that you had to blow identify scrolls in them. Then don't use them! Decks are a fun feature, why do you have to make the game more simple?

The argument is absolutely not that decks are weaker than other items. The argument is that decks are very strong items that are tedious and/or spoilery to use. Players who feel this way have the option of ignoring a powerful item in order to have more fun, or having less fun in order to have more power. Such choices are not good choices to include in the game.

Of course, you can say that the players who feel this way should not be catered to, but as it happens there's a critical mass of devs who feel that the tediousness and/or spoilery aspects outweigh the potential for fun.

When decks make the game grindy or way too simple and becomes a negative feature of the game then go ahead and remove it

Yep, that's more or less the motivation behind the removal. The members of the dev team don't remove things that they thinks are fun and positive features of the game, tongue-in-cheek comments notwithstanding.

[green]

The argument is absolutely not that decks are weaker than other items. The argument is that decks are very strong items that are tedious and/or spoilery to use. Players who feel this way have the option of ignoring a powerful item in order to have more fun, or having less fun in order to have more power. Such choices are not good choices to include in the game.

Of course, you can say that the players who feel this way should not be catered to, but as it happens there's a critical mass of devs who feel that the tediousness and/or spoilery aspects outweigh the potential for fun.
Yep, that's more or less the motivation behind the removal. The members of the dev team don't remove things that they thinks are fun and positive features of the game, tongue-in-cheek comments notwithstanding.

There are many solutions regarding decks:
-Make them impossible to identify. If that's the "tedious part" you are refering to, I mean.
-About the spoilery part: Adding a small explanation (a 10 words phrase, something like that) in every card effect would make it unspoilery. Let me give a bad spoilery example: "The Alchemist: It heals the user but not without a price".
Also the spoilery argument could be used to remove Xom too, if you haven't experienced countless deaths by his random effects you won't know every possible effect he can do, and they can be insanely powerful (like Dragon Form). Of course, the reason why Xom won't get deleted is because it's random. Making decks random too would make them a healthy feature for the game: random gameplay (with skill being the biggest factor) is a part of Crawl's philosophy. When you are going to follow Xom at an altar you are warned that he does caprichous things, a similar warning could be used in decks.
-Finally, if decks are that powerful, then make them scale more with Evocations so specialized characters like Artificiers become a real thing. For example, using a legendary deck while just having 3 Evocations skill will make both the bad and the good effects be worse. Battle decks could have very small Evocations requirement. Also deck type should probably be identified when picked up, like wands.

I think that removing such an interesting feature like decks, which provides a fun way to beat the game for some characters and could provide a fair bonus to some others, is not the way to go. I'd go with temporal removal of the feature overall if everyone agrees that it is broken and unhealthy for the game (opinion I don't share), but only if that would mean a rework of the mechanic to be more atuned to Crawl's philosophy.

[andreas]

About the spoilery part: Adding a small explanation (a 10 words phrase, something like that) in every card effect would make it unspoilery. Let me give a bad spoilery example: "The Alchemist: It heals the user but not without a price"

These already exist in-game through the ?/ menu. IME they are vague enough that I still end up looking the card up on the wiki/learndb. With crawl documentation's allergy to numbers, it is very hard to tell what using such a card will actually be like without prior experimentation with it or without looking at spoilers.

[Hurkyl]

There are many solutions regarding decks:

Then make a concrete feature request and get it accepted.

We already have a solution (get rid of decks) and even got it implemented.

So long as the solution is believed to be better than the prior state of affairs, it would be rather foolish to revert the solution prior to such time that an even better solution has been implemented.

[infinitevox]

I'd love to watch these people play a version of crawl that never removed d:1 zot traps, amnesia traps, orc priests with distortion weapons, 0.6 randomized energy, or nausea

I have, and occasionally still do for nostalgia purposes, or if I really feel like I need a challenge.

Removing Decks is an extremely silly decision. If you don't like them, don't use them, and don't worship Nemlex. But removing them because a vocal minority doesn't like them is detrimental to the silent majority that do like to play with them.

And please don't try the "It's a UI issue" argument, as decks already have all the code done to use them, and aren't clunky or "fiddly" (whatever that means) as some people claim.
They're an interesting, fun, and unique part of Crawl that should stay.
Also claiming it'll make Nemlex "more unique" is a cop-out. If there is a problem with Nemlex, let's focus on fixing that, instead of ruining a feature that many people enjoy playing with.
Dpeg, I support your arguments like 9/10 times. This is not one of them, man. :/

[infinitevox]

I don't understand how some people think that removal is unnecessary for good design. Has anyone else seen someone's Magic deck where they only added cards, never taking any out? Aimless chaff is bad for the whole, even if you think that they're fun individually.

Say that to my Battle of Wits deck's face in real life, not online, and see what happens!

[Lasty]

If we had cooking and crafting in crawl, there would definitely be people who would complain when we removed those, but that wouldn't mean that it was wrong to remove them.

[dynast]

If we had cooking and crafting in crawl, there would definitely be people who would complain when we removed those, but that wouldn't mean that it was wrong to remove them.

Would the reasoning to keep them be the same reason to keep decks? I doubt it. It does appear the only thing similar is your reasoning to remove it, "you liking it nots excusable to keep it, which is excusable for me to remove it".

[dpeg]

Guys, the basic presumption is this: We make a game that's fun for us, knowing that it will also be fun for others. *Every* thing we remove or change was dear to someone -- I hear there's a player who left in disgust when regeneration moved from rings to amulets.

If we don't feel like decks add more to the game than they cost, then that's the death sentence for decks. If you are *really* attached to decks, stick to an older version, make a crawl-decks fork or leave in disgust.

infinitevox: I am grateful for the 9/10 The "silent majority" argument is problematic (ask Tiktacy about "identification minigame"), but this actually goes both ways. *Even if* a vocal majority would support decks, we should remove them if we think that's better. (See my first sentence: it is better to have a game driven by designers developing a game that's fun for them. It is impossible to design for some abstract audience. I guess professional titles have to do this, but I also believe that indie games are better because they don't.)

[Tiktacy]

(ask Tiktacy about "identification minigame")

My response would be that not everyone on the tavern has played the game as many times as I have(or as many times as people like sar or duvessa have). Odds are, the first 500 times people won't find it tedious. But after you get to 1500+ games it gets fucking terrible.

It takes a long time to realize that certain things are problematic. I imagine a poll asking if decks should be removed would look very similar, since most people haven't played the game enough to know how mechanically weird and out of place they are. Ironically, this actually works against your argument of removal, rather than for. While I'll admit that this is theoretical, I simply don't care enough to actually create a poll to prove this. Besides, we agree on this topic so there is no point in arguing it.

I am apparently among the few people who genuinely enjoys playing nemelex, but even I am willing to admit that decks outside of the context of nemelex xobeh(and zigs) don't belong.

[ydeve]

From http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-2-2016-06-06 under "Lesson #13:

It's your job as a game designer to make sure that what it takes to succeed at your game is the very thing that makes the game fun. Fun cannot be tangential; it has to be the core component of your game experience.

Basically, it says that mechanics that encouraged tedious-yet-optimal behavior are bad and should go. If getting the most out of decks is tedious and this is intrinsically part of their design, they should go.

[Tiktacy]

From http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-2-2016-06-06 under "Lesson #13:

It's your job as a game designer to make sure that what it takes to succeed at your game is the very thing that makes the game fun. Fun cannot be tangential; it has to be the core component of your game experience.

Basically, it says that mechanics that encouraged tedious-yet-optimal behavior are bad and should go. If getting the most out of decks is tedious and this is intrinsically part of their design, they should go.

RIP Sunny side. At least now we still have Lantern Control!

[crate]

Another good argument: now Nemelex can actually use the god skill instead of having to use a not-god skill.

https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/7be440f59e77

[nago]

Another nemelex nerf (((