Keep these weapons out of early D

[phloomp]

I claim that (dagger/short sword/spear/whip) of (electrocution/draining/poison) should never generate in D:1-D:3.

The problem is that playing backgrounds with no starting weapon skill, at least as a newbie, can easily turn into startscumming for one of these weapons. Sure, they are rare, but if you are dying enough in the early dungeon (e.g. if you are having trouble getting past D:5) it is quite likely that you will see at least one of them in half an hour of playing. And they are strong enough that some players (such as myself, at least when I was starting) can get to midgame with a weaponless start if and only if they find one.

This proposal would introduce a new, totally hidden mechanic, which obviously sucks, but I think it's a fair trade.

[Sprucery]

The problem is that playing backgrounds with no starting weapon skill, at least as a newbie, can easily turn into startscumming for one of these weapons.

Well, that's a new one to me.

[LoopyLeo]

I really don't think that's a good idea. If someone really wants to startscum, a tedious and incredibly boring activity, why should we stop them?
I play video games to have fun, and if I don't find a dragon armour the first floor, I don't just quit, because that would be a waste of my time. On the occasion that I DO find a dragon armour on the first few levels, I will enjoy that playthrough a lot more. Funnoly enough, a couple games ago, I entered the D as a HuGl, only to find a FDA a few tiles away. I also found a GDA on my centaur gladiator too, but I didnt end up wearing it before I died

[PleasingFungus]

if i'm reading the OP correctly, the concern here is that players will 'startscum', which means quitting after things don't go their way to start over. they will do this after clearing d:1-3, in the hopes of increasing their odds of getting a character to d:6. am i understanding this right?

[phloomp]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I'm not making a distinction between "deliberately quit if you don't find a powerful weapon before lair" and "play so carelessly that you will make it to lair if and only if you find a powerful weapon". Both count as startscumming as I'm using the word.

You can do the second one without realizing it, and these weapons are so common (and so memorable) that the game almost trains you to do that, IF your goal is "win this species/background today" rather than "increase your winrate", which is the case for many of us.

[Arrhythmia]

Sorry, is your problem that people are bad at crawl and only do well when they get lucky?

[Laraso]

The obvious solution to this is to introduce a pay-to-play system. Players are given three lives per day, and if they run out of lives they have to wait until their lives recharge. If they want to circumvent this, they can pay money to receive more lives and continue playing.

Players will no longer be able to ctrl+q characters constantly to get favorable starting equipment. That is, unless they pay up, but in that case who cares (they're giving you money). Everybody is happy and your wallet is fatter. If it worked for Zynga, it can work for us too!

[Haelyn]

Duvessa that is glorious.

Also yeah I think things are fine as is. I mean there are a lot of games you could arguably look at the first level and base whether you continue to play on that one level. Binding of Isaac is the only game I know with which this is actually practiced, but at least that's usually because you're playing the Lost or you have no patience for the useless items in a game that is much faster paced.

Crawl is not one of those games. I have on more than one occasion survived all the way to D:10 with a piddly normal flail and average mundane armor, struggling to survive. Sure, some of those times I died. But some of them I finally found a glorious artefact and it all felt so worth it. Besides, I honestly enjoy the effort and determination to power through no matter what RNJesus does to me.

[removeelyvilon]

Well I don't know about startscumming but OP is right in that early D (fast) weapons with the mentioned brands (especially electrocution, which is the worst contender by far) are comically overpowered.

When you find an e. g. +2 elec whip you can turn off your brain and YOLO the next 10 floors without investing any skill in it at all. Needless to say, I don't think this is healthy for the game.

Instead of an absolute ban I suggest something akin to the recent poison needle tweak; making these brands less effective at low skill levels in the associated weapon type and ramping up to "normal" after a given amount of XP investment.
Alternatively, the character's XL could be used in a similar way.

[Haelyn]

Actually I agree with Remove here. It'd be neat if the brands got a little stronger once your skill was really high, and that would also incentivize training it beyond min delay a little better. Likewise it would prevent the brand from being tooooo good early on; though really, even with good brands, I can't say I'm ever able to sear through TEN dungeon levels. Maybe the first six, at best, with a +2 of something, if I'm really careful with uniques and such. So I'm not sure it's too big a problem.

[dynast]

This explain why there are so many branded weapon ghosts on the early levels.

[swoonis]

Remove weapon brands. Not only will OP's niche startscum issue be solved, but now monsters will be easier for the player to kill across the board. Enemy weapon brands are too cheap...