ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them


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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 21st February 2017, 22:52

ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

The background selection screen organizes backgrounds into categories instead of just listing them. It's been brought up that maybe the species selection screen should do that too. This is a serious thread for that.

Flavour-based (note how close this is to the current layout):
  Code:
   Welcome, HitlersChode69. Please select your species.

   Mundane                  Hybrid                   Monstrous         
   a - Human                h - Naga                 r - Ogre
   b - Deep Elf             i - Centaur              s - Troll
   c - Deep Dwarf           j - Merfolk              t - Vine Stalker
   d - Hill Orc             k - Minotaur             u - Felid
   e - Halfling             l - Tengu                v - Octopode
   f - Kobold               m - Draconian            w - Gargoyle
   g - Spriggan             n - Formicid             
                            o - Barachian            Undead
                            p - Demigod              x - Mummy
                            q - Demonspawn           y - Ghoul
                                              z - Vampire
This one is bad imo. It doesn't help new players select a species any more than the current screen does (by putting human etc. first).

Pretend-strength-based (as in, we pretend DE is better than it is and Dg/Fe are worse than they are etc. because that's how new players perceive them):
  Code:
   Welcome, XxWeEdMaN420xX. Please select your species.

   Easy                     Medium                   Hard
   a - Hill Orc             j - Human                u - Naga       
   b - Minotaur             k - Deep Elf             v - Formicid
   c - Spriggan             l - Halfling             w - Barachian
   d - Troll                m - Kobold               x - Felid
   e - Centaur              n - Merfolk              y - Octopode
   f - Deep Dwarf           o - Tengu                z - Mummy 
   g - Draconian            p - Demigod             
   h - Gargoyle             q - Demonspawn           
   i - Vine Stalker         r - Ogre
                            s - Ghoul
                            t - Vampire                  
This provides an easy way to direct new players to specific species. Unfortunately, the more you use it for that instead of ranking species by their actual strength, the less in line with reality new players' ideas of species strength are going to be. Not to mention that this makes it even harder to convince new players that Dg is actually good and DE is actually bad, since they can cite the character creation screen.

Weirdness-based:
  Code:
   Welcome, . Please select your species.

   Basic                    Unusual                  Esoteric
   a - Human                g - Halfling             q - Deep Dwarf 
   b - Deep Elf             h - Kobold               r - Naga   
   c - Hill Orc             i - Spriggan             s - Formicid 
   d - Merfolk              j - Ogre                 t - Barachian
   e - Minotaur             k - Troll                u - Vine Stalker
   f - Gargoyle             l - Centaur              v - Mummy 
                            m - Tengu                w - Ghoul
                            n - Draconian            x - Vampire
                            o - Demigod              y - Felid
                            p - Demonspawn           z - Octopode
This obviously needs better category names but I like the idea of it better than the other two I've seen suggested.

If anyone has other ideas, share them. No posts about "species X should be in category Z, not category Y" until we've figured out what the categories should be in the first place, please.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 00:03

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I like the third idea the best. Species difficulty is vague, background-dependent, and version-dependent; I'd rather not see it used.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 00:37

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

The third one is weird, I mean even in your example an artificial race with a bunch of resistances, immunities and flight is "basic" but flying deep elves are "unusual".

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 00:59

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I'd like to propose adding the difficulty measure to species but not as the overall organisational category. Example:
Minotaur (easy): http://i.imgur.com/8DwdAaA.png
Octopode (hard): http://i.imgur.com/9qUmNEJ.png

If this is done, I'd like it combined with the weirdness-level categorisation. Then you could mark eg Deep Dwarf as "very weird" but also "easy", which is pretty useful for a new player.

EDIT: probably instead of easy/average/hard, it would be better to use phrasing like: "Challenge: Average/Hard/Very Hard"

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:11

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Duvessa, one of those names you used was offensive. Really really offensive, like you owe us all an apology. I honestly didn't want to see that here.

(The first two names were just immature.)


So on topic, I think the categories should be based on difficulty: actual difficulty when played according to their strengths by a normal player who has won two or three times before. So you don't get to meme Felid into an easy species, and honestly Spriggan shouldn't be considered easy either.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:17

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Sar wrote:The third one is weird, I mean even in your example an artificial race with a bunch of resistances, immunities and flight is "basic" but flying deep elves are "unusual".
I wanted to put Gr in "unusual" but it was making the category too tall. Also read the last sentence in the OP plz

chequers wrote:EDIT: probably instead of easy/average/hard, it would be better to use phrasing like: "Challenge: Average/Hard/Very Hard"
What about a difficulty bar? Like
Troll: =----
Human: ==--
Barachian: ===-
Naga: ====
Last edited by duvessa on Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:28, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:20

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Categorize by HP aptitude? It's clear and definitely means something. It anti-correlates reasonably well with difficulty-for-newbies and weirdness.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:30

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Careful with that, since XL aptitude is effectively an HP modifier too (and I guess Fighting aptitude but not by much). As a result Hu has significantly better HP than Ds, for example.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 01:35

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I don't think HP aptitude anti-correlates super well for newbie difficulty -- I think Og and Sp are counterexamples on their ends of the scale.

I... I kind of like the weirdness scale, maybe combined with a challenge indicator. Basically grouping by mechanical complexity.

We do need to argue a bit about which species fit in which category, as classifications which yield a column that's too tall are problematic.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 03:07

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

njvack wrote:I don't think HP aptitude anti-correlates super well for newbie difficulty -- I think Og and Sp are counterexamples on their ends of the scale.

I... I kind of like the weirdness scale, maybe combined with a challenge indicator. Basically grouping by mechanical complexity.

We do need to argue a bit about which species fit in which category, as classifications which yield a column that's too tall are problematic.

I would start by giving each possible starting mutation like 1-5 depending on how strongly they impact normal play, add those up to get a weirdness ranking, sort on it, then split the list into 3 even columns
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 04:50

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Can we switch between 2nd and 3rd screen using "!" key (and probably remembering last screen used for next game)? That would make players choose what they want: new players would start with difficulty levels and then would switch to using weirdness screen.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 04:55

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

duvessa wrote:Careful with that, since XL aptitude is effectively an HP modifier too (and I guess Fighting aptitude but not by much). As a result Hu has significantly better HP than Ds, for example.


Good point. Maybe rank by "HP at 400 xp, with 10% of xp allocated to fighting"? Nope, 400 xp is not enough to detect the effect of slow xp growth. Instead, let x_n be the xp needed by the species to reach level n, let y_n be their hp at that level with 10% xp allocated to fighting, and let f(x) be a cubic monotonic spline interpolating the points (x_i, y_i). Rank the species by f(400).

This definitely makes Ogre and Naga look way better than they should, and vinestalker way worse, but any system is going to kind of suck. At least with this one the new player can quickly figure out why it sucks.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 05:55

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Alphabetical order is underrated:
  Code:
   a - Barachian            j - Gargoyle             s - Naga
   b - Centaur              k - Ghoul                t - Octopode
   c - Deep Dwarf           l - Halfling             u - Ogre
   d - Deep Elf             m - Hill Orc             v - Spriggan
   e - Demigod              n - Human                w - Tengu
   f - Demonspawn           o - Kobold               x - Troll
   g - Draconian            p - Merfolk              y - Vampire
   h - Felid                q - Minotaur             z - Vine Stalker
   i - Formicid             r - Mummy

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 07:17

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

duvessa wrote:What about a difficulty bar? Like
Troll: choko
Human: pizza
Barachian: royal jelly
Naga: bread ration


fixd.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 09:53

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

syringe wrote:Alphabetical order is underrated:


Really true. I almost always know which species I want to play and then I spend time trying to find it on the screen.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 10:16

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

This may come as a surprise to you, but the goal of organizing the species screen is to help people who don't already know which species they're going to play.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 10:43

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

duvessa wrote:This may come as a surprise to you, but the goal of organizing the species screen is to help people who don't already know which species they're going to play.


I believe this is wrong approach, it should be convenient for as many players as possible. For example, I am not going to like a system where I am asked 10 different questions to get a recommended combo, even if new players might love it for their first game.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 11:05

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I hope that this goes without saying, but the correct approach here should include sorting easier species nearer to top-left, and harder species nearer to bottom-right. It's easy to forget this, but DCSS is a hard game for players unfamiliar with its systems! Brand new players are going to select default or near-to-default options; we might as well give them the best chance possible at surviving for a few floors so they're less inclined to stop playing the game entirely after they die.

Grouping species by the relative difficulty of challenge conducts they are forced to play under might be a good approach, secondarily subsorting each column by descending winrate. Treat high aptitudes as a negative conduct. This may end up being similar to the weirdness sort above, but I would expect "neutral" species to end up towards the middle. (Human has no business being placed at the top-left. That slot should go to Gr or Mi.)

Labelling the columns as Easy/Medium/Hard also should *not* happen. chequers' suggestion of Average/Hard/Very Hard might be appropriate, or possibly something like Intermediate/Advanced/Expert.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 15:16

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I'd prefer to sort it by learning curve, which address both difficulty for new players and weirdness level without biasing newer players into thinking that hard-to-learn species are bad. I'd put most of the easy species in as "easy to learn", make a category after that for human-ish characters called "normal to learn", put the somewhat weirder stuff in "hard to learn", and then your 2nd option's "hard" category in as "very hard to learn".

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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 16:12

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

VeryAngryFelid wrote:I almost always know which species I want to play and then I spend time trying to find it on the screen.

Dunno about you, but I know *exactly* where each background is, since they are categorised in a logical way. If the same was done with species, win-win.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd February 2017, 20:02

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
duvessa wrote:This may come as a surprise to you, but the goal of organizing the species screen is to help people who don't already know which species they're going to play.


I believe this is wrong approach, it should be convenient for as many players as possible. For example, I am not going to like a system where I am asked 10 different questions to get a recommended combo, even if new players might love it for their first game.

The part of the game in which you decide which species to play is a much larger part of the game for new players than experienced ones. Improving the screen a lot could only possibly improve things for experienced players a marginal amount, but it might be a huge difference for new folks. So, focusing on maximizing the benefit for new players makes sense because that's where the most bang-for-buck is.

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 06:17

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

dracos369 wrote:Dunno about you, but I know *exactly* where each background is, since they are categorised in a logical way. If the same was done with species, win-win.


I don't think it can work with species, it does not have clear warrior-hybrids-mages categories.
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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 06:20

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

johlstei wrote:The part of the game in which you decide which species to play is a much larger part of the game for new players than experienced ones. Improving the screen a lot could only possibly improve things for experienced players a marginal amount, but it might be a huge difference for new folks. So, focusing on maximizing the benefit for new players makes sense because that's where the most bang-for-buck is.


Probably you missed my point. I suggested to create optimal screen for new players AND optimal screen for veterans and an easy way to switch between the two. It does not take much dev effort, even I can do it easily. You can treat it similar to having "sort by" option in any internet shop, devs should not select the best one and implement just that, they should give a list with many options and let clients choose what they want because different clients want different order.
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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 06:32

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Probably they should be ordered without being categorized, and the ordering should not be very systematic. If you categorize them as "weird," "easy," etc. then a new player is likely to think that this refers to actual game mechanics, rather than someone's opinion. If you order them by an actual number you are telling the player that this number matters, while it might not. (I am now totally contradicting my earlier posts).

Instead, just ask a random dev to order the species by learning curve progression, like Lasty suggests (i.e. HO and Dr near the top left, Mu and Vp near the bottom right), and display them in that order.

EDIT: this would not be convenient for people who already know what species they want (not obvious where to look on the list), so this is only good in a two-screen setup like AngryFelid suggests, or if it possible to type in species codes.

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 07:38

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Probably you missed my point. I suggested to create optimal screen for new players AND optimal screen for veterans and an easy way to switch between the two. It does not take much dev effort, even I can do it easily.
do it then

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 07:40

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

duvessa wrote:do it then


I submitted too many patches which were rejected by devs so I will wait for devs approval before start.
Also we need to decide how those screens should look (except one with alphabetic sorting) and how many of them we want - 2, 3, more?
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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 14:11

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Alphabetical order would be excellent.
duvessa wrote:This may come as a surprise to you, but the goal of organizing the species screen is to help people who don't already know which species they're going to play.

Do such people exist? New players usually play by guides, and if they don't, they are advised in tutorial to play three stronger builds - CeHu, DEIE, and, for some weird reason, memetaurs.

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 16:52

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
johlstei wrote:The part of the game in which you decide which species to play is a much larger part of the game for new players than experienced ones. Improving the screen a lot could only possibly improve things for experienced players a marginal amount, but it might be a huge difference for new folks. So, focusing on maximizing the benefit for new players makes sense because that's where the most bang-for-buck is.


Probably you missed my point. I suggested to create optimal screen for new players AND optimal screen for veterans and an easy way to switch between the two. It does not take much dev effort, even I can do it easily. You can treat it similar to having "sort by" option in any internet shop, devs should not select the best one and implement just that, they should give a list with many options and let clients choose what they want because different clients want different order.

Okay but like, dev effort is a finite resource. Making a race selection screen that's effective for new players is much higher impact than one that's effective for experienced players, so it may well be that the former is worth the expenditure of those limited resources, while the latter is not. I don't think that's a crazy idea. I know that, as an experienced player, I don't care what order the species screen displays things in at all - it could be random for all I care. The devs should worry about people who don't know what all the species are already, because it does affect them.

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 17:39

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

johlstei wrote:Okay but like, dev effort is a finite resource. Making a race selection screen that's effective for new players is much higher impact than one that's effective for experienced players, so it may well be that the former is worth the expenditure of those limited resources, while the latter is not. I don't think that's a crazy idea. I know that, as an experienced player, I don't care what order the species screen displays things in at all - it could be random for all I care. The devs should worry about people who don't know what all the species are already, because it does affect them.


Your reasoning is correct but does not apply in this particular case because I am not a dev but I am willing to work on this patch and not on anything else. So it's almost free for devs, nothing is wasted except time to analyze/accept/refuse my patch.
I mean I can add alphabetic order patch this weekend if it is going to be accepted. And if we agree on new/old/whatever players screens, it won't take much dev time to incorporate them either, I can do those patches too.
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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 19:09

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I thinking Baseline, Straightforward, Unusual, and Tricky. Baseline contains only human. I moved a few species around but then got tired of doing that, and mostly just copied duvessa's columns.

  Code:
Welcome, . Please select your species.

   Baseline                 Unusual                  Tricky
   a - Human                g - Halfling             q - Deep Dwarf 
                            h - Kobold               r - Naga   
   Straightforward          i - Spriggan             s - Formicid 
   c - Hill Orc             p - Demonspawn           z - Octopode
   d - Merfolk              j - Ogre                 t - Barachian
   e - Minotaur             o - Demigod              u - Vine Stalker
   f - Gargoyle             l - Centaur              v - Mummy 
   b - Deep Elf             m - Tengu                w - Ghoul
   d - Troll                n - Draconian            x - Vampire
                                                     y - Felid
                           
                           

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Post Thursday, 23rd February 2017, 19:31

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I think new players come in wanting to play a trope, say warrior or wizard or rogue,and then want to know how to do that in Crawl. This seems more likely to me than a newbie being keen to try minotaur or centaur and wondering how to do that in Crawl, let alone VS or Sp. So I think a lot of OP's desire for the species selection to be newbie friendly can be accomplished by defaulting to background selection first, and letting the game's recommendations give guidance automatically on the subsequent species selection screen.this way whatever sort we decide on is supplemental and doesn't have to carry the entire load of giving guidance.
Won (52). Remaining (15): 5 species: Ba, Fe, Mu, Na, Op; 5 Backgrounds: AM, Wr, Su, AE, Ar; 5 gods: Jiyv, newNem, WJC, newSif, newFedh

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 01:25

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Lasty wrote:I'd prefer to sort it by learning curve, which address both difficulty for new players and weirdness level without biasing newer players into thinking that hard-to-learn species are bad. I'd put most of the easy species in as "easy to learn", make a category after that for human-ish characters called "normal to learn", put the somewhat weirder stuff in "hard to learn", and then your 2nd option's "hard" category in as "very hard to learn".


I was thinking something similar. I think I'd go with "beginner", "intermediate", and "advanced" or something along those lines. I think that would convey that a species is more or less friendly to new players without necessarily conveying that it's weaker or stronger in the hands of an experienced player.

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 08:28

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

À propos, can we get some kind of recommendation for gods as well? That would be very helpful for newbies...
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 19:26

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

(2:24:55 PM) Cheibriados: Lasty * 0.20-a0-745-g43cdf58: Refactor new game menu construct functions to allow species groups (minmay) (9 minutes ago, 2 files, 202+ 74-) https://github.com/crawl/crawl/commit/43cdf580475d

Now feel free to dispute the number of groups and position of species within the groups.

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 19:40

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Almost immediately updated:

"Simple",
SP_HILL_ORC,
SP_MINOTAUR,
SP_MERFOLK,
SP_GARGOYLE,
SP_BASE_DRACONIAN,
SP_HALFLING,
SP_TROLL,
SP_GHOUL,
"Intermediate",
SP_HUMAN,
SP_KOBOLD,
SP_DEMONSPAWN,
SP_CENTAUR,
SP_SPRIGGAN,
SP_TENGU,
SP_DEEP_ELF,
SP_OGRE,
SP_DEEP_DWARF,
"Advanced",
SP_VINE_STALKER,
SP_VAMPIRE,
SP_DEMIGOD,
SP_FORMICID,
SP_NAGA,
SP_OCTOPODE,
SP_FELID,
SP_BARACHIAN,
SP_MUMMY,


edit: one more update, hopefully the last for the moment

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 20:01

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Has anyone asked new players how they choose races? There seems to be a survey active, couldn't that be used somehow for this purpose?

I started thoroughly spoiled; my first character was HOBe, second non-repeated char was DECj or DEFE, third was SpEn. I read a fair bit of the wiki when I was starting.

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 20:08

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Is "Simple", "Normal", and "Complex" supposed to refer to how complex it is to learn to play the race, or how complex the race's mechanics are? I'd be in favor of going back to "Beginner", "Intermediate", and "Advanced" to avoid this confusion if it's the former.

Feedback on the specific lists:

If it represent difficulty to learn: I would move Vine Stalker to "Normal". From a mechanical standpoint, they're pretty complicated, but you can also play them pretty well without actually understanding how they work, and overall they can be very strong just played as basic melee tabbers and I think are a perfectly reasonable choice for a new player.

I would also move Deep Dward to "Normal", although others will probably disagree. While Deep Dwarves are a great way for someone to get their first win (although I personally took quite a while to get a DD win), if someone's completely new to the game, Deep Dwarf mechanics might be confusing to them, and also teach them some weird lessons. Essentially, while I might recommend them to a player who can get to midgame and is looking for their first win, I wouldn't recommend them to a brand new player who's still trying to learn the very basics and can't even consistently make it to lair.

If it represents mechanical complexity: Humans should definitely go in the "simple" category, being possibly the simplest race there is from a mechanical standpoint. I'd would also argue in favor of Deep Dwarves going into the "Normal" category in this case too, because they're pretty weird mechanically even if they're incredibly strong and easy to win with.

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 20:30

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Quazifuji, see the updated list above. I already moved Deep Dwarves as you suggested. I also renamed the second and third categories back to Intermediate and Advanced. You're correct that this is meant to represent difficulty to learn, per the release notes. I left VS in Advanced, which I think is at least not far from correct. That keeps the columns at 8/9/9.

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 20:46

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Cool beans. This is now a thread for posting the species you personally think should go in each category.

Simple: Ce DE Dr Gr* HO Mf Mi Tr
Intermediate: Dg Ds Gh Ha Hu Ko Og Sp Te VS
Advanced: Ba DD Fe Fo Mu Na Op Vp

*begrudgingly

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Post Friday, 24th February 2017, 21:26

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I would just switch Hu and Dr from duvessa's list:

Simple: Ce DE Gr HO Hu Mf Mi Tr*
Intermediate: Dg Dr Ds Gh Ha Ko Og Sp Te VS
Advanced: DD Fe Fo Mu Na Op Vp

Not in stable yet: Ba

Tr description should say that they are built for UC.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

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Post Saturday, 25th February 2017, 14:30

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I'd suggest that Dg is Simple because you don't need to figure out how your god works, but that Dr is Intermediate because its breath weapon and aptitudes change each game.
Won (52). Remaining (15): 5 species: Ba, Fe, Mu, Na, Op; 5 Backgrounds: AM, Wr, Su, AE, Ar; 5 gods: Jiyv, newNem, WJC, newSif, newFedh
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Post Saturday, 25th February 2017, 18:02

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Dr is really good for a starting caster race though. You get good free AC and don't have to worry about armor encumbrance("what should I wear" is one of the biggest hurdles to get over when you first start playing casters)-and when I started playing, I liked Dr because the colors meant more variety(similar to Ds muts). It means you get something to look forward to at XL7 each time, which makes splatting and restarting less of a pain.

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Post Sunday, 26th February 2017, 04:12

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

So there are two axes at play here: how much the species diverges from the norm, and how easy the species is for a new/unspoiled player to play.
If you only use the former then Hu should obviously be in Simple, and arguably Ce, Gr, and Tr shouldn't even though they are really easy to pick up. If you only use the latter then you could move DD and Fe to Simple as they're forgiving even if you have no idea what you're doing.
Dg's design is elegantly simple and they're one of the strongest species to boot, but there are a lot of players who just do not know how to play without Trog or Vehumet. I'm sure many of us were at that point some time in the past, where you'd do this unless you had a god telling you what to do. So from that perspective they should be in Intermediate or even Advanced.
I used a mixture of both factors. DD and Fe go in Advanced not because I somehow think they're hard, but because I think they're extremely outlandish compared to the rest of the species. DE is in Simple even though it's weak because it's very similar to the baseline and has aptitudes that tell you what to do.

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Post Monday, 27th February 2017, 23:44

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I understand DD are weird, but their power level is very newbie friendly - I got my first win with them (DDBe), they're often recommended as an alternative to MiBe. I'd move them to intermediate at least. In other words, like you said, you want to use a mixture of both factors.

I'd also be tempted to move VS to beginner due to the power level, but I'm fine with them being intermediate as well. You do need to know how to work around the hp/mana sharing and use your available "health" effectively, I suppose.
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Post Tuesday, 28th February 2017, 07:19

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

I'm fine with the list as is, I just find it kind of funny that Human falls under "Intermediate" rather than "Simple." While harder to win with than the races in the "simple" category, they are arguably the simplest race in the game.

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Post Tuesday, 28th February 2017, 07:53

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

prozacelf wrote:I'm fine with the list as is, I just find it kind of funny that Human falls under "Intermediate" rather than "Simple." While harder to win with than the races in the "simple" category, they are arguably the simplest race in the game.


Minotaurs or Trolls are simpler, you don't need to think whether you should become a hybrid or which spell to learn.
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Post Saturday, 4th March 2017, 22:11

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

What are objectives of organizing species selection screen?
[*] Making it more convenient for all players.
[*] Giving new players easier time to select.
[*] Seeing even more minotabber ghosts
99.99% of the time it is seen by returning players, so why new players are such a priority?
I don't understand why all of you think that categories can be helpful. Everybody has their own views on species difficulty and whatnot - for example, it took me 20 seconds to find DE on current screen, although it's objectively the easiest race in Crawl, being able to cast storms by the end of lair, not having to ever get into melee range of early melee brutes, and enjoying full benefits of lichform and tornado in extended game. The fact that categories themselves aren't sorted doesn't help either.
Do a little experiment. Try to see how much time it takes for you to find Ghoul, Kobold and Centaur on current screen.
Image
Now try doing the same on alphabetical screen:
  Code:
   Welcome, <%=player%>. Please select your species.

   a - Barachian            j - Gargoyle             s - Naga
   b - Centaur              k - Ghoul                t - Octopode
   c - Deep Dwarf           l - Halfling             u - Ogre
   d - Deep Elf             m - Hill Orc             v - Spriggan
   e - Demigod              n - Human                w - Tengu
   f - Demonspawn           o - Kobold               x - Troll
   g - Draconian            p - Merfolk              y - Vampire
   h - Felid                q - Minotaur             z - Vine Stalker
   i - Formicid             r - Mummy

Easier, isn't it?

As for the new players. There are three psychological archetypes - rogue, warrior and wizard. First is focused on control and escape, second on defense and endurance, third on variety and ability to kill things before they even get close. So - simply highlight one best option for each archetype with different colours (Centaur, Hill Orc and Deep Elf respectively), and this will be more than enough.

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Post Saturday, 4th March 2017, 22:23

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Lavandula wrote:What are objectives of organizing species selection screen?
[*] Making it more convenient for all players.
[*] Giving new players easier time to select.
[*] Seeing even more minotabber ghosts
99.99% of the time it is seen by returning players, so why new players are such a priority?
I don't understand why all of you think that categories can be helpful. Everybody has their own views on species difficulty and whatnot - for example, it took me 20 seconds to find DE on current screen, although it's objectively the easiest race in Crawl, being able to cast storms by the end of lair, not having to ever get into melee range of early melee brutes, and enjoying full benefits of lichform and tornado in extended game. The fact that categories themselves aren't sorted doesn't help either.
Do a little experiment. Try to see how much time it takes for you to find Ghoul, Kobold and Centaur on current screen.
Image
Now try doing the same on alphabetical screen:
  Code:
   Welcome, <%=player%>. Please select your species.

   a - Barachian            j - Gargoyle             s - Naga
   b - Centaur              k - Ghoul                t - Octopode
   c - Deep Dwarf           l - Halfling             u - Ogre
   d - Deep Elf             m - Hill Orc             v - Spriggan
   e - Demigod              n - Human                w - Tengu
   f - Demonspawn           o - Kobold               x - Troll
   g - Draconian            p - Merfolk              y - Vampire
   h - Felid                q - Minotaur             z - Vine Stalker
   i - Formicid             r - Mummy

Easier, isn't it?

As for the new players. There are three psychological archetypes - rogue, warrior and wizard. First is focused on control and escape, second on defense and endurance, third on variety and ability to kill things before they even get close. So - simply highlight one best option for each archetype with different colours (Centaur, Hill Orc and Deep Elf respectively), and this will be more than enough.


1. It's subjective, not objective that DE are the easiest race, you'd encounter a lot of disagreement on that.
2. It took me roughly 4 seconds to find all 3 races with both lists
3. Those psychological archtypes aren't really useful in crawl, and are only expectations set up by some other types of games, there's also a lot of other archtypes which aren't represented by those three, which can as easily be equally if not more easily be represented by crawl (as an example the 'berserker/barbarian' archtype, which focuses on high damage at short range, rather than endurance) Highlighting the "best race" for each type deosn't promote good crawl play, it encourages sticking to non-productive archtypes, the point is to get new players better at playing crawl and give them some sort of a notion of what's easy or hard to learn on, rather than what's the most powerful.
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Post Saturday, 4th March 2017, 22:54

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Alphabetical order would be fine but I think it would look weird to highlight deep dwarf three times in different colors.

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Post Sunday, 5th March 2017, 05:07

Re: ITT: we post species organizations and argue about them

Siegurt wrote:2. It took me roughly 4 seconds to find all 3 races with both lists


I think that's because you were looking for all 3 simultaneously i.e. you have read every list just once. I am sure it is not typical to spend just 1.(3) seconds to find a specific item in 26 items.
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