Dial back Deep Dwarf HP aptitude.

[ZipZipskins]

This is a very simple proposal. Deep dwarves are powerhouses- they feature a very easy and flexible playstyle, serviceable aptitudes for accessing support spells, an outstanding +1 spread across their defensive aptitudes, unrestricted armor slots, damage shaving, and to top it all off, a whopping +20% HP aptitude (which, for the record, is identical to naga.) They outpace every other species in the game from a defensive standpoint with ease and are one of the most readily winnable options available (some would claim the MOST winnable).

Therefore, I propose reducing the deep dwarf HP aptitude to either +10% or +0% (the second is preferable to me, personally, but also more drastic).

A couple expected concerns:

1. This proposal doesn't go too far enough! Remove deep dwarves!

-Well, yes, I agree. I think that damage shaving plus no HP regeneration creates a damage balance conundrum that has not been resolved in a satisfactory manner yet. However, there have been calls to remove DD for a long time, and they remain. I think a good place to begin addressing their dominance is through incremental nerfing. HP is a pretty impactful thing to nerf. Even if it doesn't fix EVERYTHING that's wrong with DD, it's at least a starting point, and nerfs such as this are much more likely to be well-recieved than calls for removal.

2. But there's nothing wrong with some species being more powerful than others and some species being challenge species!

-Sure, but when a species is so much stronger than the majority of others, it starts to cross into no-brainer territory. DD is radically more powerful than most of the other options available. They are so much more powerful that even after nerfs, they still have the potential to end up ahead. In Crawl's no-brainer-averse philosophy, this definitely sticks out, to my mind.

In summary- DD presents a balance issue. One way to begin tackling that issue is to remove or reduce their HP advantage.

[Shard1697]

Another way to tackle that issue is to remove them because the gameplay experiment of "what if you were strong but had no regen" just turned out to be really unfun in crawl

[ZipZipskins]

You and I both know that "DD is unfun" is a non-starter, and I talked about "just remove DD" in my proposal itself.

[Shard1697]

I do not believe that "DD is unfun" is a non-starter, and I don't think time and effort should be spent trying to fix them.

[njvack]

Another way to tackle that issue is to remove them because the gameplay experiment of "what if you were strong but had no regen" just turned out to be really unfun in crawl

The trouble with this argument is that "unfun" is rather subjective; I actually like playing DD through three runes. Dealing with tons of torment I find rather tedious, but I don't think they're as terrible as everyone else seems to through the normal game.

[Shard1697]

Well, yeah, but just about everything is subjective. I mean, there's plenty of people out there who think singleplayer games should not care about balance at all. Plenty of people who think mountain dwarves or stalkers were the best parts of crawl, or that removal of haste spell ruined the game. Something being subjective doesn't mean that it's valid or invalid, or that subjective points should not be argued. "Fun" is a worthwhile game design goal, as much as some people seem to dislike the idea, and much of crawl dev discussion avoids it only to actually revolve around it in a roundabout way(discussions of "tedium" are effectively discussions about "fun" under another name).

I think it is extremely annoying in a long, enemy dense game like crawl to take every single popcorn encounter dead seriously to prevent having your health slowly nickle and dimed away, which in turn incentivizes going a HP restoring god like Mak even more than they already would be for Mak. I don't see much of a solution to this while preserving the gimmick.

[kuniqs]

In practice DD has +0% HP aptitude since 95% of the time you're not at full HP.

[ZipZipskins]

I think it is extremely annoying in a long, enemy dense game like crawl to take every single popcorn encounter dead seriously to prevent having your health slowly nickle and dimed away, which in turn incentivizes going a HP restoring god like Mak even more than they already would be for Mak. I don't see much of a solution to this while preserving the gimmick.

I agree with everything you've said about your opinions on DD, fun, and subjectivity. However, I disagree with the idea that just because DD is unfun and ought to be cut (in my opinion and yours), that there isn't value in trying to address the balance concerns that the species currently presents, especially since the imminent removal of DD seems unlikely and their current balance is so far out of bounds. The gimmick remains popular, including presumably amongst the devs, as they haven't removed DD yet despite its (again in both of our opinions) egregious issues from both a gameplay and balance perspective.

I also apologise for putting a viewpoint in your mouth.

[ZipZipskins]

In practice DD has +0% HP aptitude since 95% of the time you're not at full HP.

Then in practice they should have a -20% HP aptitude, since 95% of the time you're not at full HP.