Improve the early game

[dpeg]

I believe that the ideas of light-armoured vs heavy-armoured fighters are distinct enough to keep two backgrounds. We can make Fi as strong as we like, two ideas that have been discussed where enchantments on equipment (say +1 scale, +1 weapon), or an additional consumable (I like a potion of might). It would also be conceivable to increase skills. With all of this, it may turn out that MDFi is too strong, which can be addressed afterwards as well.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

Genie: "What kind of store do you want me to take you to?"
Me: "A store that sells nothing but scrolls of wishing, of course..."

I've gotta say though that the ID minigame is one of the more annoying but funny aspects of the game. Can't help but laugh when you are praying for a big stack to be healing but its brilliance or something.

This would not work, because you still have to buy the scrolls of wishing, causing your gold to deplete to the point where you can't get anything.

[Danei]

I personally consider the practice of picking up rubbish clubs and stones to throw at everything to be an unfortunate artifact of the system, and not a desirable play style. I do not think it is newbie-friendly to call a background a 'fighter' and have it almost entirely incapable of fighting, such that throwing useless debris is the only way you can reliably deal with a large percentage of enemies.

I think the idea is usually that you throw stuff at them before they get to you so that they're easier to melee. While I agree with the premise that fighters should be better at fighting than they currently are, I don't think it's ever going to be "not worth doing" to throw things at monsters, for a fighter. Because you don't have spells, buffs, or other things to spend your turns doing before the monster gets to you, assuming you're standing in the position you want to be fighting in, it's either throw things at the monster until it's in melee range, or hit . until it gets there.

Both options are the same except one has a good chance of doing some damage before melee begins. Even if fighters were strong enough to reliably kill everything they come across on the first few levels without throwing anything, it would still be a good idea to do so. It doesn't cost you anything, and you'll end fights with (on average) higher HP, -> less time spent resting -> less risk of hunger issues and larger time buffer before OOD spawns start ramping up on a level.

Of course, if weapon moves are ever added, and some kind of "charge" ability where you gain a benefit by running up to a monster before engaging is one of them, it might reduce the practice of tossing garbage before the fight.

Having backgrounds of varying difficulty is a design choice, we're fine with that. However, fighter being one of them is not good in my opinion. This is the default background, and the one most beginners will try first. Fighter should be a simple AND strong background, especially in the early game. But it should be strong because the fighter is good at fighting, not because he starts with a bunch of healing potions. That's why I'm pushing for better equipment.

I agree with this. A fighter is a professional well... fighter. If assassins can start with a fancy enchanted dagger, why can't fighters have a couple of plusses on their weapon or armor?

[thenewflesh]

Now (0.10) that Oki and Trog gifts javelins, it's pretty useful to pick up Throwing skill as a fighter. Once the skill hits lvl 8 you'll be showered with javelins of returning, penetration, etc. Few shots of even plain +0 javelin can kill Hydra, which is very nice if you go for axes, saves a lot of pain (I once had 18-headed hydra lurking on Lair:3 as a MiBe, she originally had six, but I fought her twice and she fled everytime ). Darts of dispersal is nice to have, too, and runed darts can still at least finish off fleeing mobs (sometimes).

[Stormfox]

In trunk, I would now advise against considering spears as floor trash to throw against humanoids. Don't give the hobgoblin a free reaching weapon!

[spurious]

I think some low-level improvement of fighter is warranted. It is flavorless, and for most species you can accomplish the very same ends with a different, more effective background.

I'm pretty new to the game, is there a structural problem with adding a background-specific ability or ability set to the fighter? "ignore armour" "sunder" "intimidate" "shield bash" "disarm" are conceptual possibilities.

[ElectricAlbatross]

I'm pretty new to the game, is there a structural problem with adding a background-specific ability or ability set to the fighter?

Yes. A general design guideline of Crawl (and, in my opinion, one of its greatest strengths as a roguelike) is that backgrounds have no permament distinctions. That is, all of their differences come from starting skills, equipment, or religion. That's why backgrounds are called "backgrounds"—it's nothing more than what your character enters the dungeon with, and doesn't hinder what he becomes next. In such a system, it would make no sense for a fighter to know how to do things that no other characters can do, especially since it takes a minimum of training for any character to gain the Fighter's starting skill levels.

[Konebred]

Hell, with a little patience you can just reroll wanderers over and over until you get a good fighter type build. You also get a good chance of getting a +x +x starting weapons, where X can be up to 3. So I dont really have a problem giving fighters a +2 weapon to start with.

[Curio]

Chaos knights already start with +2 leather armour and +2 weapon. (but Xom...yeah)
Abyssal knights start with +2 weapon (+Lugonu with accumulated piety)
Death knights start with +1 weapon (+ Yred with accumulated piety)
Healer starts with +1 robe. (+ Ely with accumulated piety)
Assasin starts with +2 dagger (+ curare)
Gladiator have +0 everywhere but overall it have only 1 AC less than fighter and 5 more EV.

It is heartbreakingly unfair toward fighters.
In my opinion, they should have at least +2 enchantment on a weapon and +3 enchantment on starting scale mail.

[galehar]

Gladiator have +0 everywhere but overall it have only 1 AC less than fighter and 5 more EV.

And fighter has 9 Shields more than gladiator (17 vs 8 for a Hu). Also:

  Code:

<+elliptic> !won * fi cv=~0.10
<Sequell> * (fi cv=~0.10) has won 8 times in 1534 games (0.52%): 4xMDFi 2xMuFi 1xHOFi 1xOpFi
<+elliptic> !won * gl cv=~0.10
<Sequell> * (gl cv=~0.10) has won 6 times in 1123 games (0.53%): 2xMiGl 1xHEGl 1xMDGl 1xOpGl 1xTrGl
<+elliptic> !won * dk cv=~0.10
<Sequell> * (dk cv=~0.10) has won 5 times in 287 games (1.74%): 1xCeDK 1xMfDK 1xMiDK 1xMuDK 1xOgDK
<+elliptic> !won * ak cv=~0.10
<Sequell> * (ak cv=~0.10) has not won in 408 games.

[Curio]

Gladiator have +0 everywhere but overall it have only 1 AC less than fighter and 5 more EV.

And fighter has 9 Shields more than gladiator (17 vs 8 for a Hu).

Yup. Missed that.
But, if I recall correctly those 17 SH may help as much as harm with 3 skill and medium shield.

[o_O]

Well tossing a +2,+0 on their starting weapon might fix fighters, since their problem is not being able to hit anything with their lack of skills. Or start them off with helm, gauntlets, and/or boots as needed to bring them up to a decent level? Those are easy enough to find normally but you won't have them by D:2.

And a related thing, what ever happened to the idea of letting each character choose an extra starting item? Like you can pick between: A buckler, some darts, a dagger, A helmet, an apple, and maybe even a magic dart wand or a pet rat or something. It would be more fun if the early game had more choices and stuff available, as long as the difficulty was adjusted to compensate.

[dpeg]

Well tossing a +2,+0 on their starting weapon might fix fighters, since their problem is not being able to hit anything with their lack of skills. Or start them off with helm, gauntlets, and/or boots as needed to bring them up to a decent level? Those are easy enough to find normally but you won't have them by D:2.

We have discussed Fighters in depth on ##crawl-dev. It seems that the issues are mostly perceived. Yes, the starting weapon is not on par with what other backgrounds get. This might feel bad and I wouldn't mind changing that to everyone's comfort. However, I believe that the complaints about Fighter weakness all managed to blend out (a) more starting HP and (b) noticeable SH. (I know that some folks around here advise ditching the shield on turn 1. I was concerned about this and suggested increasing the shield's enchantment but players better than me said the shield is viable, also and especially early on. If you about to ditch the shield right away, you're better off with another background.)

And a related thing, what ever happened to the idea of letting each character choose an extra starting item? Like you can pick between: A buckler, some darts, a dagger, A helmet, an apple, and maybe even a magic dart wand or a pet rat or something. It would be more fun if the early game had more choices and stuff available, as long as the difficulty was adjusted to compensate.

*Choosing* an extra item was never on anyone's agenda. As you may have noticed, we're trying to cut down the number of startup choices. (And Fighters inevitably already have one, the weapon.)
I am wary about "as long as the difficulty was adjusted". You suggest the cool bit and we're left with the task to sort it out? (Slightly bitter, because tons of proposals end with a clause like this.) Regardless of that, most of the options you mention were discussed at some point apart from the pet rat. Instead of anything like this, 0.9 gave everyone +3 max Health.