Cleansing fire upon species list


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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 08:15

Cleansing fire upon species list

During the last ~2 years crawl development is hugely about removing uninteresting mechanics and stuff along with adding unique and tricky features like gnolls, harpoon, vile clutch and many other that I can't recall now.
The only thing I cannot get is why such a long list of species is held in game? Some species surely have unique mechanics, some of them is newbie-friendly while other are difficult and can become challenging with some playstyles.
Let's get our axes on them!
Barachi - have hop and slow movement, no other interesting features. Slow movement is availible on Naga, while hop can be moved back to felids. Felids are quite balanced now, so hop can take 2 turns: preparation and jump (I have cat and I noticed that it always aims before long jump for 1-2 seconds).
Halfling - small, rMut, sling apt. If you want small specie - you can always play spriggan. Being small is not that fun anyway. rMut feature is not a real rMut effect with 90% resistance, Halfling's rMut is 1/2 (or 2/3) chance to resist malmutation, which doesn't make sence - you will be mutated anyway. And slings are too powerful anyway so they don't need good aptitude specie.
Hill Orc - very strong specie with awesome melee and good magic aptitudes. Almost like mix of Minotaur and Gargoyle. So why do we need it? Worshipping Beogh is not a striking feature, we can move Beogh to Temple gods, that can be worshipped from altar. If one can argue that only orc can lead orcs, I can reference to the story about Cacame Awemedinade, the Elf king of dwarves.
Human. Easy. It's boring. Yeah, you can tell me about average species, fast leveling, but it's boring. We come into dungeon to play elves, nagas and demonspawns.
Kobold. Same as Halflings, but with less features.
Merfolk - aquatic, apts lean towards hybrid playstyle based on DOGEing, polearms and ice magic. Nothing interesting. Aquatic nature of merfolks are not that unique - you can just fly over water with Gargoyle.
Ogre - big, have good magic apts. Trolls are big too. You can use GSC on troll too. And you can cast spells with Troll. if you don't fell good with troll magic apts, it can be raised a bit.
Tengu - good at melee and spells, can fly with 0.1 bonus speed. Sounds like Gargoyle, disregarding it's +0.1 to speed. But we already have 2 fast species, and in most times +0.1 to speed is not that helpful (I watched Amnesiac playing TeAE lately, it was full of boring and painful kiting of all that yaks and 2h ogres for like 300+ turns just to land several shock zaps on it without being hit).
Vampire - satiated/bloodless game. You can be a living being and a ghoul in one game. Nice, but you pay for it with awful food system. And it have no other striking features.

So, there are 9 species (1/3 total!!!) to remove without any noticable loss to gameplay and variety of features. Doing !greatplayer and !great_class will become less tedious. Also it clears a lot of space for new experimental species like faerie drakes, permasilence specters, shakeshifters and other stuff that make sence!

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Lair Larrikin

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 09:32

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

1. I can agree with Vampires, but mainly because I found them strange as a class anyway.

2. Also if Humans, Orcs and Halfling go, Elves should be added to get out all standard fantasy races. Beside having absolutly nothing special (really absolutly nothing), two elven races is too much anyway.

3. Never touch the Tengu. I mean as a race I found bird-people really awesome, so I'm more for them beeing reworked.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 09:44

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Barachi have larger sight, and good bow apts. Since they are slow, they probably are the only way to play ranged which gives you both a boost (large LOS, hop) and a challenge (slow).

I don't get halflings, though.

Compared to your list, I would remove Minotaurs, rather than other warrior species, because they are neither challenging, nor interesting. There already is one "unstoppable warrior" species (Troll), and its advantage is that it is challenging until you get armour. Other warrior species offer openings in other areas (magic).

Beogh is one of those gods I never play, because I hate allies, and permanent, mortal allies, in particular, are the worst of the worst.

Vampire needs a new focus and a rework, that's for sure.
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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 11:01

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Human is the canonical standard that just has to exist. It's the vanilla species.

Merfolk are good transmuters and skalds. If anything, there need to be more alternatives to merfolk.

Beogh is good, just ask Ultraviolent4.

Halflings are completely different from spriggans. Spriggans are all about moving fast.

Barachi are terrible but maybe worth having as a challenge species.


Kobold, Vampire, Ghoul, and Vine Stalker could probably be removed IMO.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 14:53

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Nordlicht wrote:Elves should be added to get out all standard fantasy races. Beside having absolutly nothing special (really absolutly nothing), two elven races is too much anyway.
3. Never touch the Tengu. I mean as a race I found bird-people really awesome, so I'm more for them beeing reworked.

Elves is the spellcasting race for newbies with lots of int and good aptitudes. Maybe it should be merged into other race.
Tengu is special because you like the idea of bird people? But it's boring specie in terms of gameplay.
Shtopit wrote:Barachi have larger sight, and good bow apts.

Forgot about sight, but does it really introduce something interesting and game-changing? We have centaurs for bow-shooting.
Shtopit wrote: I would remove Minotaurs, rather than other warrior species, because they are neither challenging, nor interesting.

Minotaur is just a newbie-friendly warrior, surely something else can be used instead (Hill Orc maybe?).
bhauth wrote:Human is the canonical standard that just has to exist

Can you please explain why this standard should exist?
bhauth wrote:Halflings are completely different from spriggans.

Yes, because Ha have nothing interesting to do while Sp have speed, herbivorous and cannot wear some types of armor.
bhauth wrote:Merfolk are good transmuters and skalds. If anything, there need to be more alternatives to merfolk.

You can use Ds, Mi or Gn for a transmuter or skald run. Just train int for Mi.
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Snake Sneak

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 15:05

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

I'd say we need Human still as a base point. We have to have a "generic species" in order to make the other species special. They're the control group, so to speak.

Hill Orcs are basically melee-humans with an axe proficiency and access to Beogh. I like Beogh being restricted to Orcs, but they don't have much else in the way of distinguishing features if you're NOT planning to roll Beogh.

The Ogre/Troll dichotomy is an interesting one, though. Ogres and Trolls' main features are both that they are large and can wield big sticks. Ogres are somewhat unique in that they have one of the highest raw Spellcasting skills in the game but low apts in all particular schools, meaning they train large amounts of SC and low amounts of specific schools leading them to easily cast a large number of low-tier spells while restricting the endgame nukes without more significant investment - while still being good melee-centric characters, if a bit fragile in the early game (you make up your lack of armor by having a whole assload of HP). Trolls are unique in that they have innate armor and claws, leading them more away from an Ogre's melee-spellcasting hybrid nature and more towards a raging lump of UC, claws, and hunger while being restricted to being mostly naked (which serves to differentiate them from, for example, Ghouls or Minotaurs).

I'm particularly fond of Vampires because it changes the whole hunger game. Being able to ignore spell hunger like a ghoul, being able to turn into a bat to run away at Spriggan+ speeds, and being able to manage your blood level to tactically switch between undead resistances and a massive stealth boost to being able to more effectively use potions and berserking in combat make Vampires a very, very powerful race in the proper hands. (My hands are not the proper hands, but I still recognize the potential there.) It combines the best parts of being undead, being fast, and being a powerful spellcaster in unique ways that make them genuinely more enjoyable to play as, at least for me, than most other races on our selection list.

In a similar way, Vine Stalkers introduce an antimagic bite and innate spirit shield that serves to make them stand out, quite drastically, from the rest of the list. They also excel in almost any role, having acceptable apts across the board - Armor and dodging are low, but the SpShield and bite help to make up some of the lost durability so that they can survive in melee combat. They make poor hybrids, though, as using MP for spells and using MP for durability each directly detract from each other.

I don't have much to say about the others.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 15:33

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

@ololoev My view on Ce is that it's a bad species built around a bad concept, which is kiting. Ba is the opposite, which is why I think that it's better. Especially at the start of the game, Ce can be really frustrating without letting you die.

I think that Orc is a better newbie warrior, because it is a powerful, fully armoured warrior with good apts, and it allows you to try out magic, if you want to. I find Mi boring in general. It's too strong and too safe.

Personally, I probably would remove Fe. I don't see much in them, except self-flagellation. But this is part of a general complain of mine about balance. I think that species, backgrounds, and gods should be balanced. N44b-friendly features should be simple, while advanced features should be meant to work in tandem with other features and be more complex, but equally powerful. So I see Fe as a result of what happens when development goes in the other direction and uses species as difficulty modes.
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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 16:40

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Having some unusual species that are more challenging is fine. I usually see a couple octopodes on the web server I use at most times, for example, and octopodes are definitely a challenge species. In exchange, they have some neat unique traits, they do excel in some roles (transmutation with a boatload of rings!), etc, and I think that's about how it should be. Similarly, it's important to have some newbie friendly species like Minotaur, because crawl is hard as hell (unless you know the game like the back of your hand, maybe), especially when you're new and even getting to Lair is a big struggle.

Orc is a great newbie warrior. They get extra HP, good aptitudes, can still access magic if they want, and have some high points like super high axes and invocation aptitudes. If you want to use a god with high invocations demands (Ely, QAZLAL), HO is an excellent option. Especially since a Qaz worshipper most likely wants axes too, HO is like tailor perfect for that god.

Vampires don't need to be removed, but they do need a tweak. I was watching a vamp game earlier and the guy kept having to switch back and forth between different areas over and over due to parts of the game that just don't have blood. And it wasn't even extended; Spider is awful and Swamp has few enough things that you can run out. I like the species, but the food clock's potential is overrun by how much of a PITA it is to use. IMO make potions of blood last way longer so they don't suffer as hard from no permafood, and add in an ability to purposefully drop satiation level instead of having to wait hundreds of turns for it each time you want to regen hp and retain resists. If the most challenging thing about the species is wrestling your food clock and not actual gameplay, something is horribly wrong.

I'm not really sure what a kobold is supposed to do and halflings are kind of whatever. Halflings should be better at their personal trait (mutation resistance) and I'm not sure why kobolds have -20% hp since they're not particularly great for anything, apart from stabbing, which can't get you through a game without plenty of support. I dunno why their throwing was murdered when they can't throw javelins anyway and the needle synergy/tomahawks help gave them more of a niche for their short blade fighting style. I feel like they should either have some better apts given back or get down to -10% HP, because if I want -20% hp I could be something that actually gives back benefits like Gargoyle or Tengu or Spriggan.

People always say Human is needed as a vanilla standard but I almost never see anyone actually play a human on the server. Shouldn't they have, like, -something- to make them... somewhat desirable? Maybe increase their EXP apt another point, or *Faith because they tend to be pretty heavy about their beliefs? What's the POINT of having a species for the reason "it feels like we should, just because" if no one wants to ACTUALLY play it? Keep it more or less vanilla, with totally average apts across the board, but make it something someone might actually feel like -playing-.

tl;dr : If we have species that are lame, it's probably better to think of ways to make them less lame before just deciding they need to be removed. Especially not species with actual interesting base concepts that -would- be desirable if the race was any better.

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Spider Stomper

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 16:56

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

i also think one of Ha/Ko or one of Ho/Mi could be removed but otherwise dont think the game gets better from removing options in species section. if any, backgrounds since those are more meaningless

it seems ppl have very different opinions on this, as you can see. even Vs remove proposed although its a very popular and unique species.

i'm also fine with Ba personally and think Vp has mostly problems in extended without god help. and a Tengu has body armor but a lot of restricted aux armor slots, and aux attacks. its straight more unique than that new fairy dragon imo

even DD is more stupid than a lot of species you listed,imo

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 18:09

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

ololoev wrote:Elves is the spellcasting race for newbies with lots of int and good aptitudes. Maybe it should be merged into other race.
Tengu is special because you like the idea of bird people? But it's boring specie in terms of gameplay.



That's what I meant with rework, I'm fine when they don't stay in their current form, but I know no other game that has Bird-people.

I also think that stat boni and apitude only differences are a really low bar to differenciate species. Even the Skyrim races have more that differenciates them, and I wouldn't call them really unique.

Maybe Tengu additionally get the apitude and stats from Elves and instead of the speed they get a knockback ability when they flap their wings? This would make a beginner caster class with the ability to keep enemies at distance.

Beside that, if Fairy Dragons make it, their Magic class for beginners background will clash anyway.
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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 18:21

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Oh yeah, DD is top of the worst.
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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 20:45

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Keep

Merfolk is a textbook on how to design a species using aptitudes. You have great melee apts and good magic apts, but you can't go pure melee due to an abysmal armour apt and can't go pure caster due to a bad conjurations apt. The spread of high apts defrays the XP splitting of hybridization just as the low apts increase the cost of purity. It doesn't make MfFi or MfCj impossible but it does make MfSk a more natural option. Shape changing in water is mostly flavor.

Halfling is a defensive archetype. You get armour and evasion (both from dodging skill and size bonus), also known as having your cake and eating it too. The shields apts synergizes with these defenses and with slings, which are the only 1-handed ranged option (lol hand crossbows), but combined with the weapon limits on small creatures forces a hard choice between 1-handed or 2-handed melee. rMut is mostly flavor, but is nice to have in extended when you can't just firestorm malmuters as soon as they come on-screen. The only thing I don't like about halfling is that as knockoff h*bbits they don't seem to fit into Crawl lore.

Kobold is the opposite of halfling, being bad at melee but good at spellcasting.

Tengu - You could wear heavy armour and play it like an HP-impaired minotaur, but the draw of the class is being fantastic at offensive casting (no other class gets +3 conj--the next highest is so-called caster powerhouse DE with +1) and solid at melee. You get to be a death machine with the durability of tissue paper, which is pretty much the opposite of gargoyle. I agree though that the .1 movespeed bonus on flight encourages luring/kiting and should be removed, maybe with an slight apt or stat buff to compensate.

Vine Stalker is a life steal tank as a character concept. You're otherwise squishy so offense becomes not just the best defense but also one of your only defenses. There's a lot of tactical play around ensuring you're constantly dealing melee damage. It's the species vampire would be if vampire were a loving marriage between flavor and mechanics.

Possibly Rework

Ogre - The idea of merging with troll is interesting, and I don't think the large creature design space is entirely settled. At present I think they work as two separate archetypes. While they both lack armour, Ogre has an easy route to hybridization or even full casting (and is mediocre at full melee) while troll explores the idea of how a full melee species can function without armour.

Hill Orc - I think they're good as is, but I agree that the species restrictions should be removed from Beogh. As a side note, orcs would make much more sense if re-flavored as dwarves. "Gold from the dwarven mine" makes a lot more sense than "gold from the orcish mine", and dwarves have the same apts as HO (good at axes, xbows, armour, and fire and earth (magma) magic, bad at dodging and stealth). As a side bonus this dwarf concept fits with its mythological roots while the modern "orc" concept is derived entirely from T*lkien (before Lord of the Rings it was an obscure synonym for goblin)

Remove

Human - Agreed 100%. Human being some kind of "baseline" isn't an argument for keeping it in the game, as it doesn't lead to interesting gameplay. Gnoll is a much more entertaining and mechanically interesting "jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none" archetype. If the idea of a "Theoretically Average Species" helps balance other races, this doesn't require the species to be implemented. Even then, human's aptitudes aren't actually average.

Deep Dwarf - Power-at-a-price species are fun when the drawback is interesting. Deep Dwarf's is broken at a fundamental, un-fixable level.

Vampire - Either remove or rework in one of the ways suggested in viewtopic.php?f=8&t=25266

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 21:35

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

IMO, Halfling is the one species that really deserves to the be axed.

On paper, it seems cool and thematic but it's low HP makes it pretty shit to play as if you want to be a heavy-duty melee guy. It's not a 'hard' race to play, just annoying because you'll have to retreat more often because you'll be worn down much easier.

Low HP + melee doesn't mix too well if you don't have a strong gimmick( like Vine Stalker or Octopode with magic bite and constriction, respectively.)

Not to mention that you can't wield most heavy weapons either, due to being a small race, so your damage output won't be anything amazing either. And, it's upside? Oh man, wow slightly more EV than normal and a good slings aptitude?

It's magic aptitudes are also pretty bad, so you're will ALWAYS be playing the same character over and over, even if you find something interesting.

It's just a bad race, throw it into the garbage can.

(And this is a guy who's favourite race is Octopode, so I'm not opposed to 'weak' characters, I'm just opposed to samey gameplay.)
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 5th April 2018, 22:56

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Oh man, this thread. There's no way this goes down smoothly. Might end up needing to be closed as too broad - listing 9 different species for the axe basically guarentees there's no way to reach a consensus on all of them because there's too many details and people will chime in about whatever subset of them they find the most interesting/need to defend or the least interesting/need to attack.

Watch, I'll prove it: You can come for vine stalkers over my dead body. They're one of the most "different" species we have, and are incredibly powerful and interesting. Especially when a lot of new races that are added tend to be on the harder side, it was nice to see one added that's on the high end of the scale.

If you want a more productive thread, I'd say focus on the one or two cases which have the strongest arguments for removal/merging. That'd probably be halfling/Kobold. I think there will likely be a removal/merger there in the next couple of versions, and hashing out exactly how to do it would be more productive. Discussing 9 races at once is just too broad.

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Post Friday, 6th April 2018, 00:26

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Discussing 9 races at once is just too broad.


There are actually 16 races on trial at once here. In order of mention:

Ba, Ha, HO, Hu, Ko, Mf, Og, Te, Vp (ololoev)
DE (Nordlicht)
Mi (Shtopit)
Gh, VS (bhauth)
Ce, Fe (Shtopit)
DD (Octopode-monk-of-XOM)

Joking aside I am finding this airing of grievances useful. At the least it's made me acknowledge to myself that a heavy melee Hill Orc is uncomfortably close to a Minotaur. We can later break out into more focused threads like a possible MD merge for HO and Mi, a rework/merge of the small races (Ha and Ko), and fix-or-die threads for Deep Dwarf, Human, Vampire (already exists), and possibly Centaur.

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Post Friday, 6th April 2018, 02:06

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Remove Demigods, Demonspawn, Draconians, Formicids, Gargoyles, Gnolls, Mummies, Nagas, Spriggans, and Faerie Dragons!
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Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 6th April 2018, 07:52

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

cliffracer wrote:MD merge for HO and Mi

This makes sense both in terms of gameplay and because of how epic will it be!
For years people whined: "MD was removed, get MD back!", and now it's here!

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Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 6th April 2018, 14:05

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Keep:
- Draconian - I don't like them but can accept their existence as "casters with good defences"
- Felid - annoying in a good way, somehow.
- Merfolk - staple hybrid fighters, they're great.
- Mummy - as a meme (or "challenge species", if you want to call them that).
- Naga - what do you mean they aren't fun?
- Octopode - the amount of octopodes played online is a proof of their solid standing
- Spriggan - I really wanted to have them in merge section paired with felids, but then I realized there wouldn't be felids anymore, and the cats' restrictions aren't appealing to everyone. Anyway, spriggans are good as an entry level race for hexes/stabbing/stealth playstyle
- Troll - excellent fighters with equipment issues, that's fine.

Merge:
- Barachi + Minotaur + Formicid - as a concept of a great fighter that cannot easily run away. Keep increased sight, not sure about escape options (-speed/stasis/hop/dig), and possibly make the result into a new species or just remove Labyrinth from the game already.
- Deep Elf + Tengu - glass cannons with plenty of choices and horrible defences. There's no reason to have them as different species really. Also bring back Reavers because I say so.
- Demigod + Demonspawn - I feel like they fit the same niche of "what if humans had worse apts and limited god choice at the cost of being strong in other areas". I have no idea how to actually merge them, but I don't think two different approaches at the same concept are necessary. Maybe just keep one and remove the other.
- Vampire + Vine Stalker - because Vine Stalkers are what Vampires should be. The blood mechanic is the single most awful concept in Crawl, no contest.

Unsure:
- Gargoyle - their role is very, very similar to current Minotaurs, except new players can try playing "an easy mode spellcaster" with GrEE. Gargoyles are also known as "easy mode extended characters". Not sure if this is good for the game or bad.
- Ghoul - the change to chunk eating speed did them a lot of good but they're still kind of crappy.
- Gnoll - fun in the first few runs, and that's it. I think they could work as a beginner friendly race better if we removed Gargoyles.
- Human - nobody plays humans except when trying to prove otherwise in tavern, yet it still feels like you need a "reference species" you can compare everything else to. I don't know.
- Kobold - I think there's some merit to having bad, slow spriggans that have a bit more reasonable options in playstyle, but I don't know if the merit is big enough.

Remove:
- Centaur - unrivaled archers sound fun until you realize how great +0 shortbows are and/or get to know the marvels of polearm centaurs once you run out of arrows
- Deep Dwarf - speedrunning bait, disgusting to play
- Halfling - "you are kinda good at melee but low HP and can't use weapons but you are great at the worst ranged weapon class AND RMUT FOR EXTENDEDDDDDD" please get rid of them
- Hill Orc - "it's like a minotaur except you have bad dodging and can worship one additional god"
- Ogre - "it's like a draconian except you have more HP and are worse at everything else"

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Post Friday, 6th April 2018, 21:48

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

ololoev wrote:
cliffracer wrote:MD merge for HO and Mi

This makes sense both in terms of gameplay and because of how epic will it be!
For years people whined: "MD was removed, get MD back!", and now it's here!


I meant "merge HO into Mi like MD was merged into HO", but your idea is much better.

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Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 16:58

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Have you played in a tournament yet? The fact that the species list and background lists are so large is very useful for the format of the tournament. It enables streaks, Nemelex Choices, different points for winning with each of the races/backgrounds to be relevant. If the list of species was cut down significantly, a large portion of how the tournament is scored would need complete overhaul. (Not that the tournament scoring is ideal yet).

The variety also allows for player-focused titles like GreaterPlayer, GreatRace, GreatBackground, GreaterOneandwonner to exist and be meaningful achievements.

I don't see any great reason for the list to be shorter, there are lots of mechanical niches that the current list of races provide, and even if they arent too distinct they still allow for greater replayability and more diversity in games.
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Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 17:02

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

tself55 wrote:GreaterOneandwonner

What's that?
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Post Saturday, 7th April 2018, 17:41

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Shtopit wrote:
tself55 wrote:GreaterOneandwonner

What's that?


!greatoneandwon
!greateroneandwon

Basically a oneandwon is winning a combo on your first play of it, and the title is for winning every race and every background in a oneandwon combo.

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Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 07:30

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

@tself55
About tournament score: if we cut species list to say 2/3 of the original length, we can just multiply score for streaks and wins by 1.5-2. It will yield nearly the same amount of points as previous.
And I see a positive thing here: instead of doing stupid fighter streaks with HOBe^Trog, MiFi^Oka, DDGl^Makh, TrHu^Oka, OgMo^Oka, players will be forced into more complex successions of wins with different playstyles and builds.

When it comes to achievements like !greatplayer and !great%background%, have you tried to do it? I did and it was rather boring. Because a lot of species plays in the same manner. And if one is going to do some stupid !great* achievement, I'd suggest this person to try !orbruntomb, !duhzwin, !dupzwin, do tournament banners like Ruthless Efficiency III, Avarice III or Lord of Darkness III. It is more complex and interesting.
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Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 07:41

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

To me, having a large number of species, backgrounds and gods increases replayability a lot. They don't have to have different gimmicks and such. The fact that HaXX plays a lot like KoXX, for example, does not matter at all. The differences are big enough so that replayability is better with than without them, imo.
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Post Monday, 9th April 2018, 18:31

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

I'm not going to address the specifics, mostly because I don't think it's important, but I will say I think ogres are the most fun race in the game, while I find trolls painfully boring.

ololoev wrote:Doing !greatplayer and !great_class will become less tedious.


I think this distinction is almost entirely meaningless. If you don't like a player-defined achievement, don't do it. There is absolutely zero reason to do any of these achievements short of "you think they're fun." If you don't... don't do them. Tournaments and achievements should adapt to the state of the game, not the other way around.

Also it clears a lot of space for new experimental species like faerie drakes, permasilence specters, shakeshifters and other stuff that make sence!


I feel like there's a false dichotomy here. If the argument is "There are too many species," I would be interested in establishing that argument BEFORE we talk about "which race(s) need to be trimmed the most". There is no practical limit on how many species could be added to the selection screen. I'd agree there is a point where there may be too many, but we don't have to "make room" for anything.

"Remove 9 species" is not a productive conversation, as others have mentioned. Either make 9 threads where the merits of each can be discussed, OR argue why 9 species need to be removed. If there's consensus that that fact is true, then we could move on to ranking the bottom 9.

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Post Thursday, 12th April 2018, 22:16

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

tself55 wrote:!greatoneandwon
!greateroneandwon

Basically a oneandwon is winning a combo on your first play of it, and the title is for winning every race and every background in a oneandwon combo.

So if I'm not mistaken, !greateroneandwon would require creating a new account, and then streaking at least 28* characters without ever dying, where those 28 contain each race and background at least once?

*Or however many races there are now, is it 29?

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Post Thursday, 12th April 2018, 22:46

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

tasonir wrote:
tself55 wrote:!greatoneandwon
!greateroneandwon

Basically a oneandwon is winning a combo on your first play of it, and the title is for winning every race and every background in a oneandwon combo.

So if I'm not mistaken, !greateroneandwon would require creating a new account, and then streaking at least 28* characters without ever dying, where those 28 contain each race and background at least once?

*Or however many races there are now, is it 29?

No, you just have to win a combo for each species and a combo for each background on the first try. So if you lose your first HoBe, you could win your first DDBe to get credit for Be and win your first HoFE to get credit for Ho. You might have to start a new account if you run out of species for a background or vice versa though.

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Post Sunday, 15th April 2018, 16:49

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Leszczynek wrote:
Remove:

- Ogre - "it's like a draconian except you have more HP and are worse at everything else"


Unless we're getting a second large rock thrower Ogre still accomplishes two things - allowing us to approach large rocks and/or giant clubs with a different early-game challenge than Troll (shifting us away from claws, thus making hydrae easier, but making the pre-Lair game harder to survive), and avoiding Draconian color roulette, which I for one find unfun. If I'm going for one win with each species, I'm pretty likely to run claws on a Troll and never use a big stick if I don't have Ogre.
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Post Sunday, 15th April 2018, 19:10

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Nelagend wrote:
Leszczynek wrote:
Remove:

- Ogre - "it's like a draconian except you have more HP and are worse at everything else"


Unless we're getting a second large rock thrower Ogre still accomplishes two things - allowing us to approach large rocks and/or giant clubs with a different early-game challenge than Troll (shifting us away from claws, thus making hydrae easier, but making the pre-Lair game harder to survive), and avoiding Draconian color roulette, which I for one find unfun. If I'm going for one win with each species, I'm pretty likely to run claws on a Troll and never use a big stick if I don't have Ogre.

Would draconian being large be too much? Maybe it could be just one colour, like the pale ones.
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Post Monday, 16th April 2018, 18:05

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Shtopit wrote:
Nelagend wrote:
Leszczynek wrote:
Remove:

- Ogre - "it's like a draconian except you have more HP and are worse at everything else"


Unless we're getting a second large rock thrower Ogre still accomplishes two things - allowing us to approach large rocks and/or giant clubs with a different early-game challenge than Troll (shifting us away from claws, thus making hydrae easier, but making the pre-Lair game harder to survive), and avoiding Draconian color roulette, which I for one find unfun. If I'm going for one win with each species, I'm pretty likely to run claws on a Troll and never use a big stick if I don't have Ogre.

Would draconian being large be too much? Maybe it could be just one colour, like the pale ones.

It seems like you're implicitly admitting that having a large draconian would be a different, interesting play experience, and then want to lock that play experience behind a random color choice. Let people pick it, imho.

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Post Monday, 16th April 2018, 18:23

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

ogre does like twice as much melee damage as draconian
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Post Monday, 16th April 2018, 19:26

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

tasonir wrote:
Shtopit wrote:
Nelagend wrote:
Unless we're getting a second large rock thrower Ogre still accomplishes two things - allowing us to approach large rocks and/or giant clubs with a different early-game challenge than Troll (shifting us away from claws, thus making hydrae easier, but making the pre-Lair game harder to survive), and avoiding Draconian color roulette, which I for one find unfun. If I'm going for one win with each species, I'm pretty likely to run claws on a Troll and never use a big stick if I don't have Ogre.

Would draconian being large be too much? Maybe it could be just one colour, like the pale ones.

It seems like you're implicitly admitting that having a large draconian would be a different, interesting play experience, and then want to lock that play experience behind a random color choice. Let people pick it, imho.


I simply know that people are against big changes, so the small change (just one colour) is a bait to attract the reader towards the big change (draconian species).
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Post Tuesday, 17th April 2018, 18:39

Re: Cleansing fire upon species list

Ogres can also wear troll and dragon armour.

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