"Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 08:15

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

goo wrote:Oh well, I'm not sure why I keep typing up these novels on MD as they are probably not going to be considered very hardly by the devs. I doubt this change will be reversed, and I'm still going to keep playing this game regardless, so whatever.


Yeah, I'm none too happy about it either, but this is one of those 'bend over and spread 'em' moments, because they aren't going to do anything about it.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 09:37

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Ah... The MDFi. A staple in every newbie crawler's repertoire. Played them a lot, yet I've never ascended with one. Only recently got my first win with a HoFi of Oki -> Jiyva. And yes, I don't think you HAVE to play Beogh to be an awesome HO, and also, it's quite different from a minotaur (due to the saprovore 1 trait), which someone suggested is the one-way race for meleeing.

Hill Orcs. I just love them because of their less strict diet. Saprovore 1 really is great when playing anything that needs food to keep going, especially HoBe (that also enjoy a +2 to their starting weapon aptitude with Trog).

Minotaurs need some mutations to make them more special, as some people above suggested. Berserkitis 1 is full of flavor, but game-breaking without heavy modifications like an intrinsic reducing the penalties of berserking/the food cost. Hooves 3 is a must, imho. The armour lost from the ability to only wear hats and no boots (yes, no speed too, I realize that) is not so great as we all know, since the body slot does almost all the work in granting AC (unless you have found some +5 boots or something, I guess)... Besides it helps making them less tanky than characters with all armour slots available which helps taking them the offensive route. Also, make them large creatures, which would help ease the training of all kinds of shields.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 10:12

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

It would make more sense to me to keep MD as the default "heavy armour tank" and differentiate Mi in another way. Perhaps they could fill a niche for a species that is great with bows but does not have either the Ce's food/size/movement weirdness or the HE's slow levelling and magical versatility.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 13:51

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

What I learned from this thread is that it is a design goal to maximize content unique to Crawl and minimize content that is overly similar to other sources. I think that is pretty neat. I have a soft spot for dwarves, so I will miss Mountain Dwarves a little. But when I consider all the new content that the dev team is spending their energy developing, I will not miss them very much.

Another bonus of losing MD: new players might discover Deep Dwarves sooner. When I first started playing, I assumed that DD must be an expert-only challenge race.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 14:01

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Yeah. It's magic what that damage shaving and wand of healing can do for you, especially in the early game where it matters most.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 16:14

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

goo wrote:The current trend in race design are races that are different from each other through ways other than aptitudes. For some reason, the developers seems to find races that are merely different via aptitude spreads to be uninteresting. I disagree.

I disagree too, and I'd love to see a simple new species get added that doesn't have a lot of fuss. Open up the changelog one day and see a new species got added, just a few lines of code, nothing fancy, no pain in the ass playtesting to deal with. But I get the impression that a few minor aptitude tweaks (especially in weapons skills), a handful of mutations, and/or a focus on one narrow set of skills do not necessarily make a good niche.

Going to repeat this again, I think with a few simple changes you can make Minotaur more interesting and different from Mountain Dwarf.

You post that you want to see more species that are differentiated just by aptitude spreads, and then suggest that Minotaurs be differentiated by body-slot mutations and an entirely new feature mitigating the downsides of Berserk...

Also: I wasn't privy to the IRC discussions but I'm pretty sure the devs considered and rejected a number of suggestions for differentiating Mi/MD, so why do so many posts go on as if the devs didn't even give MDs a chance?

That's it. That's all you have to do.

"all you have to do is code up the suggestions I wrote, that no one else has put their thoughts into, it will fix all the problems, trust me"

Minotaurs already make good Berserkers, they don't really need any nudging in that direction, and they already have a labyrinth-themed mapping ability.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 17:26

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

While I can understand the desire to move away from the Tolkien/D&D stereotypes, I am a little concerned at the moves towards removing recognisable fantasy races in favour of gimmick species like felids and octopodes. I can see the Crawl of a few years in the future just being a big list of gimmicks like sentient gas clouds, fungus-men and giant viruses.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 17:44

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Folks, it'd be easier to take you serious if the accusations were a little less bizarre.
Removed species: HD, GE, El, OM, MD.
Added species: Vp, DD, Fe, Oc (the latter unconfirmed).

Of the added species, Vp is a traditional race with lots of myth behind it. It has more rule changes than other species, but that is for capturing the fact that Vampires wander between life and undeath. You can call this "gimmicky" if you want, I don't. Next, DD is a traditional species with a single, game changing feature (no healing). You can call this gimmicky, I don't. Note that both Vp and DD are very viable and not challenge species. Onwards, Fe is challenging and I am fine with calling it gimmicky, as is Oc. Then again, both of those play very much differently from all the rest, and Oc are very popular on the trunk server.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 17:47

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Jeremiah wrote:I am a little concerned at the moves towards removing recognisable fantasy races in favour of gimmick species like felids and octopodes.


Couldn't disagree more. As long as they're balanced and provide something unique to the game, very different species are more than welcome to me.

The thing I love most about crawl -- the thing I get all excited and rave to my friends about -- is that you can play a Mummy of Vehumet, a Troll of Trog, a Deep Dwarf of Makhleb, and a Spriggan of Nemelex, and be playing a completely different kind of game, even though the setting is the same each time. None of them are trivial to win (for me, at least), but all of them are possible to win. All of them require different strategic choices and completely different battle tactics to survive. All of those could certainly be considered "gimmick" species, but they all work. Hell, everyone in that set of species even has complications to their food game.

It's also great that the devs are willing to make major (often unpopular) changes to Crawl because it's something they believe will make a better game... and then see how things play out and adjust from there.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 18:09

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

I wouldn't even call octopodes a gimmick species. They have an easy time getting resists and other ring benefits, but a hard time getting AC. In the end, they're a caster-biased species and play pretty much the same as any other caster-biased vanilla species. The only real concession you have to make to their weaknesses is to recognize that they shouldn't wade out into the midst of a pack of popcorn monsters to get to the caster in back.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 18:19

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Really depends on the definition of 'gimmick', which, if you ask me, is all different kinds of ephemeral these days. Example: I'd call octopodes and felids less 'gimmicky' than vampires and deep dwarves, for the exact same reasons you list.

Granted, I'm not saying anything about any of those gimmicks/features/whatever the fuck we're supposed to call them are bad, despite the perceived negative connotation of a 'gimmick', so take that with a shaker of salt or two.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 18:52

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Honestly, this discussion about dwarven items just makes me want to remove dwarven items.


I don't see any reason to get rid of dwarven items: first, they are high quality items, corrosion-proof, second, they are adds lots of flavour in a dungeon, third, DD can benefit of them to aid a little (I don't know how relevant are). If somebody still complains I suggest the following: an increasing degree of usefulness of racial items.

For example dwarven items are best used by DD, second perhaps by humans, 3rd by orcs, elves... whichever else, same for orcish and elven items.

Off topic: I would like to see some gimmicks also on elven and orcish items. Maybe for elvish items brands endure longer / buffs consume less MP if the permabuff is implemented, and orcish items may allow more often unarmed attacks. All this merely slight so as not to OP the weapons/armor.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 18:55

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Roderic wrote:Off topic: I would like to see some gimmicks also on elven and orcish items. Maybe for elvish items brands endure longer / buffs consume less MP if the permabuff is implemented, and orcish items may allow more often unarmed attacks. All this merely slight so as not to OP the weapons/armor.


Beogh gives bonuses to orcs using orcish weapons and armor. They're not very useful if you're not an orc but if you are an orc it's nice.
I think elven items are lighter, have stealth bonuses, impede spellcasting less, and are more accurate when used by elves.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 19:54

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Since we no longer have Mountain Dwarves for them to be overly similar to, can we bring Hill Dwarves back?

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 20:01

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

The question is not about the name, but about diversity. The species that is called "Minotaur" in trunk could equally well be labelled "Hill Dwarf", "Mountain Dwarf" or "Mountain Orc". I tried to make clear why "Minotaur" was chosen in the end (even if the explanation did not really help). If someone comes up with a distinct enough proposal for a melee-oriented species, it could be some kind of dwarf (bonus points for smallness, I guess).

With aptitudes alone, that seems hard to achieve, but one can try. Once combat moves are in, it may be easier.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 20:29

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

dpeg wrote:If someone comes up with a distinct enough proposal for a melee-oriented species, it could be some kind of dwarf (bonus points for smallness, I guess).


Are there plans to turn DDs into a small species?

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 20:35

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Not really. The idea has been thrown around (for DD and MD) but never got anywhere.

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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 20:47

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

If you want to talk about changing/bringing back dwarves, the best place would probably be here: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:dwarves (though it seems the wiki has been mostly inactive.) The devs are busy with a lot of other things, so just bugging them about dwarves will probably not help.

I've just gotten the hang of modifying player species. If someone has an idea for a new dwarf-type species, you could send me a PM and I will test your idea. If it looks good and plays distinctly, I will post the results. If your idea requires a new mutation, I can't help you.
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Post Saturday, 29th October 2011, 23:54

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Once combat moves are in, it may be easier.


Yes!
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Post Sunday, 30th October 2011, 20:20

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

One thing I'd like to see is for Hill Orcs of all backgrounds to be able to start with Beogh, either by default or as an option. There isn't an especially strong reason for Beogh to be limited to a fighting background, but the placement of his altars makes starting anything but the default kind of difficult.
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Post Sunday, 30th October 2011, 22:15

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

nicolae wrote:Minotaurs already make good Berserkers, they don't really need any nudging in that direction, and they already have a labyrinth-themed mapping ability.


I'm against the extra mapping too, but, I'm going to go ahead and say: "I'd much rather play a KoBe, HOBe, TrBe or OgBe than a minotaur". Heck, i would even play a Merfolk or Halfling instead of a Minotaur due to their unique perks. Minotaurs should be made more diverse...

This is a little personal fact of mine: I haven't played minotaurs more than 5 times in the hundreds of games I've ran, and I've been playing Crawl for more than a year mostly with melee combos. Why is that, you may ask? Well, frankly, they seem boring as sin to me and are far from being the best berserkers - or the most convenient at least - since other than the great melee apts, they don't have anything special that sets them apart.

To me, Minotaurs are just humans with slightly modified stats, a pair of horns and great melee apts, shitty magic skill and slightly high HP/low MP growth. The package just doesn't have anything attractive to it. Not being able to wear artifact helmets is potentially annoying, too. I think what makes a race great is a unique set of fixed mutations that define it, or a special "gimmick" such as Octopodes not being able to wear armor but 8 rings instead. I don't particularly play Octopodes much, but they are a very different, interesting and refreshing way to play.

Here's what I think of Minotaurs:

I imagine Minotaurs as raging bulls. They should get angry pretty easily, which should translate into innate Berserkitis. Also, Hooves 3 is a must, since their lower body is nothing similar to a humans. They look like satyr legs, only much more muscular. I don't know how OP this unarmed mutation would be, but frankly, losing the boot slot is bad enough to counter it since it's tied to Speed/Levi/Stealth boots.

What could be done:
  Code:
Start with berserkitis 1 (it has a low chance of proc, but especially cautious players could make use of the nice ranged apts of Minotaurs and raise their crossbow/slings/w/e a bit to try and avoid it triggering more than it should, if they wish to do so)

At level 13, you gain berserkitis 2 (might need to change the way it triggers if it is too often) and the ability to ignore a good part of the penalties of berserking and lower its food cost.

Attempt to explain it flavour wise: As you're getting deeper into the dungeon, your anger management issues get worse, since it's harder to keep your cool when you witness the horrors in the lower levels, but in the same time, regular use of berserking has taught you how to embrace your anger, so that you can shake off some of the negative effects and do it more efficiently.

I assumed that cutting back the costs of berserk would be OP for the early game in particular, so what If you get the reduction at lvl 13? I think, if done correctly, this CAN be balanced and lead to a very unique race that's built around pure melee fury, either with Trog or without. Minotaurs fit thematically, and are crappy at Spellcasting, so they fit even more. It will lead to a faster, more reckless early gameplay and more food needed initially, but after lvl 13, berserking would be much cheaper food-wise and occur pretty often in battle. It could lead to some ugly situations, but that's what clarity is for, If you are worried. ;)

If this can't be done at all with the current berserkitis, I think berserkitis should be reworked and the minotaur built around it, since there's been complaints https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=2963 about the mutation not being crippling to casters at all (where it should matter, causing berserk on a spellcaster is a standard tactic to effectively cripple them for a fight -causing them to attack you with their weak melee skills- in most RPGs. If you've played any Final Fantasy title you should probably know this) while being potentially game-losing to melee characters if they can't have clarity.
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Post Sunday, 30th October 2011, 23:00

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

TehDruid, I've tried implementing hooves and berserkitis, and they are both terrible ideas. (Besides, there's now a thread in this forum about minotaurs.)

To reiterate, hooves are too powerful for minotaurs unless you completely overhaul their aptitudes. Even then, they make UC far more attractive than armed combat. Berserkitis is either crippling or irrelevant. If you remove the exhaustion, it becomes too powerful.
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Post Sunday, 30th October 2011, 23:23

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

@File200

First of all, I don't think you read more than up to the point where I started mentioning hooves and berserkitis, where you dismissed the post entirely and no matter what you say, the impression won't change.

I didn't say exhaustion/hunger cost of berserking should get removed with this ability, just toned down, and only after lvl 13, since getting it from the start would make the berserker's early game even more of a cakewalk than it is.

How is it crippling when coupled with an ability to tone it down? Berserkitis has ranks, mind you. Have you played a character with berserkitis 1? The ability has been toned down in general, and it procs pretty rarely at rank 1. That's why I said "begin with berserkitis 1, then increase it to 2 at 13 and get the lowered exhaustion/hunger".

I also think that you barely playtested the things you said you tried and dismissed them as "way too hard to balance, so nvm".

Does hooves 3 meaning no boots say anything to you, by the way? Isn't losing the potential for speed a great hit to ensure that the -rather unreliable imho- benefit of the auxiliary attack is balanced?
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Post Sunday, 30th October 2011, 23:55

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

(This is still ostensibly a thread about dwarves, and this will be my last derail)

Losing boots really doesn't mean much compared to the damage boost of hooves. And even if it is balanced by the loss of AC, it pushes people further towards UC which is already really strong. It sort of makes a dodgy UC build a no-brainer.

I don't need to playtest berserkitis:1 extensively. I played ~7 games with it and they were all incredibly unfun. three games ended with me dying in ways that should be completely avoidable for a low-level character: Running out of berserk in the middle of fighting an orc pack (wizard blocked my escape); running out of berserk shortly before killing an ogre; and resting off exhaustion as a black mamba came around the corner, respectively. If this ability activates while fighting a group of enemies, you just run away. Berserkitis may activate rarely, but when it does it will kill you or be unnecessary. The point is that this ability rarely activates when it would really benefit you, so it just serves as a nuisance at best (It is considered a bad mutation for a reason). And if you are already worshiping Trog, this ability is pointless in addition to being crippling.

I did not test the "Reduce rage penalty" idea, because I do not have the coding skill to create a new mutation. Trog already grants this ability, so I could try copying it from the god files and fazing in berserkitis/"Vigour" at the same time as you level. Random berserking still sounds painful and, well, random. Note that even if you reduce the time of exhaustion/slow, running out of berserk while fighting is still terrible.

Actually, if you want to test berserkitis minotaur yourself it should be easy. Using the git build, open the file "ng-setup" and add the line:
  Code:
        you.mutation[MUT_BERSERK]           = 1;

After the lines:
  Code:
case SP_MINOTAUR:
        you.mutation[MUT_HORNS]           = 2;

then "make."

Or if you're willing to dig through appData (as I did until I found GIT was more convenient) you could do it without learning GIT.
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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 00:19

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

(I know it's an article about dwarves but the whole discussion started by quoting some things mentioned here, that's why I keep replying to this topic)

First of all, unfun and unlucky deaths will happen even without crippling mutations causing them. That means, I have no idea how skilled you are in playing melee, and especially this test character. If you played sloppily, you were bound to die sloppy deaths, naturally. From the examples you gave me, I can see you engaged foes that should be dealt with with more caution, especially when playing a character with berserkitis. Why would you run away when fighting a group? If you're in a corridor you should mash them. If you're not, that's bad tactics. When you get angry, you don't run away. You stay and TAB! That's bad role playing... :|

About hooves: So what? Kenku have 2 body slot mutations for unarmed. The odd Monstrous Demonspawn get 3. Should those options be removed because they're too OP for UC? I don't see many Kenku martial artists, mostly AE. Well, they're much more frail than Minotaurs, of course...

Even with the auxiliary attacks, I think a Troll is still going to inflict more damage because the bonus of claws is consistent on attacks, unlike auxiliary unarmed attacks. The whole auxiliary attack scene is a bit obscure to me, to be honest, but as far as I've read (from the beastly appendage spell for Tms in trunk 0.10) The damage for body mutations is rather small when compared to the raw output of the hands themselves.

Thanks for the instructions though, I think I'm going to try it tomorrow, because right now it's 2:20 AM and I should get to sleep. Gn everyone!
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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 00:49

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

I seriously do not understand the fascination of trying to improve a melee-focused species by giving them the single most melee crippling mutation in the game.
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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:02

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

File200's judgement is spot on; I fully share the sentiments.

Regarding dwarves: I completely forgot that we tested small-sized dwarves for a while (in a branch). Didn't turn out well, so it was dismissed. We did not try large minotaurs but we don't see any potential for that idea.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:16

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

TwilightPhoenix wrote:I seriously do not understand the fascination of trying to improve a melee-focused species by giving them the single most melee crippling mutation in the game.


It's thematic, that's kind of about it, since bulls lose their temper. I always figured that Minotaur's low Int was just an abstract way of representing that they're dumb raging brutes.

Incidentally, on more dwarf-themed matters, I like the "Factory Dwarves" suggestion File200 is messing with on the wiki, trying to make a heavy armor species that's not great at melee and relies on casting FE and EE in heavy armor instead, with a little help from Evocations. I hope it works out; if there's any niche left to be found just by tweaking aptitudes, I figure "heavy-armor caster" might be it. (Though I would change the name to "Forge Dwarves" or "Smith Dwarves" or the like.)
Last edited by nicolae on Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:17, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:17

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Good point on the aptitude niche. Could also be used for golems, I guess.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:30

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

I think a lot of people would enjoy a new race that is only differentiated by aptitudes and (maybe) a few small mutations. I have to agree with that sentiment... "normal" races are a good thing to have, especially if they can be made unique by aptitudes alone. The "factory dwarf" idea looks interesting for this.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 01:46

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

evilmike: I have nothing against that. I'll blow my own horn, but it was my idea to distinguish (new) ogres by their aptitudes alone. And I've been setting up the aptitude overhaul (from percentages to -5...+5 scale) so as to make it easier to compare aptitude sets and spot holes.

Proposals are welcome. The fact that we didn't see a way to keep both melee species does not mean there isn't a solution. (And I believe that one should look outside of the "normal sized melee fighter" box for a good proposal.)

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 02:10

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Minotaurs are great at UC because they have good combat aptitudes and high HP, AND if they use light armor they can actually dip into magic to make themselves deadlier. In my experience, minotaur monk/transmuter with hooves eviscerates the early dungeon. Auxiliary attacks are strong enough to make a difference, and that's what counts.

Berserkitis forcing you to play more cautiously in melee seems to contradict the whole idea of a reckless melee class. One idea for angry_minotaur might be a positive mutation that randomly boosts your strength score a bit. Hm, now I like the idea. I will try implementing this.

-

"Normal" races are hard to distinguish with aptitudes alone, because they can all be played similarly despite skill disparities. It feels like aptitudes have to be really extreme to make a noticeable difference. If there is a demand for it, I will continue working on "Forge Dwarves" (thank nicolae) and post the results.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 02:19

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

File200: random strength boost is only a vague approximation of what you want, I think. Why not try something more direct: the more wounded you, the better the chance of a boost. The boost should not be random, in my opinion. Some options: Increase Strength. Increase damage (like orc's battle stance). Attacks may hit adjacent targets just as well. Etc.

Go ahead with the Forge Dwarves. Once more, if you come up with something, please take it to the wiki. It may be only in six months, that someone looks for species ideas.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 02:34

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Added a page to the wiki for future minotaur discussion. https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... s:minotaur

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dpeg, evktalo

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 05:01

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

dpeg wrote:File200's judgement is spot on; I fully share the sentiments.

Regarding dwarves: I completely forgot that we tested small-sized dwarves for a while (in a branch). Didn't turn out well, so it was dismissed. We did not try large minotaurs but we don't see any potential for that idea.


I hope that MD dwarves return to the game (for purely sentimental reasons, my first win was a MDFi back in 2007), and I think making dwarves a small race is the way to go. They would lose the ability to use large shields as well as two handers, and a broad axe would become two handed for them. This change has the added benefit of making smaller one handed weapons like Arga more appealing.

To make up for the equipment restrictions, a host of flavorful racial abilities could be added. To throw some out there: Bulwarks (trampling resistance), Giant slaying (a damage bonus dependent on the size of the enemy; nothing for small or humanoid enemies, some for large enemies, and a hefty bonus for the really large stuff), Fearlessness (resistance to fear, which would be a good excuse to make fear causing monsters play a larger role in the game), Gold Lust (some sort of bonus, either offensive or defensive, for every 500 units of gold, capped at 3000 or so; would force dwarf players in the early/mid game to decide whether purchases would be worth losing their gold bonus. Would also synergize with a greed god if that ever happens), Shield Pummel (gain an offhand attack when using a shield), etc.

Sure, it's Tolkien rehashing, but there's something very satisfying in rolling a MDFi named Gimli and I'd be sad to see that go. Plus, all of the other small races like kobolds, spriggans, and halflings have good dodging apps, tend towards lighter armor, and aren't seen as tanks.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 14:30

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Halflings are currently one of the best species for great AC/EV/SH overall; high Dex, great Dodging and Shields apts and the fact that (Swamp/Ice/Fire) dragon armour give loads of AC without crippling your EV do make them very tank-like, especially if you're playing a Berserker or other Trog halfling who can pump all of his experience into the three defensive skills (well, you'd want to turn Armour off at some point).
While I don't think sentimental reason = bad reason, I think there comes a point where it doesn't suffice anymore, and that point is reached where two species are virtually the same. The thing that gives HO an advantage over MD is the fact that Beogh exists and their Invocations aptitude.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 15:37

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

I have a totally crazy and weird idea for making sure you never have to play MD ever again.

See that letter next to their name in the selection screen?

Don't hit it when you make a new d00d.

Problem solved.

Or you could just piss off a large proportion of your player base for no reason.

Whatever works best for you.
(p.s. this is stupid some dev please make it not stupid) - minmay
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 15:49

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

sardonica wrote:I have a totally crazy and weird idea for making sure you never have to play MD ever again.

See that letter next to their name in the selection screen?

Don't hit it when you make a new d00d.

Problem solved.

Or you could just piss off a large proportion of your player base for no reason.

Whatever works best for you.


I believe the goal is to maintain the arbitrary magic number of 27.
"Be aware that a lot of people on this forum, such as mageykun and XuaXua, have a habit of making things up." - minmay a.k.a. duvessa
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 16:04

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

27 had nothing to do with it either, although that's another good conspiracy theory to add to the ever-more impressive list. :P

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XuaXua

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 19:18

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

XuaXua wrote:I believe the goal is to maintain the arbitrary magic number of 27.


There is nothing arbitrary about 27 ... unlike, say, the number 10 which is the basis for our entire decimal system and yet has no useful qualities or properties, other than coincidentally being the same as a count of a particular anatomical feature of a particular group of mammals ... if you want to talk about "arbitrary", please drop some standard assumptions first ;)

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 19:36

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

MarvinPA wrote:27 had nothing to do with it either, although that's another good conspiracy theory to add to the ever-more impressive list. :P


Mountain Dwarves got taken out because they got too close to the truth.

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Grimm
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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 20:53

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

nicolae wrote:Mountain Dwarves got taken out because they got too close to the truth.


They say that if you streak 27 wins with a Mountain Dwarf, a player ghost comes out of your computer and kills you.

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Grimm

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 22:58

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

minmay wrote:Were you opposed to the removal of hill dwarves? What about grey elves and giants?

Incidentally, there is a school of thought whereby any removal is bad because "if you don't like it, you don't have to play/use it". Most people around here know that this is not how DCSS development works, but there is always Slashem for the inclusive approach. :)

Some species were nearly identical to other species, and MD was one of those. As far as I can tell, the only reason it lasted as long as it did was sentimentality or perhaps flavour, two things that have been demonstrated time and time again to be very bad things to design around.

Neither sentimentality nor flavour really. Removal of species is discussed from time to time, but the real stinkers are long gone by now. This comes in grades: HD was much worse back when MD was around, same for Elf back then. To make this precise: Back then we were talking about aptitude differences of mostly 10 , sometimes only 5! So we deferred removal until later... when someone would come up with a plan. As it happened, someone came up with a plan (group effort, but I am happy to catch all the mud thrown around) and one species had to leave. The name of the remaining (merged) species was chosen for reasons indicated.

Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 23:40

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

I'm done with Crawl. Cutting a VERY popular player race instead of finding a way to differentiate it smacks of lazy design. What happened to the "make dwarves small size" talk?
Its pretty clear this game is run by elitists who want to make the early game so insanely difficult that it will drive away most of the fanbase and come up with goofy cat/octopus/brain slug races because they fell asleep watching Futurama in between coding sessions.
Since the fanbase matters so little to you, goodbye. I'm done with a game that clearly doesn't value my opinions or input.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 23:46

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

jackalKnight wrote:I'm done with Crawl. Cutting a VERY popular player race instead of finding a way to differentiate it smacks of lazy design.


Why do so many people who are mad about the MD cut assume none of the devs even tried to think of ways to differentiate them? Most of the suggestions for differentiating MDs in this thread and at the wiki have either been things that would be minor in practice, gimmicky new abilities, or would result in a species quite unlike what people expect from MDs, which leads me to believe that it's not as easy as all the pissed-off players make it sound to come up with distinct species.

What happened to the "make dwarves small size" talk?


dpeg wrote:Regarding dwarves: I completely forgot that we tested small-sized dwarves for a while (in a branch). Didn't turn out well, so it was dismissed. We did not try large minotaurs but we don't see any potential for that idea.

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Post Monday, 31st October 2011, 23:58

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

nicolae: There is no point talking to them. These are trolls [1] and I don't care if they play Crawl or any other game. We got replies starting with "Fuck you", thrown "lazy" at us several times (who does the game, huh?), and one bunch of false statements after the other. [2]

We know where we want to go with the game, and we also know that the appeal is big enough for many players to come along. If we lose the screamers and get other players, all is well. This is one of the moments where I am utterly happy that absolutely no money is involved. "I'm done" is such a pointless statement -- as if we'd change our opinion just to keep this one very important player in our ranks.

[1] A quick proof of the trolling is this: given the fact that so many commenters scream and shout, you wonder why not a single one made a fork, just reverting the MD removal.

[2] This does not mean that everyone disagreeing with the MD cut is a troll, of course. (Many of those tend to be dwarves, naturally.) There have been civilised comments, and we all know that no change is universally liked -- much more so for removals. However, I really hope that the civilised players objecting with the MD renaming/removal will understand that there's no way of going back, at least not immediately. It would feel like troll feeding to me, and break my heart.

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Post Tuesday, 1st November 2011, 00:06

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

Or the devs could have listened to the community and cut minotaurs instead, since they were far less popular as a player race. The Labyrinth levels were a terrible design and filled with the stupid "starvation difficulty" Crawl was supposed to avoid. Removing them would change the overall flavor of the game far less than half the proposed changes would.

Anyway, removing the primary newbie friendly race reveals to me two things:
1. Crawl devs are basically hyper power players who only care about catering to extreme long term difficulty over user friendliness
2. The obsession with "difference" has ironically made the game much less flexible. No one will ever cut ghouls, despite the fact they are less flexible than dwarves, because they feel really different from other species, despite the fact you're fundamentally playing a cripple as a ghoul. No one will cut octopus despite the fact that it is almost entirely reliant on finding good rings, etc. The only things the current dev team is interested in are hyperspecialized characters that are extremely difficult to utilize properly.

Anyway, removing a popular feature because of complaints about "genericness" and the mythology by the dev team, despite the fact that the fanbase was greatly angered, indicates that this game's further development holds little promise. That's why I'm done.

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Post Tuesday, 1st November 2011, 00:07

Re: "Give Mountain Dwarves the axe"

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