Snake Sneak
Posts: 113
Joined: Saturday, 12th May 2012, 21:18
Wednesday, 27th June 2012, 18:10
"Problems" Pre-Lair [Whinging]
So, I'm not that great of a player. But I'm good enough to have won 16 times. I also play way too much crawl-- 10 of those wins were in the last month. A lot of things annoy me. I think I've whined more than my fair share here, in IRC, and elsewhere because I am a very annoyance-averse player. I find the early game to be a lot more frustrating than fun. It's not because the early game is so difficult, because difficulty is a good thing when it arises in the right way. If it were the difficulty I could just stick to easier combos and win forever. I recently streaked four easy combos, so if anything the early game could be more difficult. The problem is what I said: There is more frustration early game than fun.
Item destruction is in general very unfun. It is so unfun that conservation is a popular amulet, not because of its power (well, most of the non-artefact amulets are weaker...) but because of its convenience. Generally if the player is making a decision purely based on convenience, that is problematic. It means some mechanic is so unfun it's more enjoyable for the player to ignore it than to make a more meaningful gameplay choice. Consumables are perfectly manageable without conservation. Carry little in low-danger areas and stash the rest for high-danger areas, drop all your scrolls before fighting the monster with sticky flame, et cetera. But that's annoying, and so is having your scrolls burned and your potions popped. So... conservation is popular for bad reasons.
Nausea is also unfun, and the food clock in general is more tedious than it is important. Only a few kinds of characters care about food and mostly only for part of the game. Still, with proper play food shouldn't really ever be an issue. Even for a Spriggan. However, proper play is tedious, repetitive, and annoying. So for the same reasons conservation is popular, gourmand is as well. Popular, and sort of decent, but mostly to reduce tedium. That's bad.
I mention these two because they become less of a problem late game (even though like half the monsters you meet in the second half of D can have a way to pop your stuff) but are pretty annoying early on. Do you know what feels incredibly bad? Having a Kobold with darts of frost pop your only two potions on D:1. Orc wizards are even worse. This is the stage in the game where your character is the least interesting they will ever be and most of your choices are coming from the consumables you have. Having them destroyed isn't that big of a deal, but it feels bad. It feels like you're being punished and it removes decisions you could make later. Nausea becomes nearly a complete non-issue by the time you get to lair for most characters, and pretty much for all characters shortly thereafter. However early on it just feels annoying and punishing because you couldn't find a clean corpse in time- not really your fault if the game just proceeded that way. Generally, a lot of mechanics that are around for most of the game seem more painful early on than later on.
Here's something I once read about game design: "In general, it's not a good idea to penalize players too much. When players are confronted by decisions, it's better to let them pick between different good options, rather than forcing them to choose the lesser of two evils." Now, if the player makes a series of bad moves, she should be forced into a situation where she has to swallow some bitter medicine and choose between options that all feel bad. Consequences are what make a game difficult and engaging. But the punishments should be in measure with the mistakes made, and it is important that the player does something to deserve it (and she should be given enough information to ascertain her mistake).
Gameplay has a huge punishment/reward component to it. Winning is only one reward and losing is only one punishment. Crawl is generally good at rewards and punishments. Getting mutated, being forced to use consumables, losing consumables, getting drained, equipment corrosion, getting banished, dying: all punishments and they generally do not happen too often and too severely. Leveling up, gaining skill levels, finding gear, finding consumables, interesting vaults, getting the message in IRC that you murdered Mennas, picking up runes, finding new branches, good mutations, god gifts, picking up the orb: all rewards and they generally feel really good.
I feel like most early game challenges don't have good enough rewards to justify the effort I give them. Dying early game, and dying is supposed to be the most severe punishment, is no big deal. "Oh no I lost a character I had for 5 minutes. I am devastated." However, you don't really get rewarded early game for overcoming foes. Unless I am streaking I will throw myself at Grinder or Pikel every game in the hopes that I kill them before exploding because multi-leveling is fun and skipping levels or dancing stairs to lose pursuers is unfun. Most tough foes early on don't give you the same experience rewards versus resources used or risks taken some of those dangerous uniques do. Also, since there aren't usually any vaults with treasure early on, most of the equipment rewards you get are floor trash and it's mostly rare to find more than one really nice, rewarding piece of gear before lair.
What would you rather fight, an orc warrior or a giant frog? I'll take the giant frog, or ideally two giant frogs any day. Giant frogs give 90 XP and are really easy for most characters. Orc Warriors are really dangerous and give 113 XP. What would you rather fight, an orc warrior or a yak? I'll definitely take the yak. It gives 205 XP and is usually easier to deal with. How about an adder versus a gnoll? I'd rather fight two adders than a gnoll with a polearm early game. An adder gives 13 XP and a gnoll gives 14 XP.
Hopefully I haven't failed in conveying what I mean: XP rewards feel really wonky early on. I just noticed last night why Lair felt so good to do even though the monsters were scarier than most things pre-lair, and it's because they give tons and tons of XP and I level a lot faster in lair than I do earlier, and they're not really that much deadlier than things you face early on relative to your character's strength. XP is the most basic reward in the game and it doesn't feel rewarding early on because that gnoll with the halberd or the orc warrior with the plate and battleaxe are way more dangerous than the reward they give in levels. Running away is too often the best option early on. Running isn't fun. Skipping levels isn't fun.
Out of depth monsters feel the same way. Orc priests on D:2 make me want to ^Q Yes because ugh. Blah. What else... how about Terence with a wand of polymorph other? A lot of fun. Or the Kobold with the dagger of venom on D:1? This post is devolving into a rant and there's still tons of other things early on that are really annoying, like waiting out poison or the variance in monster HP or early meph ghosts but honestly I will just be complaining about something else and saying the same thing: It feels punishing without feeling rewarding and that's bad. That's the thesis. If you don't agree with it, then you will just see someone whining a ton about early game being too hard or whatever. Of course there's a ton of that in here. Like I said, I'm a really whiny player. I hope that at least some of these points are valid in spite of that.
Item destruction is in general very unfun. It is so unfun that conservation is a popular amulet, not because of its power (well, most of the non-artefact amulets are weaker...) but because of its convenience. Generally if the player is making a decision purely based on convenience, that is problematic. It means some mechanic is so unfun it's more enjoyable for the player to ignore it than to make a more meaningful gameplay choice. Consumables are perfectly manageable without conservation. Carry little in low-danger areas and stash the rest for high-danger areas, drop all your scrolls before fighting the monster with sticky flame, et cetera. But that's annoying, and so is having your scrolls burned and your potions popped. So... conservation is popular for bad reasons.
Nausea is also unfun, and the food clock in general is more tedious than it is important. Only a few kinds of characters care about food and mostly only for part of the game. Still, with proper play food shouldn't really ever be an issue. Even for a Spriggan. However, proper play is tedious, repetitive, and annoying. So for the same reasons conservation is popular, gourmand is as well. Popular, and sort of decent, but mostly to reduce tedium. That's bad.
I mention these two because they become less of a problem late game (even though like half the monsters you meet in the second half of D can have a way to pop your stuff) but are pretty annoying early on. Do you know what feels incredibly bad? Having a Kobold with darts of frost pop your only two potions on D:1. Orc wizards are even worse. This is the stage in the game where your character is the least interesting they will ever be and most of your choices are coming from the consumables you have. Having them destroyed isn't that big of a deal, but it feels bad. It feels like you're being punished and it removes decisions you could make later. Nausea becomes nearly a complete non-issue by the time you get to lair for most characters, and pretty much for all characters shortly thereafter. However early on it just feels annoying and punishing because you couldn't find a clean corpse in time- not really your fault if the game just proceeded that way. Generally, a lot of mechanics that are around for most of the game seem more painful early on than later on.
Here's something I once read about game design: "In general, it's not a good idea to penalize players too much. When players are confronted by decisions, it's better to let them pick between different good options, rather than forcing them to choose the lesser of two evils." Now, if the player makes a series of bad moves, she should be forced into a situation where she has to swallow some bitter medicine and choose between options that all feel bad. Consequences are what make a game difficult and engaging. But the punishments should be in measure with the mistakes made, and it is important that the player does something to deserve it (and she should be given enough information to ascertain her mistake).
Gameplay has a huge punishment/reward component to it. Winning is only one reward and losing is only one punishment. Crawl is generally good at rewards and punishments. Getting mutated, being forced to use consumables, losing consumables, getting drained, equipment corrosion, getting banished, dying: all punishments and they generally do not happen too often and too severely. Leveling up, gaining skill levels, finding gear, finding consumables, interesting vaults, getting the message in IRC that you murdered Mennas, picking up runes, finding new branches, good mutations, god gifts, picking up the orb: all rewards and they generally feel really good.
I feel like most early game challenges don't have good enough rewards to justify the effort I give them. Dying early game, and dying is supposed to be the most severe punishment, is no big deal. "Oh no I lost a character I had for 5 minutes. I am devastated." However, you don't really get rewarded early game for overcoming foes. Unless I am streaking I will throw myself at Grinder or Pikel every game in the hopes that I kill them before exploding because multi-leveling is fun and skipping levels or dancing stairs to lose pursuers is unfun. Most tough foes early on don't give you the same experience rewards versus resources used or risks taken some of those dangerous uniques do. Also, since there aren't usually any vaults with treasure early on, most of the equipment rewards you get are floor trash and it's mostly rare to find more than one really nice, rewarding piece of gear before lair.
What would you rather fight, an orc warrior or a giant frog? I'll take the giant frog, or ideally two giant frogs any day. Giant frogs give 90 XP and are really easy for most characters. Orc Warriors are really dangerous and give 113 XP. What would you rather fight, an orc warrior or a yak? I'll definitely take the yak. It gives 205 XP and is usually easier to deal with. How about an adder versus a gnoll? I'd rather fight two adders than a gnoll with a polearm early game. An adder gives 13 XP and a gnoll gives 14 XP.
Hopefully I haven't failed in conveying what I mean: XP rewards feel really wonky early on. I just noticed last night why Lair felt so good to do even though the monsters were scarier than most things pre-lair, and it's because they give tons and tons of XP and I level a lot faster in lair than I do earlier, and they're not really that much deadlier than things you face early on relative to your character's strength. XP is the most basic reward in the game and it doesn't feel rewarding early on because that gnoll with the halberd or the orc warrior with the plate and battleaxe are way more dangerous than the reward they give in levels. Running away is too often the best option early on. Running isn't fun. Skipping levels isn't fun.
Out of depth monsters feel the same way. Orc priests on D:2 make me want to ^Q Yes because ugh. Blah. What else... how about Terence with a wand of polymorph other? A lot of fun. Or the Kobold with the dagger of venom on D:1? This post is devolving into a rant and there's still tons of other things early on that are really annoying, like waiting out poison or the variance in monster HP or early meph ghosts but honestly I will just be complaining about something else and saying the same thing: It feels punishing without feeling rewarding and that's bad. That's the thesis. If you don't agree with it, then you will just see someone whining a ton about early game being too hard or whatever. Of course there's a ton of that in here. Like I said, I'm a really whiny player. I hope that at least some of these points are valid in spite of that.
