Linesprint balance


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Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36

Post Sunday, 18th August 2013, 17:47

Linesprint balance

Some observations about linesprint balance based on my experiences with it:

I'm not sure if character/skill experience multipliers are separate, but it certainly seems that way. You gain a lot more skill exp vs character exp, and if the goal is to mimic a normal game, I'd recommend about +10% character exp, and -25% skill exp.

Similarly the high piety gain makes god abilities a bit too spammable, I suppose this is in common with most sprints, but some abilities like slouch become practically free when you're killing 6-7 mobs at once in most of the rooms.

The lack of books except for if you get an orc:4 book shop limits hybrid builds who don't take a spell-gifting god, so maybe a book shop around vaults:5 or so would help give access to spells without being too early or overpowered.

The guaranteed haste wand seems a bit strong, but making it only have a chance would make the later game be heavily influenced by luck. Maybe make it alternate with a heal wounds wand? I'm not sure if this is necessary though.

Summary: Recommended: adjust exp a bit, mostly nerf skill exp, add a book shop. Optional: lower piety, figure out something with the haste wand.

P.S. I love linesprint and think it's awesome :)
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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 16:40

Re: Linesprint balance

I don't think sprints are meant to be balanced, at least not regular-crawl-balanced. Linesprint is very much on the easy side but there's always thunderdome in case you're feeling like being punished anyway.
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Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 12th January 2012, 21:03

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 17:05

Re: Linesprint balance

The relative lack of items in the various Sprints has always struck me as strange.

This applies to non-Sif/Veh/Kiku casters as well as, to a lesser extent, non-Oka/Trog primary weaponeers who can't necessarily find decent weapons on the floor. The development of Sprint characters seems like it needs to be mostly planned out from the start, whereas one of the best things about normal Crawl is adapting to the tools you find.

Perhaps skill xp could be lowered somewhat and a few acquirement-level items could be scattered throughout the game to compensate? That would even out the level vs. skill gain a little and make it more possible to build around floor drops, rather than building to circumvent the need for floor drops.
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dck

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Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 17:24

Re: Linesprint balance

Only in Red Sonja and Fedhas' you really are short in options and expected to deal with problems in the way designer intended you to, well and in the arena of blood too. In all others you can probably adapt to whatever you happen to find and have plenty of different things to choose.
I think sprints are really fun as they are and they offer a refreshing change from regular crawl, and I think it's good that they force you to plan your character from the moment you enter the dungeon.

Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 12th January 2012, 21:03

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 18:20

Re: Linesprint balance

Ehh... Red Sonja and The Arena of Blood may be the most extreme cases, but even The Ten Rune Challenge feels a little tight-fisted. For a relatively long time, there's generally only the one book from the Temple and a set of mostly trash-tier equipment out of the Orcish Mineroom. A typical character in the main game is likely to have a decent branded weapon and and a few books way before the end of Lair.
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dck

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Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 18:53

Re: Linesprint balance

There are two books in the temple, and when you do the mines you get access to decent or good polearms, long swords, dire flails and probably great maces.
And then there's the guaranteed room with a weapon of distortion and a great mace of freezing next to the hive.

Dungeon Master

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Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 21:54

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 19:11

Re: Linesprint balance

Overall experience gain and piety gain are both just multiplied by 9 in sprints. Personally I quite like the way that you tend to lag behind a bit in terms of experience level (I think this is probably just an accidental consequence of how multiplying overall experience worked out) - certainly it doesn't mimic real Crawl but I think it plays interestingly in terms of keeping you a bit squishy while still having you advance very rapidly in general. But making it customisable by the vault-maker would certainly be good - it's already on st_'s wishlist in fact. A while ago |amethyst mentioned that he was considering trying to implement some stuff from that list, I'm not sure if he's still planning on doing so or is busy at the moment (I also thought about trying to implement the species/background restrictions but my knowledge of vault-related code is almost non-existent so who knows if I'll ever get very far).

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 21:23

Re: Linesprint balance

ah, okay - both exp and skill exp are fixed and can't be changed yet. I do think the wishlist idea to let them bet set differently from each other would be nice, but if it's significant work to do then I'm sure there's plenty of other work to do also :)

I'll try out some other sprints I suppose, they should all have the same higher skill exp than character level (relative to normal crawl games) then? It made being a gargoyle a bit more nerve-wracking, because low hp was my only weakness and being level 20 vs orbs of fire and ancient liches is scary :)

Dungeon Master

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Joined: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 10:12

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 21:49

Re: Linesprint balance

The way I see sprint, it's meant to be sillier than the regular game, and of course, faster paced. The explosive skill growth fits that quite nicely: instead of slowly building up a character, you just pick your skills and go crazy. The one map where this really fails is the arena of blood, because it would be better just to start with maxed skills there. I also like the way your XL growth is at a normal rate, I guess because it's nice to have a more gradual progression feel (the crazy skill growth loses a bit of the reward feeling you'd normally get).

Blades Runner

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Joined: Thursday, 12th January 2012, 21:03

Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 21:54

Re: Linesprint balance

If Sprint is meant to be sillier, can we use it as an excuse to bring back Jesters?
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Dungeon Master

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Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 23:32

Re: Linesprint balance

tasonir wrote:ah, okay - both exp and skill exp are fixed and can't be changed yet. I do think the wishlist idea to let them bet set differently from each other would be nice, but if it's significant work to do then I'm sure there's plenty of other work to do also :)

In fact it turns out I totally missed the fact that Grunt has already implemented this in his sprint branch, which also allows for multi-level sprint maps (as has been desired for Zigsprint for a while). I'm not sure how close the branch is to being mergeable but yeah, it looks like it could be possible in the near future.

dck

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Post Tuesday, 20th August 2013, 23:42

Re: Linesprint balance

Hey evilmike, since now ?vorpalise is interesting to use and can lead to some fun weapons in the thunderdome, is it possible to add a new 10 scrolls stack to each shop that sells them?
It'd also give you something to spend money on after you've stacked multipliers for 20 rounds or so because by then you really have a whole lot of money and not that much stuff to buy, and it only gets "worse" after the orb appears.

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