Aule wrote:There is a reasonable expectation that the discussion prompted by my comments will pertain to the actual content of those comments, rather than being based on an erroneous interpretation of the comments. I know I'm speaking English, and I know I'm doing it well, so when the topic goes completely in a direction away from my comments, when those comments are the impetus for response, well, you can see how that may be frustrating, I am sure.
Being frustrated is fair game, and I'm not trying to say otherwise, but no one here is under obligation to respond (or even respond constructively) to anyone else. People are going to post what they want to say, not what you want them to say. If you think the thread is going off track due to a misunderstanding of what you wrote, it makes sense to try to clarify what you meant, and maybe that'll prompt responses that are closer to what you wanted.
I mean, you can choose to feel how you want about whatever happens, but if you need every person to respond constructively to every idea you post in every thread you post in in order to be happy, you'll be unhappy more often than not.
Aule wrote:Lasty wrote:In this case, the proposal seemed to me to be an expression of a preference for a strikingly different loot design philosophy, one that resembles casino games like Diablo...
I've been shaking my head at the irony of this, and it deserves a reply. I played Diablo a lot, and Diablo II especially. I also frequent a casino locally. I'm going to tell you that Crawl leaves me feeling gutted like the casino does, and like Diablo never did. That's the whole point of my initial complaints about parsimony. The way the loot is structured is having the same result on my senses as a slot machine on a Native American reservation casino does, which is to say, I'm far more often left feeling robbed with no joy than otherwise.
You talk about replayability, but Diablo II is still played
online by thousands every single day, and countless more in single-player, and it is nigh on fifteen years old, with only few and infrequent updates. I believe that is because it offers more choices, and more variation. You can play softcore or hardcore. You can play and win with any build. If you find things too easy, you can make it harder by playing ironman or naked, and doing it in hardcore. I'm certainly not saying to make Crawl like Diablo, but philosophically, when I walk away from a game I think it's better to retain a sense of enjoyment rather than an incensed frustration at plain and common bad luck. I don't think such notions should be treated as heresy, that's all.
It sounds like your experiences are really different from mine. I've also played a fair amount of Diablo and Diablo II, and I quit once I realized that I wasn't actually having fun. I was grinding so that I could get the gear/XP I needed to grind bigger things to get even better gear. The whole game was designed around the constant escalation of loot and XP, loot and XP, and once you realize that you also realize there's never a point where you actually stop grinding and use all the stuff you got to play a non-grindy game. Also, while "you can play and win with any build" is probably true on Normal for all but the worst builds, there are a remarkably small number of good long-term builds, and it's very easy to waste a skill point permanently -- unless that changed sometime after 1.10. Overall, the core gameplay mechanic of D2 is finding loot, and so it makes perfect sense for the game to have very structured payout rates.
It's true that Crawl is more like the casino from the perspective that both can leave you with no tangible reward for the time you've spent; Diablo II on Hardcore is the same. Diablo II on Softcore does not have that feature, because there's no possibility of meaningful loss in Diablo II on Softcore. If meaningful loss leaves you feeling gutted, then I would strongly recommend that you avoid both casinos and Crawl.
The reason I compared the Diablo franchise to a casino in contrast to Crawl is that the Diablo franchise is, like a casino, engineered to be a fundamentally empty experience which keeps you engaged -- it offers a minimal level of gameplay based around the hope that something which could reward you will actually reward you. Both are effectively shiny, pleasant Skinner boxes. Crawl is not a Skinner box -- or at least not more so than the majority of video games -- in that the fundamental premise is that you'll have an interesting experience playing the game, and not that playing the game will give you rewards. No matter what happens, the game will end and your character and its loot stop existing. Your avatar will wander through a dungeon that neither it nor you, the player, have seen before, and you will adapt to the vagaries of this unique dungeon. Part of adapting to these vagaries is handling cases where the loot your avatar finds far exceeds your expectations, cases where it falls way below your expectations, and cases where it is fine, but simply different from what you had hoped for. That adaptation is interesting. What's boring to me is how in Diablo II, the guides for each build (and while there are many builds, most people are doing a build, planning out level 80 skill points from level 1) also specify which equipment you should use, usually using top-end uniques and sets that require hours of grinding to acquire -- an almost complete lack of adaptation.
I don't see any way that the loot generation plan you proposed would help Crawl become a better game. Right now the primary reward for defeating a dangerous monster is that the monster will not kill you or endanger you, and the primary reward for defeating a dangerous vault is the experience of doing so. I think that promotes good, non-treadmill gameplay.
That I disagree with your opinion about what contributes to a sense of enjoyment doesn't mean I'm calling your opinions heresy. It means I'm disagreeing with you. You need to be able to tell the difference. When mere disagreement starts talk about heresy, you're going to find yourself getting ignored pretty quickly.