duvessa wrote:If you can't remove features, then adding a new feature permanently increases the total number of features.
Why is this a problem? We are adding two gods in 0.16. Do you suggest that we remove two gods to compensate, otherwise we will have too many features? More features is good, especially if balance is not a concern (which it is not in Dungeon Crawl).
duvessa wrote:"Choose weapon" is okay because all weapons in crawl are the same, and if you've played crawl it's pretty obvious that they are.
Well, implied insult aside, short blades and axes are notably different from the other weapons.
duvessa wrote: You said it yourself, backgrounds are starting kits. None of this stuff happens on D:1, yred worshippers just have animate remains and bad melee, and necromancers just have pain and animate skeleton.
Having a god seven to ten dungeon levels (and several character levels) earlier, and being able to gain piety for this time, makes a different in my opinion. Regardless, I will leave the Death Knight section of this discussion to die peacefully (hilarious!).
Let me be honest:
My post was intended as a bit tongue-in-cheek, and I thought the reaction would be people jumping in to defend their favourite backgrounds from being removed, which to an extent has happened (Berserker, Monk, etc). However, what I didn't expect was people jumping over themselves to toss these backgrounds. I wanted to get people talking about why we are removing them in the first place.
In essence,
why do we remove backgrounds? Every video game forum I've ever seen talks about 'balance' and making things fair. In a competitive environment, this makes sense, and explains why for every new ability added to World of Warcraft or every new character added to League of Legends, there are hosts and hosts of balance tweaks to make old characters viable, make new characters less 'overpowered' and other such problems that consume thousands of hours of developer time.
And the overarching conclusion that I have seen is that
it is never good enough. Not just from the player's perspective, which is always going to be skewed towards their favourites, but from an actual mechanics perspective as well. The classes of WoW have gone in cycles though the expansions: now Druids and Warlocks are underpowered, Rogues and Warriors are overpowered, now its Warlocks and Mages, now Death Knights, now Monks, now Hunters suck, etc. ad infinitum. League of Legends professionals still have a pool of twenty or so 'best' characters to pick or ban, with maybe another twenty for shock value or to counter particular playstyles, but there are over a hundred characters total. The pool doesn't get larger, it simply shifts around with balance patch after balance patch.
So how does this relate to Dungeon Crawl? Well...
In a game where balance is not an issue, and competitive play is not an issue,
why bother to remove features at all?According to the information provided to me in this thread, these Zealot backgrounds we have been discussing were removed because they made very little difference at D:1 (save for Healer).
My answer to this is
"who cares?"The existence of these 'extraneous' backgrounds damages nothing and hurts no one, except it adds FLAVOUR to the game. The fact that you are a Paladin instead of a Fighter or Death Knight instead of a Necromancer might make little difference in terms of mechanics (a fact which you all seem to take for granted, and of which I am not convinced), but it does add theme.
Even if a background is notably easier (such as Berserker) or harder (such as Chaos Knight), why does that make a difference in a game like Dungeon Crawl? Players, much better players than me, regularly challenge themselves by not taking dieties at the Temple on purpose, or only using melee weapons, or other such nonsense because playing optimally makes no difference to anyone but yourself.
I read on these forums, in the past, some talk of Halflings being removed because Kobolds are flat out superior in most scenarios. Maybe that's true. Why does it matter? A Kobold is not a Halfling, and perhaps you wanted to play a Halfling. I propose we (continue) to let you.
Perhaps you all agree with Duvessa, who has kindly pointed out my ignorance and has notified me that 'all weapons in Dungeon Crawl are the same'. Therefore, why have different weapons at all? Just make them all swords, and give each race better or worse Long Blade skill depending on their specialization. Problem solved. The world of Dungeon Crawl is much duller for it, but as long as we have removed irrelevancy, then it's a victory, right?
Unless we are running up against some sort of hard limit on game features, I propose we simply let flavourful choices alone, until such time as someone can figure out how to make them both flavourful AND interesting. What is the harm?