Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of HP


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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:15

Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of HP

Recently I've being playing felids quite a lot. I like them because the most interesting part of the game is the early game, and having low HP forces you to play the elusive "optimal play" a lot longer than with many other species. Even if you get Statue Form, you still have low HP and have to keep playing more carefully.

The problem I have with minotaurs and such is that you can quite easily just o and Ctrl+I through a lot of the content with little thought. After winning a number of 15-runers I finally gave a MiBe a try, and I won it with my first attempt and it felt too easy. High HP is just too good.

But for some reasons, a more interesting species like a HE (with HP-10%) got the axe first which is quite perplexing to me.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:16

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

No 
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/papilio.html

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:20

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

papilio wrote:No 

But you've won pretty much everything in the game. What would you do to make the game more challenging?
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:21

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

To be serious, lowering HP is the laziest and most unconcerned approach to make game harder.

In terms of challenge, one can think officialy introducing tournament banners as conducts to local/webtiles games.
In 0.19 tournament I've challenged to collect all lv3 banners (failed because my work was too busy in 2nd week of period)
Similar conducts can be challenges in the game and could be proofs of braging.
Last edited by papilio on Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:25, edited 1 time in total.
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/papilio.html

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bel

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:22

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

You can use self-imposed conducts/challenges. Like speedrunning.

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 10:24

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

papilio wrote:To be serious, lowering HP is the laziest and most unconcerned approach to make game harder.

To be serious as well, I found the felid 15-runer to be maybe my most satisfying win because of the low HP.

Low HP = you need to play carefully. High HP = just tab through everything, occasionally quaff a potion or two.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 11:25

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

bel wrote:You can use self-imposed conducts/challenges. Like speedrunning.

I don't find speedrunning interesting because you're not trying to win the game, you're trying to get lucky with drops. Getting an early vine stalker with statue form by bypassing content is like throwing dice and hoping to get all sixes. It's not about skill anymore.

Edit: I'd find a win with HP-50% conduct much more interesting, if you'd have to use everything the game offers but still somehow manage to snatch the orb and flee.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 11:51

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

papilio wrote:To be serious, lowering HP is the laziest and most unconcerned approach to make game harder.

I'm curious, what would you do to make the game more challenging while keeping high HP?

IMO, entropy weavers are an example of a good monster: they require careful play and punish charging. They still vary from being a nuisance to high HP/AC characters to absolute killers to felids. There are more examples of those. Still, max HP is the defining factor of whether those are just interesting compared to straight on killers.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

bel

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:12

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

ThreeInvisibleDucks wrote:
bel wrote:You can use self-imposed conducts/challenges. Like speedrunning.

I don't find speedrunning interesting because you're not trying to win the game, you're trying to get lucky with drops. Getting an early vine stalker with statue form by bypassing content is like throwing dice and hoping to get all sixes. It's not about skill anymore.

Edit: I'd find a win with HP-50% conduct much more interesting, if you'd have to use everything the game offers but still somehow manage to snatch the orb and flee.

There's nothing stopping you from quitting if your HP drops below 50%.

Do you really think speedrunning is all about being lucky with drops? Why do some people manage to get lucky so often then? Perhaps they just speedrun more? That is surely part of the reason, but nowhere near all of the reason.

Another option, if you want a more difficult version: you can play hellcrawl.
Last edited by bel on Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:16, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:16

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

bel wrote:There's nothing stopping you from quitting if your HP drops below 50%.

Do you really think speedrunning is all about being lucky with drops? Why do some people manage to get lucky so often then? Perhaps they just speedrun more? That is surely part of the reason, but nowhere near all of the reason.

I don't think I claimed that. Of course getting a fast win requires skill. It just relies more on luck than a normal win. It's like if getting a particular demonspawn mutation made it easier to win, and you'd quite if you didn't get one. It's just not interesting to me to throw out a number of games just because you didn't find X early on.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:29

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

bel wrote:There's nothing stopping you from quitting if your HP drops below 50%.

Do you really think speedrunning is all about being lucky with drops? Why do some people manage to get lucky so often then? Perhaps they just speedrun more? That is surely part of the reason, but nowhere near all of the reason.

Another option, if you want a more difficult version: you can play hellcrawl.

I got my first felid win without losing a life, 15 runes and all, quite a feat, eh? I played it very safe, so I think "skill" played into it, but my another felid lost a life to the minotaur with a rod of inaccuracy + high AC armour. Was the 2nd one less skilled? I'd say just more unlucky. So spike damage plays into it, but more HP one has less likely one is to die to it.

If you win a speedrunner after losing 10 chars to spike damage isn't quite a measure of skill you make it out to be.

Edit: Fixed things.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

bel

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:34

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

You might want to check out hellcrawl. It is quite a bit difficult, especially after D:5 or D:6, and especially around the time you get the first rune.

About speedrunning: it is not clear to me why you're comparing the luck in a normal game with luck in a speedrun. RNG exists in the game either way, so 100% success rate is impossible. If you have a 80% chance of winning a given normal game and a 5% chance of winning a given speedrunning game with a higher score or fewer turns, then by definition the latter involves more luck. That does not mean that with a higher skill, you can't boost the latter from 5% to 10%. (All numbers are made up). Typical speedruns do not end with a ctrl-Q if one doesn't find this or that item. They end up with deaths due of being underpowered, or its close relative, deaths because of trying something too risky and losing the gamble (there's also carelessness, just like a normal game).

Of course, if you don't like speedrunning, that is fine: there's no accounting for taste. I was simply saying that you can achieve your goal in the OP by simply self-imposing a conduct.

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:45

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

Re: hellcrawl: I like the idea, but I only play offline so I will unlikely try that. I'd hazard a guess that it's almost impossibly hard to win with a felid, or at least a felid would require a shit ton of luck, so I'm personally not interested.

Re: speedrunning: I'm not interested in skipping content. I especially like my weaker starts like octopodes who manage to win even when they go through everything, setting exclusions here and there, and still manage to succeed.

Re: game difficulty: It's hard to adjust when you have to take into account the weakest starts, and the most powerful ones, if any of those should still have a chance to win. I like playing the weaker ones in a normal game, because winning them feels more like an achievement than MiXX anything.

My point was that reducing max HP would make it harder for everyone, and I'd probably enjoy the "easier" species more with such added difficulty.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:48

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

I play hellcrawl offline; why do you think you can't? You can compile it the same way as normal crawl.

I don't understand the rest of the post, so I won't say anything else.

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 12:54

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

bel wrote:I play hellcrawl offline; why do you think you can't? You can compile it the same way as normal crawl.

I'm adept in building software, so maybe I'll give it a try.

bel wrote:I don't understand the rest of the post, so I won't say anything else.

Really? I'm sorry if it was too hard to understand.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 13:00

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

bel wrote:I don't understand the rest of the post, so I won't say anything else.

I assume it's like adjusting the game difficulty: some will always find it too easy, and some too hard. I think I understand the game devs a bit more now.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 13:14

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

Well, my humble opinion remains: many species have too much HP to win the game, and instead of removing species with less HP the devs should start removing or nerfing the ones with too much. I said my piece. Merry whatever jingles your bells.
Spellcasting penalties, Armour skill, and strength
15 runes: 2x HuSk, Op(Mo,Tm,Wn,Fi,Wr,EE,AM,Wz,Ne), VSTm, DsTm, Dg(Sk,Tm), MuGl, GhMo, Fe(En,EE,Ar,Wn,IE)
3 runes: FoFi, OgSk, KoHu, SpCj, 2x DgGl, MiBe, Fe(Fi,Tm,Mo,Su)

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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 14:48

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

ThreeInvisibleDucks wrote:But you've won pretty much everything in the game. What would you do to make the game more challenging?


Personally I keep asking devs to add explicit difficulty levels. Maybe join me ;)
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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 14:50

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

papilio wrote:In terms of challenge, one can think officialy introducing tournament banners as conducts to local/webtiles games.
In 0.19 tournament I've challenged to collect all lv3 banners (failed because my work was too busy in 2nd week of period)
Similar conducts can be challenges in the game and could be proofs of braging.


I am not sure it works. People choose the most powerful combos and still have easy game despite all those banners. Also it has more to do with luck than with skill (especially speedrunning a specific character).
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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 14:55

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

I haven't tried but I suspect Felid is no different in hellcrawl, you still can run away from most monsters. At least I won KoEn who stayed En just fine.
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Post Friday, 23rd December 2016, 15:05

Re: Increase the game difficulty by reducing the amount of H

If you want to increase difficulty, cut XP and cut loot. This was tried in Hellcrawl. It works.
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