What species do you never play?


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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 17:20

What species do you never play?

There are some races I never play, partly because I don't know much about them, and some because they just seem too handicapped. However, perhaps someone can enlighten me - I used to think DD was no good ("No natural healing????") until I learned more about them. Halflings and Kobolds have also grown on me.

So, without further ado:

Trolls / Ogres: tempting because of their massive damage potential but usually starve or lack defence.

Demigods: High XP requirements and poor, as well as undifferentiated, aptitudes. No god, no special abilities. All of this in exchange just for high stats? So I haven't bothered to try, there's not enough to interest me in trying them, they just seem too boringly one-dimensional.

Kenku: I want to like these, but they seem to get killed too easily.

Ghouls / mummies / vampires - I just haven't really tried them. It sounds like they need really different playstyles and I still haven't mastered the basic ones.

Draconians: just not sure what to do with them. Sounds like transmuters are the way to go but I'm not interested in running around with arrows in my hands so I can create 1d2 small snakes for half the game.

I'd be curious to see a statistical breakdown of the most popular / most successful species based on the CAO / CDO records.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 18:15

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans: the boring race. No thank you.

Trolls: The unstoppable physical prowess and regeneration are neat, until you hit a dry spot and starve.

Centaurs: They seem like they'd be very missile dependent- something I've never quiet got the hang of. They also look tough to keep fed.

Ghouls: ravenous hunger. Hmmm. I think I see a pattern here.

Ogre: surprisingly, it's not there metabolism that turns me off. It's the fact I can't seem to keep them alive long enough to even get the chance to starve.

Demigods: I'm nowhere near confident enough to go for atheist conduct, thanks.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 18:44

Re: What species do you never play?

I could have added humans and centaurs to the OP as well, but I was starting to feel a bit whiny.
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Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 18:56

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans: Boring.

Vampires: I prefer mummies.

danr wrote:Draconians: just not sure what to do with them. Sounds like transmuters are the way to go but I'm not interested in running around with arrows in my hands so I can create 1d2 small snakes for half the game.


I never heard of a transmuter using StS for half the game. :P Draconians are a hybrid species. Good backgrounds for a draconian would be wizard, crusader, transmuter, etc.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 20:25

Re: What species do you never play?

Well, for half of MY typical games, which usually end between XL 8-12.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 22:34

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans: as above.
Demigods: I'm not good enough to go godless. Their stats make for some nice melee transmuters, though.
Halflings: I don't play ranged characters very often, so there's no reason for me not to use kobolds instead.
Nagas: Given the amount of time I usually spend fleeing from things, slow races aren't particularly safe for me.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 21st December 2010, 22:50

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans: the boring average.

Demigods: the challenge version of humans? No thanks :P

Mountain Dwarves, Minotaurs, Trolls, Ogres, etc: I find melee characters boring.

Hill Orcs: see above; for the Beogh priest version: never tried, the tought of herding orcs for the whole game puts me off so much that even the prospect of being a blood-thirsty messiah doesn't make up for it.

Centaurs: ammo related hassles and fast metabolism. I'll pass.

Halflings: as hunters: see above. As berserkers or similar: I have a strict no-pure-melee policy. Not sure what else they can do. Besides, I don't think I've ever used a Halfling/Hobbit/whatever in any game, ever. I may be racist :/

Draconians: I don't like the colour lotto, I'm afraid.

Mummies: way too crippled by terrible aptitudes, no potions, and rF-

Kenkus: I've tried and tried and tried, and came to the conclusion they're just no good: other races are better as hybrids and they're no match for deep elves as glass cannon mages. Still, I know I'll try again (and fail again). Their aptitudes and permanent flight are hard to resist.

Halls Hopper

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 06:13

Re: What species do you never play?

How do you guys starve with a Troll? I usually have piles and piles of permafood with these guys, because you can eat up to Engorged after most battles. I have a lvl 19 TrHe going with about 25 rations and 40 honeycombs saved up (and that's with Harpies eating a bunch of my food in Shoals). Extended endgame is rough with them (for other reasons than just food, too) but during the regular game I rarely have to eat rations. Ogres aren't bad either hunger-wise, Saprovore 1 and fast meta 1 essentially cancel out, and since you will have a ton of levels in Spellcasting spell hunger isn't bad. The species/combos that have hunger problems are Centaur anything, low int (or Spriggan) conjurers, or Berserkers from races without food/eating perks. Most everyone else is fine unless you don't eat chunks or something.

I typically play random combos, so I don't mind any species, but my least favorite:

Demigods - weak and boring. DgTm is alright to play (and pretty strong once you get out of the midgame), the rest of the combos are uninspiring.
Halflings - still too similar to Kobolds. They have several strong combos, but I find Kobolds more interesting.
Vampires - just don't like the blood mechanic.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 09:43

Re: What species do you never play?

I think the only race I never ever play is the Vampire. Like RangerC I think the blood mechanic is just too much hassle.

I think I tried playing every other race at least once, and I like most of them. Particularly I find humans fun to play, because of how amazingly versatile they are.

I like playing the tougher races like mummies or ogres, just to see how far I can get with one.

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 14:03

Re: What species do you never play?

I want to like Vampires, but I'm also a little turned off by the whole blood mechanic.

Other than that I also like to try every race on occasion, even the tough ones -- and some of my most surprising games were ones where I went in not expecting to live long.
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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 14:09

Re: What species do you never play?

mageykun wrote:Trolls: The unstoppable physical prowess and regeneration are neat, until you hit a dry spot and starve.


RangerC wrote:How do you guys starve with a Troll? I usually have piles and piles of permafood with these guys, because you can eat up to Engorged after most battles. I have a lvl 19 TrHe going with about 25 rations and 40 honeycombs saved up (and that's with Harpies eating a bunch of my food in Shoals).


I'm with RangerC here. Forgive my ignorance, but I thought trolls could eat any meat chunks. I've played numerous Troll Berserkers (eating machines) and never starved - granted I've never been past the Lair. Do meat chunks become way less common late game?

Their defense is crappy though.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 14:49

Re: What species do you never play?

I only play humans and demigods. I feel that they help me internalize the game mechanics without relying too much on racial traits (and gods, in the latter case).
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 19:13

Re: What species do you never play?

What I like about this thread, is that it shows that there isn't a single race which is hated by everybody (I like halflings :) )
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Post Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 22:41

Re: What species do you never play?

It could still be good to look for recurring themes though. There are some that not many people like.

This would just be useful so that time isn't wasted on fixing species that aren't "broken". I realize that around here "broken" usually means "too powerful", because all us macho crawl players ain't sissies and need even more insane challenges, but if there are species that just don't get play because they are too boring or way too hard, that's worth looking at.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 01:48

Re: What species do you never play?

I don't play any of the elves because I'm racist. I find the saturation of elves in modern fantasy works (literary, gaming and otherwise) to be silly and highly annoying; particularly the multiple sub-types counting as completely different races in games (wood-, dark-, half-, high-, blood-, night-, blah blah blah). Apparently elves mutate easily.

All the others seem interesting enough to at least try out a few times. I haven't seen any aside from elves that I flat-out wouldn't want to try, except maybe ogres. Never been a fan of the "big dumb smash everything with big stick" role. Hmm, and the kenku just don't sound interesting to me. I guess I've never been a fan of bird-people either. I suppose this input isn't worth much, since none of it is based on mechanics specific to the game. Ah well, it's fun to talk about anyway.

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 07:20

Re: What species do you never play?

whelk wrote:
All the others seem interesting enough to at least try out a few times. I haven't seen any aside from elves that I flat-out wouldn't want to try, except maybe ogres. Never been a fan of the "big dumb smash everything with big stick" role.

Actually Ogres are not that one sided at all.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 07:42

Re: What species do you never play?

I'll have to give an ogre a whirl, then. Just elves and bird-people sitting on the sidelines now; ogres got called off the bench.
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Post Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 23:13

Re: What species do you never play?

I haven't tried Vampires yet. I got put off by SlashEM, where they're a challenge race (if by 'challenge' you mean 'difficult to play, and also needlessly annoying'). I realise they're very different here, but I'm still scarred.

Have only tried a couple of Centaurs and not found them fun. They seem bad at the early game, though I suspect I'm Doing It Wrong :)

I think Mummies are way cool but the super-patient play style is not yet my thing, so those are parked.

I like the Gods a lot and haven't even tried all those, so I haven't played Demigods at all.

Other than that it's all good, baby.
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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 03:15

Re: What species do you never play?

I haven't tried Vampires either. It looks too complicated to be any fun for me.
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 04:13

Re: What species do you never play?

I never play the monster types, and the only undead I've used is vampire. And of course, no icky humans.


starless wrote:I haven't tried Vampires either. It looks too complicated to be any fun for me.


Think of it like this:
It's basically a stealthy, poison/cold/negative/mutation resistant, no spell hunger Deep Dwarf...sans the damage resist and high hp. Just depends on how much you eat/feed.

If you rarely or never feed (you can't die from hunger, remember), then you get a truly sweet character for a select few number of backgrounds. If you do feed, you are playing a gimped spriggan with no speed.

Try a near bloodless or completely bloodless(as in rarely or never eat) vampire enchanter or necromancer sometime. No spell hunger from the get go is just nasty. Get a god that can help with healing just like a DD.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 07:08

Re: What species do you never play?

Sealer wrote:
whelk wrote:
All the others seem interesting enough to at least try out a few times. I haven't seen any aside from elves that I flat-out wouldn't want to try, except maybe ogres. Never been a fan of the "big dumb smash everything with big stick" role.

Actually Ogres are not that one sided at all.


Ogres are pretty misleading - Crawl used to have Ogre Mages and Ogres, with Ogres being the WORST casters in the game (and in-fact they basically sucked at everything (but had gourmand) and I think they had like 3 recommended classes). Ogre Mages were technically the species that was cut, but it was more of a merge. I think the typical perception is that Ogres play like the original ogres did. Optimal play with an ogre is to take advantage of their one special aptitude (only Spriggans and Deep Elves(!)) are better at spellcasting) and play a mage who can fall back on a spiked club or large rock in a pinch. The devs did a good job making one interesting challenge race out of two bad races.

Slime Squisher

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 08:02

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans: boring and weak, 100% exp is not attractive enough
High Elf: weak if not a spellcaster, 150% exp cripples
Mummy: no emergency buttons, bad aptitudes
Demonspawn: certain mutations break the game
TrCK:
Xom grants you an implement of some kind.
_Something appears at your feet!
4790 gold pieces {god gift}.

DsAr:
You blink. You feel slightly more hungry. Prince Ribbit hits you. You die...
"Hey, that's my toy!"
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 12:21

Re: What species do you never play?

Demigods. I like my divine aid and flavour. And High Elves- no character, slow to level, and flowing golden tresses.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 12:27

Re: What species do you never play?

colma wrote: Try a near bloodless or completely bloodless(as in rarely or never eat) vampire enchanter or necromancer sometime. No spell hunger from the get go is just nasty. Get a god that can help with healing just like a DD.

I avoid vampires, didn't know what to do with their odd relationship between feeding and abilities. Sticking to one extreme didn't cross my mind, I'm gonna give this a go.
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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 13:21

Re: What species do you never play?

Like galehar, I like that it's not as one-sided as it used to be. Here is what I never play:

Humans (don't ask)
Mummies (a scumming species for scumming players :)
Demigods (not until they have worshippers)

I've seen many complaints about Vampires, which is sad. We got a patch from Jarmo and tried to make something unique and cool out of it. If we have messed it up, the species may just gracefully resign. One indication that matters are not ideal is how bloodless is encouraged - the original concept was to have players be flexible about their blood levels. For comments: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:vampire

I agree that demigods are not very interesting: they have no god and get something in return which may be good enough but is just not as cool. However, I came up with an idea I like a lot, called "abstract worshippers" on the following wiki page: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:demigod

RangerC: Many thanks for the comment about the new ogres. This is exactly how I wanted them to come out, and there have been many negative comments in advance (before they were even in the game).

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 14:49

Re: What species do you never play?

dpeg wrote:I've seen many complaints about Vampires, which is sad. We got a patch from Jarmo and tried to make something unique and cool out of it. If we have messed it up, the species may just gracefully resign. One indication that matters are not ideal is how bloodless is encouraged - the original concept was to have players be flexible about their blood levels. For comments: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:vampire


:shock:

Please don't ditch vampires, they're one of my favorite races.
The comments the wiki are pretty much exclusively concerned with the troubles vampires face in endgame branches. So what? Other races have trouble there too. If anything, the problem is with the branches themselves.
To be honest I found that page infuriating. If someone plays a non-Makhleb, non-Kiku vampire and still decides to go for the the tough branches, why should anyone other than the player himself be concerned that he has to leave a few yaks around to drain? It not like the tactic doesn't have its downsides. And, regardless, Makhleb would probably be the better god anyway. The other "exploits" mentioned are for the most part so extremely tedious that if someone manages to put up with that much hassle (and risk), they quite frankly deserve those extra runes.
On the other hand, I agree that bloodless vampires being much preferable is a bit weird and probably their hunger states could use a little rebalance. Hopefully, not by nerfing bloodless into oblivion :(

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Post Friday, 24th December 2010, 15:00

Re: What species do you never play?

Frankly, I find it strange that so few people enjoy playing humans. They are probably the most versatile species, and such generality is very uncommon. I find them more interesting then fx Minotaurs or Deep Elves.

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Post Saturday, 25th December 2010, 20:08

Re: What species do you never play?

Kobolds: I kill so many early on that I can't stop myself from thinking they're naturally weak. I know they aren't, but it sticks with me.
Felids: show me a cat monster in the game somewhere. yeah... and the no evokables thing? sounds too rough.
Vampires: I want to like them, but the management of keeping just enough blood when you need it and going thirsty when you need to be undead seems a bit tougher than I'm ready for
Elves (all): They tend to die early for me.

believe it or not, I like Humans. The decent skill aptitudes are nice for cross training or changing to a skill if you find a nice weapon or artifact. The problem with humans, IMO is that for any particular strategy you would take in a game, there's a species better suited for it. There are better armored fighters, better paladins, better casters in all schools, better stabbers, etc. If I know I want to play a game where I am an armored fighter (for example), I'm going to prefer a dwarf or an orc over a Human.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 26th December 2010, 18:00

Re: What species do you never play?

I understand the need for the Human species as all the other species are measured against them in aptitudes, xp, and stats.
But I feel it would be nice if they could have a perk that would make them a little more appealing to play, while not changing their racial properties.

For example:

- 30% off purchasing from stores, or
- Ability to preserve chunks for 50% longer number of turns, or
- A bonus when using non-racial weapons and armor (this might be a better idea for the demigods actually) or
- +10% more gold coins
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Post Tuesday, 28th December 2010, 05:03

Re: What species do you never play?

starless wrote:I understand the need for the Human species as all the other species are measured against them in aptitudes, xp, and stats.
But I feel it would be nice if they could have a perk that would make them a little more appealing to play, while not changing their racial properties.

For example:

- 30% off purchasing from stores, or
- Ability to preserve chunks for 50% longer number of turns, or
- A bonus when using non-racial weapons and armor (this might be a better idea for the demigods actually) or
- +10% more gold coins



I dunno. more gold could be a result of luck. Personally, I think if Humans get a bonus, it should fit the description they have about being pretty good at everything, and being fast learners. What about something like this:

instead of 0 for all the skill bonuses, they start at +2 for all skills (negative is worse now, right?), BUT for humans and their jack-of-all-capacities, this only represents the initial learning curve to get into a new skill. Any skill aptitude becomes +1 at skill level 6, and +0 at 12, and -1 at 18. The result should give them a sort of reverse skill momentum. They can get to a minimum competency in any and all skills easily, but it takes a longer time than normal to reach a mastery.

This would take a lot of testing though. It might make them too good early game, and too hard late-game.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 28th December 2010, 05:07

Re: What species do you never play?

I agree, some slight perk to humans wouldn't be uncalled for. I was thinking something very simple though, like +1 Fighting and +1 Spellcasting. I don't think it would make a huge difference but it would get people to play them more I think.

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Post Tuesday, 28th December 2010, 08:39

Re: What species do you never play?

I'm pretty sure you guys are missing the point of humans. If you want fancy perks, don't play them.
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Post Tuesday, 28th December 2010, 13:01

Re: What species do you never play?

IronJelly wrote:
starless wrote:I understand the need for the Human species as all the other species are measured against them in aptitudes, xp, and stats.
But I feel it would be nice if they could have a perk that would make them a little more appealing to play, while not changing their racial properties.

For example:

- 30% off purchasing from stores, or
- Ability to preserve chunks for 50% longer number of turns, or
- A bonus when using non-racial weapons and armor (this might be a better idea for the demigods actually) or
- +10% more gold coins



I dunno. more gold could be a result of luck. Personally, I think if Humans get a bonus, it should fit the description they have about being pretty good at everything, and being fast learners. What about something like this:

instead of 0 for all the skill bonuses, they start at +2 for all skills (negative is worse now, right?), BUT for humans and their jack-of-all-capacities, this only represents the initial learning curve to get into a new skill. Any skill aptitude becomes +1 at skill level 6, and +0 at 12, and -1 at 18. The result should give them a sort of reverse skill momentum. They can get to a minimum competency in any and all skills easily, but it takes a longer time than normal to reach a mastery.

This would take a lot of testing though. It might make them too good early game, and too hard late-game.


Changing the aptitude during the game makes the code much more complex. I was able to code it, but then it was impossible to make it compatible with Ash's transfer knowledge. You're proposal is way too overpowered anyway. I like the idea that they find more gold or have discount in shops.
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Post Tuesday, 28th December 2010, 15:06

Re: What species do you never play?

MrMisterMonkey wrote:I'm pretty sure you guys are missing the point of humans. If you want fancy perks, don't play them.

I couldn't agree more. Also, there is no other race as versatile as them. That's actually quite a perk.
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Lair Larrikin

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Post Wednesday, 29th December 2010, 01:27

Re: What species do you never play?

Humans and Demigods. So, so boring
oh but who are they to judge us

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Post Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 10:58

Re: What species do you never play?

Demigods : dull gameplay, too slow to progress , no religion power, no flavor. Hopefully some of the many very interesting ideas on the brainstorm pages will one day make it into Crawl, it would make the specie finally interesting.

Halfling : play the same as Kobold, but unlike Kobold they can't eat until they're hungry, so i'll always play Kobold instead.

Ogre : I like Trolls, very balanced between their metabolism and the ability to eat at any time they want so they can become engorged and forget about hunger for a time. Unfortunately Ogre can't, leading hunger to become too much of a gameplay focus for me.

Centaur : even worse than Ogre regarding hunger as they have more metabolism, i don't like when hunger take too much focus in the gameplay, so i never play those kind of everytime hungry species.

Sludge Elf : as i never play with any Transmuter spell school, having more fun with other kind of spell school, Sludge Elf does not appeal to me.

Ghouls : no real interest or appeal to me, but at least they have flavor and their own unique trait with the rotting. But to play undead characters, i prefer Vampire and Mummy instead.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 16:27

Re: What species do you never play?

I started playing Demigods (DGTm) yesterday (never played one before) and I love it.

Having no god can be very liberating as you don't care about piety or what you should or shouldn't do.
Progress is slow but your stats get really high (which is great for hybrid builds like mine)

It is really tough in the beginning but with a little luck (in a way of wands and items) Demigods seem to get really powerful.
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Post Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 21:16

Re: What species do you never play?

dpeg wrote:I've seen many complaints about Vampires, which is sad. We got a patch from Jarmo and tried to make something unique and cool out of it. If we have messed it up, the species may just gracefully resign. One indication that matters are not ideal is how bloodless is encouraged - the original concept was to have players be flexible about their blood levels. For comments: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:vampire

I've tried to like Vampires without much success. I think there are two main problems that I have with them.

One is that they have a crippling 150 experience aptitude and I can't figure out what they did to deserve it. Their melee aptitudes aren't very good. Their magic aptitudes aren't very good. Their stats aren't very good. Bat form and starvation immunity are kind of nice, I guess, but that alone doesn't seem to cut it. Demonspawn have awesome mutations, Trolls have godly strength and regeneration, Demigods have really high stats (and suck anyway, but that's beside the point). What do Vampires have to counterbalance being tied for the second worst experience growth in the game? Between meh skill aptitudes and terrible experience growth, there's no situation where I find I do better as a Vampire than as some other race. The only classes Vampires really lean towards seem to be necromancer, enchanter, and I guess maybe stalker, and Sludge Elves, Spriggans, or Merfolk consistently outdo them at those roles in my experience.

The other is that the blood mechanic just isn't very interesting. The only real benefits of being bloodless are the immunities. Except guess how often you're worried about torment or mutations in the early and mid game? Pretty much never. How often are you up against meaningful amounts of cold damage? Not much more often. It doesn't give you any fun abilities or make you better at anything you're actively doing. So for all intents and purposes being bloodless is little more than a regeneration penalty for most of the game. At best it's starvation immunity, but Kobolds get that too and they never need to worry about being trapped at the brink of death with zero health regeneration and no safe way to climb out of it. I have zero lategame experience, but from what I hear, the point in the game at which torment immunity becomes legitimately helpful is also the point in the game when finding blood is tedious or impossible, which just makes matters worse.

It would be a shame to have Vampires removed, though. It shouldn't be hard to make them more interesting. All you need to do is bring up their aptitudes a little here and there (+1 in a few odd magic schools is not very playstyle-defining; even something as simple as bringing them up to +2 in Necromancy/Enchantment would help make me feel more like they honestly excel at something) and re-orient the thirsty/bloodless forms towards unique, playstyle-defining actives or passives instead of being just a bundle of purely defensive resistances. We already have mummies for starvation immunity and undead resistances in exchange for reduced healing options and Ghouls for undead resistances in exchange for a totally corpse-based diet. Vampires deserve to be more than another slight variation on that theme.

Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 3rd January 2011, 12:33

Re: What species do you never play?

Sjohara wrote:I've tried to like Vampires without much success. I think there are two main problems that I have with them.

One is that they have a crippling 150 experience aptitude and I can't figure out what they did to deserve it. Their melee aptitudes aren't very good. Their magic aptitudes aren't very good. Their stats aren't very good. Bat form and starvation immunity are kind of nice, I guess, but that alone doesn't seem to cut it. ... What do Vampires have to counterbalance being tied for the second worst experience growth in the game?

The numbers are not fixed, of course. What Vampires have is this: access to very high regeneration. (At very full it is better than for trolls.) The ability to gain undead resistances at will. You say that it doesn't matter but I had many games which suffered from lack of rPois.

Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 3rd January 2011, 17:17

Re: What species do you never play?

I definitely agree that in the early game, the choice between high regen and access to bat form is a pretty interesting one - and later on, halving spell hunger when thirsty also means you can spam higher-level spells, but not in the same way a mummy could since becoming bloodless and losing your health regen is risky.

I've not tried to pull off a strategy using it myself but Vampires also have insane stealth, higher than a Spriggan's when bloodless I think.

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 447

Joined: Thursday, 16th December 2010, 22:10

Post Monday, 3rd January 2011, 23:14

Re: What species do you never play?

It would be nice to have some easy way to reduce blood level (other than spamming hungerful spells, Regen, and 5). I think this is somewhere on the wiki, too, or at least the bugtracker.
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Mines Malingerer

Posts: 43

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 03:50

Post Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 00:53

Re: What species do you never play?

I currently have a level 22 VpAs running. After the first 6-8 levels its on par with an enchanter in terms of stabbing capability with it's extreme stealth. I cleared out entire floors of the elven halls at level 12 or so without casting any of the usual pro-stabbing spells (thanks to boots of stealth). Most enemies that are extremely deadly end game resist enchantment spells anyway.

I keep him bloodless for stealth, with Makhleb as a god for healing. When that's not enough or he's badly injured after a tough fight, drain corpses to regen. If you need to run, turn into a bat.

In mantis the Vampire's almost complete lack of blood sources late/endgame is being discussed, and it is a BIG problem for me right now-even being able to bottle blood. Fights are starting to outdo Makhleb's healing on a regular basis.

Its nice to have a stabber who might actually win that's not just another SpEn.
Arsenal FC...I'm a gooner.

Shoals Surfer

Posts: 321

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Post Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 16:39

Re: What species do you never play?

colma wrote:I currently have a level 22 VpAs running. After the first 6-8 levels its on par with an enchanter in terms of stabbing capability with it's extreme stealth. I cleared out entire floors of the elven halls at level 12 or so without casting any of the usual pro-stabbing spells (thanks to boots of stealth). Most enemies that are extremely deadly end game resist enchantment spells anyway.

I keep him bloodless for stealth, with Makhleb as a god for healing. When that's not enough or he's badly injured after a tough fight, drain corpses to regen. If you need to run, turn into a bat.

In mantis the Vampire's almost complete lack of blood sources late/endgame is being discussed, and it is a BIG problem for me right now-even being able to bottle blood. Fights are starting to outdo Makhleb's healing on a regular basis.

Its nice to have a stabber who might actually win that's not just another SpEn.


My first and so far only win was with a VpEn of Makhleb. Early game I used ensorcelled hibernation like every other En, then after switching to long blades I still stabbed whatever was asleep (and was very successfull at that, thanks no doubt to the stealth boost) and fought everything else "fairly", using haste as needed. I rarely used confusion when ensorcelled hibernation stopped being useful. In the late game I rarely had any trouble at all with healing: I was using a highly enchanted vampiric triple sword (very nice find, that :D) and that was enough even in Zot:5 against orbs of fire and other non-drainable monsters, but I never fought more than one scary enemy at a time there. At that point I didn't really have any other source of healing other than the sword and Makhleb, since I was out of stuff to drain for blood and wands of healing were nowhere to be seen. The only time I was in serious danger during the whole game was in Shoals:5 and, strangely, in a wizlab portal against an animated axe (plus a big scare when I found Mennas right next to me as I descended some stairs in the Crypt, but luckily he didn't cast silence right away).

Moral of the story: try to find a vampiric weapon (I think vampires get a bonus to HP drained with them, can someone confirm?), although of course that won't help in most of the extended endgame branches.

Mines Malingerer

Posts: 32

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Post Wednesday, 5th January 2011, 19:35

Re: What species do you never play?

I've never played a centaur, mostly because I hate ranged combat in this game.

dpeg wrote:I agree that demigods are not very interesting: they have no god and get something in return which may be good enough but is just not as cool. However, I came up with an idea I like a lot, called "abstract worshippers" on the following wiki page: https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... es:demigod


This system seems really interesting, I'd like to see it in action. I've found that Demigods are great in the early game, but I often die as a result of not having a patron.

Another option for mitigating the Demigod's gimpiness in the divine department is perhaps to have them randomly locked into worshiping one god at generation, representing their parent? The possibility that it could be a god that's useless or less than ideal could be seen as a challenge. Of course that could lead to unplayable situations - a necromancer locked into worshiping Zin, for example. It would be kind of cool and represent mythological situations like Hera's anger at Hercules, though. (yes, yes I know she wasn't his mom, but still)

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 14:41

Post Saturday, 8th January 2011, 18:35

Re: What species do you never play?

I've played every species (and won all but Hu, Ce and Og -- and it isn't from lack of trying)

The most interesting races when you first come to the game I find are the normal, powerful hybrids. Merfolk, High Elves, Humans. You want a couple of races that are similar cause it's often nice to win something again but feel like you aren't :p

You also want something different. Spriggans play this role excellently, as do Naga, and Deep Dwarf.

So you've played a bit of crawl. You've found a couple of tactics that work well. You won a few races, now what. You want a challenge, you want something odd. You won a SpEn? Win a VpEn. It's similar but different in many ways. Blood levels are annoying but about as annoying as Tm fulsome [ie, not much] and you can live with it. Lategame you don't have any food so have to go to lair to heal but, who cares. You want a challenge -- you won a human? Now win something with all-around worse stats and no healing - a mummy. You won a troll? Go win an ogre.

Personally, I find all the races have their own little niche, however I'd say the species I don't play is HO. The only thing that brings it back for them is the god Beogh, but if he applied to more gods (as I think he should but no-one else does it seems) there would be little point for HO to exist.

Same with SE - not really much point when Mf are more fun to play at the things SE are good at - Tm, Ne [try a SEIE of kiku and a MfIE of kiku if you don't believe me :)]

Ce, while extremely powerful, have an annoying food mechanic which means they aren't much fun to play -- plus I don't like ranged attack but that's just me.

All races are fun and other races become more fun once you've won a couple. I expect to like HO SE and Ce -- and definitely liked Mi after the heavy armour change, beforehand I thought it was a pointless race when you consider MD.

As crawl changes different species become more fun to play and some less fun. Draconians and Demonspawn are prime examples. Both had overhauls in 0.7/0.8 and I've won both after the overhaul (DS multiple times) because of their new uniqueness.
Go kiku!

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 14:41

Post Saturday, 8th January 2011, 18:59

Re: What species do you never play?

danr wrote:
I'd be curious to see a statistical breakdown of the most popular / most successful species based on the CAO / CDO records.


0.7 and 0.8:

25171x Demonspawn, 13081x Spriggan, 11756x Deep Elf, 9330x High Elf, 9233x Merfolk, 8610x Mountain Dwarf, 6786x Kobold, 6757x Sludge Elf, 5868x Troll, 5758x Hill Orc, 5632x Vampire, 5535x Naga, 5251x Kenku, 5160x Mummy, 4916x Minotaur, 4720x Human, 4390x Draconian, 4165x Deep Dwarf, 3680x Ghoul, 3598x Ogre, 3155x Halfling, 2588x Demigod, 1672x Felid, 1313x Centaur

Things to note -- felids are only in .8 trunk; new species like the overhaul of DS will boost their play a lot.

0.8: (so far)

3510x Demonspawn, 1844x Deep Elf, 1672x Felid, 1596x Sludge Elf, 1363x Mummy, 1287x Spriggan, 1162x Kobold, 1131x Mountain Dwarf, 1030x High Elf, 1005x Draconian, 973x Vampire, 843x Merfolk, 828x Kenku, 688x Naga, 634x Minotaur, 599x Deep Dwarf, 577x Hill Orc, 514x Troll, 495x Ogre, 416x Human, 314x Ghoul, 304x Halfling, 256x Demigod, 159x Centaur

0.7:

21661x Demonspawn, 11794x Spriggan, 9912x Deep Elf, 8390x Merfolk, 8300x High Elf, 7480x Mountain Dwarf, 5624x Kobold, 5354x Troll, 5181x Hill Orc, 5161x Sludge Elf, 4847x Naga, 4659x Vampire, 4423x Kenku, 4304x Human, 4282x Minotaur, 3797x Mummy, 3566x Deep Dwarf, 3385x Draconian, 3366x Ghoul, 3103x Ogre, 2851x Halfling, 2332x Demigod, 1154x Centaur

Here is the trend explained to you in quick terms ;)

Centaurs remain most unpopular. Guess I'll have to go with a suggestion from elliptic, a member of Team Kiku for last year's tournament and switch to Team Centaur :) This is weird, as Ce is one of the top 5 most powerful races as explained by very strong players.

Demigod remain second most unpopular. This is confusing to me -- people say they are boring but I played one near the start of when I played and it was exceedingly fun, DGCj was my 4th win.

Challenge races and ones perceived to be a challenge are low in the race ratings. Ogre, Draconian (0.7), Deep Dwarf (although this is IMO the strongest race), Mummy are all low in 0.7. So is halfling. I can't explain this -- Ha (although it used to be viewed as the weakest race from what I gather) is remarkably strong, especially in 0.7 - try a evasion based halfling berserker and tell me it isn't fun.

On top of the lists is demonspawn. I reckon this is probably because a) it came out in .7 and b) it has the most variety of all races so people play it the most.

Successful races I'll do in another post ;)
Go kiku!

Halls Hopper

Posts: 60

Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 14:41

Post Saturday, 8th January 2011, 19:43

Re: What species do you never play?

Last one! (for now)

0.7 wins: ordered by percentage :)

55/3567x Deep Dwarf [1.54%], 37/2852x Halfling [1.30%], 11/1154x Centaur [0.95%], 109/11794x Spriggan [0.92%], 68/8392x Merfolk [0.81%], 22/3367x Ghoul [0.65%], 33/5161x Sludge Elf [0.64%], 32/5624x Kobold [0.57%], 26/4847x Naga [0.54%], 14/3103x Ogre [0.45%], 37/8300x High Elf [0.45%], 76/21666x Demonspawn [0.35%], 8/2332x Demigod [0.34%], 34/9913x Deep Elf [0.34%], 15/4423x Kenku [0.34%], 11/3385x Draconian [0.32%], 17/5354x Troll [0.32%], 13/4304x Human [0.30%], 14/4660x Vampire [0.30%], 8/3797x Mummy [0.21%], 9/4283x Minotaur [0.21%], 10/5181x Hill Orc [0.19%], 13/7482x Mountain Dwarf [0.17%]

Mi, HO and MD. Not surprising at all. These are the races that were played a lot when heavy armour was strong but are much less powerful after the nerf. People may still play them a lot.

In 0.7, good races: DD, Ha, Ce, Sp and Mf. Well, think I did well with these - all excellent races, the top 3 getting less play than Sp of Mf which probably means it's better players playing them. However they are definitely near the top.

0.8 wins: ordered by percentage :)

6/159x Centaur [3.77%], 37/1672x Felid [2.21%], 5/256x Demigod [1.95%], 12/688x Naga [1.74%], 5/304x Halfling [1.64%], 15/1005x Draconian [1.49%], 7/495x Ogre [1.41%], 4/314x Ghoul [1.27%], 6/600x Deep Dwarf [1.00%], 6/634x Minotaur [0.95%], 5/577x Hill Orc [0.87%], 11/1287x Spriggan [0.85%], 3/417x Human [0.72%], 8/1131x Mountain Dwarf [0.71%], 5/828x Kenku [0.60%], 7/1163x Kobold [0.60%], 3/514x Troll [0.58%], 7/1363x Mummy [0.51%], 9/1844x Deep Elf [0.49%], 4/1030x High Elf [0.39%], 13/3514x Demonspawn [0.37%], 3/843x Merfolk [0.36%], 4/1596x Sludge Elf [0.25%], 2/973x Vampire [0.21%]

Team Centaur rises again!

These stats are confusing. As 0.8 is only people currently playing trunk, I think it would be wrong to draw too many conclusions from this. After all, Og is not better than DD :p

However, it does show that centaurs are decent, felids have been played and won a lot, and DG are not a bad race. When 0.8 comes out I expect the tale to look like 0.7, however Mi, MD and HO to be in the middle of the pack due to the buff to heavy armour. Maybe even near the top.

So what does this tell you?

0.7: DD, Sp, Ha, Ce, Mf

0.8: same list. Maybe replace Mf with Fe or HE, because they are strong, and merfolk were nerfed. At the moment the list is polluted with ashenzari and trog as people try the new changes, so when a more even spread of gods is tried, it will be easiest to see which is best.

For the record, Tr is also very strong :)
Go kiku!

For this message the author casmith789 has received thanks:
danr

Lair Larrikin

Posts: 20

Joined: Monday, 10th January 2011, 18:17

Post Monday, 10th January 2011, 18:54

Re: What species do you never play?

Ogre: If I wanted to play a big hulking berserker I'll go with a minotaur or a troll though if Ogre's get their schizophrenic magic apt's reworked (maybe -2 for main schools and then +1 for elemental ones for being more in tune with the wild or whatever) and a boost to defense (how about giving them +1 apt's to shields fighting and armor) I would definitely consider playing a hybrid.

Ghouls: I find ghoul's eating mechanic way more of a headache than the vampires and the 0.8 armor buff makes playing non-casting EV characters even more of a headache.

Sludge elf: I don't enjoy playing non-conjuring wizard's unfortunately and I'm also terrible at playing transmuters so yeah.

Centaurs: Would like to get an centaur arcane marksmen going but the terrible apts and defense ruin it.

Naga: Would like to get a Naga warper of chei going since those are apparently hilarious but I just can't get Naga past temple.

Hill orc: I play a bunch of HoPr but other than that these guys play like a remixed version of MD; (to quote donald) I hate that.

Kenku: Would love to get a decent reaver going but these guys are just too fragile for my tastes. Perhaps a slight buff to HP and dodging would do the trick but then again I'm absolutely terrible at knowing when to run.
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