Comments on: Crawl 0.12: “High Vaultage”

By: Annonith

Annonith — Sat, 25 May 2013 19:00:04 +0000

A little late but since some people asked how to zoom here it is for future reference: in init.txt fiddle with tile_cell_pixels and tile_filter_scaling

By: Miau

Miau — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:07:28 +0000

Well, my favourite building was FeSu, you just killed that option. A FeSu can’t survive mid-game now, and this is a fact. Not talking about late-game… Just impossible.

By: James

James — Wed, 22 May 2013 10:05:39 +0000

Hooray for new sprint maps!

By: Malin

Malin — Tue, 21 May 2013 18:33:02 +0000

I like those changes,through secret doors(secret locations) is a must-be feature in dungeon-crawl IMO.Still hope that nagas will be returned to their former selves-specificaly having constriction from the start.

As of “Top RL” discussion-for me it is:
1.DCSS
2.DoomRL
3.Nethack(played for years,did not win a single time.The reason for it to be the last on the list-is that if you want sure win-you must do a lot of tedious mechanics scumming and grinding,and if you’re on the “light side” then god help you…)

By: dialectric

dialectric — Thu, 16 May 2013 18:54:40 +0000

Secret doors provide a reason for training traps. Without them, there is no reason for most players to train traps. Like unarmed combat for non-punch attacks, I think leaving doors in provides a wider range of reasonable skill advance options. As an alternative to taking them out completely, maybe they should be revealed automatically on traps 5 or so.

By: wrackwurt

wrackwurt — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:13:14 +0000

I’m neutral on secret doors and Summoners, and I will definitely miss Fulsome Distillation and Evaporate (maybe they could return with an Alchemist class someday?), but I really like the new Conjurer. The new spells are fun and I like the thematic separation from Fire and Ice mages.

By: Jor Ign

Jor Ign — Sat, 11 May 2013 03:33:03 +0000

The change with the summoners(my favorite background) pretty much killed the game for me.
I will play the older versions I guess…

By: vanilla fan

vanilla fan — Fri, 10 May 2013 14:32:33 +0000

Another version, another mixed feelings about changes. Just remove the demonspawn, randarts, Yredelemnul’s pain mirror and blow up airmage already, i’ll leave SS without any regrets

By: plaintextman

plaintextman — Thu, 09 May 2013 14:54:11 +0000

Oh, thanks for mentioning that, MarvinPA. I only now noticed it in the log “* Removed the hidden special cost of Spellcasting, Stealth, Evocations and Invocations. Aptitudes adjusted.” I’m still not clear on whether this means that at +0 aptitude all skills train at the same rate given equal XP, but it seems to be the case.

By: MarvinPA

MarvinPA — Thu, 09 May 2013 13:25:30 +0000

“Fortunately no major changes, except for bummer -1 to spellcasting and the sweet +1 to Inv.”
It’s not mentioned in the short highlights but this isn’t actually a change – before 0.12, every species had a hidden penalty to spellcasting and a hidden bonus to invocations (and some other skills) – the hidden adjustments are now gone, with the aptitudes being tweaked such that in practice it’s just the same as before.

By: plaintextman

plaintextman — Thu, 09 May 2013 12:31:08 +0000

Loving the new version. I didn’t expect too much to have changed in the area up to the Lair, but I’ve already been pleasantly surprised by all the little (and level-sized) new vaults and structures. Eager to see what the Vaults and Abyss are now like. The only thing I’m a little sad to see go is Evaporate, but it’s not the worst thing to lose either.

Hm, going to have to adapt my Naga fighter mage build a little (fun!). Fortunately no major changes, except for bummer -1 to spellcasting and the sweet +1 to Inv. I hoped you guys would be nicer and give me back my early-game constriction, but oh well :-P

By: knaveightt

knaveightt — Thu, 09 May 2013 04:05:24 +0000

Jorgrun gave me a run for my money… a run which landed me in the morgues lol. Great challenges, great version if you ask me. Sure, it’s a little sad to see evaporate go but the new conjurations are pretty exciting when used wisely :)

By: Iocane

Iocane — Thu, 09 May 2013 03:42:51 +0000

I’m sad to see evaporate go. The lack of a 2 manna fireball makes vampires a little less fun.

By: ressique

ressique — Tue, 07 May 2013 16:47:44 +0000

If i download the OsX version it the game won’t launch. Is someone able to help me?

By: greattornick

greattornick — Tue, 07 May 2013 08:12:59 +0000

I don’t really care about secret doors, after playing hundreds of hours I could tell where they were upon entering every vault, so it was just tedious to wait for them to be revealed.
I personally think that foulsome distillation and evaporate were unbalanced in the early game and useless in the mid to late game thanks to the risk of not knowing which cloud would be generated if not using a potion of poison or confusion.
All the other features are pure gold to me, and I just have one question, is it possible to donate?

By: unkind

unkind — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:21:20 +0000

How do you zoom in? The main reason I don’t like this game so much is i can’t see hardly anything. Someone please explain how to zoom in!

By: dpd

dpd — Mon, 06 May 2013 04:07:18 +0000

About whether the sentence “[Secret doors] should be used rarely if at all, so they’re secret,” makes sense, an equivalent statement would be “If they’re used at all, secret doors should be rare, so they’re secret.” This sets up an alternative: Either don’t use secret doors or use them only rarely.

Of course, in practice secret doors are wildly overused in roguelikes and in order to play effectively, you have to know they’re everywhere and spend a lot of time searching for them, which is where they run afoul of “stone soup theory,” I suppose.

By: ihlosi

ihlosi — Sun, 05 May 2013 21:30:51 +0000

Yes, spells requiring some sort of “ammunition” make for interesting tactics and logistics.
However, fulsome distillation had other uses than just providing ammo for evaporate. Gone are the days of easy decks of wonder from Nemelex, I guess it’s only decks of summoning and destruction now.

By: Pereza0

Pereza0 — Sun, 05 May 2013 20:38:48 +0000

Yeah, they were ok, but the player was still going to use the pretty much in the same manner than other existing spells, mainly mephitic cloud, except it had a sort of tedious potion luggage mini-game.

Having all those effects available so quickly might have been a bit too much for a level 2 spell.

Still, I will miss having passwall early on as a stabber background, it was really fun to use.

By: anon

anon — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:55:20 +0000

I don’t give a fuck about secret doors but I thought evaporate and fulsome distillation were pretty cool. I don’t get why they were removed.

“Stay behind your words, use your real name or nickname.”

This is creepy btw.

By: SuperTaster

SuperTaster — Sun, 05 May 2013 00:07:03 +0000

Any word on permabuffs? Or are those put by the wayside?

By: deathrot

deathrot — Sat, 04 May 2013 23:45:52 +0000

Thanks for improving on the abyss. It went from dreadfully boring, to impossible to navigate in the more recent version (0.11). The new version is still a place I try to avoid, and probably more dangerous, but not mind-numbing like before. All of which are really good things IMHO.

By: Firnod

Firnod — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:50:32 +0000

My most played roguelikes when i’m not playing DCSS are ToME4 (brillant in its gameplay) DoomRL (amazing in delivering turn based “action”), UnrealWorld (great survival elements) that are all in their own RL genre and none of them play the same.

Can’t say one is better than another then as they’re really different and fantastic to play.

By: ZionRavescene

ZionRavescene — Sat, 04 May 2013 18:22:34 +0000

Count me as one who is glad to see secret doors gone. This is definitely a case of perceived loss (and irrational loss aversion), not actual loss.

Also, I’ve played ToME 4, and it is a good game, definitely worth checking out. However–like most games–it leaves me wishing it had a lot of the usability features DCSS has, so I keep coming back here.

By: SayWhat

SayWhat — Sat, 04 May 2013 16:50:43 +0000

I think you should check out Tales of Maj’Eyal (ToME 4) if you haven’t yet. Hopefully I haven’t violated forum rules for saying that, as I am a big fan of DCSS, but to be honest it is no secret as ToME 4 has won ASCII Dreams roguelike of the year last couple years. Note that DCSS won that award 3 years ago but has fallen slightly since then. ToME 4 is more innovative but less balanced than DCSS in my opinion. DCSS I actually play more frequently as it is a quicker play-thru and a better eSport in a sense, but I admire ToME 4 a bit more in what it is trying to do and the chances it is taking and broader features it supports…

By: ihlosi

ihlosi — Sat, 04 May 2013 16:12:03 +0000

SayWhat: “I still think Stone Soup is a top 3 roguelike …”

Could you name the other two? Due to DCSS, I haven’t really paid attention to the rest of the roguelike world for quite a while.

By: ihlosi

ihlosi — Sat, 04 May 2013 15:44:26 +0000

Fulsome distillation is gone? That’s a major hit to Nemelex Xobeh worshippers …

By: SayWhat

SayWhat — Sat, 04 May 2013 14:55:55 +0000

“What even was the reasoning for removing hidden doors?”

I haven’t read the reasoning but I’m sure it was argued from some “Stone Soup theory” point of view. I wish the approach the devs took was less to remove features incompatible with “Stone Soup theory” but rather modify those features to fit with “Stone Soup theory.” This restrictive theory prevents features based on light sources, secret doors, and when they got rid of dwarves as examples.

I still think Stone Soup is a top 3 roguelike and best in class in some areas, but some fundamental missing features keeps it from #1 to me. If the devs can’t see meaningful choices and tradeoffs with light sources I think they just give up too easy on making some features fit with their theory…

By: gnsh

gnsh — Sat, 04 May 2013 03:28:28 +0000

I love these new changes. I had both Lamia and Jorgrun generated in my first ever 3-rune win and new Vaults almost gave me a heart attack (which is a good thing). Keep up the good work fellas.

By: asdfasdfasdf

asdfasdfasdf — Sat, 04 May 2013 03:07:26 +0000

What even was the reasoning for removing hidden doors?

By: SayWhat

SayWhat — Fri, 03 May 2013 23:20:19 +0000

“Also, good call on secret doors. Should only be used rarely if at all, so they’re secret”

Not sure if that statement makes sense. If they are used not at all, how are they secret? They are nothing.

If they are used rarely but meaningfully, I would see the change as good as well. Make them rare but meaningful. But that is not what they did apparently. They just punted and got rid of a potentially fun feature.

By: dpd

dpd — Fri, 03 May 2013 15:20:53 +0000

Does this summoning change affect monsters summoned by permanent allies? E.g. ice beasts from ice statues in zot defence?

Also, good call on secret doors. Should only be used rarely if at all, so they’re actually secret.

By: twelwe

twelwe — Fri, 03 May 2013 05:13:39 +0000

my birthday is in december. thanks for doing this

By: Sam Hulick

Sam Hulick — Fri, 03 May 2013 03:12:33 +0000

Whoa, did somebody say you can now zoom in?? How is this done? I’m on Mac OS.

By: SayWhat

SayWhat — Fri, 03 May 2013 02:45:49 +0000

Removing secret doors? Seriously? I enjoy this game but this group makes some bizzaro decisions sometimes. Why not remove food next or whatever features falls out of favor with the theory purists here…

By: Kirbypowered

Kirbypowered — Fri, 03 May 2013 00:56:29 +0000

Oh boy! I can’t wait to see what wonderful new things Xom will inflict on my characters now. Lots of cool stuff for me to die before ever getting to see, too. XP

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:39:28 +0000

Does this mean the trunk page will finally start getting updated again after a month of having to use RSS?

By: DracoOmega

DracoOmega — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:12:52 +0000

It should be noted that this affects summons only, and not permanent allies. So you needn’t worry about this when it comes to your orcs; they will continue to fight, even if you cannot see them (and this should be easy to notice when you get message for gaining experience due to them)

By: ZaplinG

ZaplinG — Thu, 02 May 2013 18:44:40 +0000

Some times allies HAVE to fight offscreen, especially when you are playing as a HoPr. It was much better to just yell ‘s’top attacking when you didn’t want them to fight. Don’t like this change.

I do like that they gain exp on your kills. It will help immensely in the later levels of the dungeon where unupgraded orcs get 1 shot.

By: Cylon B

Cylon B — Thu, 02 May 2013 12:26:52 +0000

I dislike the change with the summoned allies not fighting when you’re not there. :(

By: Izverg

Izverg — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:50:15 +0000

“Secret doors have been removed.”

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!!

By: Cedor

Cedor — Thu, 02 May 2013 08:14:14 +0000

RSS provides a good surprise today. Yay! Good job guys.

By: Grimm

Grimm — Thu, 02 May 2013 08:05:39 +0000

David: RSS, yo.

By: Annonith

Annonith — Thu, 02 May 2013 05:35:56 +0000

Thank Xom for the changes for wand of polymorph. Nothing pisses you off more like getting teleportisis on D1 from random goblin.
Also you forgot to mention most important new thing: ability to zoom tiles! Woohoo no more eyestrain everybody :D

By: Lyraley

Lyraley — Thu, 02 May 2013 03:34:07 +0000

so exciting! best gift for my upcoming birthday!

By: David

David — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:05:22 +0000

Months of checking in daily… thank you all!