Dungeon Crawl: coglin chaos knights have an unfortunate abbreviation

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Dungeon Crawl: coglin chaos knights have an unfortunate abbreviation

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Race idea: purple chunks are nutritious, all dropped chunks are purple, all rations replaced with Potions of Purple Porridge.

E: Call them Goons, give them human apts, look at me I'm a dev!

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 22:13

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:49

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Potential Jivya priest class names:

Primordialist
Dissolver
Oozepostle
Goo Knight
Amoebist
Slimephile
Body Hacker

# ¿ Oct 22, 2018 02:45

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

make mockery posted:

why doesnt boris scale to his environment

Rather than an immortal lich, have him reincarnate as a floor-appropriate monster: he can show up as a Goblin on D:1, a Gold Dragon in the depths, an Orb of Fire in Zot, etc.

Give him some unique taunts and maybe one special ability, but otherwise is a slightly beefed up version of whatever he's reincarnated as.

Also give him a small chance to show up as a bowl of petunias.

# ¿ Feb 1, 2019 19:30

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

The current trend of removing all cruft seems like a mutation of Crawl's laudable goal of removing spoilers to promote accessibility. Which is fine to an extent, but this game is an ancient roguelike built on weird interactions and some degree of randomness, so taking that away feels like removing something vital.

If people want a roguelike that's a literally a solvable puzzle and nothing more, nothing wrong with that! But they maybe should look at something like Desktop Dungeons, which is very good because it was designed from the ground up as a puzzle-roguelike hybrid.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2019 16:19

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Shady Amish Terror posted:

If you're referring to the fact that old hand players don't even really think about them much, they're definitely something that most characters capable of reaching Zot can work around, at least for long enough to win a 3-rune. Even teleportitis and berserkeritis rarely trigger often enough or at just the wrong time to prevent salvaging a situation if you have a really good grasp of the mechanics. That said, I feel like a lot of the more adept players overlook that malmutations are really loving annoying, especially to newer players who WILL find them extremely dangerous, and who don't have a horde of backup get-out-of-jail cards because they've been actively using them throughout the game.

I think this may be one of the other things bugging me about the various removals. Let's say an early game character approaches a pack of bees:

A vet (like most/all of the dev team), will have a pretty good idea of their odds based on their experience with their race/class and whatever gear they've found. If they engage, they will know how to and be ready to use every advantage at their disposal. If things go south, they'll know when to book it, and barring extreme bad luck they'll be positioned properly to make their escape.

A newbie (or even someone with a bit of experience but not a ton), is more likely to wake the bees up by accident, or to be overconfident in their ability to fight the things. They're less likely to fight optimally, and more likely to burn potions/scrolls to survive.

Repeat this over several dozen dangerous encounters over the course of a game, and the little advantages vets use add up into a massive pile of scrolls and potions that newbies just won't have. The worst part is using your potions at the first sign of trouble is in fact very good advice for new players, but the idea that the game has too many get-out-of-jail cards seems to be propped up by people who don't need that advice.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2019 15:55

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Yeah the chance of getting just the right unrand with just the right build is pretty close to nil, so they need to be strong enough to make the far more common scenario of "is it worth completely changing my game plan to use thing thing?" interesting.

Plus, this makes them REALLY fun on those rare occasions they show up in a game where you're building toward that weapon class anyway.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2019 16:26

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Also the idea of a bunch of monsters being confused because some rear end in a top hat adventurer just literally crashed their kegger is hilarious.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2019 16:05

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Quick question on where I should bring this character:

code:

ImbarsBidbib the Shatterer (Ogre Skald)            Turns: 27059, Time: 01:04:10

HP:   178/178 (179) AC: 14    Str: 20    XL:     16   Next: 37%
MP:   13/13         EV: 22    Int: 14    God:    Okawaru [******]
Gold: 2562          SH: 30    Dex: 17    Spells: 15/27 levels left

rFire    + . .     SeeInvis .   a - +0 morningstar (venom)
rCold    + . .     Gourm    .   C - +8 large shield of Inaction {rF+ rCorr Dex+5}
rNeg     . . .     Faith    .   Q - +0 troll leather armour
rPois    +         Spirit   .   S - +2 hat {MR+}
rElec    .         Reflect  +   D - +1 cloak of the Endless Expanse {rPois rC+ Stlth+}
rCorr    +         Harm     .   (gloves unavailable)
MR       ++...                  (boots unavailable)
Stlth    ++........             k - +4 amulet of reflection
HPRegen  1.79/turn              E - +5 ring of evasion
MPRegen  0.13/turn              A - +3 ring of evasion

@: regenerating, repel missiles, slow
A: large, unfitting armour, tough skin 1
a: Release Permanent Buffs, Heroism, Finesse, Renounce Religion

Right now I have this +0 morningstar, a +0 GSC, 7 scrolls of enchant weapon and 22 M&F skill. Normally this would be a no-brainer, but I'm about to hit Swamp and right now 30 SH is serious business - Nessos just killed himself while I ignored him and dealt with a Warlord in Orc. Should I keep on trucking with this crappy mace and save those scrolls for an eventual eveningstar/demon whip, or should I enchant up my GSC and switch over?

Probably going to keep the shield on to keep hydras at bay while I tackle Swamp, but I'm not sure what's best after that.

# ¿ May 18, 2019 03:54

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

I still store various odds and ends I don't want to carry, like wands I've outgrown and "that +1 ring mail of fire resistance I found on D4, maybe I'll need an extra pip at the expense of all my armor" and other sundry goods, on Lair 1. :kiddo:

Old habits die incredibly hard.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 17:24

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Shady Amish Terror posted:

Look at all these L:1 nerds who have never had the experience of a simulated-stair-hopping-monster spawning from the floor above. You haven't known Problems Time until a jelly eats your entire L:1 stash including most of your food, or an Orc Warlord eligible to spawn because there's a Mines entrance on the same floor as Lair shows up and turns all your not-quite-good-enough-to-use gear against you and drinks every excess potion you stashed away.

Real champions know to make their weird hoarder nest on L:2.

E: ...just to clarify for anyone who might not have been playing this game for a decade, those are things that used to happen, and generally don't anymore, don't worry.

E2: And I only say generally because while I would say 'never ever', someone is apparently dealing with Hepliaklqana having a nervous breakdown over whether or not it's proper to buy a new sword for this nerd's ancestor who is dead and who also doesn't worship them and so functionally doesn't exist, so I'm hesitant to commit to hard and fast declarations of what is or is not possible in Crawl code.

Arivia posted:

Lair 1 is a fool's place to put a stash, an ooze can wander down from Dungeon and eat it!

You put it on Lair TWO, next to an UPSTAIRS.

e:f,b

There's a reason why, despite playing this game on and off for a decade, I only have about four wins! :negative:

I vaguely remembered stashing stuff on L:2 as I wrote that post, but couldn't remember why, so I figured I was misremembering. A shameful veteran.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2020 19:27

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

I only skimmed that thread, but is the reason for cutting all those evokables really that it requires carrying too many items?

Isn't that the point of the skill? That you trade the consistency but narrow focus of mana/memorization-limited spellcasting for a wider variety of floor god-reliant powers?

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 19:29

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

So I haven't played in probably a year or so, and when I log onto Gooncrawl on CKO I'm greeted by this:

Then it crashes after a few seconds. Mainline, trunk and the other forks all work fine, any idea what's causing Gooncrawl to lose its mind?

# ¿ Apr 14, 2020 22:11

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

I figured it would be something like that, thanks.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2020 22:25

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Thanks for telling me how to get fixed up. I only really go for one victory a year, and I'm really bad at this game so it takes a month and a few dozen to a hundred splats before I earn it. I figured it would be a bit quicker this time, being stuck home and all, so I decided to roll a Formicid Archeologist first, and, well...

code:

2669285 ImbarsBidbib the Axe Maniac (level 27, 220/220 HPs)
             Began as a Formicid Archaeologist on Apr 15, 2020.
             Was the Champion of Okawaru.
             Escaped with the Orb
             ... and 5 runes!
             
             The game lasted 03:26:25 (91800 turns).

ImbarsBidbib the Axe Maniac (FoAc)                 Turns: 91800, Time: 03:26:26

Health: 220/220    AC: 43    Str: 25    XL:     27
Magic:  29/29      EV: 18    Int: 17    God:    Okawaru [******]
Gold:   2920       SH: 22    Dex: 13    Spells: 30/32 levels left

rFire    + + .     SeeInvis +   j - +11 executioner's axe "Demonbane" {freeze, +Rage +Fly rC- Dex+2}
rCold    + + +     Gourm    .   C - +1 large shield {reflect}
rNeg     + + +     Faith    +   c - +15 Maxwell's patent armour {-Tele rElec MR+ rCorr Clar}
rPois    +         Spirit   .   P - +2 cloak {MR+}
rElec    +         Reflect  +   i - +0 pair of gloves of the Original Sin {*Drain rF+ Int+3}
rCorr    +         Harm     .   L - +0 pair of boots of the Lair of Beasts {rN+ Regen+}
MR       ++++.     Clarity  +   u - amulet "Setaum" {Faith rPois rC+ Int+2 SInv}
Stlth    ..........             T - ring of Qikhluac {Wiz rF+ Str-4 Stlth+}
HPRegen  0.86/turn              D - ring "Taatuy" {*Slow +Fly rC+++ rN++}
MPRegen  0.21/turn

...it turns out getting Gimble and Gyre out of your box is really, really freaking good. You have it at mindelay literally out of the box, and it can easily carry you until you get your heavy weapons online.

The real reason I'm posting the morgue, besides the laughing at how great stasis is, is that axe and those boots. I figured I'd get a nice, clean 5-rune win, no need to mess with extended, then I style a bit by opening a trove on the orb run and grab a +11 freezing executioner axe. Then I die a little on the inside.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2020 00:03

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Transmuter punchman is the funnest build, so good job! If you liked this one I'd suggest a Troll EE of Chei for a different flavor. Hard to get off the ground, but once you learn Statue Form you become an unstoppable force.

# ¿ May 15, 2020 23:20

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

I remember when the orcs got their own god! That had to be what, a decade ago?

# ¿ Jun 22, 2020 23:59

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Chakan posted:

Well, experimental has those beetle-taurs (at the cost of centaurs which feels very wrong because centaurs are both flavorful & a good race to teach a lot of game concepts without being boring or over/underpowered) so some things might be added in the future.

The "remove the generic fantasy races" goal is utterly bizarre to me. For background, I loving hate the generic D&D fantasy creatures that have colonized the collective nerd unconscious, because they make fantasy just as mundane as reality, just in a different way. Even the worst thought out gonzo 70s science-fantasy setting is leaps and bounds ahead of arrogant agile humans with pointy ears or short gruff beardy humans that live in mines.

That said, elves and dwarves and the like are a perfect fit for Crawl. The game has no larger narrative outside the dungeon, so there's no world that needs building. However, give a new player a chance to pick an elf and they'll immediately recognize it as shorthand for good at bows and magic, but physically weak. Show them an orc and they'll know they have a fighty guy who's not great at magic. The generic races are a great onboarding tool for new players, since their strengths and weaknesses are so obvious that they get a leg up on the basic play.

The actual gonzo races in Crawl, like the sentient octopi and giant ant-men and literal cats, are a great place to stick weird gimmicks and advanced playstyles. They definitely have a place, but you need that baseline to make them stand out (and to have a core experience from which stranger species can deviate).

What I'm saying is beetle centaurs sound cool, but removing the familiar version of the same theme doesn't do anything to help the game. New players will see a centaur and say "Oh, horse-man, probably runs fast" and be absolutely correct and have a great character to teach the movement system, but seeing a beetle-man with a one-sentence descriptor does nothing to prepare them for whatever it does.

Anyway, if you could make the drink a Diet Coke that'd be aces.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2020 14:32

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

No species is inherently more interesting than any other in Crawl, is the thing. There's no plot or world, so if you find the High Elf's aptitudes/item slots make for more compelling gameplay than an Octopode, the High Elf is more interesting outside of the character creation screen.

My main problem is the devs seem to be doing their damndest to make the game completely opaque to newcomers, and while this is a really minor sin on that front it's part of a larger pattern.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2020 16:22

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

weirdly chilly pussy posted:

Several small buffs to various branches have added to the difficulty in recent years. Despite this, I wouldn't say the devs only cater to the hardcore crowd. There have been a lot of changes that aim to make the game more approachable and learnable.

Also the game has been shortened significantly (shorter branches, shorter dungeon, loss of Hive) and iirc while the xp deficit was largely made up by the introduction of Depths, early/midgame was always the deadliest part of the game outside of extended and now there are fewer sources of xp at that point.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2020 13:34

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

LeastActionHero posted:

I think more likely is they just get rid of the soft cap and make it cumulative. Trying to dive for 6k turns/level of xomscumming probably isn't enough to get anything worthwhile. And you can hang out in the abyss or pan forever, but by that point you can scour the abyss for everything anyway.

Better yet would be to make xom less dumb as a god. Is there anything else worth waiting around for? God wrath maybe? But I figure if you're timing out god-wrath you could probably survive indefinitely in the abyss - and this could be avoided by making god-wrath dependent stuff besides time.

Xom owns, they're the only pre-Stone Soup god who never required a rework afaik. Xomscumming is boring and should be punished (not like this, obviously) but normal Xom play is fun and interesting.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2020 23:27

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

SirSamVimes posted:

What about people who like scumming? Sometimes I used to play a mummy and just sit on floors until you got the absurd OoD spawns that existed to encourage you to move on and try to kill them for a massive early exp boost. Sometimes poo poo like that is fun!

Xomscumming is the optimal play 100% of the time, whereas killing a OoD for big xp is fun/a personal challenge, but (almost?) never the optimal play. That's a key difference imo.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2020 23:57

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Fixedart medium armor with decent pluses and no other special properties than making you undead (Bone Mail?) could be kind of interesting, imo. Just not at the expense of Necromutation.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2020 01:23

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Whaleporn posted:

A food system nods to the reality of crawls journey you get the idea your character's quest has an element of survival and the hunger rate suggests days and or weeks to clear each level. I think the experience of the game for someone who's not so bored of it that it's a pile of numbers is hurt when the system isn't there at all to make you consider the dungeon a physical reality.

The devs are like the opposite of that scene from The Matrix:

"...there's way too much information to decode the dungeon. You get used to it, though. Your brain does the translating. I don't even see the orcs. All I see is attack 5, 20, and 32. Hey uh, you want a drink? Oh wait nevermind we removed food lol"

# ¿ Dec 29, 2020 20:55

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Serephina posted:

T&D was removed since it was deemed an uninteresting xp tax with no thought processes behind getting 10-15 levels in it for every character. I kiiiinda agree, even if the counterargument goes "but you can choose how much xp to allocate!" and the rebuttal is "yes, and everyone choses 10-15 levels". So the skill got axed, and everyone got the equivilent of the same amount of levels in it...

Wait, we're talking about disarming traps. Yea, even with T&D removed disarming shoulda been a thing. Or was it too 'optimal' to disarm every one you saw? Surely not, as back then the food clock (+OOD clock) was still considered real. Anyone got a clue regarding disarming?

Also for the first point, removing T&D, it seemed sane at the time but hindsight is 20/20 and if everyone was putting the same amount of xp into it, the correct answer it to change it's scaling, so that all values from 0-27 have merit. Early example of axing features rather than fixing them...

My incredibly bad and stupid idea would be to build on the way disarmed traps dropped piddly resources, like nonmagic swords from blade traps and arrows from arrow traps. Make it so that as you increase you T&D level more traps have a chance to drop thematic items and existing item droppers have a chance to drop better stuff, like a high-level T&D character can get a scroll of teleport out of disarming teleportation traps or branded greatswords from blade traps. Basically investing experience into more resources.

Get all the way to 27 and you can try to disarm a Zot trap! Maybe it will blow up in your face and horribly malmutate you, maybe you'll get the randart ring powering it... :unsmigghh:

# ¿ Mar 9, 2021 15:30

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Arivia posted:

if your title isn't axe maniac why are you even bothering playing MiBe

To be a Chief of Staff.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2021 12:53

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Serephina posted:

Henzell, who had patch notes like "version .3, I have added a few feature called "branches", there are five of them, and 20 new monsters to match their theme". I would have loved to see what would have happened if he had kept at it; his shmups where marvelous.

DCSS has had a lot of design-by-committee and bikeshedding and could really use a visionary, even the various forks aren't as prolific in content as could be. But I suppose said visionary would just go make his own game instead, hrm.

Ehhhh, as someone who started playing this game around the time Stone Soup launched, even the current state is a massive improvement over Henzell's design. Granted, who knows what he would have done over two decades of development, but back then the good gods were almost identical (and useless), victory dancing still existed (if you don't know what this is, feel blessed) and the spell schools were even more samey than they've become (the few exceptions being insanely overpowered stuff like Tomb of Doroklohe, which literally surrounded you in permanent rock walls and let you regen all your resources at your leisure. Dig was also a spell and Hive existed, so you weren't limited by wands or even food).

Current Crawl is the phrase "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions" made real; devs spent a decade cutting awful cruft and adding cool new stuff, but they never readjusted the overall design philosophy even when they had a lean mean machine of a great roguelike on their hands.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 14:01

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Also the real first victim of removing flavor for the sake of removing flavor wasn't Mountain Dwarves, it was Eringya's Surprising Bouquet.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 14:09

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

girl dick energy posted:

And then they removed the wizlab named after it in 0.17, apparently.

Okay, this is the one that's gonna break me even though I haven't played seriously in years.

Why? Wizlabs are random, optional content, why did one have to be removed? At least, like Boulder Beetles are something you see all the time and could be considered annoying to very boring people, why remove a tiny reference to a bit of game history that most folks will never encounter?

# ¿ Jun 28, 2021 14:14

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Cutting random stuff alongside good changes has pretty much always been part of Stone Soup's DNA. Citing the removal of Mountain Dwarves is a meme at this point (they were in fact boring and pointless), but Sludge Elves were removed a year later for the crime of being elves. They actually had an interesting niche (fragile hybrids with great unarmed, transmutation and light armor-ish aptitudes, slight advantages with magic in general, and terrible weapon apts) but rather than just rename them something not elf-y they got cut.

This was during .13, part of the Golden Age of Crawl when all sorts of awesome changes were being made. Not excusing the current state of the game (haven't played in years myself and the trap changes in particular are amazingly stupid) but it's not like a bunch of new devs showed up and completely reversed course on development. There have always been cuts, often baffling, for better or (at this point more often) worse.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2022 17:47

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# ¿ Apr 24, 2024 04:49

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

Internet Kraken posted:

Frankly, I don't know why the devs are so terrified of people being able to farm though. The game's score already incentivizes you to play as fast as possible so people concerned with that aren't gonna farm anyways.

I remember an old Nethack quote: "The DevTeam has arranged an automatic and savage punishment for pudding farming. It's called pudding farming."

# ¿ Jun 17, 2022 15:53

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