Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Zomg]

Edit: Changed the title 'cause I didn't know it wasn't really "Linley's Dungeon Crawl" anymo' and all we talk about is Stone Soup. At the time I started this I thought Stone Soup was just a tile version of the original game, like Falcon's Eye::Nethack

Alright, so I've started playing Crawl and I want to do it without spoilers. So far it's fucking great, I love the constant impetus to dive and progress that's just missing from ADOM and Nethack (once food problems are over). The religion stuff seems interesting but I've barely scratched it after a couple of dozen characters.

On the other hand, since I'm not going to play spoiled, I do have a few questions that I think would be common knowledge for people that are into Crawl.

1) How often do excellent Crawl players get wins? 100% of the games they start with completely random characters (seems very unlikely)? 100% of the time only with strong race/class combos? What? I can honestly say that I can have like a 95% win rate in both ADOM and Nethack if I play without restrictions and I give a damn long enough to finish one, is that even possible in Crawl? Should I bother playing random race/class or do good Crawl players min/max that choice?

2) Are there any serious balance issues in the 0.6 version that are widely-agreed-upon at the moment?

3) Is there someplace I can get the hit/damage formulas that won't also throw tons of content spoilers at me?

 

[roll-a-die]

About 5-15 percent is the average win rate of someone who isn't mikee.

I'm not sure, I haven't browsed the usenets in a while.

Assuming you mean the damage of a weapon http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?title=Weapon has most of what you need.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I don't think theres proper hit/damage formulas even at the place with all the spoilers.

Class doesn't matter too much, since it's just your starting gear and skills. Race determines what you'll be using in the long run as it determines both skill aptitude and stat growth, and they're fairly balanced for the most part. Theres a lot of more subtle perks/penalties associated with various races to help balance them as well. Stuff like being slightly better or worse at stealth, or different diet standards.

 

[Malakal]

There is a guy who had 15 consecutive wins so it must mean that this game is not as random as it seems (especially since he did that with different characters, ranging fro caster to mellee beasts).

Balance issues? A lot, new gods are untested (that slow one can get You so slow that You will be instakilled by enemies ie hydras), game seems way harder and farming is now impossible (thus mummies are much less viable). Also unique enemies spawn more often.

And I don't think that formulas can be found, check out the wiki.

 

[Raghar]

Re: Linley's Dungeon Crawl questions/thread

On the other hand, since I'm not going to play spoiled, I do have a few questions that I think would be common knowledge for people that are into Crawl.

1) How often do excellent Crawl players get wins? 100% of the games they start with completely random characters (seems very unlikely)?

The most difficult are demigods, a demigod spellcaster doesn't even start with spellcasting skill.

Should I bother playing random race/class or do good Crawl players min/max that choice?

You should roleplay what you like.

1/4 not getting killed in first few levels.
Occasional snake on DL 1, tends to quite disagree with winning rate.
Sigmund on DL 2 isn't impossible as well.

It depends if you would like a win, or an extraordinary win. In the second case you would like to go to certain nasty places.

2) Are there any serious balance issues in the 0.6 version that are widely-agreed-upon at the moment?

I played only original. I heard something bad about randomized movement in Stone soup.

3) Is there someplace I can get the hit/damage formulas that won't also throw tons of content spoilers at me?

There are none. Thought you could look into source code.

 

[betamin]

If anyone has tips to share about playing kobold assasains please go ahead

 

[abstract]

If anyone has tips to share about playing kobold assasains please go ahead

spam poison needles in the beginning, save curare-tipped needles for especially nasty mobs. Do get a few levels in melee or ranged weapons though, you'll start running into poison-resistant mobs. Trog is a decent god for assassins, berserk is useful and he can give you good melee weapons as gifts.
Apart from that, I have no idea

 

[Zomg]

Shit that annoys me about Crawl so far: Way too little quick differentiation of monsters in a game with such brutal scaling. Why are Giant Toads much more dangerous than Giant Frogs? Iguanas > Giant Lizards?

At least do like, "Dire Giant Frogs"; all nerds are familiar with the D&D lazy writing protocol.

Edit - aaaargh I keep dying to my own ghosts. My first good character (a Venom Mage that got down to D10 I think) just Mephitic Cloud -> Energy Orb'd my latest Fire Elementalist on D8.

 

[DefJam101]

I just started playing this on/off a few days ago myself. Can't say I'm a big fan of Crawl's "run away" mechanics, which rely heavily on staircase usage, but that's about my only gripe so far.

The lack of annoying NetHack grinding is a huge plus IMHO. It feels more like a 'tactical fantasy game' than a traditional roguelike, since most of your deaths come from shit chasing you down and murdering you in actual combat. You'll still die, yes... but at least you learn a lesson deeper than "you should not perform x action as it will instantly kill you." The fleeing game seems to reward caution rather than outright patience, which is great.


My current game has been a bitch, but I'm still alive (Draconian Necromancer). I'm only on DL4, but levels 2-3 have named monsters on them and level 4 has a ghost on it. Not sure what I'll do tomorrow... Probably run down a Dlvl and kill monsters until I can summon zombies, and make a run at my ghost file. If that doesn't work I'll probably die a horrible death. Again.

Oh, and in my last game I was brutally raped by a Giant Toad after a scroll of teleportation moved me approximately 4 squares away from my starting position.

 

[Gragt]

Hey, nigga!

 

[Higher Game]

Hey, nigga!

Wb Defjam, come to the ADOM thread when you gather enough strength. :twisted:

 

[aleph]

I can recommend playing a demon spawn chaos knight of Xom. Survivability is very low, but playing one guarantees tons of fun.

 

[Malakal]

I would recommend demonspawn chaos knight of Makhleb or Lugonu if You play less for the lulz and more for winning. Those combinations can get awesomely powerful.

 

[DefJam101]

Hey, nigga!

Wb Defjam, come to the ADOM thread when you gather enough strength. :twisted:

ADOM seems better than NetHack, but still too binary to have lasting appeal.

 

[Zomg]

Binary?

Lost another goddamn Fire Elementalist when a Wyvern got all up in he face and shredded him in two turns. I had like 800 XP in the can, I guess I should have gone up and done some grind for the Fighting skill to get some HP by punchin' mice. I had the same offense (Sticky Flame + Flame Tongue, plus magic dart for electric eels and imps) for like 6 dlevels in a row and my survivability barely changed at all until it finally caught up with me.

Now his fucking ghost is gonna sticky flame me when I get back down there

 

[Higher Game]

The infinite dungeon in ADOM is a decent enough random crawl, but I agree that it's not the same as a game meant for that style.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I need to start a nethack thread. It'll have hookers so it automatically wins already. ADOM only has blackjack. (Or at least slots, does it have anything besides slots in the casino?)

 

[DefJam101]

Binary?

As in, 90% of your deaths come from hard coded "you must choose this door or that door" decisions, and much of the game's difficulty comes from lack of spoilers. You pick the door on the left, you die. Door on the right, you live. Generally this is a problem because the only two methods of discovery are trial/error and spoilers, but also because the game becomes boring once you are 'good' at it (know exactly what to do).

tl;dr overreliance on instadeath situations is poor game design

 

[Damned Registrations]

Nethack is actually my favourite roguelike still. There's almost always some interesting way to get out of a sticky situation, even if it is heavily spoiler dependent. Showing a mirror to a umber hulk or a nymph, petrifying demon lords with a wielded trice corpse, killing a purple worm by zapping a wand of digging into it from the inside. That kind of stuff is really cool. No other roguelikes I've seen have so many cool interactions like that. ADOM has lots of neat skills and spells, but you're unlikely to have more than a very few available to you for any given character until you're well into the midgame. I can't just tame cats out of the way because I found a flute with my troll beast fighter in ADOM. Nor can I carry around an anvil to smash through doors with most characters even if I DO luck out and find one.

 

[Zomg]

There is some gay shit in this from being open source. Transmuters have like the perfect spellbook and spell/skill combo. It's like some dev decided he wanted his gimmick character to always work and be available (the make potions from corpses -> evaporate and unarmed + blade hands combos).

 

[roll-a-die]

Nethack is OS as well Zomg. It just develops slower than crawl.

 

[Zomg]

You have mistaken me for someone that is debating the supremacy of a given roguelike in this thread rather that advancing a simple criticism BRO

 

[Elwro]

Binary?

As in, 90% of your deaths come from hard coded "you must choose this door or that door" decisions, and much of the game's difficulty comes from lack of spoilers. You pick the door on the left, you die. Door on the right, you live.

No. 90% of deaths in ADOM come from "meh, I don't feel like running away, I think I'll manage" decisions.

 

[Malakal]

You just described my every death ever (almost).

"Fuck this shit I can beat this"
"Trapped door? Naaah"
"I cant swim but this is a short distance"
"What chances are there for petrification?"
"I hate wasting potions/wands/scrolls"
"Critical hits dont happen often"

 

[Damned Registrations]

No. 90% of deaths in ADOM come from "meh, I don't feel like scmming herbs or the ID, I think I'll manage" decisions.

Fixxored.

It's not like you have the option of running away after a blinkdog pops up and surrounds you early game, or the door you opened leads to a mixed tension room and you get mauled by some nasty thing much faster than you (Or just equally as fast as you or even slower but a rat is by the staircase now so you can't escape before it's next to you). The only way to survive there for sure is to say 'Oh look, this floor has a mixed tension room on it SOMEWHERE. I'd better leave the CoC and come back after gaining 10 levels/monster detection/controlled teleports (Without the advantage of an altar or identified crap since you haven't even reached Dwarftown yet.) I've never reached a point in nethack where I had to sit around farming enemies hoping for something to drop. And you only need to watch your xp for the first couple floors when your hp needs to triple before you go into the mines or whatever.

ADOM gives you fuck all for options when you need to run away from a bad situation. If you aren't already faster than the enemy (In which case you'd kite it to death anyways) you need to rely on pure luck- throwing/drinking unided potions hoping for paralysis or speed, random teleports that are 50% likely to get you killed anyways, slow monster/sleep invis that might fail to affect the monster and let it catch you anyways.

Elbereth might fail in Nethack if you're writing with your fingers, but a wand of digging is a surefire escape from almost any nasty situation, and they're very common and have a lot of charges. And that's the barrel scraping suck ass escape tool.