Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup questions/thread

[Teepo]

LOL yeah the hundreds of orc priests I've killed was luck. Orc priests are mad easy to kill. I have no clue what you're talking about.

 

[Damned Registrations]

You can dodge Cyberdemon rockets pretty much 100% of the time if you're built for it. Were you wearing heavy armor or something? He fires like once every 3 turns at the most if you're a scout with hell runner, and has to reload after every rocket. Even if you only have slow reloading available like pistols or a chaingun you can kill him without getting hit more than once or twice when you're getting into a good position without a pillar right behind you or something equally annoying.

The only other thing I can think of is that you weren't dodging in the right direction. If he fires at you from left to right, you can't dodge up and to the right, you have to dodge straight up. Even with a terrible build (Like suppose you were using shotguns but didn't have dodgemaster, so you had to be super close where the dodge chance is only ~70% in order to do damage) you can just dodge him at long range until he runs out of ammo.

DoomRL has a ton of tools available to you. Running, medkits, phase devices, powerups (health globes, berserk packs, maps, invulnerability), doors, lava or acid, destructible walls, assorted equipment and traits, sound, levers, level feelings...

Sometimes I pop into a level in a room filled with deadly enemies and teleport away into another deadly room and die horribly. But it's very rare.

Edit: Apparently killing an orc priest when you're at full health with a strong character means they never show up when you're starving to death with a weak one. Where did you download that version of crawl, sounds fun.

 

[Teepo]

So what fucked you up is not an orc priest but something else. Good to know the context.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Because being hungry after using berserk/casting spells to win another hard fight means you fucked up. Because you've never been poisoned by some dick kobold with a magic dagger you thought couldn't possibly fuck you up, and got hungry waiting for your hp to regen. Because the entire game of Crawl is you spawning at the other end of a room from a sleeping enemy you should run away from and I just walk towards them like an idiot and thats the only reason I could possibly fail.

Go fuck yourself and your retardedly obvious and unhelpful advice.

 

[Teepo]

Berserk is a last ditch effort ability and only really useful early game\when you're about to die. I think I only used it like once in mid-end game.

I don't know what you want me to say. Avoid uniques in early game unless you can take them out.

You eventually get tools to escape with more consistency. Control teleport. Blinking. 2 blinks and you can limp towards an exit. Living to fight another day is how you win in Dungeon Crawl.

And yes, Grinder's paralyze spell is OP and should be changed.

 

[desocupado]

Bro, food is plenty, of all my thousands of deaths in crawl, I think I only starved to death once or twice.

If you're a berserker and with an apropriate race (not deep elf/spriggan berserkers), you have NO EXCUSE, NONE WHATSOEVER to not reach at least the Lair. You might die at orc:3 or orc:4, but orcish mines later levels are harder than the lair, actually.

You're also putting dungeon topology and equipment on the list of tools. That's stretching a bit. Crawl also has doors, water, plants, lava. I acknowledged the phase devices, but they're rarer than tp scrolls in crawl. The traits help, but that's part of the character development.

I might have not known how to dodge or build my char properly, that's true, but I still claim Crawl offers much more in ways of getting out of critical situations.

EDIT: To prove my point. I hadn't found the Lair yet, to be honest, but you usually find it earlier than d:12. Also, notice I died to a boulder beetle zombie. I didn't bother to check which insect zombie it was. A boulder beetle is not really a threat, but it hits HARD. I thought it was a Goliath Beetle zombie. Died from almost full health in 2 shots. Mind you, my own stupid ass killed the char. I had a bittersweet run, finding a want of teleportation early on, but meeting some tough monsters too, including several of those rotting motherfuckers.

It was the first and only try.

4661 deso the Cleaver (level 10, -7/77 (80) HPs)
Began as a Hill Orc Berserker on Apr 23, 2012.
Was a High Priest of Trog.
Mangled by a boulder beetle zombie (29 damage)
... on Level 12 of the Dungeon.
The game lasted 00:33:22 (15060 turns).

Some choice picks of shit I killed.

2 hill giants
11 yaks
6 necrophages
14 wights (these fuckers hit hard when they come with 2-handed weapons)
9 orc priests

 

[Damned Registrations]

Eh, equipment and dungeon offer you a lot more in DoomRL than they do in Crawl. I can blow a hole in a wall using a rocket launcher. I can attack enemies I can't even see yet using certain weapons. I can use shotguns + sound to determine if there are enemies in an area I can shoot but not see. I can use a rocket or barrel to cause knockback to an enemy, shoving it into a pit of acid.

Crawl doesn't have things like that, generally. You can blow up terrain if you're an earth mage, but generally no. You can't reliably knock enemies backwards or casually blow up doors from a distance with any sort of character you happen to be playing. And character development consists only of raising base statistics like health and damage. You can't, for example, acquire a trait that lets you detect items and enemies around the level simply by gaining levels. Traits fulfill the same sort of role spellbooks and gods do in Crawl.

At any rate, if you're going to compare Crawl and DoomRL while cherry picking the easiest class/race, why not compare it to playing DoomRL on easy. Though honestly, even on normal, you almost never have any excuse for dying in a standard game. When I did my LP of it the only reason I didn't win the first run was that I was trying to show all the optional side areas (and I would have won even that but I fucked up one of my plans in the UC.)

 

[betamin]

Eh, equipment and dungeon offer you a lot more in DoomRL than they do in Crawl. I can blow a hole in a wall using a rocket launcher. I can attack enemies I can't even see yet using certain weapons. I can use shotguns + sound to determine if there are enemies in an area I can shoot but not see. I can use a rocket or barrel to cause knockback to an enemy, shoving it into a pit of acid.

Crawl doesn't have things like that, generally. You can blow up terrain if you're an earth mage, but generally no. You can't reliably knock enemies backwards or casually blow up doors from a distance with any sort of character you happen to be playing. And character development consists only of raising base statistics like health and damage. You can't, for example, acquire a trait that lets you detect items and enemies around the level simply by gaining levels. Traits fulfill the same sort of role spellbooks and gods do in Crawl.

At any rate, if you're going to compare Crawl and DoomRL while cherry picking the easiest class/race, why not compare it to playing DoomRL on easy. Though honestly, even on normal, you almost never have any excuse for dying in a standard game. When I did my LP of it the only reason I didn't win the first run was that I was trying to show all the optional side areas (and I would have won even that but I fucked up one of my plans in the UC.)

Oooohhh, you feel bad about the random nature of Crawl? Come, you can have my muscular shoulder to cry on.

Shit is random, if you die tough shit, nobody said there's always a path to victory in this game, that's the price you pay for awesome moments. You do your best to maximize your odds but at the end the RNG can fuck you up quickly, especially in the beggining. Just like in real life. And I'm sure you could have played better. If you think otherwise, why don't you watch some of those dudes that streak games, maybe you'll learn something.

 

[Damned Registrations]

I wasn't bitching about the random nature of Crawl, retard. Someone made a remark about arbitrary stupid deaths being bad in a roguelike and I made a oneliner about those being in crawl too. And then the fanboy defense squad (except the guy I quoted, who apparently isn't a retard) leapt to the defense of situations that randomly kill you with no way to escape.

 

[Teepo]

Crawl doesn't have things like that, generally. You can blow up terrain if you're an earth mage, but generally no.

Generally, yes they do.

My Ogre Berserker could do that. (Not allowed to use magic.) It's called a digging wand.

Eh, equipment and dungeon offer you a lot more in DoomRL than they do in Crawl.

If you're gonna say something ridiculous like "a lot more" you might want to prove it, as apposed to giving a list of things that crawl does already. The only thing crawl doesn't have is knockback because you don't need it, but enemies certainly have knock back.

It is precisely because equipment, mutations and spells offer me more options in crawl than in doomRL that i play crawl.

You might die at orc:3 or orc:4, but orcish mines later levels are harder than the lair, actually.

I actually find orcish mines to be a lot easier with certain characters. (I am get easily spooked by elephants and creatures in lair.) And if I don't have a flaming edged weapon or mace to deal with hydras I just go for orcish mines and hope I don't run into a unique that will stomp my ass. What you say is very true and the agreed consensus by pro's but sometimes the RNG has allowed me to clear orc mines first.

 

[Malakal]

Orcs have NO special resistances and the list of spells and abilities that rape them hard is long, therefore orc mines are often easier than lair. Examples include: mephitic cloud, poison cloud, bolt spells, mind affecting spells, all weapon suffixes perform adequately.

And definitely yes, crawl is often random. But am not sure if unavoidable. There are documented series of victories spanning 10-15 games done online. You couldnt win 15 times in a row with different characters if it was so random and unfair...

 

[betamin]

As long as they are not arbitrary and stupid then its ok...

Y hello thar Grinder on level 3. I guess I'll do the smart thing and... oh I seem to be dead before doing anything. Guess that was my fault. Somehow.

I was responding to all the posts you've recently made, this is where your tears started, you seem to imply that running from Grinder is a stupid solution. Guess what, is most likely the best thing you can do, whether you can do it or not is dependent on randomness (if he spawns right beside you well tough luck) AND skill, then you wrote the gem "running is like cheating on crawl" (hahahaha) and compared running towards unexplored parts to startscumming until you get a nice weapon on the first two levels. "The thing I hate about Crawl is that I don't get to win always! Why don't I have all these sure options waahhhhhh", learn to deal with the fact that you will get fucked up and most of the time there was something you could have done better and some others there wasn't.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Running from Grinder isn't a solution. It's the best option, but it doesn't solve jack shit. He can blink in front of you, he can paralyze you from range. If he does either of those things and your 'solution' was to run away, you die. If you made the same suggestion about encountering a hydra, then yeah, sure, running away works great. Grinder? No. You might as well have suggested you just roll good saving throws and get lucky hits and hope he doesn't blink away and regen. You're just relying on luck to save your ass.

And you could win a thousand games of crawl in a row given enough luck. 10-15 is a lot, but depending on version and which heroes they were actually playing, still doesn't say much. You can go 15 games with wins on a bunch of good combos and lucky runs on the bad combos, and then go 7 games in a row where you get screwed no matter what you try. If you open a door and grinder paralyzes you, then stabs your face with a venom dagger half a dozen times, you lose. And you can't pretend it was because the player did anything really 'wrong'. And this is hardly the only example. All sorts of enchanted weapons on enemies can murder you unless you check every single enemy you ever encounter for glowing weapons. Curare needles can fuck you over. Tons of uniques. Zot traps. Enemies spawning on your path of retreat. Player ghosts. Hell, just plain bad damage rolls. If an attack that averages 40 damage hits you for 80 and then 79, it'll probably kill you if you did the smart thing and played by the numbers. And if you did the 'smart' thing and did the stupid thing to survive that by wasting healing/escape items when you shouldn't have needed them, then you'll die later because they ran out too quickly.

And you're really fucking reaching for the DoomRL comparisons. You get a guaranteed rocket launcher in DoomRL on like, the 3rd floor. I forgot digging wands even existed they're so fucking uncommon and useless. What are you going to use the digging wand for, exactly? Because with the hole I make with a rocket launcher, I can open an entrance into a room I can FIRE A GUN INTO, across a pit of lava. Your ogre is going to what, exactly? Sneak up (assuming rending the earth apart didn't wake anything) and melee shit from the north instead of the east? All hail digging wands, savior of berserkers everywhere! Truly they change crawl so much I've never heard anyone reference them until today. Must be one of those uber tips so good people don't want to share.

 

[Teepo]

He can blink in front of you

He can blink in front of you but the chances of that are too small to worry about.

What are you going to use the digging wand for, exactly?

My Ogre Berserk used it to escape with the orb of zot.

I got it, man. Features in Doom RL become useless as soon as they are featured in Dungeon crawl. You still have completely abandoned your argument that "equipment and dungeon offer you a lot more in DoomRL than they do in Crawl." Because it's not true. Dungeon Crawl is simply a bigger game.

If you made the same suggestion about encountering a hydra, then yeah, sure, running away works great.

Hydra runs faster than you dumbass. You can't outrun a Hydra unless you're a centaur. Running is a solution for Grinder, not a hydra. Go back to playing DoomRL. That smaller game suits your smaller intelligence.

 

[Stabwound]

I don't play Crawl anymore, but one of the things that annoyed me about it is that especially on floor 1, it's not uncommon to run into situations that are 100% unwinnable. Hell, it's pretty common to die to the first enemy you run into. Once you hit the second floor you have some more options and the chance of unwinnable scenario drops a lot, but I'm in the camp that thinks the game should be winnable 100% of the time due to player skill.

I'm not sure what Teepo is talking about regarding hydras being faster than characters because that isn't true. They do move faster in water, though.

 

[Teepo]

LOL you're right after I just checked.

 

[hoverdog]

I don't play Crawl anymore, but one of the things that annoyed me about it is that especially on floor 1, it's not uncommon to run into situations that are 100% unwinnable. Hell, it's pretty common to die to the first enemy you run into. Once you hit the second floor you have some more options and the chance of unwinnable scenario drops a lot, but I'm in the camp that thinks the game should be winnable 100% of the time due to player skill.

that's strange. I've been playing DCSS from about 0.7, and I can easily count my deaths on floor 1. Most of them were demonspawn that got a shitty mutation too. Even as a slow-starter class, like a mage or transmuter (prior to current build), I had no real problems battling against goblins, rats, bats and the occasional hobgoblin. I don't see any real dangers on the first floor, if you aren't careless.
The second floor, on the other hand...

 

[Stabwound]

Maybe the devs changed things up in the past few versions (I doubt it), but it was very common to choose something like Wizard, run into a hobgoblin with a club, hit it with all of your mana in magic darts and have it not die and then you're basically playing roulette. You either pillar dance to regain magic and hope you can kill the hobgoblin on the second try while praying it doesn't 1-shot you, or run into unexplored territory and likely get caught in a monster orgy.

The same thing would happen with many borderline melee characters. HP is so low and accuracy so bad that you can easily miss over and over and get clobbered simply because of bad luck.

When you get to the second floor, you at least have the option of retreating to the stairs if you really have to, plus you might have potions or a helpful item, even rocks by then.

 

[Teepo]

The main threat on D:1 is a hobgoblin with a weapon. You need to get your conjuration to 2 because otherwise magic dart is crap against them. Once you get magic dart to level 2, Hobgoblins are manageable.

 

[desocupado]

Maybe the devs changed things up in the past few versions (I doubt it), but it was very common to choose something like Wizard, run into a hobgoblin with a club, hit it with all of your mana in magic darts and have it not die and then you're basically playing roulette. You either pillar dance to regain magic and hope you can kill the hobgoblin on the second try while praying it doesn't 1-shot you, or run into unexplored territory and likely get caught in a monster orgy.

The same thing would happen with many borderline melee characters. HP is so low and accuracy so bad that you can easily miss over and over and get clobbered simply because of bad luck.

When you get to the second floor, you at least have the option of retreating to the stairs if you really have to, plus you might have potions or a helpful item, even rocks by then.

What you're saying is true, but kinda exagerated. In my experience, if I'm out of magic and that hobgoblin is still standing, I just hit him with a dagger or even with bare hands. If I die, I lost 30 seconds, but often you can kill that hobgoblin.

As to changes in later versions, I think all they did that is relevant to this scenario is that they added 3 hp to all races in the first level.

 

[Ashery]

DR...

Seriously, the double standard you're showing here is ridiculous. You're listing the general knowledge that any skilled DoomRL player would know while completely dismissing anything related to the same type of knowledge that is required for DCSS. Just making the claim that you think climbing stairs to escape mobs is an exploit completely ruins any credibility you might have when it comes to your comments on the game. It'd be like claiming that dodging projectiles in DoomRL is an exploit.

Yes, unavoidable deaths happen in both games. 95+% of those that occur in DCSS will happen on the first few levels (I can't comment on how often it happens in DoomRL as I don't play that as often). If you have bad positioning (Wall behind you) and the first mob you meet is a kobold carrying darts of exploding, your poor DE caster is pretty much fucked. However, all of my mid/late game deaths have been due to player error. My own cockiness being the biggest one (Attempting to melee Boris when my Makh summons had gotten him down to 25% so I could get max xp or not bailing out of a Zig early on when I knew I'd soon be in an unwinnable situation). With that being said, though, the vets wouldn't be able to streak a dozen+ wins regularly and maintain high win rates if player error/lack of knowledge wasn't such a huge factor. And no, they aren't just playing the race/class combos that are easy to win.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The better analogy in Doom would be something like corner shooting or gift dropping. And gift dropping is really fucking cheesy (and pretty much necessary for certain challenges) and I wish it wasn't in the game at all. Just like I wish the retarded necessity of going down every set of stairs once before actually going down so you can abuse the shit out of them wasn't in Crawl.

And you can streak 10 wins flipping god damned coins if you flip them enough. Thousands upon thousands of people play Crawl, most playing dozens or hundreds, sometimes even thousands of games. The real question is, if randomness is such a small factor, why don't most of the best players have 50+ game winning streaks? If your chance of randomly being fucked was really only 1-10%, presumably the people who know the game inside out aren't making tons of stupid errors. Maybe 1 in 20 of their games will they make an error that causes a loss.

The other issue is that the things required to avoid randomness are insanely onerous. 'l'ook at EVERY ENEMY YOU EVER SEE. It might have an enchanted dagger, which might whisk you away with the first swing.

Yeah, if you do that, the game isn't very random and you can streak some wins. But if you play like someone who isn't fucking insane, it's a significant random risk of essentially instant death for many low level characters and even certain high level characters.

Other shit too, like avoiding corners you have to look around from the very edge. Yeah, I could back up and approach the room from the door on the other side so I'll have an extra 5 steps between me and the edge of the room that might have pissed off centaurs with magic bows inside (or maybe that angel with the silence aura- you could open a door and already be within it), but I'm really more interested in making decisions that don't involve pain stakingly backtracking through 100 steps of dungeon to avoid the .1% chance that this door will be the one that fucks me.

Individually, these risks are trivial. Added up, it's significant. It's certainly more significant than the chance of me going 'Derpa derpa durrrr. I think I'll try swimming today! Oh gosh I died, my bad!'

Player knowledge boosting the win rate from .0000000000001% to 40% isn't some fucking amazing godsend just because it started out extra low. And I'm not even sure the pros actually have win rates that high- looking at the lists, the best rate from someone with 1000+ games played is 18%. There's some 40% players with a few hundred games, and a few players with even higher rates and less than 100 games played, but I'm inclined to believe they just started new accounts until they got win rates that high for that run of games, and their actual average if they continued to play another 1000 games would be more in the 20% range as well. Not that most of this means anything since you can't tell which players are doing speedruns or challenges, how often, or what versions they were winning on and what things they might have been exploiting.

If you're playing DoomRL on harder settings or doing certain challenges, you're definitely playing a lot of dice as well. But that's your choice. And when you want a sure win, you've got lots of actual gameplay and options to get there. You don't need to follow a particular build to ensure a win without getting lucky in DoomRL. I was looking at the recent wins list of one of the guys with a decent win %- more than half of them were either spriggans, summoners, or necromancers. Gee, I wonder how he gets his wins every single time. I wonder if that might be because the odds of a Troll Fire Elementalist are pretty shit by comparison.

 

[desocupado]

The pro players don't have 50+ winning streaks because they're human, and they make mistakes too. A 10 winning streak is already a feat in itself, you're asking for something almost impossible.

How are the winning streaks in DoomRL, a game you claim has fuckloads stupid deaths less than Crawl? And is also a much shorter game?

Crawl is a long game, specially if you get all the runes. 10-15 hours is a long time to keep focused and without doing stupid shit. And I gotta add, that while the early game has a lot more of unavoidable deaths, it also is more forgiving with mistakes. That heal wounds potion will fill almost all your hp. That tp scroll probably won't land you on a buttload of angry draconians. There won't be monsters able to swarm you with summons, like on elf:5.

Also, you really, REALLY exagerate the need to be cautious with movement and use the stairs. I just hit the auto-explore button, and I go down whatever stairs is closest. If I notice a too hard enemy, I flee to the stairs I came from and go down another set of stairs. Besides, you can't really abuse it because adjacent enemies (except undead) will follow you.

I don't have a single death where I blamed the auto-explore funtion, and the only place I don't use it, is Zot:5. My deaths usually come from being sure I can kill shit while in reality it's up to the dice. Or fleeing from stuff I was damn sure I could kill (and if I had a lick of sense I wouldn't have tried) and meeting something other. You know, miscalculations.

Mennas's silence aura is huge, and it goes through walls and doors if I'm not mistaken. So you'll notice Mennas if he's behind a door. In the early game, yeah, a branded weapon is dangerous. But mid/later on? Tch. One branded weapon won't make a difference. Unless it's on an already nasty unique. And those aren't exactly common that it's a pain to check their equipment. Keep in mind, I don't even say ALL uniques. Just some.

I'm not sure all this arguing is getting anywhere. Why don't you take our word for it? I played hundreds/thousands of characters, won 6 times, with one of those being a 15 rune run. I don't think the game is quite as random and prone to unavoidable deaths like you claim so.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What, like you'd believe me if I'd beaten the game another 6 times? I've beaten Crawl. I've beaten DoomRL (repeatedly on various difficulties... normal would be so easy to streak wins on for a pro nobody bothers to count.) I've beaten Nethack. I almost beat ToME 2.3.4, but walked into the volcano instead of tossing the ring in because I wasn't clear on how that shit worked and didn't want to read spoilers. I've also played quite a bit of Incursion, Brogue, IVAN, ADOM, and other shit that isn't coming to mind right now.

I'm not arguing Crawl is nothing but a luckfest, but it plays a bigger role than it does in most games. Even if you played with robotic perfection you'd still lose some games. And if you play like a normal human being, you'll lose even more when you didn't make any mistakes besides not wanting the game to take 5 times longer to finish than it ought to. And just because the deaths are front loaded in the first few levels doesn't make them irrelevant. Those levels take the longest to get through too. Nobody pillar dances shadow dragons to death for half an hour. But when you're a level 2 caster? You'll spend a LONG fucking time dicking around to get a single piddly kill quite often. Up stairs, down stairs, around the pillar 5 times, cast your spells, didn't work, repeat ad nauseum until you roll high enough for spells to kill in one go since his HP regen faster than your mana. Exult in your 1/50th of a skill level xp gain.

Doing that a dozen times only to get killed by some completely unavoidable RNG horse shit pisses me off.

 

[Ashery]

The better analogy in Doom would be something like corner shooting or gift dropping. And gift dropping is really fucking cheesy (and pretty much necessary for certain challenges) and I wish it wasn't in the game at all. Just like I wish the retarded necessity of going down every set of stairs once before actually going down so you can abuse the shit out of them wasn't in Crawl.

True enough re:better analogy, but the DCSS bit about needing to go down every stair on D:X before actually clearing D:X+1 isn't true at all. In fact, you'll fuck yourself over a bit because of certain timed portals that trigger when you first enter a level, while you only gain a modest amount of tactical knowledge.

And you can streak 10 wins flipping god damned coins if you flip them enough. Thousands upon thousands of people play Crawl, most playing dozens or hundreds, sometimes even thousands of games. The real question is, if randomness is such a small factor, why don't most of the best players have 50+ game winning streaks? If your chance of randomly being fucked was really only 1-10%, presumably the people who know the game inside out aren't making tons of stupid errors. Maybe 1 in 20 of their games will they make an error that causes a loss.

Indeed you can, but that's why I also mentioned their high win rates. We're not talking about random lucky streaks in the middle of fifty+ games where they're only winning a handful. I'm not talking about random players, either, but rather the players on their irc channel that are specifically known for their skill.

The other issue is that the things required to avoid randomness are insanely onerous. 'l'ook at EVERY ENEMY YOU EVER SEE. It might have an enchanted dagger, which might whisk you away with the first swing.

You're complaining about the need to avoid randomness when the game incorporates a technique to identify what mobs to avoid in melee to prevent "unwinnable situations"? You're also significantly exaggerating just how many mobs you have to 'l'ook at. We're talking about maybe a dozen or two humanoids in the first couple levels, tops. Once you've gotten those first few level ups, an unlucky electric weapon hit won't one shot you, and that's the main brand you need to look out for early on. Distortion is another issue, but I'm pretty sure those are restricted to a handful of uniques.

Yeah, if you do that, the game isn't very random and you can streak some wins. But if you play like someone who isn't fucking insane, it's a significant random risk of essentially instant death for many low level characters and even certain high level characters.

Why is it insane to double check what weapon your opponent is carrying if you can potentially be one shot by a particular enchantment?

Other shit too, like avoiding corners you have to look around from the very edge. Yeah, I could back up and approach the room from the door on the other side so I'll have an extra 5 steps between me and the edge of the room that might have pissed off centaurs with magic bows inside (or maybe that angel with the silence aura- you could open a door and already be within it), but I'm really more interested in making decisions that don't involve pain stakingly backtracking through 100 steps of dungeon to avoid the .1% chance that this door will be the one that fucks me.

So, I take it you never back up into cover in DoomRL because it forces you to move a few extra steps? Angels are late game, by the way, so why don't we assume you'll have a wand of teleportation to use if you won't be able to take him. If item based abilities work, you could also use a ring of teleportation, but I'm not certain if you can or not.

Individually, these risks are trivial. Added up, it's significant. It's certainly more significant than the chance of me going 'Derpa derpa durrrr. I think I'll try swimming today! Oh gosh I died, my bad!'

And skill is what reduces the influence of randomness. It won't eliminate random unwinnable situations, but those mostly occur early on when a death isn't as painful.

Player knowledge boosting the win rate from .0000000000001% to 40% isn't some fucking amazing godsend just because it started out extra low. And I'm not even sure the pros actually have win rates that high- looking at the lists, the best rate from someone with 1000+ games played is 18%. There's some 40% players with a few hundred games, and a few players with even higher rates and less than 100 games played, but I'm inclined to believe they just started new accounts until they got win rates that high for that run of games, and their actual average if they continued to play another 1000 games would be more in the 20% range as well. Not that most of this means anything since you can't tell which players are doing speedruns or challenges, how often, or what versions they were winning on and what things they might have been exploiting.

I'd say that's a pretty damn significant increase and clearly indicates that skill plays a huge part (I know you're exaggerating the numbers). I'd also say that 18% is actually pretty damn good. Keep in mind that due to player improvement, their last few hundred games likely have higher win rates. Not only that, but I doubt they play seriously in every one of their games. They probably fuck around with random builds for the hell of it simply because the game would be boring as hell if they played seriously for every one of those 1000+ games.

If you're playing DoomRL on harder settings or doing certain challenges, you're definitely playing a lot of dice as well. But that's your choice. And when you want a sure win, you've got lots of actual gameplay and options to get there. You don't need to follow a particular build to ensure a win without getting lucky in DoomRL. I was looking at the recent wins list of one of the guys with a decent win %- more than half of them were either spriggans, summoners, or necromancers. Gee, I wonder how he gets his wins every single time. I wonder if that might be because the odds of a Troll Fire Elementalist are pretty shit by comparison.

A build being easier won't eliminate the unwinnable situations that you're complaining so much about. Yes, they're easier to win with, but Grinder can rape any character if they have really unlucky positioning (Well, Spriggans do have innate MR, but at a low level we're talking about maybe 10-12MR points, barely a third of the basic MR ring).

Edit: Responding to the most recent bit as you posted while I was typing.

I'm not arguing Crawl is nothing but a luckfest, but it plays a bigger role than it does in most games.

I'm still not seeing it. I'm not arguing that there's no luck in DCSS, either, but rather that it's well within the the level of acceptance. Unless we base everything around percentages, a low level character (In any game where level is the primary factor in determining hp) will always be under threat of an instant death.

And just because the deaths are front loaded in the first few levels doesn't make them irrelevant. Those levels take the longest to get through too. Nobody pillar dances shadow dragons to death for half an hour. But when you're a level 2 caster? You'll spend a LONG fucking time dicking around to get a single piddly kill quite often.

I wouldn't say they're irrelevant, either, but simply more tolerable. Losing a character that you've played for less than ten minutes is nothing like losing an amazing character you've spent nearly a full day on. You're also exaggerating again when it comes to the time spent pillar dancing and the like, but I primarily play melee hybrids, so *shrug*.