Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup (the roguelike)

[The Jester]

I used to be pretty good back in the day before they started removing a bunch of fun stuff

Why do people do this? What was some of the fun stuff you remember?

Apparently devs are doing this to make the game more 'fun', though they must have some weird sense of what is fun and what isn't. I think over the years they've removed far more fun things than they've added. 0.21 was the last version I played, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that by now they've removed like half the game from that time. Recently I wanted to come back and replay it with Deep Dwarf (my first win in this game), and of course they're not in the game anymore.

This is what happens when people working on an open-source game don't have a clear vision of the finished product in mind.
Inevitably, they begin altering aspects of the game merely to prolong its development indefinitely.

 

[Tacgnol]

I used to be pretty good back in the day before they started removing a bunch of fun stuff

Why do people do this? What was some of the fun stuff you remember?

Apparently devs are doing this to make the game more 'fun', though they must have some weird sense of what is fun and what isn't. I think over the years they've removed far more fun things than they've added. 0.21 was the last version I played, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that by now they've removed like half the game from that time. Recently I wanted to come back and replay it with Deep Dwarf (my first win in this game), and of course they're not in the game anymore.

This is what happens when people working on an open-source game don't have a clear vision of the finished product in mind.
Inevitably, they begin altering aspects of the game merely to prolong its development indefinitely.

It's also why there are so many "ex-DCSS devs" that end up making their own forks. A lot of people that contribute get sick of the toxic personalities at the top.

 

[Fedora Master]

lol remember when they removed the Sword of Jihad because racism?

 

[luj1]

This is a great game

 

[Raghar]

lol remember when they removed the Sword of Jihad because racism?

Zealot's sword.png the +12,+10 sword of Jihad

+12, +10 eudemon blade

Holy wrath brand
+3 EV
rN+
+20 MR
Forces Berserk
-50 Stealth

It was in the original as well. -50 stealth can kill the character in some areas.

 

[Covenant]

I used to be pretty good back in the day before they started removing a bunch of fun stuff

Why do people do this? What was some of the fun stuff you remember?

Other people have covered the 'why' well enough. I'd have just simplified it to mental illness (which also covers all the fucking around with gender they did as well, as well as the other 'socially conscious' changes they made like renaming the Assassin, removing Pikel's slaves, etc).

In terms of cool stuff, a non-exhaustive list, some very minor, some less so:

• Player clinging (using spider form to avoid traps, or deep water on Shoals, etc, was neat)
• Zot Defense
• Felid jump-attack
• Natasha getting weaker after revival
• Plenty of spells (RIP Conjure Flame) and evocables, including potions of ability (also, potions of stabbing was the most stupid idea ever, and whoever had it should feel ashamed)
• Riposte
• Races messed with (e.g. Kobolds getting moved toward casting and away from being stealthy snipers/stabbers, Ogres losing M&F aptitude, etc)
• Loud noises breaking mesmerisation
• Burning spellbooks with Trog (or destroying them to forget spells)
• Blowguns, various dart types
• Amulets of harm
• Strength weighting
• Various spells, like Force Lance, or Deflect missiles (required significant investment but potentially worth it for Elven Halls or Shoals)
• As part of the above, Charms and buffing generally
• Centaurs, Deep Dwarves, Ogres, Meteorans
• Different types of ranged weapon skills
• Abyssal Knights
• Species size affecting SH

I also have to laugh at the recent patch notes listing things like Sack of Spiders, Reavers, etc, as 'new additions', rather than admitting they're undoing their prior removals.

 

[luj1]

I used to be pretty good back in the day before they started removing a bunch of fun stuff

Why do people do this? What was some of the fun stuff you remember?

Other people have covered the 'why' well enough. I'd have just simplified it to mental illness (which also covers all the fucking around with gender they did as well, as well as the other 'socially conscious' changes they made like renaming the Assassin, removing Pikel's slaves, etc).

In terms of cool stuff, a non-exhaustive list, some very minor, some less so:

• Player clinging (using spider form to avoid traps, or deep water on Shoals, etc, was neat)
• Zot Defense
• Felid jump-attack
• Natasha getting weaker after revival
• Plenty of spells (RIP Conjure Flame) and evocables, including potions of ability (also, potions of stabbing was the most stupid idea ever, and whoever had it should feel ashamed)
• Riposte
• Races messed with (e.g. Kobolds getting moved toward casting and away from being stealthy snipers/stabbers, Ogres losing M&F aptitude, etc)
• Loud noises breaking mesmerisation
• Burning spellbooks with Trog (or destroying them to forget spells)
• Blowguns, various dart types
• Amulets of harm
• Strength weighting
• Various spells, like Force Lance, or Deflect missiles (required significant investment but potentially worth it for Elven Halls or Shoals)
• As part of the above, Charms and buffing generally
• Centaurs, Deep Dwarves, Ogres, Meteorans
• Different types of ranged weapon skills
• Abyssal Knights
• Species size affecting SH

I also have to laugh at the recent patch notes listing things like Sack of Spiders, Reavers, etc, as 'new additions', rather than admitting they're undoing their prior removals.

I see. Its crazy how much SJWs there are in the roguelike industry. The Dwarf Fortess guy is also a faggot. So anyway which version should I play which has this stuff - I already managed to find .23 and .10 thanks to the people in this thread.

 

[Covenant]

I'd say .14 is the best one for having the majority of the 'good' cut content while still having a decent amount of the worthwhile modern additions. Equipment destruction is still in, but from what I remember it was toned down in that version and really wasn't a big deal so long as you didn't fuck around with monsters that used sticky flame. And they'd renamed a few weapons to stupid names that didn't stick past a couple of versions, but it's a minor annoyance.

 

[luj1]

Skill system is interesting. You choose between auto and manual and select the skills. I like that skills available to you appear only after you come into contact with a weapon, armor or scroll, etc. That is pretty cool.

I also like the plethora of races and classes with distinct bonuses (I hope playstyles as well). Playing Troll Fighter as my first character, butchering corpses for rations lol.

 

[luj1]

Also the writing is great, reminds me of old Sirtech and Jeff Vogel

 

[luj1]

How do I remove a cursed item or destroy it?

 

[luj1]

 

[The Jester]

>Troll
Very based
Kill
Eat
Repeat

>Fighter

Should have played a Berserker Troll.

 

[luj1]

What God do you suggest? And how do I uncurse items or unequip them?

 

[The Jester]

What God do you suggest?

Trog the Wrathful goes hand in hand with troll.

And how do I uncurse items or unequip them?

You need Scroll of remove curse.

 

[Lawful Pacific]

Makhleb capstone: Mark of the Fanatic

The most flashy and complex mark by far, this grants the player the
Vessel of Slaughter ability - a high piety-cost ability that transforms
them into a demonic avatar of Makhleb and unleashes a large blast of
damnation around themselves as they do so.

While in this form, the player has demonic resistances (including torment
immunity), will invulnerability, takes 1/3rd less damage from all sources,
recieves doubled healing from kills, and has a bonus to all outgoing damage
proportional to how low health they were when they activated the ability
(with the expected healing from damnation kills encouraging the player to
‘push their luck’ a little).

But in exchange, once the transformation wears off, the player will be
dragged into the Crucible of Flesh and made to suffer and slay in payment.

The Crucible is a medium-size portal arena that continually spawns waves of
hostile demons (scaled to the player’s level and also how many runes they
have collected beyond 3) and paralyzed mortal victims. The player must earn
their exit by finding and slaughtering enough of these victims (killing
demons also counts for half as much, but the faster the player can manage
it by taking out ‘helpless’ targets, the less bad things will be for them.)
Killing a mortal victim will immediately spawn another somewhere else on
the map, while demons instead arrive at semi-regular intervals (up to a
cap).

Kills in the Crucible grant no xp or items, but still count for Makhleb’s
heal-on-kills passive, to help allow the player to sustain themselves
(since resting will often be difficult here). There are also a small number
of single-use teleport traps scattered around which the player can use for
short-term escapes.

In some ways, the gameplay of the Crucible is reminiscent of being
banished, but should still be sufficient different as to be distinct - the
map is pre-revealed and stable, it has walls instead of being endless, the
monster set is more controlled, ?teleport works the same as usual, etc.

A fundamental flavor aspect of Mahkleb’s Marks is about accepting hellish
bargains at the cost of oneself, and I felt like at least one of them
should lean as hard as possible into classical ‘deal with the devil’
flavour: tremendous power at a cost one may come to regret later. And
Vessel of Slaughter’s power is undeniable, and its cost unique. I hope
people find it fun! (I am sure various numerical knobs will need tweaking,
since this is a complex double-edged effect and it should both feel worth
it AND dangerous).

(I also plan to replace Makhleb wrath with use of the Crucible so that we
can fully eliminate all the unsatisfying direct-damage wrath effects that
tend to either do nothing or kill the player with little counterplay).

Massive credit to regret-index for designing the portal vault (with heavy
subvaulting randomization), as well as the Crucible wall tiles and tiles
for slaughter form. Couldn’t have done this without her.

Dev should stop playing Zoom eternal.
https://tavern.dcss.io/t/makhleb-ov...it07fbe39955fda25e74ffa1b0780e7fce5c70f431-13

 

[Fedora Master]

One would think at some point they'd leave well enough alone.
Meanwhile half the races are still shit.

 

[Damned Registrations]

One would think at some point they'd leave well enough alone.
Meanwhile half the races are still shit.

It's honestly kind of hilarious the list of races they removed and the reasoning why over the years. They got rid of all the simple staples like dwarves, elves and centaurs because they were 'too generic'. But they also got rid of all the really tricky fun races like deep dwarves that people liked playing because they were 'unbalanced'. It seems like they just want everyone to play their dumb gimmick races they keep adding like the fucking frog men or whatever.

 

[Lawful Pacific]

Tso fighter in 0.32 is no longer afraid of Iron Golem and Iron Giant. The blindness attached to the light shield can easily defeat melee enemies.
The only difficulty in the extended level is the shard shrike swarm in Coc. They can easily tear apart fighters with full resistance. Zin's performance in hell is still more comprehensive than Tso's.

 

[Serus]

One would think at some point they'd leave well enough alone.
Meanwhile half the races are still shit.

It's honestly kind of hilarious the list of races they removed and the reasoning why over the years. They got rid of all the simple staples like dwarves, elves and centaurs because they were 'too generic'. But they also got rid of all the really tricky fun races like deep dwarves that people liked playing because they were 'unbalanced'. It seems like they just want everyone to play their dumb gimmick races they keep adding like the fucking frog men or whatever.

From what I remember one of the reason was because the game: "shouldn't be all about western/European/Christian mythology, other cultures should be represented better". Elves being Nordic, Centaurs Greek, etc... Same logic was used to rename/remove some of the unique items. SJW-ism at its "finest".
I might be wrong about the above. I played it long time ago, it was my very first RL. I never won it. I got better later at RLs but I never returned to DCSS.

 

[Lawful Pacific]

Look at the new dual wielding race and oni, replacing the ogres with two headed ones to dual wield giant clubs is much better than this bunch of flashy shit.

 

[RedpilledBiggerHeadshot69]

Just find whatever was the version with Djinni and Lava Orcs (not sure if both or either ever made it from trunk, you might to find old trunk builds for it) and Singularity, and stick with that. In the past couple years it seems they've finally started to step away from the ultra-minimalism balancing around Hypothetical Autistic Man behaviour philosophy, and actually added some cool shit - so I hear anyway - but that definitely sticks out as a historical high point of the game before the 'removed magic dart' style release notes turned from a joke to reality

 

[uzimahmood]

After the devs removed the disc of storms, I gave up on this. Gargoyle with TSO or Makhleb + disc of storms was great fun.

 

[Lawful Pacific]

So I tried bcrawl, entered Dis with wizmode and tested it, it seems much harder than vanilla, has anyone beaten bcrawl 15 runes? How is the experience compared to vanilla?

 

[Sibylla]

I love this game, coglin with dual wielding weapons is pretty fun. still cant live long with a magic user though.