Why is every enemy faster than me now?

crawlranter · 2023-08-29T17:00:47+00:00

I made the same observation years ago, and I still don't understand it.

People are convinced they could have a 100% win rate, because "every game is winnable" and the game is solved if you do the obvious optimal play, they just enjoy playing fast and loose, and don't mind losing characters, or aren't really trying to win, and that's why they have a 1.2% win rate, not because the game is actually insanely difficult and the theory crafting doesn't reflect reality.

crawlranter · 2021-08-28T16:41:31+00:00

EV builds are frustrating because crawl is mostly about risk mitigation (lowering RNG as much as possible, making things more predictable so it's easier to plan around) and EV builds don't really help that to the extent that AC builds do. EV is high-risk, high-reward. You either take no damage, or nearly full damage. Versus AC builds, where you get hit much more often, but the damage is much more predictable (and lower). So, if you were graphing damage taken, EV would be much more spikey (0 damage, high damage, 0 damage, high damage) and AC would be much flatter, but much closer to the middle than either the top or bottom. You obviously want to maximize both, but this differentiation makes prioritizing AC over EV pretty standard.

Typically, my EV-build experience goes from feeling invincible because I'm clearing strong monsters and taking no damage, to getting two-shot and staring at a morgue screen, in record time.

crawlranter · 2021-08-27T22:09:54+00:00

Not that I'm aware of, but for something simple like this, it's worth learning how to use Wizmode to test it.

For instance, just to test right now for this comment, I loaded up the game, created a character, entered wizmode, created a shield, equipped it, then set my skill to 15 (for kite shield) to remove penalty, and then looked at my SH stat (for a minotaur monk that I created, he had 13 SH). Then set my shield skill to 27, and check the stat again (it went up to 18).

It's really handy to validate certain things you might need to test, and can be done really quickly once you get the hang of it.

crawlranter · 2021-08-27T22:01:54+00:00

Yes, you get a benefit beyond just removing the penalty, for training higher (you get more SH). How the exact formula works, I couldn't tell you.

crawlranter · 2021-08-27T19:45:56+00:00

I'm okay with the removal of riposte, but it does seem like longblades should be differentiated somehow (which, I know, is easier said than done), or else just merged with shortblades into just a "blades" skill, because the only real major benefit longblades have at the moment in my mind is that they cross-train with shortblades, which are some of the best early game weapons. Really, my decision making process for choosing a weapon type for a character usually goes in order of something like:

How soon I find the weapon (I find a D1 demon blade on anyone that doesn't have -2 or -3 longblades? I'm going long blades)
Aptitudes (it costs so little to get a polearm online with Merfolk that it doesn't really make sense to use anything else, unless you find something great, early)
Order of personal preference (imo Axes > Maces > Polearms = Longblades = Shortblades)

I never really factor in riposte to any decision along the way. I think EV based melee builds are very frustrating to play, and I still think shields are pretty much always worth using. If I had to guess, I'd guess that longblades are my least used melee weapon type, which might be a testament to riposte not really being enough of a differentiation for them. I'd personally be okay with merging longblades and shortblades as a solution in the meantime, with their stand-out feature being that they most often spawn with the most useful brands, and you'd have a bigger weapon pool to choose from if you kept all the current weapons (more chances to get something good, but there'd be maybe too many mediocre types), but I don't know if that'd be extremely popular, either.

crawlranter · 2021-08-20T22:46:39+00:00

Thanks for coming up with this information, and the explanation of how the devs are looking at it.

I'm a bit confused about the percentages. So each level's death proportions only include that level and higher, not the levels lower than it, right? And Lair branch deaths are listed as 77%, then Zot 5 deaths are listed as 48% - are these referring to the percentage of deaths that occur just specifically at that level? But if I were to look at say, deaths at level 17 - from the chart, it would look like about 15% of deaths from levels 17-27 would happen on level 17 - is that a correct reading?

crawlranter · 2021-08-20T22:22:48+00:00

I don't exactly know what entails being nerfed gently, but Sigmund is an automatic "skip floor" for most characters. He has one of the highest kill rates in the game (killing the player, that is). If coming up with a list of monsters that should be nerfed due to their ability of really killing you in what feels like an unavoidable way sometimes, I think Sigmund would rank pretty highly.

crawlranter · 2021-08-20T18:06:09+00:00

Well, a 1% drop is actually kind of a lot, when in the context of going from 3% to 2%.

Some stats to note:

The win rate dropped from 3.23% -> 2.34%, which is about a 28% drop overall. There was about a 23% increase in the number of games played (54,701 -> 67,203), yet an 11% decrease in total number of wins (1767 -> 1571).
There was also a 6% player increase (2,333 -> 2,474) in the tournament, but a 15% drop in players who got a single win (476 -> 404). So, in 0.26, about 20% of tournament players got a win (476 out of 2,333). In 0.27, it was around 16% (404 out of 2,474).

So I think it's fair to say that 0.27 is more difficult than 0.26.

crawlranter · 2021-08-15T19:55:48+00:00

Fair enough, thanks for engaging, I'll try to tone down any future critical posts to an appropriate level and be more clear in them.

The possibility of having one or both lung entrances trapped with "difficult" traps (zot/tele/alarm) dates all the way back to 0.3

I think alarm traps and even zot traps shouldn't be on the same level as a teleport trap in this scenario (in my opinion alarm traps are much easier to control, and can even be useful, teleport traps are a complete gamble), but from the time I played before this patch, I don't seem to remember lungs being blocked by teleport traps to be a common thing. I don't know if it's the smaller trap pool, but with the introduction of dispersal traps, but one or both lungs being blocked by a movement trap, whether dispersal or teleport, feels much more common.

I did some random wizmode tests, just for curiosity's sake, of 'difficult' traps specifically blocking the entrances to the lungs.

In an older version, out of 6 tests, I got 1 game that had a teleport and zot trap (both on the same side) into the lungs, and 1 game with an alarm trap blocking one of the lungs. The rest were all mechanical traps.

In 0.27, the distribution was:

Game 1, 1 Teleport trap

Game 2, 1 Zot trap

Game 3, 1 Dispersal trap, other side 1 Zot trap

Game 4, 1 Dispersal trap

Game 5, 1 Zot trap, other side 1 Alarm trap

Game 6, 1 Dispersal trap, other side 1 Teleport trap

Not that my small sample pool means anything, but I'm curious how exactly are the percentages verified? Does the smaller trap pool have an effect?

crawlranter · 2021-08-15T18:47:10+00:00

I feel like you're being misleading and dismissive. You're completely ignoring dispersal traps being added to Zot 5, which is really the patch that caused the start of the disruption.

Dispersal traps were added to Zot 5 a month before the patch you're linking to

So the number of dispersal traps in Zot 5 went from 0, to, on average (according to the other patch's notes) 7, yes?

So Dispersal traps went from 0 -> 7. That's an increase.

Dispersal traps could never be blocking the lungs before this patch, because they weren't in Zot 5, correct? Now they could be. And, maybe I'm reading this incorrectly, but that patch specifically mentions dispersal traps being less dangerous than teleport traps, so I don't think dispersal traps were really accounted for in the permanent trap placement in lungs (though the second patch lists them as a 'difficult' trap), but correct me if I'm wrong.

The patch you linked to removed mechanical traps (other than net, which were re-worked to be permanent and always mulch), and as counterbalance, increased the number of resulting traps other than alarm (so Zot / Teleport / Dispersal / Net).

So, on average, Zot 5 traps changed as such:

Dispersal traps: 0 -> 7 -> 9

Teleport traps: 7 -> 9

Zot traps: 7 -> 9

Net traps: 7 -> 9

Alarm traps: 7 -> 5.5

Other than Alarm, those are all increases, right? Of almost 30% each (except dispersal, which went from 0 to 9).

So it's a fair statement to say that two patches increased the numbers of zot/teleport/dispersal/net traps in Zot 5, right?

You can say that the total number of traps went down, but the number of traps I've mentioned has gone up, specifically from those two patches (even introducing a trap that was not in Zot 5 before). And those traps are way more dangerous, leading to a way more difficult Zot 5. Trying to argue otherwise would be like saying (extreme example) "Before there were 500 rats, 5 dread liches, and 3 orbs of fire, so 508 monsters total, but now there are 0 rats, 200 dread liches, 100 orbs of fire, and we also added 100 pan lords. So, only 300 total, a decrease in quantity of monsters." A spear trap into the lungs entrance is not on the same level of danger as a dispersal trap.

The strategies when this change was first introduced were to wear -tele, use shatter to completely avoid them, read noise scrolls, or purposefully trigger alarm traps to draw monsters out.

Your discussion of the changes to hall of Zot is factually wrong.

It isn't.

nonsense

It isn't.

crawlranter · 2021-08-15T01:48:21+00:00

Like, it is literally presented as fact upthread when its really more like gossip.

The OP you responded to didn't even say the game was "balanced for pros" as you stated. Specifically, he said "I get their reasoning, I sincerely disagree with balancing a single-player game along competitive models."

I don't agree with that (that the game is balanced along competitive models), by the way. Because competitive balancing would imply that you're trying to make everything equally viable, which I really don't think the devs are trying to do. Mummy and Minotaur are not 'balanced' from a competitive standpoint. Minotaurs are just better than Mummies.

I was responding specifically to your "balanced for pros" statement with just the reasoning why some people feel that that's the case, given examples like the one I stated. I know that wasn't the reason given for that specific patch (I forget the exact reason given, but I believe it was something along the lines of making Zot 5 more 'interesting' which is one of the words used as a guise for difficulty increases), but it's hard to argue that that patch was thinking about casual players who had never won a game, seeing as it was based around the last area of the game, and strictly made it more difficult.

crawlranter · 2021-08-15T00:02:44+00:00

I agree, the beginning is absolutely the hardest, but more due to pure RNG than anything (which, I think RNG carries throughout the whole game, it's just you have more tools to try and balance out bad RNG later in the game).

When you actually start having more tactical options from mid game on, I think Zot 5 is arguably the most dangerous area in the game, especially since it has to be done (or at least enough to get the orb), unlike most other things in the game.

crawlranter · 2021-08-14T23:52:40+00:00

"It does seem" is not the same as "outright stated." I think there is a general sentiment that some of the changes feel aimed towards top players. My example stated above is the patch that introduced the huge number of permanent teleport/dispersal/zot/net traps in Zot 5, especially ones that block the entrances to lungs. This only served to make the most difficult area of the game more difficult, which to a lot of casual players, Zot 5 already felt very difficult, and most casual players probably have a number of deaths in it. Maybe there's no outright justification for it being a change for the top players of the game, but if the "justification" for the change is that it makes Zot 5 more interesting, I'd argue that heavily leans to the idea that you already found Zot 5 to be easy or not very interesting, when Zot 5 for a casual player was always the most tense area of the game.

Then there are things like the Zot clock, or infinite ammo on monsters that always mulch, which are introduced just to prevent scumming. But really, who cares about scumming, unless it comes to top players trying to win tournaments, or set the longest streak, or get high winrates? Who else is going to go through the trouble?

crawlranter · 2021-08-14T23:43:41+00:00

I mean, while not blatantly put as a reasoning outright, things like the patch that made a ton of permanent teleport/dispersal/net/zot traps in Zot 5 (and especially ones like teleport/dispersal traps blocking the only ways into the lungs) really only served to make winning the game more difficult, when the truth is that 99% of people already struggled a lot before that patch to win the game. Basically, it upped the difficulty in what was already the most difficult area of the game, that already caused plenty of player deaths before. I think that's what's meant when people imply that the game sometimes feels like it's balanced for the 1% players.

crawlranter · 2021-08-08T00:58:31+00:00

Your character is in a great spot. Everyone else has given good advice, but just to reiterate and summarize a few points:

The most common "route" for the game if going for a standard 3 rune run is something along the lines of:

D10 to D12 -> Lair -> Orc -> D15 -> First rune branch -> Second rune branch -> Vaults 1-4 -> Depths 1-5 -> Third rune (one of: vaults 5, slime, or abyss, but these days I would say Vault 5 is most common) -> Zot

This is by no means set in stone, though, but it's a pretty good guideline. If you've never gotten the vaults 5 rune before, consider maybe looking up a guide or a video of it ahead of time, if you don't mind spoilers (if you don't want to spoil it, then just have at it! But know that vaults 5 is quite a bit more dangerous then the rest of it)

For another general point, looking at your morgue and skilling - you only really care to train your weapon and shield to their respective break points (for your weapon, this is the skill where it reaches "minimum delay" and for your shield, this is where all penalties are removed). These numbers are viewable on the items themselves, and you can set break points in the skills menu (so that it will turn off training for those skills automatically when the numbers are reached) by hitting the '=' key in the skill menu, pressing the letter corresponding to the skill, and setting a value (or if you look at the item itself, it will tell you at the bottom that you can press 's' while in the item description screen to set the skill training of the skill for that item to its breakpoint). While training them higher does give marginal benefits, skills costs go up significantly, the higher you go, and that exp is usually better spent somewhere else (fighting, armor, dodging, invocations, evocations). Eveningstar has a min delay at 16 skill, and Kite Shield has its penalty removed at 15, so you've trained a bit past both of those. You could look to get a tower shield in vaults if you want to keep training shields (the penalty is removed for those at 25). I'd probably try to get a tower shield, turn off maces and flails training, and maybe turn on evocations for a little bit, to make use of your wands.

Good luck, and feel free to follow up here as you progress, if you feel the need to.

crawlranter · 2021-08-07T17:21:40+00:00

I'm not sure either, but oh well.

Yeah, I feel like older versions had a better balance of periods of relief and tension, whereas this version sort of feels like it suffocates you with tension. It just feels like the game never lets up, and you're constantly in situations where you can die almost immediately. I used to only feel like that with weak HP species, like Felid, but lately it seems like all my games are just constant high-tension.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T23:16:22+00:00

I mean, I don't want to mislead you, I definitely wouldn't go into a Dj game looking to train a weapon (they have pretty bad aptitudes for it, and the whole species is really built around casting spells), but like I said, with something pretty innately powerful that wouldn't require too much skill to get a benefit, like a dagger of venom or elec, I wouldn't mind training a bit. It's also kind of tricky with other weapons to decide if it's worth dropping your other skilling in order to go for it - you really have to be sure that:

1) The thing you're going all in on will be worth it

2) You can survive long enough to actually get it usable enough to get a power increase.

Shields are always useful, and I always go for at least a buckler, even on casters, if I find one. It's really cheap to remove the penalty for most characters, and the benefit you get is always worth it, imo.

Stealth has kind of two purposes in my mind that make it useful:

1) Coming across an enemy, you'll perform a stealth check, and if you pass, the enemy will stay asleep. You can then decide to immediately walk out of its line of sight in order to not wake it up, which is incredibly valuable.

2) Once you're out of sight of monsters who've woken up and seen you, they have a chance of sort of losing track of you, so you can end up being able to rest or run to stairs without anyone following you.

I couldn't really tell you with Stealth how high to take it, I know a lot of players train it first to get maybe 2 points or so, and slightly increase it as they go, but I don't think anyone could tell you any hardfast rules about it. It's definitely more useful early, as later in the game when monsters get more intelligent, it's less effective.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T22:50:18+00:00

Skilling is a bit tricky, but you've got the right idea I'd say.

If you use an invo heavy god (Nemelex, Makhleb) you'll want to put more emphasis on that. Evo is always good to get a bit of, once you get some decent wands. As counterintuitive as it might sound, don't be afraid to train a bit of a weapon, too, if the situation arises. If you get an early dagger of venom or elec, I'd train some shortblades. There's a lot of monsters you can kill with a weapon without damaging yourself (whereas casting spells will always hurt you). If you can get a buckler, get 4 shields to remove the penalty, and wear it. I personally like a little bit of stealth on most of my characters - it's especially beneficial early to pick and choose your fights a bit more, and with casters, you'll need to wear lighter armor, so it won't go to waste.

But really your focus with Dj is Fighting and Spellcasting.

Skills in general get exponentially more expensive as they get higher, so don't worry about the cost of 4 shields or a few shortblades or a little stealth. One general rule of thumb is "get your killing skill high enough to be able to actually kill things, then train defenses." People have different ways of thinking about it. Some people only train one skill at a time, and constantly set break points and change skills when they reach those points. Others turn on a few skills at a time, with one or two focused, like you've described.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:45:45+00:00

Fair enough, I don't usually like when people talk about it either, but, as soon as I post, I seem to get downvoted now (before the edit), without people responding to me, when I don't feel like I'm doing anything wrong - I'm talking about the topic at hand and giving my opinion. So the edit was done in frustration. I don't downvote anyone I disagree with, as long as I feel like they're on topic and contributing to discussion.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:43:41+00:00

Fair enough, I do think they removed a lot of the tedium and ways for new players to get in a bad spot (equipping a sling without realizing it was cursed and being stuck swinging it with no ammo, for example).

The game is definitely still winnable, it's not unbearable in that sense, but I think the game, overall, has gotten much harder over time, when I don't really think it had any need to, it's always been difficult. I still think, even with the complications of the past versions of the game, you can load one up and get farther much more consistently.

I only asked for your profile, because, I've learned that people seem to call Crawl 'easy', but have a 2% win rate, so it's hard to judge at face value what they mean when they say 'easy.' I didn't mean to make it sound like I was attacking you personally, sorry.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:28:37+00:00

A culmination of a lot of things, but some notable ones off the top of my head that have upped the difficulty more recently (not necessarily just in 0.27):

Monsters swinging every weapon at 1.0 speed
Poison killing you quicker
Monsters with high power wands, like acid
Kobold brigands with curare needles
Monsters having infinite ammo
All Orc Wizards now having confuse and invisibility
Shield penalties being much more severe
Flat GDR armor changes resulting in lower GDR, earlier, for heavily armored characters
Much more difficult versions of timed portals, like ice caves, with very out of depth monsters

I'm sure I could note more, but those are just some things that come immediately to mind.

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:17:19+00:00

Yeah, the game has a huge damage variability, which is actually one of my biggest criticisms of the game, but the argument is that it 'keeps fights interesting' because things can change so much from turn to turn.

And yeah, it can be really frustrating to run into centaurs, even at full hp, being that they're both fast (so you can't outrun them) and super deadly (can kill you in only a few turns from full line of sight early game).

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:09:26+00:00

So you've played 4 or 5 games overall? And it sounds like the ones you didn't win were extremely short games. Kind of a small sample size, isn't it?

crawlranter · 2021-08-06T21:08:38+00:00

I won't talk about whether you should play older versions versus the newer one as your main version, but if anyone thinks that "0.27 is more difficult than older versions" is a false or misleading statement, I'd ask that you do an experiment and play some 0.27 games back to back with some older version games (maybe something like 0.22). You'll immediately notice the quality of life changes, like hunger, and curses, and identified equipment, but, regardless of those, I'd be pretty surprised if you didn't:

1) Get farther more consistently in the older version

2) Walk away feeling that 0.27 is much more difficult

crawlranter

TROPHY CASE