Here's my biggest issue with the game right now: most builds are completely non-viable, and starting the game sucks. Unless you're using unarmed/vampire, the first thirty minutes are entirely luck-based, even worse if you're trying to dual-wield without multiple weapon skills. I can't count how many times I've tried my current sword/dual-wield build only to open a door from the first room with 5+ diggles inside, each of which does over 20% of my health in damage each hit and takes 4 hits to kill with the single wooden sword I get to start with. In contrast, Nethack gives the player decent starting gear, and barring one of a handful of situations (spiked pit/poisoned spike pit trap early on) it's very difficult to die before reaching the second floor. I've also noticed that gear scales VERY poorly in comparison to the enemies. The stuff I find on Floor 3 or 4 isn't significantly better than the stuff I find on Floor 1. Proposed changes to fix this: - Diggles can no longer spawn in any of the rooms directly adjoining the first one. - Taking a weapon skill now grants a Rough Iron (Mace/Sword/Axe) instead of the current equipment. - Dual-Wielding gives you a second Rough Iron (Mace/Sword/Axe) to start. - Add magic resistance to all armor. - Add some armor absorption (not as much as metal armor) to non-metal armor (Fine Linen Tunic, Foppish Tunic, etc) - Change the drop system so that better items spawn on lower floors. Of course, this is just the beginning. There are plenty of other changes I can think of.
I have literally never had a problem with the first floor and getting my character started. On any difficulty. Sounds like you are hitting a string of bad luck? Take your time, explore the dungeon, and better gear will slowly come to you. You aren't meant to have 15 absorption by floor 2.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO making things easier is the absolute LAST thing I want to happen to this game. The fun in roguelikes comes from the extreme difficulty and ridiculous deaths you experience. I think you should stick to regular RPGs instead of trying to ruin the fun for the rest of us.
I find it very hard to die before reaching the second floor.. Unless I: Attack Brax, Find an acid trap that needs attention Forget about counter attacks Kick doors that have more hp than I do.
Unless you're playing a necronomiconomical mage and/or start with no weapon skills at all, there's no real reason to die on the first floor on anything less then going rogue. I do agree with some equipment scaling goin on, since brax can sell the best items in the game on floor 1, and without cheating it's not like you'll be able to get it. And being how bugged stores are now, you can explot the shops and get rediculous equipment on lvl 1. Also i find that most uberchests and quest rewards give me useless maces, but maybe that's just my luck.
Well, some item variety definitely wouldn't hurt (A little scaling?) . Seeing "Rusty Sword" over and over getting a little tedious.
I agree: we're not saying make the game easier, we're saying make it easier early but become harder more quickly. As it is certain builds are, as said, completely non-viable (on GR) without a tremendous stroke of luck, for example if you go for a Pure Mage that does not have skills with a level 1 attack spell. And certainly there's a problem with item scaling. I quite often find top-tier items on the first floor, in Brax's shop. And they really are not that expensive either, it's quite easy to grab it after clearing the floor.
I have a limited amount of agreement. Opening the first door and finding 6 battys or diggles is pretty much game over unless you happened to get lucky and start with a Wand of Laser, a Greedy, or a couple explosives. That should not happen. I also have a limited amount of agreement about item scaling. I don't mind when I kill something on Level 10 and a rusty sword drops, but I do mind when I walk into Brax on Level 10 and he's selling nothing but rusty sword equivalents. He should really only stock items that are 1 star greater OR lesser than the floor he is located on.
The extreme effect that the RNG has on the gameplay is a rather unique feature of roguelikes that is not really seen in other genre to the same extent. I think that DoD is fairly representative of the roguelike genre in that respect and don't really want it changed either. Finding rusty swords on lvl 10 and uber weopons in Brax's shop on lvl 1 is all part of the experience. It's not supposed to be balanced, nor offer any real standard progression. Sometimes you get lucky, other times you don't. That's what a roguelike is.
We should be thinking in terms of what would make the game better overall (which I realise is highly subjective, but I'm sure there are a few ground rules we can agree on), not in terms of what the "genre" should be like. IMO, RNG has its place... to a point. A high chance of getting the best equipment the moment you start and basically halting character progression right there is not one of them. Also, my main problem as I said is not so much about the RNG as it is that many builds are completely non-viable at the beginning because of very poor starting character gear. With certain builds you could have absolutely no way to deal damage at all in the start, not even a basic melee kick. And that, I think, needs to be changed.
First of all, GR is supposed to be extremely difficult. And the OP mentioned Nethack -- well Nethack was actually a different game, and in many ways, a more challenging one. Also, remember, levels were much smaller in Nethack, plus you could die just from experimenting with unidentified items, or being unlucky enough to run out of food on level 1, or accidentally get teleported into a bank vault with no way to escape?
There's a line between "difficulty" and "go roll a dice". As it is difficulty in GR DoD early game isn't about careful planning, strategy and stuff, it's almost purely dice-roll. The problem with luck in GR DoD is that it's not "you get unlucky and die", it's "you have to get lucky or you die". For me, my main problem is that certain builds are non-viable compared to other builds (for example, Pure Mage focusing on Mathemagic/Psionics/Astrology compared to a typical Warrior build).
@Embolus I made the statement earlier that getting swarmed when you open the first door is basically game over, and I will stand by that statement. However it does not seem to happen too frequently so I would say the odds are generally in favor of you surviving as long as you play smart for anybody who knows what they are doing in GR. Realistically I think that can be solved in one of two ways. The easiest way is to include a little bit better starting gear. The harder way would be to preset the first level so it cannot spawn large numbers of monsters until X number of turns.
Don't have much to say on the item scaling issue, but on the difficulty of the first floor, definitely. On Rogue, basically unless you take Vampirism+Melee Skill, Astrology, or Psionics then you're almost entirely at the mercy of the RNG as to if you survive long enough to even level up once. If you can make enough of a foothold to gain that first level, though, then you're pretty much guaranteed to make it to floor 3 at least, seems a bit wonky.
Game scaling I can agree with (to some extent). On starting equipment, I disagree. While I never got into nethack I have played several others and my personal favorite is DCSS. I think a roguelike should be at it's hardest and most luck based in the first few steps of the game. So losing to the RNG in the first 2 minutes by opening an unlucky room is perfectly acceptable. Losing to a die roll 30 minutes into the game however should be limited. What should be changed is the way builds/gear is designed and the number of statistics used. The game as it stands encourages scumming uber items with archeology. In fact, encourages might be too weak a word. Perhaps the game requires scumming with archeology to max a specific stat. If it were up to me, stats on non-weapon gear would be limited to the primary attributes + resistances with a very rare chance for something else like trap affinity with the exception of penalties to secondary attributes. This would force all secondary attributes like dodge/counter to be raised by primary attributes while still allowing for items to have -mana recovery or -dodge. Right now the game becomes a boring grind fest of gear optimization past dungeon level 3 or so.
@Haldurson Except none of those situations you just mentioned come anywhere close to how luck-based this game is. I've ascended a Tourist in Nethack, and every single time I died it was clearly my fault, and not the RNG/the game's. In fact, all of those situations you mentioned would be the player's fault, not the game's: - Most players figure out not to use un-ID'd items until they reach an altar. - Even with no food, you can always pray, which will fix your hunger. In fact, many people have done "foodless" playthroughs. Whereas in DoD, if you open that first door and there are 10 diggles and a deth behind it, there is literally no way to get out of that situation alive.
