Wiki - finishing touches

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

Is this latest exchange between Darvin and Tinker on Goblins about them in some specific context, or just in general?

If it's in general - mo' decisions mo' opportunities. Goblin racial power recharges bars, you pair it with sources of bar extenders and blob all over the dungeon. Otherwise, they let you either skip the very early navigation challenges almost entirelly (or avoid specific debuffs) and they let you get levels with fewer kills, meaning you need less exploration. This last bit is antithetical to the philosphy that leads certain stubborn point-chasing newbies to misevaluate how much effort/power is actually needed to kill a boss, and it also lets you fight bossess sooner than you otherwise would (less need to comb the dungeon for the big cash-in moves and good kills are harder to find than good tools).

Haflings are similar, except folks either understand them and don't talk about it much, or don't and lump them with gnomes (and them and gnomes play differently).

People also suffer from "hoard everything for bossfight" mentality. It's not that it's not wise, it's just that at some point they loose sight of how much the quality of the items, preps, glyphs and the availablity of gods (as well as their playskill) has lowered the need to hoard and increased the opportunity to cash in on moves earlier.

One of the most silly broken strategies ever (back in the day) involved dumping all your potions from square 1 and fighting stuff way above your level. Anyone who's had the good fortune to play the game and see how that plays out has also seen the benefits of explosive starts via consumable resources (first fight dodge + reflex + STR was default start once upon a time, they even lowered the initial potion prep limit to 4 instead of 5 because of this). Goblins and Halflings can easily replicate this (as cheap health boosts are everywhere). What they get out of it isn't as powerful as the old shennanigans - but all the monsters have been nerfed since than, and the principle is still there.

It's not the only thing about goblins and halflings, to be sure, but there's just way more to them (and the game) than just going "they don't have stacking bonuses, meh, meh, meh".

---

I wrote some unkind remarks about Tinker here. Went to bed, couldn't sleep, came back to wipe them off. Only reason I logged in to check on this place was that I was cleaning up the old computer I used to play DD on and found a rather long and nice explanation of why there's actual death in the game I wrote at some point. I just felt so bad when I saw this discussion - so much time and it looked like 0 progress whatsoever. I expanded my post a bit instead, I hope noone minds.

[Tinker]

[Lujo]

Well, my experience with goblins (and halflings) tended to play faster for me simply because they have more solutions to problems and opportunities to solve obstacles with their solutions. Provided I can see a hoarder-ish endgame (easier than horder because of no inventory hassle associated with it, and not strictly chasing the bagde) I can leverage their bonus to speed me up to it, which tends to work rather well. Don't know about derps.

[Tinker]

You pick your class first; then pick the race for it (unless you go hoarder when it doesn't matter); and finally select preparations including deity.

Sometimes classes have significant drawbacks/perks, in which case mitigating/amplifying those via some boons can also be a consideration; but it's usually hard to do that without picking the race first.

If the above is right, then it makes a lot of sense to discuss Races in great detail on the Class pages (as already done on some of the pages); but it probably makes much less sense to discuss classes on the Races pages, instead it would make sense to focus on in-depth analysis of the interactions with deities. The main articles themselves could focus on the basics (also considering hoarder for class, faithless for race), and then discuss the class/race and race/deity interactions.

I don't know if it makes sense to really systemically focus on a set of interactions on the deities pages (like with classes or items or preps or dungeons or preps or whatnot), but one thing I'm kind of leaning towards is to somehow discuss deity conversions, and perhaps elaborate on good conversion chains (to and from, or just to) for each deity.

Explorers: Binlor Ironshield, Mystera Annur, Jehora Jeheyu
Levelers: Glowing Guardian, Earthmother, Pactmaker
Killers: Dracul, Tikki Tooki, Taurog

[Tinker]

Ok, I've re-read my last post and it may deserve a bit of clarification...

So I was thinking that it would be a good idea to discuss the various combinations and interactions between races, classes, deities, strategies and items, in a structured way, to make sure all important combinations are discussed, but they are only discussed in one place.

The most important combinations I think are:
Class + Race -> could be discussed in the Class pages
Race + Deity -> could be discussed in the Race pages
Deity + Deity (i.e. conversions) -> could be discussed in the Deities pages

Today it's a bit messier, for example half of the Orc page is about what classes are recommended for an Orc (which is probably not really relevant there, unless as a sort of "favorite builds" section, listing let's say top 3 distinct builds for each race, to give curious players a clue on what to try).

Other interactions (like items, strategies) could be mentioned wherever appropriate, but only if there is a pronounced synergy, there is no need to make big lists or anything.

[Tinker]

Help! I started tinkering (TM) with the Races page, but the Monster Classes don't work for some reason!!

http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDungeons/index.php?title=Races

I copy-pasted the table, but somehow it doesn't work the same way. Someone smart ought to please-please look at it?

[Lujo]

I've tinkered up a Fighter page with compartments for all the dfferent fighters. I'll reduce all the other clutter (or someone else will), but do take a look at the different fighter "compartments". They're all different, and with a proper universal template for races a bunch of what's written there can just be linked, but it'd be useful for further work if anyone interested could comment if they like any of them or dislike any of them. I prefferr PM feedback, easier to get things done that way.

If I'm the one writing up all the classess (except probably the monster classess), and I am, the compartments are gonna be the new default, the question is just what goes in there, exactly, and what sort of language is the most appropachable to folks who would use the page. I'm aware it's probably too steeped in jargon atm, but with feedback and a bit of work it can all be done right.

The page in question: http://www.qcfdesign.com/wiki/DesktopDu ... le=Fighter , scroll down to the races, feel free to ignore the current clutter up top. Or not, but that's less relevant currently.

[berpdreyfuss]

I like the compartments, good idea. And I like the detailed prescriptions of the class traits and how they can be used. Oftentimes I play much better if I take the time before a run and think about for which style of play the traits will be useful.

I agree that there is a little bit too much jargon since it is aimed mostly at beginners. So maybe a little less "Dinging" and "Popcorn" In general, I would avoid "newbies", just write "beginners" or something else.

As for the clutter, yes, that doesn't really belong there. The wiki entry for a class should give you quick information about it and not start with a very confusing discussion in multilayered spoilers. I would cut the first paragraph. Maybe you could put these kinds of things in an extra chapter, called something like "Lujo's thoughts", because I think you have a lot of interesting things to write about the game, but I think it should be in a place where it's clear that it is your perspective and your take on the game.

[Lujo]

Ty v. much and taken into account, will declutter, remove a the confusing thing at the start etc etc.