QCF Design Community

hmm .. I don't think mastering gods is the only criteria for "mastering" the game, so the last 2 tiers should encompass more stuff.

I would say just in general, "knowing everything about the game" should be part of 1 of the last 2 tiers. By this, I mean you have seen all if not most of the subdungeons, races, classes, items, know all quirks about the different dungeons, various "tricks" (like ways to get more piety and by this I don't mean the really "special" ones like I honestly don't know about the "Punchbag" strategy), etc.

And maybe 1 of the mid to high tiers should include efficient use of health and mana. This includes like racking up possible piety by making use of your early exploration gain of mana, doing things like "preparing" for the next higher kill (using up spare health/mana to reduce your next target's health just before a level up) - ok, this could have been covered under monster softening.

Thanks. I'll update that later. It was just a start for later levels...

the efficient health and mana you mention is a bit different from monster softening. So it should indeed be somewhere

I've been thinking about this for a while now, and I don't have anything nearly as detailed. I'd break down skill levels into roughly:

Beginner: learn the ropes, keep wiki open or you'll mess up punishments, glyphs, etc. die often.
Skilled: know the rules & most rule interactions. can beat most sub-vicious maps at first try and can win Vicious with specific builds / techniques. Knows synergies & has a couple of power builds on speed-dial.
Vet: Can find your own synergy and play pretty much anything, anywhere, and have a close to 100% chance of winning. Can VT the Vicious dungeons (not necessarily on first try, mind you! ). If wants to, can rainbow the map (takes time though).
Master: Find & exploit loopholes/synergies/above-power-curve elements; can pretty much do anything, anytime, in the game. I've seen a couple of victory screens by some of the best players and well those are the ones that make you go "wow", and wonder if even the devs know the game this intimately...

Obviously, there's a lot of sub-levels, progress is more gradual, but I see a lot of "Skilled" players, and well we all know some Vets/Masters. Though honestly, come to think of it, the distinction there may be subjective... I may say "wow" to something Darvin, Astral, Sitnaltax, TheSchachter or Lujo posted, but maybe someone goes more "wow" seeing stuff from some of the other vets, or remember names like The Avatar, Sidestepper, Kami, Wald0, or the other folks who have moved on from DD, and whose old forum posts are but mementos to their former greatness. Anyway.

Interestingly... I think that once you're "Skilled" you can start building a Daily streak as most dailies don't actually require mad skills. It does help to have certain predispositions (like, being a puzzler/XP-maxer is usually better for slow/deliberate play than being a time-chaser; being lucky helps a lot; and well concentration is also quite good; not to forget that switching to left-click select & disabling radial menu are lifesavers sometimes).

In both examples I would place myself roughly at the skilled level heading towards the next level.

Would be interesting to see a list of the Masters. I'd rank William a lot higher than skilled.
By Tink's standard I'd rank myself somewhere between Beginner and skilled, mostly due to the inclusion of the Vicious requirement. Lots of dungeons I can't win on vicious.

I also see myself between skilled and the next level in both cases like William. I think there's a lot of room in Tinkers Beginner and Skilled, so I like the finer levels of flap better. It's interesting that there's chamion/Vet in one and Vet/ Master in the other.

Maybe a vet also needs to know the history of the game and must be able to tell stories about long forgotten item properties and totally broken gods?

Interesting - I always feel like the vet status is kind of a matter of fluency, it's sort of the point where play goes from competent to expressive. All the vets have different strengths - Sidestepper's ability to identify a strat for a dungeon is wonderful, Darvin's very quick and no-nonsense, Lujo has a bloodhound's sense for anything that can beat every dungeon and then makes himself miserable by beating every dungeon with them, Tinker's extremely patient and meticulous which leads to a phenomenal range and ability to eke the most out of a given dungeon, Astral has taken the game and twisted it in knots like a balloon animal...

It's really hard to tell whether the best players now are better or not than the best in the late beta, because there were more broken things to take advantage of (old transmuter, perma-poisoning, Binlor and GG antics) but a lot of the dungeons have been made significantly easier and more reliably beatable.

Hello,

I have updated the list. I first explain what the player can achieve, then the skills.