First 8 gold challenges.

[Lujo]

Lujo- Seems your hoping for another week off. Your point has been heard (over and over...).

But not understood, obviously. Really, the only reason that could possibly make anyone have to scum by default is there as a result of a measure to reduce scumming? How does one accept that? How does it make sense? Because it's not preventing people form making perfect run setups, and it's not preventing scumming.

[The Avatar]

Okay, I can think of only one way to settle this so Lujo and dislekcia will stop arguing. Have the devs implement a free fill your lockers and vetoes. Then see what people do. Are they constantly using the feature to do fun experiments or to do scummy runs? Frankly, either of you could be right (it could remove all scumming or add more) so beyond it being a pain to make, why not try it?

[Lujo]

As a support to the "lets just fricikng try it out in practice" motion - it's not that hard to make. Make a popup with text entry which checks whether an available item is available in the shop pool whe you type in the name, and a button which lets you just put it in the veto/locker whatever. Shouldn't be that hard to make, the password entry box can be used and so can the list that already checks for shop pool elegiblity. Make it cost 500-1000 per pop so people can't go nuts unless they can win some PQI first (but can actually play runs they want to provide fuel). And if anyone wants to go nuts he'll have to get gold - and the easiest way to get gold is to play the actual game and get better at it...

And we try it out - scummers gonna scumm (people are still scumming for altars instead of prepping them o.O), whoever doesn't want any scumming in his play will pay gladly, and whoever wants to adjust just one item to try it out will have the option of doing whatever the hell he feels like. And everybody who isn't interested will remain blisfullly oblivious.

[berpdreyfuss]

I'm beginning to understand the devs problem with the lockers. It reduces the randomness of a dungeon run. The agument: "I can scum for an item, which will only cost me real life time so I should be able to locker it right away" can be made for other things as well. For example: "I can scum for all of the shops in a dungeon having just the item I want, so I should be able to chose which shops appear in the dungeon" and this point can be made for other things as well.

Is this a valid point, Lujo?

And count me in on the "let's try it, even if it is just for a week" side!

[Lujo]

I'm beginning to understand the devs problem with the lockers. It reduces the randomness of a dungeon run. The agument: "I can scum for an item, which will only cost me real life time so I should be able to locker it right away" can be made for other things as well. For example: "I can scum for all of the shops in a dungeon having just the item I want, so I should be able to chose which shops appear in the dungeon" and this point can be made for other things as well.

Is this a valid point, Lujo?

And count me in on the "let's try it, even if it is just for a week" side!

I don't want to textwall! I just want a chance to try it out! And I can't answer that witout one, but TLDR - yes, I understand their concern but the measure isn't working and is having the opposite effect...

Textwall - (nice one but ignore, can't resist replying)

Yes, but there's a catch. Veto slots were introduced because setting up an optimal setup is so appealing that not even bothering to unlock content in order to rig the RNG became a fashion. So they added veto slots to give a way to reduce randomness because people were taking insane steps to avoid it (really, cydstep rogue was one of the most popular strats and you had to scumm for cydstep). But people were trying to reduce the randomnes - either by scumming or by not unlocking the content at all (besides things they want on every run). And righ now, what the slots are being used for by such people is to scumm in venture cave with a transmuter once, instead of scumming on every run. And you can't prevent that, it's human nature.

People still scumm for gods. But before you could prep altars, people used to do it all the time. Now everyone has a choice - I always prep them when I want a paricular one, some people never do, and some people are just born munchkins and scumm for them just because of the penalty. But noone is being punished because of the munchkins. Yes, the game is not as random, but the game was too random for the general tastes because othewise people woudn't've been scumming for gods so much.

The veto/locker situation works best for people who don't mind scumming, and shafts people who don't want to scum at all. If the policy is ment to reduce scumming, it certanly is - by letting people who would scumm anyway scumm in ventore cave, get an optimal setup, and then not scumm during the run (because they don't have to). But making people who don't want to scumm AT ALL not have a choice is beyond silly. Especially if they percieve scumming as a waste of time and all they want to do when they fire up DD is play the run that they want to play without delay.

It's not asking for anything I can't do already - it's just asking them to remove the scumming part (or the fetch quest part - because I want to do that even less! - I really just want to play the run and try the strat I want with no dely when I fire up the game!)

[berpdreyfuss]

The god prep is a good example for something that prevents scumming in a good way. Maybe there is a similar solution to the locker problem as well.
And though it isn't that, I still wouldn't mind a very late game unlock of the "take any item you want into the dungeon". I don't see a slippery slope problem there ("Why isn't it available earlier?") because until now, for myself, I never felt the need for that unlock and only people who are deep into this game will feel the need for such a feature anyway.

[Lujo]

It doesn't even have to include any items that you can't find in the shops (vicious stuff, subdungeon rewards) - just the stuff people are able to easily scumm up right now with a tinker/transmuter. Heck, it's infinitely easier to veto 7 things by scumming with a transmuter than do 7 challenges to veto the rewards is! You can haul 3-4 out of venture cave at once! It's easier to rig up a perfect pool than to veto/locker just 1 thing! And a whole bunch of stuff is only possible to veto in a time-efficent fashion by scumming for them (elites, basics, map quest items). Who'll ever bring a 50 gp costing Orb of Zot out of a dungeon on a whim so he can veto it? Or Yendor? Just remove the need to scumm for people who don't want to do it, for a week/month and see how it works out! Please! It can't be that much work.

It's just that the "perfect run scumm happy crowd" are having a field day with the whole situation, and people who are the opposite of that but still want to check weird combo's out and have fun on the runs are forced into scumming... And if you really resoultely refuse to scum - low range of items used /vetoed on a regular basis for you (And you get accused of victim mentality to add insult to injury).

[dislekcia]

But that's the perfect summation of why I'm so eternally pissed off at you!

If you wanted to remove scumming, you could do it in a blink of an eye

But not understood, obviously.

(And you get accused of victim mentality to add insult to injury).

Right. You can go away then.

...

all they want to do when they fire up DD is play the run that they want to play without delay.

Desktop Dungeons has never been about this. You don't go into the game expecting to play a specific thing, you go into a dungeon and deal with what random gives you. That's the whole point of roguelikes: Adaptation under stress. Of course you're going to get frustrated if you expect a game to give you something it's not set up to do.



Just don't behave like a complete asshat when your assumptions are questioned.

[dislekcia]

I'm beginning to understand the devs problem with the lockers. It reduces the randomness of a dungeon run. The agument: "I can scum for an item, which will only cost me real life time so I should be able to locker it right away" can be made for other things as well. For example: "I can scum for all of the shops in a dungeon having just the item I want, so I should be able to chose which shops appear in the dungeon" and this point can be made for other things as well.

Is this a valid point, Lujo?

Obviously not... (Though we obviously agree with your summation)

And if anyone wants to go nuts he'll have to get gold - and the easiest way to get gold is to play the actual game and get better at it...

Seeing as his solution to prevent overuse is to force people to scum for gold.

An anti-item-scumming system already exists right now: The different item class preparations in the Bazaar. Even if you don't get the items you want to veto in your first run, you can easily bring out and veto items that "clogged" your shops this run to pretty-much guarantee that you'll find that specific item next run. Meta vetos.

Yeah, I know it's not elegant. But I guess we don't view going into a dungeon and, y'know, interacting with it in some way as an actual crime against life on earth.

[Bloggorus]

1st rule of moderating forums: don't feed the trolls.