What’s the general consensus from long time veterans around the overall difficulty of the game? Both for core and extended?
It’s hard for me to tell since I’ve been playing on and off for many years, but have only recently got a couple of wins.
I think it would be fair to say, that the game has gotten harder over the years. In the sense that your tactical mistakes are punished more severely (AoO), there are more enemies with abilities that challenge the way you approach combat (harpoon shots, blink allies encircling, smite nukes), there are less experience overall (less trivial do-nothing enemies) and less available “cheesy” tactics (like summons and clouds doing damage out of LoS, Sticks to Snakes, limited enemy ammo, pillar dancing).
I also think it would be fair to say, that the game has gotten fairer towards the player over the years. There are more info available in-game, UI is way more clear, spoilery, tedious, noob-trap-ish and overly random/swingy stuff gets regularly removed/changed. Also a lot of the stuff that is weak/irrelevant gets replaced with stuff that is quite potent (god/spell/items redesigns).
Judging this stuff is really freaking hard though, cause players on average has also gotten much better, there are more things that are considered common-place good practice now, that were not quite as figured out way back when (or at least were not as widely preached). Also tactical turn-based games have been in a somewhat of a golden age for a while now, and all that ambient knowledge helps win rates a bunch as well, IMO.
edit: oh yeah, it’s all about core 3-rune game, I don’t play extended. New Hells are generally considered way harder than the old ones.
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I feel the same way as PaperRat.
I go through phases. I’ll play for a year or two, stop, come back in a year or three, etc. Each time I come back, I’ve been compelled to get better at the Triumvirate of Good Crawlin’: (1) threat assessment, (2) positioning, & (3) use those d#mn consumables you idiot!
Years ago, I could get wins by using stupid tricks (my favorite was conj flame + summon door, remember that baby?). But because I could cheese, I didn’t try as hard/feel the need to learn the core skills. That doesn’t fly now because the worst cheese is gone.
Now, to win, I have to become a better player. I need to figure out just what the heck I am fighting, that it is okay to not kill everything I see the moment I see it, that terrain can be my friend if I move right, and that seemingly “impossible” situations can in fact be overcome through the proper use of consumables.
Overall, I think DCSS is still moving in the right direction.
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I’ve been playing since Linley’s and I think the game has gotten easier… but that is probably me just getting better.
But a lot of unfair ways to die just don’t happen anymore. I once got down to elf, maybe my first time ever, and walked into deep water and died.
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I’ve been running the same MiFi^Oka since 0.14. Overall the game has gotten easier to win, but it has gotten harder to mindlessly tab and use cheesy no-brainer tactics.
Anecdotally, 0.16 was prime tabber and I had at least one win where I basically just held down the tab button. Things got a lot harder for a long time but 0.30 and 0.31 were pretty tabbable, but not nearly as mindlessly tabbable as 0.16. 0.32 and 0.33 aren’t very tabbable, but they’re still pretty easily winnable for melee brutes… you just can’t smash your face into every situation and expect to win.
From a caster standpoint, I didn’t play many until 0.28+. It’s not nearly as dumb as the old 0.14 (was it 0.12?) Tornado days or Absolute Zero lolz, but since the introduction of Plasma Beam and the other L6-L8 spells casters have been having a pretty smooth go of it. The alchemy/shifting change was a big QoL improvement and the multischool Alchemy points go farther than Poison/Transmutation did before.
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I got absolute zero as my last Dj spell when they were being developed (before AZ was removed that release) and it was so BORING. The whole screen just vaporized with the span of a couple turns.
I’ve been playing since 1998 or so. I think the game has gotten easier, because I don’t think people actually streaked victories in Linley’s Dungeon Crawl. Even though there were things like the haste spell and control teleport…
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I have been playing since 2009, although my first win was in 2014 (and my last one in 2022, because I keep going for extended in splatting).
I think over time the early / mid game has definitely gotten easier, but the late /extended game has gotten harder because of how many rules-breaking monsters there are. I remember when Abyss was basically trivial (and full of tasty loot), before wretched stars were a thing, for example.
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