Getting shafted, as it is currently, is inherently a flawed mechanic that goes against the design philosophy as surviving it is basically a matter of if you’re lucky enough to get out of that floor before something way stronger than you appears, especially if you get shafted 3 floors. I could go on with different examples, but I’d rather give an idea of how it could be made better.
Starting off with the simplest part of this by making it where you can’t be shafting more than 1 floor from exploring. 1-floor shafts have been not nearly as bad, from my experience, and are usually much more survivable than 2 or 3-floor shafts.
In its place, make the shafts that do spawn separately as their own tiles act like traps. This can make a slightly more interesting dynamic where, most times, you’ll have to avoid them, but in a dire scenario, they can be used to escape (or can be used against enemies as they can currently).
I also think flight should have some effect against shafts (both exploration and not), as I feel like it gives what I consider a pretty limited effect more utility and makes a bit more sense for you to just fly over the giant hole in the floor.
Now, keep in mind that obviously none of this is tested and would probably need some tweaks, so I’ll be interested to see what others have to say about these changes, but I do believe this would be a better version of shafting compared to what we have now.
Shafting is very survivable in its current form. All of the builds generally recommended for new players are capable of handling early shafting with starting abilities/consumables; and outside of hardcore streakers what does it matter if you lose 1 in 20 to a D:1->2 shaft. There’s already restrictions where you can’t be shafted into the end of a rune branch as well.
Beyond that, later game shaft survival can very easily be chalked up to a skill issue. I’ve actually found that at this point I need shafts to be as random as they are to make things more challenging. It encourages practicing resource discipline and as @petercordia mentioned leads to a lot of “fun” situations.
If you’re still a new player struggling with shafts, I’d strongly encourage you give Yredelemnul a try. Once your torch is lit, Yred will prevent shafts altogether, plus you have some nice god powers to counter the other malicious events as well. If you’re more experienced already, it’s hard to beat Ashenzari who will also make you immune to shafts (as well as other maliciousness).
I agree with the above. Shafting is survivable, and often exciting. To survive requires a different mindset, imho. After I figured that out, I’ve survived 90%+ of my shafts.
One way to practice is to play Delvers. Start with Gnolls.
The only time I’ve ever got a 4 game streak was a couple tourneys ago, and I got shafted to L3 → L5 in one of the middle games and it was by far the most memorable thing I’ve done in the game outside of my first win. I had to pull out all the stops and burn consumables like mad and it was stressful as hell but exhilarating when I made it out.
After I had played for about six months, shafts became far less frightening. I feel like they are quite survivable, and I truly enjoy the tense exploration and fighting.
It – imho – is part of what makes the dcss early game fun.