Dungeon Crawl - Removing Mountain Dwarves

[Chex Warrior]

I recently read that the DC devs are planning to remove mountain dwarfs...

 I've read their reasons and they really seem to be missing some of the point. First off, I understand that race balance is a big deal, and I guess that MD's are not particularly different from Minotaurs and Orcs but I feel like a rework is in order before axing such an iconic race. Secondly, this seems to have become a very emotional issue for many dungeon crawlers -me included, I played a lot of dwarves when I first started and had a blast doing so, it just seems too hasty taking them out all of a sudden. This topic  needs discussing, what do you guys think?

[jim]

The easiest way to beat crawl is with a minotaur or mountain dwarf fighter of okawaru. If you play online, you'll see that the majority of new players use one or the other (and my first win was with a MD.) There's arguably more flavor with the minotaur because... I dunno... horns? And some kind of discreet labyrinth mechanic. And orcs have their own god.

The devs are always looking for ways to eliminate trivial elements of gameplay as well as thematic redundancies, as you said. Maybe the thinking is that MDs are possibly both trivial and redundant.

I would argue that this thinking is off-base, and that the perception of ideal gameplay has been skewed by an extremely advanced player base. Have you ever watched these people play? It's like watching a robot do math (the robot in this simile can do math.) They've become so jaded by the core elements of gameplay that they are looking to take those elements to their logical extremes - this is why we see the Felids and Octopodes.

Don't get me wrong: my felid win was exciting and satisfying. But meanwhile, my girl plays this game once or twice a week for about an hour or so, and she's only found a rune once. Why punish her for having a life? I guess what I'm steering toward is the idea that there's no reason to eliminate the MD because doing so adds nothing to gameplay... the only benefit in removing the MD is an insistence on more complicated gameplay and a greater sense of exclusivity (and FFS, it's already a roguelike.)

[Chex Warrior]

I agree, I've been playing Crawl (and roguelikes in general) for years and have never won... (I've seen a rune, once haha) but the game is extremely fun. It strikes me a strange that they'd take out a newbie race and yet they still spend so much time on making tutorials for new players, its almost as though the game is being "over" designed.

[ido]

It strikes me a strange that they'd take out a newbie race and yet they still spend so much time on making tutorials for new players

Why is that strange? There is still the other newbie race remaining. I hope they continue trimming down the fat & am really happy to see the dev team willing to take drastic measures for the sake of the game's future.

Also, if you don't like it you can still fork crawl (it's what the stone soup team did) and add all the "classic" elements back in.

[Fenrir]

I think there is merit in the idea that there should be more than one race for inexperienced players. You may well suppose that, so long as there is one, it's enough, but a little variety for new players is not a bad thing. As Jim mentioned, his lover likes to play dungeon crawl, but she has no intention to devote the effort and time required to win with a more difficult race, so it would be agreeable to have another race for her to play that does not require more serious commitment.

I could not say if this was completely reasonable, as I do not play enough to make any remarks about balance, but I certainly understand the concerns of Chex Warrior and Jim.

Also, if you don't like it you can still fork crawl (it's what the stone soup team did) and add all the "classic" elements back in.

You make it sound like someone with a concern should just shut up and fork it; it might not be what you mean, but I read it like that. I doubt the developers themselves would want it that way.

Now that I think of it like that, "fork" should be an OSS programmer's obscenity. Every time someone criticizes a game unfairly, we should tell them to go fork it.

"Your game sucks!"
.\.....
..@.@..
.....\.
      "Fork off!"

[getter77]

Well, there's always this thing from some weeks back I suppose, though it isn't above outright culling races outright either.

http://crawl.aerdan.org/

I'll probably never understand the Crawl dev mentality where so many things wind up cut as the seemingly first solution rather than just spicing up things that are presently there and only cutting outright if nobody's nifty notions wind up striking a chord with the playerbase..   

[Chex Warrior]

To be honest I trust the Crawl Devs more than any other developers around, they nearly always make good decisions and I agree almost 99% with their philosophy. I just don't agree with removing Mountain Dwarves, but it won't stop me from playing. Regardless, the thread at the DC forum became a flame war (trolls on both sides) so the people who were trying to raise concerns got flamed out and the discussion is pretty much over.

[guest509]

  So the Mountain Dwarf is redundant gameplay wise? How is a casual player like myself even supposed to know that? All I know is that I want to play a traditional dwarf. I want to make him wear and hat with 2 horns coming out of it. He's to carry an axe and hate elves. And I'll name him Gimli. Or Thorin. Or whatever. And I'll die quick and then start another one.

[My point here is that it may be redundant game play but thematically it is not. Neither was the gnome, btw.]