(DCSS = Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup)
Note that I said "successful runs", not wins. Because only one of these was a win (morgue file for the curious). Another one was... well, I didn't pick up the Orb after apporting it to me, successfully performed the Orb run, realized my mistake and returned to Zot and died on my second ascend. So, a successful run, yet not a win.
I will shortly explain the changes but if you want to read the changes yourself, you can do it here.
Unlimited inventory
Inventory was sorted in four groups: gear (items you can equip and throwing implements), potions, scrolls and evocables (wands and rechargeable items like the phial of floods). Each group has a limit of 52 items - which basically means that you will never run out of free space in your inventory. The only affected screens are [i]nventory and [d]rop. Also, most consumables now have a default shortcut (e.g. if you have a scroll of teleportation identified, it'll always be on 't', so reading it is always r+t).
Personally, I am a tidy player who hates clattered inventory so I never had problem with inventory management in crawl. Dropping 2 potions of attractions never was a run-ending decision. With that said, I do appreciate the default letters for consumables and the added convenience of looting timed portals (yaay, no more dropping all wands and potions before entering a trove!). Unfortunately, dropping potions of moonshine now takes twice as much keypresses. Literally unplayble!
Doom and ostracize, reworked Troves
Ah, mutations... who doesn't love getting Teleportitis after had the audacity of missing a shining eye with your silver javelin twice? Drinking all your potions of mutation to end up with no helmet slot (bye-bye, see invisible!) while Berserkitis still is sitting comfortably in your list of mutations... well, 0.34 invites you to forget about all this nonsense at the small, TINY cost of (maybe) giving Manifold Assault to a juggernaut~
Doom is a new mechanic that replaces stat drain and takes place of malmutation in a few cases (malmutate is still in the game but it's not as common now). It's a counter that goes from 0 all the way to 100%, giving you a random bane - an unpleasant effect that must be cured with gaining experience. A LOT OF IT (like literally two levels worth of exp)!
Doom-inflicting enemies start appearing as early as third floor, thanks to drudes, tanky demonic pieces of shit with resistances tailored specifically against alchemists and fire elementalists. Later, you will also find draugr, rare kind of zombies who inflict doom and can wield weapons even if their initial form couldn't (imagine a bear with a halberd), and ravens who can inflict doom with a ranged attack. Learn to love playing summoners, I guess :)
Another long-term damage effect is Ostracize: it temporarily reduces your maximum piety until you gain some amount of XP (roughly comparable to the banes' requirements). Unlike Doom, Ostracize doesn't appear on many enemies but it can appear as a requirement for entering troves!
And troves also got a rework. No more stupid demands like "27 scrolls of blinking". Now, the more likely demands (in my experience) are suffering a pre-announced bane or Ostracize yourself for your whole piety, or showing the slimy or abyssal rune. The interiors of troves were also reworked, now having a theme built around in-game named characters (wizards or artifact owners) while also giving you much better items! My personal favorite trove is "Ozocubu's Refrigerator".
Throughout all my games, I only suffered two banes and only once did Ostracize do something bad to me. All three of these were due to troves. So, while the new doom-inducing enemies sound really scary, banes are very avoidable even with my sloppy play style. The two banes I experienced were:
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Bane of lethargy, reducing your movement speed. Having to suffer the Chei's treatment is scary but is very manageable as long as you don't forget about it. Especially since I already had experience with playing a Cheibriados character.
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Bane of claustrophobia, which must be truly scary for a melee brute but I was an Airstrike spammer so no big problem😎 If this bane appears as a trove requirement and you're scared of it, accept it right before going into Swamp/Shoals. No walls - no problem!
As for Ostracize, I got it on my Yredelemnul run, unwisely picking it before Orcish Mines. That was tough. I still reap zombies out of my kills but all the abilities are gone and the Mines is a challenging place. Worked off some of it at the dungeon but going all the way down is scary so I was still forced to deal with orcs. And I did. I died much later, in the Snake Pit (fucking electrosnakes!!).
Overall, troves have a much more interesting cost but the rewards are really worth it (plenty of acquirement-level artifacts)!
Slime Pits
It's Extended now!!!!!
No, not really.
Slime got new scary as hell enemies, have bigger floors overall, while also preventing you from returning to upper levels until you either kill The Royal Jelly or devote yourself to their acidic grace, Jiyva the Shapeless.
There are two consolations though: first, you get to enjoy faster HP and MP regen whenever you go downstairs. So it's not like you're just thrown into the middle of gurgling and staring hell with no help. Second, floors 2-4 are guaranteed to generate a Jiyva altar in case you realized limitations of your inflexible body.
Now, I was in the Pits only once - as a mage with powerful mass destruction spells. These kinds of characters will definitely have an easier time in Slime compared to melee brutes. With that said, comparing Jiyva's domain to the likes of Dis is bizarre to me. It's hard, even harder than Vaults for some characters. Yet still easier than Zot.
Harder Realm of Zot
As everyone knows, there's only one reason for a game developer to increase difficulty of their creation: hatred burning in their cold unbeating heart.
Jokes aside, Zot did become harder and it kinda sucks for players who already struggled with getting a win. With that said, the additions are great and contribute a lot to !FUN!
First change is that scrolls of blinking aren't perfectly accurate in Zot (and during the Orb run) - they function like a barachi's jump, with a destination being randomly chosen 1-2 tiles away from your desired destination. I am actually a bit surprised that it wasn't the case in previous versions given just how powerful these scrolls are. It is, sadly, a difficulty spike.
Second change concerns the orbs. Now, the game chooses randomly between three types of orbs: orb of winter with massive cold attacks and Ostracize (the only monster with that spell that I've seen), orb of entropy with acid and negative energy attacks and a ranged doom attack and the good ol' orbs of fire, unchanged. You're informed of what type of orb waits for you by statues near the temple's entrance so you can prepare for it.
I haven't encountered orbs of entropy yet but I've dealt with orbs of winter in my almost-win run. They have Ozocubu's Refrigeration. A screen-wipe cold magic. Say goodbye to all your summons, and your own health if you didn't get cold resistances. Ostracize wasn't scary at all - it never blocked a single ability for me. Maybe I'm just lucky but either way I much prefer it to OoF's malmutate. Even if they removed berserkitis, I don't care!
And finally, the most controversial addition in this version. Boundless Tesseracts. It has the worst attack of all monsters - carelessness-inducing death clock!!!!!
Or, to stop being so dramatic, Boundless Tesseracts are a pair of summoners which you must kill until they flood the floor with orbs of instagib. The thing is, their summon rate is very slow, summons always appear beyond your vision and you must only kill one Tesseract that isn't a real enemy - it can't attack or do anything to defend itself. You need to get in one of the lungs, all buffed up and prepared, kill everything that can stand in your way and punish the summoner.
How much time do you get? Well, when I was doing it for the first time, I took my time fighting in the lung, suffered some damage, retreated to a safer place and healed to full. I don't know how many new enemies appeared but it wasn't bad at all. Like, maybe 5-6 new enemies scattered around the floor. It's fine!
Just, please, for the love of Cheibriados, don't go into the middle of hell with no buffs in hope that you will manage Tesseracts before fireballs and crystal spear make a short work of you. It's Zot. These are no mere critters.
That's it for the highlights of 0.34. There are still many additions which I didn't cover like all the new enemies, armor egos, weapon brands and types of orbs (not enemies, items). Each DCSS version is huge and full of changes worth discussing. Feel free to ask about other aspects of the game.
Happy gaming and don't forget to train your stealth~
