Actual Roguelike Thread

Spelunky fulfills all points of the berlin interpretation though. You're the retard baiting it, and just because you made the thread doesn't mean you're right

Ah, and visually some wall segments don't match occasionally, for example a square that contains a corner for two different rooms that are diagonal to each other. It can look pretty shoddy.

Record a video showing you actually making 60 different actions in a single second, baiter.

OP obviously wants to talk about permadeath procedurally generated top-down turn-based grid-based games. Are you too retarded to understand that?

But that is not roguelike

If I were you dad, I'd pull a Chris Benoit.

What do you have against the redbook standard?

...

I'll agree with this. However, I do like the skill/level system and how it affects stats, and how crafting can prevent getting cucked by pure luck (mostly).

After this dies I'll make a proper elona thread, the tower of fire is horseshit.

Once mountain dwarves were cut, it was the beginning of the end.

I honestly don't get what the problem is with it, unless something happened over the last few months. Yeah Z-levels never ever and the nutrition and dirty clothes shitstorms revealed the arrogance of the coders, but it isn't remotely as bad off as DCSS is yet.

rouge-lite

git gud

it's because of niggers

what roguelikes can i play on a laptop (no numberpad)

Dredmor, because of a lack of diagonals. You could also use that wonky movement keybind that involves the right side of the letters on the keyboard.

Shitting on CDDA is really a legacy from the time where they started introducing bloat like dildoes and fursuits. At this point nobody cares because original Cataclysm is too long ago for people to remember what theyre missing.

Dont be a faggot and remap a part of your keyboard to function as a numpad.
UIO
JKL
M,.
works fine if you remap some function keys

Elona also has a clunky but usable graphical UI from the get go so that you can even play with a gamepad like a faggot

Most of them are still perfectly playable with the number keys, it's just a pain in the ass. You can also try doing it with just the arrow keys, but grid bugging it is seen as a major disadvantage. Remapping is a one-time pain, but it works out once you start using it.

If you can't be arsed though, Tales of Maj'Eyal
has convenient hotkeys, but it's playable with just a mouse.

Honestly though, I play all my roguelikes on my laptop, even if it's a bit of a pain sometimes.

I've been playing since before negative encumberance was introduced, used for a good while, and later taken out a long time back. I suppose I can understand the bloat issue in the sense of the aforementioned bids for the nutrition and dirty clothes mechanics, but honestly I do enjoy a lot of the other shit that's been added, even if the vibrators and fursuits are creepy.

Show me saying that, retard. There is a difference between condition A being possible and another, not exclusive condition B being also possible.
That there are actions that last more than one turn, like eating or learning spells from books in ADoM, doesn't mean you also are physically able to do 60 different things in the interval of one second in a completely different game.

Do you also like that if you have picked all skill levels available for your character, then you can't get any more experience levels (meaning no more stat upgrades)? With the expansion the Realm of Diggle Gods (or something) you have more than 10 floors from the base game to descend to the bottom of dungeon, giving you far more experience on the way. I had 7 unused character level-up points with my crossbow wielding character when I have beat Dredmor with him. In pic related I had also maxed Tinkerer (for crafting bolts) and Big Game Hunter (for better accuracy).

Dredmor can be played with WSAD for movement.

Benoit was murdered and framed for the double murder.

Oh, my ID is different now. I was c0809c.

git gud

can we all agree that those fucking krauts in Berlin are niggerfaggots and need to fucking kill themselves

I have the gear and did fine for the most part. Then I get to the boss and the bitch 2 shots me. I was a tad upset.

Uh, user, I have some bad news for you…

I strongly advise doing some grinding before taking on the bosses

Anyone wanna help make a roguelike chart? I have an afternoon to waste in photoshop.

telnet eotl.org 2010

MUDs are the last bastion, anons. This MUD has been running since 1989, and still has new content being added.

i miss muds, but they're not roguelikes.
i wonder how hard it would be to port an old mud source to use ssh instead of telnet.

this mud is roguelike. since it's heavily modeled after the most famous roguelike: nethack. anyway as i mentioned it's the longest continuously running MUD in history, and it gets constant updates and fresh content.

i've been playing EOTL since 1993 and i still don't know the entire place.

Anyone else play Caves of Qud? I've been binging it pretty hard the past couple of days. Adequately difficult, pretty content rich already, nice artstyle, pretty unique setting and the mutation mechanics are great. I hope they give True Kins another look at some point though, they don't really have a lot going for them. Why would anyone completely ditch one of the biggest mechanics of the game for better starting stats/equipment and increased skill point gain?

that part is actually pretty easy:

auth required pam_listfile.so item=user sense=deny file=/etc/pam.d/login.deny onerr=succeed
#!/bin/ash/usr/bin/noexec -L /usr/lib -l libnoexec.so telnet 127.0.0.1 23exit 0

I played the old version years ago, but I don't know how it's changed since. Was pretty fun though, with a shitton to explore.

I agree that there's not much going for the pure humans; they can get cybernetics in one of the dungeons, but I've never gotten one even remotely that far before dying.

I would but I've only played df, stone soup and ivan

Why bother with the snow when you can use a magaqua?

anybody got any tips for dungeoneering in Elona+ ? shits frustrating

Just found it and will start today.
Any help/suggestions?

Try lower level dungeons first. Food and potions are your friends, and teleportation scrolls are pretty useful.

That's enough for a start. But we'll need a lot more for a proper reference sheet. I'll update once I get a proper canvas going.

If you're new to the game, make sure you have party members with you.
Teleportation scrolls/wands are great for avoiding death.
Carry some food that doesnt go bad like eggs.
Of course, if you've no good gear try dungeons of lower levels than you

True Kin sword & board fighter is probably the easiest way to play as usual. But with mutated humans you can even turn a generic melee fighter into something interesting, so pick whatever you feel like, really. Do the quests you get in the starting village first before you venture too far. Close doors behind you if you're gonna open the chests, so no one can see you stealing their shit (the merchant doesn't care if you plunder his chest while he can see you for some reason). Some named NPCs sell a bunch of vinewafers: Buy them, they're cheap and will keep you sustained for a while. I would also suggest learning butchery at some point if you want a steady income of food (harvesting is also an option but I found butchery to be more useful).
And last but not least, try getting a short bow and some wooden arrows for the early game, even if you don't care about building a ranged character. There's some particularly nasty enemies that will ruin you with bleeding procs.

Or just press F1 for a handy introduction to get you on your way.

I'm a filthy casual who only playes DoomRL and tales of maj'eyal

alright thanks i'll try to stock up on scrolls before i go into any dungeon

They're both good games and still fall within the roguelike genre, so no shame in that.

Dimensional step at character creation is godly, the little girl is the best intro pet because she can equip gear, you might have to dig through walls to reach the stairs down, keep fire/coldproof blankets to protect your items, acidproof and fireproof your important gear, use blessed potions of restore mind/body for a near-permanent stat buff, and above all always be willing to run from a fight.

Hoo boy, if we're talking a list of roguelikes, then off the top of my head:
Rogue
Nethack
ADoM
Angband
DCSS (newer versions are shit)
CDDA
Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King
Caves of Qud
Elona+

The guy who made DoomRL also made a shitton of other rudimentary RLs of games like Castlevania, Diablo, Mega Man, Alien, etc.

Has that been updated recently, at all?

So far only covered Rogue and Nethack. Trying to cover the major rogues, mainly using roguebasin as a source. If you anons could give me a useful, short description of the games that'll help a lot. There will also be a honorable mentions section for lesser known roguelikes.

...

rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/the-codex-of-roguelikes.71097/
Maybe this can be of some aid?

Christ, Holla Forums is finnicky with post deletion. Third time's the charm I guess.

What listed for major roguelikes + ToME4 and Infra Arcana
Formerly known as Tales of Middle Earth. A newschool roguelike with a heavy emphasis on combat and class-based character building. Not everyone's cup of tea, but there is no denying it's a very feature and content rich roguelike with an active community. Very beginner friendly.
An exploration-based roguelike that takes a lot of inspiration from H.P. Lovecraft and Horror B-movies, mixes classic roguelike gameplay with a horror twist through sanity management. Uses a tileset with an ASCII feel.

This is proving a big task for me (only finished like 4 games by now), I'll continue work on the Roguelike sheet first thing tomorrow morning. Thanks to >>13004904 anons for greatly helping me out.

Nope, and there's still bugs here and there, but it's still a pretty good game.

Main bug I can think of is that worshipping Kysul prevents you from going below a certain depth, when that's only supposed to happen if he's angry with you, if I remember correctly. Still, you can wizard mode past it.

Nethack is an oldie but still pretty good. Featuring a class, race, and alignment system, it's basically an expansion on Rogue in every way, and has become famous for how the developers programmed outcomes for even the most unexpected of internal interactions. It's become more or less the standard against which many roguelikes are measured.

ADoM is notable for having an overworld with a variety of dungeons and peaceful settlements, as well as a rudimentary mission system (some of which are thoroughly infamous). Its setting and effective game mechanics would become the foundation of similar games later on, such as Elona.

Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup is a newer roguelike split off of the earlier Dungeon Crawl that was originally an attempt to create a "fair" roguelike that was difficult yet ensured that a clever and prepared player would only ever fail by their own mistakes. While it met with decent success and popularity, later updates have regularly been criticized for bloating and oversimplifying the game.

Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead was a newer attempt at a post-apocalyptic roguelike largely based off the earlier game Cataclysm. It features an infinitely-generating overworld set in a modern New England that has been consumed by a zombie apocalypse, where the player's main goal is to eke out survival. Popular for the setting and surprisingly detailed game mechanics, lately its updates have come under fire for bloating the game or promoting individual coders' unwanted pet projects.

Incursion: Halls of the Goblin King is a partially-complete single-dungeon roguelike that has since been abandoned by its creator, but nonetheless enjoys decent popularity among those who know of it. Heavily based on D&D 3.5, it nonetheless makes a number of adjustments to various mechanics and effects in order to ease the existing flaws of D&D 3.5 and ensure that all skills can be useful to the player.

I can't speak to the modern form of Caves of Qud, so I'll leave that to someone else.

Elona (and the fan expansion Elona+) is a japanese sandbox roguelike largely based on the mechanics of ADoM, but with a powerful emphasis on the things that a player can do and ways the game can be played. Featuring anything from dungeon crawling to running a museum to genetic experimentation on pets to exploring the user-generated realms of moongates, Elona's strongest point is certainly the sheer quantity of content that it has to offer.

Did the Cataclysm DDA devs ever figure out what the fuck they wanted to do with the game?
I kept checking on the game over several years and the latest "stable" release was forever 0.C.

They're still updating it regularly, you can download the latest experimentals on the sidebar.

They're just lazy about getting all the new stuff together and ironed out into a new stable.

So eternal feature creep without systems balance. And in some cases adding systems imbalance.
They never change.

Is there anything that's as easy to get into as DCSS but actually good?

brogue

Where my POWDERbros at?

Brogue is too minimalistic for me, mechanics wise.

hmm, well then, I have no clue. The Ground Gives Way?

Do you have anything similar to DCSS's god mechanics? I really enjoyed those.

Ah sorry, I'm not that familiar DCSS's mechanics. I do have the game, and I did play it little bit, but for some reason I never continued to play it more. Perhaps some other user can recommend you something

Elona

In most roguelikes, gods just give you passives instead of a lot of active abilities like DCSS.

Incursion and Elona do feature god gifts, though not to the extent of DCSS.

What's it like being 16?

listening to 90's and early 2000 bands is tolerable from time to time in my book.

I ve evolved to superior tastes though

I hear Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead is pretty good, how is it?

any tips for dreadmore, I usually pick up the rogue skills and then level with Rogue, Archeology, Artful Dodger to Knight Jump and then max tinkering and then start making bolts.

My skills are usually:

One time it was due to the stairs being across a massive swamp and I had nothing to levitate with. I knew I was fucked when I saw no enemies on the map yet. I take 4 steps into the bog.
Little did that asshole know I had a beefed up greatsword and smashed that cunt into oblivion. Fuck bog monsters. I took another step and it happened again.
This shit kept happening. And before I knew it, I was surrounded by 7 fucking bog monsters. There was nothing left for me to use to get out of this situation. I was swarmed and killed like a bitch.

The other floor 20 death really pissed me off. I had a highly upgraded plate mail and great sword. A awareness ring and a good regen ring. I then run into a reverent who's immune to all damage except magical. I didn't want him to follow me into the next floor so I had to deal with him on that spot. After searching around for a while I found a net trap. I activated it with a dart while I was on the edge. I underestimated the range of the trap and got myself trapped in a net. Then another reverent came and mauled me to death. I was salty to say the least.

Can get a copy of Shiren for the DS. Is it worth it? I'd been skirting the game for years and am getting back into gaming on handheld.

I also tried it years ago for the first time and now picked it from summer sale. The water/food/torch consumption seems slower thus less tedious to manage than before. Not to mention everything else that is less noticeable. Dev seems to update it almost every week.

Also, autoexplore does not kill you right away, but stops when enemy is noticed. It's quite similar to DCSS now.

Which roguelikes have the most ridiculous possibilities for crazy characters to play as? I heard Caves of Qud or whatever having a ton of options for combat.

Why the need for Artful Dodger in the first place? With hundreds of self-crafted bolts and Rail Launcher you should be able to kill all critters before getting into the melee range with them. And Burglary has that short range teleport and Ninja Vanish already for emergencies. Big Game Hunter gives you cumulative +16 to your accuracy (or to enemy dodge reduction, if you prefer it that way). Not to mention lots of grilled steaks (you know that you can turn any other steaks into grilled, right?) as healing items.

You should keep a reserve of Concussion Bombs with you, not only for combat to push enemies away from you, but also to move portcullis, vending machines and so on out of the way to get into places like Diggle Listening Posts or prison rooms. Some means to remove walls would be also handy. Some monster zoo designs have walled off parts you have to blast your way in to complete.

If you are short on lockpicks to open chests, you can save some more of them by kicking locked doors down (you drop lockpicks to the floor, then try to open the the door).

Always put your Tinkerer's Googles on before crafting crossbow bolts. That extra +1 to Tinkerer skill gives you more of them.

Turn any unusable trash you find (like offal, or iron weapons if you aren't a smith) into lutefisk with Horadric Cube then offer it to Lutefisk God in his shrines for extra artifacts.

Fairly certain DCSS is getting heat for the exact opposite; that is, needlessly cutting features over the years. I heard someone mention they fucked with the pantheon real bad, though I haven't played it in 3 years or so myself, so I can't confirm any of that.

Caves of Qud has definitely been a high point for crazy character building in recent memory. You can do some really wild shit with Mutated Humans and mental mutations. There's also a constant focus on spending points to gain new mutations, while a physical mutation oriented build seems to be all about sticking to three or so mutations and upgrading them for the entire run.
I mean, just look at this list
cavesofqud.wikia.com/wiki/Mental_Mutations

*Goggles lol

As a crossbow character and tinkerer, encrust your favorite headgear with Head-Up Display for extra sight range and your crossbow with Gaudy Baubling for extra damage and occasional blinding of your targets.

Alright the first version is finished. I have yet to add the honorable mentions, maybe later. I'll smooth the image up later.

You can encrust your gear with the same coating several times for cumulative effects, but you risk destruction of your encrusted item if you overdo it. I think the blue icon with cracked star represents chances of said destruction, rising with every subsequent coat, so never let it get near 50, let alone 100.

add pixel dungeon.

DoomRL?
Also DCSS dev went full retard, instead of making new shit for his game he's been actively removing content while adding nothing.

What, why?

Fuck if I know, but that's what's been happening.
The only evidence is what my buddy told me and comments on reddit that go as far as two years back, if not more.

O ye and add Dungeons of Dredmor, it's at least worth a mention.

Further research shows that he's been deleting shit like mountain dwarves back in 2011.

They have been adding things like additional gods and races, but yeah, they've been removing spells that they deem too strong or redundant, they removed the entire stabbing skill and just folded it into stealth, and probably some other shit that I can't remember right now.

I called it oversimplification, but if that's inaccurate we can reword it to "excessive culling of mechanics" or something.

The next update will come out tomorrow. Caves of Qud, Pixel Dungeon, DoomRL and Unreal World will be next, after that I don't know.

propably a stupid question, but do rouge likes have to have those kinds of console-based graphics to count as an actual rougelike, or is it just a matter of making full graphics requires to much time that is better spent adding more content in most cases?

ToME focuses on permanent unlocks, unfortunately. Every roguelike that I have played was combat-heavy, so ToME is not an exception in that regard.

The game mechanics are generally what determine if something is a roguelike, rather than the graphical style.

Many of the roguelikes listed thus far have both console and tile variations.

Its a staple of the genre but its not a prerequisite.
Elona doesnt have a console mode at all for example.

Some roguelikes have isometric view ports. That doesn't make them any less roguelike in my opinion.

Also, Tales of Middle Earth is a completely different game from Tales of Maj'Eyal, despite being the previous project of darkgod before he got C&D'd by Tolkien's lawyers.

You can still download and play it today, even though he's prohibited from working on it anymore.

Also add hyperrogue

ToME is less focused on survival and exploration than most other roguelikes though. It's 100% about the combat in the sense that you're always building characters with huge skill trees, kinda like ARPGs but in a turn based sense. Also there's not a whole lot of randomness to it, the world map is always the same and dungeons always hold the same kind of enemies with some minor structural differences. Also, I never claimed Tales of Middle Earth was the same game because obviously it ceased development at some point, and darkgod instead started developing ToME which has evolved to be a very different beast over the years. If the C&D never happened we'd still be playing Tales of Middle Earth today.

I'm not a big fan of having to play through the game multiple times just to unlock every possible race and class option, but there's modules that unlock everything for you anyway, so it's not that huge of a deal.

The latest stable release removed:
Playable races: High Elves and Draconians
items: Wands of Healing, Haste, Teleport and Slow, all magical rods, Discs of storm, Beef Jerky and Pizza, The hat of the high council, the scimitar of flaming death and the dagger of chilly death
Enemies: Mottled Draconians, Draconian Zealots and Hill Giants
Spells: Delayed Fireball, Poisonous Cloud and Repel Missiles.

The version before that removed:
one floor of Slime and two floors of Lair (from 6 to 5 and 8 to 6 respectively)
Gods: Pakellas, as well as the ability to pray
Items: Dragon and Troll Hides, Magical Card Decks (Except those gifted by Nemelex), Sword of the Doom Knight, The Amulet of Cekugob, The mace Brilliance, Amulets of Dismissal, Rings of Sustain Abilities, Stones of Tremors, The "Evasion" weapon ego, The Akashic Records and artifact blowguns.
Enemies: Anubis guards, Boulder beetles, Chaos Champions, Griffons, Putrid Demonspawn, Salamander Stormcallers, Sheep, Wasps, Norris, Maud and Wiglaf.
Spells: Cure Poison, Haste and Warp Weapon.

This is all justified as modernization, streamlining and removing content that is tedious or "anti-fun"

*MOTTLED Draconians, other Draconian variants are still playable in the latest release.

For your melee weapon it's either just Mounted Flashlight or Razored Chain. Bonuses of both (even more sight range or more crit chance) synergize well with a crossbow combat.

If the ASCII gfx are a problem for you you could try Neo Scavenger. Fun roguelike with decent graphics and a interesting story.

What the actual fuck.

I've been out of the loop on DCSS for a while but jesus fucking christ the game is doomed. I never realized that it had gotten this bad.

In comparison, the latest version added…
Playable races: Barachim
Items: Scarves, Lightning Rod, Wands of Cloud and Scattershot and Maxwell's thermic engine
Spells: Poisonous Vapours and Ingition

Version before that added:
Gods: Uskayaw and Hepliaklqana
Areas: A portal to a new mini-dungeon, a salt dimension
Enemies: Bai Suzhen, Meliai, Dream Sheep, Saltlings, Peacekeepers, Servant of Whispers, Ragged Hierophant, Imperial myrmidon and Halazid Warlock

Most of the updates consist of minor tweaks or quality of life changes (Clarity now provides immunity to sleep and fear, Qazlal providing immunity to all clouds, Jewellery acquirement giving artefacts twice as often) as well as stuff that's considered removing flavour and fun or making it casual (exiting flight over deep water/lava no longer instantly kills, existing features being merged like the dagger of chilly death and scimitar of flaming death being replaced by the thermic engine which is a double sword with both freezing and burning brand.)

...

You've got to know you're going full autistic when you're removing the joke/meme enemies.

Just for fun, try an exploit build, the puffballs of inordinate destruction. Basically you can encrust a stack of throwables to ludicrous levels, never worry about the negatives because they aren't "equipped", and nevèr run out because new pickups are added to the stack.

Humans fighting other humans with swords is the goal of dcss development.

I'm glad that I asked, It never occured to me that I don't actually need artful dodger at all when you have tinkering and burglary. Nor did I realize that you can move those ironbars with concussion grenades, I always thought they were indestructable thanks to my regular dynamite not working.

Thanks for the advice guys.

Maybe you could replace Artful Dodger with Assassination? I never tried playing around with that skill. Does it also work with ranged weapons?

If you specialize in crossbows or unarmed combat, you can wield two shields, tomes or orbs in both hands and still not lose your offensive capability.

There are some shop layouts with their rear part blocked by the demonic shopkeeper. If you want to check what's there, the easiest way is to pick up any offered item to make him move out of the way to the shop entrance, then drop the item back in place when you are done.

And any knockback attack skills (from unarmed or polearms, for example) also can push away those iron bars, assuming there is empty space behind them.

I always forget how techniggers steal your weapons when you get in range

Might as well put dwarf fortress at the end seeing as its the least like a roguelike.

That's bullshit. Draconians are my favourite race.

CotW is still pretty fun… It does seem to hit the "Ascension kit" difficulty curve though.

RtD is a really clean experience- learning the game is serious. Shame the full version is still gated like it is…

What makes LAD special?

I played on vita and if that's the same as the ds version, I'd say definitely assuming you like mystery dungeon games.

DUNGEON CRAWL STONE SOUP Holla Forums COMMUNITY VERSION FUCKING WHEN BRING BACK HILL DWARVES

really I think ToME should be called an ARPG/roguelike hybrid instead of a roguelike

How the fuck do you win with anything but a wack-ass mental mutant?

Where I will now be residing.

Compile this and you will get your dwarves.
github.com/tmhedberg/dcss-ehe

That kid gets shot in the face doesn't he?

Guys, I think I just found a bug in Dredmor.
I think I just underflowed the crit chance value and it made my crit chance 100% again.

ftl is a pretty fun game except dice rolls do nothing for the genre

Why do you desire destruction?

youre in the roguelike thread pal! what do you expect?

What's a good way to get equipment with strong resists in Elona+? Ive finished act 1 and got some good static artefacts, but my pets don't have as much resists as I do. Should I invest in Black market vendors or maybe look for good equipment on adventurers?

anyone got a link to the latest elona+ release plus translation?

Yeah like a pure caster wasn't balls-hard enough

I have a couple black market vendors with like 500 levels each (you probably don't need that much to start but I'd say at least 200.)
Every time they reset stock you can check their inventory and hit z, which gives you a quick summary of all the resists each item has.
Bear in mind this won't display status immunities, so be sure to check interesting pieces manually.

when do we get a fork of DCSS that goes back on some of the insane changes they've made over the years while keeping the good ones (like the revamped training system that removed skill dancing)

FUCKING GAY AS SHIT MAN

What ever happened to the CDDA fork we were working on?

Buddy you don't even gotta fuck with temporary shit like that. Just get you a ranch deed, build up your cooking and anatomy, and serve up some resistance a la steak.

Would NeoScavenger be considered a rouge-like?

ToME is absolutely luck-based at times, for the simple fact that unique enemies exist in the game. Uniques, for anyone not aware, are normal dungeon enemies who have been given class skills and stats that match their level, while also possessing any qualities that the base monster had. This mean that sometimes your build counters the unique and you get a nice XP bump, and sometimes it's literally impossible for your character to do anything to deal with them but run - something you usually find out after your death.

in every place but vaults and other optional stuff and the final dungeon of the main campaign, randomly-generated boss and unique enemies simply dont exist unless you play on insane
you can just avoid the vaults and the gold chests and doom pillars if you don't wanna fight an oozemancer+doomed or cursed+sawbutcher randboss, and in high peak you should be able to take em on by then because you're at least level 42 by then unless you're a skeleton, at which point your build should've gotten going already
and even if the star guardians in high peak are too much for you you can just lure them away from the stairs then run up the stairs; enemies never follow you to other levels

well actually you were probably talking about rares, rares are like uniques and randboss enemies, but instead of two player classes applied to them, they have 1 player class applied to them, and they also have less hp than uniques and randbosses

rares can be pretty dangerous yeah, but in the earlygame at least there might be a tentacled totem or a mindblast torque to help you kill them before your build gets somewhere

rares keep the game from being a snoozefest, and lategame the only dangerous ones are retarded rares like an eternal bone giant bulwark who you can't kill unless your offense has gotten going or the much, much, worse blade horror archer who kills you in 1 turn

The new system makes hybrid characters optimal and easy to play. The earlier system made training a hybrid magic/melee difficult to get off the ground so characters were more unique and less "medium armor, level 1-5 spells, weapon skills, dodge+armor, high HP" clones.
The previous system also made sense in that when you used something you got better at the related skill only; an Ogre character smashing things with a giant club shouldn't quickly increase his skill with necromancy or magical items.

...

Nothing like getting raped to death at level 3 by a snake with gunner skills.

...

I love CotW, hell it's what introduced me to the genre, but it's a fucking 16-bit windows app so I can't fucking play it.

Is POWDER actually good? I remember playing it once or twice when trying out PSP homebrew, but it seemed way too simple for me.

Yeah, its not as advanced, but in general its okay.

The project died because:
a) it was shuffled off to a different board with less traffic in order to "not clutter the roguelike threads" or some dumb shit.
b) we couldn't get enough programmers interested in the project, partially because it was on a dead board.
if we were to give it another shot (and it were to stay here where it would remain visible and possibly pull in more contributors) I think we could actually make something of it.

This is one of the big problems with 8/v/ - "stop cluttering up our screaming fits and shit-slinging with your content."

Yeah, and he survives

Believe me if I knew how to I'd have modded the hell out of stone soup by now

I think Infra Arcana needs a spot on that chart. Personally, I find it to be one of the best modern roguelikes. Also, it recently updated to v19.0, so there's a good amount of new features/mechanics:
sites.google.com/site/infraarcana/home

It's profoundly meh.

Far too simplistic in general, I'd say.

Pixel Dungeon is more of a puzzle game pretending to be a roguelike, sort of like DRoD is to dungeon crawlers, or Massive Assault to strategy games. The solution set to any given level is very restricted, so most of the challenge comes from figuring that out.