How difficult are Nethack and Crawl?

Question

Looking through a list of roguelikes to sink my teeth into I've narrowed down my choices to Nethack and Crawl. The problem is that I'm not experienced with roguelikes so I don't know what to expect in terms of difficulty, and I want to choose the one that is easier to get into and beat.

So how steep are Nethack and Crawl's learning curves? Is one game more feasible to beat than the other, starting as a beginner? I'm more concerned about learning game mechanics than the UI.

What I've heard so far about differences between the two:

• Crawl is less in-depth so the different ways to die are less surprising. Yet Another Stupid Death originated from Nethack, so I fear for my wellbeing.

• A death in Nethack is usually because of stupidity and not bad luck. Crawl's random number generator can turn a sheep into a killing machine, meaning I may need both luck and experience.

If any of the two points above are incorrect please say so.

Answer 1

Crawl Stone Soup is generally regarded to be harder than Nethack. The resistances are harder to acquire (eating corpses won't grant them) and, although each level is much larger than Nethack's, monster regeneration is much slower — once you've killed all that there was to kill, the level will remain mostly empty for a long while and you'll have to move on.

Crawl, however, is much more "ergonomic", with all kinds of fancy features like autoexplore or "search for items matching this regexp". It also features a richer religion system, a richer randart system, more interesting (and dangerous) dungeon features, a superior tiled interface and a tutorial. It features less complex item interaction, however: no dipping or scratching or applying or wiping; only wearable items can be cursed (IIRC) and there's no "blessed" status at all; throwing potions at monsters is ineffective; etc.

If you want to give Crawl a try, go for a Spriggan Enchanter, train stabbing and stealth and learn Ensorcelled hibernation and Confusion. That's good enough to explore a few branches of the dungeons — once you realize you heave really few hitpoints and they ain't regenerating quickly either (I mean, you're no troll).

Answer 2

I prefer crawl over Nethack, but this is mostly based off of personal preference. Still, my reasons for liking crawl are as follows:

1. Crawl gives more prominence to race than to class(Which I prefer).
2. You gain skills through usage, which I find to be more naturalistic.
3. The Dungeon Levels are larger and make use of more varied structures.
4. The game is not a troll. I've died a lot on Nethack because of stupidity.

The interfaces between the two roguelikes are somewhat different, but it is easy to transfer between the two if you're familiar with one of them.

Having said that, I would still recommend Nethack to more inexperienced players, and here's why:

1. Scumming. Nethack has a much higher tolerance for monster farming, where you stay on the upper levels and just kill and kill and kill. Doing this is a great way to get familiar with the game, and so I recommend it to newbies. At the same time, this feature in Nethack detracts a bit from the game once you've gotten experience. But once you've gotten a good handle on Nethack, you'll find that Crawl Stone Soup offers its own charms.

Good Luck. :D

Answer 3

Going back to your original question, I agree with Jason Berkan; both games are steep learning curves. Nethack is a harder game but I would recommend it temporarily to a beginner. This is because you can treat the early levels as being very simple. This would prepare you for other for other roguelikes which have more complex UI. Unlike in crawl's early game there will be relatively few commands to worry about. When you've spent about 4 hours on Nethack you would enjoy the Charms of Crawl.