Let's Play: Exhibitor the kobold Rogue

[debo]

bad + ass = woot!!!

[getter77]

Definitely great stuff....though the end of the endgame seems like it should have more pomp to it---maybe some sort of spiffy screen at the least.

[fizzix]

Definitely great stuff....though the end of the endgame seems like it should have more pomp to it---maybe some sort of spiffy screen at the least.

I can do an epilogue video showing the endgame screen post-retirement. It would only be about 2-3 minutes long.

[getter77]

Cool. Though even in a deeper sense a fadeout to "a screen of some interesting sort with the choice to retire to continue deeper until ???" would seem more thematically appropriate than it all just amounting to a bit more pip on the message history log.

I'd suppose the deeper floors consist of just whatever unkilled uniques are left in the game and otherwise just foes and drops on the same level as the Morgoth level?

[Derakon]

I'd suppose the deeper floors consist of just whatever unkilled uniques are left in the game and otherwise just foes and drops on the same level as the Morgoth level?

Loot does increase in quality (to the extent possible), but yeah, there's no new enemies or special dungeon features or the like.

[Malak Darkhunter]

great run fizzix!

[PowerWyrm]

Loot does increase in quality (to the extent possible), but yeah, there's no new enemies or special dungeon features or the like.

RFE anyone?

I never really understood the point of the dlvls 101-127... What would be nice is an optional battle at dlvl 127 with Melkor, which would be even harder than the battle at 5k: say you vanquished Morgoth at 5k, but that was only his physical form -- now it's time to get rid of his spiritual form forever!

[Malak Darkhunter]

RFE anyone?

I never really understood the point of the dlvls 101-127... What would be nice is an optional battle at dlvl 127 with Melkor, which would be even harder than the battle at 5k: say you vanquished Morgoth at 5k, but that was only his physical form -- now it's time to get rid of his spiritual form forever!

I like this idea a lot.

[getter77]

RFE anyone?

I never really understood the point of the dlvls 101-127... What would be nice is an optional battle at dlvl 127 with Melkor, which would be even harder than the battle at 5k: say you vanquished Morgoth at 5k, but that was only his physical form -- now it's time to get rid of his spiritual form forever!

Another vote digging this and or other nifty bits along those lines---as it stands it is just anti-climatic instead of cathartic.

Another alternative could be a "fun times" level populated solely by every Unique in the game slain or otherwise.

[Patashu]

But if you introduce something harder than Morgoth won't the goal of the game morph into 'Beat Melkor or you're not done yet' over time?

My suggestion would be to have floor 127 spawn insanely good loot (INSANELY) and insane masses of monsters. Something to 1) get overpowered with 2) enjoy being overpowered on.

[Derakon]

I'm inclined to agree with Patashu. If you want a further challenge after beating Morgoth, it needs to be something other than a True Final Boss, because otherwise it's just changing the goalposts (and increasing an already-long game by another 27 levels).

My personal inclination would be that if you want more postgame, it should take the form of an "endless mode" to complement the "campaign mode" of the main game. Then your "score" is determined by how long you can survive / how many kills you can rack up against increasingly unfair odds.

* When you reach level 127, Recall / Alter Reality / stairs don't work. You're locked onto the level.
* All uniques (except Morgoth/Sauron?) are revived and no longer considered to be unique.
* Every N turns, new monsters are spawned.
* Every M turns, all monsters are healed/hasted/etc.
* Every P turns, the effective dungeon level for summons, loot, etc. is increased by 1.
* Every Q turns, the walls around the player are replaced with open floor.

Each of these events would happen more frequently as time passed. Eventually even the tankiest priest would run out of healing while trying to face down Huan, Charcharoth, and their twin brothers...

[getter77]

Ehh...somehow that twangs my Portralis sense of danger in terms of an inexorable march towards Math overload. Except for the, "hey, no more town trips for you and stair gimmicks" part---that's good for a renewed sense of tension that, for a good many that reached and beat Morgoth I'd reckon, has been missing for a good while.

It feels like Legacy could be a good attribute to build around---perhaps some mechanism to intuitively create an Artifact of The Character In Question that could then have a chance of showing up for future adventurers? Not necessarily how Sil does it, though like most things you could do lots worse than simply stealing wholesale from Sil, but perhaps something of a Rolled Artifact where you can fiddle with it to some degree, and what there is to fiddle with can vary quite a bit, but not omnipotently so?

It just feels like so much has went into the outset and onward into and of the game yet the ending phase left wanting for the same level of thought and closure...perhaps on account of a great many people starting the game and trudging a fair ways but comparatively few actually beating it.

[fizzix]

It just feels like so much has went into the outset and onward into and of the game yet the ending phase left wanting for the same level of thought and closure...perhaps on account of a great many people starting the game and trudging a fair ways but comparatively few actually beating it.

To me, angband has always been a game about the journey rather than the destination. It's partly why I'd prefer to find and gain the downstairs on my own when descending even though it's not the most efficient way to descend. I've never felt the end was anti-climactic and personally I don't care too much for the Derakon-style post-game play. But, its existence wouldn't really bug me either.

If anything, I'd prefer the Morgoth battle to differ somehow between games. It's the most formulaic of battles. He always comes back to find you, and you're always fighting in chewed up terrain.

[getter77]

Hmm, for that matter, was the whole "floors past Morgoth" thing there from the onset and/or Moria days or is it a more recent, relatively, inclusion? I was fully expecting some sort of ADOM'ish victory screen upon returning to town after seeing the Morgoth kill on video here, or failing that a "something" more than just the "well, there's 20'ish more floors but nothing interesting really" description that kinda deflated the rising sense of "oh wow, what could it be from here?!"---so for me that could be the core of the feeling of it being anti-climatic.

[Derakon]

Floor 127 existed in 2.4 frog-knows, so it's been there for all of Angband's history. I don't know about Moria, but my guess is that if it had extra levels past level 50 (where the Balrog lurked) they probably stopped at 63.

The game's ending has always had basically zero ceremony. You win, congrats, now you commit suicide.