Dungeon size: small

[PowerDiver]

I have a brand new beef with small levels. Destruction has been changed to remove stairs. That is a huge change. Come down, see time hounds, destruct, and perhaps there is no way off of the level any more.

IMO there needs to be a lower bound on the number of exits, and a bound on the minimum distance from one to another, and those bounds should be too high to allow for small levels.

[Derakon]

Wouldn't it be better to disallow destruction from removing stairs? That just seems to be asking for trouble in general, even if a single destruct couldn't remove every way off the level.

[Timo Pietilä]

Wouldn't it be better to disallow destruction from removing stairs?

That's obvious to me. Stairs should be unaffected. I was surprised to hear that this is not the case.

[buzzkill]

I don't really give a wit if stairs are removed by destruction or not so long as there is still a way off of the level. In fact, I believe that destruction destroying stairs adds a bit more flavor than stairs being indestructible.

I'd go after this by adding a *trap door* (a pit, a crevice, a hole to the next level deeper that cannot be disarmed) somewhere in the destructed zone, and not even worrying about it if an up staircases gets destroyed.

[Shockbolt]

Fun stuff would be to have dungeons levels every now and then that partially mimicked Moria, hallways with pillars, bridges, chasms and rooms that had breakable objects such as tables, chairs, chests, urns etc.

[Derakon]

I'd go after this by adding a *trap door* (a pit, a crevice, a hole to the next level deeper that cannot be disarmed) somewhere in the destructed zone, and not even worrying about it if an up staircases gets destroyed.

The difficulty there comes when you use destruction on dlvl 99 before killing Sauron, though otherwise I think it's a neat idea.

I guess in that situation you could just wait for Sauron to get respawned?

[EpicMan]

Fun stuff would be to have dungeons levels every now and then that partially mimicked Moria, hallways with pillars, bridges, chasms and rooms that had breakable objects such as tables, chairs, chests, urns etc.

I read this as Moria the game, and thought, "I don't remember anything like that..."

[Magnate]

The difficulty there comes when you use destruction on dlvl 99 before killing Sauron, though otherwise I think it's a neat idea.

I guess in that situation you could just wait for Sauron to get respawned?

And you would special-case the trapdoor creation code not to create it if dlev == 99 and Sauron.max_num > 0.

I really like this idea - but I don't think *destruct* should automatically create a trapdoor - only if one or more staircases are destroyed.

[Shockbolt]

I read this as Moria the game, and thought, "I don't remember anything like that..."

Moria as depicted in various books and the lotro movies

[buzzkill]

I really like this idea - but I don't think *destruct* should automatically create a trapdoor - only if one or more staircases are destroyed.

Yeah, that's what I was after, only if a (down) staircase was destroyed, and maybe special case it for preserving up staircases on DL99/DL100 (per Derakon), or spawning an up staircase elsewhere. I don't mind the player without TL or WoR being able to flee the final battles if he is hopelessly outmatched, though it seems like a fringe case that could garner a "meh, who cares".

EDIT: Boy, this thread is moving fast.

[Derakon]

And you would special-case the trapdoor creation code not to create it if dlev == 99 and Sauron.max_num > 0.

Right, my concern was more that Destruction could trap you on dlvl 99 by destroying the up staircases. It's such an extreme edge case that I don't know if it's worth worrying about, given that Sauron should respawn pretty quickly if he gets knocked off, right?

[Magnate]

Right, my concern was more that Destruction could trap you on dlvl 99 by destroying the up staircases. It's such an extreme edge case that I don't know if it's worth worrying about, given that Sauron should respawn pretty quickly if he gets knocked off, right?

Oh I see. Well wouldn't you just recall if that happened? (It doesn't apply to ironmen, since they don't get up staircases anyway.)

[Derakon]

Yeah, hence why it's such an edge case: you'd have to be bereft of WoR in a non-ironman game.

Guess I'm just a worrywart.

[PowerDiver]

Wouldn't it be better to disallow destruction from removing stairs?

That's how it used to be, but it has changed. I understand the point of the change, although I don't know how I feel about it yet. I only noticed the change yesterday.

[fph]

It doesn't apply to ironmen, since they don't get up staircases anyway.

OTOH, unless I am overlooking something, a couple of destructions in the wrong place can get an ironman character stuck forever in a level. I would think twice before starting an ironman character in the new versions.

If we do want to keep this destruction-removes-stairs patch, another possible solution is allowing tunnelling through the floor to leave the level, like in Nethack.
OTOH, this leads to other potentially unbalanced side-effects: for instance, divers would no longer need to wander around a level to find a staircase down.