New pit types

[Netbrian]

Mimics and creeping coins now wait until you try to interact with them in some way before they attack you.

It seems like it'd work best to add way for a player entering a room to automatically wake up and annoy all monsters in that room, to help deal with this kind of case.

Or give mimics and coins the ability to rouse their friends?

[Magnate]

It seems like it'd work best to add way for a player entering a room to automatically wake up and annoy all monsters in that room, to help deal with this kind of case.

Or give mimics and coins the ability to rouse their friends?

Trying to pin down precisely what the problem is here: that @ will hack through the mimic pit one baddie at a time?

Perhaps the simplest solution is to allow mimics to follow normal "waking up" rules, albeit with low alertness. So in sparsely-populated areas, they should normally not wake up until @ attempts to pick them up, but in pits they'd wake up when @ started fighting their neighbours ...

[Derakon]

Keep in mind that monsters in pits and nests are automatically awake.

[Nomad]

Trying to pin down precisely what the problem is here: that @ will hack through the mimic pit one baddie at a time?

Based on my test game, I'm not sure it's a huge problem, honestly; it's a relatively early nest, and bear in mind that the item mimics can both confuse and summon monsters. Adding the creeping coins might have made it a bit easier to clear, since they don't do either, but then again they all hit to poison and most players aren't going to have that resist at dlevel 30.

[CunningGabe]

Alright, we'll see what others think. Even when mimics are awake, they sit there until you walk right into them (or throw something at them, etc.) Maybe I should change them so that they start attacking when you move adjacent to them.

[jens]

Alright, we'll see what others think. Even when mimics are awake, they sit there until you walk right into them (or throw something at them, etc.) Maybe I should change them so that they start attacking when you move adjacent to them.

I suggest you don't change the mimics based on there now being a mimic pit. I feel it's more important that the mimics are as good as possible (i.e interesting), than making the pit work. If you want to change the mimics because it turns out that it would make them better, or that it does not matter, then go ahead. If the pit does not work with the mimics you end up with, then the pit should go.

[Magnate]

I suggest you don't change the mimics based on there now being a mimic pit. I feel it's more important that the mimics are as good as possible (i.e interesting), than making the pit work. If you want to change the mimics because it turns out that it would make them better, or that it does not matter, then go ahead. If the pit does not work with the mimics you end up with, then the pit should go.

I agree with this sentiment. A "treasure pit" full of mimics is a nice idea, but if it messes up the excellent work on mimics, let's leave it.

[buzzkill]

Can't we just stuff a few shrieker mushroom patches in there?

[Derakon]

Why would the player ever want to try to take on a pit of 95 hasted stationary spellcasters?

[buzzkill]

Rogue-like players do stupid things all the time. It's part of the fun.

[camlost]

Why would the player ever want to try to take on a pit of 95 hasted stationary spellcasters?

For the T-Shirt?

There is a T-Shirt, right?

[Netbrian]

Why would the player ever want to try to take on a pit of 95 hasted stationary spellcasters?

Good point -- add some druj to the mimic/mushroom mix.

[Nomad]

Okay, I've now updated and tested these pits with the new 3.4 pit code, and they should be good for inclusion in the nightlies.

I've added a few more types: ants, archers (ranger types plus kobold archers and black orcs), thieves, and warriors. I also removed the mimic pits, since I decided they were ultimately too easy to clear, and tweaked the depths of a couple of others. There are now a total of 26 pits and 8 nests, distributed as follows:

DL 15 - ants, kobolds
DL 20 - jellies, spellcasters, creepy crawlies, minor demons
DL 25 - orcs, archers, naga, thieves, warriors
DL 30 - dark elves, eyes, ogres
DL 35 - believers
DL 40 - serpents, wizards
DL 45 - trolls, lesser undead
DL 50 - animals
DL 55 - hydra, vampires
DL 60 - angels
DL 65 - giants, golems
DL 80 - undead
DL 85 - dragons (acid/elec/ice/fire/poison/multi-hued/gold)
DL 105 - demons

If somebody could include these updated edit files in the nightlies for playtesting, feedback would be greatly appreciated!

[Timo Pietilä]

Okay, I've now updated and tested these pits with the new 3.4 pit code, and they should be good for inclusion in the nightlies.

I've added a few more types: ants, archers (ranger types plus kobold archers and black orcs), thieves, and warriors. I also removed the mimic pits, since I decided they were ultimately too easy to clear, and tweaked the depths of a couple of others. There are now a total of 26 pits and 8 nests, distributed as follows:

DL 15 - ants, kobolds
DL 20 - jellies, spellcasters, creepy crawlies, minor demons
DL 25 - orcs, archers, naga, thieves, warriors
DL 30 - dark elves, eyes, ogres
DL 35 - believers
DL 40 - serpents, wizards
DL 45 - trolls, lesser undead
DL 50 - animals
DL 55 - hydra, vampires
DL 60 - angels
DL 65 - giants, golems
DL 80 - undead
DL 85 - dragons (acid/elec/ice/fire/poison/multi-hued/gold)
DL 105 - demons

If somebody could include these updated edit files in the nightlies for playtesting, feedback would be greatly appreciated!

There is a one problem with more pit types. It is the same as with more vault types: IE you are not going to get any more pits than you used to.

That means for majority of the added pit types, unless they are more interesting than current selection you actually added a bit more boredom in the game.

I count at least ants, creepy crawlers, naga, eyes, serpents, lesser undeads, vampires and golems as boring ones which you don't want to see. Maybe hydra too. Current selection has only jelly pit as such. Remove those and rest of those added pits are welcome IMO.

Also if pit level is 105 then it appears after Morgoth? What's the point of having pit that appears that late? Angels are IMO way too shallow. Angels are one of the most dangerous species in the game, especially if there are Archons. Most of those are summoners with nasty selection of spells. Arguably they are more dangerous than Major Demons.

[Nomad]

Well, I think the goal with adding more pit types is to see more variety from game to game, rather than necessarily seeing them all in the same game; in fact, the main reason I tried to come up with a lot of different ones was so that you wouldn't see most of the types every single game like you do with the current sets. I personally think a pit full of naga is more interesting than a pit full of orcs, simply because I've seen orc and troll pits so often by now that half the time I can't be bothered to clear them even if I know it would be useful. So I hope that having more varied pits would encourage people to take them on just because they're new and different.

The pit depths are actually averages rather than minimums: the pits show up distributed around the average, and are most common within the ten levels to either side. So the current depth of 105 that demon pits have doesn't mean they start at 105, but rather ensures that it's rare for them to show up much shallower than level 90-ish. Similarly, you don't get many pits in the early levels, but setting kobolds and ants to an average depth of 15 ensures that they won't show up very often when you're past about level 25.

And you're probably right that angels are too shallow, but every time I posted the early revisions of this list people were complaining that I was making stuff too deep, so it's a bit of a pendulum swing. Easy enough to adjust, and the main reason I'd like to get these into the nightlies to get some feedback on depths from a decent number of playtesters instead of just me taking wild stabs at what seems about right.