[Sil] Do you clear levels?

[BlueFish]

If forges are infinitely common, you can smith artifacts to go in all your slots after building a perfect set of forging gear. If they're rare, you have to decide how far to press your luck and prioritize your slots.

I suppose so. But it would be easy enough not to make them too common.

[taptap]

I suppose so. But it would be easy enough not to make them too common.

20% base probability for a forge = "unlimited" forges at 950 ft. if you scum. Doesn't affect you so much, but would be an awful change outside more or less ironman style play.

[Derakon]

20% base probability for a forge = "unlimited" forges at 950 ft. if you scum. Doesn't affect you so much, but would be an awful change outside more or less ironman style play.

Hacky solution: you can only find a forge on the first visit to a given depth. With 20% odds that means that on average you'd find 4 forges per game if you fully-explored each level on first visit.

[BlueFish]

20% base probability for a forge = "unlimited" forges at 950 ft. if you scum. Doesn't affect you so much, but would be an awful change outside more or less ironman style play.

Try a wizard mode game and dive to 950... wizard mode command to fully map level is "w". You'll find that the probability of a forge on 900-950 levels is already about 20%. At least that's what I found. If there was an additional 20% to add a forge to a forgeless level, then the probability of a forge would be 35%, which doesn't seem like a game breaker to me. It takes a while to explore those levels after all.

[BlueFish]

Hacky solution: you can only find a forge on the first visit to a given depth. With 20% odds that means that on average you'd find 4 forges per game if you fully-explored each level on first visit.

That wouldn't solve what I see as the fundamental problem, which is the artificial and frustration-inducing motivation to fully explore levels, which only smiths feel, of all character types.

[locus]

That wouldn't solve what I see as the fundamental problem, which is the artificial and frustration-inducing motivation to fully explore levels, which only smiths feel, of all character types.

Well, it would mean you'd only have to explore each depth once.

Is it just me or is 4 forges per game way to few?

[BlueFish]

Well, it would mean you'd only have to explore each depth once.

And if you get boxed in by rubble prior to finding a means of digging, or boxed in by chasms without leaping, or have part of the level cut off by swarming worms, or step onto a false floor, or just get chased off the level by monsters converging on your unfortunately central starting position, all of those situations would be more frustrating for a smith than for any other character, on a level that has some sort of situationally high % chance of a forced forge. Whether by Derakon's suggestion of it being the first time at that depth, or by the current method of close to 5000 turns since the last forge had been generated.

Is it just me or is 4 forges per game way to few?

I would say so, but the flat % chance of a forge that I'm suggesting is better termed as a flat % chance of a "forced" forge. There would always be the normal chance (whatever that may be) for a level to contain a random forge.

[BlueFish]

Try a wizard mode game and dive to 950... wizard mode command to fully map level is "w". You'll find that the probability of a forge on 900-950 levels is already about 20%. At least that's what I found. If there was an additional 20% to add a forge to a forgeless level, then the probability of a forge would be 35%, which doesn't seem like a game breaker to me. It takes a while to explore those levels after all.

I just did as much of a scientific experiment as my patience allows for, which is 50 levels, going between 900 and 950. 17 had forges (some more than 1), which is 34% of levels at that range. Note that probably zero of those were forced, since I was barely moving and wouldn't have triggered the current forced forge mechanic. Adding in a flat 20% forced forge mechanic to the 34% random forges and you'd go from 1/3 of deep levels with forges to 1/2.

If deep forges were found to be too common while shallow forges were found to be ok with a flat forced forge % mechanic, you could always modify the flat % to be based on depth, with lower depths having lower flat % for forced forges, to account for their much larger random forge chance. That would still be a memory-less system which would not motivate smiths to fully explore levels any more than any other character.

[BlueFish]

If forges are infinitely common, you can smith artifacts to go in all your slots after building a perfect set of forging gear. If they're rare, you have to decide how far to press your luck and prioritize your slots.

Just thinking out loud, but the thing about infinitely common forges basically turns Smithing into a "crafting" mechanic. Where if you have the raw materials and the skills, you can just do it. That would actually be easier to balance for than Sil's Smithing, since it removes an axis of randomness (that of finding forges). Not that it'd be more fun. Axes of randomness are fun.

But Smithing might be interesting to think about from that perspective, just for a touchstone for balance, before you add that extra axis.

[wobbly]

Out of curiousity, what is the probability of a random forge? Say you miss the "guaranteed" forge for whatever reason what are the odds of getting another anyway with-in the next couple of levels?

[BlueFish]

Out of curiousity, what is the probability of a random forge? Say you miss the "guaranteed" forge for whatever reason what are the odds of getting another anyway with-in the next couple of levels?

Oh, wobbly. You don't know, and we don't know, and they don't know. Welcome to game design for complex games.

[locus]

Just thinking out loud, but the thing about infinitely common forges basically turns Smithing into a "crafting" mechanic. Where if you have the raw materials and the skills, you can just do it. That would actually be easier to balance for than Sil's Smithing, since it removes an axis of randomness (that of finding forges). Not that it'd be more fun. Axes of randomness are fun.

But Smithing might be interesting to think about from that perspective, just for a touchstone for balance, before you add that extra axis.

But the thing is there are no raw materials in the game except mithril! And if there were, you'd be replacing the randomness of finding forges with the randomness of finding raw materials, and it's not clear you make out.

[locus]

Oh, wobbly. You don't know, and we don't know, and they don't know. Welcome to game design for complex games.

You could do some experiments and get an estimate if you wanted.