All about chasms (1.2)

[Infinitum]

Random musing: would it be possible to make leaping chasms an evasion check (possibly with inventory/equipment weight as an added penalty)? It'd still allow for whatever of leaping using the +10 to check formula, and it would make for some organic Wile E. Coyote style falls in gameplay. Kind of make sense for lightly armored/emburdened/not dexteric characters to not be able to jump as far as consistently too.

[Psi]

11) There is no prompt for tumbling down chasms whilst confused (or blinded, supposedly)?

Similar to this, a shadow mold near a chasm means you can fall in without even knowing there is a chasm there... just happened to me.

[half]

Similar to this, a shadow mold near a chasm means you can fall in without even knowing there is a chasm there... just happened to me.

Yes, there is a prompt whenever you try to move to a square that is known to have a chasm.

[taptap]

Yes, there is a prompt whenever you try to move to a square that is known to have a chasm.

Oh... wait, I guess this will effect the no difficulty of the no light challenge a lot.

[BlueFish]

I'm sure there's a "flavor" motivation for chasms (maybe Tolkien mentioned them at some point) but the gameplay benefit of them escapes me. They can conflict with established game systems, forge generation especially, which assumes accessibility of generated forges.

Their gameplay effect, beyond giving a purpose to the new "leaping" skill by introducing an annoyance for players who don't take that skill, seems to be that they are an escape for monsters and player. I personally almost never use them as an emergency escape (since +100 feet, damage from falling, and no stair to retreat up is as dangerous as most situations you might want to escape from).

I think "leaping" should have no pre-requisites. (Currently Dodging is a prereq.) And Leaping should be a pre-requisite for Sprinting. I suspect people might actually take it in place of Dodging then, on their way to Sprinting. As it is, leaping is clearly of benefit to bypass chasms, but that's a minor and overly specific benefit when weighed against the cost of a skill. The ability to jump over false floors seems nearly irrelevant since if you know where the false floor is, you can generally just walk around it anyway.

[Derakon]

What if Leaping provided benefits regarding pits, or let you leap up out of chasms as well? The latter would of course require some system to let players recognize when the ceiling has a crack in it.

I don't know how Leaping works, but it might be helpful in combat to allow repositioning (e.g. if you get surrounded), albeit while suffering from attacks of opportunity. E.g. you try to leap over the orc in front of you; he gets a whack at you, but either way next turn you'll be on the other side of him.

[half]

Their gameplay effect, beyond giving a purpose to the new "leaping" skill by introducing an annoyance for players who don't take that skill, seems to be that they are an escape for monsters and player.

You can use them for much more than just as an escape.

I think "leaping" should have no pre-requisites. (Currently Dodging is a prereq.) And Leaping should be a pre-requisite for Sprinting. I suspect people might actually take it in place of Dodging then, on their way to Sprinting. As it is, leaping is clearly of benefit to bypass chasms, but that's a minor and overly specific benefit when weighed against the cost of a skill.

Ah, thanks for explaining your proposed solution. What do others think? Are people getting Leaping? Are they finding it worthwhile?

[debo]

Just out of curiosity, have you considered changing things so that leaping is just part of normal movement, instead of requiring an ability? It already has the "prereq" that you need to run up to chasm. In this case I guess you'd probably want to nerf the pit jumping part.

[Infinitum]

Eh, I'd rather see Leaping axed and chasms redone tbh. As it is they look kind of bland (the thin grey chasms isn't doing it for me - sorry), and don't add a lot to gameplay except as a frustration element (cordoning off parts of levels that may-or-may-not contain worthwile items). I never get Leaping since I already want 4+ Evasion abilities for all my combat chars, and it's just too situational. Making it a sprinting requisite would not really address the issue since sprinting is almost mandatory as is.

Again using Brogue as a comparison, it's chasms are in comparison visually spectacular (ie huge, often dominating the level they're in) and, more importantly, the level generation algorithm takes them into account so that no part of the level becomes unreachable because of them (even the bridges are added after that part, so that you can't randomly burn yourself out of content). They work better gameplay-wise as well since jumping down chasms is much less of a last-ditch effort with permanent levels.

I've a hard time seeing how this could be alleviated without redoing the level generating algorithm completely though - maybe have chasms only show up in pre-generated room templates for now?

[half]

Eh, I'd rather see Leaping axed and chasms redone tbh. As it is they look kind of bland (the thin grey chasms isn't doing it for me - sorry), and don't add a lot to gameplay except as a frustration element (cordoning off parts of levels that may-or-may-not contain worthwile items). I never get Leaping since I already want 4+ Evasion abilities for all my combat chars, and it's just too situational. Making it a sprinting requisite would not really address the issue since sprinting is almost mandatory as is.

Again using Brogue as a comparison, it's chasms are in comparison visually spectacular (ie huge, often dominating the level they're in) and, more importantly, the level generation algorithm takes them into account so that no part of the level becomes unreachable because of them (even the bridges are added after that part, so that you can't randomly burn yourself out of content). They work better gameplay-wise as well since jumping down chasms is much less of a last-ditch effort with permanent levels.

I've a hard time seeing how this could be alleviated without redoing the level generating algorithm completely though - maybe have chasms only show up in pre-generated room templates for now?

I sounds like we want completely different things from chasms. I don't like, or really understand the giant chasms in Brogue. I guess they are some kind of giant pit. It seems to be almost a misuse of the English word 'chasm'.

Regarding chasms in Sil, I *want* them to cut off valuable things occasionally, just as how I want the monsters to kill the player occasionally.

I think that Leaping as a pre-req for Sprinting is quite interesting and don't understand the argument against it. As I understand it, the suggestion is that Leaping would have no pre-req, so you wouldn't need to get the much less useful ability: Dodging. The only disadvantage is for Flanking characters, which are presumably quite a bit less than half of all characters.

[debo]

My main objection with Leaping as a prereq for Sprinting is that it's just sort of weird from a rationalization perspective. Dodging made a bit of sense as a prereq, Leaping... seems strange that I should need to know how to leap to know how to sprint??? I imagine there are other places in the prereqs where this sort of stuff happens though, so probably no big deal.

I thought it would be neat to let people leap by default, and then allow the Leaping ability to allow them to jump from standing or jump farther than 1 square. In the former case, it would be a decent situational escape and it would net you more treasure in the weirder leapy vaults, in the latter case it would make leaping into unknown territory less risky. In this case it could also be an alternate prereq to sprinting?? Could lead to gimmicky play though... did I mention I'm not a game designer?

[taptap]

Again using Brogue as a comparison, it's chasms are in comparison visually spectacular (ie huge, often dominating the level they're in) and, more importantly, the level generation algorithm takes them into account so that no part of the level becomes unreachable because of them (even the bridges are added after that part, so that you can't randomly burn yourself out of content). They work better gameplay-wise as well since jumping down chasms is much less of a last-ditch effort with permanent levels.

Afaik Sil design very consciously "looks bland, plays well", thus the plethora of things without gameplay effects removed from NPPAngband. If chasms don't cut you off, they boil down to dungeon beautification.

By nature chasms are best utilized when you field "ranged" effects, whether archery, song, items or just distance-based effects like vanish. These are builds that use much less evasion abilities usually, being able to just take leaping + sprinting would be great for archers, singers (leaping + Angrist was why I went with archers in the competition), but if it were required for sprinting it probably would be resented by many melee builds who take sprinting (i.e. all flankers + some others). You could argue flanking is kind of overused at the moment so this might be good.

What probably causes some irritation is imo that the prevalent current smithing style (smithing kit first, utilities later) combines badly with chasms as overall forge count is so crucial - they look like just an arbitrary thing put in your way "forcing" you to pay experience to get past. I posted my "graceful smithing" post a bit with this in mind. If I manage to build a smith with maybe overall less strength but where the smithing kit (via grace) is part of my endgame equipment, then the build should be much more robust against loss of forges.

[half]

What probably causes some irritation is imo that the prevalent current smithing style (smithing kit first, utilities later) combines badly with chasms as overall forge count is so crucial - they look like just an arbitrary thing put in your way "forcing" you to pay experience to get past. I posted my "graceful smithing" post a bit with this in mind. If I manage to build a smith with maybe overall less strength but where the smithing kit (via grace) is part of my endgame equipment, then the build should be much more robust against loss of forges.

Thanks for the interesting thoughts taptap, especially this suggestion about why they may be causing frustration. It is difficult to fix this smithing issue, as smiths are often tempted to set up their power ramp to be right at the edge of what is possible, so if we added more forges, they would presumably smith even more smithing gear before getting started on their real kit.

One thing to point out is that Scatha and I are quite uncertain how many chasms there should be in the game. We are definitely open to having significantly fewer of them if the sheer quantity of them is creating the problem. If so, it would be natural to make Leaping more accessible as it would become less useful.

[HallucinationMushroom]

I was already thinking along the lines that Debo put forth... everyone can leap, but leaping lets you do so from standing position. Or, if this is too generous, simply removing the pre-requisite for leaping is what I would prefer. Odd tangent, but, maybe leaping could be a pre-requisite for controlled retreat?

I like the atmosphere of chasms, and would love to take leaping so I could feel like my characters are "dungeon prepared spelunkers", but the cost is rather high for my kind of characters. I rarely take sprinting, so the whole dodging tree is sort of wasted on me. If I could just take leaping for 500xp, I would gladly tack that on to my crowdfighting/heavyprotection evasion-shopping-list.

Another tangent, but I hope more terrain gets added over time, like lava, pools, lakes?, ice?, stalagmites?, stalagtites?, etc... Anything that makes Angband itself feel like an entity that is out to get you would be wonderful in my opinion, and would make leaping less of a highly-situational-chasm thing.

[Philip]

I like the idea of underwater lakes/rivers et al. I also like the proposed change to leaping. Removing the pre-requisite would make it interesting too. Stalagmites/stalactites would be interesting, but I would also like lowered cave ceilings that you have to crawl in and that fighting is impaired in. Rivers, chasms, rubble, low ceilings would really give great opportunities for tactical combat.