Pancake dungeon

[Derakon]

I've hacked together a patch to compress the dungeon down to 10 levels (attached). My first character died quickly at 800', but then again I was an underequipped level-10 half-troll rogue. I should have replayed the 400' level before going down again. So I'm not quite ready to redo the level table, which is, as it currently stands:

0       => 0
1-2     => 2
3-8     => 8
9-16    => 16
17-30   => 30
31-40   => 40
41-80   => 80
81-98   => 98
99      => 99
100-127 => 127

This does drastically change the nature of the first dungeon level the player encounters -- particularly, the presence of Grip, Fang, and the various novice humans make it much more dangerous. So if this were ever to happen officially, I suspect the first dungeon level would still just map to 50' only. However, from then on out, my goal was to make taking down staircases be a significant step with a big increase in danger, that you would probably only do after re-playing the current dungeon level a few times. We'll see how it goes with repeat playing. Fortunately it's quite easy to tweak the level mapping.

I haven't fully tested this; staircases appear to work, but I don't know the debug commands enough to summon myself some scrolls of Deep Descent or Teleport Level. So play at your own risk. I was a bit worried about the structure of dungeon_compress_change_level, but the else branch should always work -- it's impossible to generate down staircases (or otherwise go down) at the bottom of the dungeon, after all.

On a side note, it has been a long time since I programmed in C.

[nullfame]

Without looking at your diff (since I'm not familiar with the code base) I'm not sure I understand your table. The first level you encounter = dl2, the second = dl8, etc. Am I understanding this right? I realize the second level is dl3-dl8, I am using the high end as the max risk or max reward. Or am I way off?

Disconnected stairs would be a... challenge

my goal was to make taking down staircases be a significant step with a big increase in danger, that you would probably only do after re-playing the current dungeon level a few times.

I'm sorry, but isn't this approximately equal to the status quo? I.e., in a normal game you run dl3-dl8 six times before proceeding, etc.

I assume one could "pancake" a dungeon down to, say, 50 by using your same patch and changing your table? That should help people who are interested in this test. I don't agree with 10 levels being the right amount, but I think if you're going to reduce it to 10 you have the optimal breakpoints here.

[Timo Pietilä]

0       => 0
1-2     => 2
3-8     => 8
9-16    => 16
17-30   => 30
31-40   => 40
41-80   => 80
81-98   => 98
99      => 99
100-127 => 127

If I read this correctly you get swamped by uniques at dlvl 6 (41-80).

[Derakon]

Without looking at your diff (since I'm not familiar with the code base) I'm not sure I understand your table. The first level you encounter = dl2, the second = dl8, etc. Am I understanding this right? I realize the second level is dl3-dl8, I am using the high end as the max risk or max reward. Or am I way off?

You're correct. I wrote the change to retain the existing concept of depth, since otherwise I suspect I'd have to rewrite rather a lot of the code that deals with level, not to mention the info files. This was as non-invasive a change as I could think of, since all of the normal dungeon levels are preserved; you just move between them in great leaps instead of one dungeon level at a time.

Disconnected stairs would be a... challenge

Well, so long as you're prepared for the next level, you should be fine, yes?

I'm sorry, but isn't this approximately equal to the status quo? I.e., in a normal game you run dl3-dl8 six times before proceeding, etc.

It changes the number of times you have to seek out staircases. It also means that each dungeon level should start out being frightening and end up being more or less easily navigable, at least until the endgame. (EDIT: it also means that this game could feasibly be played without ever resorting to Word of Recall; the furthest you'll ever have to travel is 10 levels, which is tedious but not out of the question).

I assume one could "pancake" a dungeon down to, say, 50 by using your same patch and changing your table? That should help people who are interested in this test.

Yes. Just change how the ranges are set up in the table and you can squish the dungeon down any way you like.

I don't agree with 10 levels being the right amount, but I think if you're going to reduce it to 10 you have the optimal breakpoints here.

I think 10 levels is very aggressive, but I'd rather start out overly aggressive and tone back to something that's a good challenge, then start out with something that's too wimpy and never have the push to improve it.

If I read this correctly you get swamped by uniques at dlvl 6 (41-80).

I'd originally had a 41-60 level and a 61-80 level, but then I decided to combine them so I'd have a neat 10 dungeon levels. Now I've realized that actually "neatness" would be 11 levels -- one town and 10 dungeon. So that split could be reintroduced; then "level 6" would introduce most of the deep monsters, "level 7" would add most of the nasty uniques, and "level 8" would start the endgame.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Yeah, I'd not treat town as a level for purposes of this count. And I think you've hit good target points, with the revised 10 dungeon levels.

To be honest, I'd just strip out the scrolls of deep descent, were this to become viable. There's no point to them. I'd also probably say that scrolls of TL *only* go UP...because in this context, going down is way, way dangerous. If you want to keep the effect as a valuable escape tactic, then you're not going deeper. And, besides...go find some stairs, ya weenie! If you can't find stairs safely on THIS level, then how can you possibly consider heading deeper?