Feature idea: themed staircases

[Derakon]

Here's an idea for livening up the gameplay a bit. Once you get past, oh, 2500' or so, start making most staircases themed. The staircase would have a non-generic description, and would take you to a different kind of level than the "normal" levels. For example:

Demonic: "A passage into the hellish depths". Predominantly features demons; items are biased towards melee weapons.

Undead: "A staircase made of bone and ivory". Predominantly features undead; items are biased towards potions and scrolls.

Unique: "A shining ramp of gold". Massively increased unique monster and vault generation rates.

Natural: "A tunnel lined with trees". Predominantly features natural monsters; items are biased towards missile weapons and ammo, with more items on the floor than usual (to compensate for natural monsters' low drop rates).

Hard: "A passage lined with warning signs written in Orcish". All monsters and items are generated as if 10 levels deeper; otherwise normal.

The overall idea here is twofold: first, this gives the player some options if he's looking for specific kinds of gear. Want weapons? Go kill demons. Want artifacts? Try your luck on the golden levels. Need ammo for Morgy? Go to a nature preserve. But secondly, it also means that you may not want to take the first staircase you find, if it's not the kind of dungeon you're looking for. This would encourage some amount of exploration.

[ewert]

Interesting. Of course the stairway is only id'd when stepping on it?

But it is kinda neat idea.

[konijn_]

Here's an idea for livening up the gameplay a bit. Once you get past, oh, 2500' or so, start making most staircases themed. The staircase would have a non-generic description, and would take you to a different kind of level than the "normal" levels. For example:

Demonic: "A passage into the hellish depths". Predominantly features demons; items are biased towards melee weapons.

Undead: "A staircase made of bone and ivory". Predominantly features undead; items are biased towards potions and scrolls.

Unique: "A shining ramp of gold". Massively increased unique monster and vault generation rates.

Natural: "A tunnel lined with trees". Predominantly features natural monsters; items are biased towards missile weapons and ammo, with more items on the floor than usual (to compensate for natural monsters' low drop rates).

Hard: "A passage lined with warning signs written in Orcish". All monsters and items are generated as if 10 levels deeper; otherwise normal.

The overall idea here is twofold: first, this gives the player some options if he's looking for specific kinds of gear. Want weapons? Go kill demons. Want artifacts? Try your luck on the golden levels. Need ammo for Morgy? Go to a nature preserve. But secondly, it also means that you may not want to take the first staircase you find, if it's not the kind of dungeon you're looking for. This would encourage some amount of exploration.

I have plans for this in Hellband, I think its an awesome idea. I was thinking also dragon lairs, armories and elemental levels.

T.

[fizzix]

elemental levels.

T.

Ooh a vault!
> The fire elemental wakes up
> The fire elemental crushes *everything*
goddammit

[konijn_]

Ooh a vault!
> The fire elemental wakes up
> The fire elemental crushes *everything*
goddammit

Well, obviously the object generator would be aware of the themed level

T.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I like the idea, because it does encourage an explorational style, *without* penalizing a diver.

[nullfame]

I like the idea, because it does encourage an explorational style, *without* penalizing a diver.

If even one of these levels are substantially harder than normal levels and you aren't allocating additional staircases that would penalize the diver. She might skip the gold or hard staircase. Not that this invalidates the idea itself, just that I think your statement is incorrect if some % of stairs are unusable.

[Nick]

I think this idea has huge potential; in particular, it's the best idea I've seen for making the bottom half of the dungeon interesting.

I'm not sure whether I think you should be able to tell the description of the staircase from detection or not - probably not.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

What might be cool is, special stairs show up in a coded color...but only when you're looking at them directly.

null: you could have a point, if most stairs are themed, because it would take much more work to dive. You definitely need to have regular stairs.

So, one option might be: only stairs going UP, are themed. Another option is that you actually don't change level; they're not stairs, but a "gate"...so you get the effect of an Alter Reality, keeping you at the same depth while creating the new level with the proper theme.

In the latter, they're not 'stairs' at all, so Detect Stairs doesn't pick them up. I dunno if Enlightenment/Clairvoy would or not, but my intuition says, no, it wouldn't, as it is right now.

[Derakon]

I dunno if Enlightenment/Clairvoy would or not, but my intuition says, no, it wouldn't, as it is right now.

Why would an effect whose purpose is to reveal map features fail to reveal a map feature? What is the purpose of making these themed staircases/gates/whatever opaque to detection spells?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but "exploration" (as opposed to diving) consists largely of detecting the majority (>90%) of the dungeon and examining those rooms that look interesting, for whatever qualifies as "interesting" to you. It seems like making these objects impossible to detect would be advocating a clearing strategy, which is entirely different from exploration.

[fizzix]

DaJ has been playing around with themed levels a bit. I've started up a couple games but haven't gotten far enough to see where he's gone with it. The game I played with themed levels had far too many dangerous monsters on them for me to even consider staying on them...

[buzzkill]

DaJ has been playing around with themed levels a bit. I've started up a couple games but haven't gotten far enough to see where he's gone with it. The game I played with themed levels had far too many dangerous monsters on them for me to even consider staying on them...

I find the themed levels in DaJ to be rare enough that I don't mind finding them even if I have to flee shortly thereafter. Now, FA's special levels are character killers.

[Rizwan]

In the latter, they're not 'stairs' at all, so Detect Stairs doesn't pick them up. I dunno if Enlightenment/Clairvoy would or not, but my intuition says, no, it wouldn't, as it is right now.

Detect doors/stairs/traps/gates maybe?

[konijn_]

What might be cool is, special stairs show up in a coded color...but only when you're looking at them directly.

null: you could have a point, if most stairs are themed, because it would take much more work to dive. You definitely need to have regular stairs.

So, one option might be: only stairs going UP, are themed. Another option is that you actually don't change level; they're not stairs, but a "gate"...so you get the effect of an Alter Reality, keeping you at the same depth while creating the new level with the proper theme.

In the latter, they're not 'stairs' at all, so Detect Stairs doesn't pick them up. I dunno if Enlightenment/Clairvoy would or not, but my intuition says, no, it wouldn't, as it is right now.

I was also planning on calling them gates, at least for those leading to elemental levels. This how I can use theme's that are different from the main dungeon since you are temporarily leaving the dungeon.

T.

[Hariolor]

I do find the idea interesting, but to point out the obvious:

would this merely add new ways to die for masochistic/inexperienced players without really changing gameplay?

The current monster list definitely has *better* and *worse* choices in terms of what to face. I suspect active, experienced players will very quickly determine the value of, for example, draconic and hard staircases (relatively favorable risk/reward), while advising everyone to ignore demonic and heavenly staircases.

Indeed, anything worth avoiding when encountered in normal play would be doubly worth avoiding when a whole level-full is involved.

Perhaps if the staircases were not id-able until entered, and/or were tied to the no connected stairs option...