level feelings question

[Starhawk]

Hi all, I'm a relative newb who came back to the angband fold after beating ADOM. I've never beaten vanilla, but I really REALLY like some of the new features in the 3.1.2 beta!

My question is in regards to level feelings.

Do the level feelings take into account drops by monsters/uniques? i.e. are those pre-rolled, or done on the spot?

Just curious because I'm on DL12 with "This place looks uninteresting." yet just fought an in-depth unique (Lagduf the Snaga) who dropped a Holy Avenger lance!!

Wasn't sure if that was a bug or if it occurred because the loot roll is independent of the level feeling.

[fyonn]

AFAIK, drops are calculated at the time and so not included in the level feelings. remember though that monster also get spawned after you've entered the level, so you could easily be fighting monsters that weren't created when you went down the stairs.

[Derakon]

Level feelings only take into account what is on the level when it is created, which is:

* Items on the floor
* Monsters, but not their drops.
* Special map features like pits and vaults.

Generally speaking level feelings are inaccurate at best. They mostly serve as a trap to get inexperienced players to stay on levels that they really should flee, just so they can see what's so "superb" about them...

[Timo Pietilä]

Generally speaking level feelings are inaccurate at best. They mostly serve as a trap to get inexperienced players to stay on levels that they really should flee, just so they can see what's so "superb" about them...

I have noticed that in many occasions "superb" is worse than "excellent", because excellent is low enough rating that pits get higher rating. "excellent" means that there is something interesting in that level and that something isn't a pit.

Then sometimes that superb really is superb and is caused by vault of some value.

IMO pits should have fixed, relatively low, value and it should not contain OoD values of the monsters inside. Something like (relatively speaking, don't know the level calculations) Jelly: 1, Orc: 2, Troll: 5, Giant: 5, Zoo: 10, Demon: 15, Graveyard: 20, Dragon: 30.

[krugar]

It indeed seems to be that pits and vaults are rated equally. When in fact, for matters of treasure and xp, vaults are a lot more interesting. There could be some tweaking here, depending on the level of the monsters in the pit.

However I don't agree it should be said the feeling is inaccurate. It is, at worst, inconclusive (something that pleases me personally). But it is definitely accurate since the feeling information displayed will never be wrong; that is, we will never get a superb feeling for a dungeon that doesn't meet the criteria.

[Derakon]

Vault level feelings are encoded into vault.txt, while pit level feelings are in the actual code -- much harder to change. It'd be nice if they were moved out to an edit file so you could e.g. specify a new pit as a list of monster symbols/indices/names allowed to appear in the pit, the pit's dungeon level range (cannot appear before dlvl X), and its feeling modifier.

[Timo Pietilä]

Vault level feelings are encoded into vault.txt, while pit level feelings are in the actual code -- much harder to change. It'd be nice if they were moved out to an edit file so you could e.g. specify a new pit as a list of monster symbols/indices/names allowed to appear in the pit, the pit's dungeon level range (cannot appear before dlvl X), and its feeling modifier.

For pits I don't think it is the pit itself that has overvalued value, it is the monsters inside them. Pit can create many many OoD monsters and that triggers the overvalued level feeling.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

I wouldn't be surprised that Timo has it right. Especially in/around, say, level 60 to 70, I'm always VERY leery about a superb feeling, because so, so often it's an undead pit that I *will not* like...especially when you do a Banish on L...and take out about 10.

[Starhawk]

Thanks for the info everyone... hopefully in a year or two I can post about my first victory. Heheh.

[Tregonsee]

More specialised level feelings question (rubble)

I know that drops do not affect level feelings because they are generated afterward, but what about what may or may not lie under rubble?

Is the rubble generated with what is underneath when the level is generated
(adding to the level) or is the potential stuff under the rubble generated after the rubble is removed?

The answer may make it so people stick around on a level longer to uncover rubble piles...

[Magnate]

I know that drops do not affect level feelings because they are generated afterward, but what about what may or may not lie under rubble?

Is the rubble generated with what is underneath when the level is generated
(adding to the level) or is the potential stuff under the rubble generated after the rubble is removed?

The answer may make it so people stick around on a level longer to uncover rubble piles...

Any object is only generated when the rubble is removed, so they cannot currently affect level feelings. This could be changed - along with generating monster drops at level creation - and could be incorporated into the new level feeling system.

[Derakon]

Rubble items are generated when you clear the pile, 10% of the time. They do not exist beforehand.

[d_m]

Rubble items are generated when you clear the pile, 10% of the time. They do not exist beforehand.

In the future, I'd like to pre-generate the items for rubble, monster drops, chests, and everything else... there's no good reason not to do this and it makes a lot of interesting things possible.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Ehh...I'm not sure about pre-generating the drops *if* it's going to affect level feelings. You get, say, a Superb level feeling, use !Enlightenment...no vault, no pit interesting enough, no monster...so it's probably an item. OK, you decide, the level's pretty much worth checking extensively.

So you do. Nope, nothing dramatic.

Do we really want to say, OK, go clear *all* the rubble until you find it (and/or clear all the monsters still alive that have drops)...or forget about whatever was causing the feeling. Damn sure hope you've got Preserve Artifacts on.

Either way, it feels potentially tedious.

If it doesn't affect level feelings, there would still be the issue in No Preserve mode. In No Preserve, artifacts 'carried' but never dropped, should be preserved...otherwise, playing No Preserve is just too much of a pain.

[Timo Pietilä]

If it doesn't affect level feelings, there would still be the issue in No Preserve mode. In No Preserve, artifacts 'carried' but never dropped, should be preserved...otherwise, playing No Preserve is just too much of a pain.

Without that no matter how carefully you play you might end up losing artifacts, because new monsters spawn before you go to next level with any exploring.