bigger dungeon levels

[fbas]

I think bigger dungeon levels would rock. Perhaps even endless or quite super massive (only a certain portion would be held in memory at a time, of course). Not sure what changes would be needed for maps in this case.

I could even imagine having no stairs and having different levels connected seamlessly (but with markers to clearly indicate changes in depth). But this would probably go beyond what you'd put into vanilla.

[Derakon]

The main thing you'd need for this is a way to stitch together blocks of dungeon so the game can only generate as much dungeon as it needs at any given time. I think that'd mainly be a matter of adding some corridors that go "off the edge" to the current map generator. Then the game generates a 3x3 block of dungeon cells (each one being the size of a current-standard dungeon level), and whenever you move into one of the perimeter cells, it generates any newly-exposed cells, stitches them to the exposed corridors, and saves the cells that you are no longer adjacent to to disk.

Of course, this would kind of ruin the concept of ironman in many ways.

[EpicMan]

Or you could tie the "dungeon level" to the number of transitions, in any direction, in an iron man game. So you couldn't go back towards an easier part of the dungeon, things would only get more difficult the more you explore.

[chris]

I think bigger dungeon levels would rock. Perhaps even endless or quite super massive (only a certain portion would be held in memory at a time, of course). Not sure what changes would be needed for maps in this case.

I could even imagine having no stairs and having different levels connected seamlessly (but with markers to clearly indicate changes in depth). But this would probably go beyond what you'd put into vanilla.

Levels are currently constrained to 256 x 256, or 2^16 tiles. Would 1024 x 1024 be large enough (2^20 tiles)? It certainly should be fine memory wise with today's hardware, and would provide a level 16x as large as currently given.

I should add that I don't like the concept of paging out parts of the dungeon. You end up with unnatural boundaries that the player may cross, but monsters may not. But, then again, this is exactly how stairs work!

[fizzix]

Dungeon levels already seem plenty large, especially when there's very little incentive to explore the whole thing. Making dungeons *larger* is probably not too hard. Making them infinitely expandable seems more difficult. However, I don't really have a good feeling as to *why* you think they should be larger.

[camlost]

Doesn't modern Z have a wilderness that functions like this?

[Derakon]

I should add that I don't like the concept of paging out parts of the dungeon. You end up with unnatural boundaries that the player may cross, but monsters may not.

Not so. In the design I suggested, monsters are only paged out when they are at least an entire dungeon level away from the player, at which point their AI wouldn't be active anyway. The "active area" would be a 3x3 square of current dungeon levels. As long as a monster is somewhat close to you it stays active.

[Therem Harth]

I'm going to go ahead and say "no." I'd much prefer small levels and higher monster density... But that is just me.

(Maybe an option to force small levels would work?)

[buzzkill]

What about wrap around dungeons? No more hiding in the corners.

[dos350]

please im freaking out now eek wrap around

[fizzix]

I'm going to go ahead and say "no." I'd much prefer small levels and higher monster density... But that is just me.

(Maybe an option to force small levels would work?)

There is a current option in the generate code to generate smaller levels, it's turned off but it should work. I remember Eddie having play-tested it and felt it was unsatisfactory.

[Therem Harth]

Ah, thanks!

[Magnate]

There is a current option in the generate code to generate smaller levels, it's turned off but it should work. I remember Eddie having play-tested it and felt it was unsatisfactory.

IIRC there are serious issues with monster awareness/detection/AI on small levels.

[nppangband]

IIRC there are serious issues with monster awareness/detection/AI on small levels.

That's strange. It shouldn't introduce any bugs. It is a bit more dangerous, because teleporting to safety and teleporting other isn't really an option. But fortunately the player is never far away from stairs, either.

[d_m]

It didn't cause bugs, but there were objections to the way it reduced vault frequency, made teleporting and portal worse, and made it harder to get away from monsters.

Kind of ironic, given that our new changes are all making the game too easy