Level completion (for level clearers)

[Whelk]

Anything to break up the monotony of the dungeon is good. One of the things I enjoy most about Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is that you happen upon little flavored areas here and there. More often than not they don't even have an effect on actual gameplay, but it's a nice break from the otherwise stark and random corridors.

The propositions in this thread for ramped-up hidden areas and interactive dungeon features would go a long way, at least for me, in gameplay enjoyment. If the idea's being seriously considered, I'd love to contribute by posting some ideas.

[UglySquirrell]

I'm not sure how much sense it makes to get a reward for clearing a level -- unless there's a mapmaker's guild in town that would reward you for such. At any rate, I'm not wild about such a system. Some people might find a note in their player history nice, though.

What I would like to see, however, is more hidden dungeon features that can't be discovered just by using a spell or sitting in place pressing 's' over and over. It would be really cool if there were various switches that triggered hidden objects or rooms appearing. It could be as simple as "walking over this tile causes a secret door to appear", but I'd also be interested in things like "hitting this crystal with a spell causes a chest to rise up out of the ground."

In my experience, finding hidden things is one of the most fun parts of an RPG. You feel smart for having found it, and it makes you want to explore more.

Granted, though -- what I describe would take a substantial amount of work.

I really think this would be fun. It would make the searching skill, and items usefull. Maybe have undetectable mini vaults/rooms. Well walking down the hallway, you notice a strange glow on the wall, hit s and you find a door. Maybe put an Elvish dwarvish description on it, Mellon, danger, armory, storeroom etc. (Sorry not fluent in dwarvish or elvish ) Put a random named or ood monster or relevent items in there. Cloaks, torches food in storerooms, weapons armour in the armory. Would make clearing a level a little more interesting.

[Zikke]

Really? I only need one ...

I wasn't referring to your posts. Yours are easy to read.

[ekolis]

Mmmm... yes, I vote for chocolate.

I yelled "fire" when I fell into the chocolate...

[Magnate]

I have to apply multiple mental adjustments...

Really? I only need one ...

[Max Stats]

Random thought - how about making traps flavoured?

Mmmm... yes, I vote for chocolate.

[the Invisible Stalker]

Random thought - how about making traps flavoured?

Interesting. I think I remember a discussion of making monsters flavoured, but perhaps that was just a hallucination on my part.

[Zikke]

I have to apply multiple mental adjustments...

[Magnate]

excuse me but who are u 2 b judging

I'm a player with an opinion, same as everyone else. If it helps you to prepend IMO when you read what I write, go ahead and do that. When I read what you write, a similar mental adjustment takes place in my mind.

[dos350]

It's probably the worst idea I've heard since Timo suggested that development should stop altogether. Please don't do it!!!

(EDIT: If I didn't suffer from terrible OCD, I'd probably think it was quite cool.)

excuse me but who are u 2 b judging,

also ~ stopping dev is the best idea 4 angband ive heard i think, plz no rage~

not that i ever complete lvl, but mayb if there was some pro reward , i would!

[Remuz]

What about having Vault contents (layout and monster/items) be hidden from detection? You could see the vault outline, and the entrance square but nothing else.

Monsters should be detectable, I think... but items should not, so that the player can decide if he wants to take risks, for an unguaranteed (but likely) reward.

[Zikke]

What about having Vault contents (layout and monster/items) be hidden from detection? You could see the vault outline, and the entrance square but nothing else.

[CunningGabe]

I like the hidden feature idea, though. Random thought - how about making traps flavoured? Replace the existing, fixed colour traps with a randomised selection of magical runes. Some have nasty trap effects, others do interesting, good things like open a hidden section or make a treasure appear elsewhere on the level. Up to the player whether they creep round cautiously avoiding them all, or take the risk of experimenting to discover which are the good ones.

That's a cool idea! I was just brainstorming some trap effects today, and was thinking of maybe making some of them have beneficial effects -- but it hadn't occurred to me to make "reveal hidden stuff" one of the beneficial effects.

[jens]

If the delayed feeling tiles get implemented, it allows for a new feature, level completion. The game has a metric now of whether the player has seen (i.e completed) the entire level. Would anyone be interested in a "reward" given to the player for level completion?

This reward could be something tangible, like money or items, but it could also be something like a congratulations message that goes in player history. Or is this a bad idea because it encourages OCD behavior?

I've wanted something like this, but thought better of it ;-) What I did come around to is that I'd like to have something to complete. Vaults, and pits fill this want well, but I want more :-)

What I would like to see, however, is more hidden dungeon features that can't be discovered just by using a spell or sitting in place pressing 's' over and over. It would be really cool if there were various switches that triggered hidden objects or rooms appearing. It could be as simple as "walking over this tile causes a secret door to appear", but I'd also be interested in things like "hitting this crystal with a spell causes a chest to rise up out of the ground."

In my experience, finding hidden things is one of the most fun parts of an RPG. You feel smart for having found it, and it makes you want to explore more.

Another thing I've thought about is that there ought to be nice, interesting things behind secret doors, I mean, why were they secret in the first place? A feature that is important for games in general is to have mechanics to reward veteran players for knowing the game well. As CunningGabe said, get the opportunity to feel smart. One such thing in Angband is knowing something about the map generation, so you know were to search for secret doors.

So, yes something like this would be neat, and make it just random enough so the vets will be able to guess with some relevant probability were to look to find it. And, after going through all this trouble a reward is in place. Maybe a small randomized vault or something similar?

[Nomad]

I don't think level completion is an idea that meshes well with non-persistent levels. It doesn't seem great to either reward for level clearance or attempt to track total clearance in a game where you can revisit levels infinite times.

The main thing of interest I think you could do is track the average percentage that the player explores when they visit a level: it could influence scoring, or perhaps the knowledge menu and character dumps could have a statistics section so you can compare people's different playstyles.

I like the hidden feature idea, though. Random thought - how about making traps flavoured? Replace the existing, fixed colour traps with a randomised selection of magical runes. Some have nasty trap effects, others do interesting, good things like open a hidden section or make a treasure appear elsewhere on the level. Up to the player whether they creep round cautiously avoiding them all, or take the risk of experimenting to discover which are the good ones.