Few ideas fo 50' dungeon level

[LostTemplar]

Disconnected stairs option is made to cause character deaths sometimes, it is a challenge option. Also game is designed in such a way that chance of death drops down fast with levels to keep average time cost of bad luck or wrong move roughly the same. Characters of level 1 are supposed to be of low value and thus expendable.

[Feloniousmonk]

Honestly isn't it way more annoying to create a mage or a priest, wander over to the magic store, and realize there's no beginner books for you?

[Feloniousmonk]

With connected stairs there's no such thing as no-win scenario. We can always run away before any monster moves if we don't like generated level. And play on 50' depth until we get 50 level char with good gear. Nothing force us to attack monsters that can harm us, nothing force us to play in dangerous environment, nothing forces us to take a step out from being safe on stairs.

You can't be serious.

[Timo Pietilä]

Just recently we've had a change with monster pit size. There are lot of monsters that can't do any harm to our hero. And other can't do either, we just have to face them one by one not all at same time. I don't think numbers make deeper dungeon levels any harder because by then we can kill any number of them with 0% risk of death.

Any level is a risk if you try them as "unprepared" as first level relative to their depth. Where would you put a limit? Should dlvl 2 be as easy as dlvl 1? If not, then why not? You can dive there with clvl 1 char. Or maybe should all chars start with clvl 2 relative power? Game doesn't force you to dive, so if you just play patiently enough you are correct, first level would be the most dangerous level. That's obvious in this concept. However, the only real question here is is it too dangerous. IMO absolutely not.

You should play Sil, it forces you to dive. Or take lessons from powerdivers here, some of them have made diving an artform. I think I have once seen someone winning with char at clvl under 40 at less than half a million turns. At that pace no level is safe level.

[Timo Pietilä]

Honestly isn't it way more annoying to create a mage or a priest, wander over to the magic store, and realize there's no beginner books for you?

That has been fixed in 3.5

[Philip]

The stats you give are that odd because of something that needs to be changed about deeper levels, not shallow ones.

At dlevel 50, the generator chooses from monsters from dlvl1-dlvl55. At dlvl1, it's more like 1-3, with three rarely ever happening. This leads to behaviour where, on deeper levels, monsters are generated at, on average, about 1/3 to 2/3 of monster level, depending on quirks in depth of packs, sizes, and levels with a lot of monster.txt entries. On dlvl 50, you will see monsters with an average depth of 30 or so, on dlvl 100 more like 55, on dlvl 2 about 2. Objects have this behaviour but less of it, as, until dlvl 80 or so, objects still have a sizable OOD buffer in both directions. Objects are also a lot more dependent on rarity as opposed to depth.

We can fix this by instituting OOD checks for shallowness, making shallow objects/monsters less common deeper. This will make levels more interesting, and perhaps less cluttered, as up to half of objects and monsters will not be generated, and for some of the rest, appropriate monsters and objects appear. It will require rebalancing of the edit files though. Perhaps I should just make my own variant.

[Pete Mack]

I think I'm repeating myself. Hobbit mage (7HP) with disconnected stairs.

But newbies don't (or shouldn't) use disconnected stairs. It's not called a difficulty option for nothing.

[Pete Mack]

This is like save scumming, loading until I don't get unlucky even if it's less than 1% possible. There must have been some reason why other instadeaths were thrown out of Angband (we always get first move on new level). These are the same reasons why this one should be out too.

This is an issue for me because good player will never die in late game but it's much easier to die at game start. For me this means something is not right with game concept. No one else see it as a problem so I have to leave it for myself.

1. But it is rare event--the occasional 1% risk is an expected risk in gameplay, and you were playing Hobbit Mage, disconnected stairs, and (possibly) no ?Phase Door.

2. This is false. Good players take occasional calculated risks. You can take 30 1% risks in every game, and still win 75% of the time.

[Pete Mack]

.

You should play Sil, it forces you to dive. Or take lessons from powerdivers here, some of them have made diving an artform. I think I have once seen someone winning with char at clvl under 40 at less than half a million turns. At that pace no level is safe level.

Are you thinking of Cliff Stamp's Epic dive in NPP? This was widely considered definitive proof that the RNG takes care of its highest acolytes.

[Timo Pietilä]

Are you thinking of Cliff Stamp's Epic dive in NPP? This was widely considered definitive proof that the RNG takes care of its highest acolytes.

Might have been Cliff (his speed in any game was incredible), but not that game. I think clvl was 38, but I can't give any definite proof of that, just a vague memory. Anyway, that's under 100k turn win, which is a lot faster than half a million turns.

[Feloniousmonk]

That has been fixed in 3.5

That's great news for people who love good things.

[MattB]

However, at the same time new players do need to learn that the dungeon is not a safe place (nor is the town, for that matter) and they need to be careful.

Too right! And those merchants are, like, sooooo overpowered!

(At least they are if you're playing no sell and forget to equip the shiny new dagger you've just bought - tappity, tappity, tappy, tappy, tap...oh.)
Still, no harm done, eh? [Restarts]

EDIT: I had taken wine...

[Timo Pietilä]

Too right! And those merchants are, like, sooooo overpowered!

Merchant killed you? I didn't know they even can hurt you....checking edit-files....one 1d3 attack. I guess I never tried to kill one at very beginning.

[MattB]

Merchant killed you? I didn't know they even can hurt you....checking edit-files....one 1d3 attack. I guess I never tried to kill one at very beginning.

I know, I was more surprised than anyone (except maybe the merchant).

As it happens, I usually try and knock off a merchant or two before I go down for my first trip to the dungeon. A merchant drop is usually worth an extra point or two of AC. However, I normally remember to equip my weapon first...