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So I've been thinking a lot about certain mechanics in my no-TO play through (was competition 154, but I'm slow in finding time to play...)
Not having TO leads to some really neat situations, but also a lot of "well, gotta bail" situations. You can definitely reach a point where you are too underpowered to continue and need to either grind, or die (if you're playing forced descent). And that's no fun. However, the area that is most problematic is vaults. Even in Fizzixband where monsters are toned down in vaults in comparison to Vanilla (10 levels OoD instead of 40) they tend to be too hard. It turns out that 3-4 at depth monsters are more than any player can usually handle. Removing vaults removes a lot of fun, which was one of clouded's critiques, and I agree.
In previous threads, it's pretty clear that vaults, specifically large vaults, with lots of nasties and loot are a very desirable thing for Angband. However, I've learned some new things about what I think about vaults. And I've developed some ideas that might be worth playing around with.
1) Sneaking around vaults to pick up a piece of gear is super fun. Unfortunately, too many vaults are too densely packed with monsters to make this viable. Furthermore, the long amount of time needed to dig/wade through weaker monsters, means that the nasties you want to sneak around are likely to be awake. In the few times I was able to do this sneaking, I had a blast. (when I was a kid we had a game with penguins carrying eggs on their heads called "don't wake the dragon" and if you rolled onto a square that woke the dragon, you'd push a button and the board would shake and the egg would fall off of your head. I played a different game of "don't wake the dragon" several times in Angband, only if the dragon awoke, @ would lose more than just an egg)
2) For a single nasty monster, games of evasion can be fun. Pulling a monster out, teleport by teleport and then coming in behind it is pretty cool. But you can't do it with more than one monster.
3) For length considerations, one tough battle is equal to about 20 Teleport Others as far as my own personal exhaustion. One tough battle is far more interesting though.
4) Having to deal with annoyance monsters can also be interesting. When you lack the option to send them to the other side of the level, you have to make more interesting decisions.
So, if we were to remove or greatly nerf TO (or more specifically, if I was, in some variant I eventually flesh out completely) how would vaults look?
1) Monster density would be lower. Like 10% of current for some vaults. Treasure density would be roughly the same. Lesser vaults are actually pretty good right now. Medium vaults sometimes push it a little, but the greater vaults need some significant paring down.
2) Vaults would be frozen until the player cracks it. Everything is forced asleep and possibly even unmappable until the player enters the 'entrance square"
3) Vaults are more segmented. For vaults that are more open, you can add extra "unfreezing squares" and allow the player to activate it segment by segment.
4) Repurpose the annoyance monsters as vault guardians. Specifically, the moving eyes, the golems and maybe the Lichs. They could even go with specifically themed vaults. 1 undead beholder that you have to fight is much more interesting than many other monsters. (also switch it so that golems are always awake, and eyes are heavy sleepers)
5) Alarm traps. The game already has them (shrieker patches). Silent Watchers are one of the most underutilized monsters in the game. They are perfect for this. On the other hand, shrieker patches (or crebain or other always awake shriekers) are too powerful for vaults. Those need to go. Also change the shriek mechanic to remove the overpowered haste, and reduce sleep instead of auto-awakening everything.
6) If you phase starting in a vault, you can land in the vault. Stop this using phase as an automatic escape.
7) Remove the floors full of tons of traps nonsense. If traps were worth worrying about, then the floors of traps would be too powerful.
8) Give the player a bail option. You pretty much have this already with teleport, but make it so that once you leave, the vault is sealed. Make it a real risk-reward question for the player. Of course this is suicide with the current way vaults are.
9) Vaults are immune to destruction and banishment.
10) Ban certain monsters from vaults. Specifically, destroy item monsters (elementals, Xs).
11) Vault monsters could be territorial, kind of like in Sil. I'm not sure how well this would work though.
The aim is to have big vaults, similarly sized with current ones that tend to be filled with a small number of tough tactical battles. My experience tells me this is fun and could work, although it would take some significant rebalancing.
Not having TO leads to some really neat situations, but also a lot of "well, gotta bail" situations. You can definitely reach a point where you are too underpowered to continue and need to either grind, or die (if you're playing forced descent). And that's no fun. However, the area that is most problematic is vaults. Even in Fizzixband where monsters are toned down in vaults in comparison to Vanilla (10 levels OoD instead of 40) they tend to be too hard. It turns out that 3-4 at depth monsters are more than any player can usually handle. Removing vaults removes a lot of fun, which was one of clouded's critiques, and I agree.
In previous threads, it's pretty clear that vaults, specifically large vaults, with lots of nasties and loot are a very desirable thing for Angband. However, I've learned some new things about what I think about vaults. And I've developed some ideas that might be worth playing around with.
1) Sneaking around vaults to pick up a piece of gear is super fun. Unfortunately, too many vaults are too densely packed with monsters to make this viable. Furthermore, the long amount of time needed to dig/wade through weaker monsters, means that the nasties you want to sneak around are likely to be awake. In the few times I was able to do this sneaking, I had a blast. (when I was a kid we had a game with penguins carrying eggs on their heads called "don't wake the dragon" and if you rolled onto a square that woke the dragon, you'd push a button and the board would shake and the egg would fall off of your head. I played a different game of "don't wake the dragon" several times in Angband, only if the dragon awoke, @ would lose more than just an egg)
2) For a single nasty monster, games of evasion can be fun. Pulling a monster out, teleport by teleport and then coming in behind it is pretty cool. But you can't do it with more than one monster.
3) For length considerations, one tough battle is equal to about 20 Teleport Others as far as my own personal exhaustion. One tough battle is far more interesting though.
4) Having to deal with annoyance monsters can also be interesting. When you lack the option to send them to the other side of the level, you have to make more interesting decisions.
So, if we were to remove or greatly nerf TO (or more specifically, if I was, in some variant I eventually flesh out completely) how would vaults look?
1) Monster density would be lower. Like 10% of current for some vaults. Treasure density would be roughly the same. Lesser vaults are actually pretty good right now. Medium vaults sometimes push it a little, but the greater vaults need some significant paring down.
2) Vaults would be frozen until the player cracks it. Everything is forced asleep and possibly even unmappable until the player enters the 'entrance square"
3) Vaults are more segmented. For vaults that are more open, you can add extra "unfreezing squares" and allow the player to activate it segment by segment.
4) Repurpose the annoyance monsters as vault guardians. Specifically, the moving eyes, the golems and maybe the Lichs. They could even go with specifically themed vaults. 1 undead beholder that you have to fight is much more interesting than many other monsters. (also switch it so that golems are always awake, and eyes are heavy sleepers)
5) Alarm traps. The game already has them (shrieker patches). Silent Watchers are one of the most underutilized monsters in the game. They are perfect for this. On the other hand, shrieker patches (or crebain or other always awake shriekers) are too powerful for vaults. Those need to go. Also change the shriek mechanic to remove the overpowered haste, and reduce sleep instead of auto-awakening everything.
6) If you phase starting in a vault, you can land in the vault. Stop this using phase as an automatic escape.
7) Remove the floors full of tons of traps nonsense. If traps were worth worrying about, then the floors of traps would be too powerful.
8) Give the player a bail option. You pretty much have this already with teleport, but make it so that once you leave, the vault is sealed. Make it a real risk-reward question for the player. Of course this is suicide with the current way vaults are.
9) Vaults are immune to destruction and banishment.
10) Ban certain monsters from vaults. Specifically, destroy item monsters (elementals, Xs).
11) Vault monsters could be territorial, kind of like in Sil. I'm not sure how well this would work though.
The aim is to have big vaults, similarly sized with current ones that tend to be filled with a small number of tough tactical battles. My experience tells me this is fun and could work, although it would take some significant rebalancing.
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