Directional level feelings

[Therem Harth]

An idea to go with fuzzy detection:

"You sense a powerful enchantment to the northeast."
(Due to generation of an out-of-depth item in that area.)

"You get a sense of something menacing to the west."
(Out-of-depth monster in that area.)

"You sense mighty magics to the south."
(Either or both, possibly a vault.)

Not sure if these feelings should be delayed, or relative to the character's position; it would be easier to have them absolute with respect to the dungeon layout, and shown on entering the level. Anyway, the idea is to give the player a chance to plan things a bit, instead of just being all tactics.

[Cold_Heart]

This will work nice without fuzzy detection too.

[Derakon]

Level feelings are dumb and should be removed entirely, not made stronger.

[wobbly]

I'm trying to think where the thread was that suggested things like the "floor is scratched with the claw marks of dragons" & such. Also NPPs wall glyphs were much more flavourful then level feelings. I'm still waiting for that blubbering icky thing to "attack me without mercy" by the way.

[MadeOfBees]

You stepped in a grue. You feel there may be things that step on grues here.

[Zireael]

I'm trying to think where the thread was that suggested things like the "floor is scratched with the claw marks of dragons" & such. Also NPPs wall glyphs were much more flavourful then level feelings. I'm still waiting for that blubbering icky thing to "attack me without mercy" by the way.

I love the wall glyphs, one of the reasons I play NPP and not vanilla.

That said, the idea is cool!

[mushroom patch]

+1 Derakon.

[tumbleweed]

Level feelings are dumb and should be removed entirely, not made stronger.

Hmm, I dunno, I like them for the flavor and atmosphere they add (however little), but I do agree that they're kinda dubious from a gameplay/strategy point of view.

Maybe if there were no/vague feelings initially, that grow stronger and more accurate the longer you stay on the level, or the closer you come to the points of interest?

[Derakon]

Hmm, I dunno, I like them for the flavor and atmosphere they add (however little), but I do agree that they're kinda dubious from a gameplay/strategy point of view.

Maybe if there were no/vague feelings initially, that grow stronger and more accurate the longer you stay on the level, or the closer you come to the points of interest?

There are two main things that bug me about level feelings:

First, they make the player character into some kind of psychic who is able to discern not just how dangerous a level is, but also the quality of the items on the level. The first is pretty laughable, and the second is outright ludicrous. There's no flavor attempt to justify how @ is acquiring this knowledge, it's just something that apparently happens for adventurers in Angband.

Conceptually it's easy to fix the danger level feeling by turning it from a generalized "this level feels dangerous" thing into specific messages about claw markings, shed scales/fur, scorch marks, etc. that correspond to varying kinds of dangerous enemy. I see no way for the treasure level feeling to be similarly updated.

Second, though, is that level feelings in general provoke scummy and/or irrational play. Players are more likely to stick around on a level with a good treasure feeling, and then they complain when they're unable to find an item that's "good enough" to justify the feeling. In fact I wouldn't be at all surprised to find players who leave the level ASAP if it has an insufficiently-good treasure feeling (and yes, I'm aware you have to explore for awhile to get the feeling).

This is absolutely trivial to fix, by nuking the treasure level feeling. I see no way to generate an "accurate" (i.e. aligned with incredibly varied player expectations) treasure feeling that doesn't result in scummy playstyles, plus the entire concept flies in the face of plausibility.

[Nomad]

I'm trying to think where the thread was that suggested things like the "floor is scratched with the claw marks of dragons" & such. Also NPPs wall glyphs were much more flavourful then level feelings. I'm still waiting for that blubbering icky thing to "attack me without mercy" by the way.

I quite like Nethack's sound cues. ("You hear the footsteps of a guard on patrol" to indicate the presence of a vault, etc.) Maybe you could replace level feelings with more flavourful messages that trigger intermittently as you're wandering around the level? (I believe the current treasure feeling mechanic is based on uncovering a number of randomly chosen squares, so that could easily be repurposed to trigger flavour messages for interesting things on the level.) For instance, you could add a "flavour text" line to entries in pit.txt or vault.txt that specifies the message to use for that particular special room. Like "This place stinks of trolls" for troll pits, "These hallways are cold and silent as the grave" for graveyards, and so on.

You could even potentially do the same for the presence of artefacts. "A light glimmers in the distance", "The monsters on this level whisper fearfully amongst themselves", etc.

[Cold_Heart]

There's no flavor attempt to justify how @ is acquiring this knowledge.

Surely @ can tell from golden torchposts, thick carpet on the floor and other expensive decorations that this level will contain some incredible riches.

[Nomad]

Random thought to throw into this discussion: should level feelings/hints about what's on the level be dependent on INT/WIS stats in some way, so that smarter/wiser characters detect interesting things about the level earlier than low-level ones with poor mental stats? (Maybe you could even split it so that high INT makes you more likely to pick up the presence of vaults/artefacts while high WIS makes you more likely to notice monster-related hints like clawmarks indicating pits and nests.)

[mushroom patch]

Nah, no matter what your int/wis are, you shouldn't get a level feeling.

[MattB]

Random thought to throw into this discussion: should level feelings/hints about what's on the level be dependent on INT/WIS stats in some way, so that smarter/wiser characters detect interesting things about the level earlier than low-level ones with poor mental stats? (Maybe you could even split it so that high INT makes you more likely to pick up the presence of vaults/artefacts while high WIS makes you more likely to notice monster-related hints like clawmarks indicating pits and nests.)

I like this idea. A lot.

[Thraalbee]

I like this idea. A lot.

+1 to this