Using Level Feelings

[Ingwe Ingweron]

And if you play with the "disable selling" option off, then the 15.000 - 30.000 Au you get for it is very valuable at this stage, regardless of class.

Yes! Although I always play "no-sell" games, it's easy to forget that even though I find that out-of-depth Kelek's on Dl 10 worthless to my Paladin, it is actually incredibly valuable. I am all for leaving the level feelings as is. I'm not even sure why people are suggesting it. Nowhere else does level generation take into account the @. Next people will be wanting the game to calculate the danger level based on the power of the @!

[Rowan]

They do serve the purpose of advertising other classes, though. Advice to new players tends to be "start with a warrior", and under this scheme they might not even be aware of the existence of spellbooks.

"Tired of beating on things? Tone up those flabby running-away muscles with the new Mage class!"

...Ok fine, I just liked the idea of "advertising" classes.

...I am all for leaving the level feelings as is. I'm not even sure why people are suggesting it...

I also vote to keep things the same! I've griped about finding useless books, but that was just commiserating. If we change it to be more character-specific, it will feel even more like a cheat-code, and the existing opponents of level-feelings will be in an uproar!

[Fluster]

My personal opinion is that level feelings are generally a good thing, but with the limitation that a feeling should never guarantee that the level has nothing interesting on it. If you can tell straight from level feeling that there will be no interesting enemies or items on the level for sure, there's no motivation in playing the level for anyone - stair scammer or not. This is why I think it is very important that monster drops are not counted to the level feeling no matter when they are generated. Then you always have a change to find something nice.

Currently I play the game so that I usually explore all levels (unless I want to dive fast) to some degree. If there's no promises in the level feeling I walk around trying to detect monster groups that might produce good experience or drops and if none are found I may move on. These levels are also something I may abandon in case I run low on ammunition or other goods. But if the item feeling is good, I often try to sniff all the corners. So there is a convenience difference in how I play levels with different feelings even though it is not drastic.

One thing I have never liked in the current feeling system is the delay on the item feeling. As a no-preserve player I don't dare to leave levels until the feeling occurs, which means I cannot really skip levels while diving and on levels with too strong enemies I have a need to try hang around just enough to get the feeling before fleeing. As an alternative anti-scamming feature I would prefer a system where returning to the same stairway you came from would always generate a "boring" level (since you've already been there). This could apply to teleport level as well.

(Note that I'm not playing the newest version, if some of these have been changed already.)

[luneya]

Level feelings are good. The only change I'd want to make is including monsters' drops in the item feeling. As I recall, drops are generated when the monsters are, so the drop info for the initially generated monsters should be available to be worked into the treasure value calculation.