"You found a special room" (new trap type)

[Grotug]

"You found a special room" I did? I didn't notice. In modern ports for the original Doom, they tell you when you find a secret area. One of the things I *loved* about Doom 1 (episode 1 especially) were all the cool secret areas to find with powerful items inside them. John Romero did a masterful job making the levels for Doom 1 Episode 1 and hiding lots of secret rooms throughout. There was never any question when you found a secret area. (Wolfenstein 3D was fun in this way, too).

Maybe because Angband is ascii, or maybe because there is no rhyme or reason when you stumble upon a special room or find one through a secret door, I've never really had the sense of discovering special rooms in Angband. The only way I even learned that Angband has special rooms is because I'd often see in descriptions of items I picked up: "found in a special room."

Most secret or special rooms don't feel any different to me than regular rooms. Sure, their shape or layout sometimes gets my attention, but because I often just walk into them or even start in them, they don't feel secret. It would be great if Angband could somehow make it feel more like you are finding secret rooms or secret passageways. Perhaps making it not possible to start a level in a special room? Maybe make the walls of special rooms or hallways purple? I know vaults have a different color, but maybe special rooms could, too. Or maybe special rooms could only be accessible through secret doors.

Hmm... speaking of Doom and secret doors, here's a radical idea. Maybe there could be tiles in the dungeon that when you walk over them they open a secret door somewhere else in the dungeon that otherwise cannot be opened. Some (most?) of these new special rooms would be vaults made with permanent rock, but unlike other vaults, would only be accessible through finding the lever that opens the door made of permanent rock. There would be no granite wall to find in order to tunnel into the vault.

So I imagine something like this: you are walking down a typical hallway when you round a corner and notice that one of the blocks on the corner of the hallway wall is permanent rock. This of course piques your curiosity. If you have digging ability you might try to dig around to see if it's a vault. But with a lot of digging you would discover that the vault has no point of weakness where you can tunnel in. So, puzzled, you would abandon the vault and continue on your way. If you didn't have digging ability, you might spend the rest of the level looking for a pick.

But you wouldn't be out of luck if you didn't find a pick. In fact, a pick would not help you at all. Trap detection, on the other hand, would, as it may reveal a lever on the floor (a new trap type). If you look at the tile (rune?) it says "A lever. It can be flipped". This 'trap' is a bit different from other traps @ is accustomed to. You don't necessarily want to disarm it. Instead, when you walk over it a message shows: "You flip a lever." If the lever is nearby where the secret-door-made-of-permanent-rock is that it releases, then the message will read: "You flip a lever. You hear the wall of the dungeon move nearby."

If you didn't have trap detection but did have good searching ability you might discover the lever when walking next to it or over it without being aware of it being there (just like other traps). Once it is discovered, you would have to walk over it to flip it. You wouldn't be able to accidentally trip it before you are aware of it like other traps and you wouldn't be able to disarm it by walking over it once you were aware of it: @ would have to use the [D]isarm command or a device/spell to disarm it. If you didn't want to flip the lever because you were afraid it might unleash monsters nearby you can't deal with, you could hold [CTRL] while walking over it (so basically the mechanics for this trap are kind of the reverse of other traps).

To make things more interesting; maybe not all the levers would open secret doors to vaults. Maybe there could be pits made of permanent rock and the only way to get inside the pit (and thus let all the monsters out) is to flip the trap lever. So, basically, the lever is a new trap type that differs from other traps in that it has a delayed effect which would more often then not increase the danger to the player but would often avail him to good treasures and secret rooms. Maybe sometimes it would not put him in any danger at all, but instead would open a secret door to a healing room: a new kind of special room that has healing potions or other items that heal.

I think adding this new trap type would help increase the specialness of special rooms and make them more secretive, while also giving more depth and purpose to trap detection (which is a hot topic right now). And having more vault types, special rooms and trap types doesn't hurt, either, right?

[Grotug]

I guess I'll ramble on about my game experiences here rather than clutter up more focused threads.

Does anyone have the problem where they know they are in too deep and kind of go into overwhelm and don't want to read all the dire messages and rush through them to find out whether or not you live to another turn? My strategy of late is to teleport around the level from one nest of danger to another. I finally got through a nasty nest of Elder Aranea&kin and a sorcerer after teleporting out of another Elder Aranea nest I was quickly losing to. I tend to want to rush when things get scary. I dunno why; like I just want to get through it. Even after everything is dead I kinda rush to look at what there is anxious to get something for the near death escape.

You have no room for a potion of healing,
dexterity ring,
great hammer,
you stumble on a trap!
You fall through a trap door.
You float down to the next level

In my anxious state this all happened so quickly; I was completely caught by surprise when the level changed, as if this hasn't happened to me dozens of times before. Just curious if other people get flustered when things get tough and rush and make mistakes.

Wow a bastard sword of gondolin in the store with better damage output than my Nimloth and pConf to boot! Sure could use that. Too bad I only have 17k gold.

[Pete Mack]

Well, the permarock walls give away greater vaults. Special rooms are only a little special, though, and some are intended to by cryptic.

[Grotug]

Thanks for reading through that wall of text. I think my idea would give the dungeon and secret rooms/vaults a bit more atmosphere.

Well, that DL51 Vault I just cleared was quite giving. A slow RoS [+4] and Law Dragon Scail Mail for rShards and rSound and mega breath weapon. But the baddies I killed inside were more giving: mithril boots of speed [+9], TO'd the two unique dragons and killed Castamir for the boots. With the boots I was able to then track down Smaug and Scatha and take Amras short bow and Aman cloak of stealth and rDisenchant from them.

I wouldn't have chased them down, but I saw that the Law armor disappeared from the vault, so figured somebody picked them up before I TO'd them.

EDIT: DEX [+3] ring brings me from 3.0 blows to 4.0 blows with Gurthang (rPois). So even though Nimloth gives +3 speed, I still get more damage with Gurthang with [+4] RoS in place of [+10] ring of damage.

So should I go +14 speed and 183-369 damage or +10 speed and 223-409 damage?

Basically +40 damage or +4 speed. 40% more speed or 15% more damage. Think I have to go with the speed.

Yay!! early score of Carlammas! Why does this make me so happy? Because I never get to use this amulet by the time I find it. Right now it replaces amulet of slow digestion, which is completely useless as I have the bow of Amras now that slows my Dig. Of course an amulet of ESP woulda been alright, too.

[Pete Mack]

@Grotug-
Just link to a character dump in the latter, rather than a detailed description here. It's much easier to follow. But in brief, 20% > 15%. Damage and speed are roughly interchangeable up to speed 22 or so. But you need to add 10 to all speeds (up to speed 22 or so) to be able to compare them. So it's speed 24 vs speed 20, not speed 14 vs speed 10.

[Grotug]

Screwing around with Ar Pharazôn the entire level. Was going great, picked up a better RoS from a drop, but Pharazôn is very difficult to kill. Kept teleporting me away. I had decided I was done with the level but he showed up again (like the 8th or so time I faced him). I figured I'll fight him again until he tele's me away, but he decided to summon more friends. Offscreen, hit by noise; ignored it, since I have Law rSound. Hit by cold. You die. Wondering who he summoned? Ohh.. he did summon a dracolich earlier; so maybe that's what hit me with cold.

http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=19895

[Grotug]

@Grotug-
Just link to a character dump in the latter, rather than a detailed description here. It's much easier to follow. But in brief, 20% > 15%. Damage and speed are roughly interchangeable up to speed 22 or so. But you need to add 10 to all speeds (up to speed 22 or so) to be able to compare them. So it's speed 24 vs speed 20, not speed 14 vs speed 10.

Why do I need to add 10 speed? Oh, I get it. +4 speed is 40% faster than 0. 14 is then 20% faster than 10?

------

Well, back to the dungeon. 1300 turns and doing 86 to 110 damage per round. and i'm dead.

[Pete Mack]

That's right. Normal speed is actually 10 game ticks. Speed "Fast 10" is 20 game ticks.

Why do I need to add 10 speed? Oh, I get it. +4 speed is 40% faster than 0. 14 is then 20% faster than 10?

------

Well, back to the dungeon. 1300 turns and doing 86 to 110 damage per round. and i'm dead.

[Derakon]

That's right. Normal speed is actually 10 game ticks. Speed "Fast 10" is 20 game ticks.

Backwards. At normal speed, every 10 game turns gets you 1 player turn. At +10 speed, every 5 game turns gets you 1 player turn. Game turns are "absolute time", player turns happen in more or fewer game turns depending on player speed.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Backwards. At normal speed, every 10 game turns gets you 1 player turn. At +10 speed, every 5 game turns gets you 1 player turn. Game turns are "absolute time", player turns happen in more or fewer game turns depending on player speed.

A perfect explanation, Derakon. Thank you. It is also easy to see, extrapolating that progression, why there are diminishing returns for additional speed, as the number of "absolute time" game turns approaches 1.

[Will]

Just curious if other people get flustered when things get tough and rush and make mistakes.

I'd say that's a natural reaction that you'd better learn to fight. Angband is turn-based and by rushing you're negating this advantage.

In real time games it's usually better to make a quick, bad decision than no decision at all. In turn-based games you've got infinite time to think about your next move.

When the going gets tough, breathe, look at your inventory, look at your equipment, assess the situation, decide if a consumable or power can help, then act.

I also tend to walk away from the keyboard after a great find (like a great artifact). The elation from finding it is usually bad news. Last time I didn't do that was on my mage who found 2 artifacts on the same level. He died on the next encounter.

Even when powerdiving, angband is a game of patience. Don't play when tired, don't play when unfocused, don't play when excited

[Pete Mack]

Doh! I generally use energy as the basic unit.

Backwards. At normal speed, every 10 game turns gets you 1 player turn. At +10 speed, every 5 game turns gets you 1 player turn. Game turns are "absolute time", player turns happen in more or fewer game turns depending on player speed.

[Derakon]

Doh! I generally use energy as the basic unit.

Yeah, the part I left out is that the way game turns work is that in each game turn, every actor (player + monsters) is given some energy dependent on their speed, and when an actor gets to at least 100 speed, they gain an action. At normal speed, you get 10 energy per game turn, thus it takes 10 game turns to get an action. At +10 speed, you get 20 energy per game turn, at +20 speed, you get 30 energy. But starting at +27 speed, you start getting less than 1 energy per additional point in speed, and you can never get above 49 energy per game turn (at something like +70 speed).

Speed has "diminishing returns" in the sense that it's a linear bonus that is usually measured in an exponential fashion (2x as fast, 3x as fast, etc.), but it also has diminishing returns in that you just flat out get less per point past a certain point in the scale.

[Grotug]

Killed Bullroarer with two arrows on DL16 (found a short bow of power in the store). He dropped weaponmastery. Not bad... not bad.... WM starts showing up at what DL70 or deeper?

[Sky]

not only that, but the amulet slot is practically useless until DL40, as you only get resist fire / frost / lightning / acid until then.