Persistent levels

[Sky]

At which point the levels would hardly be persistent, wouldn't they?

no, what i mean is that uniques will leave a known level after N. turns, and have a new chance of spawning deeper.

[Oraticus]

... but at that point why not just have monsters roll all their drops at the time they're killed?

I thought their drops were determined at the moment they were killed! *mind blown*

[Pete Mack]

Well it crash-proofs monster drops. I can't think of any other reason for it, at least without going to persistent levels. (Vault objects are another possibility, but since that was never implemented, there's no reason for the first.)

[Derakon]

Do items in monster inventories affect level feelings? That's the only real justification I can think of for them, beyond wanting to discourage savescumming of drops in a singleplayer game. And once again, the real solution here is to turn off level feelings.

[Nick]

My current planned changes to fix the issues raised in this thread are:

• Have monsters on saved levels heal over time
• Make uniques and artifacts able to be generated on new levels (or by newly spawning on the current level) regardless of if they exist on a saved level; the previous one would just be deleted from where it was.

I think that fixes everything - can anyone else see a problem?

The creation of monster drops on monster creation, by the way, was introduced so that dropped item origins could be precise - "dropped by a black orc in a vault", etc.

[kandrc]

The only problem that jumps out at me is the case of uniques in a vault. If you simply delete them, the danger of the vault is reduced, perhaps significantly. Then @ can go back and clean up loot without danger. Perhaps, rather than delete, replace with a non-unique monster of similar depth? Or, since uniques are supposed to be more challenging than other monsters of the same depth, perhaps add an extra 10 or so DLs.

[Nick]

The only problem that jumps out at me is the case of uniques in a vault. If you simply delete them, the danger of the vault is reduced, perhaps significantly. Then @ can go back and clean up loot without danger. Perhaps, rather than delete, replace with a non-unique monster of similar depth? Or, since uniques are supposed to be more challenging than other monsters of the same depth, perhaps add an extra 10 or so DLs.

Yeah, I was actually planning something along those lines.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

The only problem that jumps out at me is the case of uniques in a vault. If you simply delete them, the danger of the vault is reduced, perhaps significantly. Then @ can go back and clean up loot without danger. Perhaps, rather than delete, replace with a non-unique monster of similar depth? Or, since uniques are supposed to be more challenging than other monsters of the same depth, perhaps add an extra 10 or so DLs.

Talk about making a high-level mage a super-powered demi-god. Just leave the level and come back, uniques are gone from the vault, replaced by regular, albeit powerful monsters -- Mass Banishment - no more monsters at all - pick up loot at will....

[Philip]

Simple solution (though not perfect): block Banish/MBanish/*Destruct* from affecting vault tiles entirely.

[Sky]

The more i think about this, the less i like persistent levels.

[Nick]

Talk about making a high-level mage a super-powered demi-god. Just leave the level and come back, uniques are gone from the vault, replaced by regular, albeit powerful monsters -- Mass Banishment - no more monsters at all - pick up loot at will....

The idea is to replace them not once the player leaves the level, but when they get naturally generated on a new level. If they never get generated again, they never get replaced. Also what Philip said

[kaypy]

I am currently seeing occasional disconnected stairs for some reason. Unfortunately I don't notice them until a long time after the fact, if at all, which makes it rather difficult to pin down any common circumstances...

[Tibarius]

persistent levels

I think persistent levels are against the basic idea of the game. I surely vote to remove them and not to develop into that direction. There are much areas the game could be enhanced / renewed in which are much more promising in my eyes.

[Nick]

I think persistent levels are against the basic idea of the game. I surely vote to remove them and not to develop into that direction. There are much areas the game could be enhanced / renewed in which are much more promising in my eyes.

I'm not really planning any particular development of this option, except as people ask for it. I don't see any need to remove the option - it's a birth option, nobody needs to play it. It also opens up the design space for future variant creators, possibly including me...

[swim]

Hey there,
I'm just getting into Angband and the persistent levels option seems really appealing to me. I had a read through this thread and I was just wondering if all the changes you mentioned regarding monster spawning and such have since been implemented? I looked through the change logs of versions since that feature was introduced and while they mention big fixes they don't specifically mention fixes to the persistent level feature.

Also wondering what happens when a floor is completely cleared? Will no monsters ever spawn there again, or do some still spawn randomly?

Thanks!!