"You here the fluttering of tiny wings", aka: level feelings - a proposal

[wobbly]

I hate the current level feelings with a passion. Others love it. Here's a proposal for level feelings I can live with:

Checks are made against perception on entering the level. Message appears in (delay - success level) turns. Current level feelings display fudged number on failed checks (true value +/- failure levels). Additional check could potentially be added for spawns.

The following to be tracked on level gen:

• Monster Danger (currently in)
• Loot Value (currently in)
• Pits
• Vaults
• Closest Monster
• Highest Level Unique
• OOD Monsters
• Quantity >x enemy
• Quantity >x traps

List can be longer or shorter depending on how ridiculous it gets.

2 Flavour texts(high/low level) per monster category. Unique Orcs would use orc flavour text. Special uniques like the Nazgul could have their own.

e.g. "tiny scratches mark the walls and floor" - little Reptile
"large scratches on the walls mark the passage of a large beast" - large Reptile
"A smell of sulfur pervades the air" - demon
"A toxic slime drips from the walls" - big poison breather

etc.

Edit: Argh. Can correct the tittle spelling but not the url.

[Thraalbee]

As long as we keep getting up to 2-3 vaults and special rooms per level that is going to be hard to implement. I think those are too plentiful, but that is what we see today. You could just ignore vault guardians, but then you would possibly be better of with the current scheme where a high monster value often equals one or more vaults which is important information.

[luneya]

That proposal would work on a game with tiny levels. At present, V is not such a game, nor do I expect it to become one.

I'm fine with the status quo on level feelings. If you don't like having them, you can just turn them off.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

What I'm looking forward to, or rather vainly hoping for, is "special levels" ala FAAngband - "drums in the deep", "land of warlords", etc.

[Nick]

What I'm looking forward to, or rather vainly hoping for, is "special levels" ala FAAngband - "drums in the deep", "land of warlords", etc.

Side note - frog-knows had special levels like this

[Derakon]

Side note - frog-knows had special levels like this

Not the frog-knows I remember. There may have been multiple versions with minor differences though. The only special levels I remember were ones with artifacts on them.

There were also of course the 4 greater vaults, and rather more commonly, you'd find a level where someone had used Word of Destruction already to nuke part of it, but that's about it for unusual levels. ...I still kinda miss destroyed levels. They were cool.

[Nick]

My evidence - this is originally downloaded from rephial. I could be misinterpreting, of course, as I haven't actually played.

[fizzix]

Well there's an opportunity to put some thematic elements in the levels. Since it appears that there are far fewer monsters these days in the second half of the dungeon, we could fill them up with more enemies, in a thematic sense.

One of the issues with themed levels in general Angband gameplay (which occurs with caverns and labyrinths these days) is if the level is below average in terms of risk/reward, then there's no reason to do it. You just reset it. So a themed level which had a bunch of hounds or elementals would just be an ignored level.

One way around this, is to block off sections of the dungeon, so say levels 60-65 were "elemental levels" and they always generate that way. You could skip them for sure, but then you're skipping a good chunk of levels.

[Derakon]

My evidence - this is originally downloaded from rephial. I could be misinterpreting, of course, as I haven't actually played.

I definitely do not remember there being any hardcoded levels like that in the version of frog-knows I played. Clearly the genealogy of frog-knows got a bit muddled back then. They certainly didn't survive to the Ben days, so I guess that was a dead-end branch of the tree...

[geoff_tewierik]

I definitely do not remember there being any hardcoded levels like that in the version of frog-knows I played. Clearly the genealogy of frog-knows got a bit muddled back then. They certainly didn't survive to the Ben days, so I guess that was a dead-end branch of the tree...

FWIW I do not recall any special levels like that in 2.4.frog-knows either. The only special levels I recall were the artifact levels and they were always treated with trepidation as you didn't want to lose that special item.

[wobbly]

That proposal would work on a game with tiny levels. At present, V is not such a game, nor do I expect it to become one.

I'm fine with the status quo on level feelings. If you don't like having them, you can just turn them off.

Yeah currently in V, I just turn them off. I'm fine with the older style other variants have which is vague enough to be alright. I suspect this wont be a V thing, I just put it here in-case anyone else was interested. For O I'll just leave Vs system in unless the old system is simple to re-implement. However when I build on that for my own variant I don't want to keep a system that I think breaks basic balance & has so little going for it to justify it:

Should players really be able to reliably hunt for Thancs in the 1st 5 dungeon levels? They drop too reliably early, but the drop rates not the only problem there.

Basic rule of loot is for better go deeper, face worse enemies. Why is there a mechanic to stay at the same depth, find better loot, face weaker enemies?

As long as we keep getting up to 2-3 vaults and special rooms per level that is going to be hard to implement. I think those are too plentiful, but that is what we see today. You could just ignore vault guardians, but then you would possibly be better of with the current scheme where a high monster value often equals one or more vaults which is important information.

How many do you think would be good? For forced descent (anyone else can repeat levels for more). I actually don't mind level feelings being useless by the stage you have telepathy & the like. I also don't mind it being uninformative, it's a feeling not a detect. Treating it otherwise is what breaks the current system. It should be a minor thing for most characters with some semi-useful stuff for high perception, no book characters.

[wobbly]

As long as we keep getting up to 2-3 vaults and special rooms per level that is going to be hard to implement. I think those are too plentiful, but that is what we see today. You could just ignore vault guardians, but then you would possibly be better of with the current scheme where a high monster value often equals one or more vaults which is important information.

There's also an argument for the reverse too. The trouble is there aren't a lot of options for making the last levels more dangerous other then shrinking space, uping monster density or uping the danger on things that already have too many hps to start with. Big leaky vaults give you a timer mechanism to flood a level with nasties.

Of course there's always just making most of the late game passwall, diggers & dungeon wreckers. Just mess with people building anti-summon corriders to the point you can use a saner number of enemies.

Edit: Maybe large late game dragons could dig? but only if they can't find a reasonable path through shoving aside smaller critters?

[wobbly]

Should players really be able to reliably hunt for Thancs in the 1st 5 dungeon levels? They drop too reliably early, but the drop rates not the only problem there.

Found the code for level feelings & it's actually worse then I thought, it's pretty much programed to specifically create this exact problem:

/* Apply a minimum feeling if there's an artifact on the level */
if (c->good_item && x < 641) return 60;

So at low levels an artifact is going to shine through at a very specific pt. No wonder experienced players like Ingwe know the no. for item feel that = high probability of early *thanc.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

No wonder experienced players like Ingwe know the no. for item feel that = high probability of early *thanc.

Often more important than that early "6" in levels 1 to 3, is an early "4" for Free Action. In a comp, there's no time to waste scumming for a lucky 'thanc, but a "4" comes much more often. It may be my imagination, but when diving fast I find FA hard to come by if I don't get it within the first 5 levels.

[Huqhox]

As a FK player I don't remember any special levels. There were the vaults of course. And {special} levels that had an artifact on. Or a player ghost (where they still in FK? It's going back a few years)

It is of course possible that the development went down that way before being tidied up by Ben and it just wasn't the version I was playing