Buzzkill's Thread

**buzzkill** · September 28, 2010, 02:50

I was thinking a little about traps last night and came up this idea. Imprisonment. Indistinguishable from a normal teleportation trap, it would send the player to pre-determined location, specifically a prison cell. A 20x20 room surrounded entirely by granite, quartz or magma, no doors. The player would have to teleport or dig his way out. Variations could exist, permanent walls, restricting teleportation, locked doors w/guards outside, larger cells with other prisoners inside, more traps.

I really like the notion of a non-random teleportation. I don't think that this is the best possible implementation, but it's a start.

**Tiburon Silverflame** · September 30, 2010, 20:53

As long as it's diggable, AND as long as it doesn't show up too early (very early on, no one has teleport, and the light weapons may *not* allow digging, or take so bloody damn long to do so that fuel/food might become an issue)...it's not a bad idea.

A dangerous variation is a room within a room. The 20x20 area has, say, a 5x5 at its center...*this* is the secure detention area. Which means, everything popped in that room is out of depth by 5 or 10 levels, like in a vault. Everything in the little room starts out asleep. If you try tunneling out, tho...they'll wake up, and then...if they can get out...uhhh ohhhh.....

At deeper levels, one could eliminate the dig option...surround with permanent rock. If you're on level 50, you damn sure have *some* way out, even if it's WoR.

**buzzkill** · October 28, 2010, 02:47

Lando (DaJ Barbarian, by a long shot my best character ever) meets the Witch King of Angmar on DL80. This is by far the deepest unique I've ever actually engaged in a battle with, and the 3rd deepest I've ever even seen. Quite to my surprise, I get him down to 3 ***'s pretty quickly putting out 3 blows at 200+ per blow in melee, my hasted speed +34, and also firing a few bolts of acid doing about 300 per hit. Anyhow, at about this time it teleports me away. That really pissed me off, because it landed me right next to a pit of titans. I casually outpaced the titans and destroyed a few other nuisances on my return trek (finding a potion of speed and a wand of tunneling to further haste my return). I managed to him it and thought the Witch-King was dead, but at one * remaining, he TO'd me again. I'd return and he'd TO me again, adding a * or ** to his health each time while awaiting my return. This must have happened at least 7 or 8 times. sometimes even before I would see him. Eventually my frustration built and my keypresses got sloppy. Did I die? No. I pressed accidentally < while standing on an up staircase, leaving the level, leaving the Witch-King alive. What are the odds of that?

**will_asher** · October 28, 2010, 04:23

<checks the code> The Witch-King's tele-away antics are a result of DJA having some of the effects of the AI_SMART option always on for SMART monsters.
After hearing about this, I think I'll make it only a 35% or 50% chance for them to chose a spell intelligently when AI_SMART is not turned on. probably 50%.

hmmm, maybe I'll have Rnexus give a small chance of resisting TELE_AWAY as well.

**Fendell Orcbane** · October 28, 2010, 06:33

Do all FA character end up with such low HPs? I was checking your paladin out since I'm playing FA myself and I don't know what to expect. Are there any spoilers around for the monsters? I ask because these monsters are a lot different than what you have in V. Hell the baby dragons were kicking my 20 lvl rogues butt. I actually had to run. Also it looks like speed works differently in this game.

**LostTemplar** · October 28, 2010, 10:12

Any character will have at least 800 hp in lategame, speed is same as in vanilla just harder to get.

**buzzkill** · October 28, 2010, 12:38

Originally posted by Fendell Orcbane

Do all FA character end up with such low HPs? I was checking your paladin out since I'm playing FA myself and I don't know what to expect... Hell the baby dragons were kicking my 20 lvl rogues butt. I actually had to run. Also it looks like speed works differently in this game.

I believe that HP's and speed work the same as in V. My characters are typically lacking "good stats" since I always use the standard roller.

**buzzkill** · October 28, 2010, 12:46

Originally posted by will_asher

<checks the code> The Witch-King's tele-away antics are a result of DJA having some of the effects of the AI_SMART option always on for SMART monsters.... hmmm, maybe I'll have Rnexus give a small chance of resisting TELE_AWAY as well.

I though something funny was going on. With the large number of spells it had to choose from, I found it hard to believe that it would TO me with such eerie regularity. OTOH, It turned him from a relitave pushover (I can hardly believe I'm saying that) casting only a couple of bolt spells and summoning once, into a viable, though annyoing apponent. Both of your remedies look good at first glance.

**buzzkill** · November 13, 2010, 01:55

Another random idea... I figure it's better to jot these down rather than let them fade into oblivion. One day maybe I'll have my own ill-defined non-working variant.

While I'm not for more guardians, that is enemies that you must beat to continue downward. I was thinking that having certain uniques highly likely (50%) to be found at a particular level would be nice so you could prepare for them. I then discarded that idea and came up with a much simpler one. Being an old baseball card collector, it occurred to me that Topp's always placed star players on card numbers ending with 50 or 00. Sure, they didn't always get it right but they tried. With that in mind I suggest making levels that end in 5 or 0 somehow more special. My first and best ideas thus far are ...

1. taking any level that ends in 0 and generating it 50% OoD. So DL10 would be generated as if it were DL15 and DL80 as if it were DL120. This would of course be a one time only, first time visited perk. Players could then decide whether they wanted to risk their life in search of a better kit, or simply find the staircase and move on. In the interest of fairness (to Morgoth) I think that any teleport-style spells would have to be made to aggravate the entire level. In other words, you would have to explore the level with your feet-on-the-ground either killing, running, or sneaking away from everything if you planned on sticking around. No phase and shoot, no TO, no nonsense.

2. For the DL's ending in 5, I would simply guarantee a unique be present. To add to the fun, I'd also guarantee him awake and aware. Meh, it's better than nothing.

**buzzkill** · November 15, 2010, 01:35

and another thing... WoR really needs to be changed from max_depth to max_depth+1. I never recall immediately upon arriving on a new level. Quite often I wait until I am finished with whatever the level has to offer and then recall. So then, upon recall back down, I'm playing he same level over again essentially scumming. This becomes compounded in the late game when recalls seem to become more common. In any case it wouldn't hurt to move players through the dungeon levels a little more quickly.

**Nick** · November 15, 2010, 04:14

Originally posted by buzzkill

and another thing... WoR really needs to be changed from max_depth to max_depth+1.

Maybe not on DL98, though.

**Atarlost** · November 15, 2010, 07:20

This is a terrible idea. Not everyone dives at the maximum rate possible, nor should they.

If anything it's the overly favored strategy and elements should be introduced that make diving harder until methodical play is once again a viable choice.

**buzzkill** · November 15, 2010, 12:18

Originally posted by Atarlost

This is a terrible idea. Not everyone dives at the maximum rate possible, nor should they.

It's not a suggestion to encourage diving. It's just to reduce or eliminate unintentional scumming by replaying the same level upon recall. If I recall to a level, I'm going to perform a cursory investigation (detect monsters/detect treasures) just to see what's around even if I've been here before. I'm basically looking for stat potions, uniques, and vaults. If I spot something interesting I'm going to check it out. As you move into the later half of the dungeon there are lots or interesting things to distract you from going deeper. This is just a suggestion to keep the game moving forward without having to bail on a level immediately upon recall-down, regardless of what it has to offer.

I don't recall very often as I don't sell much so it wouldn't effect me a whole lot until late in the game when artifacts and super-ego swap options start cluttering my pack. I suppose for those that collect and sell more it would have a greater impact, but these are precisely the players that (one could argue) need a nudge to go deeper. There always an up staircase if you want to slow your descent. I just don't feel that replaying a level should be the default behavior.

**Derakon** · November 15, 2010, 17:19

There's an easy fix for that: recall when your pack is full, not when you've "completed" a level. I'll often recall after having covered maybe a quarter of the map of a level, because that's when I've run out of room for more loot (and/or run out of needed supplies). Recalling back to that same level isn't a big deal.

If you combine that with diving to match your abilities to the dungeon difficulty instead of diving at some preordained pace, then you shouldn't care too much about exactly what depth you're at. I hardly ever pay attention to the depth indicator any more.

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