[Fay] Cutting the dungeon in half

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I'm thinking about replacing Morgoth with a new end monster and putting him in dungeon level 50.

Reasons:

- Fay is very frustrating in the depths, as seen in the latest competition.
- I want to keep the risk of character death high, but that isn't fun in a game with 100 levels. Finishing the game shouldn't take an eternity.
- Morgoth doesn't really make sense in Fay. I want a non-Tolkien boss monster.
- Moria had 50 levels, and I think I like it better.

I'm also considering removing greater vaults and eventually replacing them with "interesting rooms". I have a seriously hacked dungeon and room generation code coming up, but it doesn't play nice with greater vaults.

It may well be that greater vaults don't really belong in Fay-style semi-ironman dungeons anyway. Based on the competition, they are more frustrating than fun.

And again, Moria didn't have greater vaults so I don't need them either.

What do you think?

[Nick]

What do you think?

I can't fault your reasoning. I say go for it.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

Browsing through the FayAngband monster list (which is almost identical to EyAngband), I see that the first 50 levels have 84 % of the monsters, and the rest are mostly uniques.

So Fay wouldn't lose that much by capping the dungeon at level 50. I think this is the Moria heritage showing through: the game was made to be 50 levels long.

Artifacts would be less common but I see that as a plus.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

What would be the right power level for the end boss?

About as tough as Balrog of Moria (lvl 50 unique)? Or maybe Saruman of Many Colours (lvl 60), who is the end boss in Quickband?

[Antoine]

What would be the right power level for the end boss?

About as tough as Balrog of Moria (lvl 50 unique)? Or maybe Saruman of Many Colours (lvl 60), who is the end boss in Quickband?

I would think you'd want the end boss to be considerably tougher than uniques native to DL 50-60, don't forget the player will save lots of consumables for the final fight.

A.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

I would think you'd want the end boss to be considerably tougher than uniques native to DL 50-60, don't forget the player will save lots of consumables for the final fight.

True! Maybe I'll base him on Lord Voldermort, who's native to DL 85.

[Therem Harth]

The Lord Voldemort? You might want to be careful with that. (See the whole thing with Pernangband, Dragonriders, and Anne McAffrey.)

[Mikko Lehtinen]

The Lord Voldemort? You might want to be careful with that. (See the whole thing with Pernangband, Dragonriders, and Anne McAffrey.)

Oh no, I'm just taking his EyAngband stats as a starting point.

The big bad will be an ancient entity known only as the Thin White Duke. Originally a human occultist and aristocrat of the Old Empire, turned into a powerful demon lord by the means of some unspeakable rituals. He hates the racial diversity of this new era and wants to rid the world of the half-faery and animalistic scum. Pure humans should rule again.

He's basically a Nazi satanist -- a suitable antagonist. I got the idea from Eytan's flavour text that humans are the oldest race in the world of EyAngband.

I'm stealing the name and parts of the personality from a fictional character but I don't think David Bowie will sue me.

[Therem Harth]

Now that sounds cool. I've always liked the idea of setting a *band in a "homebrew" fantasy universe, instead of the usual Tolkienish hodgepodge.

[Roch]

I've made two more failed attempts in the competition to get deeper than about 1600'.

In doing so I noticed your point about the greater vaults (or any vaults really) -- I couldn't find a way to launch an assault. Either I couldn't even get in (no stone-to-mud or adequate digger -- my fault) or the out-of-depth monsters were more than a character at my level could reasonably risk facing (the game's fault). I used scroll of destruction on part of a greater vault and snagged the Beacon of Om, but a dread drained my strength and almost did me in (I only found one of those scrolls in my half dozen attempts at the game). In most of my games, the greater vault may as well not even have been part of the game. In contrast, finding small, open vaults is exciting, like the four-roomed ones that occasionally are generated. Those are tough but manageable.

The other thing I noticed is that playing as deep as I could get made restoring invaluable. It seems like more things drained stats (and more stat points), and especially with strength, with no means of restoring the game grinds to a halt. In one game I was drained, but when I got back to town there were no restore vigor potions in the store. No amount of resting in town refreshed it, and short trips to the dungeon sank me deeper but didn't refresh the store either. So now I stock up on them as much as I can before I get too deep.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

This is very good feedback, Roch.

I've made two more failed attempts in the competition to get deeper than about 1600'.

Some help is coming up in next versions:

- Somewhat bigger levels. Not necessarily more rooms, but much more solid rock between the rooms. Or more accurately, clusters of rooms some distance away from each other. I suspect this should help avoiding monsters, although I'm not sure of all gameplay implications. (Does this make Phase Door less efficient?)

- Helpful terrain features. Positioning helps defending against mosters. Characters and monsters have a Jumping skill that makes moving over obstacles faster, allowing jumpy characters to escape monsters. Magical circles that give different bonuses if you stand inside.

- Gods. At some point. Pretty altars are already standing there in the development version, doing nothing.

In doing so I noticed your point about the greater vaults (or any vaults really) -- I couldn't find a way to launch an assault. Either I couldn't even get in (no stone-to-mud or adequate digger -- my fault) or the out-of-depth monsters were more than a character at my level could reasonably risk facing (the game's fault). I used scroll of destruction on part of a greater vault and snagged the Beacon of Om, but a dread drained my strength and almost did me in (I only found one of those scrolls in my half dozen attempts at the game). In most of my games, the greater vault may as well not even have been part of the game. In contrast, finding small, open vaults is exciting, like the four-roomed ones that occasionally are generated. Those are tough but manageable.

That's what I suspected. Greater vaults should go, lesser vaults should stay.

The other thing I noticed is that playing as deep as I could get made restoring invaluable. It seems like more things drained stats (and more stat points), and especially with strength, with no means of restoring the game grinds to a halt. In one game I was drained, but when I got back to town there were no restore vigor potions in the store. No amount of resting in town refreshed it, and short trips to the dungeon sank me deeper but didn't refresh the store either. So now I stock up on them as much as I can before I get too deep.

This reminded me of my fountain ideas. Maybe fountains should be simple healing facilities, and relatively common.

Drinking from a fountain would do *one* of the following things depending on your state:

1) If you are suffering from any ill effects (disease, poison, cuts, confusion, etc), they are all cured.
2) If any of your stats are drained, a random stat pair is restored.
3) If you are healthy already, you feel refreshed and gain a Reserves point.

Fountain would dry up after 1d3 uses.

[Roch]

I'm not sure about the level size redesign, because to me phase door is one of the most important functions in the game. It sounds like the new level design might really hurt phase door escape probablilities.

I'm not sure about the terrain features -- it just might work.

Fountains sound good, short of allowing shops to refresh while resting in town. Is it true that they will not refresh their stock when the player is in town?

[fizzix]

Mikko, having stats restore on level-up seems to be working reasonably well in V. You might want to use this as well if draining is too deadly.

[will_asher]

This reminded me of my fountain ideas. Maybe fountains should be simple healing facilities, and relatively common.

Drinking from a fountain would do *one* of the following things depending on your state:

1) If you are suffering from any ill effects (disease, poison, cuts, confusion, etc), they are all cured.
2) If any of your stats are drained, a random stat pair is restored.
3) If you are healthy already, you feel refreshed and gain a Reserves point.

Fountain would dry up after 1d3 uses.

I'd like to implement drinking from fountains in DaJAngband as well. Except that there should be a decent chance of a bad effect (or at least a not-helpful effect) when drinking a fountain. After all, it is a fountain in a dungeon controlled by a powerful evil enemy who doesn't want people to get healing easily by drinking from fountains.

[buzzkill]

After all, it is a fountain in a dungeon controlled by a powerful evil enemy who doesn't want people to get healing easily by drinking from fountains.

Agreed. If I'm in a dungeon, the last thing I'm going to do is drink from some god forsaken fountain. I'm pretty sure the trolls use it as a urinal.