0006139: Enter the Zot Realm: 36 Orb Chambers - Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup Tracker

Notes
(0019790) neil (administrator) 2012-08-31 17:13	Some of these have lots of Zs... do keep in mind that zot5_orb gives each Z glyph that isn't the orb a 1/10 chance of being a mimic.

(0019791) nicolae (reporter) 2012-08-31 17:28	Yeah, if that's a problem, I'll make some edits and upload new versions that just place the orb explicitly with no chance of mimics. I just used zot5_orb in all the vaults out of habit.

(0019792) st (reporter) 2012-08-31 18:29	Sorry, I'm sure you put work into these but I find these vaults very unappealing. I do not think Zot:5 needs alternate vaults. Zot:5 does not need this sort of variance and it certainly does not need gimmicks. The original orb chamber is the simplest, most elegant and most fun of them we have. A lot the current alternate orb chambers have a large variance in difficulty and feel and these are even worse. I wish we would go back to having only the original orb chamber.

(0019793) minmay (reporter) 2012-08-31 20:14	Agreed.

(0019796) Guppyfry (reporter) 2012-09-01 02:39	I think most of these could be slightly tweaked to be nice zot stair vaults though and I thought adding a lot of stair vaults to zot was a good idea that got a lot of discussion recently.

(0019797) nicolae (reporter) 2012-09-01 04:06	Well, I would feel a little disappointed if none of them at all made the orb chamber cut, but I'd be willing to repurpose some or all of them into Zot stair vaults if necessary. Change the monster set, slap some @ on the sides, change the Zs to staircases, etc.

(0019798) evilmike (developer) 2012-09-01 06:08 edited on: 2012-09-01 06:14	I agree that orb chamber vaults should avoid trying to do anything fancy... things like glass, narrow corridors, water, doors, statues, multiple paths, and unusual monsters (including mimics) are not effective when they are made so common that players learn to expect them. The zot:5 vault has a number of unusual properties: it's very simple, it's one of the few places players are forced to go through in order to win, and it's extremely well designed. I also think that, while variety is good in most parts of the game, there is a virtue in having the end-goal (aka Zot:5) use the same map each game (or at least, almost every game). Some of these submissions are better than others. However, I would prefer to give them a low weight (even before this, I was thinking about giving the original orb chamber about a 2/3 chance of showing up in a given game, up from around 1/3 currently). This would mean the new ones would be _very_ uncommon. The idea would be to keep the original chamber as the default, and have the rest be rare alternatives (note that this principle is applied to other branch endings as well, to various degrees). This means that it would probably be a good idea to repurpose the more ambitious ones here (they'd get used more often if they were simple minivaults). Failing this, you should rethink some of the weirder ones. For example, doors aren't a good idea to use in Zot:5, because many of the nastier Zot monsters can't use doors. Have you considered making pandemonium minivaults? That is one area where we already have a large pool of maps, but more are always welcome. A lot of the vaults you made here have designs that could work for that - just put the pan lord where the orb goes and replace the regular monsters with demons. For the record, I am not rejecting this submission (although some revisions would be nice). I see no serious difference between having 10 orb chamber vaults in crawl, or 50 (as long as they're all balanced...). In either case, the original chamber will be more common (again, I'm thinking 2/3 of the time), and the alternatives will remain alternatives: it is a simple matter of adjusting the WEIGHT lines.

(0019836) KiloByte (manager) 2012-09-02 02:41	+1 to having exactly one Zot:5 vault. Vault ideas from this submissions can be used elsewhere.

(0019846) elliptic (developer) 2012-09-02 10:54	+1 to removing orb chamber variations altogether. I'm not sure what purpose (if any) they actually serve, and I think we've lost some of the iconic feeling of Zot:5 by adding them. I'm happy to see more and more vault variations everywhere else in crawl (including places like Slime:6, Tomb, and Shoals:5 that are currently more or less fixed!), but I think it would be fitting for the orb vault to be fixed again.

(0019853) evilmike (developer) 2012-09-02 12:33	Well, it looks like the opinion is largely in favour of restoring Zot:5 to a fixed state. I agree with this actually, although I was proposing a middle ground earlier (mainly because I don't hate the current state, but merely prefer the old one). I am going to disable the orb vault variations for now, and edit them into Zot minivaults soon unless someone else beats me to it. Sorry, nicolae. If you redesign these vaults to be regular minivaults, they can still get in. Also, like I said, I think many of these would make fine Pan minivaults. I hope this doesn't discourage you; you have made many great vaults in Crawl and I hope you keep making new ones.

(0019855) nicolae (reporter) 2012-09-02 14:42	Ah, well, so it goes. I'm not at home right now but I'll try to redo them into Zot and Pan minivaults over the course of the next week.

(0019932) nicolae (reporter) 2012-09-04 18:26	Presenting a few of the orb chamber vaults getting new work as Pan lord vaults, as suggested.

(0020455) evilmike (developer) 2012-11-04 23:47	I've added the pan minivaults. Made the weight especially low on the one with "spectators", since it's strange compared to the others.

Issue History
Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2012-08-31 16:51	nicolae	New Issue
2012-08-31 16:51	nicolae	File Added: orbvaults.des
2012-08-31 17:13	neil	Note Added: 0019790
2012-08-31 17:28	nicolae	Note Added: 0019791
2012-08-31 18:29	st	Note Added: 0019792
2012-08-31 20:14	minmay	Note Added: 0019793
2012-09-01 02:39	Guppyfry	Note Added: 0019796
2012-09-01 04:06	nicolae	Note Added: 0019797
2012-09-01 06:08	evilmike	Note Added: 0019798
2012-09-01 06:14	evilmike	Note Edited: 0019798
2012-09-02 02:41	KiloByte	Note Added: 0019836
2012-09-02 10:54	elliptic	Note Added: 0019846
2012-09-02 12:33	evilmike	Note Added: 0019853
2012-09-02 14:42	nicolae	Note Added: 0019855
2012-09-04 18:26	nicolae	File Added: exorbvaults.des
2012-09-04 18:26	nicolae	Note Added: 0019932
2012-11-04 23:47	evilmike	Note Added: 0020455
2012-11-04 23:47	evilmike	Status	new => resolved
2012-11-04 23:47	evilmike	Fixed in Branch	=> 0.12 development branch
2012-11-04 23:47	evilmike	Resolution	open => done
2012-11-04 23:47	evilmike	Assigned To	=> evilmike

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