What

[Laraso]

Is this a vault, or is it just the map generation being silly? There was nothing but a single centaur warrior in there.

[Hirsch I]

cool whip, tho.

[KoboldLord]

That one's been around a while. The monster inside was just there randomly; it's supposed to be a closet. That one's kind of oddly placed, but the vault as a concept worked better back when secret doors still existed.

[Arrhythmia]

A vault, called firewood_loft; last I heard Eternally Glorious And Greatest Dev Ever (Especially Better Than Gammafunk) Sage was planning on cutting it.

[gammafunk]

A vault, called firewood_loft; last I heard Eternally Glorious And Greatest Dev Ever (Especially Better Than Gammafunk) Sage was planning on cutting it.

Sorry son, the commits don't lie

  Code:

$ git log --author="gammafunk" --oneline | wc -l
95
$ git log --author="Sage" --oneline | wc -l
39


[Arrhythmia]

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion of the ocean.

e: except, in this metaphor, "boat" is not your dick, it is how many commits you've made.

[duvessa]

e: except, in this metaphor, "boat" is not your dick

you're not coding the right way then

[gammafunk]

When your "boat" is 40% the size of your competitor, that metaphor won't be very comforting.

[Cheibrodos]

Yeah but whos dick is bigger

[Laraso]

That one's kind of oddly placed, but the vault as a concept worked better back when secret doors still existed.

Are you saying that this vault is an artifact left over from a previous iteration when T&D existed? Shouldn't this have been pruned out at the same time they removed secret doors?

[Arrhythmia]

Yeah but whos dick is bigger

Mine.

[bcadren]

Yeah but whos dick is bigger

Mine.

Probably mine. I'm gay enough to know.

[nicolae]

That one's kind of oddly placed, but the vault as a concept worked better back when secret doors still existed.

Are you saying that this vault is an artifact left over from a previous iteration when T&D existed? Shouldn't this have been pruned out at the same time they removed secret doors?

I don't think it ever had secret doors. It's just a downstair with some staffs, the secret is that you have to go back up a staircase you didn't come down on, which few people bother with.

[Sar]

That vault is kind of stupid, but I liked it. Unlike the hidden temple, it doesn't contain anything important, and I liked stumbling upon it occasionally (especially on ascent).

[nicolae]

That vault is kind of stupid, but I liked it. Unlike the hidden temple, it doesn't contain anything important, and I liked stumbling upon it occasionally (especially on ascent).

hidden temple was not one of my best efforts. whoops. at least it has glass now so you can see what's there.

[Sar]

Yeah, no offense but hidden temple was sort of "check all stairs all the time unless you want to miss on that god you really wanted to follow". Which isn't even hard to do, really, but not very fun either (I have enough of that in Orc).

[Magipi]

Yeah, no offense but hidden temple was sort of "check all stairs all the time unless you want to miss on that god you really wanted to follow". Which isn't even hard to do, really, but not very fun either (I have enough of that in Orc).

Checking all stairs is a good idea anyway. It will be a big plus not to have unknown stairs when you ascend with the orb.

[nago]

That vault is kind of stupid, but I liked it. Unlike the hidden temple, it doesn't contain anything important, and I liked stumbling upon it occasionally (especially on ascent).

Well, the three times I casually stumbled into it, there was the latajang of the order as well other good enchanted staves.
Sure those are goodies infinitely less important than temple, but still makes optimal to staves user (and other combo too) to double check every staircase which is a silly and spoilery thing to do

[nago]

double post

[Sar]

Yes, you're right I guess.

[jejorda2]

I always thought of it as a broom closet.

I'm kind of surprised anyone doesn't check all the upstairs.

[Firion]

I usually check all the downstairs when I'm exploring a level, but I often forget to check for upstairs (outside of Orcish Mines) if there was only 2 downstairs found on the level above.

[Thalfon]

Checking downstairs is riskier, because you're going to an unexplored level. The first time you enter a new level you get to act first, but not on subsequent entrances, so you're costing yourself that benefit as well. It's much better to take unexplored up staircases after getting to the next level than to visit each down staircase before the following level is explored.

[Laraso]

I generally always take every unexplored staircase down, every floor, every time. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages in my opinion. Not only do you get to know where every single staircase up is upon entering the level, it also often gives you an idea on what you should expect from the floor, and if you're worshiping Ashenzari at max peity then going down all the staircases before working on the next floor basically gives you free (albeit low quality) floor-wide magic mapping.

In addition to all of those things, you also get the added benefit of always knowing when there is a secret such as the vault shown in my screenshot or hidden temples. I haven't had not one single game of mine ended from this out of the hundreds upon hundreds of games I've played, so even if you don't get to act first upon subsequent entries it's still not really dangerous.

[tompliss]

I generally always take every unexplored staircase down, every floor, every time. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages in my opinion.

Timed portals.

I stopped checking downstairs after walking into vaults in the earliest levels (when a Dungeon floor cleared means a real increase in power), and Timed portals convinced me that was a good idea.

[Laraso]

I think you're misunderstanding something, because I don't go down any stairs until after I've already cleared the floor I'm on. I don't just go down them as soon as I see them. If anything, checking all the staircases actually makes finding the portal easier, because occasionally they get placed next to a staircase.

[KoboldLord]

All portals are announced now anyway. I don't really like that change, but I don't know that there's any plan to revert it.

I have run into situations where I go down an unexplored stairwell and immediately get paralyzed or attacked by multiple monsters. I haven't died from it, but it's caused me enough trouble that I don't do that if I can help it. Using a stairwell exposes you to up to eight tiles of melee range that you can't see in advance. That's potentially worse than any other single move you can make in the game. Usually nothing happens, but the odds are certainly worse than they are with walking around normally.

Generally I only try a new stairwell if the risks involved are lower than the risks involved with continuing to explore around the first one. Sometimes this does happen, but it's usually because the risks around the first stairwell went significantly up. If the risks around the first stairwell are still low, the second stairwell is going to be a worse risk simply because I don't have any good data on it.

[Patashu]

All portals are announced now anyway. I don't really like that change, but I don't know that there's any plan to revert it.

I have run into situations where I go down an unexplored stairwell and immediately get paralyzed or attacked by multiple monsters. I haven't died from it, but it's caused me enough trouble that I don't do that if I can help it. Using a stairwell exposes you to up to eight tiles of melee range that you can't see in advance. That's potentially worse than any other single move you can make in the game. Usually nothing happens, but the odds are certainly worse than they are with walking around normally.

Generally I only try a new stairwell if the risks involved are lower than the risks involved with continuing to explore around the first one. Sometimes this does happen, but it's usually because the risks around the first stairwell went significantly up. If the risks around the first stairwell are still low, the second stairwell is going to be a worse risk simply because I don't have any good data on it.

Good analysis. I don't like going down a staircase that might place me in unexplored territory either unless I have to.

Btw, open question - what if the 'enemies don't have time to act' bonus from the first staircase you take on a new level applied every time you took a previously untaken staircase? Would this be good or bad for Crawl?

[tedric]

what if the 'enemies don't have time to act' bonus from the first staircase you take on a new level applied every time you took a previously untaken staircase?

This might be abusable in cases where two staircases are placed within LOS of each other -- it is already possible to exploit that by drawing difficult enemies back and forth between the stairs, hitting them at range from one side then the other, and because of off-level time dilation they don't have a chance to heal up between your visits. Maybe if it only applied to enemies that haven't seen you before...?

[Patashu]

what if the 'enemies don't have time to act' bonus from the first staircase you take on a new level applied every time you took a previously untaken staircase?

This might be abusable in cases where two staircases are placed within LOS of each other -- it is already possible to exploit that by drawing difficult enemies back and forth between the stairs, hitting them at range from one side then the other, and because of off-level time dilation they don't have a chance to heal up between your visits. Maybe if it only applied to enemies that haven't seen you before...?

It could be, but you'd only be able to abuse it once. (After that, it's not an unexplored staircase anymore.)

[XuaXua]

Sometimes there is a really good staff in one of those piles.

[Laraso]

I have run into situations where I go down an unexplored stairwell and immediately get paralyzed or attacked by multiple monsters. I haven't died from it, but it's caused me enough trouble that I don't do that if I can help it. Using a stairwell exposes you to up to eight tiles of melee range that you can't see in advance. That's potentially worse than any other single move you can make in the game. Usually nothing happens, but the odds are certainly worse than they are with walking around normally.

Well, the chances of being completely surrounded in all eight directions on the very first turn after going downstairs is so extremely miniscule that I don't think you should ever actually worry about it. I'm not saying this tactic doesn't have it's risks, but I generally do this with every staircase from D:1 to Z:5 and out of the hundreds of games I've played I still haven't encountered a situation which would cause me to change my mind about checking every staircase.