Spider Stomper
Posts: 217
Joined: Thursday, 2nd June 2016, 00:52
Is this what the game needs?
Every patch, there are 2 main things that change: the game's options for characters, and the game's content. While the game has been removing player options and offering new ones at approximately the same rate (trading rods for wands, reworking evokers, new race, god, and spell options), game branches that have been streamlined have not had a similar replacement. Lair and it's branches have been trimmed, many monsters have been merged or removed, and little has replaced them. In terms of new branches over the last few patches, we got The Desolation of Salt.
I believe that some additional early game content should be added to balance this, possibly a new branch that could contain a new set of themed monsters and runes. A new area to explore that can actually generate every game seems like the new set of content that the game needs.
I would recommend (yes I am completely unqualified for this but this is my idea) something that spawns in the D12-D14 range, similar to vaults, that contains a reward at the bottom similar to the loot from the hall of blades. I would also offer monsters that are fairly dangerous but offer mediocre XP, to make the main motivator the loot rather than the XP sacks like Vault.
Additionally, a new set of later-game support monsters that could roam Vaults/Depths, Pan, and Hell that are not demons (similar to spiders) could also be interesting. This would add more depth for those that relish in the late-game, though given how short the average crawl player's run is, this might not be needed.