Frog Lair8 Shows up Too Much

[edgefigaro]

I hate frog lair 8. I see it all the time and it is boring.

I want to make an vampire coven 8 vault this morning.

Concept

T- Dead trees block off most of the entrances
W- Blood Well
N- Necromancer x5
S-Stone Walls (mausoleaum)
V-Vampire (x2)
M- Vampire Mage
R- Rune Door
$-Treasure

This is a small/concept version.
I also want to put in a Vampire Knight, but worry that might be too tough.

  Code:

TTTTT.TTTTT
TTTTTT.TTTT
TTTTT.TTTTT
TTT.......SSSSS
T.T..N.N..S$V$S
.T....W...R$$MS
TTT.N...N.S$V$S
TTT...N...SSSSS
TTT.......TTT
TTTTT.TTTTT
TTTT.TTTTTT
TTTTT.TTTTT


Then most the blank spaces are filled with Undead lair creatures (frog/yak/snake/hydra/elephant)(zombie/skeleton/spectral/simircalcum).

Thoughts? Can someone point me in the right direction to turn it into an actual vault?

[archaeo]

For what it's worth, the frog pond ending is no more and no less likely to show up than any of the other end vaults, assuming that there aren't secret little mapgen quirks causing it to show up more often.

The guide to building vaults is found in the crawl source code here. As a totally unexperienced nondeveloper, though, maybe a single necromancer would be an appropriate Lair:8 encounter; five of them, plus two vampires and a vampire mage, seems like ridiculous overkill.

[mps]

The necromancer lair vault isn't too bad, though last time I saw it, I ran. Vampire knight or mage is too much for lair, imo.

[edgefigaro]

Oh! I have seen necro lair vault. Once or twice. I see frog vault -all the time-.

I fail to see how a vampire mage is tougher than double dire elephant ending.

[archaeo]

Dire elephants can't open doors, for one thing. They also can't be invisible, or summon undead, or lots of other nasty things vampire mages can do.

[Sprucery]

I don't remember seeing any Lair:8 vault specifically more than others. The anaconda + dire elephant ending is imho currently the hardest one, and vampire mage/knight would be too much.
(Of course Lair:8 is totally optional.)

[edgefigaro]

RNJ must just hate me.

A double/triple, (standard) vampire could also work, but if there is already an ending, I need to look it over before I design mine.

[archaeo]

In the interest of saving you some time, the advice I always hear from the vaultmaking masters is that you should start small, ideally with little decorative vaults, before launching into making a big branch end vault.

There isn't "already an ending" for the concept you're talking about; mps was mentioning a pretty common vault that shows up all over Lair with a single necromancer and a pack of simulacra. Not to be a buzzkill, but I'd recommend getting more experience with the game before designing complex splashy vaults, as you're more likely to find success if you have a better handle on the vault design standards.

[Jeremiah]

I haven't seen the dire elephant ending for ages; I was beginning to think it had been removed for being spoilery.

IMO, the most dangerous ending is the demonic one, though the spriggan one can be quite nasty if you don't have a way of quickly dealing with the druids.

[wheals]

"Empirically":

  Code:

<wheals> !lg * recent lair:8 s=kmap
<Sequell> 3595 games for * (recent lair:8): 1658x, 273x evil_forest, 263x hangedman_lair_tendril_chambers, 213x minmay_lair_end_enchanted_forest, 184x evilmike_catoblepas_cave, 150x guppyfry_lair_end_dragon, 142x minmay_lair_end_frog_pond, 138x hangedman_lair_in_review, 125x wormcave, 122x grunt_lair_end_beastmaster, 51x uniq_rupert, 35x hangedman_lair_caniforms_friends


Of course, not all of these show up with the same frequency or are the same size. In particular, wormcave, hangedman_lair_caniforms_friends, guppyfry_lair_end_dragon, hangedman_lair_in_review, and hangedman_lair_tendril_chambers are "small" endings, so they have half the weight, but whenever one is placed, the level generator places another small ending.

[Sprucery]

It's true that what kind of character you're playing affects quite a lot what ending is the most difficult.

I had the dire elephant ending just recently, but before that it was a long long time ago.
(And of course the dire elephant ending is much more difficult for an unspoiled player than for someone who knows what's going to happen...)

[Arrhythmia]

"Empirically":

  Code:

<wheals> !lg * recent lair:8 s=kmap
<Sequell> 3595 games for * (recent lair:8): 1658x, 273x evil_forest, 263x hangedman_lair_tendril_chambers, 213x minmay_lair_end_enchanted_forest, 184x evilmike_catoblepas_cave, 150x guppyfry_lair_end_dragon, 142x minmay_lair_end_frog_pond, 138x hangedman_lair_in_review, 125x wormcave, 122x grunt_lair_end_beastmaster, 51x uniq_rupert, 35x hangedman_lair_caniforms_friends


Of course, not all of these show up with the same frequency or are the same size.

OTOH frog pond showing up just once is empirically too much.

[Sprucery]

What's wrong with frog pond? (I don't even remember what it's like...)

[Arrhythmia]

It's total bullshit is what!

[archaeo]

arrhy, I don't think this is the best way to get sempai to notice you

[duvessa]

i hate frog pond and want it removed i also hate vampires and want them removed

[archaeo]

I was wrong

[tasonir]

i hate frog pond and want it removed i also hate vampires and want them removed

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you make frog pond? And I'm assuming it's the one with the small island with loot on it surrounded by a rather wide moat of water, filled with frogs, eels, vampire mosquitoes, etc.

[duvessa]

yes and i hate it and want it removed

[Rast]

Remove the pond, leave the island with the loot.

[KoboldLord]

What's wrong with frog pond? (I don't even remember what it's like...)

It's basically a huge lake filled with mostly amphibious monsters, with a couple paths of shallow water leading to an island with a cache of loot. If you make the slightest bit of noise anywhere on the level, all the frogs in the universe start hopping directly toward your face. It is noticeably harder than any other Lair ending because you can trigger the Frog Carpet of Doom even from outside the vault, possibly even without realizing the Frog Pond is on the level. All other Lair 8 vaults have some sort of obstruction or choke point that disrupts noise and monster pathfinding to some degree.

Then you stair-dance for 20 minutes or so until there are no more frogs.

[Sar]

Frog Carpet of Doom

that's the best part though!

[edgefigaro]

I seriously believed frog pond was weighted to be ~40+% of the lair8 vault. It boggles me that people don't get it often.

[Siegurt]

What's wrong with frog pond? (I don't even remember what it's like...)

It's basically a huge lake filled with mostly amphibious monsters, with a couple paths of shallow water leading to an island with a cache of loot. If you make the slightest bit of noise anywhere on the level, all the frogs in the universe start hopping directly toward your face. It is noticeably harder than any other Lair ending because you can trigger the Frog Carpet of Doom even from outside the vault, possibly even without realizing the Frog Pond is on the level. All other Lair 8 vaults have some sort of obstruction or choke point that disrupts noise and monster pathfinding to some degree.

Then you stair-dance for 20 minutes or so until there are no more frogs.

Usually I just find the water, realize that's the ending I'm dealing with, and make circles around it killing things, it usually takes one full circuit of the lake to make walking to the center safe, I prefer to fly to it too (Getting stuck in combat in shallow water sucks) but I'm a "spot the thing and pull it back to a safe zone" fighter generally. Typically I clear out an area away from the lake, pull stuff out of it and move back, then move around the lake, clear the area, approach the lake and draw stuff back in kind of a scrunchy pattern, picking up the loot at the end once I've made a full circle and cleared the entire (or nearly the entire) floor.

I do find it's probably one of the harder lair endings, but I dont think it's particularly more tedious than say the spriggan ending, and certainly feels more rewarding to me than say, the brain worm/dragon ending. I'd put it solidly in the middle for myself. (My least favorite is probably the hell ending, because it's a long tedious fight for pretty much 1 occasionally decent item, and the wolf/hound ending doesn't give much in the way of loot, but it's also pretty quick)

[Sprucery]

OK, it all comes back to me, I had a DsAr die in the frog pond ending once (which doesn't say much about frog pond, because my Artificers all die anyway due to the way I play them...)

[KittenInMyCerealz]

I hate the frog pond ending the most, though the hell ending comes close 2nd (mostly cause no loot)
The brain worm/dragon, hounds and catoblepas are probably my favorites

[duvessa]

hell ending has the best loot of any lair ending...you get a random acquirement and a noticeable chance of a demon trident

[Arrhythmia]

Also, it's really fucking cool.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

hell ending has the best loot of any lair ending...you get a random acquirement and a noticeable chance of a demon trident

lol

[onget]

hell ending has chance of complete hell without enter depth

[dynast]

hell ending has chance of complete hell without enter depth

Whatever that means.

[Sprucery]

hell ending has chance of complete hell without enter depth

Whatever that means.

I interpreted that as "Hell ending can give you a chance of doing Hell without entering Depths".

Personally, I would never do Hell before Depths though.