Tartarus Sorceror
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Reverse Rune Lock Vaults
- For this message the author dynast has received thanks:
- Arrhythmia
If it doesn't fit anywhere else, it belongs here. Also, come here if you just need to get hammered.
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dynast wrote:You can enter Vaults without any runes but you can only leave if you have at least one.
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Tartarus Sorceror
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neil wrote:jejorda2 wrote:Go ahead and put the same mechanism on the lair runes.
Pushed to branch lobster-trap.
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archaeo wrote:If you put rune locks on every rune branch, reversed or not, you remove a lot of the reasons for having a branching game structure at all.
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dpeg wrote:Having runes (even with locks) still allows you to choose branches, and the order. This should be a non-trivial decision.
From a more distant point of view: A tree-like game structure (like Crawl's) can also be used in other ways. For example, there could be a choice between A and B, but taking one forfeits the other (seen in the shmup Darius Gaiden, which certainly was intended to increase the replayability of that game). Or entering A first could make B much harder (something I toyed with for Lair branches, to no effect).
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archaeo wrote:Heh, I'm pretty sure one of the reasons I started posting on Tavern was to complain about rune lock. The more things change, etc., right?
dpeg wrote:Having runes (even with locks) still allows you to choose branches, and the order. This should be a non-trivial decision.
Except that rune locks make certain decisions trivial. Consider the fact that with a Lair lock, the entire post-Temple, pre-Vaults game becomes an enforced battle of attrition; at any given point, optimal play would call for significantly more movement between branches, players would be more likely to do branch:3 and branch:3 before grabbing a rune (something the Vaults rune lock was intended to discourage!), etc.
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njvack wrote:The big difference is that in a Metroidvania, you really *can't* get to those places yet; they're tantalizing you but you just don't have the key to the gates.
Here, you *can* explore all over the place, it's just that some of them may get you killed. It's more of a traditional RPG structure.
dpeg wrote:Remember, one of the goals of forcing players to do some places earlier than otherwise necessary is to have more interesting tactical situations, i.e. leading to more god/consumables use. I think the current lock is too lenient for that, but one can hope...
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dynast wrote:neil wrote:jejorda2 wrote:Go ahead and put the same mechanism on the lair runes.
Pushed to branch lobster-trap.
Well, that backfired horribly. But lets see how it plays out.
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mopl wrote:Just to be sure, that's experimental, no ?
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archaeo wrote:The "RPG structure" is really the same kind of deal, if we want to reduce things to clear design motifs. You have a semi-linear path dictated by increasing monster statistics, and part of the fun is discovering a) where you don't belong yet, because the numbers are too high, or b) ways to circumvent that stat curve and get where you're not supposed to go.
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ontoclasm wrote:By the time you're finally forced to get your first rune you're pretty much ready for Zot:5.
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MainiacJoe wrote:You guys are all thinking about this as masters of Crawl who have become bored with it.
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ontoclasm wrote:You don't discover or explore anything, you just look at your options and pick the easiest one for your character, every time, no matter what.
That's 24 floors of cruise control, compared to the 8ish floors of early-game.
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duvessa wrote:the problem with rune lock is that if it's accomplishing its intended purpose and forcing people to do a rune level even though there are easier levels, then there are still easier levels, they'll just be done after the rune level instead of before it, which makes them even easier and more trivial
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duvessa wrote:the problem with rune lock is that if it's accomplishing its intended purpose and forcing people to do a rune level even though there are easier levels, then there are still easier levels, they'll just be done after the rune level instead of before it, which makes them even easier and more trivial
if it isn't forcing people to do a rune level even though there are easier levels, then it isn't doing anything and might as well not exist
which of these two possibilities is true doesn't really matter, because either one indicates that it's a bad feature!
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archaeo wrote:ontoclasm wrote:That's 24 floors of cruise control, compared to the 8ish floors of early-game.
Which is why I tend to suggest cutting more levels, which will make the game trickier/"more tactical" no matter what order you decide to tackle it in.
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ontoclasm wrote: By the time you're finally forced to get your first rune you're pretty much ready for Zot:5.
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dpeg wrote:Entering one S-branch and leaving it without the rune removes all items (but the rune) from the other S-branch.
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Sprucery wrote:How about having rewards instead of locks? If you get the rune from the rune branch without leaving it, you get a reward. If you get a rune before entering Vaults, you get a reward.
njvack wrote:dpeg wrote:Entering one S-branch and leaving it without the rune removes all items (but the rune) from the other S-branch.
It'd be pretty funny if entering Spider took away all the polearms and javelins in Shoals
Utis wrote:I like to try out different build strategies rather than to stick with one that I know to work. The branches can have a very different level of danger for different characters. So, I sometimes go into a branch, notice through experience that my char is not ready yet. Then I have to figure out what is the least dangerous route. All the suggestions here would remove that decision and make me build my chars much more conservatively.
Utis wrote:Another case is when I encounter a threatening unique, such as Aizul or Mennas when my character is not ready for them. With the current structure I say "Uh, I just go play somewhere else then."
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dpeg wrote:Please read what ontoclasm wrote above. You are defending the exploration aspect, but what you call "remove decisions" does create new decisions instead. It's not clear, and a personal matter, which decisions anyone likes better.
Situations like these are *exactly* what I want. So you aren't fully prepared? Deal with it! This is a good opportunity to make mistakes (tactical, under/overuse of consumables or god powers, wrong threat assessment), so this is how game depth is increased.
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dpeg wrote:"Funny" in which sense?njvack wrote:It'd be pretty funny if entering Spider took away all the polearms and javelins in Shoals
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njvack wrote:dpeg wrote:"Funny" in which sense?njvack wrote:It'd be pretty funny if entering Spider took away all the polearms and javelins in Shoals
"Funny" in the sense that Shoals would be rather a lot easier if all the merfolk had their gear taken away.
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dpeg wrote:I'll point to Brogue (for lack of having played Rogue) as a completely linear game; there are no branches at all, just one dungeon. The inability to branch away from threats creates a lot of tension and excitement. Granted, Brogue is shorter than Crawl, but it is not *that* short.
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neil wrote:I was thinking about it as a bad player who doesn't want to have to bounce around half the dungeon before getting my first rune in order to play optimally. If some of the rune branch ends need to be nerfed slightly to make the difficulty reasonable, I'm okay with that.MainiacJoe wrote:You guys are all thinking about this as masters of Crawl who have become bored with it.
(I have won the game, several years ago, which I guess puts me ahead of the average player; but every time that happens, someone goes and nerfs something to make sure that it doesn't happen again: Twisted Resurrection, Evaporate, Elyvilon pacification, fixing meleebug. I make it to Lair in about 4% of games, and get a rune in 0.3% of games, so I cannot possibly be confused for a master of Crawl.)
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MainiacJoe wrote:Please don't do this to noobs.
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