The Fairyland

[MainiacJoe]

I found an entry to this in LearnDB, faeries guard the verdant rune of zot and are quite capable of killing you within 10 turns of passing through the portal. Doesn't have a Wiki entry, though: obsolete feature, or in-joke?

[Turukano]

That really looks like a joke.

[bcadren]

There is a verdant rune in one of the sprints and it was in trunk for a bit (replaced the golden rune in games with an Enchanted Forest). Spriggan and Faerie are synonyms, so it could be referencing that. (It was a branch full of Thorn Hunters, Thorn Lotus, Elemental Wellsprings (now in Cocytus), Water Sprites, Wind Drakes, Treants (now known as Shambling Mangroves), Apis, Dire Elephants, Fireflies (mark moths), Spirit Wolves (now called Doom Hounds and in Tartarus) and the Jobbed Spriggans (Air Elementalsts, Defenders, Druids, Riders)...Walls were all trees (normal trees, not swamps "Mangroves" so it was easy to start huge forest fires, though at least two of the monsters there had abilities specifically to put them out (one of those the "Control Winds" on Spriggan Air Elementalists is still around it moves flame (and any other) clouds to other places.)

It was removed because a dev (DracoOmega [creator of new Abyss wretched stars, etc.], IIRC) threw a fit about it and said they'd leave if it stayed in, then they left anyways...fortunately most the new cool monsters were put in other places instead of just destroyed.

[MainiacJoe]

So Fairyland == Forest?

[Sar]

Jeez, get your Crawl drama straight! DracoOmega was the one who actually implemented it, and I think he might've left because of negative feedback (but I don't have any idea if that is true). Another dev later left when some of the Forest monsters were salvaged for Swamp.

[bcadren]

the fairyland[1/1]: Wood walls are unique to this branch. As the name tells, fairies keep the verdant rune of Zot here. Don't try to get it unless you are _very_ careful, or you will die in 10 turns.

forest[1/1]: Wood walls are unique to this branch. As the name tells, spriggans keep the verdant rune of Zot here. Don't try to get it unless you are _very_ careful, or you will die in 10 turns. Deprecated branch, no longer appears.

...yes, though the woodwalls part is false it was just normal trees. Unless some of the spriggan houses were "wood" walled instead of rock, no idea.

[crate]

fairyland is from crawlt (crawl alternative, in the learndb)

forest was actually a thing in dcss trunk for a while

they are not the same thing, the learndb here is making a joke

[ZipZipskins]

wow I totally forgot about forest for a minute there

[MainiacJoe]

Forest is before my time, but it sounds like fun. Well except for the 10 turn lifespan. I like the Depths megavault with lots of spriggans, though maybe that's because I encountered it with a character capable of handling it.

[Turukano]

I played some games with enchanted forest and I considered it to be harder than crypt. Interesting branch but it didn't really fit thematically - what about players who switched to TSO and wanted to get full piety in crypt for blessing their endgame weapon?

It was removed because a dev (DracoOmega [creator of new Abyss wretched stars, etc.], IIRC) threw a fit about it and said they'd leave if it stayed in, then they left anyways...

Was the branch rejected because it didn't fit there or because devs quit or because of both?

[Siegurt]

It was ultimately taken out because there were to many mechanics all competing for attention all at once. The usual complaints were that it was tedious and Un-fun because of the sheer number of different things you had to pay attention to all at once.

Many of the monsters and/or mechanics were relocated to another branch.

[Blade]

I played some games with enchanted forest and I considered it to be harder than crypt. Interesting branch but it didn't really fit thematically - what about players who switched to TSO and wanted to get full piety in crypt for blessing their endgame weapon?

I mean... that's one of the biggest reasons in my mind to put an alternative to Crypt in. TSO is a horribly designed god. Characters should not be able to abandon one god at the end of the dungeon and get full piety with another with little to no risk. It's worse given that TSO is explicitly designed to be terrible throughout most of the game.

I was only ever able to play with the first betas of the Forest, but I thought it was a fascinating branch. I wouldn't mind at all seeing it back in the game later with a narrower mechanical focus and fewer irritations.

[Skrybe]

Did nothing come of attempts to repurpose the Forest layout generator for use elsewhere? I see it's still in trunk, earmarked for D and Crypt, but disabled.

[Lasty]

Forest also strongly incentivized players to burn most of it down.

[Moose]

Hate to be a pooper, but frankly, learndb should really not be a place for jokes, either overt, or worse, inside ones.

When new players want to look something up, and find these things, it makes for an unpleasant experience.

LearnDB is a real mess, but amazingly it's still useful. I'd personally love to see learndb curated though, and maybe have a fork of it for the jokers so they can still have their fun. kinda like how they put smokers in those special rooms at the airport.

[Sar]

Characters should not be able to abandon one god at the end of the dungeon and get full piety with another with little to no risk.

This seems like more of a problem with other gods' wraths being too weak (note that I don't necessary agree).

[crate]

Hate to be a pooper, but frankly, learndb should really not be a place for jokes, either overt, or worse, inside ones.

When new players want to look something up, and find these things, it makes for an unpleasant experience.

LearnDB is a real mess, but amazingly it's still useful. I'd personally love to see learndb curated though, and maybe have a fork of it for the jokers so they can still have their fun. kinda like how they put smokers in those special rooms at the airport.

The thing with these two entries is they are both not things that are actually in crawl, so it's not really a problem.

[bcadren]

Forest also strongly incentivized players to burn most of it down.

Yea two different high-tier threats with Awaken Forest (Spriggan Druid and Dryad) tend to do that. Spriggan Air Elementalists would turn fires against you (control winds) and a couple of the water-based creatures would put them out there. (Water Sprites and Elemental Wellsprings). I ascended one character through forest in offline trunk.

[bcadren]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTEsIxKs56s MYSTERYLAND

[daggaz]

Forest also strongly incentivized players to burn most of it down.

You say that like it is a bad thing =D

[Turukano]

high-tier threats with Awaken Forest (Spriggan Druid and Dryad)

Yes, this was really nasty. "Neutral" trees - expected to be similar to walls - suddenly turned against you. Maybe DracoOmega's work was too good? And his ideas were too interesting (and dangerous) and thus rejected?

I'm quite sure he put much work into this new branch. So he was disappointed after getting negative feedback.

[Rast]

Forest also strongly incentivized players to burn most of it down.

Sounds fun. I don't see the problem.

[ZipZipskins]

let's play "how many monsters have mechanics you only see in this one branch that are also annoying"

[all before]

all of shoals.

[bcadren]

Iron Giant (Dis) [Throw].
Vault Sentinel (Vaults) [Sentinel's Mark]
Vault Warden (Vaults) [Sealing Rune]
Wretched Star (Abyss) [Temporary Mutations]
Starcursed Mass (Abyss) [Whatever the fuck that is]

...Could keep going, but I think the most annoying single-branch mechanics are probably the movement limiting ones (Sealing Rune and Mesm especially).

EDIT wait no: Ushabti's Draining Clouds, because they are extremely annoying and could net kill you by lowering your skills, but are pretty harmless compared to everything else in Tomb, otherwise, making a weird risk mitigation minigame.

WAIT NO: Malmutate (though that's multiple branches, shit).

How about SUMMON FUCKING EYEBALLS.

[Sar]

Irony giants are now in Depths, I think. Hope you like pain!

[dpeg]

Iron Giant (Dis) [Throw].
Vault Sentinel (Vaults) [Sentinel's Mark]
Vault Warden (Vaults) [Sealing Rune]
Wretched Star (Abyss) [Temporary Mutations]
Starcursed Mass (Abyss) [Whatever the fuck that is]

...Could keep going, but I think the most annoying single-branch mechanics are probably the movement limiting ones (Sealing Rune and Mesm especially).

Do you confuse "annoying to a player" with "annoyingly designed"?

On top of that, annoying is a subjective notion. I think the new tricks of the vault wardens have considerably improved that place. In the sense that I like to play Vaults (and am afraid of it, because my cheese tactics of old now fail sometimes), and don't dread them anymore. And yes, I've died to them, so it was annoying to me as a player.

Remember: if it never kills you, it underperforms.

[daggaz]

You want annoying? How about a worthless little monster that almost never poses any threat, but regenerates AND blinks, on top of having some heavy resistances to common early sources of damage.

Please, why dont you just gouge my fucking eyeballs out. It's like the Devs want the players abuse stairs or something.

[crate]

Mark is admittedly pretty annoying, since mostly what it does is punish you for using autoexplore (except on v:5, where I still think it doesn't lead to good gameplay but at least it's not objectively bad).

[bcadren]

Vaults unique mechanics are particularly bad on Fo (take away ALL escape options); though I don't like them in general. It's like the normal stuff there are packs that for the average character that just reached vaults are hard one at a time, then all the vaults unique gimmick monsters force you to face a random assortment of monsters or a lot of packs together. Anymore unless I'm a stealth dude and relying on the enemies being asleep when I first see them...I LRD all the goddamn piece of shit doors ahead of time. You can't close nothing, you fuck! LRD Power.

[daggaz]

Can you LRD them when they are locked btw?