The Tavern

First: All those ants in the lair. Oh My Goooodddddd, takes forever to kill them all, no real challenge to it.

Second: I don't even know. Compared to ants all other vaults are great!

1. Bh's Autumn Forest Stairs - For a long period last year, this vault would generate literally every game. It's boring, it sticks out like a sore thumb, and I got to see it every single time I >'d into the Lair. Kill me.



2. hangedman's Crystal Crosses Colossus - Complete with hangedman's patented ridiculous monster generation spaghetti, this vault features a clusterfuck of random garbage in a completely uninteresting and tedious layout consisting of cross-shaped rooms.



3. Shiori's Metal Show - Before gammafunk told me this monstrosity of a vault was supposed to be a rock concert I had never looked at the code. I can definitely see it now, but after seeing this vault dozens of times I never understood what was going on due to how the vault plays out. Namely, a mob of default humans, trash uniques, and other gnarlacious dudes flood out of the vault in a tsunami, leaving a bunch of bad potions and some fog generators in their wake. This vault is a mess and nobody gets it.



4. st's City of Dis - From a bird's eye view, this vault looks really pretty. Definitely worth a magic maping every time. However, when you actually explore this vault you realize it is painfully boring in addition to being pretty, like that girl you dated in high school that only talked about marching band. And the best part of it is you'll be stuck with her for a long time, because this vault is long as hell and there's no end in sight.



5. Cheibrodos's Swamp Masoleum - Jesus Christ, what was I thinking? The layout has two different variations and is kind of cool I guess, but between the trash undead mobs, scripted death drake, and little in the way of meaningful loot, this vault is an absolute disaster. It's a good thing swamp's spastic vault generation code has only made this vault three times, because once you see it you'll never want to again.

The "probability balancers" in dummy.des and uniq.des because they make the assumption that vaults never get added to the game, and nobody updates them when vaults do get added to the game, and there's already a better way of doing what they're trying to do IN THE SAME FILE.
food.des.
layout_forbidden_donut, layout_big_octagon, layout_cross when it has spotty_level or spotty_map, layout_twisted_cavern, layout_regular_city, usually layout_caves, and whatever the current zot layout is. I just don't find these layouts fun to play on.
"Special rooms", they seem to only exist because rooms where every tile has a nonthreatening monster in it are a roguelike tradition.
shop_scrolls, nicolae_shop_scaring_up_business, guppyfry_shop_venom/earth/blood, anything else that places unidentified items that spoiled players will know the identity of
uniq_azrael, uniq_edmund, uniq_eustachio, uniq_frances, uniq_fannar, uniq_gastronok, uniq_grum, uniq_harold, uniq_joseph, uniq_josephine, uniq_kirke, uniq_louise, uniq_maud, uniq_maurice, uniq_menkaure, uniq_natasha, uniq_nergalle, uniq_pikel, uniq_psyche, uniq_purgy, uniq_roxanne, uniq_rupert, uniq_snorg, uniq_sonja, uniq_robin, uniq_urug, uniq_aizul, uniq_enchantress, uniq_jorgrun, uniq_jory, uniq_mara, uniq_mennas, uniq_nikola, uniq_asterion, uniq_norris, uniq_saint_roka, uniq_sojobo, uniq_wiglaf, uniq_xtahua, uniq_donald, uniq_dissolution, uniq_vashnia, uniq_polyphemus, uniq_ilsuiw, uniq_arachne, uniq_khufu, uniq_tiamat, uniq_ignacio, uniq_crazy_yiuf_cottage
those entry vaults with message spam
those entry vaults with shit across deep water/lava/rock/other stuff that makes you come back to d:1 later
vaults with shit across deep/water/lava/rock/other stuff that makes you come back later when you find flight/digging/whatever, actually
wizlabs (cloud mage would be ok if the air elementals didn't submerge and it didn't have water in the playable part)
labyrinths
anything with cloud generators
serial_aquarium, serial_bayou (if i had to pick one vault to remove from the game it would 100% be serial_bayou), serial_hangedman_research, serial_co_window_serial
linesprint
everything in /traps/
grunt_runaround, holy shit this vault is like designed to take almost literally as long as possible to play, also grunt_deathspiral_large and grund_deathspiral_small and minmay_rotating_shell
minmay_weird_star, minmay_stone_box, minmay_skeletal_surprise, onia_ninara_swampy_vault, minmay_eyes, nicolae_whirlpool, wad_bat_island, actually let's just say "everything with water or lava", minmay_statue_hallways, actually just anything with immobile monsters, minmay_split_circle, minmay_diamond_stairs, minmay_thick_lines, vault_1, minmay_expanding_circles, minmay_nested_s, statuecave_lemuel, minmay_smoke_and_mirrors (boggarts suck), minmay_ice_pillars, minmay_skeleton_keep, minmay_haunted_quarter, minmay_crystal_thing, minmay_twisted_water (guys he literally traced something he drew on a sheet of plywood when he was 8), due_jory_tower, evilmike_wizard_prison, kennysheep_kobold_camp, kennysheep_tiny_hell, unseen_surprise_small, due_unseen_surprise, minmay_item_behind_shaft, minmay_bad_closet, minmay_gold_behind_fungi, the 20 different beehives, the 10 different anthills, worms_lemuel, minmay_rat_gold_closets, minmay_lindwurm_lava (why did the devs change the comment to make it look like minmay doesn't know how to pluralize "lindwurm"), pond, minmay_serpent_palace, minmay_goblin_outpost, minmay_sticks_and_stones, minmay_unpleasant_kobolds, lexackson_kobold_supper, mikee_hates_you, centaur_isle, kilobyte_rumbling_trees, minmay_rotating_lava, kb_lookout_dungeons_type, hangedman_summoners_spam, horrible_house_mu, minmay_metal_thing, minmay_beelzebubs_servants, (this is awful removed monsters changed to be awful removed monsters changed to be awful not-yet-removed monsters just get rid of the stupid vault), nrook_kobold_shadow_demons, hangedman_blasphemy, hangedman_devilish_allure, hangedman_batty, minmay_statue_bubble etc you already know i hate statues, minmay_crystal_box, evilmike_surprise_oklob, disabler_island, dpeg_stationary_puzzle, lemuel_jelly_drop, minmay_acid_items, hangedman_glaring_trap, hangedman_incinerator, hangedman_eye_storm, lasty_cornered_adventurer, minmay_three_doors, dispersion_dpeg, pandoras_box_mu, grunt_tough_drop
all the vaults with runed doors but not with glass to see what's behind them
minmay_five_octagons and minmay_octagon_city because they were completely broken by adding monster digging, and then broken again trying to fix them (the monster digging problem is still present for octagon city)
kennysheep_blocky_hall because if it's working as "intended" then random crap is going to generate in the middle inside walls and you have to be spoiled to know to dig it out
hangedman_mysterious_dungeon_monster_house, i dont actually feel like figuring out what it does but im sure its stupid
all the guarded unrand vaults except the autumn katana one because they either use awful monsters or have awful water/lava
bailey_axe_1, bailey_axe_3, bailey_axe_4, bailey_polearm_1, bailey_polearm_2, bailey_polearm_4, bailey_polearm_5, bailey_polearm_flooded_kennysheep, bazaar_minmay_mutagenic_fog, ice_cave_statue_garden_01, ice_cave_statue_garden_02, all ossuaries, sewer_minmay_w, sewer_big_baddie, sewer_the_crocodile, sewer_co_purgy_island, sewer_sea, trove_garden, trove_nasty, trove_treasure_island, trove_dig, volcano_lake, volcano_caves, volcano_overflow
a lot of abyss vaults but abyss is so awful i dont notice
coc_dpeg, lemuel_river_lethe, box_level_dp, grunt_profane_halls, minmay_elf_blademastery, elf_hall_gauntlet_wide, elf_hall_gauntlet_narrow, minmay_elf_hall_golems, erik_lair_island, pf_torpor_hydra, minmay_lair_oklob_.*, .*oklob.*, kennysheep_snail_temple, bh_autumn_forest_stairs, due_jungle_book, wormcave, minmay_lair_end_frog_pond, erik_orc_2, zombieorc1_lemuel, zombieorc2_lemuel, pf_orc_diabolical, lemuel_draining_boxes, lemuel_hellion_island, minmay_shoals_entry_lonely_mermaid because people keep telling me it looks like gonads, minmay_shoals_entry_centaurs, that shoals vault where you have to fly into it to see all the giants its full of, slime entries, there are probably some slime vaults i'd hate but slime never generates vaults, the snake entries with nagas, minmay_snake_river, those vaults that put sea snakes in snake, minmay_snake_end_coiled, snake_pit_salamanders_mu, grunt_snake_rune_spirals, i hate everything about spider so not bothering with spider vaults, same thing for swamp i guess but the endings with fog generators are especially awful and the lernaean hydra is dumb, tar_minmay_river, minmay_temple_entry_oklob, the temples with jiyva/lugonu/formerly beogh, tomb (just tomb, tomb is a vault and it is a bad one), that vaults vault with a bunch of alarm traps, those super open vaults:5 quadrants that dpeg added to retaliate against minmay for submitting a vaults:5 quadrant with lots of gold, zot entries, lemuel_lake_of_fire, lemuel_golem_globe, lemuel_draconian_sentries(_small), lemuel_acid_trip, lemuel_firehouse, nrook_zot_tub, minmay_elemental_castle, hangedman_xom_zot_hilarity
the nicolae_quartered_pool vaults just look like random letters
all the vaults that place traps WHY ARE VAULTS PLACING TRAPS IT MAKES NO SENSE
whoever the fuck added "# Could perhaps use colour." as a comment on one of minmay's vaults, that's not fuckin funny

This.

I don't know the name but there's one vault in Pandamonium that has a ring of Lava with nothing but Hellions in the center. Walking past it means taking 10 hellfires per turn. It nearly killed my 15 rune run because I underestimated how many there were on it...

All of the ones with monsters.

hellion_island is, canonically, the best vault in the game, though?

All vaults that have summoners behind grates.

The best part is how spoily it is to land directly on it when you enter the level.

I actually really like this one, some dangerous stuff there.

Actually they don't submerge anymore. I believe no monsters ever submerge anymore once they've moved, although a few monsters place submerged, like swamp worms? I dunno, it's a relatively recent change and I never understood the old details, but monster submerge is mostly gone now.

Every vault when im playing a formicid.

I dont know the names or even if they still exist since I havent seen either in ages but I have fond memories of "the big circle room with exits on one side and entrances on the other where you get boned by eels and centaurs" and the "relatively small cross where you get swarmed by a billion dudes in a tight area with no corridors and have to stairdance for about ten years"

cheibro you're a freakin' moron for not liking autumn stairs. shit is pretty and trainquil. damn.

small correction: currently, submerge is a swamp-worm exclusive mechanic. you're right on everything else.


isn't that the opposite of spoiley? landing right on it means you can see the whole thing immediately! (:

Back in 0.9 or 0.10, I had managed to get my first successful DECj down to D:20 or so. I can across a ring of lava producing smoke with some imps on the other side and decided to just ignore them and walk around. After I was about halfway past the ring, a demon I'd never seen before emerged from the smoke. It had no rC, so I used freezing cloud. Barely put a dent in it. The noise attracts a second one... then a third. Finally they attack, and BOOM huge bursts of fire and half my HP is gone.

It was a D:20 Hellion island.

either lemuel_hellish_altar or hellmouth_2. both fine lemuel vaults, just like hellion island. the former can start placing hellions on d:15!