Most unique floor floor ever?

[plantaspoon]

so I step into Vaults 1 and Rupert is 3 squares from the door, so I summon a brother in arms and rage. Rupert goes pretty easy, but 2 turns before my rage wears off Mara shows up and copies my raging self. My brother ogre is still around and makes short work of Mara while I carefully use some mosquitoes to block the raging copy so I can go back upstairs. i heal up, go back down, take 10 steps and see Agnes with a herd of yaks. i do a little positioning and rage again. I heal up again wander around a bit and run into Saint Roka. I take him down, then get drained by his orc sorcers for a net of 0 xp. After i kill Roka, the entourage, the summoned demons, and the risen zombie of roka I heal up again. The next monster i see is Azuil. Another brother in arms and a self rage takes it down quick. Didn't even get the sleep off on my low MR troll. The final monster on the floor, hiding in the last unexplored area was Nikola. Shocking!

That's Rupert, Mara, Agnes, Saint Roka, Azuil, and Nikola. I've never seen so many dangerous uniques in 1 place. Share your horror stories below.

[XuaXua]

From 0.7 to 0.9, I am noticing more and more clusters of uniques on a single floor rather than a broader distribution.

Anyone else notice this?

[KoboldLord]

From 0.7 to 0.9, I am noticing more and more clusters of uniques on a single floor rather than a broader distribution.

Anyone else notice this?

It's that clustering illusion thing again. You may have heard about it. There are more uniques in the last few major versions, so they're more likely to generate together. And since there's nothing specifically preventing them from clustering up, random chance says they'll do just that, and frequently. You'll also occasionally find one all by their lonesome selves, but you'll just roll right over the top of the pathetic loser without needing to make any special preparations because you're already familiar with the challenge of fighting the same unique backed up by two or three other uniques.

[XuaXua]

From 0.7 to 0.9, I am noticing more and more clusters of uniques on a single floor rather than a broader distribution.

Anyone else notice this?

It's that clustering illusion thing again. You may have heard about it. There are more uniques in the last few major versions, so they're more likely to generate together. And since there's nothing specifically preventing them from clustering up, random chance says they'll do just that, and frequently. You'll also occasionally find one all by their lonesome selves, but you'll just roll right over the top of the pathetic loser without needing to make any special preparations because you're already familiar with the challenge of fighting the same unique backed up by two or three other uniques.

Yea, clustering illusion. Sure.

So the following isn't at all possible, then:

System picks out 10 uniques to throw at you.
5 of these uniques happen to have a max depth of, I don't know how it works, but 9.
System rolls for the uniques to generate for 1-8, but no one shows up, system gets desperate since it has this load of max-depth 9 uniques, so it craps them all out at 9.
You get to 9 and suddenly, uniques out the ying-yang.

That's how it feels.

[bobross419]

Crawl hates you. You should know this by now

[KoboldLord]

Yea, clustering illusion. Sure.

So the following isn't at all possible, then:

System picks out 10 uniques to throw at you.
5 of these uniques happen to have a max depth of, I don't know how it works, but 9.
System rolls for the uniques to generate for 1-8, but no one shows up, system gets desperate since it has this load of max-depth 9 uniques, so it craps them all out at 9.
You get to 9 and suddenly, uniques out the ying-yang.

That's how it feels.

Let's try a specific example. For simplicity let's say Sigmund, Jessica, Ijyb, Grinder, Terence, and Edmund all generate somewhere between D2 and D7. Six possible levels for each of them to show up, and there are six of them. Suppose Sigmund randomly happens to show up on D2 this game. There's a 5/6 chance Jessica won't accompany Sigmund, but there's a 1/6 chance she does, just by random chance. But Ijyb also has a 1/6 chance to accompany Sigmund, and so do the other three. All totaled, there's a (5*5*5*5*5)/(6*6*6*6*6) chance of Sigmund *not* getting at least one buddy to fight with, or 3125/7776 == 40%. Sigmund will get at least one buddy in three out of five games! That's a clear majority.

Suppose you lucked out and you're playing a game where Sigmund is all by his lonesome. Next up is Jessica at D3. Maybe she got a buddy? Given the fact that they didn't generate with Sigmund, there are still four possible partners for her. Each of them have a 1/5 chance of spawning on her level, since we've already determined that they don't spawn on Sigmund's level. So that's a (4*4*4*4)/(5*5*5*5) chance of Jessica *not* getting at least one buddy to fight with, or 256/625 == 40%. So in three out of five of the games where Sigmund does not get a buddy, Jessica will instead. We're already down to a 16% chance, and we're only through the first two! Ijyb on D4 has a chance to get a buddy, and then Grinder on D5, and so on.

In the end, even this highly simplified example is very likely to end up with some levels that are empty of uniques and some that have multiples. Worse, we don't just have these six uniques on the shallow levels, there's also Menkaure, Dowan&Duvessa, Pikel, Blork, Crazy Yiuf, Eustachio, Prince Ribbit, and Purgy crowding onto the same band of about ten pre-Lair levels, plus occasional guest appearances from midgame uniques like Erolcha or Gastronok at the low end of their range.

Unique clustering is expected just by random chance.

[Grimm]

Is there a chart somewhere that lists uniques by depth?

[bobross419]

Does Crazy Yiuf really count as a unique? I mean... even the first time I came across him as a diaper wearing noobie (I'm in pull-ups now) all I did was laugh at him and his hammer collection while whooping his butt like he's a red headed step child that ate dad's last Twinkie.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Yes he does. And sometimes he's not a pushover. That Staff of Chaos can do anything from healing and hasting you to electrocuting, draining, and banishing you.

But anyway, I don't think all unique clusters are pure random. This screenie from the "Odd things" topic looks a little too organized to be random...

[galehar]

Is there a chart somewhere that lists uniques by depth?

It's not exactly a chart, but all the info is there.

System rolls for the uniques to generate for 1-8, but no one shows up, system gets desperate since it has this load of max-depth 9 uniques, so it craps them all out at 9.

it doesn't work like that at all. Uniques are chosen on level generation and it ignores the previously generated levels. No uniques is guaranteed. Also, the chance of placing additional uniques get lower each time one is added. There are some comments in the source explaining it.

[Stormfox]

Uniques are chosen on level generation and it ignores the previously generated levels. No uniques is guaranteed. Also, the chance of placing additional uniques get lower each time one is added. There are some comments in the source explaining it.

This is the word-of-developer, can't-argue-with-algorithms version. And I accept it.

System rolls for the uniques to generate for 1-8, but no one shows up, system gets desperate since it has this load of max-depth 9 uniques, so it craps them all out at 9.

...and this is the "Crawl just bloody well hates you" version. And I'm more inclined to believe it. ;)