Work in progress: reviving the Enchanted Forest as a branch

[sgrunt]

While playing through the Enchanted Forest ending for Lair for the Nth time, I found myself asking the question, "Given how we have some nice forest-themed vaults, why isn't there a branch featuring them?" Some further research on my part turned up some old discussion on a branch appropriately titled "the Enchanted Forest", with some bits of implementation strewn throughout the current state of the code base.

In that spirit, and with a considerable amount of effort, I present to you a preliminary vision of the Enchanted Forest branch.

The key part of everything here is a special level generator; it aims to produce a level containing several clearings and connect them with narrow passageways, per the discussion and as demonstrated by the pre-existing Spriggan Forest level. There are several further adjustments that have been made in the code to facilitate reasonable level discussion. In particular, I've changed up the monster selection - spriggans with the occasional forest creature by themselves do not cut it - so there are now, e.g., centaurs thrown in the mix (after all, you do expect to see centaurs in the average mythological forest).

At the moment, there's a rune placed in the ending vaults, but I question whether this is a good idea. When I was originally working on this, I felt it could thematically best be worked in as a Lair branch (and is placed there in the current implementation), but I can't think of a good way to substitute it in while maintaining the current "three Lair branches" provision, and keeping the rune while moving the branch elsewhere would impact the current state of game balance too much. I think it would make more sense to remove the Rune, though whether it's best suited for moving out of the Lair altogether is another matter entirely.

In any case, attached to this post you can find:

• A patch against trunk showing the current state of my implementation;
• Some example Forest:1-4 maps, to give you an idea of what the generator produces; and
• A couple of screenshots showing all of this in action (I may take more, particularly if there's interest in seeing what this looks like with Tiles).

Suggestions and/or feedback are welcome. I hope you all like what you see here.

[XuaXua]

I have not read enough of your proposal, but I would like to toss a couple ideas to you.

1) A monster that moves through trees as if they were not there (hey, Forest Wyrm!)

2) A higher rate of plant growth or regrowth, or sporadic rain, or damp vegetation, or the separation of sections by stone-like mountainous terrain. This is an unbuff to the heavy-damaging fire transforming plants into explosions, which needs to be toned down in some fashion for this branch to be more viable.

[XuaXua]

Also, having played the Spriggan faery armour vault a couple times, what would be wrong with placing this as an entire floor replacement in... Elf?

[Kate]

kilobyte has had plans for a Forest branch for a good while now, and I think one of the main blockers is lack of diversity in the monster set, since spriggans alone are all very squishy, easy to kill with all sorts of AoE spells (like Elf but even more so). But getting a good level generator definitely sounds great - you should join ##crawl-dev if you get a chance and get him to take a look, maybe.

[evilmike]

Nice. I'm going to echo MarvinPA's advice... get on IRC and talk to kilobyte - he has ideas/plans for Forest and is the person you want to talk to. I don't think he'll mind you stepping up and working on the branch, considering his hands are full with a bunch of other projects.

The monster set is still a sore spot for this branch, but I can think of ways of improving it, so don't worry too much about this for now.

[sgrunt]

As a semi-aside, I've been giving some thought to additional creatures that would be at home in a forest environment. I have a couple of more or less finished designs (the major thing they could benefit from right now is tiles) - in short:

• The dryad, who primarily uses Awaken Trees (this is fun to watch in arena:forest against orc bands), and
• The leshy - hard-hitting enough on its own, but inevitably comes with swarms of wolves and bears.

Apparently attaching a patch here doesn't work too well, so I've uploaded the patch set to add them in elsewhere: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5494313/crawl-forest-dryad-leshy.patch . This is meant to be applied over top of the previous patch, but it would be fairly easy to adjust it so that that need not be the case.

Even with these, I think the major focus here should be on more mundane creatures (it's been suggested that there be more types of wolves, for example). I'm going to keep thinking about this and will probably come up with another monster or two that should fit in just fine.

[evilmike]

Some other notes on forest enemies (some comes from recent ##crawl-dev talk, some of this is my own opinion):

Awaken forest should check AC and EV. The trees are physically hitting you... they should be treated as normal attacks w/r/t your defenses. This would also help to make it less annoying (it's so deadly right now that your only option is to retreat).

Druids should probably be less spammy with their summoning.

Riders need something more interesting than "spawn a giant firefly when it dies".

EV might be too high on some enemies. Could possibly do with raising HP a bit and lowering EV a bit. Spriggan enemies right now are very vulnerable to AOE. While it's interesting they have a weakness, some people have expressed annoyance.

Spriggans should not cast spells that start forest fires. This means taking away lightning bolt from air mages.

They are all speed 16, for attacking and movement. It might be better to have them move fast but act/cast at a normal speed.

Overall balance is off: spriggans are very dangerous enemies but forest animals (bears, wolves, etc) are all weaklings.

[dd]

I love it!

Hope to see this in crawl soon... I don't think it necessarily needs its own rune, but there should be some incentive for the player to enter besides wanting to explore all of the dungeon, I think... maybe a chance for some sweet loot, like a guaranteed cache of items or something.

[XuaXua]

Awaken forest should check AC and EV. The trees are physically hitting you... they should be treated as normal attacks w/r/t your defenses. This would also help to make it less annoying (it's so deadly right now that your only option is to retreat).

Yeah. Laid-end Spriggan Druids are the reason I go in with fire. Lots and lots and lots and lots of fire. I should be able to handle those trees, but no way. If it's "broken" then it should be fixed.

I've been told to create Mantis Bugs when Crawl stuff bothers me, and rightly so with Awaken Trees (I thought that was the intent! Glad to know it wasn't!), so since Mike didn't do it, here.

[XuaXua]

Also: Monkeys.

[evilmike]

Awaken forest should check AC and EV. The trees are physically hitting you... they should be treated as normal attacks w/r/t your defenses. This would also help to make it less annoying (it's so deadly right now that your only option is to retreat).

Yeah. Laid-end Spriggan Druids are the reason I go in with fire. Lots and lots and lots and lots of fire. I should be able to handle those trees, but no way. If it's "broken" then it should be fixed.

I've been told to create Mantis Bugs when Crawl stuff bothers me, and rightly so with Awaken Trees (I thought that was the intent! Glad to know it wasn't!), so since Mike didn't do it, here.

This verges on being yet another spurious bug report. I was not saying awaken forest is buggy, I was saying it could stand to be improved. I will leave this issue open because it can at least be argued that the effect is extremely unrealistic, to an unintuitive degree.

[absolutego]

quick remark! there are already many branches placed in the first half of the dungeon. leaving extended aside, the two branches found in the second half of the dungeon are the vaults, which has a very D-like monster set (and layout, to an extent) and should be shortened in any case, and crypt, for which there has been talk of outright removal in favour of a single-level portal (i second that too, although i'd rather see it as a 1-level branch than a portal).

so it'd be great to focus new content efforts to the vaults-to-d:27 segment, which is the dullest part of the game. i've mentioned on a number of occasions that in my opinion it'd be a good idea to place special full levels at that depth, with staircases placed strategically so that you can't skip it easily (and ctele if required). as a bonus, this allows you to make them short and yet really hard, which is a good thing. no one has ever weighed in on this, so maybe it's a terrible idea? feel free to thrash it!

i have no idea if that's what you're going for, but i'd really rather not see yet another lair branch.

This verges on being yet another spurious bug report. I was not saying awaken forest is buggy, I was saying it could stand to be improved. I will leave this issue open because it can at least be argued that the effect is extremely unrealistic, to an unintuitive degree.

as you said it's too harsh, and the fact that spriggans are nearly always faster than you degenerates into "teleport now", which is silly. so yeah checking ev/ac sounds good.

should i put it up on mantis? (kidding!)

[evilmike]

The spriggan forest isn't meant to be a Lair branch. It's late-D material, given the current monster set. Not to say that's where the final version will show up, but that's where the difficulty level is right now. Besides, everyone knows lair branches have to start with 'S'.

[Blade]

The spriggan forest isn't meant to be a Lair branch. It's late-D material, given the current monster set. Besides, everyone knows lair branches have to start with 'S'.

"spriggan forest"

EDIT: On a more serious note, I really like the idea of this branch and have since I first heard about it. Not only is it just cool thematically, it has the potential for some interesting situations due to the level layout (and the monsters who can hurt you using it, making [among other things] corridors very dangerous places to hang around in). As for the monster set, I agree that it's lacking right now. Along with the previously-mentioned tweaks to the spriggans, I think there is room for more high-level woodland creatures.

I don't have a whole lot of specific ideas, though, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm interested in seeing where this goes.

[absolutego]

ninja'd.

but my question was more along the lines of whether this could work as a dense, hard, single level instead of a branch, a la elf:5 smack in the middle of the dungeon. (i believe so.)

[dd]

How about making Awaken trees into a sort of necromancy-like spell, so that instead of it making the adjacent trees deal damage to you, it changes trees into actual monsters you can fight? They'd be real slow but deal lots of physical damage, and vulnerable to fire.

I think that way it'd be a lot more fun & interesting.

[XuaXua]

That's just turning it into another summoning spell.

Not really.

The only notable differences between the current effect and the suggested effect would be
1) that the already existing trees would also be able to move.
2) that the already existing trees would likely be made vulnerable to attacks beyond fire, and to be honest, I'd prefer the majority of attacks to behave as they would currently - do nothing. It is really freaking hard to damage a giant tree with a hand weapon, except over time (executioner's Axe of Chopping!)

[dd]

That's just turning it into another summoning spell.

Not really.

The only notable differences between the current effect and the suggested effect would be
1) that the already existing trees would also be able to move.
2) that the already existing trees would likely be made vulnerable to attacks beyond fire, and to be honest, I'd prefer the majority of attacks to behave as they would currently - do nothing. It is really freaking hard to damage a giant tree with a hand weapon, except over time (executioner's Axe of Chopping!)

Also you couldn't get rid of them with abjuration or anti-undead spells.

[pratamawirya]

I'd prefer the awaken trees spell to be how it is now (the trees do not move and just attack you), but also add a new "moving tree" monster (it could act like a mimic, you think it's just a normal tree but when you're standing next to it...)

[dd]

How about, awaken tree turns a tree into a monster, but it's an immobile monster kind of like oklob plants or statues... if that makes it too weak it could attack with reaching.

[absolutego]

guys, it's fine as is, and unique, it just does a lot of damage.

[Grimm]

guys, it's fine as is, and unique, it just does a lot of damage.

What it does is kill you unawares the first time you come across it, then every subsequent time makes you stay outside of the forest and burn it down.

[dd]

guys, it's fine as is, and unique, it just does a lot of damage.

What it does is kill you unawares the first time you come across it, then every subsequent time makes you stay outside of the forest and burn it down.

It didn't kill me the first time I saw it... I just retreated to a clearing, then spammed the spriggans with meph & IMB (or maybe it was poison arrow, can't remember)... then again, maybe I just got lucky there.

[Jeremiah]

Suggestion: A tree-type monster that starts out dormant and looks just like any other tree, until the trees nearby are set on fire. Then it wakes up and gets really angry about its brothers being burned. Of course it might get caught in the forest fire itself: then you are being chased by a BURNING tree-type monster (add fire damage to melee attacks...)

[dd]

Yeah, forest fires and so on really need to be removed if trees are going to be used for much of anything other than decoration. I suggest just using walls for walls instead.

Could be a mix of both? Not much point calling the branch a "forest" unless there's trees in there...

[Grimm]

Chance here for a Smokey the Bear-type unique - I'm not joking.

[XuaXua]

Yeah, forest fires and so on really need to be removed if trees are going to be used for much of anything other than decoration. I suggest just using walls for walls instead.

Could be a mix of both? Not much point calling the branch a "forest" unless there's trees in there...

Could be a big wet forest, like a swa...

[bobross419]

Chance here for a Smokey the Bear-type unique - I'm not joking.

Crying Indian Spriggan? Summons Rain Clouds as one of his abilities... maybe comes with the Cloak of Clouds or whatever it is.

EDIT: Also... Am I the only one that see's "RE: Work in progress: reviving the Enchanted Forest as a bra" in the topic spots for all of the posts after the first one? lols

[nicolae]

Yeah, forest fires and so on really need to be removed if trees are going to be used for much of anything other than decoration. I suggest just using walls for walls instead.

Could be a mix of both? Not much point calling the branch a "forest" unless there's trees in there...

Could be a big wet forest, like a swa...

It wouldn't have to be a swamp, there's probably any number of flavor reasons to make the trees in the Forest branch non-flammable, or at least make it so burning trees don't light up other trees -- spriggan magic, fire-quenching sap, etc.

[XuaXua]

Chance here for a Smokey the Bear-type unique - I'm not joking.

Crying Indian Spriggan?

Paralyzed by polluting attacks.

[XuaXua]

It wouldn't have to be a swamp, there's probably any number of flavor reasons to make the trees in the Forest branch non-flammable, or at least make it so burning trees don't light up other trees -- spriggan magic, fire-quenching sap, etc.

I added the idea to the Mantis Bug for Animate Trees that the animated trees are less vulnerable to fire attacks because, by being animated, they have some semblance of a dodging / blocking / deflecting component.

[infiniplex]

There is an outstanding issue in the Enchanted Forest design:

"Forest:1…n-1: The Enchanted Forest. It keeps shifting around, somewhere between Abyss and Lab. The map outside of LOS keeps getting generated over and over... "

The player might teleport (probably randomly) into an enclosed area with no out-of-LOS map portions to shift into a path out.

Some possibilities I see are:
1. The map doesn't shift: Disappointing; that was to be the distinguishing (functional) feature of this branch
2. -TELE: This seems a bit extreme
3. Really clever layout modification that never cuts any areas off: This sounds hard to program, especially on a map (such as the Forest) with a natural (i.e. irregular) feel to it. It is made even harder because the part of the map the player sees does not change and should still be connected to something meaningful (e.g. not a dead end just out of sight).
4. The player is occasionally teleported randomly: This has a strong sense of the Abyss in it. It also would work badly on the bottom level if there is a (fixed) spriggan village (the Abyss works because it is all about the same). On the other hand, the Enchanted Forest is listed as a possible Abyss replacement...
5. The Forest shifts even when the player is nearby: This is also Abyss-y, and prevents big shifts.
6. Allow the player to damage trees (without fire): The trees would be tough, of course, but it would give the player a chance at a way out. On the other hand a) This would be strange, especially with e.g. a quarterstaff AND b) presumably the spriggans have some defense against loggers.
7. A fancy random teleport target chooser that doesn't pick enclosed areas: This sounds hard to code. And possibly un-rougelike-y.
8. The player is randomly (trapped or not) reverse-banished out of the Forest: This might be a) random OR b)time-based (possibly with a random length). Some issues this would be a) it might be hard to code well, b) it would probably be annoying, c) it would be hard on slow characters d) it doesn't make in-game sense, e) the Enchanted Forest already has a gimmick, AND f) that would be even weirder than e.g. the walls in the Slime Pits.
9. A warning message: Kind of like the hunger warning for the Labyrinth

Side Note: The Enchanted Forest as a possible replacement for Slime Pits. It would presumably have to become more dangerous. And we would miss out on one of the branches with the best atmosphere (and slimy things are my favorite Crawl monsters). And what about Jivya? On the other hand, Slime Pits is the only guaranteed Lair branch, so it is up to be replaced some time...

[sgrunt]

Now that some of my other more immediate projects in the code base are out of the way, I'm starting to tinker with this again.

Here is a slightly updated version of the patch; the update is mainly to move the branch to the lower Dungeon (currently generated between D:18 and D:22) and remove the rune. I also introduced another monster besides the two I previously put together (for which I'm still looking for feedback, incidentally): the forest drake, capable of moving through trees akin to rock worms moving through walls (though they can still be attacked when on a tree) and possess a ranged acid attack (as with oklob plants, acid blobs, and yellow draconians).

It's been pointed out to me that trying to attach patches here doesn't necessarily work very well, but I'm going to do so again anyway; if it still doesn't work very well I will upload the patch elsewhere and link to it from here.

I'm going to investigate getting the map to shift around outside of LOS next, if that sounds to everyone as though it would be of interest.

[XuaXua]

Just in case you get irrevocably trapped in a shifting forest, I'd suggest if a player waits still in a spot long enough doing nothing, the in-view forest will shift.

[danr]

I like the idea of another late-dungeon branch, or having more special levels in the main dungeon. I feel like the main dungeon is definitely the most boring part of the game, and thus the biggest opportunity for making the game more interesting would be to have a lot more levels like the Spriggan one that show up with some frequency.

In terms of a woodland level and the monster set:
- Spiders and bugs live in forests too
- How about High Elves as monsters. I think Elf is all Deep Elves, correct? Although many Deep Elf monsters are really stereotypical high elf characters, e.g. bow specialists, hybrid casters, long sword specialists.

[XuaXua]

I think I'd just like more vaults in general to show up; main D can get boring and I feel like it's the only place where the cool fun stuff appears.

You don't see too many of the D vaults customized for re-distribution to other branch areas. I think that would be a neat thing to work on.

[mumra]

I think I'd just like more vaults in general to show up; main D can get boring and I feel like it's the only place where the cool fun stuff appears.

You don't see too many of the D vaults customized for re-distribution to other branch areas. I think that would be a neat thing to work on.

The problem with more vaults showing up is that you'll start noticing a lot more repetition. Of course more vaults are always getting added, and the more there are the more common they can be without repetition getting noticeable. This can be mitigated by building more random variation into the vaults themselves, but that in itself is a tricky and time-consuming process.

[sgrunt]

I present some more work of mine on the Forest. The big addition here is constant regeneration of the level outside the player's line of sight (this borrows heavily from the Abyss code), which I find makes for an appropriately unsettling experience. I've also added some insects to the monster set (bees, wasps, spiders, and the occasional ghost moth for the extra creepiness factor).

I'm quite enjoying how this is turning out - with the level-shifting in place, the Forest feels to me like a considerably less frustrating, but still challenging, fusion of the Abyss and a Labyrinth, though with its own distinct character.

I think what would help the most at the moment would be more vaults - having some fixed points of reference and variety in the levels would be nice. I also may want to rework the level shifting - right now the level loses its initial clearings-and-connections character somewhat quickly, though the claustrophobic feeling it seems to generate in its place also fits the branch quite nicely, in my view.

In any case, enjoy!

[Bloax]

Chance here for a Smokey the Bear-type unique - I'm not joking.

-

He's half burned, half alive. Half dead, half alive. You may know him as a kind specimen who wants you to save the forest; but this guy doesn't look kind, and he certainly looks like he wants to bury you alive in the dirt of the forest.

I'm a huge necrobumper, aren't I.

Edit: Boo, outlines of badassery. This is not a good sign.

-

[BlackSheep]

but this fellatio doesn't look kind, and he certainly looks like he wants to bury you alive.

Damn you autocorrect?

[Bloax]

im drunk hehahoeahaeee!111

But heh, I'm not really serious about that description. (In fact, I can't even remember what "Fellatio" means. Originally I actually wrote fella, but that didn't really blend in.) ;p

Also, tweaked the outlined sprite's edges a teeny bit more.

[absolutego]

The big addition here is constant regeneration of the level outside the player's line of sight (this borrows heavily from the Abyss code) (...)

you mean this is scummable? do items and monsters keep generating?

[Deimos]

(In fact, I can't even remember what "Fellatio" means. Originally I actually wrote fella, but that didn't really blend in.) ;p

I can tell you one thing; it does not make a suitable replacement for Fella

[Bloax]

Ah, I think I'm starting to remember what it means. Oooohhh man. That was a big miss.
Not that I'm removing it, however! Muahaha! ಠ_ಠ

Bah, whatever. Bam.

[Jabberwocky]

you mean this is scummable? do items and monsters keep generating?

Probably not any more scummable then pan.

[galehar]

I'm not sure how much code is shared, but in Abyss, morphing doesn't generate items nor monsters (monsters do spawn as usual though). Shifting (when you get close to the edge of the map, new area is generated and the map translates) generates items and monsters.
If the enchanted forest just uses morphing, then it doesn't generate anything. Why does it anyway? I think morphing should stay an Abyss exclusive feature.

[sgrunt]

Well, the latest and greatest Forest work is now a branch (heh) in the repository, so further code updates can be obtained from there.

To answer the generation question - monster and item generation should work as normal for other levels, so you'll get gradually-tapering-off monster generation and items only generating at initial creation time.

Anyhow, to the latest work: I've completely overhauled the shifting algorithm for Forest - it now primarily swaps tiles outside of player sight in a manner that preserves connectivity. (Actually, the conditions are stricter than that, and tend to result in large open areas staying mostly the same while narrow passages sway around.) It is much more Forest-y than what I had before, and combined with map rot yields a sinister effect (actually, this might work better without map rot - the player would be far more likely to think "Hey, that was different a few moments ago!" if they had the map as a reference.)

Enjoy!

[Galefury]

Note that anything that breaks autoexplore is really annoying. One of the most serious offenders in this regard is maprot. Shoals were also pretty bad, but were recently improved, so clearly changing terrain can work well if some effort is put into making autoexplore work. This is a rather important thing to consider if people are supposed to actually enjoy playing.