duvessa wrote:Sprucery wrote:Oh, I always thought ambient noise affecting stealth was one purpose of the mechanic. But of course, if the effect was tiny, it's better to not have it.
the fallacy here is assuming that ambient noise has a purpose
Well, I imagine the purpose is that if you do loud stuff in a loud branch, monsters from all over the level are less likely to swarm to you than in a deadly quiet branch like Tomb, so you can be more or less careful about noise in various branches. Unfortunately, it doesn't really work. If I swing around Fireballs in Lair, or even just IMBs (Very Loud/Loud, respectively), I pretty much have to retreat to a safe area after the fight anyways, because even with the high ambient noise (before the recent changes), I always found that a ton of monsters eventually swarmed there (and it's always optimal to retreat and fight later when fully prepared, instead of staying there and fighting on with mostly depleted mana and lost health, even if I fancy my chances). Even in Tomb, it doesn't matter if I let loose a Fire Storm, if I just retreat afterwards into a safe distance. Thus, small differences in ambient noise don't matter much - really quiet branches like Crypt and Tomb might have more noticeable monster magnetism to noise, but that just means you are forced into doing what is already optimal. Now, the recent "simplifications" have further reduced the significance of noise, by removing it from Lair and Orc, lessening it in Tomb (where it was at least somewhat noticeable) and buffing it in Crypt (which is already an easy location, both optional and not containing a rune, and thus that particular change doesn't matter much). Perhaps the Shoals noise increase (it was increased, right?) is the only relevant part (if it was a sufficient increase) because it does have a problem of monsters swarming you the moment you make any noise, and unlike in other branches, it's not so easy to retreat all the time because of the water.
If I play online, I do so under the screenname Marenglen.