Why is the orb apportable?

[Moose]

I've always found the most difficult part of the Orb-run getting it from its pedestal to Zot:4.

When you can chain-apport the orb from its starting location all the say to the '<' on Zot:5 before you pick it up, you mitigate a very tricky part of the level.

Not only is the chain apportation advantageous to everyone, it's relatively spoilery and boring.

I'd love to see the ability to chain-apport the orb removed, or simply make it so that it can only be apported once.

Thoughts?

[Sar]

It was already discussed earlier and basically the conclusion is that if you don't clear one of lungs it's risky because orb yells and it's very loud and if you do there's no point because you killed all the real bad guys turning Zot:5 in Just Another One Dungeon Level you need to carry the orb through.

[reaver]

Not only is the chain apportation advantageous to everyone, it's relatively spoilery and boring.

Would it be good for a ninja spriggan who's randomly teleported to the Orb, and is surrounded by Orb Guardians which can kill it in a couple of turns? Or would it be better for it to pick the orb up, chain blink away from them and read ?tele and keep moving?

In general, the random spawns in Zot are worse than the additional monsters which spawn on the Run, which makes this a bad tactic. Picking it up and running away tends to be best. I'll just leave you with a dev's opinion on the matter:

I still don't see the point of [disallowing Orb apportaion.] .... if players want to do something dumb, then let them. Attempting to reduce the "tedium" of a completely batshit tactic like apport-dragging isn't really a goal of Crawl's design.

[dck]

Have people who think apporting the orb all over zot: $ is advantageous in any way actually tried to do such a thing?
I mean there are some pretty severe problems with this approach.

[Moose]

It doesnt seem that crazy if you've already cleared the level. It just keeps the demons and pan lords from gating in on you while you're on Zot:5. I've always found the run from the orb pedestal to the stairs the hardest part of the Orb run typically, and with the ability to apport it to the stairs, it's trivialized.

[crate]

if you've already cleared the level.

doing this is very dangerous; you are voluntarily fighting twice as many enemies as you have to in the most difficult vault in the game!

[indspenceable]

It doesnt seem that crazy if you've already cleared the level. It just keeps the demons and pan lords from gating in on you while you're on Zot:5. I've always found the run from the orb pedestal to the stairs the hardest part of the Orb run typically, and with the ability to apport it to the stairs, it's trivialized.

Depending on the character I have a much harder time getting to the orb than getting from the orb to the stairs.

[duvessa]

I believe apportation works on the Orb of Zot because it is an item.

[MrPlanck]

When you can chain-apport the orb from its starting location all the say to the '<' on Zot:5 before you pick it up

I would never choose this strategy.

[BlackSheep]

I believe apportation works on the Orb of Zot because it is an item.

sort of

[Sar]

Well it works on gold and runes too.

[danr]

To me, apporting the orb is a tedious tactic, and should be removed.

This is consistent with game philosophy. For example, Crawl does not allow selling items in shops for gold. This is expressly done so that players do not spend their time tediously scouring the dungeon for ring mails and clubs to generate cash. To me, apporting the orb is similar in that the player is encouraged to take a long, boring way to accomplish a relatively mundane task.

Issues are that:
- There are two approaches to the orb, only one of which needs to be cleared out, but if you pick up the orb, it shrieks and wakes everything up.
- So there is a valid tactical reason other than the boring one of slightly delaying the onset of the orb run monster generation

Simply disallowing apportation thus removes an important tactical option and forces Z:5 to be played the same way every time - always clear everything out. So are there cleverer ways to eliminate the need for this tedious tactic?

Some ideas:
- On picking up the orb, Z:5 actually allows CTele, and then you teleport yourself to a staircase. Some reason could be fabricated why the rest of the orb run again is -CTele, something to do with the special magic of Z:5 being cancelled out by the opposite polarity of the activated orb.
- Make it possible somehow to control the teleport of an item, so you could teleport it to near a set of stairs. I forget if you even can teleport items.
- Even uncontrolled item teleports could be a good option: chances are the orb will end up in the rest of Z:5 somewhere (though looking for it would also be tedious, exploring an already cleared level)
- Make it possible somehow to drag the orb in a mundane way, that ends at the staircase.
- Or just have the orb do its shrieking / monster spawing when it leaves Z:5, not when it is picked up.
- Have some way of eliminating the shriek, perhaps with a scroll of silence (would that work now?)

[Tiber]

if you've already cleared the level.

doing this is very dangerous; you are voluntarily fighting twice as many enemies as you have to in the most difficult vault in the game!

Sometimes I would rather voluntarily fight a very dangerous monster under conditions I have partial control over than worry about an involuntary fight at a less opportune time. Note however that I said, "sometimes".

[danr]

Note, I haven't played in a while, and it's been even longer since I've seen the orb chamber, so I might be getting some things wrong.

[ontoclasm]

One thing you're missing: the orb also shrieks when apported. So if you drag it all the way across Z:5 you're going to pull every single monster still alive there, plus everything that spawns in, which will be orbs of fire and draconian packs, while moving at a glacial pace because you have to apport the orb over and over. This is instead of just grabbing it, which will give you one shriek, let you move at full speed, and generally have easier spawns.

Apporting the orb to the stairs is already a bad decision; there's no need for us to put mechanics in place to make it worse.

[Moose]

I guess I didn't realize that people pick up the orb while there are still monsters left on the level. In my 30 or so wins, I've cleared Zot every time.

I'd love to know how people manage to get the Orb off the level without clearing it, but that discussion definitely doesn't belong in this forum.

[BlackSheep]

I find that between haste, swiftness, and digging out direct routes to the stairs, I usually get off the floor (and most floors, in fact) before anything spawns.

[duvessa]

Clearing Zot:5 is so universally considered a crazy stupid thing to do that it's often used as a joke in IRC, like wielding a bread ration in front of Mara or abandoning Trog for Chei. If you genuinely think apporting the orb to the stairs is a good idea then there's a serious problem with your approach to Zot:5, and likely your understanding of the game in general, really. Crawl should avoid grinding, but what you're calling "grinding" here doesn't have any benefit (it is in fact actively bad in all cases), and most definitions of grinding - including the Crawl manual's - require it to have some sort of benefit. It's like complaining that it's tedious to repeatedly walk on a Zot trap until it destroys every potion in your inventory. It is, but there's no reason whatsoever to be doing it in the first place, so the game doesn't need to bother getting rid of the option.
In fact I'd prefer to get rid of all the existing special cases for orb apportation since they're horribly spoilery (why should the spell work differently than it does on EVERY OTHER ITEM IN THE GAME?) and don't really serve much purpose now that apportation in general was nerfed and it weighs 60.0 aum.
The orb used to weigh 30.0 aum and apportation always brought items all the way to your position. Dragging it to the stairs was still a completely batshit tactic.

[Tenaya]

Clearing Zot:5 is so universally considered a crazy stupid thing to do that it's often used as a joke in IRC, like wielding a bread ration in front of Mara or abandoning Trog for Chei. ....

I can understand why it takes longer but I don't understand why it is either crazy or stupid. I habitually clear almost all of Zot:5, with the exception of one of the two Orb-wings, which I don't bother clearing. That way I have a cleaner run back to the stairs and random teleports to much of the level are safe enough. My thinking was that the risk of new zot:5 spawns are much less risky than finding several spawns that have migrated together.

[crate]

Clearing Zot:5 is so universally considered a crazy stupid thing to do that it's often used as a joke in IRC, like wielding a bread ration in front of Mara or abandoning Trog for Chei. ....

I can understand why it takes longer but I don't understand why it is either crazy or stupid. I habitually clear almost all of Zot:5, with the exception of one of the two Orb-wings, which I don't bother clearing. That way I have a cleaner run back to the stairs and random teleports to much of the level are safe enough. My thinking was that the risk of new zot:5 spawns are much less risky than finding several spawns that have migrated together.

If you don't clear both of the lungs you're very likely to get things from the one you didn't clear chasing you when you apport the orb. So the part you don't clear is exactly the part of zot:5 we are talking about.

[and into]

duvessa's point is that the tough part of Zot 5—which is routinely the toughest part of the entire game, including nearly anything you'll run into in extended outside of a late zigg level or some very insanely bad luck in Pan—always has two symmetrical chamber pairs ("lungs") that connect to the orb vestibule. You only need to clear two, plus the vestibule, in order to get the orb. Yes, maybe you hit a bad teleport trap or accidentally draw a few critters out from one of the other lungs, but there's no reason to intentionally clear all four chambers. Apporting the orb multiple times will probably cause enough noise to draw out the stuff from the other side. That's not necessary. Picking up orb causes noise, but if you just grab the rune and haste up, hauling ass to the stairs, that's a lot safer than apport-dragging the damn thing across the level and making shatter-level noise a dozen or more times while doing so. Just pick it up and run.