Shorten/Portalize? Forest

[wheals]

Forest, as it stands, has some significant problem. The biggest seems to be that it isn't fun to play. A major complaint seems to be the monster list: see pubby's post here for a pretty good list of some of the problems. Another issue is that it doesn't seem to really have a coherent theme besides "tree layout": what do jellyfish, yaks, and redbacks really have in common?

In my opinion, a major problem with the branch is that too many monsters were created for or added to it in order to not make it repetitive and boring to clear all five levels. This clearly did not work, since many of these enemies are either repetitive themselves or have gimmicks that don't manage to show themselves before dying, rendering them boring. Instead of trying to stretch out the branch to fit the pre-specified length that's "required" to make the game balanced the way it is, it would make more sense to begin with basic design principles: try to create interesting challenges that can interact interestingly.

I suggest that Forest be cut down to 2 levels, one to introduce the new spriggan monsters and the second, like the current Forest:5, the lair of the Enchantress (a fairly large vault) surrounded by another level. Alternatively, it could be cut down to just one level, and made a portal. As a consequence, it could probably be made to be guaranteed. Possibly Depths would be a fine place to put it, since there are currently no Depths branches and a break from the constant yaktaurs packs and giants could make Forest a breath of fresh air :).

More importantly, a shortened Forest wouldn't have to have as many monsters. Foremost, those that serve only to wear out the 5 key should definitely be removed. Apis is first on the list, as are spirit wolves unless Howl could be reworked. A lot of the poisonous monsters are popcorn at the point you're doing Forest anyway, serving mostly to spam 5 unless you have rPois (or, in the case of redbacks, no matter what). The whole water theme is mostly irrelevant, given that we have two heavily water-themed branches already. That would make elemental wellsprings (still pretty annoying), thorn lotuses, and water nymphes ready for the axe. That leaves dryads, treants, fauns/satyrs, thorn hunters, and spriggan monsters as enemies exclusive to the branch. Note that most of these have a common thread: making escape difficult (through high speed, mostly, though thorn hunters also have an interesting way to accomplish this). I really like what Forest could become, and I think that cutting the crap could help greatly.

[Azrael]

Forest, as it stands, has some significant problem. The biggest seems to be that it isn't fun to play. A major complaint seems to be the monster list: see pubby's post here for a pretty good list of some of the problems. Another issue is that it doesn't seem to really have a coherent theme besides "tree layout": what do jellyfish, yaks, and redbacks really have in common?

Hi. This isn't personal, but I've really got to point some stuff out here:

A) Crypt is terrible. Forest is better. Since Forest is considerably more fun that Crypt, and acts as a replacement for it, Crypt should be the one getting relegated to Portal status, if anything has to be changed.

B) Coherent theme? What? It's things you would find in a forest, just like the Orcish Mines has things you'd find in, well, a set of orcish mines. This is like saying Shoals doesn't have a theme, because you can find merfolk AND snakes AND yaks in it. "Theme" isn't as important as fun/challenge anyway. Zot has dragons, but it's also got orbs of fire, electric golems, tentacled monstrosities, orb guardians, and those weird clown things.

C) "Monster list" is kind of like theme, but deserves to be talked about separately. Once again: Crypt. It's got zombies, and skeletal warriors, and skeletons, and...uh... more zombies, I guess. Going through it is essentially knowing how to hold down Tab, because all the monsters act the same. This is totally the opposite of Forest, where you have a lot of different monsters with very different abilities interact in interesting ways. Take on the heavy hitting bears in melee while being pelted with lightning bolts from a spriggan air mage, only to flee after The Hunt from spirit wolves starts, only to get cut off by a thorn hunter and forced to fight your way out.

I like this better than holding down tab and killing 50000000 zombies.

I agree that Forest could be improved, but cutting it down to a Portal Vault while leaving Crypt and other much more poorly thought out Branches behind would be nothing short of a crime. And that rhymes.

[crate]

Yes, crypt (and every other part of crawl) should lose the zombies/skeletons.

That said if you think crypt is just zombies and skeletal warriors you haven't been there in a while.

Forest is way worse than crypt, though curse skulls do their best to make that not true.

[Azrael]

The last few games I've played I've gotten Forest, which is more fun than I remember Crypt to be. It's better now?

[dck]

It's has plenty of annoying things and I particularly hate how ancient champions didn't lose haunt they regular spawns for crypt.
I also loathe how vampire mages summon and just how annoying their summons are, they summon things that freeze potions, hit you in melee with napalm, rot you and just do about any terribly annoying thing to you. The other vampires are good now (although knights have para and para is bad), I don't know why mages couldn't just hit harder in melee and then have say, agony instead of summons.

But all in all and no matter how much I dislike all the new things in crypt that summon stuff (and curse skulls), forest is on a whole different level.

[Tiktacy]

So let me get this straight:

- remove repetitive monsters
- remove/change monsters who don't work correctly
- shorten it to make it more unique.
- make floor two one giant vault.

I don't see any problems with this at all. I mean, we can throw around our usual arguing fodder, but this seems like a solid proposal from all angles. You definitely have my vote. +1

[skyspire]

I would not want one giant vault if it means less exp than 5 floors.

[Sar]

I would, I feel like Crawl has too much XP anyway.

[WalkerBoh]

If you read the proposal, Forest would no longer be a Crypt swap and would instead be placed elsewhere (the OP suggest Depths). So it would actually just be exp added to the game.

[pubby]

How about we kill 2 birds with one stone. Let's replace all the bad monsters in Swamp with all the good monsters from forest. Call it Swamp 3.0.

also, change the swamp layout while you're at it

[wheals]

I thought about the xp but since spriggan monsters are rare outside some Lair vaults / Zigs anyway they could be adjusted up or down to keep the xp at what it needs. Even without as much xp, I find that most Enchantress vaults have pretty awesome loot, and a lot of characters could benefit from a good faerie dragon armour, so there would be motivation to go there.

[dck]

@pubby: While I would initially find an idea like this to be pretty good I'm a bit uncertain of what forest monsters can be considered good. There are a bunch extra of them that are questionable (spriggan offenders, riders and air mages) but all of those are just much too lethal for a lair branch.

[reaver]

@pubby: While I would initially find an idea like this to be pretty good I'm a bit uncertain of what forest monsters can be considered good. There are a bunch extra of them that are questionable (spriggan offenders, riders and air mages) but all of those are just much too lethal for a lair branch.

"too lethal" can be solved by changing around a half dozen numbers in the source code. (HD, melee damage, etc.). The pubby post the OP linked to the monsters he considers good (although it includes the two spriggans you just said were bad) and I think even most of the "bad" monsters could be moved if they were made rare and polished a bit.

[dck]

That's pretty obvious but since those monsters are used in other places that would still happen (forest in U for example) even if the enchanted forest was removed just changing the numbers wouldn't work, it'd need to be some jr. version like it happened to spriggan druids.
Doing something like that doesn't sound like a good idea compared to thinking of better swamp monsters.

[MrPlanck]

Forest is way worse than crypt, though curse skulls do their best to make that not true.

I agree (though I don't mind curse skulls). I clear crypt nearly every game but will not enter forest unless I absolutely must. Bit of a shame because in early variants, Forest was quite alright.

[godzilla]

I very much like the OP's proposal. Shortening Forest and putting it in Depths seems like a great idea to me.
Merging it with Swamp seems like a bad idea to me, though. Honestly the only problem I have with the current swamp is the hydras and swamp drakes.

[XuaXua]

I was thinking that Crypt / Forest should swap out every other level, with the final floor being some iteration on that undead castle in the forest.

[Bim]

I realise one of the goals of crawl is to make it lean and without clutter/annoyance, but I really don't think there is any need to remove branches/cut the levels down just because they're currently boring/difficult. I agree it needs a bit of work, but branches are what makes the game fun/gives an element of choice, so I'd rather that we cut down on gimmicky monsters and possibly drop a level off it rather than relegate it to a portal.

4 levels to introduce spriggans, deal with a few branch specific enemies and the enchantresses lair seems about right to me.

[Tiktacy]

I think crypt should be made the same way, rather than 5 levels of mostly popcorn, why not just have 2-3 levels of very strong monsters that require skill? I consider tomb to be one of the most well made branches in the game(the only reason people hate it is because the creature abilities are crippling). That branch isn't even random, it's completely fixed.

Remaking forest and crypt and having more 2 or 3 giant levels with much more dangerous enemies sounds a lot more enjoyable than having some dangerous enemies spread throughout 5 levels and whole lot of popcorn.

[wheals]

I realise one of the goals of crawl is to make it lean and without clutter/annoyance, but I really don't think there is any need to remove branches/cut the levels down just because they're currently boring/difficult. I agree it needs a bit of work, but branches are what makes the game fun/gives an element of choice, so I'd rather that we cut down on gimmicky monsters and possibly drop a level off it rather than relegate it to a portal.

4 levels to introduce spriggans, deal with a few branch specific enemies and the enchantresses lair seems about right to me.

Well, I feel like what you said is exactly what I proposed, the only real difference being one of quantity. I've entered and cleared Forest 6 times, (dying once on the last floor), so it's not like I hate the branch and never do it--but it does often become a slog. If anything, moving Forest would increase choice since you could choose between it and Crypt (or do both, even).

[tompliss]

Little necro :
What is the Forest now ?

I am playing a downloaded Trunk from early January (I think : v0.14-a0-1501-g5834675), and got the Forest as one of my Depths levels (complete with the enchantress and the really poor loot as her Faerie dragon armor was the worst possible).
I think it was fun like that (as it was totally possible to avoid most of it, and as it was with a correct difficulty : a vault in the depths is not expected to be a walk in the park.

Has it changed since then (not always playing online, and clearly not always at this depth) ?

[Sar]

Well imagine that level, only there are five of them, and they also have mobile water turrets, and enemies that can lower your MR, put you to sleep and stab you, and enemies that make your attacks weaker after you kill them, and enemies that can teleport you into a random pool of water on that level, and enemies that stick a MR-ignoring status to you which makes all enemies of the same type aware of your position, and enemies that know spell that makes trees grow vines that damage and reposition you (said enemies also used to be able to walk through trees), and enemies that slow your movement irresistibly and hit like trucks, and

[dck]

rF bears because I mean if you're doing all of the above then why not

[pratamawirya]

Well imagine that level, only there are five of them, and they also have mobile water turrets, and enemies that can lower your MR, put you to sleep and stab you, and enemies that make your attacks weaker after you kill them, and enemies that can teleport you into a random pool of water on that level, and enemies that stick a MR-ignoring status to you which makes all enemies of the same type aware of your position, and enemies that know spell that makes trees grow vines that damage and reposition you (said enemies also used to be able to walk through trees), and enemies that slow your movement irresistibly and hit like trucks, and

Hey, sounds fun.

*trying for 2 minutes*
F**king hell...

[Hirsch I]

the second time I got into the forest, I was playing DsBe, got XL 23 with full Fire facet (resistance to flame clouds). I just burned the damn trees down, and with a bit of positioning, the branch was pretty easy. never managed to clear it again, but it was fun.

[Siegurt]

What I would personally suggest is to diversify the levels, we only put one "annoying mechanic" type of critter per level of the forest (So "Oh this is the dryad level", or "Oh this is the water nymph level") Where the rest is filled in with the regular non-funky mechanic forest critters. (I guess it'd be fine if each "weird" race was confined to it's own "area" of each map, but that seems complicated to implement technically)

I think what becomes so annoying is to have all those competing mechanics all vying for your attention at once, if each level of the forest came with a specific challenge which you could concentrate on using one strategy to beat, it would be much less cumbersome, without being any more or less difficult.

Having each area of the forest come with a specific challenge would also make it distinct from other branches, which I personally think would be neat.

[tompliss]

Well imagine that level, only there are five of them

Well, having the Enchantress in the Depths, I thought there was no more Enchanted Forest...
I mean, it was as if I found the Royal Slime Vault ._.

Anyway, I know there were a lot of coding behind the enchanted Forest, but I think I enjoyed the Forest as a Level Feeling in the Depths. It felt well placed and changed the pacing from the Fire/Frost giants.


Also, I support Siegurt's proposal

[Moose]

I came to the forum to make a post asking what if any discussion there has been about shortening both Crypt and Forest to 3 levels (like Elf), but then I saw this thread.

Not that one opinion has much bearing, but fwiw, I have now stopped doing Crypt and Forest entirely. The danger level coupled with the monotony, and lack of payoff makes them unattractive branches.

[wheals]

Well imagine that level, only there are five of them

Well, having the Enchantress in the Depths, I thought there was no more Enchanted Forest...
I mean, it was as if I found the Royal Slime Vault ._.

Anyway, I know there were a lot of coding behind the enchanted Forest, but I think I enjoyed the Forest as a Level Feeling in the Depths. It felt well placed and changed the pacing from the Fire/Frost giants.


Also, I support Siegurt's proposal

claws has a similar proposal on the devwiki to (here) to take the monsters from Forest and put them in other branches, possibly including making more current Forest ends into encompass/smaller vaults in Depths. It's definitely something that I agree with, too, especially since it preserves a lot of the nice stuff of Forest, while allowing individual mechanics time to breathe -- the density of spells and effects unique to Forest caused some of its problems.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Not that one opinion has much bearing, but fwiw, I have now stopped doing Crypt and Forest entirely. The danger level coupled with the monotony, and lack of payoff makes them unattractive branches.

Branches not named Swamp/Snake/Spider/Shoals/Vaults/Zot are all very unattractive by definition. The only exceptions are the main dungeon because it has to be walked through to reach the attractive branches and Lair/Orc because they have hilariously lopsided reward/risk ratios.

The fact that Forest seems specially designed to be high-risk and low-reward just adds insult to injury.

[galehar]

claws has a similar proposal on the devwiki to (here) to take the monsters from Forest and put them in other branches, possibly including making more current Forest ends into encompass/smaller vaults in Depths

Note that claws has just been welcomed in the devteam, and he already submitted his proposal to c-r-d.

[Tenaya]

I have played through the forest a few times now. Died once to an interesting tactical combination of frenzy needles and lajatangs of speed.
Here are some comments:
- 5 levels does seem a bit long. Either you can clear levels 1-4, or you can not. I recommend shortening it to 3 levels.
- The maps were a bit monotonous with the exception being that the tomb entry vault and the enchantress vault. I suppose it is just a matter of the branch being relatively new, but it will be nice when there are some additional features in the branch.
- the roulette of forest/crypt is interesting and provides some variety between games.
- the monster set is tactically interesting, in my opinion, although the layout of the levels made me want to skip it all and just go battle the enchantress rather than autoexplore for very little loot and many keypresses.

Suggestion:
How about eliminating floor loot in the forest (no littering!) and instead building little houses for the spriggans, maybe with gardens and kennels like smaller versions of the Enchantresses "grape vine" vault?