Move the entrance to Elven halls to depths 1-3

[tasonir]

The elven halls is a high level dangerous area, and shouldn't be linked in the orcish mines. Move it to the depths, perhaps levels 1-3, or a similar range. Really about the only floor it shouldn't be on is depths:5, so it doesn't appear to equal to the real end game zone, Zot. This will prevent posts like viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15560, where newer players think it's a earlier game branch, and won't force you to go backtracking through the mines in the late game when there's no other reason to be there.

Placing it in vaults is another option, as elves already spawn in vaults, although vaults already has crypt, so I didn't want to overload it. But that is another option.

[Pereza0]

I think Elf:1 and Elf:2 can usually be handled, even if you are relatively low level, as long as you are careful. Elf:3 is about the same outside the Vault. The vault is where difficulty really spikes up. Maybe giving all the vault layouts runed doors inscribed with some serious warning would be helpful. At least players would come in expecting the worst and ready to escape instead of expecting more of what they have found in Elf:1-Elf:2.

I honestly like Elf where it is right now, it has good loot(I seem to find better things there than in most of the game, even outside the vault. Don't know if it is confirmation bias or actually the truth)/shop generation and if I am not completely satisfied with what I have gotten in Orc I will often take a dip. But probably not too intuitive for new players though

[Sandman25]

Do many players clear Elf1-2 right after Orc? If not, it is placed badly because player travels a lot (the same problem with Slime).

[mps]

Depths? Elf is considerably less dangerous than vaults, imo, which outside of V:5 is less dangerous than depths. Personally, I like to do elf:3 and vaults:1-4 at similar stage in the game. Elf is closer to a lair branch in difficulty than to vaults or depths.

Is elf as bad as the abyss, portals to which appear where you suggest moving elf? My answer would be: No way. The thing I worry most about in elf is getting sent to the abyss.

[nago]

I'm more scared of lcs

[tasonir]

I usually hold off on it because of how spiky the damage can be (crystal spears from annihilators, torment from summoned fiends) and the need for high MR to prevent banishment, but if people generally think vaults is better than depths, I'm fine with that too. But I wouldn't do elf:3 before depths, personally. Elves are somewhat more susceptible to becoming trivial with good tactics as their low hp/defenses makes a single one easy to kill, but the branch is still harder than vaults imho.

[jejorda2]

In my last two wins, I did elf 1&2 before lair branches because I was looking for sources of rPois/clarity and flight.

If it is moved, my vote would be for the bottom floor of the dungeon. It shouldn't require a rune to go to the elven halls.

[mps]

I use pretty cheesy tactics on elf:3 (summoning corridors/kill hole). Yeah, two lcs's in a row is bad (I've died to that in elf before). With kill holes, the two lcs scenario is unlikely to kill a melee character, at least. Annihilators are not that common before elf:3 and can be avoided, mostly. Anyway, I still say abyss is a lot worse than elf and elf < vaults.

[Sprucery]

I'd say D:13 or 14, wherever Vaults are not.

[Sar]

Crawl dungeon is structured in a way that some branches will inevitably show earlier than they should be entered by an average character. If you move Elf to Depths/Vaults/whatever, there's still Slime; Depths itself can be entered right as you find it but doing that is usually a bad idea unless you know what are you doing; some of the Lair branches are easier, some are harder; V5 is probably the toughest battle in the game and ideally should be done after Depths, but the rest of Vaults should probably be done before Depths.

And then there are optional branches like Crypt and its Tomb, Abyss, Hells, Pan. Until all of the above is fixed, at some point a new player has to realize that entering those new areas as soon as you find them is probably not the best idea. Better earlier than later, less time lost on a character that gets gibbed by a monster way out of its league. Orc was already moved past Lair - but Orc arguably did a very poor job at teaching that since it usually started by throwing waves of weak monsters at you before revealing its ugly nature. Hopefully Elf with its mass spellcasters will do a better job to teach the hypothetical spoilerless player the value of retreating and considering another branch.

[johlstei]

I think slime is more pressing if we're going to rearrange stuff for this reason - early depths or late D seems like a better place for it. I'd maybe miss the lair Jiyva altar but it's not like I generally play expecting that to be there.

[jejorda2]

The symmetry of having a late game branch in each early branch is somewhat satisfying: Slime in Lair, Elf in Orc, Tomb in Vaults. But we don't have too much symmetry for symmetry's sake in crawl.

[grisamentum]

I would say put Elven Halls somewhere on Slime 2-5. Just for kicks.

[and into]

This will prevent posts like https://crawl.develz.org/tavern/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=15560, where newer players think it's a earlier game branch, and won't force you to go backtracking through the mines in the late game when there's no other reason to be there.

The player in question went through Elf a ways, realized he was in over his head, retreated after an intense conflict. I dunno, that sounds pretty fun and interesting to me.

The difficulty spike between Orc 3/4 and Elf 1/2 is not IMO greater than the spike in difficulty between, say, Lair 4 and Shoals 1, and is definitely lower than the difficulty spike between Dungeon 15 and depths 1.

Certain levels within a branch, certain levels (due to layout, unique spawn, and bad luck), and certain branches are going to be harder than you can handle when you first come across them. This is something the player must learn to recognize and respond to appropriately.

As for "trudging back through orcish mines," there is auto-travel. Any degree of non-linearity is going to require some backtracking, necessarily. (Fortunately the game has features that make this mostly painless.)

[PleasingFungus]

There is no problem to be fixed here.

[bcadren]

I like Elf where it is. Hell I've even CLEARED IT; immediately after Orc and BEFORE Lair. Elf is an interesting place because several of the things there can kill you in 2-3 turns when you first find it; but everything (except Blademasters) is so Glass-Cannon that you could kill them in one turn leading to an interestingly hard cautious challenge if you go there early. Ways I've cleared the Elf 3 vault upon finding it:

• Hu of Fedhas; was doing Elf:3 primarily to get a Longbow; fired a shortbow behind a line of Oklobs. Used Rain (Deep Water) to prevent anything from getting into melee range of the Oklobs and Oklobs for fire help and meatshields. Killed all of Elf:3 cramped into a single Hallway.
• Wz of Sif; Meph Cloud to incapacitate elves, claws to rip them up.
• EE of Ash; LRDing around a corner. Most didn't even see me; just came toward the noise.
• Tm of Sif; Alistair's from early randbook to incapacitate elves; blade hands to kill them.
• AK; Corrupt. Might only work for Ds/HO to have enough Invo Skill

You get the idea; it's an interesting challenge, not an impossibility to wipe out elf when you first get there.

[Turukano]

Do many players clear Elf1-2 right after Orc?

Speaking of myself: I did it very often.

The following has become my usual way in speedruns:

1. early dungeon, temple
2. lair 1-8
3. mines 1-4
4. elves 1-2
5. lair branches with 1st and 2nd rune

After having a look at the orcish shops I usually do E:1 - 2 right afterwards, there could be some useful item or another shop. As E:3 is dangerous that early I don't go there (and usually skip it in my games). So after E:1 - 2 it's time to look for the two lair runes assumed I have rPois.

For me the elven halls are alright where they are.

[XuaXua]

Do many players clear Elf1-2 right after Orc?

I do. Sometimes if I'm daring, I take down the exterior of Elf 3 as well.

[Berder]

Hall of blades on elf2 in my experience is as dangerous as elf3, if not moreso. You can killhole elf3, but hall of blades can involve getting swarmed by fast, dangerous enemies that are immune/resistant to everything.

[Quazifuji]

Hall of Blades has a rune door, though.

It seems like unspoiled players wandering into a new area, realizing they're in over their head, and coming back later is probably an interesting thing, not a bad one. The only areas I can think of where the first level is so much more dangerous than the entrance the the player is likely to die by the time they realize the danger they're in (assuming they're playing with the appropriate level of caution for an unspoiled player in a new area) would be Depths, Slime, and maybe Tomb. I think every other area that's considerably more dangerous than the place around its entrance is not generally dangerous enough to kill a cautious player who could get to the entrance just fine.

Anyway, if we really want unspoiled players to not wander into areas too dangerous for them without reordering the entire game, there's always TOME's approach, displaying a message indicating how dangerous the area is relative to your level when you enter.

[Sprucery]

Also, if the player is really unspoiled, I'd imagine Vaults:5 to be a quite likely deathtrap.

[bel]

I like Elf where it is. I have sometimes dipped into Elf before doing the rune branches or Vaults to get some ammo for bows. It is also useful for getting bucklers and rapiers. Since I do Depths usually after Vaults:4, it would be too late for me.

[PleasingFungus]

Also, if the player is really unspoiled, I'd imagine Vaults:5 to be a quite likely deathtrap.

I've seen plenty of new players talking about losing their best characters there, yep.

RIP

[mps]

Yeah, it would nice (and "flavorful") if the dungeon came with wall art or something that gave an indication of the structure of the dungeon, like the depth of branches, the existence of end branch vaults and the higher threat level, and the vaults:5 ambush in particular. Maybe even telling the player in advance which Lair branches would generate, although that might be revealing too much.

[Sar]

I've seen some sprint that had a bunch of level-themed areas behind runed doors and those had their difficulty spelled on the door description, something like "You see a door to the Vaults (very hard). Something like that could possibly be useful for actual game, except the difficulty of branches often depends on character so that'd be misleading in some cases, I suppose.

[PleasingFungus]

Yeah, it would nice (and "flavorful") if the dungeon came with wall art or something that gave an indication of the structure of the dungeon, like the depth of branches...

hit ?/B, or x-v the stairs to a branch

the fact that I'm posting this shows that the UI is a failure at conveying that information to the player, but it *does* exist in-game.

[mps]

I was afraid there'd be something like that that I didn't know about before I learned how branches work but didn't bother to try after I had...

[edgefigaro]

I just cleared out elf 3 after lair and orc. I did it mainly to get rid of fruits as a fedhas char. Super effective, and I now have 10 fewer fruits. I don't know what I want to do to get rid of my remaining fruits.

The vault was nearly all garbage.

[dpeg]

PleasingFungus: I disagree about UI failure -- the ?/B bit is *highlighted* on the Ctrl-O screen. It's okay for someone to miss that and to ask about it, but I don't think anyone can argue this is hidden information

[Quazifuji]

PleasingFungus: I disagree about UI failure -- the ?/B bit is *highlighted* on the Ctrl-O screen. It's okay for someone to miss that and to ask about it, but I don't think anyone can argue this is hidden information

To be fair, I'm not sure if everyone knows about the Ctrl+O screen, particularly since we're talking about players inexperienced enough to wander into Elf while in Orc without knowing what they're going into. DCSS has a ton of information available spread out over quite a lot of menus with a lot of different controls to access them. The average new player who doesn't know the standard branch order is probably not going to be aware of all of them.

[rchandra]

Players who don't take any steps to learn are going to be at a disadvantage and that's OK. Ctrl-O is in the ?? screen and I think it was in either the tutorial or hints mode, though it's been a long time since I've used those.