Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens


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Shoals Surfer

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 22:44

Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I propose that since we have The Enchanted Forest, on that branch spawning, we have a new rune branch to replace Tomb. (Tomb would remain for when Crypt spawns) The new rune branch would be called The Heavens (working title - can be changed) .. and it can be a 3 floor Holy branch populated by the same kind of creatures that populate Holy Zig levels. Angels, Daevas, etc. The difficulty level can be made on par with the Tomb and provide an equivalent amount of xp and loot as the Tomb.

1. New wall tiles that appear as clouds/fog throughout the branch.
2. Populated by air and holy mobs, ie: Angels, Daevas, Ball Lightning, Lightning Rods, Wind Drakes, maybe Moon Trolls
3. Tornado vortexes intermittent throughout (must pass through tornado vortexes to enter corridors and explore the level map)

Controversial suggestions:
1. You get permaflight upon entering the branch (you lose flight status when you leave)
2. No floor. No floor drops. No corpse drops. Only the vault area has a floor (on 3rd level). The ground is sky blue because you are flying. All mobs are flying mobs, except the vault area.
3. Vault area could contain Moon Trolls (the former mobs created for the never finished Moon branch)

A Gateway to The Heavens in the Enchanted Forest would be more thematic than a Tomb entrance, just like it is more thematic to have the Tomb in the Crypt branch.


The reason for this change would be to add more variety (there is no holy rune) .. the new rune could be called Heavenly Rune. Also this would add challenge for necromutation builds and give more purpose to the holy mobs in the game (presently they are only found on Holy Zig levels and the very random Holy Pan level)

What do you guys think?
Last edited by skyspire on Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 13:37, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 22:50

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I think this proposal is incredibly vague and not fleshed out in any way. Considering the obviously low level of thought/effort put into this, I think this should go in CYC.

In theory, a switch for Tomb could work, but you need a lot more than just "holy theme" to build a branch. Also keep in mind that Forest isn't even actually in the game yet (in a stable release), so the whole situation with Forest could change at any time.

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 22:52

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I think the reason holy monsters are so rare is because they go neutral if you're pious enough with one of the good gods, which means if you were to go Elyvilon, Zin, or TSO in such a branch, a branch that's supposed to be as difficult as Tomb would be rendered much easier.

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 22:53

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

looks pretty good, except that good gods followers will get a free rune, and undead/Ds will suffer to get it.
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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:04

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Also holy monsters in general are not particularly fun to fight. Daevas spam smite and have huge shields and a ton of HPs, ophanim surround you with holy fire and then just chuck rather low powered bolts of fire at you, apis give you a bad debuff on death (more 5ing) and shedu/phoenixes demand you screw with their corpses after every kill. Personally I find pearl dragons to be just about the only regular holy monsters that are fun to fight.

Edit: Oh yeah and regular angels are okay too. They have high EV and high EV usually makes monsters annoying but it's not high enough that it actually bothers me. It's a bit stupid when they start healing for ~6 having around 100 hps though.

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Sar

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:16

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Holies are pretty awful to fight, yeah (well I don't actually mind daevas and angels that much, but shedu/phoenixes/ophanim are infuriating).
Last edited by Sar on Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:52, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:26

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

skyspire wrote:I propose that since we have The Enchanted Forest, on that branch spawning, we have a new rune branch to replace Tomb. (Tomb would remain for when Crypt spawns) The new rune branch would be called The Heavens (working title - can be changed) .. and it can be a 3 floor Holy branch populated by the same kind of creatures that populate Holy Zig levels. Angels, Daevas, etc. The difficulty level can be made on par with the Tomb and provide an equivalent amount of xp and loot as the Tomb.

A Gateway to The Heavens in the Enchanted Forest would be more thematic than a Tomb entrance, just like it is more thematic to have the Tomb in the Crypt branch.


The reason for this change would be to add more variety (there is no holy rune) .. the new rune could be called Heavenly Rune. Also this would add challenge for necromutation builds and give more purpose to the holy mobs in the game (presently they are only found on Holy Zig levels and the very random Holy Pan level)

What do you guys think?


I think if you retried your proposal and fleshed it out a bunch more, a new branch to be switched with tomb might work(and I semi-holy branch might work). Maybe they could all be redone holy monsters that follow there own god or something, rather than TSO or the other good gods.

Or, we could just remove pacifying holy creatures when following good gods, since it seems to be the only real thing stopping the devs from making a holy analogue branch(besides maybe the fact that not as many people do extended, so it might not be worth it).
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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:28

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I admit this is more of a brainstorming post, but few people think Tomb is not an annoying branch anyway, so swapping it with another annoying branch that is Holy adds balance and variety. Regarding it being easier for good gods, it can be made so that the denizens of this branch don't turn neutral (unless you are healing them with elyvilon), no matter how "good" you are. Tomb is easier for Kiku and Necromutation, so it makes sense that Heavenly branch can be (a bit) easier for followers of a good god.
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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:36

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

skyspire wrote:so swapping it with another annoying branch that is Holy adds balance and variety.


No, no, no, the fact that some annoying features still remain in Crawl doesn't mean that it's okay for new features to be annoying.

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:45

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

No, no, no, the fact that some annoying features still remain in Crawl doesn't mean that it's okay for new features to be annoying.



I agree, and I at the same time I don't think anything is more annoying than torment and hellfire.. Smite seems rather harmless in comparison. But yes the branch would need to be difficult. Finding that balance between difficult and annoying can be a challenge, but it would be great to see a branch with a similar level of creativity as the Enchanted Forest, but with a holy theme.

I posted with the idea that someone can help champion the cause, as fleshing out and implementing this idea is bigger than just one person, obviously.
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dck

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:53

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

The creativity involved in making forest actually resulted in one of the most terrible branches in the game, but that's a different matter.
What I think might work regarding giving holies a rune would be making it so that holy pan has a holy replacement for the demonic rune (so if you stumble upon it you know the rune is there, but if you skip it demonics keep generating), as even if you're going into post-end there is no reason to do holy pan other than curiosity or just for the hell of it.
Also I think the seraph should actually be dangerous and a threat instead of just a random punk who does nothing.

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Sar

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Post Wednesday, 1st January 2014, 23:58

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Tomb enemies pose an actual danger (well, not guardian mummies perhaps), the only danger shedu and phoenixes and ophanim pose is making you Ctrl+q in disgust.

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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 01:14

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Holy Pan is absolutely horrible. The one time I tried it I left the level purely out of boredom (perhaps boredom is the wrong word, it was more like "I am going to lose my mind if I have to fight one more fucking shedu").

Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 04:14

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Some more ideas for The Heavens:

The branch is in the clouds with a new kind of wall tile that looks like fog or swirling air. All 3 levels of this new area would be composed of it.. no conventional walls, but instead this white fog. Also, many tornado vortexes whereby in order to enter a new hall or door you have to walk into a tornado and take damage every turn as it takes you to the next corridor. Also in the heavens are not only holy creatures but air elementals, lightning rods, ball lightning .. and random fog generation that mess with LOS.
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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 04:28

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Don't forget swarms of player ghosts that worshipped good gods.

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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 13:40

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I updated the original post with more fleshed out ideas, some of which are controversial, like Moon Trolls, no floor (you are flying). Again this is a branch for extended, designed to have a challenge on par with Tomb. The idea of tornado vortexes that you must pass through to explore the map will add to this.
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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 13:57

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

The tornado vortex idea seems like it will go one of two ways: either stationary tornados (which are harmless since you can rest before walking through them and never have to be damaged by them if you don't want to, but really annoying since you will have to rest more) or moving ones (which are bad since they will interfere with resting, making resting more time-consuming and annoying).

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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 14:02

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

What if instead of calling it heaven you call it purgatory and drop the no floor gimmick? It would be populated by holy monsters that have earned the good gods' wrath and are atoning for their sins. Since they don't currently hold their god's favor anymore, they wouldn't turn neutral to you if you are worshiping a holy god yourself and the good gods would not punish you for killing them. Plus, crawl tends to have somewhat of a darker theme overall, so purgatory would seem to fit in more with the rest of the branches.

As for the benefit of adding a branch like this.... variety. I ran into the holy pandemonium floor and mostly enjoyed it simply because it was different than the 20 pandemonium floors I had just went through. Not to mention the 28 floors of hell that came next. Not that I have any problem with how pandemonium and hell are set up, it was just nice to have a little change of pace from all the demon slaying for a second. That being said, I don't know if purgatory/heaven would really fit thematically with popping up in pandemonium (as would suggested by a commenter). You have this infinite universe of hell after hell and then there's this one holy floor in it???? i think Skyspire's idea of making it an alternative for the tomb and eliminating it from pandemonium would make more sense.

Finally, I didn't find any of the monsters on the holy floor to be any worse than the tomb. And as difficult as the tomb can be, I wouldn't get rid of that either. Dungeon crawl is supposed to be difficult. Dying 50 times before you finally get that win is what separates it from the mobs of easy games that are out there today. If anything, I would suggest making purgatory/heaven more difficult so that it would be on par with the tomb. This way, no matter which branch spawned in the game, you would have roughly the same difficulty level picking up the rune.

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Shoals Surfer

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Post Thursday, 2nd January 2014, 14:38

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

Thanks for the comments, falconbg. I agree. I'm not attached to the name, but I definitely don't want it called Heaven.. "The Heavens" feel more religiously neutral. But I could go with Purgatory too, whatever the consensus is, is fine by me.

I think the idea is actually pretty cool.. the denizens are under penance and godly wrath..

The tornado damaging you as you explore the area was an idea to make the area as difficult as tomb, since there is no torment, it is one way to add some challenge, but I'd love to hear more ideas.
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Post Monday, 6th January 2014, 05:07

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

cerebovssquire wrote:The tornado vortex idea seems like it will go one of two ways: either stationary tornados (which are harmless since you can rest before walking through them and never have to be damaged by them if you don't want to, but really annoying since you will have to rest more) or moving ones (which are bad since they will interfere with resting, making resting more time-consuming and annoying).


One way to make it work would be to have it not be on the actual map, just a random effect that happens on the floor. Every X turns, a strong gust of wind blows through the entire floor, moving/damaging you. It would be similiar to a volcano eruption, or to hell effects. Something that makes it difficult to rest, but I don't think it's any harder than hell is.

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Post Monday, 6th January 2014, 12:42

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

I think the forest is enough for inflicting pain

about this idea, I think its ok to have holy themed monsters in a single dungeon but dont think it should have a rune because good gods. maybe it could be a portal?
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Post Monday, 6th January 2014, 13:17

Re: Proposal: New Rune Branch - The Heavens

As dck said, it would be much easier to flesh out the holy Pan level, making it a rune-bearing floor and including a new unique Pan lord. This level could be in rotation with one of the other Pan rune levels, and it could be set to only generate when the player isn't worshiping one of the good gods. Since you can't come back to the same Pan level later, there would be no chance of screwing things up with good god worshipers.

As far as how to make holy monsters into interesting challenges, it would be easier to get suggestions if there was more incentive for players to face them. I don't think "let's remove them" or "let's remove the abilities we don't like" are the best possible solutions, and I think tweaking their abilities/behavior could make them worthwhile opponents.

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