two portal vaults on the same level


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Snake Sneak

Posts: 107

Joined: Saturday, 25th February 2012, 10:49

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 20:38

two portal vaults on the same level

Currently it is possible to get two portal vaults on the same level and if the player isn't fast enough in the first one, he misses the second one. I know that the timed nature of portal vaults is neccessary to force the players to enter them quickly and not later when they're trivial, but it is an annoying situation when the player has to run through a portal vault to be able to enter the other (also, the countdown is not displayed in the other vault). I think it would be good to disallow having more than one timed portal vaults on a given level. As portal vaults are rare, this wouldn't have a major impact on balance/etc. but it would remove an annoying situation. Alternatively the portal vault timer could be disabled while the player is in another portal vault. A portal vault gives limited (not too much) experience, so this alternative is also viable.

Abyss Ambulator

Posts: 1131

Joined: Tuesday, 4th January 2011, 15:03

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 20:41

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

It's usually possible to clear both portal vaults. Also, if not it's still can be an interesting choice which one would you like to enter. And it's absolutely not necessary to enter a portal vault, sometimes it's not even worth it (altough I personally like some of them, so I usually enter them).

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 4055

Joined: Tuesday, 10th January 2012, 19:49

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 20:42

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

Really the problem is that portal vault timers (except labyrinths/bazaars to some degree) are so long that players feel like they are supposed to be able to enter every portal vault. If portal vaults are going to be timed in the first place, then players should miss them sometimes! But right now this doesn't happen at all.

I don't see why two portal vaults on one floor is a problem.

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Dungeon Master

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Joined: Sunday, 29th May 2011, 10:18

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 20:55

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

crate wrote:If portal vaults are going to be timed in the first place, then players should miss them sometimes!


If someone cares about this, they could scrape morgues for the time that a player entered a level and the time at which the player entered the portal. This would shed some light on how long portal times should be.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 21:11

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

crate wrote:If portal vaults are going to be timed in the first place, then players should miss them sometimes

I thought portals had timers so that players couldn't go level up a bunch before doing them. It's the same reason we have hunger despite nobody dying of starvation.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 21:44

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

pubby wrote:
crate wrote:If portal vaults are going to be timed in the first place, then players should miss them sometimes

I thought portals had timers so that players couldn't go level up a bunch before doing them. It's the same reason we have hunger despite nobody dying of starvation.

Well if that's the goal then ok. I still don't personally see the problem with sometimes missing portal vaults though.

As far as how long portal vault timers are, when I still had labyrinths in my crawl games it was actually possible for me to miss a lab entrance sometimes. Other portal vault timers seem to be significantly longer.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Sunday, 5th May 2013, 08:25

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 21:55

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

I don't think I have ever missed a labyrinth that I actually intended to enter.

Slime Squisher

Posts: 354

Joined: Tuesday, 14th January 2014, 23:33

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 21:57

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

Removing the long timer seems simple enough. The short timer that starts when the portal's vault comes into view stops people from "levelling up and coming back" already.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 21:58

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Removing the long timer seems simple enough. The short timer that starts when the portal's vault comes into view stops people from "levelling up and coming back" already.

this isnt how they work any more

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 22:01

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

crate wrote:
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Removing the long timer seems simple enough. The short timer that starts when the portal's vault comes into view stops people from "levelling up and coming back" already.

this isnt how they work any more
actually it is

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 22:03

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

duvessa wrote:
crate wrote:
TheDefiniteArticle wrote:Removing the long timer seems simple enough. The short timer that starts when the portal's vault comes into view stops people from "levelling up and coming back" already.

this isnt how they work any more
actually it is

Then why are they announced? I thought the entire point of that change (announcing all of them) was to remove the short timer.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 22:06

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

I've had both multiple times and been both ABLE and UNABLE to clear both.

This is in both the pre-portal-announce-change and the post-change versions.

Portals are the reason I always carry 1 scroll of mapping (which I replenish from my stash after every portal).
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 19th January 2014, 23:24

Re: two portal vaults on the same level

I find that portal timers allow me enough time to explore about 4/5 of a typical level, meaning I will find about 90% of all portals in time to enter them (It's higher than 80% because I know what the entrance vaults generally look like for most portal types and can recognize them and enter them even when I can't see the entrance proper) In the situations where I find two portals on the same level it's probably around 60-70% of the time that I'll get to the second in time to enter it.

I imagine someone who explores more efficiently than me would get more than 90% of all portals, and IIRC when I used autoexplore pretty much exclusively it was around 70% of all portals that I would find before they would expire.
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