Vaults:5, the rim, and subvaults

[crate]

I've been doing some offline testing of the new Vaults:5 layout. I have some concerns, though after playing a lot I think these concerns are mainly aimed at the subvaults instead of necessarily at the v:5 layout itself.

Here is an example of a v:5 layout I got with the recent change:

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In case you missed it, the important thing is there is no longer an outer rim.

Some observations: this is not a minor change. V:5 is significantly more difficult now, and it's not just dealing with the ambush that makes it harder. In general the middle of the level (where the stairs are) is extremely dangerous for a while, and the fact that the only somewhat-reliably-safe locations are now closer to the middle means resting up in general is more difficult. If you do manage to get the attention of lots of monsters from one of the subvaults, you now get punished much more harshly for it since you cannot as easily run around and make them lose tracking.

This brings me to my second observation, which is that conjurer-types who don't have some sort of large AOE spell are pretty much forced to save an immolation scroll for v:5 (or teleport, instead). Stairdancing is generally not safe with the hp/defenses these characters usually have, as well as the possibility of stair-sealing from vault wardens. They do not have enough MP to kill all 24 vault guards without some sort of MP regen, and other than maybe CBOE there isn't really a reliable way to get enough MP to kill everything with e.g. bolt of fire. You cannot safely duck into one of the subvaults (more on this later). You cannot lose the vault guards without teleporting, or extremely high stealth (usually not something these characters have). Immolation actually does enough total damage to kill most of the vault guard pursuit with immo + bolt of fire on a reasonably typical conjurer-type.

The character I did some testing with is basically this one: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/SGrunt/morg ... 212040.txt

Obviously characters with spells like refrigeration, or fire/ice storm, or shatter, can just kill everything from the stairs, and then go back upstairs to regen mp. I'm not talking about those characters here; this change has not much effect if you are able to clear out everything around the stairs immediately. Clouds are also mp-efficient enough to kill the vault guards, though your character will be taking damage as the cloud does its job.

I don't have an opinion right now on whether forcing conjurer-types to use ?immo here is a good idea. It is certainly the case right now, though. If you think I missed a possible approach (it is possible), then let me know. I specifically am assuming the character does not have any source of controlled teleportation; ctele is obviously an option since it instantly makes enemies forget where you are.

For berserker-type characters (I did some testing with basically this one: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/n1000 ... 000314.txt ) you can still typically kill off all the vault guards by going to one of the hallways and fighting from there. It is much more difficult than before. I assume this was the point of the change. I don't personally feel that making v:5 harder was necessary, but if that was the desire then ok.

---

Concern: My main concern is that the new layout is significantly more variable in difficulty than the old one, based completely on luck. The different subvaults are of wildly variable difficulty, based on what types of wall layout they include (my example has three very open quadrants, with the top-right being probably the worst for players; and one honeycomb-like quadrant in the bottom-right which is generally good for players), where the enemies are placed (the majority of the enemies in the bottom-left quadrant are far from the stairs, for instance, whereas other vaults place them more evenly), and also just some luck with what monsters you end up getting. Additionally it is now far more difficult to adequately handle a convoker generating near the stairs. Before you could run out of los of the convoker and then deal with it later when you are prepared ... with the new layout you absolutely must deal with it (probably by killing it) immediately, since you cannot outrun it, and letting it survive to recall allies is suicide unless you plan to teleport away. I recognize that crawl has lots of randomness involved in it, but a single specific monster--that's not even out of depth!!--generating anywhere else does not have this kind of difficulty swing associated with it. I do not think that this is desirable.

The subvaults themselves contribute here largely because they do not have a consistent distribution of near-the-stairs monsters. Some subvaults (e.g. vaults_end_mu_long or vaults_end_mu_clover) do not place any enemies near the entrance to the quadrant. Others (e.g. vaults_end_minmay_circular_pillars, vaults_end_minmay_partial_spiral) specifically place enemies near the stairs. These monsters are often 8's, so they are the typical vaults:$ monsters that (used to, at least) create most of the difficulty of v:5. Some of them have the enemies bunched together, so you will usually end up fighting them in a group (vaults_end_dpeg_shops1), others have them spread out (vaults_end_minmay_diagonal_split).

These concerns certainly existed before the v:5 change (well, not the convoker one, so much), but the existence of the rim masked much of the variable difficulty of the subvaults. Before, you could retreat to the rim to lose anything that was chasing you, eventually. You could pretty much ensure that you had a safe place to rest up after encountering monsters. Random teleports were much less risky, since there was significantly more non-subvault space on the map. In short it didn't feel like one v:5 subvault selection was that much more difficult than others, though some of them were clearly difficult (vaults_end_dpeg_mall for instance was clearly one of the difficult subvaults, at least partly because of how it uses doors; amusingly it may not be difficult any more since it specifically places monsters far away from the stairs). In my testing it felt much more variable to me. Having 2 or 3 "8"s chasing you along with the 24 vault guards is much harder to deal with than just having 24 vault guards.

---

In general I'm not sure I like the new v:5 layout because it feels really cramped and claustrophobic to me. I don't really like that walking down the hallways is committing to being in that hallway, since this is not really the case anywhere else in the game. Possibly that is the desire, so I bring it up here instead of the "concerns" section. It feels to me like there is much less opportunity to use good positioning to reduce the damage your character will take and instead you are forced to use consumables or the like. Again, this is very different from the rest of crawl, and I don't personally find it as interesting.

edit: Just to be completely clear, my two concerns are the luck factor I mentioned in detail above, and the fact that removing the rim really restricts the player's positioning. Since I feel that positioning and monster control is the single most interesting part of crawl, I do not like this change that speficially aims to reduce its impact in what was previously one of my favourite levels in the game.

I don't actually care about making v:5 harder; this is a thing that definitely happened with this change but it is not the fact that v:5 is more difficult that I care about. Instead I feel the specific ways in which it was made harder are very uninteresting and make the floor significantly less fun than before.

[ackack]

In general I'm not sure I like the new v:5 layout because it feels really cramped and claustrophobic to me. I don't really like that walking down the hallways is committing to being in that hallway, since this is not really the case anywhere else in the game.

Also, unlike any non-extended location, the presence of wardens and stair geometry of V:5 makes entering the level at all committal, so you can't even take a relatively low-risk look to assess it.

I have not done testing but it wouldn't surprise me if this new layout proves to be about Zot:5 level dangerous. At least on Zot:5 I can still often engineer fights and carve out a pretty high probability random teleport.

[Wahaha]

Since the addition of wardens, convokers and sentinels, I sometimes skip V:5 and get the abyssal rune instead, or more rarely the slimy rune, because they're sometimes easier/safer than V:5. When wardens started locking stairs that further reinforced the decision of skipping V:5. I think that if most people were able to evaluate the dangers of V:5 and abyss better, they'd start getting the abyssal rune sometimes too. It's interesting to decide between V:5 and Abyss, variety in 3 rune games is nice. And so I'd like it if the balance in difficulty between V:5 and Abyss stayed approximately as it is right now (WITH the outer corridor). Please don't reply about whether Abyss or V:5 is harder in this thread because it would be a lot of offtopic discussion.

My point is this:
The removal of the outer corridor makes V:5 so dangerous that I would skip it most of the time and get some other rune.

[duvessa]

In general I'm not sure I like the new v:5 layout because it feels really cramped and claustrophobic to me. I don't really like that walking down the hallways is committing to being in that hallway, since this is not really the case anywhere else in the game.

Also, unlike any non-extended location, the presence of wardens and stair geometry of V:5 makes entering the level at all committal, so you can't even take a relatively low-risk look to assess it.

I have not done testing but it wouldn't surprise me if this new layout proves to be about Zot:5 level dangerous. At least on Zot:5 I can still often engineer fights and carve out a pretty high probability random teleport.

In my opinion it's MUCH more dangerous than Zot:5 right now if you don't have cTele.

[ackack]

My point is this:
The removal of the outer corridor makes V:5 so dangerous that I would skip it most of the time and get some other rune.

Yes, I anticipate getting slimy much more often.

[crate]

I haven't tested getting marked in v:5 now but I would believe that it's basically game over for many characters, yes. Maybe if scrolls of vulnerability were actually a thing that exists (by the way these are actually in theory a really cool item! Except they probably do too many different things, maybe I should bring this up elsewhere since it's kind of off-topic), instead of a thing that theoretically exists but actually doesn't because you get like 2 per game, then that would be ok.

[evilmike]

I have not played the new layout, but it's a change I'm skeptical about. crate's post more or less reflects how I think about this change right now. To put it simply, I think without the outer corridors, the level will just be too hard now for most characters. I do not for a minute think v:5 was too easy before, so I also don't think this change was really necessary. Balance-wise the level was in a pretty good place, in my opinion.

I also think that if there was a problem with the outer ring, it's probably an AI issue and not a level design issue. If it was too easy to lure stuff out there, maybe the stuff in the quadrants should be "patrolling", which ideally would mean it's less willing to chase you all the way out there.

I am not against testing these changes, and anything I'm saying here is just guesswork on my part for now. But this is one of those changes which I think should take player feedback very seriously.

[twelwe]

Too many changes this trunk. Getting impossible to make any meaningful notes comparing to stable because there are so many things flipped upside down. Four new playable races, countless new monsters and mechanics, a complete overhaul of the dungeon itself. Slow down.

[evilmike]

I haven't tested getting marked in v:5 now but I would believe that it's basically game over for many characters, yes. Maybe if scrolls of vulnerability were actually a thing that exists (by the way these are actually in theory a really cool item! Except they probably do too many different things, maybe I should bring this up elsewhere since it's kind of off-topic), instead of a thing that theoretically exists but actually doesn't because you get like 2 per game, then that would be ok.

Yeah scrolls of vuln are cool, it's weird how uncommon they are IMO. I don't think they are terribly overpowered anyway. "Too many different things" isn't even a big deal, it's just a badly named item. It's really a scroll of "cancel magic" or something like that.

[WalkerBoh]

Yeah scrolls of vuln are cool, it's weird how uncommon they are IMO. I don't think they are terribly overpowered anyway. "Too many different things" isn't even a big deal, it's just a badly named item. It's really a scroll of "cancel magic" or something like that.

I know it's way off-topic, but scroll of dispelling would be the most fitting, in my opinion.

Anyways, I thought that V:5 was already considerably difficult with the addition of vault warden stair-sealing, as it entirely eliminated stair-dancing as a reliable tactic. This change now eliminates the other reliable tactic of blinking and running to the outer edge. It would be one thing if the outer walls were diggable, or if the corridors were less than 4 spaces wide. It seems to me that now every time I do vaults:5 I will be trying to blink to a corridor to go hide in the corner where only 3 things can hit me at once, instead of 5. (I only play melee-centric characters). For most of my chars, I suspect this will not go well at all.

The effect this will have on my games is that I will not be doing vaults:5 directly after vaults:1-4 anymore, or maybe ever. It seems like suicide to even try. Getting marked, trying to tele, having a convoker near the entry… basically anything going even a little bit wrong is death considering you cannot reliably leave the level until you have dealt with the initial wave. So I think if this change is to be kept, there needs to be a further modification. Narrower corridors, a small pocket at the ends of the corridors, or removal of vault warden stair-sealing are things that come to mind off the top of my head. But I do not like this change much upon first impression.

[Siegurt]

I have not played the new layout, but it's a change I'm skeptical about. crate's post more or less reflects how I think about this change right now. To put it simply, I think without the outer corridors, the level will just be too hard now for most characters. I do not for a minute think v:5 was too easy before, so I also don't think this change was really necessary. Balance-wise the level was in a pretty good place, in my opinion.

I also think that if there was a problem with the outer ring, it's probably an AI issue and not a level design issue. If it was too easy to lure stuff out there, maybe the stuff in the quadrants should be "patrolling", which ideally would mean it's less willing to chase you all the way out there.

I am not against testing these changes, and anything I'm saying here is just guesswork on my part for now. But this is one of those changes which I think should take player feedback very seriously.

At very least this puts V:5 at a higher difficulty level, and probably should therefore move Vaults lower into the dungeon, with this change I certainly can't see myself completing V:5 when I would naturally get there, This change would cause me to go complete just about all of the rest of the non-extended game that would be available, before coming back for V:5, which I feel like adds tedium without making V:5 any more interesting.

If I was to look for a way to make v:5 more challeinging without going too far, I'd probably move the entrance to each of the mini-vaults from the center to the ends of each of the plus-sign.

Like so:

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[ackack]

If I was to look for a way to make v:5 more challeinging without going too far, I'd probably move the entrance to each of the mini-vaults from the center to the ends of each of the plus-sign.

If I'm interpreting your plot correctly, this makes V:5 much easier in either geometry, as it effectively decouples the quadrants.

[crate]

Siegurt's suggestion without returning the outer rim corridor is not easier than what is currently implemented, since you would have to clear an entire quadrant to reach a reasonably safe location.

Personally, if a v:5 change to make it more difficult to lose enemies were desired, I would suggest just opening up all four corners of every v:5 subvault but keeping the outer rim corridor. The main problem here, of course, is that it completely ruins many of the existing subvaults (since there is no longer a single entrance with the opposite corner being maximum distance away) (and yes every existing subvault would need to be changed at least some). I think it would be an interesting layout while allowing for much more rewarding and less mindless positioning than the old v:5, though.

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[Siegurt]

If I was to look for a way to make v:5 more challeinging without going too far, I'd probably move the entrance to each of the mini-vaults from the center to the ends of each of the plus-sign.

If I'm interpreting your plot correctly, this makes V:5 much easier in either geometry, as it effectively decouples the quadrants.

I was thinking of this as "More difficult than the 'with rim' orientation, but less difficult than the "all four vaults point to the center, and the corridors are dead ends" a single decoupled quadrant with no guaranteed retreat option is probably about as easy as the current with-rim design I suppose, and once you've cleared a quadrant, it does become significantly easier, i was going for something that wouldn't require a redesign of some of the quadrant vaults.

Another option to make it less horrible would be to retain the current "plus in the center with no rim" but put a guaranteed one-way up-hatch at the terminus of each plus (Which would give you some run-away ability when the center got too hot to handle) Of course with staircase-locking you could still get horribly trapped, and I'm not sure about the possibility of drawing the welcoming party down one corridor, then re-entering at the center and going in another direction...

"Open at all the corners" does increase the difficulty over the "plus with rim" design, and is less horrible than "Plus with no rim" but being marked would still be a terrible experience, and it would allow for some shenanigans with drawing the contents of a quadrant towards one exit and then sneaking in the back way (Which might be good or bad)

[Leafsnail]

Would it be possible to automatically have the fixed parts of V:5 mapped, like how fixedarts come pre-identified? Hiding the fixed layout seems like it's rewarding spoilers (I probably would have died due to this change if I didn't see this thread).

e: You could make the same argument for any fixed layout level, but I think it's more important here because of the fact that the things that look like escape routes are now deadends.

[crate]

I edited my conclusion a bit above, since personally my concern is not with the increased difficulty so much as the fact that I feel v:5 restricting your movement so heavily is very uninteresting.

[Quazifuji]

At very least this puts V:5 at a higher difficulty level, and probably should therefore move Vaults lower into the dungeon, with this change I certainly can't see myself completing V:5 when I would naturally get there, This change would cause me to go complete just about all of the rest of the non-extended game that would be available, before coming back for V:5, which I feel like adds tedium without making V:5 any more interesting.

Most people already recommend saving Vaults 5 until after you've complete the rest of the non-extended game, this would just make it worse. Although in general, every branch has a difficulty jump before the last floor, and a similar recommendation to delay the last floor of a branch exists for nearly every non-extended branch in the game. Vaults does seem like it might be one of the bigger jumps, though.

Would it be possible to automatically have the fixed parts of V:5 mapped, like how fixedarts come pre-identified? Hiding the fixed layout seems like it's rewarding spoilers (I probably would have died due to this change if I didn't see this thread).

e: You could make the same argument for any fixed layout level, but I think it's more important here because of the fact that the things that look like escape routes are now deadends.

I would argue that the whole ambush scenario with the danger of stairs being locked already rewards spoilers far more than anything else in the non-extended game (and maybe even the extended game, but I've never played that). I've only beaten the game once, and I was heavily spoiled. The only parts of the game where I felt like the spoilers made a huge difference in my strategy (besides knowing the recommended order for tackling branches) were the ascension and Vaults 5, and I'm pretty sure the difference was much larger on Vaults 5. To reduce that, I think you'd either have to remove the stair locking, or remove the initial ambush.

[Siegurt]

Most people already recommend saving Vaults 5 until after you've complete the rest of the non-extended game, this would just make it worse. Although in general, every branch has a difficulty jump before the last floor, and a similar recommendation to delay the last floor of a branch exists for nearly every non-extended branch in the game. Vaults does seem like it might be one of the bigger jumps, though.

Hm, I usually do V:5 right after V:4, My order of doing the game (prior to this change) is D to Lair, Lair1-8,Orc1-4,D-16, (Both of Snake/Spider/Swamp/Shoals), V1-5, (Optionally Crypt/Elf), (Optionally Slime), Depths, (Optionally Abyss), (Optionally Pan),(Optionally Hell), Zot, Ascend.

[Sprucery]

Vaults:5 is absolutely difficult enough in 0.13.1 as it is. There is no need to make it more difficult. If something really must be done, I'd suggest just adding some more monsters to the outer rim.

[galehar]

Siegurt's suggestion without returning the outer rim corridor is not easier than what is currently implemented, since you would have to clear an entire quadrant to reach a reasonably safe location.

The center might be somewhat safe once you've taken out the guards.

[crate]

Siegurt's suggestion without returning the outer rim corridor is not easier than what is currently implemented, since you would have to clear an entire quadrant to reach a reasonably safe location.

The center might be somewhat safe once you've taken out the guards.

Well, yes, but how are you going to fight them? I guess if you don't get a warden you can stairdance....

[XuaXua]

In general I'm not sure I like the new v:5 layout because it feels really cramped and claustrophobic to me. I don't really like that walking down the hallways is committing to being in that hallway, since this is not really the case anywhere else in the game.

What about ending each hallway with 1-4 teleporters, randomized to either one of the ends of the the other hallways or the same hallway's end (a loop-back)?

[ackack]

Well, yes, but how are you going to fight them? I guess if you don't get a warden you can stairdance....

Right, and I had been assuming with the proposed geometry that the chances of a warden would be very low.

[fearitself]

Why?

This looks to me to be an effort to increase difficulty for the best players. These players will win regardless.

Your average player will just be crushed and feel like it's a huge spike. Shoals - harder, Snake - harder, V5 harder. Not many places left for 3 rune type players.

Edit - swamp not shoals. Spriggans are tough little dudes.

[Moose]

+1

I'm still trying to understand why V:5 needed to be harder.

[johlstei]

I don't think the intention was to make it harder, but more interesting. The concern was the threat could be made too easy by running through the rim, and this was a proposal to force you to make a more complicated choice than doing that. I'm not at all averse to things getting easier or harder if they make for a greater density of fun decision making - weighing hard choices is the fun part of this game to me, regardless of how hard they are and how often I win.

That said, I don't think this change accomplishes this, for reasons posted by crate. I just don't think "it was too hard already" is a great argument against it. If it's harder because the choices you make are more weighty and committal then that is great, if it's harder because there is no solution or you are pigeonholed into a single solution that's not so great.

[and into]

I don't think the intention was to make it harder, but more interesting. The concern was the threat could be made too easy by running through the rim, and this was a proposal to force you to make a more complicated choice than doing that. I'm not at all averse to things getting easier or harder if they make for a greater density of fun decision making - weighing hard choices is the fun part of this game to me, regardless of how hard they are and how often I win.

That said, I don't think this change accomplishes this, for reasons posted by crate. I just don't think "it was too hard already" is a great argument against it. If it's harder because the choices you make are more weighty and committal then that is great, if it's harder because there is no solution or you are pigeonholed into a single solution that's not so great.

Well having guaranteed features like the ambush are going to give rise to "best strategies," necessarily. However, even then, "Get into corridor and take out the vault guards a few at a time" is a basic approach, not a silver bullet. I've usually found that actually pulling that off in a way that minimizes danger is fun and non-trivial, tactically. The only characters the traditional vault 5 set up did not tend to provide interesting tactical challenges for are precisely those characters who are not going to be majorly affected by this change—namely, dudes with access to cloud spells, numerous strong summons, and/or mass disabling spells. So, as far as making it interesting, I think this is a step in the wrong direction, as the feasible strategies for dealing with the new vault layout seem like they will be narrower and less susceptible to innovation, at least for all characters for whom this change matters at all.

There was already quite a lot of variety in V5, even just the entrance. Even with smart play and a good strategy the old vault layout could easily still be dangerous, based on what else is near the entrance to the quadrants. Doubly so when the new guard types were added—V5 is one of the worst possible areas in the game to get mark status, or have a "word of recall" go off, or have upstairs locked on you. That is interesting enough. — And once you've taken out the vault guard ambush, there's the whole question of, you know, actually clearing out each quadrant systematically. Some of those quadrant vaults are already very difficult, and taking out the outer rim doesn't affect that so much. Mainly this change seems like it will affect one's ability to get a foothold in the level, and with the possibility of (multiple!) wardens in LOS of the stairs, failure to get a foothold in the level probably means you die. (Random teleports are also nerfed by this, which is silly given that the level allows cTele, as it just makes the cTele property more valuable and desirable than it already is. — Boring!)

[galehar]

Well, what's nice with tenofswords is that his commit messages are not concise. The reasoning is well explained:

Remove Vaults:$'s outside border ring

The ambush doesn't mean anything when even the slightest speed boost
lets you run off to some thin, safe corridors far away from quadrant
entrances and pick away at the group or flee for long enough to scatter
them across the border instead. The ends of the cross in-between the
quadrants are still "fine" places to fight in for most characters
about to do V:$, and it's still potentially better than stairdancing
the ambush anyway due to still having some safe distance from the
quadrant entrances for noise to travel.

This does make fleeing and uncontrolled teleports after the ambush,
during quadrant clearing a bit more dangerous, yes. Most of V:$'s
threats already kill during a too-late escape rather than by running
into more trouble, anyway, and a successful escape is still plausible
when the ambush is taken care of or with all the escape tools a
character should have by the depth.

This should, overall, reduce a bit of degeneracy, continue to make
V:$ more distinct from regular levels and other branch ends in
having no "extraneous" safe level space, and only add the slightest
amount more of danger to what is possibly the best-designed,
branch end vault besides Zot:5.

I agree that "take the fight to a safe place, split the monsters' band and take them off one by one" is a repetitive tactic and V:$ seems to be a good place to try to change things up a bit. It might need further tweaks and adjustments of course.

the new v:5 layout because it feels really cramped and claustrophobic

That sounds very thematic for Vaults
But yeah, on one hand, kiting monsters in the outer rim is boring, on the other hand, there's not much interesting positioning you can do in the crosses. Maybe they can have a bit of random furniture to compensate for the outer rim removal.

[Siegurt]

A wide open corridor with no place to hide, duck behind or avoid being in LOS of everything really doesn't allow for any tactical play at all, at least make the center cross consist of narrower corridors, or perhaps intersperse some random walls in the cross area so there's some ability to take advantage of terrain in the crosses.

This forces you into one of the worst possible crawl tactics (Namely the "Take on a giant mob all at once in a wide open dead end" tactic) which can really be overcome with the application of excess force. Which is not only bad crawl tactics, but is also boring.

[and into]

Wouldn't it be more interesting to just increase chance of monster spawns in the corridors of the outer rim?

I think the corridors that run between two quadrants should have very low density of enemy spawns, but the outer rim proper could just have good chances of nasty random stuff spawning there. That seems a lot more interesting to me than removing the rim, if people really feel that a (largely) unpopulated rim is such a problem.

If the problem is "degenerate" or repetitive behavior due to some of the predetermined, static qualities of the level, how does this change really help? People are probably going to do mostly the same sort of general approach one already sees with V5, just with a much, much higher level of danger and a far narrower set of feasible tactical approaches. So while the commit message is nicely written and I'm glad that the reasoning was spelled out, it seems that the change is not actually addressing the problem the commit log identifies (putting aside the question of whether the problem is actually a problem).

EDIT: Yeah, Siegurt took the words out of my mouth. Or, uh, out of my fingers, I guess.

[galehar]

When one choice dominate the others, removing it has the potential to increase the decision space. tenofswords seems to think that running or teleporting to the outer rim to fight the welcoming party is such a choice, and the posts in this thread confirm it.
However, it is true that once you remove it, there's not many alternatives, and they have no tactical depth. But instead of calling for a revert, maybe the alternative can be improved to be more interesting tactically, which is why I suggested to add some random stuff in the cross (I did first!).
Do you take the time to read ?MM in order to choose the best branch of the cross?

[ackack]

When one choice dominate the others, removing it has the potential to increase the decision space. tenofswords seems to think that running or teleporting to the outer rim to fight the welcoming party is such a choice, and the posts in this thread confirm it.
However, it is true that once you remove it, there's not many alternatives, and they have no tactical depth.

IMO this is the key problem, not only here but in many recent changes (e.g. chaos champions and their irresistable repositioning skill; spriggan druids that make almost all of the available terrain completely untenable for fighting them; etc). Positioning properly is basically the core mechanic of the game. Although melee depends on this most, even the other approaches that I assume are supposed to be encouraged (conjurations, ranged combat) do much better with proper positioning. Between reciprocal LOS and the advantage of taking less damage per turn, the same sorts of positions are likely to be advantageous almost independent of how you kill things. Removing the ability to control this honestly feels to me like eliminating much of the opportunity the player has to exert skill on the outcome of these fights.

If you want to make different types of positions more viable, there need to be concrete advantages to choose what would ordinarily be bad positions. Cleaving is presumably an attempt at this, but I think most good players consider it to be insufficient advantage to actually make fighting in crowds correct. Though I haven't played a ton of Sil (and pretty much suck at it), it seems like an example of a game with combat mechanics that might make other sorts of tactics viable. For example, there is an ability that gives you more EV-equivalent if your last action was moving, coupled with an ability that lets you attack a monster if you move between squares neighboring it. These combine to offer a strong incentive for non-corridor fighting (along with AI that makes getting corridor fights in the first place somewhat trickier.)

I think the proper design course is to try to create mechanics like that first and then adjust the game accordingly to compensate.

[Siegurt]

But instead of calling for a revert, maybe the alternative can be improved to be more interesting tactically, which is why I suggested to add some random stuff in the cross (I did first!).

That would make it a reasonable branch ending again at it's current depth, and I'd enjoy playing it. Wide open levels where lots of things come at you from all sides with nothing to hide behind and there's no reasonable way to escape are boring.

[Tedronai]

I don't care too much about the change. However I have two concerns:

• Getting marked now seems like a death sentence to me. You can no longer make a sprint around and hope to reach one of the upstairs. The hallway you chose to fight will simply be clogged in no time.
• I think the spawn table of dangerous uniques should be adapted for Vaults:5. I don't think something like this should be possible, Vaults:5 is dangerous enough on its own...
  

    Code:

  Vaults:5: serial_shops, uniq_mennas, uniq_jorgrun, uniq_boris, uniq_jory

[crate]

Well, what's nice with tenofswords is that his commit messages are not concise. The reasoning is well explained:

I actually think the commit message would be more understandable and useful if it were shorter. I do not see an overall reason for the change in the commit message, and in fact in my testing I don't even agree with at least two parts of it: it neither "reduce[s] a bit of degeneracy" (see below) nor "only add[s] the slightest amount more of danger".

That sounds very thematic for Vaults [being claustrophobic]

It does not feel the same to me at all, actually. The layout actually does have some similarities, but I had to generate some vaults:1-4 floors to check since I was actually completely wrong about how those were laid out (and sometimes you get a floor that is actually not closed off at all). There are some vaults layouts that have a large central open area, like the cross, with branches off to the ends of it that have a single access point. This is true. However, the difference is in the stair placement. First off the stairs are not grouped together, so you can always bounce enemies around between different stairs or avoid them entirely by using different stairs. (In fact, I believe vaults is specifically prevented from having all the stairs grouped together.) Secondly, the "branches" off of the central area are not guarded by a tremendous difficulty of monsters, so you can often go into them instead of fighting in the open. Thirdly, there is no ambush of any sort (obviously, since the stairs are not grouped) that is pushing you away from the entrance stairs. As such you are not trapped in nearly the same way that happens in current v:5.

Additionally you often get something like this:

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Which is completely open.

I don't personally see the problem if running to the outside in v:5 is the dominant strategy ... after all, that is actually still the case after removing the rim (well, except stairdancing is better for some characters, except you are randomly not allowed to do that because of wardens, so it's not a reliable plan) (if you think there is an option I missed, feel free to tell me. I was interacting with ##crawl as I was testing and got no ideas other than "go down one of the hallways and fight" "use controlled teleport" (I already mentioned why I did not test this) or "random teleport and hope"; these were basically the same options that existed before the change). The problem is when it is both the dominant strategy and also not terribly interesting, which I will concede is the case in the old layout. But, personally, I find it even more uninteresting in the new one, so to me the problem is not fixed. Clearly hangedman/tenofswords/claws thinks that forcing the player to use consumables is more interesting than positioning, but I do not agree.

Anyway I suggested an alternative that seems to me to be tremendously more interesting than either the current state or the original; opening up all four corners of the subvaults has the property of making the entire level close to one of the quadrants, and additionally makes it so that enemies chasing you will actually cut through the quadrants themselves at times (this is good because they will sort of head you off). If there is interest in it I would be willing to test it (I would probably only convert four quadrants to my layout, and it is possible (likely) I don't know what I am doing so I may end up running into problems). I'm not going to waste my time converting some subvaults for a new design if there's no chance of it being implemented instead of the current "remove the rim" solution though; it's easier for me to just go back to not playing crawl at all.

Do you take the time to read ?MM in order to choose the best branch of the cross?

Well in my testing I was always reading mapping (or wizmode mapping, on the DgCj) since I was getting some feedback in ##crawl on possible options for the character. I don't know if it's worthwhile for actual play (unless you want to read the .des to see which subvaults have monsters near the entrance, in which case probably it is worthwhile, so you can avoid those ones) since the turn you need to do so is quite valuable and there's not really a good way of knowing just from the layout of the subvaults which ones you want to avoid, and no way of knowing which of the cross hallways has monsters.

[cursednobleman]

Having watched three people attempt the new V5, I've drawn a few conclusions.

All three of them used at least some level of stairdancing, the primary problem is a warden, which forces them to reposition off the stairs or fire on them from range.

Getting marked is a bad day. Once marked, depending on the shape of the corner vaults, enemies will attempt to spill out and open fire at range, getting locked by a warden at this point is a death sentence and forces teleportation until safe.

Why the outer ring was so widely used: I think the reason why the outer ring was so widely used is because it is literally the only safe zone in V5 when you're marked. Lets look at competing branch ends. Elf, Zot, Lair Ends, and Panlord levels have a killvault, but are otherwise cleanable levels. It is possible to establish footholds and retreat to them, or burrow and hold the line. Slime 6 allows for stairdancing, but eyes make that strategy pretty crappy. The abyss and hell levels have no safe zones. V5 used to have two safe zones, the stairs akin to Slime 6, and the outer ring, which could be used as a foothold. With the advent of wardens, stairdancing is less viable, cutting off your first escape plan. Now, with the loss of the outer ring, if you get marked, there's nowhere to run if a warden seals the gates unless you already have a corner cleared. V5 doesn't have the strongest enemies in the game, but with sentinels firing marks at you, and taking masses of ranged enemies out to fire at you, without escape options present on other final floors (like ZOT!) V5 is more lethal than many more comparable vaults. Personally, I don't think V5 should be harder than Zot5, the last level. That's my problem.

[duvessa]

you do realize the response to that will probably be to do the same thing to zot:5?

[claws]

Honestly, I'm interested enough in the idea of putting back the rim but opening the quadrant corners that I've been hacking away at my own version of it, and for the sake of the argument and for testing I recommend using that work-in-progress instead (I was at something like 41/69 of the quadrants subvaults done, though I haven't been actively preserving certain vault orientations versus potential entrances that well and the remaining ones would require quite a ways more effort to actually convert).

In my own brief testing one can get away with more noise if one keeps circling the level's border and I'm not greatly fond of this, but it certainly allows the corners positioning as was before while making a straight flee from the ambush not straightforwardly optimal; it shows quite a bit of promise even if it'll require more effort than just straight conversion work.

I am mostly doing that experiment for the sake of the design challenge, and still think that when comparing the average potential character to the new V:$ there is no excessive jump in difficulty. I will admit that my own average past-Lair characters are usually excessively strong and I haven't played particularly many games in trunk, imparting my own bias on the subject. The point of positioning and movement being the most interesting parts in crawl are ones I can completely agree with and ones that I strive to evoke in my level design work, even if I prefer gates/columns/ridges/corners heavily to corridors; the current change is a very strict approach to the previous behaviours I disliked, and if the quadrant corner opening idea works out I would just as readily implement it. Still, trunk is experimental, and I am in no hurry to revert the commit before wider testing passes through the changes.

[ontoclasm]

I personally like crate's suggestion, but in order to preserve more of the existing subvaults, and allow for more freedom in their design, maybe each vault could be allowed a single closed corner, thus resulting in a layout like this:

  Code:

+-------------------+
|                   |
|   ---     +----   |
|           |       |
| |  1  |   |  2  | |
| |                 |
| +----       ---   |
|         <         |
|   ---       ----+ |
|                 | |
| |  3  |   |  4  | |
|       |           |
|   ----+     ---   |
|                   |
+-------------------+

Each junction still has an opening to some subvault, but the vault designer can still have the loot tucked in a corner if desired. If they want all four corners open, that's fine too. This incidentally means that all the ones claws already modified will work without further changes (the unused corner will just turn into floor, if I remember subvault syntax correctly).

[araganzar]

As has been noted, most subvaults are already designed with little regard for monster positioning within the subvault.

Why not keep the outer corridor but randomize if the corners other than those facing the stairs are open or closed?

That would provide some variability in difficulty and positioning strategy, make mapping useful, and possibly require different strategies depending on layout. You could set difference % chances for the 8 middle-outer corners and the 4 outer-outer, or by subvault.

I feel like without a corridor the subvaults need to be reviewed with the new layout in mind. Otherwise, I would not run vaults without an endgame build or one specifically prepared for vaults.

And in any case, the chance to be marked and/or stairs-locked represents too wide a variability of risk atm. Marking should either be much less likely, and thus not something that can randomly screw a reasonably-prepared player, or much more likely, and thus a necessary part of the strategy and intended difficulty. Stairs-locking as well, to a lesser extent.

[dck]

So after playing new V: $ with this guy there are a few comments I'd like to make on the new layout.
First of all, I don't really understand the reasoning behind this change. Old V: $ wasn't instantly solved the minute you defeated/avoided the ambush. You still had to deal with whatever wandered the corridors (which could always be mennas) and you still had to approach the quadrants appropriately. The commit reasoning brings up "degeneracy" but I see no more degeneracy in this than anywhere in the game since positioning and terrain/LoS usage is a key (imo by far the strongest) element of crawl.

Furthermore, this has done nothing to solve walking past the ambush and fearing the guards if they bother you; in fact since now you have to commit to a corridor and can't deal with ranged guys/summoners/horn-tooting sentinels properly you are encouraged to deal with the ambush asap by bruteforcing it with huge offense (magical or melee) at a corner of the hallway you've chosen and kill everyone there fast enough that you can make room to kill the things spilling from the vaults. Fearing the guards while fighting them if something ranged that needs to be dealt with asap (say an alich) comes into sight is also encouraged by this new layout; no movespeed usage to your advantage, no retreating further into the unexplored to keep on fighting out of the alich's sight- you are encouraged to stick to your corner and if you can't feasibly ?fear a way through the guards to kill the alich you're meant to ?fog and keep on hitting dudes and then kill the alich.

There is no place in crawl where the use of these sort of "tactics" would be met with anything but disgust- well there is one: Ziggurats. Fighting in a new V: $ hallway is similar to fighting in a ziggurat to a frightening degree and I do not believe ziggurats are in any way the leading example of crawl's level design or worth being imitated anywhere else, much less in a place as important as V: $.
Ziggurats involve using bruteforce tactics that are not the way to go anywhere else, and they involve abusing cTele and fog just new V: $ does.
Which brings me to my closing point, cTele.
cTele is an extremely annoying feature of crawl that is also extremely powerful, but fortunately so far its main uses are restricted to parts of the game that are also questionable to a degree. All of this changes with new V: $, it is suicidal if you have cTele not to use it unless you want to just not do V: $ at all. I don't think cTele is a feature that is interesting enough to be brought up under this sort of spotlight and given this level of relevancy.

[XuaXua]

Anything wrong with making V5 extradimensional and allow Pac-man-esque wrap-throughs at the edges /ends of the new corridors?

[Viashino_wizard]

Getting marked is a bad day. Once marked, depending on the shape of the corner vaults, enemies will attempt to spill out and open fire at range, getting locked by a warden at this point is a death sentence and forces teleportation until safe.

Unless I'm mistaken, Sentinel's Mark is unique in that it's coded to always fail if you have enough magic resistance (I think the exact number is around 185+) rather than just have a very low chance to stick. In effect the only change is that V:5 now requires high magic resistance in the same way Slime requires rMutation (not strictly necessary but extremely desirable). Of course that has the issue of being spoilery, but V:5 is pretty spoilery in general what with the scripted ambush.

[Sprucery]

Unless I'm mistaken, Sentinel's Mark is unique in that it's coded to always fail if you have enough magic resistance (I think the exact number is around 185+) rather than just have a very low chance to stick.

If this is the case, I would like Crawl to display the numeric MR value, so that I don't have to calculate it myself.

[crate]

If you have enough MR any MR-checking hex will always fail. This is not unique to mark.

Probably if you get marked, then kill the sentinel, then read vulnerability (you obviously need to do it in this order or you just get re-marked), you can do something to not get horribly destroyed (I would do some experiments but I'm lazy right now). Of course this assumes that ?vuln exists in your game, which it likely does not.

[Sar]

rMut is not actually "extremely desirable" in Slime (shining eyes are slow and weak) and you want good MR in pretty much every part of the game, unless you enjoy being slowed, paralyzed and abyssed, among other things.

[Galefury]

Anything wrong with making V5 extradimensional and allow Pac-man-esque wrap-throughs at the edges /ends of the new corridors?

Haha, nice idea. This would be pretty cool, but probably not feasible to do properly (would probably require a lot of work to implement and especially to fix all the bugs). Also it wouldn't address the V:$ problems, actually the layout would be even more boring and even more difficult than the current cross. It would maybe let you deal with mark a little more easily, but that's it.

Someone already suggested using teleporters to do something similar to this. But those are quite different because they instantly change what is in your line of sight. Probably they would actually be more interesting, but I don't know how well the monster AI can deal with them. It might be interesting to bounce between corridors and juggle monsters between them, or it might not be.

But opening a bunch more corners sounds better anyway.

[Charos]

I think MR 185+ is not enough anymore. I did vault 5 with my slime troll sunday. I had MR maxed as i had magic resistance 3 mutation and started with stairdance as always. Second time i got down to vault5 : portals where locked by red guards and i had 2 red guards, 2 blue guards and 2 new spirit warrior? in sight. Next round spirit warrior lowered my MR and blue guard put mark for me. Now situation was really bad, i started teleing randomly without relec and landed in open subvault 1 (no walls at all) near titan, new tele and heals, dropped back to stairs, next tele and between wall and storm dragon. Only with luck i survived. And my troll was hard hitting one, did zot5 in lvl 24 without haste.

http://rl.heh.fi/morgue//Charos/morgue- ... 204322.txt

So i say if any other than character with good luck and many many hitpoints gets this treatment, i think it will die.. It was really hard with this troll. And i luckily landed near rune and got away with it.

Next time i know i will skip vault5 anyway if not playing for extended and get abyss or slime instead, even without rmut.

Vault is quite suicidal now.

Just my thoughs

Charos

[monty]

Did V:$ actually feel easy or uninteresting before? Sure, it was a good idea to kite monsters into the corridor, but it was still an intense experience, probably second only to Z:5 in terms of difficulty (for a 3 rune game).

I would worry that this will encourage people to get Abyssal rune as their 3rd, which makes for a harder game, and more importantly, an extremely tedious rune hunt.

[Blink]

I don't understand the need for this change.

The driving force seems to be impression that the outer rim trivializes the initial ambush. So let's look at this.

Before this change, when you come down the V4 stairs, you are surrounded by a large group of melee threats, with a good chance of also being spotted by some ranged threats spilling out of the quadrants. What are your options?

1. Random Teleport? Very risky and not exactly satisfying gameplay. You're giving up control to the RNGs completely.

2. Map & Controlled Teleport? Well, this assumes you have C-Tel, which I'd say is about a 50/50 proposition. But yes, if you have this combo, you can land somewhere really safe.

3. Fear Scroll/Intoxication/Blink Scroll + maybe a speed boost and run for the rim? Fairly reliable but it still leaves you having to deal with the enemies following you as well as any that may have spawned down the corridor.

4. Stairdance if you have good defenses & hp? This only works until the stairs get locked down. And then you're forced to resort to one of the choices above.

5. Bring overwhelming firepower? Sure, you can get Firestorm/Nado/whatever up by V5 and just nuke the place. I've done this plenty of times. It's fun. But really, if you can do this, the rim corridors don't matter a wit.

Removing the rim corridors removes options 2 and 3. Option 4 is already a bad idea because of Wardens. So this leaves players with two choices: (i) random teleport and (ii) overwhelming firepower. In fact, if you read the comments above, the vast majority of players are saying precisely this.

Removing the rim corridors therefore reduces player choices, making V5 a no brainer: i.e., don't go there unless you can safely take out a couple stone giants, a titan, a pack or three of yaktaurs, a good dozen guards, and maybe an ancient lich. All at the same time. Since there is a good chance you will have to do precisely this, at the end of a deadend corridor with nowhere to go.

So, in exchange for taking away the player's choices what do we get in return? A more dangerous entry ambush. That's it. To be clear, removing the rim corridors do not make the rune any easier to obtain--you still need to fight or ninja you way through at least one quadrant.

To me, this sounds like a bad trade.

If the goal is to make the entry ambush more dangerous/significant, then let's adjust the welcoming committee rather than take away player's options. Say, make the stair locking thing not 100% effective so stairdancing is a reasonably viable option. And maybe add a berserker or two to the guard squad or randomly give a few a potion so they're not so predictable. If that's still not enough, why not plant a few more mark/alarm/teleport traps along the rim? Maybe increase the chance of a high level enemy spawn in the corners?

My preference would be to leave V5 alone. But if changes have to be made, then I'd rather see ones that give me more choices and challenges. Not less.

Thanks for reading.