Lab. minotaur

[Bim]

When was the last time you ever felt challenged by the lab Minotaur? It's a solitary monster and by the time you reach a labyrinth (unless its really early) you've usually got a way to get rid of a single, non-resistant, non-special monster. This seems even stranger now that we have minotaurs as standard monsters in other parts of the dungeon as well.

So I'd suggest heavily buffing the lab. Minotaur. I'm not sure what the best way to buff him is, but even a straight health/attack boost would probably be sufficient. Maybe making him poison resistant would help, in that it'd stop just poisoning and kiting him.

[tabstorm]

When was the last time you ever felt challenged by the lab Minotaur? It's a solitary monster and by the time you reach a labyrinth (unless its really early) you've usually got a way to get rid of a single, non-resistant, non-special monster. This seems even stranger now that we have minotaurs as standard monsters in other parts of the dungeon as well.

So I'd suggest heavily buffing the lab. Minotaur. I'm not sure what the best way to buff him is, but even a straight health/attack boost would probably be sufficient. Maybe making him poison resistant would help, in that it'd stop just poisoning and kiting him.

Most characters that don't use ranged attacks need some form of consumables, god powers, or other finite resources to beat it, what's the problem?

[KoboldLord]

A single, non-resistant, non-special monster that always spawns on a huge pile of loot that frequently includes a notable attack rod or a good two-handed weapon. Labyrinths can spawn early enough that you haven't even started Lair or Orc, so you may not have much in the way of useful tricks to use against the minotaur. Occasionally, labyrinths do show up late, but maybe they shouldn't.

[Psiweapon]

In my experience, in the overwhelming majority of playthroughs where a labyrinth is generated (I don't know if a labyrinth is guaranteed) it is in the first half of the lair.

The minotaur IS threatening, especially if he's grabbed whatever rods were generated (clouds and shadows are the most memorable).

[scorpionwarrior]

It is a pretty disappointing fight usually. What if the minotaurs armour or stats scaled with XL, or depth like a lot of portals already do? A chance to have Asterion generate at higher levels could be interesting too.

[Leafsnail]

Making it so he always gets a rod/wand would be good and flavourful, I think.

[Bim]

Most characters that don't use ranged attacks need some form of consumables, god powers, or other finite resources to beat it, what's the problem?

The sheer amount of consumables/finite resources mean that having to use one/two for guaranteed good loot is hardly a trade off (admittedly, this could do with being dealt with in a general sense)

While I admit if it spawns early enough and you have absolutely no tricks up your sleeve then it can be a bit of a challenge, but hardly enough to offset what you can find. It's also optional, so if you feel completely underpowered you can just skip it - although I've never, ever felt that way and I have a hard time believing many others would either unless you're playing a mega challenge race.

Giving him a rod/wand or scaling are both great suggestions, as well as maybe a general buff above usual minotaurs.

[dck]

The minotaur hits hard enough for the depth he appears at (in fact he hits incredibly hard for the depth he appears at). He is also very vulnerable to pretty much everything characters can do at that depth which I would assume is intended design.
Also, god powers are not finite resources and having to use a consumable is just the price you pay for accessing the loot. In fact labs are basically better troves that always want 1 !haste or !might and have a nonzero chance of killing you instantly if the token monster there happens to have /para.
Troves with a rather questionable layout.

[e1999]

its all fun and games until you get double zapped by a lightning rod / wand.

[SchwaWarrior]

I support the notion of buffing the Labyrinth Minotaur! Giving him a 100% chance for a Wand or Rod is a good idea.

If we're going to buff his HP and AC or whatnot, why not just make him a Unique? "___, Guardian of the Labyrinth", where "___" is a randomized name in a similar fashion to the WizLab's Cloud Mage, might be pretty good.

Taking it a step further, there's also the idea of randomizing his abilities too. Maybe sometimes he'll get the ability to go Berserk, which would be VERY dangerous and make players approach him much differently. (A lot of players main MiBe, you know? That's what gave me this idea.) I think this idea is a long shot but there's no harm in throwing it out there.

[Bim]

Although he does hit hard for the depth he spawns at, singular non-fast, non-resist, non-magic monsters are really easy to take care of. As soon as you can take care of ogres you can take care of the minotaur and I don't think I've ever seen it spawn before I've had at least one tactic up my sleeve (poison needles, magic, wands, whatever). To be fair though, buffing hp/dmg probably wouldn't make him any better (other than annoying players that got one shotted) so I think it needs to be a wand/rod/ability.

Perhaps he could get a 'charge' ability where he moves fast in a straight line (ala boulder beetle)?

He definitely should be made a unique as SchwaWarrior points out. Giving him random abilities may make it a bit difficult, but I think it's fine to have a gamble as long as they're within a small set of abilities.

[Psiweapon]

Hoof stomp mini-shatter?

[Dung Elf]

I lost a promising character few days ago to Minotaur who unexpectedly started throwing tomahawks with deadly precision and got what seemed to be good AC rolls. I think that loot from Lab is barely worth the effort of stumbling through the maze and instakill Minotaur would completely deter me from visiting that place.

[Bart]

Straight buffing of minotaurs is a bad idea - please do not do that. You cannot measure encounter difficulty by winning it with xl 15+ GrBe combo(exaggerating somewhat). Recently I had decent mummy who found lab on xl10 and was unable to kill mino (although with some risky tactics I was still able to steal the loot). I also played some demonspawn caster, xl11, who died to minotaur even though he drank haste and brilliance - mino was wielding randart polearm and just shredded my character before I could even cry. Labirynth isn't a no-brainer. Bear in mind that if you enter it, whatever happens, you cannot easily escape. That's a huge difference compared to any other portal, which has exit next to entry point. Lab is also far more demanding than most uniques met in dungeon, whom you can easily teleport/cblink from.

The main problem of labirynth and timed portals in general is variety of places they appear at. If a character enters lair after fully clearing main dungeon and finds lab entrance on xl:14, finishing it will be much easier than if he encountered it on d:10 on xl:10. Actually the whole game suffers from this problem - if you skip e.g. Orcs in early game, they are trivial later on; if you skip one of lair branches, it is very easy on xl 20+ and so on. The most interesting solution would be dynamic game difficulty balancing. A reasonable start to that is increasing timed portals difficulty for high XL characters. It is not entirely just, but at least it is simple and should solve problem of inadequate minotaur in most cases. Low XL char could meet mino who never wields any of loot; high XL player could be threatened by encounter with armed mino accompanied by some tough friends (give them even some potions if you still don't feel it's enough).

[Dung Elf]

The most interesting solution would be dynamic game difficulty balancing. A reasonable start to that is increasing timed portals difficulty for high XL characters. It is not entirely just, but at least it is simple and should solve problem of inadequate minotaur in most cases. Low XL char could meet mino who never wields any of loot; high XL player could be threatened by encounter with armed mino accompanied by some tough friends (give them even some potions if you still don't feel it's enough).

This "solution" brings possible complication. Getting EXP will punish character builds that don't scale as well as imaginary player character "auto-leveled" branches are aiming at matching. Not getting "too much" EXP would be the new goal for players.

[Bim]

Labyrinths by their very nature aren't supposed to be easy - they're completely optional and the player should realize that they're dangerous (by either the prompt that comes up or a cursory knowledge of myths and legends). The problem is for the vast majority of characters it IS easy. This is compounded by the fact that you have to go through the task of finding him first - rather than a tense crawl through a winding maze to a terrifying enemy it's normally distinctly underwhelming.

Whilst I understand certain classes might have difficulties, most (practically any with an offensive ability or consumables) don't. Yes, you can be extraordinarily unlucky (or have a bad class combo for it) and get into trouble, but that's what crawl is all about!

Maybe a straight buff isn't the way forward, but some sort of buff would make him above a trivial challenge for most characters.

[dck]

I very much disagree.
Labyrinths "by their very nature" are designed in a way that tries to emphasize features and environmental threats that are very poorly developed or non-existent altogether in crawl.
So what labs are at their core is a huge, mostly empty level that is meant to be explored manually and then one simple fight at the end. Since crawl is a game about combat and not exploration (exploration in crawl is automated to the point default settings do not even show it to the player), exploring the level does effectively nothing to affect how your character will fare against the minotaur and thus the only question to ever be made regarding entering a labyrinth is "can I kill the minotaur?" because that's what labs are about.
Since people do not want to die, if they really can't kill the minotaur they won't enter the labyrinth and if they can they will enter it and stomp him. No change to how strong the minotaur is or what he can do will make him less or more of a challenge because this is a portal that is all about killing one monster to get a ton of loot.

And anyway, ever since he's generated awake he already has varying abilities and threat levels depending on what he happens to pick up (unless monsters can't pick up items anymore, which may have gone in without me noticing) that make him varyingly dangerous and indeed give him a nonzero chance of killing the player via para or some polymorphs regardless of level of preparation.

[khalil]

Proposal: allow autoexplore in labs

[jejorda2]

its all fun and games until you get double zapped by a lightning rod / wand.

Can you get double zapped by lightning beside a metal wall now?

[Bart]

I very much disagree.
Labyrinths "by their very nature" are designed in a way that tries to emphasize features and environmental threats that are very poorly developed or non-existent altogether in crawl.
So what labs are at their core is a huge, mostly empty level that is meant to be explored manually and then one simple fight at the end. Since crawl is a game about combat and not exploration (exploration in crawl is automated to the point default settings do not even show it to the player), exploring the level does effectively nothing to affect how your character will fare against the minotaur and thus the only question to ever be made regarding entering a labyrinth is "can I kill the minotaur?" because that's what labs are about.
Since people do not want to die, if they really can't kill the minotaur they won't enter the labyrinth and if they can they will enter it and stomp him. No change to how strong the minotaur is or what he can do will make him less or more of a challenge because this is a portal that is all about killing one monster to get a ton of loot.

Very good point made here. In the beginning I was fan of labyrinths, but now I perceive them as tedious and even annoying (especially shifting walls). I think I would have far more fun in labyrinth if it:
- was smaller
- included less/no shifting walls causing occasional run-throughs lasting 2k turns
- had more (guaranteed?) encounters
- guaranteed alternative escape hatch. If minotaur spawns with "Ouch-that-hurt-a-lot" equipment, nothing can be done. We could even slightly buff the minotaur - as long as there's an alternative to dying to lucky bully.

[XuaXua]

- guaranteed alternative escape hatch. If minotaur spawns with "Ouch-that-hurt-a-lot" equipment, nothing can be done. We could even slightly buff the minotaur - as long as there's an alternative to dying to lucky bully.

Many of the minotaur vaults spawn unattached to walls, so during these times you can draw the Minotaur out, get around him and get out

[khalil]

That's still not guaranteed, and given how much the difficulty can vary depending on what loot was dropped and what your build is (A mino with r<foo>++ is going to screw over <foo> elementalists, but any other build will do just fine,) there's a good chance escape won't be possible when it's really needed.
On top of that, the difficulty has no relation to how good the loot is. A MuNe doesn't need a ring of positive energy and will never have the skill required to use Gold Dragon Armor, but a Mino with those will (re)kill him quicker than Ijyb with a wand of fire. Likewise, a Dithmentos (the freshmaker) worshiper won't get much use out of a rod of clouds, but the Mino definitely will.

[XuaXua]

On top of that, the difficulty has no relation to how good the loot is.

This is not a good argument, given that it applies to all aspects of Crawl.

[Bim]

Very good point made here. In the beginning I was fan of labyrinths, but now I perceive them as tedious and even annoying (especially shifting walls). I think I would have far more fun in labyrinth if it:
- was smaller
- included less/no shifting walls causing occasional run-throughs lasting 2k turns
- had more (guaranteed?) encounters
- guaranteed alternative escape hatch. If minotaur spawns with "Ouch-that-hurt-a-lot" equipment, nothing can be done. We could even slightly buff the minotaur - as long as there's an alternative to dying to lucky bully.

I agree that it could be smaller/no shifting walls as they are just tedious - especially as food is really not an issue. A few more gargoyles wouldn't hurt, but I don't think they're necessary really.
I don't agree that there should be an alternative escape hatch - it's supposed to be a risk whether to go in or not, eliminating that risk means that it's even MORE trivial.

Since people do not want to die, if they really can't kill the minotaur they won't enter the labyrinth and if they can they will enter it and stomp him. No change to how strong the minotaur is or what he can do will make him less or more of a challenge because this is a portal that is all about killing one monster to get a ton of loot.

The point of the discussion is to make that a less trivial question to answer. Currently he's pretty easy at most stages in which you encounter him (except for a really low lab spawn or if you're using an unusual/challenge combo) so it's easy to decide if you can beat him or not - giving him more variety (or just making him stronger so there's a higher 'floor limit' on him) would make that more of a gamble.

As it's optional, characters that don't want to take that gamble don't have too, but adding a bit of unpredictability into non-mandatory things can only be a good thing!

[TeshiAlair]

Easy freaking solution.

1. Buff minotaur. Guarantee him with some form of projectile and a decent weapon (pref axe), give him better MR. I'd also give him a boulder beetle type charge to make the corridors of the laby more interesting.
2. Put loot behind runed door that he can't open.

Presto. You've removed the swingy nature of "lol random polearm" and made him actually a challenge.

[Bim]

Easy freaking solution.

1. Buff minotaur. Guarantee him with some form of projectile and a decent weapon (pref axe), give him better MR. I'd also give him a boulder beetle type charge to make the corridors of the laby more interesting.
2. Put loot behind runed door that he can't open.

Presto. You've removed the swingy nature of "lol random polearm" and made him actually a challenge.

Yup, +1.

I like the idea of him being a bit varied (in forms of staff/wand or something) as otherwise it's too predictable, but I think a simple buff to make him a significant threat to most would probably be enough.

[Leafsnail]

I like the idea of him being "swingy", it should be different every game and you can kindof guess what to expect since his abilities would be limited to items. I guess him having /paralysis might be overly cruel but I think that applies to monsters using the wand in general.

[Bim]

I like the idea of him being "swingy", it should be different every game and you can kindof guess what to expect since his abilities would be limited to items. I guess him having /paralysis might be overly cruel but I think that applies to monsters using the wand in general.

Yeah the list should definitely be quite controlled - possibly not paralysis or confuse as he hits so hard, but pretty much everything else would be ok I would imagine.

[XuaXua]

Is there a vault where the Lab. Minotaur appears next to lava, so it will only take a confuse to toss him into the drink? And then you go to the stairs and there is only a book because he fell in with all the equipment? I'd think that either (a) it should be removed to prevent that sort of thing or (b) it should be kept to help out players who have no alternate means to handle the minotaur (why'd you go in if you couldn't deal with him?)

[TheArcanist]

I like the idea of him being "swingy", it should be different every game and you can kindof guess what to expect since his abilities would be limited to items. I guess him having /paralysis might be overly cruel but I think that applies to monsters using the wand in general.

I agree. Honestly, if you're really THAT worried he'll spawn with a wand of paralysis, just wear MR/Stasis when he comes into view.

Though I echo the sentiments of others that while Lab begs some rethinking, the problem isn't the Minotaur - it's the fact that it forces the player to wander through a bunch of samey 1-tile corridors without autoexplore until they happen upon the exit vault by pure chance. That's, well, boring. Every time I step into a Lab, I'm reminded why autoexplore is the best interface feature modern roguelikes have ever cooked up.

[Bim]

Though I echo the sentiments of others that while Lab begs some rethinking, the problem isn't the Minotaur - it's the fact that it forces the player to wander through a bunch of samey 1-tile corridors without autoexplore until they happen upon the exit vault by pure chance. That's, well, boring. Every time I step into a Lab, I'm reminded why autoexplore is the best interface feature modern roguelikes have ever cooked up.

Well I mean the whole rock->wall->metal thing for getting closer does help, although I agree that the shifting walls and maprot could probably be gotten rid of. It honestly never takes me more than a few minutes, but as said, crawl isn't really about exploration, and randomly shuffling along with no danger of starving or anything seems a bit tedious.

I wouldn't mind if it was a tense build up to a tough fight, but as it is it's just a tedious build up to an simple fight and some free lute.

[Psiweapon]

Spoiler: show

lute 2.jpg (12.72 KiB) Viewed 10856 times

[Sprucery]

I just had a challenging enough fight with the minotaur. I'm playing a DEHu (is it a challenge combo?) and was just about to enter Lair on D:11 when I fell through a shaft 2 floors down and there was a lab was on that level. The mino had a rod of swarm which prevented me from pin-cushioning it from afar. Luckily I had Summon Ice Beast castable.

[Bart]

Easy freaking solution.

1. Buff minotaur. Guarantee him with some form of projectile and a decent weapon (pref axe), give him better MR. I'd also give him a boulder beetle type charge to make the corridors of the laby more interesting.
2. Put loot behind runed door that he can't open.

Presto. You've removed the swingy nature of "lol random polearm" and made him actually a challenge.

Except that's exactly what DCK mentioned earlier - either you enter lab because you know you can handle it, or you don't bother at all. How is that interesting?

Many of the minotaur vaults spawn unattached to walls, so during these times you can draw the Minotaur out, get around him and get out

How many of them do? 50%? What am I supposed to do if my lab is in wrong 50%? Is additional thrill, or I'd rather say risk, really needed? To be clear here - even if vault cannot be run around, most of the times it is possible to bypass the mino next to him. The problem is - if mino gets axes or any other ranged attack, you will die during this process.

The point of the discussion is to make that a less trivial question to answer. Currently he's pretty easy at most stages in which you encounter him (except for a really low lab spawn or if you're using an unusual/challenge combo) so it's easy to decide if you can beat him or not - giving him more variety (or just making him stronger so there's a higher 'floor limit' on him) would make that more of a gamble. As it's optional, characters that don't want to take that gamble don't have too, but adding a bit of unpredictability into non-mandatory things can only be a good thing!

If you shift difficulty or, even worse, make difficulty even further random, you will simply get less characters bothering to enter and more deaths amongst these who try. Getting a character from selection screen to labyrinth takes already some effort (time) and deadly unpredictability is not a good thing when escape is not an option.

Lab is unique by the fact that you don't know exactly what to expect inside, but once you enter, there's no way back. If you feel that such uniqueness is worth preserving, I wouldn't just buff minotaur unless you want it to be uniquely deadly experience. In my opinion such design does not suit crawl philosophy and I'd prefer an escape hatch if it gets too hot inside. You can beat minotaur? Cool, here's your loot. Mino got crazy? Run for your life, but it's no need to create new character yet.

[TeshiAlair]

Except that's exactly what DCK mentioned earlier - either you enter lab because you know you can handle it, or you don't bother at all. How is that interesting?

I mean, that's part of the interesting thing about timed portals- they force you to enter even when you might not be able to handle it. Sure, sewers are no brainers, but Baileys are very layout-dependent for difficulty (though admittedly they also usually have a nearby exit portal). I think Ice Caves and Volcanoes are farrr worse because they essentially say "do you have this resistance? Cool, have some loot."

There should definitely be some randomness to the minotaur's kit, but it shouldn't be an all out RNG fight.

[crate]

man i'm glad labyrinths don't exist in my crawl

[plantaspoon]

Proposal: make the labyrinth about exploring the level. Remove maprot, and place triggers around the level. Each trigger adds a piece of loot to the Minotaur's inventory, but also buffs the Minotaur. Each character can make the Minotaur as dangerous as they like with higher risk equaling higher reward.

[and into]

I think the most interesting thing portal vaults do (potentially) is give you an incentive to hurry up with exploration of the level. Unfortunately ?magic mapping basically renders that aspect of them moot in most cases, which is kind of a shame.

I used to really like labyrinths but I've gotten pretty sick/tired of them. At least, if you have digging, or even just disintegration, you can get to the minotaur in a few minutes, even if you got dropped off in a bad starting position.

(Slightly off topic: Ice caves and volcanoes are alright, the most bothersome thing IMO is how/where clouds and ice statues spawn in some ice cave layouts. It is not nearly as bad now that item destruction is gone, but nonetheless, if you've done it once you can know exactly where they are, so they just annoy you. I'd say just remove them, except for that one with the demons at the end, since you have to take out the demons while braving the ice clouds in order to get the loot at the very end, the cloud placement in that one makes sense.)