Open levels are too common

[snow]

I don't think they're too common. Plus there seems to be a variety of open levels... they're not all the same.

[pratamawirya]

I think I'm having the same problem....

[omndra]

Its called, use a magic map then run to the closest downstairs ASAP
You don't always have to kill everything.

[Jeremiah]

The real difficulty comes with those levels that have all 3 staircases next to each other in one corner, then all 3 down staircases together somewhere else.

If you come down the stairs and find yourself surrounded by something you really can't fight or that will kill you before you can get close to them (centaur warriors, electric eels) there really isn't much you can do except try an escape hatch from the floor above and hope it puts you somewhere relatively safe. Or go somewhere else and try a branch instead.

If this happens deep in the dungeon, you should have ways to deal with it, but at a low level it can be impossible to escape.

[MrMisterMonkey]

minmay isn't complaining about difficulty

minmay is complaining about how open levels' high frequency makes too many levels too similar because they all feel the same.

[evilmike]

A couple of the game's layouts do tend to be pretty repetitive. A good example of this is layout_big_octagon. layout_cross can also have this problem, although it at least has a number of variations.

Other open layouts (eg layout_city) aren't as problematic though.

[rabidweasel]

A couple of the game's layouts do tend to be pretty repetitive. A good example of this is layout_big_octagon. layout_cross can also have this problem, although it at least has a number of variations.

Other open layouts (eg layout_city) aren't as problematic though.

Agree with this 100%. It's not the openness that's the problem but the feeling that it's just another big open space with nothing interesting in. The cross layout is at least more condensed and tactically interesting. I do like the city layouts and wouldn't lump them in with other open levels at all, they tend to have the occasional 'alleyway' that can be used as a bottleneck.

[dpeg]

I love the new octagon levels. Then again, I realise that most of you have never seen the old ones: they were a pure octagon and nothing else (they could get vaults like every level). Enne has randomised them (and also the cross levels) beautifully. The special challenge of the octagon levels is that on top of being open, both stair sets are lumped together. That's good!

[ohmi]

My reaction is the opposite -- I quite bored with the older style layouts with long,long corridors and small rooms. I really like the big open areas, the NxM levels, and the octagons.

[evilmike]

I love the new octagon levels. Then again, I realise that most of you have never seen the old ones: they were a pure octagon and nothing else (they could get vaults like every level). Enne has randomised them (and also the cross levels) beautifully. The special challenge of the octagon levels is that on top of being open, both stair sets are lumped together. That's good!

Octagon and cross levels are themselves fine if they only show up once... the problem is more that they can show up multiple times in a single game. Even though there will be differences between them, they still feel quite similar (since these have a much more "fixed" layout than most other levels). For example, I just did a quick test and managed to get layout_octagon 3 times in the regular dungeon, with 2 of the levels being almost exactly the same (clustered stairs along the walls, with a ring of green crystal pillars in the middle). It's a bit rare for this to happen, but still a bit of an issue (crawl tends to avoid generating the same thing twice... I cant think of any noteworthy large vaults that allow duplicates, for example).

I think part of the issue might be that these layouts feel more like big vaults, rather than "normal levels".

[dpeg]

I can certainly understand the desire to restrict the use of the same open levels. Would making each type unique (this means it can come up at most once in a given game) be good?

[smock]

I can certainly understand the desire to restrict the use of the same open levels. Would making each type unique (this means it can come up at most once in a given game) be good?

Yes, I think so.

[mageykun]

Mabye only bi-unique? Or unique per branch? I have no problem when some of these open patterns show up in say, the main dungeon and lair, or snake. The differing landscape features / tiles and enemy sets differentiate them enough to keep things interesting (not sure if console players feel the same). That and some of the open rooms look better in side branches than the main dungeon (at least in my opinion) and I'd hate to see them not get a chance to generated there.

[joellercoaster]

I like the unique per branch idea too. Nethack's Bigroom was a favourite thing!

FWIW I feel like Crawl has great layout variety now, it's a major selling point for me

[coolio]

Maybe just add more vaults that specifically appear on open levels to spruce them up? Especially the new serial ones that give the whole level a common theme.

[jejorda2]

I never thought of open rooms as being too common before reading this thread, but in a recent game the two levels before the lair and the first two levels of the lair were all open octagons.

I like the big open levels because I get to vary my strategy a little from just pressing "o" until something interesting happens. I manually explore the perimeter of open levels before the center.