More Lair branch types needed

[Rast]

A few of us were talking about this in IRC during the tournament. The four common lair branches get terribly repetitive when you're playing heavily; adding a few more would help break up the monotony.

Currently the game has:
- Snake. Theme: poison. Subthemes: casters and ranged.
- Spider. Theme: poison. Subtheme: obnoxious monsters.
- Swamp. Theme: water. Subtheme: poison.
- Shoals. Theme: water. Subthemes: casters and ranged. Was recently changed to be much less obnoxious.

You always get one branch and one water branch.

My suggestions is to add at least couple more branches to the rotation. Here's one possibility:

Desert. Theme: poison. Minor subtheme: fire
This would contain a mix of appropriate creatures who might live in a dry, hot environment. No water-affiliated creatures. No nagas, but certainly plenty of salamanders and a few other creatures from Snake. Many creatures from Spider would appear, but not all. The fire subtheme would be minor, and unfold gradually as the player went deeper. You would likely only face one or a few fire monsters at the same time; it would not ever get close to the intensity of a Volcano. rF wouldn't be vital, just a nice bonus if you have it.

[bcadren]

-needed- no. Desirable, maybe. Remember how much time and effort was sunk into the Forest for it to ultimately be scrapped (most creatures were added to make Swamp to make it more interesting; but the forest itself is gone). A mix of creatures from current lair branches will never be its own branch. Need new stuff and need to start as a portal, not a branch. Even the Spider Nest was a single floor once...

I will say though it'd be nice if the 2 lair branches were just AT RANDOM instead of Snake/Spider and Swamp/Shoals any two of the four...I mean from some perspectives Snake has more in common with the Shoals than Spider, etc.

[duvessa]

I'd prefer only giving one of these branches per game instead.

[bcadren]

I'd prefer only giving one of these branches per game instead.

You do have a point. They are both the same difficulty and the second one is usually easy as cake after the first one. There are some exceptions (IE your character is really strongly built for a particular place and is a fish out of water in the other). Swamp as an EE that's used to using LRD is a pain, for example; you'd have to put it off until you got an alternate killdudes...

Maybe only one 'lair rune' but choice of branch to get it from with others closing once you entered the one you choose is more reasonable.

[reaver]

Current 0.17 plan is to drop these branches to 4 levels each, which should help the tedium some.

[Berder]

Why does crawl need more branches? Just because it would further randomize each game and thus enhance replay value? Yes!

But I think we have enough of the xl<20 lair branches; they are already randomized while other parts of the game are not. If vaults, crypt, depths, slime, elf were swapped randomly with other new branches, that would lead to more possibilities and replay value than just getting some more branches to compete with spider or swamp.

[Sprucery]

Of course it would be nice if we would have lots of great, well-designed and distinctive sub-branches to select from. But the problem is that it is a lot of work to design and implement them. The branches should have a unique feeling, but it should not be accomplished by introducing more monsters with new gimmicks.

I guess it all boils down to "when you play a lot, the game gets repetitive".

[dpeg]

reaver: Great!

Sprucery: I agree with all of that, except for "branches should have a unique feeling, but it should not be accomplished by introducing more monsters with new gimmicks". Of course, gimmick is a word with many meanings, but if you do it right (i.e. few, coherent and consistent), it could work.

duvessa: I never thought of that. It sounds pretty good to me. I have very little time these days, but I'll float this in the dev channel. It'd neatly do away with the problem that the first subbranch tends to be alright in difficulty, but then the second is too easy (and of course, players can and often will do 1-4 of both before going to $).

[Berder]

Of course it would be nice if we would have lots of great, well-designed and distinctive sub-branches to select from. But the problem is that it is a lot of work to design and implement them. The branches should have a unique feeling, but it should not be accomplished by introducing more monsters with new gimmicks.

I think it would be fine to relax standards a bit - not every branch has to be totally unique. A branch made up of monsters that already exist could be fine, as long as the distribution of monsters presents a themed challenge. The layouts could also be lifted from other branches.

As long a new branch requires either particular tactics or is harder or easier for certain types of characters, it would enhance and randomize gameplay.

Here's a "branch idea generator."

wall type (pick one): Rock / Undiggable (i.e. stone, metal, trees)
layout type (pick one): width-1 corridors / wide corridors / fairly open / vaults-like
floor type (pick one): normal / watery
most common damage types (pick one or two): poison / fire / cold / elec / corr / negative
enemy tactical theme (pick zero or more): fast / slow / ranged / polearm
difficulty: select an approximate XL you expect the player to be
Then pick some fairly plain enemies that fit the chosen difficulty, themes, and damage types, to appear frequently (more difficult ones appearing less frequently)
Then pick two or three enemies that have nasty special abilities, like guardian serpents, moths of wrath, ghost moths, vault sentinels, merfolk avatars, etc, to appear occasionally

You now have the components for a branch that's unique enough to require its own resists and tactics, which is more dangerous for some characters than for others, and which can use existing monsters and layouts. This branch can go anywhere in the dungeon that's depth-appropriate for the kinds of monsters you chose.

Actually, it should even be possible to automatically select from the options above, and generate randomly themed branches every game.

[Sprucery]

Sprucery: I agree with all of that, except for "branches should have a unique feeling, but it should not be accomplished by introducing more monsters with new gimmicks". Of course, gimmick is a word with many meanings, but if you do it right (i.e. few, coherent and consistent), it could work.

Heh, I was actually about to add a subnote to that sentence ("if the dev team feels that adding new monsters is not desirable"). Personally I agree with you, but based on the recent discussions about monsters and gimmicks/abilities I believe not everyone does...

[Quazifuji]

At the very least, I think it would be very interesting if a random Portal Vault generator were created based on Berder's idea. I feel like the game could definitely use more portal vaults (there are what, 6 portal vaults if you count Wizlabs as one and ignore Bazaars?). Maybe random portal vaults would lead to an interesting branch idea, maybe they'd just be a fun addition to add more variety in portal vaults, maybe they'd just suck. Maybe this is a ridiculous amount of effort for a wacky experiment. But I'd be curious to see what came up. The general response to people who want to create new branches is "try making a portal vault first" and I think this idea is particularly well-suited to being tested with portal vaults. Kind of similar idea to random gods, just with branches.

[1010011010]

I thought the point of there being two branches and the rune lock was to make the player choose which of two runes to get. If there's a problem, it's that the choice order is almost always the same.

[mps]

I think it would make sense to do one poison/water branch per game and move the rune to the end of elf or crypt, perhaps randomizing that part. The only thing is that you'd have to somehow convey to the player which of the two has the rune.

[Wanderer]

I guess it all boils down to "when you play a lot, the game gets repetitive".

This is absolute truth. I've been playing Dcss since August 2010, but rather lightly, having not very much free time in my life. I think I still haven't reached 100 chars played on my two laptops morgues, I have grabbed Runes twice.

Every game I play is far from being repetitive.

[The Ferret]

Berder - I think you just described ziggurat floors

Since ziggurats are fun, it would certainly be interesting to add randomly generated mini-branches similar to Zig (with actual dungeon layouts instead of completely open) that are accessible earlier in the game. Maybe 3 small floors, each with a safe entrance and an exit portal at the entrance, each a different theme, with some decent loot at the end of the branch?

Wanderer - IMO there's a difference between good repetition and bad repetition.

Early game is good repetition. It's challenging for every character; there's enough of a variety of challenges to keep it interesting; on top of that, there's 642 different species-background combinations that you can tackle it with, each of which will have an easier time with some challenges and a more difficult time with others.

The second Lair branch is arguably bad repetition. After clearing the first Lair branch (possibly excluding the fifth floor), most characters are likely a bit overpowered for the second Lair branch, meaning that you tab or z your way through 4 floors without actually thinking much (unless you stumble across a unique).

IMO, if there's going to be two Lair branches, one should unambiguously be more difficult than the other. 8 floors of roughly the same difficulty simply doesn't work in Crawl's system. (For the same reason, I'd tighten up the Hells and give Pandemonium some more variety in my ideal world.)

[Mulzaro]

I think the Lair itself is too long. 8 floors of about same difficulty isn't my definition of fun. This also makes Orcish mines a popcorn fest. Lair floor count could probably be lowered to 6 or 5 without too high impact on character experience.

I have to say though that only one randomized Lair sub-branch sounds interesting (not counting Slime pits).

[KittenInMyCerealz]

each lair branch should have a chance of spawning as a Abyssified/(or&)cryptified version of itself. like 1/4 or so of the tiles and monsters would be from those places, with the monster strength being adjusted accordingly so it isn't impossible to clear them. (no tier 1 demons for example)
Eldritch tentacles, abominations, eyeballs, wretched stars, wraiths, shadows, silent spectres, flying skulls etc.

[kuniqs]

Desert - feels like gehenna lite, don't you think?

I'd be happy if Lair was trimmed to 5 levels, rune branches trimmed to 2 levels. They just get boring very quickly. Either you find good items and the branch is trivial, or you don't find them/don't worship appropiate god and the branch is a pain in the ass.

Golubria's Stuhherrrwhatever - an abyss-looking floor surrounded by void (like the deep sea border in shoals), with pockets of branch-themed features and monsters. One of those pockets contains an abyssal rune. For those who hate the abyss (I do). Does not contain the stupid landscape shifting.

Make every Lair level have a 1/3 chance to be generated as a 'speshul', elemental themed level. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, each one has a chance to generate an elemental rune. Can generate all four in the same game, but no duplicates. The last Lair floor has a guaranteed one with a rune. Make the Lair contain only one of Shoals/Snake/Spider/Swamp.

[Rast]

Desert - feels like gehenna lite, don't you think?

Nah, would only have a minor fire theme, and it would be quite doable without rF. Much more so than doing Snake/Spider without rPoison.

Mostly it would be the kind of animals, creatures, and uniques that would live out in the desert and wastes.

For example: hill giants, a few fire giants, definitely no ice giants.

Wolves and bears: yes. Hell hounds: a few. Polar bears: none.

etc.

[mps]

Expand baileys into a fortress branch that appears before lair, sometimes before temple. Make it timeout if you bypass it and generate only one lair branch. If you want a 15 rune win, you have to do the fortress early in the game. Remove orc, make elf a dungeon branch.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Remove orc, make elf a dungeon branch.

But where does one get a plate and $ then

[mps]

Fortress, portals, randomly on the ground, etc.

What I have in mind for a "fortress" branch would be something like four floors of bailey and gnoll-castle-ish layouts with a moat/cavern area around it, monsters a mix of what you expect in orcish mines and baileys, with stairs down going into the outer ring and vaults inside with the stairs to the next level in them. It could directly adapt existing baileys. If you leave without collecting the rune, the branch closes permanently (like there's a draw bridge or something). Fourth floor is along the lines of orc:4, perhaps slightly more intense. Spawn some altars along the way to make up for lost opportunities to pick up a god in the dungeon before entering.

[Ferociousdragon]

If you want to make second rune harder maybe after you get first rune, the second branch would be warned and spawn more difficult monsters.

[Arrhythmia]

If you want to make second rune harder maybe after you get first rune, the second branch would be warned and spawn more difficult monsters.

This just means you take runes off autopickup until both branches are done.

[Sprucery]

I guess the second Lair branch should be locked then until the rune from the first is retrieved (entering a rune branch would lock the other). I don't really like this solution because of possible nasty uniques etc.

[hannobal]

I'd prefer freely entering two Lair branches like now, because:
Usually Lair branches are done after D, Lair and Orc. At this point most characters should have a reliable killdudes method and some defences, but not wide array resistances and utility spells.
Because of that, player has to look at their character and find out which of the following they have:
- rPois (all other than Shoals)
- Flight (swamp & shoals)
- rMsl (Shoals)
- Clarity/lots of MR or !curing (Shoals / Spider)
- Blowgun & poison needles (Orb Spiders)
And then decide which branch to do first, and possibly switch the branch if current selection seems impossible.
At this point of game players don't have much places to go anyways, Depths is probably too hard and Vaults unavailable because of runelock.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

Fortress, portals, randomly on the ground, etc.

What I have in mind for a "fortress" branch would be something like four floors of bailey and gnoll-castle-ish layouts with a moat/cavern area around it, monsters a mix of what you expect in orcish mines and baileys, with stairs down going into the outer ring and vaults inside with the stairs to the next level in them. It could directly adapt existing baileys. If you leave without collecting the rune, the branch closes permanently (like there's a draw bridge or something). Fourth floor is along the lines of orc:4, perhaps slightly more intense. Spawn some altars along the way to make up for lost opportunities to pick up a god in the dungeon before entering.

This sounds more like something that should just replace Orc, but without being a timed portal.

[mps]

Yeah, but you don't want a complete pushover rune branch either. Orc is too easy to be a rune branch and so is a stack of baileys, unless you're required to enter early in the game.

When I say timeout, I'm thinking a much longer timeout than current timed portals. The main thing is you don't want players to be able to clear several more levels, do lair first, etc., and come back with that experience/loot/altar availability, but you also don't want a game of hide and seek finding the thing. It could be done in a way where the entrance vault is so big you can't possibly miss it. The idea is to present the player with a fairly risky option early on.

I'd think of it as "extended early game," as opposed to "extended endgame." Add danger to the 15 rune win on the low level (i.e. actually dangerous) part of the game, instead of the end.

[MainiacJoe]

This newish player, with many Lair or mid-Dungeon deaths and two wins (MiBe and GrEE) that feel like I accidentally broke through the XL20 glass ceiling, appreciates that the Lair branches are predictable. They, and Lair itself, serve as a benchmark for me that are relatively constant from game to game. Whether it's spiny frogs chasing me from Lair 1 or wolf spiders from Spider 1, these provide for me a tangible benchmark for the progress of my character, especially when I come back later and kick their butt. I can certainly understand the appeal of randomness for the very experienced players, or rather the drudgery of sameness, but that very sameness for new players means one less thing to juggle in our minds and a way to see improvement in oneself from game to game.