Is excessive stairdancing In Tomb undesirable?

[wizzzargh]

Currently, Tomb is probably the branch that requires the most stairdancing in. I think this is tedious and not very fun, and there's not much point in having big packs of scary tormenting and smiting enemies if everyone is just going to fight them in small manageable groups anyway.

Would Tomb be better if it had Vault Wardens(or more likely, upgrading Guardian Mummies to have the same ability) sealing doors and stairs? It would certainly be harder and less appropriate as a potential 3rd rune, but it might give rise to more tense and interesting situations rather than simply stairdancing five dozen times.

I know there used to be Anaconda zombies/skeletons that would constrict people trying to stairdance, which I thought was interesting, but I don't recall any in my recent tomb clear. But Warden abilities aside, letting Guardian mummies constrict via a strangling grasp or something could do a lot to reduce staircase superiority.

Another thing I thought could be interesting would be if all Mummies respawned on a random Tomb floor whenever killed. The main goal of that would be making floors never 'really' clear and 100% safe to stairdance onto, making escaping tomb be an adventure as well if you fully clear the lower levels, and also encouraging strategies of avoidance and stealth, since killing things now causes more combats later.

Maybe Tomb isn't supposed to be superbly hard. But if that's the case, I think it could do with simply being shorter and having fewer enemies- If we can successfully stairdance a Greater Mummy, an Anubis Guard, and a Guardian Mummy once, we can probably do it 50 more times, but I don't think it's necessary to actually have the player do so.

[duvessa]

The main place you stairdance is tomb:3 and that's only because you're trying to avoid making noise. The branch is already a very poor choice for 3rd rune, and the usual strategy for tomb:2 is still teleportation. Stairdancing tomb:2 is bad.

If you want to get rid of tomb:3 stairdancing, by far the easiest ways are to either:
1. remove the silly ambient noise mechanic, so that you can attack something in tomb without waking up the whole level
2. put a bunch of flying skulls next to the stairs in the tomb:3 vault, so that noise always happens

[KoboldLord]

#1: Replace all stairs in Tomb with escape hatches. Add escape hatches going the other direction on the other side of enemies.
#2: Don't have mandatory rooms filled with dozens of copies of the same enemy that spams Torment while standing behind walls of chaff.

Step two is pretty important, and should not be overlooked.

[Shard1697]

I don't stairdance in tomb:3 to avoid noise, I stairdance because I always end up fighting a huge swarm of mummies and stuff and I can't stay to fight it all(as a melee focused character, which is what I almost always run).

[HisMajestyBOB]

Most casters taking on Tomb3 are using Fire Storm, Tornado, Glaciate, or Shatter, all of which are going to wake the level. For me (and I suspect for most others as well), the reason I stairdance Tomb3 is to manage the number of Greater Mummies and Mummy Priests on screen because if I don't, I get tormented to a fraction of my HP and at risk of getting killed.

[ydeve]

I've taken to casting shatter at the Tomb3 staircase and stairdancing to regain hp/mp. There aren't constrictors like in V5, so it's a pretty trivial fight.

[HisMajestyBOB]

As for changing Tomb, there was one proposal I saw at least a year ago to make Tomb completely empty of monsters until you picked up the rune, at which point the enemies "awaken" and the player has to fight his way out as mummies appear from Sarcophagi, enemies come through secret passages, etc.

Not sure if that would really work well, but I do like the idea of changing Tomb to have an "intense" theme, something similar to the Orb Run, Zigs, and/or Sprint. Unfortunately, this would require a full rework of the levels and monsters, so it's not something that can be implemented easily.

[duvessa]

I stairdance because I always end up fighting a huge swarm of mummies and stuff

Because you didn't know to avoid making noise...

[wizzzargh]

If you want to get rid of tomb:3 stairdancing, by far the easiest ways are to either:
1. remove the silly ambient noise mechanic, so that you can attack something in tomb without waking up the whole level
2. put a bunch of flying skulls next to the stairs in the tomb:3 vault, so that noise always happens

Seeing as how Anubis Guards howl hunting cries, I think your second idea is already essentially in the game. And so even with Silence I end up stairdancing excessively.

[lethediver]

As for changing Tomb, there was one proposal I saw at least a year ago to make Tomb completely empty of monsters until you picked up the rune, at which point the enemies "awaken" and the player has to fight his way out as mummies appear from Sarcophagi, enemies come through secret passages, etc.

Not sure if that would really work well, but I do like the idea of changing Tomb to have an "intense" theme, something similar to the Orb Run, Zigs, and/or Sprint. Unfortunately, this would require a full rework of the levels and monsters, so it's not something that can be implemented easily.

I really like this idea. Unique, thematic, and solves the problem in an interesting way.

In any case, what will help with the stair dancing is redesigning the levels so it consists of more actual tomb-like structures -- no big foyer-like rooms around all the downstairs, instead make the player fight through lots of traps and winding passages.

[tabstorm]

I don't think stairlock-esque strategies or changing all stairs to hatches will make Tomb much better. Having an entire branch with a high density of enemies who use nothing but smite+torment while hiding behind summons, with wide-open level design and special noise properties, is not a recipe for interesting gameplay. Tomb was a mistake.

[Shard1697]

I stairdance because I always end up fighting a huge swarm of mummies and stuff

Because you didn't know to avoid making noise...

I don't see how it makes much difference. Either way I'm stairdancing enemies up over and over again.

[Quazifuji]

I don't think stairlock-esque strategies or changing all stairs to hatches will make Tomb much better. Having an entire branch with a high density of enemies who use nothing but smite+torment while hiding behind summons, with wide-open level design and special noise properties, is not a recipe for interesting gameplay. Tomb was a mistake.

I agree. Basically everything about Tomb's design encourages strategies that the devs want to eliminate (most extremely heavy luring and stairdancing). My most effective strategy for Tomb 3 has usually been walking until I see an enemy, casting silence, then luring them back to the staircast and fighting them in the safety of my silence zone. Incredibly tedious, exactly the kind of strategy that's discussed as a bad thing in the luring thread, but feels at least 10 times safer than any other approach I've tried, and the only downside is that it requires memorizing silence.

Mummy priests and greater mummies are practically designed to be fought this way. Smite, torment, mummy curses, and to a lesser extent summons are all effects where the danger scales very heavily with how many enemies you're fighting - a single one is mostly harmless, a large number is incredibly dangerous, and even large AoE nukes are dangerous due to curses. Add in low ambient noise and Tomb may as well just have a big sign at the entrance that says "every enemy in this branch should be lured to the nearest staircase."

Sure, that's a problem in the whole game, that's why it's been such a big topic of discussion here lately, but it's a bigger problem in Tomb than anywhere else. If you specifically had a goal of creating a branch that encourages luring and stair dancing as much as possible, you might create Tomb. Since the devs have exactly the opposite goal, Tomb is clearly a problem. The enemies that were added recently helped a lot in making it more interesting, but the branch still has issues.

[Wahaha]

I don't think stairlock-esque strategies or changing all stairs to hatches will make Tomb much better. Having an entire branch with a high density of enemies who use nothing but smite+torment while hiding behind summons, with wide-open level design and special noise properties, is not a recipe for interesting gameplay. Tomb was a mistake.

With a few changes it could be fine so there's no reason to be pessimistic about it. Like remove special noise, add pillars, add "stair-blocking" and/or walls that close behind the player. These fairly simple changes have a decent chance of making the branch good.
Also learn from the ring of vitality vault. Aside from it being rendered harmless with a scroll of tp, because I'm sure someone will point this out if I don't.

[dowan]

I like the idea of a tomb escape run, like if tomb 1 just had a trapdoor down, and so did tomb 2, which dumped you right to the rune. You grab the rune, then have to run back through the current tomb setup, except you'd take a trapdoor up each time, and obviously the enemy density would need to be scaled down (If you release batches of enemies on a timer, you can probably keep the same amount of enemies, the player just has to kill them quickly or get away fast to keep from being overwhelmed).

Obviously, mummy curses should totally go away, as they're part of the reason for stairdancing now (I can't afford to kill too many mummies at the same time, or I might just die)

[Sar]

mummy curses are kind of integral to mummies, might as well completely remove them and Tomb if you axe those, because curseless mummies will just be a bunch of fiends with smites instead of hellfire and some mid-tier summoning spells

[dowan]

I suppose, but does it make for an interesting branch?

[Sar]

well, I like it, but I have pretty shit taste

Edit: I like it exactly because "just nuke it all" isn't really a great strategy (unless you are undead/you have necromut), and the branch isn't really that long so excessive stairdancing doesn't annoy me (I heard the best way is to skip the bigger part of W:2 anyway, which leaves you with very little actual stair-dancing to do). I wasn't joking, btw, I really would prefer a game with no Tomb or mummies to a game where mummies are demons lite (but make the sphinx pack spawning somewhere else because seeing people dying to parasmite literally never gets old). I do think that there might be some way to limit stair dancing, but that would require redesigning the Tomb fight.

[crate]

Mummy curses on mummy priests and greater mummies are okay. They threaten you from anywhere in los so there's a pretty big incentive to actually kill them.

Guardian mummies having mummy curses is pretty bad, for all the same reasons that "mummy" having death curses was pretty bad. I'm still sure it's entirely possible to drag every single guardian mummy from tomb back to crypt and killdudes the rest of tomb (Without ever receiving a guardian mummy death curse), but that sounds even more tedious than the apocalypse challenge so I won't do it even to prove a point.

[bcadren]

Mummy curses on mummy priests and greater mummies are okay. They threaten you from anywhere in los so there's a pretty big incentive to actually kill them.

Guardian mummies having mummy curses is pretty bad, for all the same reasons that "mummy" having death curses was pretty bad. I'm still sure it's entirely possible to drag every single guardian mummy from tomb back to crypt and killdudes the rest of tomb, but that sounds even more tedious than the apocalypse challenge so I won't do it even to prove a point.

Guardian Mummies have shit for MR. I've enslaved the lot in order to have them turn against Greaters so they could do that fight outside my LoS. Related note: YES you still get Death Curses with Mummies die outside of LoS.

[Sar]

Is there any reason guardian mummies don't seem to spawn with weapons? I never really thought about it, but I had a couple of them spawn last time I did Tomb. What if they spawned with melee/ranged weapons? Would give them a bit more punch and possibly a ranged option.

[crate]

You could still do the same things to avoid death curses. Ranged weapons run out of ammo (and enemies cannot pick up more ammo), and melee weapons change nothing. You'd need to make guardian mummies fast.

[Sar]

I wouldn't mind guardian mummies being fast.

[nago]

I wouldnt mind to have them axed really a monster which is more dangerous and annoying to kill than to have around has some major problems

[dowan]

I just did tomb last night as a MfGl of TSO. It was pretty easy, but still featured plenty of stairdancing, because it's hard to eat 4 torments in a row and keep fighting a screen full of enemies.

[xentronium]

I was thinking...make tomb two big levels. You're permanently marked as long as you're in tomb. Enemies in the level must be activated. Put enemies in sarcophagi lining walls of rooms. When you enter a room, you can examine all the sarcophagi and know exactly what you'll be fighting. When you try to leave the room, stone walls drop down and seal the exits, and sarcophagi inside the room open. The exits only become unsealed when you kill the enemies in the room, or teleport out. When you teleport or blink inside the the room it will activate the mummies if they weren't activated already...and they will know where you are since you're marked. Teleporting can be dangerous since you might land in another room full of sarcophagi. But at least you can rest a bit in the new room, and sealing the new room will also seal out the enemies from old rooms.

Since you might get torment spammed, there's no guarantee that any one room will be a pushover..but you can teleport away to get away and get a bit of breathing room and postpone the fight.

[archaeo]

I like the idea of a tomb escape run, like if tomb 1 just had a trapdoor down, and so did tomb 2, which dumped you right to the rune. You grab the rune, then have to run back through the current tomb setup, except you'd take a trapdoor up each time, and obviously the enemy density would need to be scaled down (If you release batches of enemies on a timer, you can probably keep the same amount of enemies, the player just has to kill them quickly or get away fast to keep from being overwhelmed).

This is actually my favorite Tomb idea I've heard; I love the thought of Tomb being more like the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[Aethrus]

I like the idea of a tomb escape run, like if tomb 1 just had a trapdoor down, and so did tomb 2, which dumped you right to the rune. You grab the rune, then have to run back through the current tomb setup, except you'd take a trapdoor up each time, and obviously the enemy density would need to be scaled down (If you release batches of enemies on a timer, you can probably keep the same amount of enemies, the player just has to kill them quickly or get away fast to keep from being overwhelmed).

Obviously, mummy curses should totally go away, as they're part of the reason for stairdancing now (I can't afford to kill too many mummies at the same time, or I might just die)

I would have fun playing Tomb if it worked like this.