A nice change of pace.


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Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Saturday, 18th March 2017, 19:14

A nice change of pace.

Vaults varying the experience of DCSS are one of my favorite parts about this game.

Image

I think it would be cool to have more floor-wide vaults like this.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 18th March 2017, 19:37

Re: A nice change of pace.

The problem with encompass vaults is that they're only a change of pace the first time you find them. Subsequent times, they're less of a change of pace than a randomly generated level.

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Leszczynek, Steel Neuron

Slime Squisher

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Post Saturday, 18th March 2017, 19:58

Re: A nice change of pace.

It's an interesting balance. I don't like monolithic vaults too much because of duvessa's point, but I like when the entire level is linked together mechanically. Maybe there could be some middle ground with a set of themed vaults that have to appear in sets, but are still subject to some randomisation in between.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Saturday, 18th March 2017, 20:27

Re: A nice change of pace.

Steel Neuron wrote:It's an interesting balance. I don't like monolithic vaults too much because of duvessa's point, but I like when the entire level is linked together mechanically. Maybe there could be some middle ground with a set of themed vaults that have to appear in sets, but are still subject to some randomisation in between.

Like V5?
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duvessa

Vaults Vanquisher

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Post Saturday, 18th March 2017, 21:17

Re: A nice change of pace.

duvessa wrote:The problem with encompass vaults is that they're only a change of pace the first time you find them. Subsequent times, they're less of a change of pace than a randomly generated level.


Having the generic cave dungeon floor over the generic normal dungeon floor is still nice even the 50th time. The average situation on the cave floor tends to be different than that of a normal floor, because the floor is more open among other more discreet reasons.

Personally I'd just like a change of scenery at times. Throw in a shoals floor in the middle of the dungeon, only with normal enemies instead of nasty merfolk.

Blades Runner

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Post Sunday, 19th March 2017, 08:08

Re: A nice change of pace.

PowerOfKaishin wrote:Vaults varying the experience of DCSS are one of my favorite parts about this game.

Image

I think it would be cool to have more floor-wide vaults like this.


i found that vault for the first time recently too and it was very cool. i enjoyed it a lot.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 20th March 2017, 01:14

Re: A nice change of pace.

Siegurt wrote:
Steel Neuron wrote:It's an interesting balance. I don't like monolithic vaults too much because of duvessa's point, but I like when the entire level is linked together mechanically. Maybe there could be some middle ground with a set of themed vaults that have to appear in sets, but are still subject to some randomisation in between.

Like V5?


I think more floor vaults like V5 that have different possible subvaults would be great. Adding more structure to a floor without making it perfectly predictable would be a good way to add variety to the game while avoiding the "oh, this floor" feel that completely fixed floor vaults can give for people who've seen them before.

There are some dungeon floors that do this to some extent too, changing the layout dramatically, but I'd definitely welcome more like that.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Monday, 20th March 2017, 22:58

Re: A nice change of pace.

If we are going to have floor vaults like that one in particular show up early in the dungeon (I had it on D8 for example) can we at least increase the OOD spawn timer for that floor. It really sucked having to clear it to find the Lair staircase and fighting so many difficult enemies only to have a Deep Elf Annihilator spawn on me.

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 22nd March 2017, 07:10

Re: A nice change of pace.

Yeah, I love that vault!

Does anybody know what that vault is called in the game?
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 22nd March 2017, 13:04

Re: A nice change of pace.

spudwalt wrote:Yeah, I love that vault!

Does anybody know what that vault is called in the game?


kennysheep_town

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Post Sunday, 26th March 2017, 17:44

Re: A nice change of pace.

I think there's a feel that encompass/floor vaults appear less because they're weighted to mostly appear in Depths?

Or am I wrong about that?

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 27th March 2017, 09:02

Re: A nice change of pace.

It's the other way around: Depths are guaranteed to have an encompass vault level, so you may expect it to be as common elsewhere, which it isn't.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Wednesday, 29th March 2017, 10:28

Re: A nice change of pace.

duvessa wrote:The problem with encompass vaults is that they're only a change of pace the first time you find them. Subsequent times, they're less of a change of pace than a randomly generated level.


Small thing, but any reason why these vaults can't be rotated/flipped at will? It won't be as new as a random vault, but it gives you 8x more variations even on a static vault.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Wednesday, 29th March 2017, 12:31

Re: A nice change of pace.

sooheon wrote:Small thing, but any reason why these vaults can't be rotated/flipped at will? It won't be as new as a random vault, but it gives you 8x more variations even on a static vault.


They can be, and are, flipped. If the map is less than 70 squares wide, it can also be rotated. In particular, the vault that started this thread was flipped both horizontally and vertically from the map definition, but cannot be rotated because it has the maximum possible size of 80 × 70.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 29th March 2017, 19:06

Re: A nice change of pace.

Since the cardinal directions in Crawl are uniform, that doesn't really give you any more variation...the vault behaves exactly the same whether it's flipped or not

Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 30th March 2017, 05:19

Re: A nice change of pace.

> the vault behaves exactly the same whether it's flipped or not

Which is why you *can* flip them at will without worrying about balance. The difference it makes is for the humans who play the game. They may enjoy the visual variation, or may not recognize a vault as one until further in. Agreed it does not improve mechanical variation, but normal crawl levels do not vary too much in that regard either.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 30th March 2017, 06:49

Re: A nice change of pace.

sooheon wrote:but normal crawl levels do not vary too much in that regard either.
I very much disagree. Crawl's level generators are one of its biggest strengths, and overall the best procedural level generation I've seen in any game. The mechanical variation is so good that the few generators that don't produce much mechanical variation (e.g. octagon level, shoals, swamp) are jarring.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 30th March 2017, 07:24

Re: A nice change of pace.

Agreed, crawl's procedural generation is good, I phrased my point poorly. What I meant is that even if it's your second time seeing a vault, generic - generic - generic - flipped and rotated vault - generic is more of a change of pace than generic - generic - generic - generic - generic. Within generic levels (of a given branch) there is a lot of homogeniety which is nicely broken up by vaults, was the point I was making.

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 30th March 2017, 22:58

Re: A nice change of pace.

I feel like large vaults would be more replayable if they had more varied monster placement. So rather than knowing there is a caustic shrike pack (or some similar dangerous pack--I know the monsters are sometimes selected from a small list) around corner X, and therefore you ought to camp corner Y and make noise, you might instead know that there is a possibility of a caustic shrike pack but that they could be anywhere in the vault. This applies mostly to encompass vaults such as the one the op posted. Large vaults with a unique (but appropriate) monster set but typical, random placement of enemies could also be cool.
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Zot Zealot

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Post Thursday, 30th March 2017, 23:23

Re: A nice change of pace.

There are a few encompass maps that haven't gotten old for me despite playing them tens of times. Shout out to hangedman's spin cycle.

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