Orcish Mines and Hopping


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

Snake Sneak

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 00:08

Orcish Mines and Hopping

I think I am one of many players who had a lot of trouble with this game until reading spoiler info about the difficulty of the branches (like elliptic's knowledge bot page: lair -> orc -> vaults entrance -> early vaults (including crypt)/snake:1-4/swamp:1-4 -> vaults:7 -> d:27 -> get three runes -> zot)

Why not make the orcish mines after lair?

Slaughtering huge amounts of orcs is an important part of the game to me, so I wouldn't want to change that, but I do agree with the general theme of the wiki page (https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... anch:mines) The mines should be made marginally more difficult and diverse and dropped to the depth between lair and vault, which is when they are usually done now anyway.

The ideas about branch hopping tie into this also. (https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... on:hopping) I feel like a variation on the locked D:14 idea would be to make the stairs to D:15 inside the mines (or elf) and the mines (or elf) only accessible with a rune. Or D:14 could have a roulette with new branches like dwarf or forest being rune locked with the D:15 stairs in them.

I love the idea of making runes useful/required before zot and that more could be done with it, although I think optional benefits are usually better than forcing people to get each rune when they reach the branch. I also think the extended game could get a big boost from having something accessed by having all 15 runes. (The ziggurat? A super zot? I am not good enough to have played the extended game more than once, so I don't really have any good ideas, just the feeling of something missing.)

Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 01:02

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I am not really a good player but I had hopes that the Orc:4 change makes the orc branch more interesting, at least in certain cases. Also, I don't know if elliptic's rule includes skipping Orc:1 until after doing a bit of Lair... cannot really imagine that.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 01:54

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

To add incentive to go for the runes, you can give different runes some kind of powers corresponding to the flavor of the rune. That's just an example, it's pretty stupid of course.

The problem with locking (apart from limiting player's choices which can be interesting sometimes, but most of the time is bad news, especially for replayability) is that some branches require a particular set of resistances and dealing with the lack of them isn't interesting in the slightest, it ranges from extremely annoying to deadly. Doing swamp without poison resistance or clarity is a sure suicide (I'm not even talking about Snake, it's not even funny, the game can't even theoretically generate enough heals pots to survive here without rPois) and I had a dozen games when I had neither until clearing the dungeon up to 20-ish. So, unless you're overpowered, you can't really enter the branch ends without a special kit of resistances.

I think, current mid-game's difficulty is fine. Experienced players have a whole bunch of challenge backgrounds at their disposal to spice things up if they want or self imposed challenges or whatever. You can formalize that in-game as some kind of achievements system (*ducks*), I think it will work very well with Dungeon Crawl especially with the online tiles version.

And it's not that spoiler heavy which branch you should and shouldn't take at your current level/gear by the way. I mean, you don't have to spoil yourself too much to know that Orc Mines is bad news for the time you encounter it. You just have to go downstairs, take a quick look around, say "Nope", go back upstairs and move on. It's not like you get insta-killed (well, not usually, it's crawl after all :) ).
Last edited by thenewflesh on Sunday, 18th September 2011, 04:02, edited 1 time in total.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 03:21

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

That branch order is a gross oversimplification for the benefit of newbies who might otherwise be inclined to brute force their way into Orc as soon as they see it just because it's there. Orc 1-3 before Lair is perfectly viable for most builds and level layouts, and Orc 4 before late Lair is also sometimes advised, again depending on build and actual level layouts.

Making branches more interesting is always good, but I don't support the idea that changes should be made to accommodate some Internet Strategy Guide, even if written by a skilled player.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 05:42

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

KoboldLord wrote:That branch order is a gross oversimplification for the benefit of newbies who might otherwise be inclined to brute force their way into Orc as soon as they see it just because it's there. Orc 1-3 before Lair is perfectly viable for most builds and level layouts, and Orc 4 before late Lair is also sometimes advised, again depending on build and actual level layouts.


Early Orc might technically be viable, but on average I definitely consider it harder. By the time I'm first entering lair, a troll is usually something I want to take down from a distance. An orc warrior is usually a minor threat, but can still be bad news with a good weapon (especially with the recent buff to polearms). An orc knight, even alone, is a definite challenge. I can't even imagine what kind of lair layout is harder than Orc 4, except maybe one involving multiple uniques right near a set of 3 stairs.

Then again, order of appearance isn't everything. Any of the branches found in lair are generally best avoided right when you first find them.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 15:39

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Tiber wrote:Early Orc might technically be viable, but on average I definitely consider it harder. By the time I'm first entering lair, a troll is usually something I want to take down from a distance. An orc warrior is usually a minor threat, but can still be bad news with a good weapon (especially with the recent buff to polearms). An orc knight, even alone, is a definite challenge. I can't even imagine what kind of lair layout is harder than Orc 4, except maybe one involving multiple uniques right near a set of 3 stairs.


Suppose you're a venom mage, and you roll a couple levels of Lair packed with poison-immune spiny frogs, black mambas, and hydra rather than yaks or elephants. You can either ding them all repeatedly for scratch damage, or you can go to Orc where almost everything is exceptionally vulnerable to poison and the only thing that isn't immune doesn't hit too hard anyway. Or maybe you're trying to build up piety with a kill deity. Orc isn't all THAT tough.

Look, orc knights are uncommon even in Orc, and if you meet one without being able to deal with it you can just run back to the stairs. Nobody says you have to finish Orc first, even if you start it before Lair. Not a single major threat in all of Orc moves faster than the standard character, and if you've got a single spare potion of speed or scroll of blinking you don't even have to worry about getting caught by a rare orc sorceror or stone giant.

Look, you can theorize all you like, but I've routinely gone to Orc before so much as dipping my toe into Lair 3 to build Vehumet piety, and occasionally I've gone even earlier if something Nasty spawns in Lair 1 or 2. It actually works in actual games. I don't understand where all the Orc fear is coming from.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 16:37

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

minmay wrote:It comes from finding sorcerers and stone giants on Orc:1. The former can kill you as soon as you come down the stairs if you lack MR or stasis. The closest thing to a comparable Lair opponent is Rupert, who is considerably less common and in any case can only appear once.


Paralyzing opponents exist through almost the entire game, and you aren't going to be better prepared for that perfect storm of RNG screwjob if you go down after Lair. The situation you're suggesting, that you go down a stairwell to confront an orc sorceror with other monsters exactly placed to beat you down without blocking line-of-effect from the sorceror's Paralyze spell, is incredibly rare, and even if you get that rare situation the orc sorceror has to wake up and use Paralyze before you finish going back up the stairs. A more typical early orc sorceror encounter involves burning some consumables to escape from it.

If we want to theorycrawl out some more RNG screwjobs that mean we should refuse to enter branches, how about when you go down a stairwell in Lair and get trampled off by the herd of elephants or death yaks waiting for you before you can go back up, and then the basilisk tags you with its gaze? Even if you pop off a blind teleportation scroll on your first opportunity, it will definitely dump you into another pack of death yaks or elephants if you haven't already cleared most of the level.

The threat of freak orc sorceror death is much lower than the risk presented by leaving behind an actually-existing wandering hydra on a partially-cleared level that could pop out from behind you at any moment when you're already dealing with something moderately challenging. It is foolish to keep banging your head against opponents that are known to be unfavorable just because you're worried about some hypothetical freak disaster in some safer location.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 17:40

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

minmay wrote:But this is assuming Orc is a safer location. Nearly every one of my characters is prepared to deal with hydrae, black mambas, and spiny frogs long before being prepared to deal with orc sorcerers.


HOLY CRAP RUN AWAY is a perfectly viable solution for orc sorcerors that simply doesn't work against black mambas and spiny frogs. The same tactic that prevents Sigmund from Confuse-locking you when you catch him at the edge of your line-of-sight will prevent orc sorcerors from hitting you with Paralyze.

Look, I'm not claiming that one should start Orc at XL 12 and expect to finish it, and I'm not claiming that one should try to do Orc before Lair a majority of the time. These would be obviously incorrect. I'm simply claiming that you should bounce between the two according to analysis of the risks and benefits of both. Orc sorcerors are certainly dangerous opponents, and easily the most dangerous in the whole of both branches, but they aren't so overwhelmingly dangerous that they automatically force the decision right then and there, before an actual orc sorceror even generates in-game.

All I'm claiming is that some percentage of the time, Orc is an easier and safer option than Lair for specific characters in specific situations, and "Lair before Orc" is an oversimplification for the benefit of newbies, not an inviolable law for experienced players. Therefore, we should not treat "Lair before Orc" as an inviolable law when making design decisions.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 18th September 2011, 18:02

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Aside from the question of which is likely to be easier or more/less dangerous, my decision of whether to go to Orc or Lair first might depend on which I think will be of greater benefit to my character.

If I want to gain piety rapidly from kills/corpses/sacrificing junk, or I've found an early shop and want gold, then at least attempting Orc looks like a good option, while if I value XP gain more, then this make Lair look more attractive.

Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 00:00

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I didn't really mean to start up an orc versus lair argument. I honestly thought that people agreed that lair was easier for almost all characters than orc. Obviously, there are exceptions, but they seem rare to me. I started this thread because my current character had lair show up first and I thought it was awfully refreshing to not have to backtrack to the mines. It also reminded me of my early characters that were excited to see yellow stairs (oooooooooh) and then got crushed in the mines. It's not a big deal to have things out of order, but I think that the first branch to show up should be the simpler one. This is a very harsh game and it seems a little cruel to have the mines show up first, especially if one of the goals is to make the game winnable without spoilers. (I also think that elf is more difficult than any of the lair rune branches)

I feel like it would be a minor change to make the mines marginally more difficult and diverse and dropped to the depth between lair and vault, which would result in a slightly smoother and more entertaining game.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 05:15

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I think there is something of a problem here for new and unspoiled players. Please allow me to illustrate with a story.

A long time ago, I was playing crawl for the first time and without spoilers (there were almost none, anyway). Every time I made it to orc I would go there, because hey, it was there and I wanted to see what was at the bottom. Eventually, I managed to clear orc without dying. It was certainly dangerous, but not too unreasonable.

But then there were these OTHER yellow stairs, and hey, those were there too! So now I went into elf after orc. It took me a bit longer until I could clear elf as well (it was somewhat easier at the time). It was only then that I finally made my way to lair and discovered how much easier it was. Let us call this Situation X.

Now, sometimes I see people online or I watch ttyrecs for various reasons, and they are also somewhere in Situation X. This is, to me, a problem, regardless of how common monster Y is or which monster is like rupert or whether or not it's ok to dip into orc:1. My guess is that linley simply put orc/elf first in his branch order because those monsters have overall much less HD/xp value than those in lair and lair branches.

I suggest if not changing the branch depths, at least biasing them so that orc tends to appear after lair even if not always. This would at least give the impression to an unspoiled player that orc is the more dangerous of the two.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 05:28

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

So, you're saying that because Joe the Newbie refuses to try anything but the first plan to present itself to him, it's a design flaw that must be corrected? How did Joe the Newbie get past Sigmund back on D2 with that philosophy, anyway? Going into Orc because it shows up first is like attacking Sigmund because he shows up first.

And if we decide that Orc first is just too difficult for fragile newbie minds, what about all the other branches that show up out of their convenient order? Snake 5, Swamp 5, Shoals 5, and Slime are all harder than Lair 8 every single time in every single game. Should they be rearranged so that Joe the Newbie, who can't grasp the concept of ignoring Orc until after Lair, won't get confused and dive for all three of those Runes before hitting Lair 8? How about Tomb, and all four branches of Hell, and also the infinite layers of Pandemonium? All of these show up before you're ready for them. When should the player be expected to try alternative strategies for the next game instead of repeating the same mistake over and over?

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 07:44

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

You really like the strawmen and outlandish analogies. What I am saying has nothing to do with what you are saying.

Orc is the first branch in most games. Orc is more dangerous than lair. To an unspoiled player, there is no precedent for looking for another branch.

How such newbies get past sigmund on d:2? Who cares, but they do. I did, and as I've mentioned, I've seen many newbies doing this. Would anyone like some ttyrecs?
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Mines Malingerer

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 10:16

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

yo koboldord unless you finished the game unspoiled then don't go on about how fragile noobs need to learn their lesson. Unless you mean the oh so difficult lesson of looking up the crawl wiki/learndb

Even if you discovered on your own (which i doubt) that you do lair-->orc you used spoilers somewhere else which which means that part of the game was too hard for you.

Perma death makes trial by error very harsh. Its just too much of a time investment for a lot of noobs. i heard that ADOM and NETHACK got crazy hard because spoiled and experienced players kept amping up the difficulty. I read on the ADOM board that someone finished ADOM unspoiled but it took him 10 years.

I am so spoiled that it doesn't matter to me either way. BUT i am all for reducing frustration for noobs. Either switch orc with lair or explicitly tell people "orc is hard, skip this branch because there will be an easier one further down"
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 10:35

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Don't forget entry vaults. Sometimes, getting to the orc entry stairs as soon as you find them is no small feat. If you have difficulty in clearing the entry vault, then take it as a hint that the inside might be too tough for you. I agree with KL that this is teaching players the basic philosophy of crawl's gameplay. Don't go there just because it's there, just liek you don't kill this monster just because it's there.
That being said, I wouldn't oppose moving Orc a bit deeper so that it spawns more often after Lair, but that doesn't have to be systematic or guaranteed.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 11:29

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I don't think the current situation is a big problem. We made Orc more attractive (higher chance for shops, guaranteed shops on branch end) and we made Lair harder (branch cut, new monsters). I have no problems with keeping up in both directions, we can take it slow.

Also, it is not as if dipping your feet into Orc will regularly kill you. This gives everyone a chance to check what's going and possibly to turn away. (And that's why I don't consider this to be a grave problem.) If we reversed the Orc-Lair order, 2014 forum threads would be all about the insane spiny frog packs that kill characters each time they pop into Lair.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 14:12

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

If the goal is to send new players the message, "you can choose the branch you go down", then the simplest solution is to ensure that both the Orcish Mines and the Lair appear on the same level of the dungeon. This would explicitly point out to new players that there is a branch they could take other than the Mines. This is the first dungeon branch that new players see, so if there is anything we want them to learn about branches, we have to teach them right then and there.

KoboldLord: I would argue that there's a difference between branch difficulty and Sigmund. It's important for new players to learn that they don't have to kill everything, but one of the reasons you can learn that about Sigmund is that most monsters on D:2 aren't Sigmund. This makes it easier to understand that you can skip Sigmund: "Some monsters on D:2 are hard and some aren't, so I should avoid the hard ones, like Sigmund."

On the other hand, every time the player goes down a set of stairs, they enter an area which is harder than the area they just left. D:2 is harder than D:1. D:3 is harder than D:2. So yes, a new player who goes down the Orcish Mines stairs and sees harder monsters might die, but "go down stairs, meet harder monsters" is just how the game works, right? There is no separate set of stairs which leads to a D:4 where weaker monsters spawn than D:3. Sigmund appears on a level with many other monsters, which makes it easier to understand that Sigmund is the "wrong" monster to fight. New players don't have any basis for believing that the Orcish Mines are the "wrong" stairs to take - treating them as an alternative to the Lair is only something that spoiled players do because they know that there is a Lair later in the game.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:05

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Thasero wrote:On the other hand, every time the player goes down a set of stairs, they enter an area which is harder than the area they just left. D:2 is harder than D:1. D:3 is harder than D:2. So yes, a new player who goes down the Orcish Mines stairs and sees harder monsters might die, but "go down stairs, meet harder monsters" is just how the game works, right? There is no separate set of stairs which leads to a D:4 where weaker monsters spawn than D:3. Sigmund appears on a level with many other monsters, which makes it easier to understand that Sigmund is the "wrong" monster to fight. New players don't have any basis for believing that the Orcish Mines are the "wrong" stairs to take - treating them as an alternative to the Lair is only something that spoiled players do because they know that there is a Lair later in the game.


There's still three sets of regular stairs they can choose from, and doing more of the regular Dungeon is an obvious alternative if they're (quite reasonably) scared of large packs of orcs. The branch is called the Orcish Mines, after all, and part of what that implies is that the monsters will be thematically orcish. Orc packs are some of the hardest early-game monsters for most backgrounds, so it shouldn't be a huge leap of intuition that you should choose to do more of the area that isn't giving you trouble instead of the area that is. They've already seen Ossuaries and Sewers with their themed monster sets, so if they can work out that an Ossuary is easier for a necromancer with Dispel Undead than it is for a venom mage with only Venom Bolt, it shouldn't be unreasonable to put the Orcish Mines off until you have something good against orcs.

Also, Lair does sometimes spawn before Orc, so the hypothetical player who always hits the yellow staircase as soon as they see it regardless of whether it's a good idea will eventually find and try out Lair first. You can also learn about the branches by reading the supplied documentation, which is not a spoiler.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:29

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

This is the message players get when they see the first branch entry in hint mode:

This > is the entrance to a different branch of the dungeon, which might have
different terrain, level layout and monsters from the current main branch you're in.
Branches can range from being up to ten levels deep to having only a single level.
They can also contain entrances to other branches.

The first three branches you'll encounter are the Temple, the Orcish Mines and the
Lair. While the Mines and the Lair can be dangerous for the new adventurer, the
Temple is completely safe and contains a number of altars at which you might convert
_to a new god.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:40

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I am not sure I follow everyone around here, but it seems to indicate that Lair should get harder. We can slowly get there and I think it is a useful goal in itself (not just because players think Lair is easier than Orc and we're too lazy/dumb/whatever to switch branch orders).

galehar: Hints mode is good, but the ten is dated (not technically wrong, of course).

Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 16:41

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I'm not sure if this still happens, but if it does small point:
3 floor shaft in dungeon- bad, but possibly not lethal.
3 floor shaft in lair- probably not all that bad
3 floor shaft in orc- Death.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 18:19

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Eji1700 wrote:3 floor shaft in orc- Death.


Not necessarily -- as long as you're not in the vault, you're not guaranteed to run into anything nasty. Map if you can, head for the stairs, burn consumables if necessary. Getting shafted can kill you anywhere if you're unlucky.
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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 18:28

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

@galehar: While the hints mode quote is (mostly) correct, I feel it's (like most of Hints mode) much too verbose. (Unfortunately, I'm much too involved to be good at attempting to shorten the explanations.) The line you've highlighted would not have stood out to me on its own, and like minmay said, it's even of little informational value, especially because everything is dangerous when compared to the Temple.

Actually, that might be part of the problem. The first branch a new player encounters is the Ecumenical Temple, which is not only perfectly safe but also of extreme strategical value, so it might not even occur to them that a) the next branch will not only be more dangerous, but extremely so, and b) that entering it might not be worth the danger at that point. Even the early portal vaults are usually easier than the main dungeon at the same depth.

I'm not fully convinced that first levels of Orc will always be more dangerous than the first levels of Lair, though the bubbly layout certainly helps in making it so. However, I do think that the two ranges could be equalized to 7-12 for the both of them (currently, 6-11 Orc, 8-13 Lair) without losing any of the randomness or flavour. Should this step end up making Lair easier (or Orc harder) the monster distribution could be adjusted.
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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 18:56

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Try this rewording, mentioning "significantly tougher monsters" in the first sentence. Hopefully that will encourage the player to read on to the second paragraph...

This > is an entrance to a dungeon branch, which might contain significantly
tougher monsters than the current main branch you're in, as well as different terrain
and level layout. Branches can range from being up to ten levels deep to having only
a single level, and can contain entrances to other branches.

The first three branches you'll encounter are the Ecumenical Temple, the Orcish Mines, and
the Lair of Beasts. While the Mines and the Lair can be extremely dangerous for the new
adventurer, the Temple is completely safe and contains a number of altars at which you might
convert to a new god.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 20:25

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

My post was just meant to be informative. My point wasn't to say "This is what we already tell so everything is fine", but I didn't have the time to explain, sorry.

So yes, this is too wordy and a bit misleading, but it can be easily improved.

This > is the entrance to a different branch of the dungeon, which might have
different terrain, level layout and monsters from the current main branch you're in.

The first three branches you'll encounter are the Temple, the Orcish Mines and the
Lair. Temple is completely safe and contains a number of altars at which you might convert
_to a new god. Be aware that other branches can be dangerous.


I don't think it's necessary to explain that Orc is usually harder than Lair. Stating that branches can be dangerous is enough IMO. Of course, I'm a coder, not a writer, so there's still much room for improvement :)
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 21:06

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I'm curious as to all the theory crafting... How many people actually try to play unspoilered that aren't already familiar with the genre and going for a challenge? Not a rhetorical question by any means - I really don't know.

I understand that allowing for unspoilered victories is one of the design goals, but it seems that folks that are trying to actively play unspoilered would be smart enough and/or have the common sense to try different tactics. From my own experience and reading other nooblets from when I started playing and after it seems that most of us will hit plateaus in our playing until we learn how to deal with a particular threat/level.

If the design goal is to allow for an unspoilered victory the first time through the game then I can understand the effort put into theory crafting this discussion, but I assume that multiple attempts are expected in which place a player can learn (see Sigmund examples above) what things to avoid.
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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 22:02

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

bobross: When we (or at least I) claim that "Crawl is winnable for the unspoiled" then the immediate question is: With what effort? After all, in principle Nethack might be winnable fully unspoiled as well. What I have in mind is playing about hundred characters of an easy combination. I expect deaths in almost every branch end, and perhaps a few in Zot. It will go faster if the combination stays fixed.
With various degrees of purity (it is hard to be fully unspoiled these days) this has been done. And it shouldn't take a lifetime but just a few weeks or perhaps months :) (I know from the survey that many players are around for much longer and keep coming back. I suspect that they enjoy the game and just don't care about winning so much, which is a perfectly fine approach.)

Lair Larrikin

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 22:25

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

bobross419: Most people who play roguelikes are pretty willing to look up documentation and try different things; it's a 'hardcore' niche. So no, I don't think that unspoiled players will be doomed forever, or that it's even a particularly bad thing if you need to look up help to win the game.

It's a question of overall game design. If there are too many parts of the game that require spoiling to win, then the game tends to become less fun. Things you can figure out without spoiling are things that you discover yourself by finding them or by extrapolating logically based on previous experiences. Discovering winning tactics on your own is generally more enjoyable than looking up a playing guide on the Internet. People who hit a plateau and then come here to ask for advice do that because they were enjoying the game, are now stuck, and want to get back to enjoying the game later once they're unstuck. Rifling through forum threads and wiki pages is not generally the fun part in itself. It's not good if winning the game mostly involves memorizing obscure information.

It's expected that players will die before they win, but death should be a teachable moment. Sigmund kills you so that you learn that 1. named monsters are extremely dangerous and 2. you can run from enemies instead of fighting them. If the intention is that going into the Orcish Mines early and dying is supposed to teach you to evaluate branches and back out of the ones you can't handle, then it's important that the experience of dying in the Orcish Mines lets you draw the right conclusion. Also, I think that players will resist learning the lesson "don't go into the first branch you see" because that's, well, boring. People play dungeon-crawling games because they DO want to raid dangerous mines full of valuable treasure - branches are an interesting change of pace and players of a game will naturally be attracted to the option that gives them some novelty.

As far as the theorycraft - I've only recently started playing Crawl and just posted my first winner the last week. I didn't play unspoiled - I looked up a lot of things, and checked the source code, since I'm a programmer - but as I did that, I tried to notice things that I found surprising or unexpected. Also, I think the forum is a good place to check - if a piece of advice has to be given to newbies frequently, that's a sign that there's a problem with needing spoilers, especially if the advice comes in response to a YASD post where somebody asks "What did I do wrong?" and the advice goes "Yeah, new players often think that $FOO works but actually you need to do $BAR." That's a double-header, because it suggests that the newbie died without knowing why, and the solution is "conventional wisdom" among spoiled players.

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 22:30

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

I would reckon that the lesson "You don't have to kill everything." is much, much harder to learn for most new players than "You don't have to finish a branch in one go." I still don't understand the obsession with not entering Orc. This will be murderous only very rarely. The problem is threat assessment (just like with Sigmund): when to turn tails. This is hard to learn and one reason for the plateaus, in my opinion. I lack the fantasy to imagine that players get stuck at Crawl because they keep running into Orc and dying there. And the branch depths aren't fixed, anyway.

Lair Larrikin

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 23:46

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

To be clear, I don't think that the entrance to the Orcish Mines is actually some kind of horrifying newbie deathtrap. It's harder than the Lair, but it won't slaughter a player instantly. Instead, my concern is that the Mines being harder than the Lair was given the justification that players should know to evaluate branches, and if they don't know, finding the entrance to the harder branch first can teach them. I'm not convinced that the Orcish Mines do a good job of teaching this lesson, and since it's the first side branch most players see, it's unlikely that they will have learned from any other branch. Portal vaults are temporary and special, so players have a reason to believe that the rules and strategies of portal vaults do not apply to regular, non-timed stairs. Players can learn that yellow stairs are different than other stairs and have different rules and strategies, but the difference we want players to learn - the monsters here are tougher than the ones above - is not actually a difference; all downwards stairs lead to areas that contain, on average, more difficult monsters.

If the Mines are supposed to teach players that they can choose branches, it's probably best for the Mines to have either a drastically harder first level - something like the entrance to Vaults:8, which is a very clear signal stating "You Must Be At Least This Badass To Enter The Level" - or to be on the same level as the Lair, either literally guaranteed on the same level, or with a distribution that makes it equally likely players will find the Lair first; if players frequently see either the Lair or the Mines first, they have a good chance of noticing the important differences and realizing that they will see the other one if they keep going.

On the other hand, if we don't want to go that far to teach players about branches, it's probably not safe to assume that players enter $SOME_BRANCH knowing they have alternatives unless the $SOME_BRANCH in question is at least the second one in the dungeon. If you've cleared one side branch and see another, you're naturally ready to think, "I wonder how this branch is different than the one I already saw" - and comparing the nature and difficulty of branches is the desired behavior. (Or if you just skipped the first branch, obviously you already know that you can do that.)

Snake Sneak

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Post Monday, 19th September 2011, 23:48

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Well, it looks like there is not support for putting orc beneath lair, but I think it's worth looking at some of the other proposals:

1) match the depth range of orc and lair to 7-12 (jpeg)

2) ensure that both branches are generated on the same level each game (thasero)

3) leave orc alone and make lair slightly tougher (dpeg)

Personally, 2 is my favorite, but it is also the one that I bet the devs like least. In which case I think matching the depth ranges is a very simple and logical change. Increasing lair difficulty seems a little off, since it would encourage more hopping in and out of branches since the dungeon would be increasingly safe compared to the branches. I think lair difficulty is fine, but I'm always for increasing the variety of challenges. Cheers for basilisks and catobeplas (catobepli?)

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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 00:30

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

You are taking this far too serious and make it way too complicated, in my opinion. I'd bet that Linley put the branches where they are for one simple reason: Orc is short and Lair is big (back then, it was ten levels), and this does not even account for the subbranches. It seems natural that access to the larger branch is more valuable, hence it should come later. (This assumes that both branches are suitable for the early game, which they are.)
The fact which branch is harder depends on a myriad of things, many of which have been changed over the years (monsters themselves, monster generation, monster AI). It would be interesting to see whether the branch depths were changed at all, and if so, when.

I never said that Orc should come before Lair for pedagogical purposes. I defend status quo for what I claim to be Linley's reason (the larger of the two branches should come later). Also, players know orcs and orc wizards and orc priests by D:7. Lair offers a completely new set of monsters.

Lair is on average easier than Orc because there are fewer lethal threats (I can think of spiny frogs on old Lair:1 levels; hydras on Lair:1 I've only seen since the branch cut; I do recall an earlyish lindwurm in an old version, though) compared with all the ranged attacks and well-armed melee fighters of Orc. I still doubt this matters for most players (it does matter a lot for optimal play, of course). It might be interesting to have a look at http://www.swallowtail.org/crawl/branches.shtml -- this is a pre-DCSS spoiler about branches.

I continue to claim that no action is really necessary, Crawl has much bigger problems than this. Guppyfry's (2) is indeed out of the question for me, as it reduces variance considerably for what I consider very little gain.

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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 02:43

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

dpeg wrote:I lack the fantasy to imagine that players get stuck at Crawl because they keep running into Orc and dying there.

There are actually some cases I had in mind when I brought this issue up. For example, the online player mafalda has no wins and approximately 500 games that have not ended in the branch 'd'. Approximately 50% of those games ended in orc, with an average xl of 9.98. He has also died in elf twice at xl 12.

The online player coweater has no wins and 112 games that have not ended in 'd'. Approximately 50% of these were in orc with an average xl of 9.24. 7 of those games ended in elf with an average xl of 13.57.

Another point I would like to add is that there are other reasons lair is generally a better first branch to visit than orc than danger. It is more directly rewarding in experience, random items, etc. OTOH, I usually visit orc afterwards to gain piety/gold or to shop on orc:4. So what we have IMO is two branches, one that is better to enter first but that tends to appear second. Yes, players should learn branch preferences, but objectively speaking, if I saw that case in some new game it would seem strange to me.

That being said, I agree that this is not the most pressing concern. I agree that even unspoiled players should adapt, explore, and think for themselves. But I fully support tweaking the range.
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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 03:19

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

minmay wrote:That's probably worse than saying nothing at all considering that Lair is nearly always easier than the dungeon level you enter it from...


I've been jumped by multiple spiny and blink frogs the moment I set foot in Lair 1. Unlike the Dungeon level you enter it from, you can't run back upstairs and try a different stairwell. It's also more likely that you'll draw fast monsters that you can't outrun in Lair 1, and depending on your background there might not be much else in either Lair or Dungeon that can threaten you seriously.

Lair 1 is usually easier than Dungeon of the same absolute depth, but 'nearly always' seems rather strong. Orc 1 is also usually pretty tame, key word being 'usually'.

Eji1700 wrote:I'm not sure if this still happens, but if it does small point:
3 floor shaft in dungeon- bad, but possibly not lethal.
3 floor shaft in lair- probably not all that bad
3 floor shaft in orc- Death.


This is not my experience. In my experience getting vigorously shafted is likely to be a dire emergency regardless of where it happens. I've started to expect Lair 5-7 shaftings to put me right in the Lair 8 vault. I've falled into the same part of the cow vault twice, and I'm pretty sure that was just added to Trunk recently. I've also fallen right into the Hell vault and frog vault repeatedly, and the worm vault once. I've taken to putting more points in traps & doors than I used to…

mikee wrote:There are actually some cases I had in mind when I brought this issue up. For example, the online player mafalda has no wins and approximately 500 games that have not ended in the branch 'd'. Approximately 50% of those games ended in orc, with an average xl of 9.98. He has also died in elf twice at xl 12.

The online player coweater has no wins and 112 games that have not ended in 'd'. Approximately 50% of these were in orc with an average xl of 9.24. 7 of those games ended in elf with an average xl of 13.57.


If, as you presume, these people are diving into the first branch they see regardless on whether it is wise to do so, wouldn't switching Orc and Lair depths just cause them to dive into Swamp/Snake/Shoals at the first opportunity and die just the same? What solution do you propose that would actually fix the problem they're having, rather than just moving it to Swamp/Snake/Shoals?

mikee wrote:Another point I would like to add is that there are other reasons lair is generally a better first branch to visit than orc than danger. It is more directly rewarding in experience, random items, etc. OTOH, I usually visit orc afterwards to gain piety/gold or to shop on orc:4.


Orc 1-3 provides:
branded light or heavy body armor
branded weapons probably superior to what you've found
MASSIVE amounts of piety for kill gods
money
moderate chance of random shops
access to Baileys, Volcanos, Ice Caverns

Lair 1-7 provides:
large amounts of xp
random floor trash, some of which is still likely to be useful
access to Volcanos, Ice Caverns, and Spiders' Nests

My preference depends on what I need at the time. I often find that I simply don't have the tools I need to confront the bigger threats in Lair by the time I find it, and Orc is usually helpful. If you meet a couple black mambas at the same time and aren't prepared for them, they can easily kill you, but an orc knight or warlord will simply chase you to the stairs. Orc will get me spellbooks from Vehumet, Kiku, or Sif Muna, equipment from Okawaru or Trog, minions from Fedhas or Yred, decks from Nemelex. That sometimes matters.

Mikee wrote:So what we have IMO is two branches, one that is better to enter first but that tends to appear second. Yes, players should learn branch preferences, but objectively speaking, if I saw that case in some new game it would seem strange to me.


Let's not overstate the difference, here. I'd say I attempt to clear Orc 1-3 before Lair 3+ in about 30% of my games. I'd probably do it before Lair 1-2 in these games, but I'm an incorrigible packrat who wants an orderly-looking stash. Sometimes I run back out of Orc 1-3 with my tail between my legs, but other times I loot Orc 1-3 of shops and robes without seeing anything worse than an orc warrior. Rarely do I get killed in there.
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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 08:06

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

mikee wrote:Another point I would like to add is that there are other reasons lair is generally a better first branch to visit than orc than danger. It is more directly rewarding in experience, random items, etc.

This is a bit offtopic but elliptic suggested on irc to increase the HD of lowly orcs. It would make them a bit more dangerous but they would also provide much more XP.
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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 13:57

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Orc has gotten more vaults for placing the entry stairs (not entry vaults on Orc:1, the D-level vaults) in recent versions, and they've been given populations on par with what you might see if you descend into Orc:1 into a smallish bubble. I think that fulfills the "you must be at least this badass to attack the branch" qualification.

Orc is not inherently more dangerous than Lair from the monster population alone. What it does force is a change in tactics -- you don't have corridors at all and very few real chokepoints, but you do have swarming monsters. And in many cases you have small map bubbles rather than expansive levels. There's a lot of "omg, how do I get away from the priest that's smiting me" as a result. But unless you get an early sorcerer or troll, you're not going to see anything in Orc:1-2 that you have not already seen up to that point. Lair:1-2 can hit you with a lot of things that are first-time encounters.

My personal main reason for putting off Orc till after Lair in many cases (about 3 in 4 games) is that I just don't want to have to work too hard at it. I want to thoroughly curb-stomp the orcs when I go into the Mines. I'll do the first level or two early on in some cases if I really need the resources, but that's rare for me.
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Snake Sneak

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Post Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 23:38

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

Ok, I accept that this is not a big deal and would go against a legacy of design logic going back to way before I ever saw this game. I thought it was a minor logical tweak, but I can see that there are a lot of assumptions involved that plenty of people disagree with.
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Post Wednesday, 21st September 2011, 13:17

Re: Orcish Mines and Hopping

In my personal experience, Orc 1-3 are of highly variable difficulty, depending on what happens to spawn in them.

The statement "Orc 1 is usually harder than Lair 1" would be completely false for me, because I rarely see anything harder than an orc warrior on Orc 1, and often there aren't even any of those, whereas I usually find blink frogs, spiny frogs, black mambas, or all of the above on Lair 1, and for the characters I play, those are much greater threats than orc warriors.

I usually do Orc after Lair, simply because Lair's difficulty on a given floor is usually much easier to anticipate, and because I don't want to get peppered with draining and distortion weapon attacks because the RNG is feeling spiteful that day and I can't 1-shot every orc I see yet.

But if I need a weapon that I think the orcs are going to give me, or I want piety, I may do Orc 1 or 2 before finishing Lair.

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