Two more abyss/banishment proposals


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

Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 13:30

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

What if there were some way for the player, once banished, to "turn it up a notch" in exchange for more likely access to rune/exit? Anyone seeking to just survive would avoid these and just run - but someone seeking to quickly "take on the Abyss and win" could choose to pursue this option.

For instance - there could be a "portal deeper into the abyss" that is pretty common, and stepping through increases the danger factor as well as the likelihood of rune/exit generation.

Or - perhaps there could be flagged monsters - "champions of Lugonu", perhaps - killing these would increase the danger factor etc. They wouldn't necessarily be any different than the "normal" denizens of the abyss, but they could be..

Or - perhaps there could be some equivalent of Pan Lords, a "boss monster", who would spawn either a rune or exit upon being vanquished. They'd need to be escapable for lower level banishees, but tough(ish) for high level banishees. Something like a kraken that is hard to kill, but relatively easy to escape.

For this message the author JeffQyzt has received thanks:
rebthor

Halls Hopper

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 16:05

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

What if the chance of a exit appears increases inversely with XL level below XL12? ie. 100% increased chance at XL1 and as current at XL12
I usually survive abyss half the time at early levels.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 16:11

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

What if Lugonu gave you some protection from the wrath of the other gods?

Then there would be more incentive to convert if you saw the altar - and maybe if the level of protection increased with piety then it would be a kind of race to get Lugonu piety up as quickly as possible.

Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 16:15

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

I think what minmay and JeffQyzt said both have merit. Even for a character equipped to handle the Abyss, which my current character is, my recent banishment was an annoyance. (Hey, I know I was walking around with borderline MR near a bunch of things that could banish, so that's my fault. I also knew that the Abyss wouldn't be that dangerous to me.) I wasn't "ready" for my Abyss rune hunt, mostly because I didn't have rMut but also because I wasn't in the mindset. Had I had the ability to "dive" in the Abyss for an increased chance at a rune and/or exit, you can bet I would have taken it instead of blowing 1200 turns that I'll probably just reprise later on.

Slime Squisher

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 16:28

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

One possibility is an increase in the number closed-off elective-entrance (doors? Abyss-y versions of doors?) of abyss vaults, which have a relatively high chance of containing a portal or rune but have much stronger monsters than the rest of the abyss. So weak characters who cannot deal with that avoid them and try to find a normal abyss exit, but strong characters will tackle them and both have a shorter and more interesting abyss experience. Isn't the rune usually in a vault now anyway?

Maybe there are certain tiles you can stand on outside of a square walled vault such that the wall will morph around you and alow you entrance but also close behind until you've cleared the vault/buggot the rune.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 17:32

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

I like the idea of Lucy protecting to an extent from the wrath of other gods. Changing your god is already a major, major game-changer; adding wrath on top of that means that taking Lucy to leave abyss is often extraordinarily impractical. If it's supposed to be an interesting choice, mitigating wrath would go a long way towards that.

One possibility is an increase in the number closed-off elective-entrance (doors? Abyss-y versions of doors?) of abyss vaults, which have a relatively high chance of containing a portal or rune but have much stronger monsters than the rest of the abyss. So weak characters who cannot deal with that avoid them and try to find a normal abyss exit, but strong characters will tackle them and both have a shorter and more interesting abyss experience. Isn't the rune usually in a vault now anyway?

Both rune and exit are now in vaults very frequently, and the situation is about what you described.

Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 18:12

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

RE: Lugonu protecting from other gods' wrath - that's what banishment and corruption are for. If there's a threat you can't deal with, either banish it, banish yourself, or corrupt the level.
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 21:12

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

JeffQyzt wrote:RE: Lugonu protecting from other gods' wrath - that's what banishment and corruption are for. If there's a threat you can't deal with, either banish it, banish yourself, or corrupt the level.

And if Trog sends 6 berserk stone giants after you before you've gotten the required piety/invo?

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 21:50

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

Using banishment etc is also only relevant for gods who send minions to punish you - it won't help if Kiku decides to torment you or Vehumet sends a conjuration miscast.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 7th March 2012, 22:17

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

If Kiku torments you or you get Conjuration miscasted it doesn't mean anything unless there are enemies around, and if there are you can self-banish if you're really in a bad spot.

Slime Squisher

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2012, 16:31

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

or we could completely axe god wrath, then swapping to lugonu doesn't add that extra layer of frustration/tedium. seriously, now that I've got some crawl experience, I don't see how wrath adds to the game. isn't losing all your piety punishment enough? (this is a subject for another thread though...)

Dungeon Master

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2012, 16:42

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

eeviac wrote:or we could completely axe god wrath, then swapping to lugonu doesn't add that extra layer of frustration/tedium. seriously, now that I've got some crawl experience, I don't see how wrath adds to the game. isn't losing all your piety punishment enough? (this is a subject for another thread though...)


The problem is that wrath is broken and/or irrelevant. Being able to switch Gods for free opens up a whole can of abuse and makes balancing religion much harder. That's actually the problem right now - some wrath is effectively "free" already because there's an exploit.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2012, 22:39

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

Maybe changing your god should not involve wrath (or a little for flavor), but reduce the max piety cap for the next god, so changing will be more meaningful.
But anyway we diverge from the subject, for wrath we already have the wiki!
Please only abyss/lugonu related in this thread.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Friday, 9th March 2012, 02:19

Re: Two more abyss/banishment proposals

On the topic of the new Abyss generating more exits, I just got this:

Image

This was immediately south of a vault containing a third exit, which I saw the moment I entered the Abyss. Total time in Abyss: 45 turns.

  Code:
 14491 | D:12     | Cast into the Abyss (Joseph)
 14491 | Abyss    | Entered The Abyss
 14536 | D:12     | You pass through the gate.
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