Difficulty with ascension

[Bim]

Hello,
Not to be a sore loser (as I happened to die on the way up with the Orb) but the difficulty seems to have been ramped up significantly from the times I've ascended previously. I don't know if this was just the god of RNG being especially brutal, but to say how easily I took all the other runes (except Pan/Abyss which I couldn't be bothered with and Tomb (as I was with Yred)) and pretty much waltzed through Zot:5 (I didn't even have to retreat off the level once), I felt it was a bit too much.

Although it should be a struggle, I was practically one shotted (as a MiDK with 46 armour, 275hp, rF+++, rC++, rL++) as soon as I came up one of the stairs by a Pan Lord and multiple hell sentries and tormentors.

If it was just RNG being particularly unkind (and I'm just being a sore loser), could there possibly be a warning on picking up the Orb (didn't there used to be)?

[Psieye]

46 armour, rF+++, rC++, rL++

All completely irrelevant against what you were up against: torment and hellfire. It's hard to say whether the RNG was being particularly unfair or not without more specific tactical information but it does seem unusual that you had all of them just be there as soon as you walked up the stairs.

[crate]

There is a warning when you pick up the orb. Try reading the messages.

[ebarrett]

I'm not an extraordinary player and I have never died after picking up the orb in 67+ occasions, so it's pretty clear even without any additional information that, somehow, You Screwed Up.

Getting rid of the orb run, or of most of it, is something that has been thrown around, tho - but because it's too easy and boring, not because people dying after picking up the orb is a concern. If the orb run is to exist, it should probably be able to kill the player more often than it currently does.

[byrel]

I'm not an extraordinary player and I have never died after picking up the orb in 67+ occasions, so it's pretty clear even without any additional information that, somehow, You Screwed Up.

Getting rid of the orb run, or of most of it, is something that has been thrown around, tho - but because it's too easy and boring, not because people dying after picking up the orb is a concern. If the orb run is to exist, it should probably be able to kill the player more often than it currently does.

Well, I've only ascended once, so my experience may be exceptional, but I found the ascension run both trivial and short. It took maybe 2 minutes, if that. A few Pan lord spawned, but I just treated then like any powerful threat I didn't need to kill (controlled blinks, teleports, etc.) and ran. And that was with 137 HP. I don't know if I was lucky in terms of either difficulty or time, but it felt like a sprint interrupted by a bit of interesting tactics. Not unpleasant, boring or grindy feeling at all.

I did once die on ascension, but that was to an OoF in Zot:5, due to bad tactics; hardly unexpected.

[Bim]

I accept that I may have screwed up, but as others have said, I've mostly found it trivial in past games, and it seemed strange that in this game (playing trunk), when Zot was so, so easy that the Orb Run was so difficult comparatively. I don't think that it should be made easier, just that it should be more of a gradual gradient.

I should have made it clearer: I know there is a message, but there isn't a question (or at least, I don't think it is) of 'Once you pick this up the legions of hell will be after you, pick it up?' as there are for things like vampiric wielding and so on.

Again, It's fine if it was just RNG being nasty, but to say that I had good resistances, huge HP and still died in about two turns it seems a bit excessive compared to Zot which I waltzed through.

[yogaFLAME]

I like the orb run. If crawl is a story, it is the denouement.

[rebthor]

It sounds like it was perhaps bad luck but statements like

I was practically one shotted

still died in about two turns

make me wonder what really happened. Can you post the morgue and then people here can then determine if it was bad luck or bad tactics.

[crate]

Right, there's no prompt for picking up the orb (and I don't see why there should be one; it might be kind of dangerous but it's also necessary to win the game), but when you pick it up Crawl is pretty clear that Bad Things are going to happen.

Anyway my only orbrun death so far wasnt really an orbrun death ... I did a really bad zot:5 ninja and then found myself on the orb with about 20 hp so I just picked it up for the hell of it and immediately died. I would like the game to end when you get the orb to zot:4 since that pretty much just saves time without really changing anything gameplay-wise.

[Pereza0]

Maybe the player, upon taking the orb notices a hidden dumbwaiter that takes him straight to the surface. Ogres don't fit in because they are supposed to be challenging.

[Psieye]

Well, for a new player the orb run is a chance to meet Pan/Hell denizens. Problem is, the game can't tell whether you're a newbie who will find the run interesting or a veteran who has stomped on demon faces for aeons.

[Pereza0]

Probably not a good idea, but just a fun thing that occurred to me.

What if in the orb run, apart from demons and such, tough and not so tough monsters from branches the player has cleared show up to "say goodbye"? It would be a decent way to scale the difficulty (those who cleared the tomb might get mummies, those who cleared Snake get nagas...) and it serves a a sort of closure too. Maybe it would be a good way of introducing branch specific uniques that did not show up in theirs for some reason too.

[Davion Fuxa]

What about just making it so that as soon as you pick up the Orb of Zot and exit the Realm of Zot, the 27 Dungeon Levels you Transversed are turned into 'Exit Levels' that are unexplored, and to win the game you need to blindly run around trying to find the Up Staircases to get out.

[mumra]

I tend to think that during the run, the walls of reality should be crashing down around you as the entire forces of zot, all the hells, pan, the abyss, and the whole pantheon of gods are thrown against you in an attempt to stop you getting out alive. It should be the hardest thing in the game but for most characters it's a walk in the park, even since the "spicing up". Rewriting all 27 levels of the dungeon is a bit extreme but certainly large sections could be changed, and I'm imagining things like a rift to hell cracking open (perhaps blocking your way to some stairs) with demons pouring out; or an angelic host, archangels and all, dispatched by Zin to hunt you down and stop you in your tracks. We could have an entire new set of monsters / uniques reserved just for this part of the game. Of course this is all very difficult to design and execute well whilst still being possible to win; and will probably upset a ton of players.

On the other hand, we could make the argument that once you hold the orb you're supposed to be the most powerful thing in the universe (or else what does it actually do?) - in which case the game should probably just end as soon as you get it.

[byrel]

You could always go the nethack route: make an twisted cross between a rakshasa and Boris afflict you at regular intervals. But even there it tended to be completely nonthreatening to anyone who was just trying to get out of there...

[Vulkandrache]

I tend to think that during the run, the walls of reality should be crashing down around you as the entire forces of zot, all the hells, pan, the abyss, and the whole pantheon of gods are thrown against you in an attempt to stop you getting out alive.
...
On the other hand, we could make the argument that once you hold the orb you're supposed to be the most powerful thing in the universe (or else what does it actually do?) - in which case the game should probably just end as soon as you get it.

Are you not allready giving the solution to that problem?

In my games the ascension was really easy, yes.


What if the orb actually did what you wrote there? Make you so powerful you are basically Chuck Norris.

And then the game makes shit hit the fan. The only ally you have left is the god you are worshipping,
because he's hoping you spare him.

The rest of everything is pouring out of the walls to get you, making hard Zig27 look like a toy store.
Daeva's fighting along Panlords because, for once, they got a common foe. With every floor swarming with
dozens of HARD enemys.

This would essentially change the ascension from "making a run for floor1"(wether hard or not right now)
to a tour of mass-slaughter aimed at floor1.

But the denziens of the dungeon do not want you escaping even after you became the next god of gods.
You can fail there, because they send so much against you that you need to be carefull still.

And if i'm talking about the orb making you powerful im not just talking about:
"A boost to skills and attributes, AC, EV, SH and Hp/Mp."
I'm talking the entire system gets blown out of proportion.
Level 3 Regen, +X0 to Str, Dex, Int; all Resists set to r++++(yes, 4) and unlimited nutrition
are among the less impressive things.

Doubling the value of every skill you got might be an appropriate first step to make you kill things.
54 fighting! and 250 max Hp extra on top of that. You will need them.
Something along those lines.

I've had characters capable of clearing Zig27 without much problem, i kind of know how powerful character
can get right now. But such an ascension would have the flair of a culmination.

For balance reasons it might be necessary to tone all that down a notch if the orb is picked up with less than 15 runes.

[dpeg]

I realise that the complaints about overly boring orb runs come from exceptionally good players. Yes, if you're doing the orb run on a regular basis, it may feel like a chore.
On the other hand, we get admonished every so often to not design the game exclusively for the elite. And for those players, I dare say, the orb run has a meaning. First, it closes the character's story: you revisit all the dungeon levels you've been on, and you leave the dungeon where you entered. There is a reason why all roguelikes of the Hack branch (Rogue included) have an endgame like this. Second, the orbrun provides some in-game theme, that I like: you may never venture to raid Pan, but the Pan lords come after you anyway, indicating that something larger than just adventurers is concerned about the orb. (In good Crawl style, the narrative is not made explicit, and there's no words spent on it.) Third, it does not really take long, and occasionally creates some tension. People have even died from it! -- What's not to like?

To sum up: the orbrun is probably far from perfect (like everything in Crawl), but it's a lot better than it used to be (in all regards I mentioned above) and I see no reason to get rid of it.