I think Hall of Blades should be reworked (or removed?).

[xzanthius]

I like the concept of animated weapons but the hall of blades doesn't make much sense as it stands. There should be something on the other side. There should be a reason to either clear it or run through it. Otherwise why have what amounts to a giant room full of animated sentries guard an empty dead end.

[hxy]

If nobody wants to enter HoB now, why would anyone want to go in when it appears as a portal?
The dancing weapons can be used elsewhere though.. maybe give it as a spell to certain types of monsters.

[crate]

well the dancing weapons that occasionally find their way into other vaults are also really annoying, just less so since there are fewer of them

[Bim]

I think it doesn't fit as it's too gimmicky and seems pointless to most characters at that stage of the game. Most players have a good/good enough weapon, and it just seems like a slog without any real rewards.

As has been mentioned, renaming it 'the armoury' or something, and having it with suits of armour, dancing weapons and possibly some sort of deep dwarf smiths/wizards, would make it an interesting enough branch. It could be three levels, have an end vault of good stuff (like a much smaller elf) and large open rooms similar to what it does now. I'd also like to see fire vents (there are already similar things that I've seen in certain vaults) which hinder easy movement and add a bit of flavour.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I'm still of the mind of merging Blade into Vaults. And by that I mean just sometimes (or always, depending on how cruel whoever is coding feels) have some of the random weapon loot in Vault spawn as animated. Frequently enough that you should encounter a few animated weapons but not so many that you'll feel like you're battling a swarm of them.

[Bim]

I think the problem with that is that animated weapons can be very dangerous (especially if you''re using any kind of non-direct physical damage dealing methods of taking stuff down) and they can deal some serious damage. Not that one or two couldn't be as a one off, but I think there's a lot to be said for partitioning them off a bit.

[BlackSheep]

What about making the Hall of Blades a normal encompass vault that appears in the Vaults/D? That would force people to go through it when it generates, and we could tweak the weight so that it doesn't appear often enough to be boring. We could also mess with stair placement if we thought the floor would be skipped too much.

Combine that with the rune lock proposal and we may be close to a way to make players get runes earlier.

[cjo]

I like the Hall of Blades thematically, but I rarely go there because the risk isn't worth the reward (for reasons other posters have already explained).

I'd like to see it adjusted so it's more worthwhile. Since the major reward of the Hall of Blades is the chance to get a branded weapon, I think it could be moved earlier. (Obviously it would have to be made easier in this case.) HoB fits thematically into Vaults, but it would also fit decently well into Orc or into the main dungeon. If HoB showed up either in Orc or sometime between Lair and Vaults, I think it would be more tempting.

Ways to make it easier:
-give dancing weapons normal movement speed
-vary the layout so weapons are found in several small rooms, and you're less likely to get swarmed
-reduce resistances to rF+ and rC+ instead of rF++ and rC++. Metal melts, and metal becomes brittle when sufficiently cold.
-reduce their EV

I also like the idea of making it a portal vault, but only if other changes are also made. If a branch is too hard to be tempting, making it into a portal just makes it less tempting. But if the HoB were easier, a portal could create a case where a player had to choose between playing it safe vs. distortion branded weapons vs getting earlier access to a powerful weapon of their chosen type.

All this assumes that part of the point is to tempt players with weapons. If the point is just to make a hard level, then yeah, the HoB could be pushed deeper.

[rebthor]

I think cjo is onto something. If it were either occurring off of Orc or even possibly Elf or as a portal off of Lair, I think I'd be tempted to go in more often than not. Of course, the layout would have to be made more survivable to an early teens character.

[njvack]

I also like the idea of making it a portal vault

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... a's_Studio

[rosstin]

What if you make the weapons a little easier and put it earlier in the dungeon, when you might actually need a weapon? And put a small vault room in there with some other treasure, so there's a payoff. You could also have a few more chokepoints to reduce the pain of the branch.

[Sandman25]

I also like the idea of making it a portal vault

http://crawl.chaosforge.org/index.php?t ... a's_Studio

Too bad wizlab is not generated in every game and there are too many wizlab layouts. I have never seen the studio.

[Siegurt]

IMHO Tukima's studio is one of the more boring wizlabs as well.

From what I heard, back in high school, Ozocubu, Iskenderun, and Lehudib used to be a mean little gang and make fun of Tukima and call him ugly stole his stuff and blew up his experiments. I heard he got so lonely he made inanimate objects into is friends. Tukima showed up at one of Allistair's parties and everybody just laughed him right out of there. (Although I also heard Lee laughed so hard he wet his pants...)

[Jenchy]

I like the Armory idea better, but more of a Armory of everything. Make it 3 or 4 deep branch, each floor has an animated theme. First floor is animate weapons, second floor is animated rods/wands, third floor are perhaps animated spell books. At the end of the floor is a unique that has been responsible for animated everything, kind of like Gastronok. Then everyone has a reason to possible enter and get something.

Taking a bit further, if you kill the unique you could stop/remove all animated items in the dungeon.

[Igxfl]

What if HoB were filled with skilled weapon users rather than animated weapons? It could have some ranged weapon users too, and maybe a loot pile at the back. Balanced carefully, it could be an optional level that is often but not always worthwhile and isn't horrifically tedious.

[Fergy]

What if dancing branded weapons gained an ability based on the brand of the weapon? (This would only apply to HoB and Monster Tukima's Dance)

Holy = Holy aura
Fire = Flame cloud trail
Distortion = Blink
Antimagic = Silence aura
Speed = hasted
Reaching = Constriction

[Igxfl]

What if dancing branded weapons gained an ability based on the brand of the weapon? (This would only apply to HoB and Monster Tukima's Dance)

Holy = Holy aura
Fire = Flame cloud trail
Distortion = Blink
Antimagic = Silence aura
Speed = hasted
Reaching = Constriction

What if Hall of Blades were basically the same, but even worse?

[Fergy]

What if Hall of Blades were basically the same, but even worse?

I was thinking that the weapons would gain that intrinsic, but not deal damage as if it was a branded weapon.

i.e. A distortion axe would be able to blink at will, but would not cause distortion upon hit.

[Igxfl]

If the weapons could also not have AC/EV >> HP and rEverything++, then that could work decently well. It would definitely make monster Tukima's Dance more interesting.

[Fergy]

Maybe base that on weapon properties. A dagger would be like a killer bee, while a heavy club would be like an ogre.

Only give rFoo+, further bonuses would be based on brand. (Flame brand would have rFire+++ and no cold resist, Protection brand would have rFoo++)

[rosstin]

What if you just made the Hall of Blades smaller, with more chokepoints, and a loot chamber?

I know I made a similar comment earlier, I'm just thinking if it was say half the size that would greatly reduce the tedium. Chokepoints mean that you can try to avoid being surrounded (but you can still get screwed if there is another corridor somewhere out of LOS, so you can't feel too safe.) A stash of treasure means that you would have an incentive to take a risk and dash for the loot, possibly getting surrounded and slaughtered. The stash should always have a randart or artifact weapon.

I think that would make it an interesting branch.

[Tiranous]

Perhaps always have a vault inside with a boss and several dancing weapons. The vault would always contain at least 1 scroll of acquirement and perhaps some weapon/armor shops. This would make it worth visiting.

[Amnesiac]

I always enter HoB and just swoosh through it and forget the next moment so I've never considered it boring or interesting. Though it is boring now that I think about it. But it's still just a singe small level. It may be annoying for a melee fighter(I don't play them), but for conjurers, enchangers and characters who have an access to invisibility they are not a problem. So my point is that I don't care much, but I think it's a good idea to do something like removing or making it less boring.

[roctavian]

I think rosstin's suggestion about an easier, slightly earlier Blade -- as a portal vault -- would be nice. Something you can encounter between Lair and Vaults in case the loot from Orc:4 isn't enough. If it we smaller that would be good, but it still probably needs a shot in the arm in terms of "interesting."

[Speleothing]

While I agree with the posters who suggested moving it earlier in D (where it's more useful), I think the Vorpalize change may help it out a lot.
Was that part of the intention?
A guaranteed Vorpalize scroll in the HoB would be a big bonus for entering it.

[khalil]

While I agree with the posters who suggested moving it earlier in D (where it's more useful), I think the Vorpalize change may help it out a lot.
Was that part of the intention?
A guaranteed Vorpalize scroll in the HoB would be a big bonus for entering it.

The vorpal brand isn't that good, and the really good brands (pain, distortion?) backlash at you when you try to vorpalize them.
It'd basically mean that you just get a minor (draining, vampiric) brand guaranteed to be on a good weapon.

[XuaXua]

I would love to see Evocations increase the power of Brands and the use of Scrolls in the same way it enhances enhancer staves.

[Speleothing]

The vorpal brand isn't that good, and the really good brands (pain, distortion?) backlash at you when you try to vorpalize them.
It'd basically mean that you just get a minor (draining, vampiric) brand guaranteed to be on a good weapon.

Vorpalize now rebrands already-branded weapons, weighted toward Flaming, Freezing, Venom.

http://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/commit ... 24250f765a

Or at least, the code is there.

[reaver]

The vorpal brand isn't that good

The vorpal brand has been flatly buffed recently. The additional damage went from
1 + random2(damage_done) / 4 to 1 + random2(damage_done) / 3

[bcadren]

(1) As to making it more worthwhile; something that came up in the irc channel; what if it had guaranteed spawn uniques towards the end. It seems like most branches have a unique boss these days, even ones with no rune and in this case the boss could be it's own reward. Just need to be different ones based on either regular acquirement code or highest stat relevant to the hall. Could be from existing fixedArts or new fixedArts for unique bosses. Saving that at least the two existing bosses could be based on acquirement or stats so that it's semi-always worthwhile for melee characters.

(2) I also support the idea of adding walking armors for variety. Could take on the appearance of walking armor from haunted house movies for half of them and FF Black Mages for the other half. Walking armors could either be archers or 90% tanks (like walking mushrooms) [Made up of armor, gauntlets and shoes when killed, plus the ranged weapon if being archers] and the Black Mages could be, well mages [made up of robe, wizard hat, gloves, shoes and enhancer staff when killed; kind of magic they used based on the enhancer]. THAT SAID; doing this, though it might make the HoB worthwhile to non-melee characters, might stand to make it delude the theme a bit, by have living armors and robes as well as dancing weapons. Though it might be a bit OOD, dragonskin armors acting like Draconians of the same color without needing a weapon would also be interesting.

[Hurkyl]

On flavor, I think a more traditional mix with dancing blades would be ghosts and hex-casting enemies, in a sort of haunted house style. Fits with Tukima's Dance being a hex spell too.

But I confess, I really like the flavor of the Hall of Blades as is.

[reaver]

(1) As to making it more worthwhile; something that came up in the irc channel; what if it had guaranteed spawn uniques towards the end. It seems like most branches have a unique boss these days, even ones with no rune and in this case the boss could be it's own reward. Just need to be different ones based on either regular acquirement code or highest stat relevant to the hall. Could be from existing fixedArts or new fixedArts for unique bosses. Saving that at least the two existing bosses could be based on acquirement or stats so that it's semi-always worthwhile for melee characters.

Considering some people have mentioned diving into the Hall of Blades in hopes of removing a unique from generation so they don't have to fight it, I doubt this would work.

I still think it would be best to just remove Blade at this point.

[Amnesiac]

If it has some kind of flavor it's a flavor of a weapons dump

[Hurkyl]

(1) As to making it more worthwhile; something that came up in the irc channel; what if it had guaranteed spawn uniques towards the end. It seems like most branches have a unique boss these days, even ones with no rune and in this case the boss could be it's own reward. Just need to be different ones based on either regular acquirement code or highest stat relevant to the hall. Could be from existing fixedArts or new fixedArts for unique bosses. Saving that at least the two existing bosses could be based on acquirement or stats so that it's semi-always worthwhile for melee characters.

Considering some people have mentioned diving into the Hall of Blades in hopes of removing a unique from generation so they don't have to fight it, I doubt this would work.

I still think it would be best to just remove Blade at this point.

I think the suggestion is a more desirable reward. e.g. the minibosses are created from two rolls of acquire weapon. Or maybe they are drawn from a short list of good weapons selected for this purpose (and which list to use is based on the player's weapon skill) -- e.g. a short blade user might have a high chance of seeing the Captain's cutlass as the miniboss. Or the Hall of Blades is given a unique boss, The Spectral Blade, which when defeated becomes a good, but not excellent, unrandart of a type corresponding to the player's best weapon skill (Or maybe even changes type along with the user's skills?). Or maybe has a unique enchantment (+Tukima's Dance? ).

[reaver]

I think the suggestion is a more desirable reward. e.g. the minibosses are created from two rolls of acquire weapon. Or maybe they are drawn from a short list of good weapons selected for this purpose (and which list to use is based on the player's weapon skill) -- e.g. a short blade user might have a high chance of seeing the Captain's cutlass as the miniboss.

Could you try to give an example of when you would enjoy doing the Hall of Blades?

never

I mean does anyone actually enjoy fighting dancing weapons? I have never heard that they are good enemies from anyone.

The problem isn't that the rewards are too poor. It's that going through Blade isn't fun. Fun is the whole goal of Crawl. This isn't a problem that can be solved by pouring out more loot. In fact, more loot would make the problem worse, because some people would decide that the negative experience of Blade is worth the loot, and their enjoyment of the game would drop because of it.

[Hurkyl]

The problem isn't that the rewards are too poor. It's that going through Blade isn't fun. Fun is the whole goal of Crawl. This isn't a problem that can be solved by pouring out more loot. In fact, more loot would make the problem worse, because some people would decide that the negative experience of Blade is worth the loot, and their enjoyment of the game would drop because of it.

Hrm. Maybe I'm just new enough that my opinion hasn't soured, but my disappointment is still that it's dangerous (I missed that they can't see invis) with no reward. And as I've been playing a Spriggan, the HoB is notable in that it provides a unique danger; while I'm used to being squashed because I danced in melee range of a heavy hitter for too long, or blasted by a spellcaster, or turned into a pincushion by a herd of centaurs or got cornered by a group of enemies, the HoB is the only place in the game where the danger is the enemy actually running me down if I start losing a fight. (at least, that's true once I got used to not waking up swarms of killer bees)

I do imagine I would find them much more annoying if I didn't have the ability to put them off until I'm actually ready for them, though.

[SchwaWarrior]

Rewrite Hall of Blades from the ground up.

Make it three floors deep, and make it as ludricously long and difficult as Tomb-- and holy-themed, in addition to construct-themed and loot-that-kills-you themed, with several major threats that can't be countered with Silence or Lich-Form.

Put the Golden Rune and a crap-ton of loot at the bottom.

Make games randomly either give you Tomb or the new HoB. Make games generate the entrance to either option randomly either in Vaults, or in the Forest/Crypt branches, or even in a different spot altogether like the main late dungeon.

Rename it from HoB to something cooler and more spine-tingling. Maybe "Purgatorium Palace", or just Palace.

I have more ideas of course.

[dck]

Current HoB would be better than that and that's saying something.

[Amnesiac]

I don't think the current HoB can be better than anything

[bcadren]

Is it just me or are the most major complaints about HoB almost the same as the ones about the Hive. Short predictable branch with only one kind of fast-moving swarm enemy and nothing else? Best way to fix predictability is adding more variation...I don't think it should just be removed though, mostly because it's highly optional as it is. Don't like it; don't visit it.

[nordetsa]

If lots of people don't visit it, then what's the point of it existing? And it's not just personal preference. Dancing weapons are really frustrating to deal with because of their near-godlike elemental immunity, fast speed, and possible distortion brand (and even if you don't get distortion, there is the annoying possibility of elemental brands dealing additional damage).

I have a bad habit of trying to kill every single monster on the floor, and HOB is the first place that made me not wanting to do that. No matter how 'interesting' the design/concept may be, if the result is the current HOB, then it deserves to be removed IMO.

[Siegurt]

I have a bad habit of trying to kill every single monster on the floor, and HOB is the first place that made me not wanting to do that.

Aha! So it does have a point, that being to teach players that they don't need to kill everything and there are things in the game which are best ignored! ;p

[Hurkyl]

If lots of people don't visit it, then what's the point of it existing?

I wonder how often people play Minotaur Enchanters of the Shining One? Probably none. So what's the point of it being possible? Should we remove the ability for Minotaur Enchanters to worship TSO?

[Amnesiac]

I don't think it's fun, but I always clear HoB for exp, sometimes even for a weapon.

[daggaz]

I did HoB once on a HoGl and found the room to be short, entirely trivial, and frankly pretty boring. Dancing weapons? Sure ok, but fantasia came out like a hundred years ago so making a whole mini branch out of it is nothing new.

I suppose on the off chance that by the time you clear vaults and you dont have an optimal weapon for a melee orientated character, its kind of a nice idea to say, here is this room thats kind of like orc:4 where you can go and just maybe you will fill in a slot you need, but on the other hand thats really not likely to happen often, at which point its trivial. I saw some cool branded weapons, but I already had 3 really cool branded weapons, one of which I made myself from a blank. Adding armor would certainly make it more exciting in this respect, but then it starts to get maybe too easy to fill in gaps in your defences?

Im not sure, but by any rate HoB needs to be much more complex and challenging. And weapons being resistant to spells is just.. not challenging. Spellcasters dont go to HoB so they can get a new bardiche.

Roving packs of ranged weapons.. that might be a step in the right direction. Sneaking across the hall only to get spotted by a bevvy of crossbows.. but really I dunno, thats just like fighting invisible footaurs.

[Amnesiac]

I find weapons like an eveningstar of holy wrath or a bardiche of distortion there sometimes, and today I even found a quickblade of holy wrath there, so it's probably worth checking out for a melee figher and that is at least one reason why it may be interesting for somebody.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I made a suggestion about a year ago for a Vault's monster revamp (this was before the all the new additions) that involved merging Blade into Vaults while adding a bunch of other monster with the theme of treasure that protects itself. It received mixed reactions (mostly "good flavor, terrible mechanics") and was considered a bit too much of a middle finger to melee characters, but maybe there might be something in there that could spice up Blade.

Now, I'm not suggesting that any of this should be added to Blade (there's a reason why nobody liked the mechanics I came up with), but some of the ideas there might point someone in a better direction.

[dck]

Well that's some absolutely awful compendium of horrific ideas and I hope nothing that's been inspired by it in any way makes it into the game.

[zugundertherug]

Imo the worst aspect of the HoB is that it doesn't feel like a vault. There's no terrain to use to my advantage, no area I have to force my way into, no sudden grouping of enemies, no boss, no traps, no vault-specific monsters, and no loot chamber. Just blades spread pretty evenly throughout. I'll still go into the current HoB sometimes depending on my character/situation (once was severely drained by shadow dragons and defeating blades helped restore some life force) but it's just...there. Feels like it was thrown in as an afterthought.

If HoB isn't chucked out then some suggestions for a rework:

1) Blade-wielding ghosts unique to HoB.
2) Loot chamber with a randart/unrandart of every weapon type. Something for everyone.
3) Vary between fighting big heavy weapons in hallways and lots of small weapons in open areas.
4) A boss. Thinking either another ghost or some monstrosity wielding lots of blades (similar to a very very painful hydra).

[prozacelf]

I haven't been following this thread religiously or anything, so sorry if I repeat anything I dont credit, but maybe something like zugundertherug is suggesting would work. I think having separate rooms with doors would help a lot. Several rooms with one or two dancing weapons and a couple more rooms with some sort of semi-unique "blademaster," sort of like ancient champions were before they became a crypt monster.

Dancing weapons are a neat monster in concept, but their speed and stack of immunities make them very tough for anyone who can't invis-stab in many cases. Rooms with doors alone would at least keep the problem of being overmatched from multiplying. A couple of semi-uniques with guaranteed randarts might also up the ante for loot and also provide some enemies that aren't immune to practically everything.