Locks on Doors

[xzanthius]

I am curious as why Crawl was designed with unlockable doors. I've played a few other Rogue-likes and enjoyed that feature in the past (some monsters being able to break down doors or unlock them)... is it the hassle of carrying around a variety of keys?

[Amnesiac]

At first I was like "what? :0" about your idea, but at least one lockable room for the stash would be awesome. Just let it stay runed even after opening. Some solution for the stash would be apreciated, because running to the lair all the time, to leave that rare scroll/potion or having a possibility of your items to be eaten/wielded by monsters is one of the most annoying things in the whole game.

[Sar]

You can also drop things and later Ctrl+f them.
Though hostile monsters probably shouldn't pick up your stuff, at least.

[xzanthius]

I used to play another Rogue-like (NAME WITHHELD) where every door had a specific lock (about a dozen different ones) with multiple and randomly mulchable keys strewn throughout the dungeon. It would lead it a lot of frantic running and locking doors behind you... it was fun. (crawl is better in most other respects) it would also lead to risky stashes (as certain monster could just smash through doors).

[One-Eyed Jack]

Locks in Adom aren't fun at all though

[brendan]

I am curious as why Crawl was designed with unlockable doors.

Simplicity. We also don't have chests or bags of holding. I suspect that they would just contribute to tedium more than anything.

[Bim]

It would be ultra tedious to have lots of locks and doors, especially when this is a more 'tactical' RL rather than an 'adventure' RL. However, I would love to see more ' mechanisms/puzzles' in crawl, even if they were only a few multilevel puzzles (you have to turn a bronze statue on level 14 to open a door to a stash on level 10 type thing)

[DracheReborn]

(you have to turn a bronze statue on level 14 to open a door to a stash on level 10 type thing)

Oh god no. I hate those things whenever I run into them in role-playing books. It will be either too spoilery or too tedious, IMO - either you know which switch unlocks which feature, or you'd have to comb previous levels to find what changed. I'd rather have a bunch of switches right next to the lock, with some of them being traps or mimics, but they'd have to be pretty dangerous traps/mimics, otherwise it would be a no-brainer for the player to try them all.

[1010011010]

(you have to turn a bronze statue on level 14 to open a door to a stash on level 10 type thing)

Oh god no.

seconded here, having switches effect a different level is asking for tedium. Crawl already has local doors which open when you kill (the ancient champion vault), I would like to see more of there to bring about puzzles, but anything passed a localized trigger on a localized effect will be bad for crawl.

[mumra]

We did discuss using locked doors in Vaults (with vault wardens carrying keys), this was an old idea from the wiki. However the general consensus when discussing this in ##crawl-dev was that it'd be a bad idea.

[khalil]

Personally, I think carrying around a bunch of keys would suck, largely because of the fifty item limit.
@brendan
While I agree with you on chests, I think bags of holding (If they could not be destroyed) would reduce tedium, as they would remove the need for a stash, thus meaning one does not have to spend time walking from Zot:3 to Lair:2 because they need an enchant armor scroll.
On the downside, it would make Jyvia more powerful, as there wouldn't be any chance of your stash being eaten, but given how hard it is to worship her, that's probably all right.

[Sandman25]

Personally, I think carrying around a bunch of keys would suck, largely because of the fifty item limit.
@brendan
While I agree with you on chests, I think bags of holding (If they could not be destroyed) would reduce tedium, as they would remove the need for a stash, thus meaning one does not have to spend time walking from Zot:3 to Lair:2 because they need an enchant armor scroll.
On the downside, it would make Jyvia more powerful, as there wouldn't be any chance of your stash being eaten, but given how hard it is to worship her, that's probably all right.

To prevent players from being too powerful with potentially unlimited items it could take 10+ turns to enter "get item from the bag" mode. I hate travelling through dungeon levels going for all enchant foo scrolls when I found something worthy the enchantment.

[tcjsavannah]

I used to play another Rogue-like (NAME WITHHELD) where every door had a specific lock (about a dozen different ones) with multiple and randomly mulchable keys strewn throughout the dungeon. It would lead it a lot of frantic running and locking doors behind you... it was fun.

Dude, Adventure was awesome.

[mumra]

Personally, I think carrying around a bunch of keys would suck, largely because of the fifty item limit.

The proposal was to have them work like runes so they don't take up inventory.

[Siegurt]

Maybe we could use runes themselves rather than adding a new thing, it might be pretty interesting if there were bits of the game that were locked off until you got certain runes or a certain number of runes (As is already done for the zot portal)

[jejorda2]

D14 is what I think has been proposed as the place where you must have a rune to pass.

Making some portal vaults have no timeout, but requiring a trove-like entry fee of a particular rune could be fun. Should I get the rune from Snake:5 so I can go to the Volcano on Snake:3?

Why can't I get into the volcano without a rune? A wizard did it. There's a magic door.

[XuaXua]

Rune locking is fine, but fetch quests should only be for rare troves or mass gold for zigs.

[jejorda2]

I guess I'm thinking that re-using the trove method on existing portal vaults 5% of the time makes sense to me, especially if the costs can be scaled down. 100 arrows to enter a sewer? Now I don't have to rush, and either I have to weigh whether those arrows that I really need might be worth giving up for the Ely altar, or suddenly the stuff I didn't care about on the floor cheers me up because I can trade them for some potions.

And if it makes sense for portal vaults, I guess it could make sense for other vaults. If bribing the guard at the gnoll castle got me into an interior corridor without him shouting, there might be days I would give up three meat rations. I don't know if that would be a portal nearby or someone who added an ability to your list like Beogh proselytes do.

I don't think random doors in the dungeon should need unique items that you could have picked up earlier in the game. Either you pick up all of them, so it doesn't matter unless the key happened to be beside an OOD monster or a unique you're avoiding, or you can't carry many of them, and it's enforced stashing to an annoying degree. I guess giving Nikola or Roxanne or Mennas items like Geryon's horn that can be used to unlock rewards could make facing them more likely. But the weapon of electrocution, Statue form, and good shield make those guys attractive in the right situation already.

[Galefury]

Maybe all the doors people should go play some brogue? It's pretty good, and nicely shows the good and bad sides of having keys, doors, and puzzles in general. Even if they are low key and well done, they still are bad in a bunch of ways. Fun, but probably they shouldn't feature prominently in crawl.

[Amnesiac]

100 arrows to enter a sewer?

What's the point? I think it's an easy level and you have plenty of time to enter it. I think closing portals are fun.

[rebthor]

There's any easy way to unlock every door in the game and it's called LRD.

[mumra]

Making some portal vaults have no timeout, but requiring a trove-like entry fee of a particular rune could be fun. Should I get the rune from Snake:5 so I can go to the Volcano on Snake:3?

This sounds kind of silly. Portals are interesting precisely because at the time you find them they are very dangerous, but that is the only time you can do them. Snake:5 is way more dangerous than Volcano. It would never be worth diving for the rune just to enter a volcano, it just means you get some extra free loot and XP once you've cleared Snake. Except that the Volcano's loot and XP is largely irrelevant by the time your character can clear Snake:5.

Troves represent a very different decision. The loot is always there to come back to and could still be useful at any stage of the game, and the only associated danger is in *not* having the item(s) that you gave to the trove. I don't see what benefit there would be in applying the trove mechanic to portals...

[Bim]

Oh god no. I hate those things whenever I run into them in role-playing books. It will be either too spoilery or too tedious, IMO - either you know which switch unlocks which feature, or you'd have to comb previous levels to find what changed. I'd rather have a bunch of switches right next to the lock, with some of them being traps or mimics, but they'd have to be pretty dangerous traps/mimics, otherwise it would be a no-brainer for the player to try them all.

My example was terrible - multilevel fetch quests would indeed be awful, but single level ones might add some interest. We already have similar things with portal 'puzzles' in which you may end up in a loot room or room with lots of monsters. My problem with this is that they're just a complete gamble. I'd prefer something like having to kill three uniques on a level to get keys to open a vault. Nothing impossible/complicated, just something to add some interest which isn't a complete gamble.

I'm sure there are other better examples, but I think crawl would benefit from some more flavourful 'puzzles'.

[BlackSheep]

Maybe all the doors people should go play some brogue? It's pretty good, and nicely shows the good and bad sides of having keys, doors, and puzzles in general. Even if they are low key and well done, they still are bad in a bunch of ways. Fun, but probably they shouldn't feature prominently in crawl.

I wouldn't mind seeing Brogue style loot rooms in crawl, forcing the player to choose one item from a batch rather than just scattering random items around.

[Siegurt]

Well, there's that one Oka vault where you get to pick one of two rewards after beating the baddies, the other gets dropped into lava

[Amnesiac]

I'd prefer something like having to kill three uniques on a level to get keys to open a vault

I like the idea. Those experienced players should learn that avoiding uniques is not cool! They'll probably still avoid uniques and their keys, though. But risky players like me could get more excitement from this.

[1010011010]

I'd prefer something like having to kill three uniques on a level to get keys to open a vault

This could be cool, like a prove your worth kind to enter the gauntlet, or small treasure stash. An idea could be to use tagged unique equipment: Donald's shield, Sonja's weapon ect.

It's a quite similar to the trove fetch, but different enough, with the trove you normally make the item using scrolls and a weapon/armour found by chance, but here you can only get the item by killing a unique, only finding the unique is important, and that's a matter of time.

Using the items would actually be purely flavour since the game records defeated monsters, the door could just open when a certain unique(s) is/are killed for magic reasons.