Labyrinth

[dck]

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.

Speaking of which when are labyrinths going to die?

[RandomEntity]

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.

Speaking of which when are labyrinths going to die?

I kinda like labyrinths, myself. They provide a nice break from all the thinking in the rest of Crawl, while still requiring enough thinking to prevent me from finding them tedious.

[dpeg]

I don't think that labyrinths are going to die. As long as enough developers find them fun to play, there is no reason to cut them.

Not so long ago, in one change the number of labyrinths per game was set to (at most) one; also, they come up earlier -- when loot and threat are more relevant to most characters. The labyrinths themselves may see further changes (they're far from perfect) but as a portal vault, they'll stay. At least I always enjoy them, and I know I am not alone. (Yes, I know that there are some players, many of them quite vocal, who do not like them. But this is not an exercise in democracy: if we agreed to go for the greatest common denominator, very little gameplay would be left.)

[dck]

I sure love the outstanding loot I am rewarded with for walking a few hundred of tiles without autoexplore and beating a single predictable speed 10 monster and think it makes crawl a better game.

[bobross419]

Loot is always fun. More loot I say!

[Siegurt]

I don't think that labyrinths are going to die. As long as enough developers find them fun to play, there is no reason to cut them.

Not so long ago, in one change the number of labyrinths per game was set to (at most) one; also, they come up earlier -- when loot and threat are more relevant to most characters. The labyrinths themselves may see further changes (they're far from perfect) but as a portal vault, they'll stay. At least I always enjoy them, and I know I am not alone. (Yes, I know that there are some players, many of them quite vocal, who do not like them. But this is not an exercise in democracy: if we agreed to go for the greatest common denominator, very little gameplay would be left.)

FWIW I like Labyrinths too, I was wondering why I hadn't seen two labs in a while, now I know.

[Amnesiac]

I like them, but they are too easy including minotaur

[dpeg]

amnesiac: Well, the depth range for labyrinths can be adjusted.

[5ubbak]

I like them, but they are too easy including minotaur

I think the Minotaur is dangerous enough as is. If he was made tougher, he shouldn't appear in Melee range as that would be the death of many squishy wizards.

I do like that the Labyrinth now includes trapdoor spiders and hungry ghosts, though. Very fitting and provides a bit more challenge.

[dck]

Yes, sometimes you get randomly heavily poisoned when walking around towards the loot pile by these wolf spiders that are not detectable until you've walked right next to them and that adds a lot to labyrinths. Works really well with the exasperating manual walking around through empty hallways too.

[Amnesiac]

Uh-oh, this is turning into labirinth discussion. But I agree that trapdoor spiders are a nice touch.

[khalil]

I don't think that labyrinths are going to die. As long as enough developers find them fun to play, there is no reason to cut them.

Not so long ago, in one change the number of labyrinths per game was set to (at most) one; also, they come up earlier -- when loot and threat are more relevant to most characters. The labyrinths themselves may see further changes (they're far from perfect) but as a portal vault, they'll stay. At least I always enjoy them, and I know I am not alone. (Yes, I know that there are some players, many of them quite vocal, who do not like them. But this is not an exercise in democracy: if we agreed to go for the greatest common denominator, very little gameplay would be left.)

Is there any chance of letting mummies and dijin use autoexplore in them at least? The point of a labyrith is the danger of starving to death, which isn't very dangerous for charicters without a food clock.

[Amnesiac]

I entered labyrinth yesterday with 4 pears, with my halfling(fortunately not troll) and it's after I said that they are too easy... I almost starved to death(I was at very hungry and after leaving I soo became near starving) and Minotaur almost killed me with one hit... I had needles of paralisation and boots of speed, so it was almost impossible to lose, but it made me crap my pants.
p.s. no one cares about HoB, so let's rename the title of the thread to labyrinth.

to be serious, HoB lacks in everything: design, flavour, fun bardiche of distortion from yesterday was fun, I feel sorry for somebody who wants that weapon.

[galehar]

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.

Speaking of which when are labyrinths going to die?

Nice thread derailing.
If you want to discuss a different topic, please create a new thread.

[Amnesiac]

that "speaking of which" is priceless

[5ubbak]

Is there any chance of letting mummies and dijin use autoexplore in them at least? The point of a labyrith is the danger of starving to death, which isn't very dangerous for charicters without a food clock.

That's a fair point. How about having the characters slowly go insane from the isolation in a Labyrinth? That would probably mean temporary INT loss, or maybe a status that can induce confusion (but that second one would only lead to more frustration).
But yeah, Labyrinths are probably not the only reason why characters without a food clock are problematic for design. They circumvent all the balance mechanics in the game.

[dck]

Hunger is a lot of things but not a "balance mechanic".

[dpeg]

dck: I am still astonished by your ability to perpetually make absolute statements like this.

Hunger may not mean much in Crawl but try Rogue or Brogue to see what a strong balancing mechanic it can be. In fact, Crawl hunger does mean something for casters. There has been an actual discussion about getting rid of corpse eating (for almost all species) -- these things are always in flux. Yes, currently the race towards the labyrinth portal is probably a lot more exciting for most players than solving the maze afterwards. But even that could change.

What will certainly not contribute to progress -- for Crawl, life, and otherwise -- are cynical one-liners.

[battaile]

dck: I am still astonished by your ability to perpetually make absolute statements like this.

Hunger may not mean much in Crawl but try Rogue or Brogue to see what a strong balancing mechanic it can be. In fact, Crawl hunger does mean something for casters. There has been an actual discussion about getting rid of corpse eating (for almost all species) -- these things are always in flux. Yes, currently the race towards the labyrinth portal is probably a lot more exciting for most players than solving the maze afterwards. But even that could change.

What will certainly not contribute to progress -- for Crawl, life, and otherwise -- are cynical one-liners.

Neither word-count nor indignation are as critical to good posting as you seem to think.

[dck]

You know, you say cynical dpeg, but it actually isn't cynical at all. Hunger is important in crawl for a number of reasons, but it definitely isn't a balance mechanic.
For example hunger pushes new players onwards instead of making them think about grinding floor spawns, which in turn defends them from the OOD spawns timer that is required (and good to have) for a whole different number of reasons. They get the hungry status, see they "only" have three bread rations in D: 2 and since they have nothing to compare it too they move on to the next floor out of fear of starving while that fear has no basis at all. And that's good, that's great it's allowing the game to have the OOD timer system and making newbies evade it without introducing new concepts to them or making them about stupid tactics like "okay floor is cleared OODs won't start appearing for 1k turns, let's grind four more plain orcs and a worm".
And then there's spell hunger, which is good to have because it limits the spam of some rare combinations of spells and wizardry on a few combos early on and really, because of little more (this is the only time hunger acts as anything remotely close to a balance mechanic btw). The biggest problem with spell hunger, I think, is the way it's displayed.
People strive to get "hungerless haste" or whatever spells they cast often because they look at the hunger display and see ######. and think "damn, that's like full hunger I'm gonna starve myself like that" so they waste more exp into spc and end up with a weaker character that now has haste at ####... and even then they think about reducing it further because it looks like a lot. The truth is you can normally spam full hunger lv6 and 7 spells without having much of a problem and that not giving players who don't know any better that information is making a disservice to them.
Evo hunger is silly as well and you can use a cloak of darkness all game long since D: 1 and won't have a problem because of it.

And you know what, when there's a stick that lets you completely ignore hunger cost for spells in your game and it has been recently -buffed- then no, you can't just put on the serious face, bust out the sanctimonious paragraph and tell me hunger is an important balance mechanic. It's important to have for other reasons, but it should be reworked for spells so it doesn't mislead newbies into an early grave and shouldn't be considered a "balance mechanic" by anyone at all.

[pubby]

I suppose the whole appeal behind labyrinths is that they act as a little mini-game break to provide variety to the gameplay. That's a great concept, but Labyrinths are just a poor execution of it.

Labs aren't challenging, they aren't risky, but it's always optimal to do them. They're based around manual exploration of an uninteresting map, two things that Crawl players loathe. The fight at the end is very basic, and you have all the time in the world to buff yourself in advance.

Now, I like the idea of a mini-game portal, and I'm sure people have hundreds of ideas for them. I'm in favor of removing labyrinths just because there are so many better options to exist in its place.

[MoogleDan]

So far in this thread, the only things I've read that resembles a solution to the issue with labyrinths is to eject them entirely or to make them more lethal, either by showing up earlier or adding more hazards inside the thing. Has there been any thought to adding non-lethal consequences for failure? It seems to me that the labyrinth offers a perfect opportunity to change the pace of gameplay entirely for a little while. Has there been any discussion in the past toward converting it into something of a logic puzzle, with failure getting you kicked back to the dungeon with no new loot to show for it? Possibly add pursuing agents that send you back once they manage to tag you in melee? I personally like the breather labyrinths provide and feel that the time spent wandering aimlessly isn't long enough to detract from the overall Crawl experience, but I'd be all for hearing some alternatives that aren't just more dead characters.

[5ubbak]

Yes, currently the race towards the labyrinth portal is probably a lot more exciting for most players than solving the maze afterwards. But even that could change.

A way to make Labyrinths a bit more exciting would possibly be to capitalize on the expectation of a player in a Labyrinth. Namely, players expect some challenges akin to puzzle solving (although let's not be too literal, I think no one wants the Nethack Sokoban level), and they expect traps.

Unless I'm wrong, I don't think the current version of Labyrinths has any traps. Currently Ossuary is the only portal vault with heavy use of trap, but they feel more like "things that will hit you once if there are no zombies around, otherwise zombies walk on it and detect it" than "actual traps that you should be careful not to detect". The fact that any room that has them is filled with them doesn't help.

Here are some of the things I propose, that have a chance of actually feeling more like traps. of course, i may be entirely wrong as I haven't tested any of this, so please give feedback:
* A room filled with bat-like monsters where some floor tiles may turn into lava as the player attempts to step on them (the action is wasted). The bats would give the player a reason to try to pursue them or go around them to reach the en of the room, possibly opening more similar holes. Of course there would always be a possible passage. maybe one of the bats could have a confusing attack?
* Pressure plates that cause a steel grate to drop on an adjacent square. It blocks of f part of the Labyrinth, but simultaneously makes sure another way to the center is opened. of course, you may have to go back a long way.
* Choosing the wrong path could have consequences besides loosing time. There could be places with two outgoing doors, one of them would have level-appropriate monsters hiding behind and one of them would continue towards the rest of the labyrinth.
* Coming across loot along the way. Players could encounter the skeletons of those who died trying to flee the labyrinths along with some good loot. It shouldn't be as good as what's behind the minotaur, but still decent enough to consider and somehow reward exploring the Labyrinth. Of course, no food of any kind should be found this way.

[MrPlanck]

fwiw, I like lab. It tends to be easy, but not always, and I am generally willing to take the risk even when I am not ready for it because the potential reward is high. Perhaps it could be tweaked to appear just a bit earlier. Or any improvement that does not get rid of it.

[ebarrett]

Here are some of the things I propose, that have a chance of actually feeling more like traps. of course, i may be entirely wrong as I haven't tested any of this, so please give feedback:
* A room filled with bat-like monsters where some floor tiles may turn into lava as the player attempts to step on them (the action is wasted). The bats would give the player a reason to try to pursue them or go around them to reach the en of the room, possibly opening more similar holes. Of course there would always be a possible passage. maybe one of the bats could have a confusing attack?
* Pressure plates that cause a steel grate to drop on an adjacent square. It blocks of f part of the Labyrinth, but simultaneously makes sure another way to the center is opened. of course, you may have to go back a long way.
* Choosing the wrong path could have consequences besides loosing time. There could be places with two outgoing doors, one of them would have level-appropriate monsters hiding behind and one of them would continue towards the rest of the labyrinth.
* Coming across loot along the way. Players could encounter the skeletons of those who died trying to flee the labyrinths along with some good loot. It shouldn't be as good as what's behind the minotaur, but still decent enough to consider and somehow reward exploring the Labyrinth. Of course, no food of any kind should be found this way.

I don't think many players who are annoyed by labyrinths will see being further annoyed as an improvement on the current situation

[TeshiAlair]

Adding another vote to the "labyrinths are fun" tally (much better than goddamn ice caves).

What about instead of having the minotaur being in the center always, having him roam around, and be a mini-Boris- If you kill him, he's only stunned for a little while, but he'll come back with a vengeance. To compensate, make the mazes a little simpler, this way there's the feeling of being stalked in the maze rather than just wandering around aimlessly then having a simple fight.

[dck]

What's bad about ice caves except the fact they can spawn in the orc mines?

[Sar]

I guess they have stuff that can actually kill you, and dying is sad.

[dck]

But ice fiends are pansies.

[tcjsavannah]

How about the old three door ending? Door #1 has wimp monster, wimp loot. Door #2 has tough monster, decent loot. Door #3 has OOD monster, good loot.

Similar to the Nemelex vault where a teleporter puts you in a room of loot or a room of monsters.

I <3 Monty Hall

[jejorda2]

Three endings is more fun if you can actually see what the different rewards are (or the threats, or both) and then choose one. Otherwise, it might as well be getting a single ending of random difficulty.

I like the re-appearing stalker minotaur idea.

What if there were keys in the maze, and locked doors in the center that gave themed loot? So if you find one of the keys, you can open any one of the doors. If you find three of the keys, you can open any three of the four doors. Either you get kicked out of the maze after a time, or when the minotaur catches you. The themes could be weapons behind one door, evokables behind another, books behind another, or one door has armours of fire resistance and fire spell books while another has weapons of pain and potions of decay. I guess we could fill the maze with harpies and hungry ghosts and make the food clock the time pressure.

[daggaz]

*ahem* Hall-of-Blades sucks so bad its not even in this conversation even after a mod complained about thread derailing *ahem*

I love the labyrinth, I like running mazes, but yeah it is a bit easy. Hungry ghosts were a great add. Keys would be cool too, but not to unlock vaults at the end (well, not entirely) but instead to unlock iron grates that bar your way, thus forcing the player to explore more of the maze at the peril of the food clock.

The minotaur should stay, but should be buffed up considerably and should be a wanderer/tracking mob. You should have a chance to hear him in the distance maybe, to further scare the player (you hear a snorting sound echoing down the passage in front/behind you). To further mess that up, make some of the walls iron grates as well, so that the sound can travel thru even if the minotaur isnt really that close to you.

The loot room needs to be spread out visually instead of stacked on the stairs. I need my eye-candy / ansi-porno. Having undead guardians of previous adventurers could be a bonus, or the occasional dragon, or what have you.

In short, the lab should stay, but should be much scarier to enter. Rewards should compensate accordingly.

[dck]

Rewards are already insane and having to collect keys means more wandering around and more annoyance to get to the reward which is already more than optimal.
What direction is in front or behind me?

[daggaz]

DCK: Lab is overrewarding, please dont make it any harder.

In front of you is the direction in the corridor closest to your last key press. Rooms A, B, C, D (easy because except for intersections the path is linear in a lab, intersection exception is easy to code), if player moves from B to C, then D is in front of you and A is behind you.

The response is quite human and natural, if you are moving "north" and you hear that something nasty is "ahead" of you, you might just be tempted to use the opposite keystrokes.

[red_kangaroo]

I like labyrinths.

The minotaur stalker idea also sound interesting.

[ackack]

Are rods actually guaranteed in a labyrinth or does it just seem that way? If so, you could probably balance out labs simply by removing that (though this doesn't solve the complaints people have about doing the lab itself.)

Labs can be occasionally frustrating, but I like them okay.

[dck]

Except if you walked into the minotaur's house you probably can kill the damn cow and now he's telegraphing his presence to you while "following you" which means you just confirm there's a clear path to him, buff up appropriately and kill him like you do nowadays, then go on in an empty labyrinth to get the loot.
Neither this or collecting keys or adding more pointless hungry ghosts or anything like that fix the basic problem of labyrinths, which is you walk around manually in a terrible map with mainly just one predictable foe and are rewarded by it way more than you should.
There already are endings with undead minotaurs and the like btw.

[DracheReborn]

Make the minotaur stronger then. Or let it generate at a lower level. Make it so that fighting and killing the minotaur is a dicey proposition at best. And allow the player to get to the loot while avoiding the minotaur. Maybe have the loot guarded some other way.

The current layout probably isn't suitable for a player to be hunted by a minotaur (too many dead ends), but changing it to be more dungeon-like (allowing autotravel) might work. To simulate a large labyrinth, maybe +Hunger or similar can be in effect.

Have the loot spread out in a large loot room, with an alarm trap that autotriggers or some (weakish) monster that calls/teleports the minotaur to your location. You'll now have to decide whether to grab some loot and flee, or to wait it out and fight the minotaur. Choosing which loot to grab should be interesting as well.

The minotaur should stay, but should be buffed up considerably and should be a wanderer/tracking mob. You should have a chance to hear him in the distance maybe, to further scare the player (you hear a snorting sound echoing down the passage in front/behind you). To further mess that up, make some of the walls iron grates as well, so that the sound can travel thru even if the minotaur isnt really that close to you.

The loot room needs to be spread out visually instead of stacked on the stairs. I need my eye-candy / ansi-porno. Having undead guardians of previous adventurers could be a bonus, or the occasional dragon, or what have you.

edited to add: mostly based my ideas on daggaz'

[Amnesiac]

hmm, I think that labyrinth should be left as is for the most part, but the minotaur vault could be a bit more interesting. btw, I found an undead minotaur yesterday on a 3x3 space surrounded by lava(not for the first time, though) and I didn't have levitation, so I confused minotaur and used a wand of polymorph to get the bat form. That was really interesting, because it needed some thought, but I think it's a coincidense that it turned out this way, but it would be cool if labyrinths would be generated depending on your available items.

[rebthor]

I think I'm a decent player and I know I've died to the minotaur at least once and probably a few times. So yeah, it's generally a pushover but not always, depending on your build.

[BlackSheep]

I've been surprised by a minotaur or two that's picked up some of the loot and turned it on me.

Anyway, I'd love to see some more vaults added to the lab code. There's a lot of room for improvement in labyrinths.

[jejorda2]

The last minotaur I encountered dueled with me at range. We were both blasting rods of inaccuracy at each other. It was fun because we both kept missing/dodging, and then I got the only hit. If I missed three times and then died, I'd feel differently about it.

[mikee]

All of my deaths to the minotaur are from being so bored that I was mashing keys to find the exit and it hit me while I was mashing them. I do think it is strong enough, though (the minotaur does pretty crazy damage. Just look at its stats). I honestly think that the best thing to do with labs is to make them a straight line that you walk down to fight a minotaur (it can be okawaru or arena themed, or whatever). I just don't see mazes fitting in well with crawl, or even with roguelikes in general.

[tcjsavannah]

lineminotaursprint

also, Minotaurs wielding and blasting you with wands of magic darts are awesome.

[and into]

I dislike Labs as currently implemented but like the idea of an optional "mini-game" available in the dungeon. I actually think other, similar types of portals would be welcome, but I think (as others in the thread have suggested) that the risk should be higher.

I really like the idea of a "stalker minotaur." Perhaps upon entering the labyrinth, the player has a permanent "Marked" status? The minotaur chases you, and if you kill it, this gets rid of it for X number of turns, but then it respawns somewhere else?

A different approach would be making the Labyrinth more dangerous by adding vaults inside the lab that, while being level appropriate, can actually threaten you. These vaults should generate along the primary path to the exit. At the same time, you could make the quality of the loot dependent upon the number of turns taken to reach the exit. One would then be presented with decisions that are more interesting than Labs as currently implemented; you can go through the increasingly difficult vaults, or try to work around them, but doing the latter means spending more turns and possibly losing out on the loot. Obviously there should be a randomized component to the number of turns counted, so it is not a strict turn-based tier-system (as that would be spoilery—i.e., one familiar with the code would know that he or she can spend X number of extra turns without sacrificing loot quality). Even taking time to regenerate to full health would impose a penalty—the Labyrinths would become more like "speed courses" with obstacles built in. If it were implemented this way some other changes might be necessary, in addition, such as greater regularity in the player's starting position and perhaps the actual "maze" aspect should be simplified somewhat. The "exit" might also need to be a teleporter to a new area that gives loot, as well, as the items can't be generated until one reaches the exit rather than one enters the lab.

Tinkering with the depth at which labs appear could help, but that alone won't change the actual experience of going through them, which is part of the problem. I've gotten good at it (thanks to a lot of practice), but that doesn't make it enjoyable. It is like a chore that I do in order to get the (admittedly nice) rewards. Still, I think Labyrinths can (and should) be improved, rather than removed.

[Hurkyl]

Of those who dislike the labyrinth now, how many disliked it their first time, and how many only started disliking it after they did a bunch of them?

I've only done a half dozen or dozen labyrinths so far, and I still find them somewhat enjoyable (except for my second labyrinth when the hot/cold signals were completely wrong for the part of the maze I started in), but I can easily imagine how it could be mind-numbing after another dozen or two. But the point is, it is still something that has been fun these first dozen times.

And there seems to be some difference of opinion between veterans who have played through lots of labyrinths.

So I think trying to design a single minigame for all players is unlikely to be a great solution; an alternative possibility is to design a whole collection of minigames, with similar rewards for solving the minigame (melee mini-boss and loot bonanza), and give the player the option to toggle which minigames are allowed to be used by the minigame portal.

And for those who don't like anything, one they can enable for the minigame portal is a non-game with a smaller loot cache -- small enough so the people who do play through the minigames don't feel gipped, but large enough to appease those who would otherwise feel like they're being forced into playing the minigames.

[Tarp]

If navigating the labyrinth bores you, then you get bored very easily. It takes a few minutes, tops. I love labyrinths.
And if you hate it that much, then just don't enter! I would object to making them regular floors, but as a portal vault they are fine. Significantly less annoying than ice caves or volcanoes.

[rebthor]

Of those who dislike the labyrinth now, how many disliked it their first time, and how many only started disliking it after they did a bunch of them?

I've only done a half dozen or dozen labyrinths so far, and I still find them somewhat enjoyable (except for my second labyrinth when the hot/cold signals were completely wrong for the part of the maze I started in), but I can easily imagine how it could be mind-numbing after another dozen or two. But the point is, it is still something that has been fun these first dozen times.

And there seems to be some difference of opinion between veterans who have played through lots of labyrinths.

So I think trying to design a single minigame for all players is unlikely to be a great solution; an alternative possibility is to design a whole collection of minigames, with similar rewards for solving the minigame (melee mini-boss and loot bonanza), and give the player the option to toggle which minigames are allowed to be used by the minigame portal.

And for those who don't like anything, one they can enable for the minigame portal is a non-game with a smaller loot cache -- small enough so the people who do play through the minigames don't feel gipped, but large enough to appease those who would otherwise feel like they're being forced into playing the minigames.

The only time I disliked a labyrinth was when it had disconnected metal walls, so I spent 15-20 minutes searching for the right way into the end vault before realizing that I wasn't even close. I've been playing for years now and done lots of labs.

[mikee]

If navigating the labyrinth bores you, then you get bored very easily. It takes a few minutes, tops. I love labyrinths.
And if you hate it that much, then just don't enter! I would object to making them regular floors, but as a portal vault they are fine. Significantly less annoying than ice caves or volcanoes.

Huh? Didn't you read the thread? The stated complaint was that labs are tedious, BUT they contain such good loot that players feel pushed into doing something they find unfun to get it. 'If you don't like them, just don't do them' doesn't really apply here.

[mikee]

I don't really see any dichotomy between jaded veteran players who all hate labs and starry eyed noobs who love them. There are real, objective reasons to like or dislike them that go beyond their novelty to you or how sick you might be of seeing them. The person who brought up this topic in the first place is dck, and I do not know much about him, but his first online game was what, 3 months ago? The important question, to me, is how valid are these reasons? I think just the fact that a feature directly impacts the fun that players experience gives cause to look at these reasons very closely (as this is a game).