Lair Branch Loot Balancing

[brendan]

Of the four Lair branches, only Shoals has decent loot. My experience has been that you're more likely to find good equipment in Labs than in any of Spider, Swamp or Snake. I don't think this is the clustering illusion at work.

Could we look into redistributing some of that Merfolk gold?

[Zyrnak]

In my experience Shoals is also by far the deadliest of the 4 branches. The heightened payoff for it seems warranted.

[Siegurt]

I usually find *something* worthwhile in swamps, and snake for that matter, I find that shoals has a "reward" in the end of the branch, whereas I find that whatever I find that's worthwhile in swamps and snake is just kinda randomly "lying around somewhere" rather than in a nice vault at the end, not that I'd object to more loot.

I would also rate Shoals as the most dangerous of the four, for me it goes Shoals/Spider>Snake/Swamp (Where Swamp/Snake are very dependant on the kind of ending generated, and Shoals/Spider are always annoying)

The one I feel like is consistently the most disappointing in terms of loot is Spider.

[dpeg]

Of the four Lair branches, only Shoals has decent loot. My experience has been that you're more likely to find good equipment in Labs than in any of Spider, Swamp or Snake. I don't think this is the clustering illusion at work.

Could we look into redistributing some of that Merfolk gold?

Shoals has a few good items placed in the huts (which helps a lot) but it's also a matter of the population: merfolk and nagas wear/wield/use stuff, making it more likely to find decent items on monsters. On top of that, these two branches have shop potential. So from the point of view of loot, the branch roulette Shoals/Snake and Swamp/Spider rather than Shoals/Swamp and Snake/Spider. I still think that threat is the more important parameter, though.

On the other hand, it would be easy to make some decent loot vaults for Spider and Swamp.

[1010011010]

I would like to see spider get more than ambrosia, it seems every ending I get is the same deal. My melee fighter doesn't like spiders, won't get loot from the monsters and gets mp regen as a reward.

[dpeg]

Hm, more functional food would be nice to have indeed. The core issue, as far as I see it, is to avoid duplication with potions. On the other hand, the problematic distinction between tactical potions (those where item destruction has a purpose) and strategical potions (where it doesn't) could be solved by moving the latter to food.

[neil]

On the other hand, the problematic distinction between tactical potions (those where item destruction has a purpose) and strategical potions (where it doesn't) could be solved by moving the latter to food.

Food destruction, though rarer than potion destruction, still exists (spores and harpies), and when harpies are involved can't be protected against with conservation. That could be changed of course.

[brendan]

Hm, more functional food would be nice to have indeed. The core issue, as far as I see it, is to avoid duplication with potions. On the other hand, the problematic distinction between tactical potions (those where item destruction has a purpose) and strategical potions (where it doesn't) could be solved by moving the latter to food.

  Code:

You eat the calzone of mutation!
You feel extremely strange.

[5ubbak]

Hm, more functional food would be nice to have indeed. The core issue, as far as I see it, is to avoid duplication with potions. On the other hand, the problematic distinction between tactical potions (those where item destruction has a purpose) and strategical potions (where it doesn't) could be solved by moving the latter to food.

But... There are many more strategical scrolls than strategical potions, and those are still hit by item destruction...

[reaver]

In my experience Shoals is also by far the deadliest of the 4 branches. The heightened payoff for it seems warranted.

Here's what Sequell has to say on the subject:

  Code:

[18:00] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Swamp s=place
[18:00] <Sequell> 303 games for * (cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Swamp): 100x Swamp:5, 68x Swamp:1, 50x Swamp:4, 43x Swamp:2, 42x Swamp:3
[18:00] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Snake s=place
[18:00] <Sequell> 445 games for * (cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Snake): 177x Snake:5, 88x Snake:2, 70x Snake:3, 56x Snake:4, 54x Snake:1
[18:00] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Spider s=place
[18:00] <Sequell> 351 games for * (cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Spider): 99x Spider:5, 87x Spider:1, 63x Spider:2, 60x Spider:3, 42x Spider:4
[18:00] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Shoals s=place
[18:00] <Sequell> 325 games for * (cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Shoals): 116x Shoals:5, 72x Shoals:2, 51x Shoals:3, 49x Shoals:1, 37x Shoals:4

That's 303 deaths in the Swamp, 325 in the Shoals, 351 in Spider, and 445 in Snake. A note on Snake's oddly high count:

  Code:

[18:04] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Snake ikiller=Lamia
[18:04] <Sequell> 119. duckroller the Severer (L14 DDFi), worshipper of Makhleb, blown up by Lamia on Snake:3 on 2013-09-01 03:46:05, with 46353 points after 17228 turns and 0:46:07.
[18:06] <reaver> !lg * cv>0.12 !won !boring place=~Shoals ikiller=Ilsuiw
[18:06] <Sequell> 12. rayonic the Shatterer (L17 OgBe), worshipper of Trog, drowned by a water elemental (summoned by Ilsuiw) on Shoals:5 on 2013-08-27 23:11:43, with 152032 points after 33490 turns and 6:07:51.

[neil]

Some statistics I compiled about a month ago and originally posted on Reddit. On recent games (0.11 and up) from the online servers; branches are arranged from most to least deadly, in terms of the percentage of branch enterers who died in the branch.

  Code:

branch  entered died    end     died$   rune    end%    rune%   rune/$  died%   died$%
Snake   7009    1290    5296    501     4517    75.6    64.4    85.3    18.4    9.5
Spider  6585    925     4986    297     4517    75.7    68.6    90.6    14.0    6.0
Swamp   6794    854     5476    285     4889    80.6    72.0    89.3    12.6    5.2
Shoals  6064    739     4657    286     4226    76.8    69.7    90.7    12.2    6.1


"end" means "reached Branch:5", and "died$" means "died on Branch:5". "rune/$" is rune/end, and died$% is died$/end. These numbers don't take into account what level the player was.

I think they show that most of the extra difficulty of Snake over Spider and Shoals is on the last floor (a similar percentage of people get to the last floor, but many more die there). Swamp seems to be the easiest in many ways (getting to the last floor, rune percentage, last floor survival), but oddly has a higher died% than Shoals. I suspect people are dying on the way back up in Swamp, but am not sure. Diving plays a part I'm sure.

[TwilightPhoenix]

From what I hear, many players dive Swamp because it's boring/tedious/unrewarding/some-combination-thereof to explore it's levels. And between it's perception as being "the easy" Lair branch and diving, I can see people getting into fatal positions when they otherwise wouldn't, like running down stairs, getting mostly eaten by some hydras, and then running back up and getting smitten by Saint Roka who was camping just out of LOS when they descended or whatever. Meanwhile, Shoals has a reputation of being dangerous, so players are probably going to be more cautious there and ensure their escape route is safe and secure.

Of course, that's mainly speculation based on what I read. I'd need to watch a hundred runs of Swamp and Shoals before my reasoning could be considered scientific in any sort of fashion.

[siprus]

Swamp 1-4 is such a waste of time. I'd love player getting something for completing them. Though on other hand it is relatively trivial to complete.

[and into]

Swamp 1-4 is such a waste of time. I'd love player getting something for completing them. Though on other hand it is relatively trivial to complete.

First of all, you get a rune for it, which is... not nothing. Especially for a branch that is relatively trivial to complete, as you say.

Wouldn't making Swamp more enjoyable be a better design goal? There have already been some changes over the past several versions that have improved it markedly, though I agree that even with those changes it can be a bit dull. The major remaining problem is that a lot of interface options (like autoexplore) that streamline boring parts of gameplay get screwed up in Swamp. I think that would be the major thing to address. Making 1-4 non-trivial to complete would be good; certain specific endings of Swamp can be scary, but it tends to be pretty tame otherwise. That's less critical than fixing interface though IMO, and I don't think giving better loot in Swamp solves anything, anymore than (for instance) making the loot in Blade better would improve Hall of Blades.

[Speleothing]

Shoals has a few good items placed in the huts (which helps a lot) but it's also a matter of the population: merfolk and nagas wear/wield/use stuff, making it more likely to find decent items on monsters. On top of that, these two branches have shop potential. ...

On the other hand, it would be easy to make some decent loot vaults for Spider and Swamp.

I think this is hitting the nail on the head. Shoals and Snake are pretty much always going to give you a nice polearm, and probably a nice sword. You could pick up some armor as well, but it really depends on what you're looking for. Shoals is almost THE PLACE to go for getting javelins.

I never realized that shop frequency was determined by branch.

[archaeo]

So maybe we should just be alternating shoals/snake and swamp/spider? Is there a really good reason for it to be the way it is now? Because it seems like a) the loot problem is a flavour problem, e.g. there's no really good reason for spiders to have things or for swamp people to be sitting on phat artifact loot, and b) either way to split the branches makes a certain amount of sense. Also, c) it isn't really like these branches are unrewarding.

But in any case, d) this is my first post on the Tavern so feel free to tell me I'm wrong, but it seems like the game is already pretty stuffed full of loot and the Lair branches have runes, which are actually necessary to win the game.

[and into]

So maybe we should just be alternating shoals/snake and swamp/spider? Is there a really good reason for it to be the way it is now?

I think the idea with the current set up is that you have one primarily water-themed level (Shoals/Swamp), and one primarily poison-themed level (Snake/Spider). Whether that is a really good reason or not I leave to you to judge. Getting both Shoals and Swamp would mean a LOT of autoexplore disruptions around the time you go back for the lair branches. Rolling Snake and Spider would mean a LOT of poison.

[dpeg]

As I indicated in my previous post, when we set up the branch roulette, threat diversification seemed most relevant, and I still think it is: we want one poison-based subbranch, and a aquatic one. I would rather think how about to even out loot than swap branches.

[rebthor]

snake is only high because people are bad though

When this time this came up on reddit, I mentioned and others agreed that we felt that snake wasn't so dangerous because we were used to old snake where you could literally do snake:1-4 as soon as you came upon it if you had rPois. This led to at least one YASD for me personally after constriction was added.


edit:corrected to show it was reddit, not irc.

[dpeg]

Snake certainly got a bit harder with a constriction... dying to it once seems alright, especially if you weren't aware of the changes. Dying to constriction several times stresses the S in YASD

[Siegurt]

As I indicated in my previous post, when we set up the branch roulette, threat diversification seemed most relevant, and I still think it is: we want one poison-based subbranch, and a aquatic one. I would rather think how about to even out loot than swap branches.

Well, if Shoals and Snake are the "loot heavy" branches, you could simply make make the branch diversification less interesting, i.e. if you get Shoals your other branch is spider, and if you get Snake you get Swamp as your other branch. (Thereby balancing the overall loot-gettage)

Not a great solution, but probably easy and would work until someone comes up with something better...

[KennySheep]

Proposal: Rework swamp and spider to be the home of an animal/human hybrid just like snake and shoals, thus making loot everywhere be appropriate.

Alternate proposal: Just stick treasure vaults at the bottom of swamp and spider.

[dpeg]

KennySheep: Do you know how much actual effort that "Rework swamp and spider..." entails? Not to mention that the theme will be damaged severely, in my opinion at least. The treasure vaults are viable.

[KennySheep]

Proposal 1 really wasn't the one I wanted anyways. I just threw it in in for brainstorming purposes.

[jejorda2]

Jumping spidermen carry maces. Orb Weaver Spiderdames wear helmets. Redbacked spider-arborists wield axes. Demonic crawlers get wands and rods. And so on. This would add loot and change the flavor a bit without changing the threats much.

If the loot was more important than the flavor, would it be a difficult change? I don't think it would be worthwhile, because most of the loot is duplicates of stuff you already have anyway, but effort sounds like less than a new player species. Another branch where pacification and intoxication and other intelligence-based tactics work probably weakens the diversity of the game.

[1010011010]

Orb Weaver Spiderdames wear helmets.

I didn't read dame so I imagined a helmet running around.

How about hermit crab, an armour equivalent of dancing weapons. It can also make hall of blades more interesting.

[and into]

Adding new enemies is great, but I don't think it should be done *primarily* for the purpose of addressing problems of loot. I think it is just approaching it the wrong way. Is there some type of interesting threat that a new enemy could offer in an area that's currently not very diverse? If you also want to let those enemies spawn with good weapons and/or armor that's fine, but it is only going to really improve the game if it settles the first concern. I don't think that giving Yaks funny hats, for instance, will make the Lair a better branch, even if it did make it more amusing and occasionally netted me a sweet SInv helm or whatever. There's plenty of (relatively) bland enemies of different power who form, so to speak, the "background" general threat level for a certain area of the dungeon, and they aren't made a lot more interesting by giving them swag.

I've always thought a decently buff melee creature that doesn't have a ranged attack itself, but automatically (as a free action) returns fire from mages or ranged fighters, might be interesting. (And faster than average movement speed?)

In general I feel the game could use a few more creatures that pose a bit more difficulties for casters, and especially for blasters.

[johlstei]

KennySheep: Do you know how much actual effort that "Rework swamp and spider..." entails? Not to mention that the theme will be damaged severely, in my opinion at least. The treasure vaults are viable.

Can we at least salvage the hybrid idea? I think crawl needs more spidermans.

[dpeg]

johlstein: Why "at least"? As I see it, hybrids are the least imaginative of creatures. I am happy to use them when mythology provides some context (mermaid, centaur, sphinx, chimera) but coupling beast + human is not very interesting, in my opinion. For me, one Gastronok beats all driders.

[MoogleDan]

I've always seen the potential for shops in Snake and Shoals as sufficient loot. The only one I've thought was missing something would be Swamp. Why not have it parallel Spider and add a curious specialty food at the bottom?

Golden Apple of Immortality: Functions as an apple, but also gives a +X/+X% max HP mutation (some number weaker than Robust 1, as it's guaranteed).

Giant Spotted Snozzcumber: Inflicts retching, reduces satiation by 100, causes you to immediately emit miasma like a plague shambler (self-immune).

I believe there's a thread out there with a number of other unusual food item proposals; I'm sure there are plenty of other ideas there.

EDIT: Oops, just saw this idea was already floated... Regardless, I second it.

[johlstei]

Sorry I just wanted to make a spiderman joke, you are right for sure.

[pubby]

Proposal: Rework swamp and spider to be the home of an animal/human hybrid just like snake and shoals, thus making loot everywhere be appropriate.

I've always thought it would be cool if the swamp had a few houses and barges floating on top of it, connected by little bridges.

Maybe kobolds could live there.

[nicolae]

Proposal: Rework swamp and spider to be the home of an animal/human hybrid just like snake and shoals, thus making loot everywhere be appropriate.

I've always thought it would be cool if the swamp had a few houses and barges floating on top of it, connected by little bridges.

Maybe kobolds could live there.

There's already a few vaults with huts, making a little floating village wouldn't be too hard. I might give it a shot later, though I wonder if kobolds are the right threat level for the branch.

[and into]

Proposal: Rework swamp and spider to be the home of an animal/human hybrid just like snake and shoals, thus making loot everywhere be appropriate.

I've always thought it would be cool if the swamp had a few houses and barges floating on top of it, connected by little bridges.

Maybe kobolds could live there.

I like that idea a lot, actually!

Nicolae: Remember that kobolds have the (currently underused and quite rare) demonologists, etc... And I think people would be more amenable to adding a few new varieties of kobolds, than adding a completely new type of creature (spider-humanoids). Doesn't have to be kobolds but it really seems to fit.

[bcadren]

On relative difficulty; I'd say except for Snake, if you have the right resistances you can plow through a Lair branch when you first reach it (except the rune vault, of course). All except Shoals should have rPois (sea snakes are the only Poison enemy in shoals, where almost everything is Spider/Snake and about half of things are in Swamp); Shoals is doable with (Repel Missiles, Flight/Ice Form/Being Merfolk and either regen or a way of taking Merfolk on a few at a time), Spider just needs (rPois, SInv (Ghost Moths) and Clarity [Tarantella are deadly without it]) and Swamp really isn't much more dangerous than the lair itself, though rPois is recommended and you can't manage to run away from the Hydra, so you need to be ready to kill them.

On balancing difficulty without changing theme:

Swamp: Making some of the rare things a bit more common would up the difficulty a lot (more Very Ugly Things and Hydras with 12+ heads especially); perhaps another sort of Draconian/Dragon that uses Meph instead of Poisonous cloud (though that would only stand to make rPois even more important); maybe just a greater variety of dragons (after all the ends have fire and ice drakes). Generally turning the Swamp into a swampy dragon's lair seems suitable.

I'd also say some early Green Draconians would go a long way in the swamp; without them needing to really have their own domiciles, but basic ones only (the Zot-Unique Warriors and Annihilators would be WAY too powerful at this point).

Perhaps something like the removed Sludge Elf player class would be a more unique humanoid threat; though throwing in Elves may stand to make it too much like Snake/Elf. Sludge Elves focusing on Transmutations and Necromancy could work; especially if they liked to reraise the hydras and dragons a lot or assist dragons by using Ignite Poison to hit you with fire clouds immediately after poison clouds.

Actually in general a lot of fire/steam like steam drakes could easily up the difficulty just by diversifying the resistances you need to survive.

Kobolds (as someone else brought up) even big kobolds feel a bit too weak at this point (afterall they are the major threat in some of the SEWERS); unless they had a lot of Curare or similar OR were accompanied with a lot of demonologists or more unique kobold mages; though i feel that doing that might start to feel a bit like Orc Mines. I'd like to further note since this is late for basic Kobolds their XP output would be terrible [basic ones far less than the Insubstantial Wisps; Bigs and Demonologists much less than most other things in the swamp]

Spider: Again I'll say making some of the rarer creatures more common would go a long way (in this case Emperor Scorps and Moths especially; Moth of Suppression and Moth of Wrath together would be extremely evil).

Turning Arachne's 'species' into a full races would up the difficulty A LOT, but would also spoil the flavor a bit, I think, and remove the uniqueness of the branch.

A few more evil or unique spiders might be 'fun'; like:
'Mother Spider': Spawns 5-9 Wolf Spiders in your LoS on Death. (killing it surrounds you, almost always)
'Mass of Eggs': Constantly spawns spiders (like a Curse skull with undead) until destroyed.
Since there are a lot of spiders working together, a Queen that only acts to summon all the spiders from everywhere on the floor (loud noise + MARK effect) and buff the other spiders would also function; though that makes most sense as an ending vault.

IDK I don't have any good ideas here; Spider is generally harder than the Swamp at least.

As for Snake/Shoals; I think they are mostly hard enough already; at least in that you'd almost never be able to immediately complete when you first find the branch without issue.

On Balancing Loot without Theme Changes
Swamp: Swamp Dragon armor is about the best thing you'd currently expect from the swamp. I'd say the addition of some form of specialty fruit could go a long way; though the only positive fruit idea that I have personally is having a Fruit that always gives a set mutation, like always gives all three stages of one kind of scales (normally near impossible for non-Ds characters) or always induces evolution. I'm very pro-mutations and I think the swamp has the sort of 'beginning of life'/good mutations as reward feel that is completely opposed by the decaying/bad mutation feel of slime, etc. Also i will say if Kobolds were added a sizeable stash of Curares and/or some Rods of Demonology you might get from them would be good bonuses as would Transmutations/Necro books from Sludge Elves if they were there.
Spider: While I'm on the theme of Good Mutations as loot (something that really hasn't been done before) perhaps some spider-themed mutations are in order? Perhaps in this case some kind of positive item or food that gives a single random (good Spider-themed mutation) out of say:

• Exoskeleton - AC + 20; Poison Weakness; rf-; Cancels scales
• Poison Fangs - Red-Wasp-like Auxiliary attack (Poison and Paralysis chance)
• Spider Eyes - SInv +8, +0 Slaying bonus
• Draining - You eat like a spider [Vampire] and drink the fluid from corpses. Vampiric branded Auxiliary as well.

[Yes those are very good; but you'd also only get one per game and they could be accidentally cured or need to be cured after exposure to malmutate.]

[nicolae]

Proposal: Rework swamp and spider to be the home of an animal/human hybrid just like snake and shoals, thus making loot everywhere be appropriate.

I've always thought it would be cool if the swamp had a few houses and barges floating on top of it, connected by little bridges.

Maybe kobolds could live there.

I like that idea a lot, actually!

Nicolae: Remember that kobolds have the (currently underused and quite rare) demonologists, etc... And I think people would be more amenable to adding a few new varieties of kobolds, than adding a completely new type of creature (spider-humanoids). Doesn't have to be kobolds but it really seems to fit.

I was thinking about currently-existing monsters, though, since I was planning on actually taking a shot at making small swamp village vaults, and was trying to think of a creature that makes sense as a swamp dweller without being a pushover. Though demonologists can be used. I might give them a try.