Poll: fixing mid-game redundancy through rune-locking

[Tiktacy]

Since the topic of rune lock seemed to be a pretty hot discussion, I thought I would try creating a pole to figure out what the publics opinion on this really is. Here is some background:

purpose of rune locking:

Many players who have made it through to the end of the game would agree that the mid game tends to be quite lackluster and dull in comparison to the rest of the game. One of the big reasons for this is because players tend to delve deeper into the dungeon because the risk/gain ratio is much more generous, and end up making lair branches a tab-fest(which is boring, but undoubtably more efficient). Because of this, the idea of a "rune lock" was proposed to make mid-game less popcorny.

List of proposals:

-rune lock: adds a gateway on D:14 to prevent players from moving on into D:15 until they acquire a single rune of zot.

-soft lock: pretty much the same thing as rune lock, but gives the option to force open the lock. If you choose to force the lock, there will be a negative effect follow. Example: swamp, shoals, spiders nest, and snake pit entrances are all immediately closed, locking the rune inside with them(permanently).

-lair branch revision: another idea is to simply do a revision of the lair branches to make the risk/gain ratio more on par with the main dungeon. You could do this by adding more vaults containing loot, increasing exp gain from monsters within the branch, and maybe increasing the difficulty a bit to balance out the changes.

-dont add rune lock: the game doesn't need to be changed, midgame is going to be a little dull no matter what.

-better idea: there are a ton of different ways to go about fixing this, we just need some more brainstorming.

Note: all ideas are subject to change, so option 3 will probably happen anyway even if we do go with rune lock. But that option basically means "we can fix this without doing anything too fancy and changing up the rules of the game".

[Jeremiah]

I like the idea of encouraging players to get a rune rather than forcing them. Part of what makes Crawl interesting is that you can choose what order to do things rather than a linear game where you have to do everything in a certain order.

What if you could go below D:14 but were unable to enter shops or portals in deeper levels until you had a rune, thus potentially losing the chance to enter bazaars and other timed portals? You could also put a lock on the entrance to the Vaults branch so you could not go there to get the XP and loot unless you had a rune first.

[johlstei]

I'd personally rather a rune be required to open vaults, I think the lower dungeon below that is scary enough that people will want to go back and do lair branches earlier. I imagine some combos are going to have a really rough time getting that early rune.

[Hurkyl]

If you make people clear Shoals first, then mid-dungeon will be a tab-fest. Or if you bump up the dungeon danger to compensate, then Spider's nest will become easy.

There's a deeper design issue here: if you give a player three choices, each of which is roughly on par with his current situation and all give a fair amount of exp (and maybe loot), then the player is going to have an easier time with his second choice than with his first choice, and an even easier time with his third choice.

I don't think this can really be eliminated without linearizing the game to some extent: e.g. to make D:16, Shoals:3, and Spider:3 all so difficult that you generally have to clear D:15, Shoals:2, and Spider:2 first before tackling them. But all that really does is make a nearly linear path have longer travel times.

[Tiktacy]

If you make people clear Shoals first, then mid-dungeon will be a tab-fest. Or if you bump up the dungeon danger to compensate, then Spider's nest will become easy.

There's a deeper design issue here: if you give a player three choices, each of which is roughly on par with his current situation and all give a fair amount of exp (and maybe loot), then the player is going to have an easier time with his second choice than with his first choice, and an even easier time with his third choice.

I don't think this can really be eliminated without linearizing the game to some extent: e.g. to make D:16, Shoals:3, and Spider:3 all so difficult that you generally have to clear D:15, Shoals:2, and Spider:2 first before tackling them. But all that really does is make a nearly linear path have longer travel times.

The lair branches don't give nearly as much exp as main dungeon. Also, having a soft lock would help your cause(your cause being a less linear path) because it tends to be way more efficient to delve deeper into the dungeon so lair branches always end up being done much later than intended.

[duvessa]

If you make people clear Shoals first, then mid-dungeon will be a tab-fest. Or if you bump up the dungeon danger to compensate, then Spider's nest will become easy.

There's a deeper design issue here: if you give a player three choices, each of which is roughly on par with his current situation and all give a fair amount of exp (and maybe loot), then the player is going to have an easier time with his second choice than with his first choice, and an even easier time with his third choice.

I don't think this can really be eliminated without linearizing the game to some extent: e.g. to make D:16, Shoals:3, and Spider:3 all so difficult that you generally have to clear D:15, Shoals:2, and Spider:2 first before tackling them. But all that really does is make a nearly linear path have longer travel times.

The lair branches don't give nearly as much exp as main dungeon.

The issue is still present unless they give literally no exp, items or piety at all.

[ontoclasm]

I seriously doubt that having the gains from Swamp (EXP: maybe a level or so; Loot: a Swamp Dragon Armour maybe???) is going to impact late D and Vaults as much as having the gains from late D and Vaults (EXP: truckloads; Loot: more than you could ever need) impacts Swamp.

[rebthor]

Well this will proportionally screw even more those games where you get swamp and spider over shoals and snake. Having just won a game with shoals and snake, I can tell you that the extra gear, (potential) shops and far more lucrative branch end (at least for shoals) makes a noticeable difference.

[Sandman25]

I am not sure it is a good idea to compare EXP in Vaults with Lair branches, I usually get both runes before entering Vaults or D20+. New Vaults are much more dangerous than Lair endings IMHO.

[dpeg]

More power to you but I thank Trog every day that design is not conducted by majority decisions.

[Tiktacy]

More power to you but I thank Trog every day that design is not conducted by majority decisions.

I completely agree with this, I just wanted to see what everyone really thinks.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I like the idea of the rune lock. Right now, everyone says that Crawl is open and you can choose what to do. It's not. ...well, it is, but the vast majority of the time, if you do Elf or Lair branches before D:15, you're playing sub-optimally. Very sub-optimally. Currently, everyone who is not looking for a self-imposed challenge will put off runes for as long as possible. So, while there is a choice at present, it's not a very interesting one.

The rune lock makes things more interesting. Which Lair branch do you clear to advance the game? Do you attempt Elf to make up for a gear deficiency first? If you happened to stumble upon an early gateway to the Abyss or Hell, do you try for those instead? (Probably not for reasons similar to those outlined in the last paragraph). If you get banished to the Abyss early, do you stay in hopes of finding a rune to bypass the lock without having to do a Lair branch or do you escape ASAP?

That sounds more fun and interesting than the present "avoid non-easy branches for as long as possible".

Additionally, a rune lock makes mid-game balancing easier. By restricting options, D:15 and later no longer have to be easily doable by someone who reached D:14. It can be safely assumed that the player will have acquired loot and XP from a Lair branch first. This means that D:15 to D:27 (or shallower if we do a second lock) can be better balanced to provide more interesting challenge to players who have conquered a branch end rather than having to attempt to cater to those putting off branch ends as long as possible and those who already have three runes by D:15 (and this clearly doesn't work well).

Losing some of the open feel kind of stinks, I'll be honest. But I think the gameplay and balance gains from a lock would be well worth it. Also, though less important to myself, it'd make the "where do I go next" bit clearer to new players.

[roctavian]

Two things:

This could make an early Jiyva switch -- or even skipping gods in the early game, to save oneself for Jiyva -- a lot more attractive.

If a gold god existed (per some of dpeg's ruminations at other times, I'll leave it to him to link/add details) it would make such a god also attractive.

Giving players a few nonstandard approaches to the problem of "get a rune early" would be some sugar for the bitter pill of rune lockage.

[dpeg]

TP: Thanks for this -- I was feeling a bit lonely over here

Roctavian: no need to advertise Gozag in this thread (bad enough that we already hijacked the original thread); if someone's really curious, it's the first hit on "gold god" in the dev wiki. I don't really believe it is a bitter pill at all: first, for a new/naive player, getting the rune reasonably early is the natural thing to do, I believe. Shunning the branch ends for as long as possible is a more educated, sophisticated or, pardon my words, cynical approach to the game. I am such a strong proponent of the idea because I feel that currently we're all going out of our ways to avoid fun (we put security over enjoyment) and the lock is supposed to force is into having fun times: the branch ends have a lot to offer in cool combinations of challenge, special monsters and your toolkit.
Because "fun" is subjective, so is this very approach. I am sure that I am not just speaking for myself here, anyway (see TwilightPhoenix, for example). Aka "you don't like getting a birching but I'm only doing it for you"

[dpeg]

Elf:3 is probably off the mark for most characters at that stage (a few builds might be able to conveniently do it) but Elf:1 and Elf:2 may be not.
On the other hand, the relative value of Orc might change. Anyway, these strategic considerations are secondary, if welcome, to me.

[Sar]

Vault elves do spawn in Elf:1 and Elf:2 disturbingly often, and even a regular ones can be a huge annoyance. High threat, and the loot is... elven ring mails? Bucklers? A low chance of getting shops which, in turn, have a chance to have something that will allow your Elf-diving character to overcome the menace that are Lair branches?

[Galefury]

There's nothing wrong with trying the rune lock while the next release is still far away.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Elf has a hugely disproportionate ratio of risk to reward, such that Elf is a waste of time and resources unless your character is so strong that the branch is trivial to clear. And I say that as the type of player who will readily enter other branches at lowish levels. The only reason inexperienced/bad players go there is that they vastly overestimate the importance of the loot, and severely underestimate the danger of the elves.

On a 3 rune game I would never go to Elf 3, and I would only enter the first two levels if I wanted a good branded buckler or ring mail and none had generated. Though with tengu reavers often having them, even that motivation is largely gone (and I almost never want ring mail because robes and dragon armour exist).

If you get banished to the Abyss early, do you stay in hopes of finding a rune to bypass the lock

That sounds like a great plan if your goal is to fucking die.

if you do Lair branches before D:15, you're playing sub-optimally.

I don't see why.

By restricting options, D:15 and later no longer have to be easily doable by someone who reached D:14. It can be safely assumed that the player will have acquired loot and XP from a Lair branch first.

No, that's backwards. If D15 is not easily doable by someone who reached D14, it can be safely assumed that they will go get XP in relatively easier Lair branches first. If you do that, the rune lock becomes redundant and useless, just a meaningless restriction on the skilled players who want to dive.

[dpeg]

Volteccer_Jack: That is the difference between playing and designing a game. You don't have to understand what's going on behind the curtains in order to play it!

[Lasty]

On a 3 rune game I would never go to Elf 3

Really? I almost always clear Elf:$ on my 3 rune games. If you know what you're doing, it's not hard for most characters to clear Elf:$ before they would be able to clear Vaults:$. I don't think I've ever lost a character doing it, but if I have it was long enough ago that I've completely forgotten.

You can usually find at least one or two usable items in the loot, at least if you do it before Vaults:$.

[dck]

Elf: 1 and 2 has always been really dangerous and is now really somewhere you don't want to be if you can't handle the vault elves because they're far more common there now.

Do you attempt Elf to make up for a gear deficiency first? If you happened to stumble upon an early gateway to the Abyss or Hell, do you try for those instead? (Probably not for reasons similar to those outlined in the last paragraph). If you get banished to the Abyss early, do you stay in hopes of finding a rune to bypass the lock without having to do a Lair branch or do you escape ASAP?

What no who would even ask himself things like these?
There is a difference between making your game interesting by choosing to do somewhat risky things you've prepared yourself for and just being an idiot who longs death's embrace, nowadays it is not a good idea to grab a lair rune until a certain point because the difficulty is hugely swingy. You could get the stupid box of hydras or drakes endings in swamp or you could get the lernaean with tmons and mennas/jorgrun just chilling in the rune vault.
It is understandable people don't want to touch lair branch ends with a ten pole stick as it is, because the chance of having to deal with overwhelming opposition there is very real while in the dungeon things still progress normally and you not only get a better experience, you also are appropriately rewarded for it. In other words, other places are not only more fun to be at, but you also have some incentive to explore and are by far more consistent in terms of danger.

Crawl -I think, is about making decisions on your own and adapting to what tools become available as you progress; of course your immediate goal is not dying, the second immediate goal is having fun and the overall one you work towards is winning.
Thing is, initially you find the questions the dungeons asks pretty restricting and thus feel like everything must be done in a certain order to maximize chances of staying alive and keep having fun, but as you get better you realize you can get away with a number of fun answers you'd initially have never considered. Eventually you realize to what degree you can control the progression of your guy and that it's not the game who's letting you "get away with sketchy but fun answers", it's just you who's always been to one to ask the questions and the game has always been the one to take (often poor) stabs at answering them.
This is a really fun degree of control over character progression and it does a lot to keep crawl fresh and interesting and while a rune lock will fortunately not be enough to screw this progression up completely, it will bring it to a screeching halt at a random point of the midgame for no reason in particular other than someone once deciding that lair branches were not getting enough love and forcing your through one of them instead of making them better.

So I'm against the rune lock because (besides of annoying me personally) making newer players feel more restricted than they really are will stop them from noticing how simple it is to reach for infinity and grasp it. It'll make them worse players who will take longer to notice many different ways of doing things that are potentially very fun. It is not nice to deprive people of a clear vision of things (and fun) when they're playing a game.

[Kalma]

...just a meaningless restriction on the skilled players who want to dive.

Skilled players are diving the dungeon. Why are they diving the dungeon?

[rebthor]

I'll just add one more thing. In my last win, I planned to do what I always do, namely dungeon to lair, clear lair, dungeon to 20, vaults to v:4, dungeon to 27, get 3 runes ascend. What actually happened was after clearing lair, D:20 was quite difficult with an open layout and several hydra and yaktaur packs by all three stairs. I went to vaults, messed v:1 up by not seeing a convoker who proceeded to bring all the dangerous stuff on the level right next to me and ended up running from that too. That left me with elf (which I pretty much never do) or the lair rune branches as my only options. I ended up doing snake:1-5, shoals:1-5, vaults:1-5 which was probably suboptimal but I found that I was doing OK. At D:14 level though, I'm not sure I would have been able to take out either, although that's not as germane to my point which is namely that good* players will find out the safest place their character should go.

My other concern with a rune lock is that we already see novice players having a hard time and doing "stupid" stuff like going into the rune branches well before they are ready. This will force that behavior. And without significant rebalancing of the early game, it will make it that much harder for people to get their first win.

*For varying definitions of good.

[BlackSheep]

Crawl -I think, is about making decisions
...
So I'm against the rune lock because (besides of annoying me personally) making newer players feel more restricted than they really are will stop them from noticing how simple it is to reach for infinity and grasp it. It'll make them worse players who will take longer to notice many different ways of doing things that are potentially very fun. It is not nice to deprive people of a clear vision of things (and fun) when they're playing a game.

I like the rune lock idea precisely because it forces more decision making and gives all players a goal to attempt in different ways.

Your mentioning clarity brought a thought to my mind. It's been a while since I've been a new player--is there an indication in the game where the runes can be found? If we're going to require players to find one, I think it should be easy for them to at least know where to look.

[Tiktacy]

@dck: the only thing that stops me from going into lair branches earlier is the threat of unpredictably dangerous uniques and branch ends. I think the dev team should put forth an effort to balance the branch difficulty a bit more and keep it more consistent in terms of uniques, branch ends, and risk/gain ratios before suggesting something as strange and anti-crawl as a rune lock.

[dpeg]

BlackSheep: Yes, the branch descriptions list existence of runes, see ?/B.

dck: "they like fun maybe" ---> will get nowhere! You like to dive, fine. You may say the game is unplayable if we deny diving. But you're not the only player, and I think that a different kind of fun is to be gained from forcing decisions when they hurt. You say that "Crawl is about making decisions on your own and adapting to what tools become available as you progress" and I fully agree. Can you see that the rune lock will take that statement and amplify it?

Tiktacy: how often do we have to say that changes bring forth changes? Yes, unique generation depths will get a closer look. No, you are not the one to tell me what's "anti-crawl".

[rebthor]

If you want to put in something that functions as a "rune lock" then make the lair branches easier and d:15 harder. Then it will be optimal to do lair branches before going deeper in the dungeon.

[dck]

@Blackseheep: But you're already making decisions all the time, and important ones too. I don't see what there is to gain in hijacking the progression into taking this detour through lair branches.

EDIT: there is a rune list apparently, huh.

[Volteccer_Jack]

...just a meaningless restriction on the skilled players who want to dive.

Skilled players are diving the dungeon. Why are they diving the dungeon?

Because they are winning branchless or doing some other self-imposed challenge, was obviously the point I was going for. That's why I put that sentence next to the other sentence that assumed a hypothetical scenario where D15+ is significantly harder. In such a scenario the rune lock's stated purpose is accomplished by the difficulty tweaks and therefore the rune lock is unnecessary baggage that only limits such self-imposed challenges while providing no real benefit.

If you know what you're doing, it's not hard for most characters to clear Elf:$ before they would be able to clear Vaults:$

The fact that elves have low health is the main contributor to the delusion that going to Elf is a good idea. The Elf 3 end vault can easily become vastly more deadly than V5 on any given turn with essentially no warning.

[dpeg]

Challenges and conducts should never influence development of the main game.

[Tiktacy]

BlackSheep: Yes, the branch descriptions list existence of runes, see ?/B.

dck: "they like fun maybe" ---> will get nowhere! You like to dive, fine. You may say the game is unplayable if we deny diving. But you're not the only player, and I think that a different kind of fun is to be gained from forcing decisions when they hurt. You say that "Crawl is about making decisions on your own and adapting to what tools become available as you progress" and I fully agree. Can you see that the rune lock will take that statement and amplify it?

Tiktacy: how often do we have to say that changes bring forth changes? Yes, unique generation depths will get a closer look. No, you are not the one to tell me what's "anti-crawl".

I'm sorry, I was in a bit of a rush when I posted that, I should have worded it better. What I mean is: a rune lock is a good idea, but feels like it goes against the strategic and free-ball world of crawl. At no point in the game other than zot are you FORCED to do anything. I just think that a revision of these things are all that's needed to improve gameplay substantially, and we should try that BEFORE testing out even a minor restriction in freedom for the sake of an improved and more consistent challenge.

[pratamawirya]

Challenges and conducts should never influence development of the main game.

We can consider challenges and conducts as two aspects of the "replay value" of the game, and "replay value" is always important. At the moment, I can't see how the rune lock system would add something positive to crawl's replay value, honestly. (Now, I'm not saying that the system is inherently incapable of enriching the replay value.)

[dck]

dck: "they like fun maybe" ---> will get nowhere! You like to dive, fine. You may say the game is unplayable if we deny diving. But you're not the only player, and I think that a different kind of fun is to be gained from forcing decisions when they hurt. You say that "Crawl is about making decisions on your own and adapting to what tools become available as you progress" and I fully agree. Can you see that the rune lock will take that statement and amplify it?

I don't dive particularly often, I just enjoy D the most because it's the best place in the game so I do my best to spend there most of my time. I can understand of course complains about locking good players out of diving for no reason.
The rune lock won't force adaptation, it won't force good decision making, good decision making emerges naturally as you play the game. It will merely force devs waste their time rebalancing lair branches into being easier and more boring equivalents of current D: 14-20, then make them waste it again rebalancing D: 14-20 to pose an appropriate challenge.
Unless of course you expect people who've just finished orc and lair to kill greater nagas while dodging a million hasted IMBs and parrows, burn their limited stock of curing not dying to a single bite of a sea snake or getting poked a couple of times by a poison branded Mf or just take primal waves and icicles to the face while grabbing the runes.
I don't believe this is a reasonable expectation and think it'll be a lot of work that, best case scenario, will leave the game exactly as it is but more annoying.

[dpeg]

I think we have reached a dead end here. The good thing about the lock is that, unlike "a revision of these things are all that's needed" it is very easy to implement and test. I believe that dck is way too negative, especially regarding "won't force adaption", and I hope we will be able to actually try it.

[Tiber]

I think I like the idea of Vaults being locked best. It still counts as optional, but most players go there early enough that the bait is tempting. Besides, it makes thematic sense for a "Vault" to be locked; the entrance already looks like the door to a safe.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Challenges and conducts should never influence development of the main game.

My point was quite specifically that it hurts challenges and conducts AND DOES NOT BENEFIT THE MAIN GAME IN ANY WAY.

Implementing the rune lock will necessarily involve rebalancing the difficulty. Specifically, the parts after the rune lock need to be more difficult than the parts before the rune lock. If that is the case, the rune lock would be useless limiting baggage, since currently difficulty is the guiding factor in where players go.

Please read my ****ing posts before you reply to them in future.

The good thing about the lock is that, unlike "a revision of these things are all that's needed" it is very easy to implement and test.

It also accomplishes nothing useful, since clearing the Lair Branches before doing mid D will just make mid D easy and boring instead. All it does is move the problem.

[Tiktacy]

I think we have reached a dead end here. The good thing about the lock is that, unlike "a revision of these things are all that's needed" it is very easy to implement and test. I believe that dck is way too negative, especially regarding "won't force adaption", and I hope we will be able to actually try it.

I actually am really having trouble deciding whether I am for or against a rune lock. I think that it should be implemented, but not to fix a problem like this. It should be added after we finish making the already essential changes to the lair branches.

Rune lock is a fantastic idea tbh, it would for sure make the mid-game more enjoyable because it adds an incentive. The early game is all about surviving, the end game is all about winning, but what incentive do you have in the mid game? Not much. Rune lock will likely make the game more enjoyable, but there is no way it's going to do as much as you think it will without adding in the proper fundamental improvements of gameplay for lair branches FIRST: consistency, challenge, and proper rewards.

[dpeg]

Please read my ****ing posts before you reply to them in future.

Not necessary anymore.

[pratamawirya]

It also accomplishes nothing useful, since clearing the Lair Branches before doing mid D will just make mid D easy and boring instead. All it does is move the problem.

To be fair, "accomplishes nothing useful" is a bit harsh; the rune lock does sound useful since it can theoretically make the game a bit more streamlined. With clearer flow (early D, lair, a lair branch, D:15), balancing the difficulty so that the difficulty really mean something should be much easier.

It's just that making crawl more streamlined like this is indeed controversial. We sacrifices freedom to make the flow more focused. It might be good (more focused flow always equals more immersion and better emotional experience for the players), but it might also be bad if we're talking on a larger scale, since... well, what is a roguelike without a high degree of freedom in the gameplay? It might just be a short-sighted solution.

[dck]

dpeg, I think you're way too fixated on how "easy" it is just to put a lock on the stairs to D: 15 and remove a couple of uniques from the branch generation lists and just add it to trunk to test it, but it really isn't. Or at least that's not a sensible way of doing it at all.
As they currently stand it is insane to expect the average joe who's just finished orc to get a rune from lair branches to be able to get a rune without exposing themselves to extreme danger. The loot rewards from branches needs to rebalanced, the damage monsters do needs to be rebalanced, the amount of poison random monsters in branches inflict needs to be rebalanced and then lots of small things like primal wave screwing with your placement and chucking you into shallow water on top of dealing a lot of damage need to be changed as well.
In the end, lair branches will lose most of their definite branch exclusive dangers if the lock is placed because I sincerely doubt you'll be pitting pre D: 15 players against ghost moths and berserk emperor scorpions. It will be a lot of work just to get lair branches there and then there's the work needed to prepare the rest of the content in the game to face the now particularly more buff player.

I don't find this change at all as trivially easy to add as you seem to do.

[dpeg]

dck: No, I utterly disagree. The game is hard, it will be hard afterwards, there is no way that monster damage etc. will be changed. I think you're way too fixated with having an easy time.

[BlackSheep]

Adding a rune lock is relatively easy. It's you who is asserting that rebalancing Lair branches and post-lock dungeon floors will be required as well. The plan is to put in the lock and see what happens. Then decisions can be made about balance and whatnot once we have hard data.

[dck]

@dpeg: Hahahaha are you out of your mind? There is a difference between fair challenge and telling players "good luck dodging those primal waves on your berserker with no ring of flight while standing in shallow water while engulfed by an elemental, also they all came into view two turns ago, also the alternative was spider".
No, I am not the best player in the land and I often take pretty easy options but I am not fixated with having an easy time http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/players/dck.html by any stretch of the imagination.
When was the last time you played this game you supposedly help design that you can so boldly claim that it is hard? It can be hard to learn some things, but it is quite forgiving and there are many many many ways of fixing turns upon turns of horrible decision making. That to me doesn't sound so hard.

[dck]

@BlackSheep: What will happen is people will die in very unfair ways that currently have no place in crawl as it stands and then lair branches will be castrated into nothing.

[BlackSheep]

Well that's your prediction. I'd like to see for myself. Bear in mind, this isn't the final word on the matter. Things in trunk get bumped out to later versions or removed entirely.

[dpeg]

@dpeg: Hahahaha are you out of your mind? [...] this game you supposedly help design

And another one out!

[pratamawirya]

Duh, I was about to reply to some post when I realized it's gone.

Anyway, I'll just post the reply here, since I want to bring this "flow" thingy to the front:

The latest Elder Scrolls game is Skyrim, and it is in many aspects more streamlined while not being objectively worse than it's predecessors (to many players it's the best in the series, even). Much less stuff to tinker with when you level up your characters, much more simple dialogue system, etc, but it's still great fun. It might be that the streamlined gameplay also has stronger/clearer/more focused flow, which make the game more enjoyable.

The importance of "gameplay flow" is already widely acknowledged, even by researchers. Just google it (the keyword is "flow" or "GameFlow"). It doesn't matter if your game values freedom highly or likes to restrict it's players like an overprotective father, if the flow of your game sucks (anti-climactic lair branch endings is, sadly, one example of that), then your game is not that good. And one important aspect of this "gameplay flow" is presenting appropriate challenges to the player at appropriate times. So, yes, anything that can stop branch endings from getting anti-climactic is good for the "gameplay flow".

[dck]

Just for reference, this started when some guy made a ridiculous suggestion about runes, people then laughed a bit and dpeg brought the rune lock up "but not for discussion really guys because this is discussed by important people in important places", and that apparently means no one can make any comment on a matter as game changing as a rune lock. And yes of course GDD isn't a good place for design overall, but that doesn't mean you get to descend upon the flock to grace them with a glimpse of your divine knowledge and not get shit for your holier-than-thou attitude.
Yes, of course plenty of posters have a very negative reaction to it, because it's a controversial matter, but constantly ignoring their points and turning a blind eye to any problem that is brought up doesn't seem the right thing to do to me since you're the one to start the discussion in the first place.

[nordetsa]

Can we at least not make high level uniques (like Mara, Boris, or Mennas) appear in the lair branch then? They make Lair Branch:5 like Vault or later Dungeon, which shouldn't happen if access to D:15 is forbidden without a rune.

And I have to agree with dck to a some degree, because players might not be able to have the resources to try either of the lair branch without diving deeper into the dungeon.

[Tiktacy]

@dpeg: Hahahaha are you out of your mind? [...] this game you supposedly help design

And another one out!

Needless to say, dck is taking this way too personally and loses a lot of credibility(despite having some good points) but I'm kind of disappointed at the lack of maturity on your part as well. You should be making an attempt to bring down the hostility, not trying to make it worse with comments like that.