Thursday, 26th September 2013, 07:52 by and into
I have a very different proposal for labyrinth reform. I was hoping to flesh this out a bit more before posting, but it seems timely to do it now, and I'm sure it could use feedback. So, here we go...
The problem:
Labyrinths are, at least for a substantial group of players, dull. But they also have good loot, and are not risky for the great majority of players, so doing them is a no-brainer even if the experience is not enjoyed.
The positives:
Labyrinths have good flavor. Portals that introduce a *bit* of a change of pace are good (even if in the current implementation, going from "normal crawling" to "clicking yuhjlknm in various combinations a few hundred times" is too much). The leg up that some good gear from a labyrinth can provide is a nice boon (even if the risk/reward ratio is currently out of whack).
Solution:
Make labyrinths riskier, break up the tedium, keep loot as it is.
I can't see any meaningful way to make starvation a real threat in labyrinths. A lot more hungry ghosts might come close, but they are weak enough that if you can't take them down quickly it would be really really dumb to do a labyrinth because the minotaur will wipe the floor with you. Anything else, like higher metabolism in the labyrinth or satiation-draining sudden events similar to hell effects, would be terrible and uninteresting and add nothing. (You might as well just charge a couple of rations to enter the labyrinth and keep all else as it is currently.)
So... Let's stop pretending starvation is, could be, or should be the main threat in a way that is interesting. This means a slight change in the flavor of labyrinths, but it is a change in the part of labyrinth flavor that is *bad.* ("Beware! Starvation awaits!" No, it doesn't. Let's stop pretending it does. And let's be honest that making it so that starvation matters in labyrinths will only make them worse, not better.)
With that out of the way, let's build on the parts of labyrinth flavor that are good:
Labyrinth only spawns once, so it would make sense that the labyrinth is one special, specific area, not just one labyrinth of many that are out there. And it would also make sense that you would not be the only one who wants to get that loot at the end.
So why not introduce competitors who are also trying to get to the center, whom you have to defeat (or elude) in order to claim the prize?
How this could be implemented is that you would run into intelligent creatures, things like vault guards, orcs, centaurs, maybe even tengus and so on, but only individuals, not packs: These are enemies drawn to the labyrinth singly, like you, and they are trying to reach the end.
(I really like the subtle flavor this adds, without explicitly saying anything. It implies that labyrinth entrances are shifting around all over the place, like the labyrinth itself. They pop up here or there, sporadically, only to close. And a pack of gnolls or yaktaurs or whatever, somewhere, stumbled upon an entrance. And a lone gnoll—particularly adventurous, or strong, or perhaps just over-confident—disobeyed his sergeant's orders, or a yaktaur his captain's, and slipped inside the labyrinth while his comrades weren't looking.)
While the player is in the labyrinth, the possible enemies that spawn scale up over time, so you have a sense of urgency: Complete the labyrinth pretty quickly, or things might get ugly. There wouldn't be a lot of enemies, and they'd be one-at-a-time, so you could have rather dangerous OoD (relative to depth of labyrinth) potentially spawn if people don't get to the center quickly.
So, if you get to the center quickly, labyrinth is over before it gets tedious, hurray. If you don't, you have these competitors spawn who at least break up the tedium. The loot at the end is still good enough that it is probably worth the risk for most characters to give labyrinth a shot. It is just not a long exercise in not exercising auto-explore.
The depth at which labyrinth spawns would actually matter; if relatively late, enemies could be stronger, scale up faster, and have a higher "total cap" on how strong the competitors get, compared to lower levels.
Labyrinth should be calibrated so that an average run means you face 2 or 3 competitors on your way to the center, with the first one being not so challenging, but just kind of signaling the start of competitors spawning near you in the maze; the second being a bit tougher; the fourth being almost as bad as minotaur himself.
This takes the spotlight off the minotaur, but he still gets pride of place in the center, so maybe not too bad. Enemy difficulty should be scaled so that, if the labyrinth spawns fairly early, the "cap" on the toughness of monsters spawned should be such that the minotaur is likely to still be the "boss fight."
On deeper-level labyrinths, however, you can let all sorts of nasty stuff show up, as this also helps out with the problem that high level characters are not threatened by minotaur. Liches love good loot as much as the next intelligent creature, after all!
If this is done, a few escape hatches should perhaps spawn, so if things start getting too rough, you'll have a chance to opt out. However, only a few hatches in entire labyrinth, so it is unlikely this would be a tactical consideration, only a strategic one, and of a very different feel than Ziggs, for instance.