Rune lock

[nordetsa]

http://i.imgur.com/G2OJXVZ.png

Am I too optimistic to think that using the rod of swarm can take that thing?

[Kalma]

http://i.imgur.com/G2OJXVZ.png

This is where you quaff speed and kill it with your unresistable conjuration spell.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I get the feeling that this is going to be MD all over again...

Anyway, the point isn't to make the game harder, it's to make it more fun and interesting. At the moment in stable, the player has a ton of options. The problem is that these options are all largely balanced for a XL 15ish character. Most/all of them are also required to finish the game. So you go do one or two of them and boom, suddenly you outlevel and outgear the others. Those XL 15 challenges are (usually) easy for a XL 20+ character. They become simple, trivial, and not very fun unless you happen to enjoy stomping constant non-threats (it's fun for a bit, admittedly, but it gets quite old quite fast). So, now you have to slog through all those other XL 15 challenges to complete the game. (There are other runes that are harder but, let's be honest, nobody goes for those except for 4+ rune games or for challenge conducts. Or for Jiyva reasons for Slime).

Now with the rune lock, you cut out a number of options. So now the rune branches can be tweaked to be appropriate for XL 15. D15 and below can be tweaked to be appropriate for whatever level players tend to be after getting a rune. As such, the game can continue to be more engaging rather than having a big middle chunk of "curb stomp everything because you're required to." Yes, it will get harder because you won't have the huge, trivial mid-game section where there isn't anything threatening, but that's honestly better than a boring popcorn slaying session.

Of course, those tweaks haven't been made yet. Give it time for data to be collected and stuff to be done with it. If the Rune Lock makes it into the next stable release, I'm pretty darn sure there'll be more changes than just slapping the lock in place and leaving branch balance alone.

[Kalma]

I think (hope) that after rune lock has been in place in trunk for couple of versions, it can be removed since the post-rune-lock game has been tweaked to be interesting (more difficult) for post-rune-lock characters.

[claws]

http://i.imgur.com/G2OJXVZ.png

Such a shame, there being only one rune available in the game pre-rune-lock.

[XuaXua]

http://i.imgur.com/G2OJXVZ.png

Such a shame, there being only one rune available in the game pre-rune-lock.

2 - you can always join Jiyva.

I wonder if the rPois naysayers can be appealed by providing multiple levels of rPois which, instead of preventing poisoning, instead apply to recovery time?

rPois+ - enhances recovery time (chance)
rPois++ - doubles recovery time of rPois+
rPois+++ - doubles recovery time of rPois++ (probably enhances so quickly that you might as well have noPois).
noPois - cannot be poisoned, for those who can't be affected by poison.

Concept here is that animals who can poison typically can be poisoned with their own poison. Poison.

Changes the poison game a little. Add more sources of rPois.

[HenryFlower]

Had my first runelock game. MiGl of Oka, wielding staves (got a nice lajatang of speed from ?acquire). Was wasted in Snake:5

Impressions: removing the post Orc D13:D20+ experience grind makes the strategic decisions sharper. In this case, I found some nice charms, and diverted experience there to get my buff on. Normally would have been plenty of experience to get my buffs and my fighting/armor up, but the lack of defense/fighting showed pretty brutally.

Draining mechanics make this even tougher: you simply don't have the exp to spare when you get drained at L14 trying to clear a rune level.

All in all, makes the game more interesting. Make need to make the rune levels more interesting: rather than drowning with overwhelming force, perhaps an interesting vault with a guaranteed boss unique?

[Sandman25]

My SpSu with invisibility spell and evocable flight got rune from Shoals easily. Though I would prefer to dive deeper into D if I had choice.
Fortunately neither Saint Roka (Shoals:5) nor Ilsuiw (Shoals:5) could see invisible.

[Zammy]

What is the point forcing players to play the game in a certain way rather than the way they like.

It's generally easier to develop a game that offers less freedom (though that doesn't necessarily mean the resulting game is rather poor).

It might be easier but in this case I feel that the rune lock will just remove choises from players and all it provides in return in some difficulty. And I would consider that to be a very poor trade.

[galehar]

I think (hope) that after rune lock has been in place in trunk for couple of versions, it can be removed since the post-rune-lock game has been tweaked to be interesting (more difficult) for post-rune-lock characters.

I think you're missing the point. The goal isn't to make D:15 harder than the Lair branch end vaults. The branch end vault is supposed to be dramatic, you should use consumables and god powers. If you grab the rune after using all your resources and half your piety, going back to an easier D:15 isn't going to be boring. I'm not saying the lower D doesn't need to be changed (it's already being changed), but even after that, the lock will still make sense IMO.

[dck]

I've gotten the lock open on two felids so far. It's still awful and all I'm doing is steal the rune because you have no right to deprive me of my fun.
Galehar how can you say things like "the branch end vault is supposed to be dramatic" when there is a very common swamp end that has literally nothing but drakes?

[dpeg]

What is the point forcing players to play the game in a certain way rather than the way they like.

It's generally easier to develop a game that offers less freedom (though that doesn't necessarily mean the resulting game is rather poor).

It might be easier but in this case I feel that the rune lock will just remove choises from players and all it provides in return in some difficulty. And I would consider that to be a very poor trade.

I am sure I've replied to this very many times already but I give you the benefit of the doubt (new to the game, new to the forum or just new to the party):

"forcing players to play the game in a certain way"
This may be shocking news to you, but that's what happens all the time when someone comes up with a set of rules. We forced you to pick up runes in the first place, we forced you not-use Evaporate, the list is endless.

"...rather than the way they like"
This is, in fact, the closest you have to a point. Indeed, you may find the change to make the game less fun for you. It is our goal to make the game more fun for us, under the assumption that this will also make Crawl a more enjoyable experience for most players. Inevitably, there will always be some to whom this does not apply. Perhaps the biggest joy you derived from Crawl was when you stomped Snake:5 using only autoexplore and autofight? These days may be gone, and make future versions worse for you. Below I explain a bit why we think the change improves the game, thereby making it more fun for us.
[As an aside, your complaint applies to very many changes: when Evaporate and Fulsome Distillation got removed, that hit a spell combination which for some players was the pinnacle of Crawl fun. There were balance reasons for this but they may hold little value to some. No problem, that's part of life.]

"will just remove choices"
Yes, it does remove a choice, the option to go beyond D:14 (now D:15) when you could before. That's a trivial observation.
No, it does not "just" remove choices, because it also creates some: which of the two Lair runes to get? (There are other minor options which I won't cover here.) Once you've settled on that, there is a potential for many more choices because you have to get that rune at a stage when it's less trivial than you are used to. Rest assured that it is still possible, but you may have to (a) think harder, (b) expend more consumables, (c) possibly skill differently than before -- in other words, play better.
As has been said often before, by various persons, the idea is to remove a dominating choice (aka a "no-brainer") and hence make room for other, previously marginalised choices. I have learned by now that this concept is non-trivial, so feel free to go on and tell us how poor this trade is -- presumably without having played trunk -- but don't tell we didn't try to motivate the change.

"all it provides ... is some difficulty"
Apart from the shiny new choices you get -- I just covered those -- you also receive something which other genres might call a "boss fight". We like boss fights. Because Crawl is soft, you are even allowed to pick the boss.
You get a sense that runes are keys even if you never set foot into Zot and only heard about the key-like properties of runes. You get a game which has more depth, by which I mean that it affords more levels of player skill. All of this while new players can win the game as before, and still unspoiled!

"very poor trade"
Your opinion, no problem. Feel free to stick with 0.13 or branch, for the reasons you give are certainly not good enough to impact development.

[Hurkyl]

For something completely different....

For flavor (and pretty much only for flavor), how about another rune lock around D:22 or so: deep enough that vaults and abyss are available, but still blocking the nastiest (and must lucrative) part of the dungeon? This lock would require two runes, to make more of a progression from the first rune lock to the lock on Zot.

[Klown]

For something completely different....

For flavor (and pretty much only for flavor), how about another rune lock around D:22 or so: deep enough that vaults and abyss are available, but still blocking the nastiest (and must lucrative) part of the dungeon? This lock would require two runes, to make more of a progression from the first rune lock to the lock on Zot.

If someone pulls off getting a rune and unlocking, they should be able to march through to at least D:20 without much issue. Then they can do the same thing possible now. Plow through some easier levels, then go back and beat the easier rune when they are quite strong. Would be a more consistent high challenge with runelocks on 15-21-27 for 1-2-3 runes respectively, but would draw some more rage though.

[TwilightPhoenix]

I dunno about a second rune lock. I mean, it would make sense from that standpoint. But where would you put it? D14 is past the numeric halfway point of the main dungeon. Another lock on D22 would give the player eight more floors for one rune and five more for two runes (23-27) (not counting branches).

On the other hand, with some work to make those segments much more distinct in terms of visuals and threat, a second lock could work pretty well.

[Sar]

Isn't there a branch where post-runelock Dungeon is shortened to 5 or 6 levels and called "Depths"?

[dpeg]

Sar: Yes. What also has happened is a Elf-Vaults passage, and I am currently appealing to get the shaft functionality into the Depths branch.

[Sar]

Elf, huh. Elf:3 is a pretty scary place and its inhabitants spawn on Elf:1-2 often. Then again, some of them spawn in Vaults and low Dungeon too.

[moocowmoocow]

I get the feeling that this is going to be MD all over again...

Anyway, the point isn't to make the game harder, it's to make it more fun and interesting. At the moment in stable, the player has a ton of options. The problem is that these options are all largely balanced for a XL 15ish character. Most/all of them are also required to finish the game. So you go do one or two of them and boom, suddenly you outlevel and outgear the others. Those XL 15 challenges are (usually) easy for a XL 20+ character. They become simple, trivial, and not very fun unless you happen to enjoy stomping constant non-threats (it's fun for a bit, admittedly, but it gets quite old quite fast). So, now you have to slog through all those other XL 15 challenges to complete the game. (There are other runes that are harder but, let's be honest, nobody goes for those except for 4+ rune games or for challenge conducts. Or for Jiyva reasons for Slime).

Now with the rune lock, you cut out a number of options. So now the rune branches can be tweaked to be appropriate for XL 15. D15 and below can be tweaked to be appropriate for whatever level players tend to be after getting a rune. As such, the game can continue to be more engaging rather than having a big middle chunk of "curb stomp everything because you're required to." Yes, it will get harder because you won't have the huge, trivial mid-game section where there isn't anything threatening, but that's honestly better than a boring popcorn slaying session.

Of course, those tweaks haven't been made yet. Give it time for data to be collected and stuff to be done with it. If the Rune Lock makes it into the next stable release, I'm pretty darn sure there'll be more changes than just slapping the lock in place and leaving branch balance alone.

Thanks for the explanation. I couldn't understand how this change could benefit the game. At first I fully agreed with people that it was an unnecessary restriction of freedom. Guess I will reserve judgement until I see how it plays out.

[Zammy]

For most parts of you post I agree that you have a valid point dpeg.
After some thought I see that rune lock would actually provide something more than just difficulty. But for two parts I disagree.

"forcing players to play the game in a certain way"
This may be shocking news to you, but that's what happens all the time when someone comes up with a set of rules. We forced you to pick up runes in the first place, we forced you not-use Evaporate, the list is endless.

Of course there is allways some "forced to do certain things" but is it really a good thing to just add more and more "must do" things?

"will just remove choices"
Yes, it does remove a choice, the option to go beyond D:14 (now D:15) when you could before. That's a trivial observation.
No, it does not "just" remove choices, because it also creates some: which of the two Lair runes to get? (There are other minor options which I won't cover here.) Once you've settled on that, there is a potential for many more choices because you have to get that rune at a stage when it's less trivial than you are used to. Rest assured that it is still possible, but you may have to (a) think harder, (b) expend more consumables, (c) possibly skill differently than before -- in other words, play better.
As has been said often before, by various persons, the idea is to remove a dominating choice (aka a "no-brainer") and hence make room for other, previously marginalised choices. I have learned by now that this concept is non-trivial, so feel free to go on and tell us how poor this trade is -- presumably without having played trunk -- but don't tell we didn't try to motivate the change.

I allready have an option to choose to go for runes before entering dungeon level 14. So Rune lock does not give me a new choice here.
I allready have the oprions of spending consumables/use god powers/train different skills.
So I might just be stupid here, but I really can't see what choices it does add that I don't have in current version.
It might force me to "play better" and "think harder", but I consider this to be a casual game hence I'm not intersted to think very hard playing this. I can allways play chess if I want to think hard.

That being said, since I do think that crawl is a great game overall, I'm willing to give the rune lock a chance. And as you pointed out, there is allways an option to stick with older versions if I find it to ruin too much fun from my personal gaming experience.

And yes, I haven't played any trunk games recently so my opinions don't have any experience to back them up. Just experiences from many many many games I have played overall.
And yes again, I am pointing out things that I feel that affect my personal gaming experience. I have no clue on how tedious it is to balance the game, all I can percieve is how much fun I have playing the game.

[galehar]

I allready have an option to choose to go for runes before entering dungeon level 14. So Rune lock does not give me a new choice here.

It's not real a choice. Before the rune lock, going for runes early is a self-imposed challenge. There is no reason to grab any rune until you want to enter Zot. It's safer to clear the easy places first and we think this is less fun.

It might force me to "play better" and "think harder", but I consider this to be a casual game hence I'm not intersted to think very hard playing this.

We don't consider crawl to be a casual game, it isn't designed to be one. It's designed to be hard and challenging and force you to think very hard while playing. Since your expectations don't meet our design goals, it is likely that you won't like the new directions the game might take.

[Zammy]

I allready have an option to choose to go for runes before entering dungeon level 14. So Rune lock does not give me a new choice here.

It's not real a choice. Before the rune lock, going for runes early is a self-imposed challenge. There is no reason to grab any rune until you want to enter Zot. It's safer to clear the easy places first and we think this is less fun.

It might force me to "play better" and "think harder", but I consider this to be a casual game hence I'm not intersted to think very hard playing this.

We don't consider crawl to be a casual game, it isn't designed to be one. It's designed to be hard and challenging and force you to think very hard while playing. Since your expectations don't meet our design goals, it is likely that you won't like the new directions the game might take.

Actually now it is a real choice, since I can choose how to proceed. In the future there is not a choice since I must play a certain way.
Now I can choose if I want a more challenging game or play with relatively easy one. I kind of thought that tournaments and their banners were the challenges.

And I understand that you don't consider crawl to be a casual game. But considering the current (and past) difficulty this is most certainly a casual game. For me at least.
I have never beaten a roguelike as fast that i did with crawl. Also, 15 runes were not really that difficult to get.
So in this light I can very well understand that you want to beef up the difficulty.

[TwilightPhoenix]

Understand that you're an outlier if you're clearing the game that easily while still being new. Like, an extreme outlier. Most players had to play for months, or longer, before they ever saw a rune. Some people have played for years and have never won.

Actually now it is a real choice, since I can choose how to proceed.

There's a big difference between a choice that makes you choose from "least resistance" and "challenge conduct" than there is with a choice of "hard area with these threats" and "hard area with those threats".

[Sandman25]

I have never beaten a roguelike as fast that i did with crawl. Also, 15 runes were not really that difficult to get.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take for you?

[dpeg]

There might be different expectations here. When I came to Crawl, it was supposed to be fiendishly hard, and definitely a lot harder than Nethack. Then came Brent's 4.1.2 which was, for mortals, unwinnable. (Yes, syllogism pulled one off but that says more about him than about the rest of us.)
I always liked Crawl to be really hard. Turns out that the game became much easier over the years (funnily while players complain about "now they completely got out of touch" and "devs are elitist") -- perhaps to the extreme that players think it's a casual game? If that's true, then it'd be completely undesired and warrant dialing back. It would explain some of the reactions, though.

[rebthor]

I just finished my first "runelock" game. I put it in quotes because I did is as a voluntary challenge on .13 instead of playing trunk. Having picked up the vow of courage before, I pretty much knew what I was in for. I played an MfDK which is a pretty powerful combo. What was frustrating is the running back and forth between dungeon, orc, shoals, orc:4 and then back to lair but that was more gear based than anything else in my game and a camping orc warlord on orc:4 but I really wanted to get into the shops in orc to see if anything useful had generated before attempting the end of shoals or starting spider. Unfortunately there wasn't much there either so I started spider without rPois but with a sizable amount of backup if things went south. I was lucky enough to find a good helmet on spider:2 with rPois so then I knew that the rest of spider would be easily doable. After that it was get the spider rune, get the shoals rune and waltz my way to the vaults.

As I expected, first off barring some uniques in the branch end, this reinforced to me that once you're strong enough to get one of the lair runes, you're strong enough to get the other too. Secondly, also as I expected, clearing d:15 onward was pretty much a cakewalk with the exception of vaults:5. While this doesn't mean you don't have to be careful, for me it just moved the boring part of the game from the lair branches to the dungeon and most of vaults. Since those are some of my favorite parts now it was a letdown. As it is now, I usually dive spider because it is so frustrating between the webs and orb spiders and I was pretty much forced to clear it if I wanted to survive the game. As an aside, I also found it amusing that zombie spiders get stuck in webs unlike "real" spiders.

At no point other than in Zot and for a short moment in V:5 did I feel like I was in tremendous danger but that's mostly due to Yred gifts. I imagine that a less powerful combo would have more difficulties which is one of the reasons why I'm not in favor of the change. But in all, it won't break the game. It will still be winnable, at least for players that already know how to win. D:15 onward will really need to be balanced if this is going to be the desired course and I think the branch ends will have to be made a little less difficult too.

[ontoclasm]

I love the constant posts that go "Well, I did the rune-lock and, while it was difficult and presented some new and interesting challenges, forcing me to be more clever and resourceful than usual, I was able to get past it. That said I STILL HATE IT because..."

[Tiktacy]

There might be different expectations here. When I came to Crawl, it was supposed to be fiendishly hard, and definitely a lot harder than Nethack. Then came Brent's 4.1.2 which was, for mortals, unwinnable. (Yes, syllogism pulled one off but that says more about him than about the rest of us.)
I always liked Crawl to be really hard. Turns out that the game became much easier over the years (funnily while players complain about "now they completely got out of touch" and "devs are elitist") -- perhaps to the extreme that players think it's a casual game? If that's true, then it'd be completely undesired and warrant dialing back. It would explain some of the reactions, though.

More difficulty is hard to achieve without making unfair deaths more regular.

[dpeg]

More difficulty is hard to achieve without making unfair deaths more regular.

If winning is too easy, the game becomes more shallow (fewer levels of player skill distinction). It's a design decision what you consider the sweet spot, there is no universal rule. I feel that currently Crawl is erring on the easier side.

[rebthor]

I love the constant posts that go "Well, I did the rune-lock and, while it was difficult and presented some new and interesting challenges, forcing me to be more clever and resourceful than usual, I was able to get past it. That said I STILL HATE IT because..."

If that's the message you got from my post, I suggest you re-read it. I've maintained a pretty consistent message I think, namely that you've shifted one boring part of the game for a different boring part of the game. Yes, getting runes earlier is a bit riskier and more difficult than just going to D:15 but once you're able to do that every other part of the game barring a few situations and Zot is trivial.

I understand that can and will be fixed but why not fix that part and then the increase in difficulty on D:15 will automatically encourage players to do some/all of the lair branches prior to descending. The reasoning to why it won't be changed right away is because making that change is more complicated and difficult than simply locking the stairs. But until that change has been made, you've really done very little to affect the flow of the game.

[Tiktacy]

More difficulty is hard to achieve without making unfair deaths more regular.

If winning is too easy, the game becomes more shallow (fewer levels of player skill distinction). It's a design decision what you consider the sweet spot, there is no universal rule. I feel that currently Crawl is erring on the easier side.

I think that in crawl, there tends to be a lot of deaths that can only be avoided using the wiki on every monster. Xtahua has ohko'ed me 4 times, all of which were completely unexplained and due to not being aware of certain mechanics. The first one was caused by being unaware of his see invisibility intrinsic(I assumed he couldn't see me, he was a fire dragon after all), the second one was caused by being unaware of his massive damage "potential", the third was caused because I didn't know he could open doors, and the fourth one was because damage shaving is not explained well.

Now, this isn't something that i want to "change" per say, in fact I think it should stay the same. However in the future, I would like to see difficulty to be increased without making the game more rng(most of my deaths are caused by unexpected things spawning at bad times, that's the rng I want to avoid). Non-boss uniques IMHO should only spawn in the main dungeon, because Nikola in swamp or shoals is a nightmare, as is mennas in vaults:5.

[Hurkyl]

The trick, I think, is to remove variation. There is a lot of variation in things now: for example on average, an Orc Priest will smite you three times every 18 or so turns, I think. This makes for a fairly serious threat to a 30-50 HP character, who need to pick off the priest or run away before too many smites get through.

On rare occasion, a priest will will smite you three times in 3 or 4 turns. Depending on your beliefs, this is either an unfair death, or it's your own dumb fault for engaging an orc priest before you had enough HP to survive chain-cast smites. (the level of carefulness the latter point of view suggests one should use is very exhausting to keep up throughout the entire game)

However, if you greatly toned down the damage of smite, but made the Orc Priest cast it more regularly -- or alternatively retain the damage, but enforce that a priest must take a number of other actions before casting it again -- you retain the typical danger level Orc Priest, but greatly reduce the worst case unfairness that can arise.

This would also help alleviate some of the pressure the status quo puts on one's suspension of disbelief, and helps make it feel like the monsters are actually trying to kill you, rather than just acting randomly in your direction.

[dpeg]

It is not our task to convince every single player of every upcoming change. Just some facts:

• The branch ends are carefully assembled content.
• It is unlikely that D:15-20 can come up with such a concentrated threat -- that's why they are branch end levels in the first place. Apart from vault maps, regular levels are about randomly assembled threats.
• It is our desire to make this role of branch ends more prominent.
• The midgame slump occurs one way or another, and will be addressed one way or another. There is a crucial difference in that you can be sure about the branch end threat.
• Put another way, if something has to be boring, we'd rather it's not always the branch end. In turn, making D:15- harder is comparitively easy.

[rebthor]

It is not our task to convince every single player of every upcoming change. Just some facts:

• The branch ends are carefully assembled content.
• It is unlikely that D:15-20 can come up with such a concentrated threat -- that's why they are branch end levels in the first place. Apart from vault maps, regular levels are about randomly assembled threats.
• It is our desire to make this role of branch ends more prominent.
• The midgame slump occurs one way or another, and will be addressed one way or another. There is a crucial difference in that you can be sure about the branch end threat.
• Put another way, if something has to be boring, we'd rather it's not always the branch end. In turn, making D:15- harder is comparitively easy.

I thanked on purpose because this is the most transparent post about this I think you've made. Nonetheless, I feel as if there is one thing that I and others have mentioned that seems to be consistently ignored and that is if you make D:15-D:20 harder, then people will generally do the lair branches first regardless of a lock on the stairs.

[Zammy]

I have never beaten a roguelike as fast that i did with crawl. Also, 15 runes were not really that difficult to get.

Just out of curiosity, how long did it take for you?

My first game played was 27.1.2012 and my first win 28.2.2012 so it took a month.
And I really didn't play on daily basis.
For comparison, slashem and nethack took well over a year to win and ADOM over 5 months. If I remember so distant events still correctly. And I've never beaten Andgand or Zangband.

[BlackSheep]

I feel as if there is one thing that I and others have mentioned that seems to be consistently ignored and that is if you make D:15-D:20 harder, then people will generally do the lair branches first regardless of a lock on the stairs.

They may do the branches first, but you'd have to make D:15-20 pretty hard to convince people to do the branch ends first.

[duvessa]

Turns out that the game became much easier over the years

What are you basing this claim on? (Just asking out of curiosity, I don't expect to be able to change your opinion or anything.)

I love the constant posts that go "Well, I did the rune-lock and, while it was difficult and presented some new and interesting challenges, forcing me to be more clever and resourceful than usual, I was able to get past it. That said I STILL HATE IT because..."

This is even less constructive than my post about clinging. A feature having benefits doesn't make its drawbacks magically disappear.

[johlstei]

I had another successful rune lock completion, though I died while clearing out the rest of shoals:5 for fun(rip me). I ended up getting both the snake and shoals runes this time, again on a gargoyle with repel missiles. I did both since I had the oklob vault at the lair entrance, and didn't went to cross it again, and deemed myself strong enough to do it. I was even tempted to do slime for my third one since I had an rMut amulet and a cloak of preservation, but I died before I could make that decision.

I'm still pretty scared of doing them with a non-gargoyle, permaflight really helps a lot in shoals. If I got spider and don't have flight or clarity I would be pretty scared.

[Tiktacy]

I had another successful rune lock completion, though I died while clearing out the rest of shoals:5 for fun(rip me). I ended up getting both the snake and shoals runes this time, again on a gargoyle with repel missiles. I did both since I had the oklob vault at the lair entrance, and didn't went to cross it again, and deemed myself strong enough to do it. I was even tempted to do slime for my third one since I had an rMut amulet and a cloak of preservation, but I died before I could make that decision.

I'm still pretty scared of doing them with a non-gargoyle, permaflight really helps a lot in shoals. If I got spider and don't have flight or clarity I would be pretty scared.

Out of curiosity, what did you die to?

[Mankeli]

I love the constant posts that go "Well, I did the rune-lock and, while it was difficult and presented some new and interesting challenges, forcing me to be more clever and resourceful than usual, I was able to get past it. That said I STILL HATE IT because..."

I love your post in which you completely choose to ignore the concerns about what happens after you have gotten past the rune lock (not to mention other concerns which have nothing to do with having to be more resourceful in Lair branches) .

Ps. I'm not even convinced rune luck is bad -I believe I see very clearly the benefits that are trying to be achieved via this change and I've also seen and appreciate the great improvement of DCSS over the years so please don't try to label me as a runelock/development hater. I am 100 % convinced that bad posting is bad though.

[Sandman25]

Yes, some hate to spend resources because it means they are more likely to die later in the game because of no Blink/speed/heal etc.

[ontoclasm]

This is even less constructive than my post about clinging. A feature having benefits doesn't make its drawbacks magically disappear.

My point was that a feature having drawbacks doesn't make its benefits disappear. The runelock was invented to add a point of tension and difficulty to the mid-game. As attested by numerous "RUNELOCK CHALLENGE" posts, it has done exactly that. Did it fix every problem in Crawl with ten lines of code? No. Does it bring along problems of its own? Sure. But there is one 5-minute-long section of the game that is better than it was before.

The reason that's worth the downsides is that you have to balance downwards. As in, if we change stuff on D:1, it'll have ramifications that impact the whole game, whereas changing the orb-run won't significantly affect anything else. Most people seem to think that the early game is pretty okay in terms of challenge, so the first place that really needed a change was the period right after Lair and Orc. That's why the rune-lock is where it is. I agree that probably D:15-Vaults is now a little easier than it should be. But adding difficulty there won't (meaningfully) affect the part of the game before the runelock. It's like straightening a sheet; you push the boring, easy part of the game later and later until it pops out of the orb-run and is gone.

At that point, sure, the rune-lock might cease being necessary. But right now it has a purpose, and it seems to be fulfilling that purpose just fine.

e: Regarding the post below, I may have an orange name but had -- and will have -- nothing to do with the rune-lock getting implemented. On this topic I am just a normal player with normal, stupid opinions.

[crate]

The only explanation of rune lock that I have liked is elliptic's that it makes runes have some point to existing before zot. Which is a justification that I can agree with. I don't like arguments about difficulty at all, to me that seems to miss the point entirely (but apparently this is not the actual justification from half the devteam so I'm confused again).

[TwilightPhoenix]

I feel as if there is one thing that I and others have mentioned that seems to be consistently ignored and that is if you make D:15-D:20 harder, then people will generally do the lair branches first regardless of a lock on the stairs.

Every level of the dungeon from D:15 and later and every level of every branch that appears within would have to be more dangerous than a branch end in order to encourage people to do branch ends first. Since branch ends are supposed to be dramatic, climatic, and challenging affairs compared to the rest of the dungeon, I seriously doubt that'll happen.

[johlstei]

I had another successful rune lock completion, though I died while clearing out the rest of shoals:5 for fun(rip me). I ended up getting both the snake and shoals runes this time, again on a gargoyle with repel missiles. I did both since I had the oklob vault at the lair entrance, and didn't went to cross it again, and deemed myself strong enough to do it. I was even tempted to do slime for my third one since I had an rMut amulet and a cloak of preservation, but I died before I could make that decision.

I'm still pretty scared of doing them with a non-gargoyle, permaflight really helps a lot in shoals. If I got spider and don't have flight or clarity I would be pretty scared.

Out of curiosity, what did you die to?

I elected to fight a kraken which killed me. I had killed two in an older game and that made me overconfident, I had no business engaging when I had a choice.

EDIT: FYI the rune lock challenge, with gargoyles at least, has made that time after lair/orc more fun for me. I like the boss fight feeling and that was really missed before when the ideal plan was "clear absolutely everything before these special branch end levels".

[rebthor]

I feel as if there is one thing that I and others have mentioned that seems to be consistently ignored and that is if you make D:15-D:20 harder, then people will generally do the lair branches first regardless of a lock on the stairs.

Every level of the dungeon from D:15 and later and every level of every branch that appears within would have to be more dangerous than a branch end in order to encourage people to do branch ends first. Since branch ends are supposed to be dramatic, climatic, and challenging affairs compared to the rest of the dungeon, I seriously doubt that'll happen.

So then we may as well get rid of them with a runelock in place because barring some strange OOD vault, there's going to be absolutely no reason for them to exist. You may as well just have the unrunelocked stairs take you right to vaults:1.

[galehar]

So then we may as well get rid of them with a runelock in place because barring some strange OOD vault, there's going to be absolutely no reason for them to exist. You may as well just have the unrunelocked stairs take you right to vaults:1.

I think there is some room between boringly trivial and climatic battle. There is already work on changing and improving the late dungeon.

[MrPlanck]

I think (hope) that after rune lock has been in place in trunk for couple of versions, it can be removed since the post-rune-lock game has been tweaked to be interesting (more difficult) for post-rune-lock characters.

I think you're missing the point. The goal isn't to make D:15 harder than the Lair branch end vaults.

Gold dragon and stone giant on the D15 welcome mat seems harder than the lair branch ends. I just get a bad roll?

[TwilightPhoenix]

Considering I don't think I've ever seen a D:15 Gold Dragon, then yes.

...though I have seen a D:14 Ancient Lich. At first I thought it wasn't real... until it fired an OoD at me.

[Kalma]

"A golden dragon (shapeshifter) (D:11)"

But it's not so bad in dungeon as you can usually just go the other way. Sigmund is OoD often but not hard to avoid.