Remove shafts


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Post Sunday, 3rd December 2017, 04:38

Re: Remove shafts

nicu wrote:"fun" - This is subjective
So is "unfair".

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Post Monday, 4th December 2017, 14:07

Re: Remove shafts

I guess this thread will be moved to CYC soon so I will just ask why OP thinks that DEGl of Oka is a hard combo. Is it really much harder than classical MfGl? You still have unlimited luring, heroism, consumables and lots of gifts. Try Mu of Chei :)
Or maybe even DEWz of Trog who never casts spells from turn 1, unarmed fight vs first monsters is hilariously hard (my best char died in Swamp because of stupid mistake and I didn't want to play it again because it was obvious that the char is winnable).
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Post Thursday, 7th December 2017, 10:22

Re: Remove shafts

nicu wrote:I'm a genetic freak :mrgreen:


100% with you on that.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 01:17

Re: Remove shafts

RNG averages out over enough iterations. What doesn't average out is how player skill affects their ability to prepare for and cope with RNG.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 03:40

Re: Remove shafts

http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 225410.txt
This is the game i least was prepared to fall down a shaft, i was playing a silly opee blaster with a amulet of harm
  Code:
  4960 | D:5      | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple.
  4983 | D:5      | You fall through a shaft for 3 floors!

This basically means that the temple got moved to d:8 and now i am forced to dive to it backwards, also the spawn table has been completely changed. So now there are 3 possible scenarios:
good event: i face some more dangerous enemies, getting stronger.
eventless: nothing happens, i make my way back and resume exploring the level
bad event: i die.
  Code:
  5352 | D:7      | Reached XP level 8. HP: 48/48 MP: 12/16

number 1 happened, so now im back to d:5, stronger than before, enemies on this floor should be trivial now, killing the enemies on this floor will make the next floor trivial until im back to the place i fell into, there my game will truly resume. But thats not good enough of a argument, so lets keep going:
  Code:
  7697 | D:6      | You fall through a shaft for 2 floors!

back to d:8, thats really... annoying, not dangerous anymore, i already know where the staircases are, i just make my way back up again, so number 2 happened.
  Code:
 10789 | D:9      | You fall through a shaft for 3 floors!
 10789 | D:12     | Found a portal to a secret trove of treasure.
 10792 | D:12     | Noticed a vault guard

Alright, i fell inside whats possibly number 3 scenario, except im at the point in the game where shafts doesnt matter anymore. so i just tele out, read mapping and make my way back up. What a adventure.
This is from a different game but is also worth mentioning:
  Code:
  2915 | D:4      | Noticed Grinder
 6483 | D:7      | Killed Grinder

Do you like dangerous grinder? do you like trivial grinder? do you like to search for grinder for a thousand turns because you didnt saw him falling down a shaft?

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 03:49

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:So, does someone have a single example of an unavoidable death resulting from a shaft trap?

do you need more than the ones that got shafted inside qazlal's toilet?

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 04:43

Re: Remove shafts

The thing is, walking into shafts is pretty much always avoidable.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 05:22

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:The thing is, walking into shafts is pretty much always avoidable.

Come on, explain this.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 05:26

Re: Remove shafts

I already did in my original post:
duvessa wrote:So, does someone have a single example of an unavoidable death resulting from a shaft trap?
Because, as stupid as floor traps are, it seems to me like it'd require an incredible level of coincidence for a shaft trap to be dangerous, let alone cause an unavoidable death. Squares that monsters have walked on are guaranteed to be safe from traps, so even falling down a shaft in optimal play is incredibly unlikely, let alone the shaft having to a dangerous result, let alone that result being unavoidably fatal. According to Sequell I've been shafted 474 times, and there was only a single one of those cases where the resulting situation was dangerous (as far as I can recall). Now consider how tiny that number would be if I had actually made an effort to avoid traps.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 06:26

Re: Remove shafts

Facepalm. I knew it was a stupid idea to visit GDD. I should listen to myself next time.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 07:47

Re: Remove shafts

ezero wrote:so i just tele out, read mapping and make my way back up. What a adventure.
Well, at least the shaft made you use some consumables.

ezero wrote:do you like to search for grinder for a thousand turns because you didnt saw him falling down a shaft?
Imo the point here is that uniques should be made immune to shafts.

duvessa wrote:The thing is, walking into shafts is pretty much always avoidable.
Now that I think of it, all monsters should be made immune to shafts (and they shouldn't reveal the shaft either). Nemelex shafts exempted.
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FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 07:52

Re: Remove shafts

Sprucery wrote:Now that I think of it, all monsters should be made immune to shafts (and they shouldn't reveal the shaft either). Nemelex shafts exempted.


IMHO monsters should be immune to all unrevealed traps (teleportation, shafts, whatever) so that player is NOT encouraged to keep track of tiles stepped on by monsters. If player reveals a trap, the immunity to that specific trap is removed so player can lure monster to it.
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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 12:37

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:I already did in my original post:
duvessa wrote:So, does someone have a single example of an unavoidable death resulting from a shaft trap?
Because, as stupid as floor traps are, it seems to me like it'd require an incredible level of coincidence for a shaft trap to be dangerous, let alone cause an unavoidable death. Squares that monsters have walked on are guaranteed to be safe from traps, so even falling down a shaft in optimal play is incredibly unlikely, let alone the shaft having to a dangerous result, let alone that result being unavoidably fatal. According to Sequell I've been shafted 474 times, and there was only a single one of those cases where the resulting situation was dangerous (as far as I can recall). Now consider how tiny that number would be if I had actually made an effort to avoid traps.

A monster can walk over a shaft and not trigger it, you can walk over a shaft and not trigger it. Optimal play in Order to avoid shafts include not picking up any gold until you found something you wanna buy and cleared the next 3 floors, backtracking for it later. I got shafted into orc 2 end vault as a formicid, where you are completely surrounded by orc priests and there are no digable walls.
edit: http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/Dynast/morg ... 195500.txt

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 17:38

Re: Remove shafts

My apologies, you're right; monsters do have a chance of evading a shaft without revealing it. So shafting into that Qazlal vault with no teleport does indeed qualify as a plausible shaft-caused unavoidable death. (Yes, it was a bug that's now fixed, but this kind of bug appears all the time so I'm counting it.)

I would not consider that Orc death unavoidable though; it would've been avoided by not going into Orc so early, for example.

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Post Wednesday, 3rd January 2018, 18:00

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:I would not consider that Orc death unavoidable though; it would've been avoided by not going into Orc so early, for example.

I mean, you dont even need to enter orc mines to win the game in a viable way, but thats how the branch is designed, with a bunch of gold scattered around the ground of the first floor that you have no reason to collect before you clear the second.

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Post Thursday, 4th January 2018, 04:37

Re: Remove shafts

Right, I'm fully in support of removing shafts, or more specifically, traps in general, because they promote the aforementioned tedious gameplay, and they're a piece of illusory complexity that the game really doesn't need.

But all these proposals to remove shafts because they're too dangerous are shooting themselves in the foot. Nothing gets removed from DCSS because it's too dangerous. At most, it gets nerfed. Bringing up unavoidable deaths makes things even worse because not only is it nearly impossible to prove a death couldn't be avoided, even if you did, potential unavoidable death is an intendeded feature in DCSS, as specified by the design philosophy. If anything, the supposed ability of shafts to kill characters will be construed as a good thing.
So to a lot of readers, probably including some devs, the proposal will just look like someone whining that the game is too hard, and they won't do anything.

Instead, to make a compelling argument for removing or adding or changing a feature, you need to argue for how it would better meet DCSS's design goals with the change. In this case, I firmly believe the best argument is that traps produce grindy gameplay (tracking which squares monsters have stepped on, minimizing the number of unique squares you step on, delaying gold pickups, luring monsters into traps, and so on). There's also a good argument that traps make DCSS harder to learn, since they're mechanically somewhat complex, without providing a proportional increase in depth.

The grindy gameplay can mostly be addressed by making traps activate as soon as they enter LOS, instead of when they are stepped on (and never let monsters activate traps). That way, the only way to avoid them would be to avoid exploring levels fully, which would lead to missing out on items. There are two holes in this that I can think of: first, gnolls/Xom/Jiyva/Ashenzari can detect items, letting the player leave squares unexplored that they know have no items anyway. This is trivially addressed by removing item detection. The other hole is that some levels don't generate items, but do generate traps, most visibly Hells; this is trivially addressed by removing trap generation from those levels.

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Post Thursday, 4th January 2018, 08:43

Re: Remove shafts

Another reason to remove shafts is that they encourage slow play i.e. healing HP/MP up to 100% before exploring.
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Post Thursday, 4th January 2018, 12:44

Re: Remove shafts

Aside from zot traps, traps only serve to break the game progression, putting you in a place that you would eventually and inevitably reach and then claiming it made a interesting situation, like landing in the middle of a vault, as if that vault would have never existed otherwise. They always provide a good chuckle and thats about it.

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Post Thursday, 4th January 2018, 18:33

Re: Remove shafts

Except that landing in the middle of a vault/level is totally different from approaching from the safety of a clear line of retreat...

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Post Thursday, 4th January 2018, 19:25

Re: Remove shafts

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Another reason to remove shafts is that they encourage slow play i.e. healing HP/MP up to 100% before exploring.

This is a problem with rest-to-heal, and would exist with or without traps.

(Resting needs to go, it's bad for pacing and its existence as a healing mechanic enables all manner of degenerate play.)

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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 06:54

Re: Remove shafts

Implojin wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:Another reason to remove shafts is that they encourage slow play i.e. healing HP/MP up to 100% before exploring.

This is a problem with rest-to-heal, and would exist with or without traps.

(Resting needs to go, it's bad for pacing and its existence as a healing mechanic enables all manner of degenerate play.)
Without traps I would use manual exploration with non-slow characters at abou 70% HP because I might retreat/lure most monsters while waiting to heal completely. So traps do make the problem much worse.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 07:26

Re: Remove shafts

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Without traps I would use manual exploration with non-slow characters at abou 70% HP because I might retreat/lure most monsters while waiting to heal completely. So traps do make the problem much worse.

Maybe for you, I'm not willing to manually explore at 70% hps, with or without traps (but I also have my "run away from combat" alert set to 70%)
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 07:29

Re: Remove shafts

Siegurt wrote:Maybe for you, I'm not willing to manually explore at 70% hps, with or without traps (but I also have my "run away from combat" alert set to 70%)


In all situations? There are some corners with gold and other items, sometimes you even see that there are no monsters in that corner. I might pick up the gold while waiting for regen but not as long as traps exist.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 07:37

Re: Remove shafts

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
Siegurt wrote:Maybe for you, I'm not willing to manually explore at 70% hps, with or without traps (but I also have my "run away from combat" alert set to 70%)


In all situations? There are some corners with gold and other items, sometimes you even see that there are no monsters in that corner. I might pick up the gold while waiting for regen but not as long as traps exist.


I don't consider "moving into an already explored corner which I can see in it's entirety and from which there are no unexplored exits" actual exploration (I only consider something to be 'exploring' if it reveals previously unseen squares.)

In the specific situation you mention, I would currently go pick up the items regardless of the possible presence of traps.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 08:00

Re: Remove shafts

Siegurt wrote:I don't consider "moving into an already explored corner which I can see in it's entirety and from which there are no unexplored exits" actual exploration (I only consider something to be 'exploring' if it reveals previously unseen squares.)

In the specific situation you mention, I would currently go pick up the items regardless of the possible presence of traps.


What if that corner has just 1 unexplored tile? Anyway, you are taking unnecessary risk from traps (and thus you are not optimal player too) if you go for the gold while wounded so I am not sure what you are trying to prove.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 08:43

Re: Remove shafts

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
Siegurt wrote:I don't consider "moving into an already explored corner which I can see in it's entirety and from which there are no unexplored exits" actual exploration (I only consider something to be 'exploring' if it reveals previously unseen squares.)

In the specific situation you mention, I would currently go pick up the items regardless of the possible presence of traps.


What if that corner has just 1 unexplored tile? Anyway, you are taking unnecessary risk from traps (and thus you are not optimal player too) if you go for the gold while wounded so I am not sure what you are trying to prove.

If there was any unexplored areas at all (even one square), I would rest to full before picking up the gold (in fact I would actually rest to full then autoexplore to pick up the gold)

I am not claiming to be optimal, I was just telling you what I do when I play, in the rare case where I feel like an area "should be safe" and there's something I want to get and I'm wounded, but not critically so, I would sometimes go get the item manually despite it being slightly risky (because of traps), because I do things suboptimally sometimes (mostly when curiosity gets the better of me).

Honestly, I'm much more likely when wounded to want to move to a explored, defensible area out of LOS of the place where I just finished combat to rest. I actually personally find that to be a more attractive lure for wounded movement than any sort of "loot" on the ground might be. Saving resting turns by regenerating while walking has absolutely 0 appeal for me in and of itself, moving while wounded is something I really only (when not giving into random curiosity urges) do to avoid the likelihood of of more combat I'm not prepared for.

In either case, whether traps exist or not isn't the primary motivator for my behavior, it's safer to move into areas where creatures might be with full hps, so I do that, if I'm wounded, it's also safer to be where critters are less likely to show up, so I do that. "Spending fewer turns resting" is never a motivator for me, so not avoiding resting because I might encounter a trap is just never a factor.

You said
VeryAngryFelid wrote:Without traps I would use manual exploration with non-slow characters at abou 70% HP because I might retreat/lure most monsters while waiting to heal completely. So traps do make the problem much worse.


I was simply saying that traps don't make the problem (of resting) any worse or better for me, and that it was something that applied to how you played and not how I play.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 11:49

Re: Remove shafts

amaril wrote:Except that landing in the middle of a vault/level is totally different from approaching from the safety of a clear line of retreat...

Yes, and vault makers already provided us with a large supply of ambush vaults. Meanwhile there are vaults who were not designed for the player to fall in the middle of.

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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 13:14

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:Instead, to make a compelling argument for removing or adding or changing a feature, you need to argue for how it would better meet DCSS's design goals with the change. In this case, I firmly believe the best argument is that traps produce grindy gameplay (tracking which squares monsters have stepped on, minimizing the number of unique squares you step on, delaying gold pickups, luring monsters into traps, and so on). There's also a good argument that traps make DCSS harder to learn, since they're mechanically somewhat complex, without providing a proportional increase in depth.


I think you are a bit too focused on "optimal gampeplay" in this case.
While in some cases it does lead to silly behavior tracking squares would be a massive effort with practically no benefit.
Going a bit further I don't think it's possible to keep that level of attention to detail up for a full game.

From previous posts it seems like you're also super-focused on the first few floors, but again those only really matter to a handful of people.
Those not going for streaks or trying to maintain a high winrate won't care since splatting in early dungeon is maybe a few minutes of time lost.
Not even a threat to all characters since lots of species/backgrounds can safely deal with almost anything early.

Personally I lean towards keeping traps in, but don't care too much either way.
Just don't think the "encourages tedium" argument is a good one here.
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Post Friday, 5th January 2018, 16:17

Re: Remove shafts

duvessa wrote:The grindy gameplay can mostly be addressed by making traps activate as soon as they enter LOS, instead of when they are stepped on (and never let monsters activate traps). That way, the only way to avoid them would be to avoid exploring levels fully, which would lead to missing out on items.


An alternative, somewhat similar thing might be to make shaft/tele traps fire randomly per turn (like hell effects, but less frequent), and never place you in an explored square (not firing at all if no such square exists). This means going slowly is somewhat more dangerous and you can't make traps less dangerous by resting before moving. It also means you won't blunder into a harmless-but-annoying teleport or shaft.

This doesn't work well for zot or ossuary traps, but those could stay the same as they are or not be things.

Removing all the traps would be okay too, but I do kind of like having the game wreck my positioning occasionally.
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Post Tuesday, 9th January 2018, 23:19

Re: Remove shafts

Most traps are bad, and net traps can be scummed for many nets in the ossuary (shout out to uv4)

Shafts are cool though. I think things that force the player to adapt to a new unpredictable situation are exciting. Maybe there's an algorithm for generating a shafting that would work? Perhaps penalising inactivity?

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Post Wednesday, 10th January 2018, 15:56

Re: Remove shafts

If you like unpredictable things happening to you, you can shaft the player randomly, the chance being based on how many new tiles they have explored recently. However, I am not sure many people would like the "hell effects everywhere" kind of play.

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Post Wednesday, 10th January 2018, 16:32

Re: Remove shafts

It has been suggested before, but shaft other should be a monster spell if it creates good gameplay.

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Post Wednesday, 10th January 2018, 16:45

Re: Remove shafts

amaril wrote:It has been suggested before, but shaft other should be a monster spell if it creates good gameplay.

EV saves.

It would be surely better than teleport other as a monster spell, which I never understood. And would probably be also better than player teleport other.
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