Did Orc get harder?


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Halls Hopper

Posts: 76

Joined: Tuesday, 16th September 2014, 15:52

Post Friday, 4th May 2018, 00:44

Did Orc get harder?

I splatted an Octopode IE of Hepl last night in Orc:1 which featured 3x Orc Warlords! There were also several orc knights and some high priests around. Admittedly it didn't get bad until I was forced to start using Mephitic Cloud and Lightning Spire, but I was being as stealthy as I could for as long as I could.

I remember when Orc first changed from 4 floors to 2, it seems like the first floor was still mostly orcs/wizards/priests/ogres/wargs and you didn't get knights, warlords, and high priests until Orc:2. Have there been any more changes, or did I just experience a really bad Orc:1?

Had I known, I might have cleared to D:15 before attempting, but it was too late for blinking scrolls to save my by the time the writing was on the wall.
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Pandemonium Purger

Posts: 1298

Joined: Wednesday, 11th April 2012, 02:42

Location: Sydney, Australia

Post Friday, 4th May 2018, 01:36

Re: Did Orc get harder?

Orc knights have always been able to spawn in Orc:1. Here's some stats:

[11:35 AM] Patashu: !lg * place=orc:1 s=cikiller recent
[11:35 AM] BOTCerebot: 6313 games for * (place=orc:1 recent): 924x an orc knight, 734x an orc warrior, 693x an orc warlord, 439x an ettin, 434x a stone giant, 400x an orc sorcerer, 368x an orc high priest, 275x a two-headed ogre, 250x an orc priest, 149x a troll, 143x Snorg, 135x a player ghost, 125x an ogre, 123x a cyclops, 113x Donald, 101x Saint Roka, 69x a warg, 66x, 64x Josephine, 50x Urug, 50x a deep elf mage, 49...

[11:36 AM] Patashu: !lg * place=orc:1 s=cikiller recentish
[11:36 AM] BOTCerebot: 10344 games for * (place=orc:1 recentish): 1515x an orc knight, 1209x an orc warrior, 1185x an orc warlord, 749x an ettin, 718x a stone giant, 623x an orc sorcerer, 590x an orc high priest, 418x an orc priest, 382x a two-headed ogre, 233x a player ghost, 230x a troll, 226x Snorg, 199x a cyclops, 192x an ogre, 177x Saint Roka, 172x Donald, 123x a warg, 117x, 102x Josephine, 83x Azrael, 82x Urug, 7...

[11:36 AM] Patashu: !lg * place=orc:1 s=cikiller
[11:36 AM] BOTCerebot: 23143 games for * (place=orc:1): 3397x an orc warrior, 3162x an orc knight, 1959x an orc warlord, 1747x an orc priest, 1213x an ettin, 1126x an orc sorcerer, 1103x a stone giant, 945x an orc high priest, 691x Snorg, 646x an orc, 535x an ogre, 524x a troll, 471x a player ghost, 470x an orc wizard, 455x a two-headed ogre, 443x, 329x a warg, 294x a cyclops, 260x Saint Roka, 200x Donald, 189x Josephi...

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TwoLeggedMammal

Dungeon Master

Posts: 388

Joined: Monday, 18th August 2014, 20:04

Post Friday, 4th May 2018, 02:55

Re: Did Orc get harder?

That change brought a fairly high variance to orc:1, because anything that could generate in orc could now show up on orc:1. Sometimes it's trivial, sometimes it's like what you encountered. Here's the full commit message from that change:

  Code:
Flatten Orc to two levels, and remove plain orcs from generation there.
   
    These two changes, in addition to a bit of padding on the monster lists,
    provide a more streamlined Orc experience while keeping the average XP
    total for the branch roughly the same at 16k.
   
    Gold generation is doubled between the two levels to account for loot; this
    may or may not need further tuning.
   
    A lot of vault depths are adjusted for this; uniques that placed in
    early Orc now only place on Orc:1, uniques that placed in late Orc place
    on Orc:$, and most vaults that placed somewhere in Orc place anywhere in Orc
    (usually meaning they'll end up on Orc:1 only because the Orc:$ ending
    will take the primary vault slot).

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TwoLeggedMammal

Halls Hopper

Posts: 76

Joined: Tuesday, 16th September 2014, 15:52

Post Saturday, 5th May 2018, 01:22

Re: Did Orc get harder?

I checked out that commit, which was Oct 2015; and it looks like spawns have not changed at all since then. It really is just bad luck on my part. Maybe I'll wait a bit after Lair to start doing Orc.

Cocytus Succeeder

Posts: 2173

Joined: Saturday, 2nd February 2013, 09:52

Post Saturday, 5th May 2018, 19:10

Re: Did Orc get harder?

I have recently seen stone giants in Orc. I believe that it did not happen in older versions.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6454

Joined: Tuesday, 30th October 2012, 19:06

Post Saturday, 5th May 2018, 19:44

Re: Did Orc get harder?

Magipi wrote:I have recently seen stone giants in Orc. I believe that it did not happen in older versions.

I recently saw a hippogriff on D:2, I had never seen that before. I've seen the occasional stone giant in Orc for a least a few versions now
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Dungeon Master

Posts: 388

Joined: Monday, 18th August 2014, 20:04

Post Saturday, 5th May 2018, 23:04

Re: Did Orc get harder?

I have recently seen stone giants in Orc.


There are a few (not very new) ways for stone giants to place in Orc:$, and they can rarely place a random monsters. Before the change mentioned above they could only place on orc 3-4, but now they can appear on orc:1. So I think it's just that harder monsters are more noticeable now that it can happen right away. Personally I don't think I wait any longer to do orc than I used to, but I'm more prepared to bail depending on what shows up.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5382

Joined: Friday, 25th November 2011, 07:36

Post Wednesday, 9th May 2018, 20:57

Re: Did Orc get harder?

2 floor orc is *slightly* harder than 4 floor, but the difference isn't huge. It does bump up the odds of some "out of depth" things like orc warlords, which are possible but I consider "OOD" for orc:1. Orc knights are a normal and fairly common monster, but warlords are still thankfully rare.

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