Crypt Cleanser
Posts: 689
Joined: Saturday, 12th December 2015, 23:54
Cool, good, swamp rework
The way I see it, the main problems with swamp are related to its dependence on water (which is shared by another sbranch, so it's not even a unique use of bad mechanics). Swamp's level generator is spectacularly bad at making interesting layouts as well; people talk about shoals terrain being bad a lot but swamp's is equally bad if not worse imo. The monster set is also weak from a difficulty perspective, but that's a secondary concern.
I suggest the following as a starting point for new swamp design: remove all water from swamp and replace the entirety of swamp's floor with a new terrain type, swamp mud, which slows the player's (and only the player's) movement by 25% and does nothing else. Or, if you prefer, implement it as a status effect like ORB status; the player gets MUD and their movement is slowed by 25% while inside the swamp branch. This preserves swamp as a branch which affects the relative usefulness of movement in combat and the player's ability to retreat, but in a way that avoids most of the problems of water. I would suggest doing some form of iteration on the level layout generator as well because I cannot overstate how bad and lame swamp layouts are.
Here is a list of the current monster set, courtesy of mon-pick-data.h:
I suggest the following monster set changes. Remove slime creatures, shadows, ugly things, spiny frogs, swamp drakes, vampire mosquitos, insubstantial wisps, hornets, komodo dragons, and blink frogs from swamp. These are either overly weak monsters or ones that appear in a billion other places. You can buff swamp drakes instead of removing them if it's really important to have enemy meph cloud in this branch for some reason. Bog bodies should probably be buffed also. Add ogre mage bands to swamp, removing them from vaults and depths at the same time.
Post your swamp rework suggestions itt.