Hive


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

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Halls Hopper

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 17:12

Hive

What about retrieving the Hive in next release? I realise it was removed because of its dullness (besides was too easy), but I have several ideas to chill it a bit:

=> First of all, Hive should be an optional, mini-branch, a silent, timed portal, that has its difficulty comparable to the Volcano or Ice Cave. So low-level character would most likely commit a suicide if coming there not well prepared. In former releases of DC Hive wasn`t a timed portal, so the player could have a time to gain experience and prepare well. When it`s a timed portal you just come or not come in.
=> Compared to original Hive, this one should be one-level only.
=> To make it much harder comparing to former releases (until 0.9), I propose to fill it not only with usual, yellow bees, but also with heavily modified version of regular bees (ex. "Death Bees" - faster and much more dangerous version of regular bees, which are faster, have more HP and stings you with asphyxiation poison). Death Bees might look like regular bees, but had different colour (red or grey). Just like Death Yaks are more dangerous version of regular Yaks. I know high difficulty in a mini-branch would be controversial, but hey, you`d be rewarded of honeycombs or royal jellies.. For characters like troll any stash of food is invaluable.
=> Queen Bee should not be vulnerable to poison any more. QB should also be more nasty, like 300 HP, and regenerate quicker.
=> There should be some of traps in the Hive, depending on the overall difficulty balance.
=> Loot: high variety of quantity of food every game; you never know if there`s a five royal jellies in the Hive or of it`s just one honeycomb there; or even some trash like a couple of pears instead; so coming in is always risky, because few pears or other trash may be the only reward.
=> If a player doesn`t like a Hive, he can just avoid it (like I usually avoid Ice Caves).
=> Hive mini-branch should not appear in all games (only in 40 or 50% of games).

Hive still could be good idea, just if it was way more challenging than before. A timed hard mini-branch would be the best way to do it.

Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 17:21

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

After Hive was removed there was a proposal to make it into a portal vault (it was even patched and in trunk for a while, but disabled), but ultimately I don't think bees on their own would be enough to make something like that actually interesting, even if killer killer bees were added or whatever. Spider seems to have "poison everywhere" pretty much covered as a theme now, also.

Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 17:43

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

I was the one behind the bee hive portal vault idea. However, I am fine with dropping that project (apologies to everyone who actually put work into this). My reason is, unlike MarvinPA's, not the lack of threat: open levels and potentially berserk killer bees would make interesting foes at the right depth. Rather, I am worried that the prize is not good enough: the plan was to Hive (still) have lots of honeycombs and royal jellies, only that now larvae would actually eat them, creating an urge to be quick (and hence spend resources). However, that will not work given the current food situation.

On the other hand, the original idea is not lost: I am thinking of a midgame portal vault where the prize are consumables (including books and armour), and jellies are eating up your precious loot if you aren't quick.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 19:05

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

dpeg wrote:On the other hand, the original idea is not lost: I am thinking of a midgame portal vault where the prize are consumables (including books and armour), and jellies are eating up your precious loot if you aren't quick.


That sounds excellent. The best loot should be behind transparent walls, visible from the starting point. Maybe even pre-identified. A dawdling player could be made to actually watch as the jellies eat acquirement-quality goods.
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Halls Hopper

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 19:15

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

I understand the argumentation, but what if there were "special" bees, faster, anger, and with asphyxiation attack..? That`d be really challenging.
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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 19:18

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

I was thinking about the same thing, a rushing portal to get consumables. I was thinking in the hive but I coincide that is overly dull.

The portal with jellies and such is too similar to slime pits unless some context is made for. What about a dumping site where dungeon denizens throw the useless items but you still can found some loot ? It is a place where jellies are placed to digest the garbage and stuff to keep the dungeon clean.
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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 19:54

Re: Feedback on Trunk deployment (.12)

Roderic: I don't care so much (or believe in) the duplication. The gameplay is completely different. The portal vault I want is much closer to a jelly-infested dungeon level -- with the exception that you know there's is loot to be lost, and leaving forfeits all loot.

Theme can surely be set up, for example in the way you say. I don't intend all monsters to be jellies; only to have jellies provide the item removal mechanic players already know.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Sunday, 16th September 2012, 20:39

Re: Hive

I've split this into its own thread. The 0.12 feedback thread isn't a default one for people too lazy to think up of a title. Please, post your ideas in their own thread.
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 02:57

Re: Hive

I've never quite gotten why it can't be called the hives, moved a bit lower, and include things like wasps, mosquito's, ants, etc.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 03:08

Re: Hive

The current Bee vaults fail because there is one entrance/exit and it is usually a chokeable tunnel.

If bees could fly THROUGH squares containing combatants/enemies/allies, that'd work best.
Otherwise, the vault could be reworked to one of those all secret doors on the perimeter vaults, except secret doors all got removed.
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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 04:37

Re: Hive

XuaXua wrote:The current Bee vaults fail because there is one entrance/exit and it is usually a chokeable tunnel.

If bees could fly THROUGH squares containing combatants/enemies/allies, that'd work best.
Otherwise, the vault could be reworked to one of those all secret doors on the perimeter vaults, except secret doors all got removed.


You could use a giant gate several tiles across. I wonder how hard it would be to rig up a system in lua where there's doors on all sides and they all open and close together.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 13:56

Re: Hive

Also, I think the interior of bee vaults should be lined with have honeycomb walls and those should potentially contain items, just like Hive used to.
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Dungeon Master

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 15:28

Re: Hive

XuaXua wrote:Otherwise, the vault could be reworked to one of those all secret doors on the perimeter vaults, except secret doors all got removed.

And bees can't open doors anyway.

nicolae wrote:You could use a giant gate several tiles across. I wonder how hard it would be to rig up a system in lua where there's doors on all sides and they all open and close together.

One large gate on one side would be enough to surround the player, no need to complicate things.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 16:47

Re: Hive

galehar wrote:
XuaXua wrote:Otherwise, the vault could be reworked to one of those all secret doors on the perimeter vaults, except secret doors all got removed.

And bees can't open doors anyway.


Right, I just kept thinking of those horrible 2-3 secret door thick boxes full of enemies and thought, since every door tends to just open up, that all those doors open up.

Maybe make it like it was said, one gigantic door rimming the room and exposed on multiple sides, so if you open one, it all opens.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 17th September 2012, 23:36

Re: Hive

Perhaps this is a good time to dig out the 'cracked wall' or 'arrow slit' ideas that have been on the wiki for a while. Wax walls could have gaps that allow for tiny creatures such as bees to pass through, but not the player outside of special cases such as batform. Bees that are in wax walls would presumably be attackable in melee, since rock worm immunity would be downright unfair, but the player wouldn't be able to reach bees on the other side of the wax wall with ranged or reaching attacks.

Alternatively, tiny creatures could stack onto a single tile rather than politely waiting their turn before entering a tile that can hold a titan or a dragon. This would be a fairly straight-forward application of the existing slime creature and hydra code, in that individual creatures can merge and split, but attacking the aggregate 'swarm of bees' creature reduces the number of attacks it gets. This would also make the green rats in Lair a whole lot more interesting, since they've lost their purpose as training buddies after victory dancing was removed. For coding simplicity, presumably tiny creatures would only swarm with tiny creatures of the same type.

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Roderic

Vestibule Violator

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Post Tuesday, 18th September 2012, 00:29

Re: Hive

Umm, what's wrong with bee rooms? The whole point is that there is a single blockable entrance, at least the only point I can see. Either you block the entrance and kill all the bees (possibly spending resources to do it), or you teleport (also spending a consumable) and now the whole level is infested with fast enemies, providing a different and usually easier challenge. Interesting choice, and bee rooms often appear early enough for this choice to actually come up.

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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Tuesday, 18th September 2012, 08:42

Re: Hive

KoboldLord wrote:Alternatively, tiny creatures could stack onto a single tile rather than politely waiting their turn before entering a tile that can hold a titan or a dragon. This would be a fairly straight-forward application of the existing slime creature and hydra code, in that individual creatures can merge and split, but attacking the aggregate 'swarm of bees' creature reduces the number of attacks it gets.


It is worth testing. This would make "k" monsters something annoying and menacing more than ever. Bees do not need to be giant to be a threat.

Which creeps are considered "tiny" enough? I have considered rats to be the size of cats and larger but the vanilla ones. Ants should remain not able to stack because it is assumed they are giant like dogs or something. The same with spiders, although a species could be as tiny to be "swarmable"; maybe the giant mite which is dull nowadays.
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