Dungeon Master
Posts: 553
Joined: Wednesday, 22nd December 2010, 10:12
Abyss Vaults
One thing I think can make the abyss more interesting is more vaults. I've made a large number of them (mostly just small ones) which are in 0.8 now, and I'm going to try to make a few more soon so they can hopefully get into 0.8 before it's released. I have only made exit vaults and rune vaults so far, although I have some ideas for regular minivaults. I think this helps move the abyss away from being basically a bunch of random noise, to something that is still chaotic but with an island of order here and there (I think this potentially makes the abyss a lot more interesting). They can also help in highlighting where exits/runes are sometimes, can make finding the rune more interesting (it can be guarded now) and have the occasional guarded exit (usually nothing too severe, although there are a couple of evil ones).
Designing these can be a bit tricky, because you need to keep them small-medium sized, and have to take into account the abyss shifting occasionally. You also need to consider how LOS works in the abyss, and the question of whether or not the vault should be easily noticed from the outside (some of the ones I made are easy to spot, others are camouflaged a bit.)
Unfortunately, abyss vaults are still very rare (the .des file still has dummy vaults which will be selected at a chance of 90%). Hopefully these numbers can change a bit eventually (when/if I submit some new vaults I'll probably tweak the dummy vault rates).
I'm making this thread mainly just because I'm curious what other people think of abyss vaults in general. Here are some of the questions I have (I'm curious what players think, and also what devs think if any feel like responding... also, no need to answer all of these): how common do you think abyss vaults should be? What proportion of abyssal runes should be within vaults, vs just laying on the ground (right now I think about 10% of runes are in vaults if I understand how the dummy vaults work). What proportion of exits should be in vaults? How often should exit vaults be guarded by monsters? For the dangerous vaults, what sort of threat should they have (I've been aiming mostly for late-midgame stuff so far)? Should abyss vaults try to "blend in" with the rest of the chaos, or stick out so the player knows there's a vault and probably something inside it? Are abyss vaults even a good idea (I think so, but maybe there are detractors)? What sort of overall design principles should be followed? What do you think of the abyss vaults you've encountered so far, if you have found any? How often do you find vaults in your trips to the abyss? etc
Aside from that, I'd also like to know if anyone has ideas for cool new abyss vaults. I'm planning on making a few more, and if anyone has an idea they'd like to see get made into a vault I (or someone else) could always use some inspiration. Or, if not ideas, then maybe some pointers or words of advice could be helpful. It would also be interesting to see other people try to make some abyss vaults, and maybe this thread will help encourage that.
(Also, for anyone who doesn't know this, vaults can range from anything to a large fortress guarded by several monsters, to something simple like an exit portal surrounded by a ring of fountains. Most of the ones I made are of the latter sort. All "vault" means here is a predefined map that is inserted into the level. This is common knowledge to a lot of players, but maybe not to everyone posting here.)