Comments on: Experimental rule change: the rune lock

By: plaintextman

plaintextman — Thu, 21 Nov 2013 18:53:52 +0000

@Blackskull: Runes of Zot are keys found in specific difficult places and are used to unlock the gateway on the deepest level of the dungeon which leads to the Realm of Zot. There you will find the Orb of Zot :-) And no, they don’t have anything to do with items that are “runed”. If you are not afraid of reading spoilers, see this: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Runes_of_Zot

By: Wimpy Ranger

Wimpy Ranger — Tue, 19 Nov 2013 05:34:53 +0000

The lair runes, while not necessarily harder than descending the dungeon, have very specific checks that less robust (more fun) characters with fewer intrinsics, spells, or narrower equip options may not possess. For example, the snake pit / spider den require poison resist, and shoals is foolish without levitate / clarity. Removing the option to descend will effectively be a dead end in many cases.

By: dpeg

dpeg — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 01:20:51 +0000

Wimpy Ranger: I list a number of threads that explain what the change intends to do. Linearity is not necessarily a bad thing either (in this case, it is supposed to increase the number of tactical choices). And bringing up Roguelike games is a bit questionable, as games like Rogue or Brogue are extremely linear in the first place.

By: Wimpy Ranger

Wimpy Ranger — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 18:31:01 +0000

What is this change intended to correct?
All I see it doing is making the gameplay more linear, when non-linearity is one of the key appeals in Roguelike games.

By: Blackskull

Blackskull — Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:22:01 +0000

What’s a rune? I’ve played a lot of levels, but only 1 rune ever. Don’t know what they are, how to get them, why they’re useful, the differences between them, etc. If runes become a more important part of the game please make documentation of them much more obvious, understandable, accessible. The initial Readme.txt does not contain “rune”, for example. The crawl manual says: “Runes, a particular item in this
category, have no function whatsoever except to open the endgame. You must
collect at least three in order to enter the Realm of Zot” What is the Realm of Zot? Where do I find the runes? Do they have anything to do with items which are described as “runed”, e.g. a runed short sword? Thanks!

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 13:02:36 +0000

This ranges from completely inconsequential if you get the insanely easy branches (Snake Pit or Swamp) to probably causing a lot of people’s characters to suffer YASD (Shoals, Spider Nest).

If we’re going to push people into early runes, we should probably make sure one EZ-mode lair branch is enabled automatically. I vote Snake Pit, since the Swamp is both easy and tedious.

By: dpeg

dpeg — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:55:52 +0000

plaintextman: It’s a minor downside because all what is lost is a conduct. Even so, there will probably be a way to play that challenge in the future. This part is not really crucial, so it’ll take a while until we get there.

By: plaintextman

plaintextman — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 10:30:28 +0000

OK, I think there’s one definite downside if it stays: I’ll never be able to boast about doing a three rune ascension… without entering the Lair subbranches. That’s something I kinda looked forward to trying so I can freak out my friends who haven’t played Crawl as much :-P Oh well, I guess that’s how some other, more hardcore guys felt when the demonic rune was made non-repeating, and I don’t think that was a bad change.

By: plaintextman

plaintextman — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 11:39:28 +0000

Can’t say I’m unhappy with the change or the time at which it got pushed. I look forward to seeing how it will affect gameplay. I can’t imagine it being too restrictive, but neither can I imagine it being particularly interesting, so if it stays I hope the idea will be refined further.

By: dpeg

dpeg — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 09:16:06 +0000

BrocoLee: I just “approved” of your message but with your use of “retarded” you make sure it won’t be considered seriously. Thanks for telling us we’re stupid and lazy.

Yours, the developers

By: BrocoLee

BrocoLee — Sat, 09 Nov 2013 03:54:24 +0000

Will this come with a rebalance of the lair branches?

There’s no problem getting a rune at lvl 13 with a MiBe, but forcing more difficult combos to do runes they aren’t prepared for is retarded. So far, it seems like a very lazy solution to a nonexistant problem.

By: dpeg

dpeg — Fri, 08 Nov 2013 16:42:34 +0000

To the guys with the rhetorical questions: apart from the tavern threads mentioned already, the following reddit thread is relevant:
http://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/1po1p7/dcss_runelock_is_in_trunk_what_are_reddits/
(And no, I don’t feel obliged to reply the ever-same question of every single player.)

The shaft was a bad idea, and will be replaced by better ways to circumvent the lock. In other news, the deeper part of the dungeon is seeing many cool changes right now.

By: Streloks

Streloks — Wed, 06 Nov 2013 00:34:50 +0000

“So does Trog hating magic. :)”
Trog hates magic, but you can cast it anyways, and deal with the consequences. That’s a choice. What choice is there in this?

By: Nickajeg

Nickajeg — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 18:26:03 +0000

I hate this because I’m scared of major changes. Seriously though, I’m glad to hear that unique spawns are being taken into account. I was picturing having to take on mennas at xl 16 or whatever.

By: ebarrett

ebarrett — Mon, 04 Nov 2013 00:02:51 +0000

Congratulations, mid D is even more boring now!

By: jpeg

jpeg — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 22:07:10 +0000

” reduces player freedom”

So does Trog hating magic. :)

Also, I’ve never heard of such a rule, and I’ve participated in quite a few IRDCs (international roguelike development conference) where I’ve met and talked to loads of other roguelike developers.

By: dpeg

dpeg — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 10:49:01 +0000

Reduces player freedom, increases player decision space. I fail to see how “freedom” is an intrinsic value by itself.

Re: rules. I had no idea there was a rulebook by which to design roguelikes.

By: tempor

tempor — Sun, 03 Nov 2013 01:25:51 +0000

Bad idea.
. reduces player freedom
. breaks roguelike rule that you shouldn’t add content which requires almost no change in coding

By: dpeg

dpeg — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 14:26:38 +0000

No changes to early floors. Regarding rune lock, the Lair branch ends will now have easier uniques (Boris, Mennas, Xtahua and some others cannot spawn there anymore). Moreover, there is a guaranteed pre-identified shafat on D:14 — you can skip the lock, but at your own peril! (Need a rune to go back up, of course.)

By: Pedroff

Pedroff — Sat, 02 Nov 2013 14:12:31 +0000

It really seems like a good idea to set the pace of the game.

But its just me or I am the only one having terrible luck on the first few floors, the only guy that had worse luck than me was the dude that died at level one killed by a demonic crawler (spawn bugged).