[svn] Escorts possibly being missed?

[SageAcrin]

In reality, no one is doing it when it's threatening anyway. People just leave and come back later, when crystals are no longer that threatening and they have rush or whatever.

Ranged classes often do, though. I have no problem doing it first with a ranged class Shalore, if I'm playing one.

You don't learn anything of the sort in either Sc. Caves or the Abashed Expanse. You don't have 10% of the abilities or the utilities that you will use in those dungeons to handle multiple spellcasters. You don't have any resistances, which are the most efficient way of nullifying threat from spellcasters. The only thing you can do is dodge, and that's of no use in either Dark Crypt or the Prides because of the high concentration of enemies in a relatively small space.

So you disagree entirely with my statements.

Fair enough, but there's not much more that I can say there. There's a lot of terrain handling that can be utilized in open, irregular spaces, far above and beyond merely using linear options like "resist more" or "get better escape buttons", to me. There's a minimal requirement so that you don't get into chained bad situations and die, but you will probably get into a bad situation at some point in a ranged combat situation, where all of your applicable escapes are on cooldown, and it can help a lot to know what to do next. The alternative is just splattering, after all.

I disagree with your statements as well, there, so I guess we need to agree to disagree on that.

Rhaloren camp does that. The caves, not so much, imo.

Rhaloren is enclosed areas that anyone can easily manage with some effort, for the most part(though sometimes it opens up enough to make for an exception). Learning how to deal with open area situations is much harder than closed area ones, and the game constantly teaches you that in many areas, not just Rhaloren Camp.

[supermini]

Now that we concluded that we can't agree on that unnecessary derailment of the topic, lets get back to the current skipping system.

Yesterday I found chitinous gloves, mighty girdle, a chest, and 2 vaults in areas that were autoskipped. Loot in 43b being what it is, there's even less argument for skipping anything.

If you decide to go through with this, can we get a prompt asking us if we want to skip or not, pretty please?

[SageAcrin]

I'm certainly okay with a prompt.

I'm not sure what the difference is though, since it's basically about as fast to do the dungeon in reverse.

But there's certainly no harm in it...

[5k17]

How about adding the possibility to just give players the experience and items they would be expected to get in the upper levels (or perhaps a bit less) and, if they do decide to enter them, generate them empty?

I don't suppose many players would frequently want to change between skipping and doing those levels manually, so setting that in the game options might be better than asking every time they enter a dungeon.

[donkatsu]

How about adding the possibility to just give players the experience and items they would be expected to get in the upper levels (or perhaps a bit less) and, if they do decide to enter them, generate them empty?

I like this suggestion the best.

[SageAcrin]

Dungeon-Be-Gone!

(I can't possibly be the only other person that has seen that particular mod of a game.)

I'm not sure it's easy at all to do with a randomized dungeon, but it would be the very most optimal answer. Though it does beg the question of if the automation should include vaults or not, since those might be still challenging for someone that was L10...

[bricks]

How about adding the possibility to just give players the experience and items they would be expected to get in the upper levels (or perhaps a bit less) and, if they do decide to enter them, generate them empty?

I like this suggestion the best.

I disagree, that's an absurd level of automatic play. It's also extremely confusing for both new and old players.

I think all of these ideas dance around the fact that certain dungeons are especially difficult for completely legitimate race/class combos. Which is basically just Shalore + any non-ranged class. My opinion? Cut all non-racial starter dungeons down to one level, balance the Scintillating Caves by adjusting the crystals. Have one crystal that can teleport, one crystal that can cast spells at long range, one crystal that can shield, one crystal that can drain health, etc. Rhaloren Camp and Kor'Pul might need some touching up, too, but I think they are generally less problematic.

[aardvark]

Out of curiosity, what's the problem with walking out of dungeons? There's no law that says you have to Recall yourself from the bottom floor. Just walk upstairs after clearing levels and exit rather than Recalling. You don't have to "skip" the levels, just do them in a different order. It's like you guys are arguing over design plans for a new apartment complex to house your new furniture when there's a freight elevator right over there.

[bricks]

One, it's unintutive, two, it's tedious, three, it defeats the entire purpose of the "skip to the end" mechanic.

[aardvark]

One, it's unintutive,

True, but since skipping floors violates the Principle of Least Astonishment, unfamiliar players already find themselves in a kind of Wonderland.

two, it's tedious,

Not any more than doing a dungeon from the top down. Since it only happens when you're a much higher level than the dungeon, even going in is a sort of voluntary exercise in tedium. You can be confident that nothing in there is very dangerous, probably even the boss. And you can still Recall if you only want the boss loot and experience.

three, it defeats the entire purpose of the "skip to the end" mechanic.

So, what is the purpose of the mechanic? To combat grinding? As previously stated, I expect grinding is the purpose of going into low level dungeons in the first place. To combat tedium? See above. To combat playing?!

[donkatsu]

I disagree, that's an absurd level of automatic play. It's also extremely confusing for both new and old players.

Okay, so your two objections are that it's automatic, and that it's confusing? Then I suppose you'd want to get rid of the transmogrification chest too? Autoexplore? Auto-use talents? Or are you saying that obliterating level 5 rats with a level 10 character is somehow fun and a worthwhile part of the game? And why is the concept of casually strolling through an easy dungeon while also picking stuff up so confusing for you?

[bricks]

Woah, now. Didn't mean to start an argument. aardvark, I think we agree on the problem, just not the solution. donkatsu, chill out. I said "I disagree," not "you and your opinion are stupid." Here's a rather thorough explanation, bear with me as I set up my point:

ToME has tools which make dungeon exploration more or less a linear experience - the Rod lets you escape when you are finished, and the Chest minimizes inventory juggling and vendor runs. These are nice solutions, since they don't interfere with the player's experience in any way. You can even avoid using them altogether. Auto-explore isn't represented by any in-game items, but it falls into the same category.

Unfortunately, early dungeons don't scale well, yet there is a lot of motivation to complete them all (guaranteed artifact plus more loot and experience), and some classes handle certain zones better, so the dungeons can't just be cut. To remove the tedium, much like the Rod, the Chest, and auto-explore, the game lets you skip to the end once you've proven your worth. Unlike those handy tools, it can't just be ignored (though I suppose it could be optional - but I'm opposed to this sort of choose-your-own-adventure feature bloat).

So now the most cautious and grindy way to play, which benefits newer or less talented players the most, is to run the dungeons backwards. It's unintuitive, it breaks the flow of play found in every other part of the game, and it just plain doesn't make sense. The old solution? Take the stairs as soon as you find them. A little time-consuming, but totally intuitive. Really, it takes hardly any time at all compared to the game before auto-explore.

My objection to the automatic item/XP collection is that the "skip to the end" mechanic is a band-aid, hand-waving, whatever your metaphor of choice is. Fixing it with more band-aids while ignoring the core problem (players are strongly motivated to clear non-challenging content) is not a good plan. You could accomplish the same, and more elegantly, by adding more loot and XP to the first dungeons, and cutting the others down to one level. Or just get rid of the guaranteed loot and XP altogether.

(It also requires a really complicated implementation - generate levels, scrub them for items and XP. Gets really ugly when you consider artifacts, lore, and vaults. If you just grant the player a fixed amount of XP and ego'ed loot, you kill the only interesting part about otherwise trivial dungeons.)

Re: auto-use talents, just because it was mentioned. I think some applications of auto-use are superfluous. If the best way to play the game is to mindlessly spam some ability, the ability should be evaluated. Auto-use of shielding runes on archmages is an interesting exception.

[5k17]

Fixing it with more band-aids while ignoring the core problem (players are strongly motivated to clear non-challenging content) is not a good plan. You could accomplish the same, and more elegantly, by adding more loot and XP to the first dungeons, and cutting the others down to one level.

That might indeed be the best (and possibly also easiest) solution. It would also be another reason to allow players to choose what dungeon to do first rather than starting the game in one.

Re: auto-use talents, just because it was mentioned. I think some applications of auto-use are superfluous. If the best way to play the game is to mindlessly spam some ability, the ability should be evaluated. Auto-use of shielding runes on archmages is an interesting exception.

It is? I've never found auto-use practical for anything; the conditions under which I'd want to use talents/inscriptions/items are too specific, even with the options recently added to auto-use.

[donkatsu]

The thing is that the band-aid is already halfway there; adding auto loot and XP to the skip feature just completes its function rather than leaving it as this awkward thing which doesn't actually solve the tedium problem.

Also I forgot that you can't forego the skipping thing; I just assumed it would be optional and it would be easy to make it so.

I'd imagine that cutting non-starter dungeons down to one level (which would basically accomplish the same thing, except it also makes the early game marginally harder) would require several more steps. You'd have to do something about Scintillating Caverns being a death trap for certain classes, you'd have to do something about Yeeks and Dwarves and the Derth arena, and, well, that's all I can think of right now but they're still non-trivial issues you'd have to address. Whereas with auto loot and XP, you just have to randomly generate some loot, and grant a small amount of experience, and make the previous levels (should you choose to go back and visit them) not generate with mobs or loot. The loot and XP don't have to be an exact replica of the loot and XP you would normally get. Hell, it could just not give you anything. That would just make the early game harder, but the point is that I don't want to have a reason to go back and do these easy peasy levels, and this is an easy solution that doesn't require any other kind of tweaking.

[supermini]

Whereas with auto loot and XP, you just have to randomly generate some loot, and grant a small amount of experience, and make the previous levels (should you choose to go back and visit them) not generate with mobs or loot. The loot and XP don't have to be an exact replica of the loot and XP you would normally get. Hell, it could just not give you anything. That would just make the early game harder, but the point is that I don't want to have a reason to go back and do these easy peasy levels, and this is an easy solution that doesn't require any other kind of tweaking.

I agree. Cut it down to one level and give a small amount of xp and loot - no artifacts.

The only issue I see is escorts. If they generate on empty level, that gives incentives to leave your racial dungeons for later. If you auto lose them, you have to do things in certain order, and that's problematic.