Caldera rework suggestions

[Infinitum]

I hate that place. Not only do the dreams get incredibly tedious, success carry little to no gameplay significance unless you're sloppy enough to square off with Mindworm whilst the timer is low. Basically the entire zone a source of annoyance until you unlock Solipsist and can just go freaking kill everything. So, here's what I suggest:

1) Upon entering the Zone, the player falls asleep and gets the Lucid Dreamer trait (like the Cloth of Dreams artefact). Since the player is asleep, there is no way for him to exit to the worldmap (even by Rod of Recall or class abilities). If this is too harsh give the player a warning message upon entering ("As you enter the Caldera, a deep fog obscures your sight and clouds your judgement. Have you been here before? Did you ever leave? Your eyelids have never before felt quite this heavy. Something inside the mists beckons you, yet you know with cold certainty that should you fail in finding it you will never leave this place. Do you wish to continue? y/n").

2) The main enemies would be somnambulent animals (asleep yet with lucid dreamer) as well as sleeping animals spawning thoughtforms (as in a dreamscape). It would be cool is the place was covered in mistclouds that can be passed through but blocks LOS. Perhaps the odd Dreaming Horror if the player character is high enough level (they wouldn't be able to dreamscape you however since you're already asleep). No loot whatsoever (again, it's a dream. None of it is real).

3) No timer. Instead, the player dreams occurs when fighting Mindworm - as soon as the Player brings Mindworm below 25% health he is immediatly transported to a random dream he has yet to beat. Once finished (one way or the other) Mindworm gets a full heal and the fight continues. Failure to finish a dream hurts the player by a set percentage of his health (as it is currently). Beat all three dreams in order to kill Mindworm.

4) Upon killing Mindworm the player wakes up and is transported back to where he initially entered the caldera. The mist is gone and but a few metres ahead of him is Mindworms corpse (with Loot) in front of the Altar of Dreams. Of the passage into the caldera itself there is nary a trace. Killing Mindworm unlocks the Solipsist class.

5) Some new/reworked dream ideas; the more the merrier here.

Mouse Dream: I like this one as is. Perhaps tone the difficulty down some (guaranteeing no cats spawn within LOS of the starting point is a good start).

Wife Dream: This should be redone from scratch. What I propose is stealing the plot from the legend of Orpheus; you have succesfully tricked the ruler of the underworld to allow your deceased wife to return with you to the lands of the living.. IF you can identify her among the five identical women presented to you. To your help there are several imps lining the throneroom that will give you enough hints ("The seamstress is to the left of the Noblewoman" etc) to deduce which of the women is the correct choice. Standard logic puzzle fare. Pick the correct wife and the exit portal spawns, allowing you to escort her out. Pick the wrong one and she turns out to be a ghoul. And you have 1 Hitpoint.

Dream of wrath: You find yourself an unnamed Orc with a cool helmet and spiffy necklace. Surrounding you are the corpses of your slain kinsmen. Ahead of you, a vast army of Halflings, behind which you can make out a titanic humanoid form towering in the distance..

The objective is simple: Guide your Level 50 Orcish avatar of destruction through a faceless mook army of hapless respawning halfling fodder (consisting of swordsmen, slingers, alchemists and knights.. all a good 40 levels below you). The dreams end in victory as soon as you reach Ath.. the nameless Golem in the middle of the host. The challenge should be in using talents in order to navigate the battlefield as quickly as possible rather than killing everything (which shouldn't be possible as enemies respawn). Very limited, if any, ways to heal.

Dream of disorientation: You have lost your way in a dark swamp, and your lamp has just run out! To make matters worse, you are surrounded by all manners of foul creatures of the night. Luckily, there is a faint light for you to follow ahead..

The player spawns in the middle of a dark, rectangular swamp map. To his right is a Will 'o the Wisp that if approached heals the player and dissappear, revealing yet another Will o' to the right of that one and so forth until the player reaches the rightmost edge of the map where no further wisps appear. There are monsters continously spawning across the map and the player has no quick way of healing. The exit portal is to the far left, situated on a road leaving the swamp. The idea of course is to trick the players into following the wisps only to have them become lost and disoriented, looking for the exit in the wrong place. Much like their folklore counterparts. It is of course highly metagamable but eh.

Dream of Power: You are not only an accomplished firemage but also the Kings most trusted advisor. He has thrown a grand ball in your honour, yet all is not well. You have caught wind of an attempt at your liege's life, and as you make your way through the crowd you see not only several of the guests but even some of the palace guards unfolding hidden daggers..

As the dream starts, everyone in the room (as many nobles/noblewomen and guards the engine can handle) is friendly with backwards speak dialogue. As the player nears the king however, several turn hostile and starts to target the king, defended by a cadre of (hopelessly outclassed) bodyguards. Unfortunately, the player only has access to area of effect fire spells, meaning that the life expectancy of any civilians caught in between has changed to "crispy". Further complicating things, the charred remains of anyone the player kills rises as ghouls due to the sorcerous taint he exudes. These are, in turn, hostile towards anyone except the player.

Once all (other) aggressors are dead the king and any remaining bodyguards turns aggressive (cue several angry backwards dreamgibberish lines about fouling the natural order etc), with several Ziguranth Magehunters appearing at the back of the throneroom coming to his "rescue". Also, the player gets permanently silenced, with the only option left him is ignoble retreat in the unwavering display of courage and justice in front of him. Good thing he should still have a few ghoul meatshields and a clear run to the portal that has opened at the hall doors where the dream began.

Dream fails if the player or the king gets killed, succeeds if he manages to flee.

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Anyway, it still needs some more dream diversity but I think its a good start to turn the Caldera into something that's actually fun to play whilst keeping the original idea for the zone somewhat intact. Thoughts?

[AlexanderR]

Sounds totally awesome. Here are some suggestions for Dream of disorientation:

• Form map with random size (never small) and amount of obstacles (never too many of them).
• Maintain minimal amount of enemies, new ones are respawned after killing previous. There should always by at least one enemy, observing every Will 'o the Wisp and at least one enemy, having you in vision range. Don't spawn new enemies, when there are already more than certain amount (2 perhaps?), targeting you.
• Player is placed between the edge of droplet-shaped area with Will 'o the Wisps (lit space) and similarly shaped area with virtually no Will 'o the Wisps and slightly lowered number of obstacles (danger space). Add some randomly placed Will 'o the Wisps and open spaces to make exact disposition less obvious. Exit is located in focus of danger space.
• Consuming Will 'o the Wisp grants short health regeneration effect
• Coming closer to focus of lit space results in spawning more resilient enemies (and vice versa). Coming closer to focus of danger space increases speed of spawning and maximum limit of enemies in range (so that staying near it's focus results in being constantly attacked by ~5 enemies) but decreases their life (so that you are able to one-shot every of them). Using up Will 'o the Wisps exponentially increases damage of spawned enemies (so that after some point pointlessly wandering around and healing becomes lethal).
• In lit space enemies are spawned in darkness outside of LoS. In danger space they are always spawned from direction of exit.
• Enemies, spawned in two areas belong to different opposing fractions
• At first you have no infravision or clues to location of exit, except direction, enemies come from in danger space. Coming closer to exit increases infravision exponentially, so that you are able to see it exact location, when close enough.

Obviously, there should be some sensible hints about mechanics in dialog boxes, shown upon entering, healing first time, healing 5th time etc. Last Will 'o the Wisp, located in focus of lit space never disappears, but health regen from using it is insufficient to compensate for damage from enemy, spawned near it.

PS OMG, now implementing even half of this looks like way so much of work! Too bad, realization came only after writing it down