Nerf Sludgenest

[SageAcrin]

As loathe as I am to suggest this; Sludgenest is, objectively, way too good of a source of cash right now, capable of granting 10k or more money to anyone willing to grind.

Considering that the SVN is actually lowering grinding abilities in other ways, and that Thalore don't really need special advantages(like getting a huge cashmine dungeon to themselves), it probably needs a nerf for balance reasons.

My suggestion is, rather than remove the gimmick(which is cool) or remove the drops(I hate enemies that give little to no rewards like nothing else), just make F2 the size of F3. Add in some fixed rare slime spawns to keep you from dashing down the stairs instantly.

[Gatewalker]

That and/or make it not 100% for Thalore? Or just make it show up for everyone, just not until you're level 30?

[Torokasi]

DarkGod, the change you've made in current git vers ("objects_cost_modifier = 0.05,") is... good, except Stone Alchemy will still basically make mad bank on the zone, will they not? As far as I can tell the profit exploit's still a major problem with this, and... restricting it solely to Arcane/specifically Alchemist or characters lucky enough to pick up Stone Alchemy is almost worse balance-wise, it feels like to me.

I'd suggest perhaps having the walls be a mix of diggable/undiggable, with the primary amount of F2 being undiggable and only the diggable parts turning into slime? Cuts heavily down on how many slimes can spawn, keeps the dungeon size and lets it still be a maze to try and stumble through while being harassed by oozes. This goes through, that line's probably not needed either, which lets artifact/high-end hats still be useful for Marauders, e.g.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Cash isn't even that unbalancing. Alright fine, you get 10k. Congrats, that's 2 merchant artifacts. Luck dictates that both will be completely worthless to you. I feel no compulsion to try killing everything and the idea of cash doesn't really change that. It's hardly unbalancing. I like it the way it is, since it places a sense of time pressure when you make your way through it, and provides a good challenge, trying to find the stairs in a gradually more open area with multipling enemies everywhere. I vote keep it as is.

[HousePet]

I wouldn't say no to limiting the number of walls that can convert to attack you.
Its a cool gimmick, but it can be really annoying if you can't fight your way through quick enough.
Like the gremlin cave in ADOM.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Gremlin caves were cake to handle. Zap one door to a sealed room with one gremlin (or more) and 1 water trap (or more) of 40 tiles or more to lock it. (Sealing at least one gremlin in the 40 tile or more room, with at least 1 water trap.)

Boom, kill the rest of the cave. (Shouldn't be an issue, all the choke points are easy stomping grounds, and a few more lock spells if needed to buy you time... Maybe even disarm traps for the water traps in bad places)

Congrats, you have a farming location that... is background corruption free, capable of having an altar, and capable of having herbs. The fact that we don't have choke points since the walls vanish turning into enemies, makes it far more dangerous to hang around then gremlin cave.

Comparable location (far more) is the Bunny Level of ADOM, where you have to cope with corruption time limit, the eventually overpowered bunnies that'll score a quadruple crit that stomps your 80 PV into nothingness and goodbye character.

Either way, it just means you approach the level in a new way. Perhaps ask some of the folks who have died farming the levels how 'easy' they are. It can always be dangerous, you never know what the rares will be. Though if we want to discourage 'safe farming', then just make the walls generate a 'boss' every X number of enemies or something. Farportal boss oozes can be nasty enough to make people think twice.

[jotwebe]

My suggestion is, rather than remove the gimmick(which is cool) or remove the drops(I hate enemies that give little to no rewards like nothing else),

My vote would be to remove item drops from the slimes in there, either after a certain number of rounds or after a certain number of slimes. Personally I'd have no difficulty with having no rewards - you don't have to fight in there, so where's the problem?

[SageAcrin]

In trunk, the cash conversion for Sludgenest items has just been reduced to 5%(from 100%).

Which is a lot better than no reward, if you ask me. It makes it a good place to get any ego item you want if you want to grind, with the catch that they top out at tier 4, so they're still not optimal. Nice spot to do things, but not a game imbalancer.

Possible Stone Alchemy issue is there, but I consider that less of a problem; Making tons of money has always been a Stone Alchemy thing, nothing new there at least. Maybe it sways more Thalore towards taking Stone Alchemy, but I wouldn't say it's a top tier choice for them on base, so that's okay enough.

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

You're still acting like money is an issue. By the time you have access to the sludgenest, all it really gets you is a merchant randart or two. And odds are that they won't be helpful to you anyway. But to each their own, I guess.

While we're at it, why not add an achievement for clearing the sludgenest? (completely)

I always saw it as a gimmick goal, but if people are actually doing it, why not a cheevo?

[SageAcrin]

You're still acting like money is an issue. By the time you have access to the sludgenest, all it really gets you is a merchant randart or two. And odds are that they won't be helpful to you anyway. But to each their own, I guess.

By your logic, randarts are almost never good, even from the most powerful source of them in the game.

Rather than bother to argue that, I'll just show you a character I recently cleared wearing five, including four merchant artifacts. No death clear that I am convinced was partially due to my gear.

Sludgenest bought that bow, incidentally, because the first crack at one was indeed a dud. Not that it mattered tooooo much since I got Thalore-Wood that run, too...

(Not that I fully cleared it out, mind you. I think I spent a couple hours in there and got 8k, then wandered off. But that was with Stone Alchemy.)

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I'm not saying that randarts are never good. I've seen some awesome ones myself, I'm just saying that it's a total crapshoot on whether anything you get from the merchant is fitting for your build. You could buy 4 longswords and never find one really suitable for a time warden. Or 4 bows, and never one that works for same. Or 4 shields, but none with buffs suitable for stone warden. It's just that even with money, you're not guaranteed anything good there. And money is always available off adventurer parties/farportals anyway. If the idea is that it is too easy to farm, just increase difficulty to cause an aversion to players. Hence my suggestion of making each wall X chance of normal enemy, Y chance for rare, and Z chance for boss. We've all seen some nightmares of farportal bosses, if hanging around too long in sludgenest causes one of them to show up, that'll put the fear of god into the farmers, while also maintaining an appropriate risk/reward scenario. And, they'll be beefy enough that autofarming won't be a possibility.

[Kaja Rainbow]

In that case, how long should it take for the bosses to spawn? I actually took forever just to find the stairs down the one time I went there. I'll never do that place again. At least without some kind of mapping. It'd suck for people who had trouble finding the exit like me if in addition to taking forever, they got gibbed by absurd randbosses.

[Strongpoint]

Considering that high level characters can farm in sludgenest simply by turning several talents on autouse and putting something heavy on 5 key for hour or two... Some anti-farming measures would be nice

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Hence the boss. No-one auto-kills farportal bosses. As for how rare, I'd vote for a 5%, maybe a 10-15% chance that whenever a rare shows up, it turns into a boss instead. Enough that you'd have to be extraordinarily unlucky for more then 1 to ever show up at once, and the odds of one coming up are low enough that unless you deliberately hang around, it has little chance of occuring. Punishes farming, but doesn't interfere with the regular play of folks moving through, bar bad luck which is no worse then dealing with an OoD spawn.

Question is, could one avoid the algorithim on floor 3 prior to boss being killed? You have to spend slightly more time down there dealing with the actual boss, and if a randboss showed up in the middle, that could be threatening. Odds would still be low, but...

Thoughts?

[Sirrocco]

Personally, I'd like to see it higher than that. Sludgenest is a sidequest. Other than the first time through to unlock, the only things that are there are exp, loot, and the boss at the bottom. Making it into the sort of place where you have to kill this boss soon because otherwise another one might show up at any time could be pretty awesome.

Alternately, put it on an intensity counter. As walls turn into slimes, things get hotter down there. At first, it's basically the same as it is now. Someone who's just tryign to run in and out should be able to find the stairs down, kill the boss, and scoot without a notable change in difficulty. As you grind through the place, though ,it starts to get testy. The number of rares goes up. The effective level of the dungeon (and thus of the monsters, and thus of the rares, but also of the loot) goes up. Boss monsters start showing up. Boss monsters start showing up frequently. Eventually, you're left dealing with monstrosities the likes of High Peak guardians, and likely more than one of them at once - and then you get an achievement at the end if your survive that. Possibly (just to be kind), include occasional messages indicating the rising intensity. Sludgenest as a domesticated, low-risk, moderate-reward grinding dungeon is pretty bleh, after you've learned it well enough to do the domestication thing. Sludgenest as a potentially starkly lethal high-risk high-reward challenge dungeon could be pretty awesome.

Oooh - and instead of having it show up randomly when you hit high enough level (except automatically for Thaloren) we could have it showing up be a quest reward for a quest in Shatur. We have a need for interesting quest rewards that don't just inflate character power, and I think this one would fit right in.