Adding Replayability Especially Early Game

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

The simplest and best way to do this is to take inspiration from some MMO, and make some of the low level dungeons outlevelable. In other words, once you reach a certain level, they start being undoable. That way, you can still choose to do any dungeons you like with no new restructions, but now have to make choices. If you're close to the level threshold for 3 dungeons, and so can only do one, which one do you do? This works best if some of the other suggestions are also used--minidungeons and so forth.

This would also be even better if paired with Vail's idea. Skip a dungeon and it has consequences. Perhaps a start town is destroyed as a result, or there's a new quest become no one was there to clear it, or maybe another adventurer did he becomes your rival.

There'd definitely be lots of reasons to play the early game different every time.

EDIT: In irc, edge suggested a number of dungeon limit rather than level cap to prevent exploiting low leveling races. An xp cap would probably work too, but number of dungeons is fine.

[lenocinor]

EDIT: In irc, edge suggested a number of dungeon limit rather than level cap to prevent exploiting low leveling races. An xp cap would probably work too, but number of dungeons is fine.

My problem with this is how arbitrary it feels. Do a certain number then you can't anymore. What would be the justification? It would feel weird (and to me, dejecting) as a player to have all the other dungeons be destroyed or something after a certain amount, and it would feel oddly limiting to have them all be closed. I like the idea of them being more dangerous after a certain number a lot better because it doesn't remove them from the game.

[edge2054]

Well another option is to lower the incentive.

If the player's level exceeds a certain amount make it so the boss doesn't drop loot or give experience.

[rascyc]

That doesn't really add replayability to the early game or fix it, but it's probably a nice workaround until the core problem gets resolved. My thoughts:

Remove the unique artifact drop since most people are doing that for the chance at wintertide, blood of life or some really early game weapon that they really don't absolutely need like crooked club.

Look closer at the current diminished gains on killing bosses who are under your level. They should probably be harsher at the levels we are talking about so as people who want to skip T1s don't feel overly punished while people who want to min-max their XP gain still feel rewarded for spending the time.

I think though if you want to add "replayability" to the game you have to really coax people to do a randomly selected set of T1 dungeons outside of people's origin stories. Perhaps some lore at the start of the game detailing that "x, y, z artifacts were sighted in these locations!" in some loretastic way to give players a reason to switch up their T1s. Randomized of course, and also apply the same limited number of artifact drops reasoning above.

[Parcae2]

Oh, there's a neat idea. Close racially inappropriate zones, but after you complete "your" zones open special quests for the other starter towns that involve fighting both of their bosses(and a number of mooks) simultaneously. The "story" here is that since there was nobody around to curb the problems sooner(IE : the PC) they came to a head and are now a direct threat to the towns. "The strange creatures from the Heart of the Gloom have besieged our town, and driven the beasts of the forest into a frenzy alongside them! Please, kill the Weirdling Beast and the great bear, Norgos, before they destroy our home!" "The traitorous Rhaloren have gather some of the twisted crystals from the nearby Scintillating Cave and created a terrible force which threatens our home. Defeat Whatsherface and the Spellblaze Crystal before they become too powerful to defeat!" "Bill the Troll has gathered his strongest underlings and left the forest to take up residence near Kor'Pul. Their presence has disturbed the dark forces there, and we have heard that the Shade which dwells within has rallied its minions to seek out intruders. Clear out the trolls and undead, before their conflict threatens our homes!"

They'd probably work fine as "siege" style quests similar to the storm attack, but depending on plot they could also be placed into separate, 1 level maps. You'd pretty much have to for Derth, since it's got a lot going on.

That sounds awesome. It would solve the tedium problem, since you wouldn't have to fight through a bunch of levels just to get to one boss, and you'd level really quickly, which is always fun.

For what it's worth, I'm on the side of those who think that if a choice is clearly better than the alternative, it's not 'optional,' and especially not in a roguelike. The status quo provides a definite reward for wasting time in boring, safe situations. If you have to choose between power and fun, you have a problem.

I like Varil's idea better than the idea of removing the rewards from other dungeons, by the way. Everyone would wind up doing the "easy" dungeons (i.e. the thaloren start).

[Mithril]

An elephant in the room is a random worldmap. I know that DG has ruled this out but if someone would make such an add-on I think it would be greatly appreciated by many.

I support a decrease in the number of low-level dungeons as has been stated before. Like making the racial staring zones accessible only to that race with some exceptions like Trollmire.

[Ploppy]

For what it's worth, I'm on the side of those who think that if a choice is clearly better than the alternative, it's not 'optional,' and especially not in a roguelike. The status quo provides a definite reward for wasting time in boring, safe situations. If you have to choose between power and fun, you have a problem.

I like Varil's idea better than the idea of removing the rewards from other dungeons, by the way. Everyone would wind up doing the "easy" dungeons (i.e. the thaloren start).

I agree on all counts. Giving significant rewards to people for clearing completely trivial dungeons is poor game design, and it clashes harshly with how the rest of the game world is designed. The change to close off the other starter dungeons should be made ASAP; if people can come up with a sensible replacement down the line, all the better.

If that doesn't fit into the overall design goals for the game, I'd be in favor of slicing one level off every 5-level dungeon in the West, including Reknor and the RHC, and allowing all the newbie dungeons to scale slightly higher to compensate.

The first option would remove 12 to 18 levels and make the game slightly harder, the second would remove 6 and keep things roughly the same; either one would be a step up.

[thedrin]

In the last year I reached the point where I think that I've now had enough of ADOM. After almost a decade of playing it. One of the reasons that I played so many games of it is because I find the starting dungeons very challenging. Just succesfully exploring the first two quest dungeons always feels like an achievement. This is in contrast to TOME 4 where the starting dungeons (not counting the bosses, or some of them) are straight forward. There's no uncertainty to them.

Unless I get an escort quest. They're challenging and fun.

Maybe I'm just playing with race/class combinations that are very durable in the early game of TOME 4, but my tactics for all of the early game zones leading up to the bosses (including the Old Forest, Maze, Hidden Compund) reduce to hitting auto explore repeatedly until I reach the exit. Sandworm Lair also feels trivial.

I like Varil's idea. I also like the idea of reducing the size of the level 2 zones to 3 maps instead of 5. Also: adjust auto explore for the Maze to an always turn left (or right) function to just slightly speed up the exploration of this area. Replace auto explore in the Sandworm Lair with a Follow Sandworm option.

I'm going to go play the game now skipping over the starting areas that are not listed as quests, but I won't like having an underleveled character. As someone said earlier in this thread, you shouldn't have to choose between power and fun.

[bricks]

I don't think being underleveled is generally an issue. It's been said elsewhere, but the soft zone scaling and the way XP is doled out seems to smooth things out. Honestly, I'm generally more concerned about being overleveled.

[marvalis]

In the last year I reached the point where I think that I've now had enough of ADOM. After almost a decade of playing it. One of the reasons that I played so many games of it is because I find the starting dungeons very challenging.

Hitting the small cave and the unremarkable dungeon hoping to get some nice shops, herbs or an early altar. The DDL had a nice chance of generating a random artifact, altar or herbs. Both the puppy quest and the unremarkable dungeon are notoriously dangerous.

With the right setup, you can even raid darkforge as a low level player. Darkforge is a mid level area with potentially very good armor and weapons.

Random dungeon features like that made the early game unpredictable and interesting. Sadly there is no equivalent in TOME (except escort quests as mentioned above).

That gives me an idea. The game should have some dangerous 'cavernous' levels and maybe a big room .

Random generated shops might be a random dungeon feature that can be added. A random inscription shop in the old forest perhaps to go with the nature theme.

[Parcae2]

The problem isn't so much levels as items. Some artifacts that drop early are really good. The Minotaur becomes much, much harder if you haven't already found the Wintertide Phial, for example.

I tend to clear the early dungeons just because I don't want a later boss dropping that one encumbrance amulet when it could have dropped something useful.

[Avianpilot]

If something rewards tedium then we should look at it and ask ourselves if there's a better way to go about it.

I must admit that I was wrong. It's not that I like doing all of the starting dungeons (I've found that I don't really like the two elven ones around Elvala), it's that I like where I am power-wise after finishing them all. In short, I like the power curve with those areas factored in.

If there's a better way to get to that point without hitting the racial starting dungeons then I could get behind that.

[Ploppy]

darkgod works fast!

From the SVN notes:

Orc breeding pits: reduced the total size
Daikara: only 4 levels now
Maze: only 2 levels now (one is huge)
Eruan: only 4 levels now
Old forest: only 4 levels now
Sandowrm lair: only 4 levels now
Ardhungol: only 3 levels now
The four orc prides are now 3 levels

[overgoat]

darkgod works fast!

From the SVN notes:

Do you have a link to the SVN notes? I can't seem to find them. Thanks!

[bricks]

I regularly check http://git.develz.org/?p=tome.git;a=shortlog. Lots of crazy changes coming down the pipe.