NOT a statement of intent

[LostTemplar]

IMHO
1,2,3 bad
4 ok
5 good, even better if clvl is used, however rewards should still depend on dlvl only.
6 ok
7 slightly bad
8 good
9 excellent
10 bad for monster, good for objects In general monsters should be threat, not a reward. Good if monster drop and exp is cut as you stay on the same level long or do it again.
11 bad
12 bad
13 excellent
14 slightly bad, same as 7, there should be one default difficulty with at most two challenge options, not a lot of options.

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by Nick

2. Every generated level has at least one "challenge" (vault, or OOD monster, or something).

I think this is self-defeating; when rare and exciting things become non-rare, they stop being exciting. I'd prefer a push towards more interesting level generation in other directions - there's a bit been done in 3.5 with more special rooms and library/temple/potions lab type rooms with specific item types, and I'd like to see more along similar lines. Some ideas:

- Themed levels: for instance, all ice/fire/acid/electric monsters, orc/troll/giant towns, etc.
- Pit layouts loaded from an edit file to allow different shapes and sizes (possibly depending on types of monsters, pit vs nest, etc.)
- Unique 'lairs': special rooms that are, erm, unique to each unique or themed set thereof, so for instance when you hit Mim's native level there's a chance of finding a special 'Dwarven Hall' room with Mim and his sons and themed monsters/items in residence. (Maybe you could even find it destroyed if you've killed all the uniques earlier.)
- Artefact chambers: like mini vaults that contain a single artefact guarded by hordes of monsters.

Originally Posted by Nick

4. Downstairs and/or recall from town go a random number of levels down, upstairs always up 1.

I'm with Magnate in saying I like the reverse much better. Not only does it make returning to town without WoR more viable, but it also punishes retreating upstairs to a degree, since if you escape back upstairs once, you lose X levels of progress through the dungeon instead of being able to immediately go back down to where you were.

Originally Posted by Nick

5. Difficulty level of monsters encountered depends on turncount not depth.

I like this, but I think it needs to be dependent on both. (Not least because otherwise you dive and get better items and easy monsters, right?) I think the difficulty of monsters should be determined by depth, but incremented by a factor dependent on turncount.

Originally Posted by Nick

6. Morgoth may be on other levels apart from 100.

Seems like this could work as a potential consequence of 5; the slower you descend, the higher up in the dungeon Morgoth might come searching for you.

Originally Posted by Nick

7. There is a "difficulty parameter" which can be set before starting any game.

Sounds good to me - some sort of multiplier applied to item and monster generation chances and similar.

Originally Posted by Nick

8. All races and classes earn experience at the same rate, and there is more variation between races.

I am in favour of giving all races some sort of "special skill" equivalent to Dwarven treasure sensing and Gnome auto-ID of wands.

Originally Posted by Nick

13. Recall is a command, not a scroll.

I have to admit, it does seem pointless having it be item based when it simply becomes obligatory to carry the item, and heading back up to town without recall is not viable after a point. So I guess either a command or dependent on reaching a specific dungeon feature. (Maybe there's a special recall portal every 5 levels, or similar?)

[buzzkill]

Damn Nick, these are golden (mostly). You really need to start to start your own variant.

[Patashu]

I'm with Magnate in saying I like the reverse much better. Not only does it make returning to town without WoR more viable, but it also punishes retreating upstairs to a degree, since if you escape back upstairs once, you lose X levels of progress through the dungeon instead of being able to immediately go back down to where you were.

Unless the game is 'clock' driven (Sil, Brogue, etc) and the loss of turns is meaningful then this is punishing safety with tedium (which is what we are trying to get rid of)

[Nick]

Thanks everyone for the excellent responses - I'm not going to try and answer them all, but there are a couple of things I do want to say:

Originally Posted by Nomad

I'd prefer a push towards more interesting level generation in other directions - there's a bit been done in 3.5 with more special rooms and library/temple/potions lab type rooms with specific item types, and I'd like to see more along similar lines. Some ideas:

- Themed levels: for instance, all ice/fire/acid/electric monsters, orc/troll/giant towns, etc.
- Pit layouts loaded from an edit file to allow different shapes and sizes (possibly depending on types of monsters, pit vs nest, etc.)
- Unique 'lairs': special rooms that are, erm, unique to each unique or themed set thereof, so for instance when you hit Mim's native level there's a chance of finding a special 'Dwarven Hall' room with Mim and his sons and themed monsters/items in residence. (Maybe you could even find it destroyed if you've killed all the uniques earlier.)
- Artefact chambers: like mini vaults that contain a single artefact guarded by hordes of monsters.

I have been doing some preparatory work on the dungeon generation code and I wanted to say how much I like your room templates. Your ideas above are very much along the lines of what I'm thinking for the future of dungeon gen.

Originally Posted by buzzkill

Damn Nick, these are golden (mostly). You really need to start to start your own variant.

You suck.

Also, everyone for bonus points - which if the points is my favourite?

[TJS]

Originally Posted by Nick

Also, everyone for bonus points - which if the points is my favourite

Morgoth appearing < dvl100 ?

[MattB]

Ok, let me get this straight in my head...

Are you of the position both that winning should not be unusual and that winning should not be guaranteed with ideal play?

If winning were to be not not unusual, then presumably ideal play should not be not difficult to obtain and, in fact, should not be nigh on not impossible. Is this not opposite to your standpoint, or have I not got this not wrong?

[PowerWyrm]

Originally Posted by Nick

Having already managed to start some detailed discussion with a few vague statements of broad philosophy, I thought I should give people something to really get their teeth into. So here are a bunch of ideas that I'm not suggesting (probably). They're more designed to provoke responses, and get people thinking about different possibilities.

Also maybe to test whether people read the preamble or just jump straight to the list, and because Antoine lobbed the LOS grenade into the other thread and everyone's throwing themselves on it.

1. At the start of each game, all objects get randomly (but according to their depth and rarity) allocated a minimum dungeon level they can start being generated.
2. Every generated level has at least one "challenge" (vault, or OOD monster, or something).
3. Certain behaviours (stairscumming, or taking the first available stair, for example) are rewarded or punished by affecting object/monster generation in some way.
4. Downstairs and/or recall from town go a random number of levels down, upstairs always up 1.
5. Difficulty level of monsters encountered depends on turncount not depth.
6. Morgoth may be on other levels apart from 100.
7. There is a "difficulty parameter" which can be set before starting any game.
8. All races and classes earn experience at the same rate, and there is more variation between races.
9. Winning should be unusual.
10. Repeating levels gets you less monsters and gear every time.
11. Winning should be guaranteed with ideal play.
12. Some levels have no up stairs.
13. Recall is a command, not a scroll.
14. All of the above should be obtainable by birth options.

1. I don't understand this point... The allocation system is already complex as it is and generates enough randomness IMHO.
2. Marginal change. And pointless unless the reward/risk ratio is balanced.
3. This introduces an unnecesary complexity. I'd rather see disconnected stairs as the default and more up/down staircases generated on each level.
4. Breaks force descent. As anyone else, I think the opposite should be true, along with force descent as default. For deep descent, there are scrolls now.
5. Why should a slow player get more difficult monsters? This is covered by choosing force descent at birth.
6. And if your character is named Fingolfin and wields Ringil, he can shout obscenities about his mother and make Morgoth appear in town too No, seriously, I don't see the point here. In the Silmarillion, Morgoth is more of a coward and almost never leaves the bottom of his fortress.
7. You mean something like "Easy", "Normal", "Hard", "Nightmare" modes like in TomeNET? You should check that game about how which mode affects the player. This would be a nice addition in fact...
8. I don't see how you can balance the races here.
9. Like in Moria?
10. Same as 5. The game should permit slow and fast play. Force descent covers that.
11. Lol, if you play ideally and don't win, this means only two things: either your character got wiped by a bug or by a random instagib, which means a poorly designed feature. I don't think the latest is possible anymore...
12. Ok why not. I'd think each level should have more staircases, but something like 1-5 down and 0-5 up should be fine. But of course, some classes have stair creation spell, which makes the change pointless unless the spell is changed t ocreate only down staircases.
13. Dunno. This seems nice and helpful (frees one inventory slot and the fear of having one's only recall source destroyed), but would require to replace the recall items/spells by something else.
14. If you plan on doing some code refactoring and separate the game core from the rest, some of these impact the code and some don't. And it's hard to set a "birth" option for changes that impact the game core.

[Derakon]

Originally Posted by MattB

Ok, let me get this straight in my head...

Are you of the position both that winning should not be unusual and that winning should not be guaranteed with ideal play?

He threw out a bunch of ideas with the goal of getting people to brainstorm in their reactions to them. So what if some of the ideas are contradictory?

[MattB]

Originally Posted by Derakon

He threw out a bunch of ideas with the goal of getting people to brainstorm in their reactions to them. So what if some of the ideas are contradictory?

Actually, what I was saying (admittedly in an unnecessarily obtuse way) was that they are not in fact contradictory.