Re: [Crawl-ref-discuss] Swamp!

[Eino K. <ein...@gm...>]

Sorry, my previous mail sent itself prematurely. That was pretty terse
huh. I'll finish off what I was saying..

2009/9/8 Eino Keskitalo <ein...@gm...>:

>> If forced to choose, I'd rather take (1) than (2), although (1) misses on
>> the "find way down" minigame, of course.

That particular minigame works so well with the current layout and
monsters. Particularly, lumping the stairs together would really
change how it works. Now you have several routes around, and you can
skip a stairway is a pack of slime creatures is sitting on it. Lumping
the staircases together would make such an occassion a roadblock.
(Which is ok in itself, as Swamp is an optional branch.)

I like the lumping of staircases in itself. It fits the idea of having
to traverse the landscape. It would work especially well with
shortening the branch, as it would likely increase the playtime for
each level.

In any case, with the loot and shops gone, Swamp is pretty close to
how I'd like it, without much work. Removing xp from monsters is
pretty radical, I agree. It's just fairly little work and I like
inexpensive tweaks and am happy with a nifty handwaving in-gameworld
justifications. "Apparitions, eerie and unreal but still too real,
seem to be preying for you in the mists!" as a Swamp:1 welcoming
message, and "This place seems more substantial than the previous
Swamp" for Swamp:5 would do for me. Ok, probably enough about this
already. :)

2009/9/8 David Ploog <pl...@mi...>:
> Incorporating the new comments:
>
> (I)   Shrink Swamp to two levels.
> (II)  Monsters generated in Swamp:1-4 get the no-xp flag (as if summoned).
> (III) There simply are no monsters in Swamp:1-4. If doing this, challenge
>       and fun must come from something else, see below. One might try to
>       allow for some monsters of small xp value.
>
> Here are some ideas about layout and flavour changes; something like these
> would be needed for (III):

Lots of cool ideas!

> (A) Infinite levels.
>     Swamp levels (apart from Swamp:5 perhaps) are infinite. Players have
>     to look for staircases (both directions). Levels would not distort
>     as in the Abyss but see (B).

One idea that came to mind, is that there could be some substantial
(i.e. persistent) Swamp levels (say 1, 3 and 5) and there could be
abyss-like sections in between. That is, you would enter Swambyss from
Swamp:1, and find a passage to Swamp:3 from it. Then do the same again
to reach Swamp:5.

> (B) Changing layout.
>     The layout is not fixed but changing: floor <-> shallow water <-> deep
>     water. (If we want to, we could have a "cyan floor" between floor and
>     shallow water.) In particular, stairs/hatches could (dis)appear.

Sounds good in small doses. Swamp is a cognitive load compared with
other branches already, changing terrain taxes the player further.
Also, we probably need to communicate when the "tide" is changing so
they know when what they're standing on or what they're planning to
travel to will be safe.

> (C) Low xp monsters.
>     Here is a list of low xp SWamp monsters, apart from plant and fungs:
>      giant mosquito, giant bat, rat, giant gecko, newt (1-2)
>      butterfly (2-5)
>      worm (9-16)
>      snake (10-15)
>      electrical eel (22-36)
>      big fish (44-76)
>      brown snake (61-104)
>      giant frog (66-110)
>      giant lizard (77-113)
>      insubstantial wisp (125-180)
>      giant blowfly (134-224)
>     I think that strictly empty Swamp levels would look boring and not be
>     really intuitive either. But having only low xp monsters (xp<100) and
>     the rare frog, lizard, wisp or blowfly on Swamp:1-4 might be enough.
>     (The point is to make sure that Swamp is not scummed for xp, no matter
>     how boring that would be. So some other threat is needed, especially
>     if combining this with (A).)

Slime creatures and swamp worms are cornerstone monsters for the
current Swamp (at least my ideal current Swamp), but give too much xp
for this particular threshold.

On swamp worms, I think the way they are (a) limited to the water, (b)
good at fleeing and (c) often block player's way is good. I did talk
about this a bit on ##crawl (esp. with Darshan), they're considered
very annoying (you should play them in a safe, boring way). I was
thinking you should be able to drive them off for a longer time -
making them slow regenerators might work there.

> (D) Stairs
>     One could make searching for the stairs more elaborate by
>     a) lumping (white) staircases in a cluster (does not work with (A))
>     b) only use hatches to go up or down
>     c) with (A): have few > hatches and more shafts

Lumping would work very well with mixing Swambyss and presistent Swamp levels.

> (E) Non-monster dangers
>     (E1) One off clouds (poison, confusion, miasma).
>     (E2) You take damage all the time if non-amphibious or non-flying.
>          This damage could be small and all the time, or only occasional
>          and in bigger doses.
>     (E3) No regeneration in Swamp.

E2/E3 combo/handwave: Water (or even just the fumes) of the Swamp
could make you sick.

I like both E2 and E3 - could base for example a portal vault on
either if not used for Swamp (goes for many ideas here, even just
layouts).

> (F) Convergence
>     Layout converging from Swamp:1 being Lair-like to a Swamp:5 which is
>     properly swampy as now.

Would be a really cool effect.

I also like the idea of using a round layout instead of rectangular.

2009/9/8 Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <ra...@ak...>:
> On Tue, Sep 08, 2009 at 05:36:18PM +0200, David Ploog wrote:
>> If we want to try (III), the essential bit is in how to set up a danger
>> driving players down, towards the branch end. Please don't dismiss (E2)
>> out of hand. It would make flying attractive, as well as regeneration. (I
>> imagine the effect, no matter if perpetual or in bursts, to approximately
>> counter the normal regeneration rate.) That is less explicit than (E3) but
>> in my opinion also more interesting. Many variations could be devised,
>> with e.g. levitation helping a bit and flight fully protection from the
>> supposedly dangerous swampy air.
>
> I am skeptical of such an arbitrary way to drive players down when four
> Hell branches already do this. Slime drives players down by not having
> loot and by having corrosion; that's more interesting than damage and
> feels less like "Oh they want me to go down now." There is potential
> benefit from doing all of Slime (XP) but also risk such that most players
> choose to dive but some do not. No one ever explores Hell levels entirely.
> I would rather Swamp were more like Slime than more like the Hells.

That sounds good about Slime (I've done it only a few times - I think
I always fully explored). I agree Swamp should be more like it - not
forcing to dive, but simply not rewarding exploring.

> Arguably you could just remove the loot and shops now, and Swamp would
> work much more like Slime. I'm not sure "make Swamp even less appealing
> to be in" is going to translate to "make Swamp more fun." All that effort
> for _just a rune_? Ugh, I guess I'd do it, but after I did everything
> else and was XL24 and could just stomp it.

I like to do Swamp early, as the challenge is most fun then (though I
do die too). That's of course a very unoptimal play, unless you
absolutely need the XP to survive elsewhere..

One thing that Swamp does is provide the decaying rune that is usually
the first one players achieve to grab in their careers.. so even just
a rune is ok loot. But the above does make me think, if we should
provide some additional specific reward in Swamp that would make doing
it early tempting for early characters.

--Eino