User:FIQ/Dungeon Overhaul Proposal
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This was my contribution to the Dungeon Overhaul project some time ago (2-3 years?). It is not in a wiki format at this time.
DUNGEON OVERHAUL PROPOSAL -- FIQ EDITION This document aims at describing my take on the so-called "dungeon overhaul". It describes my personal view on how the current game progress of NetHack works, what it does well, and the issues it has, along with providing personal solutions on the issues. It aims primarily to describe how the general dungeon should be designed in my view, but will also touch on so-called "balance issues" at times if relevant. THE PURPOSE OF ALL THIS Several years ago, in 2014, a group of people mostly connected to NetHack4 development, wanted to brainstorm major personal takes on how they would personally overhaul NetHack's dungeon structure. This was to be done in isolated circumstances, without cross-referencing ideas (at first), to allow each one to come up with their own take. After this was done, the proposals would be looked through and discussed, the idea being that ultimately a combination of them all can lead to a better dungeon and game. The timeline for when this was to be done was on the release of the stable version of NetHack4 4.3. This release never happened, and the Dungeon Overhaul project ended up thrown in the backburner. Recently, there has been attempts at restoring this idea, this time without waiting 4.3-stable. PERSONAL THOUGHTS OF CURRENT DESIGN I think that, for the most parts, the earlier parts of the game works rather well. The earlygame has a nice variety of places of interest, and this continues for a large part of the game. I will raise my comments about what I think about the various places of interest. I personally don't have strong opinions on major redesign of the pre-Castle part of the game, the Dungeons of Doom, and feel like it has *mostly* just minor issues that are salvageable. Gnomish Mines -- Well-designed, alternative earlygame path. These levels have a "cavernous" generation instead of the normal room-and-corridor levels. Has a fair share of gnomes and dwarves. The levels can be either bright, or dark. (Minetown, the central Mines level, is generally always bright except for one of its potential level variants). The brightness state of a level is random, there is no logic in which ones are bright and dark, except the deeper you go, the higher the chance of the level is to be dark. Dark levels pose problems for people for which gnomes and dwarves aren't peaceful to, which makes the mines far more dangerous. I don't really like the randomness of this, and would like more consistency. Also, I have a problem with one of the "Mines End" levels, Mimic of the Mines: * It is noticeably more dangerous, but less rewarding, than the alternatives. * It is rather "plain" -- it is rather similar to a normal mines level except it has a few guranteed "closets" with mimics or gray stones (one luckstone, one loadstone). * It has a place where you need to squeeze through diagonally. This part in particular is rather easy to address. Also note that, should you pickup a loadstone inside this area, you cannot easily get out of it, which I find rather cruel. The "more dangerous but less rewarding" and the squeezing issue alone would make the level salvageable (have more rewards, or tone down the difficulty by introducing bright spots or similar, or cut down on traps). However, I find that the level is simply too plain in comparision to the other Mines End variants, which can't really be addressed easily. I personally find "Khor's Temple" a suitable replacement, allthough its rewards might need to be toned down a little. I would also personally suggest to change the Mines brightness to make "upper Mines" (pre-Minetown) always bright, and "lower Mines" (after) always dark. I would also move Vlad's Tower branch entrance to the penultimate Mines level, but add a +10 depth count to make it more dangerous than the adjacant Mines. The idea being that visiting the tower is risky, but rewarding, since its guranteed items matter a lot more at this point of the game. It also balances the fact that Vlad, for when he appears currently, is laughably weak. Also, while I wrote this overhaul with 3.4.3 in mind, I want to address Orc-town, one of the Minetown variants in 3.6.0. Frankly, I don't like this level at all in its current form. It is basically the RNG saying "OK, you have a 86% chance of getting a nice town level, and 14% of getting a guranteed convertible altar and nothing else of value. Oh, and by the way, the level is much harder than the others. Have fun!". I don't really have a problem with this level *per se*, but feel like it makes for a horrible Minetown replacement. One twist I came up with that I want to try, is to include Orctown, but if it generates, gurantee a special Mines End variant, a "Minetown II" if you like, with survivors who fled the orc-infested town. This could make for interesting added variety with the game basically switching the general content of Minetown and Mines End. The Oracle level is probably one of the game's strongest levels. It's not all that special, but I see no flaws with it. The Oracle can help new players with some spoilers, and the guranteed fountains and statues makes for added variety and can prove useful. This is probably the only level I'd leave as-is with no changes. Sokoban is easily the dungeon branch in the earlygame dungeon that I like the least. My issue with this is twofold. First, I personally just plain don't like Sokoban (the game). Second, I feel like the completely different mechanics of it are rather out of place for NetHack. However, I know that some love this place. The main issue is that this place felt as if it was intended as an optional side branch (and it probably is in SLASH'EM where it originated), but the rewards for completing it are much too rewarding to pass up (an amulet of reflection and a bag of holding are both very good items). In addition, the branch poses an issue for people who actually like Sokoban, because it has very few level alternatives, so after just a few games of clearing Sokoban, you have seen them all. My suggestions for fixing this: * Make many, many more Sokoban levels. Several variants have already done this, so there is a nice library of levels you can use. This makees it very hard to see them all, which makes people who like Sokoban the game happy. - Alternatively, make a generator. This means you'd have to code one, however. * Replace the rewards with 3 chests (one for each prize closet in the final level) with general random chest content. * Move the existing Sokoban rewards to the Quest. More info on that in the Quest part. Big Room. A rather nice twist on the general dungeon layout (and different takes on it is now common in roguelikes). My only real issue with this place is that it isn't guranteed -- it adds variety, and not having it sometimes is weird. It could also have some minor improvements to the more plain variants, but it's not a major concern. The Quest. How well the Quest works mostly depend on the role you play (and thus which Quest you get). I will not comment on individual quests, because then it would be half of this document or more. My main issue with the individual Quests themselves is that a lot of the Quests' filler levels are plain room-and-corridor (isn't the ones in the Dungeons of Doom enough?). I feel like each Quest' filler level types should be unique to that one Quest. Also, *several* of the quest levels are rather mediocre, or have serious issues otherwise, mostly with their layout (not balance or rewards), the obvious one that springs to mind being the Ranger Quest's forced long-winded "maze" corridor with a lot of quest friendlies you have to deal with. For the Quest in general, I like the idea and execution (minus mentioned level issues) mostly. Here is my main issues and solutions: * The Quest demands you to be XL14. I feel like this is too high, because it usually means that doing the Quest before Castle isn't an option. I want this to be a real choice the player has. Solution: decrease to XL10 * Angering the quest leader in any way will make him/her kick you out and seal the portal, making the game unwinnable. Solution: don't seal the portal, and make the Quest Leader the holder of the Silver Bell, so you can kill him/her (or pacify, if you didn't convert) to get the needed things to win the game, but still making mistakes hurt (no quest artifact!) I would also move the sokoban prizes here. The idea is: make the Quest Home an actual challenge you have to fight through (some of the home levels aren't) to get to the quest leader. As thanks for (temporarily) ridding the Quest of menaces, he/she hands you a choice of a bag of holding, an amulet of reflection or a cloak of magic resistance. This doesn't require being able to enter the Quest already. The Rogue level is something I find rather "meh" at the moment. Not really all that special, but I personally don't dislike it. However, I have one significant suggestion to improve variety -- have tributes to things other than Rogue like for example Crawl, Angband or ADOM, with different symsets, level generation and (toggleable) monster appearances. Other than that, it's fine as-is. I find Fort Ludios mostly fine as-is. I don't consider it one of NetHack's strongest levels, but have no specific issues with it per se. I feel like the game should try harder to generate it (generate it on the first vault that isn't the Quest entrance level after level 10 and before Medusa), though. Medusa is generally well-designed, but has 2 major issues: * One of the levels is much harder than the other (due to the guranteed titan, which is ironically the far bigger threat compared to Medusa herself) * Medusa is far too easy to 'cheese' and instakill. I propose the following changes: * Give the non-titan level many more sea monsters. Those, unlike the titan, aren't directly dangerous, but pose a risk of drowning. Thus, both levels end up being non- trivial to "solve", but in different ways. * Medusa should no longer fear reflection or mirrors. Reflection shouldn't work at all to defend against her, but a mirror can be wielded to defend against her petrifying effect. A blindfold should work as per usual. Also, the shield of reflection should be made guranteed to appear. It should always spawn cursed, possibly with negative enchantment, but is intended to give players a source of reflection for the future if they lack it. Castle is fine as-is, with the exception that the reward will change. The reason for this is that a wand of wishing is too much at once to give. I propose to spread out wishes more. The way I intend to do this is part of my general remarks below. Instead of a wand of wishing, the castle will feature 4 chests with a single item each, being: * a scroll of genocide * a spellbook of identify * a 1:75 magic marker * a wand of polymorph In addition, the Castle storerooms will contain a guranteed artifact, which can be any randomly generated artifact in the game. GEHENNOM Gehennom is boring. There is several reasons for this: * Mazes. Mazes are closed, takes forever to explore unless you are a wizard (magic mapping + object detection + teleport at will + teleport control), are generally *easier* since monsters can only come from 2 paths, and are very monotonous. * The branch covers over half of the game, but has very little variety to offer for it. It has several special levels, but they are the same each game, with the same boss, and the special part of them are (apart from Jubilex and Orcus) very small * The one branch here -- Vlad's Tower -- is small, comprises of a very anticlimatic boss for when you face it, and have inferior rewards. Vlad was moved to the Mines as per above, so now Gehennom has even less to its name. * I think Orcus' and Jubilex' lair is fine (but Jubilex is too weak). * I think the way you enter wiztower currently is fine, but would replace the mazes with aiscav. * I would keep one single fullmaze level -- the vibrating square level. The entire idea of it is to find the hidden square, and mazes work better for this. I don't consider this frustrating as long as the game keeps track of where you have stepped (NH4 does this). * Sanctum has a graveyard when its inhabitants for this point of the game are complete pushovers and only serves to waste time in a tedious manner. * Insects are harmless at this point of the game. It only wastes time. My Gehennom overhaul would be as follows: * I find Valley of the Dead to make for a fine "border" between the Dungeons of Doom and Gehennom. It needs no changes. The alignmed priest should no longer be able to give you protection, because... * When you go past the Valley, your acquired protection from priest donations, or from your god, will immediately vanish under Moloch's influence. This makes the lategame harder and prevents you from being able to raise AC to ridiculous levels. * Replace mazes in general with aiscav with a random open- ness factor for each level. This makes for a much better experience, and adds variety by randomizing the openness. * Replace the guranteed demon lord lairs, except for Orcus, with randomly generated demon lords and a large selection of dungeon lairs, and monster generation biased towards the type of demon lord. Below the proposed changes is a list of how I envision a Gehennom overview to be, for clarification's sake. Random demon lords make the Gehennom run much more unpredictable, and the player has to be able to deal with any potential threat. Part of this depends on tweaks to how resistances work (see my general notes). The demon lords will sit on a throne, but the downstair may not require fighting the lord directly. Thrones are more notable in this proposal, see general notes. The 3rd random lord (replacing Jubilex) will not have a throne. * Remove the bribery feature from demon lords completely * Add a 5-level branch consisting of full-level mazes with 2 guranteed minotaurs on each level one of them with a guranteed wand of digging. These can work for players who actually like mazes, and as a digging wand backup for those who desire. The final level should have one larger room in the middle with several minotaurs, a minotaur emperor sitting on a throne, as well as a guranteed blessed +5 dwarvish mattock. * The Wizard Tower works mostly fine as-is. However, I feel that its zoo should be replaced with 12 strong player monsters, each except for your own role, with kit and AI behaviour depending on role. Trying to sneak past this entourage, by luring the Wizard from outside, or similar, should be prevented by giving said player monsters access to controlled level teleportation means, and using it if they sense that you have the Amulet. They will level teleport to a random dungeon level 1-3 levels above wiztower and ambush you at the downstairs. If you somehow keep fleeing, they will continue warping 2-4 levels up until killed, or they run out of cursed scrolls of teleportation. * Fakewiz is fine, except that it should use aiscav as filler instead of a fullsize maze. * The Sanctum should be made much more open. This gives priests a much easier time to spot, and swarm, you. This makes them much more dangerous to deal with. * The Amulet will confer aggravate monster. This should block invisibility, and make monsters aware of your location at all times. It will also blocked all forms (instead of 33%) of intra-level teleport. To make up for this, the mysterious force is removed. DUNGEON LAYOUT * Valley of the Dead * 2-4 filler * Wizard's Tower * Random demon lair #1 -- replaces Asmodeus * 1-2 generic levels, one is fakewiz * Random demon lair #2 -- replaces Baalzebub * 1-2 generic levels, one has an entrance to the Minotaur Mazes. * Random demon lair #3 -- replaces Jubilex. Has a lot of water, akin to Jubilex in vanilla. * 1-2 generic levels, one being the second fakewiz level * Orcus' Lair * 1-3 filler * The vibrating square level * Moloch's Sanctum THE ELEMENTAL PLANES I find the Planes a sound concept and feel like its major shortcomings is in the execution of some of its planes. One general change I want to do is to make portal detection using cursed or confused gold detection fail. Instead, the Amulet should alert whenever the player is within 5, and 1, tiles, of the portal, with different messages, if worn. This is similar, but not identical, to how portal detection with the Amulet works right now. Also, Plane generation should come at random. Wizard of Yendor will always show up within your first plane, carrying a spellbook of dig. The Elvenking and minotaur will remain on Earth. Earth: I feel that Earth mostly work fine, apart from 2 issues: * Wands of digging trivializes this Plane by digging several tiles in one go. * Its major inhabitants don't hit that hard, except for the guranteed Wizard of Yendor, if this happens to be your first plane, and the minotaur (which appears right in the beginning). Solutions: * Any time you dig something, be it with a wand or pick, it will "dig" 1 tile. Following this, several tiles which were previously rock, should crash down into floor, around 33% of them summoning earth elementals. * Earth elementals should be slower (speed 4), but hit twice for 8d6. The idea being to avoid getting swarmed and carefully dealing with the elementals as revealed with digtools. Or teleport them, polymorph them, or similar, this is NetHack after all. Air: I only have a single concern with Air, and that is that currently, levitation gives you full control over your motions. I feel that levitation should reduce, not kill, your loss of control here. Instead, assuming the player doesn't polyself into a flyer, the player should have to navigate "manually", by hitching rides, "walking" or throwing objects to move. FIre: My issue with the Plane of Fire is mostly 2 things: * Unlike other planes, this one doesn't really stand out as unique. It has a lot of lava, sure, but other places also does. It is otherwise just normal floor with a billion fir traps, which players are probably immune to by now. * The fact that it has a lot of fire traps, and the fact that it spawns resisting monsters, means that this place tends to create a lot of message spam. This doesn't *technically* have to do with dungeon overhaul, but is something I feel that my solution addresses, so I figured I'd bring it up regardless. Solutions: * Being in close proximity to lava and very hot temperatures will hurt the player progressively over time. d8 HP per turn if the player has no resistance, 1 HP per turn if intrinsic fire resistance, nothing with extrinsic fire resistance/immunity. This stacks, the more lava tiles next to you, the more it hurts. * Levitation over it burns your inventory and does even more damage. * Remove the fire traps. This removes the spam, and they serve little purpose as-is anyway. * Create an open "entry" plain. This is to highlight the next feature without shafting nonspoiled play * This plane will have a timer. When it ticks to zero, the lava will boil and cover nearby floor with more lava. The plane is designed to be (mostly) traversable without having to traverse tiles exposed to this issue. Shortly after, the lava recedes, revealing regular floor again. * Rig the timer so that this happens right as the player enters it for the first time. This alerts the player to the danger without being unfair on them. Water: Water is IMO the worst plane at the moment, due to being easy but very tedious. This is due to the little vision the player has, and the little control they have over how the bubbles work. I have the following solutions. Those suggestions originate as proposals to the dNetHack author, and I feel like it works rather well, mostly. * All the bubbles should be visible at all times * It should be possible to "swim" between bubbles, requiring the player to hold their breath (which they can do for 5 turns, similar to strangulation). Astral: Astral works fine mostly. However, I find that some of its inhabitants are currently a bit too easy to deal with. I have the following proposals: * Player monsters should have intrinsics expected to the players to have at this point * Player monsters should have a stronger inventory, by having generally more useful magic armor, a nearly- guranteed chance for an unicorn horn, and bags with emergency/utility/buff items. * Angels' magic missiles should only be partially resistible by magic resistance. * Riders should have the HP they'd normally have for their level, not much less. * Pestilence and Famine shouldn't be vulnerable to death rays. * Using opposite alignment to ascend "wrongly" should lead to your god at first starting to attempt to disintegrate the helmet, and then summon monsters in anger if worn. The helm destruction should be avoidable by wearing extrinsic disintegration resistance. Note that this will only happen if you wear the helm *in* Astral -- already wearing it since before Astral will not carry any special penalty. GENERAL There are 2 things I want to address as part of this proposal that arguably isn't directly related to the proposal itself, because it has a significant effect on how things play out with the changes. Resistances Making unique, random, demon lords doesn't help if the player can resist everything you throw at them anyway. In addition to the demon lords, this is also a major contributor to latergame being far less interesting -- a lot of monsters simply can't harm players at all later on. The solution here is rather simple. I suggest to replace "resistances" so that intrinsic resistances only halves damage, while extrinsic resistance ("immunity"), nullifies it. I would also make certain monsters innately immune to things, getting the extrinsic benefit. This makes several latergame monsters actual potential threats, and makes it more interesting and tougher on the player. Wishes Vanilla gives players too many wishes at once. My solution to this is to rework how thrones work: Throne rooms have a much tougher-kitted king/queen, being much harder to kill. This monster will prefer sitting on the throne and using its magic to summon an audience (throne monsters) when it feels potentially threatened. As long as the monster remains alive on the level, sitting on the throne will merely shock you. Otherwise, it will give a wish (Luck>=0) or "change your luck" (increase it), and then disappear. The Fort Ludios throne is special, it will instead summon a hostile Vault Guard. This is to keep Fort Ludios optional. Thrones will be at the following places guranteed: * Vlad the Impaler * Fort Ludios (no wish) * Castle * Random Demon Lord #1 * Random Demon Lord #2 * Minotaur Mazes This gives 5 wishes, equal to a 0:1 vanilla Castle wand. There is also generally at least 1 throne room in the Dungeons of Doom. but can be more or less.