Removing Vaults

[Ace]

Hi there!

I saw that there is the request to remove the unbalanced vaults.

I would say that maybe we should change that ticket to "revise" these vaults. Maybe they can be balanced more?

But I actually like those happy/lucky moments when you find a vault where you know it holds great stuff and has a few great monsters in it.

So lets improve these vaults instead of throwing them away.

[schroeder]

They aren't just planing on throwing out some vaults. They have other ideas besides just that. I talked to warrior a bit ago, and he told me he was kicking around the idea to make it so that, in some vaults, monsters can't be banished, or no magic effects stuff inside there.

[PowerWyrm]

The vault lib file contains vaults from ZAngband... and even stuff from Nethack! I think the vaults from Vanilla are enough (maybe keep the vaults from C. Atenasio).
And please.. no vaults like in TomeNET (*cough* no teleport inside vaults *cough*)... this is probably the main reason why that variant currently stinks (> inside a vault, pushed from stairs, no teleport, no banish, no *des*, traps under all the items, traps everywhere that can strip you from all your inventory if you touch them, ton of monsters around... fortunately the suffering of your character ends really quickly).

[Ace]

erm... yeah no spells etc suck :) and i dont wanna change those rules at all. I just meant that these vaults are a nice change, since custom built layouts are nicer than random ones i think. So the more we have the better. I will try to create nice ones :)

Also - in small defense of tome - I think special level rules like "no magic" etc. are announced when you enter the level or?

However it might be a cool idea to have "no spell zones" == for monsters and players a like if that is better. These exist in almost every RPG game so why not here.

[Flambard]

Something to consider: less 'junk' vaults - larger chance on stumbling on a real vault, more loot and more artefacts! Which means even less artefacts available overall.

BTW, anyone knows the story behind nethack vaults? :)

[Ashi]

That gives me an interesting idea, Flambard... What if we removed all but only a few awesome vaults, and then made them incredibly rare? Right now you can stair down in the deeper levels and expect at least 2-3 small vaults per floor. What if they were so rare that you could scum for days before finding one?

If vaults were incredibly rare, you wouldn't have to worry about high level players rapidly discovering artifacts or banishment scumming. They'd better be really nice vaults, though!

[Prosper]

In my opinion Out of depth super good vaults can be taken on by any one any level.

Just wander around with :

- Staff of *destruction*
- Wand of teleport other

With those 2 items a level 1 can potentially win any situation.

[schroeder]

My friend emulord was here when all the arts had 100 times more rarity than they do now. I think that, maybe, arts should have some extra rarity in the roll. Not 100. Anywhere from 0 (for arts like bladeturner...) to 10 (for arts like cubragol).

[serina]

I agree with Prosper.

There's nothing more fun than a lvl 25 mage teleporting away 2 Great wyrms of thunder, lots of gravity hounds and killing a Q and a druj making me lvl 27 before claiming the rewards of a "backdoor surprise" vault. This only being possible because the clever mage used the tools the game provides to them easily (detection and teleport other)

It seems to me like alot of players are too cheap to use items like magic mapping scrolls (which cost about 30-50$ a piece in shop 5), staves of detect evil etc. Most char dumps of people who die in these vaults, die because they didn't have the stuff to detect well enough just so they can haul more items out of the dungeon each trip. There are a few cases of people dying at 500 feet to a dread, maybe that shouldn't be allowed, but these cases are extremely rare. Maybe 1 char in 1000 at most.

I think alot of players need to toughen up and start using the items the game provides. It's very very easy to afford 20 scrolls of magic mapping and a staff of detect evil for each dive if you go below 500 feet each dive (the cost of these items would be around 1200$ each dive if you use all 20 magic mappings, which is rarely the case). If you're a warrior, your equipment doesn't need to be a main gauche +9+9, 2 rings of damage and FA before you get simple detection methods.

It's the same old song and dance... Greed/risk vs reward (not carrying detection items is greedy and punishable by death in my eyes).

When it comes to the "easy" small vaults, those are very valuable to each of us because they're usually the ones providing the majority of stat-potions we're finding for each character needing these potions (unless you count player-shops).

About artifacts being too "easy" and therefore "rare" to find, is all about the players holding onto old finds they no longer need. In my eyes, Schroeder plays each character extremely much longer than I would before facing Morgoth. It's a player preference, and it's ok to play either way, but you won't "need" extreme artifact items to defeat Morgoth. You need some luck and *heal*/life potions or be called "Ascii" in order to win. I have never found "Aule, The One Ring, a PDSM (nor the artifact PDSM), Fingolfin or Elfstone simply because they are RARE! I have played many high level characters at the bottom when these artifacts have been available, but they've eluded me.
If anyone finds one of the extremely powerful artifacts before they reach lvl 45, they're very lucky in my eyes, and should in theory be able to face Morgoth soon.

The people who play lots right after a "winner" retires are almost guaranteed to find usable artifacts, but what about those who don't? Should they never see an artifact their entire life?

Banishment and mass banishment is another story than vaults, and I feel that is a seperate altough connected issue. But I won't make this post longer about expressing my thoughts on this matter, since I believe the Dev-team are already discussing these 2 spells.

ZAL

[Prosper]

I have never found "Aule, The One Ring, a PDSM (nor the artifact PDSM), Fingolfin or Elfstone simply because they are RARE! I have played many high level characters at the bottom when these artifacts have been available, but they've eluded me.

Looking for them at the bottom reduces your chances. But I think you already know about better chances for an art is by looking for it at its base depth or close to it.

I.E. Bladeturner is 5000ft (base depth level 100) there fore having 1 change in 12 that a 1 chance in 64 powerdsm spawn happens to be it already = 1 chance in 768 at level spawn at floor 5000ft that Bladeturner will be there.

Looking for it at 6350ft makes chances even more thin.

[PowerWyrm]

The problem with the ZAngband/Nethack vaults... they are only relevant to ZAngband and Nethack.

Here's one example:

N:53:Lesser vault (bank)
X:7:7:9:21
D:%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
D:%...................%
D:%.&XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX%
D:%&&XXXXX+XXX+XX*,XXX%
D:%&&+###########,*XXX%
D:%.&XXX+XXX+XXX+XXXXX%
D:%.&XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX%
D:%...................%
D:%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%

A couple monsters guarding the entrance, two junk items inside. And you will find those over and over at 6350ft with broken bones and shards of pottery inside? Nonsense...

Another example:

N:125:Greater Vault (Titanic)
X:8:50:43:99

Greater vaults are limited to 66x44 in size. This vault is too large, and even contains symbols (a,b,c,d,A,B,P) that aren't recognized by the Vanilla vault code. ZAngband has a different code and can generate such vaults. Keep these vaults for ZAngband...

[C. Blue]

Hi guys :)

In Tomenet, we use 'no-tele' vaults to provide adrenaline pumping top treasure hunt.
Usually, no-tele vaults are especially likely to contain an artifact, or in general, top loot (ego items).

It's all about risk/reward ratio, as usual. And players like it, it's a choice after all.

If you're concerned about death-trapping, here's what we currently have in to ensure some "fairness":
- impossible to word-of-recall or probability-travel into a no-tele vault
- impossible to teleport or get teleported into a no-tele vault
- impossible to get pushed off stairs by a badly placed monster (pack), so if you go <> into no-tele, you can go back just as quickly if you didn't like it.
- warning message in chat "black 'the air feels very still in here'", and also the coordinates in the UI turn colour from light green to dark grey while on no-tele grids.

On the other hand, wraithform cannot be used in no-tele vaults, so it's impossible to escape easily as a mage or wraith-DSM user if you decide you made a mistake :) Instead you'll have to walk out just like everyone else.

About actual vault structure:
We have predefined quite awesome micro-vault structures that are always set to no-tele and promise great l00t but also high threat (especially OOD baddies inside). For example three tiny cells shaped like a "+" and made by just 5 grids, which are connected by void jumpgates, so you can jump from one into the next if you dare to continue your adrenaline trip, or decide to call it a day if you're satisfied with your loot harvest. Only one of the 3 cells has a diggable entrance.


In short: No-tele vaults can be awesome, if used under good parameters ;)

- C. Blue