Brogue

Pender · by **Pender** » February 29th, 2012, 8:33 pm

It is my pleasure to announce the release of Brogue v1.6.2 for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux. Downloads, screenshots and a forum can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/broguegame/home

New with 1.6.2:

⁃ New games can be started with a custom seed by control-clicking “New Game” on the title screen.
⁃ Several new monster types that appear exclusively as allies, and a new quest room in which they appear.
⁃ New weakness status effect that can be inflicted temporarily by centipedes.
⁃ Equipped items are listed at the top of the inventory and separated from the remainder of the items by a one-line divider.
⁃ The names of unknown item types are displayed with purple coloration.
⁃ A few more pieces of information are included in item description screens.
⁃ Visible items on the floor are listed in the sidebar below monsters.
⁃ The variance of gold generated as a function of depth has been tightened substantially between games so that score better reflects depth (assuming that one finds all of the gold).
⁃ 10% of monsters are generated out-of-depth, from 1-5 levels deeper.
⁃ Explore and travel functions seek out weapons that you’ve thrown at enemies and items that have been stolen from you, and will otherwise avoid, when convenient, items that you’ve discarded or thrown.
⁃ Targeting will default to the last confirmed target when it remains a valid and appropriate target.
⁃ Throwing an item will auto-target a monster only if the item is a weapon or potion.
⁃ Calling an item a blank string (instead of pressing escape) will remove any existing inscription and revert to, e.g., “a pink potion.”
⁃ The “Direction?” prompt displays the item name and action in the row above the prompt.
⁃ New purely cosmetic “true color” mode that optionally disables lighting colors, toggled during play with the backslash key.
⁃ Coloration of locked doors is more distinctive, and water is a deeper blue.
⁃ Fleeing monkeys stop fleeing if they drop your item to water currents.
⁃ Allies will no longer cast negation at reflective opponents.
⁃ Allies can again absorb invisibility from defeated enemies.
⁃ Rings of regeneration have been nerfed at high enchantment levels, so that they will never permit full regeneration in less than two to three turns.
⁃ Hallucination potions that have been affected by detect magic will auto-identify when thrown.
⁃ Title screen colors are somewhat calmer.
⁃ Lots of bug fixes.

TideGear · by **TideGear** » March 1st, 2012, 12:34 am

You rock, Pender! Thanks a bunch!

mmm · by **mmm** » March 1st, 2012, 9:35 am

The new id system for rings, armor and weapons is outstanding! It makes timelines and id waiting periods crystal clear, while adding a whole new dimension and challenge to the game.

"Can I manage to kill 20 creatures with this new broadsword, even though my strength is too low and I'm gonna miss most of the time? Is it worth the risk to find out if it's magical?

"Should I try out this new enchanted armor, even though I'll be monster-fodder for 1000 turns?"

==

GOLD
I see that gold was improved, but I wonder if even more could be done: The first roguelike I ever played was an untraditional but fun game called "Lost Labyrinth." When you died, there was a button you could hit to submit your score to an online board. Players could compete to see who got the most points. (I haven't played the game for years, so I don't know if they still do that).

Anyhow, if there were a "submit score" button at the end of a brogue game, which could automatically post our scores to an online board - and knowing that our gold would ADD to our online score - it would make for a very competive edge to the game, managing to make gold a much more valuable commodity.

dpeg · by **dpeg** » March 1st, 2012, 11:37 am

Many, many thanks!

Furox · by **Furox** » March 1st, 2012, 12:22 pm

Great update

TY!
After some testing it looks like the game got harder in some way. The weakness effect of centipedes can cause real problems (12-4 strength) so I had to hide somewhere. It feels like the effect lasts too long.
Another possible issue that I ran into the second time by now are the potions of strength. Did you change the chance of occurrence somehow? I can't find one and it really gets uncomfortable on depth 9.

update:

Joshua Day wrote:I don't believe that potions of strength have changed in their frequency, so that's just poor luck.

Yeah, seems like bad luck. I found my first potion later at depth 9 and 3 more on the next levels.

doctorfrog · by **doctorfrog** » March 1st, 2012, 12:34 pm

I play brogue on a netbook, and the font rendering for the last two versions is killin' my eyeballs. Any way we can have bolder fonts back?

Then:

Now:

At the lower sizes, it's a pretty unpleasant squintfest.

Joshua Day · by **Joshua Day** » March 1st, 2012, 12:47 pm

Furox wrote:After some testing it looks like the game got harder in some way. The weakness effect of centipedes can cause real problems (12-4 strength) so I had to hide somewhere. It feels like the effect lasts too long.

The game definitely did get harder! The new centipede weakness effect, packs of jackals, the descent bugfix (so you don't descend alone), and out of depth monsters all add to the challenge. There are a few changes to make things easier -- items are recognizable from a distance now, there are new ally monsters, and allies can learn to be invisible. (Allies used to be able to learn to be invisible, but you couldn't see invisible allies, either. That's been changed, so it makes sense to let them learn it again.)

Your experience with centipede weakness is typical of any change to a monster in a roguelike. The first time you meet it again its new rules take you by surprise and you don't treat it as a threat. Next time you meet a centipede will you really risk such a long duration of weakness? If it were any shorter, you'd keep playing the way you already were. If it were permanent (as it used to be), centipedes would be the most terrifying monster in the game. It's long enough to feel like forever, but still be temporary.

I don't believe that potions of strength have changed in their frequency, so that's just poor luck.

mikeym · by **mikeym** » March 1st, 2012, 12:53 pm

Just logged a win with the first character I played!

http://www.filedropper.com/162first

Finding a Sword of Quietus was the key - but this in fact was a desperate act of equipping an unknown item, not anything planned. The introduction of out-of-depth creatures completely changes early-game strategy and definitely makes things harder - my previous approach to item identification and enchantment will have to be discarded in favor of a riskier approach.

Love the UI improvements. I Didn't find any new creatures on this run... I'll have to keep looking

doctorfrog · by **doctorfrog** » March 1st, 2012, 1:45 pm

mikeym wrote:Just logged a win with the first character I played!

http://www.filedropper.com/162first

Finding a Sword of Quietus was the key - but this in fact was a desperate act of equipping an unknown item, not anything planned. The introduction of out-of-depth creatures completely changes early-game strategy and definitely makes things harder - my previous approach to item identification and enchantment will have to be discarded in favor of a riskier approach.

Love the UI improvements. I Didn't find any new creatures on this run... I'll have to keep looking

Hey, this guy gets a bold font! I assume he isn't on the Windows build. Let's bring clearer font rendering to the Windows build, please!

Furox · by **Furox** » March 1st, 2012, 1:49 pm

doctorfrog wrote:Hey, this guy gets a bold font! I assume he isn't on the Windows build. Let's bring clearer font rendering to the Windows build, please!

http://brogue.createforumhosting.com/1-6-1-questions-bugs-t248.html#p1694

ruddyadam · by **ruddyadam** » March 1st, 2012, 6:45 pm

Furox wrote:
doctorfrog wrote:Hey, this guy gets a bold font! I assume he isn't on the Windows build. Let's bring clearer font rendering to the Windows build, please!

http://brogue.createforumhosting.com/1-6-1-questions-bugs-t248.html#p1694

I edited the 1.6 broguefont2.png (roughly fullscreen on a 1024x600 netbook) with the new line of glyphs from the 1.6.2 font-4.png, so that they would all be there, and renamed it font-4.png. If you look at it, you can see the line i pasted has thinner glyphs. I tried to line it up as best I could, and they seem to work just fine.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1106457/font-4.png

replacing the 1.6.2 font-4.png with this font will give you, for the most part, the old, bolder font in size 4 only. All other sizes will be the thinner font.

if linking is not ok, please delete this post.

Thanks,
Adam

Porpentine · by **Porpentine** » March 1st, 2012, 8:31 pm

A quick note on the phoenix ally: it's cool as hell but the AI doesn't take immortality into account. Counter-intuitively you want to get your phoenix killed so it'll be reborn braver. Otherwise it spends all game running away once it takes a hit or two.

makaroh · by **makaroh** » March 4th, 2012, 7:38 am

The game became ridiculously HARD :evil:

. Its almost impossible to get to lvl6. I met 3 vampires in lvl2 and cant even kill one of them, need to "Z" after every fight. All darts depletes very fast. On lvl2 i met 5 goblins with one goblin mage and cant evade them because they sleep next to exit. Centipedes are cool now, love jackal pack on lvl3. All other changes is very cool too. In Brogue 1.6.1 to 6 lvl I can with standard dagger and leather armor kill every monster and sometimes packs of them, i can test a lot of scrolls and potions, get nice equipment and start to enchant them for further lvl's. Only 2 of my 30 try was successful to get to lvl9 and beyond. Please balance first part of the game and make it easier but keep it changeling.

mmm · by **mmm** » March 4th, 2012, 11:34 am

Hey makkaroh, I agree.

The game does seem harder. I used to make it to level 12 on average, but (unless the rng has turned against me) I now finish most games around level 6-9. Been having trouble finding good staves and weapons - my most tragic loss was on lvl 10 or so - as I was still fighting with the original dagger and leather armor, with no staff or decent means of defence. When you're like that and you bump into a wraith.....it's not good.

I did so badly in the weekend contest that it's embarassing...and this is coming from a guy that's got 6 crawl victories under his belt.

But so what? Brogue is even more fun then it was before - only a bit more challenging now. The higher difficulty will make your first victory all the more sweet, right?

szopin · by **szopin** » March 5th, 2012, 1:53 pm

Great job guys. Strangely enough shift+directions is now fixed on maemo (makefile forgot -lSDL and -lm for tcod btw) and works along walls etc. Great job. Playing on 800x480 I have to sadly join the crowd complaining about newer fonts though. Also, cursd be the guy who finishes the game on day of each release... d3 ogre killed quite sweetly beginning game of mine. Brutal.

PudgyNinja · by **PudgyNinja** » March 5th, 2012, 3:13 pm

mmm wrote:Hey makkaroh, I agree.

The game does seem harder. I used to make it to level 12 on average, but (unless the rng has turned against me) I now finish most games around level 6-9. Been having trouble finding good staves and weapons - my most tragic loss was on lvl 10 or so - as I was still fighting with the original dagger and leather armor, with no staff or decent means of defence. When you're like that and you bump into a wraith.....it's not good.

I did so badly in the weekend contest that it's embarassing...and this is coming from a guy that's got 6 crawl victories under his belt.

But so what? Brogue is even more fun then it was before - only a bit more challenging now. The higher difficulty will make your first victory all the more sweet, right?

I think everybody who plays roguelikes enjoys a challenge, but I have to say, this latest version is probably too difficult for me to really enjoy. I'ts just not fun to repeatedly die on levels 2-4. I mean, pink jellies on level 2 just seems unfair.

Joshua Day · by **Joshua Day** » March 5th, 2012, 3:31 pm

PudgyNinja wrote:I think everybody who plays roguelikes enjoys a challenge, but I have to say, this latest version is probably too difficult for me to really enjoy. I'ts just not fun to repeatedly die on levels 2-4. I mean, pink jellies on level 2 just seems unfair.

A pink jelly on level 2 seems fine to me. More than one? That might be a problem. Otherwise, it shouldn't really matter which single-speed monster the game throws at you. At worst, why not lead it up some stairs and jump back down a chasm? And if there are no chasms, why not swim across a lake?

I think the game needs to be much more conservative with more mobile enemies (like dar, wraiths, and phantoms) and immobilizing enemies (spiders, zombies, bog monsters, and kraken), but they should still appear slightly out of depth to make them less predictable.

Pender · by **Pender** » March 5th, 2012, 3:49 pm

Actually, I have an idea for folks complaining about the increased difficulty. If you think a particular run is unfairly difficult, post the seed (in a new thread), and we can have a quick and informal challenge to play the same seed and see how veteran players fare on our first attempt. I think that will be an excellent method for distinguishing difficulty from unfair difficulty, the distinction being that unfairness means skillful play cannot overcome the challenge.

(To be clear, I don't want to set a precedent that an occasional unwinnable game necessarily means something needs to be fixed -- to some extent, it's the cost of procedural generation. Still, I think this will be a fun way to bring some rigor to the question of difficulty.)

Joshua Day · by **Joshua Day** » March 5th, 2012, 4:28 pm

Pender wrote:If you think a particular run is unfairly difficult, post the seed (in a new thread), and we can have a quick and informal challenge to play the same seed and see how veteran players fare on our first attempt.

Brilliant! And trusting that this does filter out reasonably easy games, this might just be the "hard mode" you've been looking for. I can imagine, once there's a server, that people could rate their dungeons, and that you could compete against someone else's run so long as you do it before you watch it.

PudgyNinja · by **PudgyNinja** » March 5th, 2012, 4:58 pm

Pender wrote:Actually, I have an idea for folks complaining about the increased difficulty. If you think a particular run is unfairly difficult, post the seed (in a new thread), and we can have a quick and informal challenge to play the same seed and see how veteran players fare on our first attempt. I think that will be an excellent method for distinguishing difficulty from unfair difficulty, the distinction being that unfairness means skillful play cannot overcome the challenge.

(To be clear, I don't want to set a precedent that an occasional unwinnable game necessarily means something needs to be fixed -- to some extent, it's the cost of procedural generation. Still, I think this will be a fun way to bring some rigor to the question of difficulty.)

Do you really want to make a game where only veteran players can get past the first few levels?

It's probably just the RNG, but seriously, in the first 5-6 games I played of 1.6.2, I never made it past depth 4. Most of the time I never even got to a vault. If I wasn't already invested, I'd have given up and moved on to something different. And I've beaten the game several times before, so I'm not exactly a novice. I don't have the seeds, but mostly out of depth monsters and packs of jackals took me out. I don't doubt that extremely careful play could have gotten further, but I think you should be wary about designing only for people who know the game backwards and forwards without taking into account the impact it will have on less experienced players.

Joshua Day · by **Joshua Day** » March 5th, 2012, 5:09 pm

PudgyNinja wrote:Do you really want to make a game where only veteran players can get past the first few levels?

For what it's worth, I have a very hard time with most new versions at first. You have to totally reconsider how dangerous various monsters are. If you go right on thinking that jackals are harmless (which they used to be), then the packs will eviscerate you. The same thing goes for centipedes, a little later on. It's not the absolute difficulty of a monster that makes it nasty in a new version; it's the difficulty relative to the subjective risk you assign them. The first few times I came across jackal packs I didn't take them seriously. They ripped me to pieces and I started thinking differently about them -- throwing a few darts, making sure to fight them in doors.

I don't think you need to engage really intricate, high-level play to deal with these threats. You just need to master the starting gear, which -- and this is important -- the game has never really demanded of players before. Every new release puts us in the unenviable position of having to re-learn the basics. Once we do that, the game unfolds the way it always used to. I bet the same will happen for you -- if it doesn't, keep us posted. I can assure you that the answer to your question -- whether it's acceptable for new players to be stuck permanently in the first few levels -- is an emphatic 'no'.

Pender · by **Pender** » March 5th, 2012, 5:12 pm

PudgyNinja wrote:Do you really want to make a game where only veteran players can get past the first few levels?

No, and I don't mean to diminish your complaint. It's just hard to be objective about these matters, because there's an equally vocal contingent that is upset when the first few levels are too easy, meaning they rarely feel challenged before depth 10 or so. I'm not adverse to the idea of decreasing the difficulty, but it's hard to know whether to do so when I get equally insistent feedback in the other direction. Factor in the well-studied deficits of human cognition in dealing with randomness and it's very hard to get an accurate picture of the median outcome, at least unless there's a mediating server that can crunch the numbers directly. For now, I would say let's give this version some time before deciding whether the difficulty needs adjustment, while we get used to the new mechanics and the tactical responses that they demand. If it's truly intolerable, there's always easy mode (shift-7 on the keyboard), which I know is unsatisfying but perhaps better than nothing. And I do value your continued engagement as a player, very much, and I'm sorry if my response seemed callous or unconcerned; it's just a very hard problem, and this seemed like an interesting way to get some objective insight, with the added bonuses of being fun and providing a view to all involved into how other players handle certain situations.

szopin · by **szopin** » March 5th, 2012, 5:16 pm

I have to totally disagree with this idea. I can accept my weakness, I suck at RLs, not only Brogue. Having spoilerish session to explain newbies (myself included) why they fuck everything up, no thank you. I'd rather die again 100 times to be getting to d12-15 regularly. If powers that be decided that previous settings that allowed me to reach d16-19 by standard play are now not good enough, fine. Will learn on my own. If it takes finishing ADOM, you decide powers that be... I enjoy finding my own little exploits in Brogue. Not gonna ruin it all looking what optimal play is and forget exploring/learning.

Pender · by **Pender** » March 5th, 2012, 5:17 pm

Joshua Day wrote:I can imagine, once there's a server, that people could rate their dungeons, and that you could compete against someone else's run so long as you do it before you watch it.

Indeed! Such a server could show you how your score compared against the curve generated by others who played the same seed, and give you the opportunity to view recordings of other games from that seed. That, in turn, could allow the server to assign a seed tailored to your skill level, and to facilitate victory competitions to complete the most punishing seeds.

szopin · by **szopin** » March 5th, 2012, 5:51 pm

About out-of-depth monsters: ADOM got them just as likely as Brogue now it seems. BUT... Fire Vortex is very likely to lose you. Brogue monsters will follow you up to d1 it seems. Standard roguelike strategy to back up, is useless. You can run around a square, but if the mob regenerates faster, it is a futile exercise. If we have out-of-depth monsters, we should reward intelligent fall-back tactics. With never-gonna-loose you approach, d3 ogres are murderous. This will make stealth build more powerful (additional chance to backstab and avoid unwanted encounters), but current way is bit harsh. Lets share some seeds where ogre is following your dagger/leather and 4 unknown potions up to d1... happens quite often

PudgyNinja · by **PudgyNinja** » March 5th, 2012, 5:58 pm

Pender wrote:
PudgyNinja wrote:Do you really want to make a game where only veteran players can get past the first few levels?

No, and I don't mean to diminish your complaint. It's just hard to be objective about these matters, because there's an equally vocal contingent that is upset when the first few levels are too easy, meaning they rarely feel challenged before depth 10 or so. I'm not adverse to the idea of decreasing the difficulty, but it's hard to know whether to do so when I get equally insistent feedback in the other direction. Factor in the well-studied deficits of human cognition in dealing with randomness and it's very hard to get an accurate picture of the median outcome, at least unless there's a mediating server that can crunch the numbers directly. For now, I would say let's give this version some time before deciding whether the difficulty needs adjustment, while we get used to the new mechanics and the tactical responses that they demand. If it's truly intolerable, there's always easy mode (shift-7 on the keyboard), which I know is unsatisfying but perhaps better than nothing. And I do value your continued engagement as a player, very much, and I'm sorry if my response seemed callous or unconcerned; it's just a very hard problem, and this seemed like an interesting way to get some objective insight, with the added bonuses of being fun and providing a view to all involved into how other players handle certain situations.

That's fair. And Joshua makes some good points, as well.

I actually do agree that the first few levels were probably too easy before. It was extremely rare for me to die before reaching Ogres in previous versions. But at this point it does feel like the balance has shifted too far (for me) in the other direction. I haven't even seen Ogres in this version yet. We'll see if continued play yields better results.

I probably overreacted to your comment. I've been recommending Brogue to all of my friends who are gamers but don't play roguelikes, because I thought it was a great one for new players because it looks great and everything is so streamlined. The fact that the first 3-4 levels were really easy didn't hurt. Even though I've put years and years into Nethack, I never recommended it to anybody because of the amount of esoteric information that you need to learn in order to be successful. So when you and Joshua started talking about advanced strategies that could be used to get around the situations I was expereincing, it just made me think of Nethack and how unfriendly it can be to new players.

Personman · by **Personman** » March 5th, 2012, 7:41 pm

I generally think Pender is totally on the right track in terms of responding to difficulty feedback, so I don't have a huge amount to add, but I'm confused about how people who have ascended multiple times are finding the early levels too hard.

I have yet to beat Brogue (though I've gotten darn close a number of times now) and while I notice the increased difficulty, so far I've just found that Ogres on level three just makes it more fun. Figuring out ways to beat them (and deciding if it's worth the resources) is a great challenge! But in general, I just don't see how the set of skills necessary to ascend isn't a superset of the skills necessary to avoid dying to a level 3 ogre. I don't mean to insult anyone, it just makes me think maybe my playstyle is really different from other people's...

makaroh · by **makaroh** » March 6th, 2012, 4:55 pm

At first look increased complexity is greatly irritated. And now I agree with Joshua Grant to the fact that the new system complexity is quickly to get used to.
I started to play skillfully, and less likely to die at the first levels. I learned to avoid Ogre on 2d level (if she is sleeping of course :wink:

), but vampires - a certain death, if there was only 1 vampire, then i would cope with it. But in general new system complexity itself fully justifies, the first levels are hard and interesting. Just sometimes there are situations "fuck, here was simply impossible to survive" when Broadsword and Plate armor with a blue mark lies in a backpack waiting for bigger strenght.
New "U" allies are very cool; and the joke is funny in the ally description.

Thank you for making Brouge better!

PudgyNinja · by **PudgyNinja** » March 14th, 2012, 5:20 pm

I think the RNG must have just had it out for me during that first series of games of 1.6.2. Immediately after I came here to bitch and moan about it, I made it down to depth 15 and then was once again reaching the depths that I was accostomed to. And then I just pulled off my first 1.6.2 ascension today.

After the first 4 levels, I didn't really feel a change in difficulty. Because by that time, I've determined what kind of character I'm going to play and have some equipment to help me survive, some escape items, etc. It's just those first couple floors where I haven't even had the chance to get my footing where the out of depth monsters can be a pain in the ass. I'm still not convinced that it improves the game to make those early steps more difficult, but once you get past that, the mid and late game seem unaffected.

Guitar · by **Guitar** » March 14th, 2012, 10:19 pm

The only thing that seems really unfair is vampire bats on level 2, especially if they are near the exit. Sometimes it seems that I just do not have enough options to deal with them by this point, and if they spot you all you can really do is start quaffing unidentified potions and die... I was thinking that if they could not open doors it would be fair. Slower enemies can be evaded with pits or water, but vampire bats are simply relentless. Once I jumped down a hole and I think that a 'v' followed me, dealing the fatal bite. It may have been a different bat however.

SnoopyChicken · by **SnoopyChicken** » March 15th, 2012, 8:57 am

Really loving this version of brogue, I think it's good the difficulty has gone up, although I think vampire bats can be really tricky early on.

I especially love the seed option and can't wait for this weekends contest!

Furox · by **Furox** » April 23rd, 2012, 12:32 pm

Guitar wrote:The only thing that seems really unfair is vampire bats on level 2, especially if they are near the exit.

SnoopyChicken wrote:Really loving this version of brogue, I think it's good the difficulty has gone up, although I think vampire bats can be really tricky early on.

I totally agree on this after several runs that ended too early. An ogre on depth 2/3 also feels rather like an insurmountable obstacle than a good challenge.

morphles · by **morphles** » April 23rd, 2012, 12:41 pm

No ogres are not that scary esp if you have chasms on the level you can just jump down

Those nice challenges can be quite interesting and rewarding if defeated and if you did not manage to do that, well its just depth 2-3 so you lost 5-10 minus at most

I think it really worth to have higher difficulty at start, presses you to use more items, come up with tactics early on, otherwise starting levels are really very very boring.

harborpirate · by **harborpirate** » April 23rd, 2012, 5:43 pm

morphles wrote:No ogres are not that scary esp if you have chasms on the level you can just jump down

Those nice challenges can be quite interesting and rewarding if defeated and if you did not manage to do that, well its just depth 2-3 so you lost 5-10 minus at most I think it really worth to have higher difficulty at start, presses you to use more items, come up with tactics early on, otherwise starting levels are really very very boring.

I've really started to get frustrated with early bats. At least with ogres, chasm jumping works quite well in the absence of any good items. But bats just feel cheap, like "rocks fall, you die". Very few characters have any capabilty to survive them when met on levels 2 or 3.

Pender · by **Pender** » April 23rd, 2012, 5:45 pm

harborpirate wrote:I've really started to get frustrated with early bats. At least with ogres, chasm jumping works quite well in the absence of any good items. But bats just feel cheap, like "rocks fall, you die". Very few characters have any capabilty to survive them when met on levels 2 or 3.

I see this a lot and fundamentally agree. Out of depth spawns in shallow depths will be toned down in 1.6.3.

thedrin · by **thedrin** » April 24th, 2012, 1:51 am

I actually don't mind bats too much. I find multiple eels to be far more dangerous. If out of depth spawns are being toned down, I hope it doens't get rid of vampire bats completely. Instead limit vampire bat spawns to a single bat. Dangerous but more survivable. Similarly I'd like to see the game limit the number of eels
per lake in the early game (except for flood water keys).

Joshua Day · by **Joshua Day** » April 24th, 2012, 2:03 am

thedrin wrote:Similarly I'd like to see the game limit the number of eels per lake in the early game

Why? You almost never have to enter them, and can always find a way to cross in relative safety. Eels are there to make lakes dangerous.

Patashu · by **Patashu** » April 24th, 2012, 3:00 am

Clearly the game should spawn 1d(depth-2) vampire bats

boa13 · by **boa13** » April 24th, 2012, 4:18 am

thedrin wrote:Instead limit vampire bat spawns to a single bat. Dangerous but more survivable. Similarly I'd like to see the game limit the number of eels
per lake in the early game (except for flood water keys).

Very much this. The other out-of-depth monsters are much more manageable and make early levels interesting.

morphles · by **morphles** » April 24th, 2012, 5:33 am

So I reviewed replay of my last contest game where we had bats at depth 3. And again I must repeat that it's nice how it is now, much more interesting. Again sometimes you might get something undefeatable at start but that is not very likelly. Also it promts you to think and come up with ideas much more strongly. Also as can be witnessed from last contest game it is very possible to deal with bats. I personaly accidentaly got droped to depth 4 before engaging bats and that probalby gave me aditional experience level before fighting them. Though I still used two healing potions

.

Anyway better hard than boring!

Patashu · by **Patashu** » April 24th, 2012, 6:36 am

Speaking of out of depth monsters... I go down the stairs to D:2 for the very first time and am, an xl3 nublet with no identified resources to his name, greeted with this:

http://i.imgur.com/mu2CA.png

EDIT: Survived, astonishingly. I kited them to D:1 and when I went to swim back to the downstairs, none of them followed XD I had no idea that would work

EDIT 2: Huh, nevermind - they did follow, but then they split up enough for me to dispatch the jackals alone, and I had already picked off two goblins that were too far away to shield. Weird game, this one

thedrin · by **thedrin** » April 24th, 2012, 6:45 am

The second last contest game also had a swarm of bats on level 3 that finished off many of the participants. I agree that it's much more interesting now than it was before, but if I were new to the game I'd find it very difficult. The vastly increased difficulty of the early game could well be having a negative impression on the number of people who are getting into the game.

Pender:
Out of depth spawns in shallow depths will be toned down in 1.6.3.

What I'd be most interested to see would be the removal of spawns of groups of creatures.. A swarm of 3 vampire bats becomes a single vampire bat. A gang of 6 goblins/goblin mystics/jackals becomes a goblin mystic and goblin. These are still dangerous situations, but not as lethal.

Mogri · by **Mogri** » April 24th, 2012, 12:19 pm

thedrin wrote:What I'd be most interested to see would be the removal of spawns of groups of creatures.. A swarm of 3 vampire bats becomes a single vampire bat. A gang of 6 goblins/goblin mystics/jackals becomes a goblin mystic and goblin.

And an ogre becomes..?

This is much better than removing them altogether, though!

ds_creamer · by **ds_creamer** » April 24th, 2012, 12:57 pm

thedrin wrote:What I'd be most interested to see would be the removal of spawns of groups of creatures.. A swarm of 3 vampire bats becomes a single vampire bat. A gang of 6 goblins/goblin mystics/jackals becomes a goblin mystic and goblin.

I'm guessing you mean that OOD groups would be reduced and that in-depth groups would remain the same? That doesn't sound bad to me.

harborpirate · by **harborpirate** » April 24th, 2012, 2:27 pm

ds_creamer wrote:
thedrin wrote:What I'd be most interested to see would be the removal of spawns of groups of creatures.. A swarm of 3 vampire bats becomes a single vampire bat. A gang of 6 goblins/goblin mystics/jackals becomes a goblin mystic and goblin.

I'm guessing you mean that OOD groups would be reduced and that in-depth groups would remain the same? That doesn't sound bad to me.

Yeah, I'd be on board with that as well. One lvl 2/3 bat is tough, but not always a death sentence with mostly unidentified items.

Brogue

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