Increase Difficulty of Air and Earth Temples
issueid=1118 07-05-2012 07:40 PM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by JellySlayer: 114
Increase Difficulty of Air and Earth Temples

In the theme of making the endgame a little more interesting, I thought I'd propose a few modifications to the Air and Earth temples. The idea here is that, for the most part, these two temples are sort of trivial. It's very rare that you hear of people dying in these places--it's the ToEF and the Mana Temple that most people worry about. Some small changes to these temples, I think, would make them of a more comparable difficulty.

-Air Temple: Enlarge the inner room where the Summoner lives. What makes the Summoner dangerous is the monsters he can summon. Unfortunately, he's stuck in a tiny room crammed full of grues and elementals, so he generally can't actually do all that much summoning. Increasing the available space for him to fill with more summoned monsters would, I think be an easy fix that would make the Air Temple more interesting. I'd suggest maybe just adding one extra row to the edge of the room.

-Earth Temple: This one lacks a special feature. How about, on that entire level, "The floor is covered in thick mud", which increases base energy cost to 1250 or 1500.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1118
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category Unknown
Status Implemented
Priority Unknown
Suggested Version Unknown
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 7
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 7
Votes against this feature 2
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




07-06-2012 08:48 AM
Ancient Member
Personally I am not sure it is thing worth fixing:)

As difficulty goes I would guess two things make fire/mana worrisome:
1) boss being in open [which means you can't clear most of mobs before starting even to think about him]
2) boss being actually serious threat.

Now on Earth temple main problem is Ancient wall beast [or whatever it's name] - is not legitimate threat, i guess on difficulty level he is somehwere in between greater moloch and balor, with balor being more dangerous. Not sure how to fix this without total overmaking.

On Air problem is boss not being open... it might be drastic but I would suggest removing inner walls completely. Extra row would give him one round of extra summons max.

07-06-2012 10:36 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Soirana
Ancient wall beast [or whatever it's name] - is not legitimate threat, i guess on difficulty level he is somehwere in between greater moloch and balor, with balor being more dangerous. Not sure how to fix this without total overmaking.
Make him throw huge rocks. :D

Or some other ranged attack.

07-06-2012 11:07 AM
Ancient Member
On Air problem is boss not being open... it might be drastic but I would suggest removing inner walls completely.
Or make it like the inner walls in the water temple, with holes that the elementals and orb guardian can exit through.

I like the idea of making the Ancient Stone Beast shoot/throw huge rocks. His slowness and lack of ranged attacks currently make him way too easy.

07-10-2012 07:10 PM
Ancient Member
Ancient Stone Beast should ignore armour. Yuglash should be able to teleport in spite of no-teleport flag on the level.

10-31-2012 03:21 PM
Ancient Member
Actually, the largest problem with ASB is that he normally can't even hit (whether just missing or failing to hurt) any halfway-prepared character at that point in the game. I can take more damage fighting an earth elemental one-on-one than I can from the ASB fighting him surrounded. Having him punch through armor would help with that significantly.

I may have skewed opinion since I always fight him in melee--perhaps there are other balancing efforts required for those who fight him at range.

P.S. ASB is below GM & Balor for sure. GM I would never fight toe-to-toe, but ASB is no problem even in Berserk.

11-01-2012 01:44 AM
Ancient Member
for the earth temple you could put a block on the stairways to stop people cutting the EE down to size by down-kill-up abuse.

11-01-2012 02:28 PM
Ancient Member
Even if no player dies to the ASB, the difficulty of the Earth Temple is in that you tend to get significant corruption while fighting it (since we're talking about deep CoC and a boss that takes a lot of time to die, at least in melee). I don't really think it needs buffing. If you add armor piercing on top of the massive HP and PV that the ASB has, it would be too much. The original suggestion by JellySlayer is more thematic and more moderate, I wouldn't object to it although I don't really think any buffing at all is necessary.

The Air Temple may be a formality for veteran players, but it can be rather challenging for players that haven't done it before and aren't massively spoiled. I remember it being so for me the first times I got there. I think when we suggest difficulty buffs, we should try to take out our tinted glasses of spoiled veterans who have won the game.

11-01-2012 06:03 PM
Ancient Member
Yes, wasn't it decided the other day that the game is difficult enough and we cannot have character dying in the end game.

The Air Temple would be slightly more difficult if the Master Summoner could start summoning earlier. But he is restricted by the number of creatures already on the level and he only knows about your presence once you dig into his small house.
Unless you reach the Air temple for the 1st time, you are going to detect those traps.

I say, take away his little house and traps and make him do what he does best.

11-01-2012 06:28 PM
Ancient Member
Well, I dislike JS's original suggestion because it the Earth Temple is a somewhat tough area as is. The real problem with the Earth Temple is not that it isn't dangerous (earth elementals can be quite dangerous), but that the ASB is much less dangerous than even Yulgash. At least Yulgash has a chance of summoning some truly frightening creatures, the ASB can barely do damage to a PC in melee (and if you take the missile route, he's so slow you can cut him down without him ever getting close to you). He is by far the easiest of the orb guardians, imo, even with his massive PV & HP (again, the real corruption problem in earth temple is when you get swarmed by lesser mobs, not cutting down ASB), so that's what needs really changing.

11-01-2012 08:49 PM
Ancient Member
I feel the Air Temple is fairly dangerous as it is - it simply all depends on Yulgash hitting a good summon or not. Making it more likely for him to hit a dangerous summon would be more than enough.

The Earth Temple would be pretty dangerous if the stairs were blocked - possibly once the Ancient Stone Beast leaves the altar.

11-02-2012 12:20 AM
Senior Member
What if the ASB set off an earthquake on leaving the altar?

As for Yulgash, what if opening one of the hidden doors to the inner room (with the other walls being undiggable, to keep you from bypassing it) results in ALL of the walls dissolving? The result would be that you'd suddenly find yourself at the mercy of Yulgash and his summons, and he'd immediately have a lot more room to summon.

11-02-2012 05:43 AM
Ancient Member
Possibly making Courage a good skill to have.

11-02-2012 02:37 PM
Junior Member
I like the Air Temple suggestion (allowing the Summoner to teleport could be good, too). But Earth Temple needs a different fix. All monsters in there already have a movement advantage over you unless you wear 7LB, which is an issue on its own.

I don't like the idea of Ancient Stone Beast shooting rocks. It would simply make it a bigger earth elemental. How about an ability that teleports player next to ACB ? This would make shooting it to death harder. To make it really fun, once ACB locks on you, it can teleport you next to itself even if it doesn't have a line of sight to you. Running to stairs would be a lot harder.

11-02-2012 03:29 PM
Ancient Member
The problem is that the ASB can be tanked easily in melee. Even if such a teleporting feature were introduced, it doesn't really solve the problem because the ASB is really no threat at all.

Hmm... how about have the ASB breathe petrification gas like a gorgon? Suddenly much scarier :p

11-02-2012 04:19 PM
Ancient Member
Again on the Air Temple. How about if there is a lever behind the house that lowers the now undiggable/no-secret doors walls. Must we within LOS of the summoner. Keep the rest of the temple the same as is. Just remove the traps.

The player is then forced to kill all the minions to get to the lever. Once he pulls that lever, oh boy. Killing that MS is priority one. Might actually be the last level many a pc reach, so maybe too much to handle.
But we are in beta testing.


Earth temple, I think a stone block, blocking the stairs is a good solution. Maybe the pc can only pass beyond it while he hold the Earth Orb.

11-03-2012 02:00 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Stingray1
Again on the Air Temple. How about if there is a lever behind the house that lowers the now undiggable/no-secret doors walls. Must we within LOS of the summoner. Keep the rest of the temple the same as is. Just remove the traps.

The player is then forced to kill all the minions to get to the lever. Once he pulls that lever, oh boy. Killing that MS is priority one. Might actually be the last level many a pc reach, so maybe too much to handle.
But we are in beta testing.
I like that idea - a handle to remove the walls. Not only does it efficiently ensure that you have to remove the walls to kill Yulgash, but it also gives an additional use to an action that otherwise mostly only gets used on D50 (and not even always then) - it's rarely used on the handle under Thrundarr.

The handle mustn't be close to sharing a row, column, or diagonal with the altar, though. Casters shouldn't get a clean shot at him on dropping the walls.

11-03-2012 02:49 AM
Ancient Member
Again, blocking the stairs for the Earth Temple solves nothing. The ASB is the real problem, not the mobs within (and if it came to it, you'd just have players dig out a nice escape route to a level corner, so they only have to fight 3 at a time).

P.S. That is also a bad idea for other reasons--what if I get the stiff muscles corruption but I've left my corruption removal on D1 so it doesn't get destroyed? I have to complete the Earth Temple first? It would also piss me off pretty bad if I was forced to finish the Earth Temple by merely generating the level [though this could be solved by making condition for blocking stairs that ASB moves off altar, don't know if that is possible though]. No other area in the game forces you to complete it before you can do anything else [this sentence is somewhat poorly phrased as you can't go past fire wall without fire orb, for example. what I'm trying to say is: all other places you can always leave, train up & come back if you find you aren't prepared].

11-03-2012 08:33 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by SirTheta
No other area in the game forces you to complete it before you can do anything else.
Once you put the orbs in on D:48, the game forces you to close the gate before you can return to any level above D:48.

But I do agree, blocking the stairs is just not a good solution.

11-03-2012 03:03 PM
Ancient Member
Suggested new ASB power - create wall / throw wall.
Would make running away more difficult, as the ASB can force the cave closed right in front of your escape path. Also blocks TP on the level it's on, so running to the stairs won't let you TP escape.

11-03-2012 09:41 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Mobius
Suggested new ASB power - create wall / throw wall.
Would make running away more difficult, as the ASB can force the cave closed right in front of your escape path. Also blocks TP on the level it's on, so running to the stairs won't let you TP escape.
The problem is that the ASB can be tanked easily in melee. Even if such a wall creating feature were introduced, it doesn't really solve the problem because the ASB is really no threat at all. The stair jumping is normally only used to clear the waves of grues and elementals you need to kill before you can get to ASB.

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