Thundaar's quest assigns very high-level monsters
issueid=2902 04-28-2014 07:41 AM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by asdf: 54
Thundaar's quest assigns very high-level monsters

Character level: 14
Dwarftown level: 9
Assigned monster - Berserker King, level 16, extremely dangerous for low-level characters.

Given that Animated Forest/Dwarven Halls are located approximately on D:13, this monster assigment makes no sense again. Assigned monsters are supposed to be able to spawn _before_ Animated Forest/Dwarven Halls, otherwise Thundaar's first quest is again a lot harder then next ones.

Supposed behavior: limit assigned monsters DL to 12, or to the DL of the last level of Caverns of Chaos before Animated Forest/Dwarven Halls (it may vary, i dont remember exactly if it varies)
Issue Details
Issue Number 2902
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Fixed
Priority 2
Affected Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 22
Fixed Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 23
Milestone (none)
Users able to reproduce bug 2
Users unable to reproduce bug 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




04-28-2014 12:06 PM
Ancient Member
A high levelled character was supposed to get a higher DL monster I think.

04-28-2014 12:27 PM
Ancient Member
My lvl 13 wizard just got a berserker king assigned as well. Not funny.
I don't care about being assigned dangerous monsters, I care about being assigned rare monsters which sucks.

I'd rather have a skeletal king from Thrundarr because then at least I have a guaranteed one.
Berserker king is no big deal for a wizard, but FINDING it, that's the real problem.
Hell, give me a master lich to kill, I'll happily dig one out from a grave and be done with it.
I have already recovered the ring, cleared pyramid, griffyard and I'm ready to descend to Khelly but still no berserker kings.

04-28-2014 12:41 PM
Ancient Member
There was nothing wrong with the quest in its ADOM 1.1 form. Sometimes you would get a quest for a kobold, sometimes for a really hard to find monster, like a vapor rat. And if he was in a really mischievous mood, he'd assign a cave lion. Talking to Thrundarr for the first time was exciting!

It also made for real variety between games. Starting on the dwarf quests was sometimes trivial, but sometimes so difficult that you'd skip them completely. It was perfect the way it was, and I would love to see the quest back in its original form. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

04-28-2014 01:19 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by Stingray1
A high levelled character was supposed to get a higher DL monster I think.
First dwarf quest is not supposed to be harder then second dwarf quest. If you cant possibly complete this quest before Animated Forest - the quest must be altered. There is nothing wrong with higher level character getting higher DL monster, as long as it does not interfere with normal quest progression, which is most certanly does now.

04-28-2014 01:49 PM
Senior Member
Just swap quest 1 for quest 2 and be done with it. All the monsters that provide a challenge to kill are also a huge pain in the arse to find. Keep the current behaviour so you have to kill something nattier than a rat but allow players to venture deeper into the CoC to find them, without missing out on the second quest reward.

04-28-2014 08:15 PM
The Creator
Please note that berserker kings are uncommon in p22, not rare as they were before.

04-28-2014 10:16 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by YourMum
Just swap quest 1 for quest 2 and be done with it. All the monsters that provide a challenge to kill are also a huge pain in the arse to find. Keep the current behaviour so you have to kill something nattier than a rat but allow players to venture deeper into the CoC to find them, without missing out on the second quest reward.
I've expanded on length about how much of a terrible idea this (switching AF / monster quest) is, somewhere. I suggest you read it.

I've always held that - the first quest able to be assigned at level 6 - it SHOULD be easy (and for plenty of other reasons beyond that). It was fine in 1.1.1 and every single change applied to it has not come anywhere close to fixing it. There was nothing wrong with getting a rat or what-have-you. I would like to go back to 1.1.1 behavior and tweak from there instead of trying to tweak from the broken builds.

04-28-2014 10:37 PM
Senior Member
I think i've probably read it. I see your point, and i'd be happier chasing something i didn't wait 5 exp levels for and completing most of the mid game before finding. But I do like the idea of it being... well something a bit harder than a rat. Could the game not be set up so that when the quest monster is next generated (in theory the specific monster you'd kill to complete the quest) be generated more experienced than it should be? You get some common like a kobold or whatever that is easier to find, but it wouldn't be a pushover to kill?

04-28-2014 10:47 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by YourMum
I think i've probably read it. I see your point, and i'd be happier chasing something i didn't wait 5 exp levels for and completing most of the mid game before finding. But I do like the idea of it being... well something a bit harder than a rat. Could the game not be set up so that when the quest monster is next generated (in theory the specific monster you'd kill to complete the quest) be generated more experienced than it should be? You get some common like a kobold or whatever that is easier to find, but it wouldn't be a pushover to kill?
If he assigns a kobold, and it generates an extra experienced kobold - you might also get a normal kobold generated at the same time and kill that. So you might not even realize that a tougher one was related to the quest.

04-28-2014 10:54 PM
Senior Member
True, and i suppose it would be easy enough to miss the experienced one as well and find a normal monster on another level. Never mind!

04-29-2014 05:11 AM
Ancient Member
Maybe make a fairly tough boss specially for this quest, guaranteed to be found somewhere, on the next level, for example?

I got once an elven princess, which i was able to find only several lvlups after getting the quest, in p20.

04-29-2014 05:45 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Dlightfull
Maybe make a fairly tough boss specially for this quest, guaranteed to be found somewhere, on the next level, for example?
dooooooooooooood you are missing the pooooooooint

04-29-2014 06:59 AM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by SirTheta
I've always held that - the first quest able to be assigned at level 6 - it SHOULD be easy (and for plenty of other reasons beyond that). It was fine in 1.1.1 and every single change applied to it has not come anywhere close to fixing it. There was nothing wrong with getting a rat or what-have-you. I would like to go back to 1.1.1 behavior and tweak from there instead of trying to tweak from the broken builds.
I agree that it shouldn't be overly difficult. But asking for a rat is just a little TOO easy. How exactly does killing a rat prove your valour?

Of course, there's actually two problems with it - the rat, and the valour part. It's not really 'valour' to slay a random creature of Thrundarr's choice.

I can see two solutions to this. First one would be to go with the "valour" theme, and change the quest itself. The other is to change the wording of the quest, and make it more suitable with the current quest idea.

Option 1: Alter the quest itself. I'd like to see the PC proving their valour by rescuing a dwarf currently beset by monsters on one of the nearby levels. This would have a success condition and a failure condition. The success condition would be successfully rescuing the dwarf and guiding them back to the town. The failure condition would be the death of the dwarf. The idea would be that the dwarf would be surrounded by monsters, and thus you would need to find the dwarf, kill the monsters, and then guide the dwarf back to dwarftown. This would be, in my opinion, a more thematically appropriate quest... but it would involve more coding, and some won't like it.

Option 2: Alter the wording of the quest. "I'd like ye to slay a ____ to show your dedication", or something like that. Then, make the target a somewhat uncommon, but not particularly high level, monster. Monsters that you're going to run into within two minutes of getting the quest are too easy, but it isn't about the "valour" of killing the monster, but the effort put in to finding the monster. But it also shouldn't be so rare that it takes hours of real time to find one.

I think a good rule of thumb should be that it should be a monster you're likely to find in the Big Room if you spend about 5 minutes in there killing things (not that this should be the way to do it, since the big room is a challenge for lower level PCs, but the rarity and power of the monster should be about right given that description). It basically says "no basic goblins, rats, kobolds, etc.", but also limits the difficulty of the quest. It shouldn't be too hard to decide on which conditions should be applied given the description I just gave, assuming that probabilities are known (and I assume TB can determine these).

04-29-2014 07:49 AM
Senior Member
Please, dont derail. Current "uncommon" 50 rarity monsters is right on the point in terms of valour/rat. Problem is that too high-level "uncommon" monsters are assigned, higher level then you need for all next dwarf quests.

04-29-2014 11:57 AM
Senior Member
If I get a monster that is too high level (I just got a troll berserker, level 13, and stairs to the forest/DH have been generated on D:12), I just go and do the pyramid. A lot of the time they're up there, hiding! If not (in this case it wasn't), I go to ID:13. It takes maybe 20 minutes real-life time to get down to ID:13, finish the quest, and get back to the wilderness.
I have really serious problems understanding why it is that this quest causes so much frustration. I know I've said it a lot, and I'm sorry to parrot, but it's not a difficult quest! 9 times out of 10 the monster can be found between dwarftown and the animated forest, within about 1000 turns. The rest of the time, just ID dive, or ignore Thundarr! Those 1/10 games I just see as a fun stray from the norm, and it would be a shame to see them removed with a level 12 limit.

In fact I really like the way that, in some games, I have a wand of fireballs for the pyramid/griffyard, and a mummy wrapping for the arena, but in other games I have to innovate a little. In this recent one I used the black torc to kill Rehetep and griff bloodaxe, and I wore it to get cold immunity to Nonnak.
If Thundarr's first quest were made any easier, the early-midgame transition would start to feel a little formulaic for me.

04-29-2014 12:22 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
9 times out of 10 the monster can be found between dwarftown and the animated forest, within about 1000 turns.
3 quests in p22 - berserker king, troll chief, troll berserker. Add berserker king of Blasph.

I'd say that 9 times out of 10 you cant find a monster between dwarftown and the animated forest, because he cant spawn there. This is the problem.

04-29-2014 01:36 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by sylph
If I get a monster that is too high level (I just got a troll berserker, level 13, and stairs to the forest/DH have been generated on D:12), I just go and do the pyramid. A lot of the time they're up there, hiding! If not (in this case it wasn't), I go to ID:13. It takes maybe 20 minutes real-life time to get down to ID:13, finish the quest, and get back to the wilderness.
I have really serious problems understanding why it is that this quest causes so much frustration. I know I've said it a lot, and I'm sorry to parrot, but it's not a difficult quest! 9 times out of 10 the monster can be found between dwarftown and the animated forest, within about 1000 turns. The rest of the time, just ID dive, or ignore Thundarr! Those 1/10 games I just see as a fun stray from the norm, and it would be a shame to see them removed with a level 12 limit.
I don't have a representative sample for p22 yet (I only got one quest, a shambling mound) but the scenario that you are describing as fine is the 1.1.1 scenario.

04-29-2014 03:51 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by asdf
3 quests in p22 - berserker king, troll chief, troll berserker. Add berserker king of Blasph.

:D

04-30-2014 01:20 PM
Senior Member
I think I've managed 3 games where I've completed this quest as part of a typical sequence. The rest of the time I've done the pyramid, griffyard, whatever village quest I've chosen and probably the TotHK before completing it. The cavernous levels before TotHK have become the place I find my quarry normally, otherwise I have to forfeit the wand from quest 2. The reward from quest 1 becomes useless as by the time I've completed normally I've used a couple of identify scrolls, probably blessed.

Yeah you don't need to take the quest, yeah you can just deal with missing out on the rewards as none if it is essential, yeah you can eventually find the monster if you go out of your way, but the quest is designed to have a particular place in the run of the game and the current setup means you're typically completing the quest outside of this sequence.

05-01-2014 08:32 PM
The Creator
Ok, simpler now. Fixed. Again ;-) LOL.

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