Rebalance Thrundarr quests
issueid=1880 01-28-2013 10:13 PM
Senior Member
Number of reported issues by BenMathiesen: 99
Rebalance Thrundarr quests
Rebalance Thrundarr quests

While it felt faintly ridiculous for Thrundarr to assign a giant rat as the first quest, I now find myself exploring the Tomb of the High Kings and the Rift before I meet one of the rare monsters that he assigns in p10. The problem vis-a-vis gameplay is that characters are likely to reach levels 18-20 before completing the quest, and quests 2 through 5 are far too easy for such characters.

In earlier versions, I would try to complete all Thrundarr's quests when in the early teens, while the forest, the dwarven halls, and the ogre cave are a real challenge. There is also the interesting tradeoff for rapidly advancing characters of whether to get them done before clearing the pyramid.

I think it would be fine to restore the previous behavior; one of the benefits of Thrundarr assigning a common monster is that you can get his quest rewards earlier. Alternatively:

  • Have Thrundarr assign a monster with danger level vaguely appropriate for the character's level, but not a rare monster.
  • Have Thrundarr assign a rare monster, but introduce code to force generation of the monster in a reasonable time. For example, if the quest is active, then each time a monster is generated of the right DL, it has a 10% chance to be the quest monster.
  • Keep the current behavior (p10), but change the order of the quests and/or rewards. For example, why not assign the AF/DH and ogre cave quests before the random monster? The dwarves need news, after all, more than they need a dead master swordsman. :-)
Issue Details
Issue Number 1880
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 11
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 21
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 29
Votes against this feature 0
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




10-03-2013 03:13 AM
Ancient Member
Any progress on this? For me, this really effects the quality of the game because 50% of the time you goto Thundarr you get a quest for something extremely rare.

10-03-2013 09:12 AM
Senior Member
At first I thought things that are not broken should not be fixed.... but your arguments are quite reasonable. I think there should be increased chance of particular monster generation.

10-03-2013 12:26 PM
Ancient Member
As the person who submitted the original RFE to rebalance Thrundarr's first quest, I feel bad for being indirectly responsible for making so many people's games more annoying. :-( Dammit, it was supposed to make it easier, not harder.

10-03-2013 06:01 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Laukku
As the person who submitted the original RFE to rebalance Thrundarr's first quest, I feel bad for being indirectly responsible for making so many people's games more annoying. :-( Dammit, it was supposed to make it easier, not harder.
Well, it's hardly your fault, it's just a bad implementation. The same could be said of the RFE to make starvation less sudden resulting in even the "Hungry" status draining stats (which is annoying too).

10-04-2013 08:24 AM
Ancient Member
Some of the monsters he assigns now can be found in the big room and all of them in the tomb of the high king. You could always go to these places and gain some marks and nice items?

Besides, all quests in the game are optional, none are forced.

10-04-2013 11:33 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Stingray1
Some of the monsters he assigns now can be found in the big room and all of them in the tomb of the high king. You could always go to these places and gain some marks and nice items?
Yes, and then go back to the CoC and do the rest of the quests without breaking a sweat, because they are now very easy compared to the first quest... the ogre lair being much easier than the TotHK for example. That, and not the overall difficulty, is the real balance issue.

10-04-2013 02:50 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Al-Khwarizmi
Yes, and then go back to the CoC and do the rest of the quests without breaking a sweat, because they are now very easy compared to the first quest... the ogre lair being much easier than the TotHK for example. That, and not the overall difficulty, is the real balance issue.
Can one not see the first quest's reward as permission to do the other quests. They are not difficult for higher level characters, but they can be deadly for level 6 or 7 characters.

The ogre quest and arena quests are safest to do with the AMW anyway and that can only be acquired at level 13.

A level 13-14 character should be ready for the TotHK.

That was my thoughts in the original RFE, I did not think it a good idea for a lowish level character to be asked to venture beyond the animated forest.

I'm not saying TB did take my remarks into consideration, but I am saying that the way it is now it kind of ensures that the character is ready for the other quests even more than ready as you've noted.

10-04-2013 03:29 PM
Ancient Member
I've found that the dwarf quests are mostly a waste of time now. I'm usually headed to the ToEF by the time that I find the monster I'm looking for, and have definitely already been through the AF/DH.

Considering the rewards you get and the level that this quest is available at, I think this changed definitely needs to be reversed entirely, or, at very least, rebalanced in a significant way.

10-04-2013 04:29 PM
Member
When the quest is assigned, the quest monster should be generated somewhere between D:1 and D:11. That way you know the monster exists, and don't need to grind in cavernous levels to hope one is generated.

Alternatively, make Thrundarr just pass you on the second quest if you dive into the AF/DH while looking for the first quest's monster, rather than giving you a 2nd slay a monster quest.

10-04-2013 05:28 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by StViers
When the quest is assigned, the quest monster should be generated somewhere between D:1 and D:11. That way you know the monster exists, and don't need to grind in cavernous levels to hope one is generated.
Why even bother to assign a quest then if it's guaranteed to be completed in short time? It is the only quest that you have to work a little for, the others are just routine, but at least you can't do them without doing this one first, which makes this one the deciding one.

To be quite honest, you almost don't even need to grind the TotHK. You just go there and explore all the levels and the quest is very likely done.

10-04-2013 06:40 PM
Ancient Member
It's worth mentioning that TB made this change in order to make the first Thrundarr quest easier. By any reasonable standard, that is not what has happened.

10-04-2013 08:02 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by adom-admin
Interestingly the game internally required a minimum rarity rating of rare for quest monsters (which exactly is the rating for vapor rats and cyclopses, just to name an example). Monsters that are very common are excluded from selection as are some special monsters (like dwarves and vortices). I have tuned down slightly the maximum permissible monster level which might help to ease things a bit. But in turn the game takes more effort to create a rather high level monster (e.g. one close to that limit). Let's test how this works out...
From that it doesn't sound like he tried to make it easier.

I think the "maximum permissible monster level" should maybe not be tuned down slightly, but rather generously and the "rather high level" should maybe become "medium level".
Somewhere in the middle between the low end and high end rather than trying to select a high end monster most of the time.

Or keep the current permissable levels and make it completely random between the 2 ends, then nobody can blame the code, but only the RNG can be blamed.

01-20-2014 12:32 AM
Junior Member
It's extremely annoying as it is right now. I know that the quests are by no means obligatory, but in many runs, by the time said monster is found and killed, quest rewards and subsequent quests are pretty much trivial. Lowing the maximum rarity for candidate monsters should be a great move, especially now that new quests will be added. Many times I received this quest at, say, level 12, and gained four levels just for searching my target. It just felt disproportionate. Now there will be other places to gain a level or two.

01-20-2014 04:29 PM
Member
I was thinking about a different approach.

How about giving players a pool of options? "I want ye to slay a gnoll chieftain, a tarantula or ancient great black-and-yellow wyrm, You-name-it to prove yer valor."
I believe there won't be a lot of coding involved to implement this change, while giving us some room to maneuver but also maintaining the RNG'ness (AKA the fun aspect) of the quest.

01-22-2014 06:56 AM
The Creator
Now only monsters of common or uncommon rarity should be selected (very common won't happen as that is too easy and rare or even rarer either won't happen).

02-20-2014 12:22 AM
I've never had an issue completing the quest because whatever he assigns shows up in the next few dlvls after dwarftown. Even if it's a seemingly 'rare' monster.

02-21-2014 02:02 PM
Senior Member
"I've never had an issue completing the quest because whatever he assigns shows up in the next few dlvls after dwarftown. Even if it's a seemingly 'rare' monster."

Exactly this. *One* character (out of about 20) in my last 2 months, didn't find the quest objective in the levels between dwarftown and the forest (the quest was for a troll berserker). She just sat on D:13 for about 2000 turns, and he appeared.

I think the current Thundarr quest works perfectly. Just play as if that monster already exists between dwarftown and the forest.

02-21-2014 03:28 PM
Ancient Member
Well, y'all are simply wrong (in terms of everyone's experience). I don't know if you're going in at a lower level than most people or what - and I'm glad you've managed to complete that fucking quest - but this change was sorely needed.

02-21-2014 03:46 PM
Ancient Member
I don't believe I have ever found the monster on the levels between DT and the forest since the earlier change was implemented. If I'm lucky, it's a wilderness monster. Otherwise, I probably won't find it until I'm well into the lower CoC.

02-21-2014 04:47 PM
Junior Member
How about keeping it as-is, but ensuring that it's guaranteed to be found? The reasonable place for this would be the top level of the pyramid, in my opinion (yes, trolls would still have a harder time).

Pyramid because:
- it already contains random monsters, some rather out-of-depth for levels 13-16
- it's a tradeoff - a later Thrundarr quest gives some nice help for pyramid, you'll need to face the monsters without that
- it's rather nasty for a low level character, but it's still doable.

Alternatively, just reverse the effect. As it was, it was an annoying quest, but not much else.

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