Some thoughts about prerelease 21

[Blasphemous]

Yesterday, I have closed the gate with an L+ gray elven ranger.

I believe some of the things I have written about have already been posted by others, either as random threads or RFEs/bug reports but nevertheless, here they are:

1) Given the fact that many more monsters are now being generated, there is a much higher amount of loot to gather, disproportionately so, I think.
By the end game, I blessed everything, even single scrolls or single potions and all the worn items. I still had 30 potions of holy water left after this.

2) Another consequence of the above - throughout the game I've found lots of potions of gain attributes. All my stats have been increased on average by 30 points, half of this before the tower.
Needless to say, that part of the game was very easy. My ranger started with 12 toughness and 15 potential but I quickly got this to 20 and more with items that provide toughness bonus.
What this means is that despite herbs not being as effective at training (I tried overtraining with morgia and failed) you still don't have problems raising stats to respectable values.

3) Summoners should still be toned down a *little*. I'm not talking about the bug that increases their power as they summon more, I'm talking about lich kings filling 7x7 room with monsters in 4 turns.
Summoners should either summon fewer monsters or take longer periods between each summoning, but that's my thought. I understand if people find their current behavior acceptable (again, not counting the experience increase bug).

4) CoC levels from around ~25 onwards are crazy if you're not prepared. The monsters that spawn there can be deadly but coupled with the increased drops I mentioned earlier, it's not as pronounced as some feared.
The problem is that when you descend, you don't really know what's going to be generated in the room downstairs, it may very well be a berserker emperor or greater moloch and that means trouble or occasionally - instadeath.

5) Elemental temples now contain more random monsters. I don't think this is a good idea, I believe it would be better to disable random monster generation in elemental temples and instead buff the thematically related monsters a little.
Maybe 2 greater elementals per each of the temples? I think currently, some temples (ok, water temple maybe air) don't require too much preparation and can be taken in-stride.
One thing I noticed about mana temple - when I bolted Nurgy with a magic missile, he teleported close to me and I was able to quickly dispatch him by throwing rune-covered trident, I didn't have to deal with all the monsters or the chaos wizard summons.
I did destroy them but I was safe, knowing that the archmage is dead. Perhaps it's too easy to let him just teleport randomly because given the right circumstances, players might just skip the temple entirely and only kill the archmage, collect the orb and leave.

6) Corruption has been significantly decreased, to a point where it becomes irrelevant. This ranger had that vortex accident with Khelly so the 6 scrolls of chaos resistance were gone. Dwarven mystic also preferred to give me PoGA instead of the 4 scrolls.
What I was left with were the 3 guaranteed scrolls from bugwil, one from HMV and 2 randomly found. They lasted me till the very end, where I only had to drink two potions of cure corruption after clearing D:50 in melee, including meleeing all balors.
I also meleed two (!!!) tension rooms of balors - one around UL:3 and one on the same level as mana temple. That's a lot of corrupting hits I took and still, I was fairly safe with the minimal corruption effects.

7) This has been mentioned already by somebody else, but a lot of monsters are generated neutral which not only means they aren't an immediate threat to the PC but they will inevitably fight each other.
One time I had a great karmic wyrm battle a quickling queen, another time berserker emperor fought a titan.
Things like that occur often. Although I don't mind this behavior, as it's a bit unrealistic that all the monsters in the game are in league against the player, it makes for a strange experience.
Also, the inherent danger associated with having to deal with those powerful monsters on your path, is somewhat neutralized if you maneuver cleverly and make the hostile monster step next to a neutral one, which causes them to fight.

8) Monsters are generated in waves, each bearing a different type. Deeper in CoC, you're bound to experience *THUMB* messages on every level.
(Greater) titans mixed with (greater) molochs is a typical setup later on but they don't occur until a certain moment.
Similarly, werewolf kings show up at some stage but cease to be generated later. Same goes for several types of powerful monsters.
This is not necessarily bad, but like the previous point states, it is a strange experience.

9) I have mentioned it already but here it is again - some monsters don't feel right appearing earlier than D:50, namely balors.
In the .flg file generated after closing the gate and exiting Drakalor Chain, I've discovered that 54 balors have been slain.
Fifty four balors! That's equal to 6 games completed in pre20, with 9 balors each. Something is not right here.
Now, I don't mind finding one or two stray balors before D:50, but I had two full tension rooms of them.
I don't think this is a good idea to make it possible, those tension rooms rivaled D:50 in difficulty and that's not a good thing.
I managed to pull this off because at that point I had cat ring and some other items that pushed my Dx to ~60 as well as fire orb and GoGS that also raised my St to 60.
This char was a 181 speed, lvl 40+ ranger with 7LB, built with the intention of dual wielding needle and sting so the damage output and chance to hit were stellar.
I was also equipped with sun's messenger + true aim and rune covered trident, but many other characters would be hard pressed to deal with ~20 balors and their summons at once.

10) Stealth has been significantly nerfed and I don't exactly like that. I used to be able to sneak past the steel golems in DfG if I had 100 stealth and stealthy talent but now, they are much more likely to notice me.
Stealth is still useful but I think the previous behavior was better.
It didn't give you any great advantage since certain monsters had to be killed rather than avoided, but it allowed you to roleplay the stealthy character instead of having to blast everything on your path.
Perhaps the skill could be made less common among races/classes but also brought back to be as effective as in pre20?

[grobblewobble]

With the new monster spawning I felt like the temples, as well as the final level, were much easier than the regular levels in between. That's really weird and probably not the intention.

I also ran into so many greater mimics and hiveminds that it seemed suicidal to wear the Ankh, but maybe that was a statistical fluke. How about you?

By the way, I agree with point 3. Especially since the summoned monsters are going to be made stronger in p22, there should be summoned fewer of them to compensate. Otherwise we're going to wade through seas of overpowered spiders again, like before the uberjackal effect was fixed.

[Blasphemous]

Well, I had no problems with mimics, I only had a bit more than usually so I just swapped ankh for aofa, went for the kill and swapped back.
Found two deserted shops in the game which isn't outside of what we're used to.
Some greater mimics were encountered but few enough to not be noticeable.

I agree with the temples being easier than regular levels, especially air, earth and mana temples. I could just take the mana orb and leave having only killed the archmage and ~5 chaos servants.
Earth elementals in earth temple were out of their league when there are titans, molochs and greater elementals next door or down/upstairs.

[Stingray1]

The extra items is pretty ridiculous, adom was already generating too many items.

Just a note from me, we are now experiencing the game as TB originally intended it to be wrt monster danger level, I think. We have to ask ourselves, if we were playing it like it is now all the years, then we would have been used to how it is now. That is not the case, we are used to fighting weak monsters. All the temples except the Fire temple has always been easy for me, so that hasn't changed.

One still easily kills these high DL monsters and they are worth it, for the xp. As you say corruption has been toned down too much, I especially cleared every level except the temples to see what corruption is like now and corruption was not a threat. I've had no scrolls, only 3 potions one of which I used against ACW.

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Just a note from me, we are now experiencing the game as TB originally intended it to be wrt monster danger level, I think. We have to ask ourselves, if we were playing it like it is now all the years, then we would have been used to how it is now. That is not the case, we are used to fighting weak monsters. All the temples except the Fire temple has always been easy for me, so that hasn't changed.
I don't think TB ever intended the temples to be easier than their surrounding levels. The temples are the levels containing the most powerful artifacts in all of Ancardia, and Andor Drakon surely would make sure to place his elite minions there.

We are in a stage of tweaking, when we reach what he intends that will be the final state, I presume.

[Qui]

I'd say that the game probably needs more kinds of high-DL monsters. There is a lot of variety in the early and mid levels, but past a certain point there are just dragons, wyrms, molochs, titans, balors, greater elementals.

Also, temples are indeed easier than normal levels, which is sort of silly. Probably need more greater elementals, and have chaos servants and things like vapor rats exchanged with something a bit deadlier. I'd say add an appropriate colour dragons, but then it would be way too many dragons in the game.

And yes, nerf to summoners isn't really noticeable.

[adom-admin]

I'd say that the game probably needs more kinds of high-DL monsters. There is a lot of variety in the early and mid levels, but past a certain point there are just dragons, wyrms, molochs, titans, balors, greater elementals.

That's very true now that higher-level monsters have become more common. Balancing really is messed up right now and I hope to get things back on track ASAP :-(

[Sami]

I closed the gate with gnomish priest yesterday in p21 but really can't share the thoughts on finding all that crazy loot. I never had more than 20 potions of water which is way less than I normally have. I was not even using as much water as normally due to shortage. Also I only found 1 or 2 PoGAs during the whole game (none after DT), not a single wish and also had shortage of dragon slaying ammo (found only 1 pile before D:50 I think).
In mid-game (before and after ToEF) I was also running out of offensive spells, had only about 100-200 cast points on burning hands, fire bolt and lightning bolt and about 400 on frost bolt.

Either you were extremely lucky or I was extremely unlucky with the items but it feels like we aren't even talking about the same game...

Corruption is not usually a problem for me and I only used only one SoCR during the whole game (to get rid off two -10 speed corruptions) and ended with 6 corruptions with 1 Ap, though I did not melee corrupting monsters if I could avoid it.

[Blasphemous]

Well I'm both a completionist and a pack rat.
My game took me more than two times the amount of turns that yours did, I explored everything except library and picked up all items everywhere.
I guess that in the end this leaves me with such a large surplus of items.

[adom-admin]

1) Given the fact that many more monsters are now being generated, there is a much higher amount of loot to gather, disproportionately so, I think.
By the end game, I blessed everything, even single scrolls or single potions and all the worn items. I still had 30 potions of holy water left after this.


This has been addressed in http://www.adom.de/forums/project.php?issueid=2895 for p23.



2) Another consequence of the above - throughout the game I've found lots of potions of gain attributes. All my stats have been increased on average by 30 points, half of this before the tower.


Ok, with the fix above this no longer will be a problem either.



3) Summoners should still be toned down a *little*. I'm not talking about the bug that increases their power as they summon more, I'm talking about lich kings filling 7x7 room with monsters in 4 turns.
Summoners should either summon fewer monsters or take longer periods between each summoning, but that's my thought. I understand if people find their current behavior acceptable (again, not counting the experience increase bug).


I'm really looking forward to your comments about summoners in p22. There all fixes I deemed necessary have been applied and I hope that they overall will work much better.



4) CoC levels from around ~25 onwards are crazy if you're not prepared. The monsters that spawn there can be deadly but coupled with the increased drops I mentioned earlier, it's not as pronounced as some feared.
The problem is that when you descend, you don't really know what's going to be generated in the room downstairs, it may very well be a berserker emperor or greater moloch and that means trouble or occasionally - instadeath.


With the adjusted monster numbers of p23 (see the fix above) and combined with the revised monster distributions starting in p22 I'm pretty optimistic that we'll have nailed this issue, too. It is a bumpy way so far ;-)



5) Elemental temples now contain more random monsters. I don't think this is a good idea, I believe it would be better to disable random monster generation in elemental temples and instead buff the thematically related monsters a little.


That's again an unintended side effect of the larger monster numbers. It will be gone by p23.



6) Corruption has been significantly decreased, to a point where it becomes irrelevant. This ranger had that vortex accident with Khelly so the 6 scrolls of chaos resistance were gone. Dwarven mystic also preferred to give me PoGA instead of the 4 scrolls.


I would like to hear more comments about this. It might be a temporary side effects as the upcoming new quests should prolong the game and require more time. The idea behind the tuned down rate was that you have more time to explore levels instead of just power diving. Maybe there still need to be more incentives for exploring :-^



7) This has been mentioned already by somebody else, but a lot of monsters are generated neutral which not only means they aren't an immediate threat to the PC but they will inevitably fight each other.


This again should happen much less in p23 due to the reduced monster numbers. Even in p22 there should be somewhat fewer neutral monsters.



8) Monsters are generated in waves, each bearing a different type. Deeper in CoC, you're bound to experience *THUMB* messages on every level.
(Greater) titans mixed with (greater) molochs is a typical setup later on but they don't occur until a certain moment.
Similarly, werewolf kings show up at some stage but cease to be generated later. Same goes for several types of powerful monsters.
This is not necessarily bad, but like the previous point states, it is a strange experience.


That's due to the different way monsters are distributed across levels in p21. Please try again with p22 - it should be a very different experience.



9) I have mentioned it already but here it is again - some monsters don't feel right appearing earlier than D:50, namely balors.
In the .flg file generated after closing the gate and exiting Drakalor Chain, I've discovered that 54 balors have been slain.
Fifty four balors! That's equal to 6 games completed in pre20, with 9 balors each. Something is not right here.


This also should be much better in p22.



10) Stealth has been significantly nerfed and I don't exactly like that. I used to be able to sneak past the steel golems in DfG if I had 100 stealth and stealthy talent but now, they are much more likely to notice me.
Stealth is still useful but I think the previous behavior was better.


I will look into it. Stealth at some point appeared too powerful to me, almost like permanent invisibility without the disadvantages. More thoughts about this?

[sylph]

I will look into it. Stealth at some point appeared too powerful to me, almost like permanent invisibility without the disadvantages. More thoughts about this?

I like the difference that showing monster hostility (the border around their healthbar) makes for backstabbing with an assassin! Really made the class more enjoyable for me!
However, I think even if stealth had a 100% success rate (and I feel there should be a way to have 100% reliable stealth, perhaps requiring a player to take the stealthy talent, 100 stealth, and remove boots and armour for the whole 100%), even with 100% stealth, though, you only have to attack a single monster to have a whole room notice you and attack... It's not really that powerful, especially considering it's taking investment in skills, talents, and itemisation. You can get the same effect by drinking from pools, finding a ring or cloak of invisibility, or (as usual) just being a spellcaster. If all casters get infinite access to perfect invisibility, don't you feel it's only right that an assassin or a thief should get equally strong stealth?

[asdf]

100 Stealth was really powerful, and perhaps should be toned down a bit. But restoring old 100 Stealth behavior by taking 'Stealthy' talent in addition to the 100 Stealth looks good for me. After all, usually only initially stealthy classes could get 100 Stealth, so its not really broken after all.

[asdf]

I'm really looking forward to your comments about summoners in p22. There all fixes I deemed necessary have been applied and I hope that they overall will work much better.
They still fill the room in matter of turns. They still create living swarms to overwhelm you in open spaces. Except for summons dropping loot again, they are not really changed. Early game summoners sould be slapped with a nerfstick _hard_, perhaps 2-3 summoned monsters and no more then 2-3 summon attempts per summoner (giving 4-9 summoned creatures), then _long_ wait.

[Stingray1]

Stealth in p21 was still pretty powerful. Wanting it to sneak past the Golems in Darkforge is just making Darkforge as easy to rob as before only this time you don't need specific items. Before p21 you could even walk through the Graveyard in CoC unnoticed mostly.

[Blasphemous]

Perhaps there should be middle ground for stealth then. Right now (p21) I feel like it's underwhelming while in p20, it was a bit op.
I like asdf's suggestion that stealth alone as a skill should behave like it does in p21 but once you take stealthy talent and reach 100 in stealth, it should work as in p20.
That would be fair I think and stealth serves well until first blood is drawn, then things know you're there. It's not too powerful I think.

[SirTheta]

Stealth in p21 was still pretty powerful. Wanting it to sneak past the Golems in Darkforge is just making Darkforge as easy to rob as before only this time you don't need specific items. Before p21 you could even walk through the Graveyard in CoC unnoticed mostly.Please tell me how you managed to rob DFG relying only on stealth. I have visited old DFG a number of times with 100 Stealth + Stealthy in p20 and I know it is not possible and not at all as easy as with controlled TP in 1.1.1.

[YourMum]

Stealth at some point appeared too powerful to me, almost like permanent invisibility without the disadvantages. More thoughts about this?

I think this fits with a few characters though, as mentioned assassins and thieves, but i always thought mindcrafters too, in a sort of Obi-Wan "these aren't the droids you're looking for" way, walking past monsters by making them think you're not there using your mindcrafty powers. For a lot of R/C combos it's not one of the easiest skills to max out as you quickly get rubbish dice, unless you're willing to go through the trouble of joining the thieves guild to give Yergius lots of money for training.

[sylph]

I love the current effect on the weight of your boots with stealth checks. I'd like to see that combined with an effect from a character's armour (so wearing 'rogue' light armour gives full stealth, maybe anything less than 200s gives full stealth skill?), and I'd also like to see an instant failure to stealth in a large (massive) radius if a character casts a spell. This would still allow the reliable stealth mechanics that we have access to, but would require a compromise that makes the player have to choose a stealth approach, rather than just getting it for free.

[Stingray1]

Please tell me how you managed to rob DFG relying only on stealth. I have visited old DFG a number of times with 100 Stealth + Stealthy in p20 and I know it is not possible and not at all as easy as with controlled TP in 1.1.1.

I never had Stealth at 100 when raiding Darkforge, not that I recall anyway. Blasphemous said he used to be able to. ;)



10) Stealth has been significantly nerfed and I don't exactly like that. I used to be able to sneak past the steel golems in DfG if I had 100 stealth and stealthy talent but now, they are much more likely to notice me.

[SirTheta]

I never had Stealth at 100 when raiding Darkforge, not that I recall anyway. Blasphemous said he used to be able to. ;)That's not what that says. In p20, you could sneak by the first corridor of golems mostly easily. You can sneak by the 8 guarding Kherab's room decently (easily derailed by traps, though). But it is impossible to sneak by the steel golems guarding the weapon / armor rooms - they block the way. In addition, there are monsters inside you have to fight. It entails significant risk and is nowhere close to 1.1.1 where you could just TP in and out with _zero_ risk.

[_Ln_]

I would like to hear more comments about this. It might be a temporary side effects as the upcoming new quests should prolong the game and require more time. The idea behind the tuned down rate was that you have more time to explore levels instead of just power diving. Maybe there still need to be more incentives for exploring :-^

Blasphemous is absolutely correct. Background corruption is now almost gone. I've cleared two greater vaults (one on D:46 and one on D:41 - GUV with hoards of summons). Back in the old days I would have probably picked about 4 corruptions from this whole thing for my L+ character. This time - 1 corruption. I suppose it had to do something with my stellar Ap score (in the 30s), but it's still remarkable.

The character is still not finished, cleared Maze, BDC, aforementioned vaults, on the way to Scintillating Cave and she had 3 corruptions overall (turncount is something about 80k in the game, majority of it in the corrupting areas) and used 1 SoCR from Khelly. If I get to finish the ultra, I'm going to drink a lot of potions of raw chaos I'm afraid.

[BenMathiesen]

I agree with Blasphemous that this is the way to go.

In p20 I really enjoyed the feeling that stealth mad a major effect on the game. I also had the experience of glee when I could just walk past the first corridor of golems in DF with some characters.

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

I had no idea that armor/boots affected the stealth mechanic, but if so then I think this is a good way to control stealth too. I would also be OK with making this "superior" stealth a (documented!) class power for thieves and assassins (maybe rangers too), which other characters can get through the Stealthy talent. I'm not sure this should be extended to mindcrafters, since stealth works well on constructs and undead.

Eventually all characters have easy access to invisibility, but stealth is a very nice differentiator between the classes in the early to mid game, and it's also handy in the late game to be naturally stealthy rather than relying on spells or items that increase your food consumption.

[Stingray1]

Well said, in the late game you should be able to walk around perma-invisilized without food issues. I did so in my playthrough from the casino. Just saying food is not an issue in the game most of the game, especially the late game.

[Blasphemous]

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

This is exactly my line of thought. Stealth as it was in pre20 allowed you to avoid unwanted battles.
If I opened a tension room of titans, I could just close it and move on without them noticing me. Now that's virtually impossible.

As for my 100 stealth + stealthy talent, it was always about getting past the first line of golems.
It makes it possible to clear the weapon and armor rooms by only destroying the two guardian golems (unless some are generated inside as they often are these days) without having to face all of them.
That is assuming you wont trigger any of the traps (additional challenge) as a single one activated may very well bring four more golems on your head.
Having only 3-4 missiles of slaying or construct slaying as well as 90ish HP, 20 PV and no good weapon is really not enough to destroy all of the golems but it *might* be enough to take out two or three of them.

Once again I have to stress this out - stealth in pre20 worked wonderfully when maxed because it allowed you to evade enemies rather than face them every time.
There are archetypes in RPG games - there is a warrior, a rogue/archer and a spellcaster. With stealth nerfed as it is right now, you're effectively removing the middle type leaving you with the only option to blast your way through hordes of monsters.
Of course you can teleport but even a full-blown elven wizard will be hard pressed to teleport all the time in deeper CoC. Stealth gives you the third option and that is great.

EDIT: In response to Ln's comment, I played two gate closers in pre21 and both were gray elven so obviously I had 20+ appearance that got even higher later in the game, this might have had a significant impact on perceived accumulation of corruption effects.
I gotta play a trollish barb and see how that goes ;)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?
This. I agree.

[anon123]

Due to work I haven't been able to play the new prereleases as much as I'd like, but I wanted to say I like the increased monster generation, as it helps you get experience and items early on. However, I can see why it would be nerfed if it works the same way deep in the CoC, where lots of high-DL monsters are generated.

Monsters sometimes being generated non-hostile and thus attacking each other (to the point finding corpses and item drops from these fights seems to happen relatively frequently) is a very welcome change, simply to alter the monotony of everything trying to kill you a little.

Getting item drops from summoned rats and jackals once more is also refreshing :)

[JellySlayer]

I agree with Blasphemous that this is the way to go.

In p20 I really enjoyed the feeling that stealth mad a major effect on the game. I also had the experience of glee when I could just walk past the first corridor of golems in DF with some characters.

Too powerful? No, I don't think so, because you still need to attack things to gain XP and once you get into a fight the other monsters notice you. It makes sense to me that a thief or assassin could sneak into DF, use a meager handful of construct slaying ammo or a phase dagger to enter one of the treasure rooms and fight the 2-3 monsters inside, and get out again without taking on all the golems in the first corridor and forge room. The same goes for sneaking through a graveyard--the advantage of stealth is that you can choose not to fight. And this lets thieves get into places that they might not be tough enough to fight their way into... which is really what they should be doing as a class, isn't it?

If this were a unique effect to thieves (or thieves and assassins), this argument might have a point. Stealth can be easily acquired/mastered by any R/C, and many classes/races start with it by default.

As far as the corruption is concerned, I think that nerfing the corruption rate overall was a good idea, but perhaps the change is just a little too extreme. Some fine-tuning is probably required. If you can finish an ultra practically without corruption removal, I think that's taking it too far in the other direction. Maybe split the difference between 1.1.1 and pre22?

[BenMathiesen]

Wow, I finally got a character into the late game in p22 so I can now comment intelligently on the monster distribution.
The character was a human weaponsmith, with no stealth skill.

In deep levels, there is definitely a preponderance of giants. I was fighting molochs, titans, ancient karmic dragons, and lich kings on a regular basis, and encountering greater karmic wyrms and emperor liches from time to time as well. The regular levels are more difficult than the temples. Fortunately I had Grod, which helped against the giants and demons.

There is an issue with variety: the fights are difficult but most of them are against some variety of giant or dragon.

There is also an issue with the tempo: this character rarely had time to rest. This is actually pretty interesting and made the end game a new experience for me, more than the types of monsters I was fighting. Each level below D40 felt like a real ordeal, to the point where I had made the decision to dive quickly and not try to explore them all. So it encourages the same behavior as earlier versions but for a different reason. In early versions I spent as little time as possible on D40-D48 because I was racing against corruption. In this version I wanted to conserve resources--monsters were coming at me from all sides, and I didn't have that many potions of xtra healing available for emergencies. Even with regeneration I was constantly at around half HP. So I figured, since I'm getting my ass kicked I might ass well get it kicked at the gate.

Personally, I think this level of tension and challenge is desirable in the late game, but maybe it would play better if the number of monsters per level were reduced to ~30 and the background corruption rate on deep levels were increased by about 50%.

I did not notice an issue with item drops--I didn't have enough potions or corruption removal. At some point I had a stack of almost 50 giant slaying quarrels but I was eating through them pretty quickly! 90% of the drops are still junk at that stage, even from all the ancient dragons.

This character was a real brick, with armor at around 100/50 (with Big Punch and shield) or 60/50 (with Grod), and the Bracers of War (from the casino). He could go toe-to-toe with titans and molochs, no problem. He got the first 4 orbs, but eventually died i n the Mana side dungeon when he got cornered between a greater moloch and a greater titan.

Other thoughts:

The Master Summoner teleported next to me and tried to engage me in melee. Nice of him! He didn't last long.
An emperor lich summoned Ancient Karmic Wyrms. He made a better summoner than the Master Summoner.
There were tons of ghost lords and ghost kings wandering around--not sure if that was from the lich summons or from the background monster distribution. I don't think an orc or troll could survive down there even with high shield skill. The kings at least should be made rarer, and/or more difficult to summon. Do liches summoning undead take into account monster rarity?
Riurry starts friendly enough that you swap places with her rather than attacking her.