PDA

View Full Version : Dungeon Danger levels



Tannis
03-27-2008, 02:49 PM
This is an issue I've been grappling with for the past few days. I brought it up with my girlfriend over dinner last night (she's familiar with ADOM but doesn't play), and we couldn't think of a good solution so I decided to see if the forums think it's a problem too, and if so see if there is a solution.

So issue is dungeon danger levels. In ADOM this is not a problem due to the fixed nature of the game. For a starting PC, I know ID 1-3 is a cake walk, as if the village dungeon. I know the Puppy Cave is slightly harder, and the small cave should be avoided after level 6. This continues for the rest of the game; I know that CoC is easy until maybe level 25, the ToEF should not be tackled before level 18ish, the Dwarven Halls can be suicide with poor luck, and the hardest places are the lower CoC and Emperor Moloch's home. There are no surprises and I know how strong I need to be before entering any area.

You'll see where this is going. Given that JADE is random, you'll NEVER know the layout or danger level of a cave before you enter it. The problematic nature of this situation is obvious. Let's say you get a character to level 8 and enter a cave. Perhaps this cave has a danger level comparable to the Dwarven Halls, and the first monster you see is an Ancient Liche who blasts you to bits. There's not much a level 8 character can do against a monster like that, and how were you supposed to know it was there?

What makes this problem particularly tricky is that every solution I can think of is flawed. For example, the game could be set up so that every cave within a PC's starting area has a low danger level. This might be the best solution, but it forces a certain element of linearity into the game. After all, you would have to do quests revolving around the nearby dungeons first, since otherwise you'd be risking too difficult dungeons.

The other solution is to have the danger level of a dungeon linked to the characters level when he enters it, or when he accepts a quest revolving around the dungeon. But these are flawed solutions too. I could go around every dungeon, enter, and leave to set a low danger level and come back when I'm much more powerful. Similarly, I could accept many quests, setting a low danger level, and do them later when it would be a cakewalk. So dungeon danger level should be fixed.

The others solution is to make all dungeons like the CoC, in that they start easy and progressively get harder. But this makes no sense either. Some dungeons should be hard from the get go, otherwise high level pcs would always have to slog through a few levels of kobolds. There should be dungeons difficult from the get go.

I have one solution. If a dungeon danger level is very high compared to your level it should generate a message (if your perception is high enough) like: "You get a feeling of intense dread" or something like that. That way, your character gets a fair warning before becing stomped by a moloch.

theotherhiveking
03-27-2008, 03:31 PM
I think you're raising an interesting point, I like the message solution but it may be useful to remove very high lvl monster form the first levels, i mean.. whats doing a greater Moloch in the lvl 1 of the cave 4 squares away of your starting position? in every cave, the first monsters should always be jackals, goblins and kobolds, and come harder later, it main reason is that they need a safe place to live. (unless is a very very very exclusive and named cave OR its something like a temple, cultist will make more sense.)

It makes sense to make all caves uninteresting until you go deep inside, if you enter every cave to look for a powerful monster and run outside, you know where to come later, thats not fun, it may be cool to enter with your lvl 56 character to that uninteresting and boring cave, and after a cake walk slaughtering everything for a while, you get to the lvl 6 where you find the gate to the secret lake of red water where in the deeps you find the way to the sinister temple where master liches will try to beat you and eventually find the altar to XXXX the lord of grues and by after doing this massive task of EPIC WIN, he will reward you with the runic vorpal phase scythe of darkness that you need to have a chance to beat a not-that-exclusive god to gain the POWAH of the EPIC FAIL! and only then you will win when you lose.!

1. the bold text is not serious :p

myrddin
03-27-2008, 04:11 PM
1. You enter a cave for the first time: set 1st level to 2-3 levels below char so that it's not cake but not too difficult either. This way lower levels become harder for you.

2. You exit the cave and come back much later: delete all enemies and RESET the DL per #1 and repopulate.

3. You do #2 up to a specifix maximum - so each dungeon has a maximum DL. This will help prevent cave scumming by exploiting #2.

There's nothing that says the DL of a dungeon or dungeon level has to be static..

Tannis
03-27-2008, 04:16 PM
1. You enter a cave for the first time: set 1st level to 2-3 levels below char so that it's not cake but not too difficult either. This way lower levels become harder for you.

2. You exit the cave and come back much later: delete all enemies and RESET the DL per #1 and repopulate.

3. You do #2 up to a specifix maximum - so each dungeon has a maximum DL. This will help prevent cave scumming by exploiting #2.

There's nothing that says the DL of a dungeon or dungeon level has to be static..

I considered that solution. The nice thing about it is that a dungeon will always be worth exploring. After all, if a level 50 character came across a level 5 dungeon, that would kind of suck.

On the other hand, I think there should be some really out of depth dungeons available. Part of the the fun of ADOM is sprinting through the Dwarven Halls or taking on an out of depth area due to necessity. It would be slightly boring if ALL areas in JADE adjusted themselves to your level.

Worst Player... ever
03-27-2008, 05:35 PM
I agree with the message idea.... come mid-level, if we don't have some sort of tip, in most dungeons we'll either be bored or dead.

I also think there could be a couple of other things regarding dungeons too, that would be realistic:

1. Dungeons that are far away from towns should be more dangerous than those close to towns. Any dungeon within 10 squares of a town will likely be levels 1-3.

2. Instead of... "A non-descript cave", you could have tips that talk about the type of monsters that live there. For example, "You see orc tracks" is probably a lower level than, "The trees near this cave are oddly stunted and misshapen... a pervasive sense of nearby evil slightly unnerves you". The survival skill could increase your chances of getting an accurate reading of a place.

3. I don't know if dungeons are generated mid game, but we could have something like, lets say you have a dungeon that's equivalent to level 10 on a mountain somewhere... years of game time go by and it hasn't been touched by the player or sacked by some NPC. Gradually this dungeon danger level will increase. When it hits certain milestones, like level 20, 30, 40, new level 1 dungeons are created in the nearby area. This would indicate that untamed areas would become more dangerous over time if nothing is done to check their growth.

I agree with the message, but I also think that some logic to dungeon placement can go a long way too.

Worst Player... ever
03-27-2008, 05:38 PM
1. You enter a cave for the first time: set 1st level to 2-3 levels below char so that it's not cake but not too difficult either. This way lower levels become harder for you.

I'm dead against having dungeons set to character level. I've played RPGs like that, and I don't get a sense of accomplishment or growing power, since it's just as hard/easy for me to survive at level 15 as it was when I was level 1. If JADE is going to be a truly independent world, then stuff just has to happen regardless of what the character is like, and the character has to deal with it.

Tannis
03-27-2008, 05:47 PM
Your first two ideas are absolutely fantastic. I like the survival skill but admit it's kind of useless, so this is a great way to give it value. And making dungeons farther away from all settlements more dangerous makes perfect sense. People would settle in safe places, and anything really dangerous nearby could by dispatched by the royal militia. So the worse of the worse dungeons would logically not be near cities.

Dungeons getting worse over time does have a logic to it and has gameplay benefits. My only concern is with randomly appearing new dungeons. I just worry that it could be scummable or unbalanced. But really that's only an issue if new dungeon generation is too high.

Nezur
03-27-2008, 05:58 PM
1. You enter a cave for the first time: set 1st level to 2-3 levels below char so that it's not cake but not too difficult either. This way lower levels become harder for you.

2. You exit the cave and come back much later: delete all enemies and RESET the DL per #1 and repopulate.

3. You do #2 up to a specifix maximum - so each dungeon has a maximum DL. This will help prevent cave scumming by exploiting #2.

There's nothing that says the DL of a dungeon or dungeon level has to be static..

I admit this idea sounds fairly good... The dungeons would always provide a challenge.

However if you met for example a named considerably harder artifact carrier and decided to flee to come back later the monster just wouldn't be there anymore. I also wouldn't like the fact that the game adjusts the difficulty of the dungeons specifically for the PC. IMO it would be odd if a very easy dungeon was suddenly populated by Berserker Emperors. I don't think the monsters should be deleted as the new ones could just be harder. On the other hand the danger level of some special (magical) locations could be adjusted over time for instance.

I suggest the caves on the whole would simply get the harder the farther away they are from areas populated by friendly NPCs. In other words dungeons and other hostile places found in remote areas would generally pose a greater challenge. Some regions could be widely known as dangerous - listen to the gossipping traveller. The user interface could conveniently classify difficult areas as challenging according to the PC's knowledge. The player could see the danger level somewhere on the UI or the game could notify about the fact when entering the area: "You have heard the inhabitants of this region do not value life too much" or "Horrid creatures live in these merciless lands".

As Tannis suggested the PC could draw conclusions based on the cave surroundings, the dungeon itself and perhaps also feelings. Maybe the game could inform a low level PC about a very powerful monster by outputting something like "You don't feel like battling against that!" should the character see the being.

I'd like somekind of a "no mercy attitude". If the PC encountered a significantly more powerful being about to slice up the character with its purple glaive gleaming menacingly in the infinite darkness the PC could just run. That is to say the player can always choose the option of having his character flee. It would work if done soon enough.

Thomas Biskup has stated the game will be easier than ADOM. Therefore the PC should survive more often even if he/she encountered an out of depth dungeon.

Hmm... I also feel that I haven't thought about something important. :)


after doing this massive task of EPIC WIN, he will reward you with the runic vorpal phase scythe of darkness that you need to have a chance to beat a not-that-exclusive god to gain the POWAH of the EPIC FAIL! and only then you will win when you lose.!

Hehe. :D

theotherhiveking
03-27-2008, 08:46 PM
I'm dead against having dungeons set to character level. I've played RPGs like that, and I don't get a sense of accomplishment or growing power, since it's just as hard/easy for me to survive at level 15 as it was when I was level 1. If JADE is going to be a truly independent world, then stuff just has to happen regardless of what the character is like, and the character has to deal with it.


Agreed, QTF!
Adaptation of monster to the pc lvls is just the easy, boring and just what everyone will expect, also it makes little or none sense, to return to the small cave to see greater molochs in the firsts levels.

Nezur
03-27-2008, 09:04 PM
I'm dead against having dungeons set to character level. I've played RPGs like that, and I don't get a sense of accomplishment or growing power, since it's just as hard/easy for me to survive at level 15 as it was when I was level 1. If JADE is going to be a truly independent world, then stuff just has to happen regardless of what the character is like, and the character has to deal with it.

Yes, I'm against that too as I explained in my post.

It really would flatten the sense of accomplishment.

Sradac
03-27-2008, 09:19 PM
i dont think everything should be with the players level, It would make sense for a hugely powerful barbarian to be able to find caves full of weak pathetic monsters. Re-setting the danger level on each entrance to someplace would just suck, it wouldnt make sense.

Dorten
03-28-2008, 04:19 AM
I'd say - give all dungeons more or less random DL. Low level char, who goes to every hole in the dirt to see what's inside is stupid and deserves to find a master lich in one of them. On the other hand, the survival skill application to guess what lives in the cave is an awesome idea. Another thing would be local townsfolk telling your char where the local dragon lives (they feed him ten virgins each year, so a path to his lair is well known, or maybe he always attacks from the north, so he lives somewhere to the north, but they can't tell for sure).

Kinda make it more realistic (consideing dragons and liches are realistic at all :))

Dougy
03-28-2008, 04:59 AM
From here (http://www.adom.de/forums/showpost.php?p=1555&postcount=37):


Well perhaps 'c'hatting with friendly NPCs could help reveal what is in dungeons nearby. "I'd wouldn't go in the dungeon to the east, nobody who entered there has ever come back alive." This way, there's a way to avoid walking into death-traps, but at the same time you don't always have to battle 10 levels of goblins before getting anywhere decent.

Those with the appraisal skill could get messages along the lines: "You feel like you don't belong here."

The appraisal is probably a better choice than the survival skill, since (a) survival is about gathering food in the wilderness and (b) appraisal has little value in ADOM.

Dorten
03-28-2008, 07:31 AM
I always thought, that survival is about surviving... That includes finding food in the wilds. But appraisal is about the quality of item. Can't see how it fits here.

Tannis
03-28-2008, 12:28 PM
I agree with Dorten. Not blundering into a Liche's lair and being skinned alive is pretty integral to surviving ;)

Worst Player... ever
03-28-2008, 03:14 PM
From here (http://www.adom.de/forums/showpost.php?p=1555&postcount=37):The appraisal is probably a better choice than the survival skill, since (a) survival is about gathering food in the wilderness and (b) appraisal has little value in ADOM.

I guess the principle is the same no matter what is used. I had suggested survival because I see it as being able to detect tracks (hence monster types and levels) and other signs of recent occupation. Plus like Tannis said earlier, Survival is also a near useless skill and it needs all the help it can get. :D

I think TB could get rid of appraisal altogether, or make it so that it tells you everything but the status of the object, like an uncursed scroll of Identify. At least then it would give you the approximate worth of the object in question.

moppit
03-28-2008, 04:37 PM
I like the message Idea too... "you hear the sounds of slowly shuffling feet"

Hey Thomas are you hard coding monster types in? or importing from a dat file, either way you could add two fields to the data, a monster_descriptor field and a relevant_skill field.. (I prefer importing from dat, but even hard coding it shouldn't be too hard, I would think.. (Don't ya love how everyone not programming jade says how stuff shouldn't be too hard.. heh)

Example

Monster // Monster_Descriptor // Relevant_Skill
Zombie // "You hear what sounds like slowly shuffling feet" // Listening
Orc // "You see orc tracks" // Awareness
Hurthling // "You notice small patches of well tended tubers" // Farming
Liche // "You notice the winds of magic swirling violently around" // Spellcraft

etc.. etc.. etc... Would be fun as a community also to figure out and note which descriptors relate to which skills

Dougy
03-28-2008, 09:38 PM
Yeah, in any case, it seems like a good idea for the PC to find out in-game in some ways. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Nezur
03-29-2008, 03:47 PM
I always thought, that survival is about surviving... That includes finding food in the wilds. But appraisal is about the quality of item. Can't see how it fits here.

Considering survival as a skill seems to be a rather obscure concept, would it make sense to divide it into new skills? Foraging, fishing and tracking for example.

Tracking can be used for finding monsters' tracks (:p) and drawing conclusions from them (the direction of the tracks, size of the enemy and sometimes species).

Foraging is used to find edible greenery from the nature. I don't actually know if this skill is really needed since the forest ground could be simply filled with various berries, mushrooms etc. so that the player could decide if he/she wants to try them out. [H]andling various trees may cause them to drop apples, rowan-berries, cherries, birds' nests and so on. Or just climb a tree for food.

Fishing reduces the time fishing takes (not really much, maybe this skill wouldn't be necessary either). Note that this skill could be used in the non-wilderness view. Just carve a fishing pole, find a cord, get a hook and a bait (an insect, a bit of raw meat, a worm from a rotten corpse etc.) and you're set.

I think there are a lot of ways to increase the uses of skills.

Dougy
03-29-2008, 10:14 PM
Those skills seem quite reasonable to me. "You shake the tree, it falls on top of you. You die..." Blast! I'm doomed again.

I've never seen a monster come out of a dunegon though, how could it have left footprints outside? Perhaps it's different in JADE anyway.

Tannis
03-30-2008, 01:53 AM
The tracks make sense. Orcs wander about all the time, and unless they were born in that cave they had to have entered it somehow.

reich
03-30-2008, 02:23 PM
Returning to dungeons's challenge levels - maybe they could be based on the geographical location of a given place.

For example a cave just outside a village on the plains would be fairly easy. On the other hand, a dungeon high in remote mountains, in the middle of a desert or on a secluded island could be more challenging. Pretty easy to figure out, I guess ;)

So the danger level could rise in proportion to the proximity of civilized settlements, or something like that!

jomiolto
03-30-2008, 02:40 PM
Perhaps there could be a message that would give you a rough idea of how difficult the dungeon is when you first enter it or see it? Something like "This dungeon gives you a strong sensation of danger. You shiver." or "This cave doesn't feel too bad."

Nezur
03-30-2008, 07:59 PM
I've never seen a monster come out of a dunegon though, how could it have left footprints outside? Perhaps it's different in JADE anyway.


Orcs wander about all the time, and unless they were born in that cave they had to have entered it somehow.

In ADOM monsters were "born" and always stayed inside their dungeons unless the player lured them out. I suspect this will be the case in JADE too. Nevertheless the game could simply place the monsters on to the dungeon level and then generate more or less random wandering history for them by creating tracks.

Though it would be great if you could actually enter the wilderness square where the cave entrance exists and see foes wandering around it, going into the cave and coming out of it.


Returning to dungeons's challenge levels - maybe they could be based on the geographical location of a given place.

For example a cave just outside a village on the plains would be fairly easy. On the other hand, a dungeon high in remote mountains, in the middle of a desert or on a secluded island could be more challenging. Pretty easy to figure out, I guess

So the danger level could rise in proportion to the proximity of civilized settlements, or something like that!

Good idea. I proposed that among other things in a lengthy post earlier in this thread. :)

reich
03-30-2008, 08:09 PM
Good idea. I proposed that among other things in a lengthy post earlier in this thread. :)

oh, sorry I didn't notice :o You even described it way better!

In general an alternative to this idea would be a complex leveling system, where you would always face enemies adjusted to your own level. ADOM uses some subtle leveling, which can even get a little unpredictable at times!

In mainstream rpgs, the fixed dificulty system is present in the Gothic series, while leveling is prominent in The Elder Scrolls. Personally, I think the former is better and more realistic!

Mad Minstrel
03-30-2008, 09:38 PM
I've never seen a monster come out of a dunegon though

In ADOM non-hostile monsters can leave a dungeon with you.

Grey
03-31-2008, 02:39 AM
I like the idea of some sort of message when you enter a cave, perhaps depending on skills or your perception etc. The game would compare your character level with the dungeon difficulty and tell you whether the cave looks boring/forboding/etc.

All dungeon levels linked to character level is an awful idea I think - it just makes every dungeon feel the same, and the game gets boring quickly. Dungeons should each have their own individual theme, and that will obviously involve some being more difficult than others, with even dangerous places around early on. A clever player will of course check out rumours in the local town before just waltzing into a nearby cave.

NMBLNG
04-01-2008, 06:28 AM
I like the idea of geographically and character based difficulty.

Say, each dungeon has a base difficulty, which is a randomly determined level.
If it's close to a town or castle, it goes down. Farther in the wilderness, it goes up.
If the character gets stronger, deeper levels get harder and levels near the surface get easier (monsters might want to hide....)
Story-related events can also alter the difficulty.

There might also be guaranteed dungeons with specific difficulty, too.

Epythic
04-05-2008, 11:32 AM
I like the idea of geographically and character based difficulty.

Say, each dungeon has a base difficulty, which is a randomly determined level.
If it's close to a town or castle, it goes down. Farther in the wilderness, it goes up.
If the character gets stronger, deeper levels get harder and levels near the surface get easier (monsters might want to hide....)
Story-related events can also alter the difficulty.

There might also be guaranteed dungeons with specific difficulty, too.

+1, noone would build a city near an uber-dungeon and no city would allow a new dangerous dungeon in the neighborhood

F50
04-05-2008, 11:55 PM
If the character gets stronger, deeper levels get harder and levels near the surface get easier (monsters might want to hide....)
Story-related events can also alter the difficulty.
please no, if my PC gets stronger, I don't want to have to slog through weaker levels near the surface before things start getting good.


I agree with the message idea.... come mid-level, if we don't have some sort of tip, in most dungeons we'll either be bored or dead.
agreed.

I also think there could be a couple of other things regarding dungeons too, that would be realistic:

1. Dungeons that are far away from towns should be more dangerous than those close to towns. Any dungeon within 10 squares of a town will likely be levels 1-3.
good idea. However, after a certain point (25 squares away) the town's influence should not affect the dungeons in that area. This means that dangerous dungeons are about 30 squares away from a town (and there are more dungeons in that area because of #3).

3. I don't know if dungeons are generated mid game, but we could have something like, lets say you have a dungeon that's equivalent to level 10 on a mountain somewhere... years of game time go by and it hasn't been touched by the player or sacked by some NPC. Gradually this dungeon danger level will increase. When it hits certain milestones, like level 20, 30, 40, new level 1 dungeons are created in the nearby area. This would indicate that untamed areas would become more dangerous over time if nothing is done to check their growth. Excellent idea. However, I would suggest that most of the location spawns would not be dungeons, but other kinds of things like small fortresses, half-dungeon half-open areas, and hostile cities/camps. All spawns should be at least danger level 5. Dungeons and fortresses should grow just like their parent locations.

Ars
04-06-2008, 02:36 AM
Well maybe most dungeons should be just nondescript goblin lairs with nothing too fancy - going through all of them would be slow and not mildly useful, like scumming first levels of ID in ADOM except there'd always be the chance that just this place holds something dangerous. You'd be pointed to the meaningful locations among the dungeons by people in towns and other dungeons. The reason to have loads of quite similar places is flavour - when you can't search every nook and cranny possible the world seems more real.

When giving quests people could make remarks about how tough a job it is they're giving, saying things like "if a mighty warrior like you wants to bother with this" or "this might be a bit too tough for you, but I'll let you try at it if you want". You could always also ask local townspeople or sheriff about the nearby dungeons. They wouldn't always know much, but something.

Truly evil places would have the look of it from the outside also, warning you. By common sense, the most dangerous places would be either hidden or widely known and feared. Also the area a place is in should matter - for example near a mighty kingdoms capital most orcs would probably be hunted down quickly by the kings troops (and he wouldn't need a starting adventurers help to kill them), with the exception of well-hidden hideouts. And while in the wilds, well, things can be wild.

Also all locations should have some function to them. There's human cities, gnomish villages, kobold caves, fire drake nests, emperor lichs underground fortress... What I'd like to have also caves have more organized places like above-ground places have, not only dwarf mines but also ogre tribes who you could talk to, at least if you're an orc or troll. Maybe they'd want you to steal dwarven children for them etc., give you quests like other towns.

F50
04-06-2008, 04:18 PM
Well maybe most dungeons should be just nondescript goblin lairs with nothing too fancy - going through all of them would be slow and not mildly useful, like scumming first levels of ID in ADOM except there'd always be the chance that just this place holds something dangerous. You'd be pointed to the meaningful locations among the dungeons by people in towns and other dungeons. The reason to have loads of quite similar places is flavour - when you can't search every nook and cranny possible the world seems more real.
Sure, you shouldn't want to search every nook and cranny, but you shouldn't make that boring just to prevent that. Going through a lot of them should be exciting and dangerous. Perhaps it may be required that you should do so farther away from towns to be really dangerous, but I don't want to have to do everything based on townsfolk just to be pointed to the useful places in JADE.

Truly evil places would have the look of it from the outside also, warning you. By common sense, the most dangerous places would be either hidden or widely known and feared. Also the area a place is in should matter - for example near a mighty kingdoms capital most orcs would probably be hunted down quickly by the kings troops (and he wouldn't need a starting adventurers help to kill them), with the exception of well-hidden hideouts. And while in the wilds, well, things can be wild.already suggested in this thread, and I agree.

Also all locations should have some function to them.Agreed, but this contradicts your first paragraph.
There's human cities, gnomish villages, kobold caves, fire drake nests, emperor lichs underground fortress... What I'd like to have also caves have more organized places like above-ground places have, not only dwarf mines but also ogre tribes who you could talk to, at least if you're an orc or troll. Maybe they'd want you to steal dwarven children for them etc., give you quests like other towns.indeed.

reich
04-06-2008, 07:52 PM
Also all locations should have some function to them.
Agreed, but this contradicts your first paragraph.

especially that the dungeons in ADOM were mostly created by the magic of Chaos to fortify the Chain. In JADE this idea would be obsolete, so most underground places should have some more defined function.

BTW the dungeons could be made more interesting by adding some puzzle elements. Levers to open gates alternatively, pressure plates for moving stone blocks and such...?

Worst Player... ever
04-06-2008, 09:11 PM
You could have lots of basic goblin caves, but scumming/boredom could be solved by having the dungeon be destroyed when the last monster is killed and you exit. Kinda like the Ogre Caves in ADOM. So such low level dungeons would only be a level or two deep and they'd disappear pretty fast. You'd have to have some degree of random dungeon generation to make up for this.

It would help prevent scumming, plus there could be some benefits to the nearby town so wiping out a dungeon wouldn't just be a chore. Like if you wipe out all the dungeons, travel and trade becomes easier so prices drop.

Maybe store prices in towns could be contingent on how many nearby dungeons there are. Unsafe towns would both cost more and pay more for your goods. You could work as an honest merchant, travelling from town to town if you wanted.

Taking this a step further, wandering wilderness monster levels and frequency can be dependent on how much civilization is nearby, vs how many dungeons. It's much better than having arbitrary settings. And it's incentive... if you're level 21 but take some time to wipe out a goblin tribe, that's less goblins you'll see when you're travelling on the road.

Point being, your character would be in a position where he/she is wiping out the dungeon not just for the basic goals of experience levels, gold, and quest resolutions, but also for reputation and indirect benefits.

Ars
04-06-2008, 11:26 PM
You could have lots of basic goblin caves, but scumming/boredom could be solved by having the dungeon be destroyed when the last monster is killed and you exit. Kinda like the Ogre Caves in ADOM. So such low level dungeons would only be a level or two deep and they'd disappear pretty fast. You'd have to have some degree of random dungeon generation to make up for this.

It would help prevent scumming, plus there could be some benefits to the nearby town so wiping out a dungeon wouldn't just be a chore. Like if you wipe out all the dungeons, travel and trade becomes easier so prices drop.

Maybe store prices in towns could be contingent on how many nearby dungeons there are. Unsafe towns would both cost more and pay more for your goods. You could work as an honest merchant, travelling from town to town if you wanted.

Taking this a step further, wandering wilderness monster levels and frequency can be dependent on how much civilization is nearby, vs how many dungeons. It's much better than having arbitrary settings. And it's incentive... if you're level 21 but take some time to wipe out a goblin tribe, that's less goblins you'll see when you're travelling on the road.

Point being, your character would be in a position where he/she is wiping out the dungeon not just for the basic goals of experience levels, gold, and quest resolutions, but also for reputation and indirect benefits.Agreed otherwise, but don't destroy those places. There should always be a chance of someone resettling into that dungeon, because that's what would realistically happen after some time. Battling goblins and orcs is a never-ending battle, they can't be permanently killed by a single hero when they're spread out everywhere. But a hero surely could severely make them weaker by raiding their base and killing their leader. But they'd eventually resettle, unless the local militia gets more resources for more efficient patrolling.

Yes, there could be some meter as to who's currently in a given area. Like adjusting the chances of getting different random encounters according to nearby locations and local events. In the most civilized areas you'd meet virtually no orcs, but rather army patrols and travelling merchants and caravans. Of course if you were an orc or a mutated chaos champion, the patrol might attack you!