I think if you just removed all the fake levels, it would still be pretty challenging, but much more worth the effort.

I'd pump the rewards instead, personally. A random artifact?

If you beef up the rewards, it will make it disproportionately favor spellcasters, who can easily access the MM scrolls from BUGCAV, or the spell itself. (plus easy access to teleport)

Really, the only way you could convince me to do the maze on a melee character w/o "the trick" or MM scrolls is if both preserver & BoW were guaranteed at the end of it as well. Or like 10 PoGA. A random artifact can bite my arse--especially considering the crapshoot that is random arts and the capriciousness of the RNG. Granted, I got insanely lucky the first time I did the maze (RNG was setting me up). However, the second time I did it, I spent hours and hours of rl time down there, try to get out of the fake levels--and only managed that after using "the trick." Of course, the problem with this is.....well, you're giving people Preserver and BoW, for one, and for two, look at the first paragraph!

Add to that the fact that you literally cannot fight minotaur mages in melee, and the numerous traps...it's an immensely frustrating experience that I will never repeat without "the trick."

Even if you remove the fake levels, there are still the illusory walls, traps, minotaur mages, and minotaur emperor to deal with; all of those things are quite challenging.

edit: I will quote from wiki: "Many of these levels are false and will lead the player to dead end levels. In total, there seem to be as many as 20 levels in the maze." (emph. mine)

There are locations that resist or prevent other things, how about making the Minotaur Maze prevent use of magic mapping? It enforces the whole point of the location, and does make sense thematically. And it makes the location seriously challenging for every class, rather than favouring spellcasters.

if you disallow the use of MM [and keep fake levels], no one will ever* do maze.

*not strictly true, but it will be even less used than it is now....which already isn't much

Aielyn's idea is good but only if used in conjunction with making the maze considerably easier.

I'm only actually posting because I want to know what "the trick" is, though.

The trick is in OP (and on wiki). You can identify fake levels by their top trap type.

As of 1.2.0 pre8, the top trap system will be gone...

Well, yes, that's the impetus for this idea :p

I wasn't suggesting it as the only change to the location. Whether the maze is made easier by having fewer fake levels, the reward is beefed up, or some other clever idea is introduced, it doesn't bother me. But removing the top trap type trick will make the maze much harder for anyone who doesn't have access to magic mapping, but not nearly as big an impact for those with magic mapping. So if we remove magic mapping (which does make sense for the minotaur maze), it would rebalance the location between different classes, etc. Then it would just be a matter of rebalancing the location for all PCs in order to make it more worth visiting.

I think that makes a lot of sense, Aielyn. I'd personally be in favor of no MM + no fake levels.

The Maze is one of the few places worth using Magic Mapping in, so it would be a shame for it to have no use there any more. Overall mages get little out of the place reward wise anyway.

Very much agreed on removing fake levels - they're jut tedious.

I agree with Grey. Magic mapping should be allowed. Its function is precisely supposed to be not getting lost in a place, so it makes sense to use it in the place where it's easier to get lost.

At most it could be disabled in the last level, but it wouldn't make sense to disable it in all levels.

It's not like most spellcasters will want the axe anyway. Most of them prefer to hide behind a good shield, if not two.

It's nice that if you manage the bug temple with a melee character, you can use the scrolls for the mino maze as a reward. If you can't, that's just a downer. And from a balance perspective I see no reason for it, the maze is difficult enough already.

How about just easying down minotaur mages?
If these would not drain stats for example I would at least consider doing maze soometimes.

The stat drains can be pretty bad, sure, but a ranged attack, some movement reduction or a well charged stunning wand (or the spell) will take care of them pretty easily. By far the most frustrating thing is the fake levels--which, of course, exacerbate the mino mage problem since walking around lost through a bunch of fake levels will tend to have you come across more of them than otherwise.

Being a strong believer in not wussying down optional side quests I decided to up the rewards for the maze. This also will make for a nice achievement once the achievement system is implemented.

Is it also mentioned in the victory dump towards the end of the game? I can't recall seeing any with a mention of it, but it's possible people just don't do it anymore.

I think slaying the emperor of ancient minotaur race is mentioned, let me grab a YAVP

@edit

"He/She killed the emperor of the ancient minotaur race."

yep, mentioned already