If this were programmed it would have to simulate the changes, as it would be too expensive in CPU to 'run' the levels while off-level.

People certainly didn't concur when I proposed this change specifically for herb patches (without saying why).

There would be far reaching gameplay implications to such a change and things would probably have to be rebalanced to take it into account.

Except corpses/food.

I think the upper limit would probably have to be lower in order not to have a noticeable lag with climbing stairs. But even 10 or 20 turns would already go a long way towards providing a more realistic feel and removing exploits.

As auricbond says, this would have quite far-reaching implications - but I like it!

Hey, no-no-no!

Just run a number of turns right before PC returns to the level. This would slow asceding/descending a bit but not that much if number of turns would be limited as I suggested. And since there will be no rendering it should be fast enough.

But if lag would be noticable TB could test it out and tweak it, right?

Big no for this RFE for one simple reason:
A greater moloch gets spawned in those 5-10 turns, teleports via random trap right next to the staircase and insta-gibs the descending PC.
Plus of course what has already been said: with the sheer amount of different dungeon levels, this would be a considerable effort for the game engine and would probably affect performance in a negative way.

Finally, I see no added value. It has always been a *little* strange that nothing changes around the level when you're not there but that's part of the game.
Many modern games work like adom in this department or have the suggested feature in an exceedingly minimal implementation, it's not a big deal.

Lots of work for little gain.

I actually like being able to leave stuff on stairs for safety - finding safe places to store stuff is really irksome, not a fun part of the game for me.

If you're trying to reduce certain healing exploits, don't simulate the entire level, just have all monsters heal a certain amount (flat amount + #of turns based) when you come back.

Agree but if it's true monsters don't heal when you leave a level and come back, I think that's a bug. I never actually noticed that before, though leaving the level to heal isn't something I do often with all the potions/healing magic ADOM has.

Why can't you just say "ThOu SHalL nOT toUCH mY eXplOItS tO wHIch i GoT USeD!"? :)

What prevents greater moloch to appear next to the stairs when level is generated first time? If something is it could prevent moving molochs next to the stairs the same way during these turns. Oh wait, why you can't face greater moloch after opening the door, moving over the corner? And why you're so afraid receiving one blow, probably missing, from this monster with your high DV and PV? This argument is just absurd.
Why do you think it's hard to implement? There already must be routine that allows mosters to act. It's just needs to be triggered after level is loaded.
How you could know that it would hurt performance at all? Have you tried yourself? Thinking the same way any RFE hurts performace because more code is added to the game. Reading level from file (IO operation) or generating it from scratch (you know that it's complex) and then randering it requires significantly more time than passing max 250 turns for less then 50 creatures. Monster actions are quite simple routines (mostly wandering).

You're just kidding.

I like this idea in general, though I'm not keen on the specifics.

This is kind of an edge case... it's pretty rare that you leave a mostly dead monster on a level. If you really wanted to close this loophole, you could just as easily have it that if the PC has left a level for more than, say, 100 turns, everything on the level is restored to full HP, rather than actually having to calculate monster movement. If the player has been gone much longer, say, 500 turns, you could have it partially populate the level with new monsters as well (though I think you'd have to leave existing monsters, otherwise if you see something nasty, you could just leave the level and wait awhile and it would be gone).

Not really. Even in 200 turns, if the monsters are just moving randomly, it would be fairly unlikely that they'd stumble into your stash. The flip side of this is that you could potentially exploit this to avoid pursuit. Suppose something is chasing me, but I manage to gain 1 step on it and ascend. Next time I go down, under normal behaviour, it would be right next to me. But under this system, it will wander away randomly and might be a couple steps away. Might not be a big deal most of the time, but it might help killing a vortex or something. Do a lot of players stash items in active levels? Other than doing a big drop before the Air Temple, and maybe leaving a few items at the Darkforge shortcut, I always stash in completely safe areas anyway (Ogre Cave and Barbarian Glade, generally).

I really dislike the idea of herbs generating while you're off level. It's an advantage for stable herbs, yeah, but it would be extremely annoying if you have some random herb spawns that you want to come back and deal with later (eg. Big Room).

Life with pets is already annoying enough as it is.

Having actual turns passing when you're going up/down stairs would be kind of nasty for speedrunners.

Dude. What is it with you and your insistence on limiting inventory ? :D
It does not make the game less annoying but infinitely more so. Right now the decision of what to do with an item is lazily deferred to the most convenient moment and a lot of items can be dealt with at the same time, but if the inventory is severely limited that decision is forced on the player immediately. Yes, there is mental price of bloated inventory but the interface is surprisingly good (but can still be improved).

Not to mention the fact that there are very few places to stash loot. Ogre cave is the only place that comes to mind. There is also mystic room and area in HMV but those require teleport to access.

That said, I like the idea of healing monsters when char is off level.

Okay, why are you assuming this is going to be implemented in the most obtuse way possible. The pc isn't paralyzed and stuck on the staircase while those turns are counting down, they are running *between levels*. We just said that specifically. The pc isn't on the level that they are descending to yet, so the moloch AI isn't going to home in on them.

I don't really understand why we are assuming this is difficult to implement. People keep saying this about RFE's: "Oh, it would be so labor intensive." You haven't seen the code to ADOM any more than I have. It seems like this idea would not be a huge headache. You just don't place the pc on the stair tile for the destination level for x while the cycle count is less than x number.

Yes, it might be more complicated than that, but it also might not be, and if we are assuming every change this minor requires a massive amount of coding, why don't we start applying that logic to the RFE's you like. "Oh, Blasphemous suggested this idea. Well, any new idea must be impossible to implement, I'll just downvote."

The amount "too much coding" is used to justify an idea being panned is absurd.

Okay, what part of the basic concept that inventory size is out of control is it even rationally possible to disagree with? Maybe volume limitations aren't the best way to counter that, but Ixi is absolutely right that a bottomless inventory means that you will always have a get out of jail free card tucked in there somewhere. If you can carry *everything*, then there's no way the game can throw a situation at you that you cannot escape if you play even remotely intelligently.

This is vitally important. Look, in order to have meaningful choice (in a gameplay sense), you have to have two things:
1. Multiple options to select from,
2. Mutual exclusivity of some of those options.

It would be like if character creation allowed you to be a fighter *and* an archer *and* a wizard. Same thing with the current inventory system. You get all the advantages of everything that you are carrying without having to give anything significant up. And don't try to say that encumbrance below strained! really matters from mid game on.

I guess my addiction to speedruns has distorted my perspective somewhat. There are plenty of times when my chars do not have a "jail free card" in the first place so inventory restriction would be meaningless.

My main problem with inventory restriction is inconvenience of having to micromanage it. It is very noticeable when playing weak chars, say hurthlings. There are many ways to address the the issue of too many resources without inflicting this kind of pain (but maybe different kind :)). Things that come to mind:

1) restrict weight of wearable items. Gnome wizard will not be able to equip this +8 PV full plate so robe will have to do. Maybe not very applicable in ADOM where higher metals have lower weight without some rebalancing but this is true for all changes to inventory system. Does not affect consumables so something else will have to be done with them.
2) Make certain areas appear in some games but not in others. Mino maze, library, pyramid, puppy cave etc.
3) tweak item probabilities for every game. For example this char will have shield shortage, no dragon slaying ammo, but more potion shops. And this one will have to deal with limited water supply but find more rings. I have a feeling something like this already happens but is shadowed by amount of grinding most players do.

Speaking of grinding... I think it is a fundamental feature of ADOM which follows from many design choices, that you can prepare for any situation if you are willing to spend enough time on scumming activities or exploration. There is nothing wrong with that, many players enjoy making their chars as powerful as possible. Yes, some scumming techniques were removed in latest versions but if you remove them all it will not be ADOM anymore.

See, I hate dogmatic "That will never work" kind of talk. But when we start to have a discussion like this, it actually accomplishes something. Here you are putting forth really good and constructive ideas to deal with the problems we are having.

I think it is probably fair to say that there are more players who do not speedrun than those who do. I think it makes sense to base the changes we make at least somewhat on who they will most apply to. So I think the concerns about get out of jail free cards still probably do apply to most players by mid to late game.

I am in favor of having a set inventory weight for all characters that does not depend on strength score. I think this is a case where gameplay trumps realism. You are right, having limited carrying space as a hurthling does not really add anything to the game, it is just annoying. But I think the reason for that annoyance, as well as the reason that people carry so much stuff around when they are playing other characters who can, is that it is such a huge inconvenience to recover anything you drop.

In fact, the huge amount of backtracking you have to make to recover the stuff you abandon is generally such a headache it is even worse than burden penalties. The barbarian glade is the best place to leave things probably, but it is still needlessly inconvenient and wastes a lot of in game time over the course of a play-through.

So, what I keep saying is that we need some way to centrally store and retrieve items. Not from just any arbitrary location of course, but still from a number of significant ones including multiple access points that should be available within the CoC as you descend through it's levels.

You may not like that idea. You may think it is too abstract. But it is way less abstract than carrying (literally) tons of equipment by the endgame. The current system is just not sane by anyone's reckoning.

As far as the other points you made:

1. I don't think worn equipment weight restrictions are a bad idea (in fact I think it is a fine way to finally balance wizards somewhat), I'm just not sure they really apply to the situation at hand. Players would still carry a ton of stuff in their pack, just maybe not so many extra sets of armors.

2. Again, this is a really cool idea (and I guess would be a way to generate fewer items) but I'm not sure it really gets to the heart of the issue here.

3. I feel like playing with probabilities this way is sort of deceptive. We kind of trust the game to be even handed with what it gives us. I think I would be pretty mad if the reason I had not found a decent shield the whole game was because of some sort of intentional shield drop suppression rather than just blind luck. In fact, I think it would make me paranoid about everything that happened that was not in my favor.

Not sure how this would be implemented without somehow impacting performance, but if that is possible I'm all for this. The level freezing is one of the most abused aspects of the game and one that makes very little sense. Some sort of balancing for traversing DH might be reasonable, but overall this is a great idea.

I nearly can promise that performance hit would be unnoticed taking into account other activities done during stair passing.
Actually ADOM could do some things in background. Preload, pre-generate and save levels for example. That could really improve performance if done properly.

I really need to think about this much longer. I'm not sure I like it as there are quite difficult implications. Yes, it would be rather easy to have some actual time pass. But no, it's far from trivial as the implications for interactions with the stair area are quite severe and difficult to handle. I'm not sure if the risk of introducing very strange bugs and balance problems is worth the gain.

If it's not much trouble could you give us an idea of what the main obstacles you're seeing are?

I can try to guess why it's not trivial:
- Level will need to function several turns without PC on it. Some features might work well only when PC is on the level. I'm not quite sure if this is the problem in ADOM but for me it would be the problem.
- Balance. Stairhoppoing and leaving things on the stairs (enemies, companions, items) can be a habit for many players. Some areas might become harder once this is implemented. There are levels where you might want to action immediately (cute dog, farming in the big room, ratling dealer level, maybe library, etc.)
- Just as always, it's unusual code change which wasn't planned during ADOM design and it's not easy to make such changes to ADOM without breaking anything.

I'm guessing a main part of the problem would be that some monsters are probably on the trail of the player .. if you just let turns pass without any changes to that then all you'll end up with is more monsters hovering around the stairs you left by .. you eventually come back down the stairs and then you're surrounded by everything that was on your trail. (I expect the code for monster movement does assume that there is a player somewhere on the level for the monsters to try to home in on .. could be a bit of work to inject new movement code that stops hunting for the player -- and would it be 'realistic' to? Just because you left the level, why would they instantly have stopped tracking you?)

..And if monsters have homed-in on the stairs in your absence, surely they should be ascending the stairs to try to continue the chase? This is a whole can of worms. I can see why keeping the status quo has its appeal.