Let's talk mino maze

[SirTheta]

Basically what Soirana posted / just posted - not all paths actually allow you to get to the bottom (which is a great source of frustration when you lack magic mapping). There are paths that lead you dead ends, and there are paths that don't even link to main place. In any case, I don't see what's to argue - there is one (1) path that requires 6 down staircases to get to ML7. The alternate paths simply add to frustration when you lack magic map because you have to explore the entire level and you have no idea if you're making any progress (I mean...I'm repeating myself here - just go read my post where I lay out the problems with false levels). If you disagree with this reasoning, that's okay, but it doesn't change the one shortest path thing [unfortunately, Djikstra's algorithm has no guarantee of success here since not all nodes are connected]. Have you ever done the maze entirely without MM, Al-Khwarizmi? [this is honest question, not snipe]

Maybe I will play a druid soon and actually map out whole maze to verify graphic, but I have no reason to doubt it since it looks to roughly match my past experiences.

[Superteeth]

Maybe I didn't express myself correctly. In Soirana's graph I could reach the bottom of the maze by following a path 1 -> 2a -> 3a -> 4b -> 5b -> 6a -> 5d -> 6b -> 5e -> 6c -> 7, for example.

No, you cannot go from 6b to 5e and continue downwards to 7 since there are no stairs up from 6b to 5e. There are only stairs down from 5e to 6b. Again, I could be wrong, but every time I have gone to the maze (about 8+ times), there was only one path that took you to 7. The rest either came to dead-ends or levels with no more stairs down, only stairs up. Those stairs up did not take you to the branch that went down to 7.

[aerol]

According to Ln, this is the case. Problem is that they give pitiful stat increases (or increases to stats I don't care about) for a lot of corruption. Even if I'm rolling with Khelly and mystic scrolls, the tradeoff is not really worth it.

Interesting. Then we need two separate RFEs, one bringing Keriax's corpse to its former glory, the other increasing stat increases from orb guardian corpses. I would upvote both

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Maybe you do not understand even pictures.... 5d and 6b are not guaranteed to have stairs back to main chain.

I don't think I'm the one not understanding. I never said that path was guaranteed. But by your diagram, it is possible to get to the bottom by the path 1 -> 2a -> 3a -> 4b -> 5b -> 6a -> 5d -> 6b -> 5e -> 6c -> 7. Not in all games, but it is possible (and I did something like that very recently). So it's not true that there is always a single path, that you need to mandatorily follow it to get to the bottom, and that the rest of the levels in the maze are necessarily dead ends. There's one optimal path of length 6, and there may or may not be other branches that lead to the bottom after a longer journey.

Basically what Soirana posted / just posted - not all paths actually allow you to get to the bottom (which is a great source of frustration when you lack magic mapping). There are paths that lead you dead ends, and there are paths that don't even link to main place. In any case, I don't see what's to argue - there is one (1) path that requires 6 down staircases to get to ML7. The alternate paths simply add to frustration when you lack magic map because you have to explore the entire level and you have no idea if you're making any progress (I mean...I'm repeating myself here - just go read my post where I lay out the problems with false levels). If you disagree with this reasoning, that's okay, but it doesn't change the one shortest path thing

True. There is only one shortest path, I never disagreed with that. There can be other paths, they just are longer (and require going up sometimes, not down all the time).

Have you ever done the maze entirely without MM, Al-Khwarizmi? [this is honest question, not snipe]

No, and you can bet I'm not going to do it, ever. As I said some posts before, I think MM is the intended normal way to do the maze (and if it isn't, it should be). I play games to have fun, not to get bored to death. Even if there were only so-called "true" levels (i.e. 6 straight levels to the bottom) I think I'd find it too boring, 3 straight levels or so would be the maximum I could start to call bearable without MM. To me, doing the maze without MM is something like completing the game blind - something that belongs to the realm of challenge games, but it's just not normal play, and people that do it as normal play is either very strange or doing something wrong.

Precisely, if you start from my assumption that the maze is designed to be played with MM, then ramifications actually add to the fun. They mean that you have to do some exploration anyway - not the tedious exploring of every corner of the level to uncover that last tile which might be a stairs, but an exploration of going up and down, waiting and fighting some minotaurs to regenerate PP for more MM castings, etc. I find this pretty fun (although more minotaurs would make it better).

If you start from the assumption that the maze should be played without MM, then of course ramifications only add tedium, but I don't start from that view because I think making the player explore more than 2-3 levels without MM is tedious grinding, so removing MM would make the area unplayable even if you only leave the straight path to the bottom.

[Qui]

I did the maze yesterday, 10 MM scrolls was not enough, as I notoriously picked the wrong downstairs. Along the way I gained 1 corruption, lost 1 important item, and got Ap drained once. The emperor himself was a pushover, got stunned, paralyzed, and hacked to death. By a pre-ToEF lvl 22 ME merchant. Rewards totally worth it.

In unrelated news, there was an OCG win on the server with a duelist using the axe. Duelist, a class that's supposed to use a 1-handed weapon. The cow axe trumps all I guess. Therefore, I am now of opinion that the axe needs a nerf. Along with the other rewards.

[Soirana]

I don't think I'm the one not understanding. I never said that path was guaranteed. But by your diagram, it is possible to get to the bottom by the path 1 -> 2a -> 3a -> 4b -> 5b -> 6a -> 5d -> 6b -> 5e -> 6c -> 7. Not in all games, but it is possible

I lost your chain of logic. In some games your devoted chain is possible and in some not. That does not make any non direct ascend levels "less false" or "more false" in theory.
In reality if you are going your chain by time you are on 6c char is likely out of blessed magic scrolls. With spell you can cast 5-6 times and still not be sure if optional stairs are on or not.

So as I've said there is no so much reason not to call level false [which was arguing point, IIRC] escpecially given that most people use that terminology anyway.