Dungeon Danger levels

[Tannis]

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]

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

[myrddin]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

[theotherhiveking]

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]

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.