Fast travel teleportation using wishes.

[Blasphemous]

In line with some of my other extreme propositions, I'm curious how the general Adom playerbase would see the following idea:

Using wish to teleport between already explored locations.

Imagine being around the level of Eternal Guardian that's probably D:28-D:30 most of the time.
You realize suddenly - hey, I forgot the ring of the high kings, oh shit.
Either you forgot entirely to go get it because of... routine? neglect? being drunk the other day?
Enough said, it happened to me ~twice.
At that point I'm absolutely not in a position to kill the EG, either because I'm too weak or because it would cost me dropping from L or L+ down to N, becoming a fallen champion and a bunch of other nasty consequences.
In other words, you *have to* go back.

So instead of going all the thirty levels back, step by step, you could wish for "Teleport D:1" and *poof*!
You're suddenly in D1. You had a spare wish and you used it.

Another example: You have completed the game, all balors are dead, chaos gate closed. Time to go home.
You discover a wand of wishing (2) among the D:50 loot.
Hmmm, since you don't need any more wishes at this point, you instead use one of them to wish for "Teleport Vlge".
Boom, you're in Terrinyo.

Pros:
- cuts down on tedium
- finds a use for spare wishes
- cuts down on turncount (speedruns yay)
- skips the boring parts (getting out of the maze after obtaining aotme)
- helps manage some unexpected and unplanned long trips like mentioned RotHK
- adds more dynamics to the game
- makes an archmage so much more fun to play

Cons:
- makes traveling between some difficult locations too easy
- cuts down on turncount (somebody was lucky and removed several thousand turns from their final turncount; could be a major score changer)
- it's a highly luck based feature that will often not be used since there are many, far more useful wishes
- makes an archmage even more powerful
- allows skipping dangerous locations that would otherwise threaten the player and be otherwise challenging (hostile cat lord that was left alive, unleashed GUV where quickling queens, great karmic wyrms and ghost kings roam the whole level, etc.)

This isn't an RFE since I'm trying to first gauge the interest and avoid getting a massive downvote for an idea I find great but others strongly dislike.

[grobblewobble]

It sounds cool, but I wonder about the consequences. It would require a lot of thought about the possibilities of bypassing travel restrictions. For example, should it allow you to get into the pyramid when you're above level 16? Should it allow you to go back to D:48 when you are at D:50 and didn't close the gate yet? Interesting idea, but it sounds a little too complicated to be worth it, I think.

[Blasphemous]

The examples you gave are pretty straightforward - if you could reach that place by walking then you would be able to teleport in there as well.
If you're on D:50 then the staircase has been changed and prevents you from ascending to D:48. No teleportation would be possible either.
If you're above level 16 and have not killed Rehetep then you wouldn't be able to get inside manually so teleportation is also out of question.
The idea is simply to make the path shorter, not reach otherwise unavailable locations.
The whole thing would be as simple as 0-1 flags which make teleportation to a certain location possible if some conditions are met.
If the player is on D:50 -> no telelportation possible beyond D:49.
There aren't that many places where some serious thoughts would have to be put into this.
Three come up when you think about it - pyramid, D:50 and maze. No other locations have level limitations or have a changing staircase that prevents ascending until certain other condition is met (chaos gate closed in this case).

[grobblewobble]

Three come up when you think about it - pyramid, D:50 and maze. No other locations have level limitations or have a changing staircase that prevents ascending until certain other condition is met (chaos gate closed in this case).

Some other interesting / borderline cases:

Chaos plane (you probably shouldn't be able to wish teleport out)
SIL (it should be impossible to wish teleport back to it once you left)
Quickling tree - should you be able to wish teleport in when you don't have the necessary corruptions?
The ancient stone circle - should you be able to go there when it isn't darknight?
Wish teleporting to maze:5 is ambiguous: there are multiple levels with this name.
Wish teleporting to I:100000000000 could possibly lead to an integeroverflow

[Blasphemous]

The main limitation of what I'm suggesting, is that you have to be able to visit a given location by walking there.
This excludes quickling tree, unless of course you went in while you had the corruptions just to generate the location and then teleport in and out.
Like I said though, the idea is that if you can walk in and out of a location at any time, you can teleport to and out of it later.

Chaos plane has no exits - you wouldn't be able to walk out of that place manually and the only way out is by killing AD.
Thus it cannot be teleported out of, just like D:50 until the gate is closed.
SIL is a special level and leaving and entering simply puts you on I:66 and that should be the teleport destination.
As for infinite dungeon in general, perhaps that's the one place which should be entirely out of range for wish teleporting to avoid any problems due to its nature.
The maze only has one level numbered 1 and that should be the only one targetable by the teleportation.
There could be extra flavor messages about the twisted nature of the maze, which would instead put you on a random level if you tried to use wish teleportation.
This would both discourage players from taking the shortcut and cover the case of many different level bearing the same name.
If you have entered the stone circle once, you could do it again with teleport, but what's the point?
Even if it wasn't darknight, why go there again?
You already need to know how to get there in the first place after doing ratling's quests so the only reason to enter the place is to leave with the crown, there is no need to revisit it.
But if you really want to, then be my guest.

I understand the point you're making - there's several locations which should have teleport access restricted in some ways, I don't dispute that.
Everything is doable though, the conditions for letting the player enter can be adjusted to properly reflect if they would be able to manually walk in or out of there in the first place.
What I aim for is to somewhat streamline the travel in early late and late game, when most dungeons have already been explored, without giving you a tremendous advantage.

[grobblewobble]

Even if it wasn't darknight, why go there again?

I admit there's no sane reason why, but as a programmer you need to foresee all possible consequences of a new feature, no matter how unlikely. This is a roguelike, so if it's possible to do something, you'd better assume that some player will do it just for the hell of it, and make sure that the program will behave well when it happens.

That's all - I'm just trying to identify the possible corner cases and weird situations. To make sure they're covered, but also to get a vague idea how much work this would be for the Creator.

I'm also wondering where in the level you will end up, and if there is a possible conflict if that spot is already occupied by a monster.. maybe this is covered if you end up at the up or down stairs? In that case, special care would need to be taken in case a player tries to teleport back to the level of the EG, when he is still there blocking the stairs.

Balance wise, this would make it possible (or perhaps I should say easier) to bypass the EG.. it would also make OCG a lot less of a pain (no need to walk all the way back from SIL to the surface) and it would have major impact on speedruns.

I am neutral about all that myself, but it would be good to hear some more opinions.

The coolest advantage of this feature would be that it would be possible to add an "easter egg location" that is only accessible by wishing.

[Harwin]

I don't think you should able to use this to teleport into/out-of Infinite Dungeon. That dungeon is *never* "explored" since it always changes.

You could probably get 80% of the usefulness of this feature with 20% of the problems by only allowing named locations:
"Terinyo"
"HMV"
"Dwarftown"
"Barbarian" (barbarian's glade)
"Stone Circle" (teleports you to the wilderness side of it, mainly to put a point on the other side for those with climbing set issues)
"Pyramid" (teleports you to the entrance, in the wilderness)
"Casino"

You could allow "Water Temple" etc, but you might also have missed that you spotted them.

Teleportation would be blocked in those situations where you can't teleport (temple levels), in the Infinite Dungeon, on D:48-D:50 (make the player ascend to D:47 then warp out - much easier than trying to figure out if they'll mess up their game), or in the SIL.

[Blasphemous]

I'm trying to keep in mind the amount of work this would require versus actual gameplay benefits and so far it's not a very good ratio; considerable amount of work and situational use of the features, I'm aware of it.

That said, it's one of the ideas that might at some point, when everything else that is more important has been implemented, be considered as the next addition that improves the game in some ways.
In other words it's not particularly high on the priority list.

As for the point to which you are teleported - the current implementation doesn't have a problem with that; i.e. when a summoner summons many monsters and you leave the location, then return and the place where the PC appears after entering is occupied by monsters, they get either displaced or removed. I don't see a particular problem with that.

The point is, now that you've helped me realize that there's actually much more border cases that have to be taken into consideration, I'm not so sure anymore that it's such a good use of resources.
Still, a variation smaller in scope could be implemented and that might as well include mentioned easter egg location or a similar place.

[Dlightfull]

In line with some of my other extreme propositions, I'm curious how the general Adom playerbase would see the following idea:

Using wish to teleport between already explored locations.

Imagine being around the level of Eternal Guardian that's probably D:28-D:30 most of the time.
You realize suddenly - hey, I forgot the ring of the high kings, oh shit.
Either you forgot entirely to go get it because of... routine? neglect? being drunk the other day?
Enough said, it happened to me ~twice.
At that point I'm absolutely not in a position to kill the EG, either because I'm too weak or because it would cost me dropping from L or L+ down to N, becoming a fallen champion and a bunch of other nasty consequences.
In other words, you *have to* go back.

So instead of going all the thirty levels back, step by step, you could wish for "Teleport D:1" and *poof*!
You're suddenly in D1. You had a spare wish and you used it.

Another example: You have completed the game, all balors are dead, chaos gate closed. Time to go home.
You discover a wand of wishing (2) among the D:50 loot.
Hmmm, since you don't need any more wishes at this point, you instead use one of them to wish for "Teleport Vlge".
Boom, you're in Terrinyo.

Pros:
- cuts down on tedium
- finds a use for spare wishes
- cuts down on turncount (speedruns yay)
- skips the boring parts (getting out of the maze after obtaining aotme)
- helps manage some unexpected and unplanned long trips like mentioned RotHK
- adds more dynamics to the game
- makes an archmage so much more fun to play

Cons:
- makes traveling between some difficult locations too easy
- cuts down on turncount (somebody was lucky and removed several thousand turns from their final turncount; could be a major score changer)
- it's a highly luck based feature that will often not be used since there are many, far more useful wishes
- makes an archmage even more powerful
- allows skipping dangerous locations that would otherwise threaten the player and be otherwise challenging (hostile cat lord that was left alive, unleashed GUV where quickling queens, great karmic wyrms and ghost kings roam the whole level, etc.)

This isn't an RFE since I'm trying to first gauge the interest and avoid getting a massive downvote for an idea I find great but others strongly dislike.

why would you leave the ring somewhere anyway? it's not heavy,and it's indestructible, what's the point in not having it with you all the time?

[Silfir]

I assume he meant he forgot to get it.

To me this sounds like quite a non-trivial amount of work for nonexistant gain. But then I react to a lot of RFEs this way.