Chests of Evil balance discussion

Idea: Rather than CoEs releasing a named mob from 3 floors below you, make them release a horde of monsters from 3 floors before you plus a named mob from the current floor.

 

I like this idea. As far as I know, you can still put as many entities you like in a cage in dwarf fortress, after all. So I'm sure the reference holds.

 

Funny you should mention that as the first time I came across the monster pitting mechanisim, that is similar to what I expected to happen to me (having found express post before that), and initially thought it may be a bug that no creatures droped on my head, well untill I found the group that got pitted.

Personaly the chest of evil monsters are nasty if you arent prepared, much like Zoos, if you are prepared then they wont be that difficuilt. Making them harder will just make it that most will leave them and return later to get the rewards later (assuming they care at all) rather than ignoring them completly. Currently as they stand its a position of if you make a mistake or are unlucky it could kill the character, which is a good thing, you want a threat that is beatable if you are prepared or clever about it and a little lucky. I'd hate to see them just be you can only defeat them with x or y build (they can be kind of close to that now), rather than defeatable by intelligent tactics and some preperation.

That said I do think the weapons can be a bit over powered compared to what you can find otherwise. Especially since you will often choose to use one thats not of a skill you have than if it is of a skill you have, even if it means loosing all the bonuses of the skill.
Though I tend to open them because I know I have a good chance of getting a weapon thats possibly worth using and short of the chest guarenteed to kill my character I likely always will open the chest for that very reason (but then being a rogue-like death now rather than potentially later without the weapon isnt that different).

 

I always hate how people say "mob", because I always think "horde" or "crowd".

 

There are no traps in this game that can kill you dead if you have 100 health.
Regardless, I take Perception/Burglary/Archaelogy with every character, so traps are not a problem.

I think the problem here is you think this game should be impossibly hard. This is not I Want To Be The Guy, Omni, on Impossible Only 7 people beat it. Including the creator of the fan game.

There is a very easy way to nerf Chests of Evil, and reducing the power of the weapon is that way, and the only one that actually makes sense.
I'm sorry, but your suggestion is like nuking a city to get rid of a rat problem.

Also, I enjoyed playing Slash'Em, even if I never went far enough to fight rocket launcher people.
I liked Wizard mode.
Sadly, I lost interest when I couldn't play it in Ascii, anymore, the game kept defaulting to Tiled mode.

 

There are definitely traps that can kill you if you don't have a healing ability... Even with food regen going.

Random high level traps can appear on lower levels.

 

Perhaps what you say about traps not being able to kill you is true on EE, but on GR they can and most certainly will be one of the biggest threats you will face. Monsters and even zoos can usually be avoided. But traps are persistent unless you have insane disarm ability. On GR without a specific skill to address traps, you simply will suicide if you try disarming after the second level. Perhaps not the first one, but they are everywhere, and your odds are pathetic even with disarm boosting equipment.

I cannot really say anything for late game disarm when you have a skill or two to help out. But at level 15, I doubt there is a skill and equipment combination available that would keep you from suiciding via disarm attempts on GR.

Sadly I cannot add anything to the actual subject. I have repeated my opinions about CoE well more than enough already. Luckily, it is not my decision to make. (Lucky for us all. I would make them lethally dangerous and never nerf the good or the bad.)

 

I don't know how any trap in this game could scale on Going Rogue into a death sentence. That's not how the difficulty works.
Plus, I've seen a let's play on Going Rogue, no trap ever came close to killing him.
Including the ones after the first two floors.
Unless you would like to explain to me how a trap can instantly kill you with more than 40 health on going Rogue, when no trap damage scales with difficulty at all.
Honestly, I will link that Let's play if I have to.
I will even show off the points where he fought monsters from Evil Chests. On Going Rogue, and didn't die.
And he was a combination of a fighter and a mage.
With golemancy being extremely useful.

He even tripped acid traps, and didn't die from it.

I'm simply confused how anyone here can say a trap can kill you on going Rogue. There is no single trap in this game that is capable of dealing over 40 to 50 points of damage in a single turn. Which is the only way one could kill you on Going Rogue past the first few floors.
The only thing I can think of is a stupid acid bolt trap, and the fact they scale with magic power. Seriously, only the acid bolt trap could do that much damage.

I am simply saying there is no trap on Going Rogue that can do extreme damage and kill you instantly, if you have normal health.
Which includes having close to 100 health By floor 10 or so.
Unless you have a bugged copy of this game, no trap can do enough damage to kill you through health regen from food. If I am mistaken, please point out to me the traps that do insane damage. Because I can point out a Going Rogue Let's Play where He even beat Lord Dredmor. With Random Skills.

Omni, I'm very glad you have no say in how Chests of Evil work.
I know I've lost over 16 health to an acid bolt trap on the first floor, but that is not lethal damage.

Also, I am including the Brimstone flask kind of trap on later floors in my list of traps that can't kill you instantly.

 

Ouch. Well, this Let's play was on 1.09, so he didn't have to worry about super dangerous traps.
I've never run into that one myself, even accidentally, or failing to disarm it.

Perhaps the creators need to nerf their traps now. No need to make the game unplayable without Burglary and Perception.
I think maybe I misunderstood the trap thing. I know by the time on floor 10, you'd have around 100 health, or so, as a warrior/rogue hybrid like me, so no trap that you trigger can kill you outright.

I don't mean to go on a 300 page dissertation on the traps and difficulty system.

 

I keep telling you people, Click to Move renders you immune to all traps. Maybe you don't like it, but it's worth putting up with, even if only when exploring new areas (you can use your movement choice of preference while backtracking and traps are visible).

You literally cannot walk onto a trap with Click to Move enabled. The pathfinding AI will simply not do it. Even if you click on a trap-containing square, the game will not walk you onto that square, even if you have negative somehow and can't see the outline of the trap.

Of course, you could consider this a borderline exploit, I suppose. Personally I just always take Burglary to get me through the first few Floors, and then rely on Click to Move to keep me safe once my 2-3 is no longer enough to disarm anything.

Edit: getting into the habit of clicking on every single trap you detect and selecting "nay!" to turn the trap square into its full-fledged icon graphic is also helpful. Seeing the trap rune/mechanisms on the ground instead of a simple outline makes them much easier to avoid, IMHO.

 

I think you are forgetting that monsters can and will blindly step on traps that can and will kill you in their wild dash to melee you for no reason.

Also, I never said I died while actually at my full health the turn prior to the death-trap. (Just a minor note of significance to the discussion.) I will wander around with half health evading fights until I regen by food. Sometimes a monster will spawn at just the wrong spot and there is literally nothing I can do but use my resources to attempt to survive, or risk death the next turn when they blindly walk into the nuke tile. (Usually this happens while both my mana and health are low. I *May* have enough mana to teleport away safely, but that would mean I have to wait longer to be able to fight safely again. Sometimes I will use a Spacial Instability Potion to attempt an escape, but this is usually an awful risk.)

I will be away for a while. I am going to attempt another TomeNET run. I will not use this handle there, as they frown on such handles like this. They greatly prefer something that actually sounds like a name.

 

Wow, that is a thoroughly impressive exploit! (I'm not sure how you can classify something that removes the largest threat in the game overall as only borderline, regardless of how easy it is to get access to). That's on par with save scumming, IMO.


I do agree with the click and hit "Nay!" though, it's nice to make them a bit easier to see once found.

We are, however, once again going *completely* off topic! I agree completely with the Zoo and Lutefisk rewards > Inconsequentia and CoE > Uberchest and Krong > Random artifact lying on the ground. balance chain. It's incredibly annoying to finally hit 500 lutefisk and get a mid-level item with +4 total stats on DL6 or 7. Same with the Zoo. The only times I've ever really gotten something good out a zoo were on DL < 4 and that one time I got a crownstar addendium that sold for 1 mil zorkmids on DL9.

I also like j_factor's idea of having each source specialize in item type and/or stats. This way each aspect of the game still has appeal.

 

Really? You consider using click to move's unintended side effect on the same level as Savescumming
A feature in the game that has an unintended side effect is much different then actively cheating a game by save scumming.

Take this advice from someone who has actually savescummed in games before. I know what I'm talking about. There is one thing I do know, and that is how to cheat.

 

Did someone say *Cheat*?!?!


Lol. I do play legitimately too sometimes...

 

Good sir, I see you are using FaxPax. How are the cocktails treating you?

 

HAX!
Seriously though, neat screenshot. How in the world do you do that?

 

Nicely. I love them. Mai Tai is my favorite for my tanks. This is my uber-squishy Radiant Wizard build being tested for viability. I will comment on the drinks in the FaxPax thread.

*Edit* Artmoney. Edit anything in memory. I thought you knew how to cheat?

 

Not in every game ever. Just a few.

 

PM me if you want me to spoil exactly how to cheat. I should not and will not make a thread for that sort of nonsense. I cheat at times to test things out. I plan ahead and then make my build from what I learned while cheating my everloving arse off.