Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

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Nighthawk
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Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by Nighthawk »

TL;DR - responses to main RT 2.0 thread, RT 2.0 current bugs, possible bugs, gameplay wishlist. GAMEPLAY SPOILERS.


Took me forever to get around to writing this one up... after a 53 floor amulet win dive and breaking the save file system, I've got some notes...

Zaxxon wrote:
  1. Dragon hordes are a neat idea but they are far too common, creating massive GP inflation. I propose that there should never be more than one dragon horde per floor and that floors with dragon hordes on them should be both semi-random and exceedingly rare -- perhaps once every 50-100 floors (or more) and never occurring within the first 26.
Agree on the never more than one per floor. They should be rare before floor 26 (you want an average player on a winning run seeing at least one, just so they know about them), but more common deeper than that, to the point that they become a one every 5 floors around... floor 100?
Zaxxon wrote:
  1. The hard coded party rooms really switch the game into easy mode due to the increased equipment drops that accompany them. Although you are much less likely to find an "unwinnable" dungeon in 2.0, it's such a big change that I think it warrants the implementation of a difficulty selector (with only harder RT 1.0 style dungeons making it to the leaderboard). Regardless: While a case might be made for hard coded party rooms within the first 26 floors, I do not think they should occur after that. I also do not view reducing, eliminating or otherwise tampering with drops in these rooms as a "solution" because that would just push the difficulty in the opposite direction (and de-incentivize entering these rooms, making them almost as unappealing to explore as mazes).
Agree - hard-coded party rooms = BAD; don't like difficulty selector, though. Should be handled by better implementation of gameplay system. Hard-code allows for floor 25-26 level-dancing. IF you're locked in on keeping hard-coded party rooms, make it so that once you've cleared a floor with them, you can't level-dance to abuse them; they disappear when going back down. (So if you descend to floor 26, go up to floor 1, when you come back down there should be NO party rooms in floors 1-26.)

Like the horde rooms, party rooms should be very rare between 1-25 (as rare as "you sense powerful magic on this floor" or rarer - only one other guaranteed party room before floor 26 for same reason as horde room - teach the player they exist), and then after that increase in appearance (but still random!) to say, 1 every 15 floors by floor 100 and deeper.
Zaxxon wrote:
  1. Was the amulet's impact on your food consumption rate lowered/eliminated? If so, I'm not sure if this is a good change or not. A better way to handle it might be making food slightly more common on that first ascent from 26 to 0.
I'm personally unaware that any such mechanic exists in any version of RT (although I think there may have been one in Rogue). Maybe I'm just not paying enough attention on ascensions?
CommanderData wrote:3) Force find/open a secret door wakes all monsters within, even if you're stealthy.
This should occur whether you're inside OR OUTSIDE the room in question, UNLESS it's obvious from outside the room that a door MUST be located in front of you... that situation should be exempt (there's no reason to punish the player for knowing the door must be there by kicking the wall).
CommanderData wrote:3) Yep, two rings of slow digestion would allow you to make thousands of moves before. I don't know the exact count off the top of my head but depending on how recently you ate before wearing them both it could seem like forever!

With that said, it is also possible the 64-bit update has things rounding a bit differently and causing the fractional food usage to drop to 0 per turn. Not sure if this is the case yet. If it is, I'm not sure that I will try to change it either... it could be an interesting "feature" for those lucky enough to find two rings of slow digestion!

I'd be very interested to know if you ever got hungry or weak after wandering with 2 of them on :D
I'm pretty sure that wearing two rings of slow digestion in normal Rogue effectively turned off the hunger clock / made it 0; in RT it seems to take many thousands of turns to become hungry, but it's not completely eliminated.
CommanderData wrote:Since this room full of Yetis was a party room, they should have all been generated at the start of the level and were residing there... and not generated by the wandering monster system as I was speculating before.

This doesn't eliminate the possibility of very odd random number generation, but it definitely tilts things towards some sort of strange monster creation bug (where it is duplicating a previously made monster instead of creating a new random one). Possibly something with the 64-bit code changing data types/sizes, but I would have expected it to be very common in that case- as in all monsters on each floor would be the same. Of course that type of problem would have been noticed immediately in testing! Darn obscure intermittent issues :P
Yetis seem to be the main culprit, and yes, they are generating with the level, but also seem to be a larger percentage of the wandering monster system than they should be on floors where Yetis hang out. Aquators have always spawned in great and annoying numbers; seeing no difference there. ;)

__________________________________________


RT 2.0 Bug List:
  • Wraith abuse to make HP levels ridiculously high
  • Falling through a pit trap on to a floor that's supposed to have a level hint (party room et al) makes level hint appear on the next floor accessed via the stairs
  • Unless a game makes it on to the Hall of Fame list on a user's device it isn't reported to the Bestrogues high score server. (Game Center should fix this in the future?)
  • Monsters picking up items in rooms you've explored but aren't currently in causes a graphics glitch and gives away a monster's location and actions.
  • Items that don't self-identify when used: scroll of mapping, wand of teleport away. There's probably others.
  • Knock back (Str 24 and above) should only occur with blunt weapons. Knocking back a monster while hallucinating should not give the type of monster away in the message log. Xerocs should not switch graphics and appear as Xerocs but become fairies or unicorns.
  • Speaking of Xerocs (ugh...): Xerocs should always spawn as "sleeping" and camouflaged, ESPECIALLY if spawned via the wandering monster routine (ideally, they shouldn't be spawning from that routine at all - they're effectively traps). Scrolls or rings of aggravate monster should not affect Xerocs (or if they do, de-camo first). Xerocs should always appear as items or stairs on mini-map unless the player has used a potion of clairvoyance or discovered they are Xerocs through direct interaction. (opinion) Xerocs camouflaged as stairs should use the regular stairs graphic.
__________________________________________

RT 2.0 Possible Bug List / Gameplay Questions:
  • Is there any particular reason why monsters (in general) won't follow a player into a maze? I know this is a holdover from Rogue, but I've never understood why this is the case.
  • Threw the Amulet at a jabberwock, and then killed it on a later turn. Jabberwock didn't drop the Amulet on death. Ummm.....
  • New trap graphics clash with green hallucination tiles making trap types unreadable.
__________________________________________

RT Wish List:
  • Amulet in inventory negates pit traps (in original Rogue this "floating" effect is what is supposed to allow you to go up the steps instead of being forced to only go down)
  • Step and kill counters accessible in-game, instead of only being able to see them at the end on Hall of Fame list (or not at all, if your game isn't good enough to make your HoF page).
  • Conducts - previous allows for player-invented conducts for additional challenge, but some built-in ones wouldn't hurt. Perhaps this can be melded into the secret character system somehow?
  • Call out armor that is rustproof in inventory screen (either made rustproof by the player or naturally rustproof - leather, shozoku, elven).
  • End-game item ID option
  • Faster "death screen" scrolling or ability to just tap through it
  • A way to scroll back / read the message log beyond the few lines at the top of the screen
  • Monsters avoid traps instead of walking right over them unaffected. Gives player clue re: trap location. Or monsters could occasionally trigger a trap and be affected.
  • List of scrolls / potions / staves / wands / rings types already identified during that run (a la Brogue) - should start empty and fill in as player discovers item types (presumably across multiple games).
  • Daily seed competition (I know this one has been on your radar for forever as well)
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by CommanderData »

Nighthawk, this is amazing stuff, thanks for taking the time to write it all!

I'll make further comments later on, but wanted to jump in and make this a STICKY thread... Or even better, lets shuffle up into the Announcements area for maximum visibility :D

Anyone else reading, please share your observations, thoughts, and wish list items for Rogue Touch Version 2.0, including where it could/should go from here.

I expect to make a few more updates to RT, and want to make each one count :geek:
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swhatley
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by swhatley »

I’ll add my wishlist here:

• Native iPad support
• Male/female option at tbe rogue name prompt
• In-app settings

Questions:

What does the Scroll of Wirlwind do?

Is Rogue supposed to have separate potions for detect items & monsters?

Thanks,
Steven
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by swhatley »

Suggestion: You have drunk a potion of confusion AND you are standing on the stairs. You try to move in a direction. But, instead of moving in a random direction (if at all) instead, you ACCIDENTALLY descend the stairs. Too bad if you descend into party room while still in a confused state!

In other words, add a chance of descending the stairs if in a confused state.
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by CommanderData »

Some nice suggestions you added, swahtley!

iPad support is definitely going to take a long while to sort out, but lots of smart little ideas like these others will probably get integrated into 2.1! Still working on this consulting project & business trip, hopefully done in a couple more weeks...

In the meantime, I welcome everyone to post ideas as you have them right here in this thread :D
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by Nighthawk »

Additional Thoughts:

1) Did putting on / removing armor get changed from taking one turn to two turns?
2) Scrolls of Whirlwind and Scare Monster not self-identifying when used.
3) Rings of Strength: when wearing one pushes your strength over the 31 max, removing it shouldn't reduce your strength below 31 by the + of the ring. (Example - +3 ring shows 34/31, taking ring off shows 28/31)
4) Party rooms and horde rooms shouldn't be the same room. If one of each appears on a floor they should be two different rooms.
5) Zapping a Wand of Magic Missile at a sleeping Aquator has no effect; there's no message about the missile missing or even whether or not it fired. Works just fine on Aquators that are awake, though.
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by CommanderData »

Nighthawk wrote:Additional Thoughts:

1) Did putting on / removing armor get changed from taking one turn to two turns?
2) Scrolls of Whirlwind and Scare Monster not self-identifying when used.
3) Rings of Strength: when wearing one pushes your strength over the 31 max, removing it shouldn't reduce your strength below 31 by the + of the ring. (Example - +3 ring shows 34/31, taking ring off shows 28/31)
4) Party rooms and horde rooms shouldn't be the same room. If one of each appears on a floor they should be two different rooms.
5) Zapping a Wand of Magic Missile at a sleeping Aquator has no effect; there's no message about the missile missing or even whether or not it fired. Works just fine on Aquators that are awake, though.
Hi Nighthawk,

Some good feedback and info here!

1) Armor wear/remove should have always taken two turns, unless you're under the influence of "haste" via potion or secret character like Neo. Of course this is something most people would never notice unless you're regularly swapping armor with enemies on screen :lol:

2) Whirlwind is one that should have been self-identifying, fixing that! Scare Monster was intentionally not self-identifying upon reading... however I might need to look at adding some code for self-identifying it when you "use it correctly".

3) That definitely sounds like a bug, I'll look into it.

4) I agree with this. Ideally a dragon hoard should be only one room in a level, and probably shouldn't occur before level 25 or 26 either. Party rooms will likely become a bit less common in the next update too.

5) That is fascinating. I can't see any obvious reason why it's treating a sleeping Aquator differently. This only occurs with Magic Missile? Or possibly with other wands/staves too? I'll be digging into that code for sure :oops:
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by Nighthawk »

CommanderData wrote: 1) Armor wear/remove should have always taken two turns, unless you're under the influence of "haste" via potion or secret character like Neo. Of course this is something most people would never notice unless you're regularly swapping armor with enemies on screen :lol:
What I mean is: it seems to take two turns to take off armor, and an *additional* two turns to put armor on. Thought that whole sequence should only take a total of two turns?
CommanderData wrote: 5) That is fascinating. I can't see any obvious reason why it's treating a sleeping Aquator differently. This only occurs with Magic Missile? Or possibly with other wands/staves too? I'll be digging into that code for sure :oops:
I think so (only MM)? Only found this trying to identify unknown wands and staves I had in inventory. Is there a secret character that auto-identifies wands and staves that I can test with?
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by CommanderData »

Nighthawk wrote:
CommanderData wrote: 1) Armor wear/remove should have always taken two turns, unless you're under the influence of "haste" via potion or secret character like Neo. Of course this is something most people would never notice unless you're regularly swapping armor with enemies on screen :lol:
What I mean is: it seems to take two turns to take off armor, and an *additional* two turns to put armor on. Thought that whole sequence should only take a total of two turns?
CommanderData wrote: 5) That is fascinating. I can't see any obvious reason why it's treating a sleeping Aquator differently. This only occurs with Magic Missile? Or possibly with other wands/staves too? I'll be digging into that code for sure :oops:
I think so (only MM)? Only found this trying to identify unknown wands and staves I had in inventory. Is there a secret character that auto-identifies wands and staves that I can test with?
Right. The armor removal process is initiated from inventory. Starting the removal takes 1 turn as any other inventory usage might, and then a second turn ticks away to complete the removal. The idea being its more time consuming to remove armor than to drop an item, drink a potion, etc. Same thing when putting armor on.

So removing one set and immediately putting on another would be 4 turns in total.

As for someone else you can test Staves/Wands with... Nobody in the current secrets would auto-identify all of them, but "Stick Figures" should start with several pre-identified staves each game. Might be worth trying that if you are feeling like testing more on Aquators?
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Re: Nighthawk's Super-Long RT 2.0 Post

Post by Zaxxon »

No "trapped" stairs, self, or amulet in 2.0; However I did stumble upon this unfortunate creature:
medusa20.png
medusa20.png (11.76 KiB) Viewed 141573 times
F mazes, get gold.
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