Refresh and refocus the Hells #2064
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In my view Hell Knights are iconic to Gehenna. In addition, I think adding Hellephants and Hell Hogs would be fitting to the Gehenna's theme. Also Hell knights are non-demonic monsters. I am surprised that Elemental Wellsprings aren't in the list, they would be fitting in Cocytus. While Hell Hogs might be weak at Gehenna, them being with same band with Hell Knights makes them scarier, since both have fire immunity and can cast fireball through backlines. Dis might benefit from Juggernauts added to the monster list, since they are fast. Replacing some of the zombie and skeleton weight with spectral monsters would make Tartarus harder, since they regenerate and are usually as fast as regular player unlike skeletons and zombies. In addition, difficulty could be increased by reworking pop_generic_late_zombie list, while it still needs to be relatively weak due to fact that list is used in Crypt. That list still has Elves and Humans and regular Nagas, which are trash even in crypt. In addition if we would not want some monsters appearing in Crypt, we could just make it OOD in crypt. |
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I've done a first pass of the vaults. Any that I'm not sure about are marked with Many of the larger vaults from the subbranches 1-6 are now possibly appropriate as encompass vaults, as they're close to the new dimensions. A few are not, but could make for exciting floors nevertheless (the extra special special room is the most notable of these). I'm holding off on monster review until some monster brainstorming gets going, though turning more of these into 098 vaults would save effort down the line. Input from the vaultsmiths on what to do about the HELL_XXX marked vaults would be very appreciated. |
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Brainstorm contribution for Dis - lean into the slow monsters concept and give the iron city some iron that feels distinct from a gameplay perspective: This gives Dis a clear identity 'the one with the slow things you can't kill'. By the way, I love the direction on this PR - I think it would be a lot more fun to play than current Hells extended :) |
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Okay! The map changes are implemented and the existing vaults fixed-up. The monster lists still need work, but if someone wants to compile this and try the new maps with the old monster sets it does build dungeons! A second or third set of eyes on the vaults changes would be appreciated. On to the monster brainstorm jam. |
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Starting in on monster sets, a first draft of Gehenna is done. The monster list seems a bit short still, even with two new ones and some occasional lichen making unholy pacts. Not sure what's missing though... |
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I got the zombie brainstorming Gist done. |
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A thought from Sil-Q: if monsters are periodically spawning from the stairwells, it's okay for them to be slow or trivial, because the possibility means you can't retreat to or hold position on stairs. Could do it just for Dis, or all of 'em!
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animated crystal ballista? echidna seems like a pretty unlikely thing to find in Hell. they're too dang cute!
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An important lesson about Australia is even the cute things are probably frighteningly lethal; goes double if they're cute but also made of mysterious green crystal. |
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Thanks to everyone who sent input on the monster brainstorm, both here and elsewhere. Theres a reasonably complete patchset up now. The monster populations might need some further adjustment, and there are still vaults and tiling to do, but I'm willing to declare this "ready for play testing". |
| @@ -5283,7 +5284,8 @@ static bool _mons_is_icy(int mc) | |||
| return mc == MONS_ICE_BEAST | |||
| || mc == MONS_SIMULACRUM | |||
| || mc == MONS_ICE_STATUE | |||
| || mc == MONS_BLOCK_OF_ICE; | |||
| || mc == MONS_BLOCK_OF_ICE | |||
| || mc == MONS_NARGUN; | |||
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Wonder if this should be a flag.
The first of four branch-wide hell effects, meant to give each hell a unique tactical experience. In Dis, apply two stacks of corrosion.
The second of four branch-wide hell effects, meant to give each hell a unique tactical experience. In Cocytus, prevent the use of potions.
The third of four branch-wide hell effects, meant to give each hell a unique tactical experience. In Gehenna, prevent the use of scrolls.
The third of four branch-wide hell effects, meant to give each hell a unique tactical experience. In Tartarus, halve half willpower. Ereshkigal has paralysis, and the new Tar monster set will have some will checking monsters. Lets make it harder for the player to simply Will++++ item their way out of these concerns.
The effects of the hells serve two purposes. One is to spice up encounters with tactical shifts: new monsters, noise, damage; the other is to deal strategic damage. The previous commits added a branch-wide effect to each hell branch to give them a distinct tactical flavour. This commit shifts the timed-effects to do strategic damage to those who would linger: contam, drain, and stat rot.
This function is used with the various omnigrid gridding functions to put a bit of padding to allow the grid to expand into the edge of this padding. There were two versions of it, one in layout_city the other in layout_grids; layout_cellular was implicitly using one of them without an explicit include. This moves the function to omnigrid so that we have only one copy.
This adds two stub functions dgn_builder_x and dgn_builder_y to allow parameterizing the dungeon buillder's driving dimensions. Subsequent commits will use these to shrink intermediate hell levels. The assumption that GXM and GYM are constants is baked in across the layout code, so layouts will be adapted to use the builder_bounds gradually. Layouts switched to use builder_bounds will be tested for support of various builder sizes.
This commit converts hells layouts to use the new dgn.builder_bounds() instead of dgn.max_bounds(), adding parameterization on grid size for some procedural values that were previously hard coded. The dive portion of the hells can be exciting, but quickly becomes a slog if the player must make the dive a second or third time, due to how the stairs work. By shrinking the levels we reduce the time a player spends with unfun repetition and increase the time spent in "good dive moments". A subsequent commit will reduce the number of stairs spawned on each level to 1 guaranteed stone stair.
Stokers are a ranged harrassment and positioning threat in Geh. The player can defeat one solo by setting off its own creeping infernos against it, but in a fray this back-line threat should keep the player off balance with wind blasts and inferno-firestorms.
Iron Golems are slow, and slow monsters are often sad. Dis has iron giants, which can throw them into range, which makes them more exciting. Except they're also not that strong, and attack slowly to boot. To make them a better Dis monster this gives them a big buff to their AC and HP, the idea being that they are avoidable but will block a player's manouverability. To make their obstruction to manouvering even more pointed, they get buffed attack and a second attack, and attack at normal speed. The normal speed attack ensures that (depending on monster list sequencing) they get a good chance to swing at the player after being thrown. Big big big ruk.
I considered simply using quicksilver oozes or quicksilver dragons in Dis, as both are reasonably strong late-game threats. However both dragons and oozes are vulnerable to some of the collateral damage done to allies by hell minions. It seemed like a better idea to make a monster in a genus that won't fall so easily to tormennts, since the new Dis list already has its share of living creatures. This monster is something like a cross between a quicksilver dragon and a shard shrike, with batty movement and qs breath, though not as fast as a shrike. Not 100% happy with repeating the shard shrike gimmick, could instead just make quicksilver oozes torment immune. (How does one torment a blob of quicksilver anyway?).
Meant as a "support caster" type monster for Dis, crystal echidnas have barbs (to confine the player's movement while slow things catch up) and crystal bolt (to be a bolt-bouncing threat when they're met alone in the cramped rooms of most Dis layouts). Crystal Echidna are nonliving and explode like green crystal for LRD.
Putrid mouths are a new Tar monster, meant to be a more substatial (ha) wraith genus monster to fill out the branch flavour set of threats. They are based on Chinese mythology around hungry ghosts and re-use the old hungry ghost tile since it was so cool. As a monster they aren't the toughest of Tar threat, but the mix of miasma, poison, and warning cry should combine with the small levels to prevent a player who mismanaged the encounter from recovering before reenforcements arrive.
A non-fiend top tier threat for Tartarus. Tainted leviathans come with mesmerise and a cloud ring to pull players into. Oh! And they're giants so they thro rük.
Wendigo are a new Cocytus monster. They're somewhat flimsy and act as threat multipliers, with stunning burst and a new spell seracfall. Seracfall turns a simulacrum in view into a very high power (3d43) iceblast. Cocytus will have plenty of simulacra around as part of the overhaul, but many simulacra are slow. The wendigo "help" the simulacra along in a couple of ways. The targeting also means that a player facing a wendigo plus simulacra will have to manage LOF from several directions as the simulacra advance.
Without cancellation pots, status effects are much more deadly in Cocytus. Nargun are modelled after the Australian mythic stone creatures, and are gargoyle-esque: they hit hard, have big AC, and a threatening spell but weak HP. In this case they bring Petrify to the mix, along with AF_VULN and a big HD to help it land. They are lrdable and treated as icy.
This commit allows spectrals and simulacra to constrict and reach (losing the flavor brand on that attack) and all derived undead to trample. These "physical" attack flavours mess with player positioning in various ways; not including them on the higher tier derived undead made it challenging to use those derived undead as serious threats.
The generic_late_zombie population is used for derived undead base classes in areas where the player is expected to be quite strong. This commit adjusts the way depth is handled by the picker so that the population list has its own depth cap (independent of branch depth caps). It also changes the monster selection to focus on derived undead that are either fast or interfere with player movement or both, with a few hard hitters for good measure.
In order to let 098 pick out true nightmares without making each hell 6/7 roll oops all fiends, let's set an ood cap that we can work with. Technically we lose a bit of expressivity at the deepest possible 8 depth, but I don't think that's needed.
To unify the hell branches, this defines a population subtable that produces "cross-hell" threats: a flat (falling off in ood range) sprinkling of tormentors and hellions bringing suffering to the damned, plus rare lichen making sundry unholy pacts. Lore note: Lichen, having mastered life and death, are not minions of hell or bound there. They're simply visiting. So we don't want to put a ton in any hell, even Tartarus.
The firey hell, this uses new monsters along side classic favorites to beset the player with fire storms, fireballs, and burn away their resistance. This places the following monsters in addition to the cross hell threat set. "basic" branch welcome monsters that fall off with depth and aren't used for ood rolls: - hell hog The classic fast fireballing demon. Their fireballs hit enough to hurt and they swarm, but they aren't so tough. - fire giant Increasing placement of 'C' genus monsters in hell is a lorebuilding exercise. Not as fast as hell hogs, stronger melee. - salamander tyrant The highest tier salamander monster, recontextualized here in hell. Their lava spells work well in Gehenna's lava pool terrain. "branch flavour" monsters that fill out the regular spawns in the mid range and fall off for ood (but not as sharply as the cross-hell set): - balrug Classic demon; subsequent changes to the other hells makes this one of the few non-fiend non-common demons appearing. - searing wretch Resistance stripping melee threat. - stoker (less common) Ranged, maintain range threat. In Gehenna's layouts corners are hard to comeby, and hiding from creeping infernos is a good deal trickier than dodging oods. Setting them off early is a possibility for the player, but comes at a cost. - creeping inferno (less common) Like a lurking horror, but with Fire Storm. "signature threat" monsters that fill out the ood weight. At depth 7 helephants are more common than fiends, and at the depth cap they have equal chances. - hellephant 3d40 bolt of fire (ow!), trample, and blink. Tough but not too tough defenses. A good firey monster for the firey hell. - brimstone fiend Every hell needs a thematic 1 and the brimstone fiends are the fiends for Gehenna.
The iron city, this uses a mix of new and classic monsters to beset the corroded player with big hits (wham pow), metal splinters, and prevent their escape with fetters and barbs. This places the following monsters in addition to the cross hell threat set. "basic" branch welcome monsters that fall off with depth and aren't used for ood rolls beyond max depth: - ancient champion Iron shot, haste, good hits. Currently they have skeletal warrior bands, perhaps that should change. - war gargoyle Metal splinters and fast, but not tough. - iron dragon Metal splinters and stronger melee than a war gargoyle, tougher as well. Unfortunately they're slow, so currently less frequent. Might be worth making them speed 10. "branch flavour" monsters to fill out the regular threats: - iron golem Buffed iron golems are hard to kill and hit really hard at normal speed, so it is not good to be next to them. That's easy to do because they're slow, but it does mean they might block an escape in the kind of layouts Dis generates. - caustic shrike The pigeons of Dis. Recontextualize a top-tier depths threat as a regular friend in the iron city. Their corrosive attack stacks with the present Dis corrosion for maximum fun! - quicksilver elementals At least one Dis castle places quicksilver dragons (good flavor, but not really strong enough for a Dis threat). These elementals are a cross between a quicksilver ooze, a qsd, and a shard shrike. Quicksilver bolt will remove some corrosion, but do you really want to keep one as a pet? - crystal echidna Iron golems are slow, many other Dis threats are regular speed. To help everyone along these spiny green helpers have throw barbs, along with crystal bolt so they're not defenseless on their own. The cramped layouts of Dis should give them many bolt bouncing opportunities. "signature threat" monsters (becoming equal chance at max ood). - iron giant The classic C, with harpoons and iron shots and now hurling buffed iron golems (which get a swing on the turn they're thrown). - hell sentinel The tier 1 demon of Dis.
The decaying hell, this monster set is out to bewitch the player and drown them in foul miasma. Unlike other hells, because of the misma quantity no living holiness monsters are added. This places the following monsters in addition to the cross hell threat set. "basic" branch welcome monsters: - spectral things The generic late population is adjusted so that the spectrals that place should be a somewhat serious threat to the player, if they start to swarm. - shadow wraiths Not very hard hitting, but AF_DRAIN_SPEED makes these a thematic mix. - eidola Also not very hard hitting (could they gain dispell undead lol?) but with Tar's new Will/2 their Cause Fear has a chance at landing and constraining player movement. "branch flavour" monsters - profane servitors A monster from "elsewhere" repurposed to service in Tartarus. Some concern about this aura and silence aura being difficult to see in combination in console. They're a nice melee threat and combined with their aura a nice threat multiplier. - bone dragons Big dumb hits. Thwacks. Tramples. - putrid mouths Somewhat similar to ushabti, putrid mouths are a stronger melee threat in addition to the warning cry and miasma breath. They apply poison and stat drain fitting in with Tar's theme. - doom hounds Definitely not spirit wolves. Everyone's favorite "summoner" monsnter. - silent spectres (rarer, flat distribution) These are sprinkled in to fit with Tar theme and provide a unique tactical challenge. Much rarer than regular monsters. "signature threats" - tainted leviathans A C genus monster for tar. With mesmerisation to use the Will/2 branch-wide effect, a miasma ring, silence, and large rocks, these giants are an all-around top tier threat. - tzitzimimeh The branch's tier 1 demon.
The icy hell, ruled by Antaeus, this monster set has a slightly more cryptonatural feel, keeping with the "newness" of Cocytus in the lore. The monster mix aims to beset the player with iceblasts, cold, and status effects (much worse under -Potion) This places the following monsters in addition to the cross hell threat set. "basic" branch welcome monsters: - simulacra Using the adjusted simulacra list, these simulacra either hit hard, are fast, or mess up player position (often two or more). - freezing wraiths Somewhat on the weak side for hell, a lucky slowing hit goes much further when a player cannot obtain potion help. - frost giants Lower tier colossus, following Antaeus' leadership. "branch flavour" monsters: - titans More of Antaeus' pals. Titans' airstrike is spooky in Coc's mostly open layouts, as is their flight over deep water. - azure jelly Rarer, might be a bit too weak for its place, but a good cold monster with big ol hits. - wendigo To help slower simulacra really nail the player, the wendigo can turn them into 3d43 iceblasts (one time only, destroyingn the simulacrum), in addition to having stunning burst and some strong melee. Wendigo are fragile and cannot fly, however, so they can be managed with care using Cocytus' terrain. - nagrun Earth spirits who were here first and tolerate the new hell that was dug out around them. Petrification is much more threatening if it can't be cancelled, so these earth spirits come with it, plus AF_VULN to help it land. "signature threat" monsters. Equal chance at max depth, otherwise more shrikes - shard shrike Basically TIE fighters with blue lasers. A player favorite. - ice fiend The cold tier 1 demon.
Essentially. The generic undead are preserved (with some branch flavoring so Cocytus wendigo have simulacra to collapse), and the "fodder" placements are replaced with 09. The "boss" is specified to be a top tier threat for the branch.
Adjust monster sets of Dis vaults. When possible I tried to stick with or switch to 098. When vault storyline demanded eg. a humanoid or a boss monster one was chosen from the new Dis cast appropriately. Occasionally some vaults desired slightly more variety, and juggernauts get sprinkled in there. I'd considered putting them on the Dis spawn table, but a few vault cameos seems to be better for them.
In line with the Dis changes, remove trash mobs and replace with the new Dis cast. As with the non-end vaults, a few juggernauts sneak in as a guest threat, and the cacodemons in the one grunt ending stick around. Might have been too heavy with caustic shrikes on some of these.
This adjusts all Gehenna vaults to use the new cast. Fewer changes than the Dis vaults, mostly replacing sun demons with searing wretches and sprinkling in some creeping infernos.
Some care was needed to make sure there's simulacra around for the wendigo, but placing wendigo bands can take care of that when needed. Otherwise, blizzard demons were replaced by titans or shard shrikes depending on context, and several vaults were 098-ified.
Add the new Tar cast to the vault des. Some places shadow demons were replaced with doom hounds, for the summon effect, and others profane servitors for the "shadowy flavour". Most reapers are gone but a few stick around as guests.
The small levels and placement of hatches give a fast enough dive, shafts are an ultra fast forward. We'll permit Fo to shaft in hells and permit shafts in vaults for the hells, so that they can be used as vault "loot".
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@ebering, why the name hot-hells? |
The background of Pan dispersal sets out some of the issues with extended more broadly. This pull request is the starting point of a refresh of the Hells, aimed at removing the more repetitive aspects and making each a distinct challenge.
Overview and to-do
Hell effects
The old hell effects existed to do three things: discourage resting, shake up tactics, and build atmosphere. In this branch Hell effects are split into two kinds, with one aiming to force tactical shifts and the other cause strategic damage to stragglers and build atmosphere.
The tactical shifts are branch-wide persistent status modifiers meant to limit player options by restricting access to different resources. Some characters will have to adapt more than others to each shift.
Complementary to these changes, the hells now have a unified set of timed effects. These timed effects do strategic damage, making resting in the hells a poor proposition, and occasionally make a loud noise to draw monsters to a straggler. The non-noise effects are:
Map geometry changes
The first dive through a hell subbranch is exciting, but as the level clears out-even with spawns, until all stairs have been connected it decreases in difficulty and excitement. Smaller maps with a single stair will present the player with this initial excitement (do I juke or fight? I juked the first 5 but I got a loud hell effect on 6 and everyone can see me do I bail and risk it or spend resources to press on). The dive aspect (compared to an equivalent number of tiles spread out on a smaller number of floors) does have a different tactical feel: teleports are much less helpful on a small map and having to return to the beginning if something goes wrong and the character must bail out are two significant considerations. The dive length also gives the hells an imposing feel, the hell lords are far away, not just adjacent to the vestibule.
Implemented in branch is changes to all of the hell layouts to produce maps that are currently 75% smaller, halved in both x and y dimensions. The layout changes are parametric so further changes should be less effort (though will still require some tweaking).
In addition to shrinking the levels, the number of stairs placed is reduced to 1. The reduction in stair availability is less severe than the reduction in playable area, so the levels should still play more quickly than before. Combined, these level changes should make the non-rune-floor hell experience "focused on the dive", addressing some of the repetition.
Vaults review
The existing vaults have been revised for the new level generator in the following ways:
ORIENT: centreorORIENT: encompassAdditional vaults review is needed for monster set appropriateness
New Vaults
Stair ambushes, guarded downstairs, and more small mini vaults (especially decor) are all wanted. Due to levelgen constraints the following guidelines should be followed:
ORIENT: centreand not much larger than 20x20ORIENT: encompassMonster Changes
The old hell population tables are full of trash mobs. Imps! Mid-D tier monsters! Not exactly headliners for the terrifying realm of torment and woe and sin. This branch throws out the old tables and re-builds starting from the handful of iconic monsters for each hell, as well as a handful of good cross-hell monsters.
Cross-hell monsters
Tormentors and hellions (the latter with damnation flavour which is not fire flavored anymore) are in-theme for Hell, and their attacks are threatening to all characters. They create tactical tension whenever in los. As long as we don't use too many of them they have a good place in Hell.
Ancient and Dread Lichen are a high-tier threat that commands respect even from rather strong characters. In the lore they are wizards who are so powerful they escaped life and death, so we don't want to place too many in Hell. Still a few can show up, making nefarious pacts or whatever.
These cross hell monsters show up in each hell subbranch.
Finally, the Lore has Antaeus and other Colossi having some connection to the Hells. This branch strengthens this lore by adding branch specific 'C' genus monsters, either from the existing table or new ones.
Derived undead changes
Thanks for the suggestion from @nojaa3 for an initial draft. The derived undead base type list for late monsters is adjusted to move faster and hit harder. Additionally spectrals and simulacra are permitted to constrict and trample, allowing them to mess with player position.
Dis monsters
Existing monsters making an appearance in Dis:
Changed or new monsters:
Iron golem
Iron Golems are slow, and slow monsters are often sad. Dis has iron
giants, which can throw them into range, which makes them more exciting.
Except they're also not that strong, and attack slowly to boot.
To make them a better Dis monster this gives them a big buff to their AC
and HP, the idea being that they are avoidable but will block a player's
manouverability. To make their obstruction to manouvering even more
pointed, they get buffed attack and a second attack, and attack at
normal speed. The normal speed attack ensures that (depending on monster
list sequencing) they get a good chance to swing at the player after
being thrown. Big big big ruk.
Quicksilver elemental
Both quicksilver dragons and oozes were considered, as both are flavorful for Dis.
However both
dragons and oozes are vulnerable to some of the collateral damage done
to allies by hell minions and aren't quite strong enough.
This monster is something like a cross between a quicksilver dragon and
a shard shrike, with batty movement and qs breath, though not as fast as
a shrike.
Not 100% happy with repeating the shard shrike gimmick, could drop batty from them.
Crystal echidna
Meant as a "support caster" type monster for Dis, crystal echidnas have
barbs (to confine the player's movement while slow things catch up) and
crystal bolt (to be a bolt-bouncing threat when they're met alone in the
cramped rooms of most Dis layouts). Crystal Echidna are nonliving and
explode like green crystal for LRD.
Gehenna monsters
Existing monsters making an appearance in Geh:
New monsters:
Creeping inferno
Operating with lurking horror move rules, creeping infernos unleash a power 120 fire storm at
their location upon death. The savvy player will be able to use them to
advantage, so we won't place too many, but the player caught off guard
will be exploded.
Searing wretch
A hard-hitting melee threat for Gehenna, searing wretches are ghoul
genus monsters that stack on fire, sticky flame and strip fire resistance. They are complementary to the other Geh threats, which all have some sort of ranged
component, and other than hellephants are a bit flimsy at hell depth.
Stoker
Stokers are a ranged harrassment and positioning threat in Geh. The
player can defeat one solo by setting off its own creeping infernos
against it, but in a fray this back-line threat should keep the player
off balance with wind blasts and inferno-firestorms.
Tartarus monsters
Existing monsters making an appearance in Tar:
New monsters:
Putrid mouth
Putrid mouths are a new Tar monster, meant to be a more substatial (ha)
wraith genus monster to fill out the branch flavour set of threats. They
are based on Chinese mythology around hungry ghosts and re-use the old
hungry ghost tile since it was so cool. As a monster they aren't the
toughest of Tar threat, but the mix of miasma, poison, and warning cry
should combine with the small levels to prevent a player who mismanaged
the encounter from recovering before reenforcements arrive.
Tainted leviathan
A non-fiend top tier threat for Tartarus. Tainted leviathans come with
mesmerise, a miasma cloud ring to pull players into, and silence, in case the
clouds weren't enough. Oh! And they're giants so they thro rük.
Cocytus monsters
Existing monsters making an appearance:
New monsters:
Wendigo
Wendigo are a new Cocytus monster. They're somewhat flimsy and act as
threat multipliers, with stunning burst and a new spell seracfall.
Seracfall turns a simulacrum in view into a very high power (3d43)
iceblast. Cocytus will have plenty of simulacra around as part of the
overhaul, but many simulacra are slow. The wendigo "help" the simulacra
along in a couple of ways. The targeting also means that a player facing
a wendigo plus simulacra will have to manage LOF from several
directions as the simulacra advance.
Nargun
Without cancellation potions, status effects are much more deadly in
Cocytus. Nargun are modelled after the Australian mythic stone
creatures, and are gargoyle-esque: they hit hard, have big AC, and a
threatening spell but weak HP. In this case they bring Petrify to the
mix, along with AF_VULN and a big HD to help it land. They are lrdable
and treated as icy.