Optional difficulty

Current status: Mostly implemented. The new Hell effects aren't fully present yet, and Easy mode may still be too hard for what we want, and Hard doesn't have many new monsters yet.

One of the most serious flaws with Stone Soup is how the game doesn't offer any way for expert players to seriously challenge themselves aside from speedruns and the extended endgame. This means the main game needs to be designed to keep them interested, at the expense of potentially making it rough for beginners.

Here is the proposed solution. One or two floors after the Temple, there will be a guaranteed timed portal vault (name to be determined). This will be exceptionally difficult to clear for the depth it is in, but doable for experienced players; at the end will be some loot and a "Pandoora", a door that unleashes evil into the dungeon. Behind this door will be a scroll of acquirement (which prospective allruners will need to hang on to) and possibly a smattering of more loot.

Opening the Pandoora will have the effect of making the monster generation in the dungeon nastier. If the player leaves it closed, the game will be somewhat easier than current Stone Soup; if it is opened, the game will be about as hard as Stone Soup, or maybe a touch harder. This'll mostly be handled through out of depth monster generation; the exact mechanics are still TBD.

If the Pandoora is opened, the Hive's layout will change. There will be much less food there, and the branch itself will be nastier. At the end of this Hive is another Pandoora (opening this one will make the game unequivocally harder than Stone Soup), with another scroll of acquirement and possibly loot behind it.

One level below the Lair will be a timed portal to the Abyss requiring two scrolls of acquirement to function. If the player enters the Abyss through this portal instead of normally, he can't get the rune; instead, he'll be able to find a key to Hell, needed for allruning. Scrolls of acquirement will not be randomly generated prior to this portal's appearance, and the Hive will also show up at Lair-depth at the latest.

Regarding how the monster generation will change from Pandoora opening: the hardest uniques (like Nikola and Mara) will not be eligible for generation at all if none of them are opened. If one is opened, they will be eligible for generation, with maybe a few more restrictions than currently (TBD). If both are opened, unique generation is as current. Because I don't want to make the monsters uniformly harder, the primary effect the doors will have will relate to out of depth monster generation. The more doors that are opened, the more frequently the game will choose to generate out of depth monsters, and the deeper this generation will be allowed to go. If both doors are opened, the player will ideally have at least one really climactic battle per floor; my target difficulty is roughly equal to the current extended endgame.

Hell itself may need to become harder to feel like the game's climax after this, of course.

-dtsund