Re: the new maps

[Tyler Van Gorder <tvangod@ecst.csuchico.edu>]

>  One thing I try to fix (and people should keep in mind) is to make
> treasures random.  Don't put fixed rings or potions in place.  With random
> treasure, how good the treasure is will be affected by the difficulty
> of the monsters.
> 
>  So a bunch of chests with low level monsters is not quite so bad, because
> most of the stuff will be junk.
There were a couple of spots where treasure was easily accessable...yet in
other spots on the same map there were much tougher monsters. This has the
effect of generating above average treasure for what a player has to kill to
get to it. I removed "easy" treasure...or at least reduced the amount a player
could grab.

>  I would like maps that are not the mindless killing of monsters.  But
> I have gotten very few new maps to put in - those maps were from and
> old distribution (0.90.0 I think).

true, there still aren't enough "good" maps....it would be nice to see other
people working on them. I do know that here at Chico at least we have had 
another flury of map makers....tabland's quest is done..(i think)...I partially
opened up skud tower. A couple new quests have been made. After we play test
them some more I will probably ship these to Mark.

Is anyone else out there making maps?

>  The real problem is what is considered proper reward for treasure.  For
> example, I did not think that killing a titan in order to get an artifact
> was unreasonable.  IF you can kill a titan, you probably already have
> artifacts.
Yes, the real problem we have been having here is a 12th level character giving
frostbrand or some other high powered weapon to newbie players. 

What we did to resolve this is give each artifact a level. If the player is not
at least that level the player is not allowed to wield the weapon. This is very
similar to the improve weapon stuff. :>

>  IF someone can come up with good treasure values for monster numbers/
> difficulty, it would make it much easier to adjust the difficulty of maps.
> 
>  The problem I have is that in order to gauge things properly, a character
> of the appropriate level is needed.  For example, a 10'th level character
> can easily kill a bunch of gnolls or madman or whatever is in the second
> level of the cd maps, but at the same time, most of that treasure is
> meaningless.  Maybe at 4'th level, it is a good challenge, and then by
> playing that level character, you could see if that treasure is reasonable.

Another possibility would be to make a new archetype which when walked on 
checks the level of the player, if that player is over/under a certain level
it will not allow the player to walk on it. 

Thus, 12th level dude comes along to scum money from a 4th level dungeon...
they would not be allowed to enter or dimension door across the 
"blocking_square." Or if 2nd level newbie wants to enter a 14th level dungeon
one could restrict newbie from getting his butt kicked.

>  As for monster mixing:  There really are not any guidelines.  Wyverns
> and giants seem to be a very popular mix, even though the giants could be
> killed by the wyverns fire.  Undead with undead is reasonable.  A
> titan with most anything of lesser powerful could be seen as reasonable
> (other monsters are the titans servants/pets).
This is where a storyline can come into play :> I dont mind there being 
weird mixes of monsters, just so long as there IS a reason for them being 
there :> 

>  I would be interested in seeing/getting the modified maps, to see why
> (what) you have changed Tyler.

Really all I have changed is the amount of treasure in each level. 
Basically less. 

I also did the Santo Domingo maps, removing easily accessable potions
and the gobs of treasure.


T.