Chaosforge Forum
DoomRL => Requests For Features => Topic started by: 007bistromath on January 03, 2008, 15:33
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Currently, there is very little incentive, if any, to explore in DoomRL. The experience suffers greatly for it, I feel, as poking around and thrashing at walls was one of the defining elements of the original. The reason it worked in the original, obviously, is that most of the time if you saw a hazardous area, you could tell that you were supposed to power through it to get something on the other side. That's a tough trick to pull in a roguelike, since the levels are randomly generated, and what's basically required here is the random generation of whole setpieces. I think I've cracked that nut, though.
If it isn't already, the first step of map generation should be to roll up a loot list. This task done, see if there are any items which are particularly powerful for the level the list is for. For instance, on level four, a red armor or certainly a double shotgun should trigger this. On level twelve, you should expect something yellow. Once you've picked the highest of these good rolls, you start building parts of the map around it. It will be at the back of a pool of acid, or can only be accessed once the wall is brought down by a lever, or has a teleporter leading to it. I think doing something like this is important for teleporters in particular; right now the things are nothing more than a nuisance. They probably shouldn't be generated very much at all except as links to treasure caches.
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If I may add something about the teleporters, there were also a maze-like designs of tight corridors with teleporters on dead ends - you had to memorize which pad leads where in order to get out of the maze (or to find a secret room).