No More Stashing

I realised I haven’t updated the blog for more than two months now. I am still working on Release #8. Progress is slow but steady right now. There are really a lot of changes so I still cannot predict when it will be done.

Inventory Space

I’ve always been a fan of small inventories in RPGs, it makes you really think about what you need to keep instead of hoarding everything. TGGW is based around items as almost all character progression is based on it. I find it very fun to make those decisions as I go along.

However, TGGW has “free” equipment swapping which means it is optimal to basically hoard every kind of equipment you’ll find (since each piece of equipment have their own strength). I have seen some players making stashes of items that they return to when they need something (this happens in other roguelikes too).

This is somewhat discouraged in TGGW since items that lies on the ground might move or disappear when you rest, also it is not always trivial to backtrack. However, my intention is not that you should have access to all items and be able to use them whenever you need them, so I have decided to try an unusual solution to this.

Aliens…

Whenever you pick up an item, it will get some of your human smell. They didn’t have that smell before since these items have been lying underground for ages. There are mysterious beings in another dimension that for some reason are very attracted to this smell and tends to appear when such things are left unguarded:

 

Aliens will appear when you rest. They will collect most items on the ground that you have touched (that is, picked up and dropped). If you manage to kill them before they escape back to their dimension, you just might be able to retrieve your item back, but probably you won’t…

This means that once you drop an item it will (probably) be lost forever. This should make the decisions which items to keep (or even which ones to pick up) a bit more interesting.
This change does not interfere with my personal play style since I don’t keep stashes anyway, but it might be a huge change for other players.

Let me hear what you think about it!

Comments

  1. I never really stashed with the intent of coming back since most of my run are somehow strongly “classed” based on the items I find, so most of the time when I get rid of an item it’s something I know I won’t use anyway.

    But I personally enjoy how those little aliens add more flavors to the game. I’m generally okay for more and more diversity and things to happen so each new game really is a discovery.

    I’m wondering… would it be possible somehow to follow those aliens into their dimension? Dungeon branching? 😀

    1. I play the same way as you and I think this change won’t affect the majority of players much. But for those inclined to stash I think this make the game tighter.

      Glad you like the aliens! Well, we’ll see… I am thinking about more I can do with these new type of monsters and their dimension…

  2. I’m not sure if I will be a fan of this. The thing is, as you have already mentioned in the blog, stashing equipment was already suboptimal with the risk of the dropped equipment being removed/relocated. It became even more risky with the introduction of the non-lethal damage system, since now it is much more likely to have new encounters if you decide to go back for an item. In the current state of the game, taking the risk of backtracking to get a much needed equipment back (of course if you can still find it there) or trying to progress without it leaves the player with another decision to be made, which I believe enriches the experience. For instance, although it is not as frequent as it used to be in the earlier versions of the game, a character that you consider to be pretty strong with its equipment can still face a deadend (such as a pool of lava etc.) blocking the only way to the stairs. In such a case I would say fighting your way back up, to get a heat ring that would allow you to barely pass the lake adds more moments to be remembered. As also you have mentioned, items are very important since they are the most important factor that shape the ‘build’. This new system will make the builds less flexible and less interesting I’m affraid.

    Instead of aliens picking up scented equipment, I believe addressing the “free” equipment swapping may make the game more fun and realistic. Maybe swapping your armor can be made impossible while monsters are aware of or charging towards you. Or swapping armor may take ‘say’ 5 turns, while switching your rings may take only 1 turn. This would also require the player to be careful concerning the set of equipment being worn before opening a door etc. In any case, of course I will still look forward very eagerly for the next release 🙂

    1. I agree fully on your first point. The game really should encourage backtracking. However, I feel that the game encourages backtracking enough anyway by the following mechanics:

      • mysterious veins and shimmering water
      • stuck doors that you have to return to
      • merchants and other services
      • unconscious monsters that have drops worth returning to

      So I think going back for dropped items is not necessary.

      The problem of allowing to drop items is that the whole dungeon floor sort of becomes your inventory.

      Restricting swapping is something that I have had on the agenda for a long time now, but I am not sure exactly how yet. I have had discussions with some players and my ideas seem to be controversial. But yes, I will probably going in that direction as well.

      I am not a fan of “x turns” solutions as they are tedious (encourages waiting) and hard to understand. I am leaning toward conditional restrictions (such as a mode or status). So I don’t think I will have a turn penalty for switching equipment.

      Thank you very much for your thoughts and your input, it is very valuable for me to know! I am not 100% the aliens will stay yet (depending on what I do with equipment swapping).

  3. Don’t make aliens instantly vanish the item forever. You might think you’re going for a caster build, then the game drops you some new equipment that really means you should be warrioring. So you want to go back and get that warrior gear because your previous imperfect information has been updated with more accurate data and you ultimately made The Wrong Choice.

    How about this~
    -You drop the Boots of Booting
    -You rest (50% chance for each dropped item to animate, and if it happens on your floor you get this message:)
    -When you closed your eyes, the Boots of Booting sprouted legs and ran deeper to hide from you! Maybe you’ll find them later?
    -Some number of floors later:
    -Hey! It’s those Boots! Get them!
    -You took too long to catch those Boots! They’ve fled into a drainage pipe forever.

    1. I agree you might change your mind when you get more complete information, that’s part of the fun. But I still don’t want you to try to keep all your stuff “just in case”. That’s the point of limited inventory, I also want to force the player to make a decision whether to pick and item up (and risk losing it if it has to be dropped) or just leave it alone and potentially come back for it.

      I think it would be annoying to constantly meet your stuff that you dropped later (dropping it probably means you didn’t need it that much).

      Thanks for the suggestion though! I like to get new ideas and suggestions!

  4. Very excited for #8! Meanwhile here few bugs I saw in #7:
    1. Rusty plate mail gives higher resist than non-rusty
    2. Reaching uses Missile instead of Melee
    3. Confused + unconscious monster still wanders
    4. Various ways to kill unconscious (ammo, reaching, displace into terrain)
    5. Dual-wield doesn’t stack some effects (e.g. -10% fire from wooden club)
    6. While drowning, turn passes on equip swap
    7. No warning message entering water/lava if swapping place with unconscious enemy
    8. black gloves = infinite gold?

    Some ideas,
    1. Zapping merchants w/ wand of stealing
    2. A way to avoid cutting self digging through trash (e.g. gloves/pickaxe)
    3. Fire wooden sticks with bow
    4. Noise reduction on carpet

    1. Great!

      About the bugs:
      1. ouch.. yes, I see now why this happens.
      2. Are you sure about that? It really shouldn’t (just looked over the code).
      3. Yes, is fixed in #8
      4. Intentional, except the displace one.
      5. Also intentional. Bonuses don’t stack when dual wielding.
      6. Yes, known bug. Actually unequipping always lose a turn in certain situations.
      7. Yes, this one is actually quite tricky to fix.
      8. Not unless you found some way of exploiting it? The only way to farm infinite gold would be if you could safely melee a humanoid monster indefinitely. I don’t know about any such situation?

      About your ideas:
      1. Interesting, but right now you cannot target “features”
      2. Hm yes, maybe wearing any kind of gloves should be enough.
      3. Yeah, I’m thinking about changing wooden sticks anyway.
      4. Good idea!

      Thank you for your comments!

      1. Thanks for the reply!
        2. I remember long spear got a +10% after swapping to cloth hood, but maybe I read the information wrong.
        8. 100% armor, a healer to recover for example. Even without these it is pretty easy to abuse. Perhaps monsters should have limited gold to steal.

        1. 2. maybe you were in a closed space while swapping? Well, the combat section has been rewritten after that, so if it was a bug it should be gone by next release.

          8. Ok, 100% armour is true (never saw a character obtaining that though…), but a healer would potentially cost more than you gain, but I see your point. Limited gold is a good idea.

          1. A few more I thought of:
            1. amulet of great resistance gives less resist than amulet of resistance
            2. flying unconscious enemies cannot drown (they still “fly”)
            3. huge brain description has typo

            Also is there a way to unrust armor with oil?

            1. 1. ouch! Fixed it!
              2. Hm yes. It doesn’t actually make sense for them to be flying when unconscious or sleeping. I will see if I can get around it (their flying status is currently permanent).
              3. Thanks, fixed it!

  5. This does seem an interesting approach, however I can see most people who use the stashing method simply leaving the items where they find them for later. It would make the backtracking for them possibly dangerous but more often than not it would just be tedium. Hard to say if that will discourage stashers enough to stop it in any capacity though.

    Perhaps as an alternative there can be some kind of banker merchant that you can give your items to, and pay them to retrieve them later?
    I don’t normally stash items myself mind you, but this seems like a halfway decent olive branch to reach out for those who like to stockpile, while still adding a kind of cost and balance to it all.

    That said, I’m all for the change, just adds some interesting flavor to the world and that’s neat.

    1. I am a bit worried of that too (that you just leave things instead of picking them up), potentially leading to tedium. But we will see… this is somewhat of an experiment. I think it is at least a bit better now.

      It’s an interesting idea to stash items for money, but it would then *still* be optimal to just not pick the items up (unless there’s a risk that they too disappear). I was thinking about something like that before, but didn’t think about that it could be charged… that makes it a much more interesting option. However, in TGGW spirit I would not guarantee such a service in every game.

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