Update 1.26 The Vault of Yendor

We’re finally diving head first into the long awaited Vault-of-Yendor update! This critical zone, referring specifically to the levels leading up to the final boss fight (not Yendor himself), has gone largely untouched since Rogue Fable III and is definitely starting to show its age.

As with the recent round of new boss updates, this will be a rolling update delivered through a series of mini patches. For now, all new levels and enemies will be available exclusively in the Danger-School (nothing about the base game is changing yet). This gives us a chance to test and refine everything together before it makes its way into the main game.

I’ve included a few excerpts from the latest issue of Evil Overlords Weekly, in which Yendor grants a rare interview conducted by... the Goblet. The exact mechanics of how this works remain... unclear.

"My work is not a dungeon, nor a mere gauntlet of challenge. It is a performance, a revealing, a peeling back of layers to expose the raw truth beating within. You may want to put on protective equipment..."

DESIGN GOALS:

As the final zone in the game, the Vault of Yendor has a lot it needs to get 'right'.

• Crank the challenge to 11. These should be the most tactically demanding levels in the game.

• Serve as a final exam. While players will only see a few levels per run, the full set should collectively test every system, tactic, and mechanic encountered throughout the dungeon.

• Show off Yendor in all his unhinged majesty. This zone should look and feel like a deranged art gallery of death machines, absurd contraptions, and overly-engineered magical nonsense.

• Keep the pace accelerating. Even with the high difficulty, these levels shouldn’t turn into a slog. We've got a big boss fight right after this so I don't want the leadup to be a grind.

• Maintain crystal clarity. Despite everything above, we need to maintain a level of simplicity and elegance that allows the player to understand exactly what is happening in each level.

“Every arrangement is deliberate. Even the chaos. Especially the chaos. If it feels like an accident, that means it’s working...”

DESIGN PATTERNS:

Many late design nights have led to a few key patterns I’ll be using to try to make this zone 'work'.

• Small, dense levels. Put the player in a pressure cooker and let the constrained space make each tile, enemy and mechanic feel more meaningful. This allows us to have focused levels with less enemies while still keeping the challenge high.

• Tiles as primary mechanics. To capture the feel of bizarre magical contraptions, the levels themselves need to do 'stuff'. By placing mechanics directly onto tiles, glyphs, traps, etc. I hope to get maximum flexibility when designing levels. Tile effects go on/off as characters step on/off off so it should be really easy to 'read' in messy fights.

• Relatively small enemy count. Keep the fights focused and readable with smaller groups of stronger enemies. Obviously levels that are specifically designed to test hoard management will be the exception.

• Enemies that effect adjacent tiles. Innate 'aura's that apply buffs, debuffs, or effects to adjacent tiles (like shielding allies) work really well in tight spaces. They emphasize positioning, encourage spatial tactics, and are easy to parse at a glance.

• Each level has a concise theme. Focus on a small, coherent subset of enemies and mechanics. Something like: the level where demotaurs try to push you into shock tiles.

"The last time I tried to explain the patterns that guide my hand I accidently invented a method of total spiritual ascension that only works when forgotten..."

LEVEL TYPES:

For this first update in the series I'm just gonna focus on the most basic level types so we can test out the core mechanics. In the future though I'd like to include:

• Basic Arenas: just tough little static arenas where all the enemies start agroed.

• Portal Waves: enemies spawn in waves from portals around the level.

• Dynamic Levels: changing tiles, moving walls, moving effect auras etc. To keep things readable these should be really simple patterns.

• Gimmick Levels: levels centered around some totally unique central mechanic. I've got a list of these already, I'm sure you guys will have plenty of suggestions.

"My work cannot be broken into mere 'types'. I think of them instead as currents of archetypal inflection, motifs in the harmonics of the universe, strong attractors in the astral light."

NEW CONTENT:

Again, just want to point out that this is all only available in Danger-School right now. Treat all of this as barely a first draft, more like a series of experiments and 'whats ifs'.

GLYPH FLOOR:

• Force-Shield-Floors: give enemies Force-Shield making them immune to damage.

• Shock-Floor: shocks the player when he ends his turn on it. I need a floor that damages the player but cannot be used to just kill enemies. Probably can make versions of this for each element.

• Discord Floor: applies the discord effect to both player and enemies. The effect is only active while standing on it i.e. it fades the moment you step off. This is basically super unstable floor.

• Cold-Floor: you cannot sprint on it, you can only move orthogonal. Applied to both players and monsters. Again the effect is only active while standing on it. Basically super liquid.

• Confusion Floor: stops the player from using abilities while standing on it.

• Power Floor: enemies gain the power status effect while standing on it.

“The glyphs are not mere mechanisms. Each carries its own vibration, its own symbolic resonance. They are living notes in a subtle cosmic symphony that few can hear."

NEW MONSTERS:

Working on a new set of monsters specifically for the Vault-of-Yendor. The graphics are all placeholder right now, just copied from elsewhere in the dungeon. Even the actual theming and names should be treated as totally temporary.

I'd really like to get these guys streamlined and archetypal. In the live versions of many levels we will be randomly selecting enemies so I want to be able to say like: 3 Melees, 1 Nuker and 1 Support and have all the different combinations work well together.

IRON_GOLEM: The basic tank enemy that creates constant pressure.

• Melee-Attack (MHIGH)

• Grab

• Berserk

KNIGHT_OF_YENDOR: A front line support that hardens enemy formations.

• Melee-Attack (MED)

• Power-Strike (HIGH)

• On-Hit: Heals adjacent allies

SHADOWED_ASSASSIN: Extremely deadly melee unit that cannot be ignored.

• Poison-Attack (HIGH)

• Shadow-Step

• Invisibility

DEMOTAUR: An aggressive melee unit that messes with player positioning.

• Trample (MHIGH)

• Lunge (HIGH)

• Mounting-Fury: he gains damage every few turns up to a cap. This is just Creeping-Doom without the need to cast it as an action (I should probably change Creeping-Doom to work the same).

YENDOR_SHARP_SHOOTER: The most basic 'nuker'. His long range sniper shots allow him to temporarily zone out parts of the level. I'm experimenting with the cool-down/duration on sniper mode. I'm not sure how much I want him to just act as a 'zoning' unit that is mostly stationary, repositioning only to get a new line of sight.

• Arrow-Attack (MLOW)

• Sniper-Shot (HIGH) - I'll probably set the range to this to be effectively infinite. You must out LoS him.

• Sniper-Mode

ARCH_MAGE_POISON: Another 'nuker'. I'm somewhat unsure of this one. I want to include both clouds and slow projectiles but in enclosed space he has a tendency to kill his allies easily. Given the small levels I almost feel like Poison-Cloud needs to only expand to the 5 tile + but that would seem odd.

• Life-Spike

• Poison-Arrow (HIGH) - the slow moving ones

• Poison-Cloud: (MED)

ARCH_MAGE_FIRE: This guy works much better since the Fire-Orbs don't friendly fire and create a constant pressure. I'm still looking for a 3rd ability or aura.

• Fire-Projectile (MED)

• Homing-Fire-Orb (HIGH) - a very short cool-down

• A very high fire Damage-Shield (this could possibly be Fire-Damage when adjacent)

ARCH_MAGE_SUMMONER: Just our basic summoner. Kind of boring in this form but we do need some representation of this concept.

• Magic-Projectile (MED)

• Summon-Blades

• Summon-Battle-Sphere

MIND_BENDER: A basic disruption enemy that messes with the player without directly damaging him.

• Magic-Projectile (MED)

• Mental-Tether: summons a 'totem thing' adjacent to the player which charms him at the same time. The player is now unable to move away for 5T. He can still circle the totem thing or blink.

• Confusion - I've changed confusion globally to only shut down abilities. I don't really like the small chance for random movement.

CRYO_KNIGHT: A melee version of a disrupter that is more focused on boxing the player in. Tried this initially with clouds and as expected he mostly just killed his own guys. So trying out an immobile melee summon to try to fill the same niche.

• Ice-Lance (MHIGH)

• Summon Ice-Construct: immobile melee enemy designed to zone off space (without killing allies).

• Wall-of-Ice

PRIEST_OF_YENDOR: Another one that needs to exist but is pretty boring.

• Smite - with only 2CD

• Torment

• Heal

SHIELD_KNIGHT: A front line support that really hardens enemy formations.

• Melee-Attack (MED)

• Force-Whip-Pull - the one that brings the player right to him

• Force Shields adjacent allies.

"To call them monsters is so... limiting. Each is a unique brushstroke, sculpted from the clay of intention and woven into the story and harmony of the overall composition."

YENDOR LEVELS:

There are currently 10 levels to test in Danger-School under the Test-Levels course. I'll be adding to this list every few days and refining the existing ones in response to feedback. I'm gonna focus mainly on getting the Basic-Arenas and Portal-Waves working first and exploring some variations. This should let us dial in the monsters and glyphs, as well as add some new ones. Dynamic Levels and Gimmicks will come a little later.

I'm focusing on the Glyphs right now because thats what I implemented first. There's a whole bunch of more special case stuff that I'd like to add throughout this update and over the course of development. So these first vaults are glyph heavy but that won't be reflected in the final total level pool.

Again I should point out that these levels are barely even a first draft. I'm treating it as a little experimental test lab where we can figure out how all these new mechanics are actually going to function.

“I don’t design... levels. I discover them. Flickering sparks buried beneath murky water, clouded by the fog of assumptions. I merely chip away at the noise until the Truth reveals itself."

Other Stuff:

Global Enemy Ability Caps

This applies everywhere in the dungeon and I hope will help make fights a bit easier to follow. Basically I can flag enemy abilities to have some limit to the number that all enemies can use in a single turn. So instead of 3 guys casting clouds in a single turn, you will get 1 cloud per turn. This makes it easier to read while allowing the NPCs to do other stuff with their turns (use their other abilities).

Examples

• Clouds: 1

• Blink-Ally: 1

• Surround-Blink: 1

• NPC-Jump: 2

• Lunge: 2

• Power-Strike: 2

• Power-Cleave: 1

• Smite: 2

• Shadow-Step: 1

On reflection. Smite and Power-Strike should probably be 1 as well since they are guaranteed to be targeted at the same tile. I can pretty easily turn this off on an enemy to enemy basis if we need it for special enemies or a boss fight or whatever.

Fire Ball:

• Focused: same range as base, removes AoE so its a single tile, 24DMG. Trying it with a 3T Cool-Down. This should be the best single tile nuke in the game.

• Extended: +2 Range and Perfect Aim

• AoE: a 3x3 AoE

Shadow Step:

• Base version will no longer lose agro as this is far too powerful.

• Losing agro is now an upgrade.

• Power: gain 1T of Power after Shadow-Stepping. For setting up big shots. Could extend to 2-3T potentially.

Shock: Pushing the Storm-Mage away from raw damage and into a more Crowd-Control roll.

• 16DMG => 8DMG

• Now has an innate 1T stun that can be upgraded to 2T

Burst of Wind:

• No Damage

• Base Knock-Back 2 => 1

• Knock-Back is now effected by Magic-Power. At low Magic-Power it is still 2 as before but it can now scale higher.

CONCLUSION:

So yeah! Thats it for now! Not a whole lot to start with but the beginning of what should be a really fun update cycle. I'm planning to spend at least a few weeks on this with the goal being to get about 40-50 levels created and refined. At the end of this rolling update I'll push it all into the main game and we'l have a brand new Vault-of-Yendor! Much like the boss rolling update, feedback and suggestions are super appreciated. As mentioned at the top, getting this 'right' is really critical.

UPDATE 1.26.1:

Yendor Test Levels Another 10 levels to test out. The plan right now is just to release these in batches of 10 as quickly as possible and try new things with each iteration. Based on feedback I'll just put the bottom half or so in the 'reject' pile. I don't want to waste a bunch of time right now trying to save things that arnt working. I'm not even quite sure what is gonna work so this is largely exploratory. Def appreciate feedback here! Even just a simple x/3 rating for each level would help a lot in terms of narrowing down on what is and is not working.

• 2 x Lich Levels. Smaller versions of the ones we have in the main game.

• 2 x Steve Levels. Making Rethlits little guy cannon. These fights have an invulnerable enemy that cannot be killed until the rest of the level is complete.

• 2 x Quad-Hoard levels. Again smaller versions of ones we already have.

• 4 x Portal + Glyph levels. Trying to refine how these play.

Balancing

• Mind-Benders should never cast a second Mental-Tether if one is already on the board.

• Speed Floor: 5CD => 10CD (to discourage camping them)

• Elemental overload now stops movement

• Elementals: HP MED => MLOW (not sure why they were med)

• Imp-Blink: 3CD => 5CD (don't make it so spammy and hard to track)

• Imp-Blink: 7-Range => 5-Range

• Imp-Blink: Distance to player of destination: 7-Range => 5-Range

• Minder-Bender Confusion: 5DUR => 10DUR (make player break LoS)

• Arch-Mage-of-Summoning: Summon-Blades: 5CD => 3CD

• Toxic-Lich (Poison-Cloud): 5CD => 4CD

• Toxic-Lich (Revive-Skeleton): 4CD => 3CD

Bugs and Crashes

• All bosses now spawn in Palace.

UPDATE 1.26.2:

Yendor Test Levels 10 more levels with some different themes. Exploring a few new mechanics with this set. I'm planning on releasing one final set of 10 maps after this one. I'll then be spending some time working on a brand new tile-set for Yendor, getting some assets for the new glyphs, machines, etc. Get all the new NPCs properly sprited.

After that I'll do a bunch of clean up on the new levels and the old, existing Yendor levels. Try to take all the feedback into consideration and get the best set of approximately 50 I can. I'll then be templating everything so that all the spawn tables, portal waves etc. are randomized. So we can have the same maps with quite drastically different sets of mobs. All in all, should be a big improvement over our current set of about 20 static levels.

Had a great discussion with Rethlit about a week ago regarding the overall structure and progression of Yendor. We've settled on aiming for 4 levels in Vault-of-Yendor. The first level is the biggest, most impressive and longest. This could end up being a real grind fest. The players first introduction to the Vaults. The levels would then get smaller, tigher and faster as the player descends. So there is a feeling of gaining momentum. When you get to Yendor himself. His 3 phases would then reverse this order. First phase short, last phase long and elaborate. In this way we can have big climactic fights at the start and end of the end game, with the middle not dragging or feeling grindy.

• Sentinel Levels: levels that are intended to test the players ability to handle swarms of enemies. Using the Sentinels from Arcane Tower + Arch Summoners. In the final level set, I'm not sure if these will be special levels themselves or whether I will have monster sets and portal wave lists that are focused on 'swarms'. This would mean that any of our more generic levels could randomly be generated as a 'swarm level'.

• Furnace Levels: a proof of concept of a more elaborate 'machine' type level. Has a big central furnace (that will need a bunch of custom sprites) and a set of 3 vents that rotate open and closed. Player must move around the arena and destroy all the vents. The furnace creates walls of fire, spawns Iron-Golems, and summons temporary swarms of Fire-Vortices. The current levels are fairly short but these may end up getting buffed up quite a bit and used as the big/long 1st levels described above.

• AddedSlime Tank Levelsbig toxic waste area full of slimes. A new object: Slime-Tank that will suck in adjacent slimes that have been damaged (smaller) and spit them back out at full HP. Another possible candidate for big/long 1st levels. I think these are definitely 'solvable' with some clever positioning but otherwise they have a tendency to get quite out of control.

• Crypt Levels: reworks of some existing VoY levels. The ones with Glyph-Doors and Liches. Once again these could potentially be spiced up and made 1st levels.

• AddedGeomancer Levelsreusing existing levels from earlier sets but with a new NPC (see below). A common 'problem' was that players were almost always incentivized to fight in corridors on these maps. This new NPC hard counters that kind of gameplay. The idea here is that once all these levels have their monster sets/spawn waves randomized, the same map with a different set of monsters could play out drastically differently.

Geomancer: Purpose of this mob is that, when it shows up in a level, either prespawned, spawned by portal, or even a whole level dedicated to these, that the player will now need to play very carefully around walls and tunnels. The Geomancers main ability is Wall-Punch which deals a pretty hefty chunk of physical damage for every wall adjacent to the player. This should eventually have an animation of some big stone fist punching you. The range an this is pretty short at only 4.0, so its not as if the moment he spawns you need to leave a corridor. He can also summon rock walls behind the player to trap him in corridors.

Balancing:

• Smite: maxPerTurn: 2 => 1. These are targeted on player like 99% of time and so there is no reason to have two overlapping.

• Homing-Fire-Orb: maxPerTurn: 1. This should help reduce some of the spam from these.

• Mirror-Image: maxPerTurn: 1. This stops these enemies from getting out of hand quite so fast.

• AdjustedArcane-Sentinelmade them higher HP, higher DMG, but also increased the mirror-image CD.

• Shield-Knight: Melee-DMG MED => MHIGH. Just want to make him more of a threat.

• Orcish-Battle-Armor: all pieces -1Protection. The +Melee is good enough as is.