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[Urist McCheeseMaker]

This idea is loosely based on a comment on the big nasties in hell: they're supposed to be undefeatable (mostly), but if you manage to beat them, you can keep beating them and it simply gets routine and easy. Plus, you have nothing else left to dig towards.

Here's my idea: the first layer of hell works like it does now. You have slade all over the place, flaming pits of doom-and-garbage-disposal, and all the familiar goodies/baddies you've come to expect and love of DF's unique flavour of hell.

But... not all of it is slade. There are holes and cracks, that a skilled dwarf can dig through. Can you guess where they lead? That's right! Worse hell! So... The creatures get automatically generated, like before, but some of their bodily materials get copied from the originals and tweaked to be slightly different. Maybe demons made of copper that's 10% lighter and 5% weaker than normal copper, or hellhounds with firey muscles that are unnaturally tough and strong. The materials surrounding this hell would also be slightly different versions of the stuff we all know. If you're lucky, you get bright-green adamantine-but-not that's heavier but just as strong, making it perfect for warhammers. If you're unlucky, you get a slightly different-looking microcline. There's a few off these altered materials scattered all over the place. Mods could also introduce materials that only start occuring past the n'th layer of hell, just like some things only occur below the n'th layer of rocks or the n'th layer of caverns.

This is, of course, assuming that it's even possible to generate creature types on the fly. The forgotten beasts lead me to believe it is. It also assumes that additional z-levels can be added to the bottom of a map. I don't think this is in yet, though it'd be fun to mess with. Doing the same up into the sky would be awesome, at least, but that's another topic.

Next layers of hell would simply follow the same rules, getting another bit scarier and weirder, and probably more dangerous. Dig down far enough and you'd probably encounter bubblemonsters that can't even be popped anymore!-... that is, if you survive the fluffy wamblers from HELLLLL..... layer 81 or so.


The idea behind this all is, of course, that fortmode players always have a next, simple challenge to follow rather than having to make up their own. It'd be fun for the more gamey-style players. It probably wouldn't bother the other types at all, and it'd probably bring them something new to mess with too. If you're feeling suicidal and one "dug too deep" isn't enough for you, you just keep on digging until the world warps around you, the monsters are eldritch and the beer starts tasting funny. And that's, me laddy, where the fun begins!

[Silverionmox]

If map space is problem, the monsters can also come in waves. Each wave are mutated (randomized) versions of the hell-dwellers that caused the most mayhem in the last wave. Natural selection will overcome any defense.

[RabidAnubis]

I know that Toady is going to add an afterlife to the game.  Perhaps as you went lower your troops would start to lose their hinges on reality.....   things slowly becoming stranger and stranger.

And I sort of don't like the idea of adamantine to be ruined.  It's the metal of the gods.  Maybe there should be one more metal but it would have to be totally different for adamantine not to lose it's flavor.  As the game is, the idea is that greed will get you eventually, but you don't know when.

So, I think that the more you walk around in hell the more difficult it should be.  They shouldn't have to make hell multilayered to keep it interesting.

[Drago55577]

maybe the deeper you go, the more treasures you find....or "surprises"

[Aachen]

Forgotten beasts and Candykeepers are created as part of world gen. Infinite layers, with candykeepers tied to depth, would need to be included in the world-gen, right? And if the whole purpose of this idea is to extend the "final level" farther and farther into the future, it would end up making the world-generation step extend infinitely into the future .... kinda keeps one from playing ("OH FOR THE LOVE OF ARMOK, use the world as it already exists! I've been waiting weeks!").

So, "infinitely" is out, or demands new code creating a candykeeper-generating process that functions during fortress mode (and otherwise, I guess, as adventurers can probably find the deep holes attached to player-created sites.

Still, it seems a very gamey challenge. How long before it just gets dull and not worth the trouble? And, I don't think adding a new flavor of candy will make it much more interesting. I mean, will it be anti-candy? Great, I guess, if you want even-more-hammery hammers. Hell, if anything, I'd rather see some weird, rare mushrooms or trees or .... with all that requisite code to accomplish what you're suggesting, it makes as much sense to have strange procedurally-generated materials to find. That would at least be a bit fresher than "O! A spiffy new metal I have absolutely no need for!" I don't know. It doesn't seem like this suggestion will add much more than cheap-trick challenge. I'd rather see time devoted to improving the vast areas of the game that are already planned. Much of the too-be-developed stuff will likely add quite a bit of challenge to the game.

[Urist McCheeseMaker]

Procedurally-generated materials are actually kind of what I suggested. They don't have to be alterations of existing metals, of course. And yeah, perhaps adamantine should be sacred and unique, with a tag that prevents anything from changing its properties further down.

Either way, I can't imagine a lot of technical problems with generating things on the fly.. if nobody in the world has ever encountered the stuff before, it doesn't need to exist throughout all of worldgen. The only problem is that you'd probably be able to keep savescumming until it generates the things you want.

Aachen might be right about it losing its appeal sooner or later. At least, as much as hell currently loses its appeal as well: it's the same challenge, with the bar simply raised a little higher. Perhaps it could re-run the cavern-generating process when you dig deep enough, using predictably-random stuff like perlin noise to make each new cavern layer match up to the ones that could generate in blocks next to it. And then, the parameters of this generation process could also be tweaked randomly, of course. There's a lot you could do with it.

[peskyninja]

Hell instead of being ifinite could "chage" or mutate somehow, through my experiences with RAW dupes a tile can change its material.(once some soil tiles in adv mode mutated every step to a random mineral/rock/soil/gem.)

[Wyrm]

Progressive generation is the way to give the illusion of infiniteness. Generate the new hells piecemeal. As the fortress breaks into one hell, a deeper hell is generated underneath. That way, there's always more hell.

[Jessoftherocks]

Yea! Unobtainium ....wait isn't unobtainable I'm confused.

[Talvieno]

Infinite levels are impossible, unless generated as you pierce one layer and get to the next. Two types of adamantine I think I could do without, though I'm sure many players would find that the idea of extra waves of demons might be fun (a vile force of darkness kinda thing). Randomly generated metals wouldn't be that great... The game isn't currently designed for it, for one thing.

I like the idea of going just one level deeper... And that's when the real fun begins. An even bigger wave (or perhaps just the same size, but with demons of ridiculous size and power), and repeating smaller waves at pseudo-regular intervals afterwards. And perhaps the ability to mine slade in the deeper hells? Slade would make for one hell of a war hammer. pun intended. But seriously, if silver is good, imagine slade... That would pack an incredible punch.

[Drago55577]

Just one lvl deeper, one more, keep going, ops
a vile force of darkness has arrived.

[Urist McCheeseMaker]

To me, the main thing is just the whole infinite "dug too deep-... again" aspect of it. And yeah, each level of hell should probably be generated as the last one gets discovered. I don't know about the randomly generated metals materials, they just seemed like a cute bonus when you actually manage to survive a level or two.

[dwarfhoplite]

Try to beat clowns without danger room

[Urist McCheeseMaker]

I never used danger rooms to begin with. It just doesn't seem like the thing a dwarf would do: dodge some mechanisms and claim to be a fully-trained fighter. The biggest danger to my wardwarves are lost savegames, not clowns.

[Crazyjosh]

I quite like the idea of more levels of hell, kinda like a nine circle concept, but I think it would lose the appeal after a while like other people have already mentioned. Personally I'd quite like a standard hell section, then underneath that a z-level or two with a large spawn of Megabeasts (10-15 or so) or something else that guarantees a lot of fun, then it'll give all the hardcore players a challenge