Subject: "December 6 - Mazes" Previous topic | Next topic
Printer-friendly copy Email this topic to a friend CF Website
Top General Discussions Announcements Twist the Season to Be Jolly Topic #30
Show all folders

TwistFri 06-Dec-13 01:13 PM
Member since 23rd Sep 2006
3431 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#30, "December 6 - Mazes"


          

Caveat - this post may not be of much interest to CF vets. I do know that some of our playerbase, especially folks new to CF or MUDs in general, sometimes have trouble with mazes.

This post doesn't really contain supersecret l33tz0rr information. It is more along the lines of stuff I've picked up over the course of playing mortals for years and years and years.

So. Mazes.

In my mind, CF really has 3 types of mazes:

1. Not-really-a-maze-at-all Mazes
2. Easy-if-you-look Mazes
3. Pain-in-the-ass Mazes

For type 1, what I'm talking about are areas that seem like there is a maze, but really just have one general random element to them.

One example is the mountains near Udgaard. The mountains are not a maze. There is ONE room, at the top, that has three exits that randomly change each time the area resets. Navigating that area becomes quite a bit simpler once you realize that fact.

Another example is the Barren Wasteland on the way to the Tower of Trothon. The area LEADING TO the Barren Wasteland (Amongst Shifting Sand Dunes) is a true maze (albeit a relatively easy one), but the Barren Wasteland isn't. The only random factor for the Barren Wasteland is actually what room you BEGIN in. And that's a factor of which maze room in Amongst Shifting Sand Dunes you exited. Once you're in Barren Wasteland, nothing is really random. (Side note: While researching this post, I discovered that the greet_prog on skyflashes will fire even on someone who is wizinvis. Many skyflashes met a sad end this day.)


Type 2 is a broad category. The general gist is that these mazes have a "path" to them. Stepping off the path will get you into a Type 3 maze, but if you stick to the path (which is often randomized itself), you can get through via the LOOK command.

The example I'll use for this one is the Shadow Grove. Once you enter it (from the Feanwyn Weald), if you look in the four cardinal directions, you'll see the following descriptions, in different directions each time the area resets:
The dark forest continues in this direction. (You'll see this twice).
The shadows of the forest seem to deepen.
A small path leads back to the road.

If you are trying to move into the Shadow Grove, you'll want to follow the path that says the shadows seem to deepen. If you're trying to get out, you'll take the descriptions that say things like "back to the road" or "signs of life".

Interestingly, the Shadow Grove, once inside, is also not a true maze. The High Tower of Sorcery and other sub-areas that can be reached from it are always in the same place. It's getting into that non-maze area that can be tricky.

The thing to take away from this is that using "look all" will help you in this sort of maze.


Type 3 Mazes are ones that basically have no path. Truly wicked ones don't even have exit descriptions to show you how to get out at all, so you have to simply stumble your way out. You could be in the room that's right next to the exit, but you have no way of knowing if you should go north, east, south, or west (or in extreme cases, up and down).

There is, however, a method to defeating a maze like this. I've seen some folks use a method that involves putting one piece of copper in each room to signify that they've been in that room. I don't really get that method, so I'm not going to explain it.

My method (which I believe Daevryn showed me, many years ago), also involves coins (or some other form of marker). For the purposes of this post, we'll assume our maze only has exits in the four cardinal directions, no up or down.

The general gist of it is this. When you enter a room, if there are no markers in it, you will drop one marker, and you will go north (which direction you choose doesn't matter, so long as you always go the same direction for the number of markers in the room). If there is one marker in it, you drop another marker and go east. If there are two markers in it, you drop another marker and go south. If there are three markers in it, you drop another and go west.

If you enter a room and it has four markers in it, you know you've already exited that room every possible way, so it doesn't matter which direction you choose. Leave the markers alone, and move on to another room.

Using this method, you will eventually exit each room out of each exit, and therefore by brute force you will find everyplace that is reachable through the maze.

This won't always work. For one thing, some mazes are large enough that they'll reset before you can brute force your way through them. Once they reset, all of your markers are meaningless (except rooms with four markers, of course). Also, if someone has gone through the maze before you, and left markers, that makes for problems. Some mazes have exits that actually make you leave the maze and unable to return to it (one-way exit) - if that was the door you were looking for, that's fine, but if not, by the time you get back to the area, it will have reset and all of your markers will be useless.

Still, using this method is better than flailing around at random, in general.

One final note - some mazes (Sands of Sorrow for example) have completely non-descriptive exits at night, but if you are in them during the day, you can use the "exits" command to see the room names of adjoining rooms.


Come back tomorrow for another post! Have something you'd like to see me post about? Email me at twist@carrionfields.com.

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

Reply A real method..., Tac, 09-Dec-13 06:00 PM, #7
Reply RE: December 6 - Mazes, Hutto, 08-Dec-13 08:48 PM, #6
Reply Holy crap, Zephon, 07-Dec-13 08:25 PM, #5
Reply I use the same method for brute force, KaguMaru, 07-Dec-13 11:42 AM, #4
Reply 4th Type of Maze - Disjoint Rooms?, Straklaw, 07-Dec-13 12:13 AM, #3
Reply How I do hard mazes:, Valkenar, 07-Dec-13 12:13 AM, #2
Reply The problem with this method..., Klaak, 10-Dec-13 10:31 AM, #8
Reply Memories, Exit, 06-Dec-13 02:28 PM, #1

TacMon 09-Dec-13 01:04 PM
Member since 15th Nov 2005
2050 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#45, "A real method..."
In response to Reply #0


          

So at some point, when I had to navigate the SoS routinely, I had a bit of code/client script which did this for me, but have since lost it. It is based on a method that was posted to QHCF and is actually far superior to the 1-4 method above, and can be done by hand, though it takes a bit longer (hence the script). The basics are as follows:

Mark each room with distinct number of coins and keep a list of the exits taken from that room and what room they lead to and so on.

So on paper, you mark down something like this (Room # = number of coins in the room)

1) N S E W

Drop 1 coin, move north

1) N - 2, S E W
2) N S E W

Drop 1 coin, move north, now in room with 1 coin (Room #1)

1) N - 2, S E W
2) N - 1, S E W

Now you can either further explore the exits of room 2 (which never works with the 1-4 method) or you can move on to other exits from room 1, and you have it recorded. Lets say we further explore room 2, so we go north to room 2, and then go south... to no coins, so room 3.

1) N - 2, S E W
2) N - 1, S E W
3) N S E W

North takes us to a room with 2 coins, Room 2

1) N - 2, S E W
2) N - 1, S E W
3) N - 2, S E W

East takes us to a room with no coins,

1) N - 2, S E W
2) N - 1, S, E - 4, W
3) N - 2, S E W
4) N S E W

So on and so forth. So long as you have enough copper (and the right aliases/actions/triggers) this is trivially easy to script and will always yield ALL of a maze's exits, so long as you can either see them coming, or they aren't 1 way.

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

HuttoSun 08-Dec-13 06:44 PM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
234 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#40, "RE: December 6 - Mazes"
In response to Reply #0


          

I do something similar to the method you mention for #3, but there is another scenario it doesn't work that you might want to be aware of.

Let's say the correct path is north then west. If you come to room #1, drop a marker and go north, and in the next room go north again and wind up in room #1, then you start going other directions in room #1, you'll never find the exit since you already went north in room #1 the first time.

So ideally you need some way to exhaust every possible sequence of each direction, not just one room off, or try to remember which directions you're trying.

Hutto, the Sleepy

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

ZephonSat 07-Dec-13 05:54 PM
Member since 21st Mar 2007
488 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list
#35, "Holy crap"
In response to Reply #0


          

I had no idea the exit command gave you the room names of the rooms. That is crazy awesome.

I've been playing this long and had no idea. Thanks!

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

KaguMaruSat 07-Dec-13 05:17 AM
Member since 15th Sep 2012
805 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#34, "I use the same method for brute force"
In response to Reply #0


          

Difference is I go west then east and drop a fifth marker at the exit on account of being a super nice guy

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

StraklawFri 06-Dec-13 07:15 PM
Member since 10th Mar 2003
1014 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to send message via AOL IM
#33, "4th Type of Maze - Disjoint Rooms?"
In response to Reply #0


          

I honestly am not 100% certain of these, but I've always felt that this is what's happening in the truly diabolical mazes.

Without even thinking about it, I expect we apply our real world experiences to mazes with the idea that if you just left room A and entered room B, that even in the most random of mazes, one of those exits leads back to room A. In the CF world (or any MUD), this isn't necessarily true. An example of this difference...in even the totally randomized mazes, it feels like *most* of them are set up with a sort of original map in mind, and then the room exits get spun around. Mal'Trakis feels like an example of this. You can get a good sense of where the rooms connect with each other, you just have to sort out which way the exits have been spun around.

However, it *IS* possible that in mazes, you have rooms that don't connect in any logical physical sense. Room A may have exits to B, C, D, and E but room B might connect only to W, X, Y, and Z with no way back to A. Then room C might connect to A, B, X, Y while X connects to A, B, X, and Y as well. The MUD only cares that it knows what room to put you in when you leave a direction, and not that it makes any real world physical sense. Twist's example of brute forcing your way through a maze *should* still be feasible, but I've always felt mazes like this do exist.

Would I be correct, or is this just the depths of despair brought on by large type 3 mazes?

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

ValkenarFri 06-Dec-13 05:29 PM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
1203 posts
Click to send email to this author Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#32, "How I do hard mazes:"
In response to Reply #0


          

I create a kind of map that looks like this:

1: copper
2: agate
3: prism
4: figurine

1n1e2s3w3
2n2e2s1w#
3n2e1s2w4
4n1e$s3w2

The first section uniquely identifies each room, so there are four rooms in this maze and each one has an object I've dropped: a single copper, an agate, a prism, and a figurine. It's built like this:

Start out with nothing written, and you're in a room
1: ???

1:n?e?s?w?

Drop something - a copper maybe
1: copper

Now go north. If you end up in a room with a copper you know you've gone back to 1, so we replace the n? with n1, like this:
1: copper

1:n1e?s?w?

Now go east. If we end up with a fish mark it as above, but if we end up in a room with nothing on the ground, then drop something else, say, an agate, and mark it like this:
1: copper
2: agate

1:n1e2s?w?
2:n?e?s?w?

Now we're in room 2, so we move and end up back in room 2, so we mark it
1: copper
2: agate

1:n1e2s?w?
2:n2e?s?w?

Etc. The advantage of this method is that if the maze resets on you, you still have a unique item in every room. You can build up the exits pretty quickly once the rooms are uniquely identified. If it's a static maze then you have a permanent record of the maze. You can do it by dropping copper counts, but I find that more confusing, personally and it has to be items and not copper because it's easier to see fig(12) than to pick up the copper to see how much was there and drop it again. You can also see which directions you haven't tried, in case there's something interesting there, and you know when you've fully completed the maze.

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

    
KlaakTue 10-Dec-13 09:24 AM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
350 posts
Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list
#48, "The problem with this method..."
In response to Reply #2
Edited on Tue 10-Dec-13 10:31 AM

          

Is that there is at least one maze in the game that causes any non-coin items dropped on the ground to crumble within a very short time. In this maze, the ONLY thing you can drop as an effective method of brute forcing the maze is coins.

One tweak I would make to the brute force method is that when you come into a room with 4 coins, rather than just randomly choosing an exit there, I pick up all four coins, and start over again. This way, not only do I cover all exits in that room, but I systematically cover all exits from ALL rooms. This does mean that several rooms may be covered multiple times, which can bog down the process significantly. However, once you get good with this method, and if you're fast at touch typing, you can start to perform this process extremely rapidly, until you have brute forced every exit out of the maze, without giving the area a chance to reset.

Thus far, I have only found one maze where this doesn't work, and that's because it's a combination of a "path maze" and a random maze, where the "path" is not accessed on the first step into the maze, but you have to go through randomized rooms first to reach it, and the "path" rooms are not shown via the "look" command, OR via the "exits" command. Once you're ON the path, you don't even know that you're on it by room name or room description. I discovered this maze several months ago along with a group of others with whom I was exploring. The method I came up with for besting this maze was one I had thought of years ago, but never had a need to utilize until now.

Buy a whole bunch of scrolls, and several high quality pens that will last through many uses. On each scroll, pen a number using the PEN skill (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc...). Each time you enter an empty room, drop a scroll. Now, while sitting in front of your computer, pull out a sheet of paper and a pencil, and mark that room on the page. Pick an exit and go that direction. If the room is empty, drop another numbered scroll, and mark that room on your paper map. Repeat this process until you have numbered nearly every room in the maze area. During this process, the area will probably reset several times, as it seems to have a fairly short reset time, and each room has aggro mobs you have to deal with, which wastes more time. It doesn't matter if the area resets. The important part is numbering as many rooms as you can. Once you've numbered enough of the path rooms a pattern will begin to emerge. When the area resets, the exits of the randomized rooms will shift around, and those parts of your paper map will become outdated. The path rooms, however, will always still link to the same rooms, and you'll end up with a clear pattern of navigation on your page that you can follow with complete predictability. This is actually a much harder type of maze than a totally random one. I know of two, large, fully randomized mazes in the game (both in explore areas so I won't go into details), and I can navigate those two quite rapidly via my version of the brute force method described above. The one where I used the scrolls, however, our group spent 2 hours trying to brute force that maze before we realized the area was resetting faster than we could map it, due to the aggro mobs and a short reset timer. We also discovered that once you get ON the path, you ever step OFF of it, it's tough to find your way back onto it again unless you have some way to distinguish them as "path" rooms, which the coins brute force method doesn't do. FORTUNATELY, this maze doesn't crumble non-coin objects. If it did, we'd have been screwed.



  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

ExitFri 06-Dec-13 02:26 PM
Member since 04th Mar 2003
121 posts
Click to send private message to this author Click to add this author to your buddy list
#31, "Memories"
In response to Reply #0


          

My very first character, over 15+ years ago (jesus) was some ####ty ranger that didn't know what a maze was and spent maybe 15 minutes heading south in Halfling Lands past the 'beyond a hedge' exit into the forest thinking he had found the biggest area ever in CF.

  

Alert | IP Printer Friendly copy | Reply | Reply with quote | Top

Top General Discussions Announcements Twist the Season to Be Jolly Topic #30 Previous topic | Next topic