kieranmillar
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DROD has an absolutely huge number of game elements, but which ones bring you the most joy? Here are three similar but not necessarily identical qusstions to have a think about for fun. People often talk about the ones they hate the most, so let's reverse it.

What is your favourite game element?

Which game element to you think is the best designed?

What element do you think is most underappreciated by architects?

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 06-05-2016 12:27 AM]

Insoluble
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Fun idea for a thread. Here are my thoughts.

What is your favourite game element?
That's a toughie. I tend to like elements that have a good deal of complexity, but a complexity that is completely predictable. Red Serpents, Aumtlich, and Time Tokens are probably in the top three. They all have a lot of interesting interactions with other elements, and are relatively complex on their own. But they are all 100% predictable making for some super interesting puzzles.

Which game element to you think is the best designed?
That's another tough question. I don't know much about the design process, and tend to think of good design as almost synonymous as fun to see in puzzles. As strange as it sounds, I think Red Serpents are my top pick for this one. I recall reading something that Erik had written somewhere about how the alternating every 5 turns was just a whim to make the movement pattern look interesting. But the rules for serpents just hit this sweet spot of complexity that makes for fascinating puzzles. It's not too complex to work out what should be going on, but complex enough to make super interesting solutions based on the behavior. Tar and shallow water would be good runners up for this category for similar reasons.

What element do you think is most underappreciated by architects?
Crumbly walls. They're super powerful, they essentially let the player create the design space of the room. There's a super neat level in Jutt's hold Six Times Six that does a good job demonstrating this potential, but I feel like I don't see crumbly walls used as a focal point of a puzzle that often.

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superluminal
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Favorite element:
Temporal tokens, full stop. They're the most creative idea I've ever seen in a game. DROD takes on an entirely new dimension with them, and it's a nice change of pace from how I'm used to thinking about puzzles. I can feel myself completely shifting gears when I see a temporal token: there's so many crazy things you can do with them! No other element does that for me. I bet you temporal tokens have increased the number of puzzle possibilities a thousandfold, maybe more than any other element.

Best-designed element:
Shallow water is pretty brilliant. I liked how it was used in GatEB, and loved it in Flood Warning. Alone, it's already pretty cool. But how well it can be used in tandem with so many other elements still blows my mind. It interacts in enough distinct ways to work in a million different puzzles, but it's still consistent enough to be easy to work with. In the end, that's the most you can hope for from a new element.

Least utilized element:
It's a tossup between a lot of elements, actually. I'd say builders, engineers, and soldier and squad horns all go underappreciated (maybe rightly so). Builders have a lot of working parts -- namely how they interact with relay stations in weird and confusing new and interesting ways -- to be totally predictable, and I think trying to understand how a puzzle will play out when the room layout is changed is a bit much to ask of the player. Temporal tokens have the same problem, but at least the biggest change to consider is your own actions. Engineers solve the relay station confusion, but I haven't seen a lot of them yet. And the horn elements are just bizarre. What was the point of them? I've never seen anybody aside from the Caravel Team use them well if at all. But there's probably a few good puzzles yet to be seen. I can't wait.

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GerAvos
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What is your favourite game element?
I like everything, but most favourite are time split points, bombs, fuses and powder kegs.

Which game element do you think is the best designed?
The temporal time split point. It's a great concept and it works so well.

Can't comment on the last question yet, because I'm fairly new to DROD.

Lucky Luc
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Alright, let's see ... (I'm going for definite answers here, though different elements may be pretty close)

Favourite:
From a player's point of view, I'm gonna go with brains here. I love the quirks of brain pathmapping, brained / unbrained switching and other fun stuff you can do.
From an architect's point of view, I will have to say pressure plates. They just make so much stuff so much easier and are pretty surely the non-trivial (i. e. no walls / floors / pits) elements I use most often.

Best designed:
Though some people might disagree, I'm going with tar (+ mothers) here. I just have to take something from the original game, because, no matter how much I love the new games, I just want to acknowledge the brilliant concept of DROD, and tar is the perfect embodiment. It has super simple but creative rules that are easy to predict, but still lead to a variety of really cool puzzles; so basically everything DROD is about.

Most underappreciated:
Bridges. I'm sure there's so much puzzle potential still unexplored for them because architects (including myself) tend to overlook them. I guess Koenigsburg Swamps is a good example for this (though I must admit I don't think I've ever managed to solve more than three rooms of that hold).

PigmyWubba
Level: Master Delver
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What is your favourite game element?Briar, Apart from the obvious things you can do with it; it's also very effective in creating advanced door systems and locks which I like quite a bit.

Which game element do you think is the best designed? Gentryii, it has a lot of interactions with pretty much everything; It's simple to understand but complex enough to be interesting.

What element do you think is most underappreciated by architects? Also Briar, I only occasionally see briar locks similar to what I like to make, I really couldn't live without this stuff.


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Chaco
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Favorite element: A tough question to answer as always. Probably bombs. They explode and it's cool, and occasionally useful. Kegs and fegundos explode too, but bombs explode farther.

Best designed element: Tar (and tarstuff mothers). Combines both the macro level (figuring out what regions tar will grow into, and what shapes and cuttability entire blobs have, and the micro level with how you cut individual sections, and how to deal with the individual tar babies themselves, which have plenty of puzzle potential in and of themselves. All edge cases are covered and tar can be as threatening or unthreatening as the architect wants.

Most underappreciated element: Evil Eyes. They may just seem like roaches that hold still until awoken, but they're great at enforcing room conditions, preparing ambushes, delineating regions, and activating other mechanisms. I've seen lots of scripted events that could have just been replaced with evil eyes. Even without mirrors, decoys or shallow water, they have plenty of subtle potential in and of themselves.

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[Last edited by Chaco at 06-05-2016 06:36 PM]

Jutt
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Favourite
Tarstuff is by far my favourite of all elements. Technically that would be three elements, that are also intrinsically linked to mothers and babies, but they are similar enough to count as one, and can be even switched into each other with tokens.

I think tarstuff has some of the richest puzzle potential of all elements. Not only that, but the three types seem to complement each other perfectly, each having their own unique properties. Also I'm a complete sucker for the the fascinating mathematical theory behind tarstuff removability. To me the tarstuffs form the holy trinity of deep puzzle design.


Best design
While tarstuff is incredibly well designed, I feel it is almost accidental how well it turned out. Many intresting properties were only discovered later, and mud and gel were more logical extensions to tar than completely new and innovative concepts. Granted, I think exactly the right decisions were made on some details of mud and gel to make them work most effectively.

However, when it comes to best original design, the aumtlich comes to mind. They still stand out to me as the most original element that got added in TCB – their ability to affect the player at a distance was completely novel. They provide a good mix of concepts familiar from the pre-TCB era as well as completely new mechanics for their beams. And they have shown to be remarkably useful in architecture in all sorts of unexpected situations. Of all the monsters added throughout the years, the aumtlich was for me the last truly game changing monster.

An honourable mention goes to the new weapons added in TSS.


Underappreciated
There are several elements that are underused, that I feel are not that interesting or well designed in the first place. I can't blame architects eschewing builders because of their chaotic behaviour. Another example is arrow rotators, which are not really flawed, but many of their uses are already fairly well covered by doors.

However, For underused puzzle element I'm making a case for a slightly unusual element: broken walls. Yea, these have been around since the very beginning. Yet they mostly serve as a basic element, that is either used to obscure secrets (like its cousin, the secret wall), or plays the role of a single use door. But as a major puzzle element it occurs fairly rarely. I really like it though, when architects find a proper, creative puzzle use for broken walls, and I have made a fair number of rooms with broken wall puzzles myself.

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Holds: An Architects Audition, Artful Architecture, Salamander, Elusive Exhibitions, Leftover Levels, Six Times Six
Collaborative: Way Forward, Advanced Concepts 2
Styles/Mods: Basalt, Sandstone, Garden, Clock using game elements

Red-XIII
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Favorite element: Hard question but if I really have to choose, I'd say pressure plates, they have infinite puzzle potenzial as they can relate to all other elements, and I use them a lot in my holds too.

Best designed element: Also tough question, I'd say WW in groups, I still didn't fully understand their behaviour, and when they are brained it's even harder. But I also like the aumtlich.

Most underappreciated element: I think this is pretty personal (for example, I love EE and crumbly walls), but I'd say citizien/builders/stalwarts, they have lot of puzzle potential but I rarely see them in regular holds.


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kieranmillar
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I think it's time I answered my own thread. Lots of other responses here making me uhhmmm and ahhh a bit over my own choices, because they raise excellent points and I agree, but I'll settle on these:

Favourite Element
I think shallow water is my favourite. I think invisiblity as a mechanic works so much better when it is limited to only working in certain places, I like that it is ground that some monsters can traverse while others can't. I like the ability to create stepping stones with golems and mirrors. It's got a ton of cool uses.

Best Designed Element
Brains. They're so simple in concept, but it's extremely effective. Pathfinding monsters is a great mechanic but instead of adding a special monster that pathfinds, the brain just modifies all existing monsters, making it much simpler to understand and adding a lot more to the game without pumping the bestiary a huge amount. The fact that pathfinding can also be turned off in a number of ways (invisibility, killing all brains and no way to path find to you) lets you combine and change monster states for a whole variety of puzzles. There's no other game element quite like it and it does so much for what amounts to a monster that just sits there and doesn't move.

Under-appreciated Element
Been very tempted to agree with other people regarding broken walls but ultimately I think I'll have to go with seep. Perhaps it's because they always seem more at home in horde rooms as an additional thing to look out for, or maybe because their use as a monster that can only travel where you can't got duplicated by waterskippers, or maybe it's because they can't activate pressure plates, but it always felt to me like they could easily be used more often than they are. Perhaps I'm wrong though.

Tamsk
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Favourite element
Trapdoors. I still like me a good traversal problem, and simple as the idea of a one-use floor is, architects are still coming up with good uses for the thing. I like their interaction with mimics and constructs, too.

Best-designed element
The Really Big Sword. It's such a fundamental part of the game it might not feel like an element at all, but the idea of the weapon being in a separate space from the character and it taking time to alter facing was one of DROD's really original ideas.

Underappreciated by architects
Stealth. Invisibility potions, shallow water, role-based; sneaking around monsters and choosing the time and place to reveal oneself is fun, and I don't get to do it as much as I'd like.

Aquator
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This is from the perspective of someone who has never built a room that made it past the "rough draft" stage, but has played a fairly substantial amount of them.

Favourite element
Speed Potions. They may not be the most applicable element to use while making a puzzle, but I do think they are a lot of fun: Holding down pressure plates while you're not standing on them on half-turns, being able to wait on hot tiles; speed potions can bend the usual rules of DROD in a way that isn't particularly complicated but still fun. Also, Beethro can become even more of an angel of death than usual in a horde room with one of these.

Best designed element
Firetraps (and fire traps, too!). They are a simple but versatile element that, at least from my experiences, not only allow for some entirely new kinds of puzzles, they also enable architects to build certain puzzles that would have required very elaborate widgets and set-ups to work pre-5.0 far more easily. This also means rooms are less cluttered and less prone to unforeseen solutions that trivialize them. Because of this I think of them as an all-around solid element.

Underappreciated element
Squad horns. Schik's amazing roomsearch tool says there are currently only 32 rooms with at least one squad horn in published holds - and 18 of those are either in GatEB or in Flood Warning. I can definitely see why they are so rare, especially since those two holds already explore most of what you can really do with squad horns, but still. Why won't anyone think of the poor, unloved squad horns.
Edit: Heck, the reason why I put them here is because I totally forgot they even existed before I specifically looked at a list of the game elements to easily pick my favorites.

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[Last edited by Aquator at 06-06-2016 01:43 AM]

hyperme
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Favourite Element

Time Tokens. There are a few ways these could of gone less well, if the game took a more strict approach to paradox creation. But it doesn't, which is what makes them a cool element.

Best Designed

It's kind of a trifecta of elements: Firetraps, Floor Spikes and Seeding Beacons. What makes them special is their simplicity: you can describe each one in a sentence or two. But this simplicity makes them effective building blocks for much more complex things.

Honorable mention to Rock Golems. In AE, monsters never left remains. Golems broke this rule, to great effect.

Most Unloved

I think I have to concur with Aquator and say Horns. I think part of their problem is their connection to Soldiers and Clones. I think if there were a few more Horn types, like a Guard Horn, they'd be more liked.

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Kallor
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My favorite is tar (and other tarstuff too)! If you only had Beethro, floors, walls and one other thing then tar would make the best game. What a great innovation

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skell
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Kallor wrote:
My favorite is tar (and other tarstuff too)! If you only had Beethro, floors, walls and one other thing then tar would make the best game. What a great innovation

I was waiting for someone to say this. Total agreement!

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