[ideas]: entrance randomizer (general)

[foxsouns]

inclusion of excluded rooms:

• rooster key cave, pit exit: treat rooster key cave as a one-way (two-entrance) cave: whatever gets linked to it would be a teleport to within rooster key cave, and pitting out would link back to said linked entrance.
• mabe well: treat like desert cave, aka put mabe well as a one-entrance cave with the rest, and have room linked to a different exit
• outside d4 cave: make entrance staircase to be always a tile, and place a tile next to it. allows player to dead-end without the key, but not softlock.

sub-modes:

• "Split": split pools, as it works currently
• "Crossed": the single and double entrance pools are mixed together, allowing for any entrance to be either typing

[kbranch]

I think Daid has said that the connector/simple pools weren't mixed because generation often failed. I think we've added quite a few new connections in logic recently, especially for ER - I'd be curious to see if the situation is different these days.

[muffinjets]

I've always been of the opinion that the entrance rando categories should be reworked anyway. The entrances added between Advanced and Expert isn't all that large of a difficulty change, and the two entrances added for Insanity are also really not that big of a jump either to be honest.

My take:

• Simple: All single-entrance caves, whether or not they have a check behind them
• Split: Simple, but connector caves are shuffled amongst each other
• Mixed: All entrances shuffled amongst each other

I use "Mixed" instead of "Crossed" to match the wording used by other Zelda randoes. "Crossed" is used by the ALttPR community, but specifically for connectors between the light and dark worlds, I wouldn't want to cause confusion.

I also like the idea of shuffling the back doors to D6 and D8 into the entrance pool like how Z4R did once upon a time. I don't know if those would be considered connector caves at that point, so I don't know if/how dungeons would be considered part of my Simple/Split pools.

[foxsouns]

you know, i think i like that
maybe something like this?:

---

Entrance Randomizer Mode:

• Vanilla [Entrances are not randomized.]
• Simple [Single entrance caves are randomized.]
• Split [Simple, and connector caves are shuffled amongst each other.]
• Mixed: [Split, but all entrances share the same pool.]

Entrance Randomizer Difficulty:

• Casual [Does not randomize empty single-entrance caves, excludes problematic entrances.]
• Normal [(Only) excludes problematic entrances.]
• Advanced [Split/Mixed] [Allows minorly problematic entrances. Excludes a few really annoying entrances.]
• Expert [Split/Mixed] [All entrances will be randomized.]

[foxsouns]

or, maybe, just a checklist?
options being:

Entrance randomizer:

• Vanilla [Entrances are not randomized.]
• Simple [Single entrance caves are randomized.]
• Split [Simple, and connector caves are shuffled amongst each other.]
• Mixed: [Split, but all entrances share the same pool.]

Options:
[ ] Allow non-check single-entrances?
[ ] Allow softlocks?
[ ] Allow annoying entrances?

[muffinjets]

I like that, the vanilla/simple/split/mixed and the checkboxes. I am curious as to what the "annoying entrances" are, though I admit I play ER often enough that I simply don't know what a casual player finds harder

[foxsouns]

I like that, the simple/split/mixed and the checkboxes. I am curious as to what the "annoying entrances" are, though I admit I play ER often enough that I simply don't know what a casual player finds harder

The water rooms (mambo, damp cave), and raft return, all to prevent softlocks, i think.

[foxsouns]

OH WAIT SORRY

[foxsouns]

@muffinjets those are the softlocks category: oops.
the "annoying entrances" are raft shop and desert cave i think? people should not let me think lol. it's raft shop and mamu.

[foxsouns]

(i dont mind desert cave :>
i think we should make more >:3
can you tell? hehe)

[foxsouns]

first comment update: had an idea on how to make outside d4 cave work

[kbranch]

Entrance randomizer dropdown options:

• Vanilla [Entrances are not randomized.]
• Simple [Single entrance caves are randomized.]
• Split [Simple, and connector caves are shuffled amongst each other.]
• Mixed: [Split, but all entrances share the same pool.]

Checkboxes:
[ ] Allow non-check single-entrances?
[ ] Allow softlocks?
[ ] Allow annoying entrances?

@daid, do you approve of something like this? I'm working on mixing the pools and don't want to get too deep if this approach wouldn't get merged.

[daid]

How will you make sure that mixing pools actually works? As I split them to actually get working seeds.

[kbranch]

I actually went ahead and put together an initial pass at it on my fork: master...kbranch:LADXR:mixed_er

The general idea is:

• Create a Logic object and count how many locations are created with the default entrance map
• Assign entrances totally randomly without separate pools
• Create another Logic object and compare the count against the correct one
• If the counts don't match, pick a random inaccessible entrance and swap it with a random accessible entrance
• Repeat until the location count matches the reference

It's not particularly clever, but I feel like it's in the spirit of making things as random as possible. It adds very little time to generation, as far as I can tell so far.

I still want to take another pass at it and clean things up, but it seems to work.

[daid]

oh, swapping, that is smart :)
I think the counting might be done differently/smarter, but not 100% sure.

[kbranch]

Yeah, I don't love the mess of list comprehension. It also occurred to me that bingo 25 could potentially be unbeatable as it stands - it needs to look at locations rather than items.