Visibly inform the player of Boss Encounter Timer

[Murphy's Ghost]

Please add a countdown, or even a small message/hint in the log after the boss does their intro line, or a warning after some time passes, that lets the player know they must defeat the boss within a time limit.

There is currently no way for a new player to know that after a few hundred turns, their character is stuck forever. I am crushed

[Faust]

Wait, what? I didn't even know that was a thing. What happens to you? Do they commit suicide by sealing the entrance or something?

[Murphy's Ghost]

Originally posted by Faust:

Wait, what? I didn't even know that was a thing. What happens to you? Do they commit suicide by sealing the entrance or something?

As far as I know, this happens only in random encounters when you clear a dungeon floor. After the time limit (360 turns?) has passed, the boss destroys the stairs and leaves. Travel button does not work anymore after that. I looked it up and this was apparently to prevent players from starving the boss to death. I didn't even know enemies had hunger.

Personally I was underleveled and underprepared and rested, went through every item on the large level, and dug a tunnel into the big room so I wouldn't get surrounded. Tense, I peeked in to fight my first miniboss and found out what fate awaits the overly cautious.

If there had been some kind of warning, I would have fought in time and maybe even won using scrolls and wands. Unfortunately I had to retire the character. I don't know if a scroll of time warp would have helped in this situation, I had one in storage

[Faust]

Originally posted by M-Werdna:

Originally posted by Faust:

Wait, what? I didn't even know that was a thing. What happens to you? Do they commit suicide by sealing the entrance or something?

As far as I know, this happens only in random encounters when you clear a dungeon floor. After the time limit (360 turns?) has passed, the boss destroys the stairs and leaves. Travel button does not work anymore after that. I looked it up and this was apparently to prevent players from starving the boss to death. I didn't even know enemies had hunger.

Personally I was underleveled and underprepared and rested, went through every item on the large level, and dug a tunnel into the big room so I wouldn't get surrounded. Tense, I peeked in to fight my first miniboss and found out what fate awaits the overly cautious.

If there had been some kind of warning, I would have fought in time and maybe even won using scrolls and wands. Unfortunately I had to retire the character. I don't know if a scroll of time warp would have helped in this situation, I had one in storage

Timewarp would have 99.99% likely helped. That is kinda funny, I never even knew that was a thing in my almost 500 hours.

The game features occasional bizarre and unforseen troll events like this specifically as an underhanded gotcha against those the developer deems to be cheesing too hard. Unfortunately this is not something that is intended for tutorialization, or even a fair warning, nor is it something that is likely to change. In one of the latest patches, for example, he made a certain mushroom monster have an attack that arbitrarily fears you through fear immunity, possibly for no other reason than because I said at some point that food and water have been completely and utterly trivialized by the shroom bowl item.

Something you should know about this game is that it's just really spiteful. Childishly so. It WANTS to be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ towards you and it WILL cackle and dance around your dead body if it ever gets you, which it will try to at every turn. This is by design. It wants you to fail more than it wants you to succeed. Like one of those rage platformers back in the day, Cat Mario and whatnot. Requires a certain 'not exactly normal or healthy' kind of mindset to enjoy it.

[Murphy's Ghost]

No skin off my nose. I used to be a Nethack nut, but I'm starting to think Rogue's Tale is up there with the classics. The abyssal lows make succeeding later so gratifying. It's so damn good

[Faust]

Then I welcome you to the asylum. It's good that your mindset resonates with the game.