Case of top exit Rogue Encampment
4 years ago
Estonia

At first I used this town because I liked the waypoint and town exit positions, but as time went on tpscrollbot discovered act 1 generation patterns and an interesting connection in act 4. Since then it has advanced a little further and I feel like a lot more is to come.

I'm going to attempt to write down all the knowledge I have about this and hope together we can make more discoveries.

Patterns in Act 1: Act 1 starting areas have fixed exit positions all the way to Outer Cloister waypoint based on town exit and turns in Blood Moor/Cold Plains.

I believe the fastest one to be top exit town with right turn Blood Moor and right turn Cold Plains. This is the map most of my records use.

Helpful images: https://imgur.com/a/qUp6tIi » Right turn Blood Moor gives a quick entrance to Cold Plains (no bridge). » Cold Plains has to turn right for this setup to work. Luckily it seems to be the most common one. I reset if I don't get this.

Rest is always the same: » Passage always spawns as a hole in the middle. This setup is faster compared to a wall hole spawn. » Dark wood has a fast exit to Black Marsh. » Black Marsh never has a bridge in the middle. Exit spawns bottom right. » Outer Cloister waypoint is a nice short walk away from Black Marsh. » Outer Cloister waypoint always in the same position.

Confirmed Connections in other acts: » Kurast Bazaar entrance is always in the left corner. (Thanks, BloodRaven!) » Quick right corner Plains of Despair entrance seems very common, but just keep going straight if it didn't spawn there. » Plains of Despair entrance never spawns on the left side.

Connection with Outer Steppes and Arreat Plateau (Thanks, BokserKabaty!) » Quick right exit to Outer Steppes in Plains of Despair always gives top right oriented Arreat Plateau » Straight exit to Outer Steppes always gives top left oriented Arreat Plateau

Unconfirmed, but plausible » Top left and top right Arcane Sanctuary appears to be much more common than bottom Arcanes.

Edited by the author 3 years ago
SudsMcDuff and bloodraven like this
Russia

I seen this one https://imgur.com/a/WRR8LFi , but i didn`t think about act1 and act2-3-4-5 connections.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Mazowieckie, Poland

Nicely done putting it all together, I'm using that before I get annoyed. With roll exactly like this it's inarguably the best a1 pattern, I remember it helped me out with understanding a1 outside maps generation process back in the day and got inspired for other acts connection research. What's funny we all spoted very similar connections so respect to you guys. I generalized few of them and I think this topic is a good place to share them but before I do this there are few observations that can be used around this exact pattern: » Drognan exit in a2 tends to spawn more often, if you only get enough stamina in a1 it might hasten a2 start » Frigid Highlands will continue staight(goes top-left corner) instead of turning to the right, Frozen Tundra too, it always reflects Frigid Highlands direction

Since first point is just non well tested observation, second one is connected with LK exits so Let's explain how it works: » LK exit is STRICTLY connected with Stony Field entrance position everything else DOESN'T matter:

  • horizontal stony entrances (top-left,bottom-right) generates LK exit on the left, Frigid Highlands goes TL
  • vertical stony entrances (top-right, bottom-left) generates LK exit on the right, Frigid Highlands goes TR

It sounds quite silly but I assure you it works every time, just remembering its position is sometimes challenging during the run :) We can also partially generalize a4 connection: » map with TR(top-right) Blood Moor exit gonna behave similar (no left Plains of Despair) irrespective of encampent exit direction » on the other hand maps with BL(bottom-left) Blood Moor exit spawns Plains of Despair only on left side

TL and BR doesn't seem to be consistent in that case however I don't recommend playing them at all especially on Den of Evil dependent characters since it makes connections that enable river spawn on Black Marsh and the earliest point you can find out this is the case is Stony entrance.

Estonia

I do focus a lot on the top exit right turn map. Connections like these are definitely thing for all towns. Thanks for generalizing what's happening here, BokserKabaty!

I just realized I've been trying to find a connection for a lot of the underground levels (like passage, catacombs, sewers). Maybe I'm trying too hard to connect it with the ground areas. So far there are a lot of ground area connections between different acts, but underground levels seem to do their own thing. What if all these underground levels have their own connections with each other?

Something to think about, I'll look into it and reset some maps.

Mazowieckie, Poland

Yeah revealing any map like cata, sewers or arcane would be huge. There might be something going on around dungeon maps too. I found connection between Halls of the Dead and Arcane Sanctuary few months ago,I was hyped about it and spent week or so for discoveries, unfortunatelly it apparently doesn't tell us where Summoner is(surprise surprise) but we can specify current state of ways rotation which allow us to pick up desired way we go, before even entering the Arcane. There are reliable rules I made around it so even if it is not super practical and it's useful only for normal difficulty excluding sorc it's interesting and might be helpful with other dungeon levels discoveries. Let's recap very basics we all know so everybody will able to get it: » exits and chest in halls are located on the left from the entrance, lvl2 wp is straight from entrance » four arcane ways are always in same relation to each other, tps direction is always opposite to flat direction etc.

Now only Halls of the Dead rules, I follow lvl2 so it's mostly related to it: » lvl1 exit direction never matches wp, other exit or chest direction (2 possibilites per lvl2 layout) » lvl3 chest usually reflects lvl2 exit, if it doesn't it just rotate clockwise one time

Now Arcane: » layout is usually based on Halls lvl2, but it sometimes follow lvl3 if its layout rotates » whenever Halls layout rotates clockwise, Arcane does it counter-clockwise

It sounds overwhelming and complicated without example, Let's suppose we enter Halls lvl2 at the bot then wp is on the top wall and exit to lvl3 on the left wall (general rule). In that case lvl1 exit had to be either on the right wall or the bottom wall (first halls rule). Lvl3 entrance will be on the bottom or the left wall (second halls rule). Standard arcane layout for Halls lvl2 wp top is: TR stairs, BR tps, BL arcades, TL flat, but if lvl3 rotates and game follows it instead of lvl2 we will get standard position for lv2 wp on the right: TR tps, BR arcades, BL flat, TL stairs (applies second rule of halls and second rule of arcane in the same time).

It might be still pretty complicated so I attach cheat sheet for that:

Lvl2 Halls of the Dead: wp top = tr stairs, br tps, bl arcades, tl flat wp left = tr flat, br stairs, bl tps, tl arcades wp bot = tr arcades, br flat, bl stairs, tl tps wp right = tr tps, br arcades, bl flat, tl stairs

Lvl3 Halls of the Dead: entrance bot, chest left -> tr stairs, br tps, bl arcades, tl flat entrance right, chest bot -> tr flat, br stairs, bl tps, tl arcades entrance top, chest right -> tr arcades, br flat, bl stairs, tl tps entrance left, chest top -> tr tps, br arcades, bl flat, tl stairs

*tr= top-right, br= bottom-right, bl = bottom-left, tl = top-left

As I said if lvl2 and lvl3 differs only one is truthy, keep that in mind :)

Indrek likes this
Estonia

I took a closer look at this image https://imgur.com/a/WRR8LFi and it doesn't seem entirely correct. There are more than 3 configurations for each town.

For example here are all top left town with right turn Blood Moor configurations. First configuration is same as described in the original post https://imgur.com/a/qUp6tIi

Top left town » right turn BM » right turn CP » left turn DW » right turn BM » left TH Top left town » right turn BM » straight CP » left turn DW » straight BM » straight TH Top left town » right turn BM » left turn CP » left turn DW » left turn BM » right turn TH

Top left town with straight BM also has 3 different configurations and same goes for the left turn BM. Top left town alone has 9 total possible configurations.

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Russia

there is 4x3x3 (36) variants of 1st acf maps (camp->blood->cp), so ofc this img is not correct

Edited by the author 4 years ago
Mazowieckie, Poland

One nice tiny thing about this layout (and all TR Blood Moor exits ofc.) is that you can easily recognize Arreat Plateau direction. While on some other layouts it is more like cherry picking thing, not worth memorizing since it's almost no impactful.

BL Outer Steppes exit = TR Arreat Plateau BR Outer Steppes exit = TL Arreat Plateau

Edited by the author 3 years ago
Indrek likes this
Germany

Hello, I want to make a quick summary form my Analyzis of 'Act 1 generation patterns' mentioned above due to the prediction of where the summoner in the AS (Arcane Sanctuary) should be positioned. Analyzed amount of exit position pattern types in relation to each other from Town, Bloodmore, Cold Plane, Stony Field, Stony Field Entrance and Exit, Travincal Portal Position, Darkwood, Bloodmore, Tamoe, Outer Closter fountain type; Halls of the Dead level 2, and 3, Arcane Sanctuary: About 50 records

I stopped the records due to many contradictory results while analyzing the patterns of each maptypes. Many maps (like 4-5) were similar in all exit positions. This similarity of a map type was found many times with the same condradictory result.

-> The result: There is no dependency to where the summoner spawns in AS in Act 2 to the layout/patterns of the listed Act 1 maps. Like BokserKabaty mentioned, I also found the behaviour of the Halls level 2 and 3 dependency to the anti-clockwise rotation of the map directions. They are everytime correct. Still there is nothing that can tell us the propability to where to find the annoying summoner.

Edited by the author 2 years ago
Mekalb likes this