Is it just me....

[Tiburon Silverflame]

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the trick shots. The monsters can attack from off-screen.

I completely agree that ESP makes things a *great deal* easier, but this is another case where the monsters all have it...and at much better range. There's little that's more frightening, IMO, than the deeper undead pits, because if you get 1 or 2 Black Reavers coming after you, they're boring out tunnels and getting LOTS of their buddies to follow them. And they can start doing that from *quite* a distance. A similar situation can arise with animal pits with umber hulks, and a few 9- or 11-headed hydras following along....

So one has to ask, what was the initial motivation behind the inclusion of ESP?

Also: its strength is also a potential weakness. One can easily get 'casual' with ESP, and get caught by mindless critters.

I wouldn't support completely removing the damage bonus on ammunition; I could, however, see a more restrictive scale for the damage bonus on both shooters and ammunition. I could also more strongly support:

--no more than +1 extra shots on any non-artifact
--no shooting power bonus on any non-artifact
--even on artifacts, any shooter that has either +shots or +shooting power should have no brands or slays

OR, as an alternative, have the multiplier for the brand/slay *add to* the multiplier of the shooter, rather than have them multiply cumulatively.

[Fendell Orcbane]

Yeah, I don't have a problem with the trick shots. The monsters can attack from off-screen.

I completely agree that ESP makes things a *great deal* easier, but this is another case where the monsters all have it...and at much better range. There's little that's more frightening, IMO, than the deeper undead pits, because if you get 1 or 2 Black Reavers coming after you, they're boring out tunnels and getting LOTS of their buddies to follow them. And they can start doing that from *quite* a distance. A similar situation can arise with animal pits with umber hulks, and a few 9- or 11-headed hydras following along....

So one has to ask, what was the initial motivation behind the inclusion of ESP?

Also: its strength is also a potential weakness. One can easily get 'casual' with ESP, and get caught by mindless critters.

I wouldn't support completely removing the damage bonus on ammunition; I could, however, see a more restrictive scale for the damage bonus on both shooters and ammunition. I could also more strongly support:

--no more than +1 extra shots on any non-artifact
--no shooting power bonus on any non-artifact
--even on artifacts, any shooter that has either +shots or +shooting power should have no brands or slays

OR, as an alternative, have the multiplier for the brand/slay *add to* the multiplier of the shooter, rather than have them multiply cumulatively.

Esp does make you a bit sloppier. Which is bad since Drolems don't show up on ESP. But the range of ESP is a bit limited. Detect monster is much better, ESP just keeps track of what is nearby.

I find that if you have your map centered you get less of -It breaths.

[will_asher]

if A can hit B, B should be able to hit A

well in real life it is not like this, you cannot see a man in a building from the street, but he can shoot you.

Hooray! For a while I thought I was the only one who wanted to keep tactics like that. IMO, the possibility of ambush is an essential part of *bands. I have to say, the "if A can hit B, B should be able to hit A" statement is just wrong. This is primarily why I'm against symmetrical line of sight.

In fact, I may even see if I can implement missile slots in DaJAngband, the kind they used to have in castles to shoot arrows at attackers.

[Derakon]

Ai is definitely stupid and should be improved.

You need to be careful with this. Angband is fundamentally a game of One vs. Thousands, which only works when the One is much more powerful than the Thousands are. However, as it stands most enemies outclass the player in terms of spellcasting power (counting breath attacks) and hitpoints, so the only advantages the player has are his powerful melee/missile attacks and his brain.

If you make monsters smarter, then you're going to have to compensate for that to keep the game balanced -- or accept that you're making the game harder.

Angband already has a "smart spellcasting" option. You should try playing it sometime. Experience the joys of trying to kill a spellcaster who can heal himself and teleport away. It's basically impossible.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

It's not really One vs. Thousands. When it's One vs. Dozens...a unique with escorts, a pit, and the like...either:

a) The individual critters, other than the leader, are far weaker than the character, or

b) The fight's bloody damn BRUTAL.

You aren't gonna beat Gabriel or Azriel AND escorts; you'll Banish or Mass Banish or build up an anti-summoning area. And that's why the summoners are so incredibly dangerous.

The ugly hounds like Ethereal and Time, also fall into b). Tunnelers create another b) situation.

Gee, can we see a linkage between these, and the monsters we automatically Banish, once we can?

If the monsters are really smart, we just die. Someone pointed out that any monster with self-healing, if it did nothing but heal itself whenever it falls below, say, 50% (which would be reasonably smart), would be well-nigh impossible to kill...and I think if anything, he's underselling the point.

And even smart blasting would be really bad. What's the most damage we can do with a spell? IIRC, it's around 250-300. That might spread to others, but the damage rolls off incredibly fast. Breath weapons are MUCH higher, and I think some spells are still much higher. Our non-resistable damage either does very little damage (MagMiss) or tends to be rather expensive and potentially unreliable. Some of their non-resistable attacks do fairly good damage AND have nasty side effects.

So, yeah, I gotta agree...making the monsters smarter across the board, really risks making the game virtually unplayable.

[LostTemplar]

really risks making the game virtually unplayable.

No. Maybe impossible to win, but who cares about winning, even FA ironman thrall is playable.

[zaimoni]

And monsters and players using asymmetric LOS to their advantage is a bug I believe. In all cases if A can hit B, B should be able to hit A, it's just logic.

I don't consider either asymmetric line of fire/line of sight, or symmetric line of fire/line of sight, buggy.

The realism argument would go for asymmetric line of fire/line of sight, but that is neither here nor there with V's maintainers; what matters is playability.

I'm definitely in the minority that thinks symmetric line of fire/line of sight would make the game dramatically harder.

[fizzix]

So, yeah, I gotta agree...making the monsters smarter across the board, really risks making the game virtually unplayable.

This has been discussed before. If you put in smart AI, you need to also include SP for monsters. I believe some variants have it. (include a drain mana spell also). Summoning and healing are expensive. Confuse, paralyze, fear are cheap.

For breath attacks, include recharge times. Keep the recharge times consistent with how often the monster currently would breathe on average. So Tarrasque recharges quickly, but you average Ancient dragon takes much longer.

Can someone who's played a variant that includes this comment on this. It'd be a huge change for V and would involve rewriting the monster list and all the spells. So it's not something that'll happen soon...

[Nick]

This has been discussed before. If you put in smart AI, you need to also include SP for monsters. I believe some variants have it. (include a drain mana spell also). Summoning and healing are expensive. Confuse, paralyze, fear are cheap.

Correct - at least O, NPP and FA have this. It is one of the key parts of what is known as 4GAI. This and the combat system are the big differences between V and O - including either in V would be a big decision.

[Fendell Orcbane]

I like the fact that we can start a thread and it potentially affects the future of the game. I can see why all the variants...But I have to agree with the monsters having sp if they are going to be smarter. Because otherwise M could just mana storm you to death no matter how strong you were.