A fair way to nerf Zephyr Hounds?

[Hariolor]

So it struck me in a recent session that Z's actually breathe *through* other enemies (duh, I know). I am assuming this is done by coding their attack as a targeted ball, rather than a line (not much for reading that actual code, myself, so correct me if this is wrong). In any case, here's the idea.

Keep breath weapons as balls, but make them explode on impact with the first creature they hit, whether or not it's the @. This introduces two great features that will make hounds a lot more enjoyable, but still dangerous in open spaces. (ps this goes for v's too)

1) Hounds could conceivably be used to clean up enemies that are between you and the hounds. If this turns out to be too exploitable, would it be possible to code Z's so they only breathe if they have a clear line of attack (not obstructed by other enemies)?

2) If you are facing the ever-annoying long-line-of-hounds in a narrow hallway, it becomes a bit more reasonable to face them down since only the front member can breathe on you. It seems reasonable to me that in a big open room Z's should be devastating, as they are pack creatures after all. But catch them in a hallway, and the challenge level should drop significantly. After all, isn't that part of why they are coded to avoid hallways in the first place?

Thoughts?

[Nightmarjoo]

I voted on that poll to remove Zs entirely, but I really like your idea. It makes sense in my opinion. Nether and Ethereal Hounds will be almost no less dangerous though. If they're in a line (unlikely), if one stops to breathe the one behind him will move to the side to try and move forward, and pretty soon you'll have a dozen hound heads sticking out of the wall breathing nether at you all at once like normal.

It strikes me as odd that I'd think of it given my hate of Zs, but the biggest setback this change would yield would be in reducing the flavour of the Zs. They'd be just like any other creature, except that they come in packs. Nothing else currently really behaves or feels like the Zs (thankfully). Though I absolutely abhor Zs, it is pretty interesting to have a hound for every breath (and almost every breath for a single hound too), I guess.

I wonder if it'd be fair though, to alter the ball nature of breaths and make them travel like a bolt to splash as a ball on first contact, while not doing the same for normal player ball spells? This change seems to make sense though, seems very similar to the change making summons appear around the summoner instead of around the player.


Time hounds should still go though

[fizzix]

I like this idea also. I would also approve of making hounds more rare or making pack sizes significantly smaller. I think hounds the way they are add the 'wrong' kind of difficulty to the game.

[tummychow]

Zephyr hounds are very annoying. However, I think they add an important lesson for the character about handling enemy breath weapons. In addition, that would really cripple them. It would also cripple other 'breathers' such as dragons. You'd have to be in a 1v1 tango against a D for it to be able to use its breath effectively on you. Besides, with some prudence hounds can easily be handled. Waiting on the side of a hallway full of hounds is a great idea, and it encourages the careful use of detect spells (for those of us that have them coughroguecough). Antisummons corridors are a near necessity later on anyway.
If you could only be breathed on by one hound at a time, it would rather defeat the purpose of them coming in groups. Maybe just making the groups smaller or less common would be a much better idea, as fizzix suggested. (Rather than jackal-swarm numbers, how about 5-6?)

[Matthias]

My vote would go to disabling the smart in group AI for hounds and for other non-intelligent monsters while we're at it.
Even ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for wild dogs or spiders to act like a platoon of elite soldiers, the only thing the current implementation achieves is that hounds are added to the ever growing list of monsters you shouldn't attack. Without the group AI, a character ready for his current level (a non-diver) could attack most hounds with proper planning while risking some of his equipment if the planning went wrong. I think we should encourage somewhat risky fights instead of forcing everyone to run away.

Besides, with some prudence hounds can easily be handled. Waiting on the side of a hallway full of hounds is a great idea, and it encourages the careful use of detect spells (for those of us that have them coughroguecough). Antisummons corridors are a near necessity later on anyway.

This doesn't work anymore does it? Hounds won't walk into ASC because of the group AI

[buzzkill]

I'll go in the other direction on this one. If you take away their smart-AI so they'll charge down the corridor at you like a pack of hounds, then give them a boost of speed, so they can charge down the corridor at you, and catch you, like a pack of hounds.

[fizzix]

My vote would go to disabling the smart in group AI for hounds and for other non-intelligent monsters while we're at it.
Even ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for wild dogs or spiders to act like a platoon of elite soldiers, the only thing the current implementation achieves is that hounds are added to the ever growing list of monsters you shouldn't attack. Without the group AI, a character ready for his current level (a non-diver) could attack most hounds with proper planning while risking some of his equipment if the planning went wrong. I think we should encourage somewhat risky fights instead of forcing everyone to run away.

I don't like this. It changes the problem of hounds back to what it was. If you disable the group AI it becomes, detect hounds, hide behind corner, kill them individually. Repeat, repeat, repeat, fall asleep, repeat, repeat.

To me, the main problem with the hounds is that dealing with them becomes very repetitive and boring. Since there's so many of them and they're on every level, unless I'm a mage and can banish them, it's a guarantee that there will be hounds on any level lower than 20 or so. Either reduce the frequency so that about 50% of the levels have no hounds, or reduce the pack sizes so that I don't feel like about 35-40% of my game time is spent dealing with hounds. (or you can...make them get bored and leave the level if they don't see @ for a while, or let them fall asleep, or lower the detection radius significantly etc etc.)

[Marble Dice]

I don't see how the current strategy is any less repetitive than the old "grab any corner you can find and settle in for a while" one. Currently you can:

1) Try to ignore them, and be careful about stepping into rooms.
2) If they're in a room, hide in a hallway, and snipe them with arrows or ball spells as they cross your line of sight.
3) Step into and out of the room they inhabit from a corridor, trading breaths for a turn or two of ranged/melee attacks.
4) If you're both in corridors, turn another corner so they'll come up into the hall you were just in, and pop back around the corner to hit them before they run away again.
5) Get low on life to trigger the old behavior, and ASC or hockey stick 'em.
6) Wait in a room, close to a hallway, and hockey stick them again (this might be the one tummychow was suggesting):

#########
######...
ZZ.Z.Z...
######...
######@..
######...

[Matthias]

I don't like this. It changes the problem of hounds back to what it was. If you disable the group AI it becomes, detect hounds, hide behind corner, kill them individually. Repeat, repeat, repeat, fall asleep, repeat, repeat.

That's the thing, I don't think there was a problem with hounds before the change. You had a choice to attack them, using a simple strategy for a useful reward (exp), or you could ignore them. Now you can only ignore them. If you believe they were too easy, there are other ways to change that while keeping them as targets. The strategy is only dead simple if you can kill them in one turn (two turns using LOS abuse). So give them +5 base speed, or +10 if you like, double their armor. Or implement stochastic energy

edit:

6) Wait in a room, close to a hallway, and hockey stick them again (this might be the one tummychow was suggesting):

#########
######...
ZZ.Z.Z...
######...
######@..
######...

I like that one. While I'd consider it an error of the group AI (just like #2), it is certainly an improvement of the older case in situations where you need two or more attacks as you'll be semi swarmed more easily.

[zaimoni]

My vote would go to disabling the smart in group AI for hounds and for other non-intelligent monsters while we're at it.

It's a birth option. Nothing's preventing your turning it off when starting a game.

Note that pack AI doesn't affect passwall/killwall packs (the pathfinding never gets that far).

Even ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for wild dogs or spiders to act like a platoon of elite soldiers,

Actually, it would (after all, instinct is merely genetically encoded learning). What matters is playability, not realism.

First, get an AI that acts like an elite soldier in V. Then we can see whether hounds are playable with that AI.

This doesn't work anymore does it? Hounds won't walk into ASC because of the group AI

Even with pack AI enabled, they will if you're under 50% health and aren't otherwise intimidated by the monster fear calculation.

[Hariolor]

Zephyr hounds are very annoying. However, I think they add an important lesson for the character about handling enemy breath weapons. In addition, that would really cripple them. It would also cripple other 'breathers' such as dragons. You'd have to be in a 1v1 tango against a D for it to be able to use its breath effectively on you. *snip*
If you could only be breathed on by one hound at a time, it would rather defeat the purpose of them coming in groups. Maybe just making the groups smaller or less common would be a much better idea, as fizzix suggested. (Rather than jackal-swarm numbers, how about 5-6?)

I'm not so sure it'd unfairly weaken them. If you were in a room full of hounds, you'd likely still have at *least* six or so able to breathe at you on any given round. I don't question the validity of luring hounds into a hallway and picking them off one at a time (or using a beam weapon if available), but I think there's a balance between enjoyment and challenge. Right now hounds are the only significant threat in the early/mid game until they are replaced/accompanied by G's. This is mostly due to the fact that they have devastating breath weapons, multiple physical attacks/round, never sleep, and utilize the best tactics of any creatures in the game.

I also wouldn't necessarily suggest the same change be made for dragons - though I would like to see their breath weapons act as beams instead of balls, thereby killing any thing without appropriate resist in between them and the @...but that's a different gripe

[Hariolor]

My vote would go to disabling the smart in group AI for hounds and for other non-intelligent monsters while we're at it.
Even ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for wild dogs or spiders to act like a platoon of elite soldiers,

Seconded - get rid of pack behavior for hounds/spiders etc, and then *apply* said behavior to kobolds, orcs, etc. It's always been funny to me that a chamber full of orcs led by a captain will patiently and obediently walk into my raging blender of death (often the captain even pushes past so he can die first!)...Yet mindless spiders and semi-intelligent hounds are 'brilliant' tacticians?

[pampl]

Seconded - get rid of pack behavior for hounds/spiders etc, and then *apply* said behavior to kobolds, orcs, etc. It's always been funny to me that a chamber full of orcs led by a captain will patiently and obediently walk into my raging blender of death (often the captain even pushes past so he can die first!)...Yet mindless spiders and semi-intelligent hounds are 'brilliant' tacticians?

Well, yeah, it's supposed to be funny, like when Sam scared a fort full of orcs. They're *supposed* to be stupid tacticians that don't co-operate. Kobolds are lawful evil in DnD, and I think are semi-co-operative in original folklore (they're some kind of fairie/imp-type mining creature, like ugly mean-spirited gnomes, IIRC), so there's an argument for them being co-operative. Pack animals are pretty good tacticians, so IMO hounds shouldn't have their AI nerfed. I agree that mindless things shouldn't work together but aren't cave and Mirkwood spiders partially detected by telepathy?

I wouldn't really like any change that made hounds' breath significantly weaker. I do like the cone-style breath that some variants have that at least partially adresses the OP's needs- anything between the player and the hound, and sometimes even anything next to the player or behind him, is gonna eat hound breath too.

[Ghen]

Seconded - get rid of pack behavior for hounds/spiders etc, and then *apply* said behavior to kobolds, orcs, etc. It's always been funny to me that a chamber full of orcs led by a captain will patiently and obediently walk into my raging blender of death (often the captain even pushes past so he can die first!)...Yet mindless spiders and semi-intelligent hounds are 'brilliant' tacticians?

Good point, give the "smart" tag to the humanoids. And while you're at it, make more groups of kobolds.. right now the only groups I see come with a unique

[Marble Dice]

Even ignoring the fact that it makes no sense for wild dogs or spiders to act like a platoon of elite soldiers,

Actually, it would (after all, instinct is merely genetically encoded learning).

After millions of years of evolution inside the dark confines of the Iron Hells, canis lupus zephyrous has evolved to exploit the unique geometry of the environment in their merciless pursuit of their staple prey. Join us on the Discovery Channel this week as we observe this marvelous species in its native habitat.