Feature request - other forms of detection.

[TJS]

At the moment apart from the vague message of hearing doors being bashed down the only way of knowing where monsters are or might be is by magical detection. I'd like to see other subtler ways of alerting the player to possible dangers.

For example if a pack of hounds is running towards you then you would think you'd hear growling and snarling from around the corner as they get nearer. Also when an umber hulk is tunneling through tons of granite, you'd expect the player to hear or feel something before they are in the same room.

These are the types of messages I'd like to see:

You hear loud snoring to the East
The ground shakes with the power of footsteps towards the South-West
You feel a feeling of terror approaching (for ethereal hounds or ghosts nearby)
You hear several sets of footsteps marching nearby (for a pack of novice warriors)

This to me would add some much needed flavour to the game and eliminate some of the endless detecting that players have to do. It would also give warriors a bit of a boost as well.

To compensate for the fact it would make the game easier you could make magic detection costs more mana and make detection devices rarer and more expensive.

[Nemesis]

That's, in my opinion, a splendid idea. ADOM and NetHack already has those "signs" if I remember correctly. I think Angband already has a "grinding sound" that can be heard when tunneling monsters are nearby. But you won't know if it's an Umber Hulk, a Black Reaver or Morgoth himself that's heading your way! I am however not 100% sure that this is implemented in Vanilla. It is possible I remember those grinding sounds from NPP or Quickband.

I'm not sure if magic detection should be more expensive, though, at least to me detection is something everybody should have at their disposal when they've progressed long enough to make their character painful to lose.

However, in the early game, I think reliance on this form of detection could make the game more suspense. Some people are already complaining about the game before stat gain is boring, but then again, it's hard to balance. The beginning can't be made too hard for beginners and Vanilla can't be changed to much from what nostalgics are expecting.

[buzzkill]

I think DaJ handles this well by allowing the player to hear nearby yet out of line of sight monsters. No messages, detected enemies just appear on screen. If you are very perceptive, it almost functions like small scale ESP. Only a general description of the enemy is given (a demon, a canine, a rodent), so you won't know exactly what you're up against until you actually see it... unless you play with tiles.

With detection being as cheap and easy as it is in Vanilla, I don't see I need to augment it, save for flavor. If you're not *detecting* by the time you start encountering hounds and *undead*, you're doing something wrong.

[Derakon]

I'm pretty sure the grinding sound was added in Zangband and hasn't made it to Vanilla.

I like the idea of tying perception to the ability to notice monsters. It's such an under-used skill otherwise, and would give some value to those rings and amulets of searching (which should probably be renamed if this goes through).

To play devil's advocate, though, part of the challenge of warriors is doing without the spells that other classes get, or finding ways to make up for them that aren't as good as the real thing (if only because they take up more inventory space). Just handing them an ability for free defeats that purpose to an extent.

[TJS]

With detection being as cheap and easy as it is in Vanilla, I don't see I need to augment it, save for flavor. If you're not *detecting* by the time you start encountering hounds and *undead*, you're doing something wrong.

This is part of my point really. Most characters have detection after a particular point so they constantly use it to avoid danger, because it would be foolish not to. There is no decision whether to or not, it is simply a chore that must be performed every few steps of the game. This to me isn't fun.

If detection wasn't so readily available and other clues were available to whether there was danger nearby, then the player would have to pick and choose about when to use detection.

Mages have been given more chance of doing damage via spells recently, so if casting detection uses up more mana that could otherwise be used to deal damage, then there is a gameplay choice there which could be interesting. Of course ranged weapons would need toning down in this situation.

[fizzix]

The DJA sound (as buzzkill mentioned) is a very nice feature and it would be a welcome addition to vanilla. Even though it's a very simplistic sound system, it still would require a rewrite of the monster edit lists to add stealth.

The reason it's so good is that it provides a ready made intermediate detection that is both reliable enough that you can use it to avoid insta-kills
and weak enough that there is still a foggy layer. Is the p you see a GMM or a novice priest? Is the d a baby blue or is it kavlax? Is the g a drolem or a flesh golem?

That being said, if Vanilla devs don't want to mess with adding monster stealth and adding alertness as another player characteristic, you can still layer the detection spells to be less revealing, only showing monster type as opposed to what the actual monster is, is an intriguing option for the 1st level detection spell.

Lastly, detection is currently necessary to avoid insta-kills. The biggest current problem is that priests don't get detect visible until pb6, well after they might encounter insta-killing drolems, gravity hounds, nexus hounds, nexus vortices, time hounds etc. Warriors won't get that until rods of detection. Adding alertness would very much help resolve this problem.

edit: it always seemed silly to me that detect invisible staves exist and are sold in town and detect visible is not available at all. IMO detect visible should exist and be sold and detect invisible should be detect all (like the spell change) and should not be sold in town. Just my 2 cents.

[TJS]

That being said, if Vanilla devs don't want to mess with adding monster stealth and adding alertness as another player characteristic, you can still layer the detection spells to be less revealing, only showing monster type as opposed to what the actual monster is, is an intriguing option for the 1st level detection spell.

I like this idea, wasn't this how the game used to be? At the moment the best strategy for winning seems to be detect everything (stairs/monsters/objects/traps) and then creep around picking up stuff off the floor and taking every stairs down, only occasionally deciding to fight certain monsters. Perhaps a bit less certainty would be a good thing (people are saying that the game is getting a bit too easy after all).

[fizzix]

I like this idea, wasn't this how the game used to be? At the moment the best strategy for winning seems to be detect everything (stairs/monsters/objects/traps) and then creep around picking up stuff off the floor and taking every stairs down, only occasionally deciding to fight certain monsters. Perhaps a bit less certainty would be a good thing (people are saying that the game is getting a bit too easy after all).

Well, it actually won't help all that much with this. You're still going to go out of your way to fight T, o, O, d, D, groups of p, groups of W and later on U, while avoiding g, e, lone p, Z, M, and v. At least in the mid-game, if this is the only detection you have then.

What it will do is make the early uncertainties larger. At clevel 15 there's a big difference between a group of uruks and a group of cave orcs. It would make the early game more perilous for weak casters (I'm not sure this is such a good thing in retrospect)

If you want to change the strategy of killing weak monsters on high levels you need to either alter how drops are handled or provide maximum depths for monsters. I kind of like the idea of maximum monster depths and I might try modding the code to include that at some point.

[Derakon]

wasn't this how the game used to be?

Back in 2.4 frog-knows, casting a monster detection spell would show the message "You detect monsters! -more-". As long as you had that more prompt up, you could see the monster tiles on the map, but since the game was essentially paused in the middle of an action, you couldn't 'l'ook at the monsters (not that frog-knows supported looking at things out of LOS anyway).

[Jungle_Boy]

If you want to change the strategy of killing weak monsters on high levels you need to either alter how drops are handled or provide maximum depths for monsters. I kind of like the idea of maximum monster depths and I might try modding the code to include that at some point.

I like the idea of maximum depths for monsters, or you could increase the monsters damage and hp depending on the level it was generated on. ie if a monster is generated ten levels lower than native depth increase hp by 10% or something, this would probably not work with all monster but maybe with some that like to make pits like orcs, trolls, giants and maybe dragons. other monsters could have max depths, it really does not make sense for some monters to be much deeper than native depth because they would get slaughtered.

[Derakon]

ToME has leveling monsters in some dungeons. Leveling a monster increases its hitpoints, damage dice, or speed. This has the net result of making monsters that have gotten lots of levels be potentially very dangerous, and also difficult to quantify. You don't expect a horde of Snagas to be faster than you and hitting like freight trains when you're at dlvl 90. Obviously Vanilla could take a more predictable and balanced approach to monster leveling, but it'll still make the player feel less powerful, which is a shame. What fun is getting powerful if you don't get to steamroll the monsters that used to give you big problems?

Way back in the 2.8 days I made a patch to prevent monsters from being too deep. It ended up making the dungeon way more dangerous, since most of the monsters that got generated were credible threats. Keep in mind that the weak monsters generated on dlvl 90 are replacing more dangerous monsters that could have been generated instead...

[Hariolor]

Way back in the 2.8 days I made a patch to prevent monsters from being too deep. It ended up making the dungeon way more dangerous, since most of the monsters that got generated were credible threats. Keep in mind that the weak monsters generated on dlvl 90 are replacing more dangerous monsters that could have been generated instead...

Max depth for monsters sounds fantastic -

decrease the total # of monsters/level

and make sure hounds are proportionately more rare.

Just think about the "snagas" in LoTR fleeing before the Balrog of Moria....little monsters just don't spend time hanging out around the big boys. They'd be lunchmeat for sure.

[fizzix]

Max depth for monsters sounds fantastic -

decrease the total # of monsters/level

and make sure hounds are proportionately more rare.

Just think about the "snagas" in LoTR fleeing before the Balrog of Moria....little monsters just don't spend time hanging out around the big boys. They'd be lunchmeat for sure.

You need to be careful though. You don't want people grinding in dlevels 30-35 for stat gain because they can't get the potions deeper. What you want is players to descend as soon as they feel like they can survive on a deeper level and to be ensured of being able to find whatever items they still need on that level.

If orc pits didn't exist past dlevel 50 or so, many players would not descend lower until stat gain was finished. That's bad gameplay.

[Hariolor]

You need to be careful though. You don't want people grinding in dlevels 30-35 for stat gain because they can't get the potions deeper. What you want is players to descend as soon as they feel like they can survive on a deeper level and to be ensured of being able to find whatever items they still need on that level.

If orc pits didn't exist past dlevel 50 or so, many players would not descend lower until stat gain was finished. That's bad gameplay.

Sounds like stat potions need a better distribution curve, then.

I've never cared for the fact that scumming o/O/T is the fastest way to find stat potions -at any depth

[Derakon]

Well, they come in large groups, each has a chance of dropping an item, and they're not very threatening. What of that would you suggest changing?

Though I'll note that a group of orcs seems to generate on the order of 4-6 drops these days, while a single mature dragon will make 2-3. So the main advantage the orcs have is that they come in pits much earlier.

I wouldn't mind improving the stat potion distribution, largely because I don't like hanging around at shallow depths.