Randomness

[tigpup]

So, if there were to be random monsters, how would you like to see them implemented?

I can think of a couple of ways.

Take the purple dragon as an example.

1. The purple dragon breathes *unknowns*, so you find out what these *unknowns* are (say acid & nexus), and purple dragons will always breathe acid & nexus for the duration of this game. I call this game-to-game randomness.

or...

2. The purple dragon breathes *unknowns*, so you find out about this purple dragon, but the next one you encounter will breathe different unknowns. I call this encounter-to-encounter randomness.

Obviously this only looks at dragon breaths. Other monsters could have attacks, abilities, spells, drops, HP etc that vary from game-to-game or encounter-to-encounter.

I'm not familiar with variants apart from NPP, so I'm not sure if this has been implemented elsewhere. NPP player ghosts are the closest I've seen to this.

What's your thoughts on monster randomness?

- Neil.

[Derakon]

At some level I want to say that any random monster should have its attacks automatically be known. After all, one of the most important things that separates the newbies from the veterans here is that the veterans know what the monsters are capable of, which allows them to decide whether or not to avoid a given encounter before it even starts. Meanwhile the newbies have to risk instadeaths or read the spoilers.

I know I certainly wouldn't enjoy discovering that this game, I happened to encounter a monster that hits to paralyze before I found FA. As it stands, I know better than to melee homunculi or carrion crawlers before getting FA, and I do just fine. Just as an example.

In short, I don't think the "discovering what a monster can do" aspect of the game is very interesting. What's interesting is how you deal with the monsters' capabilities.

EDIT: I also wouldn't object to having all monsters, random or not, have their attacks and estimated damage be known as soon as the monster is seen.

[Starhawk]

On the one hand, I think it'd be refreshing to introduce random uniques - so you don't have the exact same set to stomp every game.

On the other hand, I get killed enough while already having these uniques in monster memory....

But at least it would make a Rod of Probing a godsend piece of equipment.

[camlost]

On the one hand, I think it'd be refreshing to introduce random uniques - so you don't have the exact same set to stomp every game.

On the other hand, I get killed enough while already having these uniques in monster memory....

But at least it would make a Rod of Probing a godsend piece of equipment.

Player ghosts generate (somewhat) random uniques in variants that support them. Of course, they also come fully-known, which seems like afair enough tradeoff.

[tigpup]

After all, one of the most important things that separates the newbies from the veterans here is that the veterans know what the monsters are capable of, which allows them to decide whether or not to avoid a given encounter before it even starts. Meanwhile the newbies have to risk instadeaths

This is where I have a problem. It's not so much a player's "vetran" status that gives them this advantage, but their memory. I've been playing RL's for about 15 years, but I play intermitently and my memory is poor, so I forget what certain monsters can do what. I also usually need to id artifacts because I can't remember all their powers.

Two solutions to this:

1: Full, obvious monster knowledge for every player (complete monster memory).

2: Limited, non-obvious monster knowledge for every player (some random monsters).

In short, I don't think the "discovering what a monster can do" aspect of the game is very interesting

Sure, but that's merely a matter of preference. I happen to like those aspects of the game, which I why I usually play randarts. I remember first playing Moria and found the 'how will that monster try to kill me' aspect one of the big draws of the game. First AMHD encouter, first Balrog enounter, Evil Iggy. They were all exciting things. Blasting though a pit of safe giants or orcs in V is tedium to me, especially when I know they pose no threat.

Personally, I'd enjoy standing a few squares from a purple dragon and wondering 'is it worth the risk?'.

Obviously, random monsters is a step too far for V; it would make for a significantly different game. I do however feel that good player memory is too big a factor in this game.

- Neil.

[Estie]

Random monsters and random artifacts are 2 entirely different things. The latter you can sort out in town while the former interferes with combat where every turn is precious. I have to agree with Derakon that I dont see random monsters improving the game.

What I think would be good is random abilities on uniques. While having to learn each monster set anew every game sounds like drudgery, making the unique fights more spicy might be good. However, I think if you do that you also need to increase the incentive to kill uniques. Maybe shift the likelyhood to get artifacts from monster drop/dungeon floor towards unique drop.

[Hariolor]

I think the OP's question is working from a condition of reverse causality, so to speak.

The first question should be what is our goal, then we'd ask how it could be implemented.

The impression I get is that randomness in monster traits is intended to introduce variability to make the game more interesting/dynamic for players at all levels.

The question I'd have is whether the goal is to make it interesting due to increased danger (due to the unknown), or just interesting in terms of not seeing the *same* purple dragon every game.

Keep in mind that any danger in the game can be overcome by increased caution, so I should think the randomness has to contribute an entertainment other than just danger or it'd be nothing but superfluous feature creep.

[d_m]

In short, I don't think the "discovering what a monster can do" aspect of the game is very interesting. What's interesting is how you deal with the monsters' capabilities.

EDIT: I also wouldn't object to having all monsters, random or not, have their attacks and estimated damage be known as soon as the monster is seen.

I totally agree with this. I don't think there are many experienced or veteran players who like the idea of playing without having a pretty good idea of what monsters can do. Regarding new players, there seem to be several different feelings:

1. Learning monster attacks/spells/breaths experimentally (e.g. by instadeath) is fun
2. It's not fun, but it's important to make new players do it to haze them
3. It's not fun, but people can just use spoilers so it's basically OK
4. It's not fun, and players should get full spoilers
5. It's not fun, and players should get some kind of minimal spoiler or warning

I disagree with #1 and #2, and fall somewhere between #3-5 (probably 5 if I was less lazy).

For what it's worth, I really like the idea of random uniques (to make it harder to predict what kind of equipment you will need in advance, and also to make things more interesting game to game). One side benefit of that is that it will align the veteran and new player experience a little bit, which I think will be healthy (in that there will be more interest in creating a better experience for learning about monsters).

[buzzkill]

Even if you didn't want to randomize their attacks and bring about the chorus of instadeath, you can randomize some of their resists, which will bring about some variability without the instantly deadly consequences.

Of course, as long as the monsters don't know all the players abilities, I have no problem with the player having some unknowns, even attacks, about the monsters.

[Scraper]

An alternative is for the "character" to have the ability to learn, rather than the player.

Have logs or journals as items which the "character" can find, that will detail the strengths or weaknesses of a certain monster.

You read ?"xhsdfhs" : "Today I learned that whilst snagas were susceptible to light, hill orcs seemed to suffer no negative effects"

This is probably a programming nightmare, but a way of allowing a "character" to learn something about their *current* game that the "player" doesn't know; without having to experience a potentially game ending fight.

[Belgen]

I do not know whether it can be realized, but I have the following suggestions:

1. Current uniques to remain with fixed skills like super uniques in Diablo 2.

2. To enable generation of semi-uniques with randomly skills like uniques and champions in Diablo 2. These uniques will generate very rare, but will not have a final count as super unique. That will never know when it will appear one of them.

3. To remain balanced game, the monsters with the ability to summon unique as Morgoth, will can only summon fixed unique if they survived.

Sorry for my bad english, hope you understand me anyway.

[Magnate]

I do not know whether it can be realized, but I have the following suggestions:

1. Current uniques to remain with fixed skills like super uniques in Diablo 2.

2. To enable generation of semi-uniques with randomly skills like uniques and champions in Diablo 2. These uniques will generate very rare, but will not have a final count as super unique. That will never know when it will appear one of them.

3. To remain balanced game, the monsters with the ability to summon unique as Morgoth, will can only summon fixed unique if they survived.

Sorry for my bad english, hope you understand me anyway.

We do, and you think along exactly the same lines as d_m, who has been talking about doing this for a while now ...

[HallucinationMushroom]

I really like the random monster idea and have wondered before why there weren't random monsters to accompany the random loot, dungeons, etc... When I've pictured how this would work I always imagine a kind of logical random monster generator where the monsters created make sense somewhat. I would approach these creatures like I would Hengband monsters, because there are a lot of what-is-that moments for me when I play it.

An experiment I thought of a while back along these same lines is to have the at-man have a kind of monster-blindness so that you can't discern what monsters are because they all look the same and are represented by the same character and color. I think it would be neat to see how I would change my play style to such a situation.

[Tiburon Silverflame]

An experiment I thought of a while back along these same lines is to have the at-man have a kind of monster-blindness so that you can't discern what monsters are because they all look the same and are represented by the same character and color. I think it would be neat to see how I would change my play style to such a situation.

You have to go paranoid...and you'll still get killed, if monsters remain as powerful as they are. You MUST play extremely slow and cautious, and preferably blast *everything* from a distance. I seriously doubt anyone would ever manage to get maxed stats in this approach, or make more than about CL 20...if that. Consider: you've got a bunch of individuals moving towards you as a group. Is this novice mages...or impact hounds? In a dive strategy, can you *ever* pursue some really nice object, guarded by only 2 or 3 monsters in the area...when you don't know what they are?

[buzzkill]

You have to go paranoid...and you'll still get killed, if monsters remain as powerful as they are. You MUST play extremely slow and cautious, and preferably blast *everything* from a distance. I seriously doubt anyone would ever manage to get maxed stats in this approach, or make more than about CL 20...if that. Consider: you've got a bunch of individuals moving towards you as a group. Is this novice mages...or impact hounds? In a dive strategy, can you *ever* pursue some really nice object, guarded by only 2 or 3 monsters in the area...when you don't know what they are?

"Blank Slate Mode" It might be manageable, even fun, if you could learn what monsters really are then have them represented as such, or represented by an approximation of such, or by a randomly chosen possibility, based on what you know about them. As you fight more and more of them and begin to learn their traits, the possibilities of what they can actually be become less and less and the approximations become more accurate. For example, if it cast magic missile, there's a finite number of possibilities. If it later summons animals, those possibilities are reduced further, and so on until you know exactly what it is at which point it would be displayed exactly-correctly on screen. Let uniques initially be known as unique, but nothing more. Inherent knowledge of all possibilities would be necessary (behind the scenes). It would probably prohibit diving though... and of course, items of Probing would have to be banned. Try beating that Ironman.