Exploitable information leak?

[kaypy]

I just thought of something while playing the nightlies:

Monster inventories are now pregenerated, right?
And they contribute to the level feeling, right?
So by paying attention to the level feeling, you could improve your chances of getting *really* good stuff from the critters with DROP_GREAT, right?

[Derakon]

There's so many factors going into level feelings that I doubt this will have a huge impact.

[jens]

Besides, when you find those great-dropping monsters, you can't be sure if they were generated from the start or not... Unless perhaps if in a Vault...

[Timo Pietilä]

Besides, when you find those great-dropping monsters, you can't be sure if they were generated from the start or not... Unless perhaps if in a Vault...

It causes you to hunt down and kill everyone to find out what is causing that "superb"-feeling when there is nothing interesting onto floor. Other than that I don't think it has much impact on playing.

BTW, I haven't played dev-versions yet, but getting pit of high-level monsters with {good} drops like in demon pit might now cause double-positive, one from monsters and one from items they carry. That means you will see a lot more "superb" -levels down deep. There are now a lot more items / level causing high-end level feelings. How is this compensated (or is it?).

[jens]

In the latest nightly level feelings have been reworked, there are now two feelings displayed (conjoined with an and or but). One feeling is for monsters, one is for objects.

[Timo Pietilä]

In the latest nightly level feelings have been reworked, there are now two feelings displayed (conjoined with an and or but). One feeling is for monsters, one is for objects.

"what a boring place, but you feel that there is something great in here"
(cast clairvoyance, check item list. Nothing)
d*mn, I need to kill all orcs, novice rangers etc. to find that great item.

I think that items carried by monsters should not count in item feeling. If they happen to have great item then you find it out when you kill the monster, not before.

[ChodTheWacko]

I don't think pregenerated items should count towards the level feeling either.

It's like advance notice that if you kill the monsters on this particular dlvl,
the RNG will grant you an artifact/great object drop.

Even if the level feeling is boring, I will go ahead and kill monsters anyway, because there is always a chance of a good drop. But now........

Do we really want this? I guess stairscummers would love it.


- Frank

[Derakon]

Of course, if you remove items in monster inventories from the level feeling, then getting a good item level feeling means that there's something good on the floor, which enlightenment (or even just object detection) will quickly track down. Thus encouraging stairscumming even more.

[Magnate]

Of course, if you remove items in monster inventories from the level feeling, then getting a good item level feeling means that there's something good on the floor, which enlightenment (or even just object detection) will quickly track down. Thus encouraging stairscumming even more.

Precisely. If you don't like the metagaming that flows from level feelings, there is an option to switch them off.

[Zikke]

An exploitable piece of data would be somehow being able to see the inventories of each monster when arriving at a level (which I'm sure is stored somewhere, but hopefully not in a place that can be seen).

[kaypy]

I've just now realised you can 'l'ook at creatures to see what they are carrying, which is probably much more useful than extrapolating from the level feeling...

It's only taken me 2 and a half million game turns to figure this out...

[Magnate]

I've just now realised you can 'l'ook at creatures to see what they are carrying, which is probably much more useful than extrapolating from the level feeling...

It's only taken me 2 and a half million game turns to figure this out...

Well you're ahead of the entire devteam. Thanks for pointing that out - I think we might have to fix that!

EDIT: fixed - will be in the next dev version.

[kaypy]

Wait, that wasn't there intentionally? How on earth did it get coded then?

Or did the ramifications of an otherwise cool feature just sink in?

[jens]

What! Wait, why should we not be able to see inventory?

Aha, just realised one thing; If they have an artifact it would mess up when they should get LOST or not right?

But otherwise, is there a problem with being able to know what a monster is carrying?

[kaypy]

Well, I was worried about the exploitability of picking up vague information from the level feelings relative to a given monsters inventory, so you can imagine my view of an exact listing...

If you are thinking about taking on one of the drop_great uniques, are you going to be more enthusiastic if it is carrying:
(a) 2 deep spellbooks of the kind that you don't use, and an amulet that you already have
or
(b) a longsword(4d5), balance DSM and a ring of speed