monster tweaks

[fizzix]

I've been adding some tweaks to the monster-list, some of them will probably get adopted into V, others will probably be rejected. There's a bunch of separate commits, so some can be included while others left out.

Anyway, here's the gist of them:

Dragonflies - these guys have 14 hp and are sitting down on dlevel 23-25. Why? I don't know. Move them to dlevel 5 and 6 and cut down the generous xp reward.

Ants - quiz, what level is the giant grey ant. if you said 10 or less, you were off by 16. Instead of moving the ants earlier I gave them more AC and more attacks. Blue ants now come with FRIENDS. I have no idea why they didn't before.

Beetles - also notoriously weak for their levels. Toughen them up by giving them more dangerous attacks. Another quiz, what's the difference between a killer stag beetle and a killer white beetle? Turns out that the white beetle has a lamer description. I removed it.

Ticks - these are the last of the notoriously weak monsters. Mainly toughened by increased AC. One of the ticks has "slowly moving towards you" in the description, but it's not slow at all... I made it slow but increased its AC to 200. If nothing else it makes the monster a bit unique, very hard to hit so you should probably avoid it.

I don't think any of these changes will be controversial. These are monsters that never make an impression. They probably still won't, but at least they aren't completely out of place.

However, I made some controversial changes too. Here they are.

dragons - IMO there are some big problems with dragons. Namely mature and young dragons are essentially the same (no really, they are). Ancient dragons are weak for what you might expect from an ancient dragon. AMHDs are much much stronger than normal ancient dragons. They have a huge HP boost comparable to multi-hued of other ages. The changes I suggest makes dragons more difficult overall and moves some of them a bit deeper to compensate. (dragon1 are white, blue, green, [bronze]; dragon2 are red, black, gold)

        lev      hp      newlev    newhp
ymhd     32      281       --       --
mature1  34      352       36       600
mature2  36      440       38       660
mmhd     38	 528       40       880

ancient1 40	 633	   45       1100
ancient1 41      880       46       1280
mmhd	 45      1848	   48       1848

great wyrms are left alone.

Except: in a separate commit, I move draolisks and dracolichs 10 levels deeper. The reasoning is that these monsters have the same amount of HP as great wyrms but have a second more powerful breath attack. There's no reason they should be shallower. They're now about equal to the great wyrms.

Last change will also be somewhat controversial. Gravity hounds have been moved to dlevel 43 to be equivalent to multi-hued hounds. (also HP goes from 193 to 220 for consistency). Time hounds are moved to be equal in level to ethereal hounds (51-59). No HP changes though.

[Antoine]

> The changes I suggest makes dragons more difficult overall and moves some of them a bit deeper to compensate.

I suggest you not move them deeper. Dragons should be a bit scarey in depth.

> Except: in a separate commit, I move draolisks and dracolichs 10 levels deeper.

I don't like this at all. I thought these monsters were supposed to be very dangerous when encountered in depth. It's boring to remove that midgame threat.

A.

[Derakon]

Likewise I see no need to move gravity or time hounds any deeper. Otherwise your changes sound good.

[fizzix]

> The changes I suggest makes dragons more difficult overall and moves some of them a bit deeper to compensate.

I suggest you not move them deeper. Dragons should be a bit scarey in depth.

> Except: in a separate commit, I move draolisks and dracolichs 10 levels deeper.

I don't like this at all. I thought these monsters were supposed to be very dangerous when encountered in depth. It's boring to remove that midgame threat.

A.

They're still very scary in depth. Perhaps more so than they were before. It's just the depth is different. Mature dragons should be a bit scary now instead of being absolute pushovers. They have as much HP as the Ancient dragons used to, and they come in earlier. Yes they're slower but that won't help you if they breathe. (They're also a good candidate to move at 115 instead of 110, if we ever decide to do that.)

For dracolichs and dracolisks, and the same goes for the hounds, this is a consistency thing. Dracolichs are more scary than great ice wyrms, yet they show up 12 levels earlier. Either the wyrms should be moved up, or the dracolichs should be moved down. Since we are topheavy in monsters appearing in lower levels of the dungeon, this seemed like a good idea. However, I'm aware that they're controversial, which is why they're in separate commits.

[d_m]

I don't like moving things deeper but I will playtest before commenting.

Also, as someone who made OOD monsters both more common and more levels OOD, these changes can always be balanced by making OOD a little more frequent/powerful

[Derakon]

For dracolichs and dracolisks, and the same goes for the hounds, this is a consistency thing. Dracolichs are more scary than great ice wyrms, yet they show up 12 levels earlier. Either the wyrms should be moved up, or the dracolichs should be moved down.

Your statements assume some sort of "monster difficulty vs. dungeon depth" curve that every monster must be placed precisely on. It is entirely reasonable to have monsters that show up significantly sooner than other monsters that have similar power levels. That just means that they're comparatively more dangerous than usual. It helps keep gameplay varied.

[Jazerus]

I like the idea of making mature dragons scarier. By the time you get to them, they're more or less loot pinatas - gold and multi-hued are the only mature dragons that are currently even slightly scary, and they're still very much killable. The disparity between AMHDs and other ancient dragons is...far too large. Any ancient dragon should be a reasonable threat at depth, multi-hued more so but not as much more so as currently.

Essentially, I think pretty much all of these changes are good ideas. The appearance of truly dangerous hounds has always felt a bit too sudden to me, as well - and perhaps Kavlax should be moved a few levels deeper, to align with this? He's by far the biggest killer of my mid-game characters, and while having seriously dangerous uniques is a good idea, he may be just a bit too dangerous to appear at ~dlvl 40. A bit more warning that the 40s are entirely different from the 30s in power balance is probably a good idea.

[Magnate]

Essentially, I think pretty much all of these changes are good ideas. The appearance of truly dangerous hounds has always felt a bit too sudden to me, as well - and perhaps Kavlax should be moved a few levels deeper, to align with this? He's by far the biggest killer of my mid-game characters, and while having seriously dangerous uniques is a good idea, he may be just a bit too dangerous to appear at ~dlvl 40. A bit more warning that the 40s are entirely different from the 30s in power balance is probably a good idea.

+1. I too like all these changes. The motivation may have been more about consistency, but there is a long-term problem we're trying to solve here: the fact that the vast majority of monsters appear in the first half of the dungeon, rendering the second half relatively sparse and dull. There are lots of factors to the solution - more interesting level generation (tick), better loot distribution (coming), and a smoother progression of monster difficulty. Not too smooth, because that would be dull too - but slightly less front-loaded than it is now.

[fizzix]

Your statements assume some sort of "monster difficulty vs. dungeon depth" curve that every monster must be placed precisely on.

I quibble with the word "precisely." I'll go more or less with roughly. And yes the game already clearly states that monsters should get more difficult as you descend. Unfortunately, that's not true because monsters that show up on dlevels 51 and 55 are more dangerous than any non-unique that shows up, until, maybe you hit pit fiends.

Maybe one of the reasons the last 50 levels of the dungeon are the same is because once you pass time-hound depth, you might as well drop to the bottom, because nothing is more dangerous than the hounds. The common advice that it's no more dangerous at dlevel 60 than dlevel 90 is true, and I think indicative of bad gameplay.

It is entirely reasonable to have monsters that show up significantly sooner than other monsters that have similar power levels. That just means that they're comparatively more dangerous than usual. It helps keep gameplay varied.

I agree in the premise that difficult monsters should show up earlier. I disagree in the implementation. Difficult monsters should show up earlier because they're OoD. Your argument is for more OoD monsters, and I agree that that's a good thing. In other words, I'd be fine if the frequency of Ancient dragons at dlevel 42 was the same as before even though they're now at a higher level.

[Nick]

Here's a tweak (from O/FA) that might spice up the lower part of the dungeon:

N:614:Storm of Unmagic
T:vortex
C:v
I:140:900:40:40:0
W:95:3:0:17000
B:ENGULF:EXP_80:4d9
B:ENGULF:UN_POWER:4d9
B:ENGULF:UN_BONUS:4d9
B:ENGULF:LOSE_ALL:4d9
F:ATTR_MULTI | 
F:RAND_50 | 
F:EMPTY_MIND | BASH_DOOR | RES_DISE | KILL_WALL | 
F:IM_ACID | IM_FIRE | IM_COLD | IM_ELEC | IM_POIS | 
F:NO_CONF | NO_SLEEP | NO_FEAR
S:1_IN_3 
S:BRTH_CHAOS | BRTH_DISEN | BRTH_TIME
D:Howling through the disintegrating dungeon, this awesome whirlpool of 
D:Unmagic rips the enchantments from everything it touches.

[artes]

Sounds like good changes. Did you remove the young dragons? That's ok for me, because I've always thought there are too many similar dragons.

[fizzix]

Sounds like good changes. Did you remove the young dragons? That's ok for me, because I've always thought there are too many similar dragons.

No the young dragons are still there. They have a very important use in the dungeon eco-system as being a monster with a larg(ish) drop around dlevel 30. I.E. something to kill a bunch of for stat potions.

[Max Stats]

For dracolichs and dracolisks, and the same goes for the hounds, this is a consistency thing. Dracolichs are more scary than great ice wyrms, yet they show up 12 levels earlier. Either the wyrms should be moved up, or the dracolichs should be moved down.

How about just swap the two depths?

[PowerDiver]

Yes they're slower but that won't help you if they breathe.

The game is already too much about worrying about big breaths. If you want to make them tougher, I'd much prefer to see that you double or triple their melee attack damage. IMO you should leave the breaths alone, which means leaving the hp alone until such time as breaths are divorced from hp.

However, the real problem is not that the monsters are pushovers. Back in 3.0, you did not see so many people crash diving through the second half of the dungeon. I believe that the base of the problem is the numerous changes boosting player power.

Another way to make mature dragons, and every other moderate to deep monster, more dangerous is to put !CCW back to under 30 hp of healing. So long as everybody can carry essentially unlimited 80 hp 0% fail healing, monsters are much easier to deal with.

[Antoine]

I agree in the premise that difficult monsters should show up earlier. I disagree in the implementation. Difficult monsters should show up earlier because they're OoD.

If this is how things are going to work, then we shouldn't bring in changes to make dangerous monsters appear later, without simultaneously bringing in changes to increase the amount of OOD monsters.

A.