Might monster fleeing be a bad thing?

[Timo Pietilä]

It seems like people like the concept of monsters fleeing due to low HP, but nobody likes the current implementation. [...] It does not make the game meaningfully harder, easier, or more tactically diverse or interesting. It's just annoying.

I guess I'm nobody. Fleeing does make game harder, easier and definitely more tactically diverse and more interesting, depending of the situation which of those apply. Tactical diverse applies always, because it affects the current situation and changes the monster behavior. It rarely is annoying.

[Mikko Lehtinen]

It is actually not all that hard to come up with a better monster fear system. I'm doing it myself right now for my unreleased variant, Sil.

Sounds really wonderful!

Now I'm getting images of slave snagas that only fight when their leader is shouting orders at them. Cool!

[Acenoid]

However you must ensure that the monster will not flee too much so there is no fighting going on with all those morale checks.

[dos350]

v is button u can use 2 throw oil at fleeing target

there u go problem solved or if that isnt enough i hav some tissues 4 u 2 cry onto~

[BlueFish]

v is button u can use 2 throw oil at fleeing target

there u go problem solved or if that isnt enough i hav some tissues 4 u 2 cry onto~

Please, no rage!

[Mikko Lehtinen]

BlueFish, thanks for bringing this up! Many people might not agree with you but this has been an interesting conversation.

I played my own variant FayAngband for 10 levels and paid special attention to how monster fleeing felt. Overall it seemed to make the game more -- not less --- interesting.

However, a big part of this was the fact that in FayAngband monster fleeing has a big upside for the player: critical hits against fleeing monsters are much more common, especially for Rogues.