A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[myshkin]

Looking at the source, the chance to get a beam seems to be a bit weird. The base chance is your character level / 2. There's a flag PF_BEAM that doubles your beam chance, roughly, but it's never set, as far as I can tell. It'd make sense to have it set for mages and priests though, so maybe it's set somewhere I didn't find.

The algorithm is pretty clunky. Meanwhile, devices just get a flat 20% (wands) or 10% (rods) beam chance...that should probably vary with device skill.

Mages (and only mages) get PF_BEAM in lib/edit/p_class.txt, for what it's worth.

[Derakon]

To my knowledge, there's never been a message telling you that a beam happened. Just increase the delay factor, as ekolis mentioned.

Looking at the source, the chance to get a beam seems to be a bit weird. The base chance is your character level / 2. There's a flag PF_BEAM that doubles your beam chance, roughly, but it's never set, as far as I can tell. It'd make sense to have it set for mages and priests though, so maybe it's set somewhere I didn't find. Then, beam chance is modified depending on the spell:

Magic Missile: -10
Frost bolt: -10
Fire bolt: +0
Acid bolt: +0
Rend soul: divided by 4
Chaos strike: +0

So at level 50, you'd expect to get Magic Missile to beam 15% of the time, or 40% if you have PF_BEAM set. Meanwhile Rend Soul would only beam 6% of the time, or 12% with PF_BEAM.

[ekolis]

If you set the base delay factor to something above zero, you should be able to see a line of stars appear briefly when your spell beams, as opposed to a little dash flying toward the target when it is a bolt...

[Oramin]

Didn't some of the previous version tell you when your spells beamed? At the moment I can only tell when I happen to have multiple monsters lined up. This makes it difficult to estimate the chance of beaming.

Also is the following still the current information for beaming:

Certain "bolt" spells (magic missile, lightning, fire and frost bolt, etc) have a chance to become a "beam" based on your experience level. This chance is 1% / level for mages and 0.5% / level for rangers. Magic Missile, Lightning Bolt and Frost Bolt all have a -10% to the roll.
Wands have a 20% chance to "beam" and rods have a 10% chance.

(actually, it is obviously wrong for the current version of Lightning Bolt, but other than that...)

Thanks.

[Timo Pietilä]

I suspect the current respawn system is simply that every turn, there's a small chance that monsters will be spawned somewhere, ideally not in LOS of the player. Perhaps it'd be preferable if there were a soft population ceiling of monsters on the level? That is, the game can only spawn monsters if the current population is under the population ceiling. Then when the level is created, the population is "overfilled", which basically means that new spawns are banned until the player has brought the population down a bit. You could set the ceiling at, say, half the target starting population. Then no monsters would spawn until the dungeon was half-cleared.

That would make boring levels really really boring. I like the fact that there might be some action even in initially boring level after you have spent some time in it. I'd prefer a small turn limit before first spawn, then go like it is now.

[Timo Pietilä]

You can't pillar dance with a monster that eats or moves through walls.

Except in GV with permanent wall pillar. Even Morgoth can't eat permanent walls, so greater vaults sometimes make endgame a lot easier. GV:s also make escape from sticky situation very very easy.

Pillar-dancing is difficult to do against +30 speed monster. It would take forever unless you have absolutely insane speed and/or weapon because diminishing returns of energy after +26 and fast regen of Morgoth. Counting when you get that extra move before actual fight requires very good knowledge how the energy system works.

[Oramin]

I'd actually prefer a resetting timer for the respawn since it makes sense that the longer a player is on the level, the greater the likelihood that monsters will show up from other levels.

[Derakon]

I suspect the current respawn system is simply that every turn, there's a small chance that monsters will be spawned somewhere, ideally not in LOS of the player. Perhaps it'd be preferable if there were a soft population ceiling of monsters on the level? That is, the game can only spawn monsters if the current population is under the population ceiling. Then when the level is created, the population is "overfilled", which basically means that new spawns are banned until the player has brought the population down a bit. You could set the ceiling at, say, half the target starting population. Then no monsters would spawn until the dungeon was half-cleared.

[Oramin]

On the subject of respawns:

I was just playing a Gnome Mage. I entered the level, cast the detection spells and headed towards a monster. I was very surprised when I ran into a group of several Manes. They weren't there previously so they must have been created almost immediately after I entered the level.

As I indicated, a tad aggressive on the respawning.

[Derakon]

You can't pillar dance with a monster that eats or moves through walls. It is possible, however, to abuse LOS so you can hit a monster but they can't do anything but move towards you. For example, find a long horizontal corridor, station yourself at one end, and Morgoth at the other, one tile higher than you:

#.#################P#
#@..................#
#####################

Then cast line-of-sight spells (e.g. Dispel Evil), or ball spells targeting next to the monster, or figure out how to hockey-stick your spells so they hit precisely. Morgoth tries to approximate a straight line towards you, which means moving horizontally every turn instead of moving down one tile to get into LOS.

I only did this once, in ZAngband with a Mindcrafter; they have a targeted teleport that makes setup a snap, and one of their main attack spells hits every non-stupid creature in line of sight. I imagine it could still be done with some care in Vanilla though. The obvious fix is for the monster to favor getting into line of sight if possible.

[Oramin]

I killed Morgoth earlier today. Surprisingly easy. I made sure I had enough consumables and pelted him with my Sling of Buckland + Holy Might Ammo, Wands of Annihilation, and Orb of Draining (when not in LoS). Once he got adjacent to me, I just teleported him away and repeated the process as he came back after me. I only had to use Banishment about 7 times and Mass Banishment 4 times. Used up no more than 5 of any type of potion (*Healing*, Restore Mana, Berserk Strength, Heroism).

I am wondering, though, how people pillar dance with Morgoth. I was going to try that first and he just moved through the pillars like air.

[ekolis]

That sounds like a good idea...

[saarn]

I thought about hierarchies, which is pretty easy. Only allow summoned monsters to be at or below the summoner's level. I'm not sure this is the best. But it probably has more to do with the way I associate summons, which is more like candlelight pentagrams and silly teens trying to summon powerful demons rather than a call for underlings to do your bidding. Regardless, either way can work for good gameplay.

What about breaking these two effects into separate spells? E.g. Summon Great Monster and Summon Escorts. Demons might summon escorts (guaranteed to be lower level), whereas mystics might summon great monsters (which might then summon escorts).

[Timo Pietilä]

Dunno about Narya and Nenya.

Immunity to lightning is a situational ability. Sauron and Morgoth both have high-damaging nether attacks,

Morgoth and Sauron have only nether ball. That's not very damaging, only 155 points average for Morgoth (one point less for Sauron). Excluding nether breath that's the most damaging nether attack (there is no nether storm) and nether breath isn't that common so nether isn't actually very damaging element (just very common).

[fizzix]

Fizzix:


As an example, a Pit Fiend should be able to summon either:

1. Another Pit Fiend or Greater Balrog.
2. A couple of Lesser Balrogs or Gelugons.
3. A bunch of wimpy Greater Demons up to 16 Vrocks.

We're a lot closer to that mechanic in 3.4 than in 3.3.2 It's still probably a little generous in allowing powerful summons but it's not nearly as bad. The only way to get a dozen gelugons is to summon one of the unique balrogs with their escorts. 3.4 doesn't allow escorts to come with summons (the unique is bad enough!) so the ridiculous summons are ruled out. It's still not perfect.

@quarague
the summoning power is calculated for each individual spell, so it only keeps track of summoned monsters for that spell. If the monster summons again in the next round of combat, it can pull in another high powered creature.

I thought about hierarchies, which is pretty easy. Only allow summoned monsters to be at or below the summoner's level. I'm not sure this is the best. But it probably has more to do with the way I associate summons, which is more like candlelight pentagrams and silly teens trying to summon powerful demons rather than a call for underlings to do your bidding. Regardless, either way can work for good gameplay.

One thing to realize is that there's a balance between player and monster. I often consider powerful spells like destruction, teleport other, banish evil, and banishment to be the players counter to monster summonses. You could also take the point of view that summonses are the counter for those powerful player spells. If you nerf summons so that 80% or more are handleable through normal combat, then you also need to nerf some of the player spells likewise.