The Monster Memory

[Timo Pietilä]

I don't know what V is but the Loremaster ability sounds nice indeed!

V stands for Vanilla, IE the unaltered angband.

My problem with "easy" solutions is that they tend to close door for development. Monster memory and monster knowledge in general is a platform where you can build features like kind of like "rune-based ID" for monsters in addition to items or this loremaster thing. If you allow full memory from start, then there is nothing to build on.

[Zireael]

Yeah, I totally disagree with that ^. I already assume everything can kill me, but I dunno how you can claim there's a specific way to play that can guard you against all threats.

When I fight a monster, I would at least like to know:

a) How much damage can it do per round in melee
b) What special powers does it have (breaths, summons, drains, etc)
c) What side-effects do those specials have (disenchant, nexus scramble, etc)
d) How fast is the thing
e) What do I (potentially) get for killing it

Sil tells me all of these things (and more) when I have monster memory, and I can get all monster memory by buying an ability called Loremaster. Players who would rather not have all of this (or who would rather discover it or remember it on their own) can opt to skip it.

I think it's difficult for V to tell me (a), which is fair. (c) is a short-list that can be looked up (i.e. if it breathes disenchant, I can look up 'disenchant' to learn that it blasts my equipment).

If you'd rather be surprised by those things, or have them vaguely hinted to in monster descriptions, that's fine. If you want to define it as 'cheating' to know those things, that is also fine. I just think that's not very much fun.

I don't know what V is but the Loremaster ability sounds nice indeed!

[buzzkill]

>>> players will play a somewhat less interesting, certainly easier Angband

You mean the Angband that every experienced player on this site plays? I thought we liked that game.

No, I mean complete newbs and long time crappy players like me who have never beaten the game. I doubt it will have any effect on seasoned veterans.

[Djabanete]

>>> players will play a somewhat less interesting, certainly easier Angband

You mean the Angband that every experienced player on this site plays? I thought we liked that game.

[wobbly]

Is that an argument for displaying the information if they enjoy having it, because it doesn't make much difference? Or an argument against displaying the information, because they should know it already? Or just a casual observation not really oriented toward either view?

I agree with displaying it. I wont use it because it's not how I like to play, others can play how they like. Was just commenting that I doubt it will actually make any difference to the scoreboard.

[chris]

Is it cheating if I play my own variant? What if I save the game, alter the code, recompile and resume?

[DaviddesJ]

As far as the ladder goes, I'm pretty sure anyone scoring near the top has a pretty good idea what monster does what without actually having to look it up in the monster memory.

Is that an argument for displaying the information if they enjoy having it, because it doesn't make much difference? Or an argument against displaying the information, because they should know it already? Or just a casual observation not really oriented toward either view?

[wobbly]

As far as the ladder goes, I'm pretty sure anyone scoring near the top has a pretty good idea what monster does what without actually having to look it up in the monster memory.

[Nick]

BTW, I'm feeling like a bit of a dick tonight, deal with it.

Which bit?

*ducks*

[DaviddesJ]

There are only two spells that can match breath weapons: manastorm and darkness storms. Not many monsters do those and they are deep monsters.

How do you know that without cheating?

[Timo Pietilä]

I'm happy to hear it, Timo. It really sucks to lose a good character to abilities that you didn't know existed.

As far as I know there are only three of those: damage cap of unresisted basic four and poison, paralyzation and KO from stunning.

IE:
it did HOW much damage? & Hey, I can't move! & Hey, I can't move!

[Timo Pietilä]

Yeah, I totally disagree with that ^. I already assume everything can kill me, but I dunno how you can claim there's a specific way to play that can guard you against all threats.

Easy, don't fight it when you first meet it, use distance attacks to figure out roughly how much HP it has, read the description, be faster than it is and most important leave big enough margin to survive surprises.

There are only two spells that can match breath weapons: manastorm and darkness storms. Not many monsters do those and they are deep monsters.

[DaviddesJ]

In the end, some players will play a somewhat less interesting, certainly easier Angband

The game isn't any easier with complete monster memory than it is looking into the spoiler file, which is what all of those players do now. As far as the difficulty of winning or ranking on the ladder, it's no change from now.

You could have a ladder that players only submit to if they promise never to look at spoilers, but we don't have that now, it would be something new, and most of the people who have criticized the complete monster memory apparently wouldn't be eligible either, since most of them have said they do look at spoilers sometimes, and/or use a complete monster memory from probing in previous games, which is just as much of an "advantage". The no-monster-memory ladder should also require that players not inherit any knowledge from previous characters, right?

However, I am completely happy with the idea that whether the player chose the option of complete monster memory (as well as the monster behavior options, and anything else that affects gameplay) should be recorded in character dumps. Then anyone can choose to discount anyone else's results by any amount they want based on whatever criteria they prefer.

[debo]

I think having a 'competitive' or 'equal footing' ladder and a 'sharing' ladder is actually quite a good idea. It might be a bit much to segment an already-small community OK into two populations + the 'official' competitions, but the idea itself sounds reasonable to me.

[buzzkill]

Another argument was that it's not fair for people using spoilers to be ranked on the ladder. Um, also lol.

That's an inaccurate summary of my thoughts on the subject, lol. It's not that spoiled players shouldn't be ranked, lol, it's just that they should be ranked against similarly spoiled players, lol... ideally beneath non-spoiled players, also lol.

Then don't call it a ladder, which implies a competitive ranking system. I guess we could just have a bunch of character dumps. Also, maybe change Monster Memory into the Monster Manual, since learning (ie memory) won't have much, if anything, to do with it. But even that's not ideal since the MM is traditionally off limits to the players.

SPOILED flag, seriously, and I'll all but drop any objection I have to this. Hard-core cheaters could always edit the character dump, remove flag, and hide their shame. It is a just a text file after all.

In the end, some players will play a somewhat less interesting, certainly easier Angband but there's not my problem or my call. BTW, I'm feeling like a bit of a dick tonight, deal with it.