Unserious Idea - Ego Monsters

[Mark]

I glanced at the forums and misread dhegler's post "Monster Weaknesses" as "Monsters of Westerness".

Wouldn't it be interesting if any monster (or sometimes only some species) could appear as a more powerful variant. We do that with weapons, and some combinations prove more powerful than artifacts (uniques).

Ego Monsters: (Why are ego weapons called "ego" anyway?)

of Isengard - +50% AC (Saurman and his workshops)
of Mordor - +0.5 speed (Spurred on by Sauron's dark will)
of the First Age - damage, HP, AC, attacks/round, saving throw all +20%
of Gorgoroth - has additional moderate-damage darkness breath attack (land of Ungoliants' brood)
of Moria - always can 'throw javelin for 12d6' in addition to regular attacks
of Erech - always a ghostly version that can move throw walls

....because you know, the game isn't hard enough already

On the other hand if they dropped great loot...

Naturally I'm not being serious, but it's fun to wonder

[PowerWyrm]

TomeNET and probably other variants already have ego monsters: for example hill orc chieftain, blink wolf, black ogre archpriest, possessed giant white mouse...

[emulord]

I was once killed by a lich giant white mouse on Dungeon level 2 in Tome. Yeah, screw ego monsters.

[Knight]

No but I like this idea. If that counts for anything. It should. I don't know why, though.

I'm always bored when it comes to slaughtering wave after wave of faceless hordes, and bored means dead. But if I'm forced to keep an eye out for something that might be more dangerous--yet potentially be more rewarding, I'd stand a better chance of retaining interest. Hence less death through boredom.

[Timo Pietilä]

No but I like this idea. If that counts for anything. It should. I don't know why, though.

I'm always bored when it comes to slaughtering wave after wave of faceless hordes, and bored means dead. But if I'm forced to keep an eye out for something that might be more dangerous--yet potentially be more rewarding, I'd stand a better chance of retaining interest. Hence less death through boredom.

Same here. There is discussion about "know full monster info" in another thread and this whole suggestion is exactly opposite of that. This would bring unknown monsters in every game, and I like it.

[Nick]

I think some kind of added flavour to monsters is certainly worth thinking about.

[fizzix]

Same here. There is discussion about "know full monster info" in another thread and this whole suggestion is exactly opposite of that. This would bring unknown monsters in every game, and I like it.

Not necessarily. Tome has ego monsters *and* full knowledge. Although I find the implementation somewhat problematic.

If monster abilities are not known then they must be fair*. If they are known then it must be easy UI-wise to find out what you're up against.

*defining "fair" is hard, but if 1 out of every 5 ego monsters can kill the average character at that level, then you're just going to avoid them like the plague. If 1 in 100 could, I probably would still avoid them, but it depends on the reward level for victory.

@Nick: Eventually it'd be nice if "ice troll" was just an ego version of a troll, or something like that. Simplification of the monster list while still allowing for great variety is a useful goal.

Also, hey look, I'm in a time zone somewhat reasonably close to yours (for at least two more days.) Too bad irc is blocked.

[Timo Pietilä]

Not necessarily. Tome has ego monsters *and* full knowledge. Although I find the implementation somewhat problematic.

If monster abilities are not known then they must be fair*. If they are known then it must be easy UI-wise to find out what you're up against.

*defining "fair" is hard, but if 1 out of every 5 ego monsters can kill the average character at that level, then you're just going to avoid them like the plague.

Pretty much anything in the dungeon is deadly if you let them kill you, so it depends how they would kill you. Not "can it", because nearly everything can.

I would ban extra mana/darkness storms from anything and breath weapons from monsters that can't usually use breath weapons. Also thematically inappropriate things, like Ice Wyrm breathing fire. Pretty much anything else goes.

[fizzix]

Pretty much anything in the dungeon is deadly if you let them kill you, so it depends how they would kill you. Not "can it", because nearly everything can.

I would ban extra mana/darkness storms from anything and breath weapons from monsters that can't usually use breath weapons. Also thematically inappropriate things, like Ice Wyrm breathing fire. Pretty much anything else goes.

Well, a lot of angband danger rests on the single big attack, so I'm more worried about that than anything else. If you cut out the big attacks, we're probably mostly in agreement, but we might end up with a lot of randomization of things that just don't matter.

Most spells are actually severely underpowered in the mid/late game. I've been wanting to experiment with toning down the breath weapons and cranking up some of the other spells, but haven't really gotten down to figuring out how this would play out.

[Derakon]

Some of my friends play ToME4, and a common complaint is that you basically just steamroll through the dungeon until one of the ego-monsters happens to randomly get a ridiculously overpowered set of abilities, at which point it steamrolls you. Even though the player has perfect monster knowledge in that game, it's not reasonable for the player to check every single monster's ability sets because there's so many monsters.

I think it's certainly possible to do ego monsters without running into this problem, but it seems like an awfully easy trap to fall into.

My inclination would be to have a set of templates that we can apply to monsters that tweak their stats and melee attacks, but largely leave their spells (and speed) alone. E.g. a Lich version of a monster attaches experience and DEX drain to the monster's melee (if no other attributes are already on those melee attacks), makes them undead, and gives them 20% more HP. A Ghostly monster would be able to move through walls but only has half health.

Along with this we need a way to visually indicate these monsters. If we could color their backgrounds that would probably do the trick.

This is basically the Diablo 2 approach to ego monsters, and while it's not super-interesting compared to what potentially could be done, it's also not a) unbalanced, or b) a lethal shock to encounter.

[bio_hazard]

This idea would be a big departure from how Angband works, but for a lot of humanoid monsters you could give them equipment instead of abilities. Then they could drop said equipment when they die. Either give any monster a chance to carry something and/or give e.g. orc captains a chance to wield magical items. For egos, you could try to make it somewhat thematic so orcs weren't carrying westernesse weapons.

I like this because it is a more transparent way to make monsters more interesting, but it informs the player about risk-reward of tackling said monster. In the description we could add at the end "It's plate armor/sword/leather boots shimmers with magical energy" or for a mage "It grips a wand".

(This is more or less how Crawl does it. Can be hard on low level characters to encounter an otherwise weak monster with a hard-hitting wand or weapon, but ego items are usually visible on the sprites and most of the time you can survive more than one round and run away if need be)

[mrrstark]

Some of my friends play ToME4, and a common complaint is that you basically just steamroll through the dungeon until one of the ego-monsters happens to randomly get a ridiculously overpowered set of abilities, at which point it steamrolls you. Even though the player has perfect monster knowledge in that game, it's not reasonable for the player to check every single monster's ability sets because there's so many monsters.

Exactly.

In the description we could add at the end "It's plate armor/sword/leather boots shimmers with magical energy" or for a mage "It grips a wand".

Same problem as Tome4, you have to 'l'ook at every monster description to figure out whether this instance is a normal steamroll monster, or one that is an ego and going to one-shot you now.

Basically, you need to figure out a way to maintain the ability to easily read monsters. New Glyphs, colors, particle effects, w/e would need to be paired with this change to make this happen.

[Carnivean]

This idea would be a big departure from how Angband works, but for a lot of humanoid monsters you could give them equipment instead of abilities. Then they could drop said equipment when they die. Either give any monster a chance to carry something and/or give e.g. orc captains a chance to wield magical items. For egos, you could try to make it somewhat thematic so orcs weren't carrying westernesse weapons.

I like this because it is a more transparent way to make monsters more interesting, but it informs the player about risk-reward of tackling said monster. In the description we could add at the end "It's plate armor/sword/leather boots shimmers with magical energy" or for a mage "It grips a wand".

(This is more or less how Crawl does it. Can be hard on low level characters to encounter an otherwise weak monster with a hard-hitting wand or weapon, but ego items are usually visible on the sprites and most of the time you can survive more than one round and run away if need be)

I like this idea. You wouldn't have to do too much to implement it for the player to see. You either make it all so all higher level monsters are like this, like Orc Captains, or you make it a random member of the class, but highlight it in a different way, or you could message the player with a "feeling" style message on LOS.

Highlighting could be a different colour. Purple means unique in ascii. Red in the monster list means out of depth. Just change the colour in the listing or the ascii or both. Not sure if you'd want a different tile for us tile players.

Higher class monsters from a base are more dangerous anyway. Orc Captains are tougher and deal more damage. Wolf Chieftains cast spells (which is more of a surprise really). It would be logical that they got to their position by having better equipment.

A side thought to that would be that every equipment carrying monster drops their equipment. Soldiers and Paladins could drop swords and armour, and the deeper they've made it down the better the equipment. Probably wouldn't take the past {magical} level, but they could be using shortswords in shallower levels but katanas, broadswords or zweihanders at lower levels. They're meant to be bands of adventurers (now that they are bands) like our character, so surely they've been picking up stuff as they go?

[fizzix]

Derakon's correct in the main drawback to Tome. It also suffers from the "too much stuff" problem, so it's hard to ID how dangerous an attack is on sight unless you are familiar with it. And to get to that knowledge, you actually need quite a few clicks. Careful players will check out all rares, but it's painful. I think TOME would do better with more powerful rares that are much less frequent.

A side thought to that would be that every equipment carrying monster drops their equipment. Soldiers and Paladins could drop swords and armour, and the deeper they've made it down the better the equipment. Probably wouldn't take the past {magical} level, but they could be using shortswords in shallower levels but katanas, broadswords or zweihanders at lower levels. They're meant to be bands of adventurers (now that they are bands) like our character, so surely they've been picking up stuff as they go?

We have a step up on Crawl on this since we have squelch and Crawl doesn't. (Crawl does have a nice search option, but it doesn't stop the dungeon littered with crap problem) We've also already begun this with drop profiles. Mages and Priests will drop spellbooks more frequently. A step up would be to "equalize" the spell books so that enemy spells and player spells are the same, then you could have casters know some number of spells from the book they have. (we'd obviously have to eliminate or rework some spells like WoD and banishment, at least until we introduce friendly monsters)

This is a lot of work though. I do agree that if we go with weapons for monsters we need to make sure that we do make things somewhat easy to determine and that we don't have scruffy hobbit + wand of death situations.

[Timo Pietilä]

Basically, you need to figure out a way to maintain the ability to easily read monsters. New Glyphs, colors, particle effects, w/e would need to be paired with this change to make this happen.

Maybe color-code them in monster screen so that you notice that there is something off in this monster.

As I see this this is problem to make player to know what your char knows as much as to get char to know what to expect.

In any case ego-monsters would make probing really valuable.