feature/monster

[Nick]

I hope I don't offend Nick overmuch with the criticisms in this post.

I'm fairly hard to offend; also I have asked for opinions and you have given thoughtful ones, so thanks

I have a bunch of things to say in response. First, I agree completely about the importance of language in Angband, and have been looking to improve that wherever possible (Sauron and the Witch-King are among the descriptions I've changed). I am always keen to have more opinions and contributions on this.

The description you give is from a Maia of Oromë, which is not a unique. Regarding Tolkien's feeling for the sea, I agree completely; if you look at the descriptions of a Maia of Ulmo:

A servant of Ulmo, Lord of Waters, who speaks to those who dwell in Middle-earth with voices that are heard only as the music of water.

and a great water elemental (which is something that only appears as a shapechange of Maiar of Ulmo):

A mighty column of water, terrible as a mounting wave that strides to the land.

maybe you get some sense of it?

The actual new Ainu uniques are Makar:

A battle-hungry spirit from amongst the Ainur, who built a grim hall in the early days of Arda to host endless battles. When not at home, he and his sister Meássë hunt and seek out the turmoils caused by Morgoth.

and Meássë:

Sister of Makar the Warrior, she would shout encouragement to the warriors of their hall and heal their wounds so they could battle on, until her arms were reddened to the elbow. Meássë is delighted by all violence, and recruits any beings of like abilities to her service.

The giant descriptions (as well as the basic ideas) I took straight from Sil; they possibly could be fleshed out a bit.

All that said, you do make a decent case for restoring Ossë - although I would want to take away his nether breath. What do others think?

Finally, I like your shapechange flicker idea - I will at least look into how easy it is to implement.

[Grotug]

I hope I don't offend Nick overmuch with the criticisms in this post.

Since the current master is a work in progress, I'm going to assume the new monsters, especially the new Uniques, are going to get fleshed out descriptions? (the new ones are rather underwhelming). One thing I loved about playing Angband in my early days of the game was all the great descriptions all the monsters and artifacts have. It always impressed me so much how every monster could sound like it was the most terrible thing to ever walk the world. Each Unique's description managed somehow to be more terrible than the next! Now, when I came across some new Uniques I was a bit skeptical, since I am so familiar with the bestiary of the official version and it's just hard to imagine the new monsters being cooler than the ones they are replacing. When I looked at a new unique's description, being skeptical seemed warranted: "A servant of Orome; hunter of servants and fell beasts." Sure, the language is good, but this is not a foe that instills ... anything in me, neither fear nor wonder; a bit generic without the interesting specific details of Osse. Osse may have been a bit random in his lore (some kind of Poseidon knock off) but, man, he has a great description! I don't know who wrote the original descriptions for the artifacts, monsters and Uniques, but I fear their writing will never be matched:

"Encrusted with barnacles, slimy and dripping, the Maia of the untamed sea has dragged himself down into Angband to send you to a watery grave. Osse is the most powerful and heartless of Ulmo's servants and embodies the untamed power of the ocean. Terror grows in your heart with each squelching step of his approach." His place in Angband will become even more fitting if water is ever added to the game.

While I am on board with the proposed increased Tolkienization of Angband and removing Uniques/monsters that don't really fit (I'm fine with Arien and Radagast going, but I do hope their replacements will be as memorable!), I'm realizing that Osse is actually one of the more memorable Uniques in the whole game, and I will be quite sad for his going; not just for his description but for how terrible he is for his native depth.

And actually, thematically, Osse is quite Tolkien appropriate in a way that is very fitting to such a dangerous adventure game as Angband: the sea held special significance to Tolkien, not as a nice place to visit on vacation, but as one that was not altogether very kind; but, rather, mysterious and dangerous, (in his mind it had swallowed up an entire continent).

"This legend or myth or dim memory of some ancient history has always troubled me. In sleep I had the dreadful dream of the ineluctable Wave, either coming out of the quiet sea, or coming in towering over the green inlands. It still occurs occasionally, though now exorcized by writing about it. It always ends by surrender, and I awake gasping out of deep water. I used to draw it or write bad poems about it." --J.R.R. Tolkien

I suppose in time I could come to appreciate the new Uniques, but I sure do hope they get some descriptions that match the excellent ones that will be going by the wayside. In the meantime, I am going to vote for Osse to stay!

Perhaps at this early stage of new monsters it's not very helpful of me to point out that the new giant Uniques were pretty disappointing as well: Nan, giant of the summer and the south does not give the kind of flavor I'm looking for in my bone crushing giant Uniques; being compared to a tree with friendly associations doesn't help matters, either. Just hoping the new descriptions will really grab my imagination!

I have never played a game with better writing than the beautiful and terrible lore of Angband. I hope the new descriptions, when they are finished, will be as fantastic as the rest of the monsters; and maybe we can keep Osse for his unique position as one of the most terrible-for-its-depth Uniques and his memorable description (I suppose Arien is maybe even more dangerous, but still less memorable). Also, three A uniques were removed, but only replaced by two, so might as well just bring Osse back.

Oh, and one suggestion for shapechanging (might be too difficult programming-wise): It would be really cool if there was some kind of ascii animation for when a monster was shapechanging instead of just suddenly becoming a different monster, by using something like an ascii spinner (could be used for @ as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93i8txD0H3Q#t=10m19s

[snip]
[*]Major rewrite of Ainur:

• lesser Maiar, greater Maiar, blue wizards and Istari are all gone
• Stole an idea (if not much of the implementation) from NPP of having Maia attached to given Valar (so Maia of Oromë, Maia of Varda, etc) - there are 8 types of these (corresponding to the High Ones of Arda), with stuff in common but thematic differences. All have shapechanges.
• Removed all existing uniques (Arien, Ossë, Radagast), replaced them with two new deep uniques (Makar and Meássë)

[*]Moderate rewrite of giants:

• Uniques (Polyphemus, Atlas, Kronos) removed, replaced with mid-level uniques stolen (in concept) from Sil (Nan and Gilim)
• Storm giants buffed and moved a bit deeper

[*]Two new monster spells - storms and balls of light (starbursts)[*]Thinking monsters which shapechange into non-thinking monsters are now still detectable by ESP and use smart spellcasting[/LIST]

This is not the last word on Ainur or giants, but we'll see how these changes play out.

[snip]

[Nick]

No more changes planned for monster view. But I am open to suggestions, it's easy to add stuff now that all data is in an internal SQL database.

I just started with a similar page for artifacts and randarts

Small bug in the monsters - when I click on mage, I get the info for dark elven mage.

[mrfy]

Yeah, they're not harmless. It'll be interesting to see how much the screaming yeeks change the balance of those fights. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily an "avoid at all costs until later" scenario now.

I ran across Boldor and some of his other yeek minions and one of them summoned a terrified yeek. He screamed and sped up everyone. Not wanting to fight them sped up, I phase doored away and got to where I could pick them off one at a time. It did make the fighting more challenging.

[Derakon]

Yeah, they're not harmless. It'll be interesting to see how much the screaming yeeks change the balance of those fights. I'm just saying that it's not necessarily an "avoid at all costs until later" scenario now.

[wobbly]

You'd want to be pretty careful though if it's being potentially quad-moved (orfax casts slow). The master yeeks can summon right? (I may be getting variants mixed up here).

[Derakon]

Regarding Orfax and Boldor, it really depends on the character. The defining trait of yeeks is that they just don't have much health. It's definitely possible for the melee-oriented classes to have enough power to be able to one-shot any of their escorts. Rangers, Mages, and Priests should probably hope to get lucky with a Wand of Wonder though. The nice thing there is that if you get one of the bad effects, like haste or heal, it'll affect one yeek, and a fast Brown or Master Yeek is still a yeek.

[Nick]

If yelling yeeks are guaranteed in Boldor/Orfax entourage, I'll postpone those fights deeper.

Not guaranteed, just a 50% chance

[Sphara]

Terrified yeeks will cause a lot of hassle, no doubt about it. Shrieker mushrooms are responsible for good amount of my early-game deaths and crebain I always tend to avoid if detected properly.

If yelling yeeks are guaranteed in Boldor/Orfax entourage, I'll postpone those fights deeper. Group of hasted master yeeks will ruin any attempt killing the royalties unless the character is somehow absolute monster that early or has managed to dig an anti-summoning hole.

EDIT: ^ doesn't mean I'm against the brown yeek -> terrified yeek change.

[mrfy]

Personally I wouldn't enjoy killing a monster that was always terrified of me and never tried to attack me.

If the goal is to make Yeeks interesting, I'd do:
Blue Yeek
Brown Yeek: Same as always except that it can shriek for help
Kamikaze Yeek (borrowed from Heng): explodes and can cause chain reactions if there are many of them
Master Yeek

Plenty of monsters don't move or attack (unless you're next to them). I'm finding the Terrified Yeek to be quite annoying with its shrieking for help. Like a moveable shrieker mushroom patch. Seems like a good addition to the game.

[wobbly]

There's also a yellow yeek in Sangband that throws lightning bolts. I think it's also worth considering giving yeeks the class set by colour.

[Djabanete]

Personally I wouldn't enjoy killing a monster that was always terrified of me and never tried to attack me.

If the goal is to make Yeeks interesting, I'd do:
Blue Yeek
Brown Yeek: Same as always except that it can shriek for help
Kamikaze Yeek (borrowed from Heng): explodes and can cause chain reactions if there are many of them
Master Yeek

[Nick]

So bring back ochre jellies and gcubes and ditch acidic cytoplasms? Fair enough.

Hydras apparently fine then

[Derakon]

I agree with everything Philip said.

[Philip]

I do feel that ochre jellies weren't very generic, simply because they were, as far as I can tell, the first fast monster that you really really couldn't walk away from. The rest of the early ones either move erratically or don't do much damage.

Personally I think Acidic Cytoplasm is actually the most generic, or more precisely, the least interesting to encounter, since by the point you meet them, they have fewer abilities than the average mob. Ochre jellies are an interesting early challenge because they move fast and have an acid attack before most monsters even have one threatening aspect. They might well be the earliest monster that you don't want to fight but can't run away from with just phase door and a bit of healing, though I imagine Crows of Durthang will be that now. Gelatinous Cubes resist everything, are nasty in melee, and are extremely bulky, which also made them interesting. Black Puddings are pretty boring, since they're like Gelatinous Cubes but encountered too late to be interesting, and the only interesting thing about Black Ooze is that it is a breeder and drops items, which is kind of an exploit anyway (it's too squishy and slow to provide a credible threat, so no interest on that front). I think ochre jelly and gelatinous cube are the only ones I would have actually kept.

New birds and yeek sound fun, looking forward to my first new rules S and M fights.