feature/monster

[Nick]

New builds of this branch for Windows and macOS are now upon the build page (source is here). Changes are:

• Birds:
  • Ravens replaced by crows of Durthang (from O)
  • Nighthawks replaced by blood falcons (new monster, possibly OP)
• Yeeks: brown yeeks replaced by terrified yeeks, which do nothing but run away screaming
• Jellies: decided that five different types of moving, acid-attack jellies was too many, and removed ochre jellies, gelatinous cubes and black puddings (as the most generic)
• Hydras:
  • Now range from 2-headed to 9-headed
  • Each one is like the previous one with an extra head and an extra blow (yes, that is what I mean)
  • Higher level ones also get breaths
• Sauron: The aim here is for the Sauron fight to be less annoying and more dangerous. He gets shapechanges, his spells are more powerful, and he has fewer hitpoints. Possibly he should lose most of his teleport spells as well.
• Morgoth - now gets the new SMASH_WALL flag (similar to FA, but nerfed slightly) where when he tunnels he removes not just the grid he's moving to, but also most of the wall grids adjacent; also a couple of changes to the hit to shatter attack
• Fixed a bug where necromancers couldn't read (thanks wobbly)
• Fixed a couple of fairly rare crash bugs with monster groups; there's still at least one unfixed, though.
• Sundry tweaks to monster spells necessitated by some of the changed monsters

This is now close to the end of the pass through the list by monster base. There's a few more things to do, then I'll be looking at the list from other perspectives (appropriate distribution through the dungeon, where all the spells turn up, what monsters are difficult for particular classes, etc). But before that I plan to pull the branch into master, probably in about a week.

Opinions welcome as always.

[tangar]

I do not know why, but it feels pretty painful changes. It's like moving to new version of software or new interface, when previous one was perfect an you loved it... I hate to migrate on new UI. And this is much worse than this - as new UI got (at least sometimes) certain reasons to appear, and this changes isn't really necessary.

Ravens replaced by crows of Durthang (from O)

Nighthawks replaced by blood falcons (new monster, possibly OP)

Why not just add new monsters: crows of Durthang and blood falcons? It would bring something new to the game, make it more interesting. Players likes to have new monsters. Why to remove mobs which people get used to..

Yeeks: brown yeeks replaced by terrified yeeks, which do nothing but run away screaming

I like brown yeeks. Why just not to add terrified yeeks as new monster in addition to brown yeeks?

Jellies: decided that five different types of moving, acid-attack jellies was too many, and removed ochre jellies, gelatinous cubes and black puddings (as the most generic)

I love ochre jellies, gelatinous cubes and black puddings. Especially gelatinous cubes who are classic of the classic

It doesn't feel as enhancement, but as 'cutting' parts of the living body, sorry.

[mrfy]

Changes are:

• Yeeks: brown yeeks replaced by terrified yeeks, which do nothing but run away screaming
• Jellies: decided that five different types of moving, acid-attack jellies was too many, and removed ochre jellies, gelatinous cubes and black puddings (as the most generic)

I like the yeek change, looking forward to encountering terrified yeeks. Disappointed with the change to jellies, I will miss gelatinous cubes and surprisingly ochre jellies as they were easy to kill with frost. Other changes sound good, IMO.

Btw, save file wasn't compatible again. No big deal.

[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.

[Derakon]

I agree with everything Philip said.

[Nick]

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

Hydras apparently fine then

[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

[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.

[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.

[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.

[Nick]

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

Not guaranteed, just a 50% chance

[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.

[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]

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.

[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.