Future development of 4.2.1. - canine issue

[Sphara]

There isn't any main topic for 4.2.1. development yet, so I'm just making a new one here just to make a request for the future.

There are too many fights against wolves during the early game. The packs are very common, practically always awake, give massive EXP for their difficulty and generally annoy me every time I see one. But that's not enough, there are THREE different types of wolves. All similar except a white wolf has rCold and a warg is evil. That's it. The main problem is that they are not a threat IF YOU WANT so. They don't follow you to the corridor unless you're >50% wounded. Yet, you kinda want to go through killing them, because it's free EXP.

They give ridiculous amount of EXP compared to felines appearing on same depths. One wolf gives more compared to a panther, which is far more dangerous. Same if you compare warg - tiger. And even a werewolf - sabre-tooth tiger (this is besides the issue but I'll mention it because st-cat is FAR more dangerous).

My suggestion is to at least remove white wolves, reduce the pack size for the rest of the canines, remove their GROUP_ID so they will follow you into the corridor and remove the irrational movement. Even that would not justify the larger EXP value they give compared to felines. Not a cat person or dog person, btw..

I'm not starting here on Z-hounds. Those have similar issues, but I'm now mostly annoyed by the early game canine mini-game and would like to see that fixed in future versions.

Any comments?

[Pete Mack]

I look at it a little differently. If you reach DL 8 at low CL, by definition you have more experience than is shown in your XP. Ergo there needs to be a way to reward you. Monsters like wolves are that reward. By the time you reach CL 10, you aren't getting such a big payoff, and it falls off exponentially with CL.

[Sphara]

I like diving, but for me, this reasoning does not justify endless, boring and risk-free fights.
Thanks for the opinion, though. Besides the straight up change/removal request, I really wanted to have the community view on this issue.

[wobbly]

I like White Wolves. At the very least they are a different colour. I also like Group AI.

As far as Wargs are concerned:

friends:80:2d7:Warg
friends:100:2d7:Same
friends:50:2d4:Warg
friends:80:2d5:Warg
friends:50:1d5:Warg
friends:80:2d7:Warg
friends:80:2d7:Warg
friends:80:2d5:Warg
friends:80:2d7:Warg
friends:60:2d4:Warg:servant
friends:50:2d4:warg:servant

You could make them a bit rarer & still fit a lot of wargs into the game. Anyway not too bothered by Cs in general, other then thinking it would be sad to see white wolves go.

[fph]

I also find them a bit too frequent to be fun. They are one of the least interesting monsters to fight in the game.

[Sphara]

@wobbly
I don't think GROUP AI in general, is a negative thing at all. But being forced to repeat luring wolves out one by one on every freakin level after like DL8, is major negative for me. I don't want to "walk away from" a monster just because of pure boredom of fighting them. The game has enough monsters you're supposed to walk away from. And that is because of their danger, not because of repetitive boredom of the fight.

Also concerning to white wolves, I could see them being changed into a more dangerous single monster (I'd upgrade werewolf too in the same process, but that would make wolf chieftain pretty similar).

[Anarchic Fox]

Subjectively, I never had any problems with wolves in my Angband games. It took me a fairly long time to learn that in Angband I can just turn and walk away, even if the level message is juicy, and after that point I stopped dreading undead so much. Perhaps an alteration of playstyle is in order?

And then, the hounds. The hounds are exquisite. As long as I am diligent, they present little to no hazard. But then, should my awareness or diligence slip, they stand ready to burst from an unexpected direction and make a mundane scenario interesting, or an interesting scenario deadly. I think they are perfect as is.

[Sphara]

@Anarchic Fox
Everything I've said in this thread, is also purely subjective

I've been playing this game so long that going through this same pattern of disposing wolves outta my way, has gotten overwhelmingly annoying.

This is the only way I can interact with game development and I want to be damn sure it keeps going in the right way (subjectively).
It sure as hell did in release of 4.2.0 (subjectively).

Cheers

[Derakon]

I don't see anything wrong with increasing the variety of enemies faced in the early game. It should be as simple as dialling down the frequency on Wargs/White Wolves, right?

[Anarchic Fox]

Hehheh. In that case, maybe the problem isn't with the wolves or their numbers, but with the available wolf-disposal options. Like, I've won three times now, and am having a blast as a druid, but I still have never bothered with the lower-level mass damage items. Maybe it would be a good idea to have some dumb, low-level area of effect item that's super high radius, super low damage. If an old-timer pops up to object that the item trivializes wolves, that back in his day wolves meant something, then that's a good sign that the problem has been solved.

Like, I get that there's an appealing elegance to the original elemental magic system. But the elemental damage system that the druids now have is so much more fun than that of the wands. You might rework the elemental wands (or staves, or whatever, I've always found them useless relative to other items that could be in their slot) so that one of them is specifically the Wand of Die Wolf Die. I dunno, it catches their fur on fire and when they run off yelping it doesn't matter, since they'll die instead of showing up again a few rooms later.

[Grotug]

Subjectively, I'm slowly warming up to the annoyance that is Huorns and their ilk (black hearted huorn! watch out!) They have made the half troll weaker, which is a good thing I think as it was practically the only combo I played before the overhaul that is 4.2.0.

I think a simple solution would be to reduce wolf frequency in the early game by like 27 or 28%, and possibly all the change necessary. Personally, I don't want to see wolves changed much--or at all, actually. I like their annoying, slightly erratic behavior; I think it gives the game some nice flavor, if nothing else, and I think it's remarkable how much they actually feel like an intelligent pack of animals working together in a game that is turn based and ascii; pretty impressive. Thus it would be sad to lose that aspect of the game. That all said, I agree with wobbly that, subjectively, it would be sad to see white wolves go.

One thing I still lament (though at the time I would curse them up and down six ways from Sunday) is the nerf to Hellhounds. I miss fearing them. I miss the unique place they used to hold in the fearsome 40s and how they breathed terror into all adventurers who passed through the DL40s, how they lived up to their name so terribly well.

I guess I didn't realize wolves provided so much EXP. I generally ignore them if it's inconvenient to fight them.

@Anarchic Fox Wands of Stinking Cloud are a low damage area of effect wand that already exists. Wands of lightning bolts also good for wolf removal. I guess the problem is there are so many wolves that you would need a pretty fat stack of these to get rid of them all this way.

[wobbly]

Subjectively, I'm slowly warming up to the annoyance that is Huorns and their ilk (black hearted huorn! watch out!) They have made the half troll weaker, which is a good thing I think as it was practically the only combo I played before the overhaul that is 4.2.0.

A trick here I discovered by accident, the trees can't open or bash doors. Wont help with a hasty ent around, but for the rest a simple closed door will stop them. Hmm looking again the black hearted huorn can bash a door, but the early standard huorn can't.

[Anarchic Fox]

@Anarchic Fox Wands of Stinking Cloud are a low damage area of effect wand that already exists. Wands of lightning bolts also good for wolf removal. I guess the problem is there are so many wolves that you would need a pretty fat stack of these to get rid of them all this way.

Yeah, I was suggesting greatly altering one of the existing wands to make it a wolf-specific item. I mean, you just admitted that the wand that's supposed to do this task, doesn't do this task unless there are lots of them in the stack.

So, I'm going to say... I genuinely enjoy the large packs of wolves. Every time I saw a pack I would charge straight into their midst and start killing them left and right until, at some point, their morale broke and the remainder started to flee. I don't recall ever being afraid of them, though admittedly I play slow. Encountering them provides the same pleasure I find in seeing packs of orcs in deep levels. Sure, they're hardly valuable, but at this point they're a blast to slaughter, and a much-needed stress reliever compared to the deadlier stuff.

[Pete Mack]

@AF--
They only give a lot of XP if CL is less than DL. The mobs are no longer big enough to give much XP beyond that. (There used to be 20 to 30; now there are 10 to 15.)

[luneya]

@Anarchic Fox Wands of Stinking Cloud are a low damage area of effect wand that already exists. Wands of lightning bolts also good for wolf removal. I guess the problem is there are so many wolves that you would need a pretty fat stack of these to get rid of them all this way.

Why not buff stinking cloud, making it a genuinely effective remover of annoying stuff? Just about everything dangerous already is resistant or immune to poison, so even if we double or triple the stinking cloud damage, it'll still be a niche spell for removing canines and other such annoyances. And at least then it'll be worth using. Stinking cloud always had a reputation of being one of those spells that was never used unless someone picked up a wand, as its mana cost was high and its effectiveness low.