Monster list tweaking

[Timo Pietilä]

1) I prefer that every monster's depth corresponds in some way to its difficulty.

Well, you are creating an variant I wont be playing, and hopefully nothing from it is coming to vanilla as it is (because nothing from it will be directly useful for vanilla) so feel free to do whatever you wish. Personally I feel that similar monster danger level at any given dlvl just makes game more boring.

[Magnate]

3) Some difficulties arise because moving some already powerful monsters deeper will make them significantly more powerful. I've already mentioned black reavers as a problem. Other problem monsters are angels, emperor wights, death knights, dark elven lords, nether wraiths. These monsters need to be handled with care, and perhaps they will satisfy your need for dangerous out of depth monsters, simply because the prospect of weakening them is not appealing to me.

Just to note that the reason these monsters get more dangerous if moved deeper is because (some significant proportion of) their attacks are level-based.

Also to note that this is configurable, so we can stop any of these attacks being level-based and replace them with level-independent attacks, if we want to make any of these monsters deeper without becoming more dangerous.

Finally, I am working on moving this configurability of spells and effects from source code files into edit files, so it will be possible to test changes like this without needing to recompile. This is a sizeable project and won't be finished any time soon, but I am hoping to make good progress over the xmas holidays.

Just in case anyone has forgotten that this is the v4 forum, none of the above changes will be going into V, at least not for a long time.

[fizzix]

So you prefer every monster being easy to predict and kill at their corresponding depth? You add boredom with smoothness, unless you also make sure that game creates very OoD monsters every now and then and pretty much every level has some OoD monster.

1) I prefer that every monster's depth corresponds in some way to its difficulty. Of course with wide varieties of monsters, this is very difficult to quantify, and depends greatly on the specific game you are playing. A nexus vortex is dangerous to a powerful character without rnexus but is ignorable for a much weaker character with rnexus.

2) To me problems occur when obviously stronger monsters appear earlier than weaker monsters. Dracolichs and great ice wyrms are an example here. Another problem is when monsters are given the illusion of being handleable due to prior experience when they are not. AMHDs are an example of this, judging by Ancient dragons, and the difference between mature elemental dragons and mature MHDs, a player will deduce incorrectly that an AMHD should be *much* weaker than they actually are. The solutions are to make AMHDs much deeper than elemental ancient dragons, or make elemental dragons stronger. Personally, I prefer the latter. But for the first run through, I'm going to avoid tweaking *anything* to monsters besides levels.

3) Some difficulties arise because moving some already powerful monsters deeper will make them significantly more powerful. I've already mentioned black reavers as a problem. Other problem monsters are angels, emperor wights, death knights, dark elven lords, nether wraiths. These monsters need to be handled with care, and perhaps they will satisfy your need for dangerous out of depth monsters, simply because the prospect of weakening them is not appealing to me.

4) I have no problem of increasing the variance in OoD monsters appearing. Assuming we use a normal distribution on the OoD side. Something like a 6 level standard deviation (after say level 40) seems reasonable. Then for every OoD monster, 68.2% are between 1 and 6 levels OoD. 26.8% are between 7 and 12 and 4.2% are between 13 and 18, and 0.2% are between 19 and 24. This will probably be my next task.

[Magnate]

That's impossible goal. Even if you make dungeon two level deep with Morgoth waiting at dlvl 2 player would just play level 1 so long that he is ready to face Morgoth. You need variance. Without that no level would ever be dangerous (or to be more precise all levels would be equally boringly similar in danger level).

You seem to have misunderstood what I wrote. I said "The discrepancies between the danger levels of monsters present on any given generated level should be roughly what it is now" which means the opposite of "equally boringly similar in danger level". Perhaps you are confusing the gameplay result (unchanged) with the underlying mechanism (proposal to change). Perhaps also we understand different meanings of "dangerous" as used in my sentence which you quoted. I meant "non-trivial" and (clarified in the next sentence) "not wildly varying in danger level" (remember this is the underlying mechanism, not the gameplay result). Perhaps you thought I meant "instakill-deadly" and "equally boringly similar".

[PowerWyrm]

I've been thinking about doing some significant monster list tweaking for a while now, and I've started gathering my thoughts together. The main problem I wish to solve is that non-unique monsters top out at level 79. I'd like to move that to about dlevel 95, with the deepest monsters likely being the Pit fiend and the Great Wyrm of Balance.

For my variant, I made an important tweak on dragons to make the deeper levels more interesting (and to allow the full variety for players choosing the Dragon race at birth). Currently, you have wyrms which summon dragons (storm, ice...) and wyrms which summon ancient dragons (chaos, law...). For my variant I split those into Greater Wyrms (+10 speed, summon dragons) and Ancient Wyrms (+20 speed, summon ancient dragons). The Greater Wyrms are maintained at their current depth (63-83), the Ancient Wyrms are put deeper (87-97).

[Timo Pietilä]

Actually all monsters should be dangerous when encountered at depth.

That's impossible goal. Even if you make dungeon two level deep with Morgoth waiting at dlvl 2 player would just play level 1 so long that he is ready to face Morgoth. You need variance. Without that no level would ever be dangerous (or to be more precise all levels would be equally boringly similar in danger level).

[Magnate]

+1

Some monsters should be "dangerous when encountered at depth"

Actually all monsters should be dangerous when encountered at depth. What we should avoid are massive discrepancies between the danger levels of monsters of the same native depth, which is what fizzix is trying to address. The discrepancies between the danger levels of monsters present on any given generated level should be roughly what it is now - but the more dangerous monsters should be varying degrees OOD.

[Antoine]

So you prefer every monster being easy to predict and kill at their corresponding depth? You add boredom with smoothness, unless you also make sure that game creates very OoD monsters every now and then and pretty much every level has some OoD monster.

+1

Some monsters should be "dangerous when encountered at depth"

A.

[Timo Pietilä]

I've heard this before, and I'm not sure I agree with it.

So you prefer every monster being easy to predict and kill at their corresponding depth? You add boredom with smoothness, unless you also make sure that game creates very OoD monsters every now and then and pretty much every level has some OoD monster.

[myshkin]

Also there are other unintended consequences with moving monsters deeper besides item drops. Deeper monsters can summon stronger monsters, but are harder to be summoned themselves. Deeper monsters have better to-hit on melee, and missile/ball/curse damage is higher. Only breaths, which depend on HP don't improve with added depth.

Should we consider making an individual monster's level a function of its race's native depth, the dungeon level on which it appears, and/or some random variation, instead of all black reavers having the same power level? I guess that's partway to the ego monster concept.

[fizzix]

Another thing to keep in mind: the depth vs. monster danger level curve should not be smooth. In other words, there should be monsters that are significantly more dangerous than their in-depth brethren. Black reavers are an excellent example of this and should stay right where they are (at level 74).

I've heard this before, and I'm not sure I agree with it. I'd rather have the non-smoothness arise through OoD monster spawning. I think inspection of what the monster level is should give a reasonably good indication of how dangerous it is.

Playing around with the deeper part of the dungeon today, this is what I have:

level 77
Great storm wyrm
great ice wyrm 
great swamp wyrm

level 78
chaos hound
feagwath
archlich

level 79
greater titan
atlas
bone golem

level 80
glaurung
great hell wyrm
great bile wyrm

level 81
nightcrawler
great wyrm of thunder

level 82
ungoliant
gelugon

level 83
time hound
draugluin

level 84
jabberwock
witch-king

level 85
pazuzu
horned reaper

level 86
greater quylthulgs

level 87
aether hound
maeglin

level 88
master quylthulg
cantoras

level 89
qlzqqlzuup
bronze golem

level 90
nightwalker
kronos

level 91
great wyrm of law
tarrasque

level 92
great wyrm of chaos
black reaver (will have to be moved)

level 93
great wyrm of many colors
lungorthin
greater balrog

level 94
huan
carcharoth

level 95
great wyrm of balance
pit fiend

level 96
vecna

level 97
ancalagon

level 98
gothmog

level 99
sauron

level 100
morgoth

[Derakon]

Another thing to keep in mind: the depth vs. monster danger level curve should not be smooth. In other words, there should be monsters that are significantly more dangerous than their in-depth brethren. Black reavers are an excellent example of this and should stay right where they are (at level 74).

[fizzix]

NOT trying to be a stick in the mud, but I just had one more concern. What about Shockbolt's tiles? I think he finally finished the set, now he seems to be on a little break. Is he on board with drawing more monsters for Angband?

Good point. I'll hold off on incorporating more monsters, and just work on moving monsters deeper.

Black Reavers may be too powerful if moved deeper because of their mana storm attack...at dlevel 92 they average 520 damage per mana storm. That's unacceptable, right?

[nppangband]

ego-item and artifacts have already been significantly changed in v4. Both are much rarer. So really the concern is objects.

I agree with the suggestions of more midgame/endgame monsters. I'll check to see if any are poachable from Derakon's thread. But if you have more suggestions, it'd be great to hear them.

NOT trying to be a stick in the mud, but I just had one more concern. What about Shockbolt's tiles? I think he finally finished the set, now he seems to be on a little break. Is he on board with drawing more monsters for Angband?

[fizzix]

All of the object, ego-item, and artifact depths will have to be adjusted as well, in order to preserve game balance.

ego-item and artifacts have already been significantly changed in v4. Both are much rarer. So really the concern is objects.

I agree with the suggestions of more midgame/endgame monsters. I'll check to see if any are poachable from Derakon's thread. But if you have more suggestions, it'd be great to hear them.