Roguelike Radio

[myshkin]

Thanks to myshkin for complaining about how awful hounds were in earlier versions \o/

To be fair, I think fizzix was the hound-complainer.

[MattB]

To be fair, I think fizzix was the hound-complainer.

Dare I say it, but I feel they might have been 'over-nerfed'...
(sorry)

[bio_hazard]

I also want to thank everyone involved with that- very interesting.

[fizzix]

Dare I say it, but I feel they might have been 'over-nerfed'...
(sorry)

There were actually two nerfs to hounds. The first (magnate's) was to knock their rarity down one, so they show up less often. You'll get about 1 group per level in hound territory, where in the past you'd get 3-4.

The second nerf was an overall reduction in pack size which came to the massive overhaul to how group monsters are spawned, this one was my fault. But it came with a lot of input from players that groups sizes were just too large on average.

There also was a neutral change with the introduction of pack AI. It's not clear whether its a nerf or a buff. It certainly makes hounds easier to deal with if you can 1-shot melee them, but harder to deal with if you can't.

In both (clear nerfing) cases, the reasons for nerfing was not difficulty issues. It's that doing the same thing over and over again is really tedious. This is true not just for hounds, but also for orcs and trolls and other monsters that come in large groups. In other words, dealing with a 10-15 size pack of light hounds once a game when you don't have rlight or rblind is reasonably interesting. Doing it 7 times to 25 sized packs is extremely frustrating.

All these changes are accessible in the edit files, so you can experiment with more frequent hounds, or larger pack size, or no group AI (i think you can do this) and see whether you prefer the old way(s).

[Derakon]

There also was a neutral change with the introduction of pack AI. It's not clear whether its a nerf or a buff. It certainly makes hounds easier to deal with if you can 1-shot melee them, but harder to deal with if you can't.

Ehh, if you could one-shot hounds with the old AI then you had plenty of options for getting rid of them then, too. I think the main difference between old and new is that old was worse when you were distracted by other enemies, while new is worse when you're trying to explore into new territory. Because with the old AI, the hounds would chase you down no matter what, while with the new AI they'll kite you and make safe exploration impossible until you deal with them.

The new AI also makes them tremendously more dangerous than they would otherwise be on cavern levels.

[fizzix]

Ehh, if you could one-shot hounds with the old AI then you had plenty of options for getting rid of them then, too. I think the main difference between old and new is that old was worse when you were distracted by other enemies, while new is worse when you're trying to explore into new territory. Because with the old AI, the hounds would chase you down no matter what, while with the new AI they'll kite you and make safe exploration impossible until you deal with them.

The new AI also makes them tremendously more dangerous than they would otherwise be on cavern levels.

I wasn't clear. I meant the old AI makes hounds easier if you can one shot them, the new AI can be a bit more of a problem early.

Hopefully we can make cavern levels interesting at some point. Cavern levels with lots of treasure and only hounds!

[half]

Thanks to myshkin for complaining about how awful hounds were in earlier versions \o/

Yes, this stood out to me as well. I've generally tried to limit my complaints about V, since you can actually get them all summarised by doing a diff between the Angband and Sil source code... However reducing hound pack size was one that I couldn't bite my tongue on. I'd also tried halving their frequency in my own version and had recommended that here.

It was also nice to hear all of your voices. Makes the place feel much more personal. I think there'd be fewer conflicts on here if we had more of that human touch.

[Timo Pietilä]

I wasn't clear. I meant the old AI makes hounds easier if you can one shot them, the new AI can be a bit more of a problem early.

I fear the day when someone codes the split pack AI: one group attacks from front while others find a way to cut your escape route.

[debo]

I fear the day when someone codes the split pack AI: one group attacks from front while others find a way to cut your escape route.

That's called "sil"

[Mondkalb]

That's called "sil"

Or FAangband ...

[klassik]

Or FAangband ...

so....... FAngband already has this?

[Mondkalb]

I can't say anything about the code, but monster behavior in FAangband is nastier than in vanilla and I often find myself in corridors with monsters of the same horde coming from both sides.
Wait, there is an option in vanilla to change monster behavior, maybe that's the default behavior in FA.

[Magnate]

Just try to imagine everything in magnate's voice, and you'll be constantly thinking "Man, this forum is classy"

Aw shucks!

(Finally listening to both episodes after a catastrophic bit of RL)

[MadeOfBees]

Your podcast doesnt seem to work in linux. I hit play, it just hangs. Saving the mp3 works though.

[debo]

Your podcast doesnt seem to work in linux. I hit play, it just hangs. Saving the mp3 works though.

They're using an HTML5 audio element to play an mp3. This won't work in Firefox in many (most?) cases, regardless of the operating system.

If you use Chrome or just download the mp3 and use a regular media player, it will work (as you've indicated)