Thursday, 28th February 2019, 19:43 by Sorcerous
I would disagree with this anti-luring design. Luring can (and frequently does) lead to gameplay that is boring, predictable, and (personal bias) cowardly. This being said, it also allows for survival when going all out will end with "you die..." A coward knows when to turn and run, and thus survive to take to a fight again. It takes at least some measure of intelligence to understand charging at a group of smiters is liable to fail horribly, or that an early game char should probably settle for a luring approach when lacking options. Crawl is already a very difficult game, and I can't agree with a change in design that will make it even more difficult/spoiler reliant for inexperienced players and will just annoy or slightly inconvenience veterans.
The idea of monster groups having defensive tactics is interesting, but just imagine a scenario like the ones you outlined in practice: an oklob plant (or three) would just make a bad situation much worse, especially if there's suddenly a row of bushes around it to let it spit acid at you with impunity. Newly built traps could be more in line with existing gameplay elements, so I wouldn't mind a "trapper" variant added to the game. Unfortunately, this would only mean these new "trappers" would become priority targets, get rekt, and the luring possibilities would return just the same. Having this change hinge on an enemy template just means gaming against that particular type, much like how smite/torment capable enemies are now.
Fortifications - eh, maybe? I don't know how much you're talking in terms of terrain modification, and I'm feeling apprehensive.
Would you be willing to consider a more streamlined approach to existing groups of enemies, with something like squad tactics as a response instead of static obstructions? Along the lines of taking time to adjust formations to give beefy ones a frontline presence, with buffers/debuffers and ranged threats taking up positions towards the back of the group or diagonally from your char's point of exit (all the better to snipe from). This would mean no changes to the existing enemies as separate entities, and would mean pseudo-AI scripts in terms of "lure assessment" or "regroup/reposition". A lot of existing enemies will move away during a group encounter anyway.
Your thoughts? Maybe forking would work, if not a mainline addition.
There is always something new to learn.