Dangerous monster warning

[galehar]

To help new players to evaluate the dangerousness of a monster without having to rely on spoilers, I suggest we add a line to its description:

It seems trivial/easy/tough/nasty.

We can use Ash's detect monster tier for that. It evaluates the relative toughness of a monster by using the tension formula. We can also print a warning in the message area for tough and nasty monsters. Maybe even a more prompt for the latter. With an option to turn the warnings off.

Using native depth to warn about OOD monsters as it has been suggested already isn't good. If you're taking a nap on D:1 at XL27 and trigger an OOD, it might very well be an easy monster for you. On the other hand, if you're diving, most monsters will be tough for you even if they are at their native depth. And lastly, the most dangerous monsters, uniques have a fixed depth range at which they spawn, so they can't be OOD.

[absolutego]

a prompt with the option to turn it off seems out of the question (well, to me anyway). a prompt defaulting to off may work, but it kind of defeats the purpose.
i'd color the monster's name in the right-hand list (say: green, white, yellow, red, or make it consistent with ash's), but i don't even know if it applies to tiles.

[galehar]

I was thinking of using 2 options:
warn_dangerous_monsters defaults to true and put a message in the message area for tough and nasty.
more_prompt_nasty_monsters defaults to false and gives an additional more prompt for nasty. We can also just do without this one.

I'm not sure about colouring monsters' name. New players are more confused than helped by the various colouring of items and spells. Even if properly documented in the manual, I don't think it would be really helpful.

[absolutego]

i agree that there's a lot of color now and not all of it is immediately understandable, but everyone knows what green, yellow and red means, especially regarding threats. besides, i haven't played with ash in a while (and that was early in the development stage), but isn't that exactly what you get with him? a '{' glyph, colored according to threat assessment.

by message area you mean the feedback lines at the bottom? that's not as intrusive as what i originally thought you meant (a label on the monster list on the right-hand menu), but on the other hand you may just miss the message. i like (in principle, at least) coloring because it's readily accessible, always there, and you can just ignore it if it doesn't suit you. but as with many other things i'd have to see it in motion.

[Galefury]

I was just thinking about this.

Adding such a line to the description is a great first step, but probably the danger evaluation (and the tension formula) should also be improved.

One thing I came up with is this still pretty raw idea, I'm not finished fully fleshing it out and thinking it through: the experience value of a monster is a fairly good metric of difficulty (or at least it should be). Much better than HD, damage, HP, or other monster statistics alone. Comparing exp value to player level is one way to measure relative strength, but player level is a really poor metric for player stength. Comparing monster exp to what your char is used to dealing with is probably better. So why not track the exp value of the last bunch of defeated monsters (something like the 10, 20, 50 last kills, possibly even using two list lengths and using both to provide a good danger assessment), and the monsters seen during the last x turns?

This would allow for calculating average exp and standard deviation and determining whether a monster is in the expected range of difficulty. Also recording the top few strongest monsters and top average exp would help in giving more detailed danger messages and deciding when a -more- prompt is appropriate.

Examples for more detailed messages (if something more detailed is actually desired):

• This is one of the strongest monster's you have ever seen. (strong uniques, highly OOD monsters)
• This monster seems (far/somewhat) stonger than the last few you fought, but you have dealt with similar danger before. (OOD, but you have dealt with similarly powerful enemies before)
• While not (much) more powerful than the last few enemies you killed this one is (far/somewhat) more dangerous than what you usually deal with. (branch ends)

Also it would allow adjusting tension better both to the current situation and to character strength, which would pave the way for more interesting god wrath and other tension related effects. For example on a branch end, tension should be continously fairly high, even if nothing immediately dangerous is in sight, because there is a high probabilty something that can kill you is lurking behind the next corner. On a regular level with maybe a single OOD monster tension should only be high if there is an immediate threat. Also, if you have successfully dealt with similar danger before the current situation is probably not as dangerous as the last time.

A mechanic that might work well for this is having some base tension (independent of monsters in LOS) if the last few enemies you have seen are more powerful than both the last few you killed and what your character is used to, and if the last 10 enemies you have killed are far more powerful than the average power of the last 50 enemies you have killed.

A problem with any system like this is that tension would depend on past player actions, so it the game would judge some situtions differently depending on playing style. This might be relevant with Xom or during god wrath, leading to gamey strategies like running away from OOD monsters when worshipping Xom so you have higher tension in regular fights. Most of these exploits would probably not be worthwhile, but it's something to keep in mind.


Things a good tension system needs in my opinion:

• Tension is represented by a single value (possibly two, one of them adjusting for low HP/MP/etc., the other one assuming full strength).
• Tension represents actual danger.
• Corolarry 1: it cant just depend on what is currently in your line of sight (if you duck behind a corner that executioner is still going to catch you)
• Corollary 2: an accurate assessment of both player and monster strength is required
• Tension should not depend on things the player can quickly and easily influence, like inventory content.

Something I'm not sure about is whether tension should be adjusted for player psychology. For example if the last few fights were easy and you encounter a strong enemy it is more likely to kill you than the same enemy in a series of hard fights (each of which is started at full HP and MP). Some ways to calculate tension based on past encounters will automatically include such an effect, this may be desired or not.

[dpeg]

a prompt with the option to turn it off seems out of the question (well, to me anyway).

What is wrong with a new option, that veteran players have to turn off once?

[galehar]

I was just thinking about this.

Adding such a line to the description is a great first step, but probably the danger evaluation (and the tension formula) should also be improved.

The tension formula can be improved, but it's already working decently. And there's no need to go with an overly complicated system which takes into account previous kills. Let's keep it simple and gives an objective evaluation of danger. We're not trying to evaluate the psychology of the player and telling him "be careful, you might make a mistake here". We're just trying to evaluate the threat level of monsters, and giving this info to the player.

[absolutego]

yes. note that i support default --more-- prompts for things such as expiration warnings when flying over water (thank you galehar!), but i do not deem it appropriate in this case because (1) while nice, it is not strictly necessary, and (2) no matter what criteria you use to classify each monster you're bound to miss eventually, and you might find yourself in hive with a prompt for each bee or some other interface nightmare. there just are better ways to solve this problem.

[dpeg]

Okay, so what about using the monster list? We could use
adjective: O - ogre (dangerous)
exclamation mark: O - ogre!!
uppercase: O - OGRE

[galehar]

Yeah, a more prompt is probably overkill, let's forget about that.
Just add a warning to the coming into view message which can be opt out.

An orc knight comes into view. It looks extremely dangerous. It is wielding a glaive.

For the monster list, we can simply colour the name using the same colour as the detected monster glyph. In tiles, we can colour the background of the cell in the monster panel. We lose the terrain info, but I'm not sure if it's really useful to have it here.

[absolutego]

sounds sensible, all of it. maybe instead of coloring all the background tile, just do a square of one or two pixels around the border. (maybe not.)

you can also add --more-- prompts by looking for "extremely dangerous" if desired without additional coding, so that issue solves itself nicely.

[7hm]

Yeah, a more prompt is probably overkill, let's forget about that.
Just add a warning to the coming into view message which can be opt out.

An orc knight comes into view. It looks extremely dangerous. It is wielding a glaive.

For the monster list, we can simply colour the name using the same colour as the detected monster glyph. In tiles, we can colour the background of the cell in the monster panel. We lose the terrain info, but I'm not sure if it's really useful to have it here.

I think the bolded is enough, and would be a fine addition.

[snow]

This sounds like a very good idea even for players who aren't new. I would probably adjust my options to force a more message for dangerous enemies since sometimes I just don't notice them.

[fnwc]

+1 vote for this idea as well.

[ClawlessVictory]

I don't like this idea, I feel like every new monster you encounter should be approached with caution and the only warnings should be listed in the text description, and only what your character's senses would naturally detect. Seems cheap if there's a warning system and it would definitely remove the element of danger.

[dpeg]

Made an implementable

[galehar]

Done.

Still need to make it more visible on the interface. What can be done:

warn_dangerous_monsters option (discussed above)
colour monsters' name in the monster list
something similar for tiles (I've been thinking of changing the monster panel to make it similar to the console monster list).

[dpeg]

galehar: awesome! All the options look good to me.

[smock]

This is a really good addition! Thanks!

Does this warn about all monster or just the tough ones? You might consider warning just about the more dangerous ones. Descriptions of goblins as "harmless" at XL 8 approaches message spam.

Sorry, can't test the patch myself as trunk is still 0.9 (when will it link to 0.10?). Oh, and I'm lazy/clueless about compiling.

[galehar]

This is a really good addition! Thanks!

Does this warn about all monster or just the tough ones? You might consider warning just about the more dangerous ones. Descriptions of goblins as "harmless" at XL 8 approaches message spam.

Sorry, can't test the patch myself as trunk is still 0.9 (when will it link to 0.10?). Oh, and I'm lazy/clueless about compiling.

For now, it's just in the monster's description. There's no warning message, but it will come as an option and will warn only about dangerous ones. The monster list is coloured now too.

[dpeg]

minmay: I would wait with any assessment until I'd have actually played it.

[galehar]

Oh man. Somebody has tried to do it and failed. So we must refrain from trying it ourselves because our attempt is doomed. This is such a great way of designing games. Innovation is completely prevented to happen. Yay!

PS: in case anybody cares, the threat level assessment is based on XP provided by the monster. Constructive feedback is welcome as always so we can improve the system.

[njvack]

PS: in case anybody cares, the threat level assessment is based on XP provided by the monster. Constructive feedback is welcome as always so we can improve the system.

Well... at first glance, XP value should probably the best single value that represents generic moster "danger." If it isn't, it seems like it'd make sense to tweak XP values. You could try something more complex with resists and attack brands (that Swamp Dragon is a lot less scary if you have rPois), but that sounds like a lot of work, and I'm not sure you'd get much from it.

And I think this will be really useful. Knowing that an early Orc Sorcerer is a Much Much Bigger Problem than those Orc Wizards you've been splatting is good.

[absolutego]

i played with it a little bit yesterday and it looked pretty good, for the first dungeon levels at least. a d:2 snake or an early unique jump out, which will help newcomers. (i'm still not sure about the colors, though: is it natural to infer that magenta implies a higher risk than red? what about yellow and red? not a big deal anyway, and there's always the text.)

i'm not sure how it'll do later on (there's the risk that everything will score either too high or too low), but from what i've played with ash it can't be terribly misleading.

[smock]

Boggarts!!! With confuse and shadow creatures, any warning would be very misleading. They should be 500+ XP! A single boggart can kill at XL 20 if you're not prepared (with see invis, good abjuration, MR).

[galehar]

Boggarts!!! With confuse and shadow creatures, any warning would be very misleading. They should be 500+ XP! A single boggart can kill at XL 20 if you're not prepared (with see invis, good abjuration, MR).

They are also extremely easy to kill (low HP, no AC and low MR). XP value could be increased a bit, but probably not up to 500.

I did try doing the early game with the danger warning label. Currently it is not useful.

Since the system as been used only for Ash's monster detection until now, I'm not really surprised that D:1 info is wrong. It has never been tested.

I notice that sometimes enemies of the same type at the same level get rated differently. In other words, two goblins next to each other can be "easy" and "harmless." I assume this leaks information of some sort.

Yeah it does. Can happen if one of the monster has rolled a higher HP or a different spell set. Not sure if it's a big deal. Can be fixed, but it's quite hard.

XL2, D:2, worms are considered "easy" with kobolds as "harmless" - a good example of how using HD/HP/XP/damage doesn't work.

XP value take into account a lot more information than that. Spells, speed, and also a modifier which can be manually set. And other stuff.

[dpeg]

I believe the crucial parameters for humanoid dangerous in the early dungeon levels is whether they have a weapon (and which) and other items (like projectiles and wands). I don't think that the system is intended to highlight these finer points. The point is that players can learn easily that a lich is really dangerous. That a kobold with a dagger of electrocution is a threat on its own is something the player will learn very soon on his own.

In other words, I think that minmay expects a lot more than was intended of the system (and the system can be improved, no question about that). Telling fixed abilities of monsters in their description is nonetheless a good idea.

[JeffQyzt]

A worm has more HD, more HP, more damage, and is worth more XP than a goblin. Yet it is less dangerous.

It's less dangerous only if you know to leave it alone or kite it. If you melee it (bah, it's just a worm!), it's much more dangerous than a goblin (and hence, a warning would serve well to indicate to a new player that special tactics are advisable.) I think this is exactly the kind of feedback many would appreciate.

[galehar]

XL2, D:2, worms are considered "easy" with kobolds as "harmless" - a good example of how using HD/HP/XP/damage doesn't work.

XP value take into account a lot more information than that. Spells, speed, and also a modifier which can be manually set. And other stuff.

That's not what I meant. What I meant was that using HD, HP, XP, or damage, or a combination of them, does not work as a difficulty gauge. A worm has more HD, more HP, more damage, and is worth more XP than a goblin. Yet it is less dangerous.

XP should reflect the dangerousness of a monster. If a monster is more dangerous than another, then it should be worth more XP. So basing threat level on XP value is good. Some monsters may need to have their XP value adjusted. Making the threat level visible will allow us to more easily spot those ones and adjust them.
Also, worms are easy to escape and to kill with ranged attacks, but they are very dangerous to a newbie player who tries to take them down in melee. So I think it's good that the threat level system warns about them.
Humanoid dangerousness depend a lot on equipment. An unarmed kobold isn't dangerous at all. The XP value is boosted for monsters which can use items, but it can't depend on actual equipment. We don't want players to leave big weapons on the floor for the monster to pick up just to farm XP.
Threat level might be adjusted depending on wielded weapon base damage and other parameters as they become known to the player (weapon brand, missiles, wand,...). Not sure if it's worth it. We'll see.

[Yet Another Stupid Noob]

Speaking as a new player who was bitten quite a few times by monster shifts (spiny toad, how much worse than a giant to.....OMG) I have to whole heartedly endorse this change. True you don't get the 'fun' of dying hundreds of times to learn relative experience the hard way, but you do save the 30 minutes out of every hour looking up every monster whose stats you have not internalized. (just the ones that look dangerous now).

[Saegor]

A level 1 character must "fear" hobgoblins and kobolds
A level 3 character must fear sigmund
A level 4 character must/may fear an orc warrior

so maybe threat level of a monster = monster.HD*2/you.XL

where <4 = nasty, <3 = though, <2 = normal and <1 = easy

- maybe other good ideas may be found based on this page