mimics

[TwilightPhoenix]

When the occasionally appear in vaults you're familiar with, they can be pretty surprising. In my most recent game when I did Elf:5, after I cleared the main room in the treasure vault, I went for the fountains to clear -cTele. One of the fountains was a mimic and caught me by surprise. That was a well placed one.

Although it did have the unfortunate side effect of bugging Elf:5, making -cTele impossible to remove by emptying the other, real fountain. That might be fixed in trunk though, I was playing stable.

[Kate]

The fountains are just decoration now, they haven't done anything for a while.

[galehar]

Items seem like the most common to me, but I think what makes it feel so repetitive is more the fact that they just spawn all game (and still aren't very threatening the majority of the time). Having a Pan exit turn out to be a mimic that I could kill in a couple of turns wasn't much of a good surprise when I'd already killed off so many mimics in assorted loot vaults throughout the game.

I don't want to restrict too much where they can spawn. The fact that they can spawn anywhere anytime seems important to me. Although, we can cut the from extended a bit. And they need to be rare to work well. How about no Pan/Hells/Tomb and cut item mimics by half (1 in 1000)?

When the occasionally appear in vaults you're familiar with, they can be pretty surprising. In my most recent game when I did Elf:5, after I cleared the main room in the treasure vault, I went for the fountains to clear -cTele. One of the fountains was a mimic and caught me by surprise. That was a well placed one.

But it wasn't a vault defined mimic. Random mimics can spawn in vaults too

[njvack]

How about no Pan/Hells/Tomb and cut item mimics by half (1 in 1000)?

How many items are on an average level of, say, D?

I think they're fine in extended, but you're right: they need to be rare to work well. Maybe 2-5 in an average 3-rune game?

[Bim]

Sorry Galehar, I should have been more specific.
I'm using the current version of trunk (1162) and I'm finding loads of door mimics (but mainly just more in general). I know about patterns in randomness and things, but I feel even so, there seem to be a few too many.

I'd love to see mimics as a surprise (and a big one!), instead of just a general threat which makes you treat everything as though it could be a mimic because you've seen so many. They're also not normally too hard to kill, which makes them just an annoyance rather than anything substantial.

In my opinion, making them appear earlier and being easier is a step in the wrong direction, they need to be a big, 'oh holy hell' moment for mid game when things can drag a little bit. I would encourage making them a lot rarer (possibly ONLY appearing in branches?!) but keeping them difficult, possibly giving them a blinking or silence?! I don't know if that would overpower them, but I would love to see them as a mid game mix up, rather than just another monster.

Edit: Just had 3 mimics on D:2...

[varsovie]

Why not having them somewhat scale with the deep/player level (or having small, medium and big mimic), so they remain a threat all the way?

[TwilightPhoenix]

But it wasn't a vault defined mimic. Random mimics can spawn in vaults too

That's probably the best place for a random mimic. While getting messages such as "The Potion of Curing hits you!" is funny, finding a stray mimic in the middle of nowhere isn't so interesting at the first two or three, ever. Having a mimic pop-up in a spot that normally is not a mimic on the other hand...

I still think there should be an Orb of Zot mimic on occasion. Even if it was just sitting at the opposite end of the room in plain sight and it was obvious it was a mimic, considering that players often try to grab the Orb and dart out, it'd certainly shake things up.

[roctavian]

I still think there should be an Orb of Zot mimic on occasion.

Sssh, don't tell anyone else about it.

[XuaXua]

It's not like Vault:8 doesn't have rune mimics.

[varsovie]

One thing that could be cool (maybe it's already in, but I never saw it) is Altar mimics. Bonus point if they can appear in the temple with 1/10000 chance of having every altar as a mimic

[XuaXua]

If you can blink onto them before they are detected and you pray, you can worship Rorrim, the Mimic Lord.

[twelwe]

a god that turns every feature on the floor into friendly mimics. you will own orc and spider with gold/web mimics

[galehar]

How many items are on an average level of, say, D?

3 + 3d11, so 21 in average. But not all item types are eligible for mimicing (missiles, jewellery, food and misc items aren't).

Why not having them somewhat scale with the deep/player level (or having small, medium and big mimic), so they remain a threat all the way?

They do now.

One thing that could be cool (maybe it's already in, but I never saw it) is Altar mimics. Bonus point if they can appear in the temple with 1/10000 chance of having every altar as a mimic

I plan to do it. It's actually the reason why I introduced early game mimics. Still no mimics in the temple, just overflow altar mimics.

If you can blink onto them before they are detected

You know that doesn't work anymore, right?

[njvack]

not all item types are eligible for mimicing (missiles, jewellery, food and misc items aren't).

Why not? A meat ration mimic isn't any odder than a potion mimic, and a 34 runed bolts mimc isn't much different than a gold mimic.

[galehar]

not all item types are eligible for mimicing (missiles, jewellery, food and misc items aren't).

Why not? A meat ration mimic isn't any odder than a potion mimic, and a 34 runed bolts mimc isn't much different than a gold mimic.

Don't know. That's one of the few things I didn't changed when I overhauled mimics. I added staff mimics I think, but I left the others. Yeah, why not.

[XuaXua]

If you can blink onto them before they are detected

You know that doesn't work anymore, right?

Well, it should because the Mimic Lord and Mimic World (accessible from a Mimic Branch Portal) are totally awesome.

Anyway, do mimics poison anymore? I haven't seen any that do in quite a while.

[Bim]

They do further down (and get constriction) I think.

I'm all for lots of different types of mimics, but after playing trunk heavily for the last few days I've found at least one mimic every few floors, and they're all like a standard creature, with no special attacks or interest really.

It just seems a bit pointless to have them as a normal creature, because the only time you would really start picking things up (I know there are exceptions where you might be near an item/escaping through a door) is when you're free from danger, this makes item mimics a bit pointless if they're not very strong, and door mimics, well, you shouldn't be retreating into the unknown anyway.

I would love to have them as a really crazy, once or twice a game threat that has the same sort of clout as a unique to spice up the mid game.

[XuaXua]

They do further down (and get constriction) I think.

I'm all for lots of different types of mimics, but after playing trunk heavily for the last few days I've found at least one mimic every few floors, and they're all like a standard creature, with no special attacks or interest really.

It just seems a bit pointless to have them as a normal creature, because the only time you would really start picking things up (I know there are exceptions where you might be near an item/escaping through a door) is when you're free from danger, this makes item mimics a bit pointless if they're not very strong, and door mimics, well, you shouldn't be retreating into the unknown anyway.

I would love to have them as a really crazy, once or twice a game threat that has the same sort of clout as a unique to spice up the mid game.

I'm under the impression that they've been deliberately increased in frequency due to testing any new changes and that they'll be reduced eventually because I'm encountering the same situation and have similar concerns.

[galehar]

I'm under the impression that they've been deliberately increased in frequency due to testing any new changes and that they'll be reduced eventually because I'm encountering the same situation and have similar concerns.

Nope, it isn't deliberate at all. I've no idea why they are so common

[eeviac]

Just adding my voice: mimics are too common, and giving them constriction is both annoying and a low blow. One of the reasons I can tolerate the current constriction is because I can stay out of melee range. Getting instantly grabbed by that item you walked over is not cool. At all.

[XuaXua]

Just adding my voice: mimics are too common, and giving them constriction is both annoying and a low blow. One of the reasons I can tolerate the current constriction is because I can stay out of melee range. Getting instantly grabbed by that item you walked over is not cool. At all.

IMHO, I think this is more of a problem with constriction than it is with mimics.

[XuaXua]

I'm under the impression that they've been deliberately increased in frequency due to testing any new changes and that they'll be reduced eventually because I'm encountering the same situation and have similar concerns.

Nope, it isn't deliberate at all. I've no idea why they are so common

Well, I'm not sure how monster distributions work, but from your request of me to specify which type of mimic I'm encountering, I have to ask:

If 100% represented all possible monsters for a level, and you wanted mimics to be 3% of the monsters, is each of the 3 specific mimic types listed at 3% or are "mimics" set to 3% and when it comes up you pick the mimic type?

This assumes there are 3 mimic types.

[Blade]

Well, I'm not sure how monster distributions work, but from your request of me to specify which type of mimic I'm encountering, I have to ask:

If 100% represented all possible monsters for a level, and you wanted mimics to be 3% of the monsters, is each of the 3 specific mimic types listed at 3% or are "mimics" set to 3% and when it comes up you pick the mimic type?

This assumes there are 3 mimic types.

what part of

the current chance for a feature to be turned into a mimic is 1 in 100 (and now 1 in 400 for doors/stairs) and for items it is 1 in 500.

was unclear?

[njvack]

Nope, it isn't deliberate at all. I've no idea why they are so common

Wait, are they actually more common than you expect? I feel like mimics are memorable enough to be vulnerable to selection bias. And while I don't always die before D:8, I certainly take more characters through D1-D7 than I do D8-D15.

feel like CDO should be able to say how many D1-D7 mimics were defeated by players who got to D:8 since the depth restriction dropped, but I don't know how to ask it. If my math is right, there's about a 4% chance of an item mimic on a normal floor, or about a 25% chance of seeing at least one before D:8, or a 15% chance before D:4.

So, if you play 10 games through D:4, there's about an 80% chance you'll see at least one mimic in those games.

There are a few ways to think about this, but most simply: you'll have seen about 840 items in those 10 games, each with an independent 1/500 chance of being a mimic. This is all assuming my memory of

  Code:

prob_of_at_least_one_event = 1-(1-p)^trials

is actually correct -- 1-(1-(1/500))^840 = 0.813.

Assuming that you'll see about 1700 items over the course of a three-rune game, a 1/2500 chance of mimicness would give you about a 50% chance of seeing at least one. And if you see about 3500 items in a 15-runer, you'd have about a 75% chance. I'm not sure if those item counts are super accurate, but are probably within a factor of two or so...

[njvack]

34 runed bolts mimc isn't much different than a gold mimic.

Don't know. That's one of the few things I didn't changed when I overhauled mimics. I added staff mimics I think, but I left the others. Yeah, why not.

Ah: ammo mimics are problematic, as: what happens when an imp picks up a stack of darts mimic and starts throwing them at you?

Food and misc items, I dunno. Monsters can actually quaff !HW mimics, can't they?

[galehar]

Nope, it isn't deliberate at all. I've no idea why they are so common

Wait, are they actually more common than you expect?

I don't think so, but as people kept telling me they are, I started having doubts. They just aren't used to see them early so they notice it a lot.

Ah: ammo mimics are problematic, as: what happens when an imp picks up a stack of darts mimic and starts throwing them at you?

Food and misc items, I dunno. Monsters can actually quaff !HW mimics, can't they?

Monsters cannot pickup item mimics.

[XuaXua]

what part of

the current chance for a feature to be turned into a mimic is 1 in 100 (and now 1 in 400 for doors/stairs) and for items it is 1 in 500.

was unclear?

Obviously I missed it, but that's EXACTLY the problem right there.

By basing chance of mimic appearance on the quantity of features rather than whatever quantifier is used to determine the number of monsters generated per level, the chances of a mimic appearing are much higher than would be expected.

EDIT: njvack spells it out above, but I think his quantity of features + doors/stairs + items is much smaller than I'd use.

How many features are there in an average floor.
How many doors/stairs are there in an average floor.
How many items are there in an average floor.

I think it's a lot more than you'd expect, and the probability of a mimic not having appeared approaches 0 very quickly.

[galehar]

what part of

the current chance for a feature to be turned into a mimic is 1 in 100 (and now 1 in 400 for doors/stairs) and for items it is 1 in 500.

was unclear?

Obviously I missed it, but that's EXACTLY the problem right there.

Why?

By basing chance of mimic appearance on the quantity of features rather than whatever quantifier is used to determine the number of monsters generated per level, the chances of a mimic appearing are much higher than would be expected.

Why would it be higher? It really depends on the chance of a feature/item being turned into a mimic.

How many features are there in an average floor.
How many doors/stairs are there in an average floor.

This is really hard to tell. Would need to run a level generation script and gather statistical data to answer this, but it's not worth the effort.

How many items are there in an average floor.

This has been answered a few posts ago.

[njvack]

Yeah: just monte carlo-ing it would be (by far) the easiest way to figure out the actual distribution of mimics. And like galehar, I'm not sure there's a problem -- maybe mimics are somewhat more common than is necessary, but ultimately that's a subjective design decision. A debate that boils down to "there are too many" versus "no there aren't" won't much help, I think.

I do think it's unambiguously good that they spawn earlier, as it lets new players get introduced to them.

[XuaXua]

OF NOTE: There is no tile for "inept mimics". Updated wiki with note and design suggestion.

By basing chance of mimic appearance on the quantity of features rather than whatever quantifier is used to determine the number of monsters generated per level, the chances of a mimic appearing are much higher than would be expected.

Why would it be higher? It really depends on the chance of a feature/item being turned into a mimic.

It falls to probability. nvjack sort of did it, but didn't use all the numbers and didn't do it for a given floor, just in a game range for multiple floors. See below.

How many features are there in an average floor.
How many doors/stairs are there in an average floor.

This is really hard to tell. Would need to run a level generation script and gather statistical data to answer this, but it's not worth the effort.

It is completely worth the effort as a one-time if you want proper statistics to show the actual probability of a mimic on an average floor.
I'm not sure what a "feature" is. Guessing fountains / statues. Unsure what else qualifies.

How many items are there in an average floor.

This has been answered a few posts ago.

OF NOTE: I'm not saying anything is "wrong", I just think you need a true estimate of probability for your case.

So let's say for the sake of argument we have an average of

TYPE AVERAGES + STD DEV
21 items on a floor, standard deviation of, I dunno, +/- 5. (21 taken from prior posts)
20 entrances on a floor, standard deviation of +/- 5 (6 entrances given plus 2, plus we have those boards with a ton of doors and one-way and some with none)
8 features on a floor, +/- 5 I guess features are fountains and statues.

PROBABILITY OF MIMIC (taken from prior posts)
1/500 for items = 0.2%/item
1/400 for entrances (doors/stairs) = 0.25%/entrance
1/100 for features = 1%/feature

ITEMS: 0.2% * 21 +/- 5 = 4.2% +/- 1%
ENTRANCES: 0.25% * 20 +/- 5 = 5% +/- 1.25%
FEATURES: 1% * 8 +/- 5 = 8% +/- 5%

Likelihood of a single mimic on a given dungeon floor.
4.2% + 5% + 8% = 17.2% +/- 7.25%

10% likelihood on the low scale, 25% likelihood on the high scale.

I'm pretty sure my math will be proven wrong, but I feel confident in it.

[Bim]

I do think the level cap being dropped has got a lot to do with it, and possibly some bias - but both of these don't really affect the outcome of there being too many mimics. In my opinion, it doesn't matter how many there actually are per percentage per floor, if they seem to common to most people playing, surely they are just too common??

Strangely, I've not seen any for ages (level 19 MiAk - thank you Maxwell's armour of incredible, incredible awesomeness) but was seeing loads earlier on, and have done on many other games (i've been playing alotttt recently). That or my MiAk just ploughed straight through them with my +6 +5, crushing,+5 str, dire flail. Yeah you heard me.

Could we have terrifying mimics instead?

[jejorda2]

I've seen four door mimics on the same floor before temple. This was right before they were called inept mimics.

[rjrrt]

I just got a shop mimic on Orc4. This left only 3 real shops.
I felt kind of cheated out of my guaranteed 4 shops. Is this a bug, or just bad luck RNG?

[galehar]

I just got a shop mimic on Orc4. This left only 3 real shops.
I felt kind of cheated out of my guaranteed 4 shops. Is this a bug, or just bad luck RNG?

I wonder. I've considered special casing the orc:4 shops to prevent this but decided against it. There's no guarantee that you won't have 4 crap shops, so I think it's fine.

[njvack]

I'd be against special-casing the shops. I've feel like I've rolled multiple food shops on Orc:4 as a mummy. It's a bummer, but hey, that's the RNG for you. Good luck wouldn't feel awesome if bad luck didn't happen, too.

[danharaj]

Hi, I *just* made an account to complain about this. I've died *twice* now because a feature in explored territory turned out to be a mimic and I bumped into it in a high threat situation. The first time was on dungeon in a layout_roguey level. A door between two rooms I had cleared turned out to be a mimic. The second time was just now on a promising character in the catoblepas cave lair ending. One of the statues in front of the cave turned out to be a mimic when I moved next to it in a high threat situation.

Mimics are A) way too common. And B) make exploration extremely annoying. In my most recent death, that was the *fourth* mimic I had seen and I had only cleared dungeon down to 11 and lair down to 8. I am going to get extremely fed up with crawl if I have to check every single feature to make sure it's not a mimic before I advance. If this state of affairs gets into the next stable version I might not even play it. I've seen a lot of crawl, and this is by far the most annoying, frustrating, tedious sort of enemy to deal with. The novelty wears off when you see 10+ mimics every game and you have to check every feature for mimics.

[Tiber]

The point of mimicry for predators is to look harmless until an opportune moment. In that sense they were working exactly as intended. You don't have to check everything to make sure it's not a mimic, just don't go near something you're not sure of in a dangerous situation. They are too common, yes, but beyond that you should either change your playing style or worship Ashenzari.

[Bim]

I know in a recent trunk edit they were toned down, so thanks to whoever did that! I've seen quite a few less now and not had the usual 2-3 every few levels.

My main point with mimics is that (similar to what danharaj said) they lose their novelty after a few appearances, and the very last thing I want to be thinking of is if an item is a mimic or not, or if I can move towards that doorway in a situation as I'm unsure if it might be a mimic.

In my opinion that completely ruins the tactical nature of crawl.

However, the odd surprise once every few games would be definitely welcome!

[danharaj]

So... played a couple hundred more games on trunk and, to put it bluntly, mimics are not fun. They are either tedious, unfair, or completely unnoticed in every game where they are randomly generated. The situations where a mimic could potentially be fun are too special to be randomly generated with any reasonable success rate. Mimics are also biased towards spawning in vaults and layouts that have a lot of features for decorative purposes, probably features the vault designers never intended to have any threat. Auto-explore and such do not respect the possibility of mimics so the game will run you right into one and this can kill many characters considering how brutal mimics are around lair for anyone that isn't prepared to tab them. Constriction is already a dangerous and kind of stressful mechanic to deal with on monsters that you can see. Putting it on mimics is just aggravating. Since feature mimics can spawn as stairs, certain vaults like entry vaults can be completely subverted by them. It is not fun to do a dangerous lair entry vault just to find out the stairs are a mimic. Lying to the player isn't fun, ever. There's no real decision making or counterplay to mimics. They're just annoying.

Does anyone actually like playing with mimics in the game? I am more than against mimics. It's finally come to the point that my annoyance with mimics outweighs all the benefits and positive additions that also are in trunk, in particular spider which I will miss until the next stable release.

[eeviac]

There's a certain charm to getting chased by a closed door but yes, I believe crawl would be better off without them. shop/portal mimics are particularly infuriating.

Constriction has been nerfed in trunk so it's not that hard to just walk away (unless you're fe/te/de).

[TehDruid]

I like constriction on these guys. It's flavourful. - In Soviet Russia, short sword wields you!

Mimics should be very rare (I don't think they're rare enough atm) and also very dangerous, imho. They should make you regret it when you get greedy and careless. Door and stair mimics don't make much sense to me. These last two also tend to shaft you during some very unfortunate situations which is random and rare, but so demoralising when it happens. I just think Mimics are creatures that like to trick people driven by greed and avarice and that they're the proof that "not everything that shines is gold" and them being doors and statues and shit doesn't really work well with how I picture them in my head.

[nicolae]

I like mimics even though a Shoals staircase mimic killed my best DEFE.

[XuaXua]

How do I attack a mimic in disguise without being adjacent if I KNOW it's a mimic?

For example, I found Orc Mines entrance very early. It's legit; I've stood on it.

Since then, I've found 2 more Orc Mines entrance mimics and other depths in this same game; one was inept, the other not.
Both times I could not attack with Stone Arrow at range and hit them. It just bypassed.

I had to approach. Took down the inept quickly.
The standard mimic was in a path I needed to travel, so I would have to go next to him, but prior to it, I threw a couple stone arrows over his head to no effect.
I went adjacent to activate it and it constricted me.
I still killed it, but that's irrelevant.
There should be a way to mark them for slaughter.

[Galefury]

No there shouldnt, because then people might want to try to kill every staircase. Just put an exclusion on it.

[XuaXua]

No there shouldnt, because then people might want to try to kill every staircase. Just put an exclusion on it.

No exclusion - it was a pathing concern. Had to go past it. I'm a ranged, not a melee expert. There should be a way and the people who are neurotic are their own faults. This wasn't neurotic. This was finding the legit entrance, confirming it as legit, then finding it again deeper in the game and having 100% certainty it is a mimic.

Twice. Same game.

[galehar]

No there shouldnt, because then people might want to try to kill every staircase. Just put an exclusion on it.

No exclusion - it was a pathing concern. Had to go past it. I'm a ranged, not a melee expert. There should be a way and the people who are neurotic are their own faults. This wasn't neurotic. This was finding the legit entrance, confirming it as legit, then finding it again deeper in the game and having 100% certainty it is a mimic.

Twice. Same game.

Instead of complaining, think and suggest. If you can reveal mimic at range by throwing stuff at them (like you used to), it becomes optimal to throw stones at every single feature. Do you really think it would be an improvement? Do you have any other idea?

[bobross419]

No there shouldnt, because then people might want to try to kill every staircase. Just put an exclusion on it.

No exclusion - it was a pathing concern. Had to go past it. I'm a ranged, not a melee expert. There should be a way and the people who are neurotic are their own faults. This wasn't neurotic. This was finding the legit entrance, confirming it as legit, then finding it again deeper in the game and having 100% certainty it is a mimic.

Twice. Same game.

Instead of complaining, think and suggest. If you can reveal mimic at range by throwing stuff at them (like you used to), it becomes optimal to throw stones at every single feature. Do you really think it would be an improvement? Do you have any other idea?

The "optimal" argument gets used so much. Not every single person is interested in playing an "optimal" game. I honestly couldn't be bothered to waste my real life time to throw a stone or something at every single staircase, but if I know that something is a mimic then I'd like to have the option to mitigate the risk. That was XX's point about people exhibiting neurotic behavior. If someone chooses to do something like throw a stone at every single staircase then what exactly is the problem? I'm not wasting my time doing it, and I'm sure there are plenty of other players that wouldn't waste their time.

I had a similar experience with 3 lair branches. I found the two that were legit and knew that the third one was a mimic. I had found all three before I had "activated" any of the mimics and since I was a frail ranged caster I just decided to let them sit there until I was stronger and they were trivial instead of doing wasting my time and doing stuff like buffing and what not.

I would suggest reimplementing the ability to activate a mimic with throwing and what not because I don't feel like being inconvenienced just to force someone else not to waste their own time.

Alternatively, since a handful of folks like to exploit every little thing I would suggest making mimics automatically "activate" when you reach a point where they can't be anything but a mimic:

4 Staircases and you've already identified 3
3 Orc Mine entrances and you've already identified the correct one

But since this is such a limited occurrence I doubt it would be worth the time to code.

[galehar]

I would suggest reimplementing the ability to activate a mimic with throwing and what not because I don't feel like being inconvenienced just to force someone else not to waste their own time.

Should we also allow shops to buy items then? Sorry, but that's not how crawl is designed.