Rewards for uniques

[WalkerBoh]

All things considered I think a good number of uniques already have decent chances (sometimes 100%) of having some piece of gear on them that is relevant for one character or another, so I'm not sure making that more common is a step in the right direction as to give people reasons to kill uniques.

Indeed, I went through the list of uniques to try to brainstorm some ideas for flavorful items to give them, and was quite surprised by the number of uniques who already gave good gear. I would say there are probably only 25% of uniques that really need some help.

[Mattchew]

Uniques could give more points than they currently do. Only an incentive for players who compete on score, though.

Another thing that might make them more attractive would be to give them a special place on the game dump. Have a list summarizing uniques fought and uniques avoided, a wall of shame/fame. (Klown makes a good point about waiting too long to kill them--you could show how many turns it was between sighting and killing, or what XL you were when you killed them.)

[rchandra]

Mennas
Grinder

Both of these uniques were given rF+++ since you left.

This statement is untrue, both have no rF whatsoever.

[duvessa]

(personally I think Grinder's experience value is good, though honestly I'm still not sure he's worth fighting when you find him very often, because of wand of disintegration)

[Laraso]

The one thing about boosting XP. People can still run away and come back when the unique is a joke. Such cowardly behavior doesn't deserve the good reward.
Double XP if you kill them before leaving the floor! (and a Jory-like explosion, but randarts instead of blood; who cares, they're usually bad anyways).
#realrewards.

What you call "cowardly", I call "smart". I think the game should teach and encourage players that fighting every monster and killing all the dudes isn't the best strategy in every situation. Players need to understand that many monsters are simply not worth fighting.

Putting pressure on players to risk their characters to kill uniques instead of avoiding them is a very, very bad idea, and encourages bad play. Good players who already understand when they can kill a unique safely will continue to not fight uniques they can't handle even with the temptation of double XP, and new players who are still learning will be taught incorrectly that killing every monster = good and running away = bad. After "learning" not to run away from uniques, they'll start applying that to everything, thinking "well if I just kill it now I'll have more XP later".

Not a good idea, really.

[Leafsnail]

What you call "cowardly", I call "smart". I think the game should teach and encourage players that fighting every monster and killing all the dudes isn't the best strategy in every situation. Players need to understand that many monsters are simply not worth fighting.

Putting pressure on players to risk their characters to kill uniques instead of avoiding them is a very, very bad idea, and encourages bad play. Good players who already understand when they can kill a unique safely will continue to not fight uniques they can't handle even with the temptation of double XP, and new players who are still learning will be taught incorrectly that killing every monster = good and running away = bad. After "learning" not to run away from uniques, they'll start applying that to everything, thinking "well if I just kill it now I'll have more XP later".

Not a good idea, really.

This argument makes no sense at all. If you're correct and new players are encouraged to fight overly dangerous uniques due to the increased XP rewards, they'll very quickly learn the lesson that some uniques should not be tangled with the hard way. They will also be encouraged to think carefully about whether their character is able to take on a given unique - which is exactly the sort of thing they should be taught, rather than them being encouraged to form a list of monsters that just aren't worth fighting ever.

[Laraso]

This argument makes no sense at all. If you're correct and new players are encouraged to fight overly dangerous uniques due to the increased XP rewards, they'll very quickly learn the lesson that some uniques should not be tangled with the hard way. They will also be encouraged to think carefully about whether their character is able to take on a given unique - which is exactly the sort of thing they should be taught, rather than them being encouraged to form a list of monsters that just aren't worth fighting ever.

This isn't merely an XP increase, Klown's suggestion was that XP rewards should be doubled as long as you don't leave the floor. Which means that if you use a flight of stairs after entering a floor with a unique, that unique will give you only 50% XP if you come back and kill it later.

[Klown]

Technically they'd give you 100% XP(and more, going by my proposed XP changes earlier in the thread). Those that actually perform a great feat (killing them now) simply get more rewards.
Why have uniques/tough monsters if everyone just runs away to bully the poor popcorn until they're OP?

[dpeg]

I will try my best to make sure that something from this thread ends up in trunk (certainly not 0.14).

The underlying question, in my opinion, is whether we should see uniques more as story elements or as bossfights, to pick the two extremes. Ideally, we might want something from both worlds.

Regardless of that, I definitely agree with giving underpriviliged uniques more xp and to reduce unique spawn rate as compensation. It's good if some uniques are really rare. We want to have frequent meetings with our few mascots, like Sigmund, but there is really no reason to meet the whole crowd every single game. Thanks for bringing that to attention, I never considered this an issue before.

[Bart]

We want to have frequent meetings with our few mascots, like Sigmund, but there is really no reason to meet the whole crowd every single game. Thanks for bringing that to attention, I never considered this an issue before.

I understand that you have a long list of mascots then! Also players seem to be reluctant to leave dungeon after dying and tirelessly haunt me. Xom thinks this is hilarious.

  Code:

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.14-a0-3345-g9255d23 (webtiles) character file.
bart the Fencer (Tengu Skald)
(...)
Annotations:
D:3 sohrabkorkchi's ghost, average CeBe
D:5 Blork the orc; Pikel; timbw's ghost, weakling SpSu
D:6 Grinder
D:7 Vidiiot's ghost, experienced LOAM
D:8 Erolcha
Shoals:1 Louise
Spider:2 Aizul; Wiglaf
Spider:3 Rupert
(...)
Vanquished Creatures
 Arachne (Spider:2)
  Agnes (Spider:1)
  Frances (Spider:2)
  The ghost of omil the Reanimator, a powerful DsNe of Ashenzari (Shoals:2)
  Gastronok (D:8)
  Snorg (Orc:4)
  Harold (Lair:6)
  Nessos (Shoals:2)
  Erica (D:12)
  Nergalle (Lair:2)
  The ghost of Lancroian the Grappler, a powerful NaMo of Cheibriados (Lair:2)
  Maurice (Orc:4)
  Sonja (Orc:2)
  Psyche (Orc:2)


I've gotten to D:12, spiders:5, shoals:2. Nothing fully clean because of our friends.
I haven't seen Sigmund nor Boris' favourite cat, so theory of mascots doesn't fit (or did I miss them?).
Be honest: did you decide to spawn all of uniques in trunk as endurance test or is it just "luck"?

[TeshiAlair]

I posted a more lengthy description earlier, but I do think statistically the number of uniques/unique generation rate is pretty off as well, just given the size of the dungeon as a whole.

[BobIsDead]

I've never noticed problems with unique spawn rates before, at least, not overall. I have had some pretty nasty experiences where I've come across three or four uniques on a single level before which, in my mind, is more of an issue than too many uniques per game. I can recall fleeing Azrael only to come across Mara or somebody and successfully evading her only to get pounced on, weak and low on fleeing stuff, by Arachne.

As for story elements versus boss fights, I tend to see unique monsters as... well... monsters, so probably err on the side of boss fight. That said, they're an excellent source of flavour and lore. Having an out-of-depth monster offering the same challenge and the same reward just wouldn't be the same. The tougher ones feel a lot like milestones (again, like bosses, I suppose) whilst the weaker ones are still fun and familiar and there's still the sense of accomplishment in overcoming them.

With regards to rewards for overcoming them quickly, I could get behind this. Mainly because I think uniques lose their threat a little if you know you can just go down a couple of levels, power up, then come up and mop the floor with them. Sure, by that point there experience is of less value to you, but you can still make off with whatever loot they have, still get the same reward overall.

I'm not sure, though, if I like some of the suggestions for how to deal with that. Personally, I think that whatever is used to discourage the "deal with it later" attitude should come organically from gameplay. To go back to the loot idea I mentioned last time (yes, sorry, but I really do like collecting goodies) there are a number of consumable items that could be granted to certain uniques and then the amount of that item (or charges in that item) could be used up naturally over time.

For example, something like making Blork the orc start with, I don't know, a dozen sausages. And for every thousand auts that passes, he eats one of them. Except with something a bit more useful than sausages. Maybe gold? Or potions? Or decks/wands? If I recall, manuals can be used up over time, so maybe those as well? I'm not sure, but the basic point is that I could get behind more organic reasons to dispatch of certain uniques more quickly.