Alternatives to energy randomization

[reaver]

That's not to say it couldn't be balanced, but right now it sounds like 'Play a powerful character or die to the first enemy you can't beat, because there's no escape'. Wake up grinder on D2? Better hope you're next to a staircase.

Grinder can already paralyze you, which is significantly more debilitating than him becoming "quick" would be.

I imagine if this would go over better if there's a 50% chance the monster becoming quicker, but a 50% chance of the monster becoming slower. (Adjust odds however you want)

As mentioned, this isn't necessary for different speed monsters, monsters with Slow, Haste, Paralysis, Blink, etc. Don't know whether to give them quick anyway for consistency.

Monsters becoming permanently less powerful is bad. I would make the quickness just have a 100+ turn timeout.

[duvessa]

I'll go ahead and copy this from the old thread:

I am sure everyone arguing against randomized energy is aware it was introduced to combat pillar dancing. This is why, in my first post in this thread, I stated that it does nothing to combat pillar dancing, except in the single case of orc priests. Other monsters either:
1. are speed 10, do not have ranged attacks or a means of becoming not (effectively) speed 10. Can be "pillar danced" in almost exactly the same way with or without energy randomization, you just use 1 more wall tile as part of the "pillar".
2. are speed 10, have means of becoming effectively not speed 10 (haste, slow, confuse). Could never be pillar danced in the first place because they can haste/slow/confuse you after you attack.
3. are slower than speed 10, same result as category 1 except you don't even need walls.
4. are faster than speed 10, same as category 2.
5. do not appear in the first few dungeon levels, after which pillar dancing is useless against any monster.

Now if every monster in the early game were the same as an orc priest (speed 10, ranged attack that does damage and damage only, nothing else) then energy randomization would seem a lot more reasonable to me. But the vast majority of early-game monsters are in category 1, and pillar dancing/kiting them takes a much larger amount of real-life time with energy randomization. Furthermore, randomized energy introduces

in the cases where you do intend to fight a speed 10 monster, it is optimal to move away from it until it is next to you, because that minimizes the number of actions it gets; previously you could just wait.

which is really horribly incredibly awful and I consider it far, far more tedious than pillar dancing orc priests.

[evilmike]

I never felt like energy randomization fixed anything that needed fixing. I am aware of pillar dancing, but I remain unconvinced that it ever was, or currently is a problem. There are theoretical arguments as to why it's a problem, but I haven't seen practical examples of this being a problem in game yet (although, I keep an open mind, so if anyone wants to show me a truly degenerate case of pillar dancing, go ahead). I also have never found it particularly useful outside of the first few levels, as a means of restoring MP.

In general, I do not think energy randomization changed much with regards to pillar dancing itself. It is still useful in situations where it was useful before. I'm fine with that.

Energy randomization does have an indirect effect, however. If you want to escape from an enemy that's next to you, one thing you can do is retreat from it a bit until the randomization causes a gap to open up between you and a monster. From there you can hopefully retreat to a stair, or try to place something between you and the enemy to increase the distance (conjure flame, summons, etc). Pillar dancing can actually a pretty useful way of creating such a gap although it's not the only way. Because of this, one could argue that energy randomization made pillar dancing more useful, albeit in a different (and less tedious) way.

With regards to its intended purpose, energy randomization is a failure. What it does do is (a) make enemy movement less predictable (you can't know EXACTLY how many moves away from you a speed 10 enemy is), and (b) made speed 10 enemies a bit easier to escape from. Both of those seem ok to me, even if they could be seen as "side effects". I think any question of what (if anything) should be done with energy randomization should focus on those two features of it, and not whatever its original goals were.

I'm not really sure now if I would prefer the game with or without it. I'm tempted to say "without", but the grass is always greener on the other side. I'd have to actually try Crawl without it to decide (playing 0.5 doesn't count).

What I am fairly sure of is that if the game lost energy randomization, it does not need any "alternative" mechanic to replace it. Either keep things as they are, or remove the feature entirely and leave it at that.

[Siegurt]

Dpeg: Additionally you don't always have a choice about "approaching a creature" sometimes they're waiting around that next corner and will go from "unknown" to "adjacent to you" when you take one step forward. In those circumstances "You can't ever get away, so win this fight or die" really makes the game less interesting to me, personally.

[Lasty]

I would really hate to see a "monsters that chase you become fast forever" feature. It means that once you've been forced to retreat from a monster, if you managed to escape you need to go somewhere else, because the next time it sees you, you won't be able to escape without extraordinary measures. That strikes me as unnecessarily limiting, and it'll hit hardest characters/players that are already struggling.

[tasonir]

I never felt like energy randomization fixed anything that needed fixing. I am aware of pillar dancing, but I remain unconvinced that it ever was, or currently is a problem. There are theoretical arguments as to why it's a problem, but I haven't seen practical examples of this being a problem in game yet (although, I keep an open mind, so if anyone wants to show me a truly degenerate case of pillar dancing, go ahead).

I thought this was fairly obvious: You're fighting some melee bruiser mob, say an early ogre. It has absolutely no ranged attacks. You melee for a couple of rounds, but oh no, you're down to 20% health and he's only at 50%! Now you run around in a loop for several hundred turns until you're both back at 100% and you try again. You get better rolls, you win, and you didn't have to use any consumables. Your only risk is that another monster may wander into the area you're running around in.

With energy randomization, There's a chance that the ogre clubs you again quickly and you die (outcome 1), that the ogre takes a long time and clubs you after you have enough life to survive it, and then you have to kite much longer (outcome 2), or that you open up a gap and take the upstairs instead (outcome 3).

Players prefer outcome 3, both 1 and 3 reduce the tediousness of pillar dancing, but 2 makes it even more tedious.

[Patashu]

You could get outcome 3 before energy randomization (unwield/wield jewellery or weapon next to the ogre until it swings, move away and a gap will form) and in fact it's still the 'best' (least tedious, most reliable, fastest, least dangerous in terms of other things appearing, etc) technique.

[duvessa]

Unfortunately, with randomized energy in existence, it is optimal to keep moving and wait for randomized energy to create a gap, rather than use weapon swapping. This is one of the 2 big reasons randomized energy actually makes kiting/dancing take more time, not less (see my previous post for reason 2: in the cases where you do intend to fight a speed 10 monster, it is optimal to move away from it until it is next to you, because that minimizes the number of actions it gets; previously you could just wait).

[crate]

re: ogre

several hundred turns

there's a real cost right here (especially if you already have a god and that god has piety decay); characters who rest a lot already end up facing noticeably more enemies (because of the resting) and they might well be more dangerous also
i'm convinced that, if the ogre has a realistic chance of killing you if you hold tab next to it, that the best course of action is simply to not get next to it--with or without energy randomisation
so all it does it punish already-suboptimal play, very occasionally ... which is a thing that you should not have to punish

anyway this example is both not actually fixed by energy randomisation imo and not a problem without it