End monster spawning

[archaeo]

1) Arrhy your drunk thank spree was funny to me.

2) Can someone explain to me why crawl would be worse with no food and no OOD timer? If you remove the few advantages to scumming, which would be pretty easy to remove, would crawl really even need something pushing the player forward?

[duvessa]

There are lots of advantages to waiting. Aside from tracking down initial monster spawns there's "mummystabbing" (waiting for a long time to make off-level monsters move or even fall asleep), and without anything to push the player forward there's basically no reason to even explore levels before killing most of the monsters by letting them wander into you (ever played DoomRL?).

[Arrhythmia]

or even fall asleep)

m-minmay.... making a mistake????

[mps]

I say randomly remove runes from branch ends, especially the early ones, if the player is taking too long. Leave a note in place of the rune that says "Sorry, adventurer, but our rune is in another endbranch vault." If the the player dicks around too much, eventually all the runes end up on a panlord level. If they go in and leave without the runes, the game informs them that not enough runes are left to enter the realm of Zot and the game ends.

Now that you have an actual time limit with actual consequences, you can remove bad time constraints like food and spawns. I suggest that the first rune be displaced around 30k turns with more moved every 15k thereafter, starting with non-slime lair branches. Each rune collected adds 10k to the timer, so you have time to screw around with elf or clearing depths and other such things people seem to like to do.

[Wahaha]

Not sure if this is a joke, but if you're going to do that then a better way to do it is to have a non-random limited amount of food that allows the player to not starve for x turns. Food can be obtained on each floor.
Edit: actually with the disappearing runes thing it might be fun to have to quickly dive to branch ends to get the runes, although I imagine most people would be furious about a change like this. The food idea doesn't create the same diving necessity.

[mps]

I think the fact that people are seriously considering tactics like waiting on a floor for monsters to walk away or formerly fall asleep gives you a feel for where players are in terms of their orientation to the passage of time and I don't think it's a good place. Just the fact that you have time to rest up to full hp between fights in normal crawl is, like, kind of silly. You could fix this with food, except that would leave you with the tedium of food. Better to passively screw slowrunners than force everyone to participate in the screwing (food, etc.).

[Berder]

Or better yet don't "screw" slowrunners or any other kind of player, and just try to make the game an enjoyable experience. I should mention that all new players are "slowrunners," usually even much slower than experts who streak.

[bel]

Thread seems to have meandered from the topic. What does this have to do with end monster spawning?

[archaeo]

*snip*

These edge cases seem imminently removable as well, though "waiting in place for ages, allowing monsters to come to you" seems like a tedious strategy that punishes itself.

Thread seems to have meandered from the topic. What does this have to do with end monster spawning?

In my view, "monster spawning" is just an element of the entire edifice of mechanics designed to keep the player moving forward. Personally, I've never particularly liked games giving me timers, though I understand the design goals they serve. I just think crawl could honestly do without them, and that hunger is such a toothless, vestigial mechanic that keeping it at this point seems like an enormous waste of time and button presses, not to mention the obnoxious inventory screw chunks still represent, even in their compacted form.

Crawl doesn't need to push the player forward, and it really doesn't even now. Food is nowhere near scarce enough to be a problem for any player of any combo, and the OOD timer is so generous as to be a non-issue. And, as has been pointed out, it also is full of holes, so scumming players can take advantage of the few benefits to waiting in place without issue. The devs are welcome to turn the screws on these mechanics, if they feel that a more aggressive timer is really desirable, but I would just do without it altogether instead, and focus the difficulty on crawl's good gameplay instead of a dull timer ticking away in the back of players' heads.

Of course, hunger isn't only a timer, since it has a role in rods, abilities, and magic. The former two could just lose their hunger costs without any real problem at all. There are endless good ideas for removing hunger from the latter -- stacking -Wiz costs for too-powerful spells, contam, skill cost reform, etc., -- and all of them would be more useful and interesting costs than hunger, which anything that casts spells can turn into a negligible cost.

[Curio]

Ok. This bullshit has to stop.
I cleared a level. I know it because it is fully explored, I'm a conjurer of Veh with loud spells and it's more or less open level.
I descend, explore half of next level and when can't handle a pack of skeletal warriors retreat to previously explored level(D10)...

  Code:

Message History

You destroy the skeletal warrior!
Vehumet accepts your kill.
You feel your power returning.
The skeletal warrior hits you from afar with a halberd!
The skeletal warrior hits you from afar with a trident!
Found an ancient bone altar of Kikubaaqudgha.
There is a stone staircase leading up here.
Casting: Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
Confirm with . or Enter, or press ? or * to list all spells.
Aiming: Iskenderun's Mystic Blast
Press: ? - help, Shift-Dir - straight line, f - skeletal warrior
Aim: a skeletal warrior, wielding a halberd (heavily damaged)
The orb of energy hits the skeletal warrior.
The skeletal warrior is severely damaged.
The skeletal warrior hits you from afar with a halberd!!
* * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * *
You climb upwards.
A cyclops comes into view.
The cyclops throws a large rock. The large rock hits you!!!
You die...

...to be one-shotted by a fucking cyclops. Take a note - all four last messages happened at a same time! I had no time to react.
I have -25/121 in morgue. And before retreating upstairs I had around 25% HP. I know it's a different issue with stairs but if there was no generation of fricking cyclopses after a level was cleared - this stupid death would be avoided altogether.

[duvessa]

generating new monsters would be pretty fucking pointless if it couldn't kill you

[Berder]

Yes, and it's pretty pointless even though it can kill you. The reason for getting rid of monster spawning is to reduce aggravation, not because it sometimes kills you.

[Siegurt]

The fact that it could kill you is actually a reason in favor of keeping it.

[dowan]

Dying for walking up a staircase, to a known cleared area, is a desirable feature to you? How about adding a 1% chance to die anytime you use a staircase? It could kill you! That's a reason to do it!

[archaeo]

The fact that it could kill you is actually a reason in favor of keeping it.

I get what you and duvessa are saying -- a toothless mechanic is toothless -- but all it proves is that monsters are dangerous, doubly so when you don't know where they'll be. If retreating upstairs is something monster spawning is supposed to prevent, however, this lucky 1hko aside, the mechanic is doing a really bad job. I can imagine a whole host of better solutions to this problem, and I bet if you go into a dark bathroom and say "crate" into the mirror three times, a quiet voice will whisper in your ear about the fundamental flaws of crawl stairs.

Monster spawning is just like food: a silly mechanic that will very rarely kill the unwary, but is otherwise a pointless, vexatious patch for a set of problems that have much better solutions left unexplored.

[zxc23]

While testing felid one time I had an orc pack spawn on D:1 before I had fully cleared it. I wasn't taking a long time in particular, and I certainly wasn't scumming. Just tabbing enemies and resting to full HP after each fight. This shouldn't be possible.

[Wahaha]

While testing felid one time I had an orc pack spawn on D:1 before I had fully cleared it. I wasn't taking a long time in particular, and I certainly wasn't scumming. Just tabbing enemies and resting to full HP after each fight. This shouldn't be possible.

Why not?

[archaeo]

Why not?

The OOD timer and monster spawning is an invisible process that can catch the unspoiled player unawares, given that the game never mentions "By the way, in addition to the visible hunger timer, there's an invisible timer for how long you can be on the level before it starts spitting out monsters that are tougher, and you won't know until it's too late." Plus, given the way Crawl's vaults work, it's often hard to notice the difference between "These monsters are because I've been on the level too long" and "These monsters are because I roused some vault of enemies I hadn't seen yet."

Compare this to other games that have invisible countdowns to tough enemies, like Spelunky's ghosts, which often tell you when you've stuck around too long ("A terrible chill runs up your spine!").

Personally, I think if the devs really feel the need to keep passive OOD timers instead of active scumming prevention, it would be helpful if the game let you know somehow that you tarried too long.

[zxc23]

While testing felid one time I had an orc pack spawn on D:1 before I had fully cleared it. I wasn't taking a long time in particular, and I certainly wasn't scumming. Just tabbing enemies and resting to full HP after each fight. This shouldn't be possible.

Why not?

Because orcs spawning in D:1 is an OOD spawn which is supposedly meant to deter scumming, yet I was playing completely normally. Because felid is so weak, I took a lot of damage with every single fight, and had to heal after each one, which resulted in the long turn count and the OOD spawn. It surely isn't right to be punishing the player for simply playing the game normally, but with a weak race (which is already punishing in itself). An orc priest can oneshot a felid in D:1 (and D:2 for that matter, but let's correct one problem at a time) resulting in completely unavoidable deaths, which don't belong in the game.

[njvack]

I don't honestly think OOD timer spawns are special. If you see monsters you can't handle, escape. An orc pack on D:1 is really dangerous, but so is a D:2 Sigmund or a D:3 Grinder.

[Wahaha]

Personally, I think if the devs really feel the need to keep passive OOD timers instead of active scumming prevention, it would be helpful if the game let you know somehow that you tarried too long.

It would be nice if OOD spawns started after 1000 turns on a level and there was a message like "Powerful enemies detected your presence on this floor" except well written. Except for Lair and some other branches because that message would be a lie. Might be a bad idea because it might encourage waiting on a floor until that message appears. Although food is supposed to prevent waiting...

Because orcs spawning in D:1 is an OOD spawn which is supposedly meant to deter scumming, yet I was playing completely normally. It surely isn't right to be punishing the player for simply playing the game normally, but with a weak race (which is already punishing in itself).

I thought of this answer to the "Why not?" question. But there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of forcing/encouraging the player to progress at a certain speed. If a race is weak and it's hard to progress fast enough, well that's because the race is weak, so yes the game will be harder. OOD spawning does make strong races stronger and weak races weaker. This might theoretically cause too big of a difference, but I don't think that's currently the case, OOD spawns have only a minor impact on race difficulty. I just don't see anything wrong with orcs spawning on D:1 after 1k turns. I treat it as part of the game.
If OOD spawns are meant to deter scumming specifically, then your argument is good and I agree. In that case OOD spawns should not start before 2k turns in my opinion.

[archaeo]

But there's nothing inherently wrong with the concept of forcing/encouraging the player to progress at a certain speed.

But there's nothing inherently good about it, either. It could create an interesting tension, but Crawl's never does, because the OOD timer is extremely generous while the food timer is all but nonexistent and mostly exists as a few extra buttons you have to keep pressing to have fun.

Right now, we have a system that doesn't accomplish anything that people want it to accomplish. You can fix it so it does accomplish those goals, but I don't really think Crawl needs to be a game where there's a constant clock ticking; the game rewards playing fast without needing a timer, and remains a fun game even if you play relatively slowly. Instead, it'd be much better to just remove both the timers, fix the issues that lead to scummable behaviors, and be done with it.

[Berder]

I think there's plenty of incentive to play fast, for players who like to do that: namely, there is the number called the score. No further in-game clocks are necessary.


Not that any of this has to do with why monster spawns should be removed. They should be removed solely because it's aggravating to have to keep mopping them up from areas you already cleared and having them interrupt your autoexplore.

[Wahaha]

Not that any of this has to do with why monster spawns should be removed. They should be removed solely because it's aggravating to have to keep mopping them up from areas you already cleared and having them interrupt your autoexplore.

Is it aggravating to kill monsters that are placed when the level is created? What's the difference, you're killing monsters either way. Those monsters interrupt your autoexplore too, how horrible. So is the problem that you're killing too many monsters per level for your taste? This thread has good arguments for removing spawning but I don't think this is one of them. Like I said earlier in this thread, I like spawning monsters because they cause dangerous situations more often by appearing unexpectedly in an explored area while I'm moving away from other monsters. If spawning is removed, something that could recreate this danger is making monsters get teleport trapped more often.

[Berder]

Is it aggravating to kill monsters that are placed when the level is created? What's the difference, you're killing monsters either way. Those monsters interrupt your autoexplore too, how horrible.

It's the difference between building a sand castle... and rebuilding a sand castle somebody smashed parts of.

Clearing territory for the first time is fun, doing it the second time after spawns ruined your nice clean level is a pointless drag.

[ajon]

Free nutrition when you're running around to shops late game to get things you couldn't earlier?

[Sar]

I thanked the "why not?" message because I don't think a rare chance of seeing orcs on D:1 is a terrible thing. It might kill most characters but so can an adder.

[duvessa]

i mean an orc is a strictly weaker gnoll before equipment, so that would be a pretty weird thing to complain about in the first place unless the orc pack actually has a priest or wizard

[Sar]

Well packs usually have one of those. Usually. And I did see a pack with a priest or wizard (don't remember) on D:1 once. I run away and survived.

[archaeo]

Free nutrition when you're running around to shops late game to get things you couldn't earlier?

If you remove monster spawning and hunger at the same time, (G)oing places means that you won't get interrupted by popcorn, and you won't get interrupted by getting hungry!

Unless you like having to hit G L 1 about a dozen times to deal with totally unimportant events on your way to the actual game you're playing, of course. In that case, the status quo is great.

[dowan]

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I am always pleased when I am interrupted by edible popcorn in my travels. Even though I have never, ever starved in this game, I have an irrational fear of running out of food, so any time I get to eat chunks when hungry it makes me very pleased. Plus the 0.005% of a point of xp really adds up!

Don't forget, you can just press ctrl + G enter once you've set the destination once, you don't have to keep selecting the destination, at least that's the case in offline tiles...

[jejorda2]

You know how weapons and armour have the line of info, "You took this off a Kobold/acquired it/bought it in a shop on D5?" And xv tells you that some monsters are summoned or durably summoned?

I would like for enemies that are generated after the level is first created to be marked. Just so I have some ides of how many monsters are from initial generation and how many are from later spawning.


"This orc is native to Orc:2."
"This wolf followed you up the stairs from Lair:4, where it is native."
"This Titan recently wandered into the Depths:3 from parts unknown."

I'm not sure those are exactly what the messages need to be. I just want to know if the creature started on that level or somewhere else. I also want to know if that creature existed the first time I stepped into the level.

[archaeo]

I realize now that I sound like I'm on some Bloaxian quest (e: except at least Bloax has the good grace to not write walls of text), so I'll quit after this.

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I am always pleased when I am interrupted by edible popcorn in my travels. Even though I have never, ever starved in this game, I have an irrational fear of running out of food, so any time I get to eat chunks when hungry it makes me very pleased. Plus the 0.005% of a point of xp really adds up!

You said it: it's irrational. Because hunger doesn't matter one whit to anyone who isn't trying to cast Fire Storm in Lair, certainly not for a late-game player just traveling between branches in the Dungeon.

I would probably go so far as to say that any game that isn't actually about the timer encourages irrational player behavior. If the timer isn't impactful, it's just behavioral nudging, it's a lie the game tells you so you'll lie to yourself. Both Crawl's visible timer and its secret OOD timer are just the game fibbing about itself, all in the service of goals that are ill-served by said fibs.

So, actual fr: remove the OOD timer, along with the few remaining ways you can really scum in the game (Xom's gifts are put on an XP timer, maybe monsters are made to wander close-but-not-adjacent to stairs after X number of turns waiting). And, since that will leave us with only one ineffective timer, remove hunger while you're at it. Rod and ability hunger can just go away, spell hunger can be replaced by some novel mechanic, something like "Gain X% of -Wiz for casting hunger-inducing spells, with XP timer" or "Gain fractional contam, increase granularity of contam display" or "do nothing but raise the chances for miscasts with too-powerful spells," or some other rebalancing mechanic.

I appreciate, however, that this sounds like a ton of coding work, as easy as it is to type it, and I apologize for doing nothing but complain about it instead of, I don't know, learning C++ in a coding boot camp like a dream I had recently.

Don't forget, you can just press ctrl + G enter once you've set the destination once, you don't have to keep selecting the destination, at least that's the case in offline tiles...

This does in fact work online; it doesn't really ameliorate the fact that, when I hit "G," I expect to go someplace, not halfway there to stop for a snack or to kill something that was dangerous hours and hours of playtime ago.

I just want to know if the creature started on that level or somewhere else. I also want to know if that creature existed the first time I stepped into the level.

This isn't a bad idea, though it sort of just decorates the problem instead of trying to fix it.