Make creatures sleeping/waking status be less static

[Siegurt]

So one of the things that came up for me while replying to another thread was that it is sometimes kind of unfortunate that creatures are mostly generated asleep, and wake up only when interacting with the player, and then pretty much never go back to sleep (Now that mummystabbing isn't a thing any longer)

It occurred to me that if the whole sleeping/waking up dynamic was a little less static, it might make some things less deterministic.

What I have in mind is:

*generally* creatures might be generated asleep or awake, waking creatures may or may not wander for a while, but then will go to sleep on their own (given no interaction with a player), and *additionally* sleeping creatures will also wake up and wander on their own.

This means (Among other effects):
1. Finding a sleeping nasty and putting an exclusion on it and walking away no longer gives you reasonably certain protection from encountering it.
2. You may find (more) sleeping or awake things in already-cleared areas.
3. If you wake something up, but manage to escape it, it might go back to sleep.
4. If you encounter something asleep, you can no longer be certain it hasn't picked anything up off the floor

I think cleared areas being less safe is a good thing, and it opens up some flexibility around stealth stabbing, decreases the power of EH very slightly (It's no longer a safe thing to succeed once with EH and wander off and leave it to sleep forever if you can't kill it with one stab) it also slightly decreases the initial power of stealth generally (because you're no longer as likely to find things asleep when you first encounter them) while increasing it's reusability (by allowing you to avoid fights now, because the waking things you find might be sleeping later)

With things *generally* waking up and sleeping at intervals, sneaking becomes more tactical and less strategic (you can't simply wait until the whole floor falls asleep like you used to do when you were mummystabbing, as things are going to wake up whether you generate noise on the floor or not, there would be a mixture of waking and sleeping things at any given time)

Anyway, thoughts?

[Sandman25]

Another buff for characters in heavy armour (wondering monsters can go to sleep) and nerf for stealthy casters (sleeping monsters can wake up and go hunting)

[Lasty]

Seems like stealthy characters could scum this to get repeated tries at sleep-stabbing the same target.

[dowan]

Hmm, why do you think cleared areas being less safe is a good thing? You generally are only going to go to cleared areas to travel between branches, or to pick up items you stashed. If you're traveling between branches, 'less safe' is just going to mean 'more autotravel interruptions', as obviously you were able to clear that floor before you cleared whatever branch you traveled from, and if you're picking up stuff you stashed, it's sort of the same situation.

Also, how exactly does this makes cleared areas less safe? The monsters that would have previously been guaranteed to be wandering now might be sleeping, which sounds safer.

[Berder]

I hate cleared areas not being safe. It's bad enough (too bad, really) that monsters can spawn in them. It's like cleaning your car windshield, stepping back to admire your gleaming handiwork, and a bird poops on it and you have to clean it again.

[Siegurt]

Hmm, why do you think cleared areas being less safe is a good thing? You generally are only going to go to cleared areas to travel between branches, or to pick up items you stashed. If you're traveling between branches, 'less safe' is just going to mean 'more autotravel interruptions', as obviously you were able to clear that floor before you cleared whatever branch you traveled from, and if you're picking up stuff you stashed, it's sort of the same situation.

Also, how exactly does this makes cleared areas less safe? The monsters that would have previously been guaranteed to be wandering now might be sleeping, which sounds safer.

Well, creatures which would have been sleeping when you encountered them might be awake, and creatures which would have been awake might be sleeping. (Although implied is the expectation that more creatures will initially be generated awake than is currently the case, making the game generally less safe for stealthy people)

I don't know about you but *I* retreat into cleared areas constantly to try to kill things more safely, this suggestion makes *that* less safe (Basically by increasing the number of wandering creatures).

You're not going to encounter significantly more or any less autotravel interruptions unless you're in the habit of leaving lots of sleeping things unkilled on every floor, maybe that's how you play, if so, this would be worse for you (Since things you'd decided not to kill, might wake up and move along your autotravel path)

[Siegurt]

Seems like stealthy characters could scum this to get repeated tries at sleep-stabbing the same target.

Well, depending on what you mean by 'scum' that's part of the point.

The idea is that this means that there's more monsters *generally* wandering around being awake, ruining stealthy plans to sneak up on them, however everyone goes to sleep eventually, meaning that if someone wakes up the floor, that doesn't completely negate stealthiness entirely.

Currently, if you're sufficiently stealthy, you're pretty much 100% safe from everything that was created with the level until you start to wake things up, or happen across a wandering monster once that happens things go downhill rapidly as noise begets noise and your stealth rating stops really meaning much (except for the occasional critter not noticing you when you are in LOS)

One of my intentions here was to have the situation be less binary, and to force different sorts of unexpected confrontations when you wouldn't normally have them, and on the flip side, have situations where you do manage to keep away from anything nasty for a while, get the benefit of sleep stabbing.

I'm overall not sure it'll work out balance wise, but it seems like something that's worth hashing out logically.

[reaver]

Seems like stealthy characters could scum this to get repeated tries at sleep-stabbing the same target.

This is a solvable problem.

Simple solution: Whenever a monsters naturally "wakes up" there is a chance a flag will be set that causes them to never fall asleep again.