Monster blink is obnoxious

[Bart]

Monster blinking is overused and obnoxious. In particular, blink frogs, imps, phantoms and killer clowns do not possess any blink synergic abilities. Sporadically, interesting situations are created when blinking enemy blocks an escape way. Most of the times, mentioned monsters only encourage parking technique and force melee characters to spend 3/4 of combat trying to engage their enemies.

I do not advocate blink removal, but the frequency shall be greatly reduced until blinking of these monsters becomes relevant for gameplay.

Spoiler: show

Further possibilities that require some time and willingness to code are:
- blink if other monsters are present and blocked by blinking creature
- grant ranged attack to blinking creatures
- leave chaos clouds instead of fog
- create a mirror image of creature which dissipates when attacked
- blink close to player instead of randomly

[Sar]

Blink frogs are a pretty good enemy IMO, but you probably have a point about other ones you mentioned.

[le_nerd]

Blink-preventing constriction is one more reason why Octopodes/Naga are so much fun. Play more Octopodes, people!

[Turukano]

Play more Octopodes, people!

Sequell says octopodes are quite popular (#6): !lg * s=crace

4718116 games for *: 515881x Demonspawn, 411975x Deep Elf, 300579x Minotaur, 228782x Spriggan, 225065x High Elf, 223419x Octopode, 207880x Draconian, 200645x Mummy, 194953x Hill Orc, 170485x Merfolk, 156402x Gargoyle, 153068x Human, 151184x Troll, 144358x Tengu, 143901x Vampire, 141603x Kobold, 131204x Naga, 123374x Ogre, 98713x Demigod, 97275x Mountain Dwarf, 93180x Formicid, 86121x Vine Stalker, 83534x Felid, 82368x Deep Dwarf, 74865x Sludge Elf, 64870x Centaur, 61161x Ghoul, 61006x Halfling [...]

Edit: On the other hand, one could argue as well that so many octopodes are played because they are weak and die soon with their AC 1. Their win % is very low: 854/223422x Octopode [0.38%]

[Piginabag]

A monster (like Phantoms) creating a brief wall between blink points in exchange for a longer cooldown could be interesting/infuriating.

[MainiacJoe]

One thing that is frustrating about blinking monsters is that you've almost killed them and they blink away and heal. But since blinking away when I'm almost dead is exactly what I'd do, I don't see how it's a problem that some monsters are smarter than others.

[njvack]

The thing is, they aren't smart; they blink randomly. They're as apt to blink away when you're almost dead as when they're almost dead. And they don't blink and flee to heal up, they just blink. And "smart" monsters aren't actually something we want -- think about an orc priest that always smited or a centaur that would kite you.

The end result for things like crimson imps is that for a lot of the game, you're plenty strong to melee them, but they blink away like ten times and the fight takes forever. And if you aren't strong enough, it's easier than normal to draw them upstairs and leave them, or just walk away until they blink somewhere silly and forget about you.

Blink is good on some monsters (I also like blink frogs), but I agree that imps and phantoms and klowns could do without.

[kuniqs]

Make phantom and blink frogs unhealing.
Imps are shout factories so their blink is purposefully annoying, I guess.
Phantoms are kinda tough at the first time you're fighting them so you can at least run away from them.

Maybe if monsters blinked in a way to intentionally surround you (so blink frog pack blinks around you in circle)?

[njvack]

Unhealing monsters encourage you to hit and run endlessly -- deep dwarf monsters were removed because of this.

[archaeo]

I don't mind monster blink as much as I mind red devil hop back. Blinking is frustrating, but at least it's largely random; hop back is just terrible.

In general, monster repositioning should be tactically consequential instead of merely annoying. Blink frogs, hellephants, and orb spiders strike me as good examples, red devils and killer clowns as bad ones.

[asdu]

Blink frogs are in the same category as crimson imps and phantoms in that their blink is something you are meant to take advantage of. Non-blinking blink frogs would of course be a lot scarier.
I second red devils being awful, and I'd add bats as enemies whose only relevance comes from the fact that once every thousand games one of them will block an escape route on D:2 and you'll die as a result.

[Rast]

Bats are supposed to be used as meatwalls against dangerous monsters.

[Sar]

I was playing an octopode a day ago and I did a stupid thing and a bat killed me because lol 1 AC.

[tabstorm]

Regarding the OP, I can only assume some monsters have random blink in order to prevent you from being able to berserk them safely (or they just have it for no real reason at all).

Regarding red devils: They are easily one of the most ill-conceived enemies currently in the game. Why would you take a monster that does little to no damage when it is encountered and then make it keep distance from the player while still attacking? Except I have caught them sometimes so I am not sure how their attack delay works or if it is just energy randomization, which means it is a simultaneously an annoying, pointless, and confusing mechanic. It should just be removed. And by removed I mean actually removed and not made "more interesting", it wouldn't be any more enjoyable if it actually did damage.

[Pollen_Golem]

It may become less obnoxious if blink becomes "short blink" with a limited range.

Killer Klowns should have an ability to swap places with another monster. That would be so cool, dangerous, and thematic! I believe enemy demonspawn can do something like this but it's barely noticeable.

[jejorda2]

Blink with fast regeneration on imps is interesting, especially with the relatively high AC.
Blink on blink frogs makes a tough monster easier to escape.

I'm not sure why phantoms have blink. But sometimes I'm glad to escape an early one.

[duvessa]

blink doesn't really help imps since 1. they still don't do damage, 2. anyone except a felid can just throw/shoot stuff at them

[bel]

I don't see what is wrong with blink in general. Blink frogs would become tougher, not just less annoying if they don't blink/reduce frequency. Also, there is the interaction with berserk (which goes in the other direction). I also am not sure what reducing frequency would do. I don't see anything special about any arbitrary frequency (except 0), so the current one is as good as any other.

Crimson imps blink/heal can be annoying, but rarely makes much difference, since crimson imps do very little damage. I suppose they can interact with others in some rare cases, but overall they seem kind of useless to me.

[greedo]

Personally I think blinking monsters is fine. They're really not that super common, and you can just throw some tomas at them if they seriously annoy you.

[partial]

It is also pretty wonderful when your summoned imps blink away from anywhere useful.