Depths monster distribution

[Psieye]

I've had the pleasure of knowing crawl for years now. I remember back when Vaults was just "lots of square rooms and meaty popcorn spam", or when Crypt was mostly just "big dumb melee things lurch towards you". Crawl development has done good work making threats tactically stimulating in these mid-late game areas. Similar work needs to be done for Depths.

Assuming you're not a newbie who poked his head into Depths without getting a Lair rune, this area does not leave a strong impression. It's not like there's an absence of interesting enemies, but the overall play experience is "lots of big dumb melees, some of which have a dumb ranged option and/or a 'support mage' who largely just buffs them" punctuated with isolated pockets of some interesting monster found on its own (or the occasional murder of Caustic Shrieks).

I think back to the Giant Eyeball - this used to be found on early floors and 96% of the time it was alone, harmlessly staring you down. Now it's always generated next to a serious threat. Or look to the Ogre Mage - a squad of big dumb melees becomes interesting (at Vaults level, not Depths) when an Ogre Mage brings the threat of paralysis, haste other, banishment, LCS, etc. So I don't think we need new monsters to make Depths more interesting, just regroup/re-distribute the existing beastiary. Though of course, new monsters are welcome too.

For instance, the Spriggan Air Mage usually has a squad of Air Elementals. It's saying "I can Airstrike you while my squad pins you down and my Deflect Missiles makes it hard to snipe me early". But it also has Control Winds - what if sometimes it spawned with something that could make (relevant) clouds, or something that could summon cloud makers? Like a new Spriggan Ice Mage monster or a pre-existing Fire Crab. Now that consumable destruction is gone, such cloud trolling is no longer a strategic nuisance. Or take the Rakshasa whose Phantom Mirror really wants to be used on an interesting threat, like something that summons, a major support caster or even a Juggernaut.

By the time a player can consistently make it to Depths, they know tactics. That means they know to divide and conquer. Simply hoping the interesting monsters mingle with the abundant big dumbs doesn't work for tactically adept players. By forcing them to spawn together with big dumbs (at least some of the time), Depths would be more interesting. We could even give new lease of life to rare monsters from earlier branches, e.g. Torpor Snails.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Maybe by the time depths comes around there should be more monsters faster than the player. If deep trolls were speed 12 that would change dynamics a bit for example.

[PleasingFungus]

torpor snails were actually tried in depths; they turned out to be way too fragile to be effective that late in the game.

Maybe by the time depths comes around there should be more monsters faster than the player. If deep trolls were speed 12 that would change dynamics a bit for example.

there is a reason they spawn in packs with deep troll shamans ('haste other')

[duvessa]

Want to make Depths harder? Get rid of the harmless free XP spawns like boggart, slime creature, ugly thing, entropy weaver, tengu warrior, ettin, flayed ghost, giant eyeball. Just replacing them with nothing will reduce the XP available in the game which will make the game harder. (Not so much for boggart and giant eyeball, but I suspect if you get rid of the others the effect will be noticeable).
I don't think it makes sense to focus on Depths in this way though, the pivot point for the game becoming unchallenging is, and has always been, Lair. Turns out that if you get to do 11, 9, or 7 levels of ~D:10 tier monsters after D:9 (plus piddling xp/loot from Orc), the remaining D levels are pretty easy, and instead of seguing into Vaults or Depths after D:15 you get to grind ~7 more levels of under-threatening monsters in S branches which just makes the effect even worse. Depths is already a reasonable sequel to Vaults:4 or 5, it just doesn't matter much because the power curve got wrecked by Lair and its sub-branches.

Another good way to keep Crawl from getting too easy would be to avoid, say, replacing a bunch of useless items (that took up item generation slots) with extremely powerful consumables that make it so every character ever can just summon powerful allies to stomp any difficult fights.

I remember back when Vaults was just "lots of square rooms and meaty popcorn spam", or when Crypt was mostly just "big dumb melee things lurch towards you".

I remember that time too. It's pretty easy to remember the present.

there is a reason they spawn in packs with deep troll shamans ('haste other')

That reason would be a lot more convincing if deep troll shamans would haste deep trolls before either one enters LOS. Which they don't.

[MainiacJoe]

I had the thought lately that catoblepi would be good in Depths. They're fragile by then, but the presence and/or threat of their petrifying clouds would complicate tactics when they are present and make other monsters more dangerous.

[duvessa]

It really wouldn't. Maybe if catoblepodes were faster and you didn't have to sit in the cloud for a turn to actually get petrified. Right now the only threat from catoblepodes is the 2d6 impact damage from the breath, since as long as you are able to move, you don't get petrified.
Also not fond of making Depths out of assorted Lair and Lair branch monsters. It took long enough to get nagas and merfolk off the spawn list (and entropy weavers are still on it...).

[Sar]

I actually remember getting into a bad situation due to snails a couple of times. Not every character has a ranged weapon, though maybe every character should.

[duvessa]

Torpor snails can be bad if you autoexplore, and/or don't religiously lure monsters in Lair. There's no shame in either of those, so I freely admit that my games have been complicated by torpor snails a couple times. However, I would not like to see more of them.

My favourite monster that generates in Depths is centaur warrior, for whatever that's worth.

[Sar]

Y-yeah, Lair...

Spoiler: show

I was talking about Depths...

[4Hooves2Appendages]

Maybe by the time depths comes around there should be more monsters faster than the player. If deep trolls were speed 12 that would change dynamics a bit for example.

there is a reason they spawn in packs with deep troll shamans ('haste other')

Well, I haven't been caught by a deep troll against my wishes in depths in quite while.

I'd propose to make deep troll shamans more threatening:
- turn 'haste other' into 'haste all' (including the shaman, excluding the player)
- turn 'might other' into 'might all' (including the shaman, excluding the player)
- remove 'minor healing' (to make the shaman cast the other spells)

[nago]

I'd like to see a caustic shrike come in LOS and get haste+might the following turn.

[Hands]

The hordes of popcorn probably contribute more to the deaths of good players than any other factor. After a point consistent winning becomes more about quickly recognizing the moment to stop tabbing than anything else, and the longer the periods you can tab mindlessly the more dangerous the occasions when you can't become.

I mean, I still enjoy Crawl, but once you have fairly competent skilling and a basic working knowledge of game mechanics, positioning, monsters, consumables etc., most of the challenge of the late game can be circumvented just by recognizing the moment to teleport. To the point where significant differences in win rate come down not to better strategy or tactical knowledge, but just the ability to snap out of the tab trance quicker.

[4Hooves2Appendages]

I'd like to see a caustic shrike come in LOS and get haste+might the following turn.

I don't mean to be hostile, just want to understand what you're saying. Is that sarcasm?

[crate]

But it also has Control Winds - what if sometimes it spawned with something that could make (relevant) clouds, or something that could summon cloud makers?

I suggest just removing Control Winds spell since the reason it was created (to prevent the player from killing all the spriggans in Forest branch by burning down the trees) is no longer a part of crawl and it mostly just does nothing, as you point out. No need to complicate things just for the sake of complicating things. If you want monsters using clouds on the player, you can just, you know, have them do that, and it works out basically the same in the end but is less confusing.