YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix


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Crypt Cleanser

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 13:10

YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

I don't pretend this to be a perfect or even desirable solution to the problem of luring (if it is one). Merely the simplest and more elegant solution proposed thusfar.

Here it is: monsters move faster the longer they have been aware of the player and in LoS.

The idea would be that a quick tactical retreat to a corridor or nearby stair would cost you nothing, but luring would become considerably more suicidal over long distances, giving monsters the opportunity to attack you with ever increasing frequency.

Why is this important? It directly addresses the primary issue people seem to have with luring; tedium. Extreme cases of luring across vast distances would become impossible (against all but the most insignificant enemies) due to linearly increasing Hp loss/risk. Moderate cases (constant luring to minimize noise, etc) would be possible, but usually suboptimal. And moving tactically back to a corridor 5 squares away would have no significant downside.

This does not solve stairdancing or the fact that the game is presently balanced around prolonged retreat as a core strategy. However, it does comprehensively solve luring/pillar dancing. At least in my view.

Spider Stomper

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 13:43

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

lethediver wrote:I don't pretend this to be a perfect or even desirable solution to the problem of luring (if it is one). Merely the simplest and more elegant solution proposed thusfar.

Here it is: monsters move faster the longer they have been aware of the player and in LoS.

The idea would be that a quick tactical retreat to a corridor or nearby stair would cost you nothing, but luring would become considerably more suicidal over long distances, giving monsters the opportunity to attack you with ever increasing frequency.

Why is this important? It directly addresses the primary issue people seem to have with luring; tedium. Extreme cases of luring across vast distances would become impossible (against all but the most insignificant enemies) due to linearly increasing Hp loss/risk. Moderate cases (constant luring to minimize noise, etc) would be possible, but usually suboptimal. And moving tactically back to a corridor 5 squares away would have no significant downside.

This does not solve stairdancing or the fact that the game is presently balanced around prolonged retreat as a core strategy. However, it does comprehensively solve luring/pillar dancing. At least in my view.


Issues:

Tremendously adjusts game balance at all levels, especially for high-defense but worse offense characters (e.g. 1h + shield)

Further tips the balance against actually engaging beefy uniques, which makes the strategy for all of them even more similar (ninja the loot, leave).

Adds either mass cognitive load for what had been in LoS or extra dev work and XVing everything.

Probably has a ton of bad interactions with corners, "true" pillardancing, smoke, etc.

Increases the already strong relative power of bodyblocking with summons.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 14:49

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Good points. However, no simple proposal would address all those issues, so I choose to work on only those which make my proposal conceivably inferior to any of the ones that have proposed previously.

Of the five of those points, the only two that aren't equally posed by other luring fixes is 3. and 4.

3: "Adds either mass cognitive load for what had been in LoS or extra dev work and XVing everything"

Perhaps slowing the player would be even simpler than hastening enemies? PC could gain .02 auts move penalty every turn he spends walking while in sight of an enemy - could call it 'fatigue' for flavor.

4: Probably has a ton of bad interactions with corners, "true" pillardancing, smoke, etc.

Possibly. I'd need to actually think through the examples to figure out if any of those interactions are gameable or overly annoying, though.

bel

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 15:18

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Assuming luring is a problem, what's the issue with simply increasing monster speed a bit? To quote from the OP, "a quick retreat" to a corridor/stair would cost you nothing in this case either (maybe it will give the monster one or so free turns, which is not significant).

Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 15:31

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Honestly I'm pretty sure lureing isn't a problem.

In response to the OP this seems more like a "destroy sprigans, destroy pillars" thing than a lureing fix. Which just encorages more luring, and more stairhugging. Seems painful.

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Speleothing

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 15:37

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

It is often, though certainly not always, optimal to lure a fast monster all the way halfway across the level to a stair in order to ensure fighting in isolation, minimize risk from noise, ensure an escape route, etc... this holds true even if the monster can get a few hits in.

Just a random example, Fighting acid blobs in slime. It is almost always going to be better to drag it to a stair even while being peppered by corrosion rather than approach and risk alerting/coming close to another acid blob, and have two fast monsters shooting at you.

However if the monster is hitting you gradually faster and faster (as in my proposal) it eventually becomes an *existential* threat that must eventually be turned and faced (or tele'd away from, or negated using consumable/piety, etc) - you will never want this to happen or come close to happening which means the benefit of luring is close to nil.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 15:38

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

NhorianScum wrote:Honestly I'm pretty sure lureing isn't a problem.

In response to the OP this seems more like a "destroy sprigans, destroy pillars" thing than a lureing fix. Which just encorages more luring, and more stairhugging. Seems painful.


Yeah, a luring fix alone wont fix much unless stairs , fast races and overall game balance are addressed. We're all well aware of this.

Why do you think my proposal increases luring though? I feel that has become a lazy go to argument in these convos. "This doesnt fix luring, it increases it" - a large number of smart people have said this to various proposals, so when someone dredges it up with no supporting logic I become skeptical and suspect they are merely reiterating it because it sounds smart. Forgive my bluntness.

Shoals Surfer

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:03

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

If disengaging from every fight requires consumable use or specific terain you want to fight absolutely nothing in a pack.

Nerfs to player movement or buffs to monster movement create more of the above situation. Most "lure wow" posts involve movement changes. Most replys inform them that this is a terrible idea. It's pretty intuitive.

In order for luring to be "fixed" you need to give players a reason to ever want to fight in open or unexplored territory. It's a large and mostly indirect solution since pulling it off without directly buffing the PC involves changing large swaths of the game and dungeon. Also the needed changes would make playing mele incredibly obnoxious regardless of how well they were implemented. So luring exists as a nesecary evil.
Last edited by NhorianScum on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:11, edited 1 time in total.

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Speleothing

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:07

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

If you played enough naga or frog games optimally at some point you realised that if you see a single orc its better to lure that single orc, because you have to assume that orc belongs to a pack, which might contain a priest. while when you play normal moving races you will fight that orc and if a priest shows up you will only then resort to luring. Now you can dive deep into optimal crazy man status where you have to assume every creature could be near shouting distance of another, that every shout a enemy makes could mean there is now a wandering creature nearby and because you are slow you have to lure to be safe. But how do you lure when you are slower than enemies? by having stealth so when a enemy shouts the pack will wander instead of track you.

A easier solution would be to simply remove noise and stealth, making enemies no longer wander around and you can fight what you see, even if that means spotting the first creature of a pack and fighting it alone by simply not advancing. Does that makes the game better?

Edit: i can say though that making enemies faster than you does make luring more "interesting".
Last edited by dynast on Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:11, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:10

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Without luring, many weak combos would be very luck-dependant.

Solution to luring: don't lure.
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bel

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:17

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

dynast wrote:But how do you lure when you are slower than enemies? by having stealth so when a enemy shouts the pack will wander instead of track you.

I once suggested that a monster noticing you and shouting alerts all nearby monsters to your location, rather than simply attracting them to the noise. Pack monsters would become significantly tougher with this change.

One could still lure a few members of the pack upstairs and break them up that way, but perhaps that can fixed by making them like dowan/duvessa (a solitary member of the pack won't follow upstairs if others aren't adjacent to you). There could be some tweaks to this; for instance, if you're almost dead, a solitary death yak will take the chance and follow you upstairs even if its buddies aren't close enough.

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:33

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

I would be ok with that idea if monster packs werent designed to be split off.
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bel

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:43

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Are they? I thought they were designed to be fought together. There are many packs with complementary monsters; a troll shaman with deep trolls, or an orc priest with plain orcs. Of course, splitting them off makes them easier because the complementary abilities are no longer complementary. But that doesn't mean they were designed to be separated, quite the reverse imo. You can still prioritize some targets even in a pack, so it is different from having all the abilities concentrated in one monster.

To keep the difficulty level from being insane, one could nerf individual members of the pack.

Anyway, I don't expect this to be implemented; it's just an idle thought.

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 16:58

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

They were designed to be dangerous together, so that when you see a yak or killer bee pack you dont go "hum, i should get in between them and see how it goes". You never want to deal with the whole pack unless the game forces you to. Troll shaman/spriggan packs are good examples of that.
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bel

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 17:24

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

If you are not forced to deal with the whole pack, why have them in a pack? If they aren't meant to be fought together, one could simply make them separate monsters.

To some extent the difference is simply semantics. The point is that pack monsters with complementary abilities are much easier when separated. Is this "meant" to be so? That is rather metaphysical, but I lean towards "no". There's nothing preventing packs from acting in a more coordinated fashion.

This does not mean that one goes to the other extreme: "you just try to tab all orcs in the open, and if you die, too bad". Here's a scenario in "alternative crawl". You see an orc group: so you try to get close to the group (using LoS tricks to reduce smiting). The whole pack is still together, but you try to get at the priest first, while the other orcs are bashing you. You kill the priest, then move to a chokepoint to kill the rest. Or you could use LoS management to keep the orc priest out of sight as much as possible and thin the crowd first, before finally getting at the priest.

Anyway, as I said above, this is more a thought experiment than anything with a serious chance of implementation any time soon.

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Post Tuesday, 3rd January 2017, 18:06

Re: YALF: Yet Another Luring Fix

Everything you just said is backwards thinking at its finest and i dont wanna engage into the mental gymnastics you want me to. I only know one game where packs are designed to be fought together and thats ragnarok online, because in that game mobbing enemies into packs is time/cost efficient. The only time that would be true on crawl would be if you had a relevant clock and you were forced to make progress faster, which you dont. So you never want to fight a pack and every optimal route you use is to prevent you from having to do that. If enemy packs in crawl bring interesting situations to the game thats a whole different can of worms.
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