Monster Banishment Soft Delay


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Mines Malingerer

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Post Tuesday, 23rd January 2018, 20:53

Monster Banishment Soft Delay

One of the most uninteresting ways to die in this game is being banished on the first turn in LOS with a monster. Such a death can occur without any input of keys from the player and the only way to avoid such a death is to have found enough MR to get the percentage chance of banishment to 0. My proposal is to "Soft-Delay" Banishment attempts to the third or later turns of monsters once the player has seen them. This way when a player comes into the view of a banishment capable monster they have the time to:

A. run away
B: hex/kill the monster
C: hotswap jewelry/activate god power to increase MR

before the game can randomly decide to "kill" them (obviously late game banishment is an annoyance, but there do still exist early game wizards/Erolcha/distortion weapons that can immediately doom a lower level character).

(and obviously the example that brings about this discussion: my 6 streak in the 0.21 tournament was ended after auto-exploring into range of Erolcha who proceded to instantly banish my CeHu)
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/ ... 161605.txt

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Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 03:01

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Perhaps low level banishment should be much less of an unfair shitshow.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 07:34

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

I've suggested this before: What if banishment was a status that you inflicted in parts? Rather than a percentage chance, you get a percentage banished on each attempt, and once you hit 100% off you go to the abyss.

Ideally low level banishment would then apply a smaller percentage of the total effect, and MR could reduce the amount of "banish points" you got per hit..

Not sure this is a *good* idea, but it evens out the randomness somewhat and gives you more opportunity to respond.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 07:53

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

+1 to OP. It's optimal to wear MR rings by default and then switch to rings of AC/EV/slaying before every fight and then switch back to MR rings after every fight. Many key presses with zero fun.
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Slime Squisher

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 11:45

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Agreed, but allow the monster to cast it on the second turn, and on the first turn of any subsequent encounter with the same monster. One turn is enough for an appropriate reaction. Distortion should not be limited at all.

Alternatively you could make banishment a delayed effect just like teleport, cancellable by cancellation and lignification (for early to mid game banishments, at a cost of being unable to move at all).

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 11:55

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Leszczynek wrote:Alternatively you could make banishment a delayed effect just like teleport, cancellable by cancellation and lignification (for early to mid game banishments, at a cost of being unable to move at all).


That would be too easy IMHO. Maybe a new scroll with Noise/*Noisy/Stasis/-50% HP which is uncancellable. So player would choose between being banished and having to fight many monsters at low HP. It could lead to new tactics "try to clear floor before engaging Erolcha again so you wouldn't care about noise/stasis"
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Lair Larrikin

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 13:55

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Banishment can give the target an increasing EV bonus, and transport into the abyss when EV reaches some (high) threshold (you fade into another world). The effect can be cancelled by killing whoever caused it. This makes banishment a double-edged sword at low levels; at high level, the threshold is reached immediately, so current banishment takes effect. Likewise, on arriving in the abyss, the same bonus can be applied, decreasing more or less slowly (you materialize slowly). If materialization into the abyss is slower than dematerialization out of the dungeon, this can hint new players about running rather than fighting.

Spider Stomper

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 21:08

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

tself55 wrote:One of the most uninteresting ways to die in this game is being banished on the first turn in LOS with a monster. Such a death can occur without any input of keys from the player and the only way to avoid such a death is to have found enough MR to get the percentage chance of banishment to 0.


This is a statement: 'Only', 'without any input'.

I'll give you: stealth :)

You're running around in plate (heaviest armour you've found so far), making a lot of noise in a dungeon where your life is at risk.
You had 10747 turns where you could have upped your stealth (0.4->1.0 is very cheap, heroism+5 = 6) and equipping leather/ring mail but you decided not to.

This is what I do when I'm interested in not dying:
- stay stealthy for as long as possible. This way most monster with hexes have a 'zz' or '?' above them when I see them for the first time.
- I'll upgrade to heavy armour somewhen but usually I know by then what I'm trading it for.
- Keep a stealthy armour in your inventory.
- Heroism increases stealth by +5 :)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't wear plate. It's up to you to think about pros/cons.
The very moment I would have been abyssed at low level I would have swapped my armour, trained stealth only (centaur have the speed to break los ) and might be burning my piety for heroism to remain as stealthy as possible.
Again: I would only do this when I'm seriously interested in not dying.

tself55 wrote:my 6 streak in the 0.21 tournament was ended after auto-exploring into range of Erolcha who proceded to instantly banish my CeHu


She was awake, also noticed your clanky tanky centaur by a mile and since she is not stupid she gave you what is to be expected to get sooner or later in a game where mr is low. There are a lot of monster with ugly hexes and * all * of them will notice you that way.
I emphazised * all * because unlike your 'only', 'without', etc. the 100%-claim is true this time.

You might say now that wearing non-plate would make you more vulnerable in many other situations. Choices … but they are there.

Mines Malingerer

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 22:04

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Nebukadnezar wrote:
tself55 wrote:One of the most uninteresting ways to die in this game is being banished on the first turn in LOS with a monster. Such a death can occur without any input of keys from the player and the only way to avoid such a death is to have found enough MR to get the percentage chance of banishment to 0.


This is a statement: 'Only', 'without any input'.

I'll give you: stealth :)

You're running around in plate (heaviest armour you've found so far), making a lot of noise in a dungeon where your life is at risk.
You had 10747 turns where you could have upped your stealth (0.4->1.0 is very cheap, heroism+5 = 6) and equipping leather/ring mail but you decided not to.

This is what I do when I'm interested in not dying:
- stay stealthy for as long as possible. This way most monster with hexes have a 'zz' or '?' above them when I see them for the first time.
- I'll upgrade to heavy armour somewhen but usually I know by then what I'm trading it for.
- Keep a stealthy armour in your inventory.
- Heroism increases stealth by +5 :)

I'm not saying that you shouldn't wear plate. It's up to you to think about pros/cons.
The very moment I would have been abyssed at low level I would have swapped my armour, trained stealth only (centaur have the speed to break los ) and might be burning my piety for heroism to remain as stealthy as possible.
Again: I would only do this when I'm seriously interested in not dying.

tself55 wrote:my 6 streak in the 0.21 tournament was ended after auto-exploring into range of Erolcha who proceded to instantly banish my CeHu


She was awake, also noticed your clanky tanky centaur by a mile and since she is not stupid she gave you what is to be expected to get sooner or later in a game where mr is low. There are a lot of monster with ugly hexes and * all * of them will notice you that way.
I emphazised * all * because unlike your 'only', 'without', etc. the 100%-claim is true this time.

You might say now that wearing non-plate would make you more vulnerable in many other situations. Choices … but they are there.


Would you please refrain from personal attacks and discuss the situation at hand.

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 23:29

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

tself55 wrote:Would you please refrain from personal attacks and discuss the situation at hand.


I think that I gave you good advice which can be applied because I did it in-game after some thinking.
Your situation is what almost every other (long-time) player has faced in the past, too.
Some come up with solutions.
I would like to hear them.

I've spent some time with your morgue and after writing (combined >15 min) I thought about possible reactions.
'thx' would have been a possible answer.

There are better players with longer streaks than mine/whatever around and most of them I guess undertake only things they have a good understanding of.
What I've written is certainly in their arsenal.

After dismissing my advice: it is up to you whether someone of them is willing to share his successful solutions in the future.

Crypt Cleanser

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 23:33

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

I'm not going to claim that I'm a better player than you, but "train stealth early on CeHu to avoid turn 1 Erolcha banishment" is one of the most ridiculous pieces of advice I've ever seen posted on tavern.

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Post Wednesday, 24th January 2018, 23:44

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Hellmonk wrote:I'm not going to claim that I'm a better player than you,

I think you are ;)

Hellmonk wrote:but "train stealth early on CeHu to avoid turn 1 Erolcha banishment" is one of the most ridiculous pieces of advice I've ever seen posted on tavern.

That's not the advice.
My advice was to think about stealth since stealth is what helps a lot in abyss and before it.

Before abyss:
He is using plate.
EDIT: He could have avoided noise by wearing light armour which has a use.

I'm not saying that he should have skilled stealth early (-4 apt) and not saying that he should have skilled high (0.4->1.0).

The main part is the plate which kills stealth and it is a trade/choice he is making.

EDIT: as a ranged attacker this is a real choice. I've become paranoid about getting abyssed so this is what I'm doing when I have the choice if I'm willing to keep streak.

Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 00:08

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Training stealth or wearing lighter armour to avoid banishment is not a good idea.

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Thursday, 25th January 2018, 07:10

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Stealth always can fail, it's never 100% of staying unnoticed. Should we try to remove 1% of unfair death if we can? Of course. It's also more friendly to new players who are otherwise encouraged to wear mr items and suffer from annoying and unnecessary ring swapping everywhere (in spider or swamp, for example)
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Post Friday, 26th January 2018, 05:26

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Training stealth is good in general, but on a centaur it's not a reasonable protection against getting instabanished.


Again, the problem with banishment is the Abyss.

Spider Stomper

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Post Friday, 26th January 2018, 13:34

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

What is the chance of banishment compared with other status effects? From the sounds of it, the problem is that banishment has a high chance of occuring at a part of the game where you wouldn't neccessarily have sources of MR+ availbale, whereas other effects like paralysis occurs later in the game or at a lower chance and risk.
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Post Friday, 26th January 2018, 23:46

Re: Monster Banishment Soft Delay

Hellmonk wrote:I'm not going to claim that I'm a better player than you, but "train stealth early on CeHu to avoid turn 1 Erolcha banishment" is one of the most ridiculous pieces of advice I've ever seen posted on tavern.


I'm a fan of training a bit of stealth early, and even I think that is a ridiculous piece of advice, FWIW.

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