Slime creature change


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Swamp Slogger

Posts: 167

Joined: Friday, 23rd October 2015, 03:12

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 04:49

Slime creature change

Slime creature merging is great for making bottlenecks less attractive. But it has problems as well:
  • Merging slows down mobs of slime creatures chasing the player. Since they start at normal speed, this is bad.
  • Player needs to have a sense of how hard 5 different monsters hit (slime creature, enormous slime creature, etc.) rather than just one
We can get the best of both worlds with the following change:
  • Slime creatures no longer merge
  • A slime creature can attack any square such that there is a path between it and that square occupied entirely by (player-hostile) slime creatures. In the picture below, the human can be attacked by any slime creature except the one in the top left:
      Code:
    J....
    ....J
    ...J.
    JJJ..
    J....
    .@...


Flavor: "The slime creature sends a shock wave through its brethren. The shock wave hits your crimson imp!"
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Zot Zealot

Posts: 982

Joined: Monday, 29th September 2014, 09:04

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 04:54

Re: Slime creature change

You could use LoS to prevent slimes from attacking you. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 139

Joined: Saturday, 10th January 2015, 22:27

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 06:44

Re: Slime creature change

The reduced cognitive load is nice - memorizing fewer monsters. But it seems like there'd be a couple major flaws.

1. Tedious optimal behavior becomes even more tedious and optimal. Now it's even more optimal than before to lure each individual slime away and engage it by itself.

2. Line of sight. Either they can chain from out of sight - in which case luring becomes even more important, and we have frustrated players who got killed by titanic damage even though only one slime had been seen. Or they can't chain from out of sight - in which case luring and killholing and corner combat become even more optimal.
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Slime Squisher

Posts: 405

Joined: Sunday, 27th January 2019, 13:50

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 09:47

Re: Slime creature change

So, this in crawl format? :)
I can't figure out how to do timestamps, it's at 2:26 or so.
There is always something new to learn.

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Swamp Slogger

Posts: 153

Joined: Wednesday, 4th April 2012, 15:11

Location: Hengelo, Netherlands

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 12:55

Re: Slime creature change

It would also be a nerf to their damage against AC chars and lower the chance of huge damage spikes.

Zot Zealot

Posts: 1004

Joined: Thursday, 16th August 2018, 21:19

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 13:45

Re: Slime creature change

At a certain point of the game titanic slime creatures are the only real threat to characters with massive AC. I found out the hard way, losing my sand dwarf in the process.

It would be nice not to have to wait for slime creatures to separate.
Being able to split packs of slime creatures with stairs wouldn't be good though, imo.
And it adds some tactical depth that most characters actually want to prevent slimes merging.

Swamp Slogger

Posts: 153

Joined: Wednesday, 4th April 2012, 15:11

Location: Hengelo, Netherlands

Post Wednesday, 8th January 2020, 16:02

Re: Slime creature change

The split mechanic could probably be improved to reduce tediousness, maybe only make them split when taking damage?

Tomb Titivator

Posts: 809

Joined: Wednesday, 19th June 2013, 09:31

Post Thursday, 9th January 2020, 14:22

Re: Slime creature change

I think this would be a large buff to slime creatures, if I'm not mistaken.

Normally, it takes a turn to merge. In the example you give, if the player came downstairs to find that - said player would be liable for 22 damage if he chose to fight. The possibility exists for the creatures to merge, and greater damage to be delivered later.

If your change were enacted, i believe the player could receive up to 154 damage straight away (7x22)

I do actually kind of like the idea of the attack rippling through multiple slime creatures (as opposed to waiting for them to combine) but I think the mechanics would get very muddy, and the code very complicated if anyone tried to implement it without changing too much gameplay wise.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 124

Joined: Monday, 14th March 2011, 11:14

Post Thursday, 9th January 2020, 17:51

Re: Slime creature change

How exactly is your illustration desirable? The human is fighting slime creatures in the open. Why should he be punished for that? I thought the point is to reduce reliance on bottlenecks? I think your proposal mostly promotes stealth and divide&conquer tactics.

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