Suiciding Monsters and Dangerous Allies

[XuaXua]

The initial incident that prompted me to join the forums and my aggressive attitude towards ally management was being killed by a centaur who I had just successfully charmed because he carried a wand of fire. He killed me by using that wand of fire to "help me" by using it on a target enemy. Unfortunately I was between the centaur and that enemy. The whole point of charming him was to neuter that wand so I could get away.

Anyway... cue today. I'm fighting Azrael. I get him down a large notch, then being adjacent to me, he hellfires me. My rf+++ doesn't let me get hurt much, but it completely kills him. He suicided.
Shouldn't have happened, maybe?

[JeffQyzt]

Per the bots, your rF+++ didn't help you:

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=hellfire

Perhaps Azrael should have rHellfire though?

[XuaXua]

Per the bots, your rF+++ didn't help you:

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=hellfire

Perhaps Azrael should have rHellfire though?

Well, yeah but my rN+ may have helped. Anyway, the issue was Azrael killing himself. He should at least have protection from his own hellfire, or should be reworked to not target himself with it.

[Tenaya]

Per the bots, your rF+++ didn't help you:

http://crawl.develz.org/info/index.php?q=hellfire

Perhaps Azrael should have rHellfire though?

Well, yeah but my rN+ may have helped. Anyway, the issue was Azrael killing himself. He should at least have protection from his own hellfire, or should be reworked to not target himself with it.

I think that elf mages used to fireball themselves quite regularly but that it was changed. However, now I've noticed that Margery will suicide-fireball herself, too.

[XuaXua]

Every monster seems to walk into clouds towards you lately (in trunk), and if in a cloud, if there are 3 spaces of cloud between you and it and one safe space it can get to that's AWAY from you, the monster would prefer to walk through the clouds. Orc Warriors and up, usually. Makes inner flame a big plus.

  Code:

.####
.O**P
.####

O is an orc warrior in a cloud
p is the player
* are clouds
. are safe squares.


O will walk towards player.

[XuaXua]

Hell, I'm blowing shit up left and right with inner flame and non-confused, unaware "question marked" monsters are walking into the flames for no good reason. Sure, I'm certainly "in that direction" but don't walk INTO a flame cloud looking for me if you know you'll just die.

[galehar]

don't walk INTO a flame cloud looking for me if you know you'll just die.

Sure, but the AI doesn't know. When evaluating whether or not to enter a cloud, it doesn't look how many there are, it's a very simple check, based on a roll against the monster's current HP. Once it's in a cloud, it won't really try to get out and moving to another is fine.
So yes, we're aware of the issue, and I know how to fix it, but it isn't simple. We need to do a pathfinding weighted with expected damage.

Regarding the OP, I'm not sure it's really a problem. If a monster at low HP fireballs itself (and you of course), then it has made a good use of its last HP. It's good that monsters try harder kilking you than surviving. That's why intelligent monsters don't flee. It might not be realistic, but it's better gameplay.

[Tenaya]

Regarding the OP, I'm not sure it's really a problem. If a monster at low HP fireballs itself (and you of course), then it has made a good use of its last HP. It's good that monsters try harder kilking you than surviving. That's why intelligent monsters don't flee. It might not be realistic, but it's better gameplay.

It's not a big problem, certainly.
Perhaps though, if a monster has an option, it could choose a non-AOE spell instead. e.g. Margery will cast Bolt of Fire instead of Fireball if the Fireball would hit her also. Or, give enemy spellcasters the ability to target the player with the blast, rather than the center of the spell.

[XuaXua]

Gotta change that weapon selecting Monster AI in trunk.

Found Fannar walking around with a +0/+0 Quarterstaff; couple squares past his corpse, found a staff of cold on the ground.

Pretty sure he traded down on that one.

[JeffQyzt]

Hrm...I wonder if the "is this better" calculation looks at the elemental staves' evocation effect for damage? The base type for elemental staves is "staff" vs. "quarterstaff", which might explain the switch. Fannar should probably have "of freezing" as part of his signature weapon spec, though (though I don't know how that would interact with the staff of cold.)

[galehar]

I doubt it does. Monsters using elemental staves is a somewhat recent addition I think, and the AI hasn't been updated. Fannar should have his staff of cold as a signature weapon anyway. He needs it for the rC+, otherwise he'll kill himself with refrig.

[JeffQyzt]

Well, he gets the ring of ice if he doesn't get the staff...in any case, MarvinPA just made the staff of cold signature for Fannar: http://gitorious.org/crawl/crawl/commit/e995af0

Not sure how that interacts with the times he spawns with a quarterstaff of freezing instead...I guess he'd only swap it out for a staff of cold, even if he finds e.g. a lajatang of freezing?

[Kate]

He'd swap the staff of freezing (I think that's his other weapon option) for something better, the fact that it's a signature weapon just means that he won't swap away from the staff of cold if he has it.

[XuaXua]

Speaking of AI...

Turned invisible and went downstairs.
A Mummy Warrior (whatever the not Greater Mummy or regular Mummy or Mummy Priest is) stands between myself and an Elven Knight.
Direct path/line between us.
Elven Knight takes out his bow and shoots at me several times, killing the Mummy Warrior.

He shouldn't have picked a line of fire which was blocked, but he did!

Thanks, Elven Knight!

[Stormfox]

I had a centaur pincushion Sigmund to death for me once. To be fair, Sigmund was invisible.