The Tavern

I haven't really noticed to much of a problem honestly with enemies dropping a weapon to pick up another, but I've seen a couple 'questionable' instances where enemies would drop one weapon for another.

To give a couple examples:

A Naga approaches my GhFi wielding a Long Sword of Holy Wrath, but drops it for Great Mace of Crushing
Fanner is running around on a Dungeon Level and drops his Staff of Cold for an Orcish Hand Axe

This partly also applies to Allies picking up stuff too, I've seen Orcs drop Branded weapons for higher tier 'vanilla' weapons and the like as well.

It may be that the weapons they are picking up are usually stronger most of the time then their old weapon for most purposes, though I'd think that the enemies should possible rate things like Brands and Egos a 'little' higher then they currently do; or in the case of Fanner he might be more inclined to only drop his Staff of Cold if he finds a nice Artefact Weapon with rC+ on it.

They make bad judgement calls, I believe based on the maximum damage they can do.

I believe they maximize defense and offense, but not accuracy or usability or effects.

It's not like monsters are "skilled' for a weapon either, and this doesn't get take into account. Want to screw over Pikel? Throw a crappy Long Blade of questionable brand at him.

That should definitely not be happening for Fannar - he's got his staff specified as his 'signature' weapon - he's only supposed to pick up another staff of cold or a (quarter)staff of freezing. If you've got a save with this happening, you should submit it on Mantis.

I suppose I should also note quivering of items too. Something that slightly annoys me as when my Orc Knight buddy decides to drop his 200+ stack of whatever Bolts to pick up a stack of 5-6 Bolts of Flames. Now arguable for an Orc Knight it doesn't amount to much of a problem since they are usually better off in Melee, but I think it deserves mentioning here as well.

About the only thing I can really suggest is perhaps different enemies should make different calls on weapon pick up to try to keep things varied and different, or different situations will prompt different enemy responses - unique's don't like to switch out their choice weapons for example, a Kobold will swap 200 Bolts for 2 Silver Bolts but a Yaktaur won't, if an enemy notices an Undead Player Character then they will set a higher priority to Holy Wrath weapons, certain enemies like Efreets will prefer to use Flaming Weapons over anything else, if a certain weapons comes up like Whip of Electrocution then monsters will covet it a bit more regardless of it perhaps doing a little less damage then their current weapon, etc.



I caught it in my Let's Play Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl1RsR4Fxzg&feature=youtu.be
At time slot 45:35 I notice his 'dropped' Staff of Cold since it wasn't there before, before I happen upon Fannar himself - now holding the Axe.

On the note of Saves though, where do I find that - I haven't played my High Elf Warper yet past the point where the video ended yet. Anyhow, writing up the Bug Report then.

Edit: Nevermind, I found it.

Anyhow, Apparently the 'Signature' Weapon deal doesn't happen until version 0.12 so Bug is resolved.

Still, that doesn't resolve the whole issue of enemies picking up weapons in a rather poor matter.

Right now all brands except vorpal, protection and evasion are weighted equally (those three have equal, but lesser priority). Apart from that, the decision is mostly just a comparison of base damage and enchantment level. Brands only slightly increase a weapon's weighting.

Maybe enemies should use danr's weapon comparison spreadsheet?

Past the early game it's not really a big deal what weapon most enemies are using as far as damage goes, since orc knights and such have large weapon-independent damage and then you add a weapon on top of that. There's not really a lot of difference between dealing e.g. 45 damage per attack or 55 damage per attack.

Early on it's a big deal because a gnoll with a halberd does twice as much damage as a gnoll with a spear (more-or-less, I'm too lazy to look up actual numbers right now).

I noticed this in a recent game too where a gnoll sergeant traded a venom trident for a great sword or great mace I think. I found it odd, but I was happy that he had made himself less dangerous to me in general.

Perhaps they should give polearms a slight boost in the rankings due to the extra free hit they will get?

Polearms will get balanced out with the other Weapon skills sooner or later so the extra free hit won't be that much better in comparison to other weapons.

Aren't monsters completely unaffected by weapon delay?

Hardly. A risky escape tactic against slower attacking enemies involves letting them take a swing at you and then using their long attack delay to get a gap between you and them. This works particularly well against Ogres, provided you have the HP to survive a hit (or no other choice).