Common crawl problems

[Sar]

I always thought the whole purpose of pack monsters in Crawl was to encourage players to separate them by various means. Otherwise you could just give their abilities to a single monster, so instead of a pack of orcs you'd fight an "orc battlemage of Beogh" who wears heavy armour, wields a two-hander, smites and casts Confuse, Blink, Magic Dart, Haste and Invisibility. That could shake the early game up!

[nago]

Fr: merge blork and Saint roka

[dpeg]

Luring: I see how it can be a problem, and it would be good to have a non-intrusive solution to it. By that I mean that if you play "naturally", you don't even see the mechanic much. (A bit like you don't dawdle, you don't see the extra monster spawning.) Also, luring does not always work properly -- I don't believe that it could be scripted, but perhaps I am too naive here and/or too bad a player. Note that sometimes luring could be confused with running away, and I think we're all fine with players fleeing.

So I think that negative slaying, to take one proposal, is not a good idea. Realise that any change, especially when you modify the core game so radically, will have a lot of follow-up consequences to everyday gameplay -- in this case, it could easily lead to players shunning melee and stressing ranged combat much more: the basic idea of melee (in all games I am aware of) is that it deals more damage than other forms of combat, at the expense of close range. If you take that away by negative slaying, well, you see what happens.

If the problem is that monsters are too stupid, we can improve their AI. Some examples: waking a pack monster could have a chance (perhaps depending on your stealth) to wake the rest. Awake pack monsters could know of each others positions (no matter where they are on the map), and if one pack member sees you, the others know your position as well. This way, you could still stab a pack one by one, but it would be much less safe to lure monsters away one by one.

If the problem is that monsters blindly follow the player, we can have them stop doing that, and instead go back to an assembly point (staircases sound like a good spot).

In other words, I think that luring should be addressed through monster behaviour, not through player punishment: if an entropy weaver reduces your abilites to fight, then that happens in a battle, and you can do something about it. The game shouldn't say "you cannot fight anymore" because you fled. Another way to see this: during the course of the game, a player will have a good feeling about the combat abilities of the character, and about the threat level of the currently relevant enemies. A luring nerf should not change either of these two, if it can be helped. It is better to keep the character's and the monster's abilities as they are, and instead put monsters where they hurt, or avoid them going where they are hurt.

[bel]

If the problem is that monsters are too stupid, we can improve their AI. Some examples: waking a pack monster could have a chance (perhaps depending on your stealth) to wake the rest. Awake pack monsters could know of each others positions (no matter where they are on the map), and if one pack member sees you, the others know your position as well. This way, you could still stab a pack one by one, but it would be much less safe to lure monsters away one by one.

I had already proposed something similar to this in my earlier comment. (I realize the thread is very long and people may have forgotten it )
To Sar's comment. Of course you can and should break up packs. Packs have a tendency to wander together even now, which is good. However, with sufficient care, breaking up a pack is just an exercise in patience. I don't mean to be too mechanical about this. I would like breaking up a pack to be more difficult than it is now, since right now, I don't feel it works well: it is too easy to lure a few of them off. This is obviously subjective.
I do not agree that a pack is functionally identical to having all their abilities in a single monster. With a pack, you can prioritize killing some enemies. For instance, I prioritize killing Troll Shamans on some characters, and troll earth magi on other characters. The idea with a pack, in my opinion is to have numbers overwhelming the player, and complementary characters (like ironheart preservers or wardens, making the pack significantly more deadly).

[Berder]

If you think the game is too easy just play harder characters. They exist. The game has difficulty settings and they are the characters. From granny mode (MiBe) to nightmare mode (DEFi).

[bel]

If you think the game is too easy just play harder characters. They exist. The game has difficulty settings and they are the characters. From granny mode (MiBe) to nightmare mode (DEFi).

I have already explained in the other thread that "harder" characters often just require more patience, instead of anything really "hard". I could also play an "alternate crawl" where Mi has arbitrarily decreased all its aptitudes by 1. It would definitely be "harder". But what's the point? Would it really offer any more interesting options?

I don't want to make the game harder for its own sake.

[Berder]

I have already explained in the other thread that "harder" characters often just require more patience, instead of anything really "hard".

They require patience, attention, and more accurate decision making. This is why you see trends in which some characters are more streakable than others. We've already discussed that in this thread. They are really harder.

[bel]

I am not sure why we are re-discussing the other thread here. I have already made it clear, both there and here, that I have no interest in making the game "harder" for its own sake, or reducing the chances of streaks.

[Sandman25]

So I think that negative slaying, to take one proposal, is not a good idea. Realise that any change, especially when you modify the core game so radically, will have a lot of follow-up consequences to everyday gameplay -- in this case, it could easily lead to players shunning melee and stressing ranged combat much more: the basic idea of melee (in all games I am aware of) is that it deals more damage than other forms of combat, at the expense of close range. If you take that away by negative slaying, well, you see what happens.

I am not wedded to slaying idea, it was just first what happened to get into my mind (no speed change, no defense change, penalty to attack).
I have a question about your example: isn't player expected to use something ranged while waiting for melee-only monster to come closer? It seems more natural than retreating. And if the monster is not "melee-only", then we somewhat punish player for cheap "retreat behind a corner or in killhole and don't let the monster use its ranged attack" tactic. Why is it bad?

I like the rest of your post, it can work indeed.

[Sandman25]

They are really harder.

They are harder but not hard. (Speaking as winner of DEBe of Trog with 15 runes. DEFi is harder than DEBe early but much easier later). Fix luring problem and DEFi will be hard indeed.

[Berder]

They are harder but not hard. (Speaking as winner of DEBe of Trog with 15 runes. DEFi is harder than DEBe early but much easier later)

They're very hard, as in the average expert would have a below 50% win rate even when streaking. Congrats on winning a DEBe.

[Sandman25]

They're very hard, as in the average expert would have a below 50% win rate. Congrats on winning a DEBe.

Thanks. If you want to play a really hard species, I suggest you to try Imp on berotato (preferably of Chei). The species even was changed to get some penalty for wearing stasis as far as I know. Theoretically it is close to "no-luring game" so I probably will play it soon to see how bad it is.

[tabstorm]

I will try Sil and Brogue again more some day I guess, it should not be too hard to get used to ascii.

I eagerly await your reaction to move-s-move-s-move-s in Brogue.

Regarding the luring thing, I think that it is only so annoying because of the sheer number of enemies in the game. If there were slightly smaller maps and fewer enemies, but more experience per enemy, I think it would not be so bad. Weak characters are easy enough to transform into stronger ones after the early floors anyway, and for a reasonably strong character luring probably provides a very very small increase in your chances to win. I never lure past D:8 even when I don't play Berserker speedruns, and it dosen't adversely affect me in any way. However, I tend to transform weak characters into strong ones by minimizing the XP put into spell schools that aren't charms or necromancy, which might be undesirable for you. Mage characters will have to lure more, obviously.

I don't think it is bad that repositioning is desirable.

I do agree with you that MP regen is a bit too slow. It makes conjurers take forever to play and really makes me unwilling to play them when games take 2x as long because of all the resting or channeling, aside from how mediocre they are past early floors. Sure, if I want to play optimally I will just become a gladiator that casts a conjuration to soften up enemies, or casts necromancies instead, but I could've just started as a gladiator if I wanted to melee 95% of the time. I imagine MP regen is a balance issue that will not be changed.

[Sandman25]

I will try Sil and Brogue again more some day I guess, it should not be too hard to get used to ascii.

I eagerly await your reaction to move-s-move-s-move-s in Brogue.

Yes, I hate it. I read about brogue yesterday again and recalled why I stopped playing it among other reasons. Secret doors are awful.

[tabstorm]

I will try Sil and Brogue again more some day I guess, it should not be too hard to get used to ascii.

I eagerly await your reaction to move-s-move-s-move-s in Brogue.

Yes, I hate it. I read about brogue yesterday again and recalled why I stopped playing it.

You should try an ally build once, you'll have even more fun, I swear. It made me miss crawl's ally AI. I think it is a game you would not like at all, since if you are playing it seriously with the goal of winning every seed, there is a ton of optimal-but-tedious stuff that you should do that also has a nontrivial impact on your chances to win, e.g.:

Move-s (this is the worst and is extremely important to do, especially with allies)
Ally AI/babysitting - allies see an enemy and charge into a confusion trap, die; make sure melee users don't accidentally learn spells or they will refuse to melee even when they can easily destroy enemies and will sit back casting protection or healing.
ID game technicalities (walk to a closed off room with water nearby and no allies near you so you don't die or cover the floor in creeping death, potions of hallucination basically being equivalent to potions of hunger, don't read ID with allies in LoS to avoid negating or discording them, etc.)
Acid turrets encouraging walking around armorless so you don't turn a corner and get the equivalent of XL-1
Basically it is a great example of how traps are never a good feature in any roguelike.

You would probably like Sil aside from the 950' farming, though. Monster AI is good so it's harder to lure enemies and sometimes they will flank you. There isn't as much build diversity, though, and some skill trees are blatantly better than others (dodging + flanking) and you might find smithing annoying.

[TeshiAlair]

If the problem is that monsters are too stupid, we can improve their AI. Some examples: waking a pack monster could have a chance (perhaps depending on your stealth) to wake the rest. Awake pack monsters could know of each others positions (no matter where they are on the map), and if one pack member sees you, the others know your position as well. This way, you could still stab a pack one by one, but it would be much less safe to lure monsters away one by one.

If the problem is that monsters blindly follow the player, we can have them stop doing that, and instead go back to an assembly point (staircases sound like a good spot).

In other words, I think that luring should be addressed through monster behaviour, not through player punishment: if an entropy weaver reduces your abilites to fight, then that happens in a battle, and you can do something about it. The game shouldn't say "you cannot fight anymore" because you fled. Another way to see this: during the course of the game, a player will have a good feeling about the combat abilities of the character, and about the threat level of the currently relevant enemies. A luring nerf should not change either of these two, if it can be helped. It is better to keep the character's and the monster's abilities as they are, and instead put monsters where they hurt, or avoid them going where they are hurt.

[Sandman25]

I forgot to mention pillar dancing which is somewhat related to luring/retreating and is annoying as well. From another thread:

Example: you are fighting a single goblin. You let it come adjacent to you, you attack it (and miss), it hits you, you retreat and wait your HP to be back to 100%, only then you try to attack it again. If you miss again and the goblin hits you again, you retreat and wait for HP regen again.

This can be fixed by non-regenerating while moving with monsters in LoS (so you will still be regenerating when you are fighting/casting/evoking etc.). Probably regeneration should not resume immediately after losing the monsters from LoS, there can be a decent delay (10 turns or so), otherwise player would just use a larger pillar which allows to lose the monster from LoS sometimes. If you stop moving, regeneration is resumed immediately.

[Rast]

Luring isn't just about breaking up packs; that's actually the more "fair" use of it.

I've seen top players using luring to bring lone monsters far back into explored territory, just so the noise from the fight doesn't attract anyone else.

It's boring as hell to watch.

[Berder]

I've seen top players using luring to bring lone monsters far back into explored territory, just so the noise from the fight doesn't attract anyone else.

You see this most in the early dungeon which is fun and exciting and should not change. Pillar dancing too is only a thing in the early dungeon. There are no gameplay issues in the early dungeon; it's the most interesting and dangerous part of the game. If you could simply tab through it or were forced to only play characters strong enough to tab through it, it would be boring and stupid.

[bel]

I forgot to mention pillar dancing which is somewhat related to luring/retreating and is annoying as well. From another thread:

Example: you are fighting a single goblin. You let it come adjacent to you, you attack it (and miss), it hits you, you retreat and wait your HP to be back to 100%, only then you try to attack it again. If you miss again and the goblin hits you again, you retreat and wait for HP regen again.

This can be fixed by non-regenerating while moving with monsters in LoS (so you will still be regenerating when you are fighting/casting/evoking etc.). Probably regeneration should not resume immediately after losing the monsters from LoS, there can be a decent delay (10 turns or so), otherwise player would just use a larger pillar which allows to lose the monster from LoS sometimes. If you stop moving, regeneration is resumed immediately.

Thread is going in all sorts of directions, which is perhaps inevitable. Anyway, this is not feasible. It sometimes happens in the early dungeon that a hobgoblin gets a couple of lucky rolls and you go down to a few HP. In those situations, there is really nothing you can do, bar pillar dancing. You don't have any consumables, you can't escape etc.

[Sandman25]

You see this most in the early dungeon which is fun and exciting and should not change. Pillar dancing too is only a thing in the early dungeon. There are no gameplay issues in the early dungeon; it's the most interesting and dangerous part of the game. If you could simply tab through it or were forced to only play characters strong enough to tab through it, it would be boring and stupid.

Fun and exciting??? When you use all these tactics it is almost impossible to die on D1. "Almost" because sometimes you start with no pillar in LoS and have no room to run away from first monster you meet. I would call them boring, repetitive and time-consuming instead.

[Sandman25]

Thread is going in all sorts of directions, which is perhaps inevitable. Anyway, this is not feasible. It sometimes happens in the early dungeon that a hobgoblin gets a couple of lucky rolls and you go down to a few HP. In those situations, there is really nothing you can do, bar pillar dancing. You don't have any consumables, you can't escape etc.

Yes, I realize it. Still it is boring, repetitive and time-consuming

[Berder]

Fun and exciting??? When you use all these tactics it is almost impossible to die on D1. "Almost" because sometimes you start with no pillar in LoS and have no room to run away from first monster you meet.

No - it is not almost impossible to die on D:1. D:1 is the most dangerous level in the game. More players and more tenpercenters die there than anywhere else. About 20% of tenpercenter games end on D:1.

All it takes for many characters is a jackal pack in the wrong place, or a single gnoll before you've discovered a downstairs, and D:1 is inevitable death.

The rest of pre-lair dungeon is equally tension-filled. There could be a centaur warrior around the next bend... you never know. Every move, even exploration, requires a lot more care and thought if you want to avoid death reliably.

It's the rest of the game that is boring. Once you're strong enough to be established and not to need luring tactics as much, the game is just monotonous and too long.

[Sandman25]

Fun and exciting??? When you use all these tactics it is almost impossible to die on D1. "Almost" because sometimes you start with no pillar in LoS and have no room to run away from first monster you meet.

No - it is not almost impossible to die on D:1. D:1 is the most dangerous level in the game. More players and more tenpercenters die there than anywhere else. About 20% of tenpercenter games end on D:1.

Well, I have nothing to say except this is my experience. Maybe tenpercenters don't play as optimal as I do.

[Berder]

Fun and exciting??? When you use all these tactics it is almost impossible to die on D1. "Almost" because sometimes you start with no pillar in LoS and have no room to run away from first monster you meet.

No - it is not almost impossible to die on D:1. D:1 is the most dangerous level in the game. More players and more tenpercenters die there than anywhere else. About 20% of tenpercenter games end on D:1.

Well, I have nothing to say except this is my experience. Maybe tenpercenters don't play as optimal as I do.

What account do you play on?

About 20-30% of elliptic's losses are on d1.

[Sandman25]

What account do you play on?

About 20-30% of elliptic's losses are on d1.

Sandman25, Sandman26, SlowThinker, CheiMu. I remember only one loss on D1 and it was during tournament when I played not optimally due to hurry.

Edit. Oh, also MuSu with gecko (that was my really stupid mistake though).

[mps]

Fun and exciting??? When you use all these tactics it is almost impossible to die on D1. "Almost" because sometimes you start with no pillar in LoS and have no room to run away from first monster you meet.

No - it is not almost impossible to die on D:1. D:1 is the most dangerous level in the game. More players and more tenpercenters die there than anywhere else. About 20% of tenpercenter games end on D:1.

Well, I have nothing to say except this is my experience. Maybe tenpercenters don't play as optimal as I do.

Optimal Life.

[Sandman25]

Optimal Life.

That's why eventually I got tired of spending that much time on boring things and stopped playing.
Enough about me though, it is offtopic.

[Pollen_Golem]

Edit. By the way I've seen many new players killed by bad strategy, like no Fighting at all or training Axes to 25 for hand axe and having too low defenses because of that. Also entering Elf right after Orc.

Crawl is to blame for that, not newplayers. For example, how is one supposed to know that Elf is any harder than Orc:4, other than by receiving a LCS to the face as a welcoming present? Or that training fighting isn't always sub-optimal if you're sticking to a particular weapon group?

if anyone uses the term 'no-brainer' again I am going to throw up

Are you going to throw up some gray matter, or will your spew be a NO-BRAINER?

[Sandman25]

Or that training fighting isn't always sub-optimal if you're sticking to a particular weapon group?

What do you mean?

[MainiacJoe]

Having just recently learned that I ought to do so, I'm at the stage where luring feels like a cheating-death superpower. My current SpNe has killdudes problems. I saw a pack of crocodiles and yaks around the Lair entrance and my first thought was despair, "How am I going to do this???" But I managed to never fight more than two at a time and I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment afterwards. If luring were nerfed newbies like myself wouldn't get these milestones in our game skills development.

[Sandman25]

Well, Sp does not need luring, it can fight a group of crocodiles/yaks as long as it is safe and then it just runs away. I am sure we can create some workarounds for new players. Wait until you will be tired of luring, when 50+% your actions will be pressing movement keys (assuming you use autoexplore here).

[MainiacJoe]

Well, Sp does not need luring, it can fight a group of crocodiles/yaks as long as it is safe and then it just runs away. I am sure we can create some workarounds for new players. Wait until you will be tired of luring, when 50+% your actions will be pressing movement keys (assuming you use autoexplore here).

I totally understand how "Luring is boring now" isn't a milestone for skill development that one wants in the game. For myself, though, even "Knowing when a Sp doesn't need to lure" is still in my future.

[Pollen_Golem]

Or that training fighting isn't always sub-optimal if you're sticking to a particular weapon group?

What do you mean?

Sorry, I meant that a newplayer might figure that fighting skill is good if you're willing/hoping to switch to a great weapon find, whatever its category, and that otherwise, putting more points in your weapon skill is always better than putting any points into fighting. Although, the value of fighting can be figured out by pressing ?3 and reading that.

However, there's no way for a new player to know that you should skip Elf until you've at least cleared dungeon, orc, and lair. After all, there's no reason to leave Lair and Orc alone when you find them, and all of a sudden the next branch you find (Elf) breaks this pattern.

[Sar]

The same argument can be made for Swamp/Shoals/Spider/Snake/Slime (you typically find all of those before Orc).

[tasonir]

I suggested moving the elf branch entrance, and a surprising number of people said they dive into elf early and clear the first 1-2 floors. I posted it in response to a (relatively) newbie CIP where he steped into elf, got into trouble, but managed to escape and go somewhere else. Depending on your POV, several people considered this to be a fun and good lesson - give people the tools to make mistakes and learn from them, basically.

As far as early dungeon difficulty goes, I think it was mikee (but I may be misremembering) who said that D:1 is hard, going down stairs to D:2 gets harder, and then from then on going down stairs makes the game easier. So D:2 is the hardest level in the game I agree that I don't seem to die much on D:1, but D:2 through ~d:4 are usually very difficult.

As far as luring: (Adopt a thick southern belle accent) Yall need to play more nagas round these here parts, ya hear?

[Pollen_Golem]

The same argument can be made for Swamp/Shoals/Spider/Snake/Slime

Mmm, it's a little different - those lair branches have average monster difficulty considerably higher than in Lair. In elf, it looks like a fair fight for a while, until you get hit with a really nasty spell. Maybe two, three times in a row. And then, you die... and what the hell happened there?

(you typically find all of those before Orc).

Do you? Even Slime? Orc is about the same difficulty as Lair, and can be easier for some characters, like axe-wielders without poison resistance.

[Sar]

Yes you typically do find Slime entrance before Orc because it's located in Lair and Lair is located before Orc and most characters will want to clear Lair before attempting Orc. What kind of question is that?

@tasonir: luring works on Nagas as well. Don't know about Cheinagas though.

[Elystan]

Not sure I agree with the need for these changes but there's a potential mechanism:

Fatigue/energy. The third bar to go with HP and MP. Walking doesn't use it up, but running does and so does taking swings with weapons. Normal speed monsters move the same pace as normal characters when the character is running (maybe slightly slower?) but faster than a walking character. Taking melee swings also uses up fatigue.. When it hits 0 you're exhausted and lose some slaying and EV. So luring is punished and popcorn fights aren't simply a matter of holding down tab.

That achieves what's been described and doesn't break flavour. But like I say, I don't think such changes are necessary.

[Pollen_Golem]

Here's a simple anti-luring measure: inflict the mesmerized status effect on the player whenever XL > total sum of the HD of all monsters in LOS. Hell, that might make you want to turn some enemies invisible. (Not that I recommend this change.)

[Pollen_Golem]

I just want to put into this thread a link to another post:
viewtopic.php?f=17&t=16272
It's an actual mechanism that hopefully accomplishes what OP wants, in a way that is maybe a little less insane, a little less forced.

5) Spells. You should not be able to have regeneration, repel missiles or statue form always active. It is boring, time consuming and repetitive again. Player should make decisions - do I want to have Repel Missiles vs that Draconian pack on Zot 5 or should I keep it inactive in order to activate it later vs Ancient Lich if I meet it? I suggest to make all those spells incur Draining or have cooldown before being able to activate it again (like Exh does for berserk). This solves old problem with "recast RMsl while autoexploring" from 0.12 without introducing "I always learn RMsl and have it active" problems of 0.16.

Make these spells use max MP? For example you start with 30/30 MP, after casting RMsl you have 28/28 MP. If RMsl gets dispelled while at 28/28 MP, you will have 28/30 MP. This would mostly be a nerf for players who need MP to spam offensive spells, though. Or, make forms and charms affect MP regen rate negatively?

[Siegurt]

That's been suggested as a solution a number of times before, If you're curious, do some searching in the forums to find out the already-discussed problems with it, as well as the previously-discussed other suggestions (and the various problems with those)

[Pollen_Golem]

I'm curious but I don't quite know what to search for. Somewhat relevant are the last four posts of this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=312&p=3367&hilit=stamina#p3367
which led me to the following page which mentions a fatigue mechanic near the bottom:
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... :defense&s[]=fatigue
What I've found, including this entire thread, introduce something beyond MP - a new meter of some kind - whereas the piece I linked to (2 posts above) only integrates existing meters in a new way.
Anyway, previously-discussed suggestions and their problems are also relevant to the first 100+ posts in this thread, so why not have mentioned this beforehand?

[Siegurt]

I'm curious but I don't quite know what to search for. Somewhat relevant are the last four posts of this thread:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=312&p=3367&hilit=stamina#p3367
which led me to the following page which mentions a fatigue mechanic near the bottom:
https://crawl.develz.org/wiki/doku.php? ... :defense&s[]=fatigue
What I've found, including this entire thread, introduce something beyond MP - a new meter of some kind - whereas the piece I linked to (2 posts above) only integrates existing meters in a new way.
Anyway, previously-discussed suggestions and their problems are also relevant to the first 100+ posts in this thread, so why not have mentioned this beforehand?

I'm not sure why other suggestions haven't had someone respond with "here's a post where that's been discussed before" I just noticed this suggestion was one I've seen multiple times in the past, these two threads stumble across it at some point IIRC:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=15783
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12609

I'm certain there are others, but digging through a rather large multi-year archive of a very active forum with poor searching tools isn't something I feel attached to doing more of.

[Pollen_Golem]

Oh, you must have been responding to the buff-spells complaint. My bad, I thought you were referring to the first part of my post, with the link.

[celem]

Just thought I'd drop a random thought in here. I was sitting on a tram thinking about Crawl and how much popcorn fights are boring...

I played a MMO/MUD way back when (Gemstone) that had an interesting mechanic called 'force multiplication' which nicely took care of what otherwise be 'popcorn'.
The premise is that whenever a blow is aimed at you a counter increments, as this counter climbs your defenses drop in some fashion to represent the difficulty of parry/dodge/block in multiple directions all concurrently. This counter decays naturally and pretty rapidly so that its only an issue when knee-deep in a swarm.

Not sure how this might translate to crawl, its a bit opaque. It worked well in Gemstone since the dicerolls and even the attack/defense calculations were displayed to the player (spoiled) on every blow, so you could see the force multiplication in action. Taken as far as it was in that game it means that even a max-lvl character (which in Gemstone was 100) could be killed by lvl 1 monsters if he let himself be mobbed for too long, just because he is being overwhelmed and does not move quickly enough. At the less polar end of the scale a fight that feels comfortable can suddenly become uncomfortable just because the genuine threat has been joined by trash. A side-effect of this was however that in swarms optimal play meant starting with the weakest foes and working upwards, whereas in Crawl I will almost always run that the other way, true popcorn makes chokepoints for you.

It seemed fitting to me at anyrate as I thought about Orc 1-3 and how silly it really is that 90% of characters can just lean on tab as they clear these floors. My caster might be nimble enough to dodge the majority of attacks from a single vanilla Orc, but standing in the middle of a blob thats 4 ranks deep and having every single incoming blow just as unthreatening feels off, picture an action movie sequence where someone is fighting 1 vs many. In practice this should be a serious threat and require a lot of skill, regardless of how unthreatening each individual hostile is.

[dpeg]

celem: What you are suggesting sounds like a special mechanic for orcs (the branch and/or the monsters) to me, which might actually work. There is already some of that with the battle cry of the warlords, but that could be expanded upon. It'd also need some counter-luring mechanic. For example, Orc could have a hivemind AI for all native monsters (orcs, ogres, wargs etc.): if one of them knows where you are, all of them do. Finally, we'd need an anti-killhole policy, but that'd be good outside of orc, too.

I bring this up because your proposal seems to address the whole game, but there are many horde vs @ fights that we're more or less happy with balance wise. If we make all of them harder, we have to adjust more afterwards. If it is about the orcs, then let's do it for them.

[celem]

Yes, in retrospect this is a good point, making such a change across the board would drastically alter the way people run certain set-fights. Vault and Tomb : $ spring to mind, it would heavily affect stair-dancing. I dont even want to think about how you would optimally fight slime creatures under this either. (which are not popcorn or a good example, their merge mechanism handles them)

Was as you say prompted by orc swarms (and somewhat river rats in lair). I just pictured how force multiplication would scale on a hydra and may have wet myself a little.

But I posted what came to mind just as they (simutronics) implemented it, glad you think theres potential somewhere, was rather the plan to just toss it out there and see what people thought we might take from it.

I really like the hivemind thought. While I like that we can lure and think a certain amount is healthy and desirable for depth of tactics in engagement, I agree with the OP that its dull once you are doing it all the time, creatures that by flavour are pack critters could share this sort of info. Bees and orcs fit quite well, and I like the thought of the various humanoid 'Vault X' monsters forming a 'squad' that moves as a unit. It could extend to many critters in this way, generally anything of normal or higher intelligence (not the stat, the AI flag) and hivable insects. Rather than linking all 'Xs' on the floor in this fashion it might be possible to keep track of the groups they spawn/are placed in to get a proper squad-like behaviour rather than a global 'mark'. So once you spot that Vault Guard you can expect probably a warden and convoker/protector plus a bunch more guards to be heading your way and no amount of LOS tom-foolery will properly seperate any of them from the pack. We can still manage who we fight and when with various other tactics/abilities/powers already ingame such as chokepoints and clouds. And I would finally use Slow! (which as I just mentioned in the recent thread on when its useful/worth it is currently underpowered and rarely optimal unless you outright lack Confuse/EH or a similar effect higher Hex)

Basically, pull packs, not singletons.

/spitball

[dpeg]

celem: Agreed. Professional luring probably is a problem (I don't know for certain, because I am too weak to do it, but others tell us...).

This thread indicates two major ways to counter luring (tell me if I have been missing something -- this thread is long):

(a) weaken the player in some form
(b) make monster smarter about being lured

I like (b) better, and in fact I took celem's proposal to suggest a localised AI change, for the following reasons:
1. It is hard to tell players about getting weaker (not only current strength, but they should also know about the process, ideally before it happens).
2. It requires a lot more adaptation: you can get a good feeling for how strong you character is, even without paying minute attention. I want to keep that.
3. Monsters dropping on you (with otherwise unmodified rules) is something players should be able to deal with better. (There are mechanics like this already.)
4. The mechanic can probably be mentioned and flavourly justified with a few fitting messages.

[Sprucery]

Those ideas to improve Orc sound really interesting.

I'm just curious, wouldn't the simplest way to fix (the tabbability of) Orc be to just get rid of plain orcs there completely and replace them with warriors/knights/other orcs? Or make it gradually: Orc:1 could be like now. Orc:2 would have no plain orcs etc.