Luring

[Utis]

I see that a lot of sensible people regard luring in crawl as a problem. My take on the matter is somewhat different. However, when you're driving on the high way and you are only seeing wrong-way drivers on your lane, then maybe it's time to ask yourself whether the only wrong-way driver is you. So, the following is either a sanity check or my contribution to the discussion.

tl;dr: Retreating more than 10-20 tiles is rarely optimal, the exception being open levels and branches with predominantly fast monsters.

Assuming a situation like this in D:

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Coming up from the south, the player encounters a wight (X and Y aren't monsters, but spots that I want to discuss). In a situation like this in this kind of terrain I would retreat to the spot marked X. Fighting at X with the wight to the left means: a) LoS is somewhat shielded from the surrounding area b) there are enough walls around to subdue ordinary melee noise and c) I have a direct line of retreat to the nearest stairs, if necessary.

There's no point in retreating much further. The wight is speed 10, so if anything dangerous wanders in from the left, I can still retreat to the stairs and the wight will actually be beneficial to me as a meatshield.

Splitting up packs is a thing, of course, but either, like here, it's a pack of whose members I can dispatch quickly, so getting some distance between them is more than enough. Or it's a pack (like early death yaks) where maneuvering too long and too circumstantially runs the risk of running into wandering monsters anyway and avoiding them altogether might be considered.

In general, luring is not entirely without downside: Maybe other players are more successful than me -- and by a large margin -- at keeping the dungeon at sleep. But I find that the longer one is retreating the greater the risk of running into a wandering monster, coming in from a disadvantageous angle. Here, the stairs are close, so it doesn't matter; there's nothing to be gained though, either.

(If I have a wand of digging or disintegration, then in practical play I'd even just retreat to the spot marked with Y. At worst I'm risking only a wand charge and the risk is low enough that I value my convenience higher.)

The situation is very different in open levels, like here, in Vaults:

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I call this an "open level": From most positions, you have unimpeded LoS in most directions and noise travels as far as noise can travel. Basically, I see no way here but to retreat half across the dungeon floor to the room with the up-portal and engage the enemy there, especially if the "p" is a convoker or sentinel.

I recently got into the habit of simply skipping open levels in D when playing non-summoners. In Vaults, I find this is often not feasible, since the level below might not look much better and with convokers, boggarts, deep elf demonologists etc. situations in Vaults can escalate quickly, so direct access to the stairs and the option to teleport are highly desirable.

In discussions about "fixing luring" I have often seen the proposal to make all monsters fast. I find this puzzling, because in my estimation, the opposite is the case. This is a situation from Spider:

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Coming up, the player encounters a spider to the north (the nearest stairs are off the map to the south). I call this kind of level "semi-open": There are many open spaces and very few chokepoints. But there are some walls, impeding both LoS and limiting noise propagation. When engaging monsters it is often possible to utilize the terrain to make a "fighting retreat" to keep monsters from entirely surrounding me.

Now, if this were Lair, encountering a normal-speed Lair monster, I'd retreat to the spot marked with "X" or possibly to the spot marked with "Y". Assuming, again, that I can still retreat further if more monsters arrive. Unlike in a closed level as above, though, arriving fast monsters can catch up. In Lair, the only dangerous fast monsters are black mambas and spiny frogs. (And blink frogs, but these don't count here, because they're bad at chasing you.) Black mambas and spiny frogs are lone monsters and past L:1 or L:2 they're dispatched quickly. It rarely happens that two or more wander in at the same time. In my estimation, the risk of running into more dangerous things by retreating too far significantly outweighs the risk of having more than one black mamba or spiny frog wander in from the dark.

In the spider nest, however, most monsters are fast. So, in my estimation the safest thing is to retreat as far as possible towards the stairs until the monster catches up. This is quite far, actually, much farther than going to X or Y.

Well, that's it, my thoughts on the matter of luring ...

[bel]

I see that a lot of sensible people regard luring in crawl as a problem. My take on the matter is somewhat different.

tl;dr Retreating more than 10-20 tiles is rarely optimal

I did read the whole post, but if your tl;dr is this sentence, perhaps your take is not so different from the rest of the players. It doesn't matter if the "optimal" luring distance is 10-20 or 20-30 or whatever; the point is that it is a nonzero middling-to-high number.

The aim of luring is to fight in an explored area near the up-stairs. You can, of course, disregard "optimal" play if you are strong enough or lazy enough. Therefore, you won't need to do it for every monster, only the hard ones.

You are, of course, correct that luring monsters runs into the issue that wandering monsters can find you. However, I am puzzled by your argument. The aim of fighting in an explored area near stairs is to have an escape option open if the fight goes downhill. Suppose the fight goes downhill while fighting at point X, Then you'll try to escape at low HP (presumably again through the explored area), and wandering monsters can still find you. The differences are: in the former case (namely, luring), you know about the wandering monsters before the fight begins, and in the latter case, you have lower HP while retreating. Both these things are bad for the latter case.

Making monsters fast will not end luring, it will just make it harder. You should still lure with a Naga in current crawl.

Related: Autoexplore is a bit rudimentary. There should be an option with a bias towards squares which are closer to upstairs when exploring. Somewhat oversimplifying: you perform a breadth-first search from the upstairs instead of a depth-first search. Any new upstairs found will adjust distances appropriately. (It doesn't need to be a strict breadth-first search, just with a bias towards those squares)

[dynast]

You go downstairs through the Shoals entrance, there are no walls, no favorable terrain and the enemies in your LoS are faster than you, reach for attack and have ranged weapons. You get mesmerized and the staircase sinks in the water, a water elemental engulfs you, a satyr casts fear. What do you do?

[dynast]

Related: Autoexplore is a bit rudimentary. There should be an option with a bias towards squares which are closer to upstairs when exploring. Somewhat oversimplifying: you perform a breadth-first search from the upstairs instead of a depth-first search. Any new upstairs found will adjust distances appropriately. (It doesn't need to be a strict breadth-first search, just with a bias towards those squares)

Except auto explore will always make you run into the middle of a open room, a dead end or a trap vault to grab loot that you dont really need.

[VeryAngryFelid]

You go downstairs through the Shoals entrance, there are no walls, no favorable terrain and the enemies in your LoS are faster than you, reach for attack and have ranged weapons. You get mesmerized and the staircase sinks in the water, a water elemental engulfs you, a satyr casts fear. What do you do?

That's easy question. Don't enter Shoals if you can get mesmerized.

[dynast]

That's easy question. Don't enter Shoals if you can get mesmerized.

Do you want to elaborate on that or should i just take it that luring is a good thing then?

[Utis]

tl;dr Retreating more than 10-20 tiles is rarely optimal

I did read the whole post, but if your tl;dr is this sentence, perhaps your take is not so different from the rest of the players. It doesn't matter if the "optimal" luring distance is 10-20 or 20-30 or whatever; the point is that it is a nonzero middling-to-high number.

Well, in that case, I at least passed the sanity check. IMO, if the optimal retreating distance is low (like in my first example or in the more general 10-20 case), then it's not so much "luring" as "using the terrain to your advantage". I find that using the terrain and positioning are the most interesting part of crawl tactics, so "fixing" this would be bad, IMO.

The aim of fighting in an explored area near stairs is to have an escape option open if the fight goes downhill. Suppose the fight goes downhill while fighting at point X, Then you'll try to escape at low HP (presumably again through the explored area), and wandering monsters can still find you. The differences are: in the former case, you know about the wandering monsters before the fight begins, and in the latter case, you have lower HP while retreating. Both these things are bad for the latter case.

I find that this matters only with normal speed monsters that have a good chance of putting my HP below 70% or so at melee range yet that are still worth fighting. IMO, these don't occur so frequent as to make the occasional longer retreat annoying in closed levels. Speed 10 melee monsters of this kind, like e.g. Ogres quickly pass from "avoid completely" through "dangerous but still worth fighting" to "not dangerous". Only in the (comparatively) small window in the middle, luring over long distances is IMO beneficial, for the very reasons you mentioned. I find that in closed levels (!) this happens infrequently enough to be satisfying rather than tiresome.

[Utis]

You go downstairs through the Shoals entrance, there are no walls, no favorable terrain and the enemies in your LoS are faster than you, reach for attack and have ranged weapons. [...]

I don't get it. That's covered by my tl;dr, alone. So what's the question?

[bel]

tl;dr Retreating more than 10-20 tiles is rarely optimal

I did read the whole post, but if your tl;dr is this sentence, perhaps your take is not so different from the rest of the players. It doesn't matter if the "optimal" luring distance is 10-20 or 20-30 or whatever; the point is that it is a nonzero middling-to-high number.

Well, in that case, I at least passed the sanity check. IMO, if the optimal retreating distance is low (like in my first example or in the more general 10-20 case), then it's not so much "luring" as "using the terrain to your advantage". I find that using the terrain and positioning are the most interesting part of crawl tactics, so "fixing" this would be bad, IMO.

By "terrain" you mean chokepoints, controlling LOS, corridors etc.? In a hypothetical non-luring crawl, you'll still use terrain features to your advantage; the difference is simply that you will not have to run a "retreat 10-20 steps" module before doing this other interesting stuff.

[dynast]

You go downstairs through the Shoals entrance, there are no walls, no favorable terrain and the enemies in your LoS are faster than you, reach for attack and have ranged weapons. [...]

I don't get it. That's covered by my tl;dr, alone. So what's the question?

My question is, "so what?", is the player actually intended to fight all the game has to offer at the same time? If it is, how you gonna balance that, if it isnt, how you gonna fix that? Because right now those two cases coexist, you have shoals and then you have snake pit's end vault.

[Utis]

Well, assuming that the main content of my OP did pass the sanity check: If you want to fix luring in crawl, don't have open levels. And don't have semi-open levels with predominantly fast monsters. There's no luring problem, IMO, in closed levels.

[Utis]

By "terrain" you mean chokepoints, controlling LOS, corridors etc.? In a hypothetical non-luring crawl, you'll still use terrain features to your advantage; the difference is simply that you will not have to run a "retreat 10-20 steps" module before doing this other interesting stuff.

Yes: Chokepoints, controlling LoS, controlling noise propagation, using walls to position monsters to their disadvantage and all that. In my first example, it's actually only 6 steps (or 4, respectively), though if the wight were fast, retreating more would actually be desirable. I find open levels both dangerous and annoying, but I don't mind 10-20 steps in closed levels. YMMV.

[bel]

I find open levels both dangerous and annoying, but I don't mind 10-20 steps in closed levels. YMMV.

Dangerous, sure, but why annoying? "Open" levels are dangerous because you have less control over LOS and noise, and there are fewer chokepoints. A typical floor in Vaults will have a few rooms with doors and other features to give some control, with the added disadvantage that there is no retreat (since it is a dead end). Therefore, Vaults are decently fun, in my experience.

However, luring still works in "open" levels. In your given example, if you keep a vault sentinel at the edge of your LOS and retreat, it will have no time to mark you. Therefore, it is "optimal" to lure it near the upstairs and fight it there (in case you do get marked when fighting it). Of course, there are other ways of handling sentinels (summons, confusion, curare, or simply hitting it with everything you've got).

[dynast]

I dont see the problem in map's layout alone, i think its the whole "pack" that you would have to consider problematic, the map layout, the enemy's design that makes fighting certain combinations of enemies a death sentence, the stealth and noise mechanics, the respawn of enemies.

[Utis]

I find open levels both dangerous and annoying, but I don't mind 10-20 steps in closed levels. YMMV.

Dangerous, sure, but why annoying? "Open" levels are dangerous because you have less control over LOS and noise, and there are fewer chokepoints. A typical floor in Vaults will have a few rooms with doors and other features to give some control, with the added disadvantage that there is no retreat (since it is a dead end). Therefore, Vaults are decently fun, in my experience.

However, luring still works in "open" levels. In your given example, if you keep a vault sentinel at the edge of your LOS and retreat, it will have no time to mark you. Therefore, it is "optimal" to lure it near the upstairs and fight it there (in case you do get marked when fighting it). Of course, there are other ways of handling sentinels (summons, confusion, curare, or simply hitting it with everything you've got).

We seem to be miscommunicating, probably because I didn't express myself clearly enough. My examples #2 and #3 in my OP were examples where I see constant luring (= "long distance retreat") as the right thing to do. And that's what I find annoying: repeated luring over long distances annoying. At least, on a regular basis. If we're talking about a semi-open Vaults layout, like the ones with lots of interconnected rooms, then, yeah, those are good levels.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Do you want to elaborate on that or should i just take it that luring is a good thing then?

I said nothing about luring.

[bel]

I find open levels both dangerous and annoying, but I don't mind 10-20 steps in closed levels. YMMV.

Dangerous, sure, but why annoying? "Open" levels are dangerous because you have less control over LOS and noise, and there are fewer chokepoints. A typical floor in Vaults will have a few rooms with doors and other features to give some control, with the added disadvantage that there is no retreat (since it is a dead end). Therefore, Vaults are decently fun, in my experience.

However, luring still works in "open" levels. In your given example, if you keep a vault sentinel at the edge of your LOS and retreat, it will have no time to mark you. Therefore, it is "optimal" to lure it near the upstairs and fight it there (in case you do get marked when fighting it). Of course, there are other ways of handling sentinels (summons, confusion, curare, or simply hitting it with everything you've got).

We seem to be miscommunicating, probably because I didn't express myself clearly enough. My examples #2 and #3 in my OP were examples where I see constant luring (= "long distance retreat") as the right thing to do. And that's what I find annoying: repeated luring over long distances annoying. At least, on a regular basis. If we're talking about a semi-open Vaults layout, like the ones with lots of interconnected rooms, then, yeah, those are good levels.

Ok, leaving aside terminology, let's look at diagram #2. If the vault sentinel were speed 11, it would no longer be "optimal" to lure it to X and fight it there. Since you find this luring process annoying, do you agree that increasing monster speed would "fix" this problem?

On the other hand, you still have ways to control LOS. For instance, suppose the room to the right of X (with the down stairs) was a bit closer. You can then retreat inside and close the door, breaking LOS. When the sentinel opens the door, you hammer it. If you explored a bit near the downstairs beforehand, you can even go downstairs in a pinch.

[Utis]

Ok, leaving aside terminology, let's look at diagram #2. If the vault sentinel were speed 11, it would no longer be "optimal" to lure it to X and fight it there. Since you find this luring process annoying, do you agree that increasing monster speed would "fix" this problem?

Speed 11 doesn't matter. Speed 11 means just that for every 10 steps, the monster gains on me by 1 step. If I encounter it at the edge of LoS, I still have ~60 steps until it catches up. And even then, if I choose to retreat further, it only gets one free swing for every 10 steps, during which its damage output is fighting my HP regeneration.

Ugly things are speed 11. So, ask yourself: if that 'p' in #2 were a very ugly thing, would that change anything? I still would retreat to the nearest safe spot, even if it's half across the floor, because the one thing that I really don't want is for its buddies to catch up and surround me. In contrast, if the 'p' were a lone vault guard, I wouldn't bother to go so far. Even if something dangerous walks in, who cares if I have a vault guard tailing me? He would even shield me from ranged attacks from behind.

Speed 15 would be a different matter. If everything in Vaults were speed 15, then the monsters would have to be adjusted to keep Vaults survivable. The situation would be like in the spider nest in example #3, more or less.

In general, the more open a level is, the closer I want to fight to the stairs and the farther away from the dark. Increasing the speed of monsters just puts a limit to how far I can get, and that only if it's a significant increase in speed. But it also makes me want to get the full distance every single time rather than "just a bit and then we'll see how it goes" in some cases.

[dynast]

You are really glossing over the fact the enemies do more things than just "hit you". Bel said vault sentinel, not guard, which is what you said in your vault example. You also said:

I recently got into the habit of simply skipping open levels in D when playing non-summoners. In Vaults, I find this is often not feasible, since the level below might not look much better and with convokers, boggarts, deep elf demonologists etc. situations in Vaults can escalate quickly, so direct access to the stairs and the option to teleport are highly desirable.

You might want to say that its the flavor of vaults that you are fighting large groups of enemies in a open space and that it may be bad that you can or might want to lure them instead, making the enemies you cited trivial because they rely on that. But then you say:

Speed 15 would be a different matter. If everything in Vaults were speed 15, then the monsters would have to be adjusted to keep Vaults survivable. The situation would be like in the spider nest in example #3, more or less.

Why monsters have to be adjusted now and not the layout? If you make every monster fast and put them in confined spaces i would assume it would be ok, according to you, that is.

[Utis]

dynast, seriously, I have no idea, what you want from me. If it is any help, I'm not at the point to make demands. (e.g. "FIX VAULTS!!!1", "REMOVE OPEN LEVELS!!!1", "MAKE ALL MONSTERS SPEED X!!!1") I'm just analysing -- together with bel -- and making observations. I'd rather get my sanity check from someone reading my posts charitably and I'd rather not jump to any conclusions prematurely.

[dynast]

Im trying to give you some insight, which you seem to be dismissing, or i am just that bad at expressing myself. Your thoughts on luring dont even scratch the surface of the "issue", so i want to know if you want to discuss the other facets of luring or if you just made this post to school me with your knowledge.

[bel]

Speed 11 doesn't matter.

Sure, if you don't like speed 11, make it 12, so that monsters get 1 turn in 5 free. As I said in my first post, increasing monster speed will not end luring; it will just make luring harder. In particular, you need to decide how far to retreat to fight the monster (allowing it free hits/spells etc.) in exchange for a safer place to fight. At the moment, there is no cost to doing this, which is a problem I think. Monsters might need to be nerfed a bit if they get higher speed, and perhaps consumables increased.

(I am leaving aside the "cost" of a wandering monster finding you while luring. I agree that this is a cost, but as I argued above, it is no worse than the "cost" of a fight going downhill and trying to escape).

[Utis]

Im trying to give you some insight, which you seem to be dismissing, or i am just that bad at expressing myself. Your thoughts on luring dont even scratch the surface of the "issue", so i want to know if you want to discuss the other facets of luring or if you just made this post to school me with your knowledge.

I have no knowledge.

[Utis]

Sure, if you don't like speed 11, make it 12, so that monsters get 1 turn in 5 free. As I said in my first post, increasing monster speed will not end luring; it will just make luring harder. In particular, you need to decide how far to retreat to fight the monster (allowing it free hits/spells etc.) in exchange for a safer place to fight. At the moment, there is no cost to doing this, which is a problem I think.

I do see your point. I still think that level layout is the biggest factor: I always want to retreat to the next good spot, no matter how far it is. (And what constitutes a good spot depends on the monster set. In Vaults I want to break LoS, in the spider nest I might as well fight in the open, most of the time, since getting away from the dark is more important, most of the time.) But, if all or most monsters were speed 11 or 12, then I wouldn't be at leisure to retreat farther than the next good spot.

(I am leaving aside the "cost" of a wandering monster finding you while luring. I agree that this is a cost, but as I argued above, it is no worse than the "cost" of a fight going downhill and trying to escape).

I agree that's probably true for any but the most closed levels and we can't have only those.

[removeelyvilon]

Why is "luring" supposedly considered problematic in the first place?

I don't think that you are supposed to take on a whole death yak herd at once. I don't think the game is designed that way. Trying to split them seems, well, to be the sane thing to do.

In any case, even if it should be problematic for some reason (I don't think it is), I am really, really not fond of the strange ideas like bezotting or entangling vines that come out of nowhere or making everything fast or whatever. I'd prefer the status quo to that nonsense any day of the week. Sorry, poeple with ideas.

Btw Chei is the obvious solution to luring, albeit it's still very possible.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Why is "luring" supposedly considered problematic in the first place

"Luring" is bad because we do it always, even when it is not necessary. To fix the problem we can announce to player when a single monster comes into view:

"Alone elephant comes into view".

It means there are no other monsters in LoS of that elephant so you can just charge forward and kill it with tab.

[Siegurt]

Why is "luring" supposedly considered problematic in the first place

"Luring" is bad because we do it always, even when it is not necessary. To fix the problem we can announce to player when a single monster comes into view:

"Alone elephant comes into view".

It means there are no other monsters in LoS of that elephant so you can just charge forward and kill it with tab.

Well, except that "no other monsters in los" is not quite the same as "no other monsters in the range where combat noise would draw them to the elephant's position"

[ONIchinchin]

"Luring" is bad because we do it always

woah... really grinds the neurons

[VeryAngryFelid]

Well, except that "no other monsters in los" is not quite the same as "no other monsters in the range where combat noise would draw them to the elephant's position"

True. It makes situation even worse, as I still lure an adjacent alone monster away (after opening a door for example) before fighting it because I have no idea how many tiles the noise travels.

[VeryAngryFelid]

"Luring" is bad because we do it always

woah... really grinds the neurons

Here "we" and "I" means not me personally but theoretical optimal player.

[mattlistener]

Does the game need more anti-luring monster design, to diminish the "it's a no-brainer" aspect of luring being against DCSS philosophy?

eg:
Time-limited monsters, which give you something good if you kill them within a time limit of spotting them (thinking Treasure Goblin).
(More) monsters that cause something bad to happen until you kill them (thinking Alarm-o-bot).
Monster that gains strength the more it travels within your LOS.
Monster that does damage divided between all in range, so you want others around when you fight it to soak. Nikola is already somewhat like this with his Chain Lightning, but he's a black swan.
Monster AI option that leashes -- eg back to its pack if too far away from them, or back where it came from if too far removed from where it woke up.
Monsters have a chance to fumble if they attack you while having neighbors who are also adjacent to the player. Related to size, so tiny=never, huge=sometimes. (This would help support group-attack tactics, without benefiting the luring tactic.)

[Magipi]

"Luring" is bad because we do it always, even when it is not necessary.

So what?
Every character wears an amulet. Always. So amulets are also bad?

[pedritolo]

Time-limited monsters, which give you something good if you kill them within a time limit of spotting them (thinking Treasure Goblin).

I'd love to see that shit in crawl.

[Siegurt]

"Luring" is bad because we do it always, even when it is not necessary.

So what?
Every character wears an amulet. Always. So amulets are also bad?

Well, to be fair, if you had to re wear your amulet at the start of every fight and it took 10-20 keypresses to do so, and you started the game with it, i think we might similarly call that bad.