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+Email to crawl-ref-discuss by [[user:dpeg]] on 2016/12/13:
+<file>
+Dynamical monsters
+==================
+This text sounds theory-crafting: I am thinking about Crawl like a board game,
+and want to make its ruleset more flexible. I have concrete applications in
+mind. Was waiting for a good opportunity to send this out; Corin's email is
+triggering this posting.
+Current situation: monsters are static
+======================================
+What I mean by this: monsters are the backbone of Crawl's gameplay. Players are
+dealing with them all the time (even when choosing not to fight some monster),
+and monsters provide most of the relevant reward (experience, and often piety),
+and protect a lot of the item loot.
+Right now, monsters are generated when the player enters a level. After that,
+almost nothing happens to them. Monsters can get added through extra generation
+and in very few other ways. Monsters can disappear by killing (most often), or
+in some more exotic ways (shafts, banishment). Most importantly to me, monsters
+that have been generated will not change afterwards. This is what I mean by
+"static", and I suggest we make them more dynamical.
+Dynamical monsters: self-changing and self-removing
+===================================================
+In my opinion, it will be useful to have a system where monsters can change or
+disappear. Let me start with the latter:
+Disappearing monsters
+---------------------
+I'll suggest a pretty simple mechanic and argue for it afterwards.
+* Mechanics: Whenever you re-enter a level, the game looks at all
+   monsters. A monster will be removed if it is considered to be no
+   valuable threat anymore.
+   If this happens: no message, and no compensation for food/xp/piety.
+   Uniques are exempt. Vault monsters can be exempted by tags.
+* Reason 1: Players can, and sometimes do, park harmless monsters for
+             food or piety. (Death) yaks in Lair are an example.
+   Reason 2: If you want to make sure that you get to collect all the
+             xp/piety off a level, you have to refrain from skipping
+             it for a while.
+   Reason 3: It's not interesting to chase subpar monsters, just tedious.
+Upgrading monsters
+------------------
+This is the more adventurous part of my proposal: I'd like monsters to get the
+ability to "upgrade", i.e. become stronger than originally created.
+* Mechanics 1: monsters can upgrade, and can do so several times. This
+   will be indicated by an adjective to the name, such as
+      orc --> angry orc --> very angry orc
+   Perhaps other adjectives work better, e.g.: fierce, grim, monstrous.
+   Have to avoid reference to berserk rage (e.g. furious or mad).
+   Each upgrade will apply the following modifications:
+    - movement and action speed faster by 2
+    - HP increased by 20%
+    - HD increased by 20%
+    - base damage increased by 20%
+   There is *no* change to experience value, piety gain, items!
+* Mechanics 2: I have two triggers in mind, the first one is more
+   important to me.
+    - For each monster, count time when it is aware of you.
+      Have it upgrade as a function of that time. [0]
+    - For each monster, count its time since generation. [1]
+      Upgrade it as a function of that time.
+      (These two functions would be different.)
+* Analysis:
+    - An immediate application of monsters upgrading when aware of you: we
+      can get rid of energy randomisation. This was introduced to deal with
+      pillar dancing, but monster upgrades do so in a better way: instead
+      of monsters getting an additional move at random, you now see an
+      actual change (such as "orc" --> "angry orc"), so the interface is
+      much more clear.
+    - My original motivation, however, is luring: that tactic would be
+      alright if it was special. But it's not, rather it is ubiquitious,
+      slow and tedious. On the other hand, I don't want to make players
+      unable to flee from dangerous situations. Monster upgrades is a
+      rather mild counter to that: if you lure a lot, then your battles
+      will be a bit harder. [2]
+    - This change does not really affect weak players, say naive newbies:
+      they will attempt to clear levels, and walk towards monsters anyway.
+      I like that: this nerf shouldn't make their games more miserable.
+Full disclosure: this idea has been inpired by Brogue's monster mutations and
+by promotions in Japanese chess (Shogi). (In Brogue, a monster can get
+generated with special perks, e.g. "reflective ogre" and this is indicated by
+an adjective. Note that Brogue's mutations are static: bestowed on monster
+generation.)
+If we like monster upgrades, then a whole lot more could be done. This is a
+barebone proposal.
+[0] I thought about this for a while, and think it's the best approach.
+Originally, I tried to measure "monster follows player", i.e. to gauge
+luring-ness. But that's hard. Much better to just make it a function of how
+long the monster is aware of you. Yes, sometimes you will get unlucky, and that
+orc turns into an angry orc right away. I think that's definitely worth the
+gain in simplicity. If we feel generous, then we can announce the change a few
+turns in advance: "The orc looks like it is getting angry."
+[1] There are two versions of this:
+     (a) count total time since monster generation (player on level or not).
+     (b) only count time spent by the player on the monster's level.
+With (a), you would know that entering a level, fleeing and coming back much
+later (think of a branch end you got chased away from) will have many monsters
+which are much stronger. That's a strategical monster/level buff, and I am fine
+with that. It would also mean that players are encouraged to try and pull
+through a level they enter or, put the other way around, enter levels
+conservatively. With the level cutting policy we've been carrying out since
+DCSS 0.4, I'm also fine with that, but I realise not everyone might be. (And it
+will draw complaints such as: "I stepped foot into Elf:1, was scared by the
+entrance party, and came back to realise they're even stronger." I'm ready to
+shrug that off because the player is also stronger by then.)
+   By contrast, (b) only punishes dawdling on a fixed level.
+[2] Luring is also about waking monsters one by one. My proposal purposefully
+says nothing about this (that'd involve noise and monster AI). I think monster
+upgrades are a good addition in their own right, and I believe that it's better
+to treat design concepts as separately as possible.
+</file>