A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[saarn]

Originally Posted by fizzix

I thought about hierarchies, which is pretty easy. Only allow summoned monsters to be at or below the summoner's level. I'm not sure this is the best. But it probably has more to do with the way I associate summons, which is more like candlelight pentagrams and silly teens trying to summon powerful demons rather than a call for underlings to do your bidding. Regardless, either way can work for good gameplay.

What about breaking these two effects into separate spells? E.g. Summon Great Monster and Summon Escorts. Demons might summon escorts (guaranteed to be lower level), whereas mystics might summon great monsters (which might then summon escorts).

[ekolis]

That sounds like a good idea...

[Oramin]

I killed Morgoth earlier today. Surprisingly easy. I made sure I had enough consumables and pelted him with my Sling of Buckland + Holy Might Ammo, Wands of Annihilation, and Orb of Draining (when not in LoS). Once he got adjacent to me, I just teleported him away and repeated the process as he came back after me. I only had to use Banishment about 7 times and Mass Banishment 4 times. Used up no more than 5 of any type of potion (*Healing*, Restore Mana, Berserk Strength, Heroism).

I am wondering, though, how people pillar dance with Morgoth. I was going to try that first and he just moved through the pillars like air.

[Derakon]

You can't pillar dance with a monster that eats or moves through walls. It is possible, however, to abuse LOS so you can hit a monster but they can't do anything but move towards you. For example, find a long horizontal corridor, station yourself at one end, and Morgoth at the other, one tile higher than you:

#.#################P#
#@..................#
#####################

Then cast line-of-sight spells (e.g. Dispel Evil), or ball spells targeting next to the monster, or figure out how to hockey-stick your spells so they hit precisely. Morgoth tries to approximate a straight line towards you, which means moving horizontally every turn instead of moving down one tile to get into LOS.

I only did this once, in ZAngband with a Mindcrafter; they have a targeted teleport that makes setup a snap, and one of their main attack spells hits every non-stupid creature in line of sight. I imagine it could still be done with some care in Vanilla though. The obvious fix is for the monster to favor getting into line of sight if possible.

[Oramin]

On the subject of respawns:

I was just playing a Gnome Mage. I entered the level, cast the detection spells and headed towards a monster. I was very surprised when I ran into a group of several Manes. They weren't there previously so they must have been created almost immediately after I entered the level.

As I indicated, a tad aggressive on the respawning.

[Derakon]

I suspect the current respawn system is simply that every turn, there's a small chance that monsters will be spawned somewhere, ideally not in LOS of the player. Perhaps it'd be preferable if there were a soft population ceiling of monsters on the level? That is, the game can only spawn monsters if the current population is under the population ceiling. Then when the level is created, the population is "overfilled", which basically means that new spawns are banned until the player has brought the population down a bit. You could set the ceiling at, say, half the target starting population. Then no monsters would spawn until the dungeon was half-cleared.

[Oramin]

I'd actually prefer a resetting timer for the respawn since it makes sense that the longer a player is on the level, the greater the likelihood that monsters will show up from other levels.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

You can't pillar dance with a monster that eats or moves through walls.

Except in GV with permanent wall pillar. Even Morgoth can't eat permanent walls, so greater vaults sometimes make endgame a lot easier. GV:s also make escape from sticky situation very very easy.

Pillar-dancing is difficult to do against +30 speed monster. It would take forever unless you have absolutely insane speed and/or weapon because diminishing returns of energy after +26 and fast regen of Morgoth. Counting when you get that extra move before actual fight requires very good knowledge how the energy system works.

[Timo Pietilä]

Originally Posted by Derakon

I suspect the current respawn system is simply that every turn, there's a small chance that monsters will be spawned somewhere, ideally not in LOS of the player. Perhaps it'd be preferable if there were a soft population ceiling of monsters on the level? That is, the game can only spawn monsters if the current population is under the population ceiling. Then when the level is created, the population is "overfilled", which basically means that new spawns are banned until the player has brought the population down a bit. You could set the ceiling at, say, half the target starting population. Then no monsters would spawn until the dungeon was half-cleared.

That would make boring levels really really boring. I like the fact that there might be some action even in initially boring level after you have spent some time in it. I'd prefer a small turn limit before first spawn, then go like it is now.

[Oramin]

Didn't some of the previous version tell you when your spells beamed? At the moment I can only tell when I happen to have multiple monsters lined up. This makes it difficult to estimate the chance of beaming.

Also is the following still the current information for beaming:

Certain "bolt" spells (magic missile, lightning, fire and frost bolt, etc) have a chance to become a "beam" based on your experience level. This chance is 1% / level for mages and 0.5% / level for rangers. Magic Missile, Lightning Bolt and Frost Bolt all have a -10% to the roll.
Wands have a 20% chance to "beam" and rods have a 10% chance.

(actually, it is obviously wrong for the current version of Lightning Bolt, but other than that...)

Thanks.