Monster AI

[Malak Darkhunter]

I have a lot of problems with the monster Ai, I believe it is great piece of work and all, and certainly makes the game more challenging, having to worry about wounded foes coming back to you. However, the problem is if you have no long-range way of killing creatures your just out of luck. Take the warrior for example, I spent a lot of time chasing monsters around to finally put them to rest. This is especially hard on new characters, who don't have enough gold to buy some long-range weaponry. I think this is ok in intelligent monsters, yet it seems about all of angbands denizens are all about running away. So it seems I am always trying to club down monsters as they flee, before they regenerate their health and here we go again. Is it possible to have selected type monsters with the ability to do this? could it be possible for some monsters to be a little more fearless? Take the troll for example, brutish and savage, yet is busy running away when he's about to die. Or the orc, I always thought of them as fighting to the death. I think some monsters should be able to run away, but it's really annoying trying to chase down every single monster you come by. If your a mage that's great, or have a bow that's great, yet you eventually run out, and after that, kind of annoying to deal with till you rest up or find more arrows. If the AI was a little more fearless in most cases, but not all, I think the game would be a little more enjoyable.

[will_asher]

Originally Posted by Malak Darkhunter

I have a lot of problems with the monster Ai, I believe it is great piece of work and all, and certainly makes the game more challenging, having to worry about wounded foes coming back to you. However, the problem is if you have no long-range way of killing creatures your just out of luck. Take the warrior for example, I spent a lot of time chasing monsters around to finally put them to rest. This is especially hard on new characters, who don't have enough gold to buy some long-range weaponry. I think this is ok in intelligent monsters, yet it seems about all of angbands denizens are all about running away. So it seems I am always trying to club down monsters as they flee, before they regenerate their health and here we go again. Is it possible to have selected type monsters with the ability to do this? could it be possible for some monsters to be a little more fearless? Take the troll for example, brutish and savage, yet is busy running away when he's about to die. Or the orc, I always thought of them as fighting to the death. I think some monsters should be able to run away, but it's really annoying trying to chase down every single monster you come by. If your a mage that's great, or have a bow that's great, yet you eventually run out, and after that, kind of annoying to deal with till you rest up or find more arrows. If the AI was a little more fearless in most cases, but not all, I think the game would be a little more enjoyable.

I agree, not because of the trouble to track down the fleeing monsters, but because it seems out of character for certain monsters to run away. I always thought most undead monsters, especailly zombies should never run away, and maybe orcs should run away less often. I also think of them as fighting to the death rather than running away.

..now that I think about it, I think zombies already never run away. The NO_FEAR flag does this, right? Or does that only keep them from being scared by the scare monster spell or wand?

[zaimoni]

Originally Posted by will_asher

..now that I think about it, I think zombies already never run away. The NO_FEAR flag does this, right? Or does that only keep them from being scared by the scare monster spell or wand?

No, that flag is not referenced in the mon_will_run function; zombies will run away currently.

[will_asher]

Originally Posted by zaimoni

No, that flag is not referenced in the mon_will_run function; zombies will run away currently.

that's too bad.