Messages

1

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 09, 2015, 05:09:13 AM »

Actually raichoo haven't been giving me any problems of late, probably because I haven't been encountering many. I recall a large band at T:5, but by that time they posed little threat. I manged to recruit cursed + blessed raicho from earlier bands of 1-3 raicho, so my mid game became pretty easy. I just don't think raicho scale well to late game - they seem to be dishing significantly less damage than their opponents. Is this just me?

I don't play with a gandaya anymore, offense is the best defense . Fae supporters are still my most problematic opponents, I haven't figured out a good strategy for killing them first. But yeah at that particular instance I had a gandayah to protect me from raicho spamming envenom. By the way, I'm starting to rethink my initial buff/debuff character selection - currently leaning towards buff + mind/light/healing.

There was no Ludoc on T:6 my last game; instead I encountered an alternate hero (M??), the one with bull rush spamming guilt. Man, didn't realize how potent guilt could be; my raichos and haietlik were actually healing the hero (guilt > damage). Took me about 5+ attempts to find the right party combination to defeat this particular hero (didn't loose anyone though): hasted east saint + modified raicho (reshape + fade + souleater + flesheater) + blessed raicho.

Sorry, I threw that stealth/invisibility sentence in as an afterthought. I know you wrote quite a lengthy response. I don't think the game needs stealth, I just wanted to emphasize that AI chasing could be improved.

Wow I must be blind (hyper-focused on the actual demon icons). When I went to take the screenshot, behold, every ally has a blue box. I believe however there are some rare circumstances in which it is near invisible. I'll keep a lookout but for now here is a hypothetical:

Code: [Select]

        WA
        WOA
        WA

        W: Wall
        O: Opponent
        A: Ally
New question: I'm confused about how body resistance works? Most body abilities are passive, how can body resistance affect passive abilities? Or does body resistance encompass slash+pierce+impact resistances, but provide less protection?

Training speed: I might recant my initial statements regarding the level of newer recruits relative to older allies. Possibly that was an unlucky game, though possibly the inverse could be said for the latest one. When I made those comments newer recruits constantly outclassed my older allies. The opposite was true for my latest game: newer recruits tended to be a level behind my older allies. Nonetheless, this should be something you keep an eye, just in case it is too variable between games.

I still think allies train too slowly. I've also noticed that my older allies don't generate training points as often, which is disappointing. I do keep using my older allies constantly, but I don't think that affects training points: isn't XP split equally among active and unactive party members? But by the time I obtain abilities I want to train into my monsters, those monsters become obsolete, replaced by monsters with more powerful abilities.

Easy Encounters: true some groups seem easier than others, but are you considering spawn distances? If an easy groups merges into a group of 15+ monsters via LOS, then it's no longer easy .

Previous Levels: Well, DCSS has a food clock whereas Demon has no constraint on scumming lower levels. True the food clock has been progressively loosened, but that's because DCSS has branch levels that are just more effective (and difficult) for farming.

I also want to emphasize what I've previously said regarding panic: the effectiveness of panic and sleep/stun are miles apart. Sleep is a gamechanger, I lost my latest game because of it. Out of the countless times my allies have been panicked, I've only been (if ever) been injured by them once or twice. Panicked allies never flee, or move erratically instead of attacking. Conversely, a panicked player remains able to move and use their abilities as per normal.

One more AI niggle: The diagram has only been *slightly* exaggerated. If the top raicho becomes sufficiently injured that I decide to swap it out, the East Saint immediately takes it place, so I have to summon the replacement behind the East Saint. This is bad because the Easg Saint has low health, is needed as a long-distance sniper (support character), and isn't particularly resistant to the opponents in question. By the time I summon a replacement brawler, the Easg Saint is already badly wounded, but the brawler won't take the Easg Saint's place until it is severly wounded. After which I have to dismiss the East Saint for fear of stray missiles, and so I lose my support ally.

Code: [Select]

W  W
W  W
W  WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
W  ERMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
W  @RMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
WWWWWWWWWWWMMMMMMMMM
          WMMMMMMMM
          WMMMMM
          W

W = Wall
E = Easg Saint Ally
R = Raicho Ally
@ = Player
M = Opponents (lots and lots )

I've also been having some problems casting that Easg Saint long-ranged smiting ability - the game keeps saying, "invalid target". IIRC with a layout something like the following, I was unable to target any of any opponent. I did have enough SP:

Code: [Select]

F
    LWWWWWW
  C  @W
 C   AWWWWW
    AAMMM

@ = Me, on stairs
W = Wall
C = Cynocephalus opponent
F = Fae opponent
L = Lilith opponent
A = ally
M = random opponent
By the way, this just so happened to be the layout of my final 3053 run in which the Lilith ruined everything

 
I also wish there were ten (or more) of you. That said, I enjoy the game enough already to keep coming back

Just for reference: real-life raicho. So cute, not deadly at-all It's been great fun researching the more obscure references

2

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 09, 2015, 03:52:26 AM »

3053 on T:8. Was running away from a large band of Liliths, Cynocephalus, Fae, Haeitlik, Asrai, went down a level to heal my party. I was put to sleep as soon as I came back up and my three best remaining allies where killed while I remained helpless. Considering I had lost my starting ally a bit earlier (stupid mistake), I kinda just quit and walked away :/

3

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 07, 2015, 01:06:20 AM »

I don't mean to say suggest the game currently has no strategy. I defeated the first hero (the one with the arrow and aura* abilities) using a tactic learned from Ludoc: summon cannon fodder (low-level high-HP), rush, replace allies with heavy hitters. He deals less damage in melee, and can be surrounded - not a single ally lost. Previously I sacrificed nearly half my inventory (of allies) defeating him from a distance.

I eventually destroyed Ludoc (20?? score) but what happens afterwards killed me. Surprise!

4

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 07, 2015, 12:58:05 AM »

Considering the (above post) example with group movement, I think finer control over allies could enhance the tactical "feel" of the game. The ability to send a single monster a different direction as a decoy would be awesome

5

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 07, 2015, 12:48:32 AM »

I'm a bit short on time so this is only a partial response, plus a little extra commentary:

Regarding stairs:

Code: [Select]


 W
WW        ZZ
         ZZ?   R
         ZZG@
        WWWWWWWWWWWW
        W
        W

@ = Me on Stairs
? = Attack ally (Headless, but not sure I remember correctly)
R = Raicho ally (could've been one tile to the left, perhaps?)
W = Wall
Z = Zar (were there really that many?) opponents

Code: [Select]

         R   E
        G@
   WWWWWWWWWWWWWW
                W
                W  H H
                W  ggH
                W    g

@ = Me on Stairs
R = Raicho ally
G = Gandaya ally
E = Easg Saint ally
g = Gandaya opponent
H = Haitliki (??, electric eel creature) opponent
These sub-par in-game scenaries illustrate two problems with stairs:

• Ally positioning after stairs is random
• Allies don't swap position if exiting stairs into battle (ie, opponents immediately in view of stairs)

Both the Gandaya were Easg Saint were my "support" creatures. Furthermore the Easg Saint is susceptible to lightning, or at least not resistant but taking much damage. In the first scenario the raicho should have immediately swapped with the gandaya; in the second the raicho should have swapped with the Easg Saint.

Since I have no control over ally positions, would it cheapen the game to position allies optimally upon entering a new tower level? Ie, my party "peeks" out from the stairs, we hold a pow-wow and my attack creatures decide to deploy themselves on the front lines while the support creature take up defensive positions?

Both scenarios were frustrating (lack of control) but not deadly: descend, heal, then re-ascend, keeping fingers crossed for better deployment. Actually, in the second scenario I think I re-ascended with some cannon fodder (low level high-hp creatures like zombies and slimes) to buy me time to redeploy my heavy hitters.

Code: [Select]

       FF
       AF
  WWW AWWWW
    W RW
    W  W
    W  W
    W  W
    WU W
    W  W
    WG W
    W @W
    W  W
    W  W

@ = Me (no stairs ;), ~90% health )
G = Gandaya ally
U = Ukobachi (flame throwers) ally
R = Raicho ally
A = Asrai opponent (ice throwers)
F = Fae
Here I'm pretty sure the Gandaya was trying to shield me from frost shards (thanks, buddy) but the Ukobachi was sitting around doing zilch. If it couldn't target the nearest Asrai, it should have moved closer.

No I wasn't using group movement. Which reminds me, I've had some annoyances with that as (nothing life threatening, just dumb). The allies attempt to replicate my exact movements rather than follow my path. Which differing demon speeds, this leads to my party becoming separate directionally. Example:

Code: [Select]

                                                          W
                                                          W
WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW                     W
                                    W                     W
                                    W                     W
                                    W                     W
WWWWWWWW         WWWWWWWW           W                     W
       W         W      W           W                     W
       W         W      W           W                     W
       W     @   W      W           W                     W
       W     R   W      W           W                     W
       W     |   W      W           W                     W
       W     |   W      W E         W                     W
       W     |   W      W |         W                     W
       W     |   W      W |         W                     W
       W     |   W      W |         W                     W
       W     |   W      W ---|      W                     W
       W     |   W      W    |      W                     W
       W     |   W      W    |      W                     W
       W     --| W      W    |      W                     W
       W       | WWWWWWWW    |      W                     W                                             . "Uh Oh, too exposed"
       W       -@---G        |      W                     W                                             .
       W        R   |        |      W                     W                                             .
       W        |   |        |      WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW                                             .
       W        |   |        |
       W        @R--G--------E--------------------------------                                         E R
       W                                                      ----------------------------------------  G@
WWWWWWWW




                                          WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
                                          W                  W
                                          W                  W
                                          W                  W
                                          WWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
This was completely unexpected, but somewhat fortuitous: my opponents followed the Easg Saint instead of me. So I just dismissed Easg Saint from behind the wall and got away scot-free - since the opponents lost sight of any enemy, they returned to their previous location. If they had decided to carry out a limited exploration of the nearby region, I would have been discovered. This is one of the points I made previously: monster-loitering/hunting/tracking would enhance the game. However, regarding this group movement behaviour, much of the time I find it annoying.

I actually have one more gripe with the AI and speedier allies such as raichos: they constantly speed ahead and get surrounded. This is why I like giving raicho allies ranged abilities, so they hang back with their companions instead of racing ahead. I like backing my party into narrow two-tiles wide chokepoints, and raichos constantly screw this up. The ranged raichos, unlike ukobachi and support creatures (fae, gandaya) who hang back, do follow their attack allies into combat. In this respect, ranged raicho behave perfectly. Sometimes they decide to chuck fireballs from a distance, but if so it is usually the right decision.


Here is a slightly different injured-ally-might-get-killed-because-miserly-me-didn't-dismiss. The plan was to swap places with my near-death raicho, use myself as a body shield for two turns during which I would summon a different ally to my left after dismissing the raicho. The idea was to absorb some of the blows intended for the slime, thereby protecting the it for the duration which I have to swap summons. Instead, here is what happens:

Code: [Select]

W      WW W         W      WW W
W      WWWW         W      WWWW
W   CCG             W   CCG     
W   RS              W  R@S     
WWW @WWWWWW   ==>   WWW GWWWWWW
  W GW    W           W  W    W
  W  W                W  W     
WWW  W              WWW  W     
     W                   W     
     W                   W     
     W                   W     

@ = me
C = red-cap opponent
G = goblin opponent
S = slime ally
R = raicho ally, near death
G = gandaya ally
W = Wall
I'm surprised, but I think I just have to learn to avoid these situations. Like you said summoned allies will sacrifice themselves for me, this is a good default behaviour and the game can't be expected to read my mind for when the opposite is true. Well perhaps it could, or at least give me a one-turn benefit of the doubt.
    * player has high HP
    * player swaps places with fron-line character
Then again, this could be a bad idea. If things get bad quickly I'd be happy for a sacrificial raicho (except then I'd just unswap). So... complicated. Probably best to leave this alone?

In any case my initial strategy was probably flawed, considering that newly-summoned allies don't actively participate in the current turn (ie they absorb damage but do not attack):

Code: [Select]

                                Dismiss,Summon  Swap,Dismiss,Summon
turns slime completely alone    1               0
turns slime attacking alone     1               3
====================================================================
total turns disadvantaged       2               3
In actuality, this strategy does seem to preserve the HP of my remaining allies during ally replacement more so than simple dismiss/summon.

6

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 05, 2015, 09:43:21 PM »

Hey, sorry for the wall of text:

High score of 2579 yesterday playing buff/debuff, and no raicho packs. Previous game (same character build) had an encounter with a deadly pack T:3 or T:4 - I'm not sure which, the levels need to be marked better - that I couldn't avoid. Five regular riacho + 1 modified raicho (absorb max hp). Thanks to haste I could avoid but not outrun them, and the modified riacho seemed able to both keep up and cast that absorb-max-hp spell. Since I couldn't find the stairs (no minimap, *hint* *hint* ) that riacho finally wittled my health down to near zero and I accidently ran towards another after recasting haste (j vs k), which killed me instantly. Mentioning the vi-keys by the way, thanks for implementing those. Some roguelike only provide arrows which are OK aside the lack of diagonals, and numpad layouts. I know some people swear by the numpad but I find it actively discomforting - moving the middle/ring/3 finger up/down between 8/2 is almost painful. And then they recommend remapping keys (ToME4, I'm pointing at you) - how am I supposed to remap keys if I don't know the game, which keys are important or related and should be kept, kept together, or discarded. Believe it or not, thats the main reason I never "got into" ToME4. Tangent aside, I also think riachos should be nerfed, but perhaps not in power? A single riacho isn't too deadly, and in my high-score run I did actually encounter three vile raichos (not a "pack") supporting Vikor and some other creatures. They werent too bad because they had a tendency to hang back to cast envenom (I think), there were only three, and this was a higher level, but they forced me to kill Vikor instead of recruiting him, grr. Anyway I suggest reducing the likelihood of large roving raicho gangs at lower levels, or perhaps giving them herd mentality in which the entire flock flees if they've taken too much damage, or perhaps having damage reduce their speed multiplier?

Regarding summoning the correct party in the correct order: at higher levels I'm not sure this matters as much. I didn't die, but actually quit my 2579-score run since my character was in a deadlock. I simply didn't have enough allies to handle Ludoc the Summoner and as he would recall any near-death summons I couldn't kill any. By the way, his summons seem to heal faster than mine - I recall nearly defeating that giant juggernaut creature, having it recalled, fighting some other summoned creatures incuding eventually that very same giant creature. Anyway I started trolling the next higher level for recruits but couldn't do better than break even. For every new recruit, on average I'd loose a previous ally... so eventually I just quit.

I think the AI-tracking system needs more tweaking. Too often I'm being chased by a large pack of disparate creatures (15+ on T:6), and flee then duck behind a corner. When I double back to see if they're still chasing me, they all seem to have disappeared. I was only in LOS of the nearest creature, when I ducked around the corner cutting LOS the entire pack veered off and returned to base. When I doubled-back it seemed they had vanished, though where probably perpetually 1 step ahead of my LOS. This monster party behaviour is extremely annoying:
* Monsters don't loiter around, waiting if you'll show up and perhaps carrying out a limited search in the area they've last seen you (doesn't need to be as sophisticated as a noise system). You double back and it seems they've vanished.
* Nearly all monsters return to home base (Ludoc the summoner is a notable exception, among others). So a 15+ pack chases me from the top-right corner of the map to the center and then disappears. When I go searching for them, they've all returned to the top-right corner of the map. WTF!! I actually like this "return to base" behaviour, no other roguelike I've played has it, but only in small quantities. Not every monster/pack should be predisposed to this.
* Monster's don't disperse. For example, when disturbing a mixed orc/gnoll party in the lower DCSS levels, the gnolls generally stick together as a party (they do move "camp" however) while the orcs actively search me out individually. I find it suprising that a mixed 15+ party of various groups manages (faerie+asrai, absorb-health-snake+lilith, I-forget+I-forget) manages to chase me from halfway around the map and remaing a cohesive bunch.

These problems are slightly exacerbated by Demon's lack of an evasion (stealth, invisibility, ...) system.

You were right about my improving tactics. Now that I know the game more I don't feel the need to kite or stair-dance as much, especially not on the lower levels. But against a pack of 15+ creatures that won't disband!!! The game doesn't provide enough mechanics to separate these creatures. My current tactic to cull such herds is to haste both myself and a target until we are out-of-LOS of the pack, then totally annihilate him 1-2 turns.

So I looked and really (still) don't see this supposed blue box around allies , not even a little bit.

Now that I've played the game more I actually have a little bit of AI feedback:
1. stairs and party positioning: Stairs totally disrupt party positioning, for example I've had a malingee/gandayah climb the stairs right in front of me, and come face to face with some monsters, while my riacho appears two tiles behind me. The gandayah is my support creature and though they can give as good as they get in combat for a little while, the riacho - my attack ally - makes to move to swap places with the gandayah (at least not until the gandayah is several damaged).
2. projectiles: do allies attempt to protect me from missles and projectiles? I'm not sure if they do, or its just random movement in front of me while advancing on some enemies. If they don't I wish they would (at least some), and if the do I wish they would do it faster.
3. I've had one case where a specially trained raicho moved to the back of the pack when severaly injured. I've decided to flee, and since we're in a two-tile wide hallway with my other two summons defending the raicho, I decide to flee rather than waste a turn dismissing the raicho. However in the course of two turns, while fleeing, this happened: A heavily damaged enemy retreated, leaving an open gap in the hallway. The injured raicho, instead of holding ground, decided to advance to that empty tile. It died the next turn. This only happened once, and I don't remember of projectile-casting monsters were involved. Did it move into the gap to protect me from a projectile? If so I wish it would've recognized that I was fleeing (it should flee too) and my health was decent enough to absorb a few hits.

Regarding gandayas and unlike fairies (the other support creature), I've never encounted any modified or higher-level gandayas to recruit. This is a serious bummer, my gandaya is completely outclassed mid-game. I mean, it levels up but not enough to support my greater SP needs.

You are right, at higher levels the monsters do get way more interesting. They are differentiated, but only in combat and not in training. This is how I see monsters:

Stats: HP/SP/Speed
Traits: strength, magic, vitality, agility, cunning
Abilities: ...

At first I was upset to lose my starting raicho on T:5 to a hero. But in the previous level I had recruited a modified raicho that was higher level (better stats) and for the most part had better traits (some traits lower, but sum of trait points > starting-raicho-trait-points-sum). True I lost *some* abilities, but the new raicho had an equal mount of different, equally useful abilities. I don't think the game provides enough incentive towards ally levelling and training - newer monsters have better stats/traits and training is too slow (has to be, because it is tied to levelling) to make a difference, or to make you care enough about your trained creatures. Because of the limit on number of allies, because you are always recruiting newer and higher-level monsters, and because of the limit on trainable skills, very often I can't construct and train the creatures I envision.

Aside from abilities, all the creatures are *exactly* the same. In fact, given enough training points, I could recruit a higher level creature X and retrain it to be exactly identical (but more powerful) than creature Y. The only notable exception are high-speed creatures (raicho and those vitality-snakes), because they are rarer. Of course there a some limitations - don't train a low-strength ally in body attacks etc, but generally higher level creatures will have all-around better stat/traits.

The characters don't feel to have "personality", ie they are icons attached to a number table (stats/trait points) with different abilities. And I don't mean personality as in AI behaviour as I suggested previously, though that would certainly help - it would be nice if an injured raicho decided to flee while an injured giant went berserk. No, I mean physical traits. Consider three DCSS summoning spells: Hydra, Snake (to stick), and Summon Butterflies. Hydras have multiple heads, so you'd want to avoid melee combat with a hydra. Because of this physical trait (ignoring the strength on-paper trait), you'd want to train you hydra in melee skills and not, say, fire magic (flame dart, flame orb). Furthermore each head can attack per turn: this unique physically linked-trait differentiates the hydra from many other monsters. Taking this suggestions - physical traits affects ally training - one step further, why not have resistance affect spell powers. DCSS has the idea of conflicting magic schools fire/ice, air/earth, but this is never actually exposed in the UI (poorly implemented). Perhaps (so many possibilities):
    * weakness X reduces spell-school X
    * spell-school X reduces weakness X
    * spell-schools X with spell-school Y reduces X & Y
As I also suggested mentioned, there arent enough *tactical* spells. For example, a wizard's starting spells lead to a very thoughtful playstyle, rather than bash&slam (melee DCSS) or in the case of Demon, sumon&sumon&sumon. I'm specifically referring to blink, slow, conjure flame, and mephitic cloud. Foremost, DCSS's mephitic cloud (confuse) is miles better than Demon's panic, in effectiveness. Later spells include many of the *cloud spells which can be used to control the battlefied, prevent effect (ranged fire vs freezing cloud) or slowly whittle away enemies. Spellforged servitor is a another example of a summon well-adapted to Demon. I don't mean as a summon that mirror's your personal skills (though that might actuall be a good suggestions, a "shapeshifter" monster for Demon whose abilities are drawn from the creatures near it), but as a creature whose arsenal (Demon abilities) are constructed and used to great effect (orbs & clouds), more so than is possible with training in Demon.

Snakes (to Stick) provide another perfect example of a characteristic that should be linked to physical appearance and not abilities. Only creatures with tentacle-like appendages (octopodes, snakes, etc) should be able to constrict. This shouldn't be an ability, but a secondary characteristic that randomly triggers during combat, just as in DCSS.

Summon butterflies is another perfect example of a tactical summon. Unlike "packs" in Demon consisting of a multiple allied creatures (ie, Fae+Asrai), some packs should be a single creature, just as crawl's Monstrous Menagerie, Summon Horrible Things, Sumon Greater Demon (some demons are summoners), Summon Forest (not very useful but utterly cool, gives DCSS much more "character"), and even Summon Butterflies. Summon butterflies is a spell that sacrifices quality (power) for quantity. In extremely rare circumstances this can actually be useful. Theoretically only, I've never bothered with this particular multi-monster spell. However the idea is that in some situations, quantity matters more than quality. As long as a single creature remains standing, healing it will restore the "pack" to the original count.

Perhaps this ability is available at higher levels, but some demons in DCSS summon other, weaker demons. For example ynoxinul summons ufetubus. I believe this would make an interesting ability when applied to Demon. Difficult to balance, however, but I'm tired of *always* feeling outnumbered. Part of the joy of Summoning in DCSS is standing back while your army rips into your opponents.

It took me about 4.5 hours to get to T:7. And I've actually not yet beat DCSS. I mean, I keep playing a DeWz of SM focusing on summoning

As it stands now (at least up to level 7) Demon has nice difficulty progression. I always feel like each fight will be my last. There are always either more or more powerful opponents, and while each fight is difficult very few (packs of only modified raichos) are impossible. That said, I think the game could use some spacing. For example, even deeper levels in crawl have a few easier opponents. Goblins breed like hamsters, apparently. So you have the satisfaction of easily defeating them, as well a meter for progress. After defeating previous monster X in Y time, you know you are Z% better. I also think there should be a low rate of dynamic spawning to a] keep things interesting b] recruit lower-level but helpful monsters that have since died from you inventory. For example, I've not met any gandayahs in the higher levels, so if I lose my last, that's it for gandayas. Also, its a pain to recruit monsters from higher levels: it would be nice to return to lower levels and recruit enough monsters to fill the remaining slots just as cannon fodder.

Regarding returning to lower levels, crawl makes even previously visited levels interested. I'm not referring only to the different regions (shoals, depths, abyss, hell, etc) but also the different features. For example, shops provide a good reason to revisit old levels. Demon's old levels are depressing. They're empty and depressing and make you think how much time you put in the game and how likely you are to die around the next corner [...upon return to higher levels].

This is totally random, but when you get to the improve-the-map stage of the game, please consider that this is a tower. You can have windows!! Not only to simulate a day/night cycle, but to provide
    * light for plants
    * sunrays that damange creatures with dark weakness but buff others like angels etc (complements the idea of tactical gameplay and spells such as *clouds and rapid deconstruction)
    * kick - body or repel (are there any such?) attacks - monsters *out* of windows, heh

I know its a lot, but I hope you get an idea of how awesome I think your game is. I'm picky even with popular games like ToME.

7

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 03, 2015, 08:58:24 AM »

Regarding the harder difficulty you mentioned, you should also consider play-time as well as high-score. Does the game last long enough to make use of the deep mechanics? I'm much more likely to play this than DCSS right now. For example, I won't start a DCSS game until I have an entire weekend free. This game certainly isn't a coffee-break roguelike, but I don't survive much beyond 1-3(unusual, max) hours. But I'm a bad metric - I'm new, and my play times + scores are constantly increasing.

8

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 03, 2015, 08:44:04 AM »

Regarding spawning: Just had a quite difficult encounter in T:3, the open floor layout. Band of zombies, zars, headless, (lab-coat-dude) at one set of stairs and a band of raichos, fishy-things, malingees and a gandayah at the other. I had to whittle the groups down, focusing on individual creatures and dancing between stairs. It was fun because - well certainly because it was survivable - but also because I had time to summon the correct creatures. Also the party layout mattered quit a bit, sending the faerie to the rear and the echeneis to the front, etc. I think the opponent constitution mattered greatly - for example malingees + riachos|huo-shu would have been much tougher than malingees+echeneis. But the real difference is that the stairs where far apart. If in this case the stairs had been ~5 tiles apart, they would have been swarmed by ~15 creatures == not survivable.

Regarding monster location: Hmm this is complicated, perhaps I should take better note of it. I'm sure you can see the monster positions during play-testing, so perhaps the confusion is the prey-tracking behaviour and the return-to-home behaviour of creatures? I see this mostly with slimes and echeneis. Its possible to lure an individual fish away, being slow, and being dumb the other fish won't flock to follow their friend. But anyway, the fish has a real problem getting distracted, I leave LOS for a single turn and it stops hunting. Sometimes when this happens I backtrack to act as bait once again, but the fish mysteriously vanished. So I return to where I first encountered the flock of fish, lo and behold my fish has returned! I think what I'm seeing is a very binary track/rest system
    * see target, track
    * don't see target for X (1?) turns return home (?)
Is it really this simple? Its really weird that monsters have a "home" location and don't rove around (possible in a group, or perhaps disband once disturbed). Possibly the fish I was luring decided to return to "base", while we were both moving towards this "base" it was constantly 1-2 tiles out of my LOS? My point is these behaviours don't seem complex enough. Perhaps the fish should, once having lost sight of its prey: make a deduction towards the direction, search for a bit, loose interest, return to its friends. Or perhaps fish, being group creatures, should be unwilling to even separate. And the returning to home notion doesn't make sense for all creatures.
    Regarding the first two points, I'm aware that Hypnotic Gaze has a very variable duration, however across multiple casts across multiple games I've never been able to freeze the second slime to lure away the first. Zap, lure away 10+ tiles, return 1 tile and see second slime enter LOS.

Regarding management, I can suggest two more pressing tweaks. First, its impossible to distinguish friend/foe between certain monsters of the same type (happens most often with slimes and echeneis). Same goes for the difference between unique demons and unique heroes: one is recruitable, the other not. So the only way to tell them apart is to attempt a link?

heh, really good point ==> AI that could intelligently use any combination of abilities to the extent players would feel okay with trusting their permadeath lives to it ... Right now, if I give a monster an unusual ability (or a support ability that's not meant to be used often), I just assume (well maybe some finger-crossing & praying, in passing) that the AI will handle the new skills appropriately in combat. So far have no reason to be disappointed.

Regarding combos, I also like Ghost Pierce on Echeneis. Actually I had some really interesting echeneis combos which I've now forgetten. Super-low priority, but I guess that would be a good reason to implement a high-scores viewer (similar to DCSS). Its not that I want "impressive" or "powerful" summonables, its that I feel all the different combos don't differentiate the monsters very much. Probably because I haven't played enough to notice the nuances of the combat, but for the most part the additional abilities don't add anything new. X% stronger, Y% faster, Z movement during attack, etc... these all seem like slight enhancements to existing traits or slightly modifications to the attack, etc. The monster doesn't seem to "evolve", ie once an echeneis, always an echeneis. The initial traits/resistances still seem to matter much more than the individual abilities. Well, so far... I was just completely massacred on L4. I don't think any choice of summons/party/resistances could have kept me alive. Anway, I'm pretty sure I don't know enough about the training system to make good upgrade choices.

Regarding "auto-explore to known creature" I wouldn't mind regular auto-explore-until-stumble-across-known-monster. The monsters don't seem to move much once out of LOS.

9

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 03, 2015, 07:49:59 AM »

Boom, 975 on Lvl4(?). This is super addictive - definitely not tedious (what I said above, wrong connotation), but certainly repetitive. I probably could have sacrificed my entire arsenal against those charged pink raichoos and not survived. Honestly no idea what I should have done.

P.S. Figured out the equivalent of DCSS' view (x,=,v), just hit entere .

10

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 03, 2015, 02:31:12 AM »

Oh, One last thing, this is important. Hunting the map for that last enemy to recruit/link can be dangerous: the map is big, there is no over-map to guide you (assuming you remember the position), and so I tend to mash the direction keys. Depending how dangerous the creature is, and because the UI lags behind the input/events just a little bit, I could accidentally blaze right past it and collect much damage, possibly even die (esp. ranged creatures). So I was thinking it would be nice if there was a version of O that keeps track of remaining previously-seen creatures and actively hunts them down (stopping when detected/in-LOS).

11

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 03, 2015, 02:09:04 AM »

Thanks for the response. Just got 493 on L3 but died on that level rather quickly. Was Lightning/Mind. Anyway:

#1: I can't reproduce the F11 problem anymore. I must've been pressing F11 like crazy during the menus. Thought I remembered otherwise but since I can't reproduce it all, ...

#2: Yeah I've been playing more and agree, fun stuff is more important. The game kind-of gets tedious rather quickly. (more below)

#3: A static link (pointing to latest release) works but increases bandwidth (not sure if you care about this). Otherwise a link that includes the date or version number would work perfectly.

Gameplay:

Interface: I really miss DCSS's describe functionality: x for look (you already have this), = for select monster tile, and v for describe (as opposed to the mouseover or leftclick). IMO anything that reduces mouse<->keyboard switching.

Spawning: Keep stairs well separated and/or monster spawn-sites well away from stairs. Once both L2->L3 (or L1->L2, not sure) where within five tiles of each other and surrounded by: 2xMalingee, 2xRaichoo, 2XWill-O'Wisp (I think) and possibly some other monsters. Well there definitely where more monsters after I experimentally evoked the stone of trouble (or something like that). Suffice to say I died quickly.

Gameplay: Tedious and too much kiting/stair-hopping. Plus something fishy with monster positions.

Fishy monster locations: Monsters often travel in pairs so I like using hypnotic gaze to separate them and deal with them one-at-a-time.
1] I freeze one, lure the other away, but when I close in I find that the second is only a few tiles behind the first
2] I freeze one, and when I return it has moved further than I can account for considering # of turns that have passed.
and unrelated to hypnotic gaze:
3] Monster position after leaving/re-entering LOS is unusual.

Tedious: Bear in mind I haven't passed L3 so possible gameplay changes. My opinion is that gameplay is mostly undifferentiated and focuses solely in which monsters to summon, train, and how to support them during combat. There aren't really any higher level tactics. You probably have more experience with this than me, but I'm comparing to DCSS which is of-course a high bar. I still love this game and will continue playing it. I have some suggestions, they might not make much sense and are inspired by DCSS, but:

1] More variable maps: (a small amount) of 1-width hallways
2] AOE map effects: gas-clouds, flammable forests
3] Spells that interact with map: collapse hallway (wand of digging), explode hallway/solid-creature (deconstruction), ignite flora
4] Differentiated monster personalities / AI. They all "feel" the same during combat or during chase (running away
5] Better monster-hunting-for-player when player leaves LOS. I don't think this game considers noise at all, so stealth-characters are excluded. IIRC all out-of-LOS monsters drawn to some of my fights were within LOS of my summons.
6] More control of summons (ie tell to follow "me" rather than waste turns dismissing/summoning)

I'm not sure how faithful to SMT series you are trying to be (never played), so the above may not be applicable. Perhaps this happens at higher levels, but in DCSS when you summon menagerie, or forest, or hydra, or horrible things, there is a real sense of satisfaction. You know your opponents are in for one heck of an ***-kicking.

Sorry, I hope this wasn't too harsh. You probably have a lot of "fun" features already planned that will flesh-out the game, so I don't mean to steal your thunder. This is still the most ingenious roguelike I've ever encountered.

Oh yeah one more thing - a nice touch. I really like the ratholes within the walls (the blinking red eyes). First time I steered clear away from them.

12

Early Dev / Re: Demon: A monster collection roguelike

« on: May 02, 2015, 06:35:30 PM »

What an awesome game! Attempting pure summoner in DCSS is a bad strategy, and my computer isn't powerful enough to emulate the SMT games, which I've always wanted to play. So thanks. First score... 193, but I'll get better. I do have three small wishes:

* F11 <toggle fullscreen> key usually doesn't work. This is the linux build.
* Fonts are the game's least appealing element. Unlike the tiles (look awesome btw, esp. floor & wall) which resize well, whenever the the game's size is changed the fonts become pixelated and unattractive. I like playing 1920x1200 @ fullscreen.
* Scriptable download link to most recent version, something I can but in a bash script to get the latest version iff one is available.