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.
