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[G-Flex]

Yeah, but he's acting like it's some kind of balance concern, despite it being an aspect of most games ever made.

[beorn080]

Yeah, but he's acting like it's some kind of balance concern, despite it being an aspect of most games ever made.

True, but in Roguelikes, options are what makes them unique. Giving critters like mara unique abilities that you can't ever replicate, even when your throwing around spells that literally reshape the world, doesn't make too much sense. A level 9 summon/conjuration spell, Shadow Self, would be an interesting addition to end game tactical options.

[vaaern]

Ok, I managed to kill sigmund on level 3 orso, then getting killed by orc priest...

[Akigagak]

Yeah, but he's acting like it's some kind of balance concern, despite it being an aspect of most games ever made.

True, but in Roguelikes, options are what makes them unique. Giving critters like mara unique abilities that you can't ever replicate, even when your throwing around spells that literally reshape the world, doesn't make too much sense. A level 9 summon/conjuration spell, Shadow Self, would be an interesting addition to end game tactical options.

Not only Spells, but other things.

Berserk is just one fucking huge example. The enemies never suffer the drawbacks, can spam it like crazy as soon as it ends, and get a bigger speed buff out of it.

[Vorthon]

I need suggestions for a character build. Doesn't have to be viable/efficient, just fun.

Ideas?

[Angel Of Death]

I need suggestions for a character build. Doesn't have to be viable/efficient, just fun.

Ideas?

Deep dwarf berserker.

[Soadreqm]

OgTm.

Anyway, most games don't have an even playing field between the AI critters and the player. In Crawl Stone Soup, the player can gain levels, collect an impressive inventory of items, use stairs and make tactical choices about what to do next. The monsters can use spells and abilities for free without tracking MP or magical contamination, and get various special abilities without having to acquire them in the dungeon, including some abilities that are not available to the player at all. They also outnumber the player infinity to one. I don't think this is inherently a bad thing, but that's just me.

[DJ]

Inconsistent rules are a lazy way to balance games. If your AI has to cheat, well, maybe you should try making a non-shitty AI. I especially hate this in RTS games, where they conjure resources out of thin air.

[Soadreqm]

Speaking of resources out of thin air, the monsters also don't need to eat.

[Niveras]

It's a high minded goal, but it's a lot easier to say "create a non-shitty AI that doesn't need to cheat" than it is to implement. Even if we ever do get to that point, developers may still need to make concessions about balance in player/enemy just for the sake of gameplay. If the DCSS was as intelligent as a human:

You would be virtually unable to flee from a powerful enemy, or an enemy that you are not ready to fight, without use of tools (high speed, blink, teleport, perhaps invis). You can't just use swiftness and run up the stairs when the enemy is 2 tiles away to save yourself. He saw you and he's going to follow you, unlike now when he's prevented from going up unless he followed you up from an adjacent tile.

The enemy will spend its time using its strongest action possible, until such resources are exhausted. Priests and spellcasters won't spend their time idling with empty spells, they will be spamming their strongest spell on you all the time (until they run out of mana). Uniques with wands will blow through those until they can't any longer. The exception to this would be if the AI feels it has more intelligent action to take (maybe buffing their allies or using a spell with a longer range). Undead would be pretty much screwed, because dispel undead is the only thing they'd hit you with, if they have it. Breaking LoS and letting them come to you won't help - if they were as intelligent as a human, they'd not just follow you around the corner, they may circle around. Even if they did you still have to contend with their most powerful ability, which is likely to be wands/dispel/smite/etc even in melee.

The goal of the game, as far as the AI is concerned, is to kill the player. Since the game ends when that happens, they aren't bound by the same rules as far as resource conservation. An intelligent human playing in this role will dump everything they can at you, because they win if you die, but they're 'just' a hurdle for you - you have more to do after.

Anyway, a truly intelligent AI is a nice goal for a computer game, but needs of compelling or fun gameplay trumps that.

[Soadreqm]

If the monsters were intelligent, they'd actively guard the stairways and call reinforcements from deeper dungeon levels. Or just plant some oklobs in the entrance vault on D:1. That'd keep most adventurers out.

Well, a roguelike where the enemies used intelligent squad tactics sounds pretty cool. You could give the player some superpowers to compensate. Smart roguelike AI sounds difficult, but probably not impossible. There's less situations you want it to be able to react to than there would be in a strategy game.

[Angel Of Death]

I once got killed by an oklob on level one.

[Biag]

Crawl just got a bit more popular.

[lemon10]

You read that too? Nice.
Gotta say though, the orc wizards are pansies. The goddamn orc priests are much worse.

[nenjin]

Crawl already hits you with overwhelming numbers of opponents, who stack stuff (summoning) to make your life hell.

If they actually applied some intelligence, like hunting down players in the Dungeon, Crawl would be 4x more frustrating than it already is, for people who actually want to see farther than the Vaults.