An Idea For Fixing Stair Scumming

[Red]

I think he's saying that stair scumming is simply a tactic players can use, and since there's no competition it doesn't matter if one player wants to use a "cheap" strategy to get ahead while another refuses to.

A big part of why I would personally like to see it fixed is that, in most cases, it just makes no freaking sense. I'm fine with unreality in my games (by focusing really hard, I can not die after a meteor hit me, I got frozen solid, lightning fried my organs, and four sharp rocks the size of a minivan hit me. Thanks Unstoppable!), but there are some places where I draw the line. In this case, it's because it violates common sense and game mechanics. I believe that a good roguelike should have enemies that are basically the same in function as the player, only with different (and often better) stats but a hell of a lot dumber. However, stairs are apparently this magical thing that only you know how to use, which gives you an option that nobody you face has.

Ragnrok's idea of letting monsters follow you once you've entered their floor would make this fine for me. Monsters now have the same options players have. That would probably be preferable to my ideas, actually, since it adds more options for monsters, rather than denying you options.

[supermini]

So, would they follow you onto the world map, then? If not then you're just adding additional annoying obstacles to running away from them, you are not preventing it.

If using the stairs to get away from monsters bothers you, don't do it. I don't see a need to punish players for getting a bad spawn near the stairs.

This whole talk of 'realism' when discussing game mechanics is completely pointless. It's not a simulation.

[donkatsu]

If using the stairs to get away from monsters bothers you, don't do it.

Ah, the old "X doesn't need to be fixed; if it bothers you don't do it." Oft-repeated by people who don't care about an issue and who, for some reason, want to make sure that it stays bad for the people who do care. But in that case, why bother fixing anything? Hey, it turns out Doombringers can prevent any enemy from ever taking action. Let's not fix that; after all, if it bothers you, you can just not do it. Hey, it turns out that you can get infinite money and artifacts by killing orc babies in the Breeding Pits. Let's just leave that in; if it bothers you, don't do it. Hey, if you carry around a bunch of staffs, all spells have zero cooldown, but you know what, that's fine. If it bothers you, don't do it.

This is a terrible argument and I don't know why anyone ever brings it up.

[supermini]

This is a terrible argument and I don't know why anyone ever brings it up.

If you are arguing for something in the game to be changed, the burden is on you to explain why this is problem for the game as opposed to just your feels. You can draw as many false analogies as you like with doombringers, the only response that I have to Red's "I don't like X because it feels unrealistic" is "then don't do it". I don't care if you dislike that argument.

[supermini]

Back to the topic of stairs:

I don't see the idea of teleporting randomly into something potentially worse if you get screwed at the entrance as better in any way. This can often happen in the alt maze where your only chance of escape is surviving 40 turns for the rod to activate. At this point in the game, it's quite easy to get screwed by the random number generator, and there is very little you can do about it. You are walking around with a radius 2 light source, you don't have a lot of talents or items, you can't take a lot of hits, and unless you lucked out or already have it as a class option, you probably don't have a good way to scout either. The early dungeons is where I find most use for it, and I think the current system where the mobs heal to full is fine.

ToME only gives you one entrance to a level, it's not like in DCSS where you can just take a different staircase. And you can't scout what's on the other side without actually entering, so I wouldn't like being punished for it.

[donkatsu]

If you are arguing for something in the game to be changed

I'm not; I don't feel strongly about stair scumming either way or else I would have made a topic about it by now.

the burden is on you to explain why this is problem for the game as opposed to just your feels.

Way to dismiss facts as feels for no reason other than that it inconveniently contradicts your feelings.

You can draw as many false analogies as you like with doombringers

It's not a false analogy. You're saying that if something is broken then there's no need to fix it because the player can just ignore it. Whether or not it's broken to begin with, that is not a good argument. All you're doing is saying that it's a false analogy with nothing to back it up, because you have nothing better to say.

I don't care if you dislike that argument.

Well as long as you're stooping to grade-school level debate, it doesn't matter that you don't care that you're wrong; you still are.

Edit: I just went back and realized that everything that you said in that post makes a lot more sense if you, for some reason, think that Red and I are the same person who are saying the same things. We are not. Saying "realism is a lost cause anyway" is a good argument. That's how you should respond to complaints about realism in ToME. Changing things just because one person feels a certain way about something is not a strong argument. Pretty much, I actually agree with you. HOWEVER, saying "if you don't like it, don't do it" is a hilariously flawed argument and it only undermines your own point. Never say that unless you want to look like a fool.

[Red]

Donkatsu, that was actually a horrible analogy. Because Doombringers were broken, a good strategy would be unavailable to anyone who didn't want to cheat. It removed important talents from the Doombringer by making them far, far more powerful than they should've been. Stair scumming is not integral or even a large part of anything in the game, so ignoring it does not give so much as a quarter the detriment the Doombringer bug did.

As for the realism arguement, I am of the belief realism should exist anywhere it does not detriment gameplay. I am certainly not agruing for ToME to become realistic-I like punching dragons to death-but I feel that stair scumming is a place where realism should be added because it is not to the detriment of gameplay.

I think that allowing monsters to follow you up stairs (and not my original or later suggestions) would improve gameplay. While you might still only have one entrance to a level, you can drop down, attract the monsters, then leave and have them follow in order to deal with them in a more controlled enviroment. Stairs are no longer a guaranteed escape like they used to be, but all that means is that you have to have an escape of your own, something every player should do regardless of stairs.

The only issue is going in from the world map. I'm not sure what to do there about monsters following you. They could crowd the entrance, so entering and leaving without clearing them from the immediate area makes you instantly ambushed when you re-enter, but that's something I know a lot of people wouldn't like. I'd be okay with it, since I dislike leaving levels unfinished for the most part, and it makes some amount of sense that monsters don't want to leave their homes. (Would make less sense in the Prides, where the Orcs would full well follow you, but maybe just spawn a Patrol after five turns on the entrance spot?)

[donkatsu]

Donkatus, that was actually a horrible analogy. Because Doombringers were broken, a good strategy would be unavailable to anyone who didn't want to cheat. It removed important talents from the Doombringer by making them far, far more powerful than they should've been. Stair scumming is not integral or even a large part of anything in the game, so ignoring it does not give so much as a quarter the detriment the Doombringer bug did.

So it's comparing the same concept but to a different degree, ie exactly what analogies do. A bad thing is a bad thing. You can argue that one thing is not as bad as the other but there is no way you can twist that into saying that a bad thing is not a bad thing. Also no one even used Hope Wanes before or after I pointed out the bug (one guide called the entire tree 'useless') so it's not like that had much of a practical effect either.

Anyway, forget about stair scumming for a second. I don't care. Like I said, for this specific issue, I agree, but that's not relevant. It's that line of reasoning that is toxic and awful and really really embarrassing to whoever makes it.

[Red]

Okay, let me point out the difference, where the analogy falls apart in the details.

The Hope Wanes bug makes the entire ability non-functional. Any ability past that on the tree is going to require one extra point to get that is completely wasted, any master bonuses to that tree are only good for three abilities, and since this is a unique tree the Doombringer loses out on something that it should have because no other class does.

Stair scumming is something anyone can do, and doing it or not doing is totally independent of all other actions. That's the difference, where the analogy falls apart. If you removed stair scumming, you removed stair scumming and that's all. But removing Hope Wanes as an option without actually fixing it hurts other choices as well.

To put it in one sentence, stair scumming is the kind of bad you can ignore without trouble, while Hope Wanes being broke causes badness even if ignored.

And finally, degree matters. Drinking a glass of water is good, drinking ten gallons isn't. That is exact same action, only in different degree, and it made a difference. You can say it's faulty reasoning on its own, and that's fair. My arguement should've been more complete, like what I put above. However, if you say my reasoning is wrong but you agree, perhaps it's worth thinking about whether or not that line of reasoning is somewhat effective. It might not be the cause of why it's right, but if it gives you a correct answer that you can confirm (or just as importantly, refute) with a little more thought, it's not toxic, it's just a tool.

[supermini]

Edit: I just went back and realized that everything that you said in that post makes a lot more sense if you, for some reason, think that Red and I are the same person who are saying the same things. We are not.

My original post was in reply to Red's previous, maybe I should have quoted him. My reply was in context of the fact that I was originally replying to Red's argument. You dragged one sentence out of the context of the argument because it triggered you or something.

That's how you should respond to complaints about realism in ToME.

Who died and made you the argument police?

Pretty much, I actually agree with you. HOWEVER, saying "if you don't like it, don't do it" is a hilariously flawed argument and it only undermines your own point. Never say that unless you want to look like a fool.

So if you agree with me are you just arguing for the sake of arguing? Calling me a fool is a nice touch. It certainly fortifies your own argument above grade-school level debate.

You can call it hilariously flawed all you want, I consider "if you don't like it don't do it" to be a legitimate argument in this case.

Running up the stairs has legitimate applications because of other choices in the game's design (impossibility to scout the other side of the stairs and limitation to one entrance per level). If you don't like abusing it, then don't. I dislike digging tunnels because I find it too cheesy for my tastes. I also recognize that digging has other useful and less cheesy applications in the game. If I was asking to make all levels undiggable because digging tunnels is tedious, I would be asking to change a major game feature because of my personal dislike of one cheesy aspect of it, which I can easily avoid by not doing it.

I'm not really interested in arguing about this particular point. If you want to discuss stair dancing, fine. If you just want a pointless argument, find some other victim.

[cctobias]

After skimming the various replies I didn't see this clarified so forgive if I repeat something.

Although a previous poster is correct that zig-zag tunnels allow safer 1-to-1 engagement they also provide a secondary effect that is more germaine to this topic.

Zig-zag tunnels confuse the AI of the game. In general, if you ensconce yourself in a zig-zag tunnel about 5 deep you can rest safely just about anywhere. This is very important in Madness because of the Hunter! buff since everything on the level will get telepathy vs you and actively track you down.

Since High Peak has no stairs your only real option for resting safely is zig-zag tunnels on Madness due to hunter buff.


So currently any change to stair scumming would just shift the necessity of zig-zag tunnels from madness onto other difficulties. Now keep in mind that zig-zag tunnel are clearly superior to stair scumming as they allow you to rest without the health bar reset a stair scum provides. So any "good" player would actually do zig-zag tunnels to be optimal, its usually not really worth the pain in the ass on normal or nightmare. But strictly speaking if you want to "be all you can be" you would never stair scum and on dig zig-zag tunnels.

Anyway on my madness winner, since he used Unstoppable in every fight, he could not have won without zig-zag tunnels, since he needed time and stamina to redo unstoppable about 3-ish times per high peak level. Now I did stair scum in a number of cases, especially prides, usually this was because I did not feel like digging but in some specific cases its because you can't dig (some prides).

In theory, since there is no Hunter! buff, on Insane and below you can simply dig a farilyr large zig-zag tunnel at the start of every level before anything sees you and never need to stair scum. In fact you would have something better than stairs.

Now I will warn you occasionally I have had something figure out how to get into a zig-zag tunnel, so its not 100% reliable. But its reliable enough to win Madness so its fine really. Most creatures just get kind of stuck outside your zig-zag tunnle entrance as long as you are far back inside before they can really track you. Their pathing + telepathy just doesn't work right.

[donkatsu]

The Hope Wanes bug makes the entire ability non-functional. Any ability past that on the tree is going to require one extra point to get that is completely wasted, any master bonuses to that tree are only good for three abilities, and since this is a unique tree the Doombringer loses out on something that it should have because no other class does.

Again, Hope Wanes was never a big deal for most people, and plenty of classes have useless talents. Also it's the last talent in its tree. Also also, if you're forced to pick a single example out of a long list, I'd say you're losing the forest for the trees.

To put it in one sentence, stair scumming is the kind of bad you can ignore without trouble, while Hope Wanes being broke causes badness even if ignored.

The difference is inconsequential. Things that "you can ignore without trouble" also get fixed because they're still design flaws. They may not be a priority, sure, but they're still flaws.

And finally, degree matters.

Not in this case.

So if you agree with me are you just arguing for the sake of arguing?

Nah. I'm arguing because I think there are long term benefits to doing so that extend beyond the scope of just stair scumming. I attack this particular issue because it has slowed progress on no-brainer changes in the past and I think it will continue to do so in the future as long as regular posters such as yourself think it makes sense.

Calling me a fool is a nice touch.

I agree; returning like for like does have a satisfying poetic beauty to it. Hammurabi's code is pretty solid for little things like tone.

Running up the stairs has legitimate applications because of other choices in the game's design (impossibility to scout the other side of the stairs and limitation to one entrance per level). If you don't like abusing it, then don't. I dislike digging tunnels because I find it too cheesy for my tastes. I also recognize that digging has other useful and less cheesy applications in the game. If I was asking to make all levels undiggable because digging tunnels is tedious, I would be asking to change a major game feature because of my personal dislike of one cheesy aspect of it, which I can easily avoid by not doing it.

This would be a valid point if anybody anywhere mentioned making it so that you can't go up stairs. No one has suggested that. What exactly are you responding to?

Yeah, stair scumming is not really an issue. This topic sprouted from a discussion where certain mechanics make it so that you want to heal an enemy, like getting back vim or whatever. Also you can't tunnel when you first enter a level until you clear out that area. These two things are what stair scumming has over tunneling.

[supermini]

Calling me a fool is a nice touch.

I agree; returning like for like does have a satisfying poetic beauty to it. Hammurabi's code is pretty solid for little things like tone.

I'm not interested in bickering. We're in agreement that running up the stairs is not an issue, so you and me have nothing more to discuss.