AI improvements/shoving feedback

[SageAcrin]

In RC1, several changes were made to AI elements. Most of these seem fairly minor and benign, but one stands out.

Namely, target passing. As near as I can tell, every single enemy can pass, to every other enemy within a certain(ten square?) radius, your current location. And then that enemy can pass to another enemy within the same radius, and so on. (I think. I have not looked at the code here-this is my guess based on observation.)

I think this was restricted to elites before? I'm not sure, not having looked at the code-I am working based on gameplay based observation(which, I feel, is the more important part of this).

The net result of this has been, in my observation, a massive upping of the earlygame difficulty for physical classes in certain areas. To a lesser degree, Kor'pul and Norgos, which tend to have pits of enemies and fairly decent quantities of enemies. To a much greater degree, Trollmire, which has large quantities of enemies in a fairly open area.

With my recent Bulwark (http://te4.org/characters/10195/tome/53 ... 2ba9725d5a )-the first character I've seriously ran since these changes-I have literally seen 75% or so of Trollmire greet me at the door of Trollmire 2. This is perhaps a little ridiculous for a massively open starting area. I somehow doubt I've seen the most extreme end of this.

With later areas, the biggest effect seems to be in Dreadfell-an area that probably didn't need an upgrade, and certainly didn't need it in the way it has gotten it. I'm not sure if this is an element of target passing or just AI changes, but currently, any enemy seems to be able to open a door out of one of the large pit areas (That is, the big boxes solidly packed of enemies, of random size rectangular/square shapes) and path to you. The dungeon was kinda not designed for this, and I really am glad that said current character got a soft draw for Dreadfell 9. I have seen 6x6 pits on that floor-that's not really a reasonable thing to deal with while also killing the rest of the floor's enemies and fighting Master.

This is mostly punishing physical classes-classes which had some of the weakest early gameplay, often. There's also some oddities with enemies intelligently passing info to enemies around multiple corners, to an enemy behind you, creating situations where you get sandwiched in a hallway-again, not really something that the game was designed well for.

This is being currently compounded by shoving, which basically takes the effect and triples the impact-now, chokepoints in Trollmire essentially can't exist. I'm also not sure I see what it's gaining the game-tactical decisions are the exact same, they just make your tactical options at a given time worse. The net result for me is that I just teleport more...and let the overly zealous pathing find me in a better spot.

Now, I'm a pretty good player, I like to think, and as I said, I'm running a Bulwark-one with spectacular equipment luck. I haven't had any deaths...yet, though I had some close calls that were in fact mostly due to the new, more aggressive AI compounding a few close calls(There were times in Dark Crypt I could not shake the entire floor from chasing me, due to the highly packed enemy density combined with the small area, and in Tempest Peak Urkis used the target passing to know where I was before he could see me, then sat in normal range and intelligently sniped me from outside of lite radius.).

So, this is mostly theoretical on my part, right now. I can't point to a spot I'm sure would have killed X character, but I can't say I find either effect positive at all, right now, and I'm afraid it's a step backwards for physical class/magical class balance, which was pretty much good before this. It makes beginner areas more dangerous to new players and makes it harder to get more odd or poor-in-the-earlygame builds going.

But again, this is mostly theoretical for me. Therefore, I'm curious if anyone else has noticed the same problem. I think I saw supermini mentioning not enjoying the effect(not sure, though, don't want to put words in anyone's mouth) and I've seen a couple of friends of mine unhappy with it-that seems like enough to want to open a dialogue about it.

tl;dr-Have you been getting swarmed to death lately, in RC1/2? Or have you been getting swarmed and cutting through them and enjoy the effect? Because you've probably been getting swarmed.

[Torokasi]

I would be one of the friends getting annoyed by this.

I am not good at Rogues! Marauders, sure, I've cleared one, but Rogues? Not so much. But before RC1 I was definitely getting them about to Dreadfell. Now I'm having issues getting past -Trollmire- with the new swarming/shoving setup.

I've had losses with Berserkers in Trollmire this version (compounded by a mild OOD - Weaver Young teleported me right into the middle of a fifteen-monster swarm I was trying to escape, but I was beginning to be flanked by the shoving pushing Wolves and similar around me).

Part of the major issue, to me, is that this does basically fundamentally change how a player has to react or position due to older stonewalling positions no longer working - I've had a case where an earlygame vault (four honeytrees + bears) I'm used to clearing with patience and some kiting managed to kill me immediately because a position I recognized as an old choke spot got me pinned and killed immediately as the shoving knocked an enemy into my escape route.

And if this is bad for me, and I've cleared, I don't want to imagine coming to this as a new player and getting blindsided by all this - especially in Trollmire, which features it the worst.

This'd be great stuff to have in an addon - or even as an optional difficulty level, perhaps merged with Nightmare or Insane, as it does notably up challenge in a non-stat-based way, which is honestly neat. I don't honestly think this should be default and, between keeping it or removing it entirely, I'd honestly rather see it out, and definitely before V1 hits. :/

[greycat]

How early are you guys doing Trollmire? I don't go to Trollmire 2 until I've cleared at least one, possibly two, other tier 1 dungeons. (For races unfortunate enough to start in Trollmire, I clear the first level -- because you start there, and therefore you have to -- and then I go to Norgos' Lair.)

[SageAcrin]

I think I did it after Norgos, this run.

I wasn't in any danger-Bulwark.

The problem was that I was in less danger in Heart of the Gloom, Norgos' Domain and Kor'Pul-even though the latter two had clearly improved due to this effect(Heart of the Gloom's about the same mostly, or was for me), and only very marginally less danger in Rhaloren Camp and Scintillating Caves...two areas that I've seen many experienced players say to stay away from as your first dungeon.

Requiring people to truck over to Norgos with every single character is bad medicine, just as a start here-and not every class is fully rolling at L5, for sure. Again, I'm worried about new players with this. At least Scint Caves has the excuse of Shalore being a mage oriented race, theoretically-mages don't have a problem with it, only melee characters.

(And that effect has improved with the Rush changes, thinking on. I wonder if I really would find it harder to start in than Trollmire, now. I don't play Shalore a lot.)

[Torokasi]

Depends on the character! With the Berserker example, though, I had cleared Norgos' Lair. With the Cornac Rogue, I tried doing the first area of Trollmire and died.

Part of this is, again, learned behavior - I tend to do Trollmire as one of my first two dungeons, if not my first dungeon, and I'm pretty distinctly unfond of having to duck out of -any- dungeon and have to come back to it, especially a starter dungeon. The thing there is, since Trollmire's the dungeon a good chunk of starting players will see, making optimal play to leave it and come back after Norgos and... hell, Heart of the Gloom? -That- being the next easiest one is problematic in and of itself.

Basically making Trollmire a trap to avoid is the sort of thing I'd expect out of most other roguelikes, but not ToME. Presenting that as one of the first things a new player sees seems awfully off-putting.

[XLambda]

This'd be great stuff to have in an addon - or even as an optional difficulty level, perhaps merged with Nightmare or Insane, as it does notably up challenge in a non-stat-based way, which is honestly neat. I don't honestly think this should be default and, between keeping it or removing it entirely, I'd honestly rather see it out, and definitely before V1 hits. :/

This. 'Nuff said.

[Sradac]

My only thoughts on enemies switching places with enemies:

Honey Trees being able to move is just wrong

[Dwindlehop]

I really like the changes. I felt like the lack of shoving & target passing was really eliminating the need for tactics in a lot of the early game. Instead, early game success was all about one's strategy with one's char build.

This is a good opportunity for stealth to get a more prominent place in the game balance, and maybe Trollmire/physical classes need a little touch-up. But having to think in Trollmire instead of barging through on autopilot is a good thing.

[SageAcrin]

Er, they still autopath to people under the effect of Stealth, it's just slower.

From what I recall hearing, anyways. Also, that's two classes.

Unless you mean stealth as in avoiding enemies. At which point I don't know how you do that in Trollmire. Would you please share?

Regardless, I actually found that, after the initial massive brawl, I usually had to think less, since there was no chance of major amounts of enemies for the most part, after the initial area. I've found that it's actually sucking some of the challenge out of areas like Daikara, since I can engage all the enemies in hallways, for example.

I'm not sure about the effects of shoving in a vacuum right now. I know it's mostly just made me back up more in practice, which seems to just make things take longer, but right now it's compounding with the weirdness in pathing to produce odd problems...

[NEHZ]

What bothers me the most about this with melee classes is the advanced speed enemies have: you walk backwards, an enemy walks after you, then gets shoved. ie, it walked 2 tiles. Or it gets shoved and attacks. In corridors of 2 wide, you cannot escape the flood.

The intel effect annoyed me the most in Deakara. First an unending group of enemies kept comming. Eventually it slowed down, for a long time it was: enemy comes, I kill the enemy, new enemy comes into view, repeat. That was annoying and boring. After that about 80% of the level was empty.

[XLambda]

Sorry, but this is just a hard nerf to melee classes, especially early game. And I thought we didn't need to nerf melee classes. Not that hard, anyway.

Really, any time you're fighting more than one enemy, especially in a corridor, you are being sandwiched. Back when I started out, we were told "Fight in corridors, it's easier and you have an escape option." Right now it's basically useless to do any kind of tactical positioning because you'll be sandwiched in a few turns anyway.

The superior pro gamers might like that, but I miss the days I could take on large masses of enemies one on one.

Also, the target passing, as others have pointed out, turns many levels into one or two big brawls and then mopping up what few enemies are left. I am fine with target passing as a technique but it needs a heavy nerf.

[Dwindlehop]

I am fine with target passing as a technique but it needs a heavy nerf.

This sounds right to me, and is sort of what I was alluding to when I mentioned stealth. Target passing should not be 100% accurate. An attribute such as stealth could be beefed up (and made viable for more classes) to affect the degree of target passing. Or perhaps you think stealth is fine as-is but some other mechanism needs to be in place, such as a "perception" attribute for enemies. Bears and snakes could have a low perception. Orcs could have a high perception, and so on.

What I am really thinking of is ToME 2, and Maia in particular. That race was hard mode because it effectively gave the behavior we are seeing right now. However, the mechanic (or something that appeared very similar to the player) was present for every race. The effect was just downtuned.

[darkgod]

Seriously people, you're getting all exited over a *bug*

Have you seen me try to make the game less fun very often ?

[SageAcrin]

Sorry.

Though, in fairness, partially I wanted to see how people felt about shoving with this, too, since I know that wasn't a bug.

[NEHZ]

Sometimes you don't know beforehand if it makes things less fun. If I thought you were making it less fun on purpose I wouldn't bother to leave feedback