Preventing stairs cheating

[Mithril]

my question is - why not push it one step further? completely respawning all monsters on the level would eliminate mithril's concern of players repeatedly attempting to kill the boss under controlled circumstances, as they would have to track down the boss again each time.
it would also make the retreat to the previous level a non-guaranteed escape, as there would be new monsters to deal with on the previously cleared level. and, presumably, it might even cut down on load time a bit.

i see little advantage to having monsters save their locations on each level, even if they heal completely when the player leaves.

You mean vaults and such would be repopulated also? Regardless, looks like an interesting idea. Monsters should be healed also.

[Grey]

i see little advantage to having monsters save their locations on each level, even if they heal completely when the player leaves.

It prevents stair-grinding for xp and items, the sort of thing the *bands are infamous for. Personally I don't even like the levels resetting after x turns.

What problems are not solved by allowing monsters to use the stairs as player can do? What abuses are introduced? A design decision seems to have been that players and monster should function similarly so why not regarding stairs?

See boss near stairs, cast inferno, pop up stairs, let inferno recharge, pop down, cast inferno again, pop back up - repeat several times whilst the boss is several squares away and he'll be dead before he gets near you. Similarly pop down stairs, use ranged attacks, pop up and recharge/heal, keep repeating. Or just as possible, smack boss about a bit on other side of level, teleport away when injured, use the stairs to heal, then pop down again and teleport back over. The boss doesn't need to be at the stairs for them to be abused, but it does need to be at the stairs to follow.

An abuse added is that of group splitting. A group of monsters are heading in your direction - wait until one is next to you, pop up the stairs, kill it alone, heal up, head down, lure one more up, etc. You might not have been able to defeat them together, but one by one it's easy.

I have no problem with players and monsters both being able to use the stairs. But to really even things out monsters should regenerate when the player is away, just as the player does. Statuses should disappear, spells on the level should dissipate, cooldowns should reduce and resources should replete. As it stands the player has ultimate control over the passing of time on a level, and *this* is the true source of stairs abuse.

[teachu2die]

It prevents stair-grinding for xp and items, the sort of thing the *bands are infamous for. Personally I don't even like the levels resetting after x turns.

items wouldn't repopulate, just the monsters. (i just gathered you meant items from monster drops - i still don't think thats a very big deal).
and you receive nominal XP from monsters under your level, so you generally just waste your time and energy by attempting to grind. and if one really wants to grind, it's easy enough to just walk a few squares on the main map and return to the first floor of the dungeon (i should know, i've done it). having every level repopulate doesn't really further encourage XP grinding, and it would eliminate most possible forms of stair abuse.

[teachu2die]

You mean vaults and such would be repopulated also? Regardless, looks like an interesting idea. Monsters should be healed also.

vaults would probably not repopulate, due to potential for scumming, as well as potential extreme difficulty (although mayyybe that would be interesting).
i was suggesting that all normal mobs and bosses would be recreated from scratch, an entirely randomly generated new set of enemies every time one enters a level.

[Mithril]

What problems are not solved by allowing monsters to use the stairs as player can do? What abuses are introduced? A design decision seems to have been that players and monster should function similarly so why not regarding stairs?

See boss near stairs, cast inferno, pop up stairs, let inferno recharge, pop down, cast inferno again, pop back up - repeat several times whilst the boss is several squares away and he'll be dead before he gets near you. Similarly pop down stairs, use ranged attacks, pop up and recharge/heal, keep repeating. Or just as possible, smack boss about a bit on other side of level, teleport away when injured, use the stairs to heal, then pop down again and teleport back over. The boss doesn't need to be at the stairs for them to be abused, but it does need to be at the stairs to follow.

An abuse added is that of group splitting. A group of monsters are heading in your direction - wait until one is next to you, pop up the stairs, kill it alone, heal up, head down, lure one more up, etc. You might not have been able to defeat them together, but one by one it's easy.

I have no problem with players and monsters both being able to use the stairs. But to really even things out monsters should regenerate when the player is away, just as the player does. Statuses should disappear, spells on the level should dissipate, cooldowns should reduce and resources should replete. As it stands the player has ultimate control over the passing of time on a level, and *this* is the true source of stairs abuse.

You seem to assume that monsters following the player only works if the monster stands next to stairs when the player is leaving. That is not what I am advocating (which in turn was the idea of someone else earlier in this thread). The idea is that when the player uses the stairs the distance to the stairs are calculated for all monsters who are moving towards the player. Then the monsters appear on the new level on different turns according to this distance and their speed. So the stairs just become another space for the monster and all monsters who hunted the player when he exited will follow him eventually to new level. Now, if the stairs are in a narrow space in the new level, say in a dead end in a corridor, then there may not be enough space for all monsters to appear, in which case they will just queue, waiting for an empty space next to the stairs or, on the stairs space itself, to appear.

This eliminates all the problems you claim as well as stairs cheating. As well as treating monsters and players equally.

[teachu2die]

You seem to assume that monsters following the player only works if the monster stands next to stairs when the player is leaving. That is not what I am advocating (which in turn was the idea of someone else earlier in this thread). The idea is that when the player uses the stairs the distance to the stairs are calculated for all monsters who are moving towards the player. Then the monsters appear on the new level on different turns according to this distance and their speed. So the stairs just become another space for the monster and all monsters who hunted the player when he exited will follow him eventually to new level. Now, if the stairs are in a narrow space in the new level, say in a dead end in a corridor, then there may not be enough space for all monsters to appear, in which case they will just queue, waiting for an empty space next to the stairs or, on the stairs space itself, to appear.

This eliminates all the problems you claim as well as stairs cheating. As well as treating monsters and players equally.

outside of the fact that im not sure if it's really a good idea to begin with, as its riddled with potential problems, its also probably extremely difficult to code, and potentially very CPU intensive.
do enemies only follow you if they are in your LOS? if not, so the game has to keep track of the positions and movement of all enemies on one floor, as well as all enemies on the previous floor - and maybe even the next floor as well?
and then in the case that grey outlined - you inferno a boss and then flee to the previous level. does the boss still take the inferno damage on those squares while you are on the other level?
what happens when an enemy takes the stairs up while you are standing on the staircase?
even if it does turn out to be reasonably easy to code - is this actually the solution that is wanted? it means that enemies are going to be following characters all over the place. classes without regular phase door access are going to be harshly penalized, and escaping that drastically OOD greater wyrm is going to be even more of a hassle. bosses in general are very dangerous, and its usually hard enough to escape as is. you really expect a player to survive multiple floors (some of which will be fully repopulated) while in flight from something like the greater mummy?? it's pretty much a death sentence...
i really don't think the stair following is the best solution in this case....

[Mithril]

You seem to assume that monsters following the player only works if the monster stands next to stairs when the player is leaving. That is not what I am advocating (which in turn was the idea of someone else earlier in this thread). The idea is that when the player uses the stairs the distance to the stairs are calculated for all monsters who are moving towards the player. Then the monsters appear on the new level on different turns according to this distance and their speed. So the stairs just become another space for the monster and all monsters who hunted the player when he exited will follow him eventually to new level. Now, if the stairs are in a narrow space in the new level, say in a dead end in a corridor, then there may not be enough space for all monsters to appear, in which case they will just queue, waiting for an empty space next to the stairs or, on the stairs space itself, to appear.

This eliminates all the problems you claim as well as stairs cheating. As well as treating monsters and players equally.

outside of the fact that im not sure if it's really a good idea to begin with, as its riddled with potential problems, its also probably extremely difficult to code, and potentially very CPU intensive.
do enemies only follow you if they are in your LOS? if not, so the game has to keep track of the positions and movement of all enemies on one floor, as well as all enemies on the previous floor - and maybe even the next floor as well?
and then in the case that grey outlined - you inferno a boss and then flee to the previous level. does the boss still take the inferno damage on those squares while you are on the other level?
what happens when an enemy takes the stairs up while you are standing on the staircase?
even if it does turn out to be reasonably easy to code - is this actually the solution that is wanted? it means that enemies are going to be following characters all over the place. classes without regular phase door access are going to be harshly penalized, and escaping that drastically OOD greater wyrm is going to be even more of a hassle. bosses in general are very dangerous, and its usually hard enough to escape as is. you really expect a player to survive multiple floors (some of which will be fully repopulated) while in flight from something like the greater mummy?? it's pretty much a death sentence...
i really don't think the stair following is the best solution in this case....

No, you only need to keep track of one level. You only do the calculation once for the monsters that are tracking the player when the player leaves a level. If the monster is 6 spaces away from the stairs when the player exits that monster will appear 6 turn later on the new floor. You ignore obstacles and so on between the monster and the stairs for this purpose. Thereafter you ignore the old floor.

If you are standing on the stairs down the following monsters cannot appear on that space but can appear on the spaces immediately next to it. If not all monsters can appear then they will queue untll they can as per my last post.

You will lose most monsters if you are out of their line of sight. So if you use stair and then a PD scroll to get out of sight from the stairs, then monsters will stop tracking you and just stand at the stairs. Using a PD on an already explored level should be relatively safe with the current monster repopulation system.

The big exception here being bosses who usually seem to have the ability to track and follow you across the whole level even if you are out of sight. Yes, here there can possibly be situations where the boss will chase you over the whole dungeon until you reach the wilderness map. But as I said, such epic flights can be fund, and if you attack the boss you should be prepared, at the very least with a bunch of PD/teleportation scrolls.