Improving Trash Enemies

[Forger101]

Trash Enemies being any non-rare that poses no threat whatsoever like; rats, wolves, ants, molds, basically any low level enemy. It was proposed on IRC to make more enemies spawn in packs while also bringing in more synergy between enemies.

My question for people on the forums is what enemies do you consider worthwhile keeping and improving and which ones should just be dropped if any.

Feel free to discuss more options for improving trash enemies

Code: Select all

Improving Trash Enemies
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Wolves
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Replaced standard wolf spawns with an alpha version. Alpha version spawns with a group of current wolves and when is alive will buff the group.
Spawn density for the level will be decreased.

Bears
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Now gain attack speed based on a percentage of their missing health, numbers still being tweaked

Rats/Mice
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Temporarily removed for now, ideas are still welcome to help improve them instead of just removing them.

Molds
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On death explodes into spores with damage types dependent on color.

Enemies that are just removed
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Foxes, Giant Rabbits

All ideas listed are subject to change

You can test the changes by going to this Git Repository

[Delmuir]

I rather like the idea of critters and so-called "trash" enemies spawning in groups and having a "leader" of sorts.

I'm not sure adding elites or rares is ideal but perhaps each group could have one that is slightly higher level… maybe +2 or +3. Just have one critter who is slightly stronger than the others.

[Effigy]

I don't know that every enemy needs to be a serious threat. If that's what someone wants, they should play on Insane or Madness. Making them spawn in larger groups sounds reasonable, but then you end up indirectly buffing classes with lots of AoE and nerfing the others.

[Atarlost]

I don't know that every enemy needs to be a serious threat. If that's what someone wants, they should play on Insane or Madness. Making them spawn in larger groups sounds reasonable, but then you end up indirectly buffing classes with lots of AoE and nerfing the others.

Very much this. Most people find "games" that operate at a persistent high level of difficulty stressful and good games correspondingly are designed to have breathers. That's a little less critical in a turn based game, but having both easy and difficult fights still makes a more fun game than one with nothing but difficult fights.

We already have the troop leader dynamic with dragons and orc wyrmics and some horrors. We don't need it on everything.

[edge2054]

I don't know that every enemy needs to be a serious threat. If that's what someone wants, they should play on Insane or Madness. Making them spawn in larger groups sounds reasonable, but then you end up indirectly buffing classes with lots of AoE and nerfing the others.

Very much this. Most people find "games" that operate at a persistent high level of difficulty stressful and good games correspondingly are designed to have breathers. That's a little less critical in a turn based game, but having both easy and difficult fights still makes a more fun game than one with nothing but difficult fights.

We already have the troop leader dynamic with dragons and orc wyrmics and some horrors. We don't need it on everything.

The counter to this argument is that popcorn mobs can be easy to the point that you get into a rhythm with killing them and your guard is down when you come across a difficult encounter.

I'm not saying I don't see your point or that it's not valid. Just that there's two sides to the argument and there might be a better middle ground then what we have now.

For instance. Wolves could be a prime candidate for pack behavior. Currently they're essentially meat sponges that you don't worry about unless they're blocking a more difficult mob. If they came in packs they could offer pack buffs when attacking, howls that attracted other wolves, and a lot of more interesting behavior.

With some number balancing this more interesting behavior doesn't necessarily equate to turning Trollmire into Lake Nur level of difficulty and can actually prepare new players through direct game experience for more difficult parts of the game, such as Lake Nur.

[Davion Fuxa]

Can't say I think much of this idea. Spawning more enemies might make dungeons start to feel more cluttered. Right now dungeons feel populated enough.

[HousePet]

Spawn amounts are easily changed.

I wouldn't mind more structured groups.

[Forger101]

I completely understand the concern with difficulty balance. The change is more focused on bettering the general flow of the game. Right now as it stands 90% of encounters end in about 1-2 turns(totally not accurate numbers, just imo). You could theoretically use a macro to win every fight with a non-rare/elite. Either the general amount of uninteresting enemies could be reduced or we could just make fights more interesting.

Pack spawning wouldn't have to change total level population, it would just increase the amount of enemies encountered at a time. edge recently redid the chronomancer starting zone, making all the enemy encounters more interesting without crazily spiking difficulty level(I'm not going into the details of the remade zone, it is available to test in git if anyone is interested).

I'm hopeful that this thread will spawn more ideas on improving 'trash' mobs.

[donkatsu]

I don't know that every enemy needs to be a serious threat. If that's what someone wants, they should play on Insane or Madness. Making them spawn in larger groups sounds reasonable, but then you end up indirectly buffing classes with lots of AoE and nerfing the others.

I think it's telling that even on Insane or Madness, not every enemy is a threat. Not even close. In fact, I'd say >50% of encounters are still brainless. The trash mobs are still as boring and trashy as ever.

That change that Housepet did with giving the low level critters some talents was a great move. Some of them, particularly the ones that rely on melee but have no combat accuracy or weapon mastery, just need some way of doing more than 0 damage.

[HousePet]

That wasn't me.

[Razakai]

The biggest offsite complaint I hear about ToME's difficulty is that 90% of the mobs are filler, so when you finally meet something dangerous you're completely off guard and die in 2 turns. A more consistent level of difficulty would, if anything, make things easier. Especially for newer players who are often the first to be caught off guard after killing a dozen bears then running into one thats an oozemancer rare.

As Edge mentioned, this wouldn't mean massively cluttering the zones. In fact I'd be inclined to make the zones less cluttered, but filled with more meaningful encounters. Rather than autoexplore/bumping your way through 20 worms/rats/wolves, have a smaller number of stronger mobs or packs.

This doesn't mean that fighting a bear is now going to be on par with a dreaming horror, but bringing those mobs up slightly would be good for the game. They'll still fit the role of giving an easier encounter to pace players, but without posing absolutely 0 threat.

So, suggestions:

- Wolves should definitely be pack type animals. I'd give them a stacking buff of some sort based on proximity to wolves for sure. Other ideas might be a special attack only usable when another wolf is adjacent, and their howl buffing wolves/making them aware of the player
- Worms are pretty worthless in general. You could maybe make it so that if several worms get adjacent to eachother they form into a single, far more dangerous worm mass, kinda like the slime creatures in Crawl
- Snakes are pretty strong early game, but later on they're 0 threat. Should really be removed from the spawn tables after level 20 or so, or make the high end snakes like Anaconda/Mamba a threat
- Like above, Bears might be vaguely dangerous at level 4 on a melee, but later on they're a worthless blob of hp except for getting a lucky stun. Remove from high level spawn tables or make the high end bears better
- Vampires are really disappointing enemies, considering how they're relatively rare and their flavour text describes them as powerful. They should probably get a better spell list and some unique 'vampire' melee attacks like a grappling bite, lifedrain, bleed etc
- Wights aren't bad, but they do feel like slightly improved skeleton mages than their own unique type. Maybe they should get Fear/Gloom style things to go with their flavour? Not a priority though

[Davion Fuxa]

If people are dying to rares, uniques, or elite enemies with rare talents; that's an issue regarding those monsters. Particular because they have a wild card factor attached to them, a player can't just look at a rare and know what type of capability it may hold.

If people find the rest of the game filler because of those wild card enemies, then those wild card enemies should be adjusted and the player should be left to change the difficulty level to make the trash enemies worth noticing.

[Effigy]

I'm not opposed to making the trash mobs more powerful. I would just caution against trying to make everything dangerous, because that's what the difficulty setting is ultimately for. And like I said before, making enemies more numerous has the problem of indirectly nerfing classes/builds that aren't as good at dealing with groups--either from lack of AoE, or lack of teleports to deal with getting surrounded.

[edge2054]

Forger101's post was in order to gather ideas on how we could improve trash in order to make them more interesting. As HousePet pointed out, adjusting monster density in zones to account for packs isn't hard.

But pack mobs and kill the player harder isn't the only way to get the player to take notice of mobs. The update to plants that let them spit poison hasn't contributed to any deaths for me personally, but I'm much less inclined now to ignore them outright.

Rather than poo pooing his idea, can we try to contribute? In the end only one person needs to be convinced of rather or not implementing these changes is a good idea.

For my own part...

Worm Masses merging into more difficult monsters if X other Worm Masses are nearby sounds good. It creates pressure and doesn't require good AoE skills to deal with but rather priority targeting.

Map Effects, rather on move or on death are something else we haven't used a lot. These can really change priority targeting as well. Killing a mold that explodes in a cloud of poison gas isn't something you want to do when fighting a bunch of other mobs... or is it?

Rats (and wolves) are probably my two biggest pet peeves right now. Rats aren't something that strikes fear into my heart. But a swarm of rats that have some kind of grapple like effect is scary. Disease carrying rats can be scary too. Perhaps some kind of combination of the two. Maybe only when X rats are adjacent to the player can they swarm. Again, priority targeting makes the player *think*. ToME bills itself as a tactical RPG. Making the player consider how they approach even trash mobs is good and it doesn't have to be done by adding attack, defense, and damage.

I also liked the psychic rat swarms in the D&D planescape setting. These had a group mind and would be stronger the more of them that were around. Again we have a mob that can work better in groups forcing the player to think about who their next target is. Do you kill the bear that's mauling you? Or kill a single rat so the swarm stops spamming Mind Sear?

Please let's contribute. Even if Darkgod says, nah, starting zones are tought enough. Maybe we can implement some of these ideas in new monsters or new campaigns There's no harm in brainstorming

[edge2054]

Here's another one, sorry it's another pack.

Mamma Bear and Baby Bear. Baby Bear is curious and generally will approach the player but isn't hostile. Mamma bear is overprotective. Goes into a rage if you kill Baby Bear.