Improving Trash Enemies

[Effigy]

I do like the idea of rats causing diseases. As long as it's keep within reasonable limits, that would be intuitive, thematic, and add some depth to this mob type. However, we don't want every rat pack to be like fighting a room of corruptors.

Pack bonuses for wolves seems fine. I don't know exactly what this should entail, but alerting all wolves within radius X about the player's location seems reasonable. I could also see them getting a debuff that reduces target's defense and saves by X for each wolf within radius 1-2 or something like that.

The idea of mother bears and cubs is interesting. I don't know if I'd make the cubs non-hostile, but if the mother bear is stronger while cubs are around it gives the player an interesting choice about how to fight that pack.

Regarding worms and slimes, I think their ability to reproduce or spawn in numbers is good enough. They aren't hard, but you wouldn't really expect them to be. They seem like a "quantity over quality" mob and it should probably stay that way.

[grayswandir]

but alerting all wolves within radius X about the player's location seems reasonable.

Wolves already have the "Howl" talent, which sets the target of all friendlies in range to the user's target. I propose we make it stronger (maybe some actual summons, based on rank of the user?), make them less likely to use it, and give it a noticeable sound effect.

Splitting enemies could be more interesting if we changed what causes the splitting. I already like how brittle clear oozes work - you have a strong incentive to hit it with a strong attack so its clones start out with less hp. For stuff like worms, what if when an adjacent (non-worm) enemy dies, they clone into that space? That would open up some interesting tactical choices.

[donkatsu]

Give trolls a good regeneration infusion. Melee disables it with their tier 1 stun. Ranged should struggle since they're better against everything else. Also make them more competent in melee overall. A naked level 1 Shalore Archmage on Nightmare difficulty should not be able to sit in melee range of a troll for 25+ turns without healing. This goes for a lot of things that can only attack in melee. A cursory survey of trash mobs shows that the problem is always with melee. If something can only do damage by bumping, then its bumps actually need to do double digit damage with double digit accuracy, and also it needs a way to close the gap with ranged classes at a rate greater than 1 tile per turn.

Hand out more Rushing Claws. Another good ranged punisher that melee doesn't care about, and it's thematic for a lot of things like wolves, foxes, etc.

More Spit Poison from things like cobras, for example.

You can give all vampires way higher levels of Vampiric Gift. 7.5 would be perfectly okay. Vampiric Gift is balanced for player characters; it's much less effective as an NPC because 1.) they do less damage 2.) their hit points are worth less than the player's.

Give sandworms the ability to burrow underground for 2 turns. While underground, they are immune to effects and damage, have 300% movement speed, but can't attack or use talents. They'll be like land sharks... you'll see them coming but won't be able to do anything about them until they're right next to you.

[HousePet]

No need to worry about difficult mobs in starter zones. They can be easily filtered out with the way the game handles mob spawning.

[Atarlost]

Hand out more Rushing Claws. Another good ranged punisher that melee doesn't care about, and it's thematic for a lot of things like wolves, foxes, etc.

If Rushing Claws is the rush that pins I certainly hate that as melee. There's nothing less fun than an ability that does nothing but prevent you from going back into autoexplore after a fight.

Most of these ideas are things that make trash more annoying rather than more fun.

[donkatsu]

Hand out more Rushing Claws. Another good ranged punisher that melee doesn't care about, and it's thematic for a lot of things like wolves, foxes, etc.

If Rushing Claws is the rush that pins I certainly hate that as melee. There's nothing less fun than an ability that does nothing but prevent you from going back into autoexplore after a fight.

Most of these ideas are things that make trash more annoying rather than more fun.

It adds literally one extra button press. I am the laziest ToME player on the planet and even I can't complain about a single press of a button with a straight face.

[HousePet]

If the enemies were in groups, it would be less likely that you would be pressing autosplore in one turn after being rushed.

[Atarlost]

If the enemies were in groups, it would be less likely that you would be pressing autosplore in one turn after being rushed.

It's a more than 1 turn pin and things that come in groups and have rush don't behave nicely. The combination already exists on fetchlings and they come in one at a time as the square next to you opens up. It's just not a pack friendly skill.

[stinkstink]

I use ZOmnibus to force alt Heart of the Gloom, not because it's easier (although it is), but because the constant creeping darkness pins in the vanilla zone get really goddamn tiresome.

[HousePet]

If the enemies were in groups, it would be less likely that you would be pressing autosplore in one turn after being rushed.

It's a more than 1 turn pin and things that come in groups and have rush don't behave nicely. The combination already exists on fetchlings and they come in one at a time as the square next to you opens up. It's just not a pack friendly skill.

That's true. But I'm sure we can solve that with some pack AI.

[donkatsu]

Just hit a talent (tier 1 racial or an infusion) and then hit autoexplore so that the rest timer times out status effects.

Actually, and this is sort of tangential, but rest should wait out detrimental effects anyway. It's logical and it turns one button press into zero button presses.

[Mankeli]

Actually, and this is sort of tangential, but rest should wait out detrimental effects anyway. It's logical and it turns one button press into zero button presses.

Considering the damage potential of some detrimental effects especially on higher difficulties, I don't really like this at all. Instakills on "r" button is not cool. You can have effects that hit you for hundreds of points of damage per turn and a single disease on madness on tier-1 dungeon vaults can hit for about 1 K during its course.

If you only meant status effects that don't actively hurt you (pin, daze) then it would be a different story I guess.

[donkatsu]

Damage already breaks rest.

[Atarlost]

If the enemies were in groups, it would be less likely that you would be pressing autosplore in one turn after being rushed.

It's a more than 1 turn pin and things that come in groups and have rush don't behave nicely. The combination already exists on fetchlings and they come in one at a time as the square next to you opens up. It's just not a pack friendly skill.

That's true. But I'm sure we can solve that with some pack AI.

No you can't. It's a side effect of the way rush and rushing claws work, not the AI. The same issue crops up with the Pathfinder d20 charge rules where monsters (or players) run on natural intelligence because you can only charge into the closest square adjacent to the enemy. Unless that changes, which would complicate the UI for the player, charge cannot be pack friendly.

Wolves aren't sprinters anyways. If you want to make them difficult for archers the solution isn't talents. It's to give them the same attack speed as a bow and a slightly higher movement rate than normal so they can't be kited.

[PurpleXVI]

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?

Cranium Rats!

In general, the game doesn't have a lot in the way of "support" talents for buffing allies, etc., maybe some of these "trash enemies" could have leader/alpha type members that have those sorts of talents? To add, as you say, more tactics to whether you prioritize the "trash" that are actually up in your face, or hit the leader/support/buffer/healer that's making them more of a threat, even if taking him down might take more turns, due to his higher HP count.

While ToME's talent setup in general works great for PC's, because they travel alone and need to be, well, self-contained, the general design philosophy doesn't lend itself well to "complex" enemy encounters, since that entire "type" of enemy is missing and all enemies are basically slightly tuned down(or tuned up...) versions of PC class options, with the occasional unique racial talent for Orcs, Nagas, etc.

If some enemies were also designed to be on the back lines, rather than up in your face(orcish mortar lobbers, naga healers, Zigur zealot preachers, etc.), it would also add a lot more importance to mobility/repositioning talents as you could leap over enemy lines to attack their squishy support troops or use repositioning talents to - up their battle lines or suddenly drag enemy support right into the line of fire of your offense.