Preventing stairs cheating

[Mithril]

A game enjoyment killer is stairs cheating. That is, if you have a hard fight you flee to the stairs to previous level, turn around and fight until your hit points, mana, and stamina are low, use the stairs, rest until healed, and return. The monsters will usually not have healed to anywhere near the same degree as you. This makes many supposedly "hard" fights, except in those cases the monster can stun you or otherwise kill you very quickly, boringly easy.

Some solutions:
1. Monsters will be fully healed if you leave a level. However, this has the disadvantage of still making it possible to use stairs cheating against groups of monsters where you kill of a few at a time each time you use the stairs. Also, even against powerful single monsters you can still use the stairs to try and try to kill them again and again in the hope that the rng will favor you eventually.
2. You are too weak to use the stairs if your hit points and mana are below some limit. Say, below 80% of your maximum. However, this will only make cheating somewhat more difficult and does not prevent it.
2. You are too weak to use the stairs if your hit points, mana, and stamina (more generally, anything that resting can restore) are not fully restored. Stairs cheating not possible. This will make the game much more challenging and exciting for those of us, like me, who cannot resist using it.

[darkgod]

One thing I always wanted was to be able to tell if the player is "in combat".
This is however extremely hard to deduce, but this would help this situation (and many others).

Something like:
- no hostiles in sight
- no hostiles tracking you for less than X turns

Ideas?

[Mithril]

If the player is not in combat he will (or should ) rest until fully restored. So any statistic that that is below what a complete rest can restore is an indication that the player is in combat or fleeing from monsters that is in pursuit.

[edge2054]

Here's another thought though I'm not sure if it's possible or worth the hassle.

Have the game clone every creature with in X tiles of the player on level change. Remove the creatures from the level that the player is leaving. Then use freegrid to repopulate them on the new level (using the cloned data).

If it's doable (and not to much hassle) I think that's the best option.

If we had some sort of counting mechanism that wasn't tied to an entity it'd be even better. Have one-four (randomly chosen number) cloned actors show up every turn after the first rather then just autospawning as soon as you change levels. That way you have the appearance that the creatures really are following you.

[darkgod]

yeah that's doable but it wont prevent switching with the worldmap, as no actors can spawn there.
So an in-combat status is still needed.

As for basing it on being rested, I want to use it to activate a kind of "auto rest" where you regen very quickly after combat, because pressing 'r' after every mob is silly

[PowerWyrm]

Using stairs to escape combat is one of the basic features of any roguelike game...
There are some games which have implemented some ideas to make escape through stairs less cheezy. ADOM for example has the following restrictions:
- you can never leave a dungeon with monsters in melee range
- if you leave a dungeon level other than the first level of a dungeon, monsters in melee range will follow you through the stairs
This makes ADOM *much* harder compared to other roguelikes like Angband for example...

[darkgod]

Well if the game requires abusing stairs to win, then the game needs to be changed, not the cheating allowed

[edge2054]

Well if the game requires abusing stairs to win, then the game needs to be changed, not the cheating allowed

On that note, my suggestion in the other thread for giving all players a couple of scrolls of phase door at the start would help with this (gives another option to regroup other then the stairs.)

[Mithril]

One thing I always wanted was to be able to tell if the player is "in combat".
This is however extremely hard to deduce, but this would help this situation (and many others).

Something like:
- no hostiles in sight
- no hostiles tracking you for less than X turns

Ideas?

Those two conditions combined seem to very accurately tell if a player is in combat or not. Are there situations where these conditions combined would be inaccurate regarding this?

[edge2054]

Here's another thought.

If the player has dealt or received damage in the last 2 turns he can't use stairs. Have it return something like 'You must catch your breath before doing that.'

[Mithril]

Here's another thought.

If the player has dealt or received damage in the last 2 turns he can't use stairs. Have it return something like 'You must catch your breath before doing that.'

Could likely be abused in various ways. Like if in a corridor you phase away or stun the nearest monster for two turn. Not sure what advantage it would have compared to the other suggestions above.

[edge2054]

Here's another thought.

If the player has dealt or received damage in the last 2 turns he can't use stairs. Have it return something like 'You must catch your breath before doing that.'

Could likely be abused in various ways. Like if in a corridor you phase away or stun the nearest monster for two turn. Not sure what advantage it would have compared to the other suggestions above.

I guess I feel the player should be given the option to run. I'm all for preventing stair abuse but I think it should be done in a way where it strikes a balance.

In other words, running should still be a viable option. Maybe double or triple the number of turns, 6 is longer then most stuns. If you really need to; push it to 10.

But the other suggestion means players will never be able to use stairs as a means of escape and that doesn't feel right to me.

[Zonk]

I've used this trick a lot of times...quite useful. However yes, it's cheap

The only idea I really like here is having monsters follow the player around - why do they have to be cloned when we could just move them to the new level?
Also...

yeah that's doable but it wont prevent switching with the worldmap

Just have a generic 'outside the dungeon' map you end up when you flee from the first level of the dungeon with monsters following you. If you flee from that too, monsters won't follow you.

[Mithril]

As for basing it on being rested, I want to use it to activate a kind of "auto rest" where you regen very quickly after combat, because pressing 'r' after every mob is silly

Auto rest is a really nice idea.

[edge2054]

I've used this trick a lot of times...quite useful. However yes, it's cheap

The only idea I really like here is having monsters follow the player around - why do they have to be cloned when we could just move them to the new level?
Also...

yeah that's doable but it wont prevent switching with the worldmap

Just have a generic 'outside the dungeon' map you end up when you flee from the first level of the dungeon with monsters following you. If you flee from that too, monsters won't follow you.

Or combine options. Have monsters follow players up until the world map screen. Don't let the player use the world map stairs if he's in combat (what determines being in combat is up to you, I like my X turns without taking or dealing damage personally but whatever works.)

The poison code already works like this right? Can't use world map stairs if poisoned but can use other stairs?