Oneiromancer
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Try out the attached hold. Brains will only send roaches through force arrows if the roaches could "see" Beethro through them anyway. Is this a known behavior? I don't see any rooms in Dugan's that have brains sending monsters through force arrows, so maybe it is intended?

Game on,

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StuartK
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File: Arrows.hold (1.5 KB)
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Here's another hold, demonstrating I think the same bug (it's an actual room I was intending to use, but stripped back to emphasise the arrow thing) When playing, wait for both sides to fill before whacking the orb.

The current arrow behaviour makes for quite a nice timing puzzle towards the endgame for this room

[Edited by StuartK on 10-08-2003 at 10:32 PM]

agaricus5
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It's known behavior, I think - for some reason, Roaches are not sent through force arrows when Brains are present unless they are in a direct line of sight with Beethro, in which case, they just move normally towards Beethro until they pass the arrow and then adopt normal Brain-enhanced behavior again. I think force arrows and potions are regarded as obstacles by the brains.

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The_Red_Hawk
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I noticed this too. It made a room I had in Deep Hold level 5 a lot easier but I'm keeping it because it's still pretty hard. The behaviour is quite strange though, and it should be changed.

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mrimer
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Ok, here's the story...

In short, this brain behavior is an ancient kludge to handle the way serpents have historically been done (i.e. coded). Observe that there are certain things that serpents cannot move over, namely, anything on the floor. (Testers might remember the discussion about how snakes are on the object layer as well as the monster layer, causing weird things to happen in the room editor.) Due to this, brains were forced to guide movement to avoid any object on the floor (otherwise, serpents would be sent into deadends (e.g. smashing into force arrows, etc). Not really deadends, just for serpents. (It's kind of a balancing feature: because snakes are invincible, disallowing diagonal moves and moving on force arrows balances them out...although it was originally just programming limitations keeping the snakes off of force arrows. But I digress...)

While serpents continue to work this way, brain-directed behavior can't be changed. (You'll see this in Dugan's Dungeon as well...is it in 25:1N1W...?) The good news to end this sordid detective story, however, is that this is all being fixed up in the next version of DROD!

The new version is built to allow serpents to move on force arrows, potions, scrolls, etc., just like other monsters. Which means that the restrictions on brain-behavior can be lifted. There's still the matter of keep game elements balanced, so we'll still have to wait and see exactly how this turns out.

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Oneiromancer
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We probably should just wait and see, but wouldn't this totally ruin Dugan's? Or would there be "legacy" serpents which move like the originals and "new" serpents which can move over objects? Or would it just be a function of with which editor the serpents were created?

Game on,

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eytanz
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Wouldn't it be possible to reprogram brains to affect serpents and other monsters differently? i.e., keep the serpents off the arrows but not anything else?

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Tscott
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mrimer wrote:
The new version is built to allow serpents to move on force arrows, potions, scrolls, etc., just like other monsters.

I think this would ruin the entire level 12 of Dugan's as well as a few other rooms here and there in that dungeon. The 'ride inside the serpent loop' is a pretty established puzzle in DROD, which of course won't work if the snake can break out of that loop.

I also know at least 5 of my rooms in Impossible Cubes, and 2 in the Happy House would have to be changed (or scrapped completely) if this were to happen. And I can remember many other rooms in other holds that are based on the fact that serpents can't go over force arrows.

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mrimer
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Oh, sure. Not to worry: we're planning on preserving all current serpent behavior. Erik and I have talked about this a lot, and we'll probably do one or more of the proposed ideas:

(1) add in "new" serpents that replace the "legacy" serpents used up until DROD:AE, but only in new dungeons (the serpents in old dungeons remain the same) (2) add additional serpents with the new movement abilities (and possibly certain other qualities) that can be used alongside the current serpents, (3) add a new "brain" with enhanced abilities while leaving those brains used in older versions of DROD the same OR (4) add a second type of brain in addition to the first; it overrides the first whenever in the room together.

Briefly, tradeoffs to be considered might be as follows:
(1) preserves old behavior, but not visually apparent which kind of movement a serpent has in a novel dungeon by looking at it (could be frustrating), unless colored differently (and then this practically turns into option 2)
(2) can visually tell serpents with different movement types apart, and can use more than one type of serpent in tandem for richer puzzle possibilities (I'm inclined to favor this one)
(3/4) similar issues as between 1 and 2, but must also consider that having two distinct brain types that could be used together -- since they control an entire room -- might actually be more confusing to the player, rather than less. Thus, it might be more straightforward to just replace the deficient behavior in current dungeons with the fixed brain behavior in new-version dungeons. Certain brain puzzles would become more intuitive while saving against more complex, brittle puzzles (so I'm inclined to favor 3 here). Of course, this is a fine philosophical line we're walking here, so brainstorming now would help before any new holds get set in stone.

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eytanz
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mrimer
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Right. #2 alone won't fix the brain problem. I'd say (2) actually fixes a second issue that I guess I brought up here, which just happens to be the reason for the broken brain behavior in the first place. As you point out, for sake of backwards compatibility, we can't fix brain behavior based on this alone. We'll probably need to interject a new/replacement brain type as well, with different pathfinding logic.

Hmm...we could always change it in future versions so that brain-guided serpents can go over objects such as force arrows (and, by extension, every other monster type can too), while normal-intelligence serpents cannot (but other monsters still can). This would probably apply retroactively to old dungeons as well. I don't think it would change any behavior in Dugan's dungeon (please tell me if there are actually any rooms with brain-guided serpents currently blocked by force arrows in this or other dungeons, that simply won't work if such a change is made).

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eytanz
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I may have missed something, but it seems that the only room in DD which has all three elements - serpents, brains, and arrows - in it is L25 2S1W; and there clearly there will be no major difference if the serpents can cross the arrows (and in fact, unless they can travel against the arrow's direction, that won't even come up there).

Of course, I didn't go through all the custom holds, but I bet one or two may be broken.



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Oneiromancer
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Well, yes, but the point was also brought up that normal serpent behavior could be changed, which was why Mike mentioned that there may be two types of serpents in the future. He said that new serpents may be able to move over force arrows. If the new serpents totally replaced the old serpents, that would of course break tons of rooms. But when we bring brains into the picture, then yes, there is only the one room in Dugan's that would be affected, but since they're the old serpents it would be okay.

Game on,

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eytanz
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In his last post, Mike clearly says that if brain behavior is fixed for all monsters, it will also affect the old serpents; i.e, brain-controlled serpents in current holds will be affected.

I think the ideal situation will be -

A - A new type of serpents (lets say they are purple) will be added that can use arrows.
B - Current brains are fixed so that all monsters, except the current, red, serpents, can cross arrows. So that current holds aren't affected, and new holds can use purple serpents.

However, since I brought this up at least twice before and never received any answer, I'm assuming B is impossible, and that the only solution (to both problems) are both new serpents and new brains, and that old brains and serpents would have to remain for legacy holds.

[Edited by eytanz on 10-10-2003 at 07:32 PM GMT]

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Mattcrampy
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I'm not sure how confusing it would be to have snakes be able to go over force arrows when thee's a brain in the room, but I'm more for breaking holds than introducing more monsters that do the same job as old monsters.

Thankfully, this doesn't break any of my rooms, which is probably why I don't care.

Matt, who really wants to show you his snake rooms, but has to finish the level first

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Aris Katsaris
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It seems to me a violation of the Brains' nature to have them guide the current type serpents over arrows. The current serpents can't cross arrows -- that's in their nature... What will be next, Brains letting goblins fly over pits? :-)

I'm with eytanz's two suggestion. Add a new type of serpent that can use arrows (actually add a serpent that completely ignores arrows - able to travel in both directions) -- and don't add a new type of brain for such a subtle change, just modify the old type instead to let the various creatures use arrows..

agaricus5
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I think there already is a request for "Super Brains" somewhere on the forum, which do allow for allowing monsters to go over objects on the floor.

If you want to have a new set of rules for Brains allowing them to guide monsters over objects on the floor, then I'd prefer a new monster to be created, rather than have to change the old one because I think it will look inconsistent and also because it may break rooms created by other people that rely on this behavior.

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