Thy Dungeonman
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Remember the Millitary guys in HAlf Life? Those sneaky little jerks that hid behind stuff and worked in teams?

Wouldn't they be great in Drod?

Here's my clearly delineated idea:

First, make an A. I. that can keep away from Beethro, yet keep him in the sights of a weapon. This A. I. can hide behind obstacles and work in team.
If an archer sees you along one of eight lines of sight, he shoots you! How the heck does Beethro get to an Archer to kill him, then? Simple, the Archer can't immediately shoot Beethro when he's in his sights. He must take a turn to cock his bow to the ready! So if he's alone and cornered, just zig zag towards him.

This gives this enemy the nice property that he's not much of a threat on his own, yet REALLY FREAKIN DANGEROUS when combined with others.

You could make him into a turret by holding him in place with a force arrow. I can envision how it would mix with other elements in nice ways - for instance, you could use other enemies as cover.

What do you think?

Chaco
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I just have one thing to say before you go on:

Half Life and DROD are two entirely different games. Removing their differences probably won't make either one of them better.

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Briareos
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Thy Dungeonman wrote:
What do you think?

I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you...

IOW: "It's over!!1!"

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Thy Dungeonman
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Chaco wrote:
I just have one thing to say before you go on:

Half Life and DROD are two entirely different games. Removing their differences probably won't make either one of them better.

But what's wrong with taking some inspiration from one? In fact, the only reason I mentioned Half Life was to make what I was talking about clearer.

Banjooie
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I have decided we need to get rid of the roaches in DROD.

I've played this one platformer, and it had an enemy that went directly towards you, and was very predictable.

OF course, we don't want to be anything like a platformer, so I figure we need to get rid of those.


Oh, and the Tar/Mud too. I played this one game, Boulderdash. It's got this amoeba stuff that, like, /expands/ every so often. And Boulderdash is a reflex game, so we wouldn't want to be anything like that.

Oh, and we totally need to get rid of the Slayer. I played this one Resident Evil game, and it ALSO has a character that's nigh-unkillable that you need to run away from. Nemesis or something. And nobody's arguing that DROD needs to be more like *Resident Evil*.

Oh. And then there are the goblins. I've played games with enemies that try to get away from you, and well, we don't want to go there.

------------

So, Chaco, you're absolutely right. We should /never/ reference another game when we're trying to express a concept for a new monster, no matter how vague the relation.

Thy Dungeonman
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Thank you.

Can we start talking about the enemy itself yet?

Oneiromancer
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Death at a distance as a fundamental property of a monster has traditionally not been taken too seriously around here. For some people the eyes are "bad enough" in terms of having to watch out for getting in something's line of sight...in some ways spiders can have the same problem as well.

So this new monster...its AI makes it keep its distance, and then when it gets a bead on Beethro, it takes a few turns to actually "shoot". This could work, if its animation makes it obvious how many turns you have left until you get shot at. I definitely think that "instant death" is right out, so I'm glad you put a delay in initially. I like the "turret" idea you explained as a puzzle option, but I'm just not too excited about it yet. Perhaps fleshing it out more and being more specific about its AI and how you know when you're going to get shot would help.

Game on,

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Banjooie
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I would imagine it working like a goblin, as soon as you got within a certain range of it.

I figure as soon as it'd see you, it'd give you an Eyeball-type line.

After that, you'd have one turn to move before firing. So you'd be in a situation where you'd have to, say, chase one, while staying out of the crosshairs of the others. I think it'd be pretty neat.

TripleM
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To go along with this idea, I'd say the monster would kill other monsters if they get shot as well. Meaning Beethro could get rid of some monsters by standing in front of them and jumping out of the way.

Ezlo
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Interesting ideas. Certanlly better than my idea of a monster that kept away.

Thy Dungeonman
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Alright, here's the AI and complete description:

An Archer can shoot Beethro. But first, Beethro has to be in his line of sight and he has to pull back his bow (which takes one turn) first. The Archer does care if a wall or monster is in his line of sight. However, if he has pulled his bow back and if Beethro moves, he fires anyway.


IF Beethro is 4 or more squares away, he checks his line of sight.
If he has a clear line of sight to Beethro, PULL BACK THE BOW.
If not, measure each square by how close it is to a clear line of sight from Beethro, and how FAR it is from Beethro - the Archer wants to move away if possible.
If he doesn't, he'll move towards Beethro, and follow the walls if he bumpos into one.
If Beethro is closer than 4 squares away, then Archer just runs away.

Possible uses:
Manipulating one Archer:
Place an archer on a force arrow. You have a turret. Yay.
Make him shoot stuff. Get him to shoot a bomb behind you that you can't trigger yourself. Get two Archers to face you and pull their bows back, step out of the way, and you get both killed. Let a roach queen run into a force arrow trap to deal with some other trouble, and then let an archer shoot it. Place one in a bomb maze and force Beethro to sneak around and stab the Archer directly (since dodging one will blow the entire place up)
Multipal Archers seem like they would be difficult to deal with, but any good monster is difficult to deal with in numbers.

Ezlo
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I think the way you planned it all out and the uses for it would be great! I like it a lot, and I hope to see it in a DROD game someday. BTW, would these be monsters like goblins? Or human "monsters" like guards?

Thy Dungeonman
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Ezlo wrote:
I think the way you planned it all out and the uses for it would be great! I like it a lot, and I hope to see it in a DROD game someday. BTW, would these be monsters like goblins? Or human "monsters" like guards?

Whatever works, I haven't played JTRH yet.

NiroZ
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i would think that they would be 'human' monsters.

b0rsuk
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This idea (teamwork) fits more to a roguelike game for a number of reasons.

To work as a team, monsters would have to take lots of factors into account. This means lots of obscure rules. Presently, all monsters behave in relatively simple way (in fact, 4 of them are identical mechanic-wise). Tar and goblins, even wraithwings can be described in simple words. Monsters need to be predictable, because they need to be manipulated. Otherwise it's just frustrating. Ultimately, DROD is a puzzle game.

To my knowledge, none of roguelike games even tried to implement teamwork. Many of them are happy with 'intelligence' lower than DooM monsters (at least they run in patterns, or sometimes retreat a long distance - see cacodemon). But it sounds very intriguing. You wouldn't have to worry about making teamworking monsters too good (monsters can rely on numerous invisible conditions), because player will have some extra tricks like scrolls, wands, or grenades, depending on setting. DROD is just 2H (? - not sure about that) sword.

I'd like to create such a roguelike one day (with high level scripting, and out of control feature creep). But I'm well aware how deceptively simple it looks at first. Even excluding very important and time-consuming aspects like balance/difficulty level, variety etc, there are still complex technical problems to overcome. Especially pathfinding and line of sight.

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[Last edited by b0rsuk at 03-19-2006 10:23 AM]

Ravon
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b0rsuk wrote:
Tar and goblins, even wraithwings can be described in simple words.

Wait, isn't the simple movement description of a wraithwing, "If there's only one, or they're mostly on one side of you, they run away otherwise they attack."? That sure does sound like teamwork to me...

coppro
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Actually, it's "Attack unless you are 4 or less squares from Beethro unless another WW is at maximum 3 squares farther away from Beethro and at least 2 away from me. Otherwise run away"

Syntax
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Right, but just the fact that the motion of a wraithwing is directly linked to the positioning other wraithwings symbolises AI teamwork... What makes matters more complicated is that 2 wraithwings can either move straight towards you, or do their hover dance, depending on the order placement. This makes them even more "intelligent" (unpredictable-like)...

/me agrees with Ravon

Syntax
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Actually, it's "Attack unless you are 4 or less squares from Beethro unless another WW is at maximum 3 squares farther away from Beethro and at least 2 away from me. Otherwise run away"

Not meaning to double post, but have been thinking about this, and think it deserves a response in itself.

Firstly, I've no idea if that is the case. Sounds about right. For some reason I seem to get a lot of #1s with wraithwing-only rooms, but I've never been able to quite explain *how* they move when grouped.

I like to think they're working as a team.

Anyways, I digress.

I've always had a feeling about this, but tonight I proved it:
"The actual sword position *does* influence wraithwings when they're gouped, even if they can kill you on the next move" (!)

I was basically cornered in the following position:

*****
**|**
**BWW
**WWW

where * = abyss, | = sword, and W = wraithwing.

Every move had me killed (obviously (?)), *except* clockwise roation. I actually survived the situation because of just that move. I guess it must have depended on order placement somehow, but yeah... This *must* prove they're complex enough to emulate teamwork

coppro
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Was there a brain in the room?

Swivel
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I've experienced the same thing. I believe that wraithwings use taxicab geometry, so maybe sword orientation matters in terms of defining spatial difference.

michthro
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Movement order would play a big role here, but also, turning your sword prevents one of the wraithwings from going to the square NE of you, where it would cause another one to kill you. (There must have been a brain in the room). Wraithwings don't take your sword position into account, but at close quarters it can influence them by preventing them from moving to a square.

The actual rule is: Attack, unless I am 5 or less squares from Beethro, unless another WW is within 2 (inclusive) of the same distance I am from Beethro and at least 3 away from me. Otherwise, flee, unless I am 5 squares from Beethro, in which case, stay.
When attacking, WWs move like roaches. When fleeing, they make the opposite move of what the attacking move would be.

Back on topic: I don't really know where the teamwork objection came from. No-one said anything about archers being designed to explicitly work in teams. Apparent cooperation between monsters is nothing new. As already mentioned, WWs emulate teamwork (and they are programmed to some extent to do so). Also goblins. We all know how goblins tend to surround Beethro, as if they carefully plan it, even when there are only two. This is just an interesting (and intended) consequence of their movement rules, they don't explicitly take each other's positions into account.

Anyway, I like this idea, and I hope it will be implemented.

Syntax
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I like the idea too...
There was however no brain in the room hence I think the end result was due to a clash in wanting.

michthro
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Huh? No brain? Awww, just when I thought I knew how WWs worked. Perhaps these particular WWs conspired to confuse me.. Would you mind posting a demo? I'd like to get to the bottom of this.

Thy Dungeonman
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What's this with wraith's and teamwork? If you look at my last post here, I made code for the Archer, and it didn't involve teamwork.
I'm not sure how a brained archer would work...

Ravon
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Thy Dungeonman wrote:
This A. I. can hide behind obstacles and work in team.

Maybe this is what got everyone so worked up, but your right, in your ai descripting post you didn't say anything about it.