Regeneration

[Lubor Kolar]

Do the monsters have health regeneration? If so, how fast are they regenerating? As fast as party?

And about spellcaster monsters: do they have limited amount of mana?

Maybe this informations belong to the "undercover" game secrets so you don't want to tell us - but if isn't, I would like to know

[George Gilbert]

In order...

No, N/A, N/A

No

No, so OK!

[Lunever]

Well, but all of these would be interesting features.

Another question: Can monsters get critical injuries and get slowed down by them as characters do (if not, it might be a suggestion for a new feature as well).
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[George Gilbert]

Again no - an individual monster only has health and fear attributes; all others (movement rate, armour, attack methods etc) are generic to all monsters of the same type.

It's an interesting point though; perhaps monsters should be able to be critically damaged / run out of mana etc...

[Lubor Kolar]

Be carefull when implementing "running out of mana" for monsters. Party is too much clever because it is played by human, so there is no problem for me to get for example dancing knight:
I lure knight in the doors and close door on him. He wans to turn, but because I stopped doors, he turns 90 and stays. I can close doors for about 3 bashes and leave it open. Because NOW it is time to do some action, knight turns against me. I close the doors and a bit sooner that knight has to perform an action I stop it and again and again.
So I think it is very easy to lure all the mana spellcaster, because party could easily dodge spellc, close door (I usualy close door when Wizard's eye casted a spell so spell hits the door, but because I open doors again, Wizard's eye casts again - clever Wizard's Eye would learn from its mistake) etc. and that could lead to total spellcaster ineffectiveness.

[Lunever]

But it would make a nice option for new dungeons.
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[Lunever]

You could have a Mana value for monsters which would be infinite as default.
I could imagine nice puzzles/battles, where depleting the enemy of Mana would be the key for solution.
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[cowsmanaut]

well for the set up of (pause.. these frigging pop ups keep interrupting my typing by taking away the focus of the screen.. grrr)

again.. The set up for the monsters in an ideal world would be that they follow the same rules as the humans playing. The have finite limits, the must eat and sleep, and the longer they live the more experience they gain and get levels and thus become stronger.

How would this effect game play? well it would require strategy. You would not want a wounded foe to run off and heal. You may want to wait untill that foe has expended mana before you attack in order not to get hit. The items you take or choose to leave behind would need to be selected very specifically as monsters would now need resources and may pick them up.

all of these elements would make a more interestign environment but would require a much heavier weight upon the shoulders of George. Complaints that they should not pick up specific items because they had to chase them down and hunt them in order to get a key (wah!) etc etc. With each benefit their would likley be complaint.

I personally would love any of those things implemented but it's all a matter of if they should be, and to make a switch for them to be on or off involves writting two different behaviour sets.. again.. a load of work for George.. so it would need to be one way or the other.

just my two cents..

moo

[Lunever]

I do not expect George to develop a life simulation out of DM. But adding one stat to the monsters abilities is not that complicated, at least not as complicated as the other things you mention.
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[cowsmanaut]

well it's not just one value. It an entire set up of how the monster works and acts when you change something so fundemental.

The amount of health and mana and the regen rate for each. that's 4 values. Now combine that with the AI. How would that effect how the monster would need to fight. If it was left as it was.. it would simply stand there thinking it's shooting at you but nothing comes out. Why? Because its just a few lines of code. It's not a sentient being. If it's health and mana regenerate, then to tke advantage of that the ai would need to keep and I on it and then make the monster move away untill it had more.

There is more than one simple change.. 4 variables make a world of difference.

Think about it a just a little longer before you assume it would be simple.

I'm not saying it isn't a good idea and I'm certainly not suggesting that it wouldn't be a great addition to the game play. I'm just saying it's more work than you think and it would take a long time to get right. I've been around here long enough to know that you will be seeing.. "the regenerate too fast" "no they are too slow" "I don't think he should run away when his mana is low only his health" "no I don't agree because..."... etc etc etc..

On top of that it would mean changing the format of the save games again.

moo

[Lunever]

I do think before I make a suggestion like this. I am very well aware that introducing a new characteristic to the monsters is more than writing a simple figure into the program, and yes, of course that would mean to have some modification of the monster AI like "if run out of Mana then (if healthy close in + attack; else flee and regenerate)".
Yet this does not go as far as your statement that I would suggest some kind of reality simulator.
I think the modifications I suggest are possible without that, and whether such a suggestion would be too complex or not is solely dependant on Georges opinion.
As for the savegame format: If it has to be changed once more (it has happened often enough before) then it'd be better to do so before V1.0 .
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[cowsmanaut]

well I did not suggest a life simulator as you suggest. The only elements I added were eating and sleeping.

however as I have stated even without those two the suggested addition of 4 new values means a fair bit of work. It's all I'm saying. You said it would be simple so I was trying to correct you.

Yes it is ultimately up to George if he want's to add them. However as what I mentioned in the above post George knows just as well as me. There will be hundreds of posts to go through with the addition of just one of these values in just regards to tweaking. it happens every time.

Fine tuning of a single element can last months and has.

So I say again. I do think it's a cool idea. However I also know it's a lot more work than you suggest. Which is the only reason I brought all of this up in the first place. I just didn't think you were concidering all the extra variables. It's not just adding the variable to the file. It's months of tweaks and changes to ther code as well as any new code added to support it. Fixing one thing, breaking annother. Hundreds of suggestions for tweaks and so on.

So basically.. go ahead and suggest an idea.. but don't say it's simple.

[Lubor Kolar]

I thought George has already implemented that monsters need to eat. At least all monsters I met wanted to eat my party, some monsters (Dragon, Wizard's Eyes) even wanted to eat my party fried