MAngband = Small MMORPG, Vol 2: Battle

[Berendol]

We're all used to fast-paced fights here, and that's a good thing for most of us. You're forced to use tactics similar to the ones you would use while playing a first person shooter. I am curious about how we can introduce a requirement for other skills besides twitching and exploiting the stupidity of the monster AI. Perhaps enhancements to AI would work, with random variances to which enhancements are active for each instance of a monster. Or, how about "flavored" monsters, so you know what attacks and tactics you're facing just by the name? Your thoughts are welcome.

[funkayguestyw00]

You'll want to add that monster tactic where casters and hounds try to keep a certain distance from the player if they have LOS. That means you have to outsmart them if you want to melee them without getting burninated.

Also try making some classes based on ranged combat. One nice feature is the quiver slot in the inventory which saves you the trouble of inscribing your ammo. Also, try making arrows that don't break return to the quiver automatically, since the mess of arrows on the floor seems to be a complaint.

This also leads to the ranged auto-retaliator, where you could automatically shoot your target from your quiver if you aren't in melee range. This also gives you the opportunity to improve casters to become ranged fighters using spells in the auto-retaliator.

If you want to make the mage specifically a ranged fighter, change his globe of invulnerability to be ineffective against melee attacks. You'll need to allow him to reset the timer by casting it again, or just make it last a lot longer.

Such changes would most likely be incompatible with mangband.org clients, but by making some monsters and classes use ranged style fighting, you'll introduce a lot of new combat tactics.

[Anyar]

one major problem with ranged auto retaliate is that it might be a bit deadly
ie : see drolem(asleep) run away, dont make it because you shot the drolem

[funkayguestyw00]

Ah, well that's why it only starts when you have something targeted.

[Anyar]

how would it know what arrows to use?
ie: you have some awesome seekers, you also have +0+0 arrows, giant rat farm...

[funkayguestyw00]

That's why I suggest stealing the 'quiver' inventory slot from tome. It automatically shoots whatever is in that slot when you press 'f', no time wasted selecting which arrow to use.

In the case of a rat farm, the wise players with +0 arrows on hand could have those inscribed with something like {@w3} to instantly switch those into the quiver, although fighting rat farms would be about the same as fighting manually since you'd have to target each one.

[Berendol]

Maybe exploding arrows or simple grenades would be better, since all mages and priests know the best way (besides Genocide) to deal with those is to use ball spells. Then again, we do have wands and rods of various ball spells... think a little more before you sell those wands! I guess a stack of 99 grenades would be more useful than a bunch of wands with their chances of failure, wouldn't it? I know we have flasks of oil and some potions of detonations, etc. but we really could use something more powerful.

Or... how about heat, pressure, and sound activated mines (we'd probably call them magic runes) like you'd use in Goldeneye for example? That would introduce trap-setting tactics that you'd then have to tailor to your particular monster type.

[funkayguestyw00]

I always make my low level non-mages carry several rods of frost/fire bolts as their ranged offense. Unfortunately, there isn't anything with ball damage between stinking cloud and frostball -- you want something that you can find easily but does a good deal of damage. Try changing those rods/wands of Light from beam to ball effect, and make 'em able to damage everything as would a breath from a Light Hound. That would make a great ranged weapon for melee type players. Right now, most people underestimate the use of wands/rods anyways.

[Anyar]

on the lastn post here, something got my attention and got me thinking
we have dragon breath wands, so why not make HOUND wands?
oh yeh... what DO flasks of oil do when thrown??

[Emulord]

Sorry for dead thread resurrection, but i have a few things to say on these topics.

I use rods of light to own orcs down a corridor personally, or when i'm lighting a corridor so i can see enemies who are coming along so i can shoot them.
Also, I think the reason quivers are so good in variants is because then you don't have to waste an inventory slot for arrows, so its only a positive to keep some range attacks.