Feature Issues with $monster.boss proxy record

Veracity

Developer
Staff member
(the $monster.boss proxy record doesn't seem to be very thoroughly implemented?).
Perhaps a bug report would have been useful, rather than trying to work around behavior that you think is incomplete without bothering to tell anybody...
 

Bale

Minion
A spirited digression began in the Zlib thread about possible lacks in the $monster.boss proxy record. I've decided that it would be best to make a new thread to continue the topic since it may be valuable and contribute towards the development of KoLmafia.

The next 9 responses were originally posted in that thread...
 
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zarqon

Well-known member
I don't know enough to know whether it's a bug or not, and I try not to jump to conclusions. A presumptive bug report struck me as being injurious, as compared to merely fishing for information with a question here.

*researches*

As it turns out, I misremembered which was the incomplete list. Mafia's list of boss monsters contains some 76 monsters -- a much larger list than the Wiki has for monsters dropping boss brains. Do those un-Wiki-listed boss monsters actually drop boss brains? Are some of mafia's monsters erroneously flagged as bosses? I don't know, and I kind of doubt it given the massive disparity in list size. So I found it likely that KoL does not use the same internal flag for these mechanics and opted to explicitly list the boss monsters.
 

Veracity

Developer
Staff member
Revision 10879 by slyz on 03 Apr 2012 says this: "Add a boolean "boss" field to $monster[]"

Considering that the Zombie Slayer challenge path only appeared on August 15 of 2012, perhaps the "boss" field does not mean what you think it means? It is obvious that it was not invented to tell you which monsters yield a boss brain.
 

Darzil

Developer
Yeah, there are 'boss' monsters which are monsters which cannot be copied, 'boss' monsters which are monsters only fought once per ascension, 'boss' monsters that count as bosses for pvp, and 'boss' monsters that drop boss brains. They confuse the hell out of me, and are pretty inconsistent in KoL.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
Also bosses that cannot be autokilled and bosses that make into badass pies! I've never heard of nocopy being tied to boss, though, since that's all of Dread.
 

heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
Code:
> ash foreach m in $monsters[] if (m.boss) print(m)

Baron von Ratsworth
Bonerdagon
Boss Bat
Carbuncle Top
carnivorous dill plant
Chester
Cyrus the Virus
Dad Sea Monkee
Demon of New Wave
Dr. Awkward
Ed the Undying (1)
Ed the Undying (2)
Ed the Undying (3)
Ed the Undying (4)
Ed the Undying (5)
Ed the Undying (6)
Ed the Undying (7)
Felonia, Queen of the Spooky Gravy Fairies
Frosty
ghostly pickle factory worker
Gorgolok, the Demonic Hellseal
Gorgolok, the Infernal Seal (Inner Sanctum)
Gorgolok, the Infernal Seal (The Nemesis' Lair)
Gorgolok, the Infernal Seal (Volcanic Cave)
Groar
Guy Made of Bees
Hodgman, The Hoboverlord
Knob Goblin King
Larry of the Field of Signs
Lord Spookyraven
Lumpy, the Demonic Sauceblob
Lumpy, the Sinister Sauceblob (Inner Sanctum)
Lumpy, the Sinister Sauceblob (The Nemesis' Lair)
Lumpy, the Sinister Sauceblob (Volcanic Cave)
Mammon the Elephant
mimic
Naughty Sorceress
Naughty Sorceress (2)
Naughty Sorceress (3)
Ol' Scratch
Oscus
queen filthworm
Shub-Jigguwatt, Elder God of Violence
Somerset Lopez, Demon Mariachi
Somerset Lopez, Dread Mariachi (Inner Sanctum)
Somerset Lopez, Dread Mariachi (The Nemesis' Lair)
Somerset Lopez, Dread Mariachi (Volcanic Cave)
Spaghetti Demon
Spaghetti Elemental (Inner Sanctum)
Spaghetti Elemental (The Nemesis' Lair)
Spaghetti Elemental (Volcanic Cave)
Spirit of New Wave (Inner Sanctum)
Spirit of New Wave (The Nemesis' Lair)
Spirit of New Wave (Volcanic Cave)
Stella, the Demonic Turtle Poacher
Stella, the Turtle Poacher (Inner Sanctum)
Stella, the Turtle Poacher (The Nemesis' Lair)
Stella, the Turtle Poacher (Volcanic Cave)
The Avatar of Sneaky Pete
The Bat in the Spats
The Big Wisniewski
The Clownlord Beelzebozo
The Landscaper
The Large-Bellied Snitch
The Man
The Terrible Pinch
The Thing with No Name
The Thorax
Thug 1 and Thug 2
tomb rat king
unearthed monstrosity
Vanya's Creature
Victor the Insult Comic Hellhound
vine gar
Yog-Urt, Elder Goddess of Hatred
Zombo
Returned: void

I'm not sure if there's a single unifying requirement for all of these. Probably the "cannot be insta-killed", although I'm surprised to see Pickle Factory monsters there.
 

Bale

Minion
We might as well make use of this list for the boss flag since it combines the properties of uncopyable, un-insta-killable and no stat variance.

That list also explains why the Pickle Factory monsters have the boss flag.
 

lostcalpolydude

Developer
Staff member
What I remember from talking with Eleron is that one property that applies to all boss monsters, and only to boss monsters, is the dataspider not changing its image. There are a few other things that apply specifically for bosses, but I can't remember which properties those are.
 

Darzil

Developer
I suggest someone who cares comes up with an idea of what they want from the boss flag, and maybe other flags? Maybe we need to know what drops boss brains, what can't be insta-killed, what can't be copied, etc. I see this more as a Feature request, as it isn't clear to me that there is a bug as such, more people wanting to use a flag for different reasons, and it not being consistent in KoL.

My personal suggestion would be :
Consider a monster a Boss if they count for the pvp boss challenge.
Add boss brains to monsters that drop them (and logic to work out other brains, and add/remove dynamically to player information/ash in Zombie Slayer) if different.
Add a flag for no-instant kill, and a flag for no copy (if different).
 
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heeheehee

Developer
Staff member
Darzil said:
Add a flag for no-instant kill, and a flag for no copy (if different).

Carbohydrate cudgel works great for insta-killing Dread monsters, but they are definitely no-copy.
 

Theraze

Active member
If the official KoL definition of a boss is something where the dataspider can't change the image, which can get checked fairly easily for most enemies - barring the no-familiar runs - wouldn't it make sense to keep that as our boss definition?

Or just scrap the title of boss and include the different items - pvpboss, noimage (or no dataspider), noinstakill, nocopy. Because Boss apparently means the dataspider thing as its official definition. Regardless of what PvP says.
 
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