Feature Tracking the erratic monster elements

[Theraze]

If possible, I'd love for mafia to be aware of 'irregular' elements like spelling in the data files. Currently, you can tell your CCS to trigger on spooky weakness (or any of the other major elements), but if you want to trigger on the spelling monsters, you need to individually add each of them. Or add the zone, add every possible exception, and hope you never get teleportitis and/or new wandering monsters.

It just seems as if offering up "Well, you could just target your CCS at the elemental weakness instead" would solve some of these requests in a more elegant manner that can't be as easily broken.

 

[roippi]

I know Jick doesn't consider spelling or cuteness "real" elemental types, but I think we can just treat them that way on our end?

Of course the problem is that there's no 'weak' element to actually set the monster to. i.e. hot:spooky::spelling:???

 

[Theraze]

Well, monsters with spelling are weak to the dictionary. Not sure if cuteness has anything, but... being able to target the orc chasm monsters in a way that only gets the ones weak to the dictionary without targetting wandering monsters was the goal I was pondering.

 

[StDoodle]

Well... just have a CCS for orc chasm, and one for rampaging adding machine. For safety on wandering monsters, make sure they each have a section as well.

 

[Theraze]

And when we get a new holiday, like the Boris/Thanksgiving crossover?

What I'm trying to do is, if it makes sense, have an easy solution we can tell people besides "Use DAM or WHAM to take care of it, because you're not going to get everything right yourself no matter how well you think you've done."

 

[StDoodle]

I personally think the better solution would be to make location-based CCS sections match only "known" monsters for their zone. Also, while more tedious perhaps, you could still put in a section for each of the bad-spelling monsters. I think treating the "fake" elements like "real" elements is probably likely to produce more problems than it solves. Just my $0.02.

 

[Veracity]

I personally think the better solution would be to make location-based CCS sections match only "known" monsters for their zone.

Is the goal to use a dictionary vs. Chasm monsters and only Chasm monsters? The only way to do that, currently, is to list each such monster individually in your CCS:

1) If you (think you) ARE adventuring in the Chasm, you can meet non-Chasm monsters, ether because they are wandering monsters or because you have Teleportitis and you really are NOT adventuring in the Chasm.
2) If you (think you) are adventuring NOT in the Chasm, you can meet Chasm monsters because you have Teleportitis and you really ARE adventuring in the Chasm.

In order for your suggestion to work, every time we see a monster, we would have to look it up and decide what location we are in based on where that monster appears, and then go look up the correct CCS section.

That's not a horrible idea, since it would help a bit with Teleportitis, but, aside from the fact that cartain monsters appear in multiple locations, it's only a partial solution to the Teleportitis problem, since we have no registry of CHoice Adventures or Noncombats by location.

 

[Theraze]

Also, the RAM is a problem with that, since you'd still need an exception for it in the chasm. Though you'd be able to get by with only 2 entries instead of 8 (though the ED: Spelling solution would only require 1) then, but... it's still a bit odd. And has issues with monsters that exist in multiple locations, as Veracity said.

That would be a nice update to the system, to realize that if a monster does only appear in a single spot and you encountered them, that you must actually have adventured in that location, but I don't think it would make players less familiar with mafia go "Oh, that makes sense" in the same level.

That being said, personally I'm going to be using a consult script, so this doesn't directly apply to me. Just thinking that we can make mafia a bit more new user friendly without too much work.

 

[Rinn]

Since I've now had some experience with the way mafia handles choice adventures I can see why my choice adventure data file idea didn't get a lot of traction, it would be pretty difficult for many of the choice adventure results to be easily defined in a static text file. However, I think at the very least having a registry of choice adventure numbers (and name) to location would be pretty reasonable and I think I'll look into adding that when I get some free time.

Off hand, do you know how many monsters occur in multiple zones? I can't think of a very large number aside from the wine cellar.

 

[Theraze]

The haunted cellar monsters and the cyrpt monsters were the ones that immediately sprung into mind. Since we have both the Hidden City (encounter) and Hidden City (automatic), those monsters would have multiple zones as well, though the 'best' handling would be to have that track with whichever you're currently in. There's probably more, but those are the ones that I can come up with in under a minute without the wiki.

Edit: Using a bit of wiki as well, skipping former event items like the hobo zombies:
Basic zones: Gremlins, pandamonium slums (and other dark organ locations), ducks.
A-E: Count Bakula, drunken half-orc hobo.
F-M: Knob Goblin assistant chef, Knob Goblin Elite Guard captain.
T-Z: Tomb servant.

There's probably more... that's just from a quick scan through the monster compendum.

 

[roippi]

Gremlins

 

[GValko]

Off hand, do you know how many monsters occur in multiple zones? I can't think of a very large number aside from the wine cellar.

Off the top of my head. Knob Goblin Elite Guard Captain, tomb servants, gremlins have a bunch of crossover, technically the Hidden City/Tavern Cellar. Aside from the wine cellar, there's always badly romantic arrows as well.

And when we get a new holiday, like the Boris/Thanksgiving crossover?

Random one-time special events aside, you know we haven't had a new holiday since NS13, right.

 

[Theraze]

I consider the random one-time special events as new holidays, since they had new wandering monsters. Which is what the location-based CCS would need to have exceptions for, and what would cause them to break.

You really don't want the one of a kind item to be lost because you threw a dictionary at the monster 30 times instead of attacking once...

 

[xKiv]

Also (according to my database parsed from mafia files): friars monsters (3 zones, then pandamonium slums), ducks (various zones each, then after-war farm), screambat (3 zones), cyrpt monsters (cyrpt, then psot-cyrpt cemetary).
It also says losterfrogman (wartime and post-war) and protector spectre (different in-mafia zones for (encounter) and (automatic)).
All except the screambat all mutually exclusive, though.

 

[Theraze]

I'd missed the screambat and lobsterfrogman in my list in post 10 above, though the rest are there.