Thursday 21 January 2010

Results for 'Should monsters surrender'; new poll

Thanks to everyone who voted (all 111 of you) and those perceptive enough to notice me giving up and putting a poll up was also an act of surrender.

The results were:

Always, instead of dying
2 (1%)
Sometimes, instead of dying
43 (38%)
Always, instead of fleeing
1 (0%)
Sometimes, instead of fleeing
39 (35%)
Always, if unable to flee
4 (3%)
Sometimes, if unable to flee
70 (63%)
Sometimes, if badly hurt and the player heals them
30 (27%)
If the player calls for surrender
47 (42%)
Never
13 (11%)

I'll be putting in the most popular result as a feature before the release of Unangband 0.6.4. Monsters will sometimes surrender if they are unable to flee: this will depend on a saving throw based on your Charisma, and whether you have the birth_evil option enabled or not.

Two other options: sometimes, if badly hurt and the player heals them, and if the player calls for surrender, are available through the existing 'O'ffer code. I'll add the ability to offer nothing, and have badly injured monsters respond in some way as well.

I may allow the option to hold back on delivering a killing blow, by attacking a monster to disarm. Hmm...

The next poll is a chance to tell me what features of 0.6.4 you like the most so I know where to polish things up for the final release. If you haven't had a chance to play, feel free to tell me what sounds interesting.

2 comments:

John Greenberg said...

A random quest. Are persistent levels on the table eventually for Unangband? I really, really want to get into your game, but the Angband levels are just a recipe for scumfests in my experience, and are the main reasons I stick with ADOM, Crawl, and Incursion. I gave your newest version a whirl though and was very impressed by the monster AI.

Andrew Doull said...

I had originally planned it for 0.6.4 but have let it slip to 0.6.5 as there were plenty of fixes required for level generation first. If the temptation to scum is too much, you can switch off connected stairs, which forces you to at least look for the next set of stairs before you can scum.