Balance monster difficulty

[mciul]

I'm using my new fighttest command (https://github.com/i7/kerkerkruip/commit/66284b084f46db45e4325f91aaa2d6977424b0f2) to see how various monsters measure up to each other. I'll record the stats here and we can consider whether any changes should be made.

In 100 fights, Israfel was killed 47 times and Bodmall was killed 53 times.

In 100 fights, the giant tentacle was killed 100 times and the minotaur was killed 0 times.

In 100 fights, the hound was killed 94 times and the demon of rage was killed 6 times. In 100 fights, the hound was killed 29 times and the chain golem was killed 71 times. In 100 fights, the hound was killed 84 times and the jumping bomb was killed 16 times. In 100 fights, the hound was killed 6 times and the angel of compassion was killed 94 times. In 100 fights, the chain golem was killed 99 times and the demon of rage was killed 1 times. In 100 fights, the chain golem was killed 86 times and the jumping bomb was killed 14 times. In 100 fights, the chain golem was killed 16 times and the angel of compassion was killed 84 times. In 100 fights, the rusted chain golem was killed 75 times and the Reaper was killed 25 times. In 100 fights, the jumping bomb was killed 6 times and the demon of rage was killed 94 times.

Notes:

• I don't think the jumping bomb's free dodge is given to other creatures, so it may show up as overpowered.
• The angel of compassion's radiance was not reset for each fight, so it got weaker each time it killed its opponent. Likewise, the demon of rage's power increased.
• If somebody gets disarmed, I don't think the AI will try to get their weapon back, and reviving doesn't get it back either. That didn't stop the Reaper from kicking chain golem butt, though!
• errr... in addition to blindness, it looks like rust might need to be reset when reviving too.
• These tests happen in an arena, so no axe powers for the Minotaur. Not a problem against the tentacle, apparently!
• I still need to work on groupings so Fanatics of Aite, mindslug, and overmind can have a fair chance
• stat changes won't get reset either, I think, so the wisps will have an advantage over time too.

[mciul]

Here's the latest stats: I've made a lot of changes to the Angel of Mercy, and I've also made some AI changes: there is now a chance to win rule for radiance, everyone gets to skip the size bonus/penalty when parrying (there's a weapon size penalty instead), and the AI has been tweaked to adjust for that, although I didn't make any changes to the "best defence" checks.

Table of fight results:

	†	A	a	m	g	j	R	d	h	C	s	L	t	y	H	B	O	I	U	M
swarm of daggers	†	62	16	52	55	56	41	47	20	34	0	0	0	1	0	0	11	2	0	0
blood ape	38	A	39	30	21	36	10	37	21	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
ravenous armadillo	84	61	a	62	14	11	10	48	20	0	0	80	0	0	0	0	19	0	0	0
Miranda	48	70	38	m	27	30	35	62	21	0	1	3	2	0	0	0	4	0	0	0
chain golem	45	79	86	73	g	74	37	66	43	14	0	2	3	23	0	0	36	7	1	0
jumping bomb	44	64	89	70	26	j	65	59	22	48	0	18	20	39	0	0	44	0	11	0
Reaper	59	90	90	65	63	35	R	67	34	1	2	6	7	0	0	0	19	0	3	0
demon of rage	53	63	52	38	34	41	33	d	31	0	0	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0
hound	80	79	80	79	57	78	66	69	h	0	5	5	3	5	0	0	23	0	0	0
angel of compassion	66	100	100	100	86	52	99	100	100	C	55	31	98	20	4	49	99	7	20	0
mindslug	100	99	100	99	100	100	98	100	95	45	s	95	48	51	1	0	99	15	9	0
giant tentacle	100	100	20	97	98	82	94	98	95	69	5	L	56	86	0	0	77	5	1	0
minotaur	100	100	100	98	97	80	93	99	97	2	51	44	t	61	17	2	80	13	10	0
angel of mercy	99	100	100	100	77	61	100	99	95	80	49	14	39	y	15	51	97	4	5	0
healer of Aite	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	96	99	100	83	85	H	41	100	80	54	0
Bodmall	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	51	100	100	98	49	59	B	100	37	63	0
overmind	89	99	81	96	64	56	81	100	77	1	0	23	20	3	0	0	O	0	6	0
Israfel	98	100	100	100	93	100	100	100	100	93	84	95	86	96	20	63	100	I	33	0
Automatos	100	100	100	100	99	89	97	100	100	80	91	99	90	95	46	37	94	67	U	0
Malygris	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	100	M

Rankings:

monster	performance	weakest defeater	losses to defeater	strongest defeated	wins to defeated
blood ape	12%	blood ape		mindslug	1
Miranda	17%	blood ape	30	mindslug	1
demon of rage	18%	blood ape	37	angel of mercy	1
swarm of daggers	20%	blood ape	38	Israfel	2
ravenous armadillo	21%	blood ape	39	giant tentacle	80
Reaper	28%	blood ape	10	Automatos	3
chain golem	31%	blood ape	21	Automatos	1
jumping bomb	32%	blood ape	36	Automatos	11
hound	33%	blood ape	21	mindslug	5
overmind	41%	blood ape	1	Automatos	6
giant tentacle	57%	Miranda	3	Automatos	1
minotaur	60%	Miranda	2	healer of Aite	17
angel of mercy	62%	demon of rage	1	healer of Aite	15
angel of compassion	62%	swarm of daggers	34	healer of Aite	4
mindslug	66%	blood ape	1	healer of Aite	1
Bodmall	81%	minotaur	2	healer of Aite	59
Israfel	82%	swarm of daggers	2	healer of Aite	20
Automatos	83%	Reaper	3	healer of Aite	46
healer of Aite	86%	minotaur	17	healer of Aite
Malygris	100%	Malygris		Malygris

Observations:

Despite all I've done to fix the Angel of Mercy, its overall ranking has actually gone down slightly. I tweaked it to perform better in against lower-level opponents, but surprisingly, its performance against groups has dropped significantly. I would have expected its new singing ability to help with that, but I'm guessing the AI is not being smart with groups.

Israfel has fallen in the rankings, although the Level 4 rankings are very close. The Fanatics of Aite did better than the others - perhaps because the Angel of Mercy did worse against them. Perhaps it can be attributed to the improvements we've made to swords. Come to think of it, the mindslug's group also has multiple swords.

I checked the Mindslug's overall performance and it did quite a bit better against all three angels. That suggests to me that the AI tweaks have improved performance against radiant opponents, and Fafhrd and Mouser are getting double benefit from that. The Fanatics of Aite also did better against the Angel of Mercy and Israfel, but slightly worse against the Angel of Compassion.

I think in response to this, I'll give Israfel back its full healing power. I'm going to tweak the Angel of Mercy's AI and if it per Any other suggestions?

[mciul]

I reduced the mindslug and the Fanatics, and brought Israfel right back where it was before I started tweaking. The Fanatics are still doing best out of the Level 4 monsters, and Automatos is very close with both, but let's play with it this way and see how it goes.

I've also adjusted the fight test scripts so I can build the table from multiple results files. The tables below are the combined results of 300 fights between every pairing of monsters, and hopefully they are more accurate as a result:

Table of fight results:

	†	A	a	m	g	j	R	d	h	C	s	L	t	y	H	B	O	I	U	M
swarm of daggers	†	184	70	163	149	150	96	154	65	93	0	1	2	1	0	0	31	0	0	0
blood ape	116	A	116	93	78	107	37	105	59	0	4	0	0	1	0	0	8	0	0	0
ravenous armadillo	230	184	a	180	47	26	19	151	75	0	2	244	0	0	0	0	45	0	0	0
Miranda	137	207	120	m	68	100	97	187	81	0	7	7	4	1	0	0	20	0	0	0
chain golem	151	222	253	232	g	221	121	214	140	61	0	4	7	41	0	0	91	15	9	0
jumping bomb	150	193	274	200	79	j	180	188	73	129	0	55	65	156	0	0	116	5	24	0
Reaper	204	263	281	203	179	120	R	208	118	1	14	13	22	4	0	0	62	0	3	0
demon of rage	146	195	149	113	86	112	92	d	78	0	6	2	3	1	0	0	3	0	0	0
hound	235	241	225	219	160	227	182	222	h	0	20	13	14	5	0	0	62	0	1	0
angel of compassion	207	300	300	300	239	171	299	300	300	C	177	86	292	64	9	173	298	26	69	0
mindslug	300	295	298	293	300	300	285	294	280	121	s	258	122	144	0	1	296	32	21	0
giant tentacle	299	300	56	293	296	245	287	298	287	214	40	L	162	277	0	0	214	3	3	0
minotaur	298	300	300	296	293	235	278	297	286	8	177	138	t	182	62	3	260	26	26	0
angel of mercy	299	299	300	299	259	144	296	299	295	236	156	23	118	y	86	156	299	8	18	0
healer of Aite	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	291	300	300	238	214	H	97	300	232	112	0
Bodmall	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	127	299	300	297	143	203	B	300	113	194	0
overmind	269	292	255	280	209	184	238	297	238	2	3	86	40	1	0	0	O	0	9	0
Israfel	300	300	300	300	285	295	300	300	300	274	268	297	271	292	68	187	300	I	136	0
Automatos	300	300	300	300	291	276	297	300	299	231	278	297	274	282	188	106	291	164	U	0
Malygris	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	300	M

Rankings:

monster	performance	weakest defeater	losses to defeater	strongest defeated	wins to defeated
blood ape	12%	blood ape		mindslug	4
demon of rage	17%	blood ape	105	mindslug	6
Miranda	18%	blood ape	93	mindslug	7
swarm of daggers	20%	blood ape	116	angel of compassion	93
ravenous armadillo	21%	blood ape	116	mindslug	2
Reaper	29%	blood ape	37	Automatos	3
chain golem	31%	blood ape	78	Automatos	9
hound	32%	blood ape	59	Automatos	1
jumping bomb	33%	blood ape	107	Automatos	24
overmind	42%	blood ape	8	Automatos	9
giant tentacle	57%	demon of rage	2	Automatos	3
minotaur	60%	demon of rage	3	healer of Aite	62
angel of mercy	62%	blood ape	1	healer of Aite	86
angel of compassion	63%	swarm of daggers	93	healer of Aite	9
mindslug	63%	blood ape	4	Automatos	21
Bodmall	82%	minotaur	3	healer of Aite	203
Israfel	83%	chain golem	15	healer of Aite	68
Automatos	83%	Reaper	3	healer of Aite	188
healer of Aite	83%	minotaur	62	healer of Aite
Malygris	100%	Malygris		Malygris

[mciul]

I just had an awesome game with the following monsters:

armadillo wisps of pain Angel of Compassion hound angel of mercy Fanatics of Aite

I killed the armadillo, and fought the hound in the Temple of Nomos, sacrificing after I used the scales ability. I went to the quartering room and tried random scrolls until I summoned a malignant chanter and got ghoulified. This was a great combination! I killed the Angel of Mercy, the angel of compassion and the wisps, sacrificed the power of compassion, and fought the fanatics.

It's been a while since I reworked the damage system, but the Tormentor of Aite can't hurt you at all if you're undead! (I wonder if we should add some AI so she unreadies the staff of pain if her enemy is undead) I managed to kill the healer and the defender with the malignant chanter's help (he died in the process), then sacrificed the power of Mercy before killing the tormentor.

I went to fight Malygris. I didn't have any teleportation controllers, but I had the rod of the master builder, so I narrowed the path to the quartering room. I softened him up with grenades from the Laboratory then went downstairs to fight him. As soon as he teleported away, I headed over there so I could have the rotting corpse's help when the assassin showed up. I took a couple of hits but survived, then went to find Malygris again. Here's my favorite part: I used the gauntlet of attraction to steal the dagger of draining!

Malygris didn't survive long enough after that to really get to use it, but it was so satisfying.

The game may be slightly easy now, but I might also just be playing smarter. How does everyone else feel about it?

Notes on the Angel of Mercy: The angel sang a lot in this game, which was a bit frustrating - the main effect was to prolong the fight. I have tweaked the AI slightly so it will hopefully parry more instead. The Angel of Mercy is a bit like the jumping bomb in that it won't hurt you for a while, but when it does it can crush you pretty hard. In this game, the Angel mostly attacked the malignant chanter and didn't hurt me.

[VictorGijsbers]

That sounds like an awesome game. :-) I love the table of fighting scores. It's looking pretty good too, with all level 4 creatures around 82% (except the overmind, but that's fine); all level 3 creatures around 60%, all level 2 creatures around 30% and all level 1 creatures around 20%. One exception: the blood ape. I think I'll tweak it a bit so that his combat power increases a little more as he grows in size.