Not just healers, but I say all monsters should take at least damage from running through spikes. I'd rather just see them unable to enter spikes period as it's sometimes hard to grab drops when monsters die deep in a thorn pit.

Yah I find this to be BS they don't take damage and we do, however I think they should still enter, but just take damage from it. That will teach them!

Why is that a bad idea?
It's not that hard to program the monsters so the will avoid hazards..
But they would still be able to enter hazards by us pushing the monsters into them.

When you run across a spiked floor you will take damage, it should be no different for the monsters. >_>

It's not that difficult to code them to not just run to the spikes for safety and to have them take damage if they do run in or are shoved in. However the damage shouldn't be enough to kill them quickly just enough to hurt them, to get them out of there and back on the field where they can be slayed.

It is beyond irritating to try to kill monsters and they run into the spikes and sit there not moving, taunting you because you can't get them. It's worse when there are healers in the area.

It is not "less" fun for the game to be tactically and strategically [i]interesting[i].

Spikes should just "deal" as much damage to all creatures that pass through them. They're a hazard, not an attack that enemies are protected from via the reasonable "no friendly fire" rules that the game has.

If players want to be dumb and charge into enemies, or players want to be cunning and lure enemies through dangers; then that's the _player's_ individual role playing choice.

The fact that the player has that tactical and strategic option _removed_ from their hands makes this game shallower, and the participants and creators poorer in the possible options that the game could contain.

Crash, your logic is flawed, the characters are bloody _robots_. Stuff like "brambles" is not really going to affect a machine the same way that it would affect say a Slime or a Gremlin or Wolver(ine).

Personally, I prefer ranged attacks, but that's solely for stylistic, and personal tactical, reasons.

First of all, you both need to understand the limits of the AI in this game. The enemies don't understand anything more than moving towards the player and queuing up some basic defensive maneuvers in response to certain things. If floor hazards could harm them, knights would never have to click the attack button even once to defeat a horde of enemies; everyone would just walk circles around the hazards and let the monsters kill themselves. And if the monster AI COULD understand how to path AROUND hazards to reach the player, then people would just stand there and knock the monsters into the spikes again and again with their swords. Again, making the game too easy.

SrBlackDove, if "we're robots" is an excuse for players to be immune to floorspikes, then why isn't "they're robots, they're undead (brambles are going to scare skeletons SOOOOO much, aren't they?), they're slimes (which are ultra-resistant to all forms of piercing damage anyways), they're devils, they're animals with thick hides" isn't an excuse for all of them to be immune as well? You can make that excuse for anything in this game, but guess what? At the end of the day, the floor hazards effect players but not enemies BECAUSE THEY ARE HAZARDS. They are not supposed to work both ways, they are only supposed to be hazardous to the player. Would you prefer they change the brambles to something more menacing, that looks like it should affect robot feet? Or should they change it to something that "makes sense" to affect players but not monsters?

Actually, for that matter, was it ever stated canonically that we are supposed to be robots? That's a conclusion that we, the players, made up, so for you to use it as the basis for an argument that floor hazards need to work differently is nothing short of ridiculous.

You say that floor hazards and the way they only affect players REMOVES all strategy from the game, but you think it would be more strategic if you could just stand there and let all of the enemies kill themselves without you lifting a finger? If you really cared at all about strategy, you'd have realized that figuring out the best way to deal with monsters around hazards is one of the big strategic challenges of this game.

As for Cheeserito.. If you aren't capable of hitting the enemies that reflexively dodge when shot at, then I'm sorry but taking the floor hazards out of the game isn't going to make it any easier for you to shoot them. They'll still dodge your bullets if they're standing someplace you CAN walk on. Fortunately for you, there's a funny thing about dodgy monsters and floor hazards.

If the floor hazard is in an open part of the room, the monsters will dodge OUT of the hazard. If the floor hazard is in the corner... then the monster is just going to dodge himself into the corner and you can shoot him like a fish in a barrel. There is no problem here.

As for loot in the brambles... That has never been an issue, either. If YOUR shield honestly can't survive more than a couple hits from a floor hazard, then that was your bad choice in shield selection. Somebody with a shield that DOES have piercing resistance should be able to reach that loot just fine. Or, somebody can just run in, take a single hit, and grab the stuff. If someone who does this has pierce-resistant armor, they'll take very little damage and the next bush-full of hearts will have them back at full health.

Notice that right now only two things in the entire game even DO piercing resistance, (Lichen colonies, and FLOOR HAZARDS) and yet quite a large number of shields and armor available contain piercing resistance. Funny, that.

If they do manage to "dodge out" they're IMMEDIATELY back in the thorns, so it doesn't even matter. And I've NEVER seen them dodge themselves into the corner. They always "dodge out" and then run back in, as though the floor outside of the thorns was lava. So there might not be a problem for YOU, but it is NOT the case for everyone. AGAIN, think before you speak.

And AGAIN, it might not be an issue for YOU, but it sure as hell is a huge issue for me. I use the Wise Owlite Shield, and yeh, it doesn't have piercing resistance, but god dammit if it's not one of the BEST shields in the game. =/ My boyfriend uses the Mighty Defender, which has a ton of piercing resistance, and you know what? It literally takes the same amount of hits to destroy his shield as it does mine with the thorns. So your point is MOOT.

Also, I have the Rock Jelly armor AND Helm. And they both have MASSIVE amounts of piercing resistance. But you know what happens to me when I walk into thorns? I lose 3-4 bars of health trying to get the drops. And another 3-4 bars of health trying to get out of the thorns. And it's WAY worse in Tier3. And what if you ONLY have a small amount of health? You CANNOT just run into the stupid thorns to get the loots. It would be suicide, and then guess what. No one would be able to revive you! LOL.

Also, why would I want to just lose my health in order to get the heart that is sitting so precariously in the back? That's stupid, plain and simple. And you act like every single bush drops hearts. I find it too often that they don't drop nearly enough hearts, at least not when they're actually necessary. But if you've got full health, then that's almost all they ever drop.

In any case, yes, players could exploit it (already mentioned this), but the least they could do is put a timer on it or something. So if they just camp there, either they automatically get out of the thorns, and actually try to come at you (bro) or they take a small amount of damage. But I think the amount of damage thorns do is a bit ridiculous in terms of how quickly they can break a shield.

ALSO, I NEVER said that I wanted floor hazards removed. In fact, I don't think a SINGLE post in this thread suggested that. So maybe you should learn to read, too. :D

Teaching the AI not to go into the brambles, or to move out when in, is easy.

Concerns about monsters becoming predictable: That's only an issue if monsters only have one AI option to choose from. Teach them several movement/attack options. Teach them to move around, instead of just charging straight on.

Oh, wait -- some monsters do move around (or at least, were doing that for me last night). Those flying healing bats seem to move almost at random (and they should be immune to spikes, they are fliers.)

If you are concerned about monsters being too predictable in their charge and "shield-bash them into bramble", then let them stay at range, forcing you to move to them.

First of all, you both need to understand the limits of the AI in this game. The enemies don't understand anything more than moving towards the player and queuing up some basic defensive maneuvers in response to certain things. If floor hazards could harm them, knights would never have to click the attack button even once to defeat a horde of enemies; everyone would just walk circles around the hazards and let the monsters kill themselves. And if the monster AI COULD understand how to path AROUND hazards to reach the player, then people would just stand there and knock the monsters into the spikes again and again with their swords. Again, making the game too easy.

Regarding this first,

Right now it looks like AI only understands moving toward the player and queuing up some basic defensive maneuvers as you say, however it wouldn't be too hard to get around this and make monsters react to environmental hazards. In a totally different thread I had suggested that monsters be reactive to damage rather than reactive to shots from a gun (this was regarding monsters dodging every which way even when gun shots were aimed no where near them making them really hard to hit). If this principal is applied monsters will instinctively react to receiving damage by dodging away from it (might not work too well on stuff that doesn't dodge). You can also add an attribute to the monster class which represents what type of floor it's standing on. Using this information you can prioritize moving out of a certain type of floor (such as fire or spikes) over charging the player as the top priority. Following this line of thinking using more than one floor variable representing several floor tiles around the monster you can effectively make the monster walk around the environmental hazards. After floor variables are defined, I don't think it would be too hard to add code into the movement methods to check for the best path to the player. You could additionally do as I said earlier and just make it so monsters can't go into the spikes at all. Knocking monsters back into the spikes with swords/shields could be discouraged by having the spikes do minimal damage. You could also program the spikes to knock monsters (and maybe even players) back out of the spikes every time they're hit basically making it so nothing stays too long in there. I can't see people actually strafing around a spike pit waiting for monsters to die 2 hp of damage at a time, and I don't think monsters can get any more predictable than they already are by making them want to avoid walking through the spikes.

Regarding the other thing you said about people having problems with monsters dying in the spikes and leaving items,

I've had first hand experience with a couple monsters dying in a big nest of brambles. Granted nothing good dropped so we didn't care, but it still was completely inaccessible without us taking damage b/c of how deep it was and the fact that there was no other way around the spikes to get closer to the drops. Also, I do take 2 or 3 bars of damage from running into spikes on T2.

To solve this problem either gun them or bomb them from far, or the perfect solution us the Venom Veiler one of the best bombs against the healing type monsters =).

I agree only as far as monsters should have something in their script to move them out of hazards if the player is not currently standing in the hazard. They should, however, be willing to move into and/or through hazards to get to a player.

I definitely do not agree that monsters should take damage from stage hazards.

Alternatively, make it more realistic. We have swords for crying out loud. People use machetes to clear away hazards in jungles in real life, why can't we use our swords to chop them down?

THIS! make brambles destructible!

Okay, to be fair, that was Deslare's idea. I think to add on (since I just KNOW people will complain about it being just SO terribly, horribly unfair and game-breaking to be able to destroy ONE type of floor hazard), they should respawn after a given period of time (maybe 10-15 seconds?).

This idea shouldn't be very hard to implement either, as they already have floor "hazards" that you can destroy, only to have them respawn a few seconds later.