Searching no longer doubles stealth range

[hedgehog-manifesto]

In Brogue 1.7.5, the searching system was overhauled and (from the 1.7.5 changelog) "Monsters can notice you from twice as far away during searching." This behavior no longer occurs in BrogueCE. I'm assuming this is a bug since I cannot find a design change in the BrogueCE release changelogs or gameplay differences wiki. If this was a design change, the appropriate BrogueCE changelog and gameplay differences should be updated to reflect this.

I believe the doubling of stealth range during searching was a mechanic that added significant strategic decision making in some situations. It also made sense that searching multiple tiles many spaces away would allow monsters to notice the player from twice as far compared with the player simply moving through the area. This should work seamlessly with BrogueCE's revamped strong search and incremental searching.

Thanks for the work going into the fixes and improvement of gameplay.

[nstoddard]

Looks like it was removed here: https://github.com/tmewett/BrogueCE/commit/6227990b4558ab1e6901524922e0242c2ec80402. @tmewett do you think we should keep this?

[tmewett]

So yes, this was intentional, but as I noted in the message, a bit of an experiment at the time. I don't really know if there's a reason to add it back; this is the first I've heard of anyone mentioning searching is too strong, and I disagree it makes much sense thematically, searching stealth = walking stealth seems generally more streamlined.

[hedgehog-manifesto]

The spirit of Brogue is the situational value and interaction of objects with each other and especially the terrain and the meaningful decisions this creates. Doubling stealth range on searches improves this interaction. For example, the advantage of high AC from plate is offset by the exponential increase in the stealth range from searching, especially on deep levels where it is dark and near open space such as a cavern or lake and the player can't see to the other side. A dragon on the other side the player doesn't even know is there might now see the player as a result of the noisy search in plate. A ring of light would let the player know if he was at risk of being detected or not. A good ring of awareness or a highly enchanted ring of stealth or a potion of invisibility now means he doesn't have to risk the search at all. With the doubling of the stealth range removed from CE, none of these meaningful decisions or interactions exist. The only decision is the cost of the time to search. The revamped search system in CE is a perfect example of retaining the original spirit and meaningful decisions from several versions of Brogue while keeping the mechanics streamlined. Unless a mechanic from Brogue is clearly broken, by default the original Brogue mechanics should be kept in CE.

[blossom7]

this is the first I've heard of anyone mentioning searching is too strong

For what it's worth, I did mention something similar months back, although not as detailed as @hedgehog-manifesto I feel like you explained the change well enough, in the sense that the search value is weaker than 1.7.5 to compensate for the removal of doubling the stealth range. It's hard to know if further nerfs would be warranted because, as you said, not many people have voiced a concern about the change.

[tmewett]

I think we're going to close this, there is still an increase from resting to searching, and it's not come up as an issue since