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1

Off Topic / Re: Crawl

« on: March 21, 2007, 15:34 »

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The reason for the ToD is for automation - you can make a macro that blows the horn, fires off N bolts of fire, where N is the worst-case number of bolts that kills a beast, in the cardinal direction the tunnel goes in, fires off the XP sink spell or whatever, and rests for the worst-case number of turns to regain the MP you just spent. Leave your finger on the macro button for a while.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Now, that's just plain evil playing :)
Sounds flawless enough to be considered for special attention by the Crawl devteam. AFAIK ToD's already made temporary in DCSS.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

They're already aware of it. I found out about it due to a YAVP on r.g.r.m. I don't think it is a problem, though. It has harsh prerequisites.
1. You have to be a mummy (or learn Lichform, but that's even crazier).
2. You have to have the Horn of Geryon.
Neither of these are trivial. Then you have to be willing to spend the time. Then it is really really obvious in a VP. It would be easier to convincingly fake a VP than to play this out. So what's the point in nerfing it?

As far as ToD goes, I think that it isn't temporary - rather, it creates four rather than eight walls around you, so you have to have two castings to be fenced in.

When it comes to Unseen Horrors, on the other hand, I somewhat disagree. Sure they can be a very large PITA, but if you're willing to blow a few potions of Heal Wounds, or even plain Healing, that can make a spellcaster hold out until the Teleport kicks in. If you are unfortunate enough that the teleport lands you within visual range of the UH again, though, you're SOL.

When I play casters on cave-levels, I tend to hug the walls. If I get an "It hits you!", I immediately reach for my closest source of digging and dig a tunnel into the wall so I have a corridor I can kill it in. Tactics from there on depends on what perishables I have access to and how many HP and how good defense I have.

Although teleportation and healing are obviously useful, these tend to fail me on too regular a basis (mostly by spawning badly). Obviously not always, as UH's aren't usually the end of my games, but they've made short work of many good chars of mine, and as I was later considering what I had done wrong, often no alternative path seems nearly airtight.

Yeah, UHs are tricky with the escape from them being "airtight". There's the old standby of having poison resistance (well, or not. It works without also, but is more risky) and firing Poison Cloud or Evaporate at yourself so that the UH *has* to advance through it and thus becoming confused for long enough for the teleport to kick in. If your teleport puts you close to the UH, you should now know which direction it comes from and lay down more confuzzling clouds.

The cave-dig system I hadn't considered much, however. Possibly because I can usually fend off an UH by the time I can dig, but either way, I'll be sticking to this one. Tnx.

Yeah, well... a Wand of Digging is gold. Finding one early makes many things easier, not only UHs, but I seldom learn the Dig spell except for the Hive (dig around the lake instead of flying over it) and Hellrunning (Magic Map, Dig, go down the stairs, repeat), and I skip it for those areas if I don't have Selective Amnesia - it is too slot-intensive for anywhere I don't have a particular and specific use for it. Wands are usually enough.

2

Off Topic / Re: Crawl

« on: March 20, 2007, 16:40 »

ToD HoG ET - translation, please? :)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Tomb of Doroklohe, Horn of Geryon, Ecumenical Temple.
1: Start a mummy.
2: Get the Horn of Geryon.
3: Learn to cast Tomb of Doroklohe
4: Go to the Ecumenical Temple
5: Using Tomb of Doroklohe, make a corridor that extends from a wall and out to the edge of your FOV in a cardinal direction.
6: Stand in the walled end of the corridor and blow the Horn of Geryon.
7: Kill the Beast that it summons, gain XP.
8: Put that XP into some skill.
9: Rest until full HP/MP.
10: While not at XP Cap, go to 6.

Thanks.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm well aware of the uses of the Horn of Geryon, and indeed kill them at the safety of the Temple (though only for specifically needed skill increases, or DSs on the very verge of a new mutation). I simply never bother to use the Tomb (I've never actually bothered to learn it, in general), as beasts are so weak by the time you can kill Geryon. Another use of the Horn is to block off rampant Executioners, and the such :)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The reason for the ToD is for automation - you can make a macro that blows the horn, fires off N bolts of fire, where N is the worst-case number of bolts that kills a beast, in the cardinal direction the tunnel goes in, fires off the XP sink spell or whatever, and rests for the worst-case number of turns to regain the MP you just spent. Leave your finger on the macro button for a while.

Ah, I understood "arbitrary deaths" as deaths which are arbitrary *on a regular basis*. The way you describe them now, I mostly agree with you.

I had encountered that Statue before I had even found Clarity or Sustain Ability. It was, admittedly, the first time I saw the thing, but I wasn't given a way to deal with it, regardless.
Unseen Horrors, which are much more common, can kill you off quite easily on dlvl7-10, if you're a non-fighter who hasn't found See Invisible yet. Especially when they spawn on a cave-like, corridorless level. Fighters are only different in that they can take a few solid blows while waiting for teleportation to kick in.

Yes, the OCS can be death to someone with low INT who doesn't have access to clarity, sustain abilities, or potions of restore abilities, even if they've met them before. So they can be arbitrary even to the spoiled, prepared player. But I believe such cases to be rare in Crawl.

When it comes to Unseen Horrors, on the other hand, I somewhat disagree. Sure they can be a very large PITA, but if you're willing to blow a few potions of Heal Wounds, or even plain Healing, that can make a spellcaster hold out until the Teleport kicks in. If you are unfortunate enough that the teleport lands you within visual range of the UH again, though, you're SOL.

When I play casters on cave-levels, I tend to hug the walls. If I get an "It hits you!", I immediately reach for my closest source of digging and dig a tunnel into the wall so I have a corridor I can kill it in. Tactics from there on depends on what perishables I have access to and how many HP and how good defense I have.

3

Off Topic / Re: Crawl

« on: March 20, 2007, 08:55 »

ToD HoG ET - translation, please? :)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Tomb of Doroklohe, Horn of Geryon, Ecumenical Temple.
1: Start a mummy.
2: Get the Horn of Geryon.
3: Learn to cast Tomb of Doroklohe
4: Go to the Ecumenical Temple
5: Using Tomb of Doroklohe, make a corridor that extends from a wall and out to the edge of your FOV in a cardinal direction.
6: Stand in the walled end of the corridor and blow the Horn of Geryon.
7: Kill the Beast that it summons, gain XP.
8: Put that XP into some skill.
9: Rest until full HP/MP.
10: While not at XP Cap, go to 6.

Swamp confusion is nearly entirely avoidable through poison protection (exceptions mostly being unique spellcasters), so I wouldn't count that as an arbitrary death, at all.

Unless it's the first time you enter the Swamp.

Elf Annihilators are so rare and location-specific, I wouldn't count those in, either. If you're going down the Elven Halls, you're either new to it, or well prepared.

Exactly, unless you're new.

Wasps can certainly fit in, but not during the late-game. Wands can easily make short work of them.

Unless you don't know how dangerous they are.

Unseen Horrors, however, I would count in the list, together with the damnable orange crystals, or whatever the acursed things are called. I lost a good Troll Berserker to one in two~ turns and, of course, couldn't escape.

Well, the next time you play a low-INT character, you will put a higher priority on Clarity or Sustain Abilities.

See a common theme in the above? All the creatures I mentioned as "arbitrary deaths" are arbitrary for unspoiled, first-time encounters. Most other (not within the first 3-5 character/dungeon levels) deaths in Crawl are avoidable with careful play and careful use of resources. The things I mentioned - and Orange Crystal Statues - are exceptions.

4

Off Topic / Re: Crawl

« on: March 18, 2007, 20:57 »

I used to play ADoM a whole lot. I liked it, but I am a notorious scummer (no, not save scummer). If I can add slightly to my character's power in a safe but repetitive way and entirely within the rules of the game? I will. ADoM is absolutely rife with opportunities like this. Herb scumming, ant scumming, gremlin scumming, and lots of less extreme methods. So I used to do that a lot. Then my character would become insanely powerful and I'd die to overconfidence. My best ADoM character ever was a level 43 High Elven Archer who walked through a "threat room" of Titans in an open cave while Berserk. He'd walked past them countless of times (they were on a travel route somewhere) without taking more than 10-20 damage altogether, but this time I forgot to switch away from Berserk. So he was dead. And I thought back on all the hours I'd been herb-scumming, the elaborate set-up to pick-pocket PoGAs off of dying gremlins, and I realised something profound.

I had hated every minute of it. Every single mind-numbing risk-less power-increasing minute I had been bored out of my skull but going through with it anyway because I wanted to have the best possible character. I looked upon the prospect of doing all that again and playing less overconfidently, and I just shook my head. I quit playing ADoM right there. Because I know myself well enough that I know beyond a doubt that if I have the opportunity to risk-freely increase the power of a semi-successful character? I will do so.

But a few weeks afterward I hungered for a roguelike again. I played around with Nethack, but found it too inexplicable and silly. I toyed around with Angband, but the non-persistent levels and lack of a serious food clock made me think that the ADoM scumming I had engaged in was only the very small tip of a very large iceberg I would get to explore if I stayed with Angband.

Then I played Crawl. What's this? I'm actually having food problems. I'm forced to dive deeper. There's no selling to shop so there's no mind-numbing treks through the dungeons hauling items of questionable value around. There aren't any infinitely-spawning creatures that you can get drops off of.

And most importantly, I never grow overconfident. No matter how high my character's AC is, or how many HP they have, in the worst case scenario death is one single mistake away. What's better, it has this neat patch that makes going from place to place in the dungeon a snap. And now it can track stashes, so I can search for an item I know I've seen while in-game, and go directly to it via the travel function.

And you can't scum in it. Well, you can, but all scumming choices are no-nonsense, strategic, long-term, early choices. When you start a character that is a Mummy the second time, you know beyond a doubt what you're going in for. If you start worshipping Nemelex the second time, you know what you're going in for. You learn Alter Self while being a Sif Munite, you know exactly what you're doing. You're doing this to scum, and only for that. But outside of these limited (and none of them are really risk free, save the Mummy ToD HoG ET situation, but that already requires a start-of-game choice that "I'm going to scum this game") situations, it's not a scummable game. The beauty of this is that people like me, who can't help themselves from scumming, can make large-scale strategic choices that disable them from the scumming path without feeling that they are, right then, gimping their character.

And it's fun. It's heaps of fun when you manage to pull off an escape from a seemingly impossible situation. When you meet an UH on DL5 and you get that first UH-heralding message, you stop up. The game makes you think. Teleports take time to kick in, so if you want to teleport you must decide so now. Blinking is fast but a limited resource. Controlled blinking even more so. ToD is a high-level escape spell that won't get you out of melee. All these are actual choices, instead of what you have in many other roguelikes, where whenever you are in a dangerous situation you just go "ah, I have 1-round fail-free teleport with precise control. I can get out of this, no prob. Only a mistype can kill me now."

Okay, yes, Crawl has some arbitrary deaths. However, most of them come within DL 1-3. Ghosts don't

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

follow stairs

, so you learn from that. And other DL1-3 kills are easily recoverable through starting a new character - Crawl is so fast-paced that early game deaths are more like speed bumps than setbacks.

Then you have your arbitrary later-game deaths. Yellow wasps. Swamp Confusion. Elf Annihilators. But whatever one of these you encounter, you can learn one simple lesson from it: If you see a monster with a new letter or an old letter with a new colour, run the hell away. Come back at full HP, full MP and with all your diverse protective items with you. Bring extra scrolls of blinking. And learn what it can do as safely as possible.

In fact, if Craw teaches one critical roguelike skill, it is: Run the hell away.


On a completely unrelated note:

You might want to take a look at Incursion to see what's coming up in the roguelike world. Take a peek at the manual and "White paper" to see what it's striving to accomplish.

;)

5

AliensRL / AliensRL

« on: March 18, 2007, 20:22 »

Why isn't there an AliensRL topic yet?

Anyway, I really like many aspects of AliensRL as it is right now. Weapon balance seems about right and you must really hunt for ammo until you find a good store of weapons of different sorts. As a 7DRL it has lots of polish.

But the thing I love to death about it is the interface. It's smooth, and even though I love a "remember where you've been" function in roguelikes, having the blueprints of the building visible outside your LOS really adds to that "I'm in known territory but I don't know what the hell else is in here with me" feeling.