rec.games.roguelike.announce Posting Guidelines

[Russ Allbery]

Last-modified: 2018-01-01
Posted-by: postfaq 1.17 (Perl 5.28.1)
Archive-name: games/roguelike/announce
URL: https://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/faqs/rgra.html
Posting-frequency: monthly

rec.games.roguelike.announce is a moderated newsgroup for informational
posts and announcements about any roguelike game, including (but not
limited to) Rogue, Nethack, Moria, Angband, and Adom. Since it is a
moderated group, all postings will be sent to a moderator for approval
before posting; this means that posts won't show up immediately after you
post them. Please allow a day or two for your post to show up.

The charter for the group is:

| rec.games.roguelike.announce is a forum for postings of FAQ lists,
| announcements of new patches and versions of existing games, postings of
| small "official" patches, and announcements of new rogue-style
| games. Every posting to this group would be cross-posted to the most
| appropriate other rec.games.roguelike group, and follows-up would be
| directed to that group. The moderator could, at his/her discretion,
| change the subject line of postings (esp. to add the word [SPOILERS]
| where appropriate).

Announcements of new web sites related to roguelike games are also
appropriate and welcome.

Most posts to rec.games.roguelike.announce will be crossposted to two
newsgroups, it and the other most appropriate group in the
rec.games.roguelike.* hierarchy. Followups will be directed to that other
group as mentioned in the charter. Please choose your crossposting
appropriately to save work for the moderator.

Any post containing spoilers should note that in the subject header with a
tag of "[SPOILERS]". Please also try to ensure that no spoilers occur in
the first screen of text and that the body of the article also warns about
spoilers.

All postings to rec.games.roguelike.announce except for apparent spam will
either be approved or will receive a response explaining why they were not
approved. Note, however, that if you munge your e-mail address in a way
that the moderator cannot decipher it, there may be no way for the
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response nor see your post show up within about three days, please contact
the moderator to see if there's a problem. It's possible that your site
doesn't have the group correctly configured.

This newsgroup is also available as a mailing list. If you wish to
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<https://lists.eyrie.org/mailman/listinfo/roguelike-announce>

to subscribe. The content of the mailing list and newsgroup will be the
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An archive of all messages to rec.games.roguelike.announce starting from
January 2010 is available at:

<https://lists.eyrie.org/pipermail/roguelike-announce/>

Also from the charter:

| The moderator will at all times be free to appoint a backup-moderator
| and/or a replacement if he or she must leave the post. Such an
| appointment must be announced on rec.games.roguelike.announce. If it
| becomes necessary to replace the moderator, this could be done with a
| public vote, announced on news.announce.newgroups (and crossposted to
| all the rec.games.roguelike groups). A two-thirds vote would be
| necessary to replace the moderator. [It is possible that the moderator
| of news.announce.newgroups, group-advice, and such people will come up
| with an "official" way to replace a moderator; in such a case, their
| approved method would take precedence over this one.]

The current moderator of this group is Russ Allbery <ea...@eyrie.org>.
The contact address for the group, to which any problem reports or
questions should be sent, is rgra-r...@eyrie.org. If you are having
problems posting directly to the group, you can instead e-mail your post
to the submission address at rg...@eyrie.org.

If you are maintaining a FAQ for any group in the rec.games.roguelike.*
hierarchy and would like to get pre-approval for posting it to
rec.games.roguelike.announce, please contact the moderator.

[CSS Dixieland]

== Ascensions per version or variety in Junethack 2023 ==

This text is a comment about the results of Junethack, not a notification related to NetHack Wiki.

The Junethack competition of 2023 has finished. This is the proportion of ascensions for each of the versions or varieties played. Eight servers have participated: one of Nethack Alt Org, one of Nethack 4, three of Gnollhack, and three of Hardfought. Hardfought servers also have few other versions available, such as NetHack version 1.3d, but they have not been included in Junethack. The list is ordered by the proportion of ascensions obtained.

<pre>
Version or.............Ascensions...............Total games played......Per cent of ascensions
variety................of the hero..............in Junethack 2023.......per version or variety

NetHack 3.4.3...........23..............................575................................4
NotDNetHack..............8..............................211................................3.79
GnollHack................3...............................92................................3.26
DNetHack.................7..............................248................................2.82
SlashTHEM................2...............................99................................2.02
AceHack..................3..............................174................................1.72
NetHack4.................9..............................588................................1.53
NetHack 3.6.7...........51.............................3936................................1.3
NetHack Fourk............1...............................84................................1.19
NetHack 3.7.0...........25.............................3333................................0.75
XNetHack.................3..............................501................................0.6
EvilHack.................4..............................742................................0.54
Slash'EM.................1..............................221................................0.45
DynaHack.................1..............................358................................0.28
HackEM...................2..............................837................................0.24
GruntHack................1..............................470................................0.21
UnNetHack................2.............................1245................................0.16
NetHack 1.3d.............0...............................61................................0
SporkHack................0...............................77................................0
FIQHack..................0..............................196................................0
SpliceHack...............0.............................1630................................0
</pre>

Average: 7 ascensions and 747 games per version or variety, less than 1 per cent ascended. On average, one ascension out of more than a hundred games, the others are not ascended. Dungeon games are amongst the most difficult, but they are also amongst the most addictive. A combination that seems to suggest a certain... 'masochism' amongst dungeon enthusiasts.

The table given above is reasonably well aligned on our screen, but maybe not so well on other screens, or printers, as it depends on the spacing and the character font used by each machine. If the automatic formatting executed by the wiki look gibberish, as I am afraid that it look, please look at the source by activating 'Edit'.

The table shows only the proportion of ascensions in Junethack 2023, not in other competitions, and not in the total number of games played throughout the years. It is also known in Statistical Science that samples with small numbers tend to be less reliable than samples with big numbers, therefore the table should not be taken as an absolute indication of play difficulty, especially for versions or varieties in which the number of games played, or of ascensions, has been small.

Let alone should the table be seen as indication of play 'enjoyability', a very subjective perception that varies greatly from an individual player to another. The style of a player may be rapid, playing our dungeon game almost as he would play a 'point and shoot' arcade game. The style of another player may be slow, playing almost as he would play a classic game of Chess, thinking every action and considering possibilities at every few turns. Or at every turn, in particularly difficult situations.

Turn-based dungeon games are unique in accommodating to both kinds of players, rapid and slow.
One is the 'action' player who goes for muscular Barbarians attacking in melée, at close quarters. The other is the reflexive player who prefers brainy Wizards casting magical spells. In between we have Walkyrie, Ranger, Knight, Samurai, Monk, and the other rôles. Every player has some choice for him.

Of 1630 games played in SpliceHack, not even one has been ascended. FIQHack, SporkHack and NetHack version 1.3d have not been ascended either, but they have been played less than 200 times each (196, 77 and 61 times), not 1630 times. At the opposite extreme we have NetHack version 3.4.3 heading the ranking with NotDNetHack and GnollHack, each with an impressive ascension rate of between three and four per cent. Four per cent exactly, in the case of NetHack version 3.4.3.

Some other factors may account for such disparities in results, from four per cent to virtually zero ascensions. NetHack version 3.4.3 was for many years the only official version available, meaning that plenty of detail in game mechanics is known to a vast number of players. Once the Dev Team decided to take action and release NetHack versions 3.6.x (NetHack version 3.5 never was official), a number of dungeon devotees started to migrate to them, but version 3.4.3 is still very well known.

However, that explanation does not account for NotDNetHack, which is not so well known. Let alone for GnollHack, which is, besides, a recent arrival on the field and known only to a select minority of dungeon enthusiasts. GnollHack can be played off-line in classic or modern mode (permanent death or not), casual or serious commit (preserving older sessions or not), with seven levels of difficulty (damage inflicted to the hero or by the hero to monsters), but in Junethack it is assumed that all the 92 GnollHack participating games have been played in standard configuration. Then, it is difficult to think of what has made GnollHack so successful in the number of ascensions. I have myself played GnollHack a few times and I am playing it at present. It is interesting in the unique features that do not exist in any other variety, but it is not 'excessively' easy. My hero has died a few times already, and in the others I have made him exit the dungeon from first depth, with the remaining pets beside.

It may be that the exclusive features of GnollHack (including even music and speech sounds with the recorded voices of actors when playing off-line) make GnollHack singularly attractive, therefore its players pay more attention and make fewer mistakes. However, that is only a hypothesis. The true cause may be a different one, yet to be discovered.

Sources:

https://junethack.net/activity

https://junethack.net/post_tournament_statistics

A more readable presentation of the statistical table given above can be read at the GnollHack Forum:

https://community.soundmindgames.com/threads/ascensions-per-version-or-variety-in-junethack-2023.75/#post-366

[[User:Cssdixieland|Cssdixieland]] ([[User talk:Cssdixieland|talk]]) 02:34, 1 July 2023 (UTC)