YAFAP - Scrappity - Arc - Gno - Neu - Survivor (Long)
Scrappity...@gmail.com
I'm sure that it deserves a golf clap at best, but 17M points and #210
score on the nao top 2000 is probably the highlight, largely thanks to
successfully double-bagging in 16 artifacts (not including invocation
items). Yes, puddings and polypiling were involved (though only the
0:1 castle WoW was found), so for those who find it distasteful, I
guess we'll have to wait for my first "real" ascension. Maybe I'll hit
Spork before it gets spoiled and "solved". In any case, it's
unabashedly long and powergamy, but a Gnome is the closest race we can
get to a munchkin, right?
First off, some background. I started off wasting most of the
Christmas holiday on Rogue, and picked up Nethack for the first time
in mid-January. I had 2 close calls for getting over the hump with
valkyries -- one ended by an Arch-Lich touch of death in Mines' End,
and another from enjoying blind telepathy a bit too much with no
gloves on. Given how I played (thorough pet cleanout of all the early
shops, sometimes even without leash / whistle or bag), each one
probably had 30-40 hours in them. Plus there was the "just one more
level" round that took me past 3AM only to end at the fins of a shark
on dry land (I think it was a chameleon). So Nethack has been a pretty
Zen experience (not the conduct) because of the sandpaint mandala-like
cycle of obsessive character crafting followed by instadeath.
So for this one, the crafting was even more obsessive. Made the
character female as tribute to all my dead valkyries. Started off with
mediocre strength, really crappy dexterity (7), but 16 on the
intelligence front, which came in handy eventually. Had a series of
cats (all nameless) that did their thieving and bodyguard duty as I
did the protection racket in Minetown (non-coaligned temple, but I
guess neutral characters can share the wealth). On the way up from
that, saw the cat kill too many monsters to eat them all and settled
down to munch on delicious... gnome, which got me aggravate monster
for the rest of the game, but between stealth and invisibility it
didn't make much difference.
The RNG was appropriately neutral in this one, but started off pretty
favorable. The first stroke of luck was finding a random gray dragon
in a really early throne room (maybe level 12 or so - I didn't see
another one for at least 10 more levels), sneaking up on it, and
having it drop scales. Second was diluting some potions in a fountain
and getting a wish (the Eye). Third was deliberately letting one of
the cats eat a chameleon corpse, which turned it into an orange
dragon. Orange dragon was sicced on the Watch Captain, which got me a
cursed silver saber. The dragon also wanted to take out the minetown
aligned priest, but I thought it would be in bad form after all the
donations (a decision that cost me about 8 hours of puddings and
polypiling trying to get a robe without murder later on). Finally
found a magic whistle after pulling on the leash every 3rd turn, but
on some random innocuous already-cleared level, the dragon decided to
tangle with a blue jelly. Goodbye dragon, hello tin of orange dragon
meat. A random encounter with an Aleax on another relatively low level
(13, I think) yielded a shield of reflection, and an orcish helm
turned out to be +5 and blessed, but gloves and boots were just
ordinary. Also, thrones consistently vanished in a puff of logic
without a single positive effect.
Sokoban was uneventful except for some keyboard sloppiness costing 2
luck and yielded a bag of holding. Not knowing how to get objects out
of holes, I wound up losing a wand and a ring when I dropped boulders
in them. Mine's end did not have any liches this time, but did have a
black pudding that I let graze, and 2 luckstones (I wound up getting 4
of them by the end, and not seeing a loadstone until I had the
Amulet). Since I didn't know that sacrificing should be balanced with
prayer and camped out at a couple of altars, I wound up getting a
bunch of really useless artifacts (I think Cleaver, then Ogresmasher
and Trollsbane before hitting Fire Brand) which screwed me up for arti-
wishing later. So that I wouldn't proliferate artifacts, I only went
halfway through the quest before halting.
So at some point I wound up with a choice -- should I take a level 14
or 15 character with shield of reflection, GDSM, resistances to
everything except shock and something like -20AC to the castle for
wishing, or should I stick around and try that pudding farming thingee
everyone has been talking about. Seeing as this was a character that
I put in much more time on than any previous one I decided to invest
the time in making it foolproof. Initially, I tried getting a sink
pudding down about 5 levels, but found that puddings can see and avoid
holes in the floor exceptionally well (in fact, I made one split over
a hole in the floor and it just stood there levitating) and don't
follow you down stairs. So I said screw it and fetched the Mine's end
pudding with a scroll of taming. Set up a little fort against the
wall (wall was eventually partly eaten by rock mole, but that worked
out nicely, because I could make a pudding divide right onto my altar
when it didn't come there willingly) and started the farm. Since I
wasn't obsessive about giant-proofing the fort with Elbereths, I
decided to fill up the level first, which effectively meant I was
stuck there until I was confident that I could fight my way back
through the level (I could use the Eye to get out, but not back in).
After setting up the farm, I finally read up more spoilers on prayer
and sacrifice and started doing it right. But even though I noted the
danger of being crowned, I figured starting the game on Friday the
13th would protect me. So I took 2 full days off (very hard in the
midst of the best character ever) to wait for Friday, put my luckstone
away so I wouldn't get bonus luck, and then boom, I see a clover leaf
and after I pray I'm the owner of a Vorpal Blade and a fancy title. I
guess the luck reduction from the 13th is not permanent and I should
have stocked up on mirrors for crowning management.
The cycle yielded all the spellbooks I could want (which was my first
real experience of spellcasting -- never thought of an Archeologist as
a caster), starting off with Identify. Eventually I got polymorph and
touch of death too (although touch of death was not used until the
Planes). Trained up identifying to flawless and had my first
experience with actually knowing what all my scrolls and potions
were. Turns out smoky potions were full healing. So all I need to do
is wait until I get back to my stash to bless them all in bulk to
artiwish Grayswandir... and then a careless sacrifice after
reconciliation yielded an unwanted Mjollnir. Anyway, long story
short, I didn't write a bot, didn't copy and paste strings, just
dutifully and methodically maintained a full level of puddings except
for the sacrificial lambs.
RNG's first revenge was a catch-22 -- I was getting every kind of
magic item imaginable in bunches, but no HoB and no robe. If I got
those, I could polypile anything else I wanted to with my spellbook,
but as it is I wound up needing to gain a couple more levels and drink
some blessed gain ability potions (good thing Gnomes max out Int at
19) to cast it with a 96% failure rate (I was being cheap with my
wands). That wound up costing about 20 rations to get to the HoB, but
the robe didn't come until literally thousands of items were polypiled
and I even went back for another round of pudding-beating to get more
stuff. Of course as soon as I went one more level into the quest, I
found an HoB, but that's life. The quest was largely trivial
otherwise, although thanks to a polytrap on the first level, instead
of lord Carnarvon and students, there were friendly tigers,
baluchitheria and green molds hanging out waiting for me. There was
also an incubus there that gave me a level after which I accidentally
got all stabby with silver.
The silver was my last big exhale because, after failing to get
Grayswandir with a magic lamp from puddings, I did get one out of my
first smoky potion genie, which is pretty good for 2/7 odds that I had
by then so eventually I was all kitted out without going past dungeon
level 23 or so. I kept going with puddings until I hit level 18,
chugged 12 gain level potions gotten through puddings and polying (the
first 3 attempts at alchemy failed miserably and I didn't succeed with
it until long after I didn't need it). By that point, I probably had
around 400HP and -50 naked AC, so I could finally fell safe.
A bones level about 3 above the castle got me Magicbane, which was the
only neutral / unaligned artifact that would have kept me sacrificing.
A silver dragon also got me scales, so eventually I rekitted myself
for dual wielding with no amulet, but decided to wrap up with Medusa
first. Medusa ran away downstairs, where I climbed up blindfolded
(just in case) only to find an Archon hanging out over the moat and
summoning nasties next to Medusa. Thankfully L, ;, h, and c were all
blessed-genocided by that point, so the nasties weren't that nasty,
but an umber hulk wiped out a wall so that I could get hit with the
Medusa's gaze... reflected off my amulet as my heart was in my throat.
I finally levitated out over the water to get the Archon and Medusa,
went around back, only to find another Archon summoning more friends.
The rest of the castle was a cakewalk after that, although some orc
absconded with all the nice armor and fell down a trap door when I
went polypiling, and I had to go wading to fish out Sunsword.
The castle wand was 0:1. The first one went for a blessed Archon
figurine, which I filed away for later. The next 2 yielded the orb of
weight (mostly for levelporting within Gehennom). The rest, and my
next 3 smoky potion wishes were wasted looking for a PYEC, which I got
right before ascension out of quaffing 38 bottles of alchemy results.
The Valley and Gehennom were unexceptional -- I probably
overprovisioned my gear, so I had 4 runs back and forth to my stash
dropping off glass for polypiling and gold, plus more potions and
scrolls than I'd ever need. Cleared out everything up to the Wizard's
tower, and went back to slaughter the puddings, which gave me Frost
Brand. At some point, I decided to get teleport control and polyed
into a xorn for it. Got TC easily and polymorph control too, but then
couldn't get teleportitis as hard as I tried (5 tengu cans, a nymph
can, and a corpse apiece from nymph and leprechaun), and no magical
breathing despite munching 2 amulets. Increase attack / damage,
warning, and shape changer protection rings were stone
Although I played most of the game solo, I got very curious about
having a mount, and decided to uncurse and bless a centaur figurine I
got from pudding days. The centaur (my first named pet - Moonshine)
turned out quite good (although for some random reason dropped a +7
silver saber to pick up a random scimitar and it had to be whipped out
of her hands. She went with me through the plane of Fire, where I
revived her after death (at the hands of an Archon) and forced her
into a corner until she recognized her gear again, only to somehow
come through the portal without her. I don't think she was still
eating, so I don't know what the deal is. But I spent about 200 turns
floating around in the bubble thinking I couldn't levitate or walk on
water.
But anyway, before that all happened, I trained up in riding and then
wanted to use my blessed Archon figurine, and got a bad feeling after
I used it. Archon ran upstairs, blinded me, summoned nasties, and
then fell under my sustained attack. I wished for another blessed
figurine after I got the PYEC on the 6th or so genie using smoky
potions, only to have it go hostile on me too, so I guess Archons just
don't like me much.
Before taking on Rodney, I re-read my books, packed away the
artifacts, gold, and polypiled gems into a 7-layer double-magic bag to
get the weight right. The book of the dead was acquired with minimum
pain -- cut away corner of the tower and finger of death while
levitating. Levelported next to the sanctum, but decided to go play in
the graveyard only to have someone get way too happy with the create
monster wand. In any case, by this time, nothing was a huge
challenge, so I split my time evenly between magic missiling rows of
enemies and slashing them with Magicbane (definitely a downer after
Grayswandir, which I didn't pick up again until the plane of fire).
Picked up the amulet, finger-of-deathed Rodney for the first of 7
times on the way up (didn't even use the wand), and cursed-level-
gained upstairs to my mount. Trip up was uneventful, except for when
I got the second Archon figurine out of a wish and went 3 levels down
to get the prayer timeout down -- Moonshine kept eating my sacrifices,
so I wound up dismounting and carrying sergeant corpses halfway across
the map.
The first 2 planes were pretty easy. Fire would have been easy if not
for the Archon encounter getting my centaur killed, and water would
have been easy if I had realized Moonshine didn't come through the
portal with me. The annoying part was that I just realized it and put
on water walking boots when I stumbled into the portal and had to
spend my first 3 turns on Astral getting back into boots of speed.
Astral had the last payback for my early luck -- the Camaxtli altar
was the last one I tried. Wasn't too bad though -- didn't melee any of
the riders -- missiled Death through some random priest and zapped the
WoD at the other 2. So now I can exhale and feel a little less like I
was painting with sand and a little more like the author of some truly
lasting... magnetic states on various distributed hard drives.
Anyway, if someone got all the way through this, here's the detail:
Scrappity, neutral female gnomish Archeologist
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Scrappity the Curator St:18/50 Dx:23 Co:18 In:25 Wi:24 Ch:18 Neutral S:
7962099
Astral Plane $:0 HP:1371(1371) Pw:492(663) AC:-93 Exp:30 T:119595
Your inventory
Amulets
O - the blessed Eye of the Aethiopica
V - an uncursed amulet of life saving (being worn)
Weapons
d - the blessed +7 Grayswandir (weapon in hand)
s - a blessed +7 silver saber (wielded in other hand)
Q - the blessed rustproof +7 Magicbane
Armor
c - a blessed +5 silver dragon scale mail (being worn)
E - a blessed rustproof +6 helm of brilliance (being worn)
F - a blessed fireproof +5 pair of gauntlets of dexterity (being
worn)
K - a blessed greased fireproof +5 robe (being worn)
W - a blessed fireproof +5 pair of speed boots (being worn)
Comestibles
f - 2 blessed lembas wafers
Scrolls
v - an uncursed scroll of blank paper
Spellbooks
P - the cursed Book of the Dead
Rings
j - a blessed ring of levitation
J - a blessed ring of slow digestion (on right hand)
T - a blessed ring of free action (on left hand)
Wands
l - an uncursed wand of death (0:0)
m - an uncursed wand of undead turning (1:13)
p - an uncursed wand of cancellation named CANCELLATION DO NOT BAG
(0:4)
Tools
b - a blessed greased bag of holding
g - the blessed Platinum Yendorian Express Card
i - an uncursed stethoscope
k - an uncursed thoroughly corroded skeleton key
n - a blessed +0 unicorn horn
o - the uncursed Candelabrum of Invocation (no candles attached)
t - an uncursed towel
M - the uncursed Bell of Opening (0:2)
S - a blessed bag of holding named Planes Run
Gems
R - a blessed luckstone
Contents of the bag of holding:
483 gold pieces
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of reflection
an uncursed amulet of magical breathing
an uncursed amulet of life saving
an uncursed amulet of life saving
the cursed rustproof +4 Giantslayer
a blessed fireproof +1 pair of water walking boots
8 blessed lembas wafers
an uncursed scroll of gold detection
a blessed scroll of earth
4 uncursed scrolls of blank paper
11 uncursed scrolls of create monster
3 uncursed scrolls of stinking cloud
an uncursed scroll of genocide
an uncursed scroll of earth
a cursed scroll of teleportation
3 blessed scrolls of remove curse
3 blessed scrolls of charging
an uncursed scroll of teleportation
a potion of unholy water
2 blessed potions of full healing
4 cursed potions of gain level
10 blessed diluted potions of full healing
10 potions of holy water
an uncursed ring of levitation
an uncursed ring of conflict
an uncursed ring of teleportation
an uncursed ring of slow digestion
an uncursed ring of protection from shape changers
an uncursed wand of digging (0:8)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (0:8)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (0:6)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (1:3)
an uncursed wand of polymorph (0:4)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (0:4)
an uncursed wand of secret door detection (0:9)
an uncursed wand of digging (0:6)
an uncursed wand of death (0:3)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (1:14)
an uncursed wand of death (0:4)
a blessed wand of fire (1:8)
an uncursed wand of digging (0:8)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (1:3)
an uncursed wand of cold (0:7)
an uncursed wand of digging (0:7)
an uncursed wand of sleep (0:6)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (1:7)
an uncursed wand of teleportation (1:13)
an uncursed wand of enlightenment (1:4)
an uncursed wand of polymorph (0:7)
an uncursed wand of death (0:5)
an uncursed wand of death (0:4)
an uncursed wand of digging (0:8)
an uncursed wand of slow monster named buy 266 (0:5)
an uncursed wand of lightning (0:5)
an uncursed wand of teleportation named Sell 100 DO NOT BAG (0:7)
an uncursed wand of sleep (0:7)
a cursed magic whistle
the blessed Orb of Fate (0:4)
an uncursed magic marker (0:43)
an uncursed horn of plenty (0:20)
an uncursed citrine stone
an uncursed topaz stone
3 uncursed garnet stones
2 uncursed agate stones
an uncursed aquamarine stone
an uncursed emerald
an uncursed turquoise stone
2 uncursed fluorite stones
5 uncursed black opals
a blessed luckstone
Contents of the bag of holding named Planes Run:
an uncursed oilskin sack named 7th Layer
Contents of the oilskin sack named 7th Layer:
an uncursed sack named 6th Layer
Contents of the sack named 6th Layer:
an uncursed sack named 5th Layer
Contents of the sack named 5th Layer:
an uncursed sack named 4th Layer
Contents of the sack named 4th Layer:
an uncursed sack named 3rd Layer
Contents of the sack named 3rd Layer:
an uncursed sack named 2nd Layer
Contents of the sack named 2nd Layer:
an uncursed sack named 1st Layer
Contents of the sack named 1st Layer:
a blessed bag of holding named For Ascent
Contents of the bag of holding named For Ascent:
154878 gold pieces
the blessed rustproof +1 Demonbane
the blessed rustproof +0 Sunsword
the uncursed rustproof +0 Frost Brand
the uncursed rustproof +0 Cleaver
the blessed rustproof +0 Ogresmasher
the blessed rustproof +1 Vorpal Blade
the blessed rustproof +0 Fire Brand
the blessed rustproof +0 Trollsbane
the blessed rustproof +0 Mjollnir
the blessed Orb of Detection (0:5)
26 uncursed jet stones
30 uncursed amethyst stones
25 uncursed fluorite stones
24 uncursed citrine stones
37 uncursed black opals
23 uncursed chrysoberyl stones
34 uncursed diamonds
14 uncursed amber stones
27 uncursed agate stones
17 uncursed garnet stones
23 uncursed turquoise stones
17 uncursed jacinth stones
48 uncursed rubies
27 uncursed aquamarine stones
27 uncursed jade stones
28 uncursed jasper stones
20 uncursed dilithium crystals
28 uncursed obsidian stones
31 uncursed emeralds
24 uncursed sapphires
29 uncursed topaz stones
12 uncursed opals
Final attributes
You were the Envoy of Balance
You were piously aligned
Your alignment was 607
You were fire resistant
You were cold resistant
You were sleep resistant
You were disintegration-resistant
You were shock resistant
You were poison resistant
You were magic-protected
You resisted hallucinations
You saw invisible
You were telepathic
You had automatic searching
You had infravision
You were invisible to others
You were stealthy
You aggravated monsters
You had teleport control
You had slower digestion
You were protected
You had polymorph control
You were very fast
You had reflection
You had free action
Your life would have been saved
You were wielding two weapons at once
You were extremely lucky (13)
You had extra luck
Good luck did not time out for you
You survived
Spells known in the end
Name Level Category Fail
a - sleep 1 enchantment 0%
b - knock 1* matter 0%
c - haste self 3 escape 0%
d - cure blindness 2* healing 0%
e - restore ability 4* healing 0%
f - magic missile 2 attack 0%
g - detect monsters 1 divination 0%
h - light 1 divination 0%
i - detect food 2* divination 0%
j - cure sickness 3 healing 0%
k - healing 1* healing 0%
l - stone to flesh 3 healing 0%
m - drain life 2 attack 0%
n - force bolt 1* attack 0%
o - fireball 4 attack 0%
p - dig 5 matter 0%
q - identify 3 divination 0%
r - polymorph 6 matter 0%
s - cancellation 7 matter 19%
t - magic mapping 5 divination 0%
u - detect treasure 4 divination 0%
v - wizard lock 2 matter 0%
w - detect unseen 3* divination 0%
x - cause fear 3* enchantment 0%
y - create monster 2 clerical 0%
z - clairvoyance 3 divination 0%
A - cone of cold 4 attack 0%
B - extra healing 3 healing 0%
C - slow monster 2 enchantment 0%
D - finger of death 7 attack 19%
E - levitation 4* escape 0%
F - invisibility 4* escape 0%
G - confuse monster 2* enchantment 0%
H - teleport away 6 escape 34%
I - remove curse 3 clerical 0%
J - charm monster 3 enchantment 0%
K - jumping 1 escape 0%
Vanquished creatures
Asmodeus
Baalzebub
Orcus
Juiblex
The Wizard of Yendor (7 times)
Death (thrice)
Pestilence
Famine
a high priest
2 mastodons
Medusa
Croesus
6 Archons
18 iron golems
2 ki-rin
15 storm giants
5 titans
11 glass golems
5 balrogs
The Minion of Huhetotl
3 purple worms
3 gray dragons
4 silver dragons
10 red dragons
11 white dragons
5 orange dragons
11 black dragons
4 blue dragons
11 green dragons
8 yellow dragons
18 minotaurs
7 jabberwocks
6 baluchitheria
13 Angels
Vlad the Impaler
12 stone golems
18 Olog-hai
4 Nazguls
8 pit fiends
3 sandestins
7 hell hounds
11 titanotheres
5 trappers
a baby gray dragon
2 baby red dragons
a baby orange dragon
a baby black dragon
a baby yellow dragon
a guardian naga
2 disenchanters
40 vampire lords
5 skeletons
21 aligned priests
11 captains
6 shades
6 clay golems
15 nurses
8 ice devils
2 nalfeshnees
11 lurkers above
2 Aleaxes
8 frost giants
4 ettins
255 black puddings
29 vampires
16 lieutenants
a watch captain
40 ghosts
2 priests
a ranger
a samurai
5 queen bees
9 winged gargoyles
a mind flayer
3 giant mimics
19 zruties
9 fire giants
14 ogre kings
5 ice trolls
13 rock trolls
7 umber hulks
8 flesh golems
10 Elvenkings
a doppelganger
26 hezrous
15 bone devils
7 wumpuses
4 fire vortices
a baby long worm
9 long worms
10 couatls
21 stalkers
9 air elementals
22 fire elementals
8 earth elementals
30 water elementals
16 hill giants
a giant mummy
7 black nagas
15 xorns
22 giant zombies
29 elf-lords
27 sergeants
12 barbed devils
23 vrocks
5 salamanders
17 wargs
3 winter wolves
6 hell hound pups
14 small mimics
11 glass piercers
a warhorse
7 steam vortices
20 xans
6 ettin mummies
16 ogre lords
12 quantum mechanics
39 trolls
5 sasquatches
8 wood golems
3 erinyes
6 mariliths
a djinni
5 gelatinous cubes
2 pyrolisks
16 freezing spheres
9 flaming spheres
10 shocking spheres
4 large cats
10 tigers
12 gargoyles
4 dwarf kings
7 tengu
13 ochre jellies
14 leocrottas
7 energy vortices
15 mountain centaurs
8 stone giants
12 elf mummies
33 human mummies
10 red nagas
2 green slimes
15 pit vipers
15 pythons
36 cobras
44 wraiths
9 carnivorous apes
18 ettin zombies
13 leather golems
17 Grey-elves
120 soldiers
a watchman
11 horned devils
9 succubi
6 incubi
19 chameleons
8 crocodiles
30 giant beetles
13 quivering blobs
10 cockatrices
8 wolves
18 winter wolf cubs
8 lynxes
3 panthers
11 gremlins
12 spotted jellies
39 leprechauns
13 orc-captains
8 iron piercers
16 mumakil
12 giant spiders
10 scorpions
5 horses
3 ice vortices
10 black lights
19 vampire bats
14 forest centaurs
4 gnome kings
8 orc mummies
7 dwarf mummies
19 ogres
13 brown puddings
9 rust monsters
21 owlbears
8 yetis
7 gold golems
6 werewolves
20 Green-elves
22 lizards
11 chickatrices
5 dogs
9 dingos
2 housecats
13 jaguars
5 dwarf lords
8 blue jellies
11 white unicorns
6 black unicorns
13 dust vortices
11 ravens
8 plains centaurs
9 gnome mummies
46 snakes
7 apes
28 human zombies
5 rope golems
17 Woodland-elves
13 soldier ants
11 fire ants
20 bugbears
2 imps
8 lemures
19 quasits
10 wood nymphs
14 water nymphs
8 mountain nymphs
16 Mordor orcs
28 Uruk-hai
9 orc shamans
12 rock piercers
8 rock moles
7 ponies
8 fog clouds
11 yellow lights
7 shriekers
10 violet fungi
21 gnome lords
9 gnomish wizards
7 kobold mummies
3 red naga hatchlings
3 black naga hatchlings
5 golden naga hatchlings
a guardian naga hatchling
15 gray oozes
4 barrow wights
10 elf zombies
25 ghouls
9 straw golems
14 paper golems
28 giant ants
6 little dogs
19 floating eyes
5 kittens
26 dwarves
8 homunculi
7 kobold lords
6 kobold shamans
16 hill orcs
22 rothes
6 rabid rats
a centipede
13 giant bats
5 monkeys
23 orc zombies
28 dwarf zombies
4 wererats
6 werejackals
21 iguanas
110 killer bees
14 acid blobs
3 coyotes
2 gas spores
10 hobbits
26 manes
10 large kobolds
30 hobgoblins
20 giant rats
10 cave spiders
12 brown molds
7 yellow molds
5 green molds
11 red molds
20 gnomes
36 garter snakes
23 gnome zombies
17 geckos
24 jackals
3 foxes
5 kobolds
28 goblins
10 sewer rats
19 grid bugs
11 bats
14 lichens
18 kobold zombies
21 newts
3628 creatures vanquished.
Genocided or extinct species:
gelatinous cubes
chickatrices
cockatrices
pyrolisks
gremlins
hobbits
dwarves
bugbears
dwarf lords
dwarf kings
mind flayers
master mind flayers
small mimics
large mimics
giant mimics
wood nymphs
water nymphs
mountain nymphs
purple worms
liches
demiliches
master liches
arch-liches
golden nagas
green slimes
rust monsters
disenchanters
soldiers (extinct)
erinyes (extinct)
jellyfish
piranhas
sharks
giant eels
electric eels
krakens
33 species genocided.
2 species extinct.
Voluntary challenges
You genocided 33 types of monsters
You polymorphed 11843 items
You changed form 2 times
You used 14 wishes
Your skills at the end
Fighting Skills
two weapon combat [Basic]
riding [Basic]
Weapon Skills
pick-axe [Basic]
saber [Expert]
sling [Basic]
whip [Basic]
Spellcasting Skills
attack spells [Basic]
divination spells [Skilled]
matter spells [Basic]
Latest messages
The giant ant misses.
A nearby voice intones:
"Pilgrim, you enter a sacred place!"
You try to feel what is lying here on the floor.
The giant beetle misses.
What do you want to use or apply? [bgik-ptMRS or ?*]
You can see again.
The captain turns to flee!
The captain wields a long sword!
You hear a chugging sound.
There is an altar to Camaxtli (neutral) here.
There is an altar to Camaxtli (neutral) here.
#
What do you want to sacrifice? [X or ?*]
What do you want to sacrifice? [X or ?*]
You offer the Amulet of Yendor to Camaxtli...
An invisible choir sings, and you are bathed in radiance...
The voice of Camaxtli booms: "Congratulations, mortal!"
"In return for thy service, I grant thee the gift of Immortality!"
You ascend to the status of Demigoddess...
Goodbye Scrappity the Demigoddess...
You went to your reward with 17096048 points,
Giantslayer (worth 200 zorkmids and 500 points)
The Orb of Fate (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
Grayswandir (worth 8000 zorkmids and 20000 points)
The Platinum Yendorian Express Card (worth 7000 zorkmids and 17500
points)
The Candelabrum of Invocation (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Bell of Opening (worth 5000 zorkmids and 12500 points)
The Eye of the Aethiopica (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
The Book of the Dead (worth 10000 zorkmids and 25000 points)
Magicbane (worth 3500 zorkmids and 8750 points)
Demonbane (worth 2500 zorkmids and 6250 points)
Sunsword (worth 1500 zorkmids and 3750 points)
Frost Brand (worth 3000 zorkmids and 7500 points)
The Orb of Detection (worth 2500 zorkmids and 6250 points)
Cleaver (worth 1500 zorkmids and 3750 points)
Ogresmasher (worth 200 zorkmids and 500 points)
Vorpal Blade (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
Fire Brand (worth 3000 zorkmids and 7500 points)
Trollsbane (worth 200 zorkmids and 500 points)
Mjollnir (worth 4000 zorkmids and 10000 points)
48 rubies (worth 168000 zorkmids),
42 black opals (worth 105000 zorkmids),
34 diamonds (worth 136000 zorkmids),
32 emeralds (worth 80000 zorkmids),
30 topaz stones (worth 27000 zorkmids),
30 amethyst stones (worth 18000 zorkmids),
29 agate stones (worth 5800 zorkmids),
28 aquamarine stones (worth 42000 zorkmids),
28 jasper stones (worth 14000 zorkmids),
28 obsidian stones (worth 5600 zorkmids),
27 fluorite stones (worth 10800 zorkmids),
27 jade stones (worth 8100 zorkmids),
26 jet stones (worth 22100 zorkmids),
25 citrine stones (worth 37500 zorkmids),
24 sapphires (worth 72000 zorkmids),
24 turquoise stones (worth 48000 zorkmids),
23 chrysoberyl stones (worth 16100 zorkmids),
20 dilithium crystals (worth 90000 zorkmids),
20 garnet stones (worth 14000 zorkmids),
17 jacinth stones (worth 55250 zorkmids),
14 amber stones (worth 14000 zorkmids),
12 opals (worth 9600 zorkmids),
8 amulets of life saving (worth 1200 zorkmids),
1 amulet of reflection (worth 150 zorkmids),
1 amulet of magical breathing (worth 150 zorkmids),
and 155361 pieces of gold, after 119595 moves.
Killer: ascended
You were level 30 with a maximum of 1371 hit points when you ascended.
You reached the 210th place on the top 2000 list.
No Points Name
Hp [max]
1 2147483647 ctaboir-Wiz-Gno-Fem-Neu ascended to demigoddess-hood.
2 2147483647 Zadir-Pri-Hum-Fem-Neu died on the Astral Plane.
Killed by overexertion.
4140 [4140]
3 2147483647 Adeon-Wiz-Gno-Mal-Neu ascended to demigod-hood.
12320
[464076]
208 17592636 Kiofhe-Bar-Orc-Fem-Cha ascended to demigoddess-hood.
1548 [1548]
209 17349924 CosbyKid-Val-Hum-Fem-Law ascended to
demigoddess-hood.
472 [479]
*210 17096048 Scrappity-Arc-Gno-Fem-Neu ascended
to
demigoddess-hood.
1371 [1371]
211 17024680 Laith-Wiz-Elf-Mal-Cha ascended to demigod-hood.
385 [446]
212 16888310 Zadir-Pri-Hum-Mal-Neu starved to death in The
Dungeons of Doom on level 1 [max 27].
240 [240]
Cyberiade.it Anonymous Remailer
Your thesis paragraph already indicated that you knew this so-called
ascension was shit, so why even post it? Poor impulse control?
Also, your first time playing NetHack was a month ago and you
''ascended''? Spoiler-fueled bullshit. You cheated in every way
imaginable and nobody respects you or cares about your non-
accomplishment. Fuck off.
NevilleB
The FO was a bit OTT
Kent Paul Dolan
The whole posted response stank like rotted meat.
Jealously is an ugly emotion. I've been playing for
the whole life of NetHack, never ascended [probably
never will, I just moments ago killed off a
promising Valk at DLVL 8 who'd never hit with a
wielded weapon, never had any missile weapons beyond
her original issue dagger, which she never used, but
lost her to a giant bat before I noticed she was
even in trouble], and I still don't have the
sub-human reactions of anonymous coward
"Cyberiade.it" when someone else ascends.
I just read the whole ascension posting for playing
strategy clues.
While I may be a _bit_ jealous of players who can
ascend in their first two months of play, and there
are many who are that much better at the game than I
am, I think that's a tour-de-force by them, and wish
them joy in their accomplishment. I certainly don't
need to feel resentful toward them or insult them.
NetHack is only a competitive game if you insist on
making it so.
I only play the game against myself.
Besides, in the right mood, pudding farming is a
kick.
xanthian.
Ross Presser
> The whole posted response stank like rotted meat.
Actually, the both of them together stink a bit. "scrappitymoonshine"
has never posted on Usenet at all, anywhere. And the response came
through an anonymous remailer. Perhaps an overly clever troll,
responding to himself?
Erwin M.
> Besides, in the right mood, pudding farming is a
> kick.
And given how many YA{AP|SD} posts come through that mention a bones
level that was obviously a pudding farm in progress, it's an activity
that is not without risk. In the grand scheme of things, how much
different is it than spamming Create Monster and hoping for death drops
from appropriate monsters, other than the fact that pudding splits
aren't (yet) subject to the extinction flag?
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
It's trivially scriptable because every monster is the same and respects
Elbereth. (Of course, you can still screw it up, as demonstrated by the
bones files :)
-r.
tenaya...@gmail.com
wrote:
> On 2009-02-27, Erwin M. <erwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>
> >> Besides, in the right mood, pudding farming is a
> >> kick.
It is fun, but it's fun in a turn-on-the-cheat-code kind of way, IMO.
Max me out, please, and give me super-duper-missiles.
And it can put you in the running for Fastest Realtime or give one a
really good shot at an 11-conduct ascension, ahem.
>
> > And given how many YA{AP|SD} posts come through that mention a bones
> > level that was obviously a pudding farm in progress, it's an activity
> > that is not without risk. In the grand scheme of things, how much
> > different is it than spamming Create Monster and hoping for death drops
> > from appropriate monsters, other than the fact that pudding splits
> > aren't (yet) subject to the extinction flag?
It has risk, but it's very different IMO, see anecdote below.
>
> It's trivially scriptable because every monster is the same and respects
> Elbereth. (Of course, you can still screw it up, as demonstrated by the
> bones files :)
It's true, it is possible to screw up a pudding farm. Once I was
reading a novel that I was holding in my right hand and holding down
control-A with my left hand. I thought that I had left only the
hungry break on (verbose off, sounds off, etc.) but for somehow it
skipped the break and I starved. Oops.
Tenaya
Erwin M.
> On Feb 27, 7:00 am, Rachel Elizabeth Dillon <rac...@akrasiac.org>
> wrote:
>> On 2009-02-27, Erwin M. <erwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Kent Paul Dolan wrote:
>>>> Besides, in the right mood, pudding farming is a
>>>> kick.
>
> It is fun, but it's fun in a turn-on-the-cheat-code kind of way, IMO.
> Max me out, please, and give me super-duper-missiles.
Agreed. That's why I don't do it. I play some console games that
encourage that kind of min-maxing, and roguelikes are a change of pace
from that.
> It has risk, but it's very different IMO, see anecdote below.
...
> It's true, it is possible to screw up a pudding farm. Once I was
> reading a novel that I was holding in my right hand and holding down
> control-A with my left hand. I thought that I had left only the
> hungry break on (verbose off, sounds off, etc.) but for somehow it
> skipped the break and I starved. Oops.
As has been stated many times by many people, past a certain point in
the game (for some, that being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
NetHack!"), the only barrier to ascension is one's own carelessness.
Janis Papanagnou
>
> As has been stated many times by many people, past a certain point in
> the game (for some, that being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
> NetHack!"), the only barrier to ascension is one's own carelessness.
And this was ever and still is wrong.
Janis
Kent Paul Dolan
> Erwin M. wrote:
>> As has been stated many times by many people,
>> past a certain point in the game (for some, that
>> being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
>> NetHack!"),
The very point at which the PCs in my games realize
that they are doomed, doomed, doomed, and that doom
through no fault of their own, just due to a problem
between keyboard and chair. Somewhere in the bits
and bytes, a great wailing and gnashing of teeth
might be detected with a sensitive enough
instrument.
>> the only barrier to ascension is one's own
>> carelessness.
> And this was ever and still is wrong.
No, I'm pretty sure once mriven won a dozen games in
a row on a public server, the idea that NetHack
_could_ be played perfectly, that there was no
situation so dire within NetHack that sufficient
caution and skill could not overcome it, had pretty
much been established.
We're just left with the realization that for most
of us, dedicating enough focus on NetHack to achieve
that level of excellence, that combination of
patience, skill and caution, is never going to be an
attainable life goal.
xanthian.
Count the high proportion of YASD postings compared
to YAAD postings for more data on this issue.
Scrappity
> >>>> Besides, in the right mood, pudding farming is a
> >>>> kick.
>
> > It is fun, but it's fun in a turn-on-the-cheat-code kind of way, IMO.
> > Max me out, please, and give me super-duper-missiles.
>
> Agreed. That's why I don't do it. I play some console games that
> encourage that kind of min-maxing, and roguelikes are a change of pace
> from that.
>
Thanks all for the more tolerant approach than the first response. I
don't want to start another flamewar on puddings, but figured one
project at a time was enough, so made my first one "trading in dignity
for immortality." For what it's worth, I subscribe to the "pudding
farming is its own punishment" school of thought, especially when done
without macros or bots, but it still felt good to break through the
first time. Next project might be "ascending with a modicum of
dignity." Or it might be "finding pudding-like loopholes in Spork." We
shall see.
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > Erwin M. wrote:
>
> >> As has been stated many times by many people,
> >> past a certain point in the game (for some, that
> >> being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
> >> NetHack!"),
>
> The very point at which the PCs in my games realize
> that they are doomed, doomed, doomed, and that doom
> through no fault of their own, just due to a problem
> between keyboard and chair. Somewhere in the bits
> and bytes, a great wailing and gnashing of teeth
> might be detected with a sensitive enough
> instrument.
>
> >> the only barrier to ascension is one's own
> >> carelessness.
>
> > And this was ever and still is wrong.
>
> No, I'm pretty sure once mriven won a dozen games in
> a row on a public server, the idea that NetHack
> _could_ be played perfectly, that there was no
> situation so dire within NetHack that sufficient
> caution and skill could not overcome it, had pretty
> much been established.
(Established opinions are not always an indication of truth.)
> We're just left with the realization that for most
> of us, dedicating enough focus on NetHack to achieve
> that level of excellence, that combination of
> patience, skill and caution, is never going to be an
> attainable life goal.
>
> xanthian.
>
> Count the high proportion of YASD postings compared
> to YAAD postings for more data on this issue.
(Mind that the previous poster said "the _only_ barrier";
a "high proportion", as you write, is something different.)
It's sufficient for me to count, e.g., the "lightning shots out
of the dark instant deaths" that lead me to my confidence that
there are other barriers, too. As long as those random events
cannot be ruled out by tactics and skill we can just emphasize
that carelessness may typically be the bigger obstacle.
My own personal record shows the three types of deaths; those
unavoidable deaths, carelessness, and plain stupidity. (Where
carelessness is likely the most prominent.)
Janis
Martin Read
You are invited to show me an NH3.4.3 character who died with PR, MR,
Reflection, AC -30, and 300 maxhp for any reason other than operator
error.
--
\_\/_/ turbulence is certainty turbulence is friction between you and me
\ / every time we try to impose order we create chaos
\/ -- Killing Joke, "Mathematics of Chaos"
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Erwin M. wrote:
>>
>>>As has been stated many times by many people, past a certain point in
>>>the game (for some, that being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
>>>NetHack!"), the only barrier to ascension is one's own carelessness.
>>
>>And this was ever and still is wrong.
>
> You are invited to show me an NH3.4.3 character who died with PR, MR,
> Reflection, AC -30, and 300 maxhp for any reason other than operator
> error.
You are assuming that one is able to get "AC -30, and 300 maxhp" after
the "<Greetings>" self-evidently. This is not true. You are invited to
show me a strategy to get those game parameters reliably without dying.
Janis
Erwin M.
I also did say "past a certain point". For a very rare few, that point
is turn 0. For some, that point is the half-second before #offering the
Amulet. For the majority (even those who have never ascended), it's
somewhere between the two -- those who have never ascended have either
never reached that point, or have had carelessness cut the game short.
And for the purposes of this discussion, I do not equate gaps in
knowledge with carelessness or lack of preparation. Carelessness, to me,
means having the knowledge and resources (including game turns) to
escape an impending death...and not using them appropriately. That's why
we can have the notion of an Ascension Kit in the first place -- if you
can tick off enough boxes on a reasonably-well-agreed-upon list (and
please don't introduce the MC argument here!), you have enough gear to
win, provided that you have the presence of mind to use it
appropriately. And even with that, some people's notion of "the" AK
varies. For example, I consider a second blessed unihorn and a wand of
cancellation kept in a sack as essential parts of my AK. Not everyone
shares that opinion.
For me personally, the critical point is the point at which I enter
Gehennom. If I've got the gear needed to get to that point, only a
PEBKAC can kill me beyond it. (And since my ascension ratio over the
years is noticeably less than one percent, I haven't gotten to that
point often, and all of my deaths beyond that point have unquestionably
been PEBKAC-induced.)
But before any given player gets to that critical point, they can hit a
situation where their preparation is no match for the whim of the
RNG...and that point does vary for every player.
Ross Presser
wrote:
> Martin Read wrote:
> > You are invited to show me an NH3.4.3 character who died with PR, MR,
> > Reflection, AC -30, and 300 maxhp for any reason other than operator
> > error.
>
> You are assuming that one is able to get "AC -30, and 300 maxhp" after
> the "<Greetings>" self-evidently. This is not true. You are invited to
> show me a strategy to get those game parameters reliably without dying.
You're still missing the "past a certain point" qualifier. Martin has
proposed a certain point past which, he believes, nobody ever dies
other than operator error.
One can call many things operator error, though. Going up from DL1
without the amulet probably is OE to most. What about going up without
means of levitation? What about going up without means of portal
detection? What about going up without means of surviving Famine
attacks? etc....
Janis Papanagnou
> On Feb 28, 7:12 am, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>>Martin Read wrote:
>>
>>>You are invited to show me an NH3.4.3 character who died with PR, MR,
>>>Reflection, AC -30, and 300 maxhp for any reason other than operator
>>>error.
>>
>>You are assuming that one is able to get "AC -30, and 300 maxhp" after
>>the "<Greetings>" self-evidently. This is not true. You are invited to
>>show me a strategy to get those game parameters reliably without dying.
>
> You're still missing the "past a certain point" qualifier. Martin has
> proposed a certain point past which, he believes, nobody ever dies
> other than operator error.
I was and still am aware of that "qualifier". But to make sense (beyond
triviality) what would that "certain point" be?
For example, a *skilled* player can get killed at level 2 by a shot from
a wand. So that "certain point" is not yet reached by definition, then?
No, I disagree to that opinion as stated.
Generally; if you are lucky *not* to get killed "out-of-depth" (or rather
more accurately; "out-of-actual-character-development") then operator
error (or even ignorance of available solutions) might kill a character.
Yes, agreed.
WRT the post you had quoted, I can just repeat; you are not guaranteed
to get all those properties reliably before being killed inevitably, e.g.
by a wand. (And shifting the "certain point" margin yet farther wouldn't
make that a conclusive argument, rather soften it as argument per se.)
Janis
From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
Janis Papanagnou
> [...]
> I also did say "past a certain point". For a very rare few, that point
> is turn 0. For some, that point is the half-second before #offering the
> Amulet. For the majority (even those who have never ascended), it's
> somewhere between the two -- those who have never ascended have either
> never reached that point, or have had carelessness cut the game short.
(Please see my response to Ross Presser.)
For me - and I suppose no one would count me as newbie - one and a half
year ago was killed by a bolt of lightning on level 2 (max level 2).
(Just as an example.)
We can of course squirm free and start introducing exceptional or rare
cases, or probabilities that this happens "practically never", or so.
But it doesn't fit.
> [...]
>
> For me personally, the critical point is the point at which I enter
> Gehennom. If I've got the gear needed to get to that point, only a
> PEBKAC can kill me beyond it.
But that's vague; what gear would one consider to be "needed" at any
point in the game?
If I have every resistance and all "the kit" I think I need, well, then
we can say we're past the "certain point". But I wouldn't ever have that
equipment on level 2 where I got killed by that wand, and got not killed
by an operator error.
So, if we now can say that this "certain point" is defined by The Kit
(which is different from player to player as you say) we reduced the
problem to the point of obtaining that kit; and that will inevitably
lead us to the long lasting discussions whether the game of Nethack is
"already solved" or can still have interesting surprises (including an
unavoidable, non-operator based death).
> [...]
>
> But before any given player gets to that critical point, they can hit a
> situation where their preparation is no match for the whim of the
> RNG...and that point does vary for every player.
Yes. The point is that the RNG makes the criticized statement pointless.
Janis
Martin Read
> From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
I'd guess at least one was operator error, and that there's also an
element of the cloud of statistical clustering that seems to afflict
you. (I'd be quite surprised to lose one game in six to early
monster-with-wand.)
Derek Ray
> So, if we now can say that this "certain point" is defined by The Kit
> (which is different from player to player as you say) we reduced the
> problem to the point of obtaining that kit; and that will inevitably
> lead us to the long lasting discussions whether the game of Nethack is
> "already solved" or can still have interesting surprises (including an
> unavoidable, non-operator based death).
Those deaths aren't interesting; they're just random.
So the RNG coughs up a gnome with a wand of death in the Mines: big
deal. You die after 5-10 minutes; you start a new character, you move on.
Again, Mike Kelly has produced a 25+ game winning streak (and died to
operator error, too). The game _is_ solved; the only thing preventing a
perfect 100% ascension ratio are those rare extreme corner-case
scenarios that are certain to pop up, because there _is_ an RNG
involved.
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
Derek Ray
> cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
If you're dying too much to wands, why are you going to where you can get
shot at so easily? Not dying to wands is rarely a tactical question; if
the first time you know it's there is when the bolt misses you, you
generally have no recourse. But it may well be a strategic error.
tenaya...@gmail.com
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
> >cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> >an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
Do you think it not possible that you missed the strategic solution?
There are lots of ways to avoid wand deaths: pets, method of movement,
acquire reflection early, Elbereth, offense, character/dungeon level,
etc., as I'm sure you know. I'd be surprised if better strategy would
not have saved you from those wand deaths.
--
Tenaya
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
> I'd guess at least one was operator error, and that there's also an
> element of the cloud of statistical clustering that seems to afflict
> you.
I am quite sure that I am prone to operator errors as well; I could even
enumerate some off the top of my head now. But those wand incidents have
a lower operator error fraction than my other 53 deaths; the wands are a
bad and very effective random incident (ranged, out of the dark) that are
also not that rare, IME, as you think.
WRT "the cloud"; well sometimes I really think I am doomed. ;-)
But, honestly, I have more the impression that all those "we solved the
game" folks blandish their own experiences, maybe not by will but I, as
well, cannot believe that they haven't experienced that to a significant
degree. (One difference is; I don't blame them for... - whatever.)
No, really; there have been a lot other players reporting incidents here
as well, about configurations that are considered exceptions by those
"fortunate" players. My own experience is that both extreme situations
happen - to me as well; and I reported in RGRN as well about overly lucky
games in the past. The difference seems to be that some experienced those
variances and others who haven't (or were not aware enough; maybe even
because they may have died quickly in such situations and eliminated those
games from their memories) neglect their existance.
> (I'd be quite surprised to lose one game in six to early
> monster-with-wand.)
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On 2009-03-03, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>So, if we now can say that this "certain point" is defined by The Kit
>>(which is different from player to player as you say) we reduced the
>>problem to the point of obtaining that kit; and that will inevitably
>>lead us to the long lasting discussions whether the game of Nethack is
>>"already solved" or can still have interesting surprises (including an
>>unavoidable, non-operator based death).
>
> Those deaths aren't interesting; they're just random.
No, they are not interesting. Yes, they are random. So what?
> So the RNG coughs up a gnome with a wand of death in the Mines: big
> deal.
Strawman! Again. *sigh*
> You die after 5-10 minutes; you start a new character, you move on.
>
> Again, Mike Kelly [...]
So what?
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On 2009-03-03, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>> From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
> If you're dying too much to wands,
"too much"? - I said "10/63".
> why are you going to where you can get shot at so easily?
Derek, I have been going to the "Dungeons of Doom", where I have been shot.
I am well aware that not starting the game of Nethack won't cause any deaths
by wands or by other means. How stupid do you think a top-10 NAO player is?
You are not the one to teach me strategy.
> Not dying to wands is rarely a tactical question; if
> the first time you know it's there is when the bolt misses you, you
> generally have no recourse. But it may well be a strategic error.
You are right, it may be a strategic error, it may be a tactic error, it may
even be a finger slip on the keyboard, one may have played tired, or one may
be blessed with braindead stupidity.
One main difference in our views may be that the phrase "it may be" (in your
sentense) means something different to you than to me. To you it seems to
mean that a possibility is enough to despise experience that is different
from yours. <yawn>
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
>>Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
> Do you think it not possible that you missed the strategic solution?
In single cases? Maybe. In most cases? I think not.
> There are lots of ways to avoid wand deaths: pets, method of movement,
> acquire reflection early, Elbereth, offense, character/dungeon level,
> etc., as I'm sure you know.
Thanks, yes; I'd really like to say "I know". But could you explain how
Elbereth would prevent a shot from a wand if you're not able to construct
a situation where you could get into a different location than the monster
with that wand? Otherwise they happily zap you to (instant-)death (in the
early game).
What you've written requires, unfortunately, special conditions that are
not self-evident.
The problem with the deaths by wands are that you'll usually notice only
if they actually zap the wand at you. Another problem is that those
offensive wands do extreme damage, if not kill you instantly.
Believe me, if I can get reflection I'll get it. But often it is either
non-existant (on the semi-guaranteed places) or monsters with wands
appear too early that there's a chance to get it at all.
Pets? They can help you kill the critter while your chracter hides at
some other location; but that doesn't help if you face the monster first
(or v.v.), or if you have no pet, or...
Method of movement helps in certain cases if a first shot misses or has
not yet killed you (not very likely in the early game) and if the dungeon
layout is appropriately to support some escape strategy.
If the wand misses you have other options as well, like teleport away,
dig down, etc. You've not always those options in the early game. (Yes,
I know where to find scrolls of teleport. Yes, I know where to find
the pick-axe to dig up the scroll. But then you get shot from the dark
with a wand before you can do anything, even before you got that axe.
The point is; whatever you plan the RNG can support you or kill you.)
The "offense" option is the least reliable option IME. (Or would you
mind to elaborate; and without too many preconditions, please ;-)
(Not sure what you mean and imply by "character/dungeon level", though.)
> I'd be surprised if better strategy would
> not have saved you from those wand deaths.
You gave mostly tactics above, I'd say.
One strategy I usually apply WRT wands is that until I have obtained
reflection I don't touch baracks, for example. Or until I can lock in
a powerful pet to kill them all before I inspect the place.
Don't think that I wouldn't use my golf-bag of options that I have.
Janis
Erwin M.
> Erwin M. wrote:
>> [...]
>> I also did say "past a certain point". For a very rare few, that point
>> is turn 0. For some, that point is the half-second before #offering the
>> Amulet. For the majority (even those who have never ascended), it's
>> somewhere between the two -- those who have never ascended have either
>> never reached that point, or have had carelessness cut the game short.
>
> (Please see my response to Ross Presser.)
I did (as well as some other dialogue that has been posted overnight),
and it's a cogent statement.
> For me - and I suppose no one would count me as newbie - one and a half
> year ago was killed by a bolt of lightning on level 2 (max level 2).
> (Just as an example.)
Goblin With A Wand is a pretty lousy way to go in the early game, and
I've had my own share.
> We can of course squirm free and start introducing exceptional or rare
> cases, or probabilities that this happens "practically never", or so.
>
> But it doesn't fit.
Nope, I'm not looking at corner/edge cases. One could argue that there's
no excuse for the edge case of a death by falling rock trap on move 1
("Do not pass go. Do not collect 200 zorkmids.") because you "should"
spend some turns searching, but I wouldn't call that operator error. I'm
restricting the concept of operator error to situations where you
plainly see your death staring you in the face, have the means to deal
with it and the knowledge of how to apply it, and yet don't apply those
means to escape. When you have GWAW on DL2, you are probably missing at
least one of those three criteria.
>> [...]
>>
>> For me personally, the critical point is the point at which I enter
>> Gehennom. If I've got the gear needed to get to that point, only a
>> PEBKAC can kill me beyond it.
>
> But that's vague; what gear would one consider to be "needed" at any
> point in the game?
>
Depends on the player, and that's where nuances like the MC argument
come in. I imagine some players don't think they need a source of
self-teleport. I imagine one of them has even succeeded at winning. Many
others wouldn't dream of making an ascension run without self-teleport,
though. Neither approach is "right". Some players "need" the Orb of
Weight and wish for it if they're not playing Valk. I don't wish for
quest artifacts. Neither approach is "right". Every single item in the
game is just some sort of insurance against a situation that the game
may hand you. The insurance policies differ in their amount and types of
coverage, and just as every individual's Real World insurance needs
vary, so do insurance needs in this particular roguelike. And just like
in the Real World, some people feel that aptitude and skill obviate the
need for insurance. Some of them are even right, at least speaking for
themselves...but their being right for themselves does not mean that it
applies to everyone.
> If I have every resistance and all "the kit" I think I need, well, then
> we can say we're past the "certain point". But I wouldn't ever have that
> equipment on level 2 where I got killed by that wand, and got not killed
> by an operator error.
Correct. My assertion was that some people play in a such a manner that
they can minimize or even eliminate the possibility of dying in that
way, hence the "critical point being turn 0 for some" assertion. I know
in theory how to play like that...and the amount of effort required
doesn't sound like fun to me. I play the game to have fun first. It's
fun to win, but winning is not the only way to have fun. We wouldn't see
half of the YASD posts that we do if there wasn't a measure of
fun/satisfaction in "I can't believe the game killed me like that".
On top of it all, while I have some notion of the theory of how to
reduce the chance of getting killed by an early wand zap, I don't have a
firm grasp on it. So I will state that I do not have the requisite
knowledge to say that turn 0 is the point beyond which only operator
error can kill me.
> So, if we now can say that this "certain point" is defined by The Kit
> (which is different from player to player as you say) we reduced the
> problem to the point of obtaining that kit; and that will inevitably
> lead us to the long lasting discussions whether the game of Nethack is
> "already solved" or can still have interesting surprises (including an
> unavoidable, non-operator based death).
Despite my argument for the notion that there's a point beyond which
only operator error can kill a player, I don't think that the game as a
whole is solved. Because random numbers are involved, there's no such
thing as "perfect play" in the game theory sense.
However, with a proper kit and a measure of tactics, no death is
completely unavoidable. Without that kit, there are unavoidable deaths.
And the notions of "proper kit" vary from player to player. Some take
the chance that certain "unavoidable" deaths occur rarely enough that
they don't feel they need to prep for them.
Corner case time. In my most recent ascension run, I was attacked on
Astral by an mplayer wielding Vorpy. I took the chance and defeated him
in melee. A more prudent solution would have been to teleport him away,
or hide behind some other monsters and fill him with arrows (I was a Sam
with expert in bows), or pull out the wand of death that I was toting.
Had he beheaded me, that definitely would have been operator error,
because it's not like I didn't see the "<name> wields a long sword named
Vorpal Blade!" message. And on top of it, I was wearing an "AoLS
already...getting my head lopped off *twice* would've put the S in YASD
big time. In future games, am I now going to "prepare" for the
possibility that an mplayer gets Vorpy? Nope. From one standpoint, it's
just another monster on Astral that you really don't want to melee. From
another, the odds that you'll see this situation at all in a game that
gets as far as Astral are no better than pretty slim, and have a lower
bound of zero. And that lower bound can be brought about with "advance
preparation" by ensuring that Vorpy gets generated in your game before
you hit the portal on Water. But even with that available, I'm not going
to go out of my way to do it, particularly for a non-neutral character.
It's a strategic gamble that I'm willing to take, because the effort
required to completely mitigate it is out of proportion to the chance
that you'll need to deal with it...and because a /WoT with more than one
charge is in my version of the AK, it's not like I'd be entering the
endgame without *some* means of handling the situation.
>> [...]
>>
>> But before any given player gets to that critical point, they can hit a
>> situation where their preparation is no match for the whim of the
>> RNG...and that point does vary for every player.
>
> Yes. The point is that the RNG makes the criticized statement pointless.
I don't think it's completely pointless. My statement is that it is
possible to assemble enough equipment (and the knowledge of how to apply
it) that will allow you to counter anything that the game can possibly
throw at you. Thanks to the RNG, there is no guarantee that you will
assemble that array of equipment before a particular scenario presents
itself, which is the essence of your statement, and I agree with that.
Others have stated that good tactics can mitigate even that, and while I
notionally agree with them, it's not how I choose to play the game. As a
result, I do not consider myself any sort of competition-grade player
and have no aspirations to be such.
However, the game is not zero-sum either -- new resources are
continually being generated, and there is no pressure to progress, so
with enough time and patience and a means to reliably generate new items
while ensuring your own survival, it is possible to have that array of
equipment at some point, no matter what the RNG is doing to you.
Which takes us full circle to pudding farming, since that's one of those
methods of reliably generating new items...and even then, getting to a
situation where you can farm puddings is not guaranteed in the game.
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon
> Martin Read wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>>
>> I'd guess at least one was operator error, and that there's also an
>> element of the cloud of statistical clustering that seems to afflict
>> you.
>
> game" folks blandish their own experiences, maybe not by will but I, as
> well, cannot believe that they haven't experienced that to a significant
> degree. (One difference is; I don't blame them for... - whatever.)
For my part, I think the game is solved because I can prevent all
preventable deaths. It is true that a wand from nowhere can catch me
and there's nothing I can do about it --- or Yeenoghu bones with Yeeny
next to the stairwell, or any number of constructed situations, a couple
of which I've even run into and died. :) I can do a bunch of things to
minimize the likelihood of those random and unavoidable deaths: search
before moving onto potentially trapped squares, be careful around corners,
&c. &c. Other people have explained those quite well.
The issue is not that it's impossible to lose. The issue is that there
is a a set of deaths that is truly unavoidable and that all of them
happen both fairly rarely and fairly early and, after that, there's
not only nothing unavoidable but (to me, and to others) nothing that
feels unavoidable or even terribly challenging to avoid. To me, if the
only thing that can kill me is a random die roll in the first fifteen
minutes, the game is solved. I think you can legimately disagree with
this assessment, but "occasionally a wand will hit you and you will
die no saving throw" doesn't make the game fun, it just makes the game
impossible to win 100% of the time.
-r.
David Damerell
>Derek Ray wrote:
>>Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>>If you're dying too much to wands,
>"too much"? - I said "10/63".
1 in 6 sounds like too much. Manifestly there are unavoidable deaths;
equally, given the top players' ascension percentages, they don't turn up
anything like one time in six.
>>why are you going to where you can get shot at so easily?
>Derek, I have been going to the "Dungeons of Doom", where I have been shot.
A uniform mass, undistinguished by dark rooms, the Mines, Sokoban?
>by wands or by other means. How stupid do you think a top-10 NAO player is?
Top 10 by what metric?
>One main difference in our views may be that the phrase "it may be" (in your
>sentense) means something different to you than to me. To you it seems to
>mean that a possibility is enough to despise experience that is different
>from yours. <yawn>
We're all playing the same game, with the same probability of an
unavoidable death turning up.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Oil is for sissies
Today is Aponoia, March.
7aboir
news:nJy*Mq...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk:
> Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>>Derek Ray wrote:
>>>Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning,
>>>>fire, cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims
>>>>that it was an operator error, and that I just missed to find the
>>>>solution. If you're dying too much to wands, "too much"? - I said
>>>>"10/63".
>
> 1 in 6 sounds like too much. Manifestly there are unavoidable deaths;
> equally, given the top players' ascension percentages, they don't turn
> up anything like one time in six.
Top player by what metric?
So using Z-score metric, 78291 which is #1 get killed 18 times by wand on a
total 139 death.
Yeah. 1 in 7. Not 1 in 6. Big difference.
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
> tenayaten...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
> >>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> >>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
> > Do you think it not possible that you missed the strategic solution?
>
> In single cases? Maybe. In most cases? I think not.
http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=ekiM
In the last two years I have 46 games completed on NAO. 40 of those
are ascensions. 1 is a death to a wand (of death, in sokoban). There's
probably more that you could be doing to avoid wand deaths.
mikek...@googlemail.com
> David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote innews:nJy*Mq...@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk:
> >>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning,
> >>>>fire, cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims
> >>>>that it was an operator error, and that I just missed to find the
> >>>>solution. If you're dying too much to wands, "too much"? - I said
> >>>>"10/63".
>
> > 1 in 6 sounds like too much. Manifestly there are unavoidable deaths;
> > equally, given the top players' ascension percentages, they don't turn
> > up anything like one time in six.
>
> Top player by what metric?
Top player by avoiding death metric? Seeing as that's the topic of
conversation? 78291 is very good but he plays fast and loose and so is
irrelevant to discussing how well deaths can be avoided.
<snip>
Derek Ray
>> On 2009-03-03, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>So, if we now can say that this "certain point" is defined by The Kit
>>>(which is different from player to player as you say) we reduced the
>>>problem to the point of obtaining that kit; and that will inevitably
>>>lead us to the long lasting discussions whether the game of Nethack is
>>>"already solved" or can still have interesting surprises (including an
>>>unavoidable, non-operator based death).
>>
>> Those deaths aren't interesting; they're just random.
>
> No, they are not interesting. Yes, they are random. So what?
Ah, the "so what" response to evidence. Good argument.
>> So the RNG coughs up a gnome with a wand of death in the Mines: big
>> deal.
> Strawman! Again. *sigh*
No strawman: is that not an "unavoidable, non-operator based death",
which you were discussing just above?
Do you have other examples of "unavoidable, non-operator based deaths"
you would like to hold up in support of your assertion?
>> You die after 5-10 minutes; you start a new character, you move on.
>>
>> Again, Mike Kelly [...]
> So what?
It's evidence countering your baseless assertion.
You may provide evidence to support it, or you can just keep saying "so
what?" Your call.
Derek Ray
>> On 2009-03-03, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>> If you're dying too much to wands,
>
> "too much"? - I said "10/63".
That strikes me as "too much".
Marvin has a streak of 0/24.
Mike has a streak of 0/25.
>> why are you going to where you can get shot at so easily?
> Derek, I have been going to the "Dungeons of Doom", where I have been shot.
I hear there are sometimes "magic lamps" in the Mines, for example.
And there is this "amulet of reflection" in Sokoban.
> I am well aware that not starting the game of Nethack won't cause any deaths
> by wands or by other means. How stupid do you think a top-10 NAO player is?
> You are not the one to teach me strategy.
Apparently, a top-10 NAO player is stupid enough to presume that her own
experience constitutes the be-all, end-all of Nethack knowledge, and
there could not possibly be anything left for her to learn.
>> Not dying to wands is rarely a tactical question; if
>> the first time you know it's there is when the bolt misses you, you
>> generally have no recourse. But it may well be a strategic error.
> You are right, it may be a strategic error, it may be a tactic error, it may
> even be a finger slip on the keyboard, one may have played tired, or one may
> be blessed with braindead stupidity.
Wouldn't now be a great time for you to bring up specific examples?
> One main difference in our views may be that the phrase "it may be" (in your
> sentense) means something different to you than to me. To you it seems to
> mean that a possibility is enough to despise experience that is different
> from yours. <yawn>
Especially when that experience seems to be at odds with so many other
players' experiences...
David Damerell
>So using Z-score metric, 78291 which is #1 get killed 18 times by wand on a
>total 139 death.
Not by score, that's for certain! But actually I am curious as to what
metric _Janis_ is using when they assert they are a top-ten player.
James Kanze
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
[...]
> However, with a proper kit and a measure of tactics, no death
> is completely unavoidable. Without that kit, there are
> unavoidable deaths.
But can you know exactly what will be required in the kit before
hand? Not so long ago, if I remember correctly, someone
(Marvin, I think) posted a case where he had two sources of
reflection, descended a stairway, and was promptly met with a
nymph who stole his amulet of reflection, a magic using monster
(golden naga?) who cast destroy armor to destroy his shield of
reflection, and a black dragon, who then disintegrated him.
Most of us, I'm sure, would consider two sources of reflection
"sufficient".
In practice, of course, it's obvious that some games will be
"unwinnable". There's nothing to prevent the RNG from
generating a gnome with a wand of death long before it generates
any means you could use to avoid it. In practice, of course,
such cases are fairly rare. But they do exist.
--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james...@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientierter Datenverarbeitung
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, +33 (0)1 30 23 00 34
Doug Freyburger
I take it that's number of deaths not including
ascensions? It would have more meaning if you also
listed your number of ascensions.
One in six deaths being from wands with an ascension
rate of 75% means one in 18 games have a death from
wands. That's something much different than one in six
games dying from wands.
sjde...@yahoo.com
wrote:
> Quoting 7aboir <7ab...@kinoufo.com>:
>
> >David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in
> >>Top player by what metric?
> >So using Z-score metric, 78291 which is #1 get killed 18 times by wand on a
> >total 139 death.
>
> Not by score, that's for certain! But actually I am curious as to what
> metric _Janis_ is using when they assert they are a top-ten player.
Janis is top 10 by the majority of NAO's metrics for that (including
the regular top all-around player (all games) measure, top all-around
by z-score, and most ascensions).
Those metrics aren't perfect. But Janis is a very, very good player
by any reasonable measure.
mikek...@googlemail.com
All of which are based on either how high your scores are or how many
games you have ascended. That is, they're totally irrelevant to
anything to do with skill or ability.
Metrics that might show something to do with skill include: conducts,
streaks, fast ascensions, low scoring ascensions. The only one of
those Janis even shows up on, streaks, he's hardly impressive.
Incidentally, Derek has a better streak that Janis. Yet we've been
told Derek has nothing to teach Janis, the Top 10 Player, about
strategy. Odd.
When it comes to discussions of whether or not NetHack has been
"solved" it's pretty obvious that someone who dies as much as Janis
hasn't solved it. That doesn't mean those NetHack isn't solved. It
means that Janis hasn't solved it.
sjde...@yahoo.com
> On Mar 4, 11:27 pm, "sjdevn...@yahoo.com" <sjdevn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Janis is top 10 by the majority of NAO's metrics for that (including
> > the regular top all-around player (all games) measure, top all-around
> > by z-score, and most ascensions).
>
> > Those metrics aren't perfect. But Janis is a very, very good player
> > by any reasonable measure.
>
> All of which are based on either how high your scores are or how many
> games you have ascended. That is, they're totally irrelevant to
> anything to do with skill or ability.
>
> Metrics that might show something to do with skill include: conducts,
> streaks, fast ascensions, low scoring ascensions. The only one of
> those Janis even shows up on, streaks, he's hardly impressive.
Hence the "those metrics aren't perfect". They're not really much
worse than conducts, fast ascensions, or low scoring ascensions,
though--those are all measures of a certain (and very interesting,
IMO, especially speed) kind of skill in narrowing your options or
playstyle, but not necessarily of how to maximize your ascension
chances. The latter, it seems to me, is what the thread was aiming
at.
Streaks are the only one on your list that get to the heart of the
matter being discussed. Ascension % (for some nontrivial number of
games) is probably most in line with it.
> Incidentally, Derek has a better streak that Janis. Yet we've been
> told Derek has nothing to teach Janis, the Top 10 Player, about
> strategy. Odd.
FTR, I would never say such a thing (I'm not insinuating that you
meant that).
Derek is also a very, very good player. We're talking about a couple
of people who are (like you) in the "better than me" category. That
probably puts them into the top percent or two of nethack players in
the world in all likelihood.
> When it comes to discussions of whether or not NetHack has been
> "solved" it's pretty obvious that someone who dies as much as Janis
> hasn't solved it. That doesn't mean those NetHack isn't solved. It
> means that Janis hasn't solved it.
Or that he doesn't always play with highest % chance of winning in
mind. I'm sure he knows that roaming around burdened as much as he
does (for instance) is far from optimal strategy.
That someone doesn't always choose to play high-percentage doesn't
necessarily mean they can't (e.g. during a tournament or the middle of
a streak or something), though I have no really strong opinion one way
or the other on Janis' particular skill at this level. I know I screw
around more when I'm just playing a random game than during a
tournament.
mikek...@googlemail.com
> On Mar 4, 6:51 pm, mikekell...@googlemail.com wrote:
>
> > Incidentally, Derek has a better streak that Janis. Yet we've been
> > told Derek has nothing to teach Janis, the Top 10 Player, about
> > strategy. Odd.
>
> FTR, I would never say such a thing (I'm not insinuating that you
> meant that).
Right, didn't mean that you would. But Janis claims such a thing.
> > When it comes to discussions of whether or not NetHack has been
> > "solved" it's pretty obvious that someone who dies as much as Janis
> > hasn't solved it. That doesn't mean those NetHack isn't solved. It
> > means that Janis hasn't solved it.
>
> Or that he doesn't always play with highest % chance of winning in
> mind.
That's true. But I've seen nothing to suggest Janis ever plays as
anything other than a competent plodder.
> I'm sure he knows that roaming around burdened as much as he does (for instance) is far from optimal strategy.
I guess my point is that he can't extrapolate from his own
experiences, where he is not (for whatever reason) playing anything
close to a "NetHack is solved" strategy, to claiming that nobody has
solved NetHack.
Yet he has, in nice words, suggested that people who call NetHack
solved are deluded or dishonest. I think he's wrong and has a somewhat
blinkered view of the whole matter.
Erwin M.
> On Mar 4, 4:08 pm, "Erwin M." <erwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
> [...]
>> However, with a proper kit and a measure of tactics, no death
>> is completely unavoidable. Without that kit, there are
>> unavoidable deaths.
>
> But can you know exactly what will be required in the kit before
> hand? Not so long ago, if I remember correctly, someone
> (Marvin, I think) posted a case where he had two sources of
> reflection, descended a stairway, and was promptly met with a
> nymph who stole his amulet of reflection, a magic using monster
> (golden naga?) who cast destroy armor to destroy his shield of
> reflection, and a black dragon, who then disintegrated him.
> Most of us, I'm sure, would consider two sources of reflection
> "sufficient".
True enough. I got careless with terminology. Going back to my
definition of operator error, this falls into the case of "was not aware
that death was coming next turn". The fact that the mere act of entering
a level can result in your next input being a response to DYWYPI?
instead of a command does stick a wrench in the works of tactical (and
to a degree, strategic) planning.
I admit I've been playing more Crawl lately, and the level-change model
there is that monsters get their allotted moves while you're in the
process of using the stairs (or falling down the shaft), but if you
survive that, you get to assess the situation on the new level and issue
a command. The net result is the same -- that switching levels isn't a
guaranteed escape -- but at least it mitigates the possibility of the
instant smackdown upon entering a level.
Besides, it's very Marvin-like behavior to find a way to shake up the
way people view the game. ;)
> In practice, of course, it's obvious that some games will be
> "unwinnable". There's nothing to prevent the RNG from
> generating a gnome with a wand of death long before it generates
> any means you could use to avoid it. In practice, of course,
> such cases are fairly rare. But they do exist.
And I never disagreed with that...I merely asserted that in a game of
sufficient length, there will come a time beyond which (in my original
words) "only one's own carelessness" can kill you. Even with a fairly
narrow definition of "operator error", though, I may have to take a
softer stance on that, as the example above shows. Using terms of
absolute certainty when referring to a system governed by (pseudo)random
numbers -- especially one that incorporates rnz() -- isn't a wise thing.
David Damerell
>Metrics that might show something to do with skill include: conducts,
>streaks, fast ascensions, low scoring ascensions. The only one of
>those Janis even shows up on, streaks, he's hardly impressive.
Better than me, mind, since I think my best ever is a 2-streak.
Specifically in this case, however, I think streaks is the best metric.
We're talking about how many genuinely unavoidable deaths there are; you
obviously cannot score a long streak without high skill at avoiding
avoidable deaths, and the proportion of deaths suffered by a streaker when
trying for streaks (not just messing about) sets a maximum on that number.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Epithumia, March - a weekend.
David Damerell
>Erwin M. wrote:
>>As has been stated many times by many people, past a certain point in
>>the game (for some, that being "<Greetings>, <name>, welcome to
>>NetHack!"), the only barrier to ascension is one's own carelessness.
>And this was ever and still is wrong.
I think it should be clear that I do agree the statement above is
literally untrue. There is a percentage of unavoidable deaths in the early
game, albeit that Marvin et al have demonstrated that that percentage is
extremely low.
Richard Bos
> Derek Ray wrote:
> > On 2009-03-03, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
> >>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> >>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
> >
> > If you're dying too much to wands,
>
> "too much"? - I said "10/63".
That _is_ too much. I am hardly the world's best Nethacker, and I rarely
die to wands. Ants, yes. Player stupidity while helpless, yes. Wands,
not really.
Richard
Janis Papanagnou
offending, as usual; I'll start answering yours - because you're generally
very rational and clear in your statements -, downgrading the other ones
for a while (where I expect vitriol and vagueness only, anyway) until I've
more time to respond.]
Rachel Elizabeth Dillon wrote:
>
> For my part, I think the game is solved because I can prevent all
> preventable deaths.
You mean after a certain point in the game, or generally? In certain games
(often early game, but in a few cases even mid game) I've encountered
situations where there was no forth or back and I could not handle the
monsters created. Those situations are not as instant deadly as the wand
that I used as an example. But if you're without options (no appropriate
gear, no fleeing possible, unreliable Elbereth, and then comes some critter
with ranged (sometimes even poisoned) weapons, etc.
I can't believe that you solved those situations generally, or that you
haven't encountered such situations in the first place.
It's easy to claim without evidence that I "certainly would have missed a
strategic option", but that's a bit cheap, don't you think?
WRT "preventable death"; well, I as well can prevent all preventable deaths;
modulo operator errors. That's the point of being preventable. But how would
you judge whether it was preventable or not?
After my deaths I can usually clearly recognize any finger slip, any stupid
move, any tactical error; and it's inherently difficult to judge honestly
for strategic options taken or not taken - the same holds as well for some
tactical decisions; you cannot honestly know in advance what would have been
better in certain circumstances. (Do you remember my recent Tourist that was
able to flee from the centaur with the wand of lightning by digging down,
only to land adjacent to a MF? - There were two or three tactical decisions
to choose from; none was apparently better or worse, none was *definitely* a
solution to survive. Only after thorougly spoiling myself with map details
it turned out that the maps allow only a single interpretation. But game
situations are not always unambiguous or guaranteed solvable even when
applying full spoilage.)
It seems it boils down that one discussion fraction counts just two sets of
problems; unavoidable instant deaths, and avoidable situations. (All modulo
operator errors, of course.) If you put the unavoidable non-instant deaths
either in the "rare event" corner, or despise a victim to not have seen the
solution, then there's nothing more to discuss.
> It is true that a wand from nowhere can catch me
> and there's nothing I can do about it --- or Yeenoghu bones with Yeeny
> next to the stairwell, or any number of constructed situations, a couple
> of which I've even run into and died. :) I can do a bunch of things to
> minimize the likelihood of those random and unavoidable deaths: search
> before moving onto potentially trapped squares, be careful around corners,
> &c. &c. Other people have explained those quite well.
(I can't recognize which ones you're referring to, so I stay with what you
wrote.)
Yes, that's a sign of experienced play to take moves (strategic decisions)
to reduce likelihood of being caught by some "secondary effect". I do that
all the time. One won't reach very far if one doesn't do that, or doesn't
even know because of lacking experience how to do that.
The unfortunate point is that superficial critiques without giving concrete
evidence or suggestions is, as well, cheap. Just generally suspecting that
"there must be" some lack of proficiency to solve issues appropriately has
no value besides being offensive.
>
> The issue is not that it's impossible to lose. The issue is that there
> is a a set of deaths that is truly unavoidable and that all of them
> happen both fairly rarely and fairly early and, after that, there's
> not only nothing unavoidable but (to me, and to others) nothing that
> feels unavoidable or even terribly challenging to avoid. To me, if the
> only thing that can kill me is a random die roll in the first fifteen
> minutes, the game is solved. I think you can legimately disagree with
> this assessment, but "occasionally a wand will hit you and you will
> die no saving throw" doesn't make the game fun, it just makes the game
> impossible to win 100% of the time.
I don't think I disagree with what you say here; what I say is that there
occasionally are (in my games) situations that are not to solve given the
way the game evolved - and I mean all the summed up random factors of a
game (- you know, the things that were claimed to be practically impossible
to happen significantly often; I gave enough examples of many such games
in the past, and I just got quibbling responses, either "corner cases" or
"no proficient play", and the like, cheap responses -), and not just single
and instant effective random events like the mentioned wands.
My deaths are still multifold. Situations where I got cornered without
options, find no alternative solution even after thorough post mortem
pondering, are the ones where I have to say; there are situations where
other tactics and lookahead strategy wouldn't have helped. One can count
these situations as well as "corner cases" as the wand of death incident,
but it's not the same even if the result is foreseeable most likely death.
I try to survive every game anyway, even the unlucky ones. In desperate
situations there's as well, vice versa, a rare fortunate event possible.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
But ants at least respect Elbereth which saved me more than once,
while wands are ranged and you must be able to flee fast enough,
which is unfortunately in the general case not that easy as you
seem to imply.
I would be somewhat disappointed about my skill if I'd have died,
e.g., to the no.1 killers, the soldier ants, as often; but I have
"only" three such deaths. (Which is okay for me, at least.)
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On Mar 4, 11:27 pm, "sjdevn...@yahoo.com" <sjdevn...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>On Mar 4, 12:29 pm, David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk>
>>wrote:
>>>Quoting 7aboir <7ab...@kinoufo.com>:
>>>>David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote in
>>>>
>>>>>Top player by what metric?
>>>>
>>>>So using Z-score metric, 78291 which is #1 get killed 18 times by wand on a
>>>>total 139 death.
>>
>>>Not by score, that's for certain! But actually I am curious as to what
>>>metric _Janis_ is using when they assert they are a top-ten player.
>>
>>Janis is top 10 by the majority of NAO's metrics for that (including
>>the regular top all-around player (all games) measure, top all-around
>>by z-score, and most ascensions).
>>
>>Those metrics aren't perfect. But Janis is a very, very good player
>>by any reasonable measure.
Thanks sjdevnull!
(I would have put a slightly different view as response to your posting
but can as well summarize that below as reply to Mikes opinion, whose
posting requires yet some more comments than yours, anyway. :-)
But first, before I clarify some necessary detail, bear with me quoting
an old dialog between Derek and me from Nov.2007; it's just too funny in
this context. (Mind that my ascension ratio was not different at that
time.) Since I cannot recall that Derek was ever wrong (sometimes people
just abstained from continuing discussion with him, though), but now it
seems that he must have been wrong at that time at least in this point
as the current discussion seems to show... 8-D
Janis wrote:
# I am surely not an extraordinary player. [...]
[...I said that with fast-ascender and multi-conduct players in mind.]
Derek replied:
# Your stats from NAO, playing RANDOM CHARACTERS, are:
#
# <Rodney> [JANIS] has played 93 games, between 20040222
# and 20071107, highest score 5207557, ascended 43, died
# 49, lifesaved 2, quit 1 times
#
# In other words, you ascend nearly half your games (46.2%,
# to be overly precise) playing random characters -- which
# include such minmaxing winners as the "Gnome Ranger" and
# the "Orcish Wizard".
#
# You may not properly understand how good this is, so I'm
# going to give you the benefit of the doubt -- but all
# this dissembling about "oh, i'm not that good" does not
# belong in the discussion. Yes, you are, and that's even
# with playing under your own voluntary restrictions.
[Thanks again, Derek!]
> All of which are based on either how high your scores are or how many
> games you have ascended. That is, they're totally irrelevant to
> anything to do with skill or ability.
I agree with you on the score based list and, frankly, I didn't even
knew that I was high on any score based list, because I don't think
that a high score has any meaning for serial ascenders and I don't
play for score, and that was true since the times when I hadn't even
ascended the first time.
The lists with the number of ascension is not as meaningless as the
score based lists; why do I think so? Because for one I am not one of
the players that plays one game after the other, day after day, rather
I play only occasionally - compare that to the no.1 guy "78291"! - and
also because I don't select my character classes for better ranking,
or choose easier classes, etc., every game is a completely random
choice. It still is true that those lists are no perfect measures, but
they are not completely meaningless given some restrictions like the
mentioned ones, and especially if those ranks have not been used as an
absolute value, rather just in comparison to another player's skill.
In addition to the Z-score, there are other interesting measures; two of
them, where I am "only"(?) in the top-25 NAO ranking, though good enough
to feel comfortable with and not be ashamed at all, are the "average
deepest dungeon level reached" (you are 2.4 dungen levels better than
I am) and the "ascension percentage" (here you are about 7% better).
>
> Metrics that might show something to do with skill include: conducts,
> streaks, fast ascensions, low scoring ascensions. The only one of
> those Janis even shows up on, streaks, he's hardly impressive.
Conducts, yes, definitely. And I am very impressed about those extreme
conducts. I've never voluntary tried any of the interesting conducts.
(Besides the unestablished one of travelling constantly burdened - LOL)
Streaks have an inherent systematic problem as a measure; a single of
those random deadly events will destroy a streak. Also those operator
errors (for example) that many of us are still prone to will nullify
an effort. Another point is that if you happen to play a difficult
character class combination you are more likely to risk your streak.
(Remember that I play random classes, fully selected by the RNG!)
You, OTOH, are exceptionally good at the streak range. Though I really
wonder that your 25-streak shows 18 Cha classes and where a sub-streak
of 12 Cha classes can be seen. That *seems* at least that you like to
choose the alignment manually (maybe because one can wish for a better
artifact set or to have a chance obtaining Stormy?). Anyway, even if
intentionally choosen it's impressive data. If it's a random effect
(hard to believe for me, equally hard to believe that you always switch
alignment to Cha once on Astral) then one has at least to consider such
in the evaluation of how far this metric can tell us something. (That's
an additional problem to the inherent one outlined above.)
Fast ascensions; well, partly. Yes, I think it requires an own skill to
make fast ascensions. But we have to recognize that it is risky and you
will typically have to fire up more games, thus have a lower ascension
ratio (which, remember, I consider to be a good mesure) on average.
Low scoring; here I disagree, because these are coupled with the fast
ascensions (in all but corner cases), and all said there applies to
this one as well. It's no independent measure as far as the scoring
lists go.
>
> Incidentally, Derek has a better streak that Janis. Yet we've been
> told Derek has nothing to teach Janis, the Top 10 Player, about
> strategy. Odd.
Here I think you do not show stringent thinking; there are two problems
with that. First, streaks should be considered with the above said not
ignored; about how streaks can be interrupted. Second, streaks do say
nothing about strategy at all. In the worst case they just say that you
can manually select characters to be able to win easily, in the "best"
case they say that (strategically) perfectly played games got lost by a
bad random event, or by any of the many other casual (operator based)
events that we (you excluded given your recent history) are prone to.
>
> When it comes to discussions of whether or not NetHack has been
> "solved" it's pretty obvious that someone who dies as much as Janis
> hasn't solved it. That doesn't mean those NetHack isn't solved. It
> means that Janis hasn't solved it.
(It depends on what you consider solved.)
If you think that ascending every other *randomly* selected character
means that I "die too often", I can't help you.
My point when repling to Derek was that if those deaths are caused by
strategic errors that should be precisely pointed out instead of just
alleging that. It's actually quite irrelevant whether I am top-10,
top-25, or top-100; but I think someone who is not or not significantly
better than I am should not discredit me and my humble NH achievements.
Are you really convinced that I play with a bad strategy because I am
lacking your streak length or have a slightly(?) shorter streak than
Derek? Frankly, I think this is complete nonsense.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> On Mar 4, 12:55 am, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>>tenayaten...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>>Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>>>>
>>>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
>>>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>>
>>>Do you think it not possible that you missed the strategic solution?
>>
>>In single cases? Maybe. In most cases? I think not.
>
> http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=ekiM
It's impessive (as I've already said elsethread). Especially given that
you failed miserably in the first third of your games, had a very fine
and balanced success in the second third, and played practically flawless
in the last third, I can very well understand that you say the game to be
solved. Quite some entries seem to be hand chosen, though.
> In the last two years I have 46 games completed on NAO. 40 of those
> are ascensions. 1 is a death to a wand (of death, in sokoban). There's
> probably more that you could be doing to avoid wand deaths.
Yet I haven't heard any concrete suggestion. In case you've encountered
as many offensive wand attacks as I've suffered from; what did you do in
those cases? Or did you always have had an escape route? What tactics do
you use to guarantee escape routes? What options do you choose from if
you're actually lacking means to support such tactics in concrete games?
I am really interested in success stories to learn from!
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
I somehow seem to have missed a few games from my list.
I've actuall 66 ascensions, 76 deaths, (1 quit uncounted).
That means 66 non-wand deaths and 10 wand-deaths.
Not sure whether that makes any significant difference, though.
Should answer Doug's question as well.
Sorry for the inconvenience.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
>
>>>why are you going to where you can get shot at so easily?
>>
>>Derek, I have been going to the "Dungeons of Doom", where I have been shot.
>
> A uniform mass, undistinguished by dark rooms, the Mines, Sokoban?
The above was my pissed response to a stupid remark formulated as question.
The answer is; I have no "fixed program", I dynamically decide where to go,
depending on the RNG selected class, depending on my gear and what loot and
which dungeon features I find as I progress, depending on whether I have to
watch my nutrition demands, and whether the dungeons are lit or not, whether
I have means to map or heal or cast, whether I need armor or not, whether I
have to rely on my pet or not, depending on the game evolution whether I
should try Sokoban or the Mines first, whether I find shop and/or altars or
nothing of that at all, as occasionally.
All in all; I go to where I will have the biggest change to get to the next
implicit milestone without risking the characters life to increase my
survival chances. Milestones are for example; telepathy, poison resistance,
appropriate armor, an MC2 or better cloak, a unicorn horn, reflection, the
other resistances, magic resistance, or any of the softer criteria that I
mentioned above and which are depending on how the RNG created my character,
the dungeon, the objects, and the monsters. Got an impression how I play?
I think a good player has to adapt his play to the situations, based on the
knowledge he has obtained in his long experience. This adaptive play means
that it's not (not easily?) playable like a fixed determinated program.
This means that an experienced player does not stupidly go to places where
one "can get shot at so easily", while shouting loud "Kill me, kill me!".
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> [...]
Thanks for your comprehensive and comprehensible reply.
Janis
Kent Paul Dolan
> My deaths are still multi-fold. Situations where I
> got cornered without options, ...
Well, in this case you have documented yourself that
you are your own worst enemy. Playing burdened makes
it _much_ easier for the monsters to corner you. The
answer there is more in preventing the situation
(where possible) before it happens, by staying
unburdened, not so much in scrambling to find
solutions after it happens.
The faster you move in exploring a level, the more
the monsters have to reverse their tracks to keep
coming toward you, wasting their turns and saving
your turns.
FWIW
xanthian.
Kent Paul Dolan
> Yet I haven't heard any concrete suggestion. In
> case you've encountered as many offensive wand
> attacks as I've suffered from; what did you do in
> those cases? Or did you always have had an escape
> route?
"Escape route?"
Well, there might be a part of your problem.
Last I saw, the recommended approach to "monster
with a wand" was to go _toward_ the monster, but on
a line out of direct line of fire, until reaching
melee range, when, it seems, most monsters stop
using wands, and kill the monster from there. Again,
though, you being often burdened is a real issue
here, you give the monsters extra moves to step into
line _and_ zap your PC, before you get your turn to
step back out of line.
xanthian.
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
> > My deaths are still multi-fold. Situations where I
> > got cornered without options, ...
>
> Well, in this case you have documented yourself that
> you are your own worst enemy.
Yes, I confirm that explicitly, yet again, that *most* of my
deaths are due to sloppyness and inattentiveness, e.g., when
playing tired or if in bad mood.
But you've ignored that "without options" is a far reaching
statement for someone who knows quite a lot options and has
significant experience.
> Playing burdened makes
> it _much_ easier for the monsters to corner you.
You should be aware that it's really not a "conduct" for me
to go burdened, even it it seems so, especially during the
advanced game. While I indeed often travel close to stressed
or sometimes even made the late game completely stressed, I
have also done ascensions completely unburdened. But I do go
burdened only if I am buff enough to still handle situations,
and if I am wimpy I avoid being burdened. It's depending on
personal proficiency, and folks should know the trade-offs
and whether they can afford to do that or not.
> The
> answer there is more in preventing the situation
> (where possible) before it happens, by staying
> unburdened, not so much in scrambling to find
> solutions after it happens.
Being unburdened increases ones survival rate significantly;
that's why I always suggest to go unburdened, especially to
newbies. But in case my burden status is a problem I make
more stashes, strategically. If it is potentially critical
tactically I drop my loot. Burden status is one factor that
I actually adjust with how well I am developed and how risky
it is to go.
> The faster you move in exploring a level, the more
> the monsters have to reverse their tracks to keep
> coming toward you, wasting their turns and saving
> your turns.
That is correct. But I have not the impression that it applies
well to the situations where I die. Indeed I had a couple of
games in the past where I am certain that being unburdened could
and in few cases even would have saved me in the deadly situation.
(Famine death at Astral, e.g.) But in most cases the burdeness
was irrelevant, especially in those zap-wand cases.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
> > Yet I haven't heard any concrete suggestion. In
> > case you've encountered as many offensive wand
> > attacks as I've suffered from; what did you do in
> > those cases? Or did you always have had an escape
> > route?
>
> "Escape route?"
>
> Well, there might be a part of your problem.
>
> Last I saw, the recommended approach to "monster
> with a wand" was to go _toward_ the monster, but on
> a line out of direct line of fire, until reaching
> melee range, when, it seems, most monsters stop
> using wands, and kill the monster from there.
No, Kent, you are wrong. First, monsters shoot wands even
from melee range. Second, you will notice the existance of
wands in the monsters equipment (normally) only if zapped
at you; but then you're already in a straight line with
the monster and every move you make will be followed by
the monster move (as long as the monsters are specifically
not slow[*]). To make that work in certain cases you need
some corner, some door, or similar support. You cannot
guarantee, unfortunately, when you will meet that "foe
with a wand". Third, wands have the bad property that
they have ranges that makes it possible to evade (or
shorten the distance) only in specific cases, rarely in
the general case. Fourth, you are implying that you have
a decent melee weapon to kill him fast enough; that is
generally not the case. Fifth, offensive wands make huge
damage (with one exception, if you like), so you need to
additionally kill them fast anyway, which can be impossible
even *if* you have a decent weapon. And finally; assuming
I can reach melee range I could as well unjustified assume
to make a ranged attack from distance before meleeing
against the wand-attacker with my multishot blessed dagger
stack or with my offensive spells.
But, hey, that's Nethack! That's exactly the problem when
I say "I have no options". I would use any available option
if they have some realistic chance to save my butt, believe
me. But there are games where I'm doomed, and that is not
depending on a burden status that I may have at some point
in some games.
> Again,
> though, you being often burdened is a real issue
> here, you give the monsters extra moves to step into
> line _and_ zap your PC, before you get your turn to
> step back out of line.
There are situation were this can be significant. There
are situations where burdeness is completely irrelevant.
Problem is that monster make a turn *and* zap in the
same turn at you. That's usually too much for fire/cold/
lightning/death in the early game.
Janis
[*] Being fast or extra fast helps (both not guaranteed
in the early game), being unburdened can make it better,
but it hadn't been a relevant factor in my games WRT
attacks from wands because they are often quite instant
lethal.
sjde...@yahoo.com
>
> > >> From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
> > >>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> > >>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
> > > If you're dying too much to wands,
>
> > "too much"? - I said "10/63".
>
> That _is_ too much. I am hardly the world's best Nethacker, and I rarely
> die to wands. Ants, yes. Player stupidity while helpless, yes. Wands,
> not really.
Well, I'd assume that the better a player is the less likely they are
to die to mostly avoidable threats (e.g. ants) and the more likely
they are to have a higher percentage of their deaths be things like
the proverbial GWTWOD. But yeah, it seems a bit high.
David Damerell
>Streaks have an inherent systematic problem as a measure; a single of
>those random deadly events will destroy a streak
That's a problem with them as an absolute measure of skill - I'm not
going to look at the NAO high score list and say that Mike must be a
better player than Marvin. But what I'm trying to assess is the
probability of random deadly events, and we _can_ say if those events were
at all frequent, these streaks would be astronomically unlikely.
For example, if 1/6 games will suffer an unavoidable death, the odds of a
25-streak (assuming otherwise perfect play) are 1% per attempt (an
"attempt" is where you start a new game when your previous game was not an
ascension). The average length of an attempt (where one plays up to 25
games until one is lost) is about 5.9 games (1 + 5/6 + (5/6)^2 + ...
(5/6) ^ 24).
So an absolutely perfect player could expect to see one 25-streak in
about 560 games. An imperfect player (like all the players that actually
exist) would have to play still more games.
A brief note about "unavoidable deaths". There's a bit of a tendency to
think of perfect play as some sort of prescient impossibility that steers
around unspotted traps or only searches when it needs to or some such, and
to label deaths as "avoidable" if such prescience could avoid them. We've
seen this in the example of a falling rock trap next to the starting
square, where the player _could_ search. No; if that trap is where one
would naturally step moving off the start square, and it is not (as I
suspect it is not) sensible to search every move, that death is not
avoidable.
What I mean by perfect play is this - in any NetHack situation, there is a
move that offers the best odds of eventually resulting in ascension.
(Theoretically, an impossibly huge computer could simulate the outcome of
every possible move, every possible result the RNG could throw up, every
possible next move, etc, like a chess computer's lookahead multiplied
billions-fold. We don't have the technology to do that, but note that
there _is_ a best move in any given situation). A perfect player always
makes that best move. Death is unavoidable if that perfect player dies
(and so really, the game was unwinnable with some probability p that they
happened to run into), not if a prescient player could avoid it.
> Also those operator
>errors (for example) that many of us are still prone to will nullify
>an effort.
Well, that's fair enough; you would expect a measure of skill to penalise
operator errors.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> Kill the tomato!
Today is Olethros, March - a weekend.
Janis Papanagnou
One cannot choose how many incidents one gets, unfortunately. And I have
not the least idea how many wand attacks I've actually _survived_!
BTW, add another soldier ant death to my record. Just the moment; fell
through a trapdoor close to a soldier ant (there were more on the level,
but the one was sufficient), one poisoned bite, HP:50->17, scribbling
Elbereth didn't succeed as so often, second bite, DYWYPI. (Unburdened,
BTW.)
Janis
Doug Freyburger
> >>>Derek Ray wrote:
>
> >>1 in 6 sounds like too much. Manifestly there are unavoidable deaths;
> >>equally, given the top players' ascension percentages, they don't turn
> >>up anything like one time in six.
>
>
> That means 66 non-wand deaths and 10 wand-deaths.
>
10 wand deaths / (66 + 76) games is 10-in-140 or 1-in-14.
Consider David D's analysis of streaks based on a 1-in-6
assumption where he gets a 25 game long streak and 1%
of tries by a perfect player.
Janis shows the ratio of unavoidable deaths is at least as
low as 1-in-14 not 1-in-6. Does this show that streaks of
25 should be far more common than they are "given
perfect play"? I think it says that no matter claims that
the game is solved even the elite among the top players
don't actually acheive perfect play.
To me this addresses why I play Nethack in the first
place. If I played to win I'd switch to a game for money.
I play for fun.
David Damerell
>Janis shows the ratio of unavoidable deaths is at least as
>low as 1-in-14 not 1-in-6. Does this show that streaks of
>25 should be far more common than they are "given
>perfect play"? I think it says that no matter claims that
>the game is solved even the elite among the top players
>don't actually acheive perfect play.
I think it's obvious (given my definition of "perfect play") that perfect
play is unachievable. I insist on that definition because (unlike the
precognitive trap-avoider) it is a kind of perfect play that real players
may strive towards.
Kent Paul Dolan
> sjde...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> ralt...@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) wrote:
[snipping wand-only stuff to focus on ants]
>>> That _is_ too much. I am hardly the world's best
>>> Nethacker, and I rarely die to wands. Ants, yes.
>>> Player stupidity while helpless, yes. Wands, not
>>> really.
>> Well, I'd assume that the better a player is the
>> less likely they are to die to mostly avoidable
>> threats (e.g. ants) and the more likely they are
>> to have a higher percentage of their deaths be
>> things like the proverbial GWTWOD. But yeah, it
>> seems a bit high.
> One cannot choose how many incidents one gets,
> unfortunately. And I have not the least idea how
> many wand attacks I've actually _survived_!
> BTW, add another soldier ant death to my record.
> Just the moment; fell through a trapdoor close to
> a soldier ant (there were more on the level, but
> the one was sufficient), one poisoned bite,
> HP:50->17, scribbling Elbereth didn't succeed as
> so often, second bite, DYWYPI. (Unburdened, BTW.)
Looking backwards through my logfile to check my
_current_ "death by ant" rate, I find just three
such deaths in the last 205 PC losses.
I'm fairly sure that "death by ant" == "descending
too fast" + "leveling up to fast" == "seeing ants
too soon".
By the time I meet ants, they seem to be popcorn
monsters usually, and that's because I'm mostly not
high enough level to see them by mines town, at
which point I've got decent armor, often mithral,
and I've got most of the armor except maybe shirts,
I've got usually 4 or more points of enchantment
among all my armor, by trying all the pet tested
stuff, a good, if ordinary, weapon, and some
purchased protection.
Of course, I'm a pretty horrid NetHack player, and
so the reality may just be that I'm dying before the
ants arrive (though I see a lot of ants), but I'm
still guessing that conserving on XP until toughened
up a lot more than most people bother to make their
PCs would reduce the terrors of team ant
significantly.
xanthian.
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > BTW, add another soldier ant death to my record.
> > Just the moment; fell through a trapdoor close to
> > a soldier ant (there were more on the level, but
> > the one was sufficient), one poisoned bite,
> > HP:50->17, scribbling Elbereth didn't succeed as
> > so often, second bite, DYWYPI. (Unburdened, BTW.)
> I'm fairly sure that "death by ant" == "descending
> too fast" + "leveling up to fast" == "seeing ants
> too soon".
>
> By the time I meet ants, they seem to be popcorn
> monsters usually, and that's because I'm mostly not
> high enough level to see them by mines town, at
> which point I've got decent armor, often mithral,
> and I've got most of the armor except maybe shirts,
> I've got usually 4 or more points of enchantment
> among all my armor, by trying all the pet tested
> stuff, a good, if ordinary, weapon, and some
> purchased protection.
>
> Of course, I'm a pretty horrid NetHack player, and
> so the reality may just be that I'm dying before the
> ants arrive (though I see a lot of ants), but I'm
> still guessing that conserving on XP until toughened
> up a lot more than most people bother to make their
> PCs would reduce the terrors of team ant
> significantly.
As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
(and my pet dead AFAIR), and then stumbling in that
trapdoor, ...what shall I tell you more.
St:17 Dx:14 Co:20 In:10 Wi:9 Ch:6 Lawful
Dlvl:6 HP:0(50) Pw:4(4) AC:7 Xp:4/105 T:1528
Do you really think XL:4 and DL:5 (where I hit the trap)
is too fast levelled up? (Or is it maybe yet another of
those "rare" games I happen to encounter every so often?)
Levelling up with high Con to get sufficient HP's would
have been be the choice to select in this case, lacking
armor and poison resistance (and food supply) were the
actual problems. Anyway...
My current game is another one of those "rare games";
engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
Janis
Derek Ray
> As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
> in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
> RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
> so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
> (does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
Absolutely. Live characters can fix alignment, and mithril helps make
characters stay alive. Sure, you lose your prayer until you fix it, but
on the plus side, you have far less chance of needing it.
Admittedly, it helps when you know how to fix your alignment; I may have
a slightly unfair advantage here because I wrote the alignment spoiler,
so I know both the penalties for killing a dwarf (-12) and how many grid
bugs it takes to 'fix' that penalty (3).
> St:17 Dx:14 Co:20 In:10 Wi:9 Ch:6 Lawful
> Dlvl:6 HP:0(50) Pw:4(4) AC:7 Xp:4/105 T:1528
>
> Do you really think XL:4 and DL:5 (where I hit the trap)
Too deep, not too much XL. When you get more XL, you get more HP; it's
never a bad thing to level up. But if you go too deep too fast, then
you increase monster difficulty without gaining more HP and +hit to
compensate for it.
> My current game is another one of those "rare games";
> engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
Much less rare than you think.
--
Derek
Game info and change log: http://sporkhack.com
Beta Server: telnet://sporkhack.com
IRC: irc.freenode.net, #sporkhack
James Kanze
wrote:
> On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
[...]
> > My current game is another one of those "rare games";
> > engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
> 2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
> Much less rare than you think.
Slightly less, according to my calculations (1.985%), but
still... I've been to Sokoban a lot more than 50 times, and I've
never found one there. Like Janis', my experience seems to
suggest that they are in fact a lot rarer than this. Also, a
wand of death should have the same frequency, and I've never
found one of those either.
Either I've been relatively unlucky until now, or there's some
other factor I'm not aware of.
--
James Kanze (GABI Software) email:james...@gmail.com
Conseils en informatique orientée objet/
Beratung in objektorientierter Datenverarbeitung
9 place Sémard, 78210 St.-Cyr-l'École, France, +33 (0)1 30 23 00 34
Janis Papanagnou
> On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
>>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
>>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
>>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
>>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
>
>
> Absolutely. Live characters can fix alignment,
It's not (not only) alignment, there's more to consider...
> and mithril helps make characters stay alive.
And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily kill you! Have you
thought about that? Yet more complicated if that dwarf happens to
own a mattock! Mind again, that my early dwarven Caveman was lacking
armor *and* a decent weapon. The mines are definitely not the first
choice to select from if you're playing an underequipped wimp;
attacking monsters that are tanks with your club, just because they
carry that precious armor and those weapons? (Well, it's an option,
but none that seems more promisable than choosing the other branch.
In the mines you'll also have to wander around to get to the armor,
because dwarfs will be peaceful in this case, and if you stumble in
a trapdoor and land in front of a soldier ant?)
(The funny thing about such discussions is that if I'd have gone into
the mines and had been killed there I surely would have been advised
to not go there but follow the main branch because "it's easier" for
certain reasons, so whereever I die, I'm sure it's either completely
my lacking proficiency, or the death would have been an exceptional
event, not worth disccussing or considering it as part of a strategy.
Ah, well.)
> Sure, you lose your prayer until you fix it, but
> on the plus side, you have far less chance of needing it.
>
> [alignment topic snipped]
>
>
>>St:17 Dx:14 Co:20 In:10 Wi:9 Ch:6 Lawful
>>Dlvl:6 HP:0(50) Pw:4(4) AC:7 Xp:4/105 T:1528
>>
>>Do you really think XL:4 and DL:5 (where I hit the trap)
>
>
> Too deep, not too much XL. [...]
LOL - Level 5 too deep; I'd say you're joking. But rather I say; so
we disagree.
Given that the Mines can just *begin* with level 5 is another point
that doesn't seem to match well with your suggestion. Anyway.
Let's face it; in any instance of the game one has to decide for
one of the most promising strategy. You think my strategy was badly
choosen and think the mines would be better? I think the opposite
is the case, because we have to consider the lacking armor, weapon,
food, considering (potential) trade-offs with praying which is a
problem.
To sum that up; in the actual game, I think going down the main
branch was the lot more preferable choice. One should also recognize
that Elbereth didn't save me, and I saw the soldier ants not in time
as I landed somewhere randomly in the midst of the level; a sequence
of bad luck incidents, I'd say, which can happen in the mines as well.
>>My current game is another one of those "rare games";
>>engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
>
>
> 2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
> Much less rare than you think.
Much less than you think I think? Fine. 2% is rare enough to not have
seen it often (if at all, don't recall any instance) in my games, and
surely not more or less rare for me than the other rare events that I
occasionally post here.
Janis
Ilmari Karonen
> On Mar 8, 5:24 pm, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org> wrote:
>>
>> 2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
>> Much less rare than you think.
>
> Slightly less, according to my calculations (1.985%), but
> still... I've been to Sokoban a lot more than 50 times, and I've
> never found one there. Like Janis', my experience seems to
> suggest that they are in fact a lot rarer than this. Also, a
> wand of death should have the same frequency, and I've never
> found one of those either.
>
> Either I've been relatively unlucky until now, or there's some
> other factor I'm not aware of.
If something happens with a 1-in-50 probability, then the probability
that it never happens in N tries is (1-1/50)^N. We can calculate this
for some values of N:
Probability of never finding a /oW in Soko in 50 attempts = 36.4%
Probability of never finding a /oW in Soko in 100 attempts = 13.3%
Probability of never finding a /oW in Soko in 150 attempts = 4.8%
Probability of never finding a /oW in Soko in 200 attempts = 1.8%
Looked at another way, even if you visit Sokoban 100 times, there's
still more than a 1-in-8 chance that you'll never find a wand of
wishing there.
--
Ilmari Karonen
To reply by e-mail, please replace ".invalid" with ".net" in address.
Janis Papanagnou
> On Mar 8, 5:24 pm, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
> wrote:
>>On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>My current game is another one of those "rare games";
>>>engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
>
>>2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
>>Much less rare than you think.
>
> Slightly less, according to my calculations (1.985%), but
> still... I've been to Sokoban a lot more than 50 times, and I've
> never found one there. Like Janis', my experience seems to
> suggest that they are in fact a lot rarer than this.
I am unaware that I quantified the actual or expected rarity in any
way in my posting. What I meant was; "it is rare". Just that. And it
is as rare as any other "rare" event that I observed in Nethack. The
inherent problem with rare events is that they are in principle bad
to observe "consistently"; besides the probability numbers which are
hard defined by the RNG (and only in case of bad RNG implementations
inaccurate), 2% in this case, you need a whole lot more of occurrences
from practise to obtain an accurate number. In other words, you need,
say, 100 games with such occurrences of those rare wands (in approx.
5000 games) to get an accurate image of the (known) ~2% value. In
this non-scientific case 500 *finished* Sokoban games might suffice
to find on 10 such wands and confirm that value. But a single random
find of such a wand doesn't tell anything.
> Also, a
> wand of death should have the same frequency, and I've never
> found one of those either.
The problem with those wands is that they will be used by monsters;
so finding a wand of wishing seems better. ;-)
> Either I've been relatively unlucky until now, or there's some
> other factor I'm not aware of.
It's just the expected low frequency in far too few games. No miracle
involved.
Janis
Kent Paul Dolan
> And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily
> kill you! Have you thought about that? Yet more
> complicated if that dwarf happens to own a
> mattock!
It doesn't take much dithering around at early
levels _at all_ to get your _pet_ up to size large,
at which point the dwarf is normally a popcorn
monster _to your pet_, and the mithril drops into
your hands with only the effort of dancing around
your pet, unburdened, to avoid the mattock.
Proper pet management is a huge part of surviving
long enough to get good AC that can defend you from
monsters like team ant, without getting you the
unmanageably high XL that means you meet team ant
earlier than you can handle them.
xanthian.
Janis Papanagnou
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
>
> > And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily
> > kill you! Have you thought about that? Yet more
> > complicated if that dwarf happens to own a
> > mattock!
>
> It doesn't take much dithering around at early
> levels _at all_ to get your _pet_ up to size large,
> at which point the dwarf is normally a popcorn
> monster _to your pet_, and the mithril drops into
> your hands with only the effort of dancing around
> your pet, unburdened, to avoid the mattock.
Yes. So much for the pure noble theory; thanks.
But you seem to have missed in my posting upthread
>>> (and my pet dead AFAIR)
I am not 100% sure, hence "AFAIR", but quite; so let's
agree to work based on the assumed data, I'd propose.
> Proper pet management is a huge part of surviving
> long enough to get good AC that can defend you from
> monsters like team ant, without getting you the
> unmanageably high XL that means you meet team ant
> earlier than you can handle them.
Thanks again for the management advice overview on
management level; how do you manage a dead pet? Or
avoid it to get killed (by the numerous possibilities)?
I am specifically interested in how I can save them
from those rock traps and pits. Thanks.
Hey, dude; we're talking 'bout Nethack!
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
>
> But you seem to have missed in my posting upthread
>
> >>> (and my pet dead AFAIR)
>
> I am not 100% sure, hence "AFAIR", but quite; so let's
> agree to work based on the assumed data, I'd propose.
I just downloaded the ttyrec and inspected it to provide well
confirmed and accurate data for the discussion (if you like)...
WRT "rely on your pet"... Dlvl:3 T:950
Dog bites the wererat. The wererat bites Dog. Dog is killed!
For the other comment WRT "dungeon level 5 would be too deep"
which was promoted by Derek and Kent (and maybe others?)...
The branch to the mines was on dungeon level 4 so that the first
mines level started with dungeon level 5 as well.
And after T:1522 A trap door opens up under you!
*Two* Elbereth engravings in the dust failed!
Any more questions I can clarify to support any new viewpoint?
Janis
Derek Ray
>> > My current game is another one of those "rare games";
>> > engraved with a wand in Sokoban: "What do you wish for?".
>> 2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
>> Much less rare than you think.
> Slightly less, according to my calculations (1.985%), but
> still... I've been to Sokoban a lot more than 50 times, and I've
> never found one there.
A 2% chance, in practice, doesn't mean that after 49 trips with no wand,
you'll be certain to find one on the 50th. It means that there's a 2%
chance each time, and the more games you play, the closer the finding
ratio will approach 2%.
> Like Janis', my experience seems to
> suggest that they are in fact a lot rarer than this. Also, a
> wand of death should have the same frequency, and I've never
> found one of those either.
Look up "confirmation bias" and "selective perception".
Derek Ray
> Derek Ray wrote:
>> On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
>>>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
>>>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
>>>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
>>>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
>> Absolutely. Live characters can fix alignment,
> It's not (not only) alignment, there's more to consider...
Really? What exactly is that, then? Don't handwave over it, now, go
ahead and spit it out.
>> and mithril helps make characters stay alive.
> And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily kill you!
If you can't kill a dwarf wearing mithril, what does it matter what
alignment you are?
Also, this is moving the goalposts. First your argument was that "I
can't get mithril because I can't kill dwarves because I'm lawful". Now
it's "I can't kill dwarves because they're too strong for me"?
My, my, how your position changes when someone points out an avenue
that you hadn't properly considered, doesn't it?
> thought about that? Yet more complicated if that dwarf happens to
> own a mattock! Mind again, that my early dwarven Caveman was lacking
> armor *and* a decent weapon. The mines are definitely not the first
> choice to select from if you're playing an underequipped wimp;
However, a Caveman is not such a character.
> attacking monsters that are tanks with your club, just because they
> carry that precious armor and those weapons? (Well, it's an option,
> but none that seems more promisable than choosing the other branch.
It's actually quite effective, but it seems you've made up your mind
without being willing to try it and see. Nevermind that you spent a lot
of time asking for concrete suggestions, of course. There you go,
you've got one -- and now you haven't got the guts to actually try it
out, but instead you'd rather assert that it can't work for {insert list
of fabricated reasons}?
> (The funny thing about such discussions is that if I'd have gone into
> the mines and had been killed there I surely would have been advised
You're not a mind reader, Janis. Please don't waste all our time
pretending that you are.
>> Too deep, not too much XL. [...]
> LOL - Level 5 too deep; I'd say you're joking. But rather I say; so
> we disagree.
You're the one whining about dying too much; do the math.
>> 2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
>> Much less rare than you think.
> Much less than you think I think? Fine. 2% is rare enough to not have
> seen it often (if at all, don't recall any instance) in my games, and
> surely not more or less rare for me than the other rare events that I
> occasionally post here.
Yes, yes, we know about your selective perception and confirmation bias,
blah, blah, blah. The chance is still 2% per game, which is actually
quite likely to occur, even iterated over only 100 games; see other
posts in this thread.
Derek Ray
> Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> For the other comment WRT "dungeon level 5 would be too deep"
> which was promoted by Derek and Kent (and maybe others?)...
>
> The branch to the mines was on dungeon level 4 so that the first
> mines level started with dungeon level 5 as well.
Where the Mines are has no relation to whether or not your character is
too deep for his XL. I know this is going to be hard for you to
understand, but please try.
James Kanze
wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
But I didn't understand your question that way (and I don't
think Derek did either). The question was "does anyone suggest
to kill peacefuls in this case"? Obviously, no one is
suggesting that you should try to kill monsters you can't, or
force the issue by going into the mines before you're ready for
them. Only that the benefits of getting mithral outweigh the
penalties for killing a peaceful, so if you have the occasion,
and no other means of getting him dead, it's probably a valid
strategy.
[...]
> Let's face it; in any instance of the game one has to decide
> for one of the most promising strategy. You think my strategy
> was badly choosen and think the mines would be better? I think
> the opposite is the case, because we have to consider the
> lacking armor, weapon, food, considering (potential)
> trade-offs with praying which is a problem.
Knowing that you can choose your fights, and that you can
generally know in advance if the dwarf has a mattock or a pick
ax (if he has one, he digs), I'd probably go for the mines.
Which doesn't mean that I'd pick a fight with the first dwarf I
see; if he's digging away, I'd probably leave him, and if I'd
lost hit points elsewhere as well, until those hit points got
back up. And when I did decide to take one on, I'd start at a
fair distance, firing flint.
If I still had my pet, on the other hand, I'd probably avoid the
mines until he was buffed up enough, at least dog/cat, and maybe
even big dog/big cat. And let it do the killing. (But I seem
to recall your mentionning you'd lost your pet.)
> To sum that up; in the actual game, I think going down the
> main branch was the lot more preferable choice. One should
> also recognize that Elbereth didn't save me, and I saw the
> soldier ants not in time as I landed somewhere randomly in the
> midst of the level; a sequence of bad luck incidents, I'd say,
> which can happen in the mines as well.
Shit happens. In the early game, you often don't have enough
options to cope with it. It's one of the reasons why most
deaths occur in the early game.
James Kanze
wrote:
> On 2009-03-09, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> > For the other comment WRT "dungeon level 5 would be too
> > deep" which was promoted by Derek and Kent (and maybe
> > others?)...
> > The branch to the mines was on dungeon level 4 so that the
> > first mines level started with dungeon level 5 as well.
> Where the Mines are has no relation to whether or not your
> character is too deep for his XL. I know this is going to be
> hard for you to understand, but please try.
And trap doors can lead to a player being deeper than planned.
I had one game (a fairly long time ago) where I fell through
two trap doors in the first 10 or 12 moves (the second,
obviously, where I'd ended up from the first). The result was
that I found myself at level 5 (or 6, I forget), at XL/1, with
my starting armor and weapons. I forget what got me after that,
but obviously, I was too deep for my XL. Which I knew, but
couldn't do anything about.
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
>
> Streaks have an inherent systematic problem as a measure; a single of
> errors (for example) that many of us are still prone to will nullify
> character class combination you are more likely to risk your streak.
> (Remember that I play random classes, fully selected by the RNG!)
True.
> You, OTOH, are exceptionally good at the streak range. Though I really
> wonder that your 25-streak shows 18 Cha classes and where a sub-streak
> of 12 Cha classes can be seen. That *seems* at least that you like to
> choose the alignment manually (maybe because one can wish for a better
> artifact set or to have a chance obtaining Stormy?). Anyway, even if
> intentionally choosen it's impressive data. If it's a random effect
> (hard to believe for me, equally hard to believe that you always switch
> alignment to Cha once on Astral) then one has at least to consider such
> in the evaluation of how far this metric can tell us something. (That's
> an additional problem to the inherent one outlined above.)
I chose the characters manually because I wanted to have 2 of each
role in the streak (or 3 if it got that far, alas even 2 was one game
too much..). So many chaotic is because I often convert after the
quest because the Mysterious Force is boring.
> > When it comes to discussions of whether or not NetHack has been
> > "solved" it's pretty obvious that someone who dies as much as Janis
> > hasn't solved it. That doesn't mean those NetHack isn't solved. It
> > means that Janis hasn't solved it.
>
> (It depends on what you consider solved.)
>
> If you think that ascending every other *randomly* selected character
> means that I "die too often", I can't help you.
50% is not even close to what can be achieved, according to my
experience. I think 95%+ would be feasibly accomplishable with good
enough play. That your ration is around 50% suggests to me that you're
doing some things wrong. Sorry if that offends you.
I think randomly selection makes things slightly harder, but not
significantly.
> My point when repling to Derek was that if those deaths are caused by
> strategic errors that should be precisely pointed out instead of just
> alleging that. It's actually quite irrelevant whether I am top-10,
> top-25, or top-100; but I think someone who is not or not significantly
> better than I am should not discredit me and my humble NH achievements.
>
> Are you really convinced that I play with a bad strategy because I am
> lacking your streak length or have a slightly(?) shorter streak than
> Derek? Frankly, I think this is complete nonsense.
My point is that you are not very much better or worse than Derek. Yet
you said a very silly and rude thing "You are not the one to teach me
strategy...". That's absurdly arrogant. You really think your play is
so much better than Derek's that he can't tell you anything how to
improve?
I also think your play is not so good that you are justified in
calling people who claim NetHack solved liars (sorry, 'blandishers').
I know you play with a very bad strategy at least in one area: You
wander around burdened all the time which is just plain silly. That
will leave you vulnerable to wand deaths (and rider deaths...). I
don't know your play enough to have more detailed comments, but that
such a basic thing is wrong in your play is suggestive.
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
> mikekell...@googlemail.com wrote:
> > On Mar 4, 12:55 am, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >>tenayaten...@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >>>>>From my own 63 NAO deaths I have 10 deaths from a wand (ligthning, fire,
>
> >>>>>cold, and death. And I'm sure some troll jumps in and claims that it was
> >>>>>an operator error, and that I just missed to find the solution.
>
>
> >>In single cases? Maybe. In most cases? I think not.
>
> >http://alt.org/nethack/player-all.php?player=ekiM
>
> It's impessive (as I've already said elsethread). Especially given that
> you failed miserably in the first third of your games, had a very fine
> and balanced success in the second third, and played practically flawless
> in the last third, I can very well understand that you say the game to be
> solved.
Oh, but I thought anyone who thought that was blandishing their
experience? Or have you changed your mind now?
> Quite some entries seem to be hand chosen, though.
Because I didn't want to repeat roles. I don't think it's very
significant.
> > In the last two years I have 46 games completed on NAO. 40 of those
> > are ascensions. 1 is a death to a wand (of death, in sokoban). There's
> > probably more that you could be doing to avoid wand deaths.
>
> Yet I haven't heard any concrete suggestion. In case you've encountered
> as many offensive wand attacks as I've suffered from; what did you do in
> those cases? Or did you always have had an escape route? What tactics do
> you use to guarantee escape routes? What options do you choose from if
> you're actually lacking means to support such tactics in concrete games?
Play quickly (don't allow monsters time to reach the floor wands, or
to spawn with them...). Stay unburdened (for tactical avoidance and to
play quicker). Stay out of line from dark corridor mouths as much as
possible. Use pets on all wand-using monsters. Once you have telepathy
avoid engaging possible wand-using monsters (except via pet).
Prioritize AC, escape methods, and possible sources of reflection.
There's probably more but I can't think of what it is now.
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
>
> A brief note about "unavoidable deaths". There's a bit of a tendency to
> think of perfect play as some sort of prescient impossibility that steers
> around unspotted traps or only searches when it needs to or some such, and
> to label deaths as "avoidable" if such prescience could avoid them. We've
> seen this in the example of a falling rock trap next to the starting
> square, where the player _could_ search. No; if that trap is where one
> would naturally step moving off the start square, and it is not (as I
> suspect it is not) sensible to search every move, that death is not
> avoidable.
A brief note, I think it is prudent to search every square a few times
(or watch your pet and follow only her) until you have gained a few
HP. Also possibly if you are exploring D:5 and below without PR. Maybe
I'm wrong, but I don't think food is that much of a problem. This is
tedious of course, and I wouldn't fault anyone for not bothering.
mikek...@googlemail.com
> Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > 7aboir wrote:
> > > David Damerell <damer...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> > >>Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>:
> > >>>Derek Ray wrote:
>
> > >>1 in 6 sounds like too much. Manifestly there are unavoidable deaths;
> > >>equally, given the top players' ascension percentages, they don't turn
> > >>up anything like one time in six.
>
> > > Yeah. 1 in 7. Not 1 in 6. Big difference.
>
> > I've actuall 66 ascensions, 76 deaths, (1 quit uncounted).
> > That means 66 non-wand deaths and 10 wand-deaths.
>
> > Should answer Doug's question as well.
>
> 10 wand deaths / (66 + 76) games is 10-in-140 or 1-in-14.
>
> Consider David D's analysis of streaks based on a 1-in-6
> assumption where he gets a 25 game long streak and 1%
> of tries by a perfect player.
>
> Janis shows the ratio of unavoidable deaths is at least as
> low as 1-in-14 not 1-in-6. Does this show that streaks of
> 25 should be far more common than they are "given
> perfect play"? I think it says that no matter claims that
> the game is solved even the elite among the top players
> don't actually acheive perfect play.
I don't think anyone actually achieves perfect play. That would be
very tedious indeed, even if the optimal strategy was known. However,
some players do (or can, if it weren't so boring) play such that the
probability of unavoidable death (or trivial pilot error) is almost
the only thing that will kill them. That's what I call solved. I think
playing with basically no errors would give 95%+ asc rates, until you
clawed your own eyes out in boredom and hit a floating eye.
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
> having got a _caveman_ from the
> RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
> so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
> (does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?)
The answer is quite obviously yes. I wonder...
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
> Derek Ray wrote:
> > On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> >>As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
> >>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
> >>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
> >>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
> >>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
>
> > Absolutely. Live characters can fix alignment,
>
> It's not (not only) alignment, there's more to consider...
>
> > and mithril helps make characters stay alive.
>
> And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily kill you! Have you
> thought about that?
What's the relevance of them being peaceful, then? I think you're now
just arguing with Derek because you feel argumentative.
Derek Ray
> On Mar 9, 3:20 am, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>> > The branch to the mines was on dungeon level 4 so that the
>> > first mines level started with dungeon level 5 as well.
>> Where the Mines are has no relation to whether or not your
>> character is too deep for his XL. I know this is going to be
>> hard for you to understand, but please try.
> And trap doors can lead to a player being deeper than planned.
Very true. But in this case, Janis was already at DL5 and XL4 *prior*
to hitting the trapdoor. That is excessively fast descent IMO,
regardless of which branch you do or don't take.
David Damerell
>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
Well, yeah, except inasmuch as I would probably tame some passing cat or
dog and use it.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Today is Wednesday, March.
Janis Papanagnou
> I know this is going to be hard for you to
> understand, but please try.
You're insolent.
Janis Papanagnou
> On 2009-03-09, James Kanze <james...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>On Mar 9, 3:20 am, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>>>On 2009-03-09, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>The branch to the mines was on dungeon level 4 so that the
>>>>first mines level started with dungeon level 5 as well.
>>>
>>>Where the Mines are has no relation to whether or not your
>>>character is too deep for his XL. I know this is going to be
>>>hard for you to understand, but please try.
>>
>>And trap doors can lead to a player being deeper than planned.
>
> Very true. But in this case, Janis was already at DL5 and XL4 *prior*
> to hitting the trapdoor. That is excessively fast descent IMO,
> regardless of which branch you do or don't take.
Do you instead suggest camping at any prior level? (Which one?)
How long? (Without food.)
Let me tell you that usually the gridbugs and newts are not very
nutricious to survive, and the death drops spare. I do find more
armor and weapons if I explore each level and proceed in the game,
not if I wait.
Janis
Derek Ray
>> On 2009-03-09, James Kanze <james...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>On Mar 9, 3:20 am, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>> to hitting the trapdoor. That is excessively fast descent IMO,
>> regardless of which branch you do or don't take.
>
> Do you instead suggest camping at any prior level? (Which one?)
> How long? (Without food.)
Certainly you know how to pray for nutrition, yes?
Derek Ray
Janis Papanagnou
> On 2009-03-08, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Derek Ray wrote:
>>>On 2009-03-06, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>As so often it very much depends on the circumstances
>>>>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
>>>>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
>>>>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
>>>>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
>>>
>>>Absolutely. Live characters can fix alignment,
>>
>>It's not (not only) alignment, there's more to consider...
>
> Really? What exactly is that, then? Don't handwave over it, now, go
> ahead and spit it out.
I've written it subsequently in my posting. (Indicated by "..." that
something will follow below.) You seem just interested in being
flippant, I have to conclude; it's a pitty.
>>>and mithril helps make characters stay alive.
>>
>>And getting the mithril from a dwarf may easily kill you!
>
> If you can't kill a dwarf wearing mithril, what does it matter what
> alignment you are?
That are *two* points. But related. If I would accept the alignment
penalty for said reasons I'd have still the problem of defeating that
"tank".
> Also, this is moving the goalposts. First your argument was that "I
> can't get mithril because I can't kill dwarves because I'm lawful". Now
> it's "I can't kill dwarves because they're too strong for me"?
>
> My, my, how your position changes when someone points out an avenue
> that you hadn't properly considered, doesn't it?
Here is my last try to explain it to you...
Previously I asked whether you would kill peacefuls. You said you would.
(I think the drawbacks can get to be a problem if you need to pray, but
that are just two opinions.)
You the explicitly said that you would need to kill them to get mithril.
I said that an enemy with full tank gear and mattock is nothing to defeat
easily. Rather it's quite risky even with a better equipped character.
(I didn't mention "AC:0" explicitly, but you can add the typical boots
and helm factors yourself.)
That's no position change that are two points to discuss. Was that so
difficult to see that you felt to have to fall into your flippant speech?
>>thought about that? Yet more complicated if that dwarf happens to
>>own a mattock! Mind again, that my early dwarven Caveman was lacking
>>armor *and* a decent weapon. The mines are definitely not the first
>>choice to select from if you're playing an underequipped wimp;
>
> However, a Caveman is not such a character.
Pardon? An early Caveman has strength. What more?
>>attacking monsters that are tanks with your club, just because they
>>carry that precious armor and those weapons? (Well, it's an option,
>>but none that seems more promisable than choosing the other branch.
>
> It's actually quite effective, but it seems you've made up your mind
> without being willing to try it and see.
I have experienced the club as not too effective against full armored
opponents.
> Nevermind that you spent a lot
> of time asking for concrete suggestions, of course. There you go,
> you've got one -- and now you haven't got the guts to actually try it
> out, but instead you'd rather assert that it can't work for {insert list
> of fabricated reasons}?
Your "concrete" suggestion was; "Go into the mines and continue using
your club to get that mithril." (Okay, thanks. That doesn't seem to
work well.)
>>(The funny thing about such discussions is that if I'd have gone into
>>the mines and had been killed there I surely would have been advised
>
> You're not a mind reader, Janis. Please don't waste all our time
> pretending that you are.
I was just extrapolating from former discussions. This has nothing to
to with mind-reading; you seem to like building strawman's.
>>>Too deep, not too much XL. [...]
>>
>>LOL - Level 5 too deep; I'd say you're joking. But rather I say; so
>>we disagree.
>
> You're the one whining about dying too much; do the math.
(Oh, "whining"?! - Wait, what was the appropriate respose for that...?
Ah, yes; ...you're again "bullying", Derek.)
No, I am not complaining about dying too much; I am stating that there
are situations where it seems to me to be impossible to survive.
(To you, from the perspective of someone who claims to have solved the
game, it might look different.)
>>>2% chance of a wand of wishing in Sokoban per game.
>>>Much less rare than you think.
>>
>>Much less than you think I think? Fine. 2% is rare enough to not have
>>seen it often (if at all, don't recall any instance) in my games, and
>>surely not more or less rare for me than the other rare events that I
>>occasionally post here.
>
> Yes, yes, we know about your selective perception and confirmation bias,
"we"? - not even "you" *knows* anything about anyone.
> blah, blah, blah. The chance is still 2% per game, which is actually
> quite likely to occur, even iterated over only 100 games; see other
> posts in this thread.
You doesn't seem to have read my response to that point, actually.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
>
> But I didn't understand your question that way (and I don't
> think Derek did either). The question was "does anyone suggest
> to kill peacefuls in this case"?
I assumed this point has already been (partly) answered before;
the answer was that the alignment penalty was insignificant if
you consider that killing more hostile monster will compensate
that again. This is well known.
But I have slight reservations against that, because I remember
that the mines can be extremely peaceful towards you, depending
on the race and/or alignment you play. In that case it would be
difficult to comprensate the alignment penalty in short term. I
admit that I am unsure whether it was playing lawfuls or whether
it was playing gnomes or dwarfs or combinations; I at least seem
to recall that it had been posted here that playing lawful dwarfs
would make the mines "easy" (WRT being no hostile area) to play.
With this in mind and because I don't know for sure I accepted
the previous poster's opinion, without further discussion.
> Obviously, no one is
> suggesting that you should try to kill monsters you can't, or
> force the issue by going into the mines before you're ready for
> them. Only that the benefits of getting mithral outweigh the
> penalties for killing a peaceful, so if you have the occasion,
> and no other means of getting him dead, it's probably a valid
> strategy.
Yes, but wouldn't exploring the main branch for armor be equally
suitable? A Caveman is one of the few characters who can use the
heavy gear that is typically lying around "everywhere" because
of his strength. The primary advantage of mithril, it's weight,
is not necessary in this case, so any other armor would do.
> Knowing that you can choose your fights, and that you can
> generally know in advance if the dwarf has a mattock or a pick
> ax (if he has one, he digs), I'd probably go for the mines.
> Which doesn't mean that I'd pick a fight with the first dwarf I
> see; if he's digging away, I'd probably leave him, and if I'd
> lost hit points elsewhere as well, until those hit points got
> back up. And when I did decide to take one on, I'd start at a
> fair distance, firing flint.
It doesn't appear to me to be the best choice, but YMMV. Entering
the dark mines while fragile, with those lightning wand shots still
in mind (and the other mentioned factors) is nothing compelling.
Frankly, I cannot even see the difference if I'd have the soldier
ant incident in the mines; or rather, the only difference would
have been that the mines were dark. No argument in favour, though.
> If I still had my pet, on the other hand, I'd probably avoid the
> mines until he was buffed up enough, at least dog/cat, and maybe
> even big dog/big cat. And let it do the killing. (But I seem
> to recall your mentionning you'd lost your pet.)
Yes, that was the case.
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
>
> What's the relevance of them being peaceful, then? I think you're now
> just arguing with Derek because you feel argumentative.
I think most of the recent posts were just argumentative and without
concrete or useful content; just full of vitriol and personal attacks.
(My previous posts today may answer your question, though. - I hope.)
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
If I have options that seem more advantageous. What shall I tell you...?
Janis
Janis Papanagnou
> Quoting Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com>:
>
>>in the concrete game; having got a _caveman_ from the
>>RNG with lousy armor and having been selected a _dwarf_
>>so that the mithril supply is significantly reduced
>>(does anyone suggest to kill peacefuls in this case?),
>
> Well, yeah, except inasmuch as I would probably tame some passing cat or
> dog and use it.
Tame? How? I did not even have food for myself!
(Well, quite; I had an egg to throw - "splat".)
Janis
mikek...@googlemail.com
wrote:
Like not killing peaceful dwarfs so that you don't lose 12 alignment?
No, that's not better.
Look: your question was "If mithril supply is reduced, would you
suggest killing peacefuls?" seemed to mean "Is it worth killing
peacefuls, thus taking an alignment hit, to get better armor"? Maybe
you were actually asking something completely different, but that's
what it read like.
Ilmari Karonen
> On 2009-03-09, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>> On 2009-03-09, James Kanze <james...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>On Mar 9, 3:20 am, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>>> Very true. But in this case, Janis was already at DL5 and XL4 *prior*
>>> to hitting the trapdoor. That is excessively fast descent IMO,
>>> regardless of which branch you do or don't take.
>>
>> Do you instead suggest camping at any prior level? (Which one?)
>> How long? (Without food.)
>
> Certainly you know how to pray for nutrition, yes?
That is itself a risky strategy, since you end up spending a lot of
time with a non-zero prayer timeout, and thus may not be able to pray
successfully when in actual trouble. Certainly I would consider it
riskier than descending at a moderate pace to ensure an adequate
supply of food and equipment.
Mind you, the operative word there is "moderate". Certainly it's
possible to descend too fast, and certainly having the *option* to
pray for food makes descending slowly and thoroughly exploring each
level less risky than it otherwise would be. But I'd still consider
actually doing so only as a last resort.
--
Ilmari Karonen
To reply by e-mail, please replace ".invalid" with ".net" in address.
Derek Ray
> On 2009-03-09, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org> wrote:
>> On 2009-03-09, Janis Papanagnou <janis_pa...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>>> On 2009-03-09, James Kanze <james...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>On Mar 9, 3:20 am, Derek Ray <de...@moot.its.only.a.spamtrap.org>
>>>> Very true. But in this case, Janis was already at DL5 and XL4 *prior*
>>>> to hitting the trapdoor. That is excessively fast descent IMO,
>>>> regardless of which branch you do or don't take.
>>> Do you instead suggest camping at any prior level? (Which one?)
>>> How long? (Without food.)
>> Certainly you know how to pray for nutrition, yes?
> That is itself a risky strategy, since you end up spending a lot of
> time with a non-zero prayer timeout, and thus may not be able to pray
> successfully when in actual trouble. Certainly I would consider it
> riskier than descending at a moderate pace to ensure an adequate
> supply of food and equipment.
Obviously not so much riskier, if you reach DL5 at XL4 and nothing but
your stock leather armor and club with you. That's plenty risky in and
of itself.
> Mind you, the operative word there is "moderate". Certainly it's
> possible to descend too fast, and certainly having the *option* to
> pray for food makes descending slowly and thoroughly exploring each
> level less risky than it otherwise would be. But I'd still consider
> actually doing so only as a last resort.
Try it as a first resort sometime. Let us know what happens.
Derek Ray
> Derek Ray wrote:
>> If you can't kill a dwarf wearing mithril, what does it matter what
>> alignment you are?
>
> That are *two* points. But related. If I would accept the alignment
> penalty for said reasons I'd have still the problem of defeating that
> "tank".
But that's not what you said. You complained that the supply of mithril
was reduced when playing a dwarf, and then asked if killing peacefuls
was a serious option. It is.
If you can't even kill dwarves, mithril is out of your reach. Find
something else to chase after.
>> Also, this is moving the goalposts. First your argument was that "I
>> can't get mithril because I can't kill dwarves because I'm lawful". Now
>> it's "I can't kill dwarves because they're too strong for me"?
>> My, my, how your position changes when someone points out an avenue
>> that you hadn't properly considered, doesn't it?
> Previously I asked whether you would kill peacefuls. You said you would.
> (I think the drawbacks can get to be a problem if you need to pray, but
> that are just two opinions.)
I acknowledged that killing peacefuls costs you prayer. Your priorities
will change after you get mithril this way, of course -- you need to
restore your alignment. But it is quite possible to do so.
> You the explicitly said that you would need to kill them to get mithril.
How else do you plan to get the mithril off the dwarf without killing
them, exactly?
> I said that an enemy with full tank gear and mattock is nothing to defeat
> easily. Rather it's quite risky even with a better equipped character.
Moving goalposts! Not all dwarves come with mattocks; in fact, very few
do. Now you are creating an opponent that is not just a dwarf
(ie. crunchy) which happens to be of your alignment, but a dwarf with a
REAL WEAPON.
As others have noted, it is trivial to spot these dwarves; look for the
ones digging. And even those might only have a pickaxe...
> That's no position change that are two points to discuss. Was that so
> difficult to see that you felt to have to fall into your flippant speech?
You're the one moving the goalposts, as described above. Perhaps you
should reread your posts before posting.
>>>own a mattock! Mind again, that my early dwarven Caveman was lacking
>>>armor *and* a decent weapon. The mines are definitely not the first
>>>choice to select from if you're playing an underequipped wimp;
>> However, a Caveman is not such a character.
> Pardon? An early Caveman has strength. What more?
Dexterity, which helps to hit things.
Constitution, helps to get tons of HP each level and lets you stand
toe-to-toe with something you hit less often for longer.
His INT/WIS/CHA are garbage, but fortunately none of that is necessary
to kill a piddly l'il dwarf with barely double-digits worth of HP.
>> It's actually quite effective, but it seems you've made up your mind
>> without being willing to try it and see.
> I have experienced the club as not too effective against full armored
> opponents.
Again, it's actually quite effective. Maybe you just don't play as well
as you think you do?
>> Nevermind that you spent a lot
>> of time asking for concrete suggestions, of course. There you go,
>> you've got one -- and now you haven't got the guts to actually try it
>> out, but instead you'd rather assert that it can't work for {insert list
>> of fabricated reasons}?
> Your "concrete" suggestion was; "Go into the mines and continue using
> your club to get that mithril." (Okay, thanks. That doesn't seem to
> work well.)
And yet, it does. Again, hilarious that you don't have the guts to try
this for yourself a few times and see. :)
>>>(The funny thing about such discussions is that if I'd have gone into
>>>the mines and had been killed there I surely would have been advised
>> You're not a mind reader, Janis. Please don't waste all our time
>> pretending that you are.
> I was just extrapolating from former discussions. This has nothing to
> to with mind-reading; you seem to like building strawman's.
You have no idea what you "surely would have been advised" to do.
Again, don't waste our time with such pretensions.
>>>>Too deep, not too much XL. [...]
>>>LOL - Level 5 too deep; I'd say you're joking. But rather I say; so
>>>we disagree.
>> You're the one whining about dying too much; do the math.
> (Oh, "whining"?! - Wait, what was the appropriate respose for that...?
> Ah, yes; ...you're again "bullying", Derek.)
Again, I'm not the one in here griping about unavoidable deaths, and how
things just don't work, etc. etc. yadayada ad nauseam.
I'm the one providing simple solutions that you would rather insist
don't work than actually considering modifying your play for awhile and
experimenting. You? You're the one who swears it doesn't work for you,
nevermind that it does for others.
You think maybe, eventually, you might figure that the problem's with you?
Janis Papanagnou
> On Mar 6, 2:04 am, Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanag...@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> 50% is not even close to what can be achieved, according to my
> experience.
This is true; even with my humble experience I can confirm that.
Taking all those stupid and avoidable deaths into account I'd suspect
I, maybe, reach 80%, maybe 85% with more attentive play? (It would
need some analysis of my deaths for more accurate values, but off the
top of my head I could enumerate a lot of stupid (even unique stupid)
avoidable deaths, the ones we subsume as operator errors.) But there
are also those not so rare "rare situations" that build up the rest.
> I think 95%+ would be feasibly accomplishable with good
> enough play.
That's surely beyond my capabilities, or beyond how my games evolve.
> That your ration is around 50% suggests to me that you're
> doing some things wrong. Sorry if that offends you.
Not the least, don't worry. I am very well aware that there's a lot
games where I failed miserably; see what I wrote above or previously
in other threads.
But I see that there's occasionally also a strange accumulation of
random effects that had spoiled some games inevitably. At this point
it is hard to continue to argument because there's at least two
possibilities; I might have missed anything or failed to have taken
precaution in advance, or, the random events accumulated to a degree
that were not solvable any more. Both may be possible, or only one
of those options. (And since you've showed interest in what offenses
me; I find it offensive to assume the former without evidence and
neglecting the latter, which I am *sure* in certain games to be the
case.)
> My point is that you are not very much better or worse than Derek.
Certainly; given what I got to know of Dereks play I share that
opinion.
> Yet
> you said a very silly and rude thing "You are not the one to teach me
> strategy...". That's absurdly arrogant.
Interesting what you write. Indeed I was pissed by Derek's arrogance,
and that was my harsh reply. Frankly, I am astonished that you don't
perceive especially Derek's comments as arrogant, who I think is the
prototype in this respect. (But my astonishment takes me away...)
> You really think your play is
> so much better than Derek's that he can't tell you anything how to
> improve?
No; as I said (and I think said before), I think that my play is not
any significantly inferior to Derek's play.
Any hey, if there's any *substanciated* suggestion I'd be really glad
to hear that. But, unfortunately, most of what Derek spout out was to
despise my own experience without necessity and evidence. That's
rarely a base to discuss. We're discussing within the league of better
players, and I think we should take the chosen play options seriously.
It wouldn't come to my mind to seriously propose Derek (or any really
good player) to stop using MC3 in favour of CoDisp, or v.v., if he is
covinced by his own experience of this own choice. Discussion would
be helpful in this case, only, if I could give concrete disadvantages
for the one cloak, considering *all* other options that comprise a
Nethack game. But typically those differences are marginal, and the
effect of interacting influences of different (personal) game options
predominant.
> I also think your play is not so good that you are justified in
> calling people who claim NetHack solved liars (sorry, 'blandishers').
Frankly, I think I shouldn't have said that. I thought it would have
been an appropriate answer to use the same type of phrases that have
been used against my own. I should have abstained from using the same
cheap argumentation. And I apologize if you felt offended by that.
> I know you play with a very bad strategy at least in one area: You
> wander around burdened all the time which is just plain silly. That
> will leave you vulnerable to wand deaths (and rider deaths...). I
> don't know your play enough to have more detailed comments, but that
> such a basic thing is wrong in your play is suggestive.
I can confirm a couple deaths that have their cause in burdeness. But
I think you overestimate its relevance in most of my games. Burdeness
is no conduct (as I sometimes say as joke); in case I am vulnerable
in some game (like the current healer) I go even unburdened. But that
is mostly not necessary; typically I know when I have enough headroom
to go burdened (or even stressed, yes). Whether I have speed, or extra
speed, also influences that decision. And it's very much depending on
how the game evoles. My Caveman, for example, died unburdened. While
my current healer has advanced to a stage, meanwhile, where he can go
burdended (and actually does) without danger.[*]
Janis
[*] Other that operator error. :-P
Janis Papanagnou
No, that's what I asked. Because there are trade-offs they should be
considered if re-weighting all factors. I wrote, all arguments taken
into account, that I am still not convinced to use the mine branch in
favour of the main branch. That is the consequence, even if there's a
chance to compensate the alignment and considering the temporary risk.
(Other arguments that I have to take into account where; random (even
heavy) armor availabe also in the main branch, mines were dark, I need
food, prayer should be a safety option, etc.) I accepted the alignment
point of view without giving the whole suggestion priority because of
those other points. The primary point was to survive a situation with
soldier ants, and (same dungeon level assumed) the mines bear surely
more problematic situations than the main branch, which has even some
advantages (light, corridors, for example).
Janis
PS: The backlog is growing faster than I can handle with my English
language and typing proficiency; even that I currently abstain from
reading and answering the more vigurous contributions, I think I'll
give up responding to question that seem to be repetitive, meanwhile.