Get rid of gravity hounds
Antoine
like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
Why? Because
1. they are out of theme - so far out, in fact, that I don't know what
theme they _are_ in
2. they cause nasty unfair instadeaths to new players
3. I believe they can even cause nasty unfair instadeaths to
experienced players
4. they can cause some coding difficulties, I seem to remember, and
5. they add no tactical complexity (except 'leave the level when you
see the pack of gravity hounds').
Gravity attacks should also be removed from other monsters that have
them (e.g. Kavlax).
My 2c for the day
A.
Andrew Doull
> I put it to you that Gravity Hounds should be removed from V and V-
> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
>
> Why? Because
> 1. they are out of theme - so far out, in fact, that I don't know what
> theme they _are_ in
> 2. they cause nasty unfair instadeaths to new players
> 3. I believe they can even cause nasty unfair instadeaths to
> experienced players
> 4. they can cause some coding difficulties, I seem to remember, and
The issue is you should compute the teleportation effect after all the
damage is applied, otherwise it is possible to get double hit by the
same breath attack, by being teleported into a grid for which the
damage has yet to be computed.
tigpup
While we're at it.... get rid of Time breathers too for same reason 5
above.
Neil.
zai...@zaimoni.com
> I put it to you that Gravity Hounds should be removed from V and V-
> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
>
> Why? Because
> 1. they are out of theme - so far out, in fact, that I don't know what
> theme they _are_ in
Iron Crown Enterprises [ICE], pretty much the same as any attack
element other than Fire/Cold/Acid/Elec/Poison.
IMO, the only two with reasonable analogies outside of ICE are Nether
and Mana.
> 2. they cause nasty unfair instadeaths to new players
> 3. I believe they can even cause nasty unfair instadeaths to
> experienced players
No need to believe; Eddie Grove has openly stated such fairly recently
(within the past year?).
Matthew Vernon
> 5. they add no tactical complexity (except 'leave the level when you
> see the pack of gravity hounds').
They remind me to banish "Z" on most new levels! The flip-side is as a
mage you get rift, which is unresisted by nearly all monsters.
Matthew
--
Rapun.sel - outermost outpost of the Pick Empire
http://www.pick.ucam.org
Timo Pietilä
> I put it to you that Gravity Hounds should be removed from V and V-
> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
>
> Why? Because
> 1. they are out of theme - so far out, in fact, that I don't know what
> theme they _are_ in
There are other monsters that are out of theme like unique giants or
Titans. Zephyr hounds are in theme for angband. I hate time hounds more,
but I don't think that they are out of theme.
> 2. they cause nasty unfair instadeaths to new players
Nasty: yes. Unfair: depends of your definition of unfair.
> 3. I believe they can even cause nasty unfair instadeaths to
> experienced players
Only to extreme divers.
> 4. they can cause some coding difficulties, I seem to remember, and
> 5. they add no tactical complexity (except 'leave the level when you
> see the pack of gravity hounds').
There is lesson to learn: Don't get surrounded. Gravity hounds don't
pose a threat if you handle them right.
Timo Pietilä
Paul J Gans
>Only to extreme divers.
I'm with Timo here. It is a game. It has certain rules and "features".
The fun comes in overcoming the features and winning according to the
rules.
I'm against warping the game to make it easier (i.e. more fun) to be
played by folks who want to play a certain way. There is room in the
current vanilla version for rapid divers, slow players, folks who
specialize in warriors, etc., etc. Making the game favor one technique
makes it more difficult for others.
Isn't this why versions exist? So that folks can have a version that
does what they want?
--
--- Paul J. Gans
Billy Bissette
news:g8c93i$2rb$6...@reader1.panix.com:
> I'm against warping the game to make it easier (i.e. more fun) to be
> played by folks who want to play a certain way. There is room in the
> current vanilla version for rapid divers, slow players, folks who
> specialize in warriors, etc., etc. Making the game favor one
> technique makes it more difficult for others.
"Easier" isn't always synonymous with "more fun." Indeed, your own
complaint relies on there being a difference. Making it "easier" for
rapid divers is by nature most likely going to make it easier for
everyone else, but you certainly don't see it making it "more fun" for
everyone else. And indeed, by nature rapid divers are looking more
for a challenge than an "easy" game, else they wouldn't be rapid
divers.
Addressing situations like Gravity Hounds aren't necessarily as much
making the game easier as it is making it better or more fair. There
is a vague and shifting line of balance between styles and across the
board. (Consider: If Vanilla had long had some high level unique
that instakilled anyone who wasn't level 50, then there would probably
be people arguing that such a feature should not be removed. After
all, anyone who didn't want to be instakilled should either get to
level 50 first or avoid that unique. Doesn't mean it is a good
feature. Doesn't mean it is something that most people would want
added to Vanilla. But if it were already there, then there would be
someone defending it with arguments about not wanting to see the game
warped to cater to certain play types.)
pete m
> Paul J Gans <g...@panix.com> wrote innews:g8c93i$2rb$6...@reader1.panix.com:
Removing Gravity Hounds and Kavlax would most certainly make the game
easier for non-divers. They are the first really dangerous monsters
that occur in "stat gain" depth. Currently, if you want fast (ie all-
trolls-drop) stat gain, you need to risk Gravity Hounds. For fast
divers, there are just so many risks that removing one of them
wouldn't make that much difference. It would open up the occasional
vault, since Gravity Hounds are a vault guardian that should not be
risked. Yes, they kill the occasional weak-detection (Priest/Paladin/
Warrior) diver who gets in range. But soon enough various Angels,
Time Hounds, and Gorlim start showing up, (not to mention NPP Hydras!)
so there are plenty of other hard-to-detect nasties to get you.
I just don't find arguments to remove monsters based on "unfairness"
to be convincing. Games with permanent instadeath are not
particularly fair to begin with.
Antoine
> Removing Gravity Hounds and Kavlax would most certainly make the game
> easier for non-divers.
As a nitpick, I didn't suggest removing Kavlax, just taking away his
gravity breath. But perhaps you feel he _should_ be eliminated or
moved deeper?
P.S. I think Inertia and Force breaths, and exclusive breathers of
those elements, should be removed as well. But I don't feel as strong
about them as I do about gravity.
Nick
> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
I disagree completely - they're one of my favourite monsters. They
are a genuine challenge to characters of any level, but rarely an
insurmountable one. One of the big aspects of *bands that keeps me
coming back is the rush from seeing a dangerous monster; detecting
Gravity Hounds (or better still, "It breathes gravity") does that
every time. Removing them would make the game poorer.
Nick.
Billy Bissette
news:cee67de6-68ce-40b6...@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
> I just don't find arguments to remove monsters based on "unfairness"
> to be convincing.
I'm not going to take a side on Gravity Hounds themselves. I'm not a
serious enough player to judge just how much of an impact they are on
certain styles, or just how much removing them might affect the game.
I just disagree with dismissing the whole issue under the claim that
it is catering for one particular style.
And one would think rapid diving should be able to give some decent
information about balance and "fairness." Rapid diving pushes
everything towards a definitive extreme. "How fast can you go how
far?" gives a (mostly fixed) reference point to measure difficulty
against, for creatures that kill you and for sections that are just
skippable in the grand scheme. If something is "unfair" for a rapid
diver, then it may very well be something unbalanced or unfair in
general.
You can't get that degree of information from safe play, because
you don't have such a reference point for difficulty. You can judge
extremes (Ancient Dragons on DL5) and you can try to judge monsters
relative to each other (Ancient Dragons versus lone Orcs,) but it
isn't as easy to judge how fast difficulty should increase. If
something is dangerous, you level up more before you go that deep.
If there are items you can find that make your game much easier, you
sit around searching for them before moving onward. (Which itself
leads to balancing difficulty on the assumption that players have
spent the time to gain those items. Which can lead to some big
danger jumps if you progress without doing so, and that can even
lead to encouraging the average player to tool around looking for
said items rather than continuing to progress. See stat gain,
poison resist, and others for good examples.)
> Games with permanent instadeath are not particularly fair to begin
> with.
Doesn't follow at all. Games with unavoidable permanent instadeath
are not particularly fair. But even requiring information gained
through multiple playthroughs can be questioned, as "fairness" in
those cases depends in large part upon the design of the game.
(Losing ten hours of play because you didn't know something is much
different from losing ten minutes. Playing 100 games just to reach
level 10 is different from playing 10 games. Etc.)
Timo Pietilä
> On Aug 17, 8:14 pm, Antoine <antoine.from.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> I put it to you that Gravity Hounds should be removed from V and V-
>> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
>
> I disagree completely - they're one of my favourite monsters. They
> are a genuine challenge to characters of any level, but rarely an
> insurmountable one.
This is a very good point. They pose some danger for _all_ characters,
but with right tactics they can be avoided or killed. They are never
boring, like some Orc or weak demon.
Timo Pietilä
tigpup
> Nick wrote:
> > On Aug 17, 8:14 pm, Antoine <antoine.from.r...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >> I put it to you that Gravity Hounds should be removed from V and V-
> >> like variants - along with all other gravity-based monsters.
>
> > I disagree completely - they're one of my favourite monsters. They
> > are a genuine challenge to characters of any level, but rarely an
> > coming back is the rush from seeing a dangerous monster
>
> but with right tactics they can be avoided or killed. They are never
> boring, like some Orc or weak demon.
>
> Timo Pietilä
I agree with this too, but it's not gravity hounds that 'do it' for
me. It's new or random monsters (like player ghosts) or things with a
potentially great drop. Gravity hounds are just a pest that have no
drop. Sure, there is a challenge in tackling them, but there is often
little reward (unless they need cleared to get to a vault/better
monster etc).
High level NPP player ghosts can have awesome drops (8 chests in one
case), and they can also be potentially deadly. They are presented
with full info known (no need to probe), but even then, they leave me
with a 'how the hell am I going to kill (or survive) that?'.
Neil.
Jürgen Lerch
Otto Martin
>P.S. I think Inertia and Force breaths, and exclusive breathers of
>those elements, should be removed as well. But I don't feel as strong
>about them as I do about gravity.
After reading the different opinions, I don't think they should be
removed, but I do think they could be toned down a bit. I think
making gravity do a bit less damage might be proper. Achieving this
through lowering their HP might work out well, leaving Kavlax as
dangerous as he is now. (I don't recall as many complaints about
him.)
The main problem IMO is that all the hounds are rather useless;
at least in S, you might get essences thanks to them.
Otto Martin - ok, some of them are sometimes reasonable exp...
--
The Elite Guards of Brassmoon
Protecting you from that which you don't understand
http://goblinscomic.com/d/20070416.html
Jürgen Lerch
On Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:12:59 -0500, Billy Bissette wrote:
> pete m <pma...@yahoo.com> wrote in
> news:cee67de6-68ce-40b6...@d77g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
> > I just don't find arguments to remove monsters based on "unfairness"
> > to be convincing.
> I just disagree with dismissing the whole issue under the claim that
> it is catering for one particular style.
To me it seems that at least a lot, if not all changes
suggested (and implemented) over the last months/versions
were to favour one certain playing style without regard
for others. (Methinks Andrew S. even posted something to
that sentence's first part's effect.)
> And one would think rapid diving should be able to give some decent
> information about balance and "fairness." Rapid diving pushes
Not at all.
> everything towards a definitive extreme. "How fast can you go how
Indeed.
It gives information about one extreme - but, well, it's
not really surprising that a CL1 character has a slightly
hard time on DL10 - DL10 is not meant to be balanced for
a CL this low. But a monster that's instadeath on DL10 for
a CL1 character says nothing about the balance for a
character of a CL that belongs there.
> far?" gives a (mostly fixed) reference point to measure difficulty
> against, for creatures that kill you and for sections that are just
> skippable in the grand scheme. If something is "unfair" for a rapid
> diver, then it may very well be something unbalanced or unfair in
> general.
I don't think so - if at all it should be vice versa, see
above. And, again, of course it's more dangerous to dive
fast than to go down slowly. Wasn't that the very idea of
diving? That you put your character willingly and knowingly
into an unbalanced situation, to see if you can still survive
it and even win?
Ad Astra!
JuL
--
jy...@gmx.de / Never anger a dragon, for you will be
Jürgen ,,JuL'' Lerch / crunchy and taste good with ketchup
Xeriph...@gmail.com
> Wasn't that the very idea of
> diving? That you put your character willingly and knowingly
> into an unbalanced situation, to see if you can still survive
> it and even win?
Just the opposite AFAICT. Diving is intended to make winning *more*
likely, by decreasing the total number of game turns, thereby
decreasing the number of opportunities to get killed (either by the
RNG, or by making a dumb mistake because the player is only human and
his attention span is finite). Don't take my word for it, <a
href="http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/
browse_thread/thread/f575cf40e23cb862#">here's an expert</a>. I think
Andrew Sidwell even said once that the original choice of 100 levels
was completely arbitrary, and he was thinking about cutting it to 60,
so that every level could be important, instead of long sequences of
levels zooming by in a few minutes.
Paul J Gans
Diving or any other method of reducing the total number of turns
is very well for folks who like it *and* who are experienced in
the game.
It may be hard to understand, but there are folks who have never been
down to 2000 feet and have no idea what's down there or what their
attacks might be.
One of the many good things about Angband is that many sort of monsters
and many sorts of attacks have weaker versions on levels near the surface.
If newbies hurry past those levels they are almost certainly doomed.
Most posting here are very experienced players. If one checks out
the scoreboard at oook one sees that there are lots of folks who
never get very far.
My personal feeling is that vanilla ought to remain fairly vanilla
(whatever *that* is) and exploration of major changes ought to be
left to variants.
Eddie Grove
> It may be hard to understand, but there are folks who have never been
> down to 2000 feet and have no idea what's down there or what their
> attacks might be.
The game changes qualitatively at 2000'. A player who wants to learn the
lessons to eventually win the game should spend as high a proportion of real
time as possible below 2000'.
Those folks need to use a different class and different strategy, on the
assumption they decide their goal is to learn to win the game.
> One of the many good things about Angband is that many sort of monsters
> and many sorts of attacks have weaker versions on levels near the surface.
> If newbies hurry past those levels they are almost certainly doomed.
I do not imagine any newbie can hurry fast enough to get to 2000' five times
without encountering all of the weaker versions.
Players who spend the vast majority of their time before 2000' are probably
doomed anyway when they get there. One of the problems with Angband is that
the method of teaching the most important lessons is to force the player to
restart from scratch, and the player does not always learn the lesson the
first time.
> My personal feeling is that vanilla ought to remain fairly vanilla
> (whatever *that* is) and exploration of major changes ought to be
> left to variants.
Despite some strange recent comments, the upcoming changes in Vanilla have
very little to do with diving. The guiding themes are improving the code base
and reducing TMJ. TMJ is a nasty problem with deep extended roots, so the
changes required to address it are numerous and not necessarily obvious.
Am I clueless? I suppose I could be blinded by my personal viewpoint.
Which of the 180 closed tickets at
http://dev.rephial.org/trac/query?status=closed&milestone=3.1.0
are about diving?
Eddie
Paul J Gans
>> It may be hard to understand, but there are folks who have never been
>> down to 2000 feet and have no idea what's down there or what their
>> attacks might be.
>The game changes qualitatively at 2000'. A player who wants to learn the
>lessons to eventually win the game should spend as high a proportion of real
>time as possible below 2000'.
Sure. But they have to get down to 2000' first.
>Those folks need to use a different class and different strategy, on the
>assumption they decide their goal is to learn to win the game.
For many, that is the game. Winning is the goal, but the road to
winning is where the fun is.
>> One of the many good things about Angband is that many sort of monsters
>> and many sorts of attacks have weaker versions on levels near the surface.
>> If newbies hurry past those levels they are almost certainly doomed.
>I do not imagine any newbie can hurry fast enough to get to 2000' five times
>without encountering all of the weaker versions.
Probably true.
>Players who spend the vast majority of their time before 2000' are probably
>doomed anyway when they get there. One of the problems with Angband is that
>the method of teaching the most important lessons is to force the player to
>restart from scratch, and the player does not always learn the lesson the
>first time.
That's another issue which could have a (non-vanilla) solution.
>> My personal feeling is that vanilla ought to remain fairly vanilla
>> (whatever *that* is) and exploration of major changes ought to be
>> left to variants.
>Despite some strange recent comments, the upcoming changes in Vanilla have
>very little to do with diving. The guiding themes are improving the code base
>and reducing TMJ. TMJ is a nasty problem with deep extended roots, so the
>changes required to address it are numerous and not necessarily obvious.
>Am I clueless? I suppose I could be blinded by my personal viewpoint.
>Which of the 180 closed tickets at
>http://dev.rephial.org/trac/query?status=closed&milestone=3.1.0
>are about diving?
You are not clueless. The discussion *here* (not at rephial)
recently has been about making changes to vanilla that would
make things a bit easier for divers (the gravity hound discussion
is an example). My post was to note that I am not in favor
of defanging gravity hounds.
Please don't assume that anybody who takes a different point
of view is attempting to denigrate anything or anyone. That
was not my intention.
Eddie Grove
I don't think defanging gravity hounds has anything to do with diving.
When you dive, they are just one more threat amongst legions.
Who cares if a single one out of dozens of deadly threats is changed?
I view this discussion as being more relevant to slow descent.
I guess that's part of our failure to communicate.
I have made dozens of proposals, but none have been motivated to make diving
easier. A couple probably do, just by accident, but most make diving harder
[for example no selling to stores]. Mostly I argue in favor of consistency or
what I perceive to be better gameplay.
Eddie
Timo Pietilä
> Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> writes:
>
>> You are not clueless. The discussion *here* (not at rephial)
>> recently has been about making changes to vanilla that would
>> make things a bit easier for divers (the gravity hound discussion
>> is an example). My post was to note that I am not in favor
>> of defanging gravity hounds.
>
> I don't think defanging gravity hounds has anything to do with diving.
> When you dive, they are just one more threat amongst legions.
Well, your definition of "diving" is mine for "falling off the 5000'
cliff" ;-)
> Who cares if a single one out of dozens of deadly threats is changed?
Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for moderate
divers, especially for those that don't have decent detection (priests,
paladins and warriors). For your case it doesn't matter because as you
said you have dozens of too deadly threats.
> I view this discussion as being more relevant to slow descent.
I view it as half-way for both. For very fast divers it is just another
too deadly to deal with-threat and slow descent they don't pose any
threat at all because you can either easily avoid them or just kill them
one by one when they come in-depth.
Timo Pietilä
Billy Bissette
@oravannahka.helsinki.fi:
> Eddie Grove wrote:
>> Paul J Gans <ga...@panix.com> writes:
>>
>>> You are not clueless. The discussion *here* (not at rephial)
>>> recently has been about making changes to vanilla that would
>>> make things a bit easier for divers (the gravity hound discussion
>>> is an example). My post was to note that I am not in favor
>>> of defanging gravity hounds.
>>
>> I don't think defanging gravity hounds has anything to do with diving.
>> When you dive, they are just one more threat amongst legions.
>
> Well, your definition of "diving" is mine for "falling off the 5000'
> cliff" ;-)
Falling off a cliff does have an advantage itself, in that when you
do die, you at least didn't waste much time in the process. :)
>> Who cares if a single one out of dozens of deadly threats is changed?
>
> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for
> moderate divers, especially for those that don't have decent
> detection (priests, paladins and warriors). For your case it
> doesn't matter because as you said you have dozens of too deadly
> threats.
How can you really judge "not very deadly" for non-divers? If
something is deadly, then you've arguably just gone down too fast
or without having gotten "essential" equipment.
Timo Pietilä
> Timo Pietilä <timo.p...@helsinki.fi> wrote in news:g8m1lj$q4o$1
> @oravannahka.helsinki.fi:
>> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for
>> moderate divers, especially for those that don't have decent
>> detection (priests, paladins and warriors). For your case it
>> doesn't matter because as you said you have dozens of too deadly
>> threats.
>
> How can you really judge "not very deadly" for non-divers? If
> something is deadly, then you've arguably just gone down too fast
> or without having gotten "essential" equipment.
Big pack of gravity hounds can kill anyone in one turn if they get
reckless or use their equipment wrong. Even if you have 40+ speed, all
resists and over 1000HP. They are not deadly if you deal them right, but
it doesn't mean that they don't have the potential to kill you.
Something like punch of orcs can't kill high level char in one turn no
matter how many of them are there. Those would be "not deadly".
Gravity hounds are one of those very few that are dangerous to anyone.
Others would be some uniques, dracolich, time hounds, chaos hounds, few
high demons, few high undeads and so on, but none of them appear as soon
as gravity hounds.
I don't like tuning them down, but I could like moving them a little bit
deeper.
Timo Pietilä
Xeriph...@gmail.com
> It may be hard to understand, but there are folks who have never been
> down to 2000 feet and have no idea what's down there or what their
> attacks might be.
Actually, the point is hard to miss, since one of those folks is me.
I was merely trying to give Jürgen Lerch a self-contained response, to
avoid derailing the thread with a broad meta-debate. Apparently, I
failed spectacularly. :Z On we go.
> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for moderate
> divers, especially for those that don't have decent detection (priests,
> paladins and warriors). For your case it doesn't matter because as you
> said you have dozens of too deadly threats.
But I thought the point of Eddie Grove's "instruction manual" post
(linked above) was that the act of non-diving, in itself, is deadly.
In the end game, you can only protect yourself from certain attacks
90% of the time, or 95%, or 99%, depending on how smart you are and
what equipment you find, but never 100%. Therefore, if you descend
slowly, you might encounter a monster which is 99% safe 250 times,
which gives you a 92% chance of dying.
I guess that implicitly assumes that the player eventually wants to
win. I do know people who could care less about that (in any game,
not just roguelikes), and are only interested in the scenery or the
plot, but that's not the vibe I'm getting from this newsgroup.
What I can't figure out, despite having played these things on and off
since 1994, is when to stop treating every character as though they
can win (if only the player makes the right decisions). It seems as
though an expert player will start a character, get to a certain
depth, and then decide whether or not he/she has at least a 5% chance
to win. If not, start over. If so, dive straight down to 5000'. Do
this 20 times and you win one. Maybe you're all laughing at how
obvious this is -- maybe it's just a psychological shift I have to
train myself through.
Timo Pietilä
>> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for moderate
>> divers, especially for those that don't have decent detection (priests,
>> paladins and warriors). For your case it doesn't matter because as you
>> said you have dozens of too deadly threats.
>
> But I thought the point of Eddie Grove's "instruction manual" post
> (linked above) was that the act of non-diving, in itself, is deadly.
Only if you get bored and do something stupid. Boredom is the #1 killer,
but non-diving itself isn't.
> In the end game, you can only protect yourself from certain attacks
> 90% of the time, or 95%, or 99%, depending on how smart you are and
> what equipment you find, but never 100%.
Actually you can protect yourself against any particular attack by 100%
or very very very near that. You can in fact survive indefinitely after
few first levels if you just play safe.
> Therefore, if you descend
> slowly, you might encounter a monster which is 99% safe 250 times,
> which gives you a 92% chance of dying.
There is no monster that is always deadly. Everything can be avoided or
killed assuming you survive first few levels where you are vulnerable to
certain attacks, namely Grip and Fang (and cave spiders if you are
playing priest: no monster detection).
> What I can't figure out, despite having played these things on and off
> since 1994, is when to stop treating every character as though they
> can win (if only the player makes the right decisions). It seems as
> though an expert player will start a character, get to a certain
> depth, and then decide whether or not he/she has at least a 5% chance
> to win. If not, start over.
I never do that. I think Eddie does count turns and decide if his char
can reach the goal _turncount_ and if not then decide no to continue,
but it has nothing to do with winning.
> If so, dive straight down to 5000'. Do
> this 20 times and you win one. Maybe you're all laughing at how
> obvious this is -- maybe it's just a psychological shift I have to
> train myself through.
Diving straight down to 5000' is suicide if you don't know how to
survive down there. It is so obvious suicide that you don't even learn
anything there. BUT there is a region in the game that you don't want to
spend too long, and that is between 2500 and 4000. At 2500 several
insta-kill capable monsters start to be commonplace and you are too far
away from speed-ring region. Diving relatively fast to 4000 is smart
thing to do at that point because 1) items have better quality at 4000'
and b) monsters are not much worse at 4000' than they are at 2500'.
Basically if you can survive 2500' you can survive 4000' with only
little bit more effort. And once you get some speed 4000' is easier than
2500'.
Timo Pietilä
Eddie Grove
> Xeriph...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> >> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for moderate
> >> divers, especially for those that don't have decent detection (priests,
> >> paladins and warriors). For your case it doesn't matter because as you
> >> said you have dozens of too deadly threats.
> > But I thought the point of Eddie Grove's "instruction manual" post
> > (linked above) was that the act of non-diving, in itself, is deadly.
>
> Only if you get bored and do something stupid. Boredom is the #1 killer, but
> non-diving itself isn't.
That's sort of the point. You need to know yourself. If you expect to make a
typo one keypress out of every thousand, that means that you will surely die
to a typo eventually if you dive too slowly. The more likely you are to do
something stupid or inattentive, the faster you need to dive to maximize your
chance to win.
> Actually you can protect yourself against any particular attack by 100% or
> very very very near that. You can in fact survive indefinitely after few first
> levels if you just play safe.
So long as "You" is a synonym for "Timo". :)
I, for one, cannot survive indefinitely trying to play safe.
Eddie
Billy Bissette
> Xeriph...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>> Gravity hounds are not very deadly for non-divers. They are for
>>> moderate divers, especially for those that don't have decent
>>> detection (priests, paladins and warriors). For your case it doesn't
>>> matter because as you said you have dozens of too deadly threats.
>>
>> But I thought the point of Eddie Grove's "instruction manual" post
>> (linked above) was that the act of non-diving, in itself, is deadly.
>
> Only if you get bored and do something stupid. Boredom is the #1
> killer, but non-diving itself isn't.
That was one of my points about measuring difficulty without a
reference point. Once you can survive the first dungeon levels,
you can theoretically survive most anything as long as you play
safe. Just keep playing the "safe" levels until you get the
equipment, stats, and/or character levels to make the next dungeon
levels "safe".
The idea that not diving is itself deadly comes from a few points
of view. The first, as Timo says, is that boredom is the #1 killer.
If you play safe, you are probably going to get bored, and that
could lead to you getting killed. The second is just mistakes in
general. The more commands you enter, the more likely you are to
make mistakes, and it is possible for mistakes to get you killed
even in otherwise safe situations. The third is just believing that
the longer you play, the more vulnerable you are to the extremes of
the RNG.
dsti...@gmail.com
> What I can't figure out, despite having played these things on and off
> since 1994, is when to stop treating every character as though they
> can win (if only the player makes the right decisions). It seems as
> though an expert player will start a character, get to a certain
> depth, and then decide whether or not he/she has at least a 5% chance
> to win. If not, start over. If so, dive straight down to 5000'. Do
> this 20 times and you win one. Maybe you're all laughing at how
> obvious this is -- maybe it's just a psychological shift I have to
> train myself through.
experience of playing for *years* without ever making it beyond
dl 10 or so.
The big change that came with my play style was not in realizing
the disposability of a charachter, but in realizing that deeper
really is better. The drops are better and the monsters give more
experience without always being greatly more deadly. Most
importantly, I discovered that it is not possible to get better
at the game by spending time at the low levels. By playing
deeper I learned the relative value of different effects and stats,
the point of some equipment, the tactics for certain classes
of opponents, the importance of running away at the first
sign of real trouble, etc.
This has been a very gradual process, but I now almost always
end up below dl 10 on my first trip into the dungeon.
--
Daniel C. Stillwaggon
<dsti...@gmail.com>
tigpup
> I am by no means an expert player, but I do have the personal
> experience of playing for *years* without ever making it beyond
> dl 10 or so.
>
> The big change that came with my play style was not in realizing
> the disposability of a charachter, but in realizing that deeper
> really is better. The drops are better and the monsters give more
> experience without always being greatly more deadly. Most
> importantly, I discovered that it is not possible to get better
> at the game by spending time at the low levels. By playing
> deeper I learned the relative value of different effects and stats,
> the point of some equipment, the tactics for certain classes
> of opponents, the importance of running away at the first
> sign of real trouble, etc.
>
> This has been a very gradual process, but I now almost always
> end up below dl 10 on my first trip into the dungeon.
Although save-file-abuse is generally frowned upon, and considered
cheating to win the game, it can be a useful way of getting through
certain parts of the learning curve. My own view is that the game is
less enjoyable if the same types of deaths keep happening at the same
depth.
You may find the process less gradual if you play a few 'training'
games with backed-up save files, and try different tactics
accordingly. This of course takes the 'disposable character' idea a
bit further. No winners though ;oþ
Remembering new tactics for deeper in the dungeon is one thing,
remembering what each and every monster can do to you is quite
another. This is where I feel diving is very hard for players who have
a poor human-monster-memory. How do you know what to run away from,
and what can be killed easily for a good drop? Using spoiler files
doesn't seem the right way to do things.
It's the same with standard artifacts. A player with a good human-
artifact-memory detects a 4d5 sword, and that means something to them.
A newbie (or forgetful fool like me) might walk right past it.
Not ideal IMHO.
More randomness levels the memory playing field.
Neil.
pete m
> Xeriphas1...@gmail.com wrote:
> >Off topic, but this can't be allowed to just sit here:
> >> Wasn't that the very idea of
> >> diving? That you put your character willingly and knowingly
> >> into an unbalanced situation, to see if you can still survive
> >> it and even win?
> >Just the opposite AFAICT. Diving is intended to make winning *more*
> >likely, by decreasing the total number of game turns, thereby
> >decreasing the number of opportunities to get killed (either by the
> >RNG, or by making a dumb mistake because the player is only human and
> >his attention span is finite). Don't take my word for it, <a
> >href="http://groups.google.com/group/rec.games.roguelike.angband/
> >browse_thread/thread/f575cf40e23cb862#">here's an expert</a>. I think
> >Andrew Sidwell even said once that the original choice of 100 levels
> >was completely arbitrary, and he was thinking about cutting it to 60,
> >so that every level could be important, instead of long sequences of
> >levels zooming by in a few minutes.
>
> Diving or any other method of reducing the total number of turns
> is very well for folks who like it *and* who are experienced in
> the game.
I don't buy this, at least in re experience. Until I stopped messing
around at low levels, I got absolutely nowhere in the game. Diving to
1500' with a warrior is NOT HARD for anybody, (ignoring some issues
with Free Action.) If you want to get to 2000', just go down the
stairs--it really is as simple (and hard) as that.
> It may be hard to understand, but there are folks who have never been
> down to 2000 feet and have no idea what's down there or what their
> attacks might be.
>
> One of the many good things about Angband is that many sort of monsters
> and many sorts of attacks have weaker versions on levels near the surface.
> If newbies hurry past those levels they are almost certainly doomed.
This is true, but immaterial. Newbies are doomed to die quickly
whatever they do.
Paul J Gans
I agree. And let me add that folks with much less experience than
some of you (me, for example) can only learn about the "terror zone"
between 2500 and 4000 feet by spending some time (and killing
some characters) there. The successful player needs experience
and there's really only one way to get that.
Paul J Gans
I've just posted about this. I agree with what you are saying:
one needs to gain experience. The game has to be fun for the
inexperienced too!
--- Paul J. Gans
Xeriph...@gmail.com
> but non-diving itself isn't.
> You need to know yourself. If you expect to make a
> typo one keypress out of every thousand, that means that you will surely die
> to a typo eventually if you dive too slowly.
> just believing that
> the longer you play, the more vulnerable you are to the extremes of
> the RNG.
This is what I was trying to say in my second post, expressed much
more clearly. A post in another thread asked, "Seriously, who detects
traps on a new level before they even move? That's splitting hairs."
No, it's being disciplined enough not to cut corners. The algorithm
is capable of generating a trap there, so if you get bored and switch
your brain off in the first room of each level, eventually you'll step
on one. Heaven help you if you're playing ToME.
> You can in fact survive indefinitely after
> few first levels if you just play safe . . .
> There is no monster that is always deadly.
Before this thread, I *thought* expert players all agreed that you
could never be 100% safe. That's a mental block for me, because I've
never played another RPG like that (unless it artificially imposed a
turn limit or something, e.g. Siege of Darkwood). I remember being
outraged when character level in Moria was capped at 40, because in
one infamous winner post, a key strategy was simply to outlast the
large monsters by slow, slow, slow accumulation of HP.
Now that an expert player at least voices the above opinion, I feel
much better about my current character's worldview. :> Which is to
say:
> Just keep playing the "safe" levels until you get the
> equipment, stats, and/or character levels to make the next dungeon
> levels "safe".
As Eddie Grove noted in the "instruction manual" thread, character
level is merely a side effect of survival. Furthermore, after
character creation, stats are basically determined by equipment and
supplies also. Therefore, I stay on each level until I have three
times the amount of swag I could ever conceivably need on the next
level, and then I descend.
One of my previous ideas for vanilla was to max out my stats in the
town (one trip to 50' to gain a couple of levels). That was a bit
much. I got about three or four potions before I gave up.
> Although save-file-abuse is generally frowned upon, and considered
> cheating to win the game, it can be a useful way of getting through
> certain parts of the learning curve.
Seems like common sense to me. Would people actually object to a
winner post because the player used backup savefiles for *previous
characters*? It's practice. Presumably, no athletic team has ever
been sanctioned for failing to precisely simulate game conditions
during training sessions, nor has an academic journal refused to
publish an article because it was revealed that the author kept a
diary. (I suppose one could argue that said player gains a better in-
game monster memory by cheating.)
In any game that has savefiles, not just roguelikes, I make backup
savefiles in case of a power outage, OS crash, or electromechanical
flitter (my keyboard has been dropped a couple of times and every once
in a while a key will stick). I hope, I HOPE that I would not
actually restore the savefile if I had YASDed myself in a roguelike
due to a typo. But so far, typos have only killed me in situations
where I had clearly dived too fast or not done enough monster research
in the first place, so I guess I can't be 100% self-confident. :Z
Xeriph...@gmail.com
looks bad in this web interface). It's actually three different short
excerpts.
Billy Bissette
news:8b0e6e02-29d7-407d...@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:
>> Although save-file-abuse is generally frowned upon, and considered
>> cheating to win the game, it can be a useful way of getting through
>> certain parts of the learning curve.
>
> Seems like common sense to me.
I found one problem with the practice. While it makes less
frustrating the process of learning what can kill you, it doesn't
really get you to learn how to survive.
In my case, I found it actually encouraged more bad habits.
Plus, things just go a lot better once you accept that your
characters are disposable. Save-file abuse discourages learning
this lesson, as it places focus on maintaining the same character.
And the more time you spend maintaining your character, the less you
want to lose them.
Speedier play, on the other hand, is much more useful in this area.
Losing a character is more palatable when you've less time invested.
Less time invested also means you get back into play much faster.
I don't mean counting turns. Personally, I hate the idea of turn
counts. I mean just playing faster. Don't waste the time building
yourself to be super-safe compared to the next dungeon level. Just
go on down and roll the dice. If you die, then you've likely learned
something not to do, and then get yourself right back into the game
with a new character. Heck, maybe even see how much further you can
push yourself in getting back to where you were. Maybe then you'll
also have more fun on the journey itself, which is another way to
make death more palatable.
pete m
> Xeriphas1...@gmail.com wrote innews:8b0e6e02-29d7-407d...@56g2000hsm.googlegroups.com:
>
> >> Although save-file-abuse is generally frowned upon, and considered
> >> cheating to win the game, it can be a useful way of getting through
> >> certain parts of the learning curve.
>
> > Seems like common sense to me.
>
> I found one problem with the practice. While it makes less
> frustrating the process of learning what can kill you, it doesn't
> really get you to learn how to survive.
>
> In my case, I found it actually encouraged more bad habits.
>
> Plus, things just go a lot better once you accept that your
> characters are disposable. Save-file abuse discourages learning
> this lesson, as it places focus on maintaining the same character.
It depends how you do the save-file cheating. Before my first win, I
was having a brutal time getting thru 3000', so I saved a mostly-stat-
gained character at 2000', and kept playing it from there until I
found a speed ring at native depth. It helped enormously. I agree,
however, that cheating with a frequently-backed-up character will just
teach bad habits.
tigpup
Yes, I agree. My point was that save-file-abuse can be helpful in
specific circumstances, if only to save having to play a new-born
character over and over again just to learn how to survive deeper
down.
I think it's important to make the distiction between 'training mode'
and playing a real game.
N
aene...@yahoo.com
> Before this thread, I *thought* expert players all agreed that you
> could never be 100% safe.
You can be 100% safe in Angband, assuming you make no mistakes
whatsoever. The problem is that the game is really complicated and
gives poor feedback.You are almost certainly making lots of mistakes
all the time that you don't notice, because they don't kill you. The
problem is that theoretically 100% safe does not mean you survive-
that's up to your play. If people always played optimally every game
would end in a win under 300k turns.
> Now that an expert player at least voices the above opinion, I feel
> much better about my current character's worldview. :> Which is to
> say:
>
> > Just keep playing the "safe" levels until you get the
> > equipment, stats, and/or character levels to make the next dungeon
> > levels "safe".
This might be good advice for some people who are trying to learn to
win. For most it is terrible advice. Now, if you (credibly) said you
were going to cut off my hands if I didn't win with a particular
character, this is exactly how I would play, and I would win. But I
have won enough times that I know how to do it, and I would be very
careful, as I value my hands ;). My slowest win is around 1.7 million
turns. I had already won at least a dozen times at that point, and I
got a ridiculous piece of luck early and decided to win at all costs,
including extreme boredom.
I still almost died to stupidity and too many turns.
But you have to play for a ridiculously long time at 2000' to make
2550' truly "safe"- speed is just hard to come by at that level, and
it's very hard to be indefinitely safe past 2500' without speed
(assuming some mistakes). There are two strategies that I see
working- play with autoscum on so that you can get a greater vault at
2000' or play with it off and just go straight to 4000'. The big
advantage to the latter is that you can get to 4000' in an afternoon
of play. If you die it is easy to start over.
Timo Pietilä
> On Aug 28, 5:37 pm, Xeriphas1...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Before this thread, I *thought* expert players all agreed that you
>> could never be 100% safe.
>
> You can be 100% safe in Angband, assuming you make no mistakes
> whatsoever. The problem is that the game is really complicated and
> gives poor feedback.You are almost certainly making lots of mistakes
> all the time that you don't notice, because they don't kill you. The
> problem is that theoretically 100% safe does not mean you survive-
> that's up to your play. If people always played optimally every game
> would end in a win under 300k turns.
Depends of your definition of optimal. My definition of optimal is
"optimal amount of enjoyment", so that includes those 20Mturn wins. And
also those <1Mturn wins.
Also I don't think you can win under 300k turns if you don't take any
risks, and if you need to take some risks you don't win every game.
Timo Pietilä
aene...@yahoo.com
Well, by optimal I mean fastest reliable win. In this case I don't
think enjoyment should be considered, as it wasn't in the original
proposition- after all, I might find optimal enjoyment in dying
consistently at 250'. The advice I'm addressing is clearly about
winning, not optimal enjoyment. I can't really address the latter,
generally, since different people enjoy different things.
I don't think that 300k is out of line for the speed at which you
would consistently win if you played absolutely perfectly, at least
for some classes, but if you prefer 500k the point remains the same.
The point I'm trying to make is that worrying about being 100% safe is
counterproductive. You are never going to be 100% safe from mistakes
in the deep dungeon anyway, and you likely would be close to 99% safe
from them much earlier than you think if you played perfectly. There
are a few ways to reduce the probability that a mistake will kill you,
and it's more important to focus on that than to worry about being
absolutely safe. This assumes the advice is about how to win, or how
to learn to win. I don't think anyone can give sensible general advice
about how to enjoy the game most. At best you could give someone some
advice on that if you knew a lot about what they enjoyed, but it might
turn out they would enjoy something else more if they knew about it.
Timo Pietilä
> On Sep 7, 4:55 am, Timo Pietilä <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>> aenea...@yahoo.com wrote:
>>> On Aug 28, 5:37 pm, Xeriphas1...@gmail.com wrote:
>>>> Before this thread, I *thought* expert players all agreed that you
>>>> could never be 100% safe.
>>> You can be 100% safe in Angband, assuming you make no mistakes
>>> whatsoever. The problem is that the game is really complicated and
>>> gives poor feedback.You are almost certainly making lots of mistakes
>>> all the time that you don't notice, because they don't kill you. The
>>> problem is that theoretically 100% safe does not mean you survive-
>>> that's up to your play. If people always played optimally every game
>>> would end in a win under 300k turns.
>> Depends of your definition of optimal. My definition of optimal is
>> "optimal amount of enjoyment", so that includes those 20Mturn wins. And
>> also those <1Mturn wins.
>>
>> Also I don't think you can win under 300k turns if you don't take any
>> risks, and if you need to take some risks you don't win every game.
>
> Well, by optimal I mean fastest reliable win.
Fastest real-time can be different than minimizing turncount. I can win
faster real time and safer with >1Mturns than when I try <1Mturns.
> In this case I don't
> think enjoyment should be considered, as it wasn't in the original
> proposition- after all, I might find optimal enjoyment in dying
> consistently at 250'. The advice I'm addressing is clearly about
> winning, not optimal enjoyment. I can't really address the latter,
> generally, since different people enjoy different things.
>
> I don't think that 300k is out of line for the speed at which you
> would consistently win if you played absolutely perfectly, at least
> for some classes, but if you prefer 500k the point remains the same.
That "perfectly" is one word I object. If you mean "dive perfectly as
fast as you can" then it is correct. Generally people don't dive.
Minimizing turncount is not the optimal way to play IMO. Minimizing
turncount requires entirely different playing philosophy: you don't
think safest way of playing, you think about how to avoid using many
turns. That means no resting for mana, preferring regeneration over some
other non-diver would consider, avoiding pretty much everything etc.
Diving with minimizing turncount can teach you to be better player, but
IMO it is far from perfect way of playing.
> The point I'm trying to make is that worrying about being 100% safe is
> counterproductive. You are never going to be 100% safe from mistakes
> in the deep dungeon anyway
I disagree. Barring boredom Angband is easy enough that you can play
100% safe. Especially deep in dungeon. Early game is the one that can
kill you no matter how you play.
Timo Pietilä
aene...@yahoo.com
> That "perfectly" is one word I object. If you mean "dive perfectly as
> fast as you can" then it is correct. Generally people don't dive.
This is a bit circular though- people generally don't dive because
they do not play perfectly enough to survive doing so. Unfortunately
they also don't generally play perfectly enough to survive not diving.
This is why Angband is difficult.
> Minimizing turncount is not the optimal way to play IMO.
It might not be, pragmatically. But when we talk about perfect play it
seems odd to think that lower turncount wouldn't be better than
higher. Thinking otherwise leads to some odd consequences. Anyway, I'm
not suggesting that people ought always to try for Eddie-like
turncounts, pragmatically. But I would think perfect play would prefer
lower turncounts to higher, all other things being equal.
> > The point I'm trying to make is that worrying about being 100% safe is
> > counterproductive. You are never going to be 100% safe from mistakes
> > in the deep dungeon anyway
>
> I disagree. Barring boredom Angband is easy enough that you can play
> 100% safe. Especially deep in dungeon. Early game is the one that can
> kill you no matter how you play.
But why would boredom kill you? Because you made a mistake. I'll agree
that _you_ (by which I specifically mean Timo Pietila, please excuse
the lack of the umlaut) can be close to 100% safe for most of the game
(If you look back I said I thought you could be as the first sentence
of my initial post). But I also don't think you play all that slowly-
you just don't pay attention to turncount. Most people are not even
50% safe given the exact same resources because they don't play as
well as you do. And many of them wind up playing much more slowly than
you do, and are still not safe when they go deeper. For many players
worrying about being 100% safe is pointless, since they will still
walk right into death anyway. If that weren't the case everyone who
played Angband would win most of the time, as you do.
Timo Pietilä
> On Sep 7, 6:42 am, Timo Pietilä <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote:
>
>> That "perfectly" is one word I object. If you mean "dive perfectly as
>> fast as you can" then it is correct. Generally people don't dive.
>
> This is a bit circular though- people generally don't dive because
> they do not play perfectly enough to survive doing so.
I don't think so. I don't dive. I can dive but I feel diving
non-satisfying. So I believe that most people don't dive because they
just don't like it, not because they can't.
>> Minimizing turncount is not the optimal way to play IMO.
>
> It might not be, pragmatically. But when we talk about perfect play it
> seems odd to think that lower turncount wouldn't be better than
> higher.
Lower turncount is better if you don't care about turncount. I don't
think you can reach 300 or 500 turn win without caring about turncount,
though.
> Thinking otherwise leads to some odd consequences. Anyway, I'm
> not suggesting that people ought always to try for Eddie-like
> turncounts, pragmatically. But I would think perfect play would prefer
> lower turncounts to higher, all other things being equal.
Again that depends of your definition of perfect play.
What I object is not the point you are trying to make, I object your
choise of words.
I think we can both agree that "you can get as low as 300 turn win
safely if you play without mistakes". It might not be perfect or optimal
way to play, but it is correct.
> you do, and are still not safe when they go deeper. For many players
> worrying about being 100% safe is pointless, since they will still
> walk right into death anyway.
That I can agree. You learn by trying, and playing 100% safe is not the
best way to learn.
Timo Pietilä
aene...@yahoo.com
> I think we can both agree that "you can get as low as 300 turn win
> safely if you play without mistakes". It might not be perfect or optimal
> way to play, but it is correct.
Well, I'm talking more about a perfect play than a perfect way to
play- you could almost see it as a game without a player, just a set
of moves. So I'm not talking about a way of playing for a person.
Angband is far too long and complicated for a person to come close to
playing it perfectly, even if we were able to agree on a definition of
perfect.
> That I can agree. You learn by trying, and playing 100% safe is not the
> best way to learn.
I definitely agree with that. Beyond that, and this was my point, 100%
safe is actually pretty subjective if we're not talking about
rhetorical constructs. I'd go so far as to say that if you have to
think too much about whether you are 100% safe you probably aren't
capable of being so, at least past a certain point. I would guess that
you know when to go down without having to agonize over it, when you
are playing at what you consider a comfortable rate.
I'd also guess that your comfortable rate would be uncomfortably fast
for many- in fact I'd bet some would consider it close to diving, if
not over the line. A lot of people really overdo the safe thing
because they aren't safe even when they're safe, so they have no good
metric for when to go deeper. Just as Eddie is unusual in his ability
to play quickly, you are unusual in your ability to play solidly. It
might be as dangerous to generalize based on your solidity as it is to
generalize based on Eddie's celerity.
Billy Bissette
@mid.individual.net:
> aene...@yahoo.com wrote:
>> On Aug 28, 5:37 pm, Xeriphas1...@gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>> Before this thread, I *thought* expert players all agreed that you
>>> could never be 100% safe.
>>
>> You can be 100% safe in Angband, assuming you make no mistakes
>> whatsoever. The problem is that the game is really complicated and
>> gives poor feedback.You are almost certainly making lots of mistakes
>> all the time that you don't notice, because they don't kill you. The
>> problem is that theoretically 100% safe does not mean you survive-
>> that's up to your play. If people always played optimally every game
>> would end in a win under 300k turns.
>
> Depends of your definition of optimal. My definition of optimal is
> "optimal amount of enjoyment", so that includes those 20Mturn wins. And
> also those <1Mturn wins.
Optimal enjoyment for me doesn't even involve winning. I don't
even like the endgame. I have more fun on the trip itself.
aene...@yahoo.com
> Timo Pietilä <timo.piet...@helsinki.fi> wrote in news:6ihj8kFqope0U1
This is certainly true for me now. I care much more about how I play
than whether or not I win. But even then I enjoy the game only because
I am _trying_ to win, given some set of limitations- I would find
playing Angband goallessly enormously tedious. I'm always trying to
optimize something objective- the enjoyment comes from that, for me.
But I'm also a classic mini-maxer. I have also won enough that I don't
care much about it anymore. Before that was the case I cared quite a
lot, and tried hard to play optimally for a win.
Anyway, I think it should just be assumed that when people ask for
advice they are asking for advice about winning. I mean, if I told
someone that I thought it was good play to go after AMHDs with 400 hp
and no poison resist, as long as you could do good damage and had +10
speed they would be right to be annoyed with me if I later explained
that I liked the thrill of taking my chances in that way. I also think
that it should be assumed that _all other things being equal_, faster
is better. That doesn't mean that a fast rate of descent is always
right- there are a lot of tradeoffs hidden in that _all other things_
heading.