Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)
OK, decided to try the latest version of crawl a little. To make the
early levels relatively easy and simplify things I decided on human
fighters. And the results are: I keep dying in the first few levels.
Either something that seems excessively strong for its depth (often
named Sigmund) gets me, or a group of monsters gets me, or attrition
gets me where I have insufficient freedom of movement and no sources of
healing or escapes. Here's what I'm doing -- can anyone tell me what I'm
doing wrong?
* Try to explore each level before descending; if I have to descend
sooner try to find another up stair and ascend into, hopefully,
unexplored areas of earlier level.
* Try to fight stuff in a corridor if possible.
* Uniques and anything that seems tough: run for nearest stairs. Hope it
isn't next to me going up the stairs. Maybe return to the level at a
distant location using different stairs.
* Read unfamiliar scrolls once a bunch of items picked up. Quaff
unfamiliar potion with largest number when in trouble, as its likely
to be healing. Once detect curse scrolls are known (if that point is
even *reached*!) wield-test uncursed weapons and wear-test uncursed
other equipment.
I have yet to encounter an ego item this way, though I found an
artifact, the +1, +3 whip of dust, once. The major problem seems to be
lack of healing and lack of escape methods, with food a significant
nuisance since hunger creates pressure to dive, since new food can't be
acquired quickly on an already-explored level.
Got to the ecumenical temple once, with the same character that had the
artifact whip (and a ring of teleport control). He prayed to the Shining
One. It didn't help much -- eventually surrounded and killed on D:7
(deepest character I've *ever* had in crawl). That character also saw a
shop -- a bookshop, naturally, being a fighter.
It seems to me that there are six problems making things a bit too tough
(and if it's nearly impossible to survive even with fairly cautious play
with a *fighter* at early levels, I can only imagine how frustrating it
would be with any kind of caster...)
1 -- Lack of healing
2 -- Lack of escapes
3 -- Strong monsters for their depths -- snakes and orc wizards come to
mind, as well as that Sigmund. Usually when they're first
encountered they are best run away from, save that (especially with
snakes) that tends to be ineffective.
4 -- Monsters that aren't ordinarily strong, but become so due to
equipment they happen to have -- a gnoll with a runed spear got one
character, and another had serious difficulty with some orcs that
had armour. These can be excessively dangerous. Weak monsters
should get penalties trying to fight with equipment that's much
stronger than their own depth.
5 -- It seems that inevitably an individual strong monster or a strong
group of perhaps-not-individually-strong monsters will end up
making a whole area of some level too dangerous to go near, and
force one to dive even deeper or else hang on shallower levels
(with, as a result, the ever-present specter of starvation). That
is, of course, if they don't kill you outright.
6 -- Something may be wrong with the copy I downloaded, because it
actually seems to get harder with more characters played. It's
either that, or despite humans learning and getting better at
things normally, I am actually getting worse at the game with time.
My first char did reasonably well (level and dlevel around 5) and
shortly after I had the one that got to level and dlevel 7. Now
they tend to die on levels 1 to 3. This makes no sense! Why would
those levels have gotten harder? The only way having run a previous
character might affect difficulty for later characters legitimately
would be player ghosts, and I only encountered one of those. It was
a nuisance but not seriously dangerous: neither of us could
seriously harm the other.
I have been choosing short swords for the most part, simply because they
seem much more common weapons to find than others (so I figure early
skill increases will be more likely to correspond to a decent weapon
found later). The best-yet char was one of these, as was one of two
second-bests (dl and cl 5ish). (The other choose the axe at the start).
Is there something basic I'm missing/doing wrong, or is the game simply
insanely difficult or wildly dependent on luck with nearly no
involvement of skill in determining outcomes whatsoever?!
Also, the best-ever char had nearly 60hp at full health, and by D:7 was
encountering plenty of things that could knock half of that away
quickly. The YAVPs and late game YASDs I've seen posted here seem to
indicate typical endgame hitpoints are only around four times that. I
wonder how people are supposed to keep their health up? It sounds like
even a character that's nearly won will find D:7 monsters nuisances and
potentially dangerous, able to kill in around eight or nine attacks.
This is in contrast with, say, an Angband lvl 50 character who will find
any monster from level 7 (350') to be a joke.
--
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm
Reichstag fire -> 9/11
Communist "arsonist" -> Iraq "weapons of mass destruction"
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
OK, decided to try the latest version of crawl a little. To make the
early levels relatively easy and simplify things I decided on human
fighters. And the results are: I keep dying in the first few levels.
Either something that seems excessively strong for its depth (often
named Sigmund) gets me, or a group of monsters gets me, or attrition
gets me where I have insufficient freedom of movement and no sources of
healing or escapes. Here's what I'm doing -- can anyone tell me what I'm
doing wrong?
* Try to explore each level before descending; if I have to descend
sooner try to find another up stair and ascend into, hopefully,
unexplored areas of earlier level.
* Try to fight stuff in a corridor if possible.
* Uniques and anything that seems tough: run for nearest stairs. Hope it
isn't next to me going up the stairs. Maybe return to the level at a
distant location using different stairs.
* Read unfamiliar scrolls once a bunch of items picked up. Quaff
unfamiliar potion with largest number when in trouble, as its likely
to be healing. Once detect curse scrolls are known (if that point is
even *reached*!) wield-test uncursed weapons and wear-test uncursed
other equipment.
I have yet to encounter an ego item this way, though I found an
artifact, the +1, +3 whip of dust, once. The major problem seems to be
lack of healing and lack of escape methods, with food a significant
nuisance since hunger creates pressure to dive, since new food can't be
acquired quickly on an already-explored level.
Got to the ecumenical temple once, with the same character that had the
artifact whip (and a ring of teleport control). He prayed to the Shining
One. It didn't help much -- eventually surrounded and killed on D:7
(deepest character I've *ever* had in crawl). That character also saw a
shop -- a bookshop, naturally, being a fighter.
It seems to me that there are six problems making things a bit too tough
(and if it's nearly impossible to survive even with fairly cautious play
with a *fighter* at early levels, I can only imagine how frustrating it
would be with any kind of caster...)
1 -- Lack of healing
2 -- Lack of escapes
3 -- Strong monsters for their depths -- snakes and orc wizards come to
mind, as well as that Sigmund. Usually when they're first
encountered they are best run away from, save that (especially with
snakes) that tends to be ineffective.
4 -- Monsters that aren't ordinarily strong, but become so due to
equipment they happen to have -- a gnoll with a runed spear got one
character, and another had serious difficulty with some orcs that
had armour. These can be excessively dangerous. Weak monsters
should get penalties trying to fight with equipment that's much
stronger than their own depth.
5 -- It seems that inevitably an individual strong monster or a strong
group of perhaps-not-individually-strong monsters will end up
making a whole area of some level too dangerous to go near, and
force one to dive even deeper or else hang on shallower levels
(with, as a result, the ever-present specter of starvation). That
is, of course, if they don't kill you outright.
6 -- Something may be wrong with the copy I downloaded, because it
actually seems to get harder with more characters played. It's
either that, or despite humans learning and getting better at
things normally, I am actually getting worse at the game with time.
My first char did reasonably well (level and dlevel around 5) and
shortly after I had the one that got to level and dlevel 7. Now
they tend to die on levels 1 to 3. This makes no sense! Why would
those levels have gotten harder? The only way having run a previous
character might affect difficulty for later characters legitimately
would be player ghosts, and I only encountered one of those. It was
a nuisance but not seriously dangerous: neither of us could
seriously harm the other.
I have been choosing short swords for the most part, simply because they
seem much more common weapons to find than others (so I figure early
skill increases will be more likely to correspond to a decent weapon
found later). The best-yet char was one of these, as was one of two
second-bests (dl and cl 5ish). (The other choose the axe at the start).
Is there something basic I'm missing/doing wrong, or is the game simply
insanely difficult or wildly dependent on luck with nearly no
involvement of skill in determining outcomes whatsoever?!
Also, the best-ever char had nearly 60hp at full health, and by D:7 was
encountering plenty of things that could knock half of that away
quickly. The YAVPs and late game YASDs I've seen posted here seem to
indicate typical endgame hitpoints are only around four times that. I
wonder how people are supposed to keep their health up? It sounds like
even a character that's nearly won will find D:7 monsters nuisances and
potentially dangerous, able to kill in around eight or nine attacks.
This is in contrast with, say, an Angband lvl 50 character who will find
any monster from level 7 (350') to be a joke.
--
http://www.crisispapers.org/Editorials/germany-1933.htm
Reichstag fire -> 9/11
Communist "arsonist" -> Iraq "weapons of mass destruction"
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
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