YASD: Giant Eels are evil and confusing

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

The Tourist went to the bottom of the Gnomish mines bashing everything
with a dwarvish mattock. Collected the hard gems and luckstone from
the bottom of the mines. Threw the hard gems at a co-aligned unicorn
to max his luck. Then starting bashing everything with duel-wielded
elven broadswords. Later on he zapped himself with a wand of speed
monster.

Then he found a level with a bunch of eels. The Tourist convinced
himself it is ok to melee giant eels as long as you step away if they
brush against your leg. So he put on a blindfold so he could see them,
and started bashing them.

One of them brushed against his leg, so he stepped back one square,
then immediatly stepped forward again (he went from square X, to square
Y, to square X). The eel decided to skip the brushing step and instead
wrapped himself around the Tourist. The blind Tourist ended up dying.

I'm not sure what went wrong here, as my other characters have had no
trouble with meleeing eels. Maybe since I was fast, I stepped away and
back before the eel could get a turn. And maybe since the eel didn't
get a turn while I was away from him, the eel didn't register that I
had moved away -- so it acted as if I never moved away from it. Dunno.

 

[Guest]

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Boudewijn Waijers wrote:

> He didn't
> deserve to die, but *you* deserved your tourist to die.

I'm sure this makes him feel *lots* better....

- John H.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

chillynois@yahoo.com wrote:
>Then he found a level with a bunch of eels. The Tourist convinced
>himself it is ok to melee giant eels as long as you step away if they
>brush against your leg. So he put on a blindfold so he could see them,
>and started bashing them.

He convinced himself of an untruth, sadly. The "brushes against your
leg" message is completely harmless; it denotes a *failed* attempt by
the eel to wrap itself around you. It has no significance to subsequent
attempts by the same eel to wrap itself around you; the piece of code
that resolves grab attempts does not preserve any state whatsoever from
previous grab attempts.

Don't occupy the space next to an eel or kraken (or any other monster
that can grab you; I've been drowned by couatls at least twice when they
happened to be over water) while they are on a water space. Stand back
and throw rocks at them; rocks are trivial to obtain in huge numbers and
you don't care if you lose them. Alternatively, blast them with attack
spells.

If you insist on meleeing eels and krakens, use an item that either
protects you from being grabbed or protects you from being drowned.
--
Martin Read - my opinions are my own. share them if you wish.
illusion/kinetics controlling is love

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

chillynois@yahoo.com wrote:

> Then he found a level with a bunch of eels. The Tourist convinced
> himself it is ok to melee giant eels as long as you step away if they
> brush against your leg.

He was wrong.

A "brush against your leg" means that you have just been *very* lucky,
since an attempt to "wrap around you" has failed.

> So he put on a blindfold so he could see them, and started bashing
> them.

Wrong again. Run (one square, out of reach), while you still live.

> One of them brushed against his leg, so he stepped back one square,
> then immediatly stepped forward again (he went from square X, to
> square Y, to square X). The eel decided to skip the brushing step
> and instead wrapped himself around the Tourist. The blind Tourist
> ended up dying.

Your tourist willingly and knowingly stepped next to an eel. He didn't
deserve to die, but *you* deserved your tourist to die. You've been
warned here often enough, no matter whay you thought was correct, due to
previous luck.

> I'm not sure what went wrong here, as my other characters have had no
> trouble with meleeing eels. Maybe since I was fast, I stepped away
> and back before the eel could get a turn. And maybe since the eel
> didn't get a turn while I was away from him, the eel didn't register
> that I had moved away -- so it acted as if I never moved away from
> it. Dunno.

None of the above. Your previous characters were just lucky. The chance
that an eel wraps itself around you is actually not *that* big, so the
confusion is understandable.

--
Boudewijn.

--
"I have hundreds of other quotes, just waiting to replace this one
as my signature..." - Me

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

"Boudewijn Waijers" <kroisos@REMOVETHISWORD.home.nl> writes:

> A "brush against your leg" means that you have just been *very* lucky,
> since an attempt to "wrap around you" has failed.

No, it means that you have ordinary luck. The "wraps around you" means
that you have *bad* luck.

> Wrong again. Run (one square, out of reach), while you still live.

Wrong. You can melee with eels safely enough as long as you position
yourself so that only one of them can attack you at a time.

> Your tourist willingly and knowingly stepped next to an eel. He
> didn't deserve to die, but *you* deserved your tourist to die.

*All* of my characters willingly and knowingly step next to eels. That
is, those characters that reach levels with eels in them (~35% of
them). Still, in last five years or so I've had exactly one
eel-related death, and in that one I didn't willingly and knowingly
step next to it but I was levitating over the Medusa level and didn't
notice an electric eel there because it had the same color as the
surrounding water and I thought I had killed all of them already.

 

[link]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

> None of the above. Your previous characters were just lucky. The chance
> that an eel wraps itself around you is actually not *that* big, so the
> confusion is understandable.

AD_WRAP seems to state there is a 10% chance a grab attack is
successful. As in a 10% chance you get "wrapped" instead of "brushed".
Oh, that's not good. I think I need to gather more rocks.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Tommi Syrjanen wrote:
> "Boudewijn Waijers" <kroisos@REMOVETHISWORD.home.nl> writes:

>> A "brush against your leg" means that you have just been *very*
>> lucky, since an attempt to "wrap around you" has failed.

> No, it means that you have ordinary luck. The "wraps around you" means
> that you have *bad* luck.

Isn't that exactly what I was saying?

>> Wrong again. Run (one square, out of reach), while you still live.

> Wrong. You can melee with eels safely enough as long as you position
> yourself so that only one of them can attack you at a time.

I don't know exactly how the speed system works, but I'm pretty sure
that when you're slow, they may get two consecutive moves, killing you.
Perhaps this can even happen when you are the same speed.

> I was levitating over the Medusa level and didn't
> notice an electric eel there because it had the same color as the
> surrounding water and I thought I had killed all of them already.

That's harsh. It's the same type of death when you run into a floating
eye that's almost invisible against a dark background.

--
Boudewijn.

--
"I have hundreds of other quotes, just waiting to replace this one
as my signature..." - Me

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 15:10:47 GMT
fishbowl@conservatory.com (james) wrote:

>A tourist can throw rocks at aquatic creatures.

Anyone can throw rocks at aquatic creatures.
I have done it myself!

 

[Guest]

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Tommi Syrjanen wrote:
> Boudewijn Waijers writes:
>
> > A "brush against your leg" means that you have just been *very* lucky,
> > since an attempt to "wrap around you" has failed.
>
> No, it means that you have ordinary luck. The "wraps around you" means
> that you have *bad* luck.

And the reaction of stepping back got the order wrong. Only
step forward in the first place after the ";" is dead.

> > Your tourist willingly and knowingly stepped next to an eel. He
> > didn't deserve to die, but *you* deserved your tourist to die.

It risks an insta-death.

> *All* of my characters willingly and knowingly step next to eels. That
> is, those characters that reach levels with eels in them (~35% of
> them).

I encountered an eel on level 13 dry land during play last
night. It *had* to be a chameleon. No corpse left and I
note that chameleons have 33% chance of leaving a corpse.

> Still, in last five years or so I've had exactly one
> eel-related death, and in that one I didn't willingly and knowingly
> step next to it but I was levitating over the Medusa level and didn't
> notice an electric eel there because it had the same color as the
> surrounding water and I thought I had killed all of them already.

 

[James]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In article <1122859218.936092.314640@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
<chillynois@yahoo.com> wrote:

>I'm not sure what went wrong here

What went wrong is tangling with ";" under the delusion that they are safe.

 

[James]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

A tourist can throw rocks at aquatic creatures.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

Boudewijn Waijers wrote:
> Tommi Syrjanen wrote:
>
>>I was levitating over the Medusa level and didn't
>>notice an electric eel there because it had the same color as the
>>surrounding water and I thought I had killed all of them already.
>
>
> That's harsh. It's the same type of death when you run into a floating
> eye that's almost invisible against a dark background.
>
I actually tweaked my nethack install so that floating eyes are
bright orange. The gamma on my monitor is fairly dark, and the dark blue
it normally uses for floating eyes is all but invisible on it
(especially since I use translucent terminal windows against a
background that frequently includes blues). This was just something I
dealt with, on the theory that I shouldn't be trying to move into dark
squares anyway... until I had a promising character fighting a horde of
Mordor orcs, and it turned out that one of those 'o's was actually an
'e'. I hacked monst.c and recompiled before starting the next game.
Haven't hit a floating eye by accident since.

I'm curious as to whether people consider that cheating. Is this
something I should disclose in my YAAPs? (If I, y'know, ever bothered
actually posting about it when I ascend.)

--
John Campbell
jcampbel@lynn.ci-n.com

 

[James]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

In article <20050802114733.4108d16b@dhcppc4>,
noah bedford <noahbedford@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 15:10:47 GMT
>fishbowl@conservatory.com (james) wrote:
>
>>A tourist can throw rocks at aquatic creatures.
>
>Anyone can throw rocks at aquatic creatures.
>I have done it myself!

Or any other creatures, naturally. The OP's character was a tourist,
and the offending creatures were eels.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (More info?)

John Campbell wrote:
>
> I actually tweaked my nethack install so that floating eyes are
> bright orange. The gamma on my monitor is fairly dark, and the dark blue
> it normally uses for floating eyes is all but invisible on it
> (especially since I use translucent terminal windows against a
> background that frequently includes blues). This was just something I
> dealt with, on the theory that I shouldn't be trying to move into dark
> squares anyway... until I had a promising character fighting a horde of
> Mordor orcs, and it turned out that one of those 'o's was actually an
> 'e'. I hacked monst.c and recompiled before starting the next game.
> Haven't hit a floating eye by accident since.
>
> I'm curious as to whether people consider that cheating. Is this
> something I should disclose in my YAAPs? (If I, y'know, ever bothered
> actually posting about it when I ascend.)

Not at all. There's any number of interfaces in which floating eyes are
clearly distinguishable (think: tiles), so this should be no different.