Complete N00b’s Journey: Prologue
Hello everybody. This is a n00b who was recommended to play this free game by the denizens of r/brogue after I escaped with the amulet of Yendor on Brogue. Below is my roguelike resume:
Outstanding Nethack experience: Managed to ascend every role at least once in 3.4.3, and still have an excellent playing record in the 3.6 versions.
Exceeds Expectations ADOM experience: Achieved several ultra endings back when it was free and before Steam came into the scene. Haven't played the Steam version due to pricing though.
Exceeds Expectations DoomRL experience: Fully won the game several times, but only up to the Ultra-Violence Difficulty (I like being able to save my games, thank you very much, so hard pass to Nightmare) and even managed to obtain two Diamond Medals from my efforts there.
Acceptable ZAP'M experience: Won a couple of games, but I got bored of that real fast.
Acceptable Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup experience: Escaped with the Orb in a 3-rune game as a Demigod Fighter after four attempts with randomly generated characters.
Acceptable Brogue experience: Escaped with the Amulet of Yendor once after 10 tries.
Acceptable Rogue experience: The deepest I got was level 16 I think.
Poor experience with PRIME: Haven't made it into the robot town.
So now I am delving deep into (Vanilla) Angband 4.1.3, under a series titled "Complete N00b's Journey" where I create a character at random, and hope for the best, because that is just what I do and random generation is my thing. In this series, the number before the hyphen will signify the attempt that I am playing, and the number after the hyphen signifies the goal that I have completed. The first goal that all characters will focus on is to get to the level that one can be typically expect to reach on the first dive? This series will continue until I finally kill Morgoth with a character.
My questions before I begin this game:
First of all, what should be the tactic for the first dive? Take the downstairs the first moment you find it and aggressively dive, or linger in a shallow level to play it safe? If the former, which dungeon level do you shoot for? D:8? D:10?
What does the “Start with a kit of useful gear” birth option give you? Are you better off having that option removed and following your own shopping list? And if that option is selected, then do you typically have enough gold to pick up some other consumables? If so, what would you typically get to supplement a first dive to the dungeon? I’ve heard that it’s best to have at least a majority of the following items:
3+ Scrolls of Phase Door
1 Scroll of Recall
1 Potion of Cure Light Wounds
1+ Potion(s) of Cure Serious Wounds
1 Potion of Heroism
Do you still try to buy flasks of oil to weaken and kill a unique? I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to buy ~5 for killing dangerous monsters. In that respect, are Iron Shots still worth buying at the start to deal with stat drainers or acid attackers?
Do monsters pursue you if you go up or down a staircase? The way that monsters pursued me in games like Brogue when you went up the stairs often led to some pretty cheap deaths there.
Which pieces of weapons and armor should I look for in the early game? And do you equip these items as soon as you get them and take a risk knowing that they are cursed, or do you wait until your equip-id marathon in D:4 or until your pack is full?
Is the rest command (‘R’) reliable? Or does it often lead to more trouble?
The only thing I might consider changing from the birth options is “Don’t show level feelings”. I’ve heard arguments about both options for both “yes” or “no”. Some players choose “no” because level feelings help them decide to look for valuable items/avoid dangerous monsters. Others choose “yes” since they want to play the game than worry about whether or not they’re going to find something interesting and want to be surprised by something interesting and/or dangerous things instead of actively looking for them. I’ve heard that the algorithm for selecting feelings isn't necessarily accurate, on that regard.
Are lots of early equipment cursed in general? Do you usually wait until the “pseudo-id” mechanic kicks in before trying it on or using the consumable? Which types of consumables is a good class to use-id, and when?
One final question: Would you be okay with having a separate thread for each character that I test in Angband, or should I keep all characters and their trials to this thread? I hope to be respectful to the community present in these forums, and will abide by their rules.
Any other tips are appreciated!
Hello everybody. This is a n00b who was recommended to play this free game by the denizens of r/brogue after I escaped with the amulet of Yendor on Brogue. Below is my roguelike resume:
Outstanding Nethack experience: Managed to ascend every role at least once in 3.4.3, and still have an excellent playing record in the 3.6 versions.
Exceeds Expectations ADOM experience: Achieved several ultra endings back when it was free and before Steam came into the scene. Haven't played the Steam version due to pricing though.
Exceeds Expectations DoomRL experience: Fully won the game several times, but only up to the Ultra-Violence Difficulty (I like being able to save my games, thank you very much, so hard pass to Nightmare) and even managed to obtain two Diamond Medals from my efforts there.
Acceptable ZAP'M experience: Won a couple of games, but I got bored of that real fast.
Acceptable Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup experience: Escaped with the Orb in a 3-rune game as a Demigod Fighter after four attempts with randomly generated characters.
Acceptable Brogue experience: Escaped with the Amulet of Yendor once after 10 tries.
Acceptable Rogue experience: The deepest I got was level 16 I think.
Poor experience with PRIME: Haven't made it into the robot town.
So now I am delving deep into (Vanilla) Angband 4.1.3, under a series titled "Complete N00b's Journey" where I create a character at random, and hope for the best, because that is just what I do and random generation is my thing. In this series, the number before the hyphen will signify the attempt that I am playing, and the number after the hyphen signifies the goal that I have completed. The first goal that all characters will focus on is to get to the level that one can be typically expect to reach on the first dive? This series will continue until I finally kill Morgoth with a character.
My questions before I begin this game:
First of all, what should be the tactic for the first dive? Take the downstairs the first moment you find it and aggressively dive, or linger in a shallow level to play it safe? If the former, which dungeon level do you shoot for? D:8? D:10?
What does the “Start with a kit of useful gear” birth option give you? Are you better off having that option removed and following your own shopping list? And if that option is selected, then do you typically have enough gold to pick up some other consumables? If so, what would you typically get to supplement a first dive to the dungeon? I’ve heard that it’s best to have at least a majority of the following items:
3+ Scrolls of Phase Door
1 Scroll of Recall
1 Potion of Cure Light Wounds
1+ Potion(s) of Cure Serious Wounds
1 Potion of Heroism
Do you still try to buy flasks of oil to weaken and kill a unique? I’ve heard that it’s a good idea to buy ~5 for killing dangerous monsters. In that respect, are Iron Shots still worth buying at the start to deal with stat drainers or acid attackers?
Do monsters pursue you if you go up or down a staircase? The way that monsters pursued me in games like Brogue when you went up the stairs often led to some pretty cheap deaths there.
Which pieces of weapons and armor should I look for in the early game? And do you equip these items as soon as you get them and take a risk knowing that they are cursed, or do you wait until your equip-id marathon in D:4 or until your pack is full?
Is the rest command (‘R’) reliable? Or does it often lead to more trouble?
The only thing I might consider changing from the birth options is “Don’t show level feelings”. I’ve heard arguments about both options for both “yes” or “no”. Some players choose “no” because level feelings help them decide to look for valuable items/avoid dangerous monsters. Others choose “yes” since they want to play the game than worry about whether or not they’re going to find something interesting and want to be surprised by something interesting and/or dangerous things instead of actively looking for them. I’ve heard that the algorithm for selecting feelings isn't necessarily accurate, on that regard.
Are lots of early equipment cursed in general? Do you usually wait until the “pseudo-id” mechanic kicks in before trying it on or using the consumable? Which types of consumables is a good class to use-id, and when?
One final question: Would you be okay with having a separate thread for each character that I test in Angband, or should I keep all characters and their trials to this thread? I hope to be respectful to the community present in these forums, and will abide by their rules.
Any other tips are appreciated!
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