Next competition

[PowerWyrm]

What about the egoless artifactless bookless ironman elf mage using only fists to fight?

[HallucinationMushroom]

I heard some noise about a Quickband competition, but I can't remember from whom. (Pete Mack?)

If the person who volunteered the idea wants to supply a savefile, great. Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.

Make a human rogue with manual stat distribution turned on for character generation, but don't actually spend any of the points.

[Derakon]

Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.

I just had an idea for a potentially really annoying "variant", but it'd take some implementation work. So, assuming I ever actually do do it, it won't be for this comp.

[debo]

I heard some noise about a Quickband competition, but I can't remember from whom. (Pete Mack?)

If the person who volunteered the idea wants to supply a savefile, great. Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.

[bron]

I think we've done something like the bron idea (1st sil is all that matters) -- look back in previous comps. It still favored turncount though, I think.

I'm guessing you're thinking of comp 158. That did allow pick-your-own characters with just the 1st Sil mattering. But the main thing I was proposing was a comp where something other than "speed" was the determining factor. Secondarily, I also proposed "no artifacts" as a means to both make things harder, and (more importantly) to reduce the importance of getting a lucky equipment find.

I'm glad I'm the one who runs the competitions

I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say, we're all glad too.

[debo]

Man I'm glad I'm the one who runs the competitions, you guys have really bad ideas IMO

(joking)

The Sil thing -- I think we've done something like the bron idea (1st sil is all that matters) -- look back in previous comps. It still favored turncount though, I think.

PowerWyrm usually makes comp ideas that no one plays except him and then he wins

I think we can probably do more ironmanny V comps. I'd like to do a Sil no-artefact comp too, I think that would be fun -- although I feel like we've done something similar to that before, I can't quite remember.

For now, stay tuned for a HoM David Bowie tribute comp. We'll figure out where to go from there.

Also, I really wish unangband wasn't terrible. If it had fewer than 20 bugs per sloc I think it would be amazing fun for comps.

Oh, and animeband should be a much more frequent entry in competitions. Prepare yourself.

[HugoVirtuoso]

Here's a sadistic idea - Having a PosChengband compo character that starts in the wilderness next to the dlvl 666 entrance with some GCWADLs within LOS

[bron]

A lot of that comes down to whether you find a bunch of food on one of the early floors. iron-man trolls are the only class where starvation is an issue.

Agreed. You do need to get a bit lucky: you need to find food, and probably some Phase Door scrolls, and you need to survive the inevitable reading of an early Deep Descent scroll. But the biggest risks are front-loaded, so restarting from an early death is not too horribly painful.

[fizzix]

While I like the concept, I think some of the suggestions are simply too hard (and clearly some of them were meant in jest). If you don't like my Sil suggestion (where the player gets to pick their level of "hard"), an example of an extremely difficult feat, and yet still (barely) winnable, is a Vanilla, no-artefacts, iron-man, Half-Troll Paladin, who descends on turn 1 with just one torch and one ration of food. I have won with such a character before (admittedly, not on the 4.x series), so I know it can be done, but it is very challenging.

A lot of that comes down to whether you find a bunch of food on one of the early floors. iron-man trolls are the only class where starvation is an issue.

On the other hand, it could make us think of whether we should make the hunger clock an actual thing or chuck it altogether.

[bron]

or do an almost unwinnable comp, so the winner would be someone who survives farthest

While I like the concept, I think some of the suggestions are simply too hard (and clearly some of them were meant in jest). If you don't like my Sil suggestion (where the player gets to pick their level of "hard"), an example of an extremely difficult feat, and yet still (barely) winnable, is a Vanilla, no-artefacts, iron-man, Half-Troll Paladin, who descends on turn 1 with just one torch and one ration of food. I have won with such a character before (admittedly, not on the 4.x series), so I know it can be done, but it is very challenging.

[Nick]

I'm strongly inclined to do a Halls of Mist competition next as a tribute to David Bowie.

Great idea.

As for the reduced levels idea, comp 181 was 50 reduced-size levels with forced descent. If you want an unwinnable comp, FA ironman thrall Petty-Dwarf Druid should do it

[Pete Mack]

Going to 500' at cl 1 is perfectly doable. Sure you will lose a lot of characters, but one of them will eventually find a dark elf before dying and advance to level 6 immediately, or get lucky with a baby dragon and do even better.* That's how Lost Soul works in other variants...except there you are likelier to find a mumak and advance to level 27. All you REALLY need is Hero/Chant/Berserk, ?Phase, and a bow or a sling, or just a big stack of oil for 3d4 burn damage. You don't need recall, because going back to town is trivial.

It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...

* Yes that is possible. I've done it in Quickband, but it does take luck.

[fizzix]

It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...

Bah. That sounds like no fun.

[PowerWyrm]

10 levels forced descent is probably impossible to the point of not being fun. I could be wrong though, I haven't tried it.

It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...

[PowerWyrm]

Do a Vanilla competition with the skip-levels setting set to 10, so there's only 10 dungeon levels in the game.

Add force descent for a real challenge