Competition 83

[Nick]

Competition 83 is now available from here - it is a V3.1.2 High-Elf Mage.

Note that the dual comps 81 and 82 have just a little over a day to go, and it's a close thing.

[Nick]

... and already there's the question of whether that's game turns, player turns or active turns. Anyone?

[fizzix]

I would still go with game turns. I can see someone pulling for player turns though. Active turns should be rejected outright.

[PowerDiver]

I would still go with game turns. I can see someone pulling for player turns though. Active turns should be rejected outright.

Player turns really punishes picking up your ammo. That's reason enough to reject it as well.

I'd rather come up with something other than max experience. In two otherwise equal games, surely killing M at CL 35 is more impressive than killing him at CL50. Unfortunately, for non-winners most of my ideas turn into who gets a stack of deep descent first.. I guess there is a reason for the default criterion.

[bron]

I admit I don't particularly like the default scoring rule, because it doesn't give me an unfair advantage :-)

Seriously though: to get a high score, it seems like the best strategy is to quickly do high-risk actions in hopes of getting a high return, and just keep repeating that until you get a character lucky enough to survive the risk and also lucky enough to find something(s) good. To me, this sorta feels like one is gaming the system: instead of preparing to fight Morgoth, you just fight him anyway, and just hope that he won't do 2 mana storms in a row this time around, and that your spell with a 5% fail chance just doesn't happen to fail at a crucial time. And if that doesn't work out, well, you just try again until it does.

Personally, I would like to see some sort of scoring scheme that penalizes you for having your character die. Like say the current scoring scheme, but with your score divided by the number of attempts. (That is probably too harsh, but you get the idea.) Unfortunately, this would require some sort of modification to the source and the savefile in order to track attempts.

[This is not meant to take anything away from the amazing accomplishments of, e.g. PowerDiver (a win in less than 250K turns ??? That's just crazy talk). Nor am I trying to claim that my style of play is somehow "more valid". I'm just saying that occasionally I'd like to see a competition that favors a slow-and-careful style of play, rather than a fast-and-risky style, in recognition that some of us play that way.]

Not that any of this is going to stop me from entering the competition you understand ...

[PowerDiver]

You may find that you are more successful than you expect taking a "high risk" approach. Or that you die more often than you expect aiming for "low risk".

I encourage you to try both methods and report your perceived differences.

Nick neglected to mention that the comp starts at DL 39 IIRC. You don't have to go through the throwing oil phase of the game. This is just a normal char I played to this point. It is set up the way I would head to the dungeon. I suspect some people will want to outfit a bit differently.

[Nick]

OK, 2 votes for game turns, 1 vote for player turns (Timo on rgra) and one spoiled ballot paper. Voting will finish soon.

[Magnate]

OK, 2 votes for game turns, 1 vote for player turns (Timo on rgra) and one spoiled ballot paper. Voting will finish soon.

I vote for player turns.

[Zikke]

I vote for player turns as well. Otherwise you're punishing for high speed

[Zikke]

I downloaded the savefile but every time I try to cast a spell it lags out when selecting a book for several seconds. Playing a mage on the same game installation with a different character doesn't do that.

What's going on?

edit: I tried installing a new copy of 3.1.2 and it seems to be just this character file that freezes for a bit before casting spells from certain books.

[PowerDiver]

I downloaded the savefile but every time I try to cast a spell it lags out when selecting a book for several seconds. Playing a mage on the same game installation with a different character doesn't do that.

What's going on?

edit: I tried installing a new copy of 3.1.2 and it seems to be just this character file that freezes for a bit before casting spells from certain books.

My only guess is a difference in options? Something about displaying ranged attacks?

I didn't set anything on purpose, but maybe the default was different when I started this savefile.

[Zikke]

Everything seems to look normal. When I press "m" it correctly brings up the list of books I have. But when I press "b" nothing happens unless I press it about 10 times and then it tries to cast some spell and asks for a direction. I have uninscribed the books too, but it didn't fix anything. Oh well, I'll try to jump into the next competition.

[bron]

Even though I don't personally like it, I really think you need to go with game turns as the measure of time. Yes, it does mean that the winner is likely to be the character that finds some early boots-of-speed. But resting is a choice, and it needs to have pluses and minuses: the plus being that you get your HP and SP back, the minus being that it takes time. Using player turns largely eliminates the minus of resting, meaning you'll rest after everything, and come to (nearly) every encounter at full strength. Perhaps some hideous compromise, like playerTurns + ((gameTurns - playerTurns)/10) [i.e. count resting at 1/10]. But time is time, and the race goes to the person who crosses the finish line in the least time, not the one that uses the fewest steps to get there.

[Zikke]

Doesn't resting cost player turns?

[fizzix]

Even though I don't personally like it, I really think you need to go with game turns as the measure of time. Yes, it does mean that the winner is likely to be the character that finds some early boots-of-speed. But resting is a choice, and it needs to have pluses and minuses: the plus being that you get your HP and SP back, the minus being that it takes time. Using player turns largely eliminates the minus of resting, meaning you'll rest after everything, and come to (nearly) every encounter at full strength. Perhaps some hideous compromise, like playerTurns + ((gameTurns - playerTurns)/10) [i.e. count resting at 1/10]. But time is time, and the race goes to the person who crosses the finish line in the least time, not the one that uses the fewest steps to get there.

Resting is also dangerous in that it allows more monsters to appear on the level. Often these monsters are closer to the level depth.