Competition 123

[Nick]

You see, I knew people had been complaining for some time that the game was too easy, and I had this theory that they'd also complain if it was too hard...

[debo]

I'm a relative newbie to Angband still, but I played through the 3.3.x series with three characters when I was first introduced to it about a year ago. Previously, I was accustomed to Nethack.

My very first character was a human warrior, which I got to dlvl 50 before being scrambled by a nexus vortex. I barely ever came close to death -- but, fair enough, warriors are supposed to be easy in the early game.

My second character was a high-elf rogue, which was a winner.

My third was a human mage, which died somewhere near dlvl 30 due to messed up keybindings on my part.

I never really felt a sense of real danger from Angband... certainly not like other roguelikes I'd played before.

I just recently ground out 5 versions of a Kobold Ranger on 3.4, and I'm not sure if it's the class/race combo, the length of time I've spent away from the game, or the increased difficulty, but this feels like a proper roguelike now I.E., I am forced to think about most encounters. All of my deaths have come before dlvl 15, due to inattention and keyspamming. Wayyyy more fun, IMO.

Based on glimpses I've read of what has been changed in 3.4, I'm inclined to think that it's mostly the time I've spent away from the game that has caused my deaths, given how early I am dying. Have there been many changes that would significantly affect the survivability of early-game characters? I think someone said that statpoints had been toned down, for instance.

P.S. I wish I'd discovered no-selling when I first started playing the game!! Amazing option.

[jujuben]

I had some... issues... with the early midgame. I was right around what I expected the power curve to be up until about d25 or so, started finding my first (very weak) artifacts there, had decent hp and pretty good damage, mostly from rings. What really frustrated me was the lack of resistance gear. D25-D35 took about a million highly frustrating turns, as I hunted for some way to cover my basic 5 without giving up both ring slots. Towards the end of this, stat gain for Str, Dex and Con were pretty close to complete, but I still didn't feel comfortable going deeper and risking taking on the more powerful breathers/casters unresisted.

Honestly, I don't think I have too much problem with generation of weapons, potions or jewelry, but better defenses, especially the basic resists needed to survive the midgame need to be a bit more common early, imo.

[catchymonkey]

I might as well add my experience: I ran through about 8 characters going as hard and fast down to Dlvl 20 as reasonably possible. And died predictably.

The tactic was to find a piece of game-changing kit and then come back to a reasonable depth to fill out the rest. The first 8 found nothing better than boots of slow descent and I nearly gave up. The 9th found a Defender Rapier at about Dlvl 9. All 4 resists, FA, SI - it felt like a total cheat. I also found a decent ego bow and helm of telepathy before Dlvl 20. Seemed like a totally anomalous game compared to the others I'd tried. Also, as mentioned in the dump, I found a stack of 2 INT potions and a couple of Holy Infusions before I got to 20.

The difficulty thing is...difficult. Clearly there needs to be a balance between challenging the veterans and not scaring/boring off new players. I'm one of those people who loves it when I find The Ancient Sword of Game Wrecking Awesomeness on level 1 but I realise lots of people don't.

[Antoine]

can i suggest the next comp should be 3.4 again with a decent character??

[Nick]

can i suggest the next comp should be 3.4 again with a decent character??

Fine. Babies.

[Antoine]

Fine. Babies.

you shadow fairy necromancer liker!

A.

[jujuben]

My prediction: any spellcasting class will do fine, but any fighter build will run into almost exactly the same problem.

[Malak Darkhunter]

My prediction: any spellcasting class will do fine, but any fighter build will run into almost exactly the same problem.

That sums up pretty much what I think as well.

[Derakon]

Sounds like the character should be a warrior or paladin then.

[myshkin]

It's interesting that the comp character is frustrating people. Nick - my recommendation for the next comp is a 3.0.6 warrior with identical capability (not identical stats, but as near as you can get in terms of hp, blows etc.). Let's see whether that's less frustrating, or more.

I'd vote for 2.4.frog-knows, but Magnate's suggestion is probably more instructive.

[myshkin]

I might as well add my experience: I ran through about 8 characters going as hard and fast down to Dlvl 20 as reasonably possible. And died predictably.

The tactic was to find a piece of game-changing kit and then come back to a reasonable depth to fill out the rest. The first 8 found nothing better than boots of slow descent and I nearly gave up. The 9th found a Defender Rapier at about Dlvl 9. All 4 resists, FA, SI - it felt like a total cheat. I also found a decent ego bow and helm of telepathy before Dlvl 20. Seemed like a totally anomalous game compared to the others I'd tried. Also, as mentioned in the dump, I found a stack of 2 INT potions and a couple of Holy Infusions before I got to 20.

For what it's worth, I just started out with a shovel, dove, and looked for money, while running from anything I couldn't kill with the shovel and perhaps ?Heroism. That was often enough to get _Teleport, _DetectEvil, some consumables, and a decent missile weapon, and I'd usually find a passable average melee weapon along the way. I usually didn't stop for much; my biggest slowdown was an attempt to clear a zoo at 700', but I only tried that because a really good weapon for the depth had dropped already. I grant that it is risky to dive despite character deficiencies...that last character ended up with -485 HP at 2300' thanks to an unresisted fire breath, but even that death, I should have avoided.

So far, I haven't noticed a horrible dearth of items, but I also don't expect much at a diving pace. I would be curious as to what Atanvarno thinks, since most of the other competition players have chimed in.

[PowerWyrm]

It's interesting that the comp character is frustrating people. Nick - my recommendation for the next comp is a 3.0.6 warrior with identical capability (not identical stats, but as near as you can get in terms of hp, blows etc.). Let's see whether that's less frustrating, or more.

Overall, 3.4 is much easier than 3.0.6, but the 3.0.6 comp character would be easier to play because of:
- auto scum option: the first levels would always give something
- no "disconnected stairs" option: enabling disconnected stairs would mean playing an ironman character...
- no "no selling" option: enabling no selling would mean playing without shops at all...

[ewan]

Reiterating - or 'going on about' depending - that I would *like* to have the game harder, but will not be playing 3.4 with the current uncloseable-window-clutter interface.

Is there a reason for this? I would welcome explanation - grumble grumble :-/

[Derakon]

- no "disconnected stairs" option: enabling disconnected stairs would mean playing an ironman character...

Disconnected stairs used to be the default mode, and while an option to provide connected stairs was created fairly early in Angband's history (I think it existed in the 2.8.x days), there's no guarantee that Nick would use it for the competition character.