Comp 165

[krazyhades]

Comp 165 is LIVE! Go go goooooo

Maybe just maybe I'll take a stab or seven at this one tomorrow.

[PowerWyrm]

I recommend forming a party for IDDC diving to increase survivability. Even a party of two characters will be more effective than playing solo. A few tips there:

1) Ensure that one character can detect monsters by spell (Divination, Holy Support...) or race power (Draconic ESP) to avoid running into trouble (OoD monster, ego giants, pack of dark elven warlocks or hounds...). Once you can, absolutely buy a rod of detection: you never know when you will find that "you feel like a stranger -- you lose sense of direction" type of level.

2) Ensure that one character can identify (Divination, Arcane Lore) to maximize the party wealth.

3) If you play two spellcasters, try to play an INT-based and a WIS-based one to share stat potions without having to split them.

4) You mana is precious, don't run out of it... so let one player rest while the other is casting spells to keep the party mana pool up. Otherwise you will burn your supplies too fast... and supplies already burn very fast (literally).

5) Share your gold and finds. Would be too bad to find Orome as a Priest and Aeglos as an Istar and play solo... Remember, level requirements don't apply in IDDC, you can share anything in a party.

6) This is already in the guide... but if you play a Maia, always go down first. You will need to kill that candlebearer or darkling and you're the only one that can generate them. Otherwise let the character with swimming and/or immunity to fire go down first: the landing spot on a level is placed completely random -- this includes big rivers and lava streams disconnected from the rest of the level -- so you don't want your entire party to drown or fry on the spot.

[Nivim]

Good posts, but mostly what I got from them is 1- when something confuses you terribly bother someone in chat and 2- you and your entire party can insta-die upon entering a new level.

[PowerWyrm]

Another vital tip: once you reach the first town, absolutely buy a "sprig of athelas". Undead monsters in TomeNET can inflict the "black breath" status, which will constantly drain stats and experience. It's rare, but if you're stuck with it, it's probably game over.

Concerning your starting combo, I strongly suggest something that can fight and cast. If you party with someone, you can play a pure spellcaster, since the hardest part will be the early game and after a while you can pretty much stand on your own.

Warrior: easy at start, not so easy when you start to meet smart monsters who can obliterate you and your supplies to ashes with ranged spells; partying with a spellcaster is a must; if you're alone, hope to find a great shooter and macro your techniques (sprint and such); antimagic may also help in that case.

Istar: tough at start, because limited starting cash to get spellbooks (you have to decide if you want to buy that Identify book or not); partying with a meat shield is a must; if you're alone... good luck; since you won't reach level 50 (probably), don't bother with conventional builds; get a cloud spell and some traumaturgy.

Priest: clearly a support character, you won't be able to survive alone without either melee or spells in the beginning; just skill Holy Curing and heal your tem mate(s); once you get levels and WIS, skill Holy Offense and wipe everything with offensive spells.

Rogue: probably the only class that should play solo; pump your stealth, avoid fights, dodge attacks, dive deep and fast; learn some magic for ultimate survivability.

Mimic: very easy, especially if you play Maia; you can party with pretty much anybody; learn powerful forms quickly, skill Astral for your ranged attack and master a weapon (enlightened) or martial arts (corrupted).

Archer: the most powerful class (because high dps)... in a party; if alone, monsters in melee range will prevent you from shooting unless you're high level with high Calmness skill, so you will need a truckload of phase door scrolls.

Paladin: hard to categorize, since it's in between a warrior and a priest, so you don't have an easy or a hard start; play like a fighter with buffs and support spells; play a Maia for huge boosts to your melee and holy skills (harder at lower level, easier after level 20).

Ranger: the mage counterpart to the paladin; play like a fighter with ranged damage (usually Fire) and support spells.

Adventurer: you can learn any skill but you suck at everything; not recommended.

Druid: very easy in the beginning, and another class that can play solo; you get specific forms with nice abilities, martial arts fighting, offensive/support spells; not so good in the end, I tend to find martial arts very weak as druid, and endgame forms aren't that great; and mana seems to deplete very fast since spell costs are outrageous for a druid + no traumaturgy.

Shaman: not as hard as it seems, especially if you play a Maia; Astral will help you early on, then you can choose between enlightened (pure spellcaster with holy spells) or corrupted (martial arts with Fire school).

Runemaster: pure spellcaster with power growing exponentially; at start probably the weakest, in the endgame probably the strongest; deal over 1500 damage against monsters non resistant to elemental damage (fire, cold, acid or lightning); use runes to even improve your equipment; pump dex and int to get zero-fail spells which require no spellbooks (runes are marginally useful, no need to carry tons of them); make a corrupted Maia for almost unlimited power with Traumaturgy and enhanced rune skills; you can even skill weapons and boomerangs if you don't want to play as pure spellcaster.

Mindcrafter: very easy, since you fight well and get offensive/support psionic abilities.

And if you want to see the most successful IDDC dives so far to get an idea what to play, check here:

http://www.tomenet.net/legends-iddc.php

[Nivim]

Welp, seems I'd been asking the wrong questions; since the normal linux client gave errors, and despite Debo's barf, I compiled from source as per the guide using the "TomeNET 4.5.8 complete source code (client+server) (2.8 MB)" and after running the game, connecting to the europe server, and logging in (/auto-creating an account) the game shows me the character slot screen, but no longer responds to anything at all but terminate/suspend.
I read the mention of the validation, but I wouldn't expect that to prevent quitting, and should probably give some sort of notice.

[Roguer]

Welp, seems I'd been asking the wrong questions; since the normal linux client gave errors, and despite Debo's barf, I compiled from source as per the guide using the "TomeNET 4.5.8 complete source code (client+server) (2.8 MB)" and after running the game, connecting to the europe server, and logging in (/auto-creating an account) the game shows me the character slot screen, but no longer responds to anything at all but terminate/suspend.
I read the mention of the validation, but I wouldn't expect that to prevent quitting, and should probably give some sort of notice.

Never heard of such a problem with Linux client before. You cannot even press Shift+N to make a new characer in the character slot screen? And sorry for stupid question but you didn't have CAPS on by accident? =-p
And what errors did the normal linux client give you? Which client, the 32-bit or 64-bit one?

I just downloaded the 64-bit client and the 32-bit one on my pc and both worked fine for me.
Edit: I downloaded the complete source too and compiled the client and it worked ok. :/

[Nivim]

Both problems imploded because they were stupid mistakes; the client didn't work because I'd had the 32 bit thinking it was the 64 bit (which is i686 versus x86 for most of the stuff I work with; forgetting AMD labeling entirely) and I had somehow managed to try Shift with several keys but none of the ones I'd already tried without.
Thank you for hitting it immediately, and putting so much effort into testing anyway.
(Edit: I'll be unavailable for the next hour or so; I'm obviously sick and need to do something about it.)

[Roguer]

If you managed to get to the character slot screen then you're probably already validated by now. ^^

I recommend choosing Shift+E (new slot-exclusive char) over Shift+N (new char) because that way you'll start out as a dedicated IDDC-only character.
This means that you cannot gain exp outside of IDDC (making things a bit easier) and that you'll start with additional 300 Gold pieces which you'd otherwise have to farm from townies or training tower first (again making things easier).
Just make sure you don't accidentally select "pvp mode", any other mode is fine (you'll end up in no-ghost mode anyway)!

[PowerWyrm]

One thing I just found out: when you play, you need to activate the "depth in feet" option on your client. Otherwise, the parser will change your max depth to 0, which is kinda bad for this comp.

[Roguer]

One thing I just found out: when you play, you need to activate the "depth in feet" option on your client. Otherwise, the parser will change your max depth to 0, which is kinda bad for this comp.

Good point, it is enabled by default though so you don't need to do anything if you didn't change it.

Edit - the parser now understands levels!

[murphy]

linux binary client is working fine for me. was your error about finding the shared libraries? because i did have to modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH. but beyond that it worked right out of the box

one minor issue, im playing on a netbook with a small screen, I can see the borrom row of the map but I cant see my speed or BpR, they are off the bottom of the screen. and i havent been able to find these on any of the other info screens

[Roguer]

linux binary client is working fine for me. was your error about finding the shared libraries? because i did have to modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH. but beyond that it worked right out of the box

one minor issue, im playing on a netbook with a small screen, I can see the borrom row of the map but I cant see my speed or BpR, they are off the bottom of the screen. and i havent been able to find these on any of the other info screens

Edit .tomenetrc file and change font size of main window, which is probably relatively large (9x15) for example to 8x13 or 6x10 or 6x9, depending on your system.
The last line is important because it's the "status line". It shows certain status effects on your character, asides from speed, bpr and depth.

In what way did you modify LD_LIBRARY_PATH exactly if I may ask?

[murphy]

Maybe some linux configurations have the current directory as part of the search path for the dynamic linker, but mine doesn't seem to, so for all the shared objects that came in the tarball, I just left them in the tomenet directory and did
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`
before running
./tomenet

Thank you for the tip about the font sizes :-)

[Roguer]

Maybe some linux configurations have the current directory as part of the search path for the dynamic linker, but mine doesn't seem to, so for all the shared objects that came in the tarball, I just left them in the tomenet directory and did
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`
before running
./tomenet

Thank you for the tip about the font sizes :-)

I reported your problem and it has now been corrected

http://www.tomenet.net/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&p=1909&sid=55f2c7e96820c9404369be5ec3e118c0#p1909

[Nivim]

I played several more characters than I put on the ladder, but they maintained the same theme; all either dying to the interface because I couldn't figure something out, or dying to some big and tedious obstacle like a water-themed floor (which may also count as an interface, or perhaps display death; I couldn't figure out which of many options would help me not drown, and how many of them I needed).
So, despite what I've put into it so far, I have given up on this comp; losing by measures of score and determination, winning by measures of sanity and expediency.

Maybe another time, when those guys can work out the conflict between real-time play and a system built up and designed to be turn-based.