Comp 165

[PowerWyrm]

There's one particular feature of IDDC that hasn't been mentioned yet: themed levels.

If you're familiar with ToME, then you know of the different dungeons in the game: Orc Caves, Moria, Rhun, and so on. Each dungeon has a particular feeling (terrain, monsters...). TomeNET has implemented these dungeons in its wilderness, expanding them with quests and challenges (boss monsters, ironman/force down/no recall dungeons).

For IDDC, dungeon floors are grouped along these "themed" dungeons. You can get Training Tower theme (arena) for 50ft-150ft, then Barrow Downs (trees) for 200ft-400ft, then Orc Caves (mountains) for the next 5 floors, and so on. If a specific dungeon has a boss at its bottom, then you may also meet him on the corresponding floor in IDDC! And usually, such boss guards a powerful artifact.

Because of these themes, you may consider playing specific race/class combos to be able to pass some of the special terrain features of each theme. In particular, there's a theme very early on (300ft or so) that generates a complete forest level with very few passages. If you cannot pass trees, you may be completely stuck and be forced to restart. Same happens later on with some themes: water level (need swimming/flying -- otherwise you may die from drowning), dense earth (need climbing/passwall -- stairs could be unreachable otherwise)... Races that will gain advantages are dwarf (climbing), draconian (flying), ent (swimming), yeek (forest crossing). Classes that will gain advantages are spellcasters (teleport spell), mimic/shaman/druid (polymorph into forms with pass trees/walls or flying ability), ranger (pass trees). You can even decide to play as a "fruit bat", gaining speed and flying ability at the cost of a portion of your hps (roughly 40%).

One crucial thing to consider if you plan to go far in IDDC: starting around 4100ft (yes it's deep, but it happened to me yesterday while diving my current IDDC character to oblivion to free a character slot for the comp) you will get the "Mount Doom" theme. In regular game, you will go to the corresponding dungeon to kill Sauron. Basically this means you'll get that theme up to 4950ft. What's annoying about that theme is the main terrain feature: lava. What this means is simple: you need immunity to fire. If you reach that depth without it, it's (almost) game over. The easiest way to get the immunity is to play a race or class that gets it intrinsically: druid (11-headed hydra/maulotaur form), mimic/shaman (any form with the immunity), corrupted maia (level 50), spellcaster with the Fire school of magic (level 48 -- 50 in the skill), red lineage draconian (level 25). Otherwise, you'll have to get it from an item.

[debo]

This may not start right on time ("RL reasons") but will certainly be up and running this week.

[UglySquirrell]

Just thought i'd share a few tips.

When leveling up you get 5 skill points which you can use by pressing G
If you screw up you have 1 undo per level press :/undoskills

If you plan on using weapons as your main form of attack, Interception is pretty much mandatory. "Ability to interfere with adjacent enemies.
Can prevent them from teleporting, casting,
summoning, running away."

As a caster once you get your resistance spell, keep it up all the time, double resist protects your inventory from being destroyed and even a single breath or ball spell can and will blow up your books and potions.

Unless you are playing an Istar, Druid, Shaman, Mimic, or Dwarf, and you have the cash buy a "climbing set". At some point you will hit levels with lots of mountains, and these help immensely. They cost a lot but try and pick them up on sale at the 1 shop.

Istar can usually teleport around and eventually get wraithform if they train Udon (Turns your form immaterial, and lets you walk through walls mountains etc.) Druids, Mimics, and Shamans can change into forms that can climb, and dwarfs learn to climb mountains.

If you are playing a caster, check out the spell section. It will show you what level you will get a certain spell at. Fireflash and Orb of Draining are the heavy hitters if you wan't to play a pure caster, but the others are fun too.

I highly recommend getting conveyance to at least 5 if your class allows it for phase door and disarm. Divination is amazing, gives you great detection, and at level 15 will let you to map parts of the level.

If you don't have access to divination or the holy support spells, make sure to buy a couple of rods of detection when you reach town. These will show monsters, items, traps and doors. This is one reason i prefer using races with good magic device skills if i'm not playing a caster.

Stealth is a huuuuge advantage in this game, running into an awake pack of Dark Elven Warlocks is pretty much instadeath if you don't have detection/esp and a decent range attack.

Archers are amazing and tons of fun, i buy at least 3 scrolls of enchant damage for my shooter, then just skill up your chosen weapon, Archery, Calmness and whatever else you want, health and dodge are nice, necromancy is fun. Once they start getting extra shots and a decent bow, they become absolutely devastating, machine gunning destroyers.

Runecrafters are really nice for IDDC, they don't need to find or buy spellbooks and have really powerful fully customizable spells.

I've been playing around with rangers too, these guys are great. Can build a sword wielding, bow/sling/crossbow using fighter with a bit of detection magic.

Or skill up swords, and an elemental school for ranged (probably fire) very versatile. Plus they eventually learn to swim and pass through trees.

Well, looking forward to seeing y'all soon. If you ever have any questions just ask in chat : button, anyone on will help you out.

[PowerWyrm]

It's not so much that, it's more like "i just hit a key and nothing happened" -- like messing up a combo in street fighter or something

Lag problem? Check the lag-o-meter to see how many +++ you have on the bar. Since the server is in Europe, it could be the problem.

[UglySquirrell]

What are you trying to do, move, attack, spell?

When moving around hold the shift key down, this will make you run unless monsters are around. Without it you will just crawl and it feels disjointed when you are moving.

Autoretaliation is also probably new to most players, it seemed strange at first but i really love this feature. When you bump into a monster you will automatically attack it with a melee weapon. This is pretty much mandatory considering the real time action. It seems to attack awake monsters before sleeping ones wich is nice.

If you want to retaliate with a ranged weapon instead, all you have to do is inscribe your weapon using the { key with @O the letter O not the number zero.

And finally with a spellbook use @O on the book itself, followed by the spells letter. For example if Beginners Cantrips has Mana Bolt listed as spell a when you browse the book you would inscribe it - Beginners Cantrips@Oa
This would use Mana bolt when you run into a monster or him you.

Now on to macros. The macro wizard is by far the best system iv'e come across in any game. To start it just press % and type z, and just follow the directions.

I use the 0 on my numberpad as an escape, so my thumb is always on it and it can be used almost instantly. Early game set phase door to it, then teleport when it becomes available.

My basic macros go
F1 Ranged attack or attack spell
F2 Normal Heal potion
F3 Emergency Heal potion
F4 Phase Door scroll or spell, Restore mana if a magic user, phase door late game becomes pretty much useless anyways

F5 Detect
F6 Mapping scroll or rod

F11 Speed Potion
F12 Resistance

` Stone to Mud
Tab Disarm

'-' key top right of numpad i use for class specific powers, Resistance for mages,Fighting form for mimics, Cloaking for rogues etc.

You can of course use anything you want this is just an example. Whenever you are in a fight have a finger over a healing potion and your thumb on an escape and you should do fine

!= will pick up your ammo automatically
!R Prevents Ricochetting
!X on a stack of identify scrolls or staff of perception will automatically use them to I'd items when you pick them up (awesome feature)

Finally i really recomend going to http://www.tomenet.net/

and checking out section 7 in the guide tactics and strategy

Oh, almost forgot about the auto inscription option, very handy press & for it. Have fun.

[debo]

Since it is realtime, with monster AI. Needs somewhat gaming experience how to predict things to come. Monster AI follows certain pattern, and is predictable.

Important part is to make macros at the beginning, since time is abundant when facing battle.

It's not so much that, it's more like "i just hit a key and nothing happened" -- like messing up a combo in street fighter or something

[Pondos]

How to do it?

Since it is realtime, with monster AI. Needs somewhat gaming experience how to predict things to come. Monster AI follows certain pattern, and is predictable.

Important part is to make macros at the beginning, since time is abundant when facing battle.

[debo]

I tried playing this for a while and I don't know how anyone does it. I feel like I'm playing DDR trying to time my keypresses properly :/

[Pondos]

Looking forward to this IDDC competition very much.

[UglySquirrell]

Yup, that's it. Choose the Europe server, and E to make a slot exclusive then make your character.

Right now there is a halloween event going on and all the townspeople have turned into monsters so don't kill anyone or you get experience. It will be over by the time comp starts, but is really fun and you have a chance to kill a rare monster named The Great Pumpkin for awesome items.

Once you start stock up on supplies, lantern, scrolls of satisfy hunger potions etc. then you travel on the map to coordinates (30,34) follow the edges of the maps to reduce the chance of meeting monsters on the way. (Very rarely a problem) There you will find a set of stairs downward, that's the dungeon.

[debo]

So, I downloaded the client (after trying to build a GCU version on OS/X and basically barfing when I saw the makefile) and started a new game by using E (to create a character using an exclusive slot.) This seems to have started an IDDC game -- is this all that's needed basically?

Also, is there a recommendation for a server to play on? The Europe one seems to be the main one of the two that were listed by the registry.

[Arjen]

I like it, IDDC is indeed perfect for a great competition.

[debo]

No objection as long as it's an IDDC challenge. No other restriction, it's fine to play any race/class/skill combo and even party with friends. Deepest character wins. If two characters reach the same depth, then min xp wins.

Yes, that sounds perfect. Looks like we have a plan! Thanks everyone.

[PowerWyrm]

This seems like a good idea. I'm inclined to go with this unless anyone has major objections.

No objection as long as it's an IDDC challenge. No other restriction, it's fine to play any race/class/skill combo and even party with friends. Deepest character wins. If two characters reach the same depth, then min xp wins.

[Raajaton]

I may have to taken part in this one. I've never played Tomenet, but I have played a bit of mAngband with a friend of mine a while back and it was a lot of fun. I've been meaning to get back into it, but it's been a matter of convincing other people to join me heh.