How I Beat Angband. Or: A WoW Player's Dungeoneering Guide

[dhegler]

*shrug* Is it "cheating" to ask any questions at all about the game? A so-called "purist" might argue that gaining any outside information whatsoever ruins the supposed experience of spelunking. Yet here we are, on a forum, discussing strategy and tactics, features and mechanics.

Can you say with a straight face that you've beaten Angband without *ever* learning *anything* about the game from any external source whatsoever -- no friends, no forums, no guides or spoilers -- just simply dying over and over again in the dungeon for years until you figured it all out on your own? Well, then, terrific for you; you're a purist, and you've lived up to your own standard.

As for me, I prefer knowing what I'm getting into ahead of time. Perhaps that makes me a weak player. Perhaps, by your ultra-purist definition, I'm a "cheater". Again, to each his own.


It's both, insofar as that I needed the knowledge so I could even know what to be cautious of. But anyone can read spoilers. My achievement was in teaching myself the patience and persistence to apply that knowledge, and to not take unnecessary risks. I altered my playstyle; and I'm proud of the fact.

Fun posts... I did not gain as much fun from the game until I read the spoilers and used backup saves. I all too often had those moments where I said Screw Angband. To each his own, I say!

The only roguelike I played without spoilers was the original Hack released back in the Shareware Depot days - remember those $5 floppies back then? It was always somewhat fun, but annoying as well. Eventually I read somewhere about drinking a potion of confusion, doing something else, and reading a teleport level scroll or something, to get to the last level of the dungeon, which I had never visited in 5-10 years of playing at that time. I lasted about 1 minute if I remember right. But, once I knew about spoilers, that made it even more fun for me being able to dive deeper.

[Derakon]

One way to access spoilers without being marked as a cheater is just to read the "monster.txt" file that holds all of the monster definitions. The format for the entries is explained at the top of the file, though it can still be a bit hard to read. Fortunately, the parts of the entries dealing with spells and breath attacks are self-explanatory for the most part. And once you know the format, you can make changes to the file to change how the game plays. Offhand I can't think of any Vanilla monsters I refuse to play with, but with other variants it's a different story (particularly ToME, with its fast, flying, nearly-always-awake giant lice, and its AI_ANNOY bats).

As for if using spoilers is cheating, I'd say not. It does change your gameplay experience since there's a lot less uncertainty, and uncertainty can be fun so long as it isn't instantly fatal. But I don't think it's cheating.

I definitely don't think spoilers are cheating in a game like NetHack, where a massive amount of your survivability hinges on figuring out things like dipping longswords into fountains, dropping items on altars, figuring out what to pray for, Elbereth, etc...the gameplay is balanced for players who know all the things they can do, which just makes it unfair for the unspoiled. Angband is considerably more transparent, though.

[dhegler]

One way to access spoilers without being marked as a cheater is just to read the "monster.txt" file that holds all of the monster definitions. The format for the entries is explained at the top of the file, though it can still be a bit hard to read. Fortunately, the parts of the entries dealing with spells and breath attacks are self-explanatory for the most part. And once you know the format, you can make changes to the file to change how the game plays. Offhand I can't think of any Vanilla monsters I refuse to play with, but with other variants it's a different story (particularly ToME, with its fast, flying, nearly-always-awake giant lice, and its AI_ANNOY bats).

As for if using spoilers is cheating, I'd say not. It does change your gameplay experience since there's a lot less uncertainty, and uncertainty can be fun so long as it isn't instantly fatal. But I don't think it's cheating.

I definitely don't think spoilers are cheating in a game like NetHack, where a massive amount of your survivability hinges on figuring out things like dipping longswords into fountains, dropping items on altars, figuring out what to pray for, Elbereth, etc...the gameplay is balanced for players who know all the things they can do, which just makes it unfair for the unspoiled. Angband is considerably more transparent, though.

I tried Nethack recently and it wasn't the Hack that I remember growing up with... Seemed far too complex for what should be a simpler game than Angband, in my opinion...