Diver or Explorer?

[NeoWizard]

All right,

I'd like to poll the preferences of the community.

I started playing angband in 2003 I started as explorer. I was mapping the whole level before going down to the next level.

In the last 1 1/2 year I started to be the diver kind and I enjoy this new style of player.

How do you, men and women(I'm sure there are females here) play.

PS.: Sorry, I forgot to add an option for Undecided.

[SaThaRiel]

Hm, i voted for explorer also i tend to dive more and more. But usually i "finish" most levels before going deeper.

[NeoWizard]

I consider myself now as a diver and find it hard no to play explorer. I tried to go back to exploring but the tendancy to dive is too strong. I never been deeper than 56 in seven years, I'll have to play more paranoid if I ever want to win at least once.

[Napsterbater]

I dive straight down to 500' as fast as I can, then go a little more cautiously to 1000' I get bad though once I get Detect Treasure, because every time I see an unidentified potion or rod, I figure I have to get it while I'm still on an easier part of the dungeon. I have problems restraining myself, especially past 3000'. If there's two or three unidentified consumables or rods in one place, I'll brave ridiculous dangers like nexus/inertia/vibration hounds to get them. I have to learn to chill out and curb my enthusiasm. I guess I should realize that most of the stuff I'm not going to use. I should be happy once I id -TO !Str !Dex !Con and not tear off after every new wand.

[Malak Darkhunter]

If I feel like I'm to powerful I dive down about 10 levels at a time.

[z118]

I completely explore every level, unless forced to leave by overwhelming creatures.

[PowerDiver]

It's an infinite dungeon. In terms of exploration, you actually explore *more* as what you call a diver, in terms of area/time, and what you explore has a deeper average depth. The diver encounters a larger variety of flavors of items and monsters as well, the essence of exploration. Are you in search of new Wyrms or the same old worms?

[edit] offensive remark deleted

[PowerDiver]

Your poll should have read [deleted]

That was out of line Sorry.

[Hariolor]

I started as an explorer, but once I got a decent feel for the monsters and hazards, I became a diver. I enjoy the game much more as a diver. I die more, but I also more frequently encounter exciting situations and cool items.

Personally, I got bored with pretending I was an explorer pretty quickly, if nothing else because aside from monster and item ID, there is very little to actually explore. In-game, Angband (the place) behaves more like a magical labyrinth that is ever-changing, than a deep hole that can be thoroughly explored and mastered. That being the case, I decided my only goal in the game is to kill M. Might sound short-sighted to some, but I found that, in my case, two things suddenly happened after my change of heart:

1) I became a better player
2) I had more fun

So now it's dive dive dive dive dive. My biggest weakness now is an obsessive tendency to return to town every three to five levels until I have amassed ~200,000 GP and decent gear.

[will_asher]

I go down levels faster than I used to, and will even sometimes go down a few levels as soon as I see the stairs, but still mostly tend toward exploring. I won't go down more than four levels at a time without thoroughly exploring at least one of them.

[buzzkill]

I chose diver because I never feel the need to explore a whole level, though I think I'm more of a hybrid. I dive as much as I need to in order to keep myself entertained. If I'm not challenged where I'm at, I'll take the next down staircase, but I don't dive just for the sake of getting deep. Also, I almost never take an up staircase, never take the same stairs case I arrived via, and always play with disconnected stairs if it's an option. I too feel the need to ID unknown flavors. I don't know if it's really benificial given the risks I sometimes endure, but it give me something to do besides slaughter orc pits.

[Marble Dice]

I seek out and take down stairs as soon as I find them, but I don't obsess overmuch about turn count, and I'll take frequent detours if they seem interesting - new flavors, possibly useful equipment, easy xp targets worth as little as 10% of a level. I'm certainly not above exploring an entire level if it's got a lot of interesting stuff in it or I want to know what really caused a good level feeling. I usually make it to 1500' in about 300k, and slow down a bit after that.

[d_m]

I won my first game with a hybrid approach (diving to particular depths but then hanging out trying to get stronger and stock up on money/consumables). After that I tried to go for low turn counts (e.g. no resting) which I found to be a *lot* harder.

Recently, I have tried to minimize my "real time" playing but haven't worried so much about doing "R*" whenever I feel like it. I managed to get a priest to dungeon level 98 at character level 35 in about two days doing this.

I agree that diving is the best strategy, although I will sometimes spend a lot of time on a level with a lot of unknown flavors I can get to, or some really promising rooms/vaults.

I do think it's good for less experienced players to periodically explore a level to learn about monsters they haven't seen before, or to do controlled experiments with fighting strategies. I imagine veterans don't need to do this as much.

[Nick]

I voted explorer, but it's really a little from column A, a little from column B.

[Zyphyr]

I'm a mix. Dive until I start to feel uncomfortable with the difficulty of my current level, then switch to explorer mode for a while. Dive again when I feel ready.