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I just lost my level 39 Dunadan paladin to the Lernaean Hydra after getting hit by a roughly 800 damage breath attack, which is almost 200 hp over my maximum life total. Is making a situation like this possible conducive to quality, enjoyable gameplay?
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Well someone might as well have a go.
IMO it depends on the extent to which you like knowing all the mechanics of games you play, as compared with finding stuff out as you go. In a game with permadeath, some people argue for the former - i.e. all the edit file contents known to the player from the start. The game is actually designed from the other viewpoint, though there is an option which gives you full monster knowledge.
You got killed by an unresisted poison breath (I assume). If you'd had resist poison, you'd have survived. Next time you'll know that to face the Learnean Hydra you'll need resist poison or over 800hp. If you don't like discovering this sort of stuff by dying, turn on the full monster memory option.
HTH.
(EDIT: There is also a "cheat_death" option, removing the permadeath from the game. You might prefer to turn that on for a while.)Last edited by Magnate; November 6, 2010, 13:37."Been away so long I hardly knew the place, gee it's good to be back home" - The Beatles -
Those kind of deaths are called "Yet Another Stupid Death". YASD in short. "stupid" doesn't mean game here, it means that you, the player, did something you should not have done. Before you think I claim you stupid, that's the only type of death in this game and we all have experienced it. for example I have lost a +30+ speed nearly 1000 point damage / turn, 1000 point HP, almost every resist covered char to Dracolisk once (forgot to wear FA item).
In your case that was fighting a (unknown) monster without resists to handle it. Either mistake was the "unknown" part, or the "missing resist" part. Missing resist poison perhaps? By the time you meed Lernaean Hydra you should have already learned about danger of not having poison resist. You had seen AMHD:s, right? If you had not have fire resist and got hit by that it would have made over twice the damage you had HP.
To answer to your question, yes, it increases the enjoyment of the playing knowing that you can die. This is a tough game, not something that 5-year old kid can play through in a hour and then forget. Winning is actual achievement, though much easier now than it used to be.Comment
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Perhaps you're the stupid one for thinking it makes sense to have instant kill abilities in a game where death is permanent.
I don't understand the point of putting so much emphasis on being either resistant to EVERYTHING or getting screwed over.Comment
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Yeah, silly me for prancing about oblivious to the fact that I'd be one-shot 20+ hours into my game for not wearing every single resistance. Guess I should've been on my toes. What a fun learning experience!
Say, can you recommend any old Nintendo games where I can jump off a platform and fall into a pit without ever actually seeing the pit until I'm flying face-first into it? It's such a great system that I can't get enough!Comment
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The Roflwtfzomgbbq Quylthulg summons L33t Paladins -more-
In UnAngband, the level dives you.
ASCII Dreams: http://roguelikedeveloper.blogspot.com
Unangband: http://unangband.blogspot.com
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You don't have to resist EVERYthing. Actually, apart from being breathed on by Tarasque, you only Need Pois & Base 4 . The rest are only to counter side effects. Chaos breathing monster are not too common.Originally posted by DerakonComment
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It seems that you don't like the way Angband is structured. However, as Magnate says, there are several options for you. One is to turn on full monster memory. Then you will see how much damage and what type every monster will do. The second option is to turn on cheat death, and then death puts you back at the start of the level.
I too did not like learning by losing a powerful character to an instant death. My first 2-3 wins were with cheat death (actually save scumming). I wasn't convinced to try playing without the backups until I won a game without ever using my scummed save files.Comment
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When starting your next character, press "=", then select "cheat options", "allow player to avoid death". It is a good option for learning how to play this game.
However, see, everyone here agrees that part of the fun in Angband is in being careful to avoid death. It's part of the challenge. If you do not need to be skilled and careful, then the game reduces to "click here to reach level 2", "click here to reach level 3" and so on. And we all play Angband for the challenge.
Other remark: Most of the times, 'being careful' does not mean 'having all possible resistances covered', but 'identify immediately situations that can kill you, and avoid them'.--
Dive fast, die young, leave a high-CHA corpse.Comment
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Once you'll have looked at the Bad Advice thread, you'd probably have a very good idea of what NOT to do
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It's true that Angband has a very Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep learning curve compared to Nethack/Adom though.
Always be ready to escape. Escape means life, and if you are dead you can't beat morgoth
Originally posted by DerakonComment
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I'm sorry you lost your character. Unfortunately, experiences like yours happen to everyone at least once. Now that you've lost a character you've sunk a lot of time into, I have a few recommendations for your next time (assuming you want to play Angband again; given the rather hostile response you've gotten here I wouldn't blame you if you left):
First, turn on the cheat option to know full monster info. Frankly there's no good reason to not know what monsters can do, so it's either turn on the cheat, or look up the spoilers every time you encounter a new monster. If it really bugs you to use a cheat option, get a Rod of Probing and zap it every time you see a new monster; it will fill out the important parts of your monster memory for you.
Second, pay attention to the following important abilities:
* Free Action starts becoming important around 1000'. Without it, monsters can paralyze you, and at that point they can do enough damage/round that paralysis usually means death.
* The basic 4 resistances (fire, cold, acid, electricity) are very important. The damage cap on these is 1600HP (a monster breathing an element does 1/3rd his current HP in damage), which means that even with resists (which cut damage to 1/3rd), you can take up to 533 damage in one shot from one of these elements. That's a lot. Though, if you combine a temporary resistance and a permanent resistance (e.g. armor that gives resist fire, and a Potion of Resist Fire), then you cut damage to 1/9th.
* Poison resistance is also important for a few situations, as you have recently learned. The cap on poison damage is 800HP, and the Lernean Hydra has 4500HP, which is more than enough to hit that cap. Poison resistance will cut that down to a much more manageable 266HP.
* See Invisible is naturally important to see the increasing proportion of hidden monsters as the game goes on.
* Telepathy is more important than you might realize. There's a lot of value in continuous updates on the positions of monsters in the dungeon.
Other resistances are usually not so important for the damage dealt by the attack -- either the element has a low cap (e.g. light/dark at 400HP -- painful but manageable) or the resistance doesn't cut the damage by that much. However, the resistance will still prevent nasty side effects, which makes blindness and confusion resistance important nonetheless.
Third, don't get too attached to your characters. Characters will die, even if you do know what you're up against. Hell, I lost a character a few days back to an unlucky combination of moves (Uriel breathed fire twice in a row, between which I failed a 90% chance to use my wand of Teleport Other). My reaction was more of a "Aw, man, that really shouldn't have happened" -- but it did, and my character died, rest in peace. My new dwarven mage will remember his half-troll ancestor (???) fondly.
This is getting pretty long. I hope it's useful. Good luck with your next character!Comment
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To be honest, I pretty much always save-scum. The super-careful play style doesn't appeal to me; I prefer not to have to start over again, because starting over is tedious and the early game in most variants is tedious, and you never know when character death and the ensuing tedium will rear their head.
Not really, because it removes you from the potentially lethal situation if you die. Which is why I lobby for a "No Permadeath" option, i.e. mark the player a cheater and don't save the game on death. That way you can at least go back and try a different tactic.When starting your next character, press "=", then select "cheat options", "allow player to avoid death". It is a good option for learning how to play this game.Comment
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