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For those of you not familiar with tool-assisted speedruns, they are essentially videos of what "optimal play" of videogames look like. Thanks to emulators, savestates, and RAM watching, the "player" never makes a mistake and can ensure that random events work out in his favor. They aren't about showing skillful play, but more about taking optimality to its often-absurd conclusion.
I gave some thought to what an Angband TAS would look like. Probably not very interesting, as it turns out. Here's the strategy I came up with:
* Roll up a ranger (closest thing to easy mode available). Race should probably be something with good Dexterity to make hit rolls easier. Hobbit or Gnome, say. Low XP penalty to make grinding to level 40 go faster.
* Kill a townsperson. They drop a dagger with a high-level ego attribute (e.g. Holy Avenger). ID and sell the dagger. Buy a stack of 50 Scrolls of Deep Descent from the black market (each reading sends you down 2 dungeon levels). This requires significant luck manipulation, assuming it's possible at all (otherwise, buy as many as possible, and manipulate dungeon levels to spawn more).
* Read scrolls down to dlvl 99.
* Pick up a Heavy Crossbow of the Haradrim (x5 multiplier, +1 extra shot), some Bolts of Acid, two stacks of Bolts of Slay Evil, and a big Ring of Speed (theoretically unlimited modifier; in practice, +20 or so seems the best bet) off the ground.
* Shoot down something big like a greater demon for levels (ranger gets +1 shots at levels 20 and 40).
* Shoot Sauron to death. Naturally he never casts anything. Bolts of Acid should deal 8 * (4d5 + ~40) = up to 480 damage/shot; Sauron has 10500HP so 22 bolts are needed to kill him. During this time he will take 6 steps towards us (speed parity but we get 4 shots/round).
* Read scroll of Deep Descent
* Shoot Morgoth to death. Naturally he never casts anything. Morgy has 20k hitpoints and we can only do up to 420 damage/round since he's immune to acid (have to use Slay Evil instead, which has a worse multiplier), so we need to shoot him 48 times. During this time he will take 18 steps towards us; we may need to learn Phase Door from our starting spellbook and cast it once.
Any ideas on how this could be made faster (short of using a version with more favorable missile branding or the like)? Any ideas on how to restrict it to be more <i>interesting</i>? Obviously ditching scrolls of Deep Descent would be the first suggestion, but then you're stuck manipulating each dungeon level to have a down staircase right next to the arrival staircase, for basically the same effect. Not using rangers would be the next suggestion so you don't get access to their super-broken missile capabilities...but missiles remain a good way to kill so you just end up phase dooring a few more times.
Restrict yourself to melee and you just end up with a different kit "randomly" found at the bottom of the dungeon (as well as a bunch of potions of STR/DEX), as well as the need to manipulate Morgoth to miss with all of his attacks. Restrict yourself to spells and you find the attack spellbooks and some potions of Restore Mana...
I guess that fundamentally, if you have control over the RNG then Angband stops being very interesting.
I gave some thought to what an Angband TAS would look like. Probably not very interesting, as it turns out. Here's the strategy I came up with:
* Roll up a ranger (closest thing to easy mode available). Race should probably be something with good Dexterity to make hit rolls easier. Hobbit or Gnome, say. Low XP penalty to make grinding to level 40 go faster.
* Kill a townsperson. They drop a dagger with a high-level ego attribute (e.g. Holy Avenger). ID and sell the dagger. Buy a stack of 50 Scrolls of Deep Descent from the black market (each reading sends you down 2 dungeon levels). This requires significant luck manipulation, assuming it's possible at all (otherwise, buy as many as possible, and manipulate dungeon levels to spawn more).
* Read scrolls down to dlvl 99.
* Pick up a Heavy Crossbow of the Haradrim (x5 multiplier, +1 extra shot), some Bolts of Acid, two stacks of Bolts of Slay Evil, and a big Ring of Speed (theoretically unlimited modifier; in practice, +20 or so seems the best bet) off the ground.
* Shoot down something big like a greater demon for levels (ranger gets +1 shots at levels 20 and 40).
* Shoot Sauron to death. Naturally he never casts anything. Bolts of Acid should deal 8 * (4d5 + ~40) = up to 480 damage/shot; Sauron has 10500HP so 22 bolts are needed to kill him. During this time he will take 6 steps towards us (speed parity but we get 4 shots/round).
* Read scroll of Deep Descent
* Shoot Morgoth to death. Naturally he never casts anything. Morgy has 20k hitpoints and we can only do up to 420 damage/round since he's immune to acid (have to use Slay Evil instead, which has a worse multiplier), so we need to shoot him 48 times. During this time he will take 18 steps towards us; we may need to learn Phase Door from our starting spellbook and cast it once.
Any ideas on how this could be made faster (short of using a version with more favorable missile branding or the like)? Any ideas on how to restrict it to be more <i>interesting</i>? Obviously ditching scrolls of Deep Descent would be the first suggestion, but then you're stuck manipulating each dungeon level to have a down staircase right next to the arrival staircase, for basically the same effect. Not using rangers would be the next suggestion so you don't get access to their super-broken missile capabilities...but missiles remain a good way to kill so you just end up phase dooring a few more times.
Restrict yourself to melee and you just end up with a different kit "randomly" found at the bottom of the dungeon (as well as a bunch of potions of STR/DEX), as well as the need to manipulate Morgoth to miss with all of his attacks. Restrict yourself to spells and you find the attack spellbooks and some potions of Restore Mana...
I guess that fundamentally, if you have control over the RNG then Angband stops being very interesting.
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