Do you dive aggressively or slowly?

[runequester]

It seems there's three broad ways to go:

1: Explore levels thoroughly before delving deeper.

2: Dive rapidly to get good items sooner.

3: "Grind" levels to build up resources before diving.



So far, I've mostly done number 1: Explorer as much of the level as I can each time, but I rarely repeat levels. I am curious how people play though.

[Malak Darkhunter]

I go as deep as I feel confident about my survivability, especially playing warriors. If I have good gear that covers the 4 most important resists, fire, lightning, cold, acid, and a lot of hit points I dive down as far as I can until it gets dangerous to continue without better gear.

Rogues however can use their stealth to dive down deep and search for good artifacts and items, and piccking and choosing their fights, and running away, knowing when to exscape is what keeps you alive or gets you killed, If you notice your destroying everything getting generated on the DL then dive deeper. You have a greater chance of finding better stuff the deeper you go.

Alot of players including myself will try to get to stat gain levels as quickly as possible, around levels 35-40, to build up stats before going deeper, in ex. beefing the character up for a while before going down.

[Derakon]

I dive quickly until I feel like I'm pushing the limits of sanity, at which point I switch to a clear-what-I-can mode until I get some good gear, at which point I dive again. Of course, even in the second mode I'm still taking down staircases; just not as quickly as when diving.

[d_m]

1: Explore levels thoroughly before delving deeper.

2: Dive rapidly to get good items sooner.

3: "Grind" levels to build up resources before diving.

When playing for myself I tend to do #2, but when play testing (which is increasingly what I find myself doing) I do #1 instead to get a better feel for what the level was like.

I don't find #3 to be very much fun. I only do things like this when I need consumables for the final fight.

[Zyphyr]

I do pretty much what Derakon does.

[saarn]

I used to always do 1-- I think my best character ever that way maybe hit Clvl 12. Now I do more of 2. I'm still not nearly as good as some people here (I think my best character hit Dlvl 60 / Clvl 40 and I'm out of practice now). One thing I've noticed is that clearing levels is a horrible way to level up your character or to get good equipment. The random stuff monsters drop gets so much better as you go deeper, while the experience for killing monsters on a given level drops very quickly. By contrast, the experience for killing isolated monsters in deeper levels relative to the risk is way better. (I think this is really one of the tricks-- find someone on their own who's vulnerable and whack them, run the hell away from pack mobs or anything unique or that has scary powers like paralyse or summon-- take the stairs you came down on if you need to, and if there is scary stuff up there, come back down until it is clear).

Then again, I play mages a lot so maybe that colors my thinking.

[will_asher]

It seems there's three broad ways to go:

1: Explore levels thoroughly before delving deeper.

2: Dive rapidly to get good items sooner.

3: "Grind" levels to build up resources before diving.

Once I have basic necesities (mainly a few ?WoR, CCW & a decent weapon), I go fast as possible to dL10 or 11. Then I do #1 for awhile, occationally repeating a level hoping for better gear. Once I find free action (often doesn't happen til at least dL18), I start doing #4: which is go down immedietly with a boring level feeling, otherwise explore a level until I see something that looks either too dangerous or too annoying to deal with, then I take the nearest downstairs. If I get to dL~35 without getting significantly tougher (I usually die before getting that far), I do #3 for a while. When I'm more comfortable about going deeper I go back to #4.

[Derakon]

Then again, I play mages a lot so maybe that colors my thinking.

Mages are probably the hardest class to win with, in no small part because their early game is very difficult. Pathetic survivability and limited offense are big shackles to wear. Just in case you weren't already aware.

[saarn]

Mages are probably the hardest class to win with, in no small part because their early game is very difficult. Pathetic survivability and limited offense are big shackles to wear. Just in case you weren't already aware.

What was the amazing post on playing mages?

Run Away!!!!

I think just reading that made me several times better. . .

[Edit]
here it is: [URL="http://angband.oook.cz/fun/mages.php"]

[Raxmei]

Normally 2, switching to 3 when I feel the dungeon's getting too dangerous. There's not much point to making it a priority to fully explore levels in a normal game. The dungeon will regenerate the level as many times as you want and there aren't any unique features to miss. I'll take the time to explore the level if I'm intentionally putting off descending further or I have reason to suspect something good is there.

[Cold_Heart]

Dive to dlvl 10 asap, grind for basic xp/gear/gold.

Kill all uniques that spawn on these levels.

Go 5 levels deeper. Grind and hunt uniques until all are dead agin.

Go 5 levels deeper. Repeat until dlvl 98. Grind until have found all artifacts.

Dive to 100, win the game.

[Djabanete]

Playing Chengband (where the level feeling updates itself as monsters and treasure are generated), I just hit the stairs whenever the level feeling gets boring. If there's something interesting on the level, I sniff it out.

[Gorbad]

Dive at high speed, disconnected stairs.

- Take first down stair immediately
- Cast/Zap Detect stairs, and immediately go for it unless:
- Detect objects shows something interesting
- Detect monsters shows a pit of treasure dropping monsters

Only when I find that for the last few levels I've been doing nothing but Teleporting (myself or others) to safety do I slow down and do some up/down switching.

[buzzkill]

Dive at high speed, disconnected stairs.

- Take first down stair immediately
- Cast/Zap Detect stairs, and immediately go for it unless:
- Detect objects shows something interesting
- Detect monsters shows a pit of treasure dropping monsters

This is pretty much what I do, which usually results in playing the early levels a little slowly (trying to search out unknown flavors), and then (once most flavors are discovered) diving far too quickly, which results in...

... been doing nothing but Teleporting (myself or others) to safety do I slow down and do some up/down switching.

It sounds like a good plan, but ends up being kinda frustrating (since you're unable to kill anything) and cheesy (given the widespread availability of teleport other/teleport level).

[fizzix]

It sounds like a good plan, but ends up being kinda frustrating (since you're unable to kill anything) and cheesy (given the widespread availability of teleport other/teleport level).

in 3.4 ?TL is much rarer (no more stacks in BM) and DD drops you down 5 levels after a delay, so it can't be used as an escape either.

Also unless you are playing mage or get lucky, you're not likely to find a source of TO until dlevel 40 or so at a reasonable diving speed. Then it does get easy to dive down to 99.


As far as the original question. I tend to do the following:

1) Find stairs
2) Kill any lucrative monsters on the way (i.e. dragons)
3) Pick up any objects nearby. Fuzzy detection in 3.4 has me going around for more objects than I otherwise would.
4) Go down stairs.

It's more efficient to get to the bottom quicker, but I've taken to going slower and enjoying the descent. Hanging around stat-gain to build up takes forever, so I don't bother with that, just plod steadily downwards and use =CON until you can bring the stat up.