A Few Questions/Observations From an Old Player

[Oramin]

I don't know about support for fast diving. I'm diving at what I consider to be a decent speed and I'm playing 3.3.2; I typically go down a level when I haven't finished filling up my inventory with decent loot to take upstairs. My understanding is that they nerfed the drop rate in 3.4.x which would make diving fast more dangerous.

Incidentally, if you have the "no selling" option on that will encourage you to dive faster without adequate gear (because you can't sell the loot you find to buy stuff from the stores).

[Derakon]

Let me just assure you, Oramin, that your dive rate is not "fast diving".

Generally speaking, a fast diver will at bare minimum not bother to explore every level -- they'll take down stairs before they've seen everything on the current level. They'll also probably not be especially obsessive about piling up loot to take to town (and yes, no-selling is an excellent option for divers).

[Oramin]

Oh, I figured my pace didn't qualify as "fast diving".

No, what I was saying was that I don't know how much the game has been tweaked to make fast diving a viable play style.

[fph]

I don't think that the driving reason for many changes was "making fast diving a viable style", but the following recent changes IMHO favored divers:

1-paralyzation is no longer instadeath
2-statgain potions are more spread out
3-the average depth of artifacts (Phial especially) has been slightly increased
4-item burning/freezing chances have been lowered (not sure if this belongs here)
5-no-selling (not sure)
6-introduction of ?deep descent (ok, that's maybe not as "recent" as the other changes listed here)

The following changes, OTOH, helped more level-clearers:
1-detect objects nerfed
2-destruction destroys artifacts
3-Ancient MHD depth increased
4-No more ?teleport in shops

[Derakon]

4-No more ?teleport in shops

Minor nitpick: Vanilla has never sold ?Teleport in shops, outside of the Black Market of course. It's a common addition in variants, but it's never been in the base game.

[fph]

Minor nitpick: Vanilla has never sold ?Teleport in shops, outside of the Black Market of course. It's a common addition in variants, but it's never been in the base game.

Oops, must've mixed them up, thanks for the correction.

[Mondkalb]

After loosing another wimpy rogue my current one is being more lucky. He found a ring of see invisible on level 2 which made it a lot easier to handle the invisible stat drainers. The last few chars had no SI item whatsoever until very deep levels.
I also found boots of speed +8 somewhere relatively early which gave a considerable boost. I'm playing with randarts, but have only two (now clvl 34 at 2400'). A nice weapon with high damage but no other benefits and a good shield which looks a bit like a boosted Celegorm.

But still, the ego items showed up very late.

[Oramin]

BUG REPORT:

Ok, the game (3.3.2) crashed for me for the first time.

I was dealing with Impact Hounds and a Nexus Vortex. The Nexus Vortex got stunned, at which point I attacked/killed it and the game crashed. I don't precisely what happened and I didn't write down any error codes (sorry).

I believe I actually killed it and the Hounds breathed again after it was killed but I wasn't paying that much attention (since I have Stun resistance and wasn't worried about dying due to damage).

[Timo Pietilä]

I don't think that the driving reason for many changes was "making fast diving a viable style", but the following recent changes IMHO favored divers:

2-statgain potions are more spread out

Unless you count in gain-one, lose-one -potions there is no change in these. Divers usually go past gain-one, lose-one phase so fast that they probably don't benefit from them much. Those are more helpful to level clearer.

[Oramin]

Yep, I use them for cash.

[Oramin]

Ok, I just accidentally read a couple Scrolls of Destruction.

So if I hit 'r' instead of 'R' and then hit '*' then that is going to set off the only scroll type that I happen to be carrying without my actually selecting it?

Yeah, I know, I should be more careful about my touch typing but why is there a default key as part of that portion of the interface design?

[Derakon]

I wasn't aware of that bit of interface, but anyway I recommend inscribing "!*" (without the quotation marks) on any items that could have dire consequences for misusing. I slap that onto my Teleport, Teleport Level, Word of Recall, and Destruction items. Each instance of "!*" causes the game to give you an additional prompt whenever you interact with that item in any way. Similarly, "!k" means to prompt before destroying, "!w" to prompt before wielding, etc.

[Raajaton]

Is it possible to inscribe spells in a similar fashion? More specifically, spells that you have assigned to hot keys?

For example last night I was playing my dwarf priest and firing away my OoD's at some unique when I accidentally fat fingered and hit my portal hot key. It wasn't the end of the world, however could I somehow inscribe my portal spell so that if I hit that hot key it will prompt me before casting?

[Derakon]

Alas, no, there isn't. I requested this awhile back and while people generally agreed it was a good idea, I don't think it was considered feasible at the time.

[scud]

Is it possible to inscribe spells in a similar fashion?

Heh, in my current game my rogue found an early Mordenkainen's, and *three* times during ID frenzies I managed to m-f-c to another level when I meant to m-c-f identify. Once it was from a vault containing nothing but corpses and loot. I don't want to know what I might have missed.

Having played a lot of priests/paladins recently, I think it's down to m-d-c muscle memory rather than getting the c/f in the wrong order.