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[StMicah]

There isn't really a good base to compare chars, and turncount is bad measure because it doesn't really tell you anything how well you played,

So what sort of standards do you use to determine how well you played (aside from recognizing stupid moves)? I ask because I'm tweaking my play style--I got bored of 300K turn games and have been trying to do it in 1/2 the turn-count, but not by avoiding rest or teleporting or cutting movement around town. (I've been playing hobbit rangers or hobbit rogues.)

[AnonymousHero]

That's the weakness of comps. There isn't really a good base to compare chars, and turncount is bad measure because it doesn't really tell you anything how well you played, and that is because turns are mostly used in doing stuff that have no important impact on gameplay.

Exactly right. My current thinking at least is that Angband (or any roguelike, really) characters don't form a poset in any meaningful way. (Of course you can define arbitrary posets, but that's not the point.)

I think I'm going to be removing the idea of a "score" from T2-AH for the very same reason.

[Tibarius]

re: StMicah

The range i determine my playing style ranges from
winner to killed.

I handle it like a boolean Expression ... either the char is a winner or he got killed.

If it is a winner i played well, and if the char is killed i played not good enough.

[mushroom patch]

Not even a poset? I don't know about that.

Anyway, I don't see how one can say turn count isn't a measure of quality of play. It's true there's some noise due to randomization of dungeons, teleportation, and so on, but decreasing turn count puts a pressure on the player that just doesn't exist otherwise (in angband at least) and beyond a certain point, lower turn counts indicate better exploitation of available resources, better character building, better resource collection, etc.

[Derakon]

Not even a poset? I don't know about that.

Anyway, I don't see how one can say turn count isn't a measure of quality of play. It's true there's some noise due to randomization of dungeons, teleportation, and so on, but decreasing turn count puts a pressure on the player that just doesn't exist otherwise (in angband at least) and beyond a certain point, lower turn counts indicate better exploitation of available resources, better character building, better resource collection, etc.

There's two main issues with turncount.

The first is that it encourages tedious playstyles, like stairscumming or using teleportation in town rather than walking to stores. You can fix these with game options; fair enough.

The second is that it encourages flagrantly risky playstyles. Dive to 4900' immediately, as fast as you can, and then hope you survive. Sure, survival at that depth is dependent on skill, but it's also massively dependent on luck when you're unprepared...and yet, being lucky enough to survive down there would give you a huge leg up on your (presumably about equally-skilled) opponents. A hypothetical player who was really dedicated to winning the competition would probably end up killing 20 characters for every 1 survivor. So do you then mandate that everyone only get one shot at the competition? That's unkind to the players who aren't willing to go to such extremes.

[AnonymousHero]

There's two main issues with turncount.

The first is that it encourages tedious playstyles, like stairscumming or using teleportation in town rather than walking to stores. You can fix these with game options; fair enough.

The second is that it encourages flagrantly risky playstyles. Dive to 4900' immediately, as fast as you can, and then hope you survive. Sure, survival at that depth is dependent on skill, but it's also massively dependent on luck when you're unprepared...and yet, being lucky enough to survive down there would give you a huge leg up on your (presumably about equally-skilled) opponents. A hypothetical player who was really dedicated to winning the competition would probably end up killing 20 characters for every 1 survivor. So do you then mandate that everyone only get one shot at the competition? That's unkind to the players who aren't willing to go to such extremes.

First it's Timo, then Derakon who snatches the words right from my mouth!

(Btw, "poset" = "partially ordered set", i.e. a set where you can impose a well-defined order.)

[StMicah]

The range i determine my playing style ranges from
winner to killed.

I handle it like a boolean Expression ... either the char is a winner or he got killed.

If it is a winner i played well, and if the char is killed i played not good enough.

Agreed...but of the winners how do you characterize / compare them?

I just like some more quantifiable measure of how well one winning hobbit ranger did compared to another--I guess I could use my personal score board, but I've never bothered to figure out what those scores track.

[Tibarius]

re: quantify winners

There is no measurement in killing Morgoth, you either kill him or not.

Every character doing so reached the in-game goal. You can set up out-of-game measurements like kill Morgoth with the lowest possible turncount, kill him with a shovel of 1d2, without rings etc ... but that are all your personal "settings".

[mushroom patch]

First it's Timo, then Derakon who snatches the words right from my mouth!

(Btw, "poset" = "partially ordered set", i.e. a set where you can impose a well-defined order.)

I know what a poset is. I suspect you meant a totally ordered set. Saying something is partially ordered is considerably weaker and includes the possibility you raise in your comment: That two characters are incomparable. I think it's probably true that some characters cannot be sensibly compared, but on the other hand I think there are some characters that are in some sense better than some others.

@Derakon, I don't agree that extreme diving tactics are inherently riskier than the alternatives. Playing a faster game means less contact with monsters, which in turn leaves less room for unforced errors. In other words, while the "risk per unit time" is greater, the lesser time results in less overall risk (in my opinion/experience). I don't think survival at high depths is a matter of luck either. Angband has very consistent mechanics and can be reliably negotiated with good tactics, again imo.

Ultimately, there's not much in angband you could use to measure characters other than turn count. Other measures, like artifact lists or experience or score are silly. They're just a matter of how long you play and there's no limit to that. If optimal speedrunning requires tedious tactics, that's a game design issue that might deserve a look, but I don't really see it myself.

[Derakon]

@Derakon, I don't agree that extreme diving tactics are inherently riskier than the alternatives. Playing a faster game means less contact with monsters, which in turn leaves less room for unforced errors. In other words, while the "risk per unit time" is greater, the lesser time results in less overall risk (in my opinion/experience). I don't think survival at high depths is a matter of luck either. Angband has very consistent mechanics and can be reliably negotiated with good tactics, again imo.

How luck-based is surviving at 4900' at clvl 30 with no gear? What about clvl 20? What if you're a human warrior? You can always push things to greater theoretical extremes; the less well-equipped your character is, the greater a factor luck plays in their survival at the deeps.

NB a really extremist competition player would restart whenever they don't get a "fast enough" dive to the bottom of the dungeon, or if their dive is insufficiently lucrative, etc. At the ultimate extreme, the player would effectively be making a tool-assisted speedrun of the game, restarting each time anything doesn't go optimally in their favor, including e.g. not starting on dlvl 1 one step away from a Potion of Experience, and a maximal stack of Scrolls of Deep Descent. This is pretty silly, of course, but restarting whenever you feel like your run has been insufficiently optimal would make for a faster run...so long as you are reasonably assured that your restart threshold isn't so strict that you can't actually finish a game by the end of the competition.

Not, mind you, that I have any better suggestions!

[Timo Pietilä]

So what sort of standards do you use to determine how well you played (aside from recognizing stupid moves)?

I don't. If game felt easy without grinding, it was a good game basically.

[AnonymousHero]

I know what a poset is. I suspect you meant a totally ordered set. Saying something is partially ordered is considerably weaker and includes the possibility you raise in your comment: That two characters are incomparable. I think it's probably true that some characters cannot be sensibly compared, but on the other hand I think there are some characters that are in some sense better than some others.

I mentioned it only for others following along, but right you are -- I meant totally ordered.

[mushroom patch]

NB a really extremist competition player would restart whenever they don't get a "fast enough" dive to the bottom of the dungeon, or if their dive is insufficiently lucrative, etc. At the ultimate extreme, the player would effectively be making a tool-assisted speedrun of the game, restarting each time anything doesn't go optimally in their favor, including e.g. not starting on dlvl 1 one step away from a Potion of Experience, and a maximal stack of Scrolls of Deep Descent. This is pretty silly, of course, but restarting whenever you feel like your run has been insufficiently optimal would make for a faster run...so long as you are reasonably assured that your restart threshold isn't so strict that you can't actually finish a game by the end of the competition.

I agree with that, but I'm not seeing why that's bad. As you say, competitions have time limits. There's skill in being able to effectively judge when a run is a failure, in being able to balance that against the need to actually finish runs, being able to play well enough to capitalize on great luck when it happens, and being able to do all of that fast enough that the number of runs you make within the competition time limit actually meaningfully improves your chances of winning. The kinds of extreme outlier events you mention would only come into play in a bot competition.

In DCSS, people speed run for both turn count and clock time, both of which are reasonable measures of quality of play.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Comp 169 might have been easy for Timo, but it was very hard for me, and I won the damned thing! And that only by the skin of my teeth. I'm the first to admit, I was lucky to pull it off. http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=17429

It was a crushing, blood-soaked competition. Lot's of player attempts and only three winners.

As for how to measure the competitions, I've always thought it should be like Le Tour de France. Sure there's the Yellow Jersey for the overall winner, but there's also the King of the Mountains, Sprinter, Best Young Rider, Best Team, and daily stage winners. There are a lot of ways to measure "success".

[wobbly]

Pretty sure any comp win is still a win and only the 1st place is shortest time. I just play my normal game with a little extra attention to turns and I think most players are the same. Otherwise you end up doing silly stuff like avoid closed doors because of auto-lock picking. In regards to not resting and teleporting I play that way sometimes anyways. It's not as ridiculous as it sounds, just a different way of playing. As for other win measures there was that hobbit that was least xp and you could do a pacifist least kill count.