New player...

[distorted Humor]

Well I just played my first game of Angband. My 7th half-troll died by reading a scroll of deep delving while in town, ending up about '450 down, and meeting Orfax, Son of Boldor.

I played plenty of nethack over the years, but I was wondering is their any guides for new players. Sorry if I missed a obvious one.

[Carnivean]

Search for Fizzix's let's play angband on youtube.

[Derakon]

There's also a screenshot Let's Play that starts off with a half-troll warrior, if you prefer the screenshot/text format over the video format.

[Timo Pietilä]

Well I just played my first game of Angband. My 7th half-troll died by reading a scroll of deep delving while in town, ending up about '450 down, and meeting Orfax, Son of Boldor.

I played plenty of nethack over the years, but I was wondering is their any guides for new players. Sorry if I missed a obvious one.

Angband is quite easy to learn. No hidden tricks like dipping your weapon in a fountain or use blindfold in medusas lair or anything like that. This is more a quake when nethack is leisure suit larry.

[Bimbul]

Hey Distorted Humour (and all else - my first post here).

Attracted to this post as I feel a bit sheepish lurking around here being an ex- or -retired Nethack player myself, good to see I'm not the only one.

The advice of starting with a half-troll is good if you're not used to rogue-likes at all in my opinion.

I'm by no means an Angband expert - probably played 5 games of Vanilla ever but did dabble quite a lot with ZAngband about 10 years ago. I have personally had much more success with mages than with warriors - there are a lot of monsters in this game that you really don't want to fight in melee and distance spells work well on these. But then I'm into magic casters anyway.

Your Nethack experience will certainly stand you in good stead though - I've progressed much more rapidly with this game than I did as a Nethack noob a long time ago. A lot of the techniques are similar - such as not using unidentified stuff. It is quite different too however - I'm really enjoying my current return to Angband. Currently have a Gnomish mage down at lvl 36 fighting strange major demons - these things seem to be a LOT more dangerous than the major demons in Nethack - which is cool.

I hate anything but basic guides to these type of games though personally - the fun is the learning experience. Though beating the game works too - get more reward if you put in the work though - for me.

Beware the un-Nethack things of Nexus and Nether - I'm still not sure what they are are - but I know you want to avoid monsters that zap you with them - like the plague.

Have fun

[Carnivean]

Nexus and Nether - I'm still not sure what they are are

You're not alone there. I believe that they are Macguffins.

[Timo Pietilä]

[nether and nexus]

You're not alone there. I believe that they are Macguffins.

Nether is some force of underworld. "death force". Mainly undeads use it.
Word itself means "under" or "below surface" (Netherlands).

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nether

Nexus causes dimension twisting. Causes you to teleport around and in rare occasion twists your body.
Word itself means binding together, so apparently nexus breath meddles with those binds.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nexus

[Bimbul]

Thanks both.

Actually I think I had a more clear idea of what Nexus and Nether meant than MacGuffin

[mushroom patch]

Angband is quite easy to learn. No hidden tricks like dipping your weapon in a fountain or use blindfold in medusas lair or anything like that. This is more a quake when nethack is leisure suit larry.

Angband doesn't have the technical depth of Quake. I'd say it's more like Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball.

[Timo Pietilä]

Angband doesn't have the technical depth of Quake. I'd say it's more like Bill Lambeer's Combat Basketball.

Point was that Angband is pretty much shoot 'em up. No tricky puzzles to solve, items have obvious uses, no fundamental complex rules. Just HP vs damage, couple of ailments you might get from odd effects and cures/protections for/against them, detection of critters, movement and dungeon walls creating different obstacles which you can use for your advantage.

Add 3D, real time and 1st person POV and you have quake-variant.

[debo]

I think that variant was called 'hexen'

[AnonymousHero]

A lot of the techniques are similar - such as not using unidentified stuff.

This bit of advice has changed a bit recently. There's been a general move towards making ID-by-use much more reasonable -- i.e. potions of Death have been removed, and most curses too. (Artifacts can be cursed, but if you're playing with standarts they at least have significant upsides. If you're playing with randarts... be careful about wielding unidentified artifacts!).

(snip) these things seem to be a LOT more dangerous than the major demons in Nethack - which is cool.

I haven't played Nethack at all (have watched a few Let's Play's), but AFAIUI as long as you avoid the "classic" gimmick instadeaths by stoning/Medusa/etc. you can basically never die in a single turn because you can absorb quite a lot of damage. Not so in Angband unless you have perfect escapes and are never below 600HP (or so) against a single foe.

Hopefully that wasn't too spoily. GLHF as they say

[Bimbul]

Agreed- the only real instadeaths in Nethack (beyond early game) are death rays and disintegration which are pretty easy to get around by getting resistance (which means immunity in Nethack) or reflection.

You can be insta-drowned by various water creatures but you can genocide them. If you like - though there's more important genocides to do- like liches and mindflayers.

Once you know what you're doing in Nethack you get very difficult to kill though last time I played it they'd buffed up some of the nastier monsters to make it more interesting in late game.

That's one of the attractions for me to Angband beyond it just being a new challenge. I read on another thread that someone else is getting a bit upset by instadeaths but it's always amused me in this game - at least it did in Zangband, I've not encountered it yet in my current week-old new sojourn to vanilla angband. A couple of times back then I had some voice from somewhere I couldn't see saying 'Next turn, you die... (next turn) You die.' Lol. I soon learned to teleport the hell away when I read that. Eventually I managed to kill that major demon (he had a name which I forget - he wandered about in the wild above ground somewhere in Zangband)... can't remember how now - doh. I think I got resistant to nether bolts but I'm not sure...

Sounds like I need to be worried about my current gnome mage. He's clev 31 but has no nether, nexus or confusion resitance and I'm diving around dlev 40 now... - has 140 HP only - ouch. (but 202 mana - yay).

[kandrc]

Sounds like I need to be worried about my current gnome mage. He's clev 31 but has no nether, nexus or confusion resitance and I'm diving around dlev 40 now... - has 140 HP only - ouch. (but 202 mana - yay).

Assuming you have the relevant resistances, and assuming you're +8 (or more) speed with a pair of rings of escaping, that's good enough to kill literally everything (except Kavlax) that's native to that depth. You don't even have to get exploitative. You just find your enemy in another room or corridor, get at least 20 cells away, stone to mud a path straight to them, and hit them with a barrage of the most powerful bolt that they don't resist. And if you don't mind getting exploitative, you can even handle Kavlax with a couple rounds through a 20 cell hockey stick.

By clvl 31, I'm usually twice that deep.

[Bimbul]

Well I'm not experienced with this game I almost certainly play too much like the other game.

No I only have +4 speed. I dropped a ring of escaping at home as it didn't seem worthwhile - ho hum. And what the 'relevant' resistances are I have no clue - yet.

I'm resistant to cold, fire, lightning, poison and blindness only - I'm starting to get annoyed with my artifact finds - I've found about a dozen, maybe more, and they just keep repeating the same ones, sigh -and they're mostly weapons which are useless to me unless they give me a new resistance. My current weapon buffs my intelligence - about 50 mana - so I don't want to lose it unless I get something much more helpful. I do have superb stealth though which I'm sure helps.

I don't really know what I'm doing in this game - I'll work it out eventually

I am pretty powerful nevertheless it seems, I've taken out some apparently powerful things, several major demons and mature dragons (which seem easy - I skipped an ancient one - mostly because something else was firing nether bolts at me on that level) Still annoyingly vulnerable though. Having fun - definitely

[edit] - no I seem to have kept my ring of escaping on me...