End Game Grind

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  • Nick
    Vanilla maintainer
    • Apr 2007
    • 9637

    #31
    Originally posted by AnonymousHero
    (Aside: Why isn't it "approve of this message"?)
    Because it's an official thing - it's formally approve and allow to be published, rather than just generally approve of.
    One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
    In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

    Comment

    • AnonymousHero
      Veteran
      • Jun 2007
      • 1393

      #32
      Originally posted by Nick
      Because it's an official thing - it's formally approve and allow to be published, rather than just generally approve of.
      Aha! Thanks for that. TIL.

      (It still sounds really weird and stilted. Do any of you native speakers also have this experience of the weirdness?)

      EDIT: Hang on... shouldn't it be "approved this message"? Logically the unmodified phrase is really weird, I think.

      Comment

      • Nomad
        Knight
        • Sep 2010
        • 958

        #33
        Originally posted by AnonymousHero
        Aha! Thanks for that. TIL.

        (It still sounds really weird and stilted. Do any of you native speakers also have this experience of the weirdness?)

        EDIT: Hang on... shouldn't it be "approved this message"? Logically the unmodified phrase is really weird, I think.
        I think to a native speaker it sounds a little bit old-fashioned or formal; "approve" in this sense is being used as a synonym of "endorse" or "support", and in modern English it probably would be more common to use one of those words instead. The reason that it's "approve" and not "approved" is that you're saying that your support of the message is ongoing, rather than just that you supported it at the time it was written but maybe you don't any more.

        Basically, the reason you say "I approve this message" is the same as the reason you would say "I play Angband" and not either "I play with Angband" ("play with" is a related but slightly different thing from "play") or "I played Angband" (implies you did at one point in the past but maybe not now).

        Comment

        • Ingwe Ingweron
          Veteran
          • Jan 2009
          • 2129

          #34
          Originally posted by Nomad
          I think to a native speaker it sounds a little bit old-fashioned or formal; "approve" in this sense is being used as a synonym of "endorse" or "support", and in modern English it probably would be more common to use one of those words instead.....
          Agreed with everything you said, except sounds "a little bit old-fashioned or formal" and "more common to use [synonym] instead". Especially during a Presidential Election year, at least in the US, we native speakers are inundated with political television advertisements ending with, e.g., "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message."

          It's a near constant barrage right now.
          “We're more of the love, blood, and rhetoric school. Well, we can do you blood and love without the rhetoric, and we can do you blood and rhetoric without the love, and we can do you all three concurrent or consecutive. But we can't give you love and rhetoric without the blood. Blood is compulsory. They're all blood, you see.”
          ― Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead

          Comment

          • Nomad
            Knight
            • Sep 2010
            • 958

            #35
            Originally posted by Ingwe Ingweron
            Agreed with everything you said, except sounds "a little bit old-fashioned or formal" and "more common to use [synonym] instead". Especially during a Presidential Election year, at least in the US, we native speakers are inundated with political television advertisements ending with, e.g., "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message."

            It's a near constant barrage right now.
            Yeah, I meant more that it's fairly uncommon outside of that one specific usage. (Which I've picked up by osmosis from all the frequent parodies despite not being in the US.)

            Comment

            • Bogatyr
              Knight
              • Feb 2014
              • 525

              #36
              Originally posted by PowerDiver
              So?

              You want an absolutely safe fight, and then you complain the grind is boring. That's on you.

              Take some risks. The game is a lot more fun.

              Here's a dump where I had base speed +16.

              http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=9556
              Where did I ever complain of that? I don't recall it. I spend very little time grinding. But I don't ever stand in LoS of Morgoth at less than 30 speed if at all possible. If you love excitement so much, why not fight Morgoth with less than 600 total hit points (or whatever the value of mana storm is)? That would get your blood pumping.

              There is overcautious, and there is just plain stupid. Allowing a Morgoth double move is pretty stupid in my book. But hey if you like to play that way, rock on bro.

              Comment

              • PowerDiver
                Prophet
                • Mar 2008
                • 2820

                #37
                Originally posted by Bogatyr
                Where did I ever complain of that? I don't recall it. I spend very little time grinding.
                My apologies. I was responding to the totality of the thread, and chose quoting your post as the simplest way to do so. I should have removed your name, and I shouldn't have used the word "you" either.

                Comment

                • Pete Mack
                  Prophet
                  • Apr 2007
                  • 6883

                  #38
                  PGiven that he won that game in 57k player moves, he is not actually given to stupid risks. Calculated risks are a very different thing. If you are saving your calculated risks for the final fight, you are doing very close to optimal play. Further note you can count turns so you will rarely actually be surprised by a double move. And extra shots archery almost completely eliminates the double moves

                  Comment

                  • PowerDiver
                    Prophet
                    • Mar 2008
                    • 2820

                    #39
                    Originally posted by Bogatyr
                    I don't ever stand in LoS of Morgoth at less than 30 speed if at all possible. If you love excitement so much, why not fight Morgoth with less than 600 total hit points (or whatever the value of mana storm is)? That would get your blood pumping.

                    There is overcautious, and there is just plain stupid. Allowing a Morgoth double move is pretty stupid in my book. But hey if you like to play that way, rock on bro.
                    I didn't want to address this before, for fear of diluting my apology. But now that we're past that ...

                    While manastorm has a max of 600, there is a range, and 600 is unlikely. I have killed M with fewer than 600 hp, more than once. Apparently I didn't bother to post a dump, probably because I typically play with modded code and I usually don't keep track of whether I savescum for debugging purposes. Truly, I did worry about having only 631 hp in my most impressive win, but I didn't resort to scumming for spawned or summoned monsters to get a better con ring even so.

                    Worrying about two manastorms on consecutive moves when you are at speed +29 is misguided. Sure, avoid it if you can, but it's not worth spending 2 hours real time scumming for a higher speed ring unless you are going for your first win. My guess is that you have taken significantly larger risks in every game you have won, much earlier on, perhaps without realizing it.

                    The biggest common mistake that is "just plain stupid" is being overcautious.

                    The game is more fun and just plain better when played the way I play.

                    Comment

                    • Bogatyr
                      Knight
                      • Feb 2014
                      • 525

                      #40
                      Originally posted by PowerDiver
                      The game is more fun and just plain better when played the way I play.
                      For you. That's the great thing about angband: "there's more than one way to play." For me, investing time in a character only to lose in the finale because of not taking a simple precaution is not fun. Sure, I lose focus throughout the game and take risks and sometimes I die because of it sometimes. Total safety like LoS abuse and pillar dancing does get boring. But I bet you factor in things without knowing it, like distance as you mention. You have your minimums too, you probably just haven't enumerated them. Sure +29 is probably pretty safe, but how about +25? +20? +10? +0? At some point you too would say "well that's just a ridiculous risk." And everyone's point is different.

                      Comment

                      • Bogatyr
                        Knight
                        • Feb 2014
                        • 525

                        #41
                        Originally posted by Pete Mack
                        PGiven that he won that game in 57k player moves, he is not actually given to stupid risks. Calculated risks are a very different thing. If you are saving your calculated risks for the final fight, you are doing very close to optimal play. Further note you can count turns so you will rarely actually be surprised by a double move. And extra shots archery almost completely eliminates the double moves
                        Not everyone plays for turns or "optimal" play.

                        Comment

                        • Pete Mack
                          Prophet
                          • Apr 2007
                          • 6883

                          #42
                          No, but I was responding to your claim of it being "pretty stupid" to go against M with less than 20 base speed. It is certainly risky. But given the evidence of a 57k play win, it is demonstrably not uniformly stupid

                          Comment

                          • Bogatyr
                            Knight
                            • Feb 2014
                            • 525

                            #43
                            Originally posted by Pete Mack
                            No, but I was responding to your claim of it being "pretty stupid" to go against M with less than 20 base speed. It is certainly risky. But given the evidence of a 57k play win, it is demonstrably not uniformly stupid
                            Fine, I withdraw the comment. "Undue risk" according to my play preferences.

                            Comment

                            • the Invisible Stalker
                              Adept
                              • Jul 2009
                              • 164

                              #44
                              Originally posted by Nick
                              Because it's an official thing - it's formally approve and allow to be published, rather than just generally approve of.
                              Nick is, as usual, correct. It's not a formal vs informal distinction. "Approve" and "approve of" are simply different verbs. An annoying part of my job is approving some of my colleagues' expenses. I don't always approve of all the expenses I approve. There are other people whose expenses I'm not responsible for approving, but I might well approve of some of their expenses.

                              Comment

                              • AnonymousHero
                                Veteran
                                • Jun 2007
                                • 1393

                                #45
                                Originally posted by the Invisible Stalker
                                Nick is, as usual, correct. It's not a formal vs informal distinction. "Approve" and "approve of" are simply different verbs. An annoying part of my job is approving some of my colleagues' expenses. I don't always approve of all the expenses I approve. There are other people whose expenses I'm not responsible for approving, but I might well approve of some of their expenses.
                                Right, but it's just really unusual to hear it in the present tense. (I think that's the grammatical tense in "... and I approve this message"?)

                                It wouldn't sound weird at all to me to say "... and I approved this message". This would also (arguably) be a more logical thing to say since, by the time the viewer sees/hears the message it's already been approved.

                                Anyway...

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