angband speedrun

[Derakon]

Good luck! Three unique orcs in close proximity...that's a fun encounter to try to do quickly.

[AnonymousHero]

Eh, there are two kinds of risks: calculated and blunders. Speed runs encourage the latter.

Well, that and... exploits. I wonder if there's any absurdly powerful exploits still lurking in Angband.

(Of course given that there are no reloads, it's going to be a lot more difficult to pull off any type of luck manipulation, but if you programmed a bot, you can conceivably get "arbitrarily" lucky. Or, if you found a "perfect" RNG seed, I suppose.)

EDIT: However, I am reminded that someone did actually complete a no-reload Baldur's Gate 1 run in ~1h30m IIRC... without exploits, IIRC.

[Pete Mack]

You mean beyond ridiculous archery damage, LOS abuse, and crazy randarts?

Well, that and... exploits. I wonder if there's any absurdly powerful exploits still lurking in Angband.

[Pete Mack]

@grotug--
If you can't disarm traps, 'jump' on them with '_' command. Useful for going down trap doors too. Also, I find N/S exploration works better than E/W. The hallways are shorter, on average.

[Estie]

You mean beyond ridiculous archery damage, LOS abuse, and crazy randarts?

I dont consider crazy randarts to be abusive. For every randart game where you get a "crazy" setup, there are 5 where you end up beyond par.

It could be considered abusive if people played randart games to get a win. But that is (rightly) not the case. If someone has trouble winning, it is a much better strategy to play standart games to get the first win.

[Grotug]

Thanks! Making some really dumb mistakes. Meant to ?phase but I swapped back to my teleportation-is-forbidden ring of damage +12 instead because and died. Oh well. I had *just* picked up a teleportation staff, too.

@grotug--
If you can't disarm traps, 'jump' on them with '_' command. Useful for going down trap doors too. Also, I find N/S exploration works better than E/W. The hallways are shorter, on average.

Good point about N/S! I do 'W' on traps more often than not.

[Justin Z]

You'll definitely want to turn on the "automatically clear -more- prompts" option--no question it'll save double-digit minutes over the course of a full run.

[wobbly]

Is there a way to macro scrolls in vanilla? In Pos I'd inscribe @rp on phase scrolls then macro rp to 5 on the num-pad but I don't think it works in vanilla.

[Derakon]

Is there a way to macro scrolls in vanilla? In Pos I'd inscribe @rp on phase scrolls then macro rp to 5 on the num-pad but I don't think it works in vanilla.

You can inscribe "@r1", "@r2", etc. on your scrolls, then make a keymap that does "r1" or "r2"; the inscription lets you refer to the scroll by the inscribed number instead of the letter of the slot it's in. In general the inscription is @, then the letter of the command, then the number you want to assign to the item. I usually don't bother to inscribe scrolls, but I do inscribe spellbooks and rods.

[bio_hazard]

What's the lowest turncount? (number of key-presses- not including resting). Seems like you could ballpark it if you make assumptions about how many seconds per press. If you assume 1 second average per press (I don't know if that's too low, but maybe a balance between actions that can happen many times per second versus the inevitable pauses to look through vaults, make equipment choices etc, that would be ~11k turns. maybe if things like running make up a huge proportion of turns then you could have 5 turns/sec which would maybe be closer to some of the low turn counts I think I remember seeing advertised. Obviously very tough to play so quickly!

[Pete Mack]

@bh--
Running counts as multiple player turns, so 1s is actually to high.

[bio_hazard]

Seems like graphical settings (animations, keypress lag, run behavior) would make a lot of difference then. Also processor speed?

[PowerDiver]

Seems like graphical settings (animations, keypress lag, run behavior) would make a lot of difference then. Also processor speed?

I hope not. The fact you haven't had a dozen people shoot down this idea really makes me sad.

If the game requires skill, there should be decisions. Hard decisions. Thinking should be the bottleneck, not typing.

I don't think I've ever won much faster than 10 hours over 4 separate sittings. I could imagine 8 hours might have been possible for me back then, but I am probably kidding myself. That would have been playing a harder version of 3.0 but with ID on walkover. Fast ID makes a huge difference.

There was a famous guy named Lev before my time. I never interacted with him. One of his proud achievements was a win in a 24 hour window, I believe.

Has the game become so infantile three hours is even a discussion?

I know 3.1+ was such a joke that I eventually resorted to playing egoless, but I keep reading the game is supposedly less broken now.

[bio_hazard]

I don't know how serious anyone is taking this- I think this is just people talking.

[wobbly]

I hope not. The fact you haven't had a dozen people shoot down this idea really makes me sad.

If the game requires skill, there should be decisions. Hard decisions. Thinking should be the bottleneck, not typing.

I don't think I've ever won much faster than 10 hours over 4 separate sittings. I could imagine 8 hours might have been possible for me back then, but I am probably kidding myself. That would have been playing a harder version of 3.0 but with ID on walkover. Fast ID makes a huge difference.

There was a famous guy named Lev before my time. I never interacted with him. One of his proud achievements was a win in a 24 hour window, I believe.

Has the game become so infantile three hours is even a discussion?

I know 3.1+ was such a joke that I eventually resorted to playing egoless, but I keep reading the game is supposedly less broken now.

are you sure you're not seeing a problem where when is not? I play competitive chess. I might play for 5hrs, think for half an hour on 1 move, still make a bad mistake & think the time control was not enough. I also play lightning (5 minutes each). A lightning game never holds the same standard for me, but is still a great game, just very different. I, was about to waffle on a bit explaining, but... the real difference between speed running a game & playing carefully? Play & see. Different standards. Different game. Both fun. Don't be an elitist about this.