The Gamer's Quarter

[extrabastardformula]

What about Jackals, Worm?

What about Jackals?

Even someone like me who finds the UI of ADOM to be nicer than most of what else is out there has to admit that it's a hugely buggy piece of shit. Lots of us are sick of shit that's not buggy in Nethack too though.
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[bleak]

Well, bailey, I like to play 1.0.0, so jackals aren't an issue for me.
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[Worm]

What about Jackals? My issues are the "high risk, high reward" algorithm cave, and that you need to deal with overhead encounters when you just want to fucking explore.
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Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[bleak]

1.1.1 has a bit of an issue with monster experience. When you kill x amount of monsters, that species of monster becomes stronger. Since you tend to kill somewhere in the multi hundreds of jackals per game, they can become a bit overwhelming. Granted I've played every version of the game and never encountered this problem, but evidently it's real for some people.
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[extrabastardformula]

It's mainly a problem when you've taken a lot of them out and you encounter werejackals, or jackals in the overworld which can summon more jackals, since they get to summon more as the result of poweroing up and all of them that get summoned are the more powerful ones which can howl for more powerful jackals. I've actually had an overworld encounter that had me passing out from starvation because the jackals would just not keep coming.
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[bleak]

Since when can jackals summon jackals? It sounds like you're a little confused.
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[Scratchmonkey]

This thread is making me play more Angband. I am currently leaving a pile of human mage corpses at 50' (mages start with being able to cast magic missile twice and then running/chucking flasks of oil over their shoulder).

I wish I could remember how to set up term windows.

[bleak]

I've found that mages benefit largely from standing by the stairs at all times, in early levels where magic points are a huge commodity. Also you can generally melee things on the first level provided that they aren't Grip and Fang.
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[Scratchmonkey]

Only if you're above level one though. Getting that first experience level is key.

Human Mage is actually the only class that I've beaten the game with, don't know why I'm playing them again. I was trying Dwarven Priests for a while; they always seemed to get killed sometime in the early clvel 30's though.

PS - Term windows are [=] then [W], woo!

[bleak]

the real problem iwth mages, at least for me, is orc vaults early on. god it's so easy to make a fatal mistake when you're clearing those out.
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[Scratchmonkey]

It's pretty easy to make a fatal mistake with a mage period, since they're so horribly fragile. I'm treating my current one like a Faberge egg after I'd lost half-a-dozen or so right in a row due to trying to power-level. I'm hoping to get to the point where I can get Identify.

[sediment]

mages being tough seems to be a trend with bamroguebamlikes overall. every mage i play has a ridiculous short lifespan, and i'd like to pretend i know how to keep a fragile character around since i often play thiefly types!

i've got a pet necromancer going in crawl right now, and he totally sucks at life and i spend most of the fights he's in fleeing until i've got the mp to cast vampiric drain. really puts a lid on the amount of time i actually want to spend playing crawl.

if i didn't have a "one character at a time" rule i'd roll something more interesting in a heartbeat.

ps i've never played angband, please tell me more about it so i can develop yet another gaming addiction to elicit ridicule from my housemates
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[bleak]

Angband is supremely random. The only static thing is the fact that there's a town up above the first level of the dungeon. there's no level memory, and you'll often find your self scumming for gear or levels before progressing. Because there are no persistent levels, vertical navigation entails finding a new up or down stair each and every level you come across, unless you have plenty of Word of Recall scrolls. That's always advisable though. The difficulty curve is highly misleading. In my experience, it starts out insanely easy, like in the early early game, then when you gain a few levels, the difficulty makes a huge jump, which then plateaus until the difficulty rises again, but this time it's a steady skyrocket toward either victory or death. Playing Angband is extremely formulaic, to the point that people have written programs to beat the game for them. I don't remember the details of combat but from what I remember, ranged attacks are basically vital. More blows per round is preferable over pure damage, especially with ego weapons(1), and always carry phase door scrolls. there are certain points in the game where if you proceed further down without resistance X or item Y you will die. character generation and gameplay is very min/maxy, often ending your character with maxed out every stat, and ridiculously powerful items. the ID system is a bit of a bitch, unless you're a mage, and there are some cool dungeon features, such as level feelings and vaults and things like that. UnIDed items at the beginning of the game, especially potions and rings, are almost universally negative in effect. most of them are random in appearance, though some are static(2). An interesting thing about Angband is that light is an issue early game. Some of the items that generate light only generate 1 or 2 squares of light radius, which as you can imagine severely hinders visibility in tight corridors(3). There are items that you can find that will give you more, and of course, spells and items that will light up areas. Another interesting tangent on that is that some monsters are vulnerable to light, so keep that in the back of your mind. Anyway, uh, I guess the only thing left to mention here is the experience rates. Each class/race you pick has a acertain experience multiplier, so whatever you do, don't pick a dunadan mage unless you have near infinite patience.

1. lighter weapons always attack more, see angband's homepage for formulas re: melee combat

2. potions of water are always clear potions and potions of salt water are always cloudy grey or something near to that.

3. Rooms are almost always ambiently lit.
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[Scratchmonkey]

[sediment]

wow, angband seems really intense.

... i like intense!
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[dessgeega]

"intense" being another word for "cheap"?
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[bleak]

these are BL games that we're discussing here, anna.
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[Scratchmonkey]

[bleak]

If you have been playing one character for 50 hours then there is something wrong.
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[Scratchmonkey]

[bleak]

Hey man, whatever blows your hair back I guess.
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[Worm]

[extrabastardformula]

I've seen that screen many a time.
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[bleak]

Red d's are werejackals, which can summon jackals (grey d's). jackals can't summon jackals.
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[Worm]

Yeah but his mistake comes simply from not seeing the werejackal, is my point.
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Exit stage left, exit stage right, there is no place to run, all the fuses in the exit signs have been BURNT OUT

[bleak]

yeah. that'll happen when you play roguelikes in a like 300x300 terminal
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[Cycle]

Oh, SNAP!
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[Harveyjames]

I couldn't tell that was an OH SNAP because this thread may as well not be in English for all the sense it makes to me.

[bleak]

go play some BAMlike games, james!
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[Harveyjames]

Cool, send me a patched rom of Shiren the Wanderer!

[Shapermc]

[Harveyjames]

hmm, the game hangs whenever I try to start a new file. Maybe I should use a different emulator from ZSNES.

Holy shit Table Mountain is big.

[LordGek]