Unable to proceed past the early game

Friday, 28th March 2014, 21:46 by shizmoo

Spoiler: show

Laraso wrote:
shizmoo wrote:I know how you feel trust me. This is game is just pure BS.

What you call "BS", I call "inexperience". The beautiful thing about Crawl is that while it is a very challenging game, completely-unavoidable deaths are an extreme rarity. No matter how badly you feel the game has screwed you over, there is likely something (often very simple and obvious!) you could have done to avoid death.

Not true at all, unavoidable deaths are the norm which is why this game is BS, but I guess that comes with roguelikes. I just died taking the stairs up only to be welcomed by two headed ogre,wolf,goblin, and orc priest dropping me to 10/50 HP with everyone adjacent to me except the priest. I wonder how someone "experienced" would have avoided that. I wasn't stair dancing either where the enemy follows you, it was stairs I never took before.

Laraso wrote: If you want to succeed in a game like this, you need to not treat your deaths as failures or consequences of chance, but rather treat them as lessons. Every time you die, review the actions you took before you died, and think about what you could have done differently. This can take many tries as you familiarize yourself with the game, but if you stick with it you will inevitably find yourself painlessly handling dangerous situations you may have previously believed were inescapable.

So tell me what lesson should I have learned or what I should have done better when I pretty much got insta-killed taking stairs to a welcome party? If I used any heal pots in that situation I would be killed, invisibility would have been killed and if not then followed as if I wasnt invisible (cant believe how crappy this ability actually is), teleport is delayed, etc.. There are countless other things on the same BS level that I have died from that outnumbered the times I died from my own foolishness. It would be one thing if you could actually experience mid-game, but when you hit dungeon level ~9-11 the BS meter starts going off the charts. Its like if you dont have controlled blink you wont beat the game, seems to be the only reliable safety button out of all the craptastic ones. Of course you have to pray one randomly spawns on a dungeon level which hasn't happened in 100+ games.

As far as the rest of your post I do all that when I play caster/melee.

Friday, 28th March 2014, 21:56 by Sandman25

If you go upstairs for the first time and end surrounded, then it's very likely that either you didn't explore the whole previous level before going deeper or you were in Orcish Mines with 50 HP. In both cases it is your fault IMHO.
Also ?Fear and ?Blink could help so if you had such scrolls but either didn't use them or ran out of them because of previous fights, then again it's your fault IMHO.

Edit. Change your mindset to the game if you want to become a better player, crawl is not ideal but it is not as unfair as you say.

Friday, 28th March 2014, 21:59 by TheDefiniteArticle

I wasn't stair dancing either where the enemy follows you, it was stairs I never took before.

The first time you enter a new level, you get the first action. This is specifically to prevent "i went down stairs and lost all my health instantly". Someone experienced, then, would have used that advantage to immediately go back up the stairs without even trying to fight a group of dangerous monsters.

Friday, 28th March 2014, 22:16 by tedric

shizmoo wrote:So tell me what lesson should I have learned or what I should have done better

Posting a morgue file ("dump") to the YASD forum is a great way to get that kind of advice. Posting vague complaints to an already very long thread is not. People around here are happy to help if you ask nicely and show a willingness to learn from experience.

Friday, 28th March 2014, 22:17 by shizmoo

Sandman25 wrote:If you go upstairs for the first time and end surrounded, then it's very likely that either you didn't explore the whole previous level before going deeper or you were in Orcish Mines with 50 HP. In both cases it is your fault IMHO.
Also ?Fear and ?Blink could help so if you had such scrolls but either didn't use them or ran out of them because of previous fights, then again it's your fault IMHO.

Edit. Change your mindset to the game if you want to become a better player, crawl is not ideal but it is not as unfair as you say.

So if you dont explore a level completely and return to it you will be surrounded/insta-killed and its the player's fault? I disagree on that one. Fear may have saved me, but it often fails as well. Im sure it would have failed since 4 enemies were adjacent to me, only takes one of them to get that final 10 hp hit off. It wasn't orc mines either, it was that dungeon level ~9-11 area where BS starts occuring. One recent game had an unseen horror two hit me on one of those levels. Blink is complete garbage, even if I was teleported to the best position in my LOS, I wouldnt be able to out run a wolf. Youre right its far from ideal. Its a game that relies too heavy on randomness with the odds tilted against you.

The first time you enter a new level, you get the first action. This is specifically to prevent "i went down stairs and lost all my health instantly". Someone experienced, then, would have used that advantage to immediately go back up the stairs without even trying to fight a group of dangerous monsters.

Didn't happen that game. I wanted to return to the previous level to fully explore it and went to some upstairs and BOOM 10/50 hp then it was my turn. There was no escape. they were all adjacent to me, if I went back downstairs they would have followed and once again got the first turn killing me.

Friday, 28th March 2014, 22:21 by crate

So if you dont explore a level completely and return to it you will be surrounded/insta-killed and its the player's fault?

instead of taking a known-safe staircase you take an unknown staircase and die because of it and you think this is not your fault?

The first time you enter a new level, you get the first action. This is specifically to prevent "i went down stairs and lost all my health instantly"

I am pretty sure that the bolded part is not true. It is more a quirk of how monster energy works that is probably not really worth "fixing".

Friday, 28th March 2014, 22:28 by Sandman25

I was suggesting scroll of blinking, not spell blink. The former allows you to choose a specific tile to land (on levels without -cTele).

Friday, 28th March 2014, 23:07 by Laraso

@shizmoo:

Spoiler: show

Friday, 28th March 2014, 23:22 by and into

@ Shizmoo:

People who are very good at this game maintain good win %s even with challenging combos, and plenty of players have won multiple games in a row (sometimes many games). These players did not just get "lucky" and this was done without cheating and while playing under precisely the same conditions you are playing under.

If you are frustrated and want help, then ask for it. Take a note from Hopeless (OP of this very thread) who was "unable to proceed past the early game," sought help, and now is capable of getting more than twice as far as he was a few weeks ago. Or as tedric says post something in YASD. I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt here, but if you keep repeating "it wasn't my fault, this game is broken" because you died, that will be treated as trolling.

Everyone else:

Please stop responding to "it wasn't my fault" with "it was your fault." Shizmoo either gets it or not, at this point. You can lead a horse to water, &c.

Leaving thread open for now as it may still be useful, early game advice is important. But for precisely that reason let's try not to let an "it's not my fault"-er derail it. Thank you!

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 00:53 by mrthehoople

I have to contribute here... I'll be the first to admit, I mostly suck at crawl. I've played well over 100 games, have a single 3 rune win with MiBe and a single death with 3 runes that I could have won ( had cleared zot 5 completely but then died to royal jelly. Even then I subsequently realised I had 2 ways to avoid death in that fight that I missed). I'd put the majority of my deaths in the 'I didn't realise how serious the situation was quickly enough' category. (Like recent death at the hands of 3 Orc mages I thought I could just hard down.

But let's be honest, I've had a couple of ' I went down stairs and died' situations, and they've all been in very early game. I've turned a corner right into an early sigmund with a Decj with I think zero chance of survival. But 99% of my deaths have been entirely my fault. The no way out situation is extremely rare after early game if you're playing right. At first I just played MiBe of trog until I won, but have started to realise that joining okawaru and plate casting a few key spells, gives massive extra survivability by increasing flexibility. (Animate skeleton, summon butterflies etc.) with better potential to beat extended too (blink, control teleport, phase shift etc.)

I know it's frustrating - I've nearly given up a few times. But if you want to improve you have to be honest with yourself. I play chess and poker too. I wonder how many people kid themselves that they are better at poker than they are. Good players analyse where their money leaks from and plug the holes.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 01:54 by Hopeless

mrthehoople wrote:I have to contribute here... I'll be the first to admit, I mostly suck at crawl. I've played well over 100 games, have a single 3 rune win with MiBe and a single death with 3 runes that I could have won ( had cleared zot 5 completely but then died to royal jelly. Even then I subsequently realised I had 2 ways to avoid death in that fight that I missed). I'd put the majority of my deaths in the 'I didn't realise how serious the situation was quickly enough' category. (Like recent death at the hands of 3 Orc mages I thought I could just hard down.

But let's be honest, I've had a couple of ' I went down stairs and died' situations, and they've all been in very early game. I've turned a corner right into an early sigmund with a Decj with I think zero chance of survival. But 99% of my deaths have been entirely my fault. The no way out situation is extremely rare after early game if you're playing right. At first I just played MiBe of trog until I won, but have started to realise that joining okawaru and plate casting a few key spells, gives massive extra survivability by increasing flexibility. (Animate skeleton, summon butterflies etc.) with better potential to beat extended too (blink, control teleport, phase shift etc.)

I know it's frustrating - I've nearly given up a few times. But if you want to improve you have to be honest with yourself. I play chess and poker too. I wonder how many people kid themselves that they are better at poker than they are. Good players analyse where their money leaks from and plug the holes.

Yeah thats a really good analogy. Being in the hole by overbidding to protect your hand/pot and then suddenly you are out because your short stack is dwindled. Is very close to how it ends up in a lot of YASDs. And THEN there is the "on-tilt" part of it. People who are impatient (like myself: I tend to need to play Blitz Chess vs human opponents in order to get in timely games, since many people really feel the need to "take their time" playing slow chess) will show that impatience in many ones, one of which is you get hosed by some mechanism in Crawl and suddenly you are moving faster, fat-fingering, pounding the keyboard, or otherwise showing signs of tilting. Yep that's definitely been a cause of more than one YASD.

What is interesting is I have caught myself doing that midgame and stopped. Taken my hands off the keyboard, surfed a few sites, changed the music I am listening to, and lo, the game goes on.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 02:02 by Hopeless

Spoiler: show

This certainly has happened to me. But I think, (I could be wrong) that the take away here is to take your hands off the keyboard whenever you use the stairs, to totally assess the situation. All it takes is a single turn wasted for mobs to get too close to flee from you. I don't know that you did anything "mistaken" here but I believe you may have moved or otherwise burnt a turn to get fully surrounded. A summoner (Boggart, Dark Elf Summoner, etc) can do that to you in one turn. And you are nearly right about the outs. At 50hp (Which is way too low for Dungeon level 10-11) you will be nailed before you can escape unless you can blink away. There are ways to mitigate this though: Even an uncontrolled blink will help. Using a fog scroll might help as well. Fear scrolls work on even higher level mobs in many cases (I've seen giants and dragons run from a fear effect.) A potion of invisibility could help too. In fact if you fear stairs that much you could take one prior to using them. (or a spell or evocation.)

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 02:39 by Hirsch I

you are quickly learning a lot about the game, hopeless. very good.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 08:17 by EvilAshe

Hopeless wrote:...one of which is you get hosed by some mechanism in Crawl and suddenly you are moving faster, fat-fingering, pounding the keyboard, or otherwise showing signs of tilting. Yep that's definitely been a cause of more than one YASD.

What is interesting is I have caught myself doing that midgame and stopped. Taken my hands off the keyboard, surfed a few sites, changed the music I am listening to, and lo, the game goes on.

I have never been able to totally rid myself of the habit of mashing a button when I'm trying to run away BECAUSE THE FASTER I PRESS THE BUTTON THE FASTER I MOVE IN A TURN BASED GAME AMIRIGHT?
I've beaten Crawl (albeit my highest rune win is a mere 5), and if an idiot like me can do it there's hope for us all.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 14:47 by Sandman25

EvilAshe wrote:I have never been able to totally rid myself of the habit of mashing a button when I'm trying to run away BECAUSE THE FASTER I PRESS THE BUTTON THE FASTER I MOVE IN A TURN BASED GAME AMIRIGHT?
I've beaten Crawl (albeit my highest rune win is a mere 5), and if an idiot like me can do it there's hope for us all.

I am such an idiot too. But like you I realized my weakness and then learned how to deal with it. Now the game automatically saves and quits when I get high damage, it really helps.

Saturday, 29th March 2014, 16:47 by Sprucery

Also, the harder you hit the keys, the more damage your attack does.

Monday, 31st March 2014, 13:10 by Zicher

My 0.02CZK regarding SpBe:

It is quite a challenging, yet very fun, combo to play. Very low HP, almost no AC at all and heavy reliance on permafood are the downsides. On the other hand, you get awesome EV (50+ in the endgame is nothing to sneeze at), awesome stabbing skills, and with all those corpses around you'll be literally showered with god gifts (first gift at D:7 is a fairly regular thing, and I once received the first gift as soon as on D:3!). You're almost guaranteed to enter Lair with a qBlade or a cutlass of speed with this combo.

From my point of view, play this combo somewhat similarly to a SpEn. Focus SBl until you reach mindelay (SBl=14 for a cutlass), then unfocus (but train) them for even better damage and accuracy, train Dodging and Stealth until 27, train Fighting for the few extra HP that may save your hide at times. With only four skills to train, SpBe is a pretty focused combo. Branching into Evocations for a better use of decks and other evocables might be a good idea, yet I have not tried that path yet. Also, grab a buckler as soon as possible - it does wonders for your lack of other defenses.

IMHO, SpBe, in the hands of a player who knows when to use escape means and Trog abilities (and I almost didn't need to use any of those in the lategame anyway), is pretty awesome for a normal, three-rune win. It doesn't seem like a good char for extended, though. Not easy, but definitely a fun combo.

Monday, 31st March 2014, 13:21 by damiac

When fighting a high EV enemy, I carefully and precisely press the directional keys. When surrounded by fast enemies I rapidly press tab, to kill them before they get the chance to attack me too much.

It's funny that even though I know this doesn't help (and rapidly tabbing actually hurts my chance of winning), I keep doing it.

To Shizmoo:
You can get better, the game is cruel, but somewhat fair (as fair as can be expected from something driven by RNG). In most cases, especially when you're past the first couple levels, you can avoid dying by careful play. It's frustrating to hear "It's your fault you died" over and over, but think of how much worse it would be if people said "Oh yeah, you just die in this game all the time through no fault of your own".

Take a break from the game if you're frustrated, and next time you play, remember the following very basic tips:
1. This game is turn based. No need to rush.
2. When you first see an enemy, immediately turn around and go back the way you came. Lead the enemy a fair distance from where you first saw it, then fight it in a hallway or near a staircase up. This will greatly help in preventing you from getting surrounded, or from getting into a losing battle of attrition.
3. You should start escaping from fights at about 50% hp. Escape can mean running in circles around a pillar until you get a step on an enemy, or it can mean using a consumable to quickly end the fight.
4. Might and agility potions are great ways to beat an early unique/ghost, but you have to quaff them before you're almost dead.
5. Have fun. If you're frustrated, you're going to make bad decisions, and get more frustrated.

Monday, 31st March 2014, 15:09 by Sandman25

damiac wrote:3. You should start escaping from fights at about 50% hp. Escape can mean running in circles around a pillar until you get a step on an enemy, or it can mean using a consumable to quickly end the fight.

I think you should not rely on specific HP percentage. It is not rare for me that I start escaping (read tele or cast haste for escape) at 100% HP because it's obvious that I cannot kill all those monsters who just came into my view and the terrain is not favorable at all. Open terrain in Vault 5 with hasted Ancient Lich, a couple of Titans and several other monsters is a typical example of this. My last death was caused by greediness to use scroll of blinking at 70% HP, don't wait for 50% unless you are sure you can kill everything without going below 40% HP or so.

Monday, 31st March 2014, 15:26 by damiac

That's true. I was talking more about the early stages of the game. It's more about identifying when you're in a bad situation before you're almost dead, and taking steps to escape, rather than waiting until you're in a bad situation with 10 HP left.

A lot of "being good at crawl" is recognizing those bad situations before they get out of hand.

Monday, 31st March 2014, 15:32 by and into

Sandman25 wrote:I think you should not rely on specific HP percentage....

Yes, that's true, but until people are able to really assess the danger they are in, purely based on the enemies, etc., then what damiac said isn't a bad approach. At 50% HP you should be just about to kill whatever you are fighting, or already making your escape; a lot of other games let you get much lower than 50% HP before fleeing starts to become necessary. How DCSS (and roguelikes in general) are different on this score is a good thing for players who are still struggling in early game to learn, and so long as they don't take them too literally or follow them too rigidly, some HP% guidelines are helpful.

@ Zicher: I'd recommend just using automatic skill training on a SpBe over what you are doing, and would definitely turn off sbl at min_delay for your weapon. Especially with short blades the gain you get from each level past min_delay is staggeringly small. Also training dodging/stealth all the way to 27 without getting any fighting is pretty crazy and not something I'd recommend.

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 11:33 by Hopeless

Nevermind as I asked the question, it was answered via the page finally resolving. And then not...

The question was in rephrasing: what on earth is going on with the webtiles at s-z.org?? The page resolves and then the socket resets and just sits there after refresh.

Ugh and it looks like the character I was playing was deleted as part of the migration from .14 to .15.

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 11:53 by Hopeless

And now the one really fun race Lava Orc is gone??

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 12:07 by Hopeless

Code:: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.15-a0-35-ga771cbd (webtiles) character file. Hopeless2 the Martial Artist (Naga Transmuter) Turns: 27867, Time: 04:07:18 HP 135/135 AC 20 Str 34 XL: 14 Next: 31% MP 28/28 EV 17 Int 33 God: Cheibriados [******] Gold 1197 SH 0 Dex 31 Spells: 2 memorised, 9 levels left rFire + . . SeeInvis + - Unarmed rCold . . . Clarity . I - +2 robe {MR+} rNeg + . . Conserve . (no shield) rPois + rCorr . N - +0 helmet rElec . rRot . z - +2 cloak SustAb . . Spirit . U - +2 pair of gloves rMut . Warding + v - +2 naga barding {rF+} Saprov . . . Stasis . T - amulet of warding MR ++... r - +6 ring of strength F - +4 ring of intelligence @: very slow, very resistant to hostile enchantments, extremely stealthy A: spit poison, constrict 1, stinger 1, see invisible, deformed body, poison resistance, slowness 2, AC +4 a: Spit Poison, Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce Religion You are on level 5 of the Lair of Beasts. You worship Cheibriados. Cheibriados is exalted by your worship. You are not hungry. You have visited 3 branches of the dungeon, and seen 20 of its levels. You have also visited: Sewer. You have collected 1332 gold pieces. You have spent 135 gold pieces at shops. Inventory: Hand weapons a - a +0,+4 bow of flame Missiles n - 80 arrows Armour f - a +2 robe of positive energy v - a +2 naga barding of fire resistance (worn) z - a +2 cloak (worn) A - a +2 robe of fire resistance I - a +2 robe of magic resistance (worn) N - a +0 helmet (worn) U - a +2 pair of gloves (worn) Magical devices b - a wand of fire e - a wand of paralysis (11) h - a wand of digging (15) k - a wand of confusion q - a wand of polymorph (8) s - a wand of confusion {zapped: 2} u - a wand of fire x - a lead wand K - a wand of draining {zapped: 3} R - a wand of disintegration {zapped: 5} S - a wand of fire {zapped: 9} Comestibles j - a choko m - 2 chunks of spiny frog flesh B - 2 chunks of crocodile flesh C - 9 bread rations M - 3 meat rations P - 12 cheeses Q - an apple Scrolls c - a scroll of enchant armour i - 3 scrolls of remove curse l - 6 scrolls of teleportation o - a scroll of fog w - a scroll labeled STRUHY ZITUUKKEA O - 3 scrolls of fear V - a scroll of blinking Jewellery r - a +6 ring of strength (right hand) D - a scratched opal ring F - a +4 ring of intelligence (left hand) T - an amulet of warding (around neck) W - a blackened emerald ring Potions g - 2 potions of brilliance p - 5 potions of curing t - a potion of heal wounds H - a potion of flight Books d - a book of Changes Spells Type Level Beastly Appendage Transmutation 1 Sticks to Snakes Transmutation 2 *Spider Form Transmutation/Poison 3 Ice Form Ice/Transmutation 4 *Blade Hands Transmutation 5 Magical staves y - an uncursed staff of wizardry Miscellaneous Z - a box of beasts Skills: + Level 11.5 Fighting + Level 8.4 Dodging - Level 8.2 Stealth * Level 12.9 Unarmed Combat - Level 2.0 Spellcasting - Level 10.1 Transmutations + Level 10.7 Invocations You have 9 spell levels left. You know the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger b - Spider Form Trmt/Pois #####..... 2% 3 ###.... c - Blade Hands Trmt ######.... 2% 5 #####.. Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations Branches: Dungeon (14/15) Temple (1/1) D:5 Orc (0/4) D:10 Lair (5/8) D:9 Swamp (0/5) Lair:3 Snake (0/5) Lair:4 Vaults (0/5) D:13 Altars: Ashenzari Cheibriados Dithmenos Elyvilon Fedhas Kikubaaqudgha Makhleb Nemelex Xobeh Okawaru Sif Muna Trog Vehumet Xom Yredelemnul Zin The Shining One Shops: D:7 ! Portals: Trove: D:14 (give wand of heal wounds (9)) Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You cannot wear boots. You can spit poison. You can use your snake-like lower body to constrict enemies.* Your serpentine skin is tough (AC +4).* You have supernaturally acute eyesight. Armour fits poorly on your strangely shaped body.* Your system is resistant to poisons.* You cover ground very slowly.* Your tail ends in a poisonous barb.* Message History Found a longbow. Found two stone staircases leading up. There is a stone staircase leading up here. There is a stone staircase leading up here. The helpless spiny frog fails to defend itself. You squash the spiny frog like a bug!!! You kill the spiny frog! Cheibriados appreciates the change of pace. You see here a spiny frog corpse. You finish butchering the spiny frog corpse. m - 2 chunks of spiny frog flesh You see here a spiny frog skeleton. Unknown command. Saving game... please wait. Welcome back, Hopeless2 the Naga Transmuter! Cheibriados says: Take it easy! Press ? for a list of commands and other information! Unknown command! Welcome back, Hopeless2 the Naga Transmuter! Cheibriados says: Take it easy! Press ? for a list of commands and other information! .......... ..........P ...........♣♣ ............P♣ .............♣ ............♣♣ ..#.......<..♣♣ ..P........f...♣ ........@<<...♣♣ ...........f...♣ .#..##.#.....♣♣ ..# ##.#....♣ # .#...#... . ..).... . f#...f # ### There are no monsters in sight! Vanquished Creatures Rupert (Lair:4) Harold (D:13) 3 hydras Urug (D:13) A centaur warrior (D:14) A catoblepas (Lair:2) Nergalle (Lair:4) Erolcha (D:10) 5 skeletal warriors 3 hill giants Joseph (D:8) 3 cyclopes A manticore (D:14) 2 black mambas (Lair:4) A mermaid (shapeshifter) (D:13) 12 spiny frogs 5 gargoyles 3 feature mimics (D:13) A centaur zombie (D:14) 6 trolls A fire drake (D:9) A komodo dragon (shapeshifter) (D:13) 6 komodo dragons A centaur skeleton (D:12) 6 blink frogs Prince Ribbit (D:8) 2 two-headed ogres (D:8) A slime creature (D:11) A basilisk (Lair:3) 3 sharks A trapdoor spider (shapeshifter) (D:13) A shadow (D:13) 10 yaks A deep elf mage (D:14) A hill giant zombie (D:13) Eustachio (D:4) 9 ugly things A hungry ghost (D:11) 4 wyverns 6 wolves (Lair:4) A vampire mosquito (D:13) A hill giant skeleton (D:10) 10 hippogriffs A necrophage (D:6) Edmund (D:7) 7 water moccasins 3 ice beasts A soldier ant (D:14) 4 nagas (Lair:4) 12 orc warriors 4 sky beasts 6 porcupines 2 black bears 9 ogres 6 crocodiles A manticore skeleton (D:8) A yellow wasp (D:14) 3 centaurs Duvessa (D:5) 2 phantoms 5 big kobolds 8 giant slugs 17 giant frogs 5 scorpions A cyclops skeleton (D:14) An eye of draining (D:13) 20 wights 3 goliath beetles 8 jellies A hippogriff skeleton (D:12) Dowan (D:5) 15 crimson imps 14 killer bees An elf zombie (D:13) 9 hounds 11 orc priests 12 worker ants 7 iguanas 7 orc wizards A big fish (Sewer) An orange rat (D:7) A sky beast zombie (D:6) Ijyb (D:4) An ogre skeleton (D:5) A mottled dragon skeleton (D:13) A hound zombie (D:8) A yellow wasp simulacrum (D:14) A hound skeleton (D:11) 23 adders 4 gnolls A scorpion zombie (D:6) 58 green rats 4 shadow imps 3 giant mites A white imp (D:14) A goliath beetle zombie (D:13) 2 worms An iguana skeleton (D:5) An adder skeleton (D:4) 2 giant eyeballs 9 giant geckos 2 oozes 67 orcs 3 ball pythons 27 bats 11 giant cockroaches 18 hobgoblins 22 jackals 31 kobolds 9 giant newts 13 goblins 2 hobgoblin skeletons A jackal zombie (D:5) 3 orc skeletons 10 quokkas A quokka skeleton (D:6) A quokka zombie (D:6) 40 rats A spectral orc (D:9) 6 ballistomycetes A plant (D:3) 721 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (others) 3 giant spores A rat (D:9) 2 plants (D:4) 6 creatures vanquished. Grand Total: 727 creatures vanquished Notes Turn | Place | Note -------------------------------------------------------------- 0 | D:1 | Hopeless2, the Naga Transmuter, began the quest for the Orb. 0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 18/18 MP: 3/3 230 | D:1 | Reached XP level 2. HP: 16/25 MP: 4/4 892 | D:1 | Reached XP level 3. HP: 24/31 MP: 4/6 915 | D:1 | Learned a level 3 spell: Spider Form 1913 | D:2 | Reached skill level 4 in Transmutations 2010 | D:2 | Reached XP level 4. HP: 20/38 MP: 7/7 2409 | D:2 | Found a radiant altar of Vehumet. 2418 | D:2 | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas. 2927 | D:3 | Reached skill level 5 in Transmutations 2927 | D:3 | Reached XP level 5. HP: 28/44 MP: 2/9 3430 | D:3 | Found a shimmering altar of Xom. 3662 | D:3 | Found a glowing drain. 3686 | Sewer | Entered a sewer 3779 | Sewer | Reached skill level 6 in Transmutations 3792 | Sewer | Reached XP level 6. HP: 26/51 MP: 4/10 3963 | Sewer | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin. 4007 | Sewer | Gained mutation: Your tail ends in a poisonous barb. [potion of beneficial mutation] 4371 | D:3 | Reached skill level 7 in Transmutations 5042 | D:4 | Reached XP level 7. HP: 46/57 MP: 8/12 5111 | D:4 | Noticed Ijyb 5131 | D:4 | Noticed Eustachio 5151 | D:4 | Killed Eustachio 5151 | D:4 | Reached skill level 8 in Transmutations 5286 | D:4 | Learned a level 5 spell: Blade Hands 5371 | D:4 | Found a shattered altar of Ashenzari. 5648 | D:4 | Killed Ijyb 6005 | D:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon 6008 | D:5 | Noticed Duvessa 6009 | D:5 | Noticed Dowan 6017 | D:5 | Killed Duvessa 6017 | D:5 | Reached skill level 9 in Transmutations 6017 | D:5 | Reached XP level 8. HP: 51/64 MP: 7/13 6476 | D:5 | Killed Dowan 7198 | D:5 | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple. 7209 | D:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Transmutations 7215 | Temple | Entered the Ecumenical Temple 7985 | D:6 | Reached skill level 5 in Unarmed Combat 8080 | D:6 | Reached XP level 9. HP: 44/70 MP: 9/14 9727 | D:7 | Noticed Edmund 9736 | D:7 | Killed Edmund 9833 | D:7 | Reached skill level 10 in Unarmed Combat 9833 | D:7 | Reached XP level 10. HP: 78/78 MP: 10/16 9899 | D:7 | Found Ocasutum's Distillery. 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 10560 | D:8 | Noticed Prince Ribbit 10568 | D:8 | Killed Prince Ribbit 11504 | D:8 | Noticed Joseph 11511 | D:8 | Killed Joseph 11747 | D:8 | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging 12715 | D:9 | Found a snail-covered altar of Cheibriados. 12748 | D:9 | Became a worshipper of Cheibriados the Contemplative 12879 | D:9 | Found a staircase to the Lair. 13152 | D:9 | Reached XP level 11. HP: 86/93 MP: 10/17 13513 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13521 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13548 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13995 | D:9 | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul. 14664 | D:10 | Entered Level 10 of the Dungeon 14903 | D:10 | Found a staircase to the Orcish Mines. 15204 | D:10 | Noticed Erolcha 15208 | D:10 | Killed Erolcha 15514 | D:10 | Noticed a hill giant 15523 | D:10 | Killed a hill giant 15523 | D:10 | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting 15898 | D:10 | Noticed a hill giant 15903 | D:10 | Killed a hill giant 16326 | D:10 | Acquired Cheibriados' first power 16515 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16516 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16517 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16738 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16746 | D:10 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17302 | D:10 | Acquired Cheibriados' second power 17564 | D:11 | Reached XP level 12. HP: 110/112 MP: 5/18 17637 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17641 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17646 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 17656 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17656 | D:11 | Reached skill level 10 in Fighting 17659 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 18410 | D:12 | Acquired Cheibriados' third power 18600 | D:12 | Noticed an eight-headed hydra 18803 | D:12 | Reached skill level 11 in Fighting 18845 | D:12 | Reached skill level 1 in Invocations 19427 | D:12 | Killed an eight-headed hydra 19790 | D:12 | Noticed a seven-headed hydra 19899 | D:12 | Reached skill level 5 in Invocations 19939 | D:13 | Noticed Harold 19948 | D:13 | Killed Harold 19949 | D:13 | Found a gate to the Vaults. 20465 | D:13 | Reached XP level 13. HP: 127/127 MP: 18/24 21009 | D:13 | Noticed Urug 21018 | D:13 | Killed Urug 21394 | D:14 | Found a portal to a secret trove of treasure. 22258 | D:14 | Reached skill level 1 in Stealth 22646 | Lair:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Lair of Beasts 24583 | Lair:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth 25567 | Lair:3 | Reached skill level 12 in Unarmed Combat 25901 | Lair:3 | Found a staircase to the Swamp. 25978 | Lair:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Invocations 26106 | Lair:3 | Reached XP level 14. HP: 128/135 MP: 27/27 26840 | Lair:4 | Noticed Nergalle 26841 | Lair:4 | Killed Nergalle 26907 | Lair:4 | Found a staircase to the Snake Pit. 27006 | Lair:4 | Noticed Rupert 27018 | Lair:4 | Killed Rupert 27867 | Lair:5 | Upgraded the game from 0.15-a0-29-ga6b5f5a to 0.15-a0-35-ga771cbd Action | 1- 3 | 4- 6 | 7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 || total -------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++------- Melee: Unarmed | 156 | 330 | 295 | 410 | 480 || 1671 Fire: Bow | | | 95 | 244 | 9 || 348 Throw: Dart | | 1 | 6 | 2 | || 9 Cast: Beastly Appendage | 27 | 30 | 12 | | || 69 Spider Form | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1 | || 11 Blade Hands | | | 34 | 80 | 7 || 121 Invok: Bend Time | | | | 6 | 2 || 8 Temporal Distorti | | | | 2 | 1 || 3 Abil: Spit Poison | | | 30 | 78 | 8 || 116 Evoke: Wand | | | | 16 | 4 || 20 Use: Scroll | 4 | 4 | 15 | 18 | 2 || 43 Potion | | 3 | 2 | 10 | 5 || 20 Stab: Sleeping | | | 1 | | 17 || 18 Distracted | | | | | 4 || 4

Well it was a fun learning experience, but now I am kind of not wanting to make a new character at all. Killed by server reset. :/

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 13:23 by Firion

Not entirely sure on this, but I think you should be able to play that character again tomorrow.
April 1st is a special day for DCSS where trunk is replaced with a light-hearted comedic branch.

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 13:37 by Hopeless

Firion wrote:Not entirely sure on this, but I think you should be able to play that character again tomorrow.
April 1st is a special day for DCSS where trunk is replaced with a light-hearted comedic branch.

How I loath April 1. Lying is lying. :/

Tuesday, 1st April 2014, 14:05 by crate

Your character still exists, and you can even play it if you want.

If you press "t" while looking at experimental branches you get your current (real) trunk game. (I don't know how this works in webtiles).

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 02:56 by Patashu

Shizmoo, fun facts:
-The longest streak of consecutive winning characters ever by one person is 22. There are 24 recorded streaks of 10 or more consecutive winning characters. (Source: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/streaks.html )
-The existence of such streaks implies that a very good player, when playing to win, can achieve a win rate of at least 90%. (Does anyone have numbers to support an even higher achieved win rate? Like say, a tournament performance?)
-How good you are as a player has nothing to do with any physical characteristic of your body, or any real-time characteristic such as playing fast, with high dexterity, with good reflexes or whatever - it is turn-based with no real time component. It also has nothing to do with the account - there is no DLC, meta-game levelling up or pay to win elements. You accept the current known game state as input and the next command to perform as output, and there is no cheating or subterfuge involved. No person has more information available to them about Crawl and the current game than anyone else does. There is no way to fudge the dice of what the game decides to do.
-Conclusion: The only thing keeping you from winning Crawl is your belief that it can't be won consistently, when the proof is in what other people (who have no advantage over you) can do with the game.
If this game was 'bullshit', a streak of 22 would be statistically implausible.
That's all. I think it's important to know. If you know that the game is consistently beatable, then it encourages you to look for things to leverage to your advantage rather than excuses for yourself and attempts to prove that Crawl cannot be consistently won. And there are a LOT of things, many obvious, many not so obvious, that you can learn both with your own experiences and by watching/conversing with others. If you're learning how to play Chess - you buy chess books and watch chess gameplay of the masters. If you're learning how to play a Shoot em up, such as Dodonpachi - you find the best, highest scoring playthrough you can of it on youtube and study it for everything it can pass on to you about the game. You don't accept that the game is too hard and that you don't know anything, you move with great strides to fix your lack of understanding and remake your abilities. If you are playing locally, maybe you would find it instructive to, when you realize you're in a bad situation - deliberately savescum, and for each strategy you can think of to save yourself, attempt it identically 10 times, and record the success rate of each one. What worked the best, and is this instructive for future gameplay? Then go back to your real savefile, try what you think will work best after a last review, and see what happens. (Note that by the time you're in a bad situation, you may have made mistakes in the past, such as in building your character or using resources that could have been saved with better gameplay. So even if you come into an unwinnable situation, it's still almost always the case that if you had changed your behaviour on an earlier floor you'd be in a better spot now. And that kind of knowledge can be learned by watching the 'Masters' of Crawl too, just like you'd watch chess grandmasters to aid your study of chess.)

Sorry if this is OT.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 03:20 by Hopeless

Patashu wrote:Shizmoo, fun facts:
-The longest streak of consecutive winning characters ever by one person is 22. There are 24 recorded streaks of 10 or more consecutive winning characters. (Source: http://crawl.akrasiac.org/scoring/streaks.html )
-The existence of such streaks implies that a very good player, when playing to win, can achieve a win rate of at least 90%. (Does anyone have numbers to support an even higher achieved win rate? Like say, a tournament performance?)
-How good you are as a player has nothing to do with any physical characteristic of your body, or any real-time characteristic such as playing fast, with high dexterity, with good reflexes or whatever - it is turn-based with no real time component. It also has nothing to do with the account - there is no DLC, meta-game levelling up or pay to win elements. You accept the current known game state as input and the next command to perform as output, and there is no cheating or subterfuge involved. No person has more information available to them about Crawl and the current game than anyone else does. There is no way to fudge the dice of what the game decides to do.
-Conclusion: The only thing keeping you from winning Crawl is your belief that it can't be won consistently, when the proof is in what other people (who have no advantage over you) can do with the game.
If this game was 'bullshit', a streak of 22 would be statistically implausible.
That's all. I think it's important to know. If you know that the game is consistently beatable, then it encourages you to look for things to leverage to your advantage rather than excuses for yourself and attempts to prove that Crawl cannot be consistently won. And there are a LOT of things, many obvious, many not so obvious, that you can learn both with your own experiences and by watching/conversing with others. If you're learning how to play Chess - you buy chess books and watch chess gameplay of the masters. If you're learning how to play a Shoot em up, such as Dodonpachi - you find the best, highest scoring playthrough you can of it on youtube and study it for everything it can pass on to you about the game. You don't accept that the game is too hard and that you don't know anything, you move with great strides to fix your lack of understanding and remake your abilities. If you are playing locally, maybe you would find it instructive to, when you realize you're in a bad situation - deliberately savescum, and for each strategy you can think of to save yourself, attempt it identically 10 times, and record the success rate of each one. What worked the best, and is this instructive for future gameplay? Then go back to your real savefile, try what you think will work best after a last review, and see what happens. (Note that by the time you're in a bad situation, you may have made mistakes in the past, such as in building your character or using resources that could have been saved with better gameplay. So even if you come into an unwinnable situation, it's still almost always the case that if you had changed your behaviour on an earlier floor you'd be in a better spot now. And that kind of knowledge can be learned by watching the 'Masters' of Crawl too, just like you'd watch chess grandmasters to aid your study of chess.)

Sorry if this is OT.

Watching grandmasters may do nothing for the uninitiated in chess (though watching well honed opponents may benefit you). The trick in chess concerned with learning from others is playing them and or going over the games after they are completed so you can examine the lines of play. And definitely reading books by Grandmasters (who know how to write. The ones who can't are legion.) :-)

But watching masters of the crawl game may well help a lot on webtiles (or using ttyrec if you can figure out how that works. I haven't.) Assuming you have the patience to try and discern what it is they are doing. (It isn't always easy to tell since the menus may open and close before you can parse the actions and the same goes for the status feedback.) Many players will answer questions and or slow down to show you a menu if you ask them to. I don't know that I'd bother with save scumming but maybe try wizard mode (control W?) and say no when asked if you want to die when your character takes lethal damage. That way you can play without risk and see what it is that leads up to the deadly damage.

Otherwise I agree 100% with this.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 03:50 by tedric

Wizmode is & (shift-7), ctrl-W sets a waypoint. Super useful in itself, actually, but for totally different reasons

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 04:13 by mikee

You can pause and rewind ttyrecs if you've downloaded them and are watching them in a player (these will be in ascii, however).

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 04:15 by Patashu

Hopeless wrote:Watching grandmasters may do nothing for the uninitiated in chess (though watching well honed opponents may benefit you).

Yes, this is a good point. It's like watching high level play in any field - if I make no attempt to understand what I am watching, it does nothing beyond entertain. I could watch Olympic level Tennis and take nothing away from it, but if I have a framework on which to analyze and ask/answer questions about how they play, then I am getting somewhere. You have to be looking FOR something.

I don't know that I'd bother with save scumming but maybe try wizard mode (control W?) and say no when asked if you want to die when your character takes lethal damage. That way you can play without risk and see what it is that leads up to the deadly damage.

I don't like this approach - it absolves all responsibility for keeping your character alive - psychologically, you stop feeling the need to play cautiously, so you won't. In contrast, savescumming to make testing branches means that eventually you have to stop testing ideas, and go back to the main branch which you have resolved to not reload if you die in - the '1 credit clear attempt' so to speak.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 10:50 by Hopeless

mikee wrote:You can pause and rewind ttyrecs if you've downloaded them and are watching them in a player (these will be in ascii, however).

I know what they are for. Getting a replay though is not so straight forward. (none of the players I have work with them.)

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 11:23 by crate

I hear jettyplay is good for playing ttyrecs on windows.

All online games create ttyrecs so there's no shortage of games.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 11:23 by stickyfingers

Patashu wrote:(Does anyone have numbers to support an even higher achieved win rate? Like say, a tournament performance?)

elliptic went 10-0 in last tournament, mostly with "Nemelex' choice", so suboptimal, combos.
http://dobrazupa.org/tournament/0.13/overview.html

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 13:53 by Hopeless

Code:: Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup version 0.15-a0-35-ga771cbd (webtiles) character file. 271286 Hopeless2 the Black Belt (level 20, -8/280 HPs) Began as a Naga Transmuter on Mar 31, 2014. Was the Champion of Cheibriados. Blown up by Boris (46 damage) ... with a wavering orb of destruction ... on Level 2 of the Vaults on Apr 2, 2014. The game lasted 10:31:25 (62354 turns). Hopeless2 the Black Belt (Naga Transmuter) Turns: 62354, Time: 10:31:26 HP -8/280 AC 16 Str 50 XL: 20 Next: 20% MP 23/32 EV 16 Int 31 God: Cheibriados [******] Gold 990 SH 0 Dex 29 Spells: 7 memorised, 1 level left rFire + + . SeeInvis + - Unarmed rCold x . . Clarity . f - melded +0 fire dragon armour rNeg + . . Conserve . l - melded +0 buckler rPois + rCorr . P - melded +2 hat {MR+} rElec . rRot . z - melded +2 cloak SustAb . . Spirit . U - melded +2 pair of gloves rMut . Warding + v - melded +4 naga barding {rF+} Saprov . . . Stasis . T - amulet of warding MR ++... r - +6 ring of strength j - ring "Mnulor" {Wiz Str+4 Dex-4} @: dragon-form, flying, very slow, very resistant to hostile enchantments, quite stealthy A: spit poison, (constrict 1), (stinger 0), see invisible, clever 1, (deformed body), (poison resistance), (slowness 0), AC +6 a: Spit Poison, End Transformation, Bend Time, Temporal Distortion, Slouch, Step From Time, Renounce Religion, Breathe Fire }: 2/15 runes: decaying, serpentine You were on level 2 of the Vaults. You worshipped Cheibriados. Cheibriados was exalted by your worship. You were starving. You were a fearsome dragon! You visited 7 branches of the dungeon, and saw 40 of its levels. You also visited: Sewer. You collected 3675 gold pieces. You spent 2685 gold pieces at shops. Inventory: Hand weapons a - a +0,+4 bow of evasion Missiles n - 63 arrows Armour f - a +0 fire dragon armour (melded) l - a +0 buckler (melded) v - a +4 naga barding of fire resistance (melded) z - a +2 cloak (melded) B - a +0 shield I - a +2 robe of magic resistance P - a +2 hat of magic resistance (melded) U - a +2 pair of gloves (melded) Magical devices b - a wand of fire (11) e - a wand of paralysis (11) h - a wand of digging (15) q - a wand of draining (6) s - a wand of confusion (14) t - a wand of flame (8) u - a wand of fire (3) w - a wand of frost (13) x - a wand of cold (6) y - a wand of frost (11) A - a wand of cold (10) D - a wand of draining (3) Q - a wand of lightning (4) R - a wand of disintegration (13) Comestibles m - 7 honeycombs C - 6 bread rations M - 8 meat rations Scrolls i - a scroll of remove curse o - a scroll of fog O - a scroll of fear Jewellery d - an uncursed ring of protection from cold j - the ring "Mnulor" (left foreclaw) {Wiz Str+4 Dex-4} (You acquired it on level 2 of the Swamp) [ring of wizardry] It affects your strength (+4). It affects your dexterity (-4). r - a +6 ring of strength (right foreclaw) F - a +4 ring of intelligence T - an amulet of warding (around neck) Potions p - 3 potions of curing H - a potion of resistance Skills: - Level 13.0 Fighting * Level 7.7 Armour - Level 14.2 Dodging - Level 8.2 Stealth * Level 3.5 Shields + Level 16.8 Unarmed Combat - Level 2.0 Spellcasting - Level 7.1 Necromancy - Level 2.2 Translocations - Level 16.7 Transmutations - Level 10.7 Invocations You had one spell level left. You knew the following spells: Your Spells Type Power Failure Level Hunger a - Animate Skeleton Necr N/A 1% 1 None b - Spider Form Trmt/Pois ######.... 1% 3 ###.... c - Blade Hands Trmt #######... 1% 5 #####.. d - Regeneration Chrm/Necr ####...... 2% 3 ###.... e - Dragon Form Trmt #######... 4% 7 ####### f - Apportation Tloc ###....... 1% 1 None g - Blink Tloc N/A 2% 2 ##..... Dungeon Overview and Level Annotations Branches: Dungeon (15/15) Temple (1/1) D:5 Orc (4/4) D:10 Elf (0/3) Orc:4 Lair (8/8) D:9 Swamp (5/5) Lair:3 Snake (5/5) Lair:4 Slime (0/6) Lair:7 Vaults (2/5) D:13 Depths (0/5) D:15 Crypt: Vaults:2-3 Altars: Ashenzari Cheibriados Dithmenos Elyvilon Fedhas Kikubaaqudgha Makhleb Nemelex Xobeh Okawaru Sif Muna Trog Vehumet Xom Yredelemnul Zin The Shining One Beogh Shops: D:7 ! Orc:3 } Orc:4 :(*}? Snake:5 } Portals: Trove: D:14 (give wand of heal wounds (9)) Annotations: Vaults:2 Aizul, Boris, Nikola Innate Abilities, Weirdness & Mutations You cannot wear boots. You can spit poison. ((You can use your snake-like lower body to constrict enemies.))* ((Your serpentine skin is tough (AC +6).))* You have supernaturally acute eyesight. ((Armour fits poorly on your strangely shaped body.))* ((Your system is resistant to poisons.))* ((You cover ground very slowly.))* ((Your tail ends in a poisonous barb.))* Your mind is acute. (Int +2) Message History Boris throws his bony arms wide while chanting! The dead are walking!!! A human zombie comes into view! You trample Boris!!!!!!!!!!!! Boris is severely damaged! You barely miss Boris! You tail-slap Boris, but do no damage! Boris is severely damaged! The fire dragon breathes flames at you! The blast of flame hits you!!! You resist! * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * Boris hits you!!! * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * Boris touches you! * * * LOW HITPOINT WARNING * * * The human zombie closely misses you! You closely miss Boris! Boris is severely damaged! Boris launches a ball of destructive magic! The wavering orb of destruction weakly hits you!!! You die!!! ########.... .c.............. .................. .................... ....D................ ..................... ........)L............ ........Dz............. .............)......... ....................... ###################### You could see Boris, a fire dragon, a centaur (fleeing) and a human zombie. Vanquished Creatures the Lernaean hydra (Swamp:5) Rupert (Lair:4) 8 greater nagas The ghost of mdk the Eclecticist, a mighty DECj of Vehumet (Swamp:5) An orc warlord (Orc:3) A deep elf sorcerer (Vaults:1) 4 vault wardens A fire dragon (Vaults:2) 3 ironheart preservers 6 yaktaur captains Harold (D:13) 16 naga warriors 22 hydras 12 anacondas 5 shambling mangroves 3 alligators 5 ogre magi Urug (D:13) 5 hell knights (Vaults:2) 13 naga sharpshooters A very ugly thing (D:15) 4 centaur warriors A catoblepas (Lair:2) 5 shock serpents Nergalle (Lair:4) Erolcha (D:10) 6 skeletal warriors A salamander mystic (Snake:5) 7 swamp dragons A fire crab (Vaults:2) 3 unseen horrors A necromancer (Vaults:2) A sea snake (Snake:4) A giant orange brain (D:15) 2 spriggan druids 5 hill giants 7 naga ritualists 3 deep trolls (Vaults:2) 3 ironbrand convokers A water nymph (shapeshifter) (D:15) 9 mana vipers Joseph (D:8) An orc knight (Vaults:1) A wolf spider zombie (D:15) A deep elf conjurer (Vaults:1) 4 cyclopes 4 griffons 6 salamanders 2 orc sorcerers 2 vault sentinels 3 wolf spiders A manticore (D:14) 39 black mambas 9 elephants A mermaid (shapeshifter) (D:13) 26 naga magi 34 spiny frogs 6 gargoyles 5 guardian serpents 2 vapours (Swamp:3) 4 feature mimics An efreet (D:15) 18 yaktaurs A kobold demonologist (Vaults:1) A centaur zombie (D:14) A queen bee (Lair:7) 7 trolls A deep elf priest (Vaults:1) A fire drake (D:9) 2 komodo dragons (shapeshifter) 7 komodo dragons 4 giant fireflies 6 freezing wraiths A polar bear (shapeshifter) (Vaults:1) A centaur skeleton (D:12) 42 blink frogs Prince Ribbit (D:8) 4 giant leeches A baby alligator (shapeshifter) (Vaults:1) A fire dragon zombie (D:15) 19 two-headed ogres A boulder beetle (Lair:7) 23 slime creatures 6 baby alligators 28 ravens A wind drake (shapeshifter) (D:15) 6 bog bodies A formicid (shapeshifter) (D:15) 3 basilisks 3 thorn lotuses 8 sharks 3 spriggans 2 trapdoor spiders (shapeshifter) A grizzly bear (shapeshifter) (D:15) A shadow (D:13) 33 yaks 6 deep elf magi A hill giant zombie (D:13) 4 elephant slugs Eustachio (D:4) 2 black mamba skeletons 10 ugly things A human (shapeshifter) (D:15) A steam dragon (Lair:5) A hungry ghost (D:11) 4 wyverns 2 wargs (Orc:3) 3 deep elf fighters (Vaults:1) 15 wolves 37 vampire mosquitoes A hill giant skeleton (D:10) 15 hippogriffs A mottled dragon (Lair:5) A necrophage (D:6) Edmund (D:7) 32 water moccasins 19 swamp worms 4 ice beasts A soldier ant (D:14) 2 spiders (Snake:3) 63 nagas 23 orc warriors 11 swamp drakes 4 sky beasts 8 porcupines 3 black bears 30 ogres An ogre (shapeshifter) (Vaults:1) 3 boring beetles 18 crocodiles A manticore skeleton (D:8) A yellow wasp (D:14) 6 giant goldfish 3 centaurs Duvessa (D:5) 2 phantoms 5 big kobolds 16 giant slugs 33 giant frogs 18 insubstantial wisps 5 scorpions 2 cyclops skeletons A water moccasin skeleton (Snake:3) An eye of draining (D:13) 20 wights 3 naga skeletons 2 electric eels (Lair:8) 3 goliath beetles 8 jellies A hippogriff skeleton (D:12) Dowan (D:5) 18 crimson imps 29 killer bees 4 lava snakes (Snake:1) A human simulacrum (Vaults:1) An elf zombie (D:13) 11 hounds 17 orc priests An iron imp (Orc:3) 12 worker ants 9 iguanas 22 orc wizards 7 big fish An orange rat (D:7) A sky beast zombie (D:6) Ijyb (D:4) 8 sheep An ogre skeleton (D:5) A mottled dragon skeleton (D:13) A hound zombie (D:8) A yellow wasp simulacrum (D:14) A hound skeleton (D:11) 37 adders 4 gnolls A scorpion zombie (D:6) 67 green rats 5 shadow imps 4 giant mites 2 white imps A goliath beetle zombie (D:13) 2 worms An iguana skeleton (D:5) An adder skeleton (D:4) 2 giant eyeballs 10 giant geckos 2 oozes 122 orcs 3 ball pythons 29 bats 11 giant cockroaches 20 hobgoblins 22 jackals 32 kobolds 10 giant newts 14 goblins 2 hobgoblin skeletons A jackal zombie (D:5) 5 orc skeletons An orc zombie (Orc:3) 13 quokkas A quokka skeleton (D:6) A quokka zombie (D:6) 42 rats A spectral orc (D:9) 10 ballistomycetes A fungus (Lair:7) A plant (D:3) 1657 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (collateral kills) Mara (Snake:5) A greater naga (Snake:5) A stone giant (Orc:4) 6 naga warriors 5 hydras A shambling mangrove (Swamp:4) An ogre mage (Orc:4) 3 alligators 7 anacondas A fire dragon (Vaults:1) 6 naga sharpshooters A shock serpent (Snake:3) 2 spriggan druids (Swamp:5) 3 naga ritualists 3 swamp dragons A salamander mystic (Snake:4) 3 sea snakes A wolf spider (Vaults:1) 2 mana vipers An oklob plant (Lair:7) A cyclops (Vaults:1) 3 salamanders (Snake:4) 9 spiny frogs An elephant (Lair:8) 16 black mambas 3 guardian serpents 11 naga magi A naga skeleton (Snake:5) A yaktaur (Vaults:1) A fire drake (Lair:5) 2 giant fireflies 13 blink frogs A two-headed ogre (Orc:4) 3 giant leeches 3 ravens (Swamp:4) A komodo dragon (Lair:7) 5 bog bodies 9 slime creatures A basilisk (Lair:6) A spriggan (Swamp:5) A thorn lotus (Swamp:3) 3 sharks (Lair:8) 10 yaks 6 vampire mosquitoes 5 swamp worms A warg (Orc:4) An orc warrior (Orc:2) 26 nagas 12 water moccasins 2 giant goldfish 4 swamp drakes 3 spiders (Snake:3) 8 ogres 6 crocodiles 2 big kobolds (Vaults:1) 4 giant frogs (Lair:8) 8 killer bees (Lair:7) 2 big fish 2 electric eels A hound (Lair:6) 2 orc priests 3 orc wizards 6 sheep 6 adders 11 green rats (Lair:6) 25 orcs 2 goblins A hobgoblin (Orc:4) 2 kobolds (Vaults:1) 3 quokkas (Lair:6) 2 ball pythons (Snake:1) A bat (Lair:6) 2 rats (Lair:6) 11 fungi 2 plants 322 creatures vanquished. Vanquished Creatures (others) Margery (Vaults:2) 6 anaconda skeletons 2 shock serpent skeletons A centaur skeleton (D:15) 2 sea snake skeletons (Snake:4) 7 hydra skeletons A griffon skeleton (Vaults:1) 2 guardian serpent skeletons (Snake:5) 14 black mamba skeletons 2 spriggan skeletons A hill giant skeleton (Vaults:1) 13 raven skeletons A baby alligator skeleton (Swamp:5) An ogre (Vaults:2) 2 fire dragon skeletons 5 spiny frog skeletons 16 blink frog skeletons An elephant skeleton (Lair:7) 3 swamp dragon skeletons A fire drake skeleton (Lair:5) 5 human skeletons 10 yaktaur skeletons 3 salamander skeletons 8 water moccasin skeletons 3 giant goldfish skeletons 2 warg skeletons (Orc:3) 2 hippogriff skeletons (Lair:8) 6 yak skeletons (Lair:5) 2 wolf skeletons (Lair:6) 5 giant frog skeletons 2 elf skeletons (Vaults:1) 3 two-headed ogre skeletons An orc wizard (Orc:3) A basilisk skeleton (Lair:6) A big kobold skeleton (Vaults:1) 63 naga skeletons 2 ogre skeletons 5 crocodile skeletons 2 big fish skeletons 4 swamp drake skeletons 4 sheep skeletons (Lair:8) 8 adder skeletons 9 orcs A giant gecko skeleton (Lair:6) 5 giant spores 6 green rat skeletons A hobgoblin skeleton (Orc:3) 2 kobold skeletons (Vaults:1) 38 orc skeletons 3 orc zombies (Orc:3) A quokka skeleton (Lair:6) A rat (D:9) A briar patch (Swamp:4) 11 fungi 17 plants 320 creatures vanquished. Grand Total: 2299 creatures vanquished Notes Turn | Place | Note -------------------------------------------------------------- 0 | D:1 | Hopeless2, the Naga Transmuter, began the quest for the Orb. 0 | D:1 | Reached XP level 1. HP: 18/18 MP: 3/3 230 | D:1 | Reached XP level 2. HP: 16/25 MP: 4/4 892 | D:1 | Reached XP level 3. HP: 24/31 MP: 4/6 915 | D:1 | Learned a level 3 spell: Spider Form 1913 | D:2 | Reached skill level 4 in Transmutations 2010 | D:2 | Reached XP level 4. HP: 20/38 MP: 7/7 2409 | D:2 | Found a radiant altar of Vehumet. 2418 | D:2 | Found a blossoming altar of Fedhas. 2927 | D:3 | Reached skill level 5 in Transmutations 2927 | D:3 | Reached XP level 5. HP: 28/44 MP: 2/9 3430 | D:3 | Found a shimmering altar of Xom. 3662 | D:3 | Found a glowing drain. 3686 | Sewer | Entered a sewer 3779 | Sewer | Reached skill level 6 in Transmutations 3792 | Sewer | Reached XP level 6. HP: 26/51 MP: 4/10 3963 | Sewer | Found a glowing silver altar of Zin. 4007 | Sewer | Gained mutation: Your tail ends in a poisonous barb. [potion of beneficial mutation] 4371 | D:3 | Reached skill level 7 in Transmutations 5042 | D:4 | Reached XP level 7. HP: 46/57 MP: 8/12 5111 | D:4 | Noticed Ijyb 5131 | D:4 | Noticed Eustachio 5151 | D:4 | Killed Eustachio 5151 | D:4 | Reached skill level 8 in Transmutations 5286 | D:4 | Learned a level 5 spell: Blade Hands 5371 | D:4 | Found a shattered altar of Ashenzari. 5648 | D:4 | Killed Ijyb 6005 | D:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Dungeon 6008 | D:5 | Noticed Duvessa 6009 | D:5 | Noticed Dowan 6017 | D:5 | Killed Duvessa 6017 | D:5 | Reached skill level 9 in Transmutations 6017 | D:5 | Reached XP level 8. HP: 51/64 MP: 7/13 6476 | D:5 | Killed Dowan 7198 | D:5 | Found a staircase to the Ecumenical Temple. 7209 | D:5 | Reached skill level 10 in Transmutations 7215 | Temple | Entered the Ecumenical Temple 7985 | D:6 | Reached skill level 5 in Unarmed Combat 8080 | D:6 | Reached XP level 9. HP: 44/70 MP: 9/14 9727 | D:7 | Noticed Edmund 9736 | D:7 | Killed Edmund 9833 | D:7 | Reached skill level 10 in Unarmed Combat 9833 | D:7 | Reached XP level 10. HP: 78/78 MP: 10/16 9899 | D:7 | Found Ocasutum's Distillery. 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 9938 | D:7 | Bought a potion of heal wounds for 45 gold pieces 10560 | D:8 | Noticed Prince Ribbit 10568 | D:8 | Killed Prince Ribbit 11504 | D:8 | Noticed Joseph 11511 | D:8 | Killed Joseph 11747 | D:8 | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging 12715 | D:9 | Found a snail-covered altar of Cheibriados. 12748 | D:9 | Became a worshipper of Cheibriados the Contemplative 12879 | D:9 | Found a staircase to the Lair. 13152 | D:9 | Reached XP level 11. HP: 86/93 MP: 10/17 13513 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13521 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13548 | D:9 | Paralysed by a giant eyeball for 4 turns 13995 | D:9 | Found a basalt altar of Yredelemnul. 14664 | D:10 | Entered Level 10 of the Dungeon 14903 | D:10 | Found a staircase to the Orcish Mines. 15204 | D:10 | Noticed Erolcha 15208 | D:10 | Killed Erolcha 15514 | D:10 | Noticed a hill giant 15523 | D:10 | Killed a hill giant 15523 | D:10 | Reached skill level 5 in Fighting 15898 | D:10 | Noticed a hill giant 15903 | D:10 | Killed a hill giant 16326 | D:10 | Acquired Cheibriados' first power 16515 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16516 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16517 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16738 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 16746 | D:10 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17302 | D:10 | Acquired Cheibriados' second power 17564 | D:11 | Reached XP level 12. HP: 110/112 MP: 5/18 17637 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17641 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17646 | D:11 | Noticed a skeletal warrior 17656 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 17656 | D:11 | Reached skill level 10 in Fighting 17659 | D:11 | Killed a skeletal warrior 18410 | D:12 | Acquired Cheibriados' third power 18600 | D:12 | Noticed an eight-headed hydra 18803 | D:12 | Reached skill level 11 in Fighting 18845 | D:12 | Reached skill level 1 in Invocations 19427 | D:12 | Killed an eight-headed hydra 19790 | D:12 | Noticed a seven-headed hydra 19899 | D:12 | Reached skill level 5 in Invocations 19939 | D:13 | Noticed Harold 19948 | D:13 | Killed Harold 19949 | D:13 | Found a gate to the Vaults. 20465 | D:13 | Reached XP level 13. HP: 127/127 MP: 18/24 21009 | D:13 | Noticed Urug 21018 | D:13 | Killed Urug 21394 | D:14 | Found a portal to a secret trove of treasure. 22258 | D:14 | Reached skill level 1 in Stealth 22646 | Lair:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Lair of Beasts 24583 | Lair:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Stealth 25567 | Lair:3 | Reached skill level 12 in Unarmed Combat 25901 | Lair:3 | Found a staircase to the Swamp. 25978 | Lair:3 | Reached skill level 10 in Invocations 26106 | Lair:3 | Reached XP level 14. HP: 128/135 MP: 27/27 26840 | Lair:4 | Noticed Nergalle 26841 | Lair:4 | Killed Nergalle 26907 | Lair:4 | Found a staircase to the Snake Pit. 27006 | Lair:4 | Noticed Rupert 27018 | Lair:4 | Killed Rupert 27867 | Lair:5 | Upgraded the game from 0.15-a0-29-ga6b5f5a to 0.15-a0-35-ga771cbd 27879 | Lair:5 | Identified a scroll of acquirement 27961 | Lair:5 | Reached skill level 13 in Unarmed Combat 27989 | Lair:5 | Learned a level 1 spell: Animate Skeleton 27993 | Lair:5 | Learned a level 3 spell: Regeneration 27997 | Lair:5 | Learned a level 3 spell: Vampiric Draining 28294 | Lair:5 | Reached skill level 1 in Necromancy 31931 | Lair:7 | Reached skill level 5 in Necromancy 31941 | Lair:7 | Reached XP level 15. HP: 83/144 MP: 24/29 31962 | Lair:7 | Found a staircase to the Slime Pits. 32911 | Lair:8 | Entered Level 8 of the Lair of Beasts 32925 | Lair:8 | Reached skill level 14 in Unarmed Combat 35239 | Orc:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Orcish Mines 35279 | Orc:1 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 35385 | Orc:2 | Found a roughly hewn altar of Beogh. 35396 | Orc:2 | Found a radiant altar of Vehumet. 35786 | Orc:3 | Found Klua's Gadget Emporium. 36698 | Orc:4 | Entered Level 4 of the Orcish Mines 36698 | Orc:4 | Found a staircase to the Elven Halls. 36894 | Orc:4 | Found Huppu's General Store. 36894 | Orc:4 | Found Raolavev's Magic Scroll Boutique. 36900 | Orc:4 | Found Qoackuji's Antique Weapon Shop. 36900 | Orc:4 | Found Maawot's Gadget Shoppe. 36908 | Orc:4 | Reached skill level 15 in Unarmed Combat 37134 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of acquirement for 780 gold pieces 37134 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of brand weapon for 300 gold pieces 37226 | Orc:4 | Bought a scroll of identify for 30 gold pieces 37324 | Orc:4 | Found Ecirghamy's Book Shoppe. 38144 | Orc:4 | Bought a book of the Dragon for 1440 gold pieces 38403 | Snake:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Snake Pit 38458 | Snake:1 | Found a white marble altar of Elyvilon. 38699 | Snake:1 | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging 38735 | Snake:1 | Reached XP level 16. HP: 152/156 MP: 29/29 38985 | Snake:1 | Gained mutation: Your mind is acute. (Int +2) [potion of beneficial mutation] 41953 | Snake:3 | Found a radiant altar of Vehumet. 43274 | Snake:4 | Reached XP level 17. HP: 140/163 MP: 30/30 44966 | Snake:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Snake Pit 45941 | Snake:5 | Noticed Hopeless2's illusion 45941 | Snake:5 | Noticed Mara 47068 | Snake:5 | Learned a level 1 spell: Apportation 47255 | Snake:5 | Got a serpentine rune of Zot 47270 | Snake:5 | Reached XP level 18. HP: 116/171 MP: 31/31 47809 | Snake:5 | Found Threnly's Gadget Shoppe. 48289 | Snake:5 | Reached skill level 15 in Transmutations 48445 | Snake:5 | Noticed Hopeless2's illusion 48460 | Snake:5 | Killed Mara 49300 | D:15 | Entered Level 15 of the Dungeon 49860 | D:15 | Found a staircase to the Depths. 51308 | Swamp:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Swamp 52813 | Swamp:2 | Got a distressingly furry chain mail 52832 | Swamp:2 | Identified the +11 chain mail of the Blizzard {+Rage +Fly rPois Acc-2 SInv Stlth--} (You found it on level 2 of the Swamp) 53027 | Swamp:2 | Learned a level 7 spell: Dragon Form 53038 | Swamp:2 | Got a warped turquoise ring 53041 | Swamp:2 | Identified the ring "Mnulor" {Wiz Str+4 Dex-4} (You acquired it on level 2 of the Swamp) 53932 | Swamp:3 | Reached skill level 16 in Transmutations 55315 | Swamp:4 | Got a brightly glowing sling 55316 | Swamp:4 | Identified the +6,+7 sling of Courage {frost, rPois} (You found it on level 4 of the Swamp) 55414 | Swamp:4 | Reached XP level 19. HP: 178/178 MP: 32/32 55436 | Swamp:4 | Reached skill level 1 in Armour 56260 | Swamp:5 | Entered Level 5 of the Swamp 56481 | Swamp:5 | Noticed mdk's ghost (mighty DECj) 56490 | Swamp:5 | Killed mdk's ghost 56531 | Swamp:5 | Noticed the 27-headed Lernaean hydra 56990 | Swamp:5 | Killed the 26-headed Lernaean hydra 57172 | Swamp:5 | Reached skill level 5 in Armour 57201 | Swamp:5 | Got a decaying rune of Zot 58043 | D:15 | Learned a level 2 spell: Blink 58122 | Vaults:1 | Entered Level 1 of the Vaults 58197 | Vaults:1 | Reached skill level 1 in Translocations 60840 | Vaults:2 | Reached skill level 1 in Shields 61443 | Vaults:2 | Reached XP level 20. HP: 179/187 MP: 32/32 61503 | Vaults:2 | Noticed Nikola 62105 | Vaults:2 | Noticed Margery 62112 | Vaults:2 | Killed Margery 62133 | Vaults:2 | Noticed Aizul 62345 | Vaults:2 | Noticed Boris 62354 | Vaults:2 | Blown up by Boris Action | 1- 3 | 4- 6 | 7- 9 | 10-12 | 13-15 | 16-18 | 19-21 || total -------------------------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------+-------++------- Melee: Unarmed | 156 | 330 | 295 | 410 | 1178 | 1041 | 453 || 3863 Fire: Bow | | | 95 | 244 | 9 | 31 | || 379 Throw: Dart | | 1 | 6 | 2 | | | || 9 Cast: Beastly Appendage | 27 | 30 | 12 | | | | || 69 Spider Form | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | | || 12 Blade Hands | | | 34 | 80 | 11 | 8 | 3 || 136 Animate Skeleton | | | | | 162 | 168 | 75 || 405 Regeneration | | | | | 14 | 62 | 5 || 81 Vampiric Draining | | | | | 2 | 12 | || 14 Apportation | | | | | | 3 | || 3 Dragon Form | | | | | | 3 | 7 || 10 Blink | | | | | | | 2 || 2 Invok: Bend Time | | | | 6 | 6 | 9 | 2 || 23 Temporal Distorti | | | | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 || 7 Slouch | | | | | 13 | 14 | 6 || 33 Step From Time | | | | | | 2 | 2 || 4 Abil: Spit Poison | | | 30 | 78 | 12 | 10 | 6 || 136 End Transformatio | | | | | 1 | | 1 || 2 Breathe Fire | | | | | | 1 | 3 || 4 Evoke: Wand | | | | 16 | 4 | 8 | 1 || 29 Deck | | | | | | 2 | || 2 Use: Scroll | 4 | 4 | 15 | 18 | 16 | 22 | 10 || 89 Potion | | 3 | 2 | 10 | 6 | 11 | 5 || 37 Stab: Sleeping | | | 1 | | 41 | 29 | 6 || 77 Distracted | | | | | 24 | 27 | 5 || 56 Invisible | | | | | | | 6 || 6

This one really frustrated me. With myself. I KNOW what I should have done near the end but I didn't do it because of Panic mode. I had a moment where after I hit boris I could have used either slouch or step from time to survive and did neither. Idiocy reigns supreme. Anyway OTHERWISE it was a really rewarding learning experience with a very close call vs TLH. The fact that he stomps through trees scared the ldl out of me.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 17:29 by tasonir

Nice character! One comment though, dragon form is not the ultimate transmutation, and is probably not the best for learning the game. You lose a lot of armor and a lot of EV in it, and resistances, and possibly stats from gear, etc. You were vulnerable to cold. Boris can cast bolt of cold. It could have, at worst, done around 150 damage to you because of the vulnerability. Transmutation wise, for defenses, go statue form, and for offense, go blade hands. Statue form is particularly nice for nagas because they tend to have high AC anyways - you get all the benefit from your scales, and none of the downsides of deformed body. Sadly the barding doesn't come along for the ride, but ah well. Other than that, you looked pretty good on skill training, I might take unarmed a bit higher to be around 20ish if doing statue form. When training for regeneration, train both charms and necromancy, it's faster than just training one and there are plenty of other good charms you can use (repel missiles, flight). I'd probably have raised it a bit higher, regeneration really shines with higher spellpower, the duration continues to increase, and it's always 1hp/turn.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 17:31 by crate

dragon form is good but probably not what you want for NaTm
use it for ogtm instead!!

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 17:54 by Hopeless

Several people have mentioned Statue form but it is apparently a rare spell? Ice Statue is the spell that comes with the beginning book for Tms. =edit= ice statue= ice form. ;/

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 17:58 by Magipi

Just a thought: you are good enough to bring a naga of Chei to the late midgame, that is quite impressive. You should be able to win with a decent combo.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 18:01 by crate

Hopeless wrote:Several people have mentioned Statue form but it is apparently a rare spell?

honestly I think statue form is probably the most overrated spell in all of crawl but this might just be me

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 20:24 by Quazifuji

Magipi wrote:Just a thought: you are good enough to bring a naga of Chei to the late midgame, that is quite impressive. You should be able to win with a decent combo.

Yeah, I suspect that anyone who can get to Vaults with a Naga of Chei could probably win with a MiBe without too much trouble.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 21:43 by archaeo

Quazifuji wrote:Yeah, I suspect that anyone who can get to Vaults with a Naga of Chei could probably win with a MiBe without too much trouble.

I'm not totally sure that this is true.

On the one hand, lots of Crawl skills are totally transferable within the various axes of the species/background/god difficulty continuums. These are really important skills, like good item management, an understanding of the player vs. enemy power balance, and what enemies do in combat, along with a bunch of other things.

On the other, Crawl's species/background/god decision tree leads to some "extreme" playstyles, in the sense that certain combinations create such unusual synergies that they play totally differently from the "baseline" playstyle. I think NaTm of Chei represents one of these extremes and MiBe another; both are combos that encourage things the "normal" Crawl player would avoid doing, though on opposite ends of the spectrum. Naga of Chei is definitely difficult, but it's difficult in a way that doesn't really prepare a player for the other kinds of difficulty Crawl creates. Another example: I've seen good players suggest that DE book starts are a lousy way to learn Crawl since they encourage silly lessons about skill building.

Gosh, which all sounds like nonsense now that I'm re-reading it, but nonetheless. Getting NaTm^Chei down to Vaults is definitely a lot more difficult than getting a MiBe to the same place, but I'm not sure that accomplishing such a feat prepares a player for an easy MiBe ride.

All that said, I think if Hopeless picked a traditionally "easy" combo and stuck with it for a dozen playthroughs, he'd find a win in there somewhere. I think one of the hallmarks of Crawl skill is the distance between fatal mistake and death. Poor players tend to make the mistakes that kill them long before they die; good players die very quickly after screwing up.

Wednesday, 2nd April 2014, 23:33 by Sprucery

crate wrote:honestly I think statue form is probably the most overrated spell in all of crawl but this might just be me

Even more than Necromutation? ;)

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 00:25 by crate

The people who learn necromut are often misguided but at least it does what they think it does, mostly.

Statue form is just bad for a large majority of characters, including most transmuters imo. It actually makes your defenses worse for lots of characters (particularly since if you're casting it you probably have dodging), unless you put in a large earth investment (something tm does not want). It's bad for spells (so that reduces its effectiveness for EE, which might otherwise want it) and doesn't boost additive brands on weapons (another minus for EE-types).

For a narrow subset of characters statue form is good; most octopodes get decent use out of it, for example. But I think that more often than not statue form actually actively makes your character worse than not being in statue form, as long as you are not in tomb. Necromut has the same risks but at least it's more obvious when it's good.

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 00:43 by tasonir

@crate: How do you feel about my recommended use of it? For transmuters, often nagas but not necessarily, who probably worship Chei, and use shields? I agree it does require a fairly high earth investment - in one game I picked up shatter basically for free because I had eventually gone all the way to 24.8 earth by the end of a 15 rune game: http://crawl.develz.org/morgues/0.10/Ta ... 062739.txt. But I'd argue it gets enough AC to be worth it with only around 10-15 earth, and more is optional. I don't generally cast spells aside from buffs, which can usually be cast before being in statue form, but if I have to spend 1.5 turns to refresh regeneration, it's generally worth it. I'm not casting conjurations in any case.

It certainly can backfire in some cases, but the torment resistance is hard to come by otherwise and you definitely want that if you're doing 15 runes... I am tempted to try your suggestion of a dragon form OgTm though; how do you feel about a TrTm dragon form in comparison?

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 00:52 by crate

I don't like chei statue form for all the reasons I don't really like chei nagas. Nagas also have really good non-statue AC so there's not much reason for them to learn it imo. It's just really hard to justify getting even 10-15 earth when you could instead just use blade hands + more dodging or more fighting or more UC (especially since tm is so xp-hungry), so really I think statue form is for EEs who use a weapon that works with it (these certainly exit), instead of for tm (less hard to justify getting the ~8-10 tmut you need to cast it with wizardry, since you likely have more earth than you need and since you have more earth it's better). OpEE probably the best statue form char. And then you use statue form occasionally, for things where you'd rather melee instead of cast spells, instead of as a spell you use in every fight.

(alternatively just pick it up for tomb and amnesia it afterward, since it really is very good there, but that's not what I see recommended)

I have no desire to ever play a trtm that actually uses transmutations so I can't respond to the second question.

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 12:37 by Hopeless

To those who think I should be able to bring a MiBe to victory, apparently you are dead wrong. I just died to super poison and multiple orbs of destruction in N2. Apparently someone forget to tell us that the spiders got steroid boosters. Just for the record I was wearing not one, not two but 3 sources of rPois (all coincidental to the main reasons for wearing them.) I had fairly decent stats too. Just couldn't weave and dodge fast enough to get away from the many circling orbs of destruction. So yet again I have failed to comprehend this game. I should mention, I ended up spamming tons of curing potions, the hunger inducing regen ability etc all to no avail. It is not surprising to me any more to lose many hours of "play" (work) to op crap. Just frustrating and disheartening. And imho that is the status quo and why people end up walking away from this game.

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 12:56 by Sar

Things that absolutely destroy orb spiders: blowgun + poisoned needles, wands that check MR, other wands that aren't terrible, walking away and catching them at corners (hard to explain but they maintain range in a weird way).

Edit: post a morgue?

Thursday, 3rd April 2014, 13:12 by Lasty

Hopeless: rPois+ is the most resist poison players can get under normal circumstances, so wearing extra rPois+ items doesn't help. You can see this on the % screen, where rPois is listed with a single pip of resistance.

Sar's advice about orb spiders is solid, but as for why you were having such troubles with poison otherwise, can you give more detail? What were your defenses like? Did you rest off the poison you had before fighting additional monsters w/ poison? Did you draw out spiders in the smallest groups you could?

I'm sure you're sick of questions like these, but they're the best way for the community to get a sense of what might be helpful advice at this point.

I've found that if I have a decent killing tool and good defenses (say 30+ AC and 10+ EV or 20+ AC and 30+ EV) poisoning isn't too awful in the spider's nest with careful play, though I prefer to either have rPois or regeneration (or ideally both) so that I can get back up to fighting shape more quickly after each fight.