Why do I die mid/late game?


Ask fellow adventurers how to stay alive in the deep, dark, dangerous dungeon below, or share your own accumulated wisdom.

Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:20

Why do I die mid/late game?

Common wisdom here is that early game is the only really hard part. Early game is a cinch for me, at least with caster backgrounds (I almost always play book backgrounds and know their strengths/weaknesses, but when I play a melee background I always seem to overestimate their resilience) but I keep dying in places like lair branches, vaults, and depths. I have played for a long time (since 0.8, I think) but only occasionally and casually, maybe 60 to 80 games per year on average, and have won exactly once (straightforward 3 rune game with a DsMo^Makh in .12, I think. Got monstrous + demonic servant and spammed tons of Makh summons.). Sometimes it's because of stupid branch order decisions, or things like committing to a zig instead of really focusing on winning the game, but even then it's not really an intentional decision so much as getting into a stupid and unfocused mindset. Other times it's because of tactical mistakes or unfamiliarity with later threats.

So this month I started up Crawl, tried and killed a couple unfamiliar combos at d8 or so (HOGl, FeSu--no idea what I'm doing with these), then easily got a VpEE^Kiku and DgIE to the bottom of lair. I saved both games and a week or so later they're still sitting there. I'm afraid I will kill them both with the same kinds of mistakes I usually make. Would really like some general advice to help figure out why I can't seem to reliably manage the part of the game that most players seem to find easiest. Dumps of my two latest attached, in case I have made some obvious skilling errors that help explain my late game losses.
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Barkeep

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:31

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

For what it's worth, I die in the mid-late game, too. Generally it's losing attention or misjudging the risk presented by a later threat, too. Underusing consumables and god powers help me die a lot, too. My VpEE^Kiku would underuse undead buddies (death channel is real efficient) and my DgIE would underuse Ice Beasts.

The biggest thing that helped me was to start treating 50% HP as "death" and 60% HP as "dire emergency, encounter failed, death is soon". There are not a lot of situations you can't get out of with 60% HP remaining.
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:32

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Stop moving toward monsters.

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Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:36

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Thanks for the advice, and for the reassurance... I'm glad I'm not the only one. I asked for advice on that VpEE in YAVP/YASD and decided based on the response to learn Death Channel, so hopefully when I pick that game back up it will help me turn it into a win. I'll take your advice on Ice Beasts as well.

Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:37

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

crate wrote:Stop moving toward monsters.


Well, I don't, or at least I don't think I do. I definitely don't do it in the early game, and I don't think I start doing it later... I tend to always train stealth a lot and try to lure everything. But maybe I start getting impatient and don't realize it... I'll try to focus more on it.

Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:43

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

I have this problem, especially when playing something fragile like spriggans. My best theory is that I have some poor tactical instincts that are fine or even beneficial to me 99.99% of the time, and catch up to me around lair branches/vaults/depths. It's pretty hard to crystallize the issue and iterate on my errors because each data point represents a lot of time invested.

Tomb Titivator

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:45

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Happens to all of us. Happens to me most when I play melee characters. Or when I get complacent and stupid and decide to cast one last fireball.

Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 19:53

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Yeah, that is the kind of decision that gets me... Not realizing how much danger I'm in, and thinking I can wrap up the situation with one last spell, especially once my character starts feeling strong. Guess I just really need to take my time if I want to win these two. Thanks :)
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 20:54

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Use the rcfile options
  Code:
hp_warning = 60
hp_colour = 75:yellow, 60:red

to make sure you notice when you are taking too much damage.
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
Bloat: 17: RaRoPrPh{GuStGnCa}{ArEtZoNb}KiPaAnDrBXDBQOApDaMeAGBiOCNKAsFnFlUs{RoBoNeWi

Blades Runner

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Post Monday, 7th March 2016, 20:55

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

thanks, that's a great idea. i think i'll set up MP warnings too.

Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 8th March 2016, 03:24

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

yesno wrote:Common wisdom here is that early game is the only really hard part.


It's a bit more complicated than that. The early game gets referred to as the hardest part of the game by some players because the power balance between enemies and the player is at its most even, the margin for error is at its smallest, you have nearly zero access to tools and consumables, and the randomness inherent in crawl has its greatest impact by far in the earliest stages.

When you have some experience, you can reach lair a decent percentage of your games, and the times you don't are relatively short games anyway so it's not long before you end up at the midgame. At this point, safely navigating the mid/late game becomes a bigger deal than working on your early game. The mid/late game requires much more of you strategically and a broader understanding tactically, For instance: building a strong char through skill training/weapon/god choice; use of consumables, evocables, abilities and spells; branch order; and knowing how to counter the dangerous special abilities of enemies before they use them on you (e.g. vault warden seal, great orb of eyes paralyse, guardian serpent blink allies encircling).

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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Tuesday, 8th March 2016, 06:33

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

I did some statistics on my own morgue at one point using some scripts, I ended up pretty much dying at a pretty consistent rate throughout the game, each new "chunk" of the game kills off about the same percentage of the previous rounds survivors, and looking at the cases of death nearly all of them are just me not taking some action I should have taken a round or two earlier when I was in trouble, but was playing too fast and loose (I have my warnings for hps at 80%/65%, and tab disabled at 75% as well, which perhaps gets me into trouble in the opposite fashion, where I end up forcing combat more often than I should, and hence become desensitized to it)
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Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 02:29

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

If you're a newer player you know what can kill you early game, but don't know what/how is a really nasty threat late game. Caustic shrike? Some kind of bird thing? This should be easy! Vs. OHMYGOD a DRAGON! RUN AWAY! After you've won a few times and know what to avoid/start quaffing consumables/run away from, late game becomes relatively safe compared to early game.

Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 04:25

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

zxc23 wrote:When you have some experience, you can reach lair a decent percentage of your games, and the times you don't are relatively short games anyway so it's not long before you end up at the midgame. At this point, safely navigating the mid/late game becomes a bigger deal than working on your early game.


Yeah, I suppose that's the point I'm at now. I guess I just got ahead of myself, thinking that since I can usually get through lair, I should be hitting streaks without breaking a sweat or something. Still lots to learn about this game.

Reptisaurus wrote:If you're a newer player you know what can kill you early game, but don't know what/how is a really nasty threat late game. Caustic shrike? Some kind of bird thing? This should be easy! Vs. OHMYGOD a DRAGON! RUN AWAY! After you've won a few times and know what to avoid/start quaffing consumables/run away from, late game becomes relatively safe compared to early game.


This too. Another thing, in addition to the wider variety of threats that appear after the early game, is that early game has changed very little in all this time... It's still just rats, jackals, goblins, kobolds, etc., whereas lair, depths, branches, abyss... have gotten unusual and dangerous new kinds of threats in each version.
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Vestibule Violator

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 05:11

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

yesno wrote:
zxc23 wrote:When you have some experience, you can reach lair a decent percentage of your games, and the times you don't are relatively short games anyway so it's not long before you end up at the midgame. At this point, safely navigating the mid/late game becomes a bigger deal than working on your early game.


Yeah, I suppose that's the point I'm at now. I guess I just got ahead of myself, thinking that since I can usually get through lair, I should be hitting streaks without breaking a sweat or something. Still lots to learn about this game.

Reptisaurus wrote:If you're a newer player you know what can kill you early game, but don't know what/how is a really nasty threat late game. Caustic shrike? Some kind of bird thing? This should be easy! Vs. OHMYGOD a DRAGON! RUN AWAY! After you've won a few times and know what to avoid/start quaffing consumables/run away from, late game becomes relatively safe compared to early game.


This too. Another thing, in addition to the wider variety of threats that appear after the early game, is that early game has changed very little in all this time... It's still just rats, jackals, goblins, kobolds, etc., whereas lair, depths, branches, abyss... have gotten unusual and dangerous new kinds of threats in each version.


Dart slugs :D
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Ziggurat Zagger

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 07:49

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Tiktacy wrote:
yesno wrote:
zxc23 wrote:When you have some experience, you can reach lair a decent percentage of your games, and the times you don't are relatively short games anyway so it's not long before you end up at the midgame. At this point, safely navigating the mid/late game becomes a bigger deal than working on your early game.


Yeah, I suppose that's the point I'm at now. I guess I just got ahead of myself, thinking that since I can usually get through lair, I should be hitting streaks without breaking a sweat or something. Still lots to learn about this game.

Reptisaurus wrote:If you're a newer player you know what can kill you early game, but don't know what/how is a really nasty threat late game. Caustic shrike? Some kind of bird thing? This should be easy! Vs. OHMYGOD a DRAGON! RUN AWAY! After you've won a few times and know what to avoid/start quaffing consumables/run away from, late game becomes relatively safe compared to early game.


This too. Another thing, in addition to the wider variety of threats that appear after the early game, is that early game has changed very little in all this time... It's still just rats, jackals, goblins, kobolds, etc., whereas lair, depths, branches, abyss... have gotten unusual and dangerous new kinds of threats in each version.


Dart slugs :D

And howler monkeys! :)
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Barkeep

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 14:47

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Reptisaurus wrote:Caustic shrike? Some kind of bird thing? This should be easy!


To be fair, shrikes are assholes:

Image

If they could hit me with acid, I would never go outside.
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Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 9th March 2016, 17:17

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Tiktacy wrote:
Dart slugs :D


yeah! i've been playing .17 but i watched a game in trunk just yesterday and was really surprised to see a new early game monster.

Abyss Ambulator

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Post Thursday, 10th March 2016, 21:12

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Is there a tutorial on how to set up these kind of warnings? I would LOVE to have the tab disable at 75% one
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Blades Runner

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Post Thursday, 10th March 2016, 21:55

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

everything is documented in options_guide in your Crawl docs. to disable tabbing at 75% put "autofight_stop = 75" in your settings/init file (or rcfile, w/e). i found this option just now by searching options_guide for "autofight".

Mines Malingerer

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Post Thursday, 10th March 2016, 21:56

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Just my two cents on this as a newer player who has just made it to Zot (but not won yet) for the 1st time. I can reliably get most characters through lair and orc now. I still struggle on the early rune branches but I am getting the hang of it.

I think part of the problem is that you need time to get used to the new enemies you meet in mid/late. Sigmund doesn't scare me anymore because I know what he can do and how to handle it mostly. Same for Hydras and Death Yaks. I have fought them tons of times and am fully aware of what they can dish out. But when you 1st encounter new enemies it is tough to know what to do even using the wiki because only observation will get you used to what they can really do.

You will fight a million orcs but only a handful of say Death Cobs in the game.

So yeah your strategy is gonna play a big part, but the more you encounter these enemies that you meet much more rarely the better you will be equipped to deal with their quirks.

I know that isn't very helpful, but I'm kind of in the same situation as you are so it has been on my mind lately. At least you have a win!

Tartarus Sorceror

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Post Wednesday, 16th March 2016, 15:44

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

yesno wrote:Common wisdom here is that early game is the only really hard part.


Part of the problem is that common wisdom is just something people repeat a lot, often without any understanding of the context in which that statement may be true.
Early game is the most dangerous part of the game for really skilled players because there is the highest chance of random, unavoidable death there. In the early game, you rely much more on the RNG not to kill you than later on, when you have many tools to mitigate the RNG. So a Hypothetical Optimal Player truly is in the most danger in the early game, generally.

While I do think there's some truth to it, I think it's wildly exaggerated, and backed up with pretty poor logic (Usually, the logic is that most deaths happen early in the game, therefore early game is the most dangerous. However that obviously fails to take into account that if those characters hadn't died in the early game, they would have died later on. In other words, a character can only die once, and to die in the mid/late game you have to have not died in the early game).

This statement has been repeated for as long as I've followed the game, even though the early game has been made easier (No gnoll packs on D1 for one thing, although there are much more I'm sure, some backgrounds have been buffed a bit) and the mid/late game has become MUCH harder (The introduction of depths with the corresponding reduction to D levels is the biggest part of this, less levels in lair rune branches, swiftness spell doesn't mean you can just kite everything, introduction of more dangerous enemies, removal of some easy enemies, removal of stasis, clarity, more dangerous corrosion... etc)

So I'd suggest you die mid/late game because it's very dangerous, and as you said, you're much less familiar with it than you are with early game.

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Post Wednesday, 16th March 2016, 17:59

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

I've been away from crawl for a couple years. Some observations after recent trunk games:

the mid/late game has become MUCH harder (The introduction of depths with the corresponding reduction to D levels is the biggest part of this, less levels in lair rune branches, swiftness spell doesn't mean you can just kite everything, introduction of more dangerous enemies, removal of some easy enemies, removal of stasis, clarity, more dangerous corrosion... etc)

Dowan speaks truth. The EXP budget has gotten tight - gone are the days when I could saunter over to get the Lair runes at my convenience after clearing most of Vaults and D. If I get distracted and pump an irrelevant skill to try out some cool new spell, I will suffer badly for it later on.

While in-game descriptions of monsters help assess unfamiliar threats (I mentally screamed when I read about the Caustic Shriek), you don't get spoonfed absolutely everything. You don't know how dangerous a boulder beetle is until it one-shots your ignorant spriggan who thought EV would solve it. Ogre mage squads don't register as a threat until you've lost an invisible, EV-reliant stabber by paralysis at melee range of everyone - or you've been banished. It also takes many games to get a sense for when something's "out of depth" - just because ice demons are a pushover in extended doesn't mean it's trivial to your Lair character in Ice Cave.

So pick a style and keep dying in mid/lategame until you hone your intuition. Then when you switch styles, your intuition will need re-attuning as different monsters become threats to watch for.

Blades Runner

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Post Wednesday, 16th March 2016, 19:33

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Well, I won again by playing extra cautiously this time... So I guess I've got a better handle on it now. The game does seem a bit more XP-tight than I remember, since I escaped with the orb at just XL 25. Another decision that was messing me up in past games was going for high level spells... In this game, I got my magic offenses to the point where they were definitely good enough, then totally split my focus and got very balanced defenses.

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Post Wednesday, 16th March 2016, 20:25

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

The first common skilling mistake is to neglect early offense too much.
The second common skilling mistake is to prioritize offense too much once it's good enough.
The third common skilling mistake is to train too much spellcasting

The first one is easy to fix, and it'll get you to the temple pretty well. The second one takes some experience to figure out, and it does differ between character types. The third one... I still fall victim to that one sometimes.

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Swamp Slogger

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Post Tuesday, 12th April 2016, 11:25

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

I often find that the mid-game is where you're just starting to get strong in relation to the monsters around you, and it is all too tempting to go on a rampage as a kind of revenge for what the early game has chucked at you - I always have to tell myself to cool it and not go crazy when I see that lair entrance.

Another thing is that the mid-game is where you need to make decisions about what skills to invest in to get you through the late game / extended. If, in the mid-game you fail to look ahead and plan for what exactly you're going to do about certain enemies and environments and just spread your xp around all your skills (possibly during your hubris-fuelled bloodfest) , it is all too easy to end up being a jack of all trades and a master of none, leaving you underpowered and vulnerable later on. A big factor in this is equipment - you'll probably be starting to get some decent equipment rather than muddling along with mediocre stuff, and it's very easy to be tempted into changing your build and then wishing you hadn't later on.

Another thing is the sudden changes in environment as you venture into different branches / sections. What is good for the spider nest (say) may be bad for the shoals (say).

Knowing exactly what the threats are and how your particular build is going to deal with it comes with experience. The design of crawl is so clever in this respect - there are so many different combinations of builds, environments, monsters, equipment, gods etc. that it never gets boring - even the most experienced players screw up by not appreciating the interplays between all these, and that's what makes crawl so fun...
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Swamp Slogger

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Post Wednesday, 13th April 2016, 21:04

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

A) Spellcasting Skill is awesome. Hunger reduction is just okay for most characters, but MP is great and if you're using more than two schools of magic it's worthwhile for casting success/spellpower.

B) I think it's largely about knowing the threat levels and special abilities (hi there, Juggernaut!) of the mid/later game threats. I remember having a lot of characters die to spiny frogs early on, because I only regarded them as a moderately dangerous monster (as opposed to the rarer and seemingly more threatening Mambas), not wanting to use consumables on them, etc. Plus the whole shrikes and giants being more dangerous than (most) Dragons - the level of threat presented by late game foes is often unintuitive.

C) Knowing when you can handle what branch is definitely a stumbling block, too. Getting blink surrounded in Snake can be rather fatal, as can underestimating Spider with squishier characters (rPois is nice and all, but Wolf Spiders will murder you all the same with low AC... Also, mummy v tarantula, wtf?). By this point, hopefully you have accured enough consumables to escape a few tight spots.

Congrats on your win, by the way. :)
Last edited by Tressol on Thursday, 14th April 2016, 15:26, edited 1 time in total.
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Blades Runner

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Post Thursday, 14th April 2016, 02:39

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

B) I think it's largely about knowing the threat levels and special abilities (hi there, Juggernaut!) of the mid/later game threats. I remember having a lot of characters die to spiny frogs early on, because I only regarded them as a moderately dangerous monster (as opposed to the rarer and seemingly more threatening Mambas), not wanting to use consumables on them, etc. Plus the whole shrikes and giants being more dangerous than (most) Dragons - the level of threat presented by late game foes is ofteb unintuitive.


yeah, i have been having less trouble with this since i started playing online where i have access to sequell in chat so i can evaluate unfamiliar monsters numerically against familiar ones... offline crawl would be much improved if players could access the info provided by @?? queries in game, maybe by pressing '!' on xv screen. frequently the only reason i don't look up monster info on wiki or irc is the tedium of tabbing away from my game.

Congrats on your win, by the way. :)


ty :) going to try for great vampire by maybe the end of this year... vpen is next

Dungeon Master

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Post Friday, 15th April 2016, 15:43

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

By the midgame, all but the most unlucky characters have a plethora of options to avoid getting into trouble and also to extract themselves from trouble, and where players die in the mid/late game, it's because of three things:

1) Lack of experience. It's easy to get yourself into trouble when you don't have a good sense of what constitutes trouble. This is also the part of the game where strategy starts to matter, and even if your tactics are good, you may find that poor skilling or choices of items and spells comes back to bite you at this point.
2) Overconfidence. Around the midgame, usually after completing Lair but also at a variety of other points, you may find yourself considerably more powerful than the monsters around you, and if you do you'll often get more lax about good precautions and tactics, and you may be slow to engage emergency options, even if they're plentiful. It's important to keep your guard up, even when your character is very strong.
3) Boredom and distraction. The game can be long, especially if you play slowly, and it's easy to lose focus or interest. Once you do, it's very easy to make mistakes, and if the mistakes pile up enough or combine with sufficiently bad luck, you may not be able to save yourself -- or you may die before you think you need saving.

I've played enough crawl to generally avoid 1), but if you search my game history you'll see an immense number of games where I choke in the mid-to-late game for reasons 2) and 3). I've had very, very few games where I died past Lair for a reason other than 2) or 3).
Last edited by archaeo on Friday, 15th April 2016, 21:54, edited 1 time in total.
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Tomb Titivator

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Post Sunday, 17th April 2016, 15:32

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Lasty wrote: it's because of three things:
According to this, most deaths should be boring and disappointing, and this has indeed been my experience, even though roguelikes are supposed to be known for their inventive deaths :?
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Abyss Ambulator

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Post Sunday, 17th April 2016, 20:41

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Here are a few things that I think are almost always not a good idea:

1. Training stealth. Stealth is crap in this game. Don't train it unless you're a spriggan, using Chei with transmutations, or want to play a dedicated hex/needle stabber.
2. Training shields. Don't do this unless you're a troll or formicid. It's ok if you use conjurations a lot, then use a buckler.
3. Training short blades. The parter of 1. and 2. Short blades are almost always terrible, and when they aren't terrible, they aren't actually that good, even though people sometimes argue otherwise, such as "I'm going to go short blades to maximize by bite attacks as a VS!"

4. Overtraining invocations on invo gods. Don't do this. Most invocations are not that good, seriously. Just get enough to use everything safely. I can't think of many gods that I'd want to go over 14 invocations on, perhaps Qazlal, but I don't think he's particularly enjoyable, and even this is debatable because you should be investing into things to help you survive the waves of enemies coming to you.

5. Training offensive magic without a book background and high starting int. Don't do this, especially in 0.18. Especially don't try to do a "reaver" character that uses mid-level conjurations with melee and moderate (base AC <= 10) armor, unless you have Ashenzari.Blade hands is still OK, if you do UC.

This works well for enemies but not for you because you have to deal with fail rates, spellpower issues, and experience allocation. By the time you get it working well, the game will basically be over, and you'll hate yourself because you spent 12 hours playing a character that has to rest and kite a whole lot because of how weak it is. It's just not a fun experience imo.

As more and more spells that aren't bad for characters without high intelligence are being removed or moved up in level, there is increasingly little point to training spells past the amount needed to use repel missiles, blink, summon butterflies, regeneration, animate skeleton, spectral weapon (I'm sure it will be removed soon) and possibly passage of golubria, unless you've started with highish INT. Learning deflect missiles or haste (the most overrated spell in the game) on a moderate-to-heavy armor character is probably a mistake unless you find a few INT items or plan to get 15 runes, in which case you can find the XP easily enough. Otherwise, haste potions and wands and berserk potions/amulets should get the job done.

I used to recommend shadow creatures, but 6 is too high level now for a more heavily-armored character. By the time you can afford that kind of XP in summonings, why bother, when you can train evocations and use a box of beasts or sack of spiders or elemental evoker that accomplishes the same thing, with far fewer fail rate issues, in a skill that most everyone has a better aptitude in, that dosen't check intelligence or use enhancers? Similarly, without phase shift, the value of even investing towards passage en route to phase shift is questionable. Necromancy is still okay for animate dead.

6. Not training any weapon, evasion, or fighting skill on a conjurer. If you're using moderate-to-high level conjurations, you should probably still use light armor, in my opinion. I actually think characters that use high-level conjurations are pretty fun and easy, unlike a lot of people, but you shoud still use a demon weapon or something like that even if you're wearing robes. You can kill even things like deep trolls fairly well with 18/30 and robes (RIP phaseshift) and avoid awkward situations where you have 0 MP.

7. Another good thing to do on many characters is to train ranged or throwing late game after stopping weapon skill at ~20. Ranged and throwing have issues early on with ammo, but this far into the game, these issues are no longer there, you can have a good launcher due to leftover enchant scrolls, and the XP is better used here than in 3 more points of dodging/armor.

Basically, I would try to build characters that are strong defensively, leaning towards high AC and moderate-low EV, or lightly armored with high-powered spells. These kind of characters will have a fairly smooth time going through the game. Being able to do a lot of damage is quite useful, especially as more powerful enemies are added to Depths in attempts to get people to die there. Being versatile and adapting after the early game is pretty overrated, imo - there is not a whole lot worth adapting to.

Good tactics are simpler to explain. It is straightforward - don't let a lot of enemies attack you at the same time. If there are summoners onscreen, get ready to use teleport if you can't dig a tunnel to break LoS with them. In general, there's no such thing as teleporting away too early. Be aware of enemies' special abilities and how they can cut off your escapes or kill you in 2 turns. Eventually you will get a feel for what kind of situations are unwinnable without having to find out the hard way by getting down to 30% HP. Remember to lure enemies back in the direction you came, so that things don't get out of hand due to noise. Finally, in my view, playing characters that allow you to be a little lazy with kiting tactics is actually a good thing, because you'll be less likely to make a mistake out of frustration or boredom.
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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 01:09

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Dang, I disagree with your points 1 through 5, though I'm pretty close to agreeing with 3 and 4.

Re: 1), Stealth is a pretty handy defensive skill and more frail species (and nagas) are often well-advised to train some, tho it's rare you want to go beyond a moderate amount. Stealth can make it much easier to lose a monster you want to avoid as well as the obvious application of not waking something you wish not to fight.

Re: 2), if you have a good one-handed weapon before a good two-handed weapon and you also have a decent shield, it's a not a bad idea to train a shield; the defensive benefits are quite solid and it isn't really that expensive. Some species also can appreciate the extra resist. Admittedly, I probably train shields on less than half my characters, but I think it's probably not all that much less than half.

Re: 3), sometimes it's worth training an electric dagger or short sword to min delay to serve as an adequate backup weapon. For some species it's a cheap way to get a decent offense while training up other things, and for characters who intend to spend a lot on other skills that will kill monsters, it can be a perfectly adequate cheap secondary offense throughout the game. It's also acceptable with hexes, though I prefer other weapons in most cases. Sometimes it's worth doing with the expectation of pivoting to long blades later in the game. Like you, I wouldn't use them on a VS if I had any other option.

Re: 4), I agree that overtraining Invo is a bad idea and that for most gods you don't want to go over about 14, but there are a small number of gods and characters where you might consider it. Qazlal is the main one; if you are already playing Qaz you might as well take advantage of his powerful invocations, which scale well up to high levels. Ely can be another example. In some cases you might even train high Invo w/ Zin. That's pretty much the end of it right now.

Re: 5), I think this is where we disagree most. You can get quite a lot of power out of several offensive magic schools without too much investment, particularly in the single-school spells. Necromancy, Hexes, and even Summoning can be quite useful with 15-20 intelligence, thanks to spells like Animate Dead, Agony, Death Channel, Monstrous Menagerie, Shadow Creatures, Confuse, and Tukima's Dance. Conjurations tend to be considerably worse with light intelligence as well as taking multiple schools, but there is the rare character here and there who is able to make good use of a bolt spell or something of the kind with only ~20 intelligence. Conjure Flame, Mephitic Cloud, and Sticky Flame can be decent even for lower intelligence.

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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 07:18

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Stealth is a great defensive skill and most non-Tr/Ce/Qaz/TSO characters not wearing heavy armour should train some.
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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 07:56

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Re and expanding Tabstorm points:

1. My requirement for training stealth is being a stabber or race with a high apt (+4 or +5) and using lighter armour. Essentially I want a greater incentive to train stealth than just 'pour a good chunk of XP into this and sometimes monsters won't see you on the first turn'.

2. 1h is a lot worse than 2h for typical melee, and having good damage output is the most important aspect of your character. For UC, shields are good. Formicids get shields for free. Larger races have cheaper SH/XP for investing in shields and access to a wider range of shields, so their incentive for going 1h+shield is slightly greater if they find a good endgame 1h. Training shields early in the game without being a formicid or using UC is bad as it is likely to be wasted XP when you switch to 2h or will commit you to using subpar weapons. If using shields, stick to bucklers unless your race is large or you find a great regular shield.

3. Sblades are good for stabbing, Kiku/Gozag at times, and nothing else. Elec and pois sblades early on are common and good to use, but you don't need to train sblades for them.

4. For most invo gods, 8-11 invo is fine. Some exceptions are Qazlal, Ely, possibly Lugonu, and in extended: Zin and TSO.

5. Hybridising from a warrior start is pretty weak and pointless. Spells past level 3 or so aren't worth investing in without some int. My favourite spells are tukima's dance, blink, and repel missiles, and they are worth learning on many chars that don't worship Trog. Other spells I won't touch without god support or prior training due to a book start. Haste, deflect missiles and cblink are very rarely worth going for.

6. Hybridising from a mage start is often good. Every char can get decent melee. Flimsy conjurer/summoner chars can forgo melee except for trash, but everyone else can and should aim for an endgame weapon. Dodging and fighting should be trained on every char, without exceptions.

7. I don't like training ranged when strong melee is available. The only exception I would allow is throwing for ogres and trolls. Evocations is worth training to at least 6 with every char, and typically this will be my XP dumping ground for a broad range of utility.

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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 10:03

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

zxc23 wrote:1. My requirement for training stealth is being a stabber or race with a high apt (+4 or +5) and using lighter armour. Essentially I want a greater incentive to train stealth than just 'pour a good chunk of XP into this and sometimes monsters won't see you on the first turn'.

Lasty covered that: stealth also helps lose pursuers once you break line of sight. That and "sometimes a threat you have no solutions for won't wake up on first turn" is a pretty good return for putting in some EXP.

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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 10:18

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Psieye wrote:Lasty covered that: stealth also helps lose pursuers once you break line of sight.

The problem is that once you break LOS you're pretty much completely out of danger anyway. This only matters much in the early dungeon.

Psieye wrote: That and "sometimes a threat you have no solutions for won't wake up on first turn" is a pretty good return for putting in some EXP.

Again this only really matters in the early dungeon. Later on everything can be dealt with or at the very least escaped from. The xp can be put to better use. I find that threats you have no solutions for in the mid/lategame only tend to come about when actually playing a character that trained stealth.

Stealth matters in the early game to avoid Sigmund etc but training other skills is usually at least as important at that time.
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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 12:40

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

The thing with stealth stabbers is that they are very bad. The only reason you should be a stealth stabber is because you suddenly thought "man, I feel like playing a stabber today". Unless you are a spriggan, you should not try to adapt to floor drops that are conducive to stabbing, because it will make your character worse. This works on spriggans because of 1. their apts and 2. their move speed, mostly 2.
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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 14:06

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Please confirm for me tabstorm that I've understood you correctly. Stealth is a very bad way to set up stabs. But if one has another way to set them up then training a modest amount of stealth at least to match short blades skill still ought to be done because it's a cheap way to improve stabbing bonuses and stealth isn't intrinsically bad unless ovettrained.
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Post Monday, 18th April 2016, 16:03

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

For me: Non Stabbers: Stealth is about picking fights on your terms. It is easier to set up the fight you want on your terms. Many stealth apts are really good, and you notice fewer "i got into this fight and now there are unexpected complications" moments at a few stealth pips.

tabstorm wrote:In my view it has more to do with the fact that the "harder" races aren't really "hard" in the following sense:
As a good race, like a Minotaur, you can get away with a lot of mistakes. You can just run around the dungeon mashing o/tab without too much regard for what enemies are onscreen. Mummies are a lot weaker, and you have to engage in more degenerate gameplay to keep them alive. Strictly speaking, it's a mistake not to use the same tactics on a Minotaur, but they're really boring, so people don't do it. But, as a Mummy, you can't get away with it very much.

The issue is that correct play is largely "known", but is too unfun for most players. Most people do not want to spend most of their game luring enemies to the staircase, stone-throwing, and so on. Lots of the "interesting tactical positioning" problems can be dissolved by degenerate play. Fortunately, you can get away with not doing this sort of thing on almost all characters.

In a sense, Crawl is a game that kills by boredom!


This aspect is specifically what I want from stealth on many/most ring-mail esque characters. I frequently train stealth because it alleviates degenerate play (cheaply!).

The loss of phase shift... has changed things. Hybrids are weaker. Summons are more expensive. I'd like to advocate for stealth more, but I think Tabstorm may be right, at least in 0.18.

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 02:38

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

tabstorm wrote:Here are a few things that I think are almost always not a good idea:
1. Training stealth.
2. Training shields.
3. Training short blades.
4. Overtraining invocations on invo gods.
5. Training offensive magic without a book background and high starting int.
6. Not training any weapon, evasion, or fighting skill on a conjurer.
7. Another good thing to do on many characters is to train ranged or throwing late game after stopping weapon skill at ~20.


1. Disagree. If you have a good apt and aren't in heavy armour yet, throw some points here. The goal isn't to murderstab D:1-Z:5, just to increase the amount of potential encounters you can exclude and walk away from without waking anyone up.
2. Mostly agree, but it depends a lot on apts and on the weapon you find early and on race-specific considerations (example: you want shields on ocotopode).
3. Mostly agree, except that it's fine to throw 4-6 points in to make that early +3 short sword of venom/elec better while you train up your other skills and look for a real weapon.
4. Agreed.
5. Absolutely agree. I dislike Lasty's approach to building hybrid characters.
6. Agree, of course.
7. Throwing yes, launchers no.

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 15:05

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Rast wrote:2. Mostly agree, but it depends a lot on apts and on the weapon you find early and on race-specific considerations (example: you want shields on ocotopode)


Only in this case you've made another error, which is playing an octopode

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Post Tuesday, 19th April 2016, 19:43

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

also you don't actually want shields on melee octopodes significantly more often than you want them on melee humans

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 12:14

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Melee character:

1) Play Gargoyle
2) Use a dagger of draining/electric/venom until you find a decent mace or axe
3) Only train fighting, mace/axe, armour, shield
4) Only pump STR, you don't need int or dex
5) Worship TSO, now you have accuracy, rN, enhanced shields and there are enough guys worth free heals/mana even before extended to make it worthwhile. Angels to deal with bosses and bad situations.
6) Never use a two hander, they aren't worth it for the reduced defenses and lack of resists/artifact stats, etc. Possibly consider executioner's axe or triple sword but only if you got very nice and heavy armour. You deal zero damage when you cannot manage to receive it any more and the biggest damage dealer is an axe. Two-hander, okay.. if you somehow are really, really tough without the shield. You'll go slower in the early/mid game without the shield, so you're then wasting XP points late game to drop it, but you can.. I just wouldn't bother. A holy eveningstar pumped up on agil+might is enough to splatterfest a hell boss without issue.
7) Always use an eveningstar or broad axe if you can, preferably both, situationally.. they cross train. If you find a really great double sword, it's okay but the apt. is somewhat worse, and you'll miss axe cross-training
8) Always make your best weapon brand holy - you get life for killing things it hurts most, and it hurts the most dangerous things the most (except iron giants)
9) Always wear Quicksilver dragon armour or plate until you find Gold Dragon Armour, Crystal Plate, or (fire/ice dragon if you find a high resist ring in the opposite direction and might want to cast)
10) Don't enchant armour or weapon until you get something good to put it on, particularly if you intend to do 15 runes
11) If you want to add spells, then pump STR/INT with gear, carry a wizardry staff or rings if needed and shoot for either shatter or tornado, by the time it's online you're either in hell or pan.. they aren't needed but they can help. Tornado is the best spell if you can only have one operational spell although shatter will be easier to work into this character.

Stealth sucks, EV sucks, Evocations is lame I wouldn't bother unless it's just a few points - because you gimp yourself with inventory by carrying a lot of wands and other evocables. By the time it would make sense to train evocations to actually be of any use (bag of spiders for a hell boss or whatever), you already are overpowered and have no need for it. The only wands you should keep are: Heal/Disint/Digging/Haste/Teleport/Invis. Most of your inventory should be ring swaps for different branches and scroll/potion options. Invocations is okay, but it's not absolutely needed. I'd probably put most points into invocations after you've maxed the first four skills and maybe a few before that.

Your biggest threats the entire game are orc priests early on (run to stairs) and acid blobs.

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 13:11

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

duvessa wrote:also you don't actually want shields on melee octopodes significantly more often than you want them on melee humans

Well sure but you don't do dishes while your house is on fire
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 13:17

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

svendre wrote:Melee character:

Sorry but there's a lot in there that's pretty controversial to what is generally considered good advice. Like not training Dodging, not putting any stat points in Dex, worshipping TSO, not using a two-hander, holy brand being the best (it's not in a 3-rune game), saving EA and EW scrolls for later, EV sucking and Evocations being lame.
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 13:39

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

I... strongly disagree with most of what svendre said there.

I do agree with the first half of 2. Early daggers of draining/elec/venom are great.

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 15:35

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

And here is the proof:

http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/svend ... 073839.txt

20411843 svendre the Invulnerable (level 27, 199/199 HPs)
Began as a Gargoyle Fighter on Mar 21, 2016.
Was the Champion of the Shining One.
Escaped with the Orb
... and 15 runes on Mar 24, 2016!

The game lasted 1 day 06:58:01 (74651 turns).

Notice:
32246 | Depths:2 | Reached skill level 5 in Dodging
70314 | Pan | Reached skill level 1 in Evocations
73143 | Pan | Reached skill level 10 in Dodging

(Even Invocations was trained up to 27 before I pushed much of anything into evasion, it wasn't needed I just needed something turned on in skills at that point)
The only thing really different at all from my advice was that game, Oka was scummed for gear before the switch to TSO, so - just consider that option as added to my guide above :P Pure TSO would theoretically (and tested by me) allow you to go much faster than this game by hitting up hell very early on for a huge XP boost then doing many runes in reverse order than normal.
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 15:47

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

A victory with your strategy doesn't prove that your suggestions are good any more than a victory with a Felid proves that Felid is the best race.
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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 15:54

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Years pass, but this phenomenon stays the same: "I beat crawl so now I feel like sharing how I did it with others". That's fine in itself but this other phenomenon tags behind it: "I feel like I'm qualified to give expert advice because I've won several times my way."

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Post Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 16:39

Re: Why do I die mid/late game?

Malevolent wrote:A victory with your strategy doesn't prove that your suggestions are good any more than a victory with a Felid proves that Felid is the best race.


A victory with a Felid shows that you are lucky. If you can repeat it, then you're a pro.
The advice I gave was for a build which is easier to play, and can be duplicated fairly easily.
The OP said they were having some troubles playing a melee versus a spellcaster, why on earth would I suggest a Felid strategy for them?! Your conclusion is that telling them to play Felid = Gargoyle in response to the request?
Last edited by svendre on Wednesday, 20th April 2016, 16:53, edited 1 time in total.
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