Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot


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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 15:44

Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I have played this game for over 300 hours now and the furthest I've got is is getting two runes of Zot, I was really hoping to beat this game in order to give an informed opinion about this game and how I feel about it. I am aware that there are speed runs of people who can do it in under two hours and I am aware that you only really need three runes of Zot to beat this game, and I'm also aware that it is, after all, a Rouge like.

I understand that the balancing of this is game is weighted, so for example, if you see a resist poison ring you can bet there's a lot of poisonous things coming your way. So it's random generation is mathematically weighted.

Today it really clicked why a lot of people if not most can only get 0 to 2 runes of Zot, the beginning of the game as it were.

Simply put the player HAS to have a level 4, or powered up level 3, or a certain branding of weapon for certain things, and this game is really, REALLY, bad at giving you them.

I so wanted to beat this game to come across as having an air of authority in these matters but now I can't be bothered anymore. I know no game is perfect and I even listened to a podcast with one of the past designers mention if you fix all the problems with stone soup there is no more stone soup.

This thread is, I guess, a rant about why so many people are stuck at 0 to 2 runes of Zot.

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 15:54

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Seeing a resist poison ring has nothing to do with future monster generation. I'm not sure what the "level 4 or powered up level 3" is referencing, but you most certainly do not need a certain weapon brand for any part of the game. Endgame quality weapons are practically guaranteed to generate, as is endgame quality armor. There are multiple 20+ game winning streaks over the history of DCSS; it's safe to say that the game is not bad at giving the player equipment that's good enough to win.

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 16:08

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

HawkI wrote:I have played this game for over 300 hours now and the furthest I've got is is getting two runes of Zot, I was really hoping to beat this game in order to give an informed opinion about this game and how I feel about it. I am aware that there are speed runs of people who can do it in under two hours and I am aware that you only really need three runes of Zot to beat this game, and I'm also aware that it is, after all, a Rouge like.

I understand that the balancing of this is game is weighted, so for example, if you see a resist poison ring you can bet there's a lot of poisonous things coming your way. So it's random generation is mathematically weighted.

Today it really clicked why a lot of people if not most can only get 0 to 2 runes of Zot, the beginning of the game as it were.

Simply put the player HAS to have a level 4, or powered up level 3, or a certain branding of weapon for certain things, and this game is really, REALLY, bad at giving you them.

I so wanted to beat this game to come across as having an air of authority in these matters but now I can't be bothered anymore. I know no game is perfect and I even listened to a podcast with one of the past designers mention if you fix all the problems with stone soup there is no more stone soup.

This thread is, I guess, a rant about why so many people are stuck at 0 to 2 runes of Zot.


You are incorrect in your perceptions:
The weighting of items is entirely level based, there's no additional weight for "there's poisonous things coming" and the like.
You don't need any particular branding of weapons for anything in particular, there are some brands that are better (or more appropriate to a given area) than others, but there's more than enough drops of what would be considered "good enough" equipment to win the game by a large margin.

The reason why most people get less than 2 runes is because the game requires some skill and is actually decently hard (certainly not as hard as some, but harder than most computer games), and most people aren't excellent at it. You need to be very good to be able to consistently win, and have a decent understanding of what makes someone *good* at crawl. Something like 1/10th of 1% of crawl players get that good, mostly because they have a complete misunderstanding about what it actually takes to win crawl, and never take the time to learn what it is that they should be getting better at to win.

Equipment and levels and skills are all somewhat important (at least that you not have *bad* equipment and skilling) but aren't the most important things for winning. The three most important things for crawl are: understanding positioning; understanding noise; and having good (and early) threat assessment skills (both in terms of individual monsters, and in terms of the current situation).

I suggest you start a game and pause at regular intervals to ask questions on the forums (More useful for equipment questions and skilling questions, but tactical questions can be posed and responded to with some coherence), but also watch some good players play (either live online or on various recorded streams), both of these things will help way more than complaining about how the equipment drops are weighted, the equipment drops are, if anything, overly generous once you are good at winning.

The fault is not in the equipment, it's your lack of (the right) experience and skill.
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 16:11

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Weapon tree
Mace Level 1
Flail Level 2
Morning Star Level 3
Evening Star Level 4

Shoal, Weapon Branding, Electricity
Swamp, Weapon Branding, Ice

The people with multiple winning streaks probably know that you need certain stuff to win and are better at "Compromising"
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 16:29

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Today it really clicked why a lot of people if not most can only get 0 to 2 runes of Zot, the beginning of the game as it were.


Most people are bad.

They are bad because they are unexperienced, or because they lack consistency and/or patience (I belong to the latter group).

Simply put the player HAS to have a level 4, or powered up level 3, or a certain branding of weapon for certain things, and this game is really, REALLY, bad at giving you them.


Good players don't *need* anything. Bad/mediocre players like me will often get through the hardest part of the game (the early game) through good drops.

I so wanted to beat this game to come across as having an air of authority in these matters but now I can't be bothered anymore. I know no game is perfect and I even listened to a podcast with one of the past designers mention if you fix all the problems with stone soup there is no more stone soup.


Even if you beat the game 20 times like I have doesn't mean you are an authority or even a good player. Consistency and the ability to beat the game with hard combos is IMO the best measure of a player.

DCSS might have problems, but trust me, the problems people with more experience or that are developing the game see, are very different from what you might be perceiving as problems now.


Anyway, DCSS is not an easy game to learn. People with experience with tell you otherwise, but they have probably forgotten their baby steps with it.

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 16:34

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

If Crawl throws you healthpacks, it doesn't mean anything. This is important to understand, the game has its own rhythm, which is kind of fixed. I know that there are ways for the player to influence where certain unique monsters will spawn, but that's about it. If Crawl actually gave you the resistance you need when you need it, it would make the game actually easier (it occasionally happens, for example in Volcano or Ice Cave, where you can find branded armour, but that is a particularity of that portal branch).

Yes, having good weapons makes the game easier. And some of them are harder to find. But you can learn where to expect them: wights have a nice variety, gnolls use polearms and shields, and so on.

Also understand that you can trade attack for defense. So I once got to D:15 with a flail of protection, which isn't all that good as weapons go, but it kept me from dying. You can use shields, you can use armour. You need to learn consumables. More than anything, you need to learn when to run away.

It's true, some brands are very good, and some outclass the others, be it situationally (holy wrath) or in general (elec). However, there also are spells and abilities, species mutation, as well as evocables, jewels, and consumables. In the end, you have so many different options, you can outweigh a problem like not having the perfect brand through leverage on other aspects.

In general, I don't understand what this has to do with game design. Are you proposing something?
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 16:38

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

HawkI wrote:Weapon tree
Mace Level 1
Flail Level 2
Morning Star Level 3
Evening Star Level 4

Shoal, Weapon Branding, Electricity
Swamp, Weapon Branding, Ice

None of that is remotely true, there's no specific "levels" for weapons, and as far as the mace and flail tree you've skipped lots, and completely disregarded the one and two-handed divide and weapon speed and XP requirements as well.
You have:
  • Club
  • Whip
  • Mace
  • Morning Star
  • Evening Star
  • Dire Flail
  • Demon whip
  • Sacred Scourge
  • Great mace
  • Giant Club
  • Giant spiked Club

All which use the mace and flail skill and don't really have any specific 'tier' (for example while the club's strictly inferior, the whip and mace are pretty close in DPS and the whip will outdamage the mace with smaller amounts of skill and lower strength)

A dire flail is actually more common than an evening star, and makes a cheap, but sufficiently effective endgame weapon, and great maces which outdamage the eveningstar by a fair margin are much more common, but two-handed.
~~
Those specific branding examples are particularly bad, there's no reason to have those specific brands for those branches, it's equally helpful to have fire or ice in the swamp, (I'd argue actually that hydras merit having fire over ice at least for bladed weapons) and even if there's a brand that's slightly more optimal for a branch, being good at crawl means figuring out how to work with what you have not "what would be theoretically optimal for every situation" if you had the perfect item for every situation there would be literally no challenge to the game at all.
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 17:15

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Mod Note: This thread is more appropriate for Dungeon Crawling Advice, so moving it here. Please follow the Game Design Discussion guidelines if you're going to post in the GDD forum.

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 20:45

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

HawkI wrote:Simply put the player HAS to have a level 4, or powered up level 3, or a certain branding of weapon for certain things, and this game is really, REALLY, bad at giving you them.

Have you tried unarmed? Start the game with your endgame weapon on d:1. For easy unarmed characters, try any of these races: Minotaur, Vine stalker, Troll. Minotaur is the most 'normal', trolls have some AC problems but have claws 3 so your unarmed is incredibly strong, and vine stalkers can use their mana to absorb damage, and then bite for damage and mana drain to refill it. All are "top tier" races and are very good with unarmed; trolls in particular are generally always played unarmed, the other two races are just as good with other weapons.

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 21:11

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

HawkI wrote:Shoal, Weapon Branding, Electricity
Swamp, Weapon Branding, Ice


Nobody talked about this part so let me do it. Electricity brand is good everywhere, it's one of the best brands in the game because it deals high damage and there are only a few resistant monsters.
Freezing weapon slows down cold-blooded monsters like hydra so it is good for decreasing incoming damage from those monsters.
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 21:54

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Siegurt wrote:The three most important things for crawl are: understanding positioning; understanding noise; and having good (and early) threat assessment skills (both in terms of individual monsters, and in terms of the current situation).

Repeating this for emphasis. It's succinct and true.
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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 22:16

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Beating Crawl is less about what the floor god decides to give you, and more about proper tactics and being consistent, patient and level-headed.

Learn about Crawl tactics in these three guides:

http://www.ultraviolent4.com/Guide.html http://www.ultraviolent4.com/patashutactics.html viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16109

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Post Thursday, 8th March 2018, 23:10

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

You don't need good gear to win. I've won some games where I got, just, abysmal item generation. You can win with a buffed up battleaxe or a greatsword. Good gear just increases your margin for error. Virtually every death is avoidable if you're playing carefully enough, even if you only ever get common items.

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 06:25

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Are you serious about noise management? I am sure I didn't have any idea of it when won first time.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 07:35

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Are you serious about noise management? I am sure I didn't have any idea of it when won first time.


You don't need to optimally use every tactic that exists in Crawl to win - for starters, there's a bot (qw) that can win the game despite being almost mindless, by playing an extremely strong and simple combo. The weaker your combo, or the higher you want your winrate to be, or the worse your luck is, the more tactics you should learn and use.

Understanding how noise works helps you understand what kinds of fights will attract other monsters. But you don't need to know the underlying principles as long as you know to not fight near unexplored territory if you're not ready to engage in a prolonged battle.

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 07:55

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

So 2 of the 3 things Siegurt wrote were not important for my first 15-rune winner which was NaVM of Chei with Ice Storm and Tornado. What positioning with Chei? What noise management? Just become a hybrid, kill everything with spells/melee and teleport in advance before you are dead. So only threat assessment is really important IMHO and unfortunately it takes either lots of experience or lots of patience (for instance, querying bots about every new monster you see).
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 08:54

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:So 2 of the 3 things Siegurt wrote were not important for my first 15-rune winner which was Naga of Chei with Glaciate and Tornado. What positioning? What noise management? Just become a hybrid, kill everything with spells/melee and teleport in advance. So only threat assessment is really important IMHO and unfortunately it takes either lots of experience or lots of patience (for instance, querying bots about every new monster you see).


It is true that if you play Naga of Chei then a lot of tactics are totally useless (what's the point in luring monsters if they outspeed you, etc), necessitating new ones instead (killholing, good assessment of when to use panic buttons and consumables, etc). But unless you want to get a first win as Naga of Chei, you probably shouldn't, since luring and running away are extremely powerful and you can simply choose not to commit to any fight that looks too scary without needing to use any consumables.

That doesn't make noise management useless - it's just useless for your build, it's still hugely important for speed 10 dudes.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 09:26

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I dunno. On one hand, I have a whole lot of deaths around the end floors of Lair branches lately. And when I do hit 3-5 runes, I am very reluctant to foray into extended without a whopping collection of resistances, partly because that is what the wiki has recommended and I really hate to die to big attacks that mostly check resistances. I also feel malmutations are too much of a pain with blurry vision and teleportitis in particular, so tend not to risk it unless a good stack of mutation potions remains. Playing melee without a strong branded weapon for pinch situations is a lot more fuss, and let's face it if you go to Depths, Hell or Pan (yes that's extended also but still), you're going to have quite a few more pinch situations. So putting all of this together, I can sympathize with the OP in feeling that you tend to 'need' superb drops to feel really safe later in the game.

I have won one 15 rune game in 0.17, with a Ghoul Monk unarmed and amazing early armor and honestly, some ridiculous luck teleporting in Pan. (I'm not sure whether maybe Pan is designed in such a way that everyone relies on that to a considerable extent, but it felt ridiculous landing next to runes or exits at some pretty important times.) But I also had Portal Projectile and a nice white crossbow as I recall by Zot/Tomb, and a whole range of white stuff and most resistances by the end of the game. People may say you don't need all this -- and it's much more true for a 3 rune game -- but going much beyond 3-5, I can't really imagine how.

Much of the quicker advice I've read seems to come down more to playing particular deities (Fedhas, Zin, TSO come to mind), some of which don't obviously appeal to me that much. One thing I do not like design wise is the impression that some gods are only good as "early" gods and others are only really "end game" or "extended" specialty gods. Surely this is fun somehow too, but it often feels like just another jigsaw puzzle to me. (Is everyone "supposed" to switch gods?!)

On the other hand: I have to admit that I have mostly played melee, and I really hate feeling underpowered in melee. Underpowered melee is a touch more like being a caster -- you have to fuss a lot more about placement, ranged selection of stuff, and (for me at least) often reassigning gear slots to compensate. So from a cynical point of view, it starts to feel like the choices are change your playstyle completely and spend more time slowing down a game which already takes me a week to take more baby steps, run a lot of throwaway runs to try new deities or get to know wizmode or more species or try to learn speedrunning or else (more typically) die of hubris, die of some monotony (tab-tab-tab- or maybe even blitzkrieg heaven broken by the "oh shit where did that come from" situation), or die of making one bad choice when you hey surprise, actually only get 1-2 turns to decide there and zomg glass cannon is adjacent to the juggernaut suddenly etc.

I still love the game. I can still aspire to a 3-5 rune win every month or is it every few months. But if "bad" is defined simply as lacking patience to play the game like chess, then sure whatever call most everyone bad. Is that the spirit of a roguelike, a game designed to frustrate most people most of the time? Fine then. I can still play the game. I actually enjoy cobbling my way through mid-game in less generous runs with wild combos of different gear, too -- although I rarely end up able to win those games. (Please still do NOT ask for the game to be simplified to much closer to a chessboard. I don't play gnoll crawl,but that sounds like it's getting closer to me if you need that.) Part of the challenge or frustration of the wider game is that you can do similar things to get deeper into the game, but it takes so long to get there and there is so much less room for error down there, that it can just feel awfully ugly for many if you hit deeper levels (bottom of Lair branches onward) and you're not somehow starting to get uber geared.

All that being said... I accept that I am still pretty bad in Vaults/some Zot at choosing when to lure/back the hell up. It's not a great game for blowing off steam when life is stressful, unless you maybe blow off steam by backing away from stuff. Constantly drawing mobs into explored areas, even after early levels, doesn't really appeal to the "heroic adventurer" theme but it may be much safer. Maybe if one generally treats the game more like fishing (or whatever hunter kitty cat game is "draw something random/big from the wilderness/deep water pool and take it home to play with a while," repeat again and again) and less like Pacman where you have to wade in and be bigger or faster than everything?
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 10:11

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Patashu wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:So 2 of the 3 things Siegurt wrote were not important for my first 15-rune winner which was Naga of Chei with Glaciate and Tornado. What positioning? What noise management? Just become a hybrid, kill everything with spells/melee and teleport in advance. So only threat assessment is really important IMHO and unfortunately it takes either lots of experience or lots of patience (for instance, querying bots about every new monster you see).


It is true that if you play Naga of Chei then a lot of tactics are totally useless (what's the point in luring monsters if they outspeed you, etc), necessitating new ones instead (killholing, good assessment of when to use panic buttons and consumables, etc). But unless you want to get a first win as Naga of Chei, you probably shouldn't, since luring and running away are extremely powerful and you can simply choose not to commit to any fight that looks too scary without needing to use any consumables.

That doesn't make noise management useless - it's just useless for your build, it's still hugely important for speed 10 dudes.
My point is things cannot be important if they are almost completely irrelevant for some builds.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 10:41

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I think that you can easily win by being lucky. This means that either you do not encounter really hard situations or you successfully teleport - for which you need some luck. To consistently win with Naga of Chei I think you need a better understanding of noise than with many other builds, because you can not run away. You either manage noise or you can be lucky with teleports.

The thing that makes the experience misleading is the following: in the later parts of the game individual monsters tends to be very very weak compared to the player. I really do not understand why people fear for example Juggernauts in depths. I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies. They are not as strong compared to you than an Ogre in the early dungeon (and an Ogre is not a major threat there). This is even more true for a Naga of Chei. An early Ogre can be deadly, but Juggernauts are a joke.

So most characters can get past these parts by managing the number of monsters they are fighting at once, so use tactics and noise management. With Naga of Chei your attack powers and defenses are very, very strong, and since the monsters are weak, you may have an illusion of easily kill everything, while in reality you just kill a huge number of popcorn monsters that have the same strength compared to you as rats on D5. The problem is that you need luck: if something really bad happens like a silent spectre and a tormentor and an orb of fire appears at once because you did not managed LOS, noise, etc., than you cannot walk away hasted. You do not need much luck, because these situations are extremely rare, and you still can have a huge number of consumables if you do not forget to use them.

About specifically Na of Chei with glaciate and tornado: there is reason that people says that reaching this stage (casting multiple level 9 spells) is the hard part of the game. So it is not really good to highlight what "skill" you need to win the game when you are at the stage so you already can cast multiple level 9 spells.
Last edited by sanka on Friday, 9th March 2018, 10:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 10:50

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

sanka wrote:I really do not understand why people fear for example Juggernauts in depths. I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies. They are not as strong compared to you than an Ogre in the early dungeon (and an Ogre is not a major threat there).

I think it's mostly having had the experience or word of them occasionally dishing out that one large critical hit for some huge amount of damage. It's a bit like facing elf or draconian annihilators. They seem rather manageable by themselves, until they get lucky and then they just aren't.

I don't worry about them quite so much with heavy melee characters, but with fragile casters I find them much more troublesome if there's limited space/resources to barricade or escape. Sure you can also go for preemptive strike if you're powerful enough (OOD or firestorm, etc.) and hope it finishes them off before they actually hit, but that can be too risky in close quarters.

The problem is that you need luck: if something really bad happens like a silent spectre and a tormentor and an orb of fire appears at once because you did not managed LOS, noise, etc., than you cannot walk away hasted. You do not need much luck, because these situations are extremely rare, and you still can have a huge number of consumables if you do not forget to use them.

I get the principle, but the deeper you go, the more common these situations actually are unless your gear is really pretty impressive. But maybe it's not so pronounced for your Naga/Chei as it is for the typical melee thing of Oka, I dunno. There I'd be back to "are the deities balanced throughout the longer game anyway, or are you really supposed to keep rotating them out?"
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 11:08

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

For a typical melee thing of Oka much weaker combination of monsters can be lethal than for a Naga of Chei casting multiple level 9 spells and having extremly good defenses. My point is exactly that this is why it is easier to observe how to use tactics and noise management with the former. It is a misleading illusion of Chei. There is still noise management and tactics to win consistently, but you have a better chance (compared to other builds) if you only rely on luck. I think that its a common misconception that tactics does not matter with Chei because you cannot move. Positioning *before* you notice any monster is very important. You still can move, even slowly, which sometimes is important. Noise management is very important. You may not notice it by winning anyway.

About balance: I am not convinced that Na of Chei is stronger in late parts than Mi of Oka. That's why I call this an illusion. Na of Chei may obtain 15 runes and an orb of zot without any trouble - if you have a little bit of luck. If you do not have, than it can be very hard. Mi of Oka can easily get 15 runes and the orb with basic tactics and noise management. You do not need much luck at all.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 11:33

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

sanka wrote:I really do not understand why people fear for example Juggernauts in depths. I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies. They are not as strong compared to you than an Ogre in the early dungeon
I disagree. Juggernauts have speed 15, ogres speed 10. Imo Juggernauts are scarier than most other monsters in Depths.

(and an Ogre is not a major threat there).
I agree on this part. Ogres should only be a threat if you can't run away from them (e.g. you're a Naga of Chei).
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 11:56

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Note that the Naga of Chei was started as VM background which does not have any noisy spells like Fireball or Lightning Bolt. No luck is needed if teleport is read early enough. Even if you land in the same room, you still can teleport again (and again) or just kill/run/heal.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 12:00

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

sanka wrote:I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies.


I spent about 15 turns at 1 HP killing a berserking unique and 2 spiders but it does not mean those were not dangerous. Juggernaut might kill that spellcasting mummy in 3-4 attacks. Crawl's damage formula is really awful IMHO.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 12:53

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
sanka wrote:I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies.


I spent about 15 turns at 1 HP killing a berserking unique and 2 spiders but it does not mean those were not dangerous. Juggernaut might kill that spellcasting mummy in 3-4 attacks. Crawl's damage formula is really awful IMHO.

Yeah, I just met one on Depths: 3 with a level 23 Gargoyle Gladiator, AC43, EV 21 with heroism. Still got socked for about 30 of my 147 HP in the first round. (Fortunately, had a scroll of summoning.)
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 13:53

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

stoneychips wrote: I can sympathize with the OP in feeling that you tend to 'need' superb drops to feel really safe later in the game.


Except the OP doesn't say that; the OP says you need superb drops to win, or even to get to 2-3 runes. You might need more stuff to go extended, but of course you _get_ more stuff...
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 14:08

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

damerell wrote:
stoneychips wrote: I can sympathize with the OP in feeling that you tend to 'need' superb drops to feel really safe later in the game.


Except the OP doesn't say that; the OP says you need superb drops to win, or even to get to 2-3 runes. You might need more stuff to go extended, but of course you _get_ more stuff...

I know it's not exactly the same thing, but I think there's something in common about requiring not only "more", but the right combo of drops to really progress without tedium of dancing around a lot.

No it isn't true for all combos or even all players, but it feels more true for those that I've played a lot (melee fighters and even some ranged ones, often including Oka which does give many drops but not always ones you need, even with some TSO thrown in later if I ever get there).
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 14:10

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Bragging time :) and also to prove that it's possible to win with rather bad equipment
The character won with 3 runes while wearing amulet of conservation, +2 FDA, -3 large shield at the end and using a spear all game without any spells and without any berserking.
I did buy a mask of dragon on D:11 but it is not that great, a +3 ring of slaying is not a rare item.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 14:34

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
sanka wrote:I have meeled them with spellcasting mummies.


I spent about 15 turns at 1 HP killing a berserking unique and 2 spiders but it does not mean those were not dangerous. Juggernaut might kill that spellcasting mummy in 3-4 attacks. Crawl's damage formula is really awful IMHO.


Well, I would have used my first 1-2 turns to get away from the berserking unique and the 2 spiders. And I would use my 1st (or maybe 2nd) turn to get away from the Juggernaut if it actually lands the first hit, which happens rarely. Come on, it's in depths. I do not need to give it those 3-4 attacks.

Sprucery wrote: I disagree. Juggernauts have speed 15, ogres speed 10. Imo Juggernauts are scarier than most other monsters in Depths.


But you may run into an Ogre climbing down a stair, you may find it behind a corner or door, maybe a wandering monster blocks your retreat. And it may kill you in one shot. And you may have absoutely no escape option on D2-D3. (Yes, I know about switching weapons or whatever, but early on an Ogre can kill you with one hit, and even if it does not kill you, and you escape, you are seriously damaged on a dangerous level.)

Meanwhile even if a Juggernaut manages to land a hit, it won't one shot most non-felid characters, and you most likely have some options to get away, even if you did not choose a god that solves this problem by then.
Last edited by sanka on Friday, 9th March 2018, 14:37, edited 1 time in total.

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 14:36

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

sanka wrote:Well, I would have used my first 1-2 turns to get away from the berserking unique and the 2 spiders. And I would use my 1st (or maybe 2nd) turn to get away from the Juggernaut if it actually lands the first hit, which happens rarely. Come on, it's in depths.


Do you think I had choice at that point? I was berserking as well and when I started berserking I was not that low on HP. That was hilarious experience by the way.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 19:21

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Noise management is important only if you intend to be somewhat noisy. For most characters they aren't noisy enough for it to really matter. Even hitting hard in melee is only medium noise. If you want to play a caster with fireball or lightning etc then you need to understand noise mechanics.

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 19:50

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:So 2 of the 3 things Siegurt wrote were not important for my first 15-rune winner which was NaVM of Chei with Ice Storm and Tornado. What positioning with Chei? What noise management? Just become a hybrid, kill everything with spells/melee and teleport in advance before you are dead. So only threat assessment is really important IMHO and unfortunately it takes either lots of experience or lots of patience (for instance, querying bots about every new monster you see).

Note those are the three things that I think are important to *understand* in order to win *regularly* that isn't to say that you can't win without any understanding, it's just those three things will be of the largest benefit in terms of your success rate.

Also *understanding* noise and it's effects (even if it's only an outline) doesn't always mean *mitigating* noise. Even as simple as "I'm about to blow a lot of stuff up, and I'm likely to attract a lot of things to me, so I should be prepared". Yes, you can use knowledge of noise to limit your encounter sizes, but you can also just use the knowledge to know what to expect, (Knowledge of how noise works can be a part of your threat assessment)

Similarly understanding how positioning works also means understanding what you give up when you are slow moving, knowing the difference between good positioning and bad (And how much worse a bad position is than a good one) also factors into your assessment of how dangerous a situation is, even if you can't change your position more optimally because your movement is hampered.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 20:44

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

For me 3 most important things to win regularly are (in order of importance)
1) threat assessment. Some monsters should not be fought, for instance
2) skilling
3) patience. This includes luring, inventory check when in danger, using weak melee vs popcorn etc.
Positioning is not that important for me: if I am fast I can often run away, if I am normal speed I can regenerate HP/MP by pillar-dancing, if I am slow speed I cannot position for long anyway.
Or if you mean manual exploration, then yes, it increases chance to win by a lot. Exploring corridors first, closing/opening doors, walking near rock walls with wand of digging, even leaving open space unexplored sometimes.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 22:35

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
Patashu wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:So 2 of the 3 things Siegurt wrote were not important for my first 15-rune winner which was Naga of Chei with Glaciate and Tornado. What positioning? What noise management? Just become a hybrid, kill everything with spells/melee and teleport in advance. So only threat assessment is really important IMHO and unfortunately it takes either lots of experience or lots of patience (for instance, querying bots about every new monster you see).


It is true that if you play Naga of Chei then a lot of tactics are totally useless (what's the point in luring monsters if they outspeed you, etc), necessitating new ones instead (killholing, good assessment of when to use panic buttons and consumables, etc). But unless you want to get a first win as Naga of Chei, you probably shouldn't, since luring and running away are extremely powerful and you can simply choose not to commit to any fight that looks too scary without needing to use any consumables.

That doesn't make noise management useless - it's just useless for your build, it's still hugely important for speed 10 dudes.
My point is things cannot be important if they are almost completely irrelevant for some builds.
potions are almost completely irrelevant for mummy builds, therefore potions aren't important
spells are almost completely irrelevant for trog builds, therefore spells aren't important

and positioning and noise management are pretty important for naga of chei tbh

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 22:51

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

duvessa wrote:potions are almost completely irrelevant for mummy builds, therefore potions aren't important
spells are almost completely irrelevant for trog builds, therefore spells aren't important


Yes, very true. My last game, 3 rune winner:
  Code:
 Cast: Blink             |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 |     2 |    14 ||    17
       Portal Projectile |       |       |       |       |       |       |     2 |     5 |    11 ||    18
       Apportation       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |       |     1 ||     1

       Potion            |       |       |     2 |     3 |       |       |       |     7 |     5 ||    17

http://crawl.ufetubus.com/morgue/Sandma ... 203658.txt
Obviously it is not Mummy of Trog.

and positioning and noise management are pretty important for naga of chei tbh


I don't think so, otherwise new players who don't care about positioning/noise management wouldn't be likely to win Naga of Chei with 15 runes.

Now try to find a game where winner does not care about things I listed:
1) threat assessment. That's something like meleeing early Ogre or pack of Very Ugly Things when they first appear
2) skilling. That's something like player train nothing but Stealth and Evocations
3) patience. That's something like playing all game using nothing but o and tab. Even Tr/Gr/HO/Mi of Makhleb with lucky loot will die pretty fast
Last edited by VeryAngryFelid on Friday, 9th March 2018, 22:53, edited 1 time in total.
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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 22:52

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:Now try to find a game where winner does not care about things I wrote:
2) skilling. That's something like player train nothing but Stealth and Evocations
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/GoodDemon3/morgue-GoodDemon3-20180309-210750.txt

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Post Friday, 9th March 2018, 22:54

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

duvessa wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:Now try to find a game where winner does not care about things I wrote:
2) skilling. That's something like player train nothing but Stealth and Evocations
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/GoodDemon3/morgue-GoodDemon3-20180309-210750.txt


Is it some joke? "train nothing but Stealth and Evocations", not "everything including Stealth and Evocations"
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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 00:10

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

speaking about Stealth skill,
it actually helps if you are bad with noise management (like myself)
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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 00:54

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:For me 3 most important things to win regularly are (in order of importance)
1) threat assessment. Some monsters should not be fought, for instance
2) skilling
3) patience. This includes luring, inventory check when in danger, using weak melee vs popcorn etc.
Positioning is not that important for me: if I am fast I can often run away, if I am normal speed I can regenerate HP/MP by pillar-dancing, if I am slow speed I cannot position for long anyway.
Or if you mean manual exploration, then yes, it increases chance to win by a lot. Exploring corridors first, closing/opening doors, walking near rock walls with wand of digging, even leaving open space unexplored sometimes.


I include luring with "noise knowledge", after all, if you didn't know that noise existed, there's no reason to presume that luring is useful (Combat noise being the thing that makes luring important).

I include running away (and maintaining the ability to run away) and pillar dancing (as well as manual exploration) in the category of "positioning" as well as the, I presume, expected stuff like "fight in corridors where possible" and "know how monsters move around corners", it's not just "find the right spot to stand during combat".

Of course I also think that *most* of the basics of positioning for crawl are *really really* simple to learn, if not actually super obvious (like 'don't let more than one thing attack you at a time if at all possible' is important, but not at all hard to figure out)

I would put XP allocation (skilling) a close fourth, as I think you're slightly more likely to die with good skill allocation if you make lots of combat noise close to the black (particularly with overly noisy builds), than it is likely that you'll die from bad skill allocation if you lure everything back to a safe zone and kill it one at a time, however which of the two is third and which is fourth is sufficiently close that it's totally reasonable to argue for the other point of view.
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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 04:04

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:
duvessa wrote:
VeryAngryFelid wrote:Now try to find a game where winner does not care about things I wrote:
2) skilling. That's something like player train nothing but Stealth and Evocations
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/GoodDemon3/morgue-GoodDemon3-20180309-210750.txt


Is it some joke? "train nothing but Stealth and Evocations", not "everything including Stealth and Evocations"
Ok, here are some more winning games that didn't care about skilling:
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/MrPlanck/morgue-MrPlanck-20180305-142844.txt
http://crawl.akrasiac.org/rawdata/FloofyWoof/morgue-FloofyWoof-20180301-042258.txt
http://crawl.berotato.org/crawl/morgue/Webmant/morgue-Webmant-20180226-192239.txt
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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 04:41

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Besides gnolls, there's also the 'antiskillrobin' challenge, where you can train only one skill at a time and swap only when you hit 27. The 'antiskillrobin' name has 13 wins, for example http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/antiskillro ... 214603.txt

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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 06:03

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Patashu wrote:Besides gnolls, there's also the 'antiskillrobin' challenge, where you can train only one skill at a time and swap only when you hit 27. The 'antiskillrobin' name has 13 wins, for example http://dobrazupa.org/morgue/antiskillro ... 214603.txt


I won such characters too, of course I wasn't training Stealth as first skill, Evocations as second one and then Translocations :)



I won several Gnolls and several characters with autotraining too.

People, are you seriously trying to prove skilling is not that important and you can train stealth and evocations as TrBe while training bows to kill everything all game? :)
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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 06:39

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I wasn't aware that "does not care about skilling" meant "intentionally skill badly". I suspect that you won't find any winning nagas of Chei that intentionally positioned badly all game, either.

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Post Saturday, 10th March 2018, 10:16

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

TrBe with evo and bows doesnt seem hard to win really.
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Post Sunday, 11th March 2018, 00:41

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

VeryAngryFelid wrote:People, are you seriously trying to prove skilling is not that important and you can train stealth and evocations as TrBe while training bows to kill everything all game? :)

Looks like another challenge for you!
DCSS: 97:...MfCj}SpNeBaEEGrFE{HaAKTrCK}DsFESpHu{FoArNaBe}
FeEE{HOIEMiAE}GrGlHuWrGnWrNaAKBaFi{MiDeMfDe}{DrAKTrAMGhEnGnWz}
{PaBeDjFi}OgAKPaCAGnCjOgCKMfAEAtCKSpCjDEEE{HOSu
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Post Monday, 12th March 2018, 11:24

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

Siegurt wrote:watch some good players play

In my opinion it's not a good way to learn how to play Crawl. If you are inexperienced and try to watch experienced player, you'll see only flickering images of him, tabbing through the hordes of enemies with his falchion/fireball/exec axe/firestorm/etc with rare slow downs for tough situations. Decent player already won several times and doesn't explain his actions because most of them is obvious for him. But it is not that easy to understand for newbie.
In Russian community we recommend new players to post their nicks in hope to get some skilled spectator who will help and explain some stuff. Also I jump into random games of newbies with 0-1 wins and give random advices according to situation. I like to watch newbies because they often act weird and do stupid decisions, so why don't give some advice or answer several questions about where to go and what to choose?

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Post Monday, 12th March 2018, 12:16

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I like spectating top players when they are playing hard combos. Then it is not that fast and often there are situations for interesting decisions.

I think it is still possible to learn a lot from spectating even for a completely new player. For instance, it becomes obvious pretty soon how luring and stair-dancing work.
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Post Monday, 12th March 2018, 14:59

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

I remember spectating a game once where the player entered an ice cave and there were a ton of ice beasts and the player did some weird movement tricks to kill all of them 1v1 when I would have immediately bailed and I realized I was just completely hopeless at the game.
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Post Monday, 12th March 2018, 15:01

Re: Why most people get 0-2 runes of Zot

njvack wrote:I remember spectating a game once where the player entered an ice cave and there were a ton of ice beasts and the player did some weird movement tricks to kill all of them 1v1 when I would have immediately bailed and I realized I was just completely hopeless at the game.


And now I am really interested to know what trick it was... As far as I remember the vault, at least 2 ice beasts are visible from any tile. Lots of stealth and throwing a stone to wake up just a single ice beast?
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