0.22 Crawl Sudden Death Challenges [Signups Closed]

[ebering]

I am reviving the Crawl Sudden Death Challenges competition. The challenges will run from 10/4-11/22 using rules familiar to those who participated in WalkerBoh's CSDCs several years ago. Information, how to sign up, rules &c. can be found on the homepage:

http://csclub.uwaterloo.ca/~ebering/crawl/csdc/index.html

Week 1: HuWn
Week 2: TrCj
Week 3: BaHu
Week 4: DgSk
Week 5: OpMo
Week 6: SpNe

Good luck!

[ebering]

Registrations are now being processed, and you have until the END of the first week to register.

However, don't think you can cheese the first week by playing the first combo till you get a good run and then register. The scoring software will score your first game started during the week even if you register after that time.

[Rast]

This request comes a bit late, but will you support clans?

[ebering]

Not this time. I'm only supporting what I can automate and I ran out of time to automate clans.

[ebering]

This is a brief reminder that CSDC starts this week. The old threads became places where people discussed their runs, so I'll start a thread per week (though I can't guarantee I'll be on time, the official site will automatically update with the week's challenge).

Added to the website: "Cool Plays". Add a note to your morgue (in-game with ":") that says cool play. The CSDC replay team will review these and there might be highlight reels each week with hilarious deaths and cool plays.

[stoneychips]

This is a brief reminder that CSDC starts this week. The old threads became places where people discussed their runs, so I'll start a thread per week (though I can't guarantee I'll be on time, the official site will automatically update with the week's challenge).

Added to the website: "Cool Plays". Add a note to your morgue (in-game with ":") that says cool play. The CSDC replay team will review these and there might be highlight reels each week with hilarious deaths and cool plays.

Not really familiar with this. You need to do it before you die since it's in-game, correct?

Or is there an alternate way to do it afterward?

[ebering]

You should add it right after the cool play happens. You can use the : key any time to leave notes about your char. Dying is probably not a cool play, but deaths will definitely be looked at.

[FakerFangirl]

May the best Naga win!!

[stoneychips]

Scratched. (Thursday, not Tuesday. Knock on wood.)



Stop getting me excited about not yet operative possibilities up there, sheesh. (Faker indeed.)

[VeryAngryFelid]

Is it possible to play a round or two during a different week? I have a 2 weeks vacation without time for games.

[ebering]

No.

The small windows minimize the impact of "sitzkrieg" between places on the leaderboard: waiting for someone who's trying a bonus that they might fail at before deciding to proceed while they wait to see if you'll attempt it.

[Rast]

Really need some clarification on this:

Tier I Bonus: Enter a rune branch with all skills < 11.
Tier II Bonus: Collect a rune with all skills < 11.
Gods: Ashenzari, Cheibriados, Kikubaaqudgha

If my base Axes skill is 10.0 and Ash boosts it to 12.0, am I eligible for the bonuses?

What if Oka Heroism temporarily boosts it to 15.0 and I get the milestone while boosted?

PS: Kramin is pretty sure you are only looking at the base skill before god adjustments, but I know other people will ask too.

[ebering]

I'm only looking at base skill, I'll update the page soon.

[Strat]

Many thanks to ebering -- I loved the old sudden death format and was sorry to see it go. I'm pretty mediocre as a player, but the one-and-done adds a lot of spice to the game -- thanks for taking up the reins on this.

[FakerFangirl]

Died to acid wand Sonja + distortion because I was afraid to teleport into the two red mobs that I was stair dancing. My 22 AC, fog scroll and low Dex were counterproductive because acid spam. I would've lived longer if I'd quaffed resistance potion.

[Moanerette]

Was so pleased to see this back I honoured it with a 0-point death, after starting with +2 scale armour

Oh godz, the redo has given me a scroll of blinking, potions of curing, lig and berserk and Fighting 5. This has calamity written all over it.

[cerealjynx]

Hmph. HuWn is a bad combo.
Taken out by D2 jackals and then a D1 Goblin. I thought starting with 4 Fighting/+2 Mace was pretty lucky!

[VeryAngryFelid]

I think any Wn is a bad combo for the tournament as players start with quite different items and skills.

[sanka]

Crawl is very random anyway, so a little bit extra randomness from wanderer start does not matter as much in my opinion. I started with a perfectly ok wanderer, and I died on D2 because gnolls netted me two times in a row. In fact it was worse than dying on D1 due to a bad start, because I have just reached level 5

[Rast]

I think Wn is fine, especially week one.

Just speaking as someone who managed to lose at exactly XL5.

[Vajrapani]

I think HuWn is fine imo, I personally won it and had a very easy start (hand crossbow + tele scroll), but it should be more or less fine even with a crappy start. Hu isn't exactly Mu or Fe.

[stoneychips]

I love wanderers generally, although sometimes you get a lousy mix to start it's true.

I was finally doing mostly well because of book and gear drops. Until I was silly enough to take one last peek at Louise and got Abyss'd from D:15.

[stoneychips]

Hmph. HuWn is a bad combo.
Taken out by D2 jackals and then a D1 Goblin. I thought starting with 4 Fighting/+2 Mace was pretty lucky!

It often is good, but at the very start? I'd rather have those skills the other way around.

Errr... I mean I'd rather have lots of Maces skill, at any rate. +2 is great but mace isn't always fast enough for packs of wee things early on.

I almost, nearly died to a pack on D:1 myself: 2 dart slugs and a goblin all came around a corner one after another. Ugh.

[ebering]

Cool plays and Sudden deaths from Week 1 are now available on youtube (the playlists will be added to). Look out for the Week 1 highlight reel and stats report coming soon. Big thanks to mibe for running the replay team.

[Strat]

So in the rules for getting the god point, it says:
A bonus point can be earned upon reaching ****** piety (or on worship with Gozag or Xom) with one of the listed gods (but only if it is the first god worshipped that game, and you never abandon or get excommunicated). If the combo for the week is a zealot background or demigod, no god points are available.
Based on the parentheses, this means that you have for ANY god, you need to get ****** as the first god AND never abandon -- is that correct? Or is it only Gozag and Xom that you can't abandon? Fine either way, I just wanted to be sure I was reading what was intended.

[Stonar]

I'm excited for TrCj. Really looking forward to the TrCj coolplay where someone's showing off their blaster caster only troll strats. 0 UC and killing things with orb of destruction plz.

[ebering]

To get the god point you've got to worship only the first god (never abandon or get excommunicated) and get 6* if applicable.

[ebering]

Week 1 by the numbers:

God Choices (won/worship (%)):

• 16/50 (32%) Kikubaaqudgha
• 11/61 (18%) Ashenzari
• 6/36 (17%) Cheibriados
• 0*/7 (0%) Veheumet*

Top skill of the winners:

• 15 Fighting
• 6 Necromancy
• 4* Spellcasting
• 2 Maces & Flails, Dodging
• Air Magic, Armour, Bows, Crossbows, Shields, Unarmed Combat

Results:

• Players: 243 (out of 268 registrants)
• Runers: 58
• Winners: 35*
• Bonus 1 Awards: 53
• Bonus 2 Awards: 38
• 15 Rune Winners: 13
• Zig Zaggers: 10
• XL 20 Zot: 1

Sudden Deaths (particularly notable)

• MorganLeah (Ascending Depths after reaching Zot at XL19)
• justnoob (To Asmodeus with 11 Runes, after clearing a Zig)
• Ultraviolent4 (On the orb run on track for a <50k turn win)
• josefromcouch (On Zig:19)

* PurpleRed finished their game with a win after the time limit, winning with Veheumet and highest skill Spellcasting, your sequell queries might differ from my numbers on account of this.

[Yermak]

Could we have a guarantee that tier I and II bonuses for the last challenge won't be mutually exclusive with any of the one-time points like they are for this week's combo?

[ebering]

No. I can guarantee that at some point during the challenge weekly bonuses will be highly compatible with various one-time bonuses.

[cerealjynx]

Boom, another one bites the dust. Got a really nice TrCj^Oka going, and even though I messed up the bonus challenges by dipping into Orc I thought I had a good thing going. Killed by Lag on D15, that's what I get for playing on a throttled cellular tethered connection! At least I got a few points this time.

[cerealjynx]

Wufh!
I haven't played much Ba before. Just died at xl2 getting outpaced by a centaur skeleton. Any general Ba Tips? And what would you take for the starting ammo? I figure nets by default...

[ebering]

There's a real disagreement in the people playing so far, the starts are pretty evenly split among javs, slings, and crossbows; bows less so because short bows have the lowest base damage.

[ebering]

A bit late, but here you are. Week 2, by the numbers.

God choices (won/worship):

• 22/106 Okawaru (20.75%)
• 5/33 Nemelex Xobeh (15.15%)
• 1/5 Makhleb (20%)
• 1/5 Zin (20%)
• 1/2 Ru (50%)
• 1/1 Jiyva (100%) [1]

Highest skill of the winners

• 25 Unarmed Combat
• 5 Fighting
• Armour

Results

• Players: 195 (out of 266 registered [2])
• Runers: 46
• Winners: 31
• Bonus 1: 63
• Bonus 2: 19
• 15 Rune Winners: 3
• Sub 50k turn Wins: 14
• Zig: 1
• XL 20 Zot: 18
• Ascetic runes: 1

Sudden Deaths

Twenty one players died in slime (or to a slime that followed them up the stairs), seeking and glory in the tier two bonus but leaving weathered broken bones.

Beargit, chimpus, emiel, EvilAliv3, GoodDemon3, Hongik, inipro, jiny199109, ldf, NeonDemon, Pereza0, PurpleRed, RoGGa, Samitian, SeoulPusan, Silenth, Silurio, Strat, WalkerBoh, yann, zedno

Standings

In week 1, twenty five players completed both bonuses with the listed gods and went on to win. Of those twenty five, eight repeated the feat in week two.

[Moanerette]

This week's game is exactly why I like these challenges. I've played very few Barachi or Gozag characters, but I was really enjoying the game till I got killed by a death knight's damage reflection (hadn't noticed the reflection was switched on and used a scattershot wand to kill it, though the bad play was allowing myself to get to that point in the first place). I'll be more inclined to use the race and god in future.

[Yermak]

I think 3rd week's tier I bonus is the worst so far, by a mile. Even with a source of regeneration and reckless diving to D:4 it's a result of coin-flip at best.
(I wish I had done the bonus so that my opinion didn't sound like baby rage.)

And 3rd weeks' tier II is the best so far - very reliable and spicy.

[RoGGa]

I think 3rd week's tier I bonus is the worst so far, by a mile. Even with a source of regeneration and reckless diving to D:4 it's a result of coin-flip at best.

Coin flip is exactly right... as long as you don't die after reaching XL5; that's why you get 2 chances as per rule #3 :

  Code:

3. One redo per week is allowed if your first game ended in death with player XL < 5 (i.e., no redo once you hit XL 5). The redo game must be started after the end of the first game (no startscumming!). The highest CSDC score of the two games is counted towards your score.

[stoneychips]

Fwiw, I'm still working on my Makhleb Barachi. Been enjoying it as I hardly seriously tried one before.

Yes, I'm pretty slow. In my defense, I got sick.

Should have known I'd hardly ever complete a game inside a week though.

Edit: And splat on Zot:3, but I enjoyed it!

[ebering]

CSDC Week 3 By the numbers

Combo: BaHu

Gods: Gozag, Makhleb, Dithmenos

Bonus Tier 1: Enter the Temple in less than 3,000 turns. Bonus Tier 2: Collect a rune in less than 15,000 turns.

God choices (won/worship):

• 17/47 Gozag (36.17%)
• 10/49 Makhleb (20.41%)
• 4/17 Dithmenos (23.53%)
• 1/3 Cheibriados (33.33%)
• 0/1 Okawaru (0%)
• 0/114 Did not worship before death

Highest skill of the winners

• 19 Fighting
• 7 Armour
• 2 Unarmed Combat
• Air Magic
• Dodging
• Fire Magic
• Shields

Starting Weapons (won/chosen)

• 10/78 javelins and nets (12.82%)
• 8/63 crossbows (12.62%)
• 10/54 slings (18.51%)
• 4/44 bows (9.09%)

## Results

• Players: 166
• Runers: 46
• Winners: 32
• Bonus 1: 50
• Bonus 2: 14
• 15 Rune Winners: 7
• Sub 50k turn Wins: 7
• Zig: 6
• XL 20 Zot: 2
• Ascetic runes: 1

Sudden Deaths

• Grugh (Abyssed by Louise after 1 rune and both bonuses)
• Silurio (In Orc after getting Bonus 2 (though missing Bonus 1))
• suvakkihuora (With 3 runes in Slime; a quest for 15?)
• Ge0ff (After reaching Spider in 7k turns)
• Pekkekk (On D6 at less than 2k turns)
• Beargit (On D6 at less than 3k turns)

Standings

At the end of week two, eight players had posted back to back 10 point games.
Of those eight, three continued the feat in week three. Will there be a perfect
CSDC Score? Only time will tell.

[Yermak]

Will banishment result in a failure to get tier bonus points?

[Eyesburn]

You lose tier bonuses if you get banished

[Rast]

Feature request for the weekly scoreboard: For active games, don't display a zero under: Unique Kill, Branch Enter, Branch End, Collect a Rune, Collect 3 Runes, Win. If the player hasn't scored it yet, just leave it blank.

[Stonar]

Feature request for the weekly scoreboard: For active games, don't display a zero under: Unique Kill, Branch Enter, Branch End, Collect a Rune, Collect 3 Runes, Win. If the player hasn't scored it yet, just leave it blank.

Mind if I ask why? The current color coding makes it clear if a player hasn't finished a game yet (it's grey if the game is in progress, green if won, red if lost,) and none of those things have a failure state (ie - if your game is in progress and you haven't scored it, you still can,) so every grey row will have blank entries. That is to say - this change isn't granting any more information than the current implementation. I could understand doing that if you separate "in progress," "failed," and "completed," but unless we do that (so we could, for example, leave it blank if the character hasn't worshipped a god, set it to 0 if they ever worship the "wrong" god, set it to 1 when they're worshipping the "right" one,) but it doesn't currently do that.

(Also, rather than blank, I'd personally prefer a dash - HTML tables without dividers are tough to read with a bunch of blank cells.)

[VeryAngryFelid]

Because it is easier to distinguish 1 from nothing than 1 from 0. I would also siggest to do the same thing for one time points. It's especially painful to distinguish 0 from 6 for no lair win and ascetic rune.

[FakerFangirl]

Wish I had time to play.

[Rast]

Because it is easier to distinguish 1 from nothing than 1 from 0.

It also makes clear the difference between "haven't earned this yet" and "can't earn this at all now".

[ebering]

I've been a bit busy these past two weeks, so the "by the numbers" recaps for Week 5 and 6 will appear together in a double-issue some time on Thursday.

But, in exciting news, joy1999 is Game 7 and an ascetic rune away from a perfect CSDC score, the lone player who has posted six(!) 10 point csdc games while earning all but the ascetic one-time bonus. The last week promises to be an exciting battle to the finish, with Ultraviolent4 and hellmonk within striking distance of 1st place if joy1999 neglects earning those ascetic points and has some trouble in Game 7.

[VeryAngryFelid]

Because it is easier to distinguish 1 from nothing than 1 from 0.

It also makes clear the difference between "haven't earned this yet" and "can't earn this at all now".

Probably tournament script is not that smart in some cases.

[Ge0ff]

I really like one-time challenges because they add a strategic element to the CSDC. It would be nice to have one extra challenge and here's why.

There are two pairs of challenges where if you complete the first challenge, then the second one is much easier to do. A char with 15 runes usually has enough resources and invested a lot of XP into skills to survive a ziggurat. Getting to Zot at XL20 means you've skipped a lot of fights and dived through the branches, so winning in less than 50k turns is easy. Because of that, after winning only two games you already done 4 out of 6 one-time challenges and there's not much to do in the last half of all the remaining games.

I suggest to add a new one-time challenge, Ascetic II (3 points): don't use scrolls and potions after entering Zot. Unlike the challenges from the mentioned two pairs, this one makes other challenges harder. For example, you won't be able to easily clear Zot for XP before going into extended or doing a ziggurat. Entering Zot at XL20 and completing this challenge would be very hard too. Additionally, because orb-run spawns are much scarier in 0.23, this challenge won't be easy even for a char with 15 runes.

It also adds a bit of symmetry to CSDC: there would be 7 weeks/combos and 7 one-time challenges. Also, the maximum possible score would be 100 points instead of 97.

Another thing that I noticed in my games and the games I spectated is that the players spend the first half of the game's duration to get 5-8 weekly points and then spend the second half to get the last 2 points for the 3rd rune and the win. Maybe it would make sense to adjust weekly points, so you get 1 point for each of the bonuses and get 2 points for a win. This way weekly points would be more evenly distributed over the course of the game.

[VeryAngryFelid]

I think Ascetic II will be impossible to implement, there is no way to see in the morgue file if player used potions/scrolls in Zot or even after picking up the orb.
I think win gives so few points to encourage players do risky things like go for 15 runes or Zig.
I agree that it can be easy to run out of extra bonuses, it could be fun to have 15+ extra bonuses so players would not be able to get all of them in 7 games. Something like "no evocations", "no spells", "no god as non-Dg", "kill all 8 pan/hell rune masters" etc.