Rogue-likes! (not a discussion of the correct use of the term)

[Psyren]

I'm a big fan of Enter The Gungeon and hope to beat it this year.

Also doesn't Spelunky 2 come out this year too?

[Kaptin Keen]

I came up with my own teleportation solution to the animated forest, a long time ago.

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My current choice of roguelike is Cinco Paus. I don't have the patience for full-length roguelikes anymore.

Haha! That's beautiful =)

[Kaptin Keen]

As some may have noticed, I haven't had tremendous luck playing casters. I now have a moderately succesful paladin, who happened upon a spellbook of invisibility. I decided that since I've little else worth casting, I might as well walk around invisible. My wonderful adamantium armor had also evaporated, and it seemed prudent.

As a result - possibly - he seems to have ... 'unlearned' the spell? It disappeared, at any rate. What gives?

[Silfir]

Every time you cast a spell, you lose spell knowledge points.

The amount of spell knowledge points gained when you read a spellbook is rolled based on your character's literacy skill, natural aptitude for spellcasting (determined by race, class, star sign), and most importantly your Learning score. Concentration might play into it, too.

Paladins are only semi-spellcasters at most, so depending on your Learning score it wouldn't be surprising if you only gained a modest amount of spell knowledge from reading a spellbook of Veil of the Gods, which you then ran out of.

That's the gist of it. There is plenty of information about spellcasting mechanics in the manual - though it's really as easy as paying attention to the numbers on spell screen, and noting that one of them would go up every time you read the spellbook, and go down every time you cast the spell. There is another number that goes up over time as you cast the spell - spell efficiency - which increases the effect and lowers the cost of the spell as it accumulates.

[Kaptin Keen]

There is another number that goes up over time as you cast the spell - spell efficiency - which increases the effect and lowers the cost of the spell as it accumulates.

This part I knew. The other surprised me a bit. Well, I only read enough from my precious book to learn the spell, since they tend to explode or go up in flames. So I've re-learned it already, but I really need to boost my literacy.

And to find new goddamned armor! =)

[Rynjin]

I had to look that up when my Elementalist suddenly stopped being able to cast Fireball after two casts. Not my favorite mechanic, but eh. Funnier in hindsight, I guess. I rounded up a whole horde of enemies so I could total defense and wipe them out with one cast and...nothin'. Mobbed, killed, RIP Rydia.

My current best character is a level 6 Female Gray Elf Wizard, with the spells Lightning Bolt, Light, Darkness, and Mystic Shovel (which I can't even cast).

She probably would have died long ago, but she started with a Ring of Luck and I happened upon a kobold with a bundle of 20 Arrows of Slaying early on (still have 15, arrows don't break easy in this game apparently) which has made things way smoother so far.

[Anteros]

All of the talk about ADoM put me in the mood to play some Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It took me a while to get back into the swing of the game, but after several deaths I finally have a character with a solid chance of ascending. It's just a matter of actually deciding to grab the orb and ascend versus getting greedy and eventually dying as I go for an extended end-game.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

All of the talk about ADoM put me in the mood to play some Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It took me a while to get back into the swing of the game, but after several deaths I finally have a character with a solid chance of ascending. It's just a matter of actually deciding to grab the orb and ascend versus getting greedy and eventually dying as I go for an extended end-game.

Yea. You get the three runes you need, then go... "Okay, so this is a pretty boss build. Do I just go down to Zot and end this, or do I go for bonus points?"

Many, many a hero has died to hubris at this stage in the game.

[Kaptin Keen]

So I've reached that same point in the game - with two different characters at the same time, now (because I have one free install, and one Steam install, and a character alive in each): I do not do enough damage in melee to stay alive. I've killed Keethrax in both cases, both are now in Dwarf Town, and ... I do not inflict sufficiently high damage to move on.

In one game there's halberd lying about in the DT shop. I believe it's ... +9, 2d6+11. But it's a twohander, and I use shields. The other character actually has the moon sickle, but I'm not using the moon sickle, dammit!

And neither has any offensive magic, obviously. Oh, that's not true - one has ball lightning, which entirely drains his mana whilst not doing enough damage to kill anything =)

Still, it's a mark in my calendar: My paladin has a damage spell =)

[Cespenar]

All of the talk about ADoM put me in the mood to play some Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup. It took me a while to get back into the swing of the game, but after several deaths I finally have a character with a solid chance of ascending. It's just a matter of actually deciding to grab the orb and ascend versus getting greedy and eventually dying as I go for an extended end-game.

Similarly, this thread (I think) made me return to DoomRL. It's still kinda amazing to me how slick that thing plays.

[Kato]

I'm a big fan of Enter The Gungeon and hope to beat it this year.

I'm surprised this doesn't get mentioned more often. I was under the impression that it was quite popular. I've tried my hand at it and I'll probably keep trying but I'm afraid I must admit I really suck at it.

Something I've played hours and hours is 20xx which is basically Megaman X as a rogue like / lite.

[Silfir]

So I've reached that same point in the game - with two different characters at the same time, now (because I have one free install, and one Steam install, and a character alive in each): I do not do enough damage in melee to stay alive. I've killed Keethrax in both cases, both are now in Dwarf Town, and ... I do not inflict sufficiently high damage to move on.

In one game there's halberd lying about in the DT shop. I believe it's ... +9, 2d6+11. But it's a twohander, and I use shields. The other character actually has the moon sickle, but I'm not using the moon sickle, dammit!

And neither has any offensive magic, obviously. Oh, that's not true - one has ball lightning, which entirely drains his mana whilst not doing enough damage to kill anything =)

Still, it's a mark in my calendar: My paladin has a damage spell =)

What weapon are you using? What's your strength score?

You seem to keep running into this same issue, so I can't help but wonder if you're making a fundamental mistake somewhere. Usually if you make it to Dwarftown, even if you don't want to go with a two-hander, some kind of adamantium one-handed weapon should have popped up. You should be doing fine with those.

The limiting factor when it comes to survival tends to be armor, not damage. What's your DV/PV?

Somehow or other, you appear to be picking fights you can't handle. What were the last creatures that killed you?

[Wookieetank]

I'm not sure how well known it is, but RogueBasin is a great resource for Roguelikes. It also has some really well done guides on how to program your own, and things to take into considerations when making a roguelike as well. Even managed to have a barebones roguelike of my own at one point. Ran into some issues trying to give enemies ranged attacks, and them being able to hit you from across the map. Really should get back to poking around at that one of these days, if I can even find it.

[Bucky]

Somehow or other, you appear to be picking fights you can't handle. What were the last creatures that killed you?

New players usually don't know what fights they can handle.

[Knaight]

New players usually don't know what fights they can handle.

It's a major part of the learning curve, for a lot of roguelikes. At least ADOM doesn't actively give you bad advice (ToME suggesting that you go to the Daikara at level 8 comes to mind, for all that I pulled it off for a while).

[Kaptin Keen]

What weapon are you using? What's your strength score?

You seem to keep running into this same issue, so I can't help but wonder if you're making a fundamental mistake somewhere. Usually if you make it to Dwarftown, even if you don't want to go with a two-hander, some kind of adamantium one-handed weapon should have popped up. You should be doing fine with those.

The limiting factor when it comes to survival tends to be armor, not damage. What's your DV/PV?

Somehow or other, you appear to be picking fights you can't handle. What were the last creatures that killed you?

Well - let's see:

Str. 17, my damage on normal is +21, 2d3+9, I'm wielding a Bloody dagger because it's substantially more effective than my adamantium longsword (which yields +18, 1d8+10 - but doesn't crit constantly, like the dagger does). DV/PV seems to be +9/+9, including steel skin. The game seems to not want to just inform me of that?! Oh, found it, it's 37/9.

What creatures have killed me? There was an elf lord, a blue dragon, some sort of dark orc leader. I think there was also some kind of levelled ratling fencer guy, who I quite simply never hit - through several rounds of praying and healing, not a single hit landed.

All of this at around level 13, somewhere below DT.

[Silfir]

A blue dragon?

When you spoke to Thrundarr, did he mention something about an alternative route to the Animated Forest that's filled with dangerous creatures? You should not be seeing blue dragons unless you ended up in there. Even if you do, you should definitely not be fighting them.

I suspect the levelled ratling fencer you mentioned was a ratling duelist; since they bypass PV and disarm you like crazy, they're not typically something you'd want to fight in melee unless you vastly overpower them.

It's not the fault of your weapon, as far as I can tell. Bloody daggers are quite decent. 9 PV is a little on the low side, however. I wouldn't trust myself to cross the Animated Forest with that, and definitely not the Dwarven Halls.

I would absolutely recommend forgetting about the area below Dwarftown for now and try to find some loot in the Puppy Cave, or explore some of the random dungeons. There are at least two that you shouldn't have particular trouble with - the moldy one and the shadowy one. Work on improving your armor. What's it made up of at the moment? Did I get that right, you have 9 PV total including Tough Skin, Iron Skin and Steel Skin?

[Kaptin Keen]

A blue dragon?

When you spoke to Thrundarr, did he mention something about an alternative route to the Animated Forest that's filled with dangerous creatures? You should not be seeing blue dragons unless you ended up in there. Even if you do, you should definitely not be fighting them.

I suspect the levelled ratling fencer you mentioned was a ratling duelist; since they bypass PV and disarm you like crazy, they're not typically something you'd want to fight in melee unless you vastly overpower them.

It's not the fault of your weapon, as far as I can tell. Bloody daggers are quite decent. 9 PV is a little on the low side, however. I wouldn't trust myself to cross the Animated Forest with that, and definitely not the Dwarven Halls.

I would absolutely recommend forgetting about the area below Dwarftown for now and try to find some loot in the Puppy Cave, or explore some of the random dungeons. There are at least two that you shouldn't have particular trouble with - the moldy one and the shadowy one. Work on improving your armor. What's it made up of at the moment? Did I get that right, you have 9 PV total including Tough Skin, Iron Skin and Steel Skin?

Yea, the blue dragon was in the abandoned dwarf caves. I popped my head in there a couple of times, the other time there was some sort of ... shadow wyrm, maybe? So yea, not a place I should be going, I know =)

You're almost certainly right about the ratling duelist. It wasn't an avoidable fight, though - he wandered in from behind me while I was fighting a .. are they called tension rooms?

PV is 13 now. ID'd some stuff I had in my inventory already, and improved that. And I've already completed the obvious dungeons - puppy quest and druid quest. But I could find a couple of other overworld dungeons, no problem. Better armor would certainly be nice. Oh, and my toughness isn't high enough for steel skin, but I have the other two.

I also have ... fire, acid, cold, stun resistance, improved healing rate from troll blood. And I'm cursed, but working on that.

I have a couple of scrolls to improve a melee weapon too - I'm just not sure my dagger is what I should use them on? =)

[Rynjin]

Started save scumming on my Wizard to help learn some more stuff about this game. So far I've learned: Lightning Bolt bouncing is kind of bull****; it doesn't make much sense that I can arrange for a target to be hit twice and it only takes damage once, but I get killed if it bounces on me. Alchemy is more obtuse than the rest of the game, and can apparently result in 400 damage explosions by putting some berries in a vial of water. Eating Displacer Beasts results in (permanent?) Confusion and a random teleportation. Strength of Atlas is the BEST THING EVER. Finding good weapons for a Wizard is hard. You can accidentally eat a puppy's corpse if you click on it and then exit the menu without picking an option. If you wear a cursed belt, it becomes impossible to take off your robes. Because you can't pull fabric through a loose loop, I guess.

To do: figure out what armor I can wear, because these robes I started with suck. Find out what these scrolls I have do, because the names aren't super helpful.

[Kaptin Keen]

.. but you can bounce bolt spells around corners, at stuff you can't see. Situationally OP. Alchemy tends to explode if you're doing it wrong - you need a recipe to know what you're doing. Corpses do all manner of things. Eat the right ones - or combination of right ones - and it's quite a boon. Strength of Atlas is also a trap: If for some reason you can't renew it, you're really screwed. Belts block the torso slot, clover block the ring slots.

Names are often anagrams (are those the ones?) For instance, Tywat Pare is Wyatt Earp. See? Further to this, blessed scrolls of identify are your friend. So is holy water.

In case none of this is new to you, I apologize - I'm not trying to be a smartass =)

[Winthur]

A blue dragon?

Well, you don't know, maybe he got Blup mad.

[Sian]

Alchemy tends to explode if you're doing it wrong - you need a recipe to know what you're doing.

Unless you reallly know what you're doing ... seem to recall reading YAVP where the only damage doing the game being explosive alchemy

[Silfir]

Started save scumming on my Wizard to help learn some more stuff about this game. So far I've learned: Lightning Bolt bouncing is kind of bull****; it doesn't make much sense that I can arrange for a target to be hit twice and it only takes damage once, but I get killed if it bounces on me.

The target will take damage twice if you hit it twice. It's easy to overlook, or confuse with the random chance some creatures have to shrug off any given bolt hit using their spell resistance.

Alchemy is more obtuse than the rest of the game, and can apparently result in 400 damage explosions by putting some berries in a vial of water.

Stick to the recipes you know - you can see them with ctrl-R. Or maybe shift-R.

But keep this in mind for if you ever become immune to fire.

If you wear a cursed belt, it becomes impossible to take off your robes. Because you can't pull fabric through a loose loop, I guess.

It's not loose. Otherwise you could take it off.

To do: figure out what armor I can wear, because these robes I started with suck.

You can wear whatever armor you want. There is no such thing as arcane spell failure in ADOM. Studded leather armor is fairly common and a decent step up, chain mail is better still.

Find out what these scrolls I have do, because the names aren't super helpful.

If you have a sizeable amount of scrolls, try reading one of the biggest stack you own.

[Kaptin Keen]

If you have a sizeable amount of scrolls, try reading one of the biggest stack you own.

Or not ....

Scrolls are propably the least dangerous items in the game, but that's not to say none of them damage your character in horrible ways. You:

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Drop a potion of water on an aligned alter - as in, matches your alignment - to make it blessed, then dip one of the GLORIA MUNDI scrolls in it, cast that, all your problems go away.

[Silfir]

Scrolls of identify have randomized labels. It may be SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI in your current game, but it can be something else entirely the next.

What I'm talking about is that scrolls of identify are the most common scroll. Identical scrolls stack up in your inventory, so if you have a big pile of scrolls, those that form the biggest stack are very likely to be scrolls of identify. If not, they are typically scrolls of uncursing. Practically impossible for it to be a scroll with a negative effect as long as your sample size is somewhat reasonable.

[Kaptin Keen]

Scrolls of identify have randomized labels. It may be SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MUNDI in your current game, but it can be something else entirely the next.

What I'm talking about is that scrolls of identify are the most common scroll. Identical scrolls stack up in your inventory, so if you have a big pile of scrolls, those that form the biggest stack are very likely to be scrolls of identify. If not, they are typically scrolls of uncursing. Practically impossible for it to be a scroll with a negative effect as long as your sample size is somewhat reasonable.

I .. well, I suspected that, but then the Gloria Mundi scrolls have been Identify in the games I've identified them in. So it seemed the logical conclusion. Also, some aren't? The Kapow, Wopak, there's another I'm sure but the name escapes me, HitMe, CutMe - they seem to do what it says on the tin. No?

I can't be sure, I rarely get as far as identifying all, and then I don't recall what was what before =)

[Silfir]

Just checked my current game (some level 20 priest) and nope. Identify is "MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH", which sounds like it should be satiation, but satiation is "CUTME", which sounds like it might be increase melee accuracy or damage, but those are "Yik'Mech'Shegoth" and "deam ni panaj", respectively. The "HITME" scroll is great identify, "KAPOW" is item creation. You get the picture. Not even the unlabeled scroll is always blank. So you might end up putting the unlabeled scroll in uncursed water to turn it into a blank scroll, and like magic a label appears on it, out of nothing.

It's possible that, for example, a scroll of "MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH" is a little more likely to be a scroll of satiation than it is to be any of the many other scrolls (since that presumably is its initially assigned label before they all get shuffled), but not in any reliable way. I'm not sure if research on that subject exists.

This is an area in which save scumming may well be skewing your perception. Scroll labels are determined on character creation; if you keep playing the same character, you will get the same labels.

There are some select scrolls with fixed descriptions; they typically have quest relevance or are otherwise unique items with a specific purpose.

[Kaptin Keen]

This is an area in which save scumming may well be skewing your perception.

Nah, it's another form of confirmation bias. But I concede your point: Scroll names are determined on character generation. Interesting - I didn't think so =)

[Sian]

In fact, Absent compelling evidence in the other direction, I'd argue that all 'Random' names are distributed on CharGen ... note through that for both Potions (iirc) and Rings, Amulets and Wands (and even a few handful of boots/gloves) there are subgroupings of items that shuffle between a select number of names

[Anteros]

Yea. You get the three runes you need, then go... "Okay, so this is a pretty boss build. Do I just go down to Zot and end this, or do I go for bonus points?"

Many, many a hero has died to hubris at this stage in the game.

Yeah, but the point for me is never really to get the orb and escape. That's pretty easy. At least for a veteran player. I consider late game to be where the real game starts.