how often do people actually finish a game?

[grambert]

so how often do you finish compared to how often you die along the way? I know there are different types of endings like 'ultra endings' for challenges. I mean any form of completing the game.

What is the hardest part of the game for you?

[Blasphemous]

Not counting discarded chars that had a bad skillset (bard) or just bad starting stats, it's about 1 in 20 for me.
The most difficult part? I guess early game where I mostly die to special attacks against which I had no defense yet (ghuls, jellies, eyes...) or to traps - stone blocks, exploding doors, fireball traps...
Often death is a result of bad calculation of danger level and getting surrounded by monsters and killed in a classic fashion, where a few more PC levels would be enough to survive (good example being DF or the Pyramid as it has a tendency to spawn some really tough monsters from time to time).
Since I mostly play low toughness chars, low HP is highly responsible untimely demise.
Once I get to ~100-120 HP, I feel fairly secure and only die due to some stupidity like wishing for spellbooks on the frozen part of the Red Lake and falling into it due to exceeding maximum safe weight, running out of strength of atlas while carrying tons of luggage or, with a caster, meleeing some mid-late game monsters that should not, under any circumstances, be meleed by a caster.

[Nobbse]

Since 3 years ago I do always character building by pure random and I log all tries. I have had so far 1487 characters, I won with 13 characters, the other 1474 died. Among those 1474 were 8 victims to ADOM bugs. Among the 8 victims 3 had a real chance to win: an Orc Healer, a Dark Elf beastfighter and a Hurthling beastfighter .

So about 1 percent of my characters win

My wins so far are always with neutral or lawful characters:

Drakel Barbarian (Dragon)
Drakel Healer (Wand)
Drakel Mindcrafter (Dragon)
Dwarf Bard (Falcon)
Gnome Archer (Wand)
Gnome Beastfighter (Falcon)
Gnome Healer (Falcon)
Gnome Merchant (Sword)
High Elf Barbarian (Book)
High Elf Ranger (Tree)
Human Druid (Dragon)
Hurthling Bard (Candle)
Hurthling Elementalist (Raven) <<< my first win ever!!

[JellySlayer]

When I was playing regularly, I could win maybe one-in-five. The tricky part is getting passed the early game. I can make it to Dwarftown, I'd say I'd probably win more often than I lose.

[Bieks]

I probably win about one in ten these days, but over the entire course of adom perhaps one in hundred? Not counting quitting due to bad/unwanted starts.

Aside from currently trying to win for the first time with a mindcrafter, which somehow is a terribly arcane class to me. Probably have about 30 highscore entries on pre13 dedicated to mindcrafters alone.

[StViers]

I have played pretty often since 1.1.1Winbeta4 came out, and have yet to win. I've gotten to the air temple 5-6 times (4 of those in the last 2 months though), and any character I create that has decent stats I'll at least make it to Dtown, where I'll either quit, die stupidly in teh Dwarven Halls, or proceed on to die in the TOEF (though that happens less and less now). 1 time I got to the mana temple, but got thrashed pretty hard. 3 times very recently I've died to gorgons, forgetting to swap out my amulet to one of petrification resist >_<

[fooziex]

I have played pretty often since 1.1.1Winbeta4 came out, and have yet to win. I've gotten to the air temple 5-6 times (4 of those in the last 2 months though), and any character I create that has decent stats I'll at least make it to Dtown, where I'll either quit, die stupidly in teh Dwarven Halls, or proceed on to die in the TOEF (though that happens less and less now). 1 time I got to the mana temple, but got thrashed pretty hard. 3 times very recently I've died to gorgons, forgetting to swap out my amulet to one of petrification resist >_<

Since you admitted never winning, I'll chime in. I've been playing for well over a decade. At the latest I started in 1999 with a gamma release, but I'm pretty sure it was even earlier than that. I've still not won a game. It doesn't bother me; it means I still have that much more of the game to explore for the first time. Since the "resurrection" campaign started, I finally "spoiled myself" and started reading the forums, guides, and whatever else I can find. I can now get past Dwarftown pretty regularly and have done the Pyramid (once, haha), and am enjoying the game more than ever.

[anon123]

Count me in too. Playing since 2006 here, only won once so far (DE Wizard). I have read a ton of spoilers, discovered a bunch of things by myself, and reached the late game many times, but always seem to end up screwing up due to stupid mistakes, being a little overconfident and doing things I really shouldn't at that point, or simply not realizing when to stop fighting and run away, which is an absolutely vital knowledge in this game.

One story that springs to mind right now, so that you have an idea of which stupid things I'm talking about, is a PC who was really buff and ready to take on D: 50, but was wearing a ring of weakness (having read a little, but not being familiar with how that method was to be properly used) and had the very light corruption, so my St was 1 and kicking a wall to slide through the ice resulted in this:



Alright, taking millions of damage from kicking walls is a bug, but that was my fault for not paying attention both in and outside the game.

[magpie]

I find nearly all my deaths before ToEF come down to biting off more than I can chew and not running away when I am seriously threatened by something (Darkforge is a common cause of early mid-game death for me - those steel golems and horrors can hit like trucks). Or not doing attention, and doing dumb stuff like meleeing karmic lizards too far away from an altar.

My main problem in recent games that have gotten to the end-game have been corruption - without saving Khelly, this becomes a problem.

I have rolled a Unicorn High Elf Necro, and am doing things like stockpiling scrolls of peace, in order to make the end game (and particularly D:50) less harsh in regards to corruption.

[tapi]

One out of three chars if I play careful