Swear This Game is Needlessly Stupid Sometimes

[_Ln_]

ummm....what the OP said happened to me 1ce. i was a troll (i think in my barbarian days) and decided to do the kranach quest after clearing the smc and finding the wp blanket (there was a dangerous mixed tension room in UD1) and could not for the life of me find kranach.
i am not sure about this but me thinks that the level restiction for trolls for the kranach quest is a lot less than lvl 6....somewhere like lvl 4. because they lvl slowly they are resticted in this quest by their experience gain rather than their lvl. neways i rarely do kranch quest nowadays cause i do random race/class and dive the ud so i cant afford to have the smc generate at higher lvls

That is true, by the way, thanks for the reminder.
I believe Kranach quests has either level 6 and 5000 xp (or so) as breaking points.

[JellySlayer]

That is true, by the way, thanks for the reminder.
I believe Kranach quests has either level 6 and 5000 xp (or so) as breaking points.

I'm not sure about this. In the test I did earlier, Tywat Pare was still asking after Kranach after my troll had acquired nearly 10k xps (still level 5). I don't remember the last time I saw him for certain with that character, but I'm pretty sure it was over 5k xps.

[_Ln_]

I'm not sure about this. In the test I did earlier, Tywat Pare was still asking after Kranach after my troll had acquired nearly 10k xps (still level 5). I don't remember the last time I saw him for certain with that character, but I'm pretty sure it was over 5k xps.

Well, this info is in the IGB and sorear's wiki. I'm somewhat inclined to believe the latter although not in the face of your factual evidence. Perhaps some things were changed in some prerelease. Or perhaps this bit of info was retrieved very early and was erroneous.

[JellySlayer]

It could be that Pare will not tell you Kranach is gone until level 6, but Kranach doesn't spawn after 5000 xps. This might be worth investigating as it would presumably be a bug.

I'll test this a little more carefully.

[edit]Okay, yes, I believe this is a bug.

I was able to find Kranach with a level 4 troll with 4595 xps without any trouble.
Above 5000 xps (still level 4), I had 16 consecutive wilderness encounters with no Kranach. However, Pare still reports that Kranach is around. So I'm inclined to believe that Kranach spawning is based on xps, but Pare's information is based on level.

[TheCableGuy]

Do not go into SMC with weak characters. Do not go into SMC with characters above level 1. In summary, do not go into SMC at all unless you absolutely know what you are doing and have an escape plan (better several). Learn how dungeon layouts typically work in ADOM. Turn back on the very first whiff of trouble (long corridor, summoner/breeder spotted).
Switch to Berserk to fight through one direction if sandwiched. Try to keep a weaker monster from one side. Remove armor to gain True Berserk bonus if all else fails and make a mad dash.

Unless you get ambushed so hard that you are surrounded by from all directions, you can run from almost all encounters. Get deliberately damaged to below 30% of hp (carefully at that), switch to Coward tactics. This will boost your effective speed to 1.2x of almost everything else allowing you to get away.

Visit the food shop in Terinyo and stock on food. Do not explore all parts of the level while low on food as monster generation is pretty slow once you've killed most things. Turn back if you are not sure of success.

Poor luck is not an excuse. It can legitimately kill some characters (including high-level) if you get some serious shit. However, if you play like a robot avoiding danger at all time, you will get a very high percentage of success. Not that it is any fun, but ADOM is not "far too luck based".

This is my honest opinion stemming from my experience.

Honestly, I know how to run SMC well enough.
After too many years and countless deaths,
I can safely say I know it well.

But I tend to run my games pretty much the same way every game.
Go in, Find blanket, and Get out. Not much exploring involved outside of that intention.

But I'll have to disagree. Luck is a HUGE part of the game. Coming to a Fork in the SMC
and choosing the wrong path can spell your doom just by time restrains and RNG alone.

Sometimes, even GOOD Luck leads you to an early Death as well.
When I referred to getting caught in a tunnel and surrounded by constantly spawning monsters
was a time when I was playing a Halfling Merchant and I found a Blessed Eternium Greatsword of Slaughtering (with fantastic stats)
(didn't even have the Treasure Hunter Talent) on lvl one of the SMC.
Naturally, I equipped it and started plowing my way to the other side.
It was great until I started on my way back down a long Corridor,
and the Monsters started backing up in the direction I had to go.
Even Though I was Killing them as fast as they spawned, They just kept spawning.
Eventually, monsters started coming from behind me to.

The Kills just kept racking up, My Lvl was shooting through the Roof, and I was running out of healing (what little I had.)
It may of been a Fluke on account that the Dungeon generated kind of small (60% Corridors with small Rooms)
But that's luck for you.

[Dogbreath]

FWIW, the whole Kranach being killed by a pet thing isn't a bug. Tywatt Pare will actually mention it and refuse to give you the reward because someone else killed Kranach, not you. it's a scripted game event and definitely not a bug.

[biomateria]

FWIW, the whole Kranach being killed by a pet thing isn't a bug. Tywatt Pare will actually mention it and refuse to give you the reward because someone else killed Kranach, not you. it's a scripted game event and definitely not a bug.

It may be intentional, but is that a good thing? I'm with them - pet kills should count towards the quest. I know I'm basing my experience on games that have come after ADOM, but minion/partner kills should count towards player quests. I can get around the fact that pet level is independent of player level, but still...

[Whiskiz]

First of all some more awesome feedback from everyone involved.

@StViers
"1. You notice the message about a *foo* walking over the trap, and you just leave. Also, you can always guarantee that you have some ranged skills."

So when every time poor RnG makes an end game enemy spawn early, you have to leave that entire dungeon and miss everything from exp to gold to gear to quests and everything else there? Ok.

"2. You make sure that you aren't walking around at a health low enough to just die from them, or if you are very concerned, you can pick a class with good hp and detect trap, and obsessively check things. More realistically, if you are hitting 3 acid traps in one location, chances are you were on a level with a *you sudder* message generated at the start."

Did you read what i said? i said i was a mist elf with 10hp that hit 3 traps in the same dungeon level, max of 10hp, it was not from walking around low hp, please actually read properly what i said before responding to it. Apparently the you shudder message is a trap *room* these 3 traps were not in the same room just on the same level, so there would not have been that message.

"3. Don't mess with chaotic altars until you can create/lock doors. You don't need altars to check how good your items are--either be impatient and play as a priest, or get used to iding items by price, or weight, or quantity, and making informed decisions about what to id by equipping (Gordon's post explains taht pretty well)"

Too bad if learning is under 10 say from a troll character and the only way i can create a door is the slim chance i find the specific wand of door creation, and even if not, the chance of finding a book of wand creation in every playthrough to guarantee this strategy? and locking doors? There is very specific situations in which i can even do that, after doing some research. Ok cool so you have to research everything about the game first to counter the times it is clearly poorly designed, and then hope you have filled the criteria of said research to circumvent said poor design, every playthrough, also picking a priest and generally basing my entire character off *specific* random poor situations, which does not account for all the other poor situations (because you can't have everything, as it should be) is not a solution either i don't believe, but more of a bandaid for the problem instead of fixing it.

"As to finding kranach, take quick as your starting talent. Then you can run from wilderness encounters fairly easily (with 102 speed you generally end up with only 1 monster from the horde keeping up with you, so just kill that and leave). I have never hit lvl 6 looking for kranach if I was deadset on finding him. I've starved, but thats because I was too lazy to stock up on food."

Hitting level 6 should never have even been a problem, from farming the forest since level 2 and tons and tons of encounters in between.

"Remember that wizards can melee and throw things too. Usually when I play one, I make sure that if I'm facing a non-threatening monster, I'm using physical missiles first, and then meleeing it (usually on either 2 or 5 depending on my gear). On threatening monsters (cubes/ghouls, floating eyes, mimics etc) I use magic from a distance, but as I get ranks in a physical missile weapon I start using that instead, and kiting backwards."

All well and good if your a wizard. Also if how do you get said physical missiles, more than enough to use on all said non threatening monsters first and to level it enough, scum farming archers and rock throwers? er.

"All of the situations you have described *can* be solved"

So after responding to those said situation solvers, i still disagree, they can't easily be solved. Thanks for the feedback though.

"Darkness is a pretty powerful spell, as monsters that can't see in the dark won't fight back if you hit them in darkness (unless they stumble into you, a newish change), so had you been meleeing that eye of destruction in the dark, you had a pretty good chance of killing it"

Ah good to know, thanks. But again, and no offense, if you had read what i said properly, you would have seen where i said my melee attacks would not actually connect with the monster no matter how many times i swung, so i still would not have killed it and it may have probably followed me out of the darkness, i could not damage it, it was immune to my one and only offensive spell, my melee was naturally poor as a caster and i had no ranged weapon nor ranged skill anyway to help with the rolls for it, so this would not have helped that situation.

@JellySlayer
"I usually just convert or ignore chaotic altars. I've had too many accidental mishaps with them. Altars aren't so rare that you need to use the first one you find if it's chaotic. I've played games where I haven't used an altar until Dwarftown. Except for potions and scrolls, most items can be IDed in some way or other relatively safely without an altar or scroll."

But you wouldn't want to convert it if you are yourself a chaotic character, to use? And if you dont use your altar early and especially when you cant read, you cant id items and take a gamble with everything you equip? Again especially if you cant read for scrolls of uncursing, then there goes potions use too because you find as many bad potions as good and if they aren't ID'd, i found chugging random ones in times of need is 100% way to get yourself killed lol and **fair enough**

I also read converting altars is a dangerous practice, sacrificing on them may change your alignment instead, you may be pleasing that god instead and angering yours and a few other things, definitely not worth the risk, as seen here there's already enough potentially retarded RnG to get you killed.

"Don't fight any wilderness encounters. Just run away. Clearing one or two can easily get you to level 6 and make the quest unavailable. Are you sure that you actually took the quest before you went looking for him? He will never spawn if you don't have the quest active. FWIW, I just tested with a troll monk, and by the time I had 10000 xps (almost level 6), I had seen him 4 or 5 times before I got bored and stopped."

Clearing 1 or 2 encounters i found cannot level you from level 2 to level 6, especially as mentioned mostly as a troll where you need alot more exp, and so that was never a problem, i seriously had many many many encounters each time, way more than enough, thanks for the idea though and the rest of your feedback is good and makes sense, duly noted.

@Silfir
"It also includes procedurally generated dungeons, with random layouts, random monsters, random items, random dungeon features, random traps. That means the early game is sometimes easier, sometimes harder. Sometimes unfairly so. On the flipside, you have a game that can be replayed for decades and will still throw things at you that you didn't expect."

You know id been thinking about this idea myself, it is procedurally generated and has tons of depth, that can't make for a very good properly balanced game all the time every time, but still there are systems that can be made like parameters to stop end game monsters having chances to spawn in starting caves, quests not working properly etc.

@JellySlayer @divij @Ln On Kranach

Nice testing Jelly, thanks, that sheds some light on that. That does sound like it would indeed be the problem. See Divij like you i wasn't sure even at around level 4 if the quest was still up but i would check by the (q)uest log and by talking to the sheriff once in awhile to make sure the quest was still active which he stated it was, that Kranach had not left yet. But by the discussion here amongst us it turns out that although the sheriff would apparently say he still is out there, he was not because the sheriff was going off the level limit of 6 that we had not yet reached whereas there is also an experience limit which has changed for the troll race which we had reached.

What i find odd is the fact the experience limit parameter was individually set, for the troll in mind, but not the sheriffs response once it is reached first, for it. Which leads to what i have said a few times in conclusion, some poor design in a *few* areas, for another example besides generally poor situation and definite unavoidable and needless death generation, not receiving recognition for quest kills that your pet actually did, i can guarantee that is not a mechanic which like Dogbreath suggested, at no point did a developer decide you purposely don't get the reward just because your pet got the last hit in, surely......

[GordonOverkill]

So when every time poor RnG makes an end game enemy spawn early, you have to leave that entire dungeon and miss everything from exp to gold to gear to quests and everything else there? Ok.

That happens veeeeeeeery rarely, no more than every couple dozen games on average, and you even get a warning from those trap messages. From my perspective it's quite exciting the get such an extra challenge every now and then and it's somehow cool that in such cases you have to break with your routine and play a different early game.

Did you read what i said? i said i was a mist elf with 10hp that hit 3 traps in the same dungeon level, max of 10hp, it was not from walking around low hp, please actually read properly what i said before responding to it. Apparently the you shudder message is a trap *room* these 3 traps were not in the same room just on the same level, so there would not have been that message.

Mist elves are indeed very vulnerable to traps. But they are a very challenging race all in all and you learn that quickly enough. So if you can't handle them yet, rather play something else. ADOM provides perfectly unbalanced races and classes, so there is something exciting to play for players of all skill levels. I like that.

oo bad if learning is under 10 say from a troll character and the only way i can create a door is the slim chance i find the specific wand of door creation, and even if not, the chance of finding a book of wand creation in every playthrough to guarantee this strategy? and locking doors? There is very specific situations in which i can even do that, after doing some research. Ok cool so you have to research everything about the game first to counter the times it is clearly poorly designed, and then hope you have filled the criteria of said research to circumvent said poor design, every playthrough, also picking a priest and generally basing my entire character off *specific* random poor situations, which does not account for all the other poor situations (because you can't have everything, as it should be) is not a solution either i don't believe, but more of a bandaid for the problem instead of fixing it.

There is a guaranteed character that you meet very early on in the game and that sells keys to you. If you really rely on locking doors, just buy yourself a set of keys. Wands of door creation are quite common, so it shouldn't be a problem to get one of those. "Books of wand creation" do not exist.

Hitting level 6 should never have even been a problem, from farming the forest since level 2 and tons and tons of encounters in between.

What's your opinion about that testing that JellySlayer and I did? Apparently for us it's very, very easy to reliably encounter Kranach, so do you think that we were just extremely lucky?

So after responding to those said situation solvers, i still disagree, they can't easily be solved. Thanks for the feedback though.

And I still disagree with you x-D However...

Ah good to know, thanks. But again, and no offense, if you had read what i said properly, you would have seen where i said my melee attacks would not actually connect with the monster no matter how many times i swung, so i still would not have killed it and it may have probably followed me out of the darkness, i could not damage it, it was immune to my one and only offensive spell, my melee was naturally poor as a caster and i had no ranged weapon nor ranged skill anyway to help with the rolls for it, so this would not have helped that situation.

Would be great if you could somehow show us such a situation.

But you wouldn't want to convert it if you are yourself a chaotic character, to use? And if you dont use your altar early and especially when you cant read, you cant id items and take a gamble with everything you equip? Again especially if you cant read for scrolls of uncursing, then there goes potions use too because you find as many bad potions as good and if they aren't ID'd, i found chugging random ones in times of need is 100% way to get yourself killed lol and **fair enough**

There was alrady a reply that told you that there are other ways to find out about the quality of your items, even if you cannot read and don't use altars.

I also read converting altars is a dangerous practice, sacrificing on them may change your alignment instead, you may be pleasing that god instead and angering yours and a few other things, definitely not worth the risk, as seen here there's already enough potentially retarded RnG to get you killed.

Luckily you can avoid these dangers with careful preparation.

You know id been thinking about this idea myself, it is procedurally generated and has tons of depth, that can't make for a very good properly balanced game all the time every time, but still there are systems that can be made like parameters to stop end game monsters having chances to spawn in starting caves, quests not working properly etc.

The game is still (or rather: again) under developement and problems are being fixed all the time. Still at least I am not convinced that some of the thing you mentioned should be changed. I agree with you on other points like the matter with the pet killing Kranach, but I am almost 100% sure that quite alot of your deaths were not unavoidable at all for a halfway experienced player. Also I personally EXPECT a roguelike to throw horrible and hard to solve situations at me from time to time. Guess the game would start to bore me at some point if it didn't.

[mjkittredge]

I've died hundreds of times, and although some surprise deaths were extremely frustrating, I always had fun and have kept coming back to this game for a decade. A few of those deaths were to a Writhing Mass of Primal Chaos. Didn't know how strong they were! Most are to the SMC, or chain-paralyzation. Or water breath.

I accept that the game is random and at times very unfair. I understand that for most problems I encounter, there is usually a solution. I accept that I still have much to learn. All of this is what makes it exciting and fun. You'll be hard pressed to find a more challenging and rewarding game than this.

You write these massive posts about how it seems BS. Just keep playing, experimenting with race/class and birth-sign combos. You'll learn from your experiences, have some games with really super luck, and get much farther in the game. Don't let the bad luck and inexperience ruin it for you.