ADOM tutorial

[Silfir]

Don't be mean. It took me close to one hour back then

I agree though that a "proper" tutorial shouldn't teach a specific tactic, but show the player his way around first. Similar to captainduck's Dwarf Fortress tutorials, actually.

I'd do that kind of thing myself if a) I had a proper microphone, b) some clue about proper video recording and subtitling, c) much less anxiety (partially induced by my hilarious German accent, but then captainduck's Dutch one does not detriment from the videos) and d) time.

[gut]

> Bug-chasing is just for speedruns in my opinion, and showing an
> advanced tactic like that is about as interesting to a new player as

Is clearing BUGWIL really that hard/advanced/boring?
I can do it in under 10 minutes.

> Savescumming would be a better introduction to the game.

I'm definitely not going to do a demo of that.

> If you do mean it as a "guaranteed way to win" for experienced

Not guaranteed win, just the best start I know. Am I being
too generous in my opinions of newbies? I'm pretty sure
that anyone can push the number 4 key to shoot bolts at
bugs when they are far away and flee the map when they
aren't. If it really is THAT difficult, then I should do it over.
Maybe have a vote for what kind of ADOM LP to do? The
downside to doing things in the non-speedrun way is that
more of the quests and mysteries of the game would be
spoiled.

> I'd suggest you're being a little too heavy with explaining
> every little detail.

My theory was that it's easy to skim for those who already
know it. If it comes across as insulting though, I can easily
remove it.

> to realise you have to press '>' to enter Terinyo for instance.

Took me a while to, as ADOM was the first roguelike I ever
tried.

> a "proper" tutorial shouldn't teach a specific tactic, but show
> the player his way around first.

I don't want to re-write the manual. Giving basic info as I go
is easy for me to type and easy for the reader to skim. Also, I
*REALLY* want to spoil as little of the game as possible.

[pblack]

The only thing I think you should add is to remind the player (often) the two most important surviving techniques available:

1st: Fleeing
2nd: Ranged attacks (thou that is kinda covered with a wizard)

You can write the best guide in the world, but if you don't tell the players when it's time to flee, deaths will be many =P.

Althou you only really know how dangerous a monster is after you died in his hands =P. A skeletal king appeared in DH: 2 with my current archer, quite rare... and even thou i didn't die, i'll make sure to be careful with those guys from now on

[sorear]

I would like to see more of a "toolbox" type tutorial.

Level 1:

- BUGWIL abuse (wizards, elementalists, archers, possibly necromancers and druids)

- Low level dungeon survival (DD and VD are basically the same here)

- How to save the puppy

- Running the small cave [level 1 edition]

- Lawnlothiel

Low level:

- Saving Yriggs

- DD:7

- HMV stone giant lord (if applicable)

Low-mid level:

- Crossing the Big Room

- Li-Han-Kay

- AF/DH

- Nonnak and Griff

etc.

I might do something like this as a demo catalog, hmm.

[JellySlayer]

> Bug-chasing is just for speedruns in my opinion, and showing an
> advanced tactic like that is about as interesting to a new player as

Is clearing BUGWIL really that hard/advanced/boring?
I can do it in under 10 minutes.

To be honest, I think it unlikely that a new player would be able to make it to BUGWIL without dying from wilderness encounters or starving to death.

[gut]

> a new player would be able to make it to BUGWIL without dying

I mentioned getting food, and even mentioned
escaping from monsters in a swamp encounter.
Wizards aren't as likely to die in that circumstance
as melee PC's. That's one of the things that makes
them easy mode for ADOM.

[fazisi]

I could see the first three pages fine but page 4 was a bunch of broken images, no text and the link at the bottom said to page 2 but just looped back to broken page 4.
________
CREAMPIE TUBES

[Silfir]

Starting players off in the BUGWIL is just not a good idea. I think your method is quite ok otherwise. Even before you did the BUGWIL you "simply evaded" a wilderness encounter, which just isn't always possible. You should start with more basic wizardry combat tactics - the Coward stuff was an okay start, though assuming that the new player in question knows the difference and significance of DV and PV was a slight stretch.

Basically, you just wrote a "Quick XP and early game skipping by killing bugs you don't have access to without killing 100 PCs or mucking about with game files" tutorial, which is maybe not quite the goal.

Now that I have an excuse, I'll just link my terrible written ADOM tutorial once more, to show how I'd do it if I had the time at the moment...

[gut]

> I could see the first three pages fine

I haven't posted more than that yet. I'm kinda on
the fence about whether to persue the task of
commenting ~700 screenshots for this game, or
going through another...

> Starting players off in the BUGWIL is just not a good idea.

Again, I have to ask 'why'. I have started many wizards
in the regular fashion, and even I have a high attrition
rate. Chosing a dwarf gives a higher survival rate, but
it sacrifices a LOT of magical ability. I have open ears
about BUGWIL being a bad starting location, but I just
can't comprehend the idea that it's too hard or boring.
In fact, I kinda went to BUGWIL myself to keep the
game from BEING boring. With a GEwi that starts in
BUGWIL, I no longer have to scum (grind) for anything
except a BD corpse, which only takes about 10 minutes.

> , you just wrote a "Quick XP and early game skipping

Gaining XP is one of the best way to increase one's
survival rate. Do you know of a faster way, in game time
and real life time, of building a more powerful PC?

> I'll just link my terrible written ADOM tutorial

I commend you for your patience, but I don't have it.
The stuff I originally wrote was more descriptive, but
if I were a reader, I couldn't stay interested in it.

[JellySlayer]

> I could see the first three pages fine

I haven't posted more than that yet. I'm kinda on
the fence about whether to persue the task of
commenting ~700 screenshots for this game, or
going through another...

> Starting players off in the BUGWIL is just not a good idea.

Again, I have to ask 'why'.

gut, have you ever played a game, and, when you looked for help online about the game, the first thing in the (beginner!) walkthrough/tutorial that you read was "you need to change this internal game file or you won't be able to play properly"?

Also, when I first started ADOM, my characters were always human paladins. Following your guide, however, I seem to be constantly getting killed without getting anywhere, even though I'm supposed to have more health, better armor, and more damage than the wizard you were playing. What am I doing wrong?