I ascended nethack! + Adom status

[foxfire29]

Hi all,

Im back again :D

As mentioned in the subject I have been playing nethack solid for the last few weeks and I actually after much reading and thinking tactics managed to ascend. Nh is the first roguelike ever that I have managed to ascend without save scumming. The thing is I was honest and said I scummed in Adom for learning purposes now while the game was still fun I have changed opinion(U turned) in that I now realise save scumming does ruin game

Its been suggested to me by people on nethack irc that I would get more out Adom by not scumming so Im going to learn to play without scumming. (Im interested to know how many people realistically can/have completed/played this game with no scumming nor borderline cheat/exploits?

If it can be done via game knowledge and skill and done so consistantly I want to non scum this game. (I love questing so it should top nethack, in fact I didnt see any good play in nethack until many tries of the game)

Im also looking for other roguelikes which are as awesome as Adom or as near as damned it and are deep. Any ideas? (I have played a few of the obvious choices) Theres a vampire roguelike thats a remake of some game, I am not sure whether to bother with it? Its so hard to find quest based roguelikes for one , never mind ones like Adom where the play feels very diverse , has world maps and is non grindy owing to good dungeon design

I liked Elona but it got to a point the grind was massive and you spent waaay to much time keeping fame down and some other significant annoyances.

Thoughts on any of this?

[Nobbse]

I began ADOM 6 or 7 years ago (with some pauses in between) . After 4 months of intense play I still didn't manage to get my characters any further, so one day I did some scumming to see the Arena, the Big Room and Thrundarr's Dwarven City. This was enough motivation to decide that this game was really worthy to play on. Nowadays I still haven't managed to beat the game - but most of my characters that survive the hell of the early game will see the Arena, the Big Room, Dwarven City, The Pyramid, The High Mountain Village, Darkforge. Some that survive the animated forest or the Dwarven halls will even have the luck to die in the Tower of Eternal Flames or the Caves near the piranha lake... Still I haven't reached the casino or further more than 4 or 5 times in my life, so I'm still far away from being an ADOM expert.

So let me say this: beating ADOM with only "in game knowledge" seems to me near to impossible, but beating ADOM without scumming is possible - and to play without scumming is the only way to have the real fun out of it in the long term. Nevertheless some scumming now and then might be necessary, not to have a faked "Win" to post it here - but to have a source of motivation going on... I think that is ok.

Personally - I use the guidebook for these reasons:

1) to look up the alignement of monsters (important with sacrificing)
2) to look up some food characteristics of monster corpses
3) to look up the meaning of some armor/weapon- pre-or-suffixes

The Game is still hard enough... ;)

Last time I saw the casino - the casino owner slayed me because of my bad charisma...

[nathrakh]

Don't say only 'scumming' when you mean 'save scumming'.

ADOM players think that scumming = many different things, like gremling bombing or dragon gold doubling. Not just save scumming (which is the most severe, except save-file editing, which is blocked by the game AFAIK, or editing your PC with some.. tools).

edit: you must have had 'unholy aura' corruption. Shopkeepers don't like when you scare their customers...

[Sadface]

It's not an evil thing. SAVE scumming, IMO, invalidates a win, because
it removes one of the challenges the game is meant to impose on you.
However, sipping from every pool you find, obsessively farming herbs
till you have enough stomafillia to feed the entirety of ancardia for
the next decade, etc. these things are usually filed under "scumming",
but they are -not- inherently evil. Not even when used all together
are they evil.* And to me, farming herbs till my eyes bleed is fun, so
long as I don't have teleportitis.

One thing to remember - don't tell people which "scummy" methods
they can and can't use to "enjoy the game". The ID has a reason,
it was not put there by some random modder: to find items, monsters
and XP that you might need. There's a reason herbs grow back. There
is a reason you can sip from all the pools you want with a ring of
teleport control in your backpack and an altar 3 floors away: so that
you have more chances to take a step toward, or away from, victory.

Apologies if this sounds rude, but this line

"Nevertheless some scumming now and then might be necessary,
not to have a faked 'Win'"

Is rather ambiguous. Also apologies if you are in fact only referring
to save scumming.

[Dudley]

I also ascended nethack a few times, before getting bored and passing on to adom. I think i might take it again one day, but i remember that i got so bored i tried to become an extinctionnist

[Sadface]

Amg nathrakh, get outta my mind D: *tin foil hat*

[fazisi]

Save scumming does have its purposes as a learning tool imo. Without the ability to ask the internets back in the day (dad said, "get off the internet, I'm waiting for a phone call"), I relied on my two sources of ADOM info: my buddy Corey who introduced me to the game and save scumming. Even then, I never got a character past level 25.

However, recently, I have sworn off save scumming for good. It makes the game a lot more fun and exciting. It's bad for me because I don't play as cautious as I know I should in ADOM and often end up being careless and dying.

As for other forms of "scumming", I've done them all. Dragon gold doubling, mass pick pocketting, ID farming, wish engines, other less scummy tactics that others would call scummy (hmmmm, this scribbled scroll looks empty... let's read it a couple thousand times to train my Literacy). After the first time I did some of them, I got a bad taste in my mouth and swore off using those tactics for good (wish engine being one of these. It totally wrecked my game to have 40+ socr.)

What I recommend to anyone is play the game with all the scummy tactics you could imagine. Once you beat the game with these scummy tactics, remove some of the ones you felt were completely retarded (gremlin bonging for example) and beat the game again. Eventually, you will run out of scummy tactics to remove at which point you can begin applying restrictions to your games such as "illiterate" or "athiest" or whatever you want. You could even pretend to be Jellyslayer and play Doomed characters.

Long story short: Scum until you are good enough not to need to scum.

[gut]

> that I would get more out Adom by not scumming

Your heart will never pound in your chest if you know
that resurection is just a click away.

> how many people realistically can/have completed/played
> this game with no scumming nor borderline cheat/exploits?

I did. Once. Honestly, it's not hard to win ADOM, after
you get just a few pieces of vital info. Chose a powerhouse
PC, not a thief/merchant. Skip the quests you don't need
to complete to close the gate. Use herbs to pump stats, and
get your crowning. Know the tactics for beating the Ancient
Chaos Wyrm and the Archmage.

[Silfir]

You can play any way you want as long as you don't die. Boredom is deadly.

[foxfire29]

Thanks all,

Just to clarify, I was in no way shape or form advocating save scumming nor scumming , nor was I NOT advocating it :) Im a strong believer in, to each his own! Adom is a single player game therefore any person online who does whatever to their game doesnt affect me and Its not my job to police people, Too much of that going on throughout the web in many other contexts! However for me to elaborate on this would be waaay of topic! :P

I was just wanting to share with you guys how I totally was personally all for save scumming and now how I am only settling for playing the game without doing this, Im surprised I have even got to this way of thinking hehe

In hindsite, considerating to scum or not to scum doesnt get me in the least bit emotional because I dont care that much about either; this makes me able to objectively say It may have a place for people want to learn a roguelike so well they are analagous to a powergamer/good gamer . I think personally that the key to having the most fun is to use save scumming to push the boundry of your playing just enough so that you know whats ahead and how fit or unfit your gear is, I did this in nethack wizard mode, I thought there was no way I would do it and I went to the official online server and within one week completed the game legit. My win happened because of :

1: Good information given from other players
2: Experience of dangerous mobs ahead in the game in advance so I could pre-plan and when playing legit I didnt get disheartened , bored as I knew when to run

Btw I used wizard mode in nethack 3 times and never went passed the end of early game as I didnt want to get bored e.g getting attacked by hordes dieing and immediatly having full hp at that spot, it is fin the first couple of times but I reckon extremes would cause bordem and thats either scumming extreme or swing to the other extreme and saying, ow thou must not be spoiled even .1% etc :)

I actually think let people play the rls the way they want to so long as its not affecting others but all Im saying is I am going to try and not keep my saves.

Fun is key, do whatever it takes to have fun with the game and obviously for differant people this will well unsurprisingly be diverse :P << not just rereading this, man thats profound! :P << thats J/K at my expense btw !

[Silfir]

I hope it's profound, because I think exactly the same.

[foxfire29]

Thats cool Silfir :)

Just one other thing do add , I do agree with the person who eludes to the fact the game is difficult enough !

[Nate]

I've never won, but the closest I've ever come has been by following basically this advice. Errrr, and the Archmage killed me because I didn't know the right tactics at the time, so that's part of why I didn't win.



I did. Once. Honestly, it's not hard to win ADOM, after
you get just a few pieces of vital info. Chose a powerhouse
PC, not a thief/merchant. Skip the quests you don't need
to complete to close the gate. Use herbs to pump stats, and
get your crowning. Know the tactics for beating the Ancient
Chaos Wyrm and the Archmage.

Beyond that, ADOM is a game of self control. Identify your bad habits and kick them. For instance, I always feel a compulsive need to save the puppy, but I have learned that pushing that goal too hard in unfortunate circumstances is a guaranteed way to lose a character. I still feel the compulsion, but I resist when I can.
________
MERCEDES-BENZ R230 HISTORY (http://www.mercedes-wiki.com/wiki/Mercedes-Benz_R230)

[fazisi]

I have a similar compulsion. With nearly all of my characters, I go to Terinyo, then to Holeinthewall, then to SMC to attempt to find stairs and blanket, then try to save puppy. I've learned some sneaky tricks and know how to identify truly dangerous early game monsters so it works out pretty well. Still, if I play an underpowered character like a Merchant, I remind myself to not do this unless I want to end my PC's life quickly.

[Nate]

To be honest, I have almost the same laundry list upon character creation. I hate to leave things undone in games, so... If *absolutely* everything goes well and I don't run into any problems, I will go to Terinyo, holeinthewall for mugger, smc for stairs and blanket, dive to pc 6 and back up before character level 6, look for Kranach and kill him, then relax and start to play it by ear. But issues tend to crop up as early as lawinolethhel or at various other times (meaning I get to relax and play it by ear sooner, but I am not guaranteed to be able to complete everything). The worst is when Kranach just won't show up after everything else goes right.


I have a similar compulsion. With nearly all of my characters, I go to Terinyo, then to Holeinthewall, then to SMC to attempt to find stairs and blanket, then try to save puppy. I've learned some sneaky tricks and know how to identify truly dangerous early game monsters so it works out pretty well. Still, if I play an underpowered character like a Merchant, I remind myself to not do this unless I want to end my PC's life quickly.
________
Maine Medical Marijuana Dispensaries (http://maine.dispensaries.org/)

[Nobbse]

Nathrakh and Sadface were right, I meant it that way:
I began ADOM 6 or 7 years ago (with some pauses in between) . After 4 months of intense play I still didn't manage to get my characters any further, so one day I did some save scumming to see the Arena, the Big Room and Thrundarr's Dwarven City. This was enough motivation to decide that this game was really worthy to play on. Nowadays I still haven't managed to beat the game - but most of my characters that survive the hell of the early game will see the Arena, the Big Room, Dwarven City, The Pyramid, The High Mountain Village, Darkforge. Some that survive the animated forest or the Dwarven halls will even have the luck to die in the Tower of Eternal Flames or the Caves near the piranha lake... Still I haven't reached the casino or further more than 4 or 5 times in my life, so I'm still far away from being an ADOM expert.

So let me say this: beating ADOM with only "in game knowledge" seems to me near to impossible, but beating ADOM without save scumming is possible - and to play without save scumming is the only way to have the real fun out of it in the long term. Nevertheless some save scumming now and then might be necessary, not to have a faked "Win" to post it here - but to have a source of motivation going on... I think that is ok.

Personally - I use the guidebook for these reasons:

1) to look up the alignement of monsters (important with sacrificing)
2) to look up some food characteristics of monster corpses
3) to look up the meaning of some armor/weapon- pre-or-suffixes

The Game is still hard enough... ;)

Last time I saw the casino - the casino owner slayed me because of my bad charisma...

[foxfire29]

Btw , thanks for all your replies and insights! ........ I man not always be posting much but even if I aint replying Im on this forum reading, a load! :)

Heres once which MAY feed the trolls although this is not its intention, basically as mentioned in the past I have always loved Adom, it is most definately numero uno, nethack I didnt think too much of but that tuned out to be very good in the end based on being good at what it was

Now for the bombshell :D , I am not sure if I like crawl yet, what worrys me is I hhave played it numerous times , its not like I am dieing really early and it has like a dinky toy feel to it lol (Somewhat strange description , I know)

However thats not to say the devloper hasnt done a good job of presenting the game it just seems to be all of the same to me? It has a good religion system but I dont see anything outstanding anywhere else.

I kind of like just a touch of backstory, I would even say nethack had purpose although it was lightweight in that regard it was sufficient.

I know people will have differant opionions , thats fine so long as the opinions on this thread form a civil discussion as has been the case thus far. So tell me if you think I am missing the point with crawl? In what way?

[Dudley]

You forget mutations, man. And Demi-Demon powers, and the skill system

[gut]

I also wish crawl had more story. I remember the
race and class descriptions being one of my favorite
parts of ADOM, as a new player. Then the monster
descriptions were superb, and added a lot to the
game. All the quests, each NPC with their own L, C,
or insane motives, I still love it!

C'mon Crawl guys, more text! :D

Gameplay is marvelous though, and amazingly well
balanced. Strongest point for Crawl, IMO, is the
spell system. Lots of creativity and fun there, as
well as great game play. Melee and archery are
things I've never been interested in with Crawl,
despite the fact that melee is probably the most
powerful attack option.

[Grey]

The whole point of Crawl is that it's meant to be a straight dungeon crawling game. I've heard a lot of Crawl and Nethack players moan that ADOM is too "blah blah blah" and text-heavy - quite remarkable when you compare it to commercial games like Dragon's Age!

[foxfire29]

Yes Grey, in that regard its good at what it does as well as this it has a good community surrounding it. I do not doubt for one minute the guy has done well with it! Further more considering I have just got procedurally generated rooms working and am now working on a path/corridor connection algorithm well suffice to say if I could create something that just worked never mind had the success of crawl I would be more than happy :)

I actually like the assasin class in crawl, also I like to play it with tiles and sound which is a first.

Btw Silfir, when you putting more Adom videos up?? Im just watching them atm to give me some motivation and it seems to be working :) Im not going to go a caster on my main this time if I can help it, I will go some kind of fighter.

hmmm challenge game or fighter main? choices :P