Rogue - let's beat it

[elwin]

Today I got the closest I've ever been in V5.  I found the Amulet and got back up to level 21.

I had a lot of luck.  Early on, I found a two-handed sword, banded mail, and scrolls of enchant armor.  There was a treasure room or two.  Later on, I got wraithed several times, but gained back more max HP than I lost.  I think I was in the 90s by the end.  I also found and identified several wands, and got a scroll of protect armor.

This was the first time I consistently used the tactic of staying at the door when first entering a room, and waiting for the monsters to come to me.  I think it helped.  It didn't protect me from Medusas as much as I hoped.  They have a way of sneaking up behind you.

The bottom 5 or 6 floors were harrowing, even with wands of polymorph and slow monster, and 11 (!) points of armor.  I nearly got killed by Dragons twice, got backed into a corner by a Griffin and beat it by one shot, and somehow escaped from being caught in a passage between a Phantom and something else nasty.

Eventually I got down to level 26 and quaffed a potion of magic detection.  The first few objects weren't the Amulet, and I was afraid it was hidden under a Jabberwock, but then... there it was, a plain simple comma.  (Couldn't the developers have picked a more glamorous symbol?)  I grabbed it and ran for the stairs.

Going up wasn't any easier.  Once I stumbled across the stairs while running from a Jabberwock.  That percent sign was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.  By this time, I'd used up most of my wand charges and had no other escape items left.  On level 22, I used a scroll of magic mapping, just to get through faster.  I thought level 21 would be better.  In retrospect, I should have used my last scroll of magic mapping and gotten out of there.

Anyway, I once again made the mistake of thinking I could take on a Griffin head to head.  This didn't work, so I ran, and ran into a Troll.  That was not a good time to discover that my wand of slow monster was empty.  A moment later, there was my tombstone.

I was carrying a +2 ring of protection the whole game, but never used it.  I was often short on food and didn't want to risk starvation.  I should have taken a chance with it on those last deadly levels.

XL 13, 5305 points (my luck did not extend to plentiful gold.)  TTYRECs are here.  I'll make it out, one of these years.

[Squeeealer]

Sweet run!

I recently had a DREAM start.  By the 3rd floor I had a two-handed sword, a +3 plate armor!!!!, and a scroll of protect armor.  Perfect, right?  Not exactly...

Nearly everything else didn't go the way I hoped.  I had bad HP gains, only found one potion of STR, one (or zero?) weapon enchantment (bad hit rate) and one (or zero?) armor enchantment.  I think I had a polymorph, but with a bad hit rate I had to use that up pretty quickly.  I may never have a start like that again.

Congrats again on your run!

[Squeeealer]

Nightmare scenario...

Let me start by saying I swear there are some runs where you just plain get better hit% than others.  It's not good rolls, it's consistent across your battles. I also believe there are some runs where trapdoors are very frequent and runs where they are not frequent at all, but that's another conversation...

I had a +1, +1 two handed sword and 18 STR.  Nice, but not exactly special when you're in a good run.  I was crushing enemies.  I ended up at experience level 12 and defeated lots of tough enemies including two Griffins and three Jabberwocks. Admittedly, that was with help, but I wasn't really missing.

The critical part of the game came down to inventory.  I had a ring in inventory and had not found (and would never find) a scroll of identify ring/wand.  I find another ring and hmm both are sapphire.  I take the chance and equip the one in my inventory.  It might have been the worst possible scenario - AGGRAVATE MONSTER.  This was late - like floor 16, so I'm thinking I'm totally screwed.  Instead, I'm either finding the stairs quickly or I'm actually beating up on the tough enemies (no Medusas, thank the gods).  By the time it's over I'm on 23 and after beating my third Jabberwock, a Dragon gets me.  Aggravate monsters is as insane in the late floors as you would imagine.  I cannot believe I lasted as long as I did, and I can only wonder now what I could have done without burning all my hastes and slows due to all the aggravation.

BEST PART - I was in a treasure room with a full inventory.  I already had a +7 splint with waterproofing, so I skipped the armor laying next to me.  THE ARMOR STARTED CHASING ME LOL  Obviously, it was a Mimic, but he didn't transform until I struck him!  It was hilarious. You had to be there.

Another funny note... I finally got to use potion of levitation in an important situation.  There was a teleportation trap lodged in a doorway leading to the stairs and I had a Black Unicorn on my ass.  I quaff the potion, go right past the trap, and think I'm a genius. But OOPS you can't take the stairs while levitating!  I had to use my only scroll of teleportation to get out of the room with a teleportation trap  

[Squeeealer]

Finally, after several tries, I finally got a two handed sword along with some enchantments.  A lot of enchantments in fact.  My sword was +4, +1.  I also got waterproofing for my armor.  And I had a stealth ring.  The perfect set up for the depths, although I was lacking any other key wands.

The problems?  I never did find restore strength and my HP level ups were pretty poor for a while.  At xp level 10 I was at 55 HP.

I kept getting into awkward situations like a door that I couldn't find until searching about 24 times causing a huge line of enemies.  And I kept getting ambushed by two enemies at a time, even though I was defeating enemies as I found them with almost no kiting.

After all this luck I only made it to about Floor 15.  I had cleared all the rooms but one, when I came upon a venus flytrap.  No problem.  I started to fight it and all of a sudden TWO WRAITHS apppear. WTF.  I quickly quaffed haste, but I did not realize I couldn't attack the wraiths while being held by the flytrap.  I thought you were only prevented from moving - not prevented from attacking.  It took me like three turns to figure out what was going on and that when you tried to attack and it said "you are being held" that it counted as a turn!  My HP was dwindling fast and twice I was made weaker.  Out of desperation I used my unidentified wand and it was merely a wand of light.

What a waste.

[Troubler]

I saw this thread long ago and tried my hand at it. Not an easy task for the impatient, or anyone really. Maybe I'll give it another shot.
Wasn't there some weird thing about Rogue though? Bots can beat it consistently but it seems highly random to people.
Maybe there is something subtle to how you move through the dungeon. The code is apparently pretty buggy, so who knows.

[Squeeealer]

I have really enjoyed playing the past few years, but I can't seem to find any community for discussion.  I honestly don't know anything about what you just spoke about, but I wanted to be sure you had a reply.  I'm out here, and looking for others!

[Squeeealer]

Made it to 26 today with a sweet +2, +3 two handed sword and 20 STR.  The problem?  I had just run out of charges of slow monster and polymorph when I got caught in a Griffin/Jabberwock sandwich. I had already searched three rooms with no luck on the amulet.  That sword with my +2 ring of increase damage was hammering dudes.

Hey elwin - I noticed my scores log stopped as of April of this year.  Is that because I've maxed out?

[elwin]

Wasn't there some weird thing about Rogue though? Bots can beat it consistently but it seems highly random to people.

Rog-O-Matic did consistently better than the humans at the time, but if I remember correctly, it still only won about 1 game in 50.

Hey elwin - I noticed my scores log stopped as of April of this year.  Is that because I've maxed out?

It appears the score-updating script has not run correctly since April.  Very sorry about that.

*drags out rusty mace of bug squashing*

[Troubler]

I have really enjoyed playing the past few years, but I can't seem to find any community for discussion. I honestly don't know anything about what you just spoke about, but I wanted to be sure you had a reply.  I'm out here, and looking for others!

I know the feeling.  At least here everyone might not leave when I start to ramble about the genre.
I've always meant to beat rogue, but never made the time for it with newer roguelikes constantly distracting me.
There haven't been too many interesting new games come out recently, so it seems like it's time to give it a serious attempt.

I'm trying my hand at V3 right now. I might try V5 later, but it was a bit daunting when I found a scroll of "identify rings" or something like that.
I haven't played much, but at the moment I can get down to ~12 before generally screwing up.
I've had some luck with two-handed swords, but I've rarely ever seen any decent wands or rings.
That's pretty worrying, considering it looks like they are needed to squeak through the last slew of levels.

Rog-O-Matic did consistently better than the humans at the time, but if I remember correctly, it still only won about 1 game in 50.

That's too bad. I was hoping it "knew" something we didn't.

[Troubler]

I reached Level 17 for the first time, but was got by a xorn. The mace is good for nothing.
Decent item drops otherwise, ring of stealth helped me through the later parts. Handled strength okay at around 16.
Couldn't break PC-level 8 though and the game had no intention of dropping a decent weapon this time around
Rust was a huge problem, and I lost maybe 3-4 decent spare armors to it. But I kept my +4 chainmail I found on level 1 safe
Unfortunately it wasn't on me when I faced the xorn, so it didn't do me much good.

I'm always wondering if I should just be running down some of these levels as quickly as possible.
Best run so far though, things get pretty fun once the character is off the ground.

[Troubler]

Level 18 today, then an umber hulk in a hallway murdered me
Game dropped a nice two-handed sword early on, and I enchanted it once
Armor situation was decent, and I managed to get enough of it to handle the rust
Though I never had great armor to begin with, AC 5 was as good as I could get
Strength could have been better, but it ended up okay in the end with 14
Besides that, a +2 ring of increase damage helped with the weakness
Food rained on me from the sky, and I was constantly finding rations

I even had 6 charges on a wand of teleport away I didn't use, so it was a stupid death

[Troubler]

Another death. But a damn good one...

Made to level 27 baby! Hell yeah! My heart is still pounding.
Fell down a hole on 26 while looking for the amulet...
It was scary, but not as bad as I thought. I found it simply lying on the ground...
I had it in my hands, and then... one of the dozens of umber hulks down there got me.

A pretty good run. Had some decent wands and a good old two-hander to back me up.
I put two enchantments on it. However I think that I may have been relying on the wands too much.
Found plate-mail later on and handled the rusting threats with my spares pretty well.
Strength wasn't terrible, and stuck to the usual 16. My HP ended up at 81 at level 11.
The biggest boon was an early ring of slow digestion, which helped me grind at critical stops.
Now I think I've put together some scraps of a working strategy through the game.
I don't know if this progress will be easily replicated, but at least I now know what the late-game is like.

On a side note, some people have said there is little reason to play Rogue besides to get a historical perspective. But it's not really so simple.
I've noticed that many roguelikes have taken concepts I'm now witnessing in rogue itself, and have applied them poorly...
There is definitely some "method to the madness" of the original design. A lot of games just copied things in without considering their broader implications.
It's hard to put my finger on it, but things like the identification game. I find it genuinely enjoyable in rogue but tedious almost anywhere else.
There's something to that. And there are more examples which I can't recall at the moment. Sometimes bigger is not necessarily better.

If I get any farther I'll update again.

[Troubler]

I wasn't able to get as far as my last update, but items-wise, I have probably had one of the best games of Rogue.
But was done in on level 22 by a xorn/stalker sandwich. This plateau at LV 18 I've started to call the "xorn wall" is becoming a real thorn in my side.
It just seems like a total crapshoot compared to everything else, and is actually impossible with a mace. But maybe with some more experience I might crack it.
Anyway, I had armor for days, regeneration, a long sword, a two-handed sword later, genocided umber hulks, and a decent source of healing...
No great escapes though, which was a big problem, and my HP was absolutely pathetic at 44.
I might have gotten away with draining the life of a dragon I barely escaped for some EXP, but didn't think to try.
I think it noticed some gold on the ground when I was running away and ran toward it. Might be a good idea to leave gold alone on those levels.

The main reason I am posting though is because I encountered a bug like I've never seen before.
This happened on elwins site, which has become a great convenience for me. I don't know if it's on his end, or the games code, or what.
But what happened is I started the game with 18/92 strength, equal to +2 damage in V3, and maybe ~5 potions of gain strength.
I can't get the recording so I can't find out if it happened when I actually started or just very early on.

Also it looks like wands of polymorph don't work in V3, go figure.
A lot of the offensive wands are unpredictable. Either that or I am using them wrong.

[Squeeealer]

Glad to hear you're enjoying V3!

I'm a V5 guy.  The main reason is the ability to play ultra fast.  I have my finger down on CTRL almost constantly when moving.  And I always do the auto-fight command.  Whatever that's called.

It is harder.  You're right that there are not generic scrolls of identify - they are all specific to weapons/armor/potions etc.  That would probably be the hardest thing to get accustomed to when transitioning from V3.

V5 also does not have genocide.  That's in the eye of the beholder.

I had a great run today.  After several runs of zero weapons upgrades I found a long sword early on and then a pair of two-handed swords on one floor.  Fortunately,  I had a scroll of identify because one of the swords was -3.  I had a plate mail up to +8, but accidentally read my waterproofing scroll with a +4 armor equipped.  Oops.

But the real downfall was having no get out of jail free cards.  No wands, no scrolls of teleportation, no scrolls of monster hold, etc. The best I had was two scrolls of monster confusion, and those were used on the first two Black Unicorns I encountered.

One thing is for sure - projectiles are so much more useful when you have your STR boosted.  Thanks to a +2 STR ring I was at 20 STR and killed a Black Unicorn strictly with arrows.  It was good times.

[Squeeealer]

I wasn't able to get as far as my last update, but items-wise, I have probably had one of the best games of Rogue.
But was done in on level 22 by a xorn/stalker sandwich. This plateau at LV 18 I've started to call the "xorn wall" is becoming a real thorn in my side.
It just seems like a total crapshoot compared to everything else, and is actually impossible with a mace. But maybe with some more experience I might crack it.
Anyway, I had armor for days, regeneration, a long sword, a two-handed sword later, genocided umber hulks, and a decent source of healing...
No great escapes though, which was a big problem, and my HP was absolutely pathetic at 44.
I might have gotten away with draining the life of a dragon I barely escaped for some EXP, but didn't think to try.
I think it noticed some gold on the ground when I was running away and ran toward it. Might be a good idea to leave gold alone on those levels.

The main reason I am posting though is because I encountered a bug like I've never seen before.
This happened on elwins site, which has become a great convenience for me. I don't know if it's on his end, or the games code, or what.
But what happened is I started the game with 18/92 strength, equal to +2 damage in V3, and maybe ~5 potions of gain strength.
I can't get the recording so I can't find out if it happened when I actually started or just very early on.

Also it looks like wands of polymorph don't work in V3, go figure.
A lot of the offensive wands are unpredictable. Either that or I am using them wrong.

Troubler - where you at?  Still Rogue-ing?