Rogue - let's beat it

[Ancient]

1.  Why is it that the amount of gold on the leaderboard is less than the amount of gold you die with?  For example, I just died with 5044 gold and the leaderboard says I had 4540.

There is flat 10% finders fee given to whomever finds your half-digested corpse. This is to differentiate between quitters who keep all their gold.

[Squeeealer]

A-ha.  Well if that's how it is it's fair for everyone.  Sounds good.

Another item of interest - I've noticed Centaurs don't appear until Floor 7.  That is, unless you find a treasure room on Floor 6.  Then it is possible for a Centaur to appear a floor early.  Anyone else notice this?  I figured I was wrong until it happened a second time.

I had an incredible run last night with two loaded treasure rooms in the first ten floors. So much going for me... two handed sword with a couple of enchantments, no STR issues, plenty of food, good HP bumps, wand of polymorph, two wands of slow monster with approx ten total charges, a scroll of scare monster, etc.  But for the third time this weekend Wraiths ate me alive.  At one point I was at exp level 10 until a wraith knocked me down two notches.  I was not attacking stationary ones.  They were just plain getting hits on me.  I wonder if it had to do with me having poor armor. I never did find waterproofing.  Ultimately, I died at the hands of a Black Unicorn despite having some options.  I had refilled my HP to 38 to use my slow monster.  His free hit on me took it all...

[Squeeealer]

I am really not understanding something about this game.  Perhaps it is my inability to understand what is already known about the game probably due to my lack of experience playing other fantasy games like D&D.

Here is what is getting me:

What affects how much damage you take when you get hit?
What affects your ability to dodge an attack?
What affects how much damage you do when your attack hits?
What affects whether you hit your opponent?

Last night I had a great scenario.  I had two rings of slow digestion, a two handed sword with one enchantment, and two identified scrolls of scare monster.  On Floor 13 I did some harvesting to get to experience level 10.  But as I advanced I was not getting enough hits in.  Trolls were dodging my attacks at such a high rate that I was nearly down to nothing when I would beat them.  Even more frustrating was that this would happen against Phantoms as well, and they aren't usually that hard to beat.  Part of the issue may have been my 1 armor (thanks Aquators!) but my attacks were missing quite often.  In the end, a stupid Phantom ended my run way too early... partly due to my frustration.

The FAQ on GameFAQs says that Dexterity is what determines whether you hit your enemy.  But how do you know what your Dexterity is?  The Vade Mecum says that dexterity gains are as random as HP gains at level ups (if I understand correctly), so maybe it's a hidden attribute and we have no idea whether we're getting good gains or bad ones?

Thank you for an insights...

[Squeeealer]

So last night I had my best run ever, but I could tell there was something else going on.

First of all, I never improved from my mace.  I did find some enchantments along the way.  But I am certain that my dexterity or something must have been getting big boosts because I was eventually beating Trolls and even defeated a Black Unicorn and three Medusas.  My run ended when I had to face yet another Medusa when I was dropped right next to one in an open room.  That was about Floor 21 or 22.  I had over 5k gold.  If not for that bad luck I think I could have made it a couple floors further.

I did not have a lot going for me.  Just one scroll of scare monster which helped me against a Medusa and nothing more.  No rings of significance - just a ring of see invisible.  Only two wands - a polymorph with 3 charges and a wand of light.  I never did find waterproofing for my shield.  Again, there had to be something else going on with my dexterity or my ability to evade attacks or something.  I was often with weak armor until Floor 18.

[Ancient]

Interesting. From what I read about Rogue you are not supposed to kill every late game baddie but to avoid them, as monsters grow faster in power than your character does. Me, I have been hardly successful at surviving long.

No idea about answers to your mechanics questions. However, earlier in this thread you wrote your version is based on 5.4.4. Source to this version is freely available. When I read up on the code and get some understanding I am going to come back. For now let me just say I enjoy your story of trying to beat Rogue.

In the meantime spoiler for Rogue 5.3 says this:

When you attack a monster, your chance of hitting it is 5%, plus 5% times your experience level, plus 5% times the monster's armor class.

[elwin]

Maybe I need to stop dropping off the Internet. Sorry about rlgallery.org downtime. Sometimes the hosting company reboots the server, and then I have to find out about it and manually restart the Web player. But if the scoreboard page is up, you should be able to play via SSH.

About the 10% death tax: the original developers wanted to give people a tough choice between quitting with a higher score and maybe surviving to do even better. But nobody ever quits.

About items disappearing and reappearing: yes, certain monsters will pick them up.

About the mechanics: they are really quite simple, unlike later games which apply complicated formulas to everything.

What affects how much damage you take when you get hit?

The monster. Each monster type has a particular number of hit dice with a particular number of sides. They all get rolled and added up.

What affects your ability to dodge an attack?

The monster's level and your AC.

What affects how much damage you do when your attack hits?

Your weapon.  It has hit dice just like monsters do.

What affects whether you hit your opponent?

Your experience level and the monster's AC, just like when it attacks you.

Dexterity does not exist in Rogue. Leveling up gives a 5% boost to your chance to hit, every time.

Maybe you don't understand everything, but you and Pertinax are certainly tearing up my high score list.

[Pertinax]

Hi elwin,

Thanks for running the rlgallery service. I've been having lots of fun with it.

I used ssh during the web service downtime. A tip for anyone else that's using a mac: I had to change my default "stty erase ^?" to "stty erase ^H" in order to stop my mac terminal from interfering with the in-game ctrl-H cmd to run left until something happens.

Dexterity does not exist in Rogue. Leveling up gives a 5% boost to your chance to hit, every time.

I've seen a ring of +dexterity in the game. Based on my reading (e.g., see https://nethackwiki.com/wiki/Rogue_(game)), it affects hit chance.

Another item of interest - I've noticed Centaurs don't appear until Floor 7.  That is, unless you find a treasure room on Floor 6.  Then it is possible for a Centaur to appear a floor early.  Anyone else notice this?  I figured I was wrong until it happened a second time.

More generally, I've noticed that all monsters can appear in a treasure room one level earlier than they otherwise would.

[Ancient]

Elwin beat me to the answers. Indeed, the ring of dexterity is just fancier name of "to-hit" ring.

[elwin]

Hi Pertinax, I'm glad you're having fun. If it wasn't for you and the few other players who showed up recently, I might have shut down the server, but I certainly can't now.

You're right about the ring of dexterity. I should have said there's no internal dexterity stat. Like Ancient said, the ring works by getting added into the calculations along with your weapon's to-hit bonus.

Is anyone interested in a tournament? I tried to hold one before, but no one came.

Also, does anyone ever watch ttyrec files? Would you if I made it possible to replay them in the Web player?

[Squeeealer]

elwin - glad to see you back!  Yes, interested in a tournament.

Pertinax - I was hoping you'd show!  I got to watch one of your runs that is in the top 10.

[Pertinax]

Is anyone interested in a tournament? I tried to hold one before, but no one came.

Yeah, I'd be interested in a tournament. I'd suggest multiple games per round to offset the rng and to allow for some strategic decisions across games.

Also, does anyone ever watch ttyrec files? Would you if I made it possible to replay them in the Web player?

I installed a ttyrec player a while back and took a look at some of the games (after coming to the horrific realization that all of my game-losing mistakes are immortalized). I'd probably do this more often if there were a web interface.

Speaking of feature requests, it would be cool to be able to filter my past games based on score or max dungeon level reached, rather than just having an arbitrarily long table where a third of the entries are "killed by a hobgoblin on lvl 1." In conjunction with the ttyrec playback, this could make it more convenient to find a user's best games and play them back.

Pertinax - I was hoping you'd show!  I got to watch one of your runs that is in the top 10.

I'd been meaning to register here and join in the conversation for a while. You've had some great runs yourself.

[Ancient]

I would gladly join a tournament instead of just playing locally, although my Rogue skills are thoroughly rusty. I rarely watch playbacks but when this happens ttyrec is no obstacle. Having web player installed is not going to make a difference for me.

[Squeeealer]

Just so you guys know, not only do I not know much about dice-rolls, but I also don't know much about computers. But I'm willing to try for something as awesome as a Rogue event!

Just curious what it looks like. Are we watching each other play or is the format conducive to some sense of community?  I would love to be able to chat during runs on rlg. When Pertinax was playing last night I tried to fit his game and my game on my screen at one time, but they didn't fit very well.

It's amazing how much difference a long sword or two handed sword makes.  I struggled all weekend until finally getting weapons upgrades and suddenly was able to do something.  Barely missed the top ten in (virtually) back-to-back runs.

[Squeeealer]

I am using the fight command too much.  It just ended a really quality start.  I had a two handed sword with two enchantments, a wand of light, and a ring of slow digestion.  On Floor 8 I dropped into a treasure room.  I immediately killed two hobgoblins before a Centaur approached me.  I should have slowly taken the battle blow by blow, but instead used the fight command.  While engaged with the Centaur an Ice Monster came up and froze me and just like that my run was over.  What made this even more egregious was that I had a scroll of teleportation identified and didn't get to use it.  The shame...

Speaking of Ice Monsters in treasure rooms, I have actually used the wand of drain life a few times in situations like these where Ice Monsters are activated and I only have one or two moves to do something about it.  I also used the wand of cancel in a recent run and enjoyed robbing all the Leprechauns.

[Squeeealer]

So after that death described above, I had another wild run.  I made it to Floor 22 with only a mace, although it had four enhancements and I got my STR up to 20 (for damage bonus?).

I beat a few Medusas, although technically it was thanks to the wand of polymorph.  I only beat one in straight up hand-to-hand combat because she hadn't confused me.  I also beat my first Griffin!  I met him in a hallway and read a scroll of monster confusion.  He got some good hits in on me but eventually I got my good hit in on him and was able to back away while throwing arrows (stupid Nymph stole my bow!).

Other key finds:

One wand of polymorph - saved me from at least three Medusas
One scroll of teleportation - saved me when I tried to zap a Medusa with polymorph and I had run out
One scroll of monster confusion - Griffin
One potion of haste - beat a Black Unicorn
Waterproofing for shield
Two treasure rooms
Lots of scrolls of identify scroll
Lots of mazes - love those in the later levels

Did not find any monster hold or scare monster scrolls.  No extra healing, good rings, or any other wands of use.
No Wraiths knocked me down in EXP - ended up at exp lvl 11

But the bad news is that other than a 700+ mother lode from a Lephrechaun I had very little gold luck. Still got on the leaderboard though.