Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.nethack (
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On Fri, 09 Sep 2005 17:45:22 GMT, Kevin Wayne
<killedbyafoo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>On 9/8/05 5:46 PM, Jove wrote:
>> On Thu, 08 Sep 2005 06:10:01 GMT, Kevin Wayne
>> <killedbyafoo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Basically, most of the stuff in Nethack is discoverable either
>>> through observation and experimentation or through oracularities.
>>
>> And this is pretty much what the oft neglected, if not
>> *completely* neglected, explore mode is for.
>>
>> Explore mode makes up for the fact that you're not
>> supposed to learn by trying things, then restoring
>> from an earlier save file.
>
>Fair enough, but that's still not the issue in my mind.
No argument. But I was trying to respond to what you wrote
above. I'm not much of a fan of explore/wizard mode at all, but
that's what's supplied with the game. Kind of the "unofficial "
answer.
I am mostly on your side, but when there's a mechanism supplied
by the game that can handle a situation, I feel obliged to point
that out, whether I like it or not.
The part of my point about explore mode being completely
neglected is that explore mode is not encouraged much at all
as a way to learn the game without all the disheartening
game-ending deaths.
You may have seen some of my posts suggesting explore mode
tournaments or brackets in the devnull tournament, or
tournaments/brackets for the non-ascended.
The purpose would be to encourage people to enjoy playing the
game and competing without the massive focus on being spoiled,
using every possible trick, and ascension or bust.
>As I wrote earlier:
>
>>> I don't disagree with anything you've written. The discussion I'm
>>> interested in having, though, is a bit different than the perennial
>>> "Can Nethack be won without spoilers?" debate.
>
Well, my point is that Nethack can be enjoyed without spoilers
and *without caring about ascending at all*. I've put forth many
ideas about minor modifications to make that easier.
Let me repeat: If you enjoy playing Nethack without getting
hung up on *winning*, you can easily play it for a lifetime
and easily not care if it can be *won* without being spoiled.
>> The point you may be missing is that things like damageproof
>> armor and weapons are not requirements for ascending. They
>> do make the ascending easier.
>
>Well, very few things are actually *requirements* for ascending, as the
>people who ascend with incredible conduct combinations show. But even
>they are usually trading one trick for another.
Well, actually ascending with one or two conducts generally is
trading one trick for another, e.g. Polypiling can replace
wishing and genociding, and vice versa.
Incredible conduct combinations generally show that massive
reliance on *one* trick can replace almost everything else.
>
>> It's the quirky things that *kill* you that are the problem
>> in this area. Especially the late game ones.
>>
>> Green slimes are a great example of this. I ate the first one
>> I ever killed, and had no idea of how to fix the result. It was
>> heartbreaking.
>>
>> According to rgrn dogma, when I saw the corpse of a new
>> monster what I should have done was started a different game
>> in wizard mode, wished for a green slime corpse and eaten it,
>> and seen what happened.
>
>Well, for what it's worth, I'd consider that type of strategy cheating.
Others have posted that same sentiment. I can't really argue
with you. But are spoilers really much of an improvement?
Neither one really lets you explore freely on your own, but the
cost of late game experimentation is too high for most to
consider doing without entirely.
But considering how mightily "save scumming" is frowned on,
those are the mechanisms Nethack provides, and the community
finds acceptable, to minimize the pain of late game
experimenting.
>Not least because on any decent system, wizmode would be inaccessible to
>a typical player. Okay, okay, we all play on single-player systems
>now, or we *are* the game maintainer. Nonetheless, wizmode isn't for
>normal players to "try things out"; it's for debugging the program.
>
Agreed, but it's frequently suggested (or was) on rgrn as a way
to find out answers. Especially when posters provide
mis-information.
>Now explore mode could be used for the scenario you described. But
>finding a way to avoid having to deal with the unknown in a real
>game--well, you may as well read spoilers, which is what we all end up
>doing anyway.
Complete agreement.
>
>> Then I never would have eaten the green slime in the real game.
>> But I never would have learned how to fix the problem without
>> spoilers. Going the wizard mode, or even explore mode, route
>> to find out would have required trying one absurd thing after
>> another, with no confidence that there even *was* a cure for
>> sliming, other than praying when not in Gehennom.
>
>Which is why, despite the protests of how the contents of spoilers can
>theoretically be discovered by trial and error and observation, in
>practice they almost never are.[1]
Exactly. As a distributed research project, with group
cooperation, it could be fun. But who would do it now with all
the spoilers already written and available?
>
>> On the other hand, once the effects of eating green slime
>> are known, they can be treated just as well as cockatrice
>> corpses are in that respect: Don't Eat Them.
>>
>> After all, eating a cockatrice corpse is an insta-death,
>> with no reprieve short of an amulet of life saving.
>
>Right, but you can get slimed without eating the green slime, and
>petrified without eating the rubber chicken. For some unknown reason,
>fire stops the sliming process, and carrying around a lizard corpse
>(which magically won't rot) will keep you from being petrified. These
>are the types of things that are nonintuitive, you either know the trick
>or you don't, and once you do, it's simply a matter of rote to prepare
>for them.
All very true. Likely to lead to source-diving to find the
answer if no alternative presents itself. Like getting the
maximum score in the original Advent by source-diving and
learning about Witts End. (I did map out the mazes the hard way.
;-)
>
>> Most of Nethack's problems/situations are best solved by
>> knowing them and their solutions perfectly before you start,
>> and preparing long in advance.
>
>Another way of putting the same point.
But best is frequently not necessary, or even desirable.
I do it because of so many wizard deaths that I finally sat
down and figured out the best strategy I possibly could, and
stuck to it.
I ended up ascending a massively over prepared, unstoppable
killing machine. And my mind was still paralyzed with fear
almost the whole time, a learned reaction from many many YASD's.
Just now, almost a year later, I'm starting to loosen up and
play around with things *just a little*, still terrified of
losing focus, dying, and wasting all that preparation.
>
>> Some problems/goals and their solution requirements interact
>> with others.
>>
>> Gaining stats and experience levels are like that. Higher Con
>> and Wis will give you bigger Hp/Pw gains when you gain an
>> experience level.
>>
>> Higher Cha gives you a better chance of gaining an experience
>> level when interacting with foocubi.
>>
>> And you can keep benefitting from more "experience" even if
>> your XP doesn't increase.
>>
>> I still find this whole interdependent process interesting
>> even while totally spoiled about it. Which is good because
>> almost the only way of doing it at all efficiently requires
>> being totally spoiled.
>
>Which is what people who don't like Nethack call the "artificial
>difficulty" of it. You don't know the trick, you die. You do know the
>trick, you live.
Well, these are almost purely wizard concerns. And doing every
bit of that, correctly, over the course of the game, is like a
sub-game in itself, like masterminding the castle drawbridge,
or sokoban.
But it's not required by any means for any character. I think
I'm the only person who uses those techniques, to that extent,
to those ends.
Valkyries have a complete different, deep and subtle strategy:
"Valk SMASH!" (Valk, the "thinking-optional" class. "Valkyries
are for the hard of thinking." Valks can get Mjollnir and
massive strength almost as a matter of course.
Of course, the tricks for Valks are #offering for Mjollnir
and eating giants from their Quest, so you have a bit of a point.
Back the other way, #offer is in the Nethack guidebook so it's
one of the smaller leaps of intuition necessary.
>
>> I think the focus of Nethack should be more on exploring and
>> learning than grinding determination get the perfect AK to Ascend
>> or nothing.
>
>I agree very much on this point. I doubt that I would play like Marvin
>even if I could. In my own games, I don't price-ID much beyond scrolls
>of identify; I don't credit-clone; I try to minimize wishes and
>genocides (pulled off wishless-genoless-polyless recently); I don't kill
>peacefuls (unless I'm chaotic, which I rarely play). I've ascended in
>Orange Dragon Scale Mail before, and without reflection (don't recall if
>that was one game or two), because that was the best equipment I found.
>I prefer "use what you find" to "use tricks to kit yourself out to the
>max."
That sounds like Marvin's modus operandi to *me*. Seriously.
And I do most of what you describe myself in my own games.
Just recently I've been ranting about players wasting time
and resources to endanger themselves by performing unnecessary
identifications. Monsters conveniently identify emergency
items for you (scrolls, potions, etc.). And by doing so you
learn what escape there are in the game.
And most monsters, regardless of their inventory, demonstrate
the most effective survival tactic in the game, that's available
to almost every player: run away.
Just as Elbereth shows up at the top level of sokoban and at
the castle. And Elbereth alone is a very powerful survival tool.
>
>These are personal preferences. I still see ascension as a goal; I
>really don't comprehend players who like screwing around in the dungeon
>with no particular end. But once you know how to do it, it's not a goal
>at all costs.
I don't have a problem with ascension as a goal. I do have
problem with it being the first and only goal.
"Screwing around in the dungeon to no particular end," seems
pointless to me, too. Exploring the dungeon, learning how to
survive and experimenting with various weapons and tools, etc.
can be fun.
Have you read the saga of Krysia's Crusader? That's what he
was doing, just enjoying noticing the little details of the
game, and experimenting based on what he saw.
>
>> Another part of the problem is that once you know about
>> Ascending in Nethack, *that's what you want to do*. Exploring
>> the neat stuff all through the game is brutally shunted
>> aside in favor of strip-mining every last spoiler to make
>> ascension easier. (Like I did to maximize gains from experience.
>> ;^)
>
>True until you've done it once or twice. But by then, you're already
>spoiled, which I guess is what you were talking about.
>
>> With no spoilers there'd be less obsession with the absolute
>> best artifact weapon, armor, tools, damage, etc. (Speed
>> ascensions have shown
>>
>> Getting Grayswandir might be a once in a lifetime achievement.
>> There's no problem with that. Played unspoiled, Nethack could
>> easily be enjoyed for a lifetime without learning all its
>> secrets.
>
>Well, once again, we've veered off into the "Can Nethack be won without
>spoilers?" debate. My focus is more on what the content of being spoiled
>tells you, and how much that affects the game. Learn a few arcane tips
>and tricks, and all of a sudden you're getting past the Castle and
>poised to become a regular ascender.
No. Can Nethack be enjoyed without being obsessed with
"winning"? And if so, how can that be encouraged and made
more accessible?
If you can just enjoy exploring the dungeon, reading the quotes
available from within the game, getting all the references to
literature, history, and myth, what do you care about spoilers?
(#chat with a peaceful hobbit and they may ask about the One
Ring. There's a real Easter Egg, which can be at least as
enjoyable as confused cursed scroll of DA to fooproof armor.)
And as I wrote in another post, in every game the player is
writing his *own* story, of discovery, danger, accomplishment,
lucky finds, magic wands, magic rings, spells, potions, faithful
animal companions, slings and arrows, brave retreats ;^),
serving one's god and religion, Questing, hobbits, orcs, dwarves,
centaurs, trading, hard rock mining, puzzle solving, buying
divinity, wealth, growing stronger and wiser and tougher and more
dextrous, becoming skilled with weapons, etc.
If the game saved a file with a screenshot of every time a
character stat was increased, intrinsic was gained, magical
item found, item self/magically identified, spell learned,
wand zapped, showing Mine Town, etc. the result would be like
vacation slides, but much more meaningful to the player.
I put a few screenshots with comments in my first ascension
post. It adds greatly to my enjoyment when I review it.
Unfortunately, so many games end in disappointing/frustrating/
shattering character deaths that a) the player doesn't *want*
to remember them b) They all start to blur together into a
shapeless horror.
So, set up a separate "explore mode" score file, like the
regular score file, so explore mode players can have a record
of what they've don. Where the scoring system is the same
except that the score is halved with every user-chosen
resurrection from death.
A "kiddie-pool" version of Nethack, if you like, that lets
casual players appreciate all the *non* critical aspects of
play.
And encourage newbies to start out there, and switch to
regular Nethack when they like. Discourage them from
hitting spoilers. Try to give hints to questions on rgrn.
Setting up "Invisiclues" type hint files based on the
spoilers would provide a good alternative to raw spoilers.
And none of this should affect regular Nethack players
at all.
>
>> Another problem is that, perhaps as a result of the public
>> player focus on Ascension and score, the difficulty level of
>> the game seems adjusted for the Marvins of the world. Which
>> leads to more demand for spoiling the game.
>
>Plenty of people, myself included, have argued that the game is actually
>too easy, especially in its later stages. That's kind of the point I'm
>making; learn the tips and tricks that get you past the early game, and
>all of a sudden, you're winning and deciding to challenge yourself with
>conducts.
I think that's where the spoiling and ascension emphasis come
in. An unspoiled player would probably not find the game getting
too easy in its later stages.
Imagine trying to struggle along without gifts from #offering,
divine protection, and dragon scale mail. Spoiled players
focussing on ascension get every artifact item they can, and
know exactly what to wish for (again, look at Krysia's Crusader.)
Speed ascenders show us what the game might be like for the
unspoiled. No altar camping to get artifact weapons. Take
what you get, wish for a few essential items, and use what you
have.
Other posters have pointed out single "tricks" that they felt
made the game easy: Engraving Elbereth with Magicbane, casting
spell of charm monster, spell of sleep, and Mjollnir are all
examples.
Spoiled players use every trick they can find. Very possibly
because of the trauma of all those stupid deaths earlier.
>
>A good counterexample is Crawl. People who like Crawl seem to like it
>for two reasons: challenging gameplay throughout the game, and much more
>straightforward techniques of gameplay. The difficulty comes from the
>monsters, not from not knowing to keep a lizard in your main inventory
>when there's a new moon.
>
>Now, for me, Crawl is prohibitively difficult. I can't get more than a
>few levels down in it. And I don't like entirely text-based shops and
>the absence of some of the playful anachronisms and cultural references
>that you find in Nethack. But I do understand the irritation that people
>have with the type of challenge that Nethack presents.
>
>> Don't get me wrong. I like Nethack the way it is. (I play
>> it enough. ;^) But I'd like to find a way to make its rich
>> environment more accessible and satisfying, and less frustrating,
>> to people who *aren't* top players.
>>
>> Some kind of limited goals that permit starting and finishing
>> an hour, a few hours, and a day of play. There's definitely
>> enough substance in Nethack to make that possible.
>
>Well, the various subordinate goals in Nethack--Sokoban, getting to
>Minetown, getting the Luckstone, doing the Quest, raiding the Castle,
>etc., tend to provide that for me.
But if the game ends in character death, with everything wiped
away?
I suggested that the scorefile be broken into tiers, with every
game that ends with a character death ranking below any game
that doesn't.
Going up the staircase on turn one would count more than
achieving the highest score Nethack can record while dying on the
Astral Plane.
Encourage players to learn to recognize when things are getting
too rough, and get out while they're still alive. The best
training I can think of for the ascension run: 1) staying alive
is what's important 2) go down in the dungeon, then come back up.
Then try going a little deeper next time.
Maybe have a patch that let's players who escape the dungeon
come back into a new dungeon with whatever stats, equipment,
resistances, identifications, etc. they left with.
Just as if Nethack was real life ;^D.
As long as the scores and achievements were kept separate and
clearly marked separate from regular "all or nothing, build that
house of cards or watch it fall", who would it hurt?
(Sure, some players would abuse it. Some players save scum
now.)
>
>Anyway, interesting discussion!
>
>Kevin
>
>
>[1]You and others have mentioned Krysius Krusader as a counterexample.
No. I mention Krysia's Crusader as someone who enjoyed just
playing the game, and finding out all Nethack's wonders instead
of being obsessive about ascending.
>It's often forgotten that he had a strong knowledge of D&D, and so
>functioned as a somewhat spoiled player.
I came into Nethack the same way. I daresay that's why I
enjoyed Nethack, while I've never been able to get into any
other roguelike. Plus most of the I was familiar with a lot
of the atmosphere/literature referenced in Nethack.
I was happy to point Krysia's Krusader at the song "Black
Blade", by New Oyster Cult, about Stormbringer. It was even
better when others contributed pointers to other music based
on the works of Michael Moorcock.
>For the same reason, he missed
>some elementary spoily stuff, like the existence of resistances, which
>he attributed to somehow always making his "saving throw."
As long as his interpretation worked, so what? It was
fascinating to see his views of processes we're so thoroughly
spoiled on. It parallels the "Nethack Myths" that have sprung
up despite all the spoilers.
All the best,
Jove
--
"I don't think you actually meant to condemn such practices,
which are probably those of any professional user. But the words
you used did." - "kanze" <kanze@gabi-soft.fr>
3 for being Expert, +1 for being a Ranger, +1 for elven bow/arrow 
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