[Ragnarok] Those slywerts make me sick

[Vlad]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

After not having looked at it for years, I just picked up Ragnarok 2.4
again.

Maybe I'm just being dense, but I can't get past the first 'Forest'
screen anymore (the second screen in the game).

This new (for v2.4) type of monster, the Slywert, starts popping up
there and I can't get past them.
Apparently you can't hit them, and though they don't inflict much
damage either, the accumulated damage will kill you in the end.

Running away is not an option: they're faster than you are, and if you
manage to lose one it just comes back a few turns later, accompanied
by one or more of its comrades. On one occasion I was completely
surrounded by them before I had charted half of the first forest
screen. Moving was impossible because they occupied every position
adjacent to me, all I could do was attack and miss 100% of the time,
until they had killed me a few 100 turns later.

Nothing in my pack (which usually isn't much yet, in the second game
screen) seemed to affect them in any way whatsoever.


Please don't tell me it's a new hidden "feature" that punishes you for
deleting the ghosts file or installing a new copy of the program in
another directory 😉


I had to patch the EXE file with something called tppatch.exe to make
it run on a faster than a few 100 MHz processor: I hope that's not
what's causing it?

 

[Vlad]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Vlad wrote:

> This new (for v2.4) type of monster, the Slywert, starts popping up
> there and I can't get past them.
> Apparently you can't hit them, and though they don't inflict much
> damage either, the accumulated damage will kill you in the end.

> Nothing in my pack (which usually isn't much yet, in the second game
> screen) seemed to affect them in any way whatsoever.

Strange: this seems to be dependent of the character class you're in.

As a Viking (which I usually picked as starting character, until my
hit points were up a bit) they're plain impassable.

Now I began one game as a Sage: they started appearing later, in
*much* smaller numbers (I only saw four of them plus one 'holographic
double'), they were slower, and a wand of fire killed them in one or
two blasts.
Wielded weapons still don't seem to be able to hit them, but I managed
to kill two slywerts (lined up) with a single wand blast.

As a Viking, any wands I tried in several games always missed them.


Playing the Sage game also reminded me of something else: in the
Viking games, I hadn't seen a single Lacunar. In the Sage game there
were plenty, almost as if all Lacunars were replaced by Slywerts
before (or killed by them).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

"Vlad" <vlad@nospam.Invalid> wrote in message
news:rt4on09gngt721siiocuafu1ostohf8ro8@4ax.com...
> Vlad wrote:
>
>> This new (for v2.4) type of monster, the Slywert, starts popping up
>> there and I can't get past them.
>> Apparently you can't hit them, and though they don't inflict much
>> damage either, the accumulated damage will kill you in the end.
>
>> Nothing in my pack (which usually isn't much yet, in the second game
>> screen) seemed to affect them in any way whatsoever.
>
> Strange: this seems to be dependent of the character class you're in.
>
> As a Viking (which I usually picked as starting character, until my
> hit points were up a bit) they're plain impassable.
>

I'm not sure of what you're using, but they are definitely killable by
smacking them around with a big weapon.

> Now I began one game as a Sage: they started appearing later, in
> *much* smaller numbers (I only saw four of them plus one 'holographic
> double'),

The holographic double is a spell effect. That wasn't a slywert.

> they were slower, and a wand of fire killed them in one or
> two blasts.

Wands are very powerful. They also bounce, so be careful.

> Wielded weapons still don't seem to be able to hit them, but I managed
> to kill two slywerts (lined up) with a single wand blast.
>
> As a Viking, any wands I tried in several games always missed them.
>

That's really weird. I've not noticed wands being more or less effective
because of class, and definitely not noticed slywerts giving me much
trouble.

>
> Playing the Sage game also reminded me of something else: in the
> Viking games, I hadn't seen a single Lacunar. In the Sage game there
> were plenty, almost as if all Lacunars were replaced by Slywerts
> before (or killed by them).
>

The amount of Lacunar in the forests are completely random. Sometimes you
even get a screen full of orcs, like an orc camp. It's all up to the RNG.

--
Glen
L😛yt E+++ T-- R+ P+++ D+ G+ F:*band !RL RLA-
W:AF Q+++ AI++ GFX++ SFX-- RN++++ PO--- !Hp Re-- S+

 

[Vlad]

Archived from groups: rec.games.roguelike.misc (More info?)

Glen Wheeler wrote:

> > As a Viking (which I usually picked as starting character, until my
> > hit points were up a bit) they're plain impassable.
>
> I'm not sure of what you're using, but they are definitely killable by
> smacking them around with a big weapon.

Thanks for the reply.

But as a Viking, I counted *zero* total hits attacking them with
whatever weapon I had, in about 5 or 6 games.

As a sage, I got past them without any problem.

Let's just assume the RNG was playing tricks on me 😉