A Discussion on Roguelikes

[Ratman_tf]

I loaded up the tiles version of Stone Soup and immediately decided that this is where roguelikes should be going.  Meaning, there's no reason a bat should look like a letter b anymore... as far as I know and "pixel art is hard" aside. 

Yeah. I'm as much of a rogue nostalgistic as anyone here, but ascii graphics... there's just no excuse anymore. When I threw together a roguelike in VB 6.0, I used tiles ripped from an SNES emulator. 

[Yegolev]

I would also like to complain about the horrible and deadly spawns that can pop up in Stone Soup.  Dying because I took a chance on quaffing an unidentified potion is one thing, but being swarmed by demon ants on D3 is quite another.

[sidereal]

You're pansies.  Everyone should learn to fear a capital letter D.  I still cringe a bit when I see one in text.  "WTF IS THAT?!  A dragon?  A demon?  Oh wait, I'm just reading. . "

[FatuousTwat]

I would also like to complain about the horrible and deadly spawns that can pop up in Stone Soup.  Dying because I took a chance on quaffing an unidentified potion is one thing, but being swarmed by demon ants on D3 is quite another.

Just got wtfpwned by 3 orcs and an orc mage ambush on level 2. DAMNIT.

[rattran]

Bah, gave up on my first good run (11 Demonspawn Chaos Knight), got all the way to the elven halls, got some fat lewts, headed back toward dungeon. Except there's no way from the lowest Orc Mine level up without teleport or digging, which I don't have.
The disconnected map bits seem more annoying than worth it.

[Wasted]

I haven't been able to get into any of these types of games since I played shitloads of moria on the Amiga.  The Ascii just sucks.  Stone soup is the first one I've felt that twinge in again.  I miss starting off in the town though, and being able to identify/sell things.  When should I start being able to start seeing shops? I haven't gotten past d6 yet so I guess I suck but I really want to start seeing some shops and at least get identify scrolls.  I'm just not that sort of gambling man to quaff or read all that unidentified stuff, the game is too evil to risk that shit.

[rattran]

There's also a tiles set for Nethack 3.4.3 Not as nice as the Stone Soup one, but better than being killed by an &.

Shops are 1 block huts, I've mostly seen them in the Orc Mines, selling about 10 general items, with the occasional named thing. They don't buy, and they don't restock.

[WindupAtheist]

Since there's kind of a low-fi gaming kick going on around here...

www.mangband.org

Multiplayer Angband. Yes it's ascii, but it takes just minutes to download the client and log in. There seems to be a small friendly dedicated group of players. Reasonable amount of chat going on when I logged in earlier. I'll probably make a kobold warrior or rogue as my main, since I do believe they have poison immunity and I love that.

[schild]

Heh. Mangband, Angband for mexicans.

Sup mang.

[WindupAtheist]

Someone left a cursed teleport ring in the newbie spawn-in room. I spent like an hour and a half teleporting all over the world, trying to kill stuff and grab gold before porting again, then get to town and into a shop to buy a remove curse before teleporting again.

[schild]

Someone left a cursed teleport ring in the newbie spawn-in room. I spent like an hour and a half teleporting all over the world, trying to kill stuff and grab gold before porting again, then get to town and into a shop to buy a remove curse before teleporting again.

Bahahahaha.

[tazelbain]

I still can't figure out how to cast spell in Stone Soup.

[schild]

Press Z, press * for a list, press that letter, if there needs to be a target, click on the target.

[Moaner]

I find it odd that after years of ignoring the genre I'm finally playing roguelikes again only to find everyone else is too.  I'm confused.

[schild]

I find it odd that after years of ignoring the genre I'm finally playing roguelikes again only to find everyone else is too.  I'm confused.

Loot. Another message board I frequent started a roguelike thread the day after we did. And then another one did a few days later.

[Moaner]

Loot. Another message board I frequent started a roguelike thread the day after we did. And then another one did a few days later.

Yea I agree.  Me and some buddies were talking about this very issue recently.  To make a long story short a few of us came to the conclusion that the variety and randomness found in roguelikes is a huge breath of fresh air after years of playing modern RPGs.  I'm sick of games that pace gameplay around storytelling.  Plus, I actually prefer the open atmosphere, quick combat, and fear of death.  These things are just flat out missing in any of the current “next gen” RPGs.  I know A LOT of people really enjoyed Fallout3 but after 10 hours of gameplay I just felt like I was wandering around collecting garbage and advancing a story I really didn't care for.  I must be getting old.

I apologize for rambling.  It's 5am and am currently metabolizing a heroic dose of benzos.  Wheeee!

[schild]

Bethsoft had a great opportunity to put all sorts of loot in Fallout 3. They simply didn't deliver on that front.

I was annoyed by that.

[sidereal]

You just don't like ammo enough.

[WindupAtheist]

So I'm playing Stone Soup and it's the usual "Just started a new roguelike, ooh can I kill that?" death fest. The graphics and interface are a dream (for this sorta game) and I'm having a fine time of it. But... uh... where's town? Where do I do all the usual town crap? And if I ever make a non-monstery race character, can I make a fire to cook all this meat?

95% of deaths being "some random thing poisoned you on level 1" is getting old REALLY fast though.

[rattran]

No town (more nethack than moria/larn) No town crap at all, don't bother picking up things you won't use, there's no one to sell to. No way yo cook meat that I've found, only good if you're starving to death, and rots too quick to carry around.

And, most of my deaths are still either a random thing poisoned you, or 1shot-kills from mage critters. Even playing a Naga I die of poison. Just lost a 15 dwarf pally in all poison/magic resist gear to poison. If the random death thing is going to piss you off, Stone Soup may not be your game.

[WindupAtheist]

I've played enough Zangband to be used to random deaths, it's just that there the deaths felt like either I had done something dumb, failed to adequately prepare, or been struck by some particularly cruel twist of fate. Here it's just... okay, any kobold on level 1 can potentially give me certain-death poison, what am I supposed to be doing about it?

[Yegolev]

This is the issue I have with Stone Soup.  Who was this Terrence man on level 3 and why did he murder my minotaur in three hits?  The progression is nonexistent and not the same as "oh, well, I should not have eaten that hobbit leg".  I guess I could have run away from Terrence, but after 2.5 levels of bats and goblins I wasn't prepared.  Then again, after Terrence I ran into a literal horde of ants on level 3 that chased me down and killed me like a dog.  That is much less fun than "Oh, I guess the silver potions are deadly poison" and I don't learn anything.

I take that back.  I learned not to go to level 3.

[WindupAtheist]

Stepping on a trap door and landing one level down in the middle of 20 orcs would be a "WTF!" death I could handle, because maybe I should have been more careful for traps, or had a teleport scroll to get away from the orcs. And if the scroll fizzles, or throws me out of the frying pan and into the fire, well then it just wasn't my day and maybe I get a nice "I teleported away from the orcs and landed on a lich!" story out of it. But Jesus, enough with the poison. Kill me with something else.

[grebo]

Noob advice from a noob:  If you can't get far in this game, try playing a spriggan.  I got tired of not being able to run away from anything so I started a Spriggan Warper (overkill? I don't think so).  Now I can run in circles and throw stuff like a champ, and if I get in real trouble I have teleport magic, working pretty well so far... despite the fact that I'm on level 4 of the dungeon and still haven't found an Identify scroll! Gah!

[rattran]

I had good success with a spriggan until ~level 12, where everything started to shrug off spells.

And it seems there's not enough food for non-spriggan spellcasters to really get their spellcasting up to a reasonable level.

[Yegolev]

I had a ghoul necromancer, and that guy had lots of food.

[Murgos]

I had a ghoul necromancer, and that guy had lots of food.

I've had my best luck so far with Vampire Death Knights and Ghoul/Troll Monks.  The Troll Monk was a beast until I ran into something that smushed me in two hits.

[MrHat]

This game has monks?

*twitch*

And loot?

*twitch*

[Soulflame]

Gaze upon the face of true terror.

h...@...D

[Yegolev]

The loot is mostly wooden clubs and shit that will kill you, but yes.

[Nonentity]

The loot is mostly wooden clubs and shit that will kill you, but yes.

The wooden clubs are great! You throw them at people. Just throw everything, over and over, regardless of class. Especially if you have no ranged spells or weapons.

Clubs, daggers - whatever. Just throw everything.

Also - if you're annoyed at meat rotting, play an orc. They love rotting AND regular meat!

[grebo]

It's not dying to a teleport trap and 2 centaurs in a room that I mind (didn't help that the warper spells seem to be much more useless than blink scrolls), it's the damn Jelly eating a bread ration off the floor when I had no food.  That bastard! 

This game, it makes you want to start over because you don't want to see your character die... but I refuse to save scum.

[Moaner]

The game is hard.  It's supposed to be, I think.  I've played about 30 times now and have yet to get past dungeon level 11.  I don't know why, but the random deaths are not pissing me off yet, just amusing.  The crazy hard ass monsters on the upper levels are call Out of the Depths (OOD) monsters and are meant to be ran from, not fought.  They are basically mean mother fuckers from the lower levels of the dungeon visiting the entrance and fucking with newbies.  Generally you can right click a monster from across the map and the description will give you a good idea as to whether you should mess with it not  This doesn't help much when you get sniped from across the screen by a crazy uber centaur, but it does hep regarding survivability. 

Also, if you are having trouble with food try a Spriggan as previously mentioned or a troll berserker.  The Spriggan doesn't require much food at all and can snipe from a distance while the troll will eat almost EVERYTHING and can tear things to shreds with his bear hands and very little armor.  Both classes make learning the game much more enjoyable.

[rattran]

The game seems very much luck based. If you happen to find a decent (for your class/abilities) weapon or armor early on, you can go for ages.

Getting a nice randart scythe the does bonus damage with the necro skill was good for my Death Knight.

[WindupAtheist]

Lack of a town always bothers me in these games. Being a kobold death knight just isn't as fun when you can't roll into town, drop an Orb of Entropy on a crowd of stupid peasants, rummage through some shops, get pickpocketed by a street urchin, and then stalk all over the city looking for that little fucker so you can stab him and get the money back.