Angband Forums
Page 5 of 7 1234 5 67
Show 100 post(s) from this thread on one page

Angband Forums (http://angband.oook.cz/forum/index.php)
-   Competition (http://angband.oook.cz/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=8)
-   -   Next competition (http://angband.oook.cz/forum/showthread.php?t=1086)

debo November 30, 2015 14:25
Hi,

I've posted comp 182. PowerWyrm: If you have any objections to the win criteria, please let me know soon so that I can tell pav to customize the ladder accordingly.

PowerWyrm November 30, 2015 17:45
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 106817)
Hi,

I've posted comp 182. PowerWyrm: If you have any objections to the win criteria, please let me know soon so that I can tell pav to customize the ladder accordingly.
Win criteria is ok, but looking at my 1.1.10 char dumps, it seems that the turncount used is the "Player" turncount, which in PWMAngband is the number of real turns awarded to a player, that is the number of times his energy bar is filled (think ATB). The player turncount is strongly affected by player speed and is equal to twice the game turncount for a player at 0 speed that is never running. A higher player speed increases the player turncount, since you can act more times per game turns. Each time you run, a factor 5 is applied to speed, which enormously increases the player turncount. It would maybe be better to use the "Game" turncount, which is basically the time elapsed and is not dependent on character speed. Otherwise, the winner would be the player that has the lowest speed and never used the run command.

murphy December 7, 2015 13:10
Has there been a Buddy the Christmas Elf competition? Just throwing an idea out there. Each competitor is free to pick any class, race must be half-elf (or wood elf) and minimum starting charisma (with race/class/personality bonuses) of 18. Could even leave it open to each competitor to choose a variant, maybe from a list or something.

murphy December 11, 2015 16:10
Ok another idea, how about a competition where the goal is to post the tombstone with the most negative hitpoints :-) fewest turns is the tiebreaker

debo December 12, 2015 01:26
Quote:
Originally Posted by murphy (Post 107241)
Ok another idea, how about a competition where the goal is to post the tombstone with the most negative hitpoints :-) fewest turns is the tiebreaker
We should make that an animeband competition: http://angband.oook.cz/ladder-show.php?id=18137

murphy December 12, 2015 03:35
hehe wow!!

Roch December 13, 2015 01:52
The last messages are good:

> You spin around. (x5)
...
> Death hits you.
> You die.

The spin moves to try to confuse death are something I'll tuck away for later. Should have worked.

wobbly December 13, 2015 09:46
Next week is pretty much Christmas, are we having a Sil Christmas present comp? Doriath? As much as I hate Christmas carrols I have to admit it is fun to sing a slaying song.

darkdrone December 14, 2015 12:14
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 106583)
Ok here we go:

- download latest PWMAngband binaries (it should say version 1.1.11 beta 2) at http://powerwyrm.monsite-orange.fr (or use the direct link here: http://1drv.ms/1R4XR19)
- unzip the file somewhere
- get the attached file (rydia.zip)
- replace mangband.cfg and mangclient.ini at the root of the directory
- copy "account", "Admin", "Rydia" and "server" in /lib/user/save
- run mangband.exe
- launch mangclient.exe
- and that's it...

Character: Rydia, Human Summoner. She's hot and dominating.

From the help file:

A Summoner is the weakest of all classes you may choose. They have pathetic
stats, no fighting abilities, and little spells to kill enemies with magic.
However, all these weaknesses don't trouble them much, because they can
summon creatures to help them in battle, and still gain some experience from
their kills. Summoners use wisdom to cast spells and summon allies, and to
determine how many of them they can control and how effectively they can
control them.

To compensate for the weakness of the class, the character starts with a Whip of Flame (and I felt it was appropriate). If you play the starting character and you die, you have two ways of playing another character: you can simply relaunch the client (mangclient.exe), choose the deceased character, choose to reroll the same character and use the quickstart mode (in that case you won't start with the Whip of Flame); or you can ctrl-c the server, copy the original "Rydia" and "server" files again in /lib/user/save, relaunch mangband.exe and mangclient.exe and choose the starting character again.

Here are the main server options that were set in the configuration file:
- ALLOW_RANDOM_ARTIFACTS = true (random artifacts)
- LIMIT_STAIRS = 1 (non-connected stairs)
- NO_GHOST = true (permanent death)
- TOWN_WALL = true (no wilderness)
- BASE_MONSTERS = true and EXTRA_MONSTERS = true (PWMAngband monsters)
- PRESERVE_ARTIFACTS = 1 (preserve on, but artifacts are lost if left behind)
- TURN_BASED = true (turn-based mode)
- LIMITED_ESP = true (Angband-like telepathy)

Birth options are the same as default Angband options (this means no selling is on).

This will make a really challenging game, but I'm confident that there will be wins (or close calls). Just look at the last comp ;)


How do I do a post death dump ? (I'm guessing , "I don't") ...

PowerWyrm December 14, 2015 14:07
Quote:
Originally Posted by darkdrone (Post 107345)
How do I do a post death dump ? (I'm guessing , "I don't") ...
An automatic dump is generated if you either die or win. Dumps are in /lib/user if you play locally (server + client using the same /lib). If you don't play locally, you have to launch the client after death, choose your deceased character and choose a) Get a character dump.

debo December 22, 2015 18:55
Starting Dec 24 we'll do our yearly Sil Xmas Presents Competition. I'll keep it short this year (probably 7-10 days.)

taptap December 25, 2015 17:46
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 107634)
Starting Dec 24 we'll do our yearly Sil Xmas Presents Competition. I'll keep it short this year (probably 7-10 days.)
Where is it?

debo December 25, 2015 20:20
Quote:
Originally Posted by taptap (Post 107714)
Where is it?
Been too busy to post it -- also I changed my mind. We'll be doing a different festive competition instead. Will try to get it out soon.

PowerWyrm January 8, 2016 13:51
A nice competition would be to take any variant and tweak the code so that Morgoth gets generated on *every* level, starting at 50ft. The goal being to kill him before he kills you...

HugoVirtuoso January 8, 2016 14:40
Let's say the winner would be the one with the most Morgoth kills ;)

Thraalbee January 8, 2016 15:45
And small levels only. Otherwise too easy. Right?

wobbly January 8, 2016 15:51
Why wait for 50'? Surely Morgoth pops in to town from time to time to do his shopping.

fph January 8, 2016 17:07
Sounds accurate...

Evil Overlord List item #80: If my weakest troops fail to eliminate a hero, I will send out my best troops instead of wasting time with progressively stronger ones as he gets closer and closer to my fortress.

Yottle January 9, 2016 14:54
What about a Tome 2.3.5 lost soul maia rogue with small levels and connected stairs off? You start out at dungeon level 99 with inherent aggravate. Winner would be the first player to get to turn count 100.

caruso January 13, 2016 20:33
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yottle (Post 108010)
What about a Tome 2.3.5 lost soul maia rogue with small levels and connected stairs off? You start out at dungeon level 99 with inherent aggravate. Winner would be the first player to get to turn count 100.
I like that one :D

Or how about an UnAngband comp, to celebrate that a new version has been released after almost four years?

HugoVirtuoso January 14, 2016 05:19
Or we could have a Sil 1.3 compo!

bron January 27, 2016 02:03
As 184 is winding down, I thought I'd post my thoughts about a competition I'd like to see some day. Most competitions use "speed" as the ranking criterion for winners. I don't like this, both because I personally usually play slow, and because I think there are many other varieties of difficulty that are worth exploring. Also, I find that far too many competitions (in Vanilla especially) come down to who found a good artefact the soonest. Playing without artefacts doesn't completely eliminate this problem, since some of the ego items can be pretty good, but it does IMO substantially mitigate it, since the effects of non-artefact items are usually a lot less.

So here is what I propose: A sil competition, with no artefacts, where all levels of winning are counted as the same (i.e. getting out with one sil is just as good as killing Morgoth and getting out with all three). The ranking criterion for winners is the race/class used. For simplicity, I'd propose just using the ordering as presented in the startup menus, e.g. any level of win by a Nagrim Belegost is better than any level of win by a Naugrim Nogrod, as well as better than any level of win by any Sindar or any Noldor. Players are free to create any character they want as long as the "no artefacts" birth oprion is used.

I think it would create an interesting tension: you could spend the whole time going for the win with an Edain Hador character, but you might well not succeed in time. Ot you could play it safer with a more powerful race, but then other people might pass you. Also, a player might run multiple entries: start with a Noldor and work down the list to see how far you can go. I think this is a good thing, as the competition could (potentially at least) hold your interest for a longer time and for multiple characters.

The main drawback from my point of view is that I wouldn't win :).

PowerWyrm January 27, 2016 13:15
... or do an almost unwinnable comp, so the winner would be someone who survives farthest. ToME lost soul? Vanilla with 50 levels ironman artifactless elf priest?

Derakon January 27, 2016 18:03
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 108484)
... or do an almost unwinnable comp, so the winner would be someone who survives farthest. ToME lost soul? Vanilla with 50 levels ironman artifactless elf priest?
Do a Vanilla competition with the skip-levels setting set to 10, so there's only 10 dungeon levels in the game.

fizzix January 27, 2016 18:40
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derakon (Post 108488)
Do a Vanilla competition with the skip-levels setting set to 10, so there's only 10 dungeon levels in the game.
forced descent too? I think 20 levels forced descent might be winnable, you would need significant luck. 10 levels forced descent is probably impossible to the point of not being fun. I could be wrong though, I haven't tried it.

I believe, if I coded everything properly, regardless of how many levels you set, Sauron should appear on the second to last level. So if it's 10 levels, Sauron is on 9.

debo January 27, 2016 18:53
I'm strongly inclined to do a Halls of Mist competition next as a tribute to David Bowie.

Derakon January 27, 2016 19:08
Quote:
Originally Posted by fizzix (Post 108489)
forced descent too? I think 20 levels forced descent might be winnable, you would need significant luck. 10 levels forced descent is probably impossible to the point of not being fun. I could be wrong though, I haven't tried it.
Forced descent is almost certainly excessive; players would have to spend a lot of time waiting around for new monsters to spawn to get the items they need, which doesn't sound fun. But definitely turn off connected stairs! The game would be a series of raids into levels you probably aren't prepared for.

...mm, and maybe do it with a warrior too, so you're operating blind for most of the game. :)

PowerWyrm January 28, 2016 13:21
Quote:
Originally Posted by fizzix (Post 108489)
I believe, if I coded everything properly, regardless of how many levels you set, Sauron should appear on the second to last level. So if it's 10 levels, Sauron is on 9.
Setting a step of 10 levels will actually generate 11 levels: 10-90, 99, 100. In fact, you will always generate n+1 levels unless n is the default value n=1.

PowerWyrm January 28, 2016 13:28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Derakon (Post 108488)
Do a Vanilla competition with the skip-levels setting set to 10, so there's only 10 dungeon levels in the game.
Add force descent for a real challenge ;)

PowerWyrm January 28, 2016 13:38
Quote:
Originally Posted by fizzix (Post 108489)
10 levels forced descent is probably impossible to the point of not being fun. I could be wrong though, I haven't tried it.
It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...

fizzix January 28, 2016 15:54
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 108520)
It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...
Bah. That sounds like no fun.

Pete Mack January 28, 2016 21:25
Going to 500' at cl 1 is perfectly doable. Sure you will lose a lot of characters, but one of them will eventually find a dark elf before dying and advance to level 6 immediately, or get lucky with a baby dragon and do even better.* That's how Lost Soul works in other variants...except there you are likelier to find a mumak and advance to level 27. All you REALLY need is Hero/Chant/Berserk, ?Phase, and a bow or a sling, or just a big stack of oil for 3d4 burn damage. You don't need recall, because going back to town is trivial.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 108520)
It would still be winnable, but would involve massive amount of scumming. You would probably have to farm townies for starting cash pool so you can survive the first trip to 500ft, then rest for long periods to respawn monsters for drops, be lucky to find black oozes and farm them for more drops, and so on...
* Yes that is possible. I've done it in Quickband, but it does take luck.

Nick January 28, 2016 22:08
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 108491)
I'm strongly inclined to do a Halls of Mist competition next as a tribute to David Bowie.
Great idea.

As for the reduced levels idea, comp 181 was 50 reduced-size levels with forced descent. If you want an unwinnable comp, FA ironman thrall Petty-Dwarf Druid should do it :)

bron January 29, 2016 04:21
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 108484)
or do an almost unwinnable comp, so the winner would be someone who survives farthest
While I like the concept, I think some of the suggestions are simply too hard (and clearly some of them were meant in jest). If you don't like my Sil suggestion (where the player gets to pick their level of "hard"), an example of an extremely difficult feat, and yet still (barely) winnable, is a Vanilla, no-artefacts, iron-man, Half-Troll Paladin, who descends on turn 1 with just one torch and one ration of food. I have won with such a character before (admittedly, not on the 4.x series), so I know it can be done, but it is very challenging.

fizzix January 29, 2016 23:32
Quote:
Originally Posted by bron (Post 108552)
While I like the concept, I think some of the suggestions are simply too hard (and clearly some of them were meant in jest). If you don't like my Sil suggestion (where the player gets to pick their level of "hard"), an example of an extremely difficult feat, and yet still (barely) winnable, is a Vanilla, no-artefacts, iron-man, Half-Troll Paladin, who descends on turn 1 with just one torch and one ration of food. I have won with such a character before (admittedly, not on the 4.x series), so I know it can be done, but it is very challenging.
A lot of that comes down to whether you find a bunch of food on one of the early floors. iron-man trolls are the only class where starvation is an issue.

On the other hand, it could make us think of whether we should make the hunger clock an actual thing or chuck it altogether.

bron January 30, 2016 00:54
Quote:
Originally Posted by fizzix (Post 108586)
A lot of that comes down to whether you find a bunch of food on one of the early floors. iron-man trolls are the only class where starvation is an issue.
Agreed. You do need to get a bit lucky: you need to find food, and probably some Phase Door scrolls, and you need to survive the inevitable reading of an early Deep Descent scroll. But the biggest risks are front-loaded, so restarting from an early death is not too horribly painful.

HugoVirtuoso January 30, 2016 01:30
Here's a sadistic idea - Having a PosChengband compo character that starts in the wilderness next to the dlvl 666 entrance with some GCWADLs within LOS

debo January 30, 2016 02:56
Man I'm glad I'm the one who runs the competitions, you guys have really bad ideas IMO

(joking)

The Sil thing -- I think we've done something like the bron idea (1st sil is all that matters) -- look back in previous comps. It still favored turncount though, I think.

PowerWyrm usually makes comp ideas that no one plays except him and then he wins

I think we can probably do more ironmanny V comps. I'd like to do a Sil no-artefact comp too, I think that would be fun -- although I feel like we've done something similar to that before, I can't quite remember.

For now, stay tuned for a HoM David Bowie tribute comp. We'll figure out where to go from there.

Also, I really wish unangband wasn't terrible. If it had fewer than 20 bugs per sloc I think it would be amazing fun for comps.

Oh, and animeband should be a much more frequent entry in competitions. Prepare yourself.

bron January 30, 2016 09:17
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 108592)
I think we've done something like the bron idea (1st sil is all that matters) -- look back in previous comps. It still favored turncount though, I think.
I'm guessing you're thinking of comp 158. That did allow pick-your-own characters with just the 1st Sil mattering. But the main thing I was proposing was a comp where something other than "speed" was the determining factor. Secondarily, I also proposed "no artifacts" as a means to both make things harder, and (more importantly) to reduce the importance of getting a lucky equipment find.

Quote:
I'm glad I'm the one who runs the competitions
I'm sure I speak for everyone when I say, we're all glad too.

debo March 21, 2016 12:28
I heard some noise about a Quickband competition, but I can't remember from whom. (Pete Mack?)

If the person who volunteered the idea wants to supply a savefile, great. Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.

Derakon March 21, 2016 16:13
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 109781)
Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.
I just had an idea for a potentially really annoying "variant", but it'd take some implementation work. So, assuming I ever actually do do it, it won't be for this comp. :)

HallucinationMushroom March 21, 2016 23:38
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 109781)
I heard some noise about a Quickband competition, but I can't remember from whom. (Pete Mack?)

If the person who volunteered the idea wants to supply a savefile, great. Otherwise I'll try my best to invent something as annoying as possible.
Make a human rogue with manual stat distribution turned on for character generation, but don't actually spend any of the points.

PowerWyrm March 22, 2016 12:56
What about the egoless artifactless bookless ironman elf mage using only fists to fight? :D

bron March 22, 2016 19:20
Iron-man no-artifacts would be a good (hard) comp. Pick a strong race/class, e.g. High Elf Mage, Dwarf Priest, Half Troll Paladin, Dunadan Ranger. Personally, I'd still like to see a comp where "fewest turns" was not the deciding factor, but making it hard(er) to win at all is something. [Since the first few levels can be slow (esp. for a mage), it would probably be good to start a comp character at dlvl 30 or so.]

Ingwe Ingweron March 22, 2016 20:55
Quote:
Originally Posted by bron (Post 109824)
Iron-man no-artifacts would be a good (hard) comp. Pick a strong race/class, e.g. High Elf Mage, Dwarf Priest, Half Troll Paladin, Dunadan Ranger. Personally, I'd still like to see a comp where "fewest turns" was not the deciding factor, but making it hard(er) to win at all is something. [Since the first few levels can be slow (esp. for a mage), it would probably be good to start a comp character at dlvl 30 or so.]
Oh, no! Shades of Leon are coming back to me. :eek:

T-Mick March 23, 2016 02:29
Quickband Half-Elf Warrior/Rogue with Auto-Scum and randarts. Just about the most excitement you can get out of twelve floors.

Pete Mack March 23, 2016 03:03
Yikes. Quickband autoscum is brutal, and half-elf makes it even worse. (Quickband half-elf is "lucky" in that it gets lots of "special" levels. But High-elf is even worse, since it gets bad luck with increasing frequency starting at CL 27...including cursed (blasted) weapon and random summons.

ranger jeff June 6, 2016 04:19
Sooo.... it's been a while, huh?

Not sure what all's involved in helping along the Competition process, just submitting a savefile? I spent a while today looking over the variants and when last they were in the competition, and I have a few suggestions of what to try next:

Vanilla is up to 4.0.5...
ToME has only been done twice, and not for a while
Unangband
Steamband
DAJAngband
Chenband (is this completely superseded by PosChengband?)
Z+Angband
haven't had a NPP competition with the current release...

and I understand that comps are great for testing new releases, any maintainers out there need some playtesting?

Thoughts?

HugoVirtuoso June 6, 2016 05:53
Quote:
Originally Posted by ranger jeff (Post 111266)
Chenband (is this completely superseded by PosChengband?)
Superseded in every aspect, YES

I'm leaning towards a Sil 1.3 competition. Sil has been quiet on the oook.cz ladder these days.

ranger jeff June 6, 2016 06:10
But Sil was very recently done as a comp, back in January. And I notice there's been no new release of Sil for over 2 years...

nikheizen June 6, 2016 06:12
Quote:
Originally Posted by ranger jeff (Post 111268)
But Sil was very recently done as a comp, back in January. And I notice there's been no new release of Sil for over 2 years...
There was a release in January!

ranger jeff June 6, 2016 06:21
Ah, right, Variants tab rarely gets updated, still says 1.2.1 in 2014, I see the competition with Sil this year was with 1.3.0. So, sorry for the confusion, but we've already had a competition with the current Sil.

But, two votes for another Sil comp is two votes more than any other *band, so...

PowerWyrm June 6, 2016 10:35
Ironman MAngband competition. There was a 1.1.3 release a few days ago, first release in ages (although it's not a big one). I was amazed to see that a veteran player actually managed to kill Morgoth in Ironman MAngband, so it's actually doable. So go grab the latest client from the MAngband website, connect to the server and just play. You don't even need a starting savefile, any race/class is fine.

MattB June 6, 2016 10:58
I'll always vote for Vanilla (but maybe I'm just boring...)

debo June 6, 2016 13:33
Hi,

As you've noticed, there haven't been any competitions recently. Things have become markedly crazier for me, and I haven't had the time or attention to rig any new ones.

I have contacted a bunch of folks 1-1 to see if they'd be interested in taking over, but no luck yet.

If you are someone who has even an inkling of a thought that you could do this -- trust me, you can. Before I started running the competitions, I think the only variant I'd ever played was Sil. It wasn't that hard to figure out enough about the others to make a savefile for them. Most of the work goes into figuring out what might be a decent configuration for a variant I've never played before, and briefly playtesting the character.

In the interim before we find someone more responsible to take over, creating and linking savefiles will make it a lot easier for me to set up new ones. Usually when I create a savefile, I try to play it for at least a few floors to make sure there's not anything majorly broken, weird, or annoying about that particular start (e.g. the equivalent of finding Deathwreaker on 50', terrible consumables in shops, etc.)

For what it's worth, I think a Steamband comp would be neat to do again. If anyone has a savefile for one of those kicking around, would be happy to kick one off.

I'm going to be traveling a lot for the next 9 days, and after that things should stabilize for a little while.

Apologies to those who've been waiting for their next competition. If you want to help make this faster, start nominating someone to take over long term, and pressure them until they do it :)

Pete Mack June 7, 2016 21:41
There was some talk of permacursed Deathwreaker as starting equipment?

ranger jeff June 8, 2016 01:38
Would that be in 4.0.5? Interesting proposition, would make early game easy, late game tough, would have insanely low turncounts...

Also, I'm trying a Brownie Naturalist in Steamband, so far okay, though only 4 Brownies on the ladder, one Engineer winner, so untested late game. But Steamband seems very winnable, and Naturalist pretty powerful. Though I understand the last two bosses need to be fought in melee with a Naturalist with AoE's running, so given a Brownie's weak melee, skill point distribution might be tough.

bron August 25, 2016 23:06
I've wanted to have a comp where the ranking criterion was something other than "fastest completion". On 26Jan2016 I posted a proposal (#422 in this thread). Nobody seemed to like it. So here is another (admittedly similar) proposal: A Sil competition. No artefacts. Any race. Any house. Any level of win (1 sil is as good as 3). The ranking criteria is "lowest maximum number of skill-points in any category".

I think that no-artefacts is important because a lucky artefact find can hugely influence a game that is restricted like this, and the competition largely reduces to "who finds the best artefact soonest", rather than the skill of the competitors.

I've done this sort of thing before, but not with no-artefacts, so I don't know what's possible. Particularly within a limited amount of real time.

Carnivean August 26, 2016 10:51
Does that provide a tie-breaker if no one can win it?

wobbly August 26, 2016 11:29
You could tie-break on 2nd highest skill, then 3rd etc.

debo August 26, 2016 14:22
I'm cool with this idea, but the person we need to convince is probably pav. I'm assuming this is going to require some tweaking to dump-parsing to make it work.

bron August 26, 2016 19:31
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carnivean (Post 112421)
Does that provide a tie-breaker if no one can win it?
I hadn't really though about it, but I guess I'd propose "most experience points" as the ranking criteria among non-winners. I agree with debo that convincing pav to make the changes to the ladder ranking may be the hardest part. Maybe he can be bribed? I haven't seen any oook fund raisers in awhile ...

Estie August 27, 2016 03:27
What about a "1 try" mode where you play the character till he dies and winner is the one with most advanced dump ? It has always appeared to me that this would be the more fitting competition mode for Angband (or maybe its just me not liking to minimize turncount).

The advantage of the turncount mode is that you get to play Angband no matter what, whereas here you have to wait for the next comp if you die after one hour of play.

For the 1-try mode, it is not necessary to pick tough starting conditions (ironman no-artefacts etc) to provide a challenge. Maybe just make vanilla default (but with randarts :D ). Also it might be good to have a short duration, maybe 1 week, and 3 days overlap with the next one or so.

Would it be possible to create a bot that maintains this mode ? A new tab on the oook page called "daily competition" (or weekly or vanilla or whatever), where a bot posts a vanilla starting file every day/week, random race class combo, and crowns the winner in the sub-ladder when time is up.
Of course someone would have to write this and I have no idea how much work it would be, but it would not require a maintainer once installed.

debo August 27, 2016 03:58
We could just run a few very short comps and do it on honor system!. I kinda like that idea.

debo October 5, 2016 03:23
I might try a 1-week long vanilla comp next, where (honor system) you're only allowed one attempt (that means one death total.) Highest rank as per normal Vanilla comp scoring wins.

Objections? If not I'll set it up tomorrow.

MattB October 5, 2016 19:17
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 113281)
Objections? If not I'll set it up tomorrow.
None here - looking forward to it!

(as long as it's not a ruddy mage!)

Pete Mack October 5, 2016 20:44
Oooh yeah. Mage would be GOOD. High elf, preferably, for early game survivability. And please don't short starting CON.

wobbly October 5, 2016 21:01
Objection!!!!

Not really. Also 2nding (3rding) Matt's suggestions of a mage. Kobold for kicks?

MattB October 6, 2016 17:33
Gee...thanks guys.
At least it's a Half-troll mage.

God I hate playing mages.
:mad:

Pete Mack October 6, 2016 19:22
I used to hate mages. I do hate mages with bad stealth, mana, and archery.

MattB October 6, 2016 20:15
Yeah, but a mighty 2.5dpr is not to be sniffed at!

Ingwe Ingweron October 6, 2016 20:42
It could have been worse... half orc-mage, in my experience, that's the worst combination for mages of all.

Estie October 6, 2016 22:03
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ingwe Ingweron (Post 113350)
It could have been worse... half orc-mage, in my experience, that's the worst combination for mages of all.
I vote for dwarf mage.

Derakon October 7, 2016 01:42
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pete Mack (Post 113340)
I used to hate mages. I do hate mages with bad stealth, mana, and archery.
Bad mana? What're you talking about; half-trolls get innate regeneration! ;)

Pete Mack October 7, 2016 05:25
It depends on strategy. I like to play extreme sniper/diver as a mage (Cl 18 dl 33 recently.) . That means min fail and max number of spells from full mana. H/T is optimized for mowing down big crowds and stopping to rest in the middle.

MattB October 9, 2016 13:26
How about a dwarf rogue next? They're surprisingly viable in my experience.

PowerWyrm October 9, 2016 20:22
I'm tired of the TO away/loot/go down/repeat characters... Next time why not a pure unbeliever (some variants have those)?

debo October 9, 2016 20:29
I don't really know what that means in English (I think you just described angband in a nutshell) but if you give me a specific variant/class/race combo, I'm happy to oblige anything I can compile and that the ladder can parse.

Poschengband Android berserker???

PowerWyrm October 11, 2016 13:17
I was more thinking of a half-ogre barbarian unbeliever from tome 2.3.5.

debo October 11, 2016 13:36
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 113527)
I was more thinking of a half-ogre barbarian unbeliever from tome 2.3.5.
If somone builds the savefile I'd be happy to set up that comp. I don't know anything about tome and I have no desire to learn :)

PowerWyrm October 11, 2016 14:56
I just downloaded PosChengband 5.0.2 to give it a try... and a mighty half-giant berserker works too, probably easier to set up than the ToME counterpart.

debo October 11, 2016 15:16
Quote:
Originally Posted by PowerWyrm (Post 113529)
I just downloaded PosChengband 5.0.2 to give it a try... and a mighty half-giant berserker works too, probably easier to set up than the ToME counterpart.
This could be another good week-long competition :)

HugoVirtuoso December 6, 2016 03:19
Suggestion for Compo 198 - Athena parentage Demigod Armageddon/Sorcery Yellow-Mage? This tests the Gatling Mage to the max!!! ...which includes gatling rockets eventually!!

debo December 6, 2016 09:29
Next competition will probably be eddieband, and after that it will probably be silmas. Chris will probably release at least one more poschengband minor version before we get to it again :)

I'm in an internet dead zone atm so setting up the next competition may take a couple more days.

debo January 2, 2017 21:25
Competition #200 is upon us! I'm going to need a day or two before I can find some time to post it, so apologies for that.

If you have any ideas for what you'd like to see in this landmark comp, let me know -- I'm happy to have my ideas superceded.

bron January 3, 2017 20:56
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 117024)
ideas for what you'd like to see in this landmark comp
I think it should be a Vanilla comp, and something hard. Say, a no-artifacts iron-man. But to make it at least possible, use a powerful race/class combo: High Elf Mage, or Dunadan Ranger, or Dwarf Priest, or Half Troll Warrior.

HugoVirtuoso January 4, 2017 01:44
I'm inclined to say a PosChengband Tonberry Chaos-Warrior because that's the only variant + combo I play nowadays. ;)

HugoVirtuoso January 18, 2017 22:00
Now that we have PosChengband v5.0.5 with the new Skillmaster addition...how about a future compo with this new PCB Skillmaster class, shall we?

debo February 22, 2017 07:36
Sorry for the delay with the next comp -- I should have something up in the next couple days.

debo February 24, 2017 04:32
Thinking about doing an unangband comp for 203, using the new release. The release notes for the recent version are fairly short, so I'm assuming the maintainer is working themselves up to fixing the gazillion things that are broken in that variant :)

Can anyone suggest a race/class/game mode combo that they have personally experienced and had working for them on the new version? I don't have the time to do that much testing at the moment. The last un comp we did was some kind of trapmaster or something, only to discover that the core mechanic for the class was totally busted. I've been wary of running Un comps ever since.

MITZE February 24, 2017 20:10
UnAngband Comp
 
I've tried playing a fair few games with the newest version, though I didn't post any characters to the ladder; mostly I played spellstealing rogues specialized in dual-wielding, and aside from throwing working rather less than expected (I can't tell whether throwing is broken in some way or if my characters have just been bad at it), that particular character type seems to play fine.

I'll probably try out some other combinations and relay the results here before next comp.

debo February 25, 2017 00:47
Quote:
Originally Posted by MITZE (Post 118476)
I'll probably try out some other combinations and relay the results here before next comp.
Thank you!

HallucinationMushroom February 25, 2017 18:22
Quote:
Originally Posted by debo (Post 118460)
The last un comp we did was some kind of trapmaster or something, only to discover that the core mechanic for the class was totally busted. I've been wary of running Un comps ever since.
To be fair, I recommended a strong race/class combo!

If the point of the competition is to make something barely winnable or unwinnable, because competition = challenge, then just about any sub-optimal combination in Unangband is going to satisfy that requirement because there is something a bit wrong with Un's combat balance.

If the point of the competition is to garner interest in Unangband and to showcase what is best in Unangband, (IMO the gorgeous procedurally generated dungeons), then I recommend picking something as min-maxxed as possible so your competition players experience as much as possible. The ladder recommends 'mage' as the go-to winner.

The game's atmosphere begs for roleplaying characters, but it's difficult to pull this off given how difficult combat tends to be. From my experience, I wanted to soak in the atmosphere and make interesting tabletop rpg style characters, but they just weren't powerful enough to endure what is, IMO, broken combat. So finally, if the point of the competition is to garner interest but also allow for opportunities to gather input for balance changes for the new maintainer, I recommend a high elf warrior.

Pete Mack February 25, 2017 18:58
@HM
It's not the combat. It's the bosses. If you play in dungeon crawl mode, it's not so different from V. But having to get through multiple bosses, and being forced into particular dungeons makes it very tough indeed. And you absolutely must coat your weapons and arrows with bad mushrooms and potions. It's a game where bags of holding are pretty much a necessity. There is no way to win without a lot of small buffs.

HallucinationMushroom February 25, 2017 20:38
I've never tried dungeon crawl mode since the LoTR campaign seemed too good to pass up. Does dungeon crawl mode showcase the many different environments you would expect to see during the campaign?

Pete Mack February 25, 2017 20:43
No, it looks like a plain old angband dungeon, with all the monsters mixed together. Avoiding the bosses at their native level makes a huge difference.

MITZE February 27, 2017 22:26
UnAngband: Warrior
 
Started simple and did a quick test run with a maia warrior. Still can't tell whether throwing is borked in some way, but otherwise ran into no obvious bugs.

unic February 28, 2017 05:27
UnAngband has always looked rather intimidating to me, so my preference would be for a not overly difficult class/race combo. No idea what that would be in Un though.

MITZE February 28, 2017 07:44
UnAngband: Mage & Priest
 
Thaumaturgist mage tried. Didn't last very long because of squishy mage HPs, but didn't run into any obvious bugs.

EDIT: Priest was extremely short-lived. I recommend against going with one for the comp, as the priest's prayer system is incomplete according to documentation and the priest itself seems like it's *highly* reliant on luck for getting usable starting prayers.

wobbly March 4, 2017 02:10
So been playing this a bit & I'd recommend going with something fairly straight forward like a human,high-elf or dwarf warrior or rogue. A couple of things I definitely wouldn't recommend: hobbit warrior - at level 1 I couldn't hit. Like at all. Couldn't even hit throwing oil flasks unless the target was asleep. Ent shaman (w/druid realm) specializing in unarmed - didn't get an attack spell at level 1 & while I could hit by charging I'm pretty sure I was doing 0 damage. Plus I started with a speed penalty.


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 19:33.
Page 5 of 7 1234 5 67
Show 100 post(s) from this thread on one page

Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.11
Copyright ©2000 - 2023, vBulletin Solutions Inc.