Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

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Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

If you're talking about "games that are easy and quick to get into", ToME would still fit and I'd still recommend it - between its interface and game modes like adventure ToME is arguably the most purely accessible of the current major roguelikes, its problem is mainly that it is incredibly long and while a recent patch has helped some of the monotony of the early game by introducing alternate starter dungeons, the second half can still be a bit of a slog (but I still can't get to the second half of the game consistently so this may not be a problem for a newbie for some time.)

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Aug 7, 2013

# ¿ Aug 7, 2013 15:04

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:13

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Happylisk posted:

The wand you zapped was a wand of far slaying - my favorite way to kill the crime lord.

Wait, wands of far slaying have a productive use case? Maybe I'm just doing ADOM wrong, but in my experience there are like five places in the entire game where I think "I could use a wand of far slaying here, put in enough PP to do useful damage (which seems to be "a lot"), and it won't bounce through me fifty times and kill me" and even my melee characters have better ways to kill things at any realistic range.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Nov 18, 2015

# ¿ Nov 18, 2015 19:42

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

...boy, I guess they buffed that place since 1.0.0, because back when I played it was basically Not Worth The Effort. If I'd known that last night it would have made deciding where to take my current character a LOT easier.

As it stands I've only got the Blue Dragon Caves and the Mana Temple/D:50 left to do and despite her insane defensive stats (100/26 DV/PV without tactics,, fire and ice immunity and resistant to basically everything else except acid) and the fact that she can kill basically anything non-karmic she's run into so far in melee thanks to Kinslayer, Duelists' armor penetration buffs and absurd to-hit bonuses (stuff like Greater Titans get troublesome but so far she's outlasted them all), she's run really short on corruption cures and healing resources and I'm not confident she can handle the Mana Temple and D:50 but I can't think of anywhere else I can get the stuff I'd need that I haven't already cleared. :smith:

Maybe I'll hit the Maze tonight and see what the new reward is (or maybe see what might be in the Sinister Library for her?) but it's already day 125 and ideally I'd avoid any more big wilderness trips for fear of background corruption.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 20:57 on Nov 19, 2015

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 20:52

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Happylisk posted:

Can't enter the maze once you're past character level 30. I always do it right after the frost giant greater vault.

Well, gently caress, I'm level 33 so I can't go there anyway (and I haven't gotten enough characters killed by stone block traps yet to go to Bugville anyway). Guess I'll take my chances with the blue dragons. Or the Chaos Archmage. Or that greater undead vault on D45. :cripes:

At least the latter two won't blow up all my loot like the lesser and greater vault full of red dragons I've already cleared, I lost so many useful scrolls and potions before I realized I was playing a melee character and could just attack from the diagonal so only one of them can breathe uselessly on me, without worrying about wasting bolt spell casts/PP on "only one target".

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 21:33

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Intrinsic death ray resist, plus the mummy wrapping. The pools in Darkforge were really kind to me this run (except for the wish I actually WANTED, ugh, if I could have saved Khelavaster I would be a lot less worried about all this), but I'm mostly concerned about confusion. The emps I've fought in tension rooms managed to occasionally confuse me even through my mental stability ring, maybe I should bless it just to be sure? With a vault full of liches being even minorly vulnerable to confusion is a Bad Idea.

# ¿ Nov 19, 2015 22:11

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

A Magical Lamp posted:

If there's a starsign chooser coming then almost all the signs need to be reworked to compete with candle.

This fact is probably part of the reason why ADOM hasn't gotten an (officially supported) starsign chooser in fifteen years.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2015 23:33

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Steam ADOM got a patch today with a couple of interesting features:

Thomas Biskup, yes really he said this posted:

�ADOM now contains the option to freely select star signs. This provides even more enjoyment by allowing you to truly play the character combination you want.
Additionally we have focussed on enhancing the user interface, in this release solely by fine-tuning the keyboards commands required to play the game:
�You now can press ENTER to open a list of important context-sensitive commands. You then can select your preferred command from a list instead of having to memorize all key bindings.
�The explore command (activated by pressing minus '-') has been made smarter in that it no longer runs into loops, moves towards unvisited item stacks and generally has more optimized path finding options.
�The use command has become more powerful so that you basically can use all items by just memorizing the 'u' key (although other ways might be faster).
�We have greatly streamlined the online help. New players now need to learn so much less than the version implied in former versions so that they hopefully won't be scared anymore :-)

And here I just got on another TOME kick lately too after shelving it for a year-plus (doombringers mad OP). Lucky I have a week and a half off work and no family to visit for Christmas.

# ¿ Dec 23, 2015 00:05

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

So I get that Sil is basically nothing like Angband (mostly because I could never stand *bands until I tried Sil and now I'm hooked on it) but now I'm on an alarmingly good run (helped very much by the free Christmas artifact being Orcrist, I suspect) and I realise how damned little I know about this game, despite uPen's excellent (if incomplete) LP. :ohdear:

I went with my gut and rolled a Noldor focusing melee/evasion/will, which is going relatively well and has lasted me until 350' but I'm mainly wondering:

a) Is spending on enough Perception to get Lore-Master and auto-ID everything basically mandatory, or is there some relatively common source of item ID besides drinking/eating/wearing everything like a chump? I already got Lore-Keeper because I've played enough Nethack and ADOM to be paranoid about cursed items so at least it would only be 3000ish XP more to spend, but yikes.
b) Is there any sort of guideline as to what resistances/items/consumables you should have access to before you pass a certain depth? I remember there being something like that for Angband (but of course Angband seemed to want you to above a certain depth until the RNG saw fit to be kind.)
c) Is item destruction really common/are artifacts indestructible? I'm running up against my inventory slot limit and (due to lack of ID) have no idea what to throw away but spare weapons are really high on that list.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 08:53 on Dec 29, 2015

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 07:36

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Serephina posted:

Getting good at Sil involves dying a lot in the 400-600' range, as there's so many new and exciting ways to die!

(some awesome tips here!)

And I'm sorry about your impending loss of Orcrist.

Thanks for the advice and no worries, roguelike characters and all their cool stuff are lost the moment you roll them, what matters is what you learn.

In this case, what I learned is that Flanking-Dodging-Finesse-Subtlety is a hilarious melee build and I should do it again, but that 15 evasion is not enough to avoid Uldor the Accursed's arrows at 450', ouch.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2015 10:25

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

So, as hoped, Sil got its 1.3 release today. No tiles (really I can't think of any plausible tileset that would do it justice but then again I Actually Liked the Silmarillion), but some changes to early game monsters (especially interesting for me since I keep dying before 400' so all I see is early game!), a new Mac version, and some tweaks to abilities and smithing.

Oh, and save compatibility apparently broken.

# ¿ Jan 3, 2016 19:16

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

MrWillsauce posted:

Does the new version of Sil still have molds? Worms and molds are the worst.

Molds got replaced too, with Tanglethorn/Nightthorn/Madthorn.

All of which are infuriating but at least in theme!

# ¿ Jan 10, 2016 07:05

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

While we're talking about Sil I have an esoteric question that's probably obvious to people who are more familiar with Angband - why does the game keep save files for dead characters, and is there any difference between loading them and just using New Character aside from "loading the dead character's save pre-populates the chargen fields with the dead char's stats"? Like does it keep the monster memory or something?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2016 07:12

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

EAT THE EGGS RICOLA posted:

The only floor I feel the need to grind on is the second last one, other than that you're being forced to kinda dive by a timer anyways. If you're going for a combat build, keeping melee and evasion up and making sure you run when you need to is mostly all that you need to do.

In this vein, I read a guideline somewhere that suggested that combat builds should aim to add at least one skill point in Evasion and their attack skill (melee/archery) per dungeon level to keep up with the monsters. I can't claim any measure of authority to them (frankly, if you're aiming for a specific combat build with abilities that work together in synergy you may end up adding more than this to your skills purely by default) but it's worked well enough for me so far - my issue has been mostly "not knowing when to run" and, in one memorable recent case, "forgetting that staffs of light scare off packs of orcs, dying after getting flanked by a pack of orcs with twelve charges worth of light in inventory".

# ¿ Jan 12, 2016 20:19

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Armor-Piercing posted:

I get the same amount of text. Is the full post still somewhere?

I get the cut-off text too, but the cached version works fine (for now?) and you can get at it here.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2017 23:42

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

StrixNebulosa posted:

This is a good post about a good game and I'm very tempted to reinstall Dungeonmans and play some more of it, despite my massive backlog.

(...)

it's wild to me that the SA forums are home to several of the best roguelike devs the world has ever seen. Dmans and Caves of Qud are masterclasses in their genre in very different directions.

From everything I read about Qud here it's a masterpiece and I wish I liked post-apoc themes more so I would feel like I should buy it/would enjoy it, but I definitely have to pick Dungeonmans up again, it's clearly it's gotten a ton of love since my last run years ago (and it was really good then, I just sucked at it!)

# ¿ Jul 26, 2020 19:43

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Johnny Joestar posted:

describing qud as post-apocalyptic is kind of a bad thing to do since it's so alien that there's basically no context of a society that we even remotely recognize.

An extremely common bad thing, but yes, I'm not calling it Mad Max or something like Fallout or Wasteland (but I bounced hard off of those games so I don't have the context of What It Means In Gaming to contrast it with) but it did trip those signals in my brain and apparently in a lot of others. Like Smirr says, closer to something like Canticle.

StrixNebulosa posted:

Okay realtalk: regardless of what you think about its themes, try it. Please try it. The writing is spectacular and the gameplay moreso.

That's why I've had it wishlisted so I expect I will try it eventually. Even if I end up hating it the sheer craft deserves reward so I won't feel too bad.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 21:19 on Jul 26, 2020

# ¿ Jul 26, 2020 21:16

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

cock hero flux posted:

it really depends on whether the current state of affairs seems more like the shattered remnants of a fallen civilisation or if it seems like its own functional society built on the ruins of the precursors

Pretty much, yeah. "Science fantasy" feels like a better description, in the sense that "functional society built on the ruins of the precursors" is a dime a dozen in fantasy worlds but it feels different somehow when the ruins are technological instead of magical.

Anyway, that cognitive bias, plus stuff like water-as-currency and the survival aspects gave me the impression of the first but a lot of other stuff I read about it feels like it's doing the second, and realising it in a really impressive way. Plus it's on sale for one more day so I'll take that as a sign - thanks thread for showing me the light.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Jul 27, 2020

# ¿ Jul 27, 2020 02:19

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

alansmithee posted:

Thanks for all this! And just in case my edit was too late, I cleared the Dread Spiral, is that where the final boss is? I don't seem to recall any particular boss fight in there, just went to like 4 different chambers with enemies.

After you beat those 4 bosses in the 4 sub-dungeons in the Dread Spire, a portal to a fifth sub-dungeon opens up (I just beat Dungeonmans for the first time this week and it was near the top of the Cathedral area, but YMMV). The final boss is at the bottom of that one.

I didn't see anything that hinted at a secret dungeon in its drops (that said its drops literally covered the entire floor of the arena so it might have gotten lost in the shuffle?) so if TMA doesn't mind I'd love a more specific hint?

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 16:43 on Aug 11, 2020

# ¿ Aug 11, 2020 16:41

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Jack Trades posted:

ToME and Dungeonmans.

Every roguelike should have autoexplore.

Dungeonmans has "auto move to discovered stairs" but it explicitly does not have a TOME/Crawl style auto explore.

(I agree with the second sentence too but I remember MadJack having his reasons and DMans is Still Great).

# ¿ Nov 1, 2020 17:46

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

I bounced off Trials the first time a couple of months ago and refunded it, but its combat mechanics are interesting and energy makes for a neat twist on the hexgrid card battler style, it's mostly the weathered/muted/worn overworld and UI aesthetic that left a bad taste in my mouth. It's a good game that I expect a lot of people will like, I just wasn't one of them in the first two hours and I wanted the money for something else. I don't think any of the stuff I disliked is going to change but maybe in future the stuff I like will improve enough to make up for it, so maybe I'll look at it again in the future.

The thread comparing the two got me to try Gordian last night after initially putting it in the Tainted Grail "wait until it had more of the promised classes and content" box, and then before I knew it it was 1 AM. The fights I got into in that time were way more reminiscent of StS (which can be a good or bad thing, YMMV) but it adds most of what I liked about Trials to the formula (making positioning relevant to the combat, more substantial equipment/loot/crafting), as well as neat looking progression systems for XP/levels and talents (which apparently will be changing in the near future?). The packaging is, I definitely agree, more conventional than Trials in terms of "roguelike deckbuilders", and more conventional than either Trials or StS in terms of RPGs.

I've barely scratched the surface of either game and of course neither is entirely done (Trials is closer, obv) but Gordian left a much better first impression for me. I don't think you can go wrong with either, though.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2020 17:16

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Nethack was my first roguelike but ADOM was a breath of mechanical clarity and fresh air in comparison to it (which is why it's still the only one of the two I've ever won). I'll forever retain a soft spot for it for that alone even though it's absolutely been surpassed on those fronts in the two decades since.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2021 23:16

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

No, the other way around, Biskup thinks his game is way more important than it actually is. (or thought, anyway, I haven't kept up with him as a person since I was posting on the ADOM Usenet group twenty years ago).

edit: vvvv yeah this is not to say he's a Bad Person at all, I definitely don't agree with that, just that he has a high opinion of his Work and Vision and, especially to people who came to the genre this century, it likely looks unwarranted.

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:08 on Mar 2, 2021

# ¿ Mar 2, 2021 14:30

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Is there a video/screenshot somewhere of Loop Hero after the UI/font changes that apparently took place between the demo and release? I get the retro vibe they were going for but the UI was genuinely unreadable/inaccessible to me in the demo so I'm wondering if they, yaknow, fixed that.

# ¿ Mar 4, 2021 18:30

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Angry Diplomat posted:

Serious answer: there's nothing quite like CoQ out there, to my knowledge. Not many roguelikes go out of their way to make everything examinable, with evocative prose and everything - most just provide dry gameplay stats and maybe a concise description.

Shadow of the Wyrm tries for this, but I don't have enough experience with it to say if it succeeds all the way through. I just definitely got that evocative Qud vibe from it even though it's less complete and more traditionally "fantasy" than Qud is.

Dude should definitely play Dungeonmans though (but basically everyone should).

# ¿ Mar 18, 2021 03:09

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

drink_bleach posted:

ICOV now 50% off time to jump on the bandwagon!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/509570/In_Celebration_of_Violence/

I bought it at full price three days ago thanks to you all, what timing!

Ah, well, makes up for getting a great deal on Alina of the Arena, which is incredibly fun and oozes theme. Not sure how much I like ICoV so far but the potential for shenanigans like you're talking about is a big selling point for me, even if it's really frustratingly opaque initially.

Side note: speaking of mechanically complex games (though this one isn't as deeply or deliberately underdocumented) - Erannorth Chronicles, which I remember this thread being pretty positive on, is on sale for 65% off this week if anyone wanted to try it (it's me, I wanted to try it)

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 20, 2022

# ¿ Sep 20, 2022 00:39

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

zorbus posted:

9FWJM-ZK0_X3-75W6K

Just to save everyone else time, this one appears to have been lurked (but the game is only :5bux: and looks good if you're into old school RLs so what have you got to lose?)

# ¿ Nov 24, 2022 14:13

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

If it weren't for Tinkerer's update posts ITT I would never have tried Shadow of the Wyrm (which is a wonderfully evocative delight to my old school sensibilities and deeply underrated) or Xaskazien (which I can at least respect what it's going for but is probably not for anyone without a very high tolerance for awful control schemes and technically messy design)

yes I know this is the roguelike thread, even worse than that

# ¿ Oct 13, 2023 22:17

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Serephina posted:

Oh man, we might need a new OP. In addition to broken images, half of those listed have kind of been deservedly left behind, while a bunch more modern staples are missing.

Seeing Qud in the "not complete, might be worth watching" section was a big glad.

Seeing Incursion and Ultima Ratio Regum was a big sad. Maaaaan, what could have been with those two eh?

vvvvv well haven't you just made my day

Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 15:40 on Oct 18, 2023

# ¿ Oct 18, 2023 14:47

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Farquar posted:

I hear Jupiter Hell has good controller support, if you want a sci-fi dungeon crawl.

if you somehow don't already own Jupiter Hell, it's 60% off on Steam for one more day and after getting my first two characters stupidly killed I'm already in love

I never had the reflexes for Doom and at 39 I very much don't now but this somehow still nails the feel

# ¿ Nov 1, 2023 17:43

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

unattended spaghetti posted:

Holy poo poo a developer calling out screen readers explicitly? We really are making progress. Thanks for posting this. I dunno if anyone else has played it but I'm interested on the strength of that alone.

I play it every so often, it's very old school but enjoyable. If you liked games like ADOM or Omega you'll probably like it; though in terms of current games influenced by that branch of the Roguelike tree it's not as complete or innovative as, say, Qud.

# ¿ Dec 11, 2023 21:06

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Dachshundofdoom posted:

Hey, did the Dungeons of Dredmor dev come in here at some point and say they were going to update the game? Possibly they did that two separate times, years apart? Or is that some weird recurring fever dream I'm having.

if it's a fever dream the servers are also infected:

nvining posted:

What Gaslamp people? Nobody here but us Muscle Diggles.

(....)

A little goons-only teaser before I go back to radio silence...

# ¿ Mar 2, 2024 21:27

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

(DD2)

Veryslightlymad posted:

This has briefly been on my radar, but you essentially just told me the sequel kept the least enjoyable parts.

To speculate on Kanos' question, I would guess they were trying to make the game more digestible in making it run-based (even on Radiant DD1 was very grindy) but pivoted too far away in the process and pissed off a lot of people who liked the first one. I personally enjoy the second game more but clearly this isn't a popular opinion - if you read the DD thread, apparently Red Hook are introducing a new game mode this year that is sounding very Town Based.

feedback works?

# ¿ Apr 11, 2024 15:01

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 01:13

Dallan Invictus: Oct 11, 2007; The thing about words is that meanings can twist just like a snake, and if you want to find snakes, look for them behind words that have changed their meaning.

Kvlt! posted:

do you have a link to this? i love spiderweb games theyre the only crpgs i love so id be interested to read it

I did a quick search through his old blog and It might be this? He was writing about Pillars of Eternity as an example, as it happens, and rope kid offered a pretty gracious response on his Tumblr.

edit: this is the same link Osmosisch posted

# ¿ Apr 23, 2024 15:17

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