On 07.03.2023 22:36, RecRanger wrote:
On Sunday, March 5, 2023 at 10:21:08 PM UTC-5, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
Okay, my current gnomish healer[*] is still alive after 35000 turns.
That is an achievement in itself!
Yeah, on retrospect, if I just look at the many turns, it feels so.
From the playing experience it feels different; too many turns I've
spent at an (luckily early) altar to get some artifact - at T:~38500
the first one came, Cleaver, shortly after that Mjollnir. Too many
turns I searched for the dlvl:2 portal. For too long most of my loot
was unidentified - meanwhile one of the very very rare scroll of ID
did a "full" ID of what fits at least in open inventory (still a lot
of loot unidentified).
Randomly generated magic markers have been removed from the game. They
can be generated in a couple guaranteed areas and one randomly possible
area.
Hmm.. - I wonder why they changed that. With the marker's inherent
restrictions there'd be no necessity for nerfing that (in my book).
The good thing is that I have free action, reflection, and speed.
Careful! Reflection has been nerfed, too! Resistances are revised in
a major way, too. I think it is neat how it works. Gives you an
advantage and disadvantage all in one.
In earlier games (where I died) I just tried to get crowned to have
all resistances instantly become 100%. That's why I don't consider
their incremental advance to be a too clever game design decision.
(I seem to recall that there's another variant that has a two-step
process to get it permanent? Which seems good enough.) But okay, for
me it's not really worth a dispute since my deaths came unexpectedly
elsewhere from (e.g. from gelatinous cubes, locusts, etc.).
Elbereth has been nerfed even in 3.6.x and even more so in 3.7.0. It
is unfortunate, but NetHack is becoming EvilHack in many ways as
that dev is now part of the NetHack devteam. EvilHack is based upon
and is always updated to the most current version of NetHack. I
dislike 3.6.x just as much as you and it just gets worse in 3.7.x.
There's quite some design decisions that changed in newer NH versions
that I dislike. In many ways it appears [to me] that they implemented "solutions" for assumed imbalances by unnecessary restrictions and/or inappropriate changes. (Other variants have addressed such issues in
more appropriate ways, in my book.) And where I'd hoped for more types
of randomly generated dungeons such primitive mirroring of standard
levels have been introduced, or changing only the representation of
mazes without adding anything functional here or adding any diversity.
Not sure about the current development, though; I lost interest in
Nethack and didn't follow it too closely, mostly because the players
of newer Nethack versions nowadays don't seem to post here about their experiences. Older versions, especially the long lasting NH-343, had
been thoroughly and perpetually discussed, experiences exchanged and
success stories (or stories of blatant failures) posted, and tactics
and strategies suggested and compared.
Now I am curious. You wrote that EvilHack is great. Would you mind
to elaborate a bit on that? Given what I've seen this far, myself I
currently consider to switch back to Slashem or try another variant.
There seem to be too few options to handle all these multifold and
new dangers. (Slashem now appears [to me] to be quite trivial in
comparison.)
Despite all of the issues, there are a lot of fun things in EvilHack.
Playing as the different races is quite fun. The giant provides a lot of interesting advantages as well as challenges. Illithids are amazing.
As well as infidels? Illithid Infidels? (Almost) utterly amazing — their psionic wave was recently neutered to include spell hunger. There are
also just a lot of other interesting additions that make it fun. And,
as much as there are items of added difficulty, there are several things added in favor of the player.
I first started the game with any random selection I got. Meanwhile I
skip some combinations. I played some centaurian and a giant race. And
was it a convict that I played but that quickly died? Although the RNG
has chosen a few Infidels for me, my capabilities weren't yet developed
enough to keep them alive beyond early game.
I've ascended NetHack several times myself. After my first victory
about 5 years ago, after having played since the days of Hack 1.0.0,
Wow, you must have played longer than I did. My first game was, IIRC,
a Hack 1.0.3/4 on an IBM DOS system of a friend of mine ~35 years ago?
the victories came easy. I've ascended a Monk, Archaeologist, Healer
and Tourist. I ascended 3.6.x on my very first try. EvilHack gives me
a challenge and I like it. I've not ascended yet, but I've come close.
Amazing! 8-)
EvilHack, sure has those "gotcha" moments, but didn't NetHack many
years ago when we first started playing it?
I am certainly biased here; with Nethack I was spoiled to a large
extent, skimming the source code and whatnot for information. Though
my impression was still that a lot could be derived from Real Life
and from many sources (like literature/film, history, good judgement).
The switch to Slashem left at least the base game logic as invariant;
I felt quite comfortable with its changes and extensions. I don't have
that feeling (at least not yet) with EvilHack.
Now I take some time to follow other players on hardfought to get some impression about changes I should be aware of. But what I observed was
just a WoW (World of Warcraft) feeling, when hordes of monsters appear
and it all becomes just a mindless - flashy in WoW - hack'n'slash orgy.
What really, really kills EvilHack for me is the increased monster
generation as the games goes on. It absolutely eliminates several
playstyles and makes some challenge games near impossible.
By the time you have the Amulet, monster gen is 8x! On top THAT,
nasties automatically spawn in HORDES at the staircases automatically.
Hmm.., I suppose I've seen some such scenes at hardfought. Horrible.
And yes, I used to think of Slash'EM as the more difficult NetHack,
but EvilHack makes it look like a sweet 'lil pussycat. EvilHack also
borrows a LOT from GruntHack, which is where a lot of the pure EVIL
comes from.
I don't know GruntHack. I checked out some of the older roguelikes
(Moria, Omega, Larn) decades ago, made some steps in Adom, later I
tried out Spork, maybe started another one, but that's it, I think.
Janis
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)