Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup - The Soupening

Malor wrote:
may have been close to getting one before getting crushed in the Elven Halls.

The Elven Halls are very hard. The upper levels can tear up a midgame character, and even lategame characters can have trouble with the vaults on the bottom floor. (3rd level, I think.)

Usually, it's best not to go there until you've got a rune or two already.

Well, I was in the Orc hell (Lair?) and was being overwhelmed, so I went in to get a reprieve. No quarter was given.

kaostheory wrote:

Also, could we put some info in the OP about how to make this thing work? I have DCSS, but I assume I'll have to download or configure something to play it online and/or declare my team.

Good call, I will write up something when I get home.

kaostheory wrote:
Malor wrote:
may have been close to getting one before getting crushed in the Elven Halls.

The Elven Halls are very hard. The upper levels can tear up a midgame character, and even lategame characters can have trouble with the vaults on the bottom floor. (3rd level, I think.)

Usually, it's best not to go there until you've got a rune or two already.

Well, I was in the Orc hell (Lair?) and was being overwhelmed, so I went in to get a reprieve. No quarter was given.

In general, going down is not a good solution to any problem; you can very easily make things worse. I use "up" stairs as a resource and try and plan my explorations around them.

More specifically, you were in the Orcish Mines (can be hard) and went into the Elven Halls (even harder). The dungeon is non-linear in terms of difficulty.

This sounds kind of cool, but, as a complete noob, what kind of time investment am I looking at in order to participate? I'd like to jump in with whatever beginner squad might be forming.

It can be whatever you are comfortable with.

What I'm seeing is that we have enough "regulars" to field two healthy teams as well as enough curious-but-apprehensive players to populate a Team Noob for people who want to test the waters.

Michael wrote:
kaostheory wrote:
Malor wrote:
may have been close to getting one before getting crushed in the Elven Halls.

The Elven Halls are very hard. The upper levels can tear up a midgame character, and even lategame characters can have trouble with the vaults on the bottom floor. (3rd level, I think.)

Usually, it's best not to go there until you've got a rune or two already.

Well, I was in the Orc hell (Lair?) and was being overwhelmed, so I went in to get a reprieve. No quarter was given.

In general, going down is not a good solution to any problem; you can very easily make things worse. I use "up" stairs as a resource and try and plan my explorations around them.

More specifically, you were in the Orcish Mines (can be hard) and went into the Elven Halls (even harder). The dungeon is non-linear in terms of difficulty.

I was aware of the risk. It was definitely a die now or die later situation. Though it probably could have been avoided with better preparation and decision making. Ever since discovering auto-expore and auto-fight, I've become very lax in my decision making and preparation. I know that I could/should take more time and play carefully, but I just don't have the patience. That's partly why I play mostly Fighter/Beserker/Monk. You largely just run up to things and hit them.

Edit: The most intriguing thing about the tourney is the ability to watch someone else play and talk to them about it. I love to learn by watching. I watch streamed video games pretty much every evening (Hearthstone, Binding of Isaac, and League of Legends mostly), and learn a ton by watching people much better/more experienced than me. I would love to do the same thing with DCSS.

Ever since discovering auto-expore and auto-fight, I've become very lax in my decision making and preparation.

I use explore, really depend on it in fact, but I never use auto-fight. I press every key for that.

Even at that, I can sometimes kinda zone out and not realize I'm in trouble as soon as I should. It's gotten me killed multiple times.

I would welcome noobs on my team for sure. I don't care if my team comes in dead last, if 4 or 5 more people start playing and enjoying Crawl, then it's a very successful tournament.

I would recommend using autoexplore *every* time you explore. It will save you a ton of accidental steps towards a deadly thing you will wish you hadn't made. Auto fight is also very very useful, especially if you have a reaching weapon (trident/polearm). One of the best of the Crawl players gave advice on the forum once. His one piece of advice that he stood by the most was, "You should probably never move towards any enemy ever"

Michael wrote:

What I'm seeing is that we have enough "regulars" to field two healthy teams as well as enough curious-but-apprehensive players to populate a Team Noob for people who want to test the waters.

Long Live Team Noob!

His one piece of advice that he stood by the most was, "You should probably never move towards any enemy ever"

As in, you should be peppering them with missiles or something instead?

Malor wrote:
His one piece of advice that he stood by the most was, "You should probably never move towards any enemy ever"

As in, you should be peppering them with missiles or something instead?

Or, if you are melee, let them come to you or lure them back toward corridors.

Yep, what he was getting at is that even against missile users, you should back up. If they shoot when you back up, you're probably out of range and heading to a safe corner (if you've been using autoexplore and stopped when they came into view). If you move towards, you're going to take some damage.

Another one that I use that isn't obvious is a tactic for a specific situation. You're on the stairs up, something has the potential to kill you in the next turn. If you have healing that can give you one more turn for sure (it will take you over the amount of damage the baddie can do), use it every time! You have a chance the baddie will miss/move/do something else and you'll get a safe move up the stairs on the next turn when you have more life than the baddie can hit for. Sometimes you may have to burn 3 or 4 heals to make it work, and sometimes you'll still end up with a coin flip chance heading up the stairs, but more often than not, the bad guy will miss and you'll get an escape with a sliver of life left. If you die to a coin flip with effective healing in your pack, you've died needlessly.

This particular tactic is useful against orc priests smiting and orc/centaur/yaktaur bow guys early on. If you get to the endgame areas, you'll be having to make this choice from time to time with torment/hellfire/smiters too.

Michael wrote:

It can be whatever you are comfortable with.

What I'm seeing is that we have enough "regulars" to field two healthy teams as well as enough curious-but-apprehensive players to populate a Team Noob for people who want to test the waters.

Sounds good. Go team noob!

* OP has been updated with a few more useful bits of information
* The player list has been updated and includes everyone that *sounds* like they're in and just needs to be assigned to a team.
* As it stands now we have decent numbers for three teams - if we get another couple of people before the tourney starts we'll still be good.
* If you play on Trunk today be aware that the devs are doing their April Fool's thing again. All races have been enabled (except Djinni) and all backgrounds have been enabled (except Jester).

I'm looking forward to this! Thanks for setting it up.

I did have a question or two for the more experienced players...

Is it a good idea to read unknown scrolls and drink unknown potions, or is there a better way to approach this? Do you keep reading unknown scrolls until you get a scroll that lets you identify things?

Is there a way to feed an animal in an attempt to get him to be a friend? I ran into a quakko (sp?), which was described as pretty much harmless. I tried to give it a meat ration (ended up dropping it), but it just kept attacking me.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

I'm looking forward to this! Thanks for setting it up.

I did have a question or two for the more experienced players...

Is it a good idea to read unknown scrolls and drink unknown potions, or is there a better way to approach this? Do you keep reading unknown scrolls until you get a scroll that lets you identify things?

Is there a way to feed an animal in an attempt to get him to be a friend? I ran into a quakko (sp?), which was described as pretty much harmless. I tried to give it a meat ration (ended up dropping it), but it just kept attacking me.

It is generally find to read un-IDed scrolls, preferably when you are somewhere safe. Un-IDed potions are a bit more of a gamble. A potion of mutation can really screw up a character and it really sucks to waste a potion of cure mutation when you don't need to. That said, if you end up with a lot of one kind of potion, it is probably safe to quaff-ID them since healing potions tend to drop more frequently than other potions.

I would add that after you get 10 or so scrolls, the biggest pile has a fairly good chance of being either remove curse or ID. I don't think there are any scrolls that will outright kill you if you have over 30hp or so. I don't quaff ID potions unless I'm panicking hoping to quaff a healing, haste or might potion to save my life. You should get enough IDs to ID the biggest stacks of potions, which are often the most useful ones.

You can't make anything friendly by feeding. If it attacks you, it must die!

I read-ID scrolls and never quaff ID potions unless I have a stack of 5 and I'm pre-Lair. Sroll of ID order of importance is Potions, then jewelry. Most jewelry will ID when you put it on and I've never ever run out of scrolls of remove curse. I'd also rather know what all my potions do as they're more likely to be the life saver.

Thanks, everyone! That's helpful. I've been reading everything to ID it and drinking nothing to ID it, but I think I'll tone it back a bit until I get a bigger pile of scrolls.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:

Thanks, everyone! That's helpful. I've been reading everything to ID it and drinking nothing to ID it, but I think I'll tone it back a bit until I get a bigger pile of scrolls.

I find it best to wait until you have a pile of scrolls and at least one cursed item stuck to you before read - IDing them.

I think I'm going to try Ashenzari for the first time this tourney.

Okay, so i downloaded this and played through the tutorials. Of the roguelikes I've tried it's most like Powder which i had fun with.

if there's still space in a nooblet team you have my (cursed) axe.

Last night I had a vision: Xom spoke to me! He said, "All are equally insignificant in the eyes of Xom! You shall use the random number function in a spreadsheet to divide your teams equally! The community of Gamers With Jobs shall progress forth with chaotic squadrons where there are no kings among men! Just captains."

Team Gamma:
erikthered
kaostheory
tboon
copingsaw
lupus umbrus

Team Epsilon:
homard
mixolyde
Malor
godzilla blitz
Mrdevil909

Team Rho:
michaelh
senkrad
athros
merphle

Xom roars with laughter!

I just looked over the Summon school changes, and was thinking I might try Draconian for the first time as a Summoner. They seem pretty fun. Anyone have experience as a Draconian spellcaster and have a strong starting background preference? I know someone who will say Earth Elementalist.

Spen will probably get me some points by at least touching branches and runes. Then I'll branch out into the weirder stuff.

I just wish I could find a good way to play online with my Samsung tablet. Virtual keyboards are TEH SUCK for roguelikes like this.

And, welcome MrDeVil! I'm sure we can make space for you! Every little noob helps! Even new people with some practice can get a couple dozen points in a tourney by killing player ghosts, uniques and entering branches in the Lair.

Take a look at some of these race/background combos: http://crawl.chaosforge.org/Backgrou...

Mixolyde wrote:

I just looked over the Summon school changes, and was thinking I might try Draconian for the first time as a Summoner. They seem pretty fun. Anyone have experience as a Draconian spellcaster and have a strong starting background preference? I know someone who will say Earth Elementalist.

I think conjurers are the best choice for spellcasting draconians. They let you practice up conjurations until you get your color, leaving your options open until you get your color assigned.

We still need team names and captains. Homard and EriktheRed, are you good to captain your teams? I can do the third. See my previous post for rosters.

For most of us North American crawlers the tourney starts Friday after work!

Michael wrote:

For most of us North American crawlers the tourney starts Friday after work!

I'll try to get things ready tonight, latest tomorrow night. There are no limits on how often you can play?

I am happy to be a team captain again if you guys want me to be. It might be worth creating a google doc to keep track of everyone's usernames on their preferred server, to help the captains get the teams set up. I can create one when I get home from work or someone else can do one before then, if they feel so moved.

Godzilla Blitz wrote:
Michael wrote:

For most of us North American crawlers the tourney starts Friday after work!

I'll try to get things ready tonight, latest tomorrow night. There are no limits on how often you can play?

There is no huge rush to get your config file set up, we are still 9 days out. Any game that you play on the official servers that starts and ends within the tournament time frame counts. So you can play as many games as you can fit within that window.

Oh, my bad - I was trying to get everything in line because for some reason I had it in my mind that the tourney started this Friday, the 4th. It's next Friday the 11th.

Michael wrote:

Oh, my bad - I was trying to get everything in line because for some reason I had it in my mind that the tourney started this Friday, the 4th. It's next Friday the 11th.

No worries, more time for me to mess around with things beforehand.

EriktheRed wrote:
Mixolyde wrote:

I just looked over the Summon school changes, and was thinking I might try Draconian for the first time as a Summoner. They seem pretty fun. Anyone have experience as a Draconian spellcaster and have a strong starting background preference? I know someone who will say Earth Elementalist.

I think conjurers are the best choice for spellcasting draconians. They let you practice up conjurations until you get your color, leaving your options open until you get your color assigned.

Hmmm, that is good thinking. Conjures can spam Summon Imp, right?

I am normally on crawl.s-z.org.