Let's play ADOM

[Solohk]

One of the few annoying things for me was that I had to remember the first fucking monster I killed every time. But I didn't wish to waste paper with every damn character, by typing down what I killed.

Forgot about that in my list, but yes it is annoying. I just leave a text file open and type out whatever poor slob I put to the sword first.

 

[Elwro]

So you say goodbye to the Courage skill? I like to have it, and prefer it to the 0.01% (or less) chance I'll get a you-know-what you-know-when.

 

[garren]

Haha, beat that bitches! (yes I tried that out on purpose :D)

 

[Elwro]

Congrats :D

 

[Palikka]

One of the few annoying things for me was that I had to remember the first fucking monster I killed every time. But I didn't wish to waste paper with every damn character, by typing down what I killed.

Forgot about that in my list, but yes it is annoying. I just leave a text file open and type out whatever poor slob I put to the sword first.

I think the best way to remember this is to use the 'recall monster memory' command. (press '&' to use it)
Just type in the first kill there and the command will remember it for you.

 

[MisterStone]

One of the few annoying things for me was that I had to remember the first fucking monster I killed every time. But I didn't wish to waste paper with every damn character, by typing down what I killed.

Then I learned to just kill a mugger in the outlaw town with every character for the first kill. Takes sometimes time to find one though, and you have to avoid the other aggroed faggots who follow you around with rape in mind. So uh, yeah.

I got around this problem by renaming my character with a small note that describes his first kill... (for example (o) if it was an orc). Maybe not aesthetically pleasing, but it gets the job done!

 

[Azael]

I do the same, but honestly, it's getting annoying. I've realized that these non-random elements and preferred order to do things are things that set ADOM apart from other roguelikes, but they're also something of a pain in the ass. Right now, I'm taking a hiatus and focusing on less hardcore, but fun, games like the DoomRL. No eating, no scumming (well, I suppose you can savescum but why bother?), no running back and forth over levels and alignments. All you have to focus on is creating a good character build and hoping to get good loot. Any other good RL's out there that you can recommend? I briefly tried ToME and ZAngband, but I guess I'm spoiled by ADOM's control scheme and coulnd't really get into them.

I'm thinking about giving DF a twirl next just to try something different.

 

[Elwro]

Years ago, I liked Crawl. Playing a daemonspawn and growing mutations was fun.

 

[getter77]

I'll second Dungeon Crawl...but with the caveat of it being the heavily updated and improved Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup

http://crawl-ref.sourceforge.net/

While it can get pretty hectic at times and I'm nowhere near being an advanced player, the game is just so fun. The sheer depth possible for it would allow for as epic a thread as this one, if not moreso, in terms of the adventures people could relate. Plus, TILES...sweet, delicious tiles!

Also....perhaps the still rough around the edges but interesting conceptually Sewerjacks? http://sewerjacks.sourceforge.net/ It is a 7DRL that keeps on surviving and was recently updated yet again. Football + Roguelikes = WIN is the theory it operates under...

 

[Elwro]

Cool, I'll try these games sometime!

 

[MisterStone]

Ok, no more stupid macros for me. I set it to spit too many times for starvation training and ended up killing my drakeling.

The thief class would be a lot better with a sort of hide in shadows power.

Thieves get alertness, and that's just about it. Their other skills either don't matter or are available from NPCs. It's easily the worst class.

I have finally got a pretty good (gnome) thief character going... hasn't yet gotten to the CoC, but he just came out of the High Mountain Village with a huge pile of loot in hand (but no super-powerful items, just useful stuff mostly). Having Pick Pockets at 100% +"Treasure Hunter" perk is kind of fun.

Of course, now that I understand how it works, I realize that I could have just started out with a gnome ANYTHING, done some pick pocketing, and gotten thief skills trained by Yerrgius. Oh well... live and learn I guess.

Actually, thieves do get a hide in shadows sort of skill eventually (invisibility when next to a wall), but not until level 50 I think . It will be fun to see how the rip off shops power works when I hit level 18.

 

[Zomg]

Nope, but it helps a lot. Believe me, a broken pickaxe is expensive to get repaired.

Two neat tricks here - Blessed pickaxes break much less often than others and pickaxes with negative modifiers to hit and damage are cheaper to repair in Dwarftown. So, get a pickaxe and beat on a corroding slime creature like the grey ooze things with coward tactics set until it's like -7/-7 and the repair bills drop like a brick. Bless it, and you can do quite a bit without any mining skill.

On the other hand a very high mining skill will let you dig out the walls of some shops (it seems to get harder with shops deeper in the dungeons, though) which can allow you to (k)ick the entire inventory out to steal it. The artifact pickaxe makes it even easier.

 

[MisterStone]

You guys never just do ant mining? Just hole up in a fairly out-of-the-way part of the level with tons of food, and let the ants do the work. Assuming you can find some ants, of course. Works even better I believe if you have metallurgy and gemology at high levels- I am pretty sure those skills in addition to helping you ID stuff cause you t find more ore and gems respectively.

 

[almondblight]

Man, this is the only game I play anymore.

My new favorite class is the archer.

I still am annoyed by the metagamey parts to this though, but the general gameplay and character classes are a lot of fun. Anyone know another roguelike that has good classes but is more traditional? (just go deeper and deeper into a dungeon killing things and collecting loot)

 

[MisterStone]

I became addicted to ADOM for a few days, but decided to quit after I lost a kickass character to game crash a couple of days ago.

Klepto the pickpocketing Orcish farmer was going to go ALL THE WAY, DAMMIT!!!

 

[Elwro]

Not really. I had much fun with the original Moria - it's more traditional but classes are boring.

 

[almondblight]

I loved Moria but it could be that I was 12 at the time and the idea that there was a game where you could jam spikes under doors blew my mind.

 

[Palikka]

If any of you want to watch about 7h of ADOM playthrough.. http://www.adom.de/forums/showthread.php?t=490

Too bad the game eventually crashed on him.

 

[Galar]

It's true that Moria had been a serious affair so long ago but it was the first "RPG" I really played a long time ago. Before that I only played few WE sessions of Wizardry and Ultima. At same time of Moria I also played a little Rogue.

Very recently I tried ADOM then that lead me to tried a little some other more moderns Rogue games. I haven't a deep experience in Rogue like games but from the few I played I got the felling that ADOM was really special and was making a little fade other Rogue games even among more modern Rogues.

Is really other Rogues are half as nasty than ADOM is? Have half as much number of different death ADOM has? Have they half of the possibilities you have to make yourself an error and lost the game from your own fault? Did they generate incredibly different gameplay and context from one game to another game? Did they succeed set up a so well done merging of random and non random to both renew games and setup a real and consistent mood and story?

From the other Rogues I tried all was far to be as well tuned and nasty. One point I also hate in most other rogue like game I played was that each time I enter a level during a same game it is regenerated in a different way. I feel this approach in many other Rogues destroy a lot the tactical feeling ADOM has.

Well I see that sort of game like a game for masochist and I'll never finish it. But I have to admit it's extreme tactical play, quite fascinating and an anti bounty approach that is quite interesting. I mean a key point is to know play with negative points your character get in the current play. The game is extremely inventive into rewarding your character with negative points. It's weird how negative points are almost more important than positive one.

 

[MisterStone]

I would say that in terms of mechanics of games like Crawl and Nethack are much better than ADOM. Crawl has a much more well-designed character, skill and religious system, and Nethack has much more dungeon interactivity and tactical considerations related to this. But ADOM has more structure in terms of the meta-quest. That and strong variation among classes leading to different playing styles is probably what makes it popular and so addictive.

That being said, the ADOM main quest annoys me for a lot of the metagamy features it has (as has been mentioned above in this thread). I mean, really, it would be impossible to know how to handle various things in the game without either reading spoilers or playing the game for years and years, dying over and over again... I don't think that this is an admirable feature. Here's hoping JADE will be released some day in the not too distant future, and that it is a little better in this regard.

 

[Galar]

I totally second you about tricks to find in ADOM. Most got too obscure hints, plenty have zero hint at all. I played ADoM alone only a little, after getting some help in forums about few points I quickly realized I couldn't find most tricks so I started played with the guide. It's surprising but that works quite well to play it with the guide. It's still a very tactical game and you still have stuff to find and get ton of surprise.

I'll definitely try the 2 you mentioned, that say if they have levels that get random re generation each time you re enter in a level, I'm sure I'll dislike. For me I hate this classical rogue like approach.

 

[getter77]

In Crawl: Stone Soup, each game the levels are randomly generated but stay persistent within that character's life. That is to say, you clear floor 1, haad to floor 2, then you can come back to Floor 1 and it will be cleared as you left it map wise...but sometimes you can get into trouble if you left powerful weaponry sitting out somewhere on the floor in easy eyesight of an enemy that could use them.

Though I've heard there are some "special" areas are totally warped/random deeper in the game.

 

[Galar]

That's a good point for crawl, from my point of view, thanks for the focus I'll try it. It's weird but when I investigate some more rogue like game to play I didn't quote Crawl unlike Nethack and some other.

 

[Korgan]

Horrible bad luck. One dwarf barbarian got an adamantium 2h sword of mayhem (7d5+18) in SMC, then got killed by several booby-trapped doors in a row. The other one (who had 35 str with a girdle of strength) ran into a game-stopping bug just above Dwarftown. There was a lesser vault and a river on the level, but no stairs downwards at all. I double-checked, waited for a friendly dwarf to dig up half the level in case I somehow missed the stairs, then decided to kill him and take his pickaxe. The game crashed upon his death.

 

[Galar]

Horrible bad luck. One dwarf barbarian got an adamantium 2h sword of mayhem (7d5+18) in SMC, then got killed by several booby-trapped doors in a row. The other one (who had 35 str with a girdle of strength) ran into a game-stopping bug just above Dwarftown. There was a lesser vault and a river on the level, but no stairs downwards at all. I double-checked, waited for a friendly dwarf to dig up half the level in case I somehow missed the stairs, then decided to kill him and take his pickaxe. The game crashed upon his death.

I have the feeling, probably wrong, that ADOM play tricks with random factor. For example, the longer is the play session, the more the balance goes to positive luck. Another example, each time I get a big good thing, the chance to get something really nasty few after is increased.