OT: Nethack

S

smips

Active member
OT: Nethack

Hello everyone,
I was curious if anyone else here plays this seemingly simple and easy, yet extremely difficult and complex, computer game. I started playing it about two weeks ago and think it's great...though I'm quite horrible at it. I'm beginning to learn some little tips now(like dropping items on altars to determine their BUC), but I still can't seem to very far(15000 is my highest score...). So, does anyone around the SPF play? Maybe we can share some gameplay stories or just give me some tips ;). Hell, if there's enough interest, maybe we can start a little tournament.

Edit:
In case anyone is having trouble finding it, here a link to the Nethack download page:
http://www.nethack.org/v343/downloads.html

Edit2: Rules for the tournament from CG:
Rules:

Code: 
[b]General SPF Nethack Rules[/b]
-No Save Scumming. This is defined as making or restoring a backup of a 
 save file for any purpose, ever.
-No explore mode bones files.
-No intentional bones files suicides (bones files from legitimate deaths are 
 perfectly gg).
-No doing anything with the file system (including screwing with level files, 
 etc).
-No selectively deleting bones files (deleting ALL/NO bones files is fine, 
 deleting SOME is not).
-No altering your system clock.

-No start scumming. I'll leave the exact definition up to you, with just this 
 comment:

In general, everybody, don't be a nub. Play each game like you're trying to 
win, don't just suicide/quit/escape because you don't like your starting gear, 
and don't do things that are likely to kill 19 out of every 20 chars just so 
the 20th will have an unfair/unearned advantage.

Code: 
[b]Leaderboard Rules[/b]
-You may only post entries where the char was [i]started[/i] after you entered 
 yourself on the table.
-You may post [b]one[/b] entry per role. Only post your highest score for that role.
-Do your best to keep track of the number of attempts per role. You're welcome 
 to do "practice" games outside the leaderboard to your heart's content and not 
 count them on the leaderboard, but that decision has to be made [i]before[/i] 
 the char is created.

Code: 
[b]Competition Rules[/b]
-You must play according to the specified rules of the competition.
-You may only include chars created [i]after[/i] adding yourself to the table.
-You may only include chars created [i]before[/i] the end of the competition.
-You may continue playing chars that conform to the above rule through to either
 death or ascention after the end of the competition provided you don't take
 years going about it (we'd like to be able to declare a winner eventually).
-One char at a time (you aren't allowed to create 100 chars right before the end
 of the competition just in the hopes that one of them steals a victory over the
 next six months).
-Only enter yourself once per competition (no segregation by roles as with 
 leaderboard). This just means one line on the table - you're still welcome to 
 try as many times as possible.
-You are welcome and encouraged to participate in as many different 
 competitions simultaneously as possible.
-Your current character counts as an attempt. When you first join, your attempts 
 should read 1 (as soon as you've created your character, at least)

Edit 3:
Wikihack is a useful site for information about things in game. Check this out if you have questions about items/monsters/shrines...ect.


-CG
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

It's been a long time since I've played Nethack but it is the absolute best computer game I've ever played. I'd play in a Nethack tournament to see if I could shake off the rust!
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I <3 nethack. I play it regularly (and started in the 80s).

I'm actually surprised more d2 fans don't play nethack - d2 is an old game with relatively inferior graphics but spectacular gameplay and replayability; nethack is much older, has far worse graphics, and many years of development focused on gameplay and replayability.

edit: I'd almost definitely participate in a tournament if one happened. I'd be quite willing to help organize it and/or come up with rules, etc. if necessary.

-CG
 
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Re: OT: Nethack

I'd definitely be up for any Nethack tournament - it's a totally awesome game. The only issue is making sure everyone's playing the same version. Personally, I'm a huge fan of Angband (can't get enough of that Tolkien stuff)...
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I've been playing NetHack since 80's and play it still.

I'm known as a diver in the usenet rec.games.roguelike.nethack. That btw. is the place to talk about NetHack and its brethren. They also arrange various tournaments yearly.

NetHack's official page is here

Topi

P.S. The project is in hiatus right now, but I'll start it again sometime this year.

T
 
Re: OT: Nethack

EmperorMoo said:
The only issue is making sure everyone's playing the same version.
Click to expand...

Personally, I play the latest version of nethack(3.4.3), but if the majority would like to, we can use another version. Guess we'll find out when and if it happens :).


Colorless Green said:
I <3 nethack. I play it regularly (and started in the 80s).

I'm actually surprised more d2 fans don't play nethack - d2 is an old game with relatively inferior graphics but spectacular gameplay and replayability; nethack is much older, has far worse graphics, and many years of development focused on gameplay and replayability.

edit: I'd almost definitely participate in a tournament if one happened. I'd be quite willing to help organize it and/or come up with rules, etc. if necessary.

-CG
Click to expand...

I completely agree with you CG. Personally, I feel like Nethack is like D2, only bigger, there's less restrictions, and the graphics suck :D. If there's enough interest and you'd be willing to, I think it'd be great if you'd write the rules up. I planned on doing it, but I'm sure you'd do a better job than I :).


Also, since I didn't say it before, I strongly encourage any forum members reading this that don't know what nethack is to give it a try. It really is a great game :thumbup:.


 
Re: OT: Nethack

I tried Nethack once, but I didn't really give it a chance at the time. I had several other games I was in the middle of and Nethack just got forgotten... maybe it's time to dust it off and give it an honest go?
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I also primarily play vanilla 3.4.3. I'd personally prefer to keep a tournament in this version (at least to begin with) - it's not like there's a problem in installing multiple versions for anyone that plays something else, what with the entire game taking up around a couple megabytes. I'd certainly at least be interested in one of the variants (I've played slash'em extensively, but haven't really done much with any others), but I wouldn't be involved in organizing or writing rules.

(Like usual as far as me and tournaments go) I'm not going to sit down and list out all the different forms of scumming and make tables and whatever until I have the impression that there'd be enough interest, but I'm currently thinking of two and a half different ways to do this:

(1) Tournament style, where certain starting features are required, players have X amount of time in which to begin new chars, then after X time has passed, only in-progress chars are allowed, and highest final score wins (as modified below). I'd likely want to do 3-5 different "divisions" (where everyone is allowed to participate in all of them) with 3-5 different starting char choices (e.g. Division 1: chaotic elven rangers, Division 2: any valkyries, Division 3: female tourists, etc.)

(2) Leaderboard style, where we just basically make a public high score list.

(3) Leaderboard style, where we divide the classes into three tiers based on difficulty and run separate leaderboards for each, and modify final score as below.

As below: I mentioned modifying final score a couple times up there - basically, there's a thing called "start scumming" where you either suicide or play recklessly in order to die or take really big risks early on in the hopes of hitting the jackpot. It's generally regarded as cheating if done willfully, but it's extremely hard to decide where to draw the line. For example, drinking every fountain dry on early levels in the hopes of a free wish is frequently regarded as start scumming, but if you honestly think you can take down the stream of mocassins, the demon, or the nymph, there's nothing wrong with drinking from fountains in hopes of a wish, even at low levels. As another example, the difficulty of wizards varies greatly depending on their starting gear. It's pretty common for people who don't get spectacular gear to suicide/quit and try again to get new gear, but it's harder to say whether someone with inferior gear who dies in the first few levels was scumming or legitimately died (at least with a clearly defined rule.) So, while I'd still ban start scumming in principle, I'd also want to track what is referred to as the "ascention ratio," not that I really expect every participant (or even the majority) to ascend. Basically, in addition to your highest score, you'd note the number of deaths/restarts it took you to get to that high score. Your effective score would then be modified based on this number.


So, for those of you who have expressed interest in the tourney, are you more interested in a defined tournament with specific rules shaping the game (more restrictive, but more accurate comparison), or do you just want a more general ladder/leaderboard that's just basically a shared high score table without any further interference (pretty much complete freedom in builds, but very much apples-to-oranges scores)?

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Yes, I've played Nethack before. A few years ago we had a tournament that involved playing both Nethack and D2:

Dialbo II meets Nethack Tournament

I'd be interested in joining a Nethack tournament again. It doesn't really matter to me which tournament style is decided upon, I'm just looking forward to playing again.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

@CG:
I was thinking of something simple like #2 you have listed, though if we go with #1, things will be more competitive which is always nice. As for scumming, I agree that it can be looked at as a problem. However, this is done most often with wizards and wizards are usually looked at as one of the easier classes. If we do score modifiers based on class, then wizard would be in the lowest group, so maybe it would balance out.

I'm glad to see there's some interest though; I was worried this would get no replies :D
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Wizards are only one of the easiest classes if they start with good gear, which is why they are so often scummed. However, there are a large number of other types of start scumming (drinking every fountain dry until you either get a wish or get pwned and start over to do it again, for example), not to mention several other types of scumming that have nothing to do with start scumming.

I wouldn't want to do score modifiers based on class, personally, because I don't think you can simply quantify the apples-to-oranges (1.25 apples does not equal 1 orange). If we try to differentiate between classes in an open leaderboard setup, I'd just want to do three separate leaderboards for various "tiers".

As an example of what I mean, I can probably pull an ascention ratio of about 1.2 with valkyries if I put my mind to it, so it wouldn't be particularly difficult for me to put 5m on the high score list in a two week competition. Tourists or healers, by contrast, I'm probably looking at at least a 15-20 ascention ratio if I'm lucky, so over the course of two weeks, I'd probably get 100k or so on the leaderboard (assuming a lack of an early wand of wishing or w/e). This doesn't mean I'd want to multiply all tourist scores by 50 just to make tourists competitive on the leaderboard when compared to valks, it just means I'd rather compare valks to barbs and stick with comparing tourists to healers.

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I've said this in r.g.r.n so I can say it here also.

Let's average all scores on all character classes and compare those averages against others. This means different highscore tables for differen classes (roles). Scummers get penaliced with lower scores. Easy!

Topi
 
Re: OT: Nethack

That's basically what I had in mind with recording number of tries, except instead of just dividing total score by number of tries, modifying highest score (for that category) by some factor based on the number of tries. The main reason is because it's a lot easier administratively to take a high score and multiply it by some number based on the number of attempts than it is for every person to keep track of the score from every attempt. I also don't see a huge amount of difference between someone who ascends attempt #3 and attempt #5 (scumming is only going to come in to play if you do a lot of retries). I was thinking something (numbers off the top of my head and geared for a short-term contest, they'd probably get rebalanced before I did anything official) like:

1-5 tries: x1.0
6-10 tries: x0.95
11-20 tries: x0.9
21-40 tries: x0.85
41-80 tries: x0.8
81+ tries: x0.75

Not everyone participating in the tournament is going to be particularly good at it, and NH has a pretty steep learning curve, so we should be expecting a pile of tries from most people, and if we force them to put 20ish tries at 500-2000 points in to their final score before they get the hang of it and actually get past the mines, it will be pretty much impossible for them ever to recover from their disadvantage (particularly in an ongoing leaderboard).

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I've never played nethack before, but it sounds like fun and I'd like to give it a shot in a tournament even if I stand no chance. At the very least my hilariously bad attempts may amuse some.

Pardon my nubness but I can't figure out the Colorless Green's post. Is a try an attempt that ends in death, and the numbers 1-81+ the level you get to in the game?

EDIT: What's a scummer?
 
Re: OT: Nethack

I tried the game a few years ago but it was a bit too complicated for me to enjoy. After reading this thread, i decided to give it another try but i would really appriciate some help. Do you have any tips for starters? I am currently reading the guidebook btw.
 
Re: OT: Nethack

Ahh, I see where you're going with this CG, I was a bit confused before. I like these ideas, but perhaps there should be a modifier for how much experience you have with the game? Like you said, some one new(like myself) will be hit hard by the number of tries modifier. This way, there would be a bit of a balance so both novices and masters of nethack can both be competitive with each other. Another idea would be that novices could be scored separately from one another, but I don't think the number of participants will be high enough for that.

One thing I just thought of was couldn't we ban some forms of scumming? I know there would be no real way to check if someone scummed, but we also don't know if people cheat in the D2 tournaments we have. It would just be something we'd have to take in faith. It's just a thought, but maybe it'd work.

edit:
barren said:
I've never played nethack before, but it sounds like fun and I'd like to give it a shot in a tournament even if I stand no chance. At the very least my hilariously bad attempts may amuse some.

Pardon my nubness but I can't figure out the Colorless Green's post. Is a try an attempt that ends in death, and the numbers 1-81+ the level you get to in the game?

EDIT: What's a scummer?
Click to expand...
An attempt is any game in which you quit without saving from or that you die in. The numbers 1-81 is the number of attempts you make.

A scummer is someone who play recklessly early in the game(usually) in order to possibly gain huge benefits. Most commonly, wizards are killed earlier because they start with 2 random rings, a random wand, and a random spell. People kill off their wizards to have a chance of starting with better gear. Another form is that some people drink from every fountain hoping to find a blessed one that will grant them a wish. This is considered scumming because sometimes powerful monsters are summoned from fountains that a low level character would not be able to defeat. Hopefully that explaination is clear :)

NacRuno said:
I tried the game a few years ago but it was a bit too complicated for me to enjoy. After reading this thread, i decided to give it another try but i would really appriciate some help. Do you have any tips for starters? I am currently reading the guidebook btw.
Click to expand...

Read the guidebook and check the nethack wiki. That's where I get most of my info when playing.


 
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Re: OT: Nethack

Scumming is basically some combination of cheating and metagaming, depending on the specific activity. A moderate d2 analogy would be backing up your char file before making a RW allowing you to reroll if you get a bad roll. It's not exactly that (though that behavior is a form of scumming called save scumming which is about the worst kind there is, generally speaking), but it's possible to randomly get things like early wishes (approximately 1:150 chance per fountain quaff IIRC (don't have exact values off the top of my head), as compared to about a 15:150 chance of something popping out that will kill a level<5 char - fountains are found on nearly every dungeon level including level 1) or extraordinary starting equipment (wizards start out with a lot of randomized magic items, some of which are basically useless and some of which are godly) very early on in the game, so it's possible to drastically increase your chances of winning by restarting until one of these random situations occurs.

In my example, "tries" means number of times you've started the game. In almost all situations, this will be equal to the number of times you've died. Your highest final score would be modified by the modifier listed for the amount of tries you've had. As an example, if you tried 10 times and wound up with a high score of 10k, your modified score would be 9500, but if you tried 100 times and wound up with a high score of 10k, your modified score would be 7500.

I intend to ban any form of scumming I can clearly state, but the problem becomes that it's very hard to draw a line in quite a few situations. I also don't object to limited forms of start scumming, provided they aren't taken to extremes - I wouldn't want to prevent someone from shooting for a fountain wish if they were relatively confident that they'd survive the (more likely) negative outcomes, and I wouldn't want someone to feel like they're scumming if they get a poor set of starting gear and just die, nor would I want to prevent someone from simply quitting a game with an extremely bad/unlucky start.

Think of the attempts modifier as a d2 tournament where rerunning areas is allowed but high levels count against your final score.

Also, if we just do a relatively soft modifier on the number of tries, novices won't actually be hit that hard - sure you'll be hit hard compared to people who ascend their first try, but people who ascend are looking at a 5 million base score (roughly), whereas most novices are generally elated when they reach 10k points (or, if you're really nubby, 1k or 5k). You'll already be competing with people in your same experience range pretty much by definition, but attempts modifiers will reward people who reach the same general stage of the game in the fewest tries.

BTW, while it seems like I'm going to be running the rules and all that other crap, if nobody else wants score modifiers based on attempts (which is how it's looking, with the exception of the other person that's heard of rgrn), they won't be included (though I still strongly favor at least keeping track of attempts, particularly for competitions).

-CG
 
Re: OT: Nethack

barren said:
EDIT: What's a scummer?
Click to expand...

Smips answered you question already, but let me elaborate.

In NetHack fountains can give wishes and the probability is tied with the dungeon level the fountain is. The shallower the level the higher the probability.

Scummers start to drink from or dip to fountains as soon as they find them in a hope to get a wish, the result being that they cannot handle the monsters or oither nasty situation that arises from their deed which eventually result either a death or quitting. Players like me, who play every character for keeps leave those fountains alone and return to them when we can handle the consequences.



 
Re: OT: Nethack

Ahhh I used to play nethack; how annoying it was to die in that game. When you're:
Cold Resistant
Fire Resistant
Magic Resistant
Death Resistant
Lightning Resistant
Poison Resistant
You had Reflection
You were Invisible
You were Telepathic
You saw Invisible Monsters
You were very fast
You had extra speed
You had warning
You had infravision
You were displaced
You were piously aligned
You had the Amulet of Yendor
You DID NOT have life saving <--- ah mistake
You used 982374982374 wishes
You genocided 980745894375 monsters
You. Are. Dead.

Well guess what? You can still get crushed to death in 1 hit by a fire giant throwing a boulder at a draw bridge with you behind it about to kick it in.

Lesson learnt: USE A WAND OF STRIKING TO OPEN DRAW BRIDGES WITH GIANTS BEHIND THEM.

As I said, I _used_ to play nethack :P
 
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