Brogue

This contest is now over.

Hey everyone, welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 22nd Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created from stock market indices and a bit of hocus-pocus, is 669709.

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday July 27th, 2012 at 22:00 UTC (6:00 PM EDT). You can start your game any time after this. The contest is open to anyone.

2. Start a game by control-clicking "New Game" in Brogue v1.6.4 and entering the seed. Verify that the screenshot below matches what you see on your screen.

3. Play through the game. You only get one chance. We are all on the honor system here.

4. Once you are finished, record your score and post the details of your game in this thread. Minimum requirements for consideration include your score, cause of death and lowest level reached. However, the thread is open to all spoilers, so feel free to add screenshots, game recordings, character dumps, strategy tips, etc. You do not need to wait for the end of the contest.

5. The contest will run for 60 hours and ends on Monday July 30th, 2012 at 10:00 UTC (6:00 AM EDT). You must finish your game and post your results by that time to be considered in the contest.

6. As a result of point 4,

PLEASE DO NOT READ THE REST OF THE POSTS IN THIS THREAD UNTIL YOUR RUN IS FINISHED.

As always, honor system.

7. Good luck! Have fun, etc.

Results

20 players competed in this week-end contest. The winner is Cybermg who scored a very strong victory, ascending with 9 lumenstones! Congratulations!

This seed was a staff seed, with poison [3/3], lightning [3/3] and firebolt [3/3] given early in the game, and few if any interesting armor and weapon. Most players also built a rather strong ally team. Consequently, several players managed to get rather high scores, three of them ascending, two more killed amulet in hand, four others achieving level 19 and below.

Looking at replays, a discrepancy was noted between games, where deeper levels started getting more and more different for different players. This should not happen, and needs to be investigated.

Here is the list of contestants, ordered by score:

Code: Select all

==============  ======  =====  ================================================
Contestant      Score   Depth  Cause of death / Victory
==============  ======  =====  ================================================
Cybermg         104587    30   Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 9 lumenstones!
Dunderpate       79027    28?  Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 5 lumenstones!
tinyrodent       56115    26   Escaped the Dungeons of Doom!
Creaphis         32286    32   Killed by a dragon, amulet in hand
thedrin          16857    21   Killed by a revenant
boa13            16481    20   Killed by a troll
shark20061       14047    23   Killed by a tentacle horror
FrannyMac        12484    19   Killed by a kraken
WillOfTheGods     9332    15   Starved to death
Uncle Jam         6781    16   Killed by an ogre
Lixels            5976    15   Killed by a wraith
dingdong          5424    12   Killed by a troll
Ashenai           5282    11   Killed by a dar blademaster
Krastinov         4951    11   Killed by a fall
DalaranJ          2848     8   Killed by a jackal
harborpirate      2238     7   Killed by a cloud of caustic gas
stay depressed    2083     7   Killed by a vampire bat
ostrichheaven      248     5   Killed by a fall
Big Sean             ?    28   Killed by a phantom, amulet in hand?
element42            ?     2   Killed by an eel
==============  ======  =====  ================================================

56115 Escaped the Dungeons of Doom!

It was obviously a staff build from the very beginning. I put most of my enchanting scrolls in Lightning, leaving the numerous other utility staffs at level 3 as I found them. Unfortunately didn't find a ring of wisdom, but really didn't need it - even had spare scrolls of recharging at the end. Best ring was +3 awareness, essential equipment especially with allies. My other gear was crap, I never found any good weapon or armor. Used a plain +0 war pike and a cursed splint mail to replace my original acid-turret-damaged splint. Had great allies toward the end, found a wand of plenty in a vault and used it to double the size of my party. Then put it back on the pedestal and took something else from the vault.

At one point I released a dar priestess from a cage thankful to finally get a healer. Two seconds later she was dead, I never even saw the attacker.

Toward the end my party was dwindling, I had just 1 troll and 2 tentacle horrors left. I hasted them to take care of a dragon on level 25. Went down the stairs and used magic mapping, found the amulet quickly, and fled. Back on level 25 lost all my allies to a dar party. Actually I might have angered some of them with a stray lightning bolt... had to send two tentacle horrors into the abyss with entrancement and get the hell out of there. No real problems escaping after that, encountered one phantom in a hallway, and a few dar.

Not my best score, but made good use of the limited loot, and played carefully to avoid/escape dangerous situations. Early game I almost died to some eels in a water trap, and used all my healing potions to deal with a vampire bat.

I have a recording, is there any way to attach file to forum post?

16857 Killed by a revenant on level 21.

Equipment of note:
+0 broadsword
+0 splint mail
+1 ring of clairvoyance
ring of awareness
staff of protection [10/10] (8 scrolls of enchantment)
staff of lightning [7/7] (5 scrolls of enchantment)
staff of firebolt [3/3]
staff of discord [3/3]
Dar Blademaster [blinking, fire immunity, something else]
Troll [blinking, flying]
4xTroll [invisible, flying]
Unused wand of plenty

Moving down a corridor with my finger on the button. I didn't notice the revenant until it had killed me. Silly, silly death.

I like the staff of protection + strong melee allies + staff of lightning build. Trolls take out most things. Lightning for pixies, dar spellcasters and anything that might cast discord or negation. Staff of protection means they have as much health as a dragon at which point fire immunity becomes less essential. That said, I didn't closely manage the abilities of my allies and fire immunity would have been my joint first choice with flying and invisibility. A few Ogres were lost along the way but their slow healing makes them far less valuable and I wasn't too concerned as soon as I found the first troll.

Some really weak rings in this build. The only ones I identified were +1. Lots of potions of detect magic. Unfortunately I had none left by level 20. Fortunately I unlocked all of the nested doors and found the wand of plenty.

I have a suspicion that food was fairly abundant in this game, but after finding the first caged/manacled troll, I went back a few levels to a vault to swap a staff of tunneling for the staff of protection.

Overall I'd say this was one of the easiest runs for a while. Not a lot of great armour or weapons but an abundance of staves, allies, and scrolls of enchantment.

I'm noticing some patterns here. In pretty much every contest, I find myself at the utter brink of failure very early on. (In this game, I almost let myself get murdered by eels in a bog on level 2 or 3.) If I get past that first obstacle, then it's pretty much clear sailing until much later when my failure can be truly spectacular. 32286 points, killed by a dragon on level 32, amulet in hand. I had 6 or 7 lumenstones in my bag and 9 more waiting for me on depth 1.

My first troll ally got itself weakened by a centipede (which has a permanent effect) so I figured I'd put her to good use by letting her eat a dar priestess. She learned healing, which is awesome, because a strict healer can buff other allies without making them targets for negation. Down below the amulet I had an army of fire immune, invisible troll healers and fire immune tentacle horrors. I had a dominated dragon for a while too but lost it when I misaimed a potion of descent, meant to separate the discordant dragon from the rest of the team.

I finally died because my allies scattered into different hallways after I descended to depth 32 and I ended up fighting a dragon, lich and some golems with just one troll and horror. I should have tried harder to regroup my allies or to retreat right away but I tend to get overconfident with a good ally squad. The dragon finished me off when the blink that would have sent me to safety got blocked by a phantom.

Recording.

I came here with my new high score for the weekend contest, to see the first post finished the dungeon of doom, and the other around five times my score. Still have to get a lot better. But I had a lot of fun this time around, as well.

Everybody so far seemed to have a problem with the fucking eel in the damn bog. Fuck that eel, seriously. Very nearly quite died. But managed to get the fuck out of there just in time. I really liked this seed as well. The vast majority of staffs made it rather fun to play (3 staffs of lightning? 2 Staffs of poison? AND a firebolt staff? My my, fun! ) But I didn't really know what to enchant and went with one on poison, 2 on lightning and one on the armor (in retrospect 4 on lightning could have worked a lot better) but any who.
The number of depth potions saved my life around 3 times? I'm not sure, I felt like such a beast swallowing those potions to avoid death, but I had to sacrifice my two trolls, goblin mystic and the dar blademaster to get out. It was tragic, I felt like I lost a few friend (Yes, I'm still new to Brogue)

I got 5976 gold, down to depth 15 and died by a Wraith.
Looking forward to next weekend's contest already

Lixels wrote:The number of depth potions saved my life around 3 times? I'm not sure, I felt like such a beast swallowing those potions to avoid death, but I had to sacrifice my two trolls, goblin mystic and the dar blademaster to get out. It was tragic, I felt like I lost a few friend (Yes, I'm still new to Brogue)

You can also 't'hrow these potions to drop the floor out from underneath dangerous enemies.

Creaphis wrote:

Lixels wrote:The number of depth potions saved my life around 3 times? I'm not sure, I felt like such a beast swallowing those potions to avoid death, but I had to sacrifice my two trolls, goblin mystic and the dar blademaster to get out. It was tragic, I felt like I lost a few friend (Yes, I'm still new to Brogue)

You can also 't'hrow these potions to drop the floor out from underneath dangerous enemies.

I was 2 steps from a corridor where most the enemies where lined up, I could have probably got 2 ~ 3 of the 5+ (I'm not a very good player )
I chose to damage myself a little, but dive down, may not have been the smartest choice (probably stupider than your suggestion more times than not) but at least I learned

2848 killed by a jackal on depth 8.

Watching the recording again I think I would trace my death to going after that cage key without exploring the entirety of depth 7. Resting on depth 8 spawned some bad stuff and I didn't know the way to the stairs. I would have done much better with those two potions of strength I missed. Having 3 armor on depth 8 is not a good situation.

P.S. The goons are really getting into these contests. One of them died on 28 this last time, scores tba soon.

2238, died to the poison gas key trap. Never found the lever.

Wasn't a good run anyway, burned too many health potions early on and kept running out of charges on the four staffs I was carrying.

104587 - Ascended with 9 lumenstones.

This was a pretty fair run with nothing exceptional about it except a few good allies. The abundance of offensive wands in the early game were good for defeating the usual early threats. Grabbed the cursed warhammer and plate mail with the intent of negating them, but never found negation. When I found a spare protect armor scroll, I used it to uncurse the plate mail to wear identify it, and it turned out to be -1, after which I promptly enchanted it.

Since there was nothing special weapon-wise, I decided to dump the majority of my enchants into ole-reliable lightning. I accidentally fumbled one of the scrolls and put it into poison, but ended up bringing lightning to 11/11 by the end. It turned out there was a +3 ring of wizardry late in the game, which worked nicely with lightning and the few utility staves I picked up (blinking, discord).

This run was mostly defined by allies. The troll I rescued on D:10 became my best friend and learned fire-resistance, then flying, then reflect magic. Other prominent allies were the dar priestess and the first tentacle horror. I picked up the staff of blinking in the late nested vault, so I never got to use the wand of plenty. The large number of recharging scrolls in this game paired nicely with the wand of domination.

I cleared D:26 in very good shape to pick up 3-6 lumenstones. I had a potion of telepathy, two scrolls of magic mapping, 4 potions of fire resistance, and several allies which were capable of defeating dragons in melee under the right conditions. My decision to use my wand of domination (mostly) on dragons was the key to going further. The dragons never regenerated above the health at which they start to retreat, but at this point they become mobile artillery, nuking anything non-dragon from a distance. This was great for taking out the liches, dars, horrors, and golems which populate the lower levels in huge numbers, and made focusing on the remaining dragons much easier. The golems of course made things very interesting, as they'd reflect the dragons' bolts of fire randomly across the dungeon - usually, the safest place to hide was behind my own dragons. I kept the potions of fire resistance for when I accidentally got hit, which happened a few times. The +2 ring of transferrence was also super useful because it gave me the ability to fight golems, and in fact let me use them to restore my health.

On D:28, my dragons both killed themselves in a bog explosion and my remaining horror died, which left me reluctant to continue further. I hadn't used my telepathy potion yet, so I used it to plot a course across D:29 for two lumenstones (the third was guarded by a dragon I didn't want to fight). With 8 lumenstones, I decided I didn't want to risk it and headed toward the surface. I reconsidered my decision when I arrived upon a spare scroll of recharging (good for another ally with domonation), and potions of telepathy and fire resistance I had left behind. I also had a good stock of healing potions remaining for when things went south. I turned around to face the deep levels again. On D:29, I grabbed the third lumenstone, but a quick look at D:30 and a tightly packed group of 4 roaming dragons was enough to turn me off to exploring for good. On my way to the surface I managed to fill my spare inventory entirely with staves and rings to maximize my score.

Recording: http://www.sendspace.com/file/8uggo7

Here's the big parade.

Ashenai- 5282 killed by a dar blademaster on level 11
Uncle Jam- Died on L16 to Ogre 6781
(got webbed in a room full of poison, descented into a room full of ogres)
Krastinov- Died on level 11 to fall damage because I'm an idiot with a score of 4951
(went stealth with poison, discord and blink)
Big Sean- Killed by a phantom on level 28 (no score posted, which is a shame)
stay depressed- 2083 died to a vampire bat on level 7
Me- Oh, I already posted.
WillOfTheGods- 9332 starved to death (d'oh!) on level 15
Cybermg- show off :argh:
Seriously, good job, cybermg.

Oh dear, it's been a while. Depth 2, a pair of eels...

Okay, so everyone's talking about the wand of plenty in the last nested vault on depth 20. While reading this thread, I've been like, "So nobody else found the wand of plenty on depth 15?" It turns out that, no, probably nobody else did, because it didn't generate for everyone else, and it's very possible that we all played significantly different games this time around. I'm comparing Cybermg's recording with mine, and I'm finding some differences. Let's call his game 'A' and mine 'B'...

Depth 11:
Completely different gold and monster generation, B contains staff of lightning in SW room, A does not.

Depth 13:
Completely different monster, item and gold generation.

Depth 14:
Completely different monster, item and gold generation.

Depth 15:
Completely different monster, item and gold generation. Slightly different stair placement between seeds. A has a bridge across the southern chasm. B has no bridge because the room to the east of the chasm is a vault - door key with methane trap is generated by lava in the NW. Vault has another key, which opens W area of map, containing two captive wraiths. In the main area of the map, B contains a captive troll and ogre, A has a captive dar blademaster. Incidentally, this is where game B has an extra wand of plenty.

Depth 16:
Completely different monster, item and gold generation. Slightly different stair placement. A contains captive pixie, wraith, and a set of caged monsters guarded by a vampire in S. B has foliage here instead.

Depth 19:
Completely different item and gold generation, slightly different monster generation.

Depth 20:
Completely different monster, item and gold generation. A contains captive battlemage.

Depth 21:
Completely different item and gold generation, slightly different monster generation.

Depth 23:
Completely different gold generation, mostly different item and monster generation with only a few commonalities. A contains captive imp.

Depth 24:
Completely different items and gold.

Depth 25:
Completely different items and gold. Slightly different monsters. A contains captive imp.

Depth 26:
Completely different items, gold and monsters (except that the amulet of yendor is in the same place). A contains captive imp.

Depth 27:
Completely different item (ie. lumenstones) and monster generation.

Depth 28:
Completely different item generation, slightly different monster generation.

Firstly I haven't loaded up Brogue in a while and thought I would definitely die by dungeon level 3 - which actually almost happened due to those damn eels on L2! Thankfully I made it past that and I did way better than I thought I would on this seed. Like others have mentioned, it's a pretty weak seed for armor and weapons, but it's got staffs a plenty!

I had my dar blademaster and troll allies kicking butt for me, but in the heat of a battle I wasn't paying attention and thought that an enemy troll was my ally. He killed me pretty fast.

Died on Level 12. Points: 5424.

Also note, and not sure if dumb or not, but I was enchanting a staff of poison quite a bit ... it was at level six when I died. Pretty effective, but running around waiting for something die while is chases you probably isn't the best way to play ...

12484, killed by a kraken on level 19

wandered into some water to pick up a scroll of enchanting and got krakened. argghhh!! had the lovely staff of lightning up to 11, but kept making toast of my allies.
did better than my son....waiting to see how DH does.

14047, killed by a tentacle horror on level 23

I thought having a tentacle horror as an ally would have made the the last few floors simple, but I didn't realize how quickly it could get burned to death (it lasted all of about 10 turns at half health versus a dar group). I sent a battlemage and priestess to the next floor via descent potion, then took care of the remaining blademaster, got chased down the stairs by the tentacle horror that would soon kill me, and then realized that dropping the dar group while I was by the stairs to the next floor was probably not the brightest of ideas. Farthest depth I've ever gotten to, though, so I'll take it.

Killed by my discordant troll on level 20, with a score of 16481.

I strongly enchanted the staff of lightning found early in the game, and also made good use of firebolt and discord. By the end of my game, I had a +2 ring of clairvoyance, and a +3 ring of awareness. I only used uninteresting weapon and armor, not protecting them for the longest of time, and not finding a plate armor.

I built a typical team of ogre + goblin mystic along the way, which increased as I dived deeper: troll and dar blademaster around level 10 or so, a second troll and a wraith around level 16, and a pixie later on. Most of the team could blink, a few various buff abilities were also learned (protection, haste), the dar could sap strength, which is very useful on the fragile but accurate fighter that he is.

Level 20 was my undoing: first to a team of dar + a lich, which I escaped by throwing a potion of descent after having lost a few allies, and then, after exploring a bit of level 21 and going back to clear level 20, two other teams of dar put the finishing touches. I faced a crucial choice between trying to kill a dar battlemage and healing myself, ultimately betting on my discordant troll not to kill me that turn... I lost my bet.

I think I could have handled the initial team of dar + lich better, the way I approached them allowed them to cast too much discord, and I had no way to handle that anymore.

Here's one more entry, from a participant on Reddit:

- ostrichheaven: died on level 5, due to falling from level 4; score 248.

Some comments on unanswered various questions and concerns:

tinyrodent wrote:I have a recording, is there any way to attach file to forum post?

Unfortunately, no. You have to find a way to host the file yourself (personal web site, file sharing site, Dropbox, etc.)

harborpirate wrote:2238, died to the poison gas key trap. Never found the lever.

There was no lever. There was a potion of descent in a room next to the trap, you were supposed to use it to escape.

dingdong wrote:not sure if dumb or not, but I was enchanting a staff of poison quite a bit ...

It's certainly not dumb, though maybe not optimum when the game gives you a strong staff of lightning on the same floor. As you have noted, you have to wait a long time to kill strong creatures with it, so you need to find a way to deal with that, and enough food.

FrannyMac wrote:waiting to see how DH does

Apparently he didn't post his result?

Creaphis wrote:it's very possible that we all played significantly different games this time around

I have not had time to look into this issue, which is a great concern for this contest. We should examine past contests to see whether the issue has already happened without anyone noticing. Since the games start identically, we can presume the right versions (1.6.4 in this case) were used. However, it is possible different executables were used (Mac vs. Windows, maybe 32-bit OS vs. 64-bit OS, maybe a custom version used by accident in the contest?), explaining the growing discrepancy.

Escaped with 5 Lumentstones, 79, 027

My dumb tentacles died in an explosion, and my dumb trolls (which had healing spells!) got discorded and killed by my tentacles. I did use the wand of plenty to duplicate my troll buddy. Ran out of healing potions on whichever floor has the 6th lumenstone, and boy there sure were a lot of golems! Ideally I should have put more enchants into my ring of transference instead of staff of lightning [14/14].

The contest is now closed, results have been posted above.

Congratulations, Cybermg, for such a strong victory! Congratulations to Dunderpate and tinyrodent for ascending, too!

boa13 wrote:There was no lever. There was a potion of descent in a room next to the trap, you were supposed to use it to escape.

I thought that, since 1.6.3, a lever is always generated along with the older escape methods. You can only find it after triggering the gas trap, though, and I guess it's possible to just be unlucky. In any case, my estimation of tunneling's value is going up and up - I'd probably choose it over lightning in a staff vault.

boa13 wrote:I have not had time to look into this issue, which is a great concern for this contest. We should examine past contests to see whether the issue has already happened without anyone noticing. Since the games start identically, we can presume the right versions (1.6.4 in this case) were used. However, it is possible different executables were used (Mac vs. Windows, maybe 32-bit OS vs. 64-bit OS, maybe a custom version used by accident in the contest?), explaining the growing discrepancy.

I was using the 1.6.4 version of Patashu's seed scummer. I don't think there could be any game logic changes in the scummer, seeing as both recordings that I was looking through played correctly to the end, but I'll stick to the official .exe from now on just in case.

EDIT: I just checked, and my recording also stays in sync on the official 1.6.4 .exe (Windows, 32-bit).

Yes, Creaphis is right, the two games generated divergent item and monster populations based on the player's actions on the previous depths. Thanks very much for spotting that bug, Creaphis.

I believe it's caused by throwing a lot of items and monsters into a pit on the prior depth. I haven't yet reviewed Cybermg's recording to see if that was the case, but I'm hypothesizing that he threw his inventory down a level as a means of maximizing inventory space.

When an item or monster falls onto the next depth, it's held in limbo until that depth is generated or loaded. At that time, the game decides where to place the item. That's how we prevent fallen objects from landing inside walls or in other unsuitable locations. Unfortunately, this process occurs before the game generates the next level's native population of items and monsters -- and because repositioning stuff can sometimes entail one or more calls to the RNG, that can shuffle the items and monsters that are generated from what they would otherwise have been.

The good news is that it's a relatively straightforward fix, and in the mean time it can't really be exploited, since there's no way to know without cheating whether the shuffled monster/item generation pool will be more favorable than the unshuffled pools would have been.

I thought all depths, initial items, and initial monsters, were generated and placed at the start of the game. How can we share a seed and compete if that is not the case?

I am not crazy technical but it looks like Pender's saying it makes a call to the RNG when you start a new depth. The RNG of course uses the Seed to generate all the maths and numbers because it's more simple to use a pseudorandom RNG(?).

Because it's only pseudorandom if you're using the same Seed it should generate the same stuff every time. Same maps, same items, etc.

Introducing falling items makes it use the RNG again so it just pulls different information than what would typically be drawn.

However it works it's super cool, I love systems that are all mixed up in random stuff.

boa13 wrote:I thought all depths, initial items, and initial monsters, were generated and placed at the start of the game. How can we share a seed and compete if that is not the case?

When you start a new game, the game seeds the RNG with the master seed and immediately makes a list of 100 random numbers, one for each possible depth. When you start an unexplored depth, it re-seeds the RNG from the saved number that corresponds to that depth, generates the depth, and then restores the preexisting seed.

Ok I understand now. Thanks for the explanation.

So what would happen if one were to reach depth 100 and try to descend? Anyone up for the challenge?

morphles wrote:So what would happen if one were to reach depth 100 and try to descend? Anyone up for the challenge?

I recall the game simply doesn't generate downstairs on the hundredth floor, from my browsing of the source code. Good luck, though! Maybe you could do it in a TAS

Maybe I should write a TAS platform for brogue, hmm... You should be able to run it in win32-hourglass, I'm not sure one is needed ^^

You could also just save-scum the old fashioned way, though constantly reloading a 100,000 turn save would get old fast.

Patashu wrote:I recall the game simply doesn't generate downstairs on the hundredth floor, from my browsing of the source code.

There are other ways to get down than the stairs (quaffing descent, etc.)

I recommend using a +18 ring of regeneration (in a version of Brogue before those were nerfed) in order to test this out.