Brogue

Hello everyone, and welcome to this weekend's contest! This is our 49th Brogue contest.

The seed for this contest, created by revelation after it appeared to me on a tortilla, is 235187064.

This is our first contest for the newest version of Brogue - 1.7.1!

How to compete:

1. The contest begins right now, on Friday February 1st, 2013 at 23:00 UTC (6:00 PM EST). 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 v1.7.1 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 72 hours (three whole days) and ends on Monday February 4th, 2013 at 23:00 UTC (6:00 PM EST). 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:

24 people participated in this contest, including a ton of new faces. Welcome! This was our 49th weekend contest and the very first for the latest and greatest version of Brogue - 1.7.1.

For 1.7.x release the feature list is very impressive, and there were some new things in the dungeon this time around for our players to adapt to. The dungeon looks different. Strange plants with healing spores are growing within it. Strange new magic is showing up on weapons and armor. Exciting times!

There are also some new bugs to contend with. Charms are a little messed up, among other things, leading to a very, very, exceedingly powerful recharge charm that helped some of us out this time around.

The winner was ggoDeye, who continues to post strong showings week after week, this time winning on the back of a very sharp axe and some powerful, dominated allies. Though the pet dragons did not survive the expedition, they were instrumental in helping ggoDeye acquire and escape with 10 lumenstones, no small feat.

Also ascending was tinyrodent, who managed to escape with 3 lumenstones!

I'd like to apologize for the lateness in this summary, and for its brevity. Unfortunately this week has been sort of hectic for me. However, it looks like 1.7.1 should provide for some excitement in these contests for a little while, and who knows - maybe next time someone will reach the mysterious surprise on level 40.

Welcome to all the new and returning faces who participated in this contest!

Congratulations again to our winner - ggoDeye! The wiki has been updated with your victory.

Code: Select all

==============  =========  =========  ==================================
  Contestant      Score      Depth         Cause of death / Victory     
==============  =========  =========  ==================================
  ggoDeye        111010       30      Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 10 lumenstones!
  tinyrodent     79479        27      Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 3 lumenstones!
  ds_creamer     22599        24      Killed by a dragon on level 24.
  buttros        13288        19      Killed by an ogre on level 19.
  Blazko         12036        18      Killed by a dar priestess on level 18.
  jonathanmcc    8010         15      Killed by an ogre on level 13.
  puppyknuckled  6???         16      Starved to death on level 16.
  Cybermg        5968         12      Killed by a spectral blade on level 12.
  jobrien        5795         14      Killed by a centaur on level 14.
  dpeg           4713         12      Killed by a spectral blade on level 12.
  Landenbrook    4062         10      Burned to death on level 10.
  Rev            3742         9       Killed by a wraith on level 9.
  mkimball       3029         9       Killed by a spider on level 9.
  fugori         2889         9       Burned to death on level 9.
  AppleCthulhu   2748         8       Killed by a vampire bay on level 8.
  Orinax         2298         7       ?
  Lomaxx         2154         8       Killed by an ogre on level 8.
  dtsund         327          4       Killed by a pink jelly on level 4.
  magikmw        275          3       Killed by an eel on level 3.
  Franny         225          3       Killed by an eel on level 3.
  idoru          ?            14      Killed by a centaur on level 14.
  Guitar         ?            3       Killed by a cloud of caustic gas on level 3.
  andrewdoull    ?            ?       ?
  Creaphis       ?            ?       ?
==============  =========  =========  ==================================


killed by an eel on level 3

225 score

couldn't get past the eels back to the bloodwort on level 2 - and had a bloat approaching....almost nothing id-ed - but three potions of detect magic! grrrr

I think I'll wait until 1.7.2 and see if that generates the same dungeon pictured in the screenshot; if this one has a good staff and a recharging charm, I'd hate to abuse it, but I'd also hate not to abuse it...

Depth: 12
Killed by spectral blades, while paralyzed.

Gold: 4713
Strength: 15

This was in the totem room on the top left, everyone was paralyzed but the blades kept going, of course. I don't mind the sudden demises of my characters, of course, but that guy as well as the one before died to paralysis (the previous one on Depth 24, instakilled by a dragon, which I could even see move thanks to telepathy).

The dar on D:6 made me spend all six enchantment scrolls on the runic broadsword, to good effect. Almost died to hunger on D:8 -- ran into a healing wort while weak, to find two food items in the next two rooms.

Awesome game as ever, great new version. Keep it up!

Died super early. I wonder how much the recharging charm bug in 1.7.1 will be abused...

3742

Killed by a Wraith on Lvl 9

this is a tricky one. not many str potions

6000 something

Straved on depth 16 (best run yet!).

I would upload the replay, but I'm not sure what filesharing site is best.

I took a spear from the first depth and it turned out to be a +2 spear of confusion. I ended up enchanting it to +6 and enchanting some splint mail to +3 or +4.

Died of loneliness. I suck without allies, apparently.

You all missed the +3 dagger of slowing on depth 1.

died on level 8, killed by an ogre, score 2154

I was proceeding really carefully and as usual tried to get the maximum out of the early levels. On level 9 I met that ogre with the spear of confusion being my best weapon. I tried to sneak by, but it woke up and hunted me. So I retreated back to level8 and had the somewhat good idea to lure it to the lava-lake an confuse it with my spear. Unfortunately the spear did not trigger the runic at all and the ogre hit harder than I expected. The stupidity of mine was also to try this in the north-western sort of dead-end-section. I even had a potion of life left and drank it, but it didn't give me enough spare-hits. Close to death I tried all unknown scrolls hoping for a scroll of teleport. But there was none.
I should have tried to lure the ogre further to a wide space and move arround it. But I insisted on trying to trigger confusion. Maybe I would have died anyway.

Earlier in a treasure-room I thought about whether I should take the staff of blinking or the +3-banded-mail of mutuality, which I already identified at that point, because I brought the ring of regeneration +1 back. I knew about the value of the staff of blinking as it alreay saved my life more than once. I decided to choose the armor with the bad feeling of knowing fates bad humor of letting me die in a situation where I could have used the staff. Looks like I was right as it would have saved me from the ogre by jumping over the lava-lake. Still I don't consider it a totally bad choice of mine.

Beside that I was pleased with my performance. After looking at the recording I'm quite sure that I picked up the best equipment. I maybe should have started enchanting the broadsword once I saw the ogre, instead of saving them all for death. But non-runic weapons are soooooo common and boring.

If anyone cares for the recording, let me know and I will upload it.

And Creaphis: Yes, the game is always pretty hard without allies. Especially if strength-potions are rare too.

Died on level 9 to a spider. 3029 gold.

I think I could have survived if I hadn't stupidly thrown my staff of blinking which I intended to use to blink out of the spider web. I could have also thrown a potion of incineration to off the spider while I was entangled. Oh well.

I had the +2 spear of confusion, had enchanted the +1 splint up to +4 splint and was wearing it, as well as the +3 ring of awareness.

Just registered-- Super new Brogue player here, I'm a DCSS veteran of like 3 years (though I've never ascended...imagine that) and lately I've been getting into TOME 4. Which kicks ass too.

Someone recommended me Brogue and I'm trying it out! I've splatted a bunch and have no real idea what I'm doing outside of the basics. Assuming I can edit this post, I'll update with my (hopefully not soon) death!

Here goes nothing... =D


EDIT: DIed to Vampire Bats on...L: 8. 2748 Score, my highest yet. Apparently vampire bats can chase you down easily. Ah well, it was fun to try.

Level 3 toxic gas...

79479 Escaped the Dungeons of Doom with 3 lumenstones!

Loads of detect magic made it easy to sort the loot starting right from level 1. After use-identifying the dagger of slowing I went back and exchanged it for the key, hoping for better spoils in the next vault. Nothing looked all that great so I took the charm of recharging. Then I dove for about 5 levels gathering as much loot as I could carry for the next detect magic. By level 14 or so I had all of the gear required for the end-game.

I was starting to wonder why bother carrying around the healing staff, when finally on level 19 I got some allies. Lost them almost immediately, and nearly died to a large group of centaurs. But then on level 21 I freed a dar priestess and two tentacle horrors. On level 22 there was another captive horror, I didn't even bother to free him. Later I dominated a dragon and we just rolled over everything. After scooping up a few lumenstones I got bored so we left.

Recording

22599. Killed by a dragon on level 24.

Don't entrance a dragon and then negate it.

With 2 horrors, a golem, and a priestess, scooping up a few lumenstones would have been no problem.

tinyrodent wrote:After use-identifying the dagger of slowing I went back and exchanged it for the key, hoping for better spoils in the next vault.

I just don't understand you. Slowing has more value per enchantment than any other runic in the game. Once you have 18 strength, even just a +3 dagger of slowing has a nearly 50% activation rate and a long duration. Stab a tentacle horror once to slow it down, step backwards, switch to a broad sword, step back again, attack and repeat to get all the free hits that you want. Some day, I'm going to find another dagger of slowing and I'm not going to die stupidly. Then I'll prove to you all how powerful it is.

Creaphis wrote:I just don't understand you. Slowing has more value per enchantment than any other runic in the game.

A dagger of slowing could be a useful tool no doubt, I was just hoping for something better. When there are nested vaults I almost always end up taking the key(s). Had it been a dagger of quietus, that would be another story.

5968 - Died on level 12.

Things were going more or less fine (though I wish I had read detect magic before putting an enchant into the plate, then negated it in the earlier vault with the charm of negation). Then I had a lapse of judgement and decided to use-id a potion while in view of a goblin conjurer. It was paralysis and I got killed by many tiny blades.

I noticed the recharge time on the charms seemed to be bugged. Negation had like a 3800 turn recharge at +2, while recharging had only like a 500 turn recharge at +1. I was going to take advantage of this with the wealth of staves, but never got a chance to. Entrancement with the proper number of turns is also pretty powerful.

Killed by a centaur on D14. Not sure of my score because it didn't make my high score list. I think I was feeling a bit overconfident, having just dispatched three underworms with no problem.

275 - killed by an eel on level 3.

Yup.

Just registered and this is was my first attempt on a pre-defined seed, though looking at my recordings I've played about 70 games.

5795. Killed by a Centaur on level 14.

I thought it was a fairly easy seed since it ended up with my 4th highest score. The plentiful potions of detect magic early on helped me a lot.

I was doing well on level 13, running around with a +6 Spear of Confusion and +4 Banded of Mutuality and a couple spare potions of life. Then I made my fatal mistake (that will never happen again), I thought it would be good to ignite the gas around a Zombie and watch it burn. Of course, it ran after me and lit me on fire. To escape I jumped down a chasm and landed between 2 centaurs that filled me with arrows while I was still burning.

Burning Zombies - bad. In hindsight, I should have hit it with more fireballs and probably also entranced it to keep it away, but at the time I choose poorly.

I'm was also carrying around +1 Broadsword and 3 scrolls of enchantment. I wonder if I would have been better off using the broadsword and dumping the enchants on it.

Yeah, the thing about burning is that it only takes away 2-3 HP per turn rather than a percentage of total health (like caustic gas and steam do) so zombies, with their high base health, take a very long time to burn up. There are ways to take advantage of this though - entrance a burning zombie and you have a fireball you can steer.

Creaphis wrote:Yeah, the thing about burning is that it only takes away 2-3 HP per turn rather than a percentage of total health (like caustic gas and steam do) so zombies, with their high base health, take a very long time to burn up. There are ways to take advantage of this though - entrance a burning zombie and you have a fireball you can steer.

:O That's amazing. I can't wait to have this happen.

Score: 2298
D7

I got stuck between a vampire bat and a Jelly... I was also weakened because of an earlier fight with a centipede.
The good news is that level 7 is now the furthest down I've been! I keep reading about lower levels and it scares me...
I don't think I'm going to give up though. So far I like all the time that I've spent with Brogue.

4062 Gold, burned to death on lvl10.
I knew that I would not survive the next wright and it was standing at least 6 fields away in a cloud of explosive gas. But the potion of incineration was still a bad idea....

I only played a few games with 1.7.1 yet. But they seem to be easier. Is that correct?

Killed by a dar priestess on L18. 12036 Points.
I played a lot with my entrancement staff, sent innumerable Wraiths into Lava and had an epic fight with Underworms. But then I wanted to recover from a fight with wraiths and unfortunately chose a place directly on a steam valve. I hardly escaped the steam with 5% health, then I wanted to rest again but the priestess shot me with a lightning bolt. I did not even see the priestess coming due to the darkness.
I had a staff of healing and hasting and I even enchanted them, expecting I would get some company. But until L18 there was not a single captive! Also no wand of plenty found.

Killed by an ogre on level 15 with 8010 gold.

Was having great fun with the seed on the new version.
Level 14 was a serious challenge though - I had to kill 3 zombies, 5 ogre shamans + their entourage and 3 underworms who ambushed me just after I arrived.
Closest I came to dying though was when a wraith and 2 centaurs charged into the room i was in trying to knock out a turret.
I was down to 10% but had the wraith confused with my spear of confusion +6. One of the centaurs paralysed horse-self by standing on a trap.
I was one shot away from death though from the other centaur so I decided my only chance was to zap my unknown wand at the living (30%) burger food.

Zap. Exit Centaur, Enter tentacle horror!

A wand of polymorph, I'm saved! Rejoice!

Zap! Exit Harold the Horror, enter Bob the (helpless) bog monster. I hacked him to pieces, made my excuses and left.

I fell on the next level to a confused Ogre who got a lucky hit on me at 5% health.

jonathanmcc wrote: One of the centaurs paralysed horse-self

Don't horse around about Centaurs

2889 Burned to death on level 9.

A disappointing and self-inflicted end to a promising game.

I died without using any scrolls of enchanting, I just was not sold on any of the gear I had yet, and wanted to use-identify the enchanted banded and splint before I committed to plate. Decent gear, but low strength, meant I used weak equipment for a long time, but chain and spear of confusion was enough for the most part.

I fell from 8 to 9 and realized I was running out of time to commit to gear, as ogres were problematic. A staff of firebolt was a lucky find, and it helped me clear a few out. I was on the west or southwest corner of level 9 when I ran into one, with low health and no potions of life. I decided to burn it to death and lead it over to some grasses, to help it burn longer and conserve charges. The plan worked, but I took one step in the grasses, to lead it there, and the fire spread immediately into my square when he entered the grass, which is way faster than I was expecting it to spread (I'm used to fire spreading one position per turn, I suppose I was being a bit cavalier about the threat considering I was so near death).

Anyway I didn't have anything to save myself with, and not enough health to make it to water, so I burned to death.

1.7.1 is fun, though! Even though there are some broken things we should probably avoid (some self-imposed limits on protection, recharging), and I love the new bloodwort plants, the dungeon layouts are more interesting to me (and perhaps increase the value of axes and slightly decrease the value of spears?). There are so many more improvements I can't wait to have a bit more time to play - this was only my third run so far.

Decided to play the seed in 1.7.1 after all. 327: killed by a pink jelly on level 4. Could've used the bloodwort to heal back up, but didn't want to heal the jellies too, and didn't want to keep diving though holes; this was self-inflicted. The potion of life would've saved me, but I accidentally use-ID'd it early.

13288, D19, killed by an Ogre.

I have to say I just lost patience, think it was an easy ascension. But I didn't like the game since I was forced to pick the recharge charm in D1 after my return from D7 or 8 exchanging the +1 regen ring which I had use-ID'ed now, taking both keys and finding only useless stuff in the last vault apart from the charm.

Although I didn't enchant the charm and only used it twice it still felt wrong to have it with the ridiculously low recharge time (personally I think the old one was way too long since it affects only staffs anyway, but 300 is a tad too low, lol - maybe put it on like 1500 for +1 in 1.7.1 or make it affect charms too).

Anyway, I had put 4 enchants into the confusion spear, bringing it to +6 and 51% success which meant autoconfusion on sleeping or surprised enemies, then 2 enchants into the +2 splint, making it better than unenchanted plate. 1 more into firestaff and 2 I had spare. Everything felt quite easy with the combo of spear, entrancement, blinking and firebolt. I even had 3 spare wands for emergencies.

Still I had played the last levels already very impatient and at D19, just after killing some furies, a pack of 4 Ogres rushed for me. I should have retreated a bit but instead of using a health pod which was directly next to me I decided to give a confused Ogre a hit. Well, he accidently hit me, it was a bad RNG with 20% hit chance and 7 other directions to random-run into (make that 2,5%), but you always have to expect these things.

I think it was a very nice seed especially since it showed how powerful you can descend without allies and without enchanting broadsword and plate (which I both found but decided to try the spear). The spear itself felt mixed, the confusion was great but it was a bit tedious to take things out with it. I think a spare +2-3 war axe or so in addition would complement it. Oh and annoyingly again no protect weapon, so using the spear with acid jellies around was impossible.

Sorry, no recording, forgot to remove the Win7 write protection at the new version. Maybe someone can enlighten me how to make the recording visible, it exists but there is no file for it.

111,010: D30: Ascend +10.

Gear:
+8 war axe; 8 enchants
+4 ring of transference: 2 enchants (taken from D9 vault)
+5 banded mail of mutuality: 2 enchants (D2 vault)
+4 firebolt: 1 enchant
+4 staff of healing: Awesome when mixed with a wand of domination. Though +4 was barely enough to keep 1 dragon alive.
every wand you could want except plenty. Must have found 4 recharging scrolls.
staves of discord x2 & obstruction
+3 dagger of slowness (D1 vault)
+1 fire immunity charm (D19 vault)
+2 fire immunity charm (dropped by a dragon and made the difference of ~6 lumenstones)
+3 ring of awareness
---
13 total enchants


I'm pretty sure that I used detect magic on every single piece of equipment in the entire game besides a spear that was dropped from a goblin mystic while I was going through the final ascent. 5 or 6 total in the seed and it made the difference between life & death. I used these and the over abundance of food in 1.7.1 to use ID things in the D1 & D2 vaults, ultimately landing on the +3 dagger of slowness & +3 banded mail of mutuality.

The banded mail ended up being my final armor as it is equal to unenchanted plate when you account for strength. I got by with the dagger of slowness and +4 ring of transference until D15 when I decided to commit the +0 War Axe on found before D3. I put it off as the seed seemed so generous that I expected to find something better. I did carry the dagger for the entire game for reasons that Creaphis pointed out.

On replay, it seems that I missed an enchant scroll and +1 broadsword on D4 despite searching 3 times in the room. I have been trying to put off judgment of the new map generation system, and am still ambivalent. It seems that rings of awareness and clairvoyance are essentially necessary to find all enchants in a seed now. The new map generation combined with better AI makes the game much harder because enemy casters are far more lethal than they previously were due to having LOS much more often. I now treat dar parties with the same caution as dragons, using the most effective consumable on the very first turn of the encounter. Those bastards are just too efficient to take any chances with in the open. Forget about ally builds, I don't think that I've had a single ally last more than 2 levels past D12 without being negated or discorded. In fact, I would say that there is almost no chance that I would have even gotten 4 lumenstones if the frequency of dar parties was maintained at peak instead of decreased as you go deeper.

I must have lost 5 great allies this game. Only a single pet learned anything, and it was of course a horror learning to fly. None of the captive monsters I found survived, and my final crew of 2 dragons and a horror were all dominated. A +4 staff of healing was not enough to keep both dragons alive so I turned back on D30. I'm still not sure if I got lucky on this run or if I could have grabbed more lumens. I think this is the deepest I've ever made it without a ring of clairvoyance.

ggoDeye wrote:I now treat dar parties with the same caution as dragons

LOL I was doing that before 1.7.1. Those guys even got me once when I had armour of dar immunity .

Apologies for being so late to add contest results! I'll get it done eventually, I promise!

Results have been posted. Congratulations ggoDeye!

Sorry again for posting this so, so, so late. I'm also sorry for the relative size reduction in the summary. I will find some means of repenting.