Hardest Variant?
Moderator: Moderator
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LordBucket
- Uruivellas
- Posts: 929
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:08 am
- Location: Orange County, Ca
The mirrors sites are functional.
For example: http://public.www.planetmirror.com/pub/roguelike/moria/pc/mono5.5/
Wow! You have to love any game that includes options in the configuration file to run it from floppy disk for "systems that do not have a hard drive."
For example: http://public.www.planetmirror.com/pub/roguelike/moria/pc/mono5.5/
Wow! You have to love any game that includes options in the configuration file to run it from floppy disk for "systems that do not have a hard drive."
Yeah, I had Moria on my Apple II GS. Played for weeks, every night after school, losing probably 1000's of characters. I did win a few times finally. will say that ALL of the modern-day derivatives of Moria are EXTREMELY easy in comparison.
I think I always ran Rangers for the "warrior-mage" thing. Be prepared to go pole dancing with Ancient Dragons.
I think I always ran Rangers for the "warrior-mage" thing. Be prepared to go pole dancing with Ancient Dragons.
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LordBucket
- Uruivellas
- Posts: 929
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:08 am
- Location: Orange County, Ca
...ahhh...yes. It's all coming back to me now.
No auto roller
No maximize mode.
Enforced race/class restrictions.
No house
No stair scumming because you don't get stairs when you change levels.
Power leveling means killing white worm masses for an hour.
EVIL IGGY!!!
Ribbed plate armor is actually useful
Having to buy scrolls two or three at a time to enchant your equipment.
Haggling
Armor of Resistance and holy avenger and defender weapons are the best equipment in the game.
No macros
No indicator to see how damaged monsters are.
No low hit point warning
No targetting: magic and arrows can only be fired in straight lines.
Maximum possible hit points is what? 300? 400? The Balrog can do how much damage? 1000?
...yes...fond memories...
No auto roller
No maximize mode.
Enforced race/class restrictions.
No house
No stair scumming because you don't get stairs when you change levels.
Power leveling means killing white worm masses for an hour.
EVIL IGGY!!!
Ribbed plate armor is actually useful
Having to buy scrolls two or three at a time to enchant your equipment.
Haggling
Armor of Resistance and holy avenger and defender weapons are the best equipment in the game.
No macros
No indicator to see how damaged monsters are.
No low hit point warning
No targetting: magic and arrows can only be fired in straight lines.
Maximum possible hit points is what? 300? 400? The Balrog can do how much damage? 1000?
...yes...fond memories...
Last edited by LordBucket on Fri Jul 15, 2005 2:05 am, edited 2 times in total.
Oh yeah, forgot about the stairs!!! First time I played a *band, I thought it was some unbelievable twist of fate that I had a staircase back up from level one right where I came down.
I HATE HAGGLING!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember finding (HA) weapons and just about bursting with glee.
Ah, and digging for money with your broad sword or dagger.... because you actually needed it to buy that scroll or word of recall.
I HATE HAGGLING!!!!!!!!!!!
I remember finding (HA) weapons and just about bursting with glee.
Ah, and digging for money with your broad sword or dagger.... because you actually needed it to buy that scroll or word of recall.
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Neil
- Sher'Tul Godslayer
- Posts: 2438
- Joined: Sat Dec 14, 2002 7:18 pm
- Location: California (or sometimes Erebor)
- Contact:
[quote="LordBucket"]...ahhh...yes. It's all coming back to me now.
No auto roller
No maximize mode.
Enforced race/class restrictions.
No house
No stair scumming because you don't get stairs when you change levels.
Power leveling means killing white worm masses for an hour.
EVIL IGGY!!!
Ribbed plate armor is actually useful
Having to buy scrolls two or three at a time to enchant your equipment.
Haggling
Armor of Resistance and holy avenger and defender weapons are the best equipment in the game.
No macros
No indicator to see how damaged monsters are.
No low hit point warning
No targetting: magic and arrows can only be fired in straight lines.
Maximum possible hit points is what? 300? 400? The Balrog can do how much damage? 1000?
...yes...fond memories...[/quote]
No Great Wyrms
No Pit Fiends
No Chain summoning
No Black Breath
No Hrus
No Levelled Monsters
No Traps of No Return/Speed Draining/Calling Out
No Master Quylthulgs
No auto roller
No maximize mode.
Enforced race/class restrictions.
No house
No stair scumming because you don't get stairs when you change levels.
Power leveling means killing white worm masses for an hour.
EVIL IGGY!!!
Ribbed plate armor is actually useful
Having to buy scrolls two or three at a time to enchant your equipment.
Haggling
Armor of Resistance and holy avenger and defender weapons are the best equipment in the game.
No macros
No indicator to see how damaged monsters are.
No low hit point warning
No targetting: magic and arrows can only be fired in straight lines.
Maximum possible hit points is what? 300? 400? The Balrog can do how much damage? 1000?
...yes...fond memories...[/quote]
No Great Wyrms
No Pit Fiends
No Chain summoning
No Black Breath
No Hrus
No Levelled Monsters
No Traps of No Return/Speed Draining/Calling Out
No Master Quylthulgs
Probably because Neil has disabled the option which allows the text to be shown as a quote (HTML?) *Also assumes sleepy puzzled look*.
I never played Moria. My first roguelike was good old vanilla. Probably spent about a couple of weeks of my life playing that (before school, morning break, lunch time, after school (gosh, that's quite sad really
)).
I never played Moria. My first roguelike was good old vanilla. Probably spent about a couple of weeks of my life playing that (before school, morning break, lunch time, after school (gosh, that's quite sad really
)).My first Roguelike was, well, Rogue. What a great game. Never beat it (nobody told me about the monster protection scroll trick until years later), but did beat Moria and Angband. Both were very challenging. There was something about Moria that demanded the use of Troll player characters for me..it's hard to explain, but that was one of the few variants where big lumbering noisy brutes were not only viable, but often superior to other kinds.
I love playing Paladins in Angband for their Orb of Draining spell, and Rangers were also great. Dunedain Paladins and Rangers were the upper class there for me.
One of the things I really like about ToME and Theme is that so many different classes are viable (and also the ability to escape from non-LOTR themed monsters that "clever" people started inserting into the games, which I've always hated. There's nothing like instantly - your game with cheesy references like Barney or Cyberdemon monsters). But I think Moria was probably the hardest, followed by Rogue (starvation, mostly - nothing is crueler than a RNG that has nearly 100% control over your food supply).
I love playing Paladins in Angband for their Orb of Draining spell, and Rangers were also great. Dunedain Paladins and Rangers were the upper class there for me.
One of the things I really like about ToME and Theme is that so many different classes are viable (and also the ability to escape from non-LOTR themed monsters that "clever" people started inserting into the games, which I've always hated. There's nothing like instantly - your game with cheesy references like Barney or Cyberdemon monsters). But I think Moria was probably the hardest, followed by Rogue (starvation, mostly - nothing is crueler than a RNG that has nearly 100% control over your food supply).
I'm the best at what I do. But what I do isn't very nice.
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LordBucket
- Uruivellas
- Posts: 929
- Joined: Wed Apr 28, 2004 2:08 am
- Location: Orange County, Ca
I answered Vanilla, because of the few options I've played more than once or twice, its the only one I haven't beaten. I just can't stomach the endless level scumming.
A couple key caveats to that, though:
Not only do different race/class combos make different variants more or less difficult, but also different variants vary in difficulty by the stage of the game. Steamband, which I like a lot, might be the easiest overall, but its early-mid game is positively brutal. I've seen Black Mariahs and One-Eyed Jacks in card pits as low as level 8 (or 42, depending on how you count it), and they're basically insta-death at that point in the game.
Hengband is tricky at around clevel 30, because you're not deep enough to find +speed items, but you are deep enough to start regularly encountering uniques that are +10 speed, 900-1,500+ hp, can summon, and have breath weapons. Plus, the game has 10 billion different uniques, some of whom (like the Unicorn of Order and the Plain Gold Ring) are arguably nastier than the big bad guy, the Serpent. Additionally, Hengband has what might be the single nastiest non-unique monster in any variant: the metal babble. Making things even worse, monsters have that horrible "ball effect" thing, where they can summon monsters, breathe, and cast ball spells on you even when you're out of LoS by a square or two. And if you use LoS tricks to hit non-moving summoners, even if you're WAY out of their LoS, they get to summon on you anyway.
On the other hand, as many have noted, ToME remains my favorite because I consider having characters insta-killed by off-screen, undetectable monsters and endless level scumming, waiting for just the right item to finally drop, to be incredibly tedious. Sure, they make the game harder, but in a grinding-down-my-attention-span-and-making-me do-something-stupid-out-of-boredom-way, rather than because its truly hard. Yeah, ToME characters can be quite a bit more powerful than characters in other bands, but the challenge is greater, too. I don't think I've seen anything in any variant that even approaches the sheer firepower the summit of Mt Doom or the Nether Realms can throw at a character. I mean, when you see a monster and say, "Oh, whew. Its just Vecna. I can breath easy." that's one nasty place.
I've never played Sangband, though. It sounds interesting.
A couple key caveats to that, though:
Not only do different race/class combos make different variants more or less difficult, but also different variants vary in difficulty by the stage of the game. Steamband, which I like a lot, might be the easiest overall, but its early-mid game is positively brutal. I've seen Black Mariahs and One-Eyed Jacks in card pits as low as level 8 (or 42, depending on how you count it), and they're basically insta-death at that point in the game.
Hengband is tricky at around clevel 30, because you're not deep enough to find +speed items, but you are deep enough to start regularly encountering uniques that are +10 speed, 900-1,500+ hp, can summon, and have breath weapons. Plus, the game has 10 billion different uniques, some of whom (like the Unicorn of Order and the Plain Gold Ring) are arguably nastier than the big bad guy, the Serpent. Additionally, Hengband has what might be the single nastiest non-unique monster in any variant: the metal babble. Making things even worse, monsters have that horrible "ball effect" thing, where they can summon monsters, breathe, and cast ball spells on you even when you're out of LoS by a square or two. And if you use LoS tricks to hit non-moving summoners, even if you're WAY out of their LoS, they get to summon on you anyway.
On the other hand, as many have noted, ToME remains my favorite because I consider having characters insta-killed by off-screen, undetectable monsters and endless level scumming, waiting for just the right item to finally drop, to be incredibly tedious. Sure, they make the game harder, but in a grinding-down-my-attention-span-and-making-me do-something-stupid-out-of-boredom-way, rather than because its truly hard. Yeah, ToME characters can be quite a bit more powerful than characters in other bands, but the challenge is greater, too. I don't think I've seen anything in any variant that even approaches the sheer firepower the summit of Mt Doom or the Nether Realms can throw at a character. I mean, when you see a monster and say, "Oh, whew. Its just Vecna. I can breath easy." that's one nasty place.
I've never played Sangband, though. It sounds interesting.
Last edited by Elliott on Wed Jul 20, 2005 2:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Yep, it is in there to, along with the Ancient Obese Dragon, Khufu, the Mummified King, Mother Hydra, Giganto, the Gargantuan, Strygalldwir, Jack of Shadows, Zephyr Lord, Quachil Uttaus, Treader of the Dust, etc. etc. etc.
If it was Big and Nasty, I put it in. I like challanges. Though the next time my level 43 warrior gets killed by a Great Unclean One, I *will* weep.
If it was Big and Nasty, I put it in. I like challanges. Though the next time my level 43 warrior gets killed by a Great Unclean One, I *will* weep.