Comment by philsnow | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philsnow | Hacker News Reader

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> it literally took me a couple years of off-and-on effort (and hundreds of deaths) until I ascended for the first time.

> But once you put that much actual effort into getting good at it, you stay good

I had the same experience, but I don't think it's a matter of being "good" at the game so much as having memorized all of the stupid ways to die (many of them insta-deaths ) plus how to avoid them, and knowing the mechanics of how to win (I think you're supposed to figure out the invocation ritual by giving tons of money to the Oracle, but it's been decades and I can't recall if I learned it that way or just read spoilers). edit: just remembered the whole vibrating square thing and that there are a few ways of making a run unwinnable, which is a kick in the teeth when you have a promising @ going.

Maybe that's just splitting hairs (is that just becoming "good"?) but in retrospect, I don't think that getting good at nethack was worth the investment in time and frustration. I will say that playing nethack improved my vocabulary.

Yeah, I do think that's splitting hairs. A large part of that is what being good at the game actually entails. Also, you're underselling it -- it's not memorizing specific ways to die per se, it's learning a large number of different strategies to deal with a large number of different problematic situations. If it were just simple memorization the programs would be better at playing it. Ironically, the vibrating square is one thing that a program would do much better at than a person (also Sokoban) -- it's mind-numbingly boring for a person to do, and you can easily mess it up and frustrate yourself to no end, but a program will execute a perfect sweep to find it in no time at all.

A large part of becoming good at NetHack ends up being learning to be patient, playing conservatively, and taking lots of time to think before acting. And there are plenty of mini-games within the game (such as Sokoban, potion/scroll IDing, pudding farming setup) that you need to learn well too.

What helps most of all is being resourceful. There are so many different systems in the game that can all be used in the right situations to give you an advantage (e.g. Elbereth, wielding cockatrice corpses), so you just need to play slowly and cautiously and continuously think about every single possible action of the dozens available at any one point that you can use to maximal effect in any specific hairy situation.

> And there are plenty of mini-games within the game (such as Sokoban, potion/scroll IDing, pudding farming setup) that you need to learn well too.

I'm with you on the ID minigame, but Sokoban is very skippable: winning it gives you one of two valuable items, but it's not the only chance to get them. And I've ascended every class without ever once pudding farming. Your overall point stands, though.

Your chance of ascension definitely increases if you learn how to do Sokoban well, though. It's a pretty simple way to get an excellent reward that definitely helps you substantially. The Sokoban levels are also a good source of randomly spawned items at depths that aren't too deep. I'd always do the mines and Sokoban before going too deep in the main dungeons, as without getting geared up well enough first you would quickly start encountering monsters at lower levels that would pose serious problems. Going through all the low-depth branches first kits you out with more gear (and more experience points), without risking running out of food which is what might happen if you only stuck on the main branch and farmed those levels for EXP.

Amen. Once I understood the game and started being able to play rationally, the main threat was always my own impatience. How many times I lost fights just because I forgot to stop and check my inventory for useful stuff. Or ran right into a floating eye in a dark corridor...

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