How do I avoid a YASD?

Best practices and optimistic theories.
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eliotn
Black Yeek
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How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by eliotn » Fri 16.01.2009, 02:11

How do I avoid a stupid death? My awesome characters keep dying!

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Warrior
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by Warrior » Fri 16.01.2009, 12:26

What causes death? Monsters, mostly. (The occasional trap)
How do monsters kill? Attacking you. (Close up combat, ranged combat or by magic)

How do you avoid it?

1. Be stronger than them.
2. Be smart.

if you are much stronger than the monster you fight you don't need brains.
The deeper you go in the dungeon the harder the monsters become.
So, if you want to stay on the safe side, play very shallow.

Playing shallow is pretty boring though so you'll want to be smart.

If a monster hits you, you lose health. You can recover health by quaffing a potion. (cure light/serious/critical wounds, healing, *healing* or life typically).
Some potions give you a lot of health back, some practically nothing.

If the monster hits you once and you lose half your health, it's unlikely that you can quaff a potion that'll fix the problem.
What do you do? You need to get away. How do you get away?
A scroll or a staff is usually the best way. (Scroll of phase door, teleportation, teleport level or staff of teleportation).

So, then you're safe. You know the monster you ran away from is too hard. You wait until you're stronger to fight it again.

There are more advanced methods but this is basic knowledge that every player must understand.

1. You carry something that will heal you enough to actually help during combat.
2. You carry something that will help you escape from a battle you think you will lose.

A huge percentage of the YASD's is a result of failing to understand this.

Good luck adventurer!
-- Mangband Project Team Member

eliotn
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by eliotn » Tue 20.01.2009, 01:19

I got YASDed. I established a good pattern for a dive, staying close to the stairs, fighting monsters close to the stairs, detecting for monsters when I could. And yet, I was stupid and went into a pack of tough ones. WTF? THERE IS A TIME HOUND ON 2250 ft? I totally did not expect this.

http://mangband.org/Main/HighScoreChart ... 1876772343

Ugh. I did not stop and think if the monsters there were out of my league.

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Warrior
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by Warrior » Tue 20.01.2009, 07:27

Hey, wait a sec, you said ..."at 2250" -- you mean 1250?

And a little comment on your inventory: You need more ccw and more tele scrolls and a few phase doors as well. (I carry between 25 and 45 myself) (45 ccw, 25 or so of the others).

Another thing: Why didn't you detect monsters?
Especially if the level is "special" you must do this, because it means there's possibly a vault and vault == tough monsters usually. You gotta know whats out there so you can run while you still can! (Or prepare for epic battle, whichever)

A suggestion that I sometimes make is: don't play special levels. If the focus is not dying it's not as crazy as it sounds.
-- Mangband Project Team Member

Ace
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by Ace » Tue 20.01.2009, 09:34

so you turn the autoscumming option off?

PowerWyrm
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by PowerWyrm » Tue 20.01.2009, 12:53

Entering a Backdoor Surprise vault unprepared is asking for a YASD...
Get scrolls of magic mapping or a staff of enlightenment. If you find a strange dungeon layout, map your current sector to discard potential killer vaults.

PowerWyrm
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by PowerWyrm » Tue 20.01.2009, 12:57

And looking at the death dump, it seems you tried to walk away from the hound. Seeing how long you stayed in that spot, you probably had enough time to teleport away...

eliotn
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by eliotn » Tue 20.01.2009, 14:26

Warrior wrote:Hey, wait a sec, you said ..."at 2250" -- you mean 1250?

And a little comment on your inventory: You need more ccw and more tele scrolls and a few phase doors as well. (I carry between 25 and 45 myself) (45 ccw, 25 or so of the others).

Another thing: Why didn't you detect monsters?
Especially if the level is "special" you must do this, because it means there's possibly a vault and vault == tough monsters usually. You gotta know whats out there so you can run while you still can! (Or prepare for epic battle, whichever)

A suggestion that I sometimes make is: don't play special levels. If the focus is not dying it's not as crazy as it sounds.
first the time hound was at 850 ft.
second, three more comments:

1. good suggestion, I had the gold to get this
2. I did DM, just did not recognize the blue Z as a time hound
3. But I want to play special levels, they have monsters that give awesome stuff.

serina
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Re: How do I avoid a YASD?

Post by serina » Wed 21.01.2009, 23:19

3. But I want to play special levels, they have monsters that give awesome stuff.
Then you must be prepared to die... It's how it works. Risk vs reward. Consider each case.

Also:
Like Powerwyrm said: Magic mapping or staff of enlightenment to help detecting vaults (also detecting traps or items can help you with this if you have a wee bit knowledge about vaults).
Combined with modifying your client to display permanent walls in a different colour (to detect vaults. Search forums for a post by me to find out how to do this). And knowledge about what vaults look like.

SPOILER - open only if you want to know sizes and shapes of vaults:
http://mangband.org/developer/browser/t ... xt?rev=657
Memorize the 3 vaults starting at line 3047 out. They're meant to kill you, and you died in the vault called:" Backdoor Surprise (That's what you get for not casting detect). It's sooo easy to get killed in any of these 3 vaults. I suspect about 1/4th of all lvl 20+ characters have died due to messing with these vaults.

BUT when all this has been said. Angband is a game that isn't meant to be won at least until you've learned about all the monsters, traps and character building/strategy. MAngband is even more punishing :)

ZAL

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