One of the big thing is knowing enough to recognize when you're in danger, before you're in danger. Stuff like "That q is too tough for me to take right now", or "I'd be screwed if that n steals X", or "I don't have poison resistance yet, so I better not fight those o at range," or "It's dangerous to be in the mines with this AC and no source of light." This comes with experience.
Another big part of it is understanding the sequencing, and how to build an ascension kit. Do you want to try to get to minetown early to grab a magic lamp? When is it safe to go to mines end, and do you need magic resistance to do it? What's the earliest you can take on a unicorn?
There are lots of other tricks (identifying wands, potions, etc), clearing the big room safely, finding the portals on the elemental planes, stealing from shops, what gives resistances, maximizing wishes, etc.
Ultimately, Nethack got boring for me because the late game is too long, and doesn't differ much between different classes. Ascension kits tend to be very similar (GDSM + silver shield or SDSM + CoMR?). I really liked what Derek Ray did with Sporkhack, and I never managed to win that, although I died on astral a couple times.
I concur with others. Elbereth was useless w/o a wand of fire in 3.6.0. Taught me to learn new survival habits, like staying much closer to my pet and making sure I can always go from burdened to unburdened by dropping only a sack.
Ascending is mostly luck and discipline, and the discipline comes from practice and focus. I find playing nethack calming, and it's a good way to measure how well I'm able to stay in the moment. If I die stupid, it's usually because I'm not all there.
If I'm doing something new, and I am uncertain about what my odds are, I'll read the source code.
I've only modified the source in 3.6.0 to create a general random number generator using a more robust (and more consistent) algorithm than is likely used in most libc variants. My interest there was mainly in perfect cross-platform state reproducability given the same key sequence.
(Ripped from sone book, but should be mantra for rogue players)
I've personally won four times (with Valkyries and Barbarians, two of the easiest classes) and once got a Priest to the Astral Plane and died there. :-( Recently I've switched to Crawl, also a great Roguelike with a very different philosophy.
Watching other people play on NAO and/or asking people for help or advice should really improve your NetHack skills!
That is quite a modern concept. Back in ye olden times, people just played local versions of games, and won, and didn't announce their achievements to the world. I am sure there is a plethora of people who won and just didn't brag about it.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!original/rec.games.rogueli...
I suppose the time spent was worth it for them.
Unless you require "honestly" to avoid having ever read the source code. This is one of the rare games where I think understanding the source actually improves the gameplay. There are soooo many interactions that you can't possibly factor it all in; you just sort of get a sense of the programmers' philosophy and that guides the rest of your play. You would have to spend your whole life playing NetHack to develop a thorough understanding of the game rules; you only have to spend 1/10 of your life reading the source to get an equivalent perspective.
It's the only game I can think of where spending 1/10 of your life developing a perspective on it is actually time well spent. The source code (and the comments!) are a joy to read.
Not necessarily. You can give players enough information to theorethically enable deduction of the correct choices, will still making the deduction hard. Mixing up my genres, Go is like this, where the rules are very simple and it's just that deriving good gameplay from them is a tricky problem that takes a long time.
3.6.0 is hard thanks to Elbereth being significantly nerfed. I've ascended a few times, but it was much more luck-based due to the early game being much harder. 3.6.1 should be significantly easier due to its reboosting of Elbereth.
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Read the excellent wiki, spam Elbereth as much as possible, don't get trapped in open rooms, establish good playing habits, and go slow. Much of Nethack's late game is dependent on good habits.
What's hard is winning with various voluntary conducts[1], like atheist, pacifist, foodless, etc.
IIRC, we didn't even really read up on anything spoilery until we were getting down to the castle occasionally. Learning to survive the early-game was a journey both fun and frustrating.
(None of that came without playing a lot of games where I did poorly over months and months, along with some liberal use of explore mode, and reading a lot of spoilers. It's a time investment for sure, not necessarily a wise one.)