Live. Ascend. Repeat.
From A KoL Wiki
Live. Ascend. Repeat. is the Fall 2017 special challenge path, introduced on August 14, 2017. This path adds variant rules and restrictions to an ascension run. Its description in The Bureau of Reincarnation reads "Time keeps repeating over and over and you need to break out."
Restrictions
- Banishing, olfacting and other similar effects don't do anything.
- All item drop rolls are going to be 50 (out of 100), so either you have enough item drop to make things drop... or you don't.
- Food, booze, spleen and such will always give average results.
- The RNG is seeded the same for each player on each turn #, so barring conditional adventures, everyone will get the same encounters and monsters on the same turn # if they go to the same zone.
- + and - combat doesn't do anything.
- Wandering monsters and fights from familiars and such won't happen.
Divergences
- Your adventure begins with Live. Ascend. Repeat. (adventure).
- The first Semi-rare is at turn 76, and future ones are +110 turns each time
Strategy
- Every player will have the same turns in the same order, so tracking / spading will be incredibly useful. There is a spreadsheet in progress here where players are contributing information.
- Note that delay(), floors and ceilings/caps are still in effect, which can cause deviations from the expected sequence of encounters. Delayed encounters will not appear until the player has spent at least 5 adventures in the zone. Capped encounters are forced after a certain amount of turns spent in the zone (i.e. screambats, friar noncombat encounters, etc.).
- Item drop rate is normally determined by taking the base drop%, adjusting for your +item% (i.e., if the base drop rate is 20%, and you have +100% item drop, 20% + (20% x 100%) = 40% adjusted drop rate), and comparing that against a randomly generated (1 - 100) roll. If you've reached a 40% adjusted drop rate and the internal random roll is lower than 40, you get the item; if it's higher, you don't. This path sets all of those internal rolls to always be 50, so the +item% needed will always be [half the normally required amount] - 100, and can be reliably calculated as follows:
Base Drop % +Item% Needed
To Guarantee DropExamples 1% +4900% spice melange from giant sandworm 2% +2400% it'll come up eventually! 5% +900% first chance at blasting soda and vinegar 10% +400% filthworm scent glands, pirate outfit, Frat Warrior and War Hippy outfits from drill sergeants 15% +234% A-Boo clues, rusty hedge trimmers 20% +150% tomb ratchet, harem pants, harem veil, evil eye 25% +100% bird ribs, lion oil, stone wool 30% +67% stars, lines, hot wings, F'c'le quest items 35% +43% 40% +25% goat cheese, bowling balls 45% +12% 50+% +0% first bubblin' crude, Gnollish toolbox, tires, gross doctor disguise
- Equipment and items that give you +item % will therefore be highly useful - see Maximizing Your Item Drops for more info.
History
- A trivial update on August 18, 2017 removed randomness from semi-rare timing, blasting soda & vinegar drops, and Macrometeorite results.
- A trivial update on August 22, 2017 removed randomness from pirate insults, several candy sources, lovebugs, 8-bit Weinerdog Pixels, and worm-riding manual pages.
Rewards
- Finishing a Live. Ascend. Repeat. run that began while it was still the current special challenge path -- that is, between August 14th, 2017, and November 14th, 2017 -- gives players 100 (in Hardcore) or 50 (in Normal) extra karma points the next time they visit Valhalla.
- Players received a perfectly fair coin the first time they completed a run while it was the current challenge path.
- Players will receive a Thwaitgold time fly statuette each time they complete a run.
- Players in Hardcore gain the stainless steel equipment for their class.
