I have. I've ascended four times over about 18 years of (non-continuous) playing. And without resorting to the use of Elbereth. For those who don't know, you can engrave "Elbereth" on the ground, and most monsters will refrain from killing you. I considered it a cheat, so I never used it.
After a while, you tend to get really good at the game and it becomes much easier. The trick is not to do something stupid. If you can prevent yourself from doing that, all you need is a fair amount of luck and patience, and you'll make it to the end.
The problem is not doing anything stupid. For example, for me it was common to die while attacking an enemy, or usually multiple ones in a swarm, even though I had the items to escape them right there in my inventory. A simple zap with a wand of digging and you'll drop to the level below and make your escape.
After a while, if I got myself in a pickle, I'd just open the inventory screen, read through it a few times, go for a cup of tea or a good night's sleep. When I figured out a solution, I would continue the game. It is, after all, turn based so there is no hurry.
> The trick is not to do something stupid. If you can prevent yourself from doing that, all you need is a fair amount of luck and patience
This is why I never got that far in NH. It inevitably killed me, are there was just far too much tedium involved. I greatly prefer Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup[1] over it. DCSS felt like it didn't require you to have encyclopedia-level knowledge of the game, and most deaths, if they felt like stupid mistakes, were because I overestimated my character's abilities and did not retreat when I had the chance. But I had the chance.
(I've retrieved the Orb of Zot, but not ascended with the amulet, so there's that, too. Also DCSS has absolutely beautiful graphics.)
"“There has been some complaints about how we ‘broke’ the game when the Elbereth nerfing was found out," he says. "But I consider the old E behaviour to be the broken one -- it was just too strong and exploitable. Some people have even said they will not update to the newest version, which is of course their prerogative"
Sounds like playing Spelunky. "Of course throwing the rock upwards is a risky and stupid idea, why did I try to do it again?" But there, the time is working against you so no breaks... One day I'll stop throwing stuff, running near spikes, angering shop keepers, running into bones, and all the other stupid stuff and maybe finally win!
I think people's replies to this thread are commonly confusing ascending without modifying source with ascending without reading source (even though some people have answered correctly). Just to clarify the two different issues, there is only one person known to have ascended unspoiled.
However, people frequently ascend without modifying or tampering with the code. Essentially all of these people have been spoiled by studying source code or spoiler files derived from it (although some people study spoilers extensively and some people just consult them for very specific topics). You can see ascensions in real time every single day by watching other people play on nethack.alt.org. Especially on weekends, there will be several victories per day!
Surprisingly, many people have (for a certain definition of many). There are a lot of successful ascensions you can read on RGRN on Usenet [0].
For me, I managed to go about halfway down the dungeon before dying, maybe I'll beat this game sometimes next decade!
I found it more worthwhile to move to Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup and Brogue than beat my head against Nethack until I ascend. Something to be said for a game with a clear vision vs the kitchen sink.
Of course, NetHack literally added kitchen sinks as a game element (I think in the early 1990s) as a response to being accused of containing everything plus the kitchen sink.
Isn't "stone soup" a synonym for "everything but the kitchen sink?" Part of what gives Nethack its enduring charm is, for lack of a better work, ambiance. DCSS is fun but it is sort of a disjointed mess of stuff that doesn't always fit together very well.
They devs have ripped out so many things. There are very few "cheating" or "gimmicky" things left. They have taken out teleport evoke and teleport control along with numerous buffs. Unlike NetHack There are also very few tropes or comic relief.
IMO only brogue is the true rogue that is isn't disjointed. If you do want a whole bunch of crap .... errr content than ADOM is having a great revival on STEAM.
It's a "sneaky collaboration effort". The original tale is that travellers couldn't get any food from the nearby village, so they started a pot boiling with a stone in it. They then asked the villagers for little bits to flavor it up and after a while they had a hearty soup and just took the stone out.
How recently have you played DCSS? I find the devs have been pretty aggressive about cutting out the un-fun elements. Example: Not long ago (.16?) Trog worshipers could sacrifice corpses for his favor, but since that was practically always the Correct Decision, it was cut out and you received favor for just killing enemies.
It'd make a good debugging tutorial at least. The process of finding the right place to add HP isn't always simple (in other games) and you could always go through modifying game logic / items.
It IS possible to ascend without such cheats, but incredibly difficult.
I would say (and this is certainly true in my case) that an ascension without resorting to either spoilers or source-diving belongs in the "not going to happen" category.
I've ascended every class except Rogue and Healer (and neither are really more challenging than Tourist, I just never got to it) over the last ~10 years of idle playing of NetHack 3.4. NetHack is not quite a solvable game, but there are fewer patterns that matter, at high-level play, than one might think. Once you are able to see those patterns (many of which are just part of your standard ascension kit) as part of the game, the solutions generally become fairly obvious and you can just drill through it.
You definitely won't win every time, of course, but you'll be pretty okay.
Tourist is hard to start out with, then gets relatively easy. High-level tourists (post-Quest) used to be extremely easy due to the Platinum Yendorian Express Card and a wand of polymorph being able to provide unlimited polypiling (Dr. Efembe, I presume!). Now restrictions on recharging wands and on polypiling take away that advantage.
Archaeologists are also hard to start out, but Lawful alignment, good aptitude for the sabre skill, and a starting tinning kit make them easier later on.
I've ascended without modifying code. I did have to insert a level map from a game in explore mode because there was a bug in the version I was playing. The bug meant that there was a level where there was no up staircase generated.
Plenty. Once you're well-spoiled and have a few months of practice, it's certainly doable. I've ascended with every class (though only two with the most recent release, which is definitely harder).
I haven't played nethack 3.6, but you can beat nethack 3.4 routinely if you play it a lot. Yes, a standard run becomes easy when you know how to do it, and you seek greater challenges (conducts).
There are some really `evil' nearly instant wins by luck manipulation. But I guess that falls under `running in debugger', even if they don't manipulate anything with it.
