YMMV / Mordor: The Depths of Dejenol

• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: The game's meta consists almost entirely of this, mostly to flatten the fairly steep difficulty curve of the early levels of the dungeon:
  • There are nine races, but the most frequently created are Giants (the best fighters by far), Osiri (the most agile race by far, and therefore the best thieves), and Dwarves (a well-rounded, versatile race with few weaknesses). Generally experienced players will only create a character belonging to another race for role-playing or for challenges.
  • The Optimal Leveling Route maximizes early hit point gain, which is critical in deep dungeon runs. This requires the character to join and then reach level 28 as a Warrior, then reacquaint with the starting Nomad guild and reach level 30, and finally join the Wizard guild and reach level 41. Only two of the nine races are able to join all three guilds: Humans (which can join every guild) and Dwarves (helping to bolster their reputation for excellence). Races which can't join all three guilds (notably, the Giants and Osiri mentioned above) are advised to join all of the guilds they can to complete whichever portions of the route are available to them.^note Two races, Gnomes and Trolls, can't become Warriors or Wizards.
  • Stat requirements to join guilds are often too high for starting characters, which has resulted in legacy characters, who are given stat-boosting Tomes and Potions to increase their natural stats before they even begin gaining experience in the dungeon. This not only allows them to join whatever guilds are available to them, it also boosts their Constitution, which increases their potential HP gain while following the Optimal Leveling Route. (It is possible for a Giant to join the Warrior guild upon character creation, one of many reasons it is advised that your first character be a Giant.)
  • Only a handful of the game's 12 guilds are worth very much, and some only for a limited time:
    • Nomad, the starting guild, is valued until level 30 for its high hit point gain; it also provides attack and defense bonuses at a much higher level early on than all the other guilds. For this reason, even the game's HelpLesson encourages players to level up Nomad to level 30. However, after level 30 it only provides 1 HP per level gained (all other guilds provide 2 HP) meaning that if you do continue with Nomad after 30 it should never be your highest-leveled guild. It's also worth noting that every single race has access to at least one superior fighting guild to Nomad.
    • Warrior is by far the best fighting guild, topping the list in pure fighting ability as well as Critical Hits. It is part of the Optimal Leveling Route, above, and also gives characters access to the best weapons in the game. Most experienced players advise that all characters should level up in the best fighting guild available to them, which is usually Warrior.
    • The only two (non-Neutral) single-alignment guilds, Paladin (Good) and Villain (Evil) are not popular, having limited use due to their more generalist character than Warrior. Paladins are probably the more useful of the two, as they make the second-best fighters and critical hitters, and have (limited) healing magic as well, though any character who can be a Paladin can also be a Mage, who has access to (slightly) better healing spells. Still, it's the best fighting guild available for Elves and Gnomes. Villains on the other hand, although they (like Ninjas; see below) learn every dungeon-crawling ability as part of their guild training, in most cases this is done at a very low level. They're lousy thieves, lacking access to the Charm of Opening spell; they have access to a handful of decent low-level offensive spells (including the potent Leprosy) but most characters who can become Villains are better off joining a full-fledged spellcasting guild to learn better offensive spells; and literally everything a Villain can do, some other guild can do much better (Ninjas, which like Villains have access to every ability, are also better at all of them than Villains are).
    • Ninja has access to the most multiple swings, allowing combo kills.^note A max-level Ninja is granted four extra swings; the most any other guild offers is two. They also have the second-best fighting ability and critical hit ability (tied with Paladins) behind Warriors, have access to Backstab attacks and are pretty decent thieves. However, you can't be a Neutral Ninja, and the Neutral alignment has access to two of the best guilds (Thief and Healer). Another weakness of Ninjas is that only two races can become Ninjas (Humans and Trolls), neither of which is regarded very highly by the player base.
    • When it comes to thieving, accept no substitutes: Thief is one of the most important guilds for its ability to detect and disarm traps, and easy access to the Charm of Opening spell. Every party needs at least one Thief, and a solo character should get some levels in Thief if possible. Thieving is the only skill that impacts how much money and how many items characters will find in the dungeon, driving the game's economy.
    • Seeker is the guild that provides the best perception skills as well as a very useful suite of movement and location spells, allowing its members to easily navigate the dungeon. They're also a surprisingly strong fighting guild, and in fact the best one available to Osiri, a commonly-played race. It's also one of only three guilds available to Giants, and the primary use for that race other than brute force, making it extremely popular in party construction.
    • Scavengers are widely regarded as the most useless guild. Though they're the second-best thieves and backstabbers, their raw fighting ability is quite poor (no better than Nomad) and they lack the critical hit ability entirely. Though they do have access to multiple swings, they don't get access to the second extra swing until after level 500, by which point a player can expect to have reached level 15 and cleared it several times over. The one advantage Scavenger has over Thief, Paladin, Villain, and Ninja is that its members can be of any alignment.
    • Of the four major spellcaster guilds (Mage, Sorcerer, Wizard, Healer) the only absolutely indispensable one is Healer, which has access to by far the best book of healing spells and is the only guild that teaches spells that raise characters from the dead. It also provides some of the most devastating offensive spells (albeit these are shared with other guilds). Sorcerers are also popular for their diverse suite of unique offensive spells which are often able to cut through enemy resistances. Wizards also have access to a wide variety of spells, both combat and non-combat, and of course are useful for their role in the Optimal Leveling Route, but have exactly zero spells that aren't shared with another guild, making them the only truly superfluous spellcasting guild. Mages have a strong suite of spells and of course are the only characters who are taught to Charm enemies, but items are available which effectively duplicate this skill set, limiting their appeal. They're also the only spellcasting guild that can't be neutral, meaning none of the three preferred races can become Mages, and also preventing crossovers with Thief or Healer.
• Difficulty Spike:
  • Generally speaking, each level down is incrementally harder than the level above, but sometimes the leap in difficulty is very large (from 3 to 4 or from 5 to 6, for example) and sometimes the level is barely harder than the one above it (2 isn't much harder than 1, and 7 is considered easier than 6).
  • Every once in a while on lower floors, the player will encounter instakill monsters such as Giant Leeches or Zbrats. Some players don't even get a good look at these monsters before dying a gruesome death.