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[FrostyTheDragon]

Let me set the backdrop for those who didn't see the start of this discussion already in the thread where this started.

After completing my first win in the new version, my posting of the post-mortem file and comments brought some people to tell me to jump into HMP and UV difficulties.  Eventually, after I gave in to such suggestions and tried the Ultra-Violence difficulty seriously, I came up with the thought that some of the supposedly higher difficulties actually felt EASIER.  Here's my exact comment on that:

I considered this consensus and attempted the Angel of Impatience challenge on Ultra-Violence a few times.

Here's whats odd - despite me not getting as far yet as I have with the "Hey, Not Too Rough" difficulty, doing that challenge on Ultra-Violence actually feels EASIER.  It may have something to do with finding chainguns and double shotguns in the first few levels and gaining levels faster due to so many more kills.  Then again, finding Hell Knights by level 3 and Barons by level 5 is a bit of a shocker.

Now, keep in mind - I've yet to reach Liutenant ranking (with only the Angel of Impatience requirement standing in my way), so I figure I can maybe glean some insight from you veteran players by posting my random thoughts.  Some of it might sound like meaningless drivel, but that's just how I tend to be at times.  And if something I mention seems obvious to you (whether from reading the wiki or personal experience), don't fret then either.


Anyway.  Two questions before I start on some of the random things about this game that I've found out from playing.

Who agrees with my viewpoint that the higher difficulties, due to their specifics (extra ammo, plus more monsters and thus more experience), are actually easier than suggested?

Also, I don't notice anything about this on the wiki.... is it just me or does being berserk drastically reduce the damage you take?


Random things:

Barrels.  Ugh.  For a time when doing Angel of Marksmanship (which I'm not done with yet - I'm taking a break for Angel of Impatience), I got compulsive destroying these when I could because I'd had enough of stray enemy fire destroying me with them before I could get away from them.

Friendly fire.  It seems the enemies in DoomRL are..... not very careful where they're aiming.  Many a time I've seen enemies tear up their buddies in the process of shooting me.  I have to wonder how abusable this tactic really is.

It seems like I'm one of the few players who actually likes the shotguns a lot.  I tend to prefer the combat shotty over the double shotty because I have a few separate shots, possibly in different directions, before I have to start reloading.  Plus I can reposition during those shots instead of having to stand still reloading (assuming I don't have Shottyman, because if I have that the double shotty wins out easily).  Double shotty, as far as I'm concerned, is mainly a specialized weapon for dealing with close-range packs of enemies (3 demons with just one blast, anyone?).


Until I reach Captain status and unlock that long list of challenge modes, I'm pretty much focusing on things required to get there.  So that means I still have to deal with Angel of Berserk, Angel of Impatience, and Angel of Light Travel.  My thoughts:

Angel of Berserk: If there is any challenge I outright dread.... this is it.  Why?  First, I can't destroy barrels, so that means many more explosives the enemy can use against me.  Second - and this is just weird - whenever I've tried anything other than Brute as my first trait (generally either Hellrunner to get close faster, or Eagle Eye to offset the frequency of melee attacks missing - after all, what good is the extra damage from Brute if you can't get in range or nothing hits?), the former humans on the first level manage to steal both of the level's small medpacks (I was playing on "Hey, Not Too Rough" at the time) and 95% of the time, they use them before I can kill them.  When I do stick with Brute (the skill the wiki implores AoB players to pick first), they almost never even touch the medpacks.  It's like the game's trying to force my choice here.

Angel of Impatience: I've tended to focus on TaN (to work on Badass, because why let bonus health go to waste?) or SoaB (standalone or for Triggerhappy, because this is one time where I actually got used to chainguns more than shotguns.  Consider I was playing on Ultra-Violence at the time though) early on, and I'm thinking I may have to un-specialize and distribute among a few 'basic' traits (read: any trait without prerequisites) before getting the 'advanced' traits like Badass or Intuition.

Angel of Light Travel: While I haven't unlocked this yet, I can safely say I'll probably mostly treat inventory management here as if I were playing a Resident Evil game - two weapons, a little ammo (likely no more than 2 stacks) for each, and a medpack or two (silly me, using the term 'healing item' as if there were any other carryable healing item than medpacks).  (I'm a bit wary about using a plasma rifle just because the ammo takes up so much space and depletes so fast.)  I'm a bit scared of The Wall, but I haven't seen a backpack anywhere else in the game so I may have to go there.


Leave your thoughts about my thoughts so maybe I can learn.

[Karry]

Who agrees with my viewpoint that the higher difficulties, due to their specifics (extra ammo, plus more monsters and thus more experience), are actually easier than suggested?

It may seem that way in the beginning, but its certainly much much harder. Yes, you can get chaingun on level 2. And 'B' appear on level 3. Thats okay. How about encountering 4 'V's by level 14 ? Easy enough ? I didnt think so. And forget about completing Hell's Arena unless you got extremely lucky (once i happened to find advanced chaingun on level 4 plus 3-4 mods).

You dont actually get THAT much extra experience, and later on higher difficulties its suicidal to actively seek out monsters to get 100% kill rate. But you can easily get 100% kills on E. My highscore has characters who won the game on E with 11th level and those who won the game on U with 11th level, so there.

Normal U games are beatable
I'm trying to win U AoM - insanely hard, basically skills dont matter at all, either you find damage mods and live - or you die. I only got to level 15 as of now. Sometimes uniques can help, but they are so insanely RARE...
What _i_ would do is when a unique is found - add a small percentage to find uniques easier in the next game, probably maxed up at 5-7% maybe.

It seems like I'm one of the few players who actually likes the shotguns a lot.

I like shotguns. They're completely useless, but i still like them.

[FrostyTheDragon]

I have more questions.

For the unique pistol known as the Trigun, what are the limits as far as using Angel Arm?  I read on the wiki that it costs some maximum HP.... but I must ask: do you lose the Trigun after using Angel Arm (Angel Arm is effectively a nuke after all), or is there a separate limit (complete with another message if you try to use it again) to how much it can be used aside from the maximum HP cost, or is that maximum HP cost the only limit (aside from, well, the nuke effect)?

Also, has anyone ever felt they were using a weapon they'd relegated to 'backup' more than the weapon they intended to use?  It seems to happen to me every time I get a unique pistol of some sort.  (It may have to do with my 'primary' weapon being a rocket launcher in most of those cases - in the case of the time I got the Anti-Freak Jackal my 'primary' was a plasma rifle.)

[ParaSait]

Angel Arm costs 5 MaxHP per use. The player has 50 HP, so the limit is actually 10 times, unless you choose Ironman of course.

[Hobocannibal]

Friendly fire.  It seems the enemies in DoomRL are..... not very careful where they're aiming.

If you've ever played DOOM you'll understand, however they are more forgiving in DoomRL than DOOM... mainly the fact that they won't turn around and return fire at their former allies.

the former humans on the first level manage to steal both of the level's small medpacks

In the doomrl.ini file (i think its called) theres a value you can alter that makes you start at the right wall of the map directly in line with the entrance door. That should make it a little easier to reach the medpacks before they do.

[Thomas]

Also, I don't notice anything about this on the wiki.... is it just me or does being berserk drastically reduce the damage you take?

Yeah, it gives you around 7 armor. This reduces almost every attack in the game (Barring rockets) to 2% damage.

Barrels.  Ugh.  For a time when doing Angel of Marksmanship (which I'm not done with yet - I'm taking a break for Angel of Impatience), I got compulsive destroying these when I could because I'd had enough of stray enemy fire destroying me with them before I could get away from them.

A good idea.

Angel of Berserk: If there is any challenge I outright dread.... this is it.  Why?  First, I can't destroy barrels,

Get TaN 3, press "f" to initiate a melee attack then walk it off you pussy.

Second - and this is just weird - whenever I've tried anything other than Brute as my first trait (generally either Hellrunner to get close faster, or Eagle Eye to offset the frequency of melee attacks missing - after all, what good is the extra damage from Brute if you can't get in range or nothing hits?), the former humans on the first level manage to steal both of the level's small medpacks (I was playing on "Hey, Not Too Rough" at the time) and 95% of the time, they use them before I can kill them.  When I do stick with Brute (the skill the wiki implores AoB players to pick first), they almost never even touch the medpacks.  It's like the game's trying to force my choice here.

This is just a coincidence. What's really happening is that you're spawning on a "lol the humans get the packs this time" map instead of a "lol you get the packs this time" map. The one where you get the packs is the one that looks like an oval. Don't accept any other map.

Or, if you really can't be assed doing that, here's how you kill a human with a medpack.

Punch them twice. If it says that they're "scratched" instead of  "lightly wounded" or "wounded", punch them a third time.
If they're lightly wounded, that means there's a 6% chance of you killing them with a pistol shot. If they're wounded, that means there's a 18% chance of killing them with a pistol shot. If they're heavily wounded (or whatever's after wounded) then they MIGHT use the pack, but it increases your chance to 36%.

Angel of Impatience: I've tended to focus on TaN (to work on Badass, because why let bonus health go to waste?) or SoaB (standalone or for Triggerhappy, because this is one time where I actually got used to chainguns more than shotguns.  Consider I was playing on Ultra-Violence at the time though) early on, and I'm thinking I may have to un-specialize and distribute among a few 'basic' traits (read: any trait without prerequisites) before getting the 'advanced' traits like Badass or Intuition.

Eh, don't bother with badass. The way to play Angel of Impatience is to get TaN 3 (Heck, get this in almost every game) and try to tank everything in each level without ever healing. This way, whenever a beserk pack or an invulnerability globe spawns in any room, you can take it once all the monsters are dead and enter the next level fresh as a daisy.

Angel of Light Travel: While I haven't unlocked this yet, I can safely say I'll probably mostly treat inventory management here as if I were playing a Resident Evil game - two weapons, a little ammo (likely no more than 2 stacks) for each, and a medpack or two (silly me, using the term 'healing item' as if there were any other carryable healing item than medpacks).  (I'm a bit wary about using a plasma rifle just because the ammo takes up so much space and depletes so fast.)  I'm a bit scared of The Wall, but I haven't seen a backpack anywhere else in the game so I may have to go there.

The wall is indeed the only place to get a backpack.

Instead of holding power cells in stacks (Although you might still want one just in case) just pick up any plasma weapons you find. BFGs hold 100 instead of 50 and plasma rifles hold 40. The plasma rifle will act as your "Oh shit" button as you can swap to it, overload it and kill almost anything (provided you have eagle eye 1) in 1 turn.

The exception to this of course is when facing the cybie, at which point plasma rifles don't matter and you can happily unload them all for a BFG shot each.

[FrostyTheDragon]

If you've ever played DOOM you'll understand, however they are more forgiving in DoomRL than DOOM... mainly the fact that they won't turn around and return fire at their former allies.

It seems to be more frequent here than I remember in the original DOOM.  Maybe it's just because of the way the shotguns are programmed in this game.

Get TaN 3, press "f" to initiate a melee attack then walk it off you pussy.

And what about before you can get TaN 3?  That's when they're usually the problem for me.

Eh, don't bother with badass. The way to play Angel of Impatience is to get TaN 3 (Heck, get this in almost every game) and try to tank everything in each level without ever healing. This way, whenever a beserk pack or an invulnerability globe spawns in any room, you can take it once all the monsters are dead and enter the next level fresh as a daisy.

Since that original post, I had finally completed an Angel of Impatience run (and done enough Angel of Berserk that I can wait to finish it for rank purposes).  My reason for Badass (one rank, to be exact - more would have meant waiting too long on other skills I wanted and, besides, the impact of one rank in that skill is quite big) in that run was to hang on to any bonus health from health globes and Supercharges (which happened more than you might think - my failures tended to be more from being outright mobbed than from simple attrition) for a while longer (I went with Ironman as well so that I had more health to work with in the first place - Badass was first so I could have my TaN ranks right away) so I could actually put it to use rather than see it go to waste in transition.

Then again, my successful Angel of Impatience run was done on the second difficulty level.  I'm not sure you'd actually ever have extra health to work with in higher difficulties.

Instead of holding power cells in stacks (Although you might still want one just in case) just pick up any plasma weapons you find. BFGs hold 100 instead of 50 and plasma rifles hold 40. The plasma rifle will act as your "Oh shit" button as you can swap to it, overload it and kill almost anything (provided you have eagle eye 1) in 1 turn.

I tend to carry around a weapon magazine mod for this kind of reason if I find one in normal playthroughs.  Even one of those on a BFG (and I almost always do Halls of Carnage for the one there, so this isn't that late) is fairly significant in terms of extra power cells.  (And when you factor in the 'leftover' ammo from shooting a fully-loaded BFG as much as possible, I think one magazine mod means an extra shot, should it come to that.)