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[myuzinn]

Finally. After so, so many attempts. My scoreboard is littered with dead AoB challengers. But this one marine climbed that huge pile of corpses to radiant victory! I (barely) broke the 100,000 point mark even!

Details below.

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (v.0.9.8.10) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Doomer, level 11 Demon Lieutenant, defeated the Cyberdemon
 on level 25 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 187571 turns and scored 100083 points.
 He didn't like it too rough.

 He killed 617 out of 617 hellspawn. (100%)
 This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
 He was an Angel of Berserk!


 He saved himself 2 times.

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  ...........................................................
  ...........................................................
  ...........###...................###.......................
  ...........#>#..###..............###.......................
  ...........###..###.........###..###.......................
  ................###.........###....................###.....
  ............................###....................###.....
  .......................................###....###..###.....
  .......................................###....###..........
  .......................................###....###..........
  ...###.....................................................
  ...###..........###........................................
  ...###..........###........###.....###..........###........
  ................###........#.#.....###..........###........
  ...................................###..........###........
  ..............................X.|..........................
  ..............................}|...........................
  ..............................|............................
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 33/50   Experience 51046/11
  ToHit +2  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

    Hellrunner     (Level 3)
    Tough as nails (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye      (Level 1)
    Brute          (Level 3)
    Berserker      (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->TaN->TaN->TaN->EE->HR->HR->HR->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   red armor [2/4] (49%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   modified plasteel boots [4/4] (100%) (M)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   nothing

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] modified blue armor [1/3] (45%) (P)
    [b] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [c] Angelic Armor [3/6] (46%)
    [d] small med-pack
    [e] large med-pack
    [f] large med-pack
    [g] large med-pack
    [h] large med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] phase device
    [m] phase device
    [n] phase device
    [o] phase device
    [p] phase device
    [q] envirosuit pack
    [r] modified plasteel boots [2/4] (34%) (M)

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    121 former humans
    74 former sergeants
    29 former captains
    75 imps
    56 demons
    68 lost souls
    30 cacodemons
    11 barons of hell
    1 Cyberdemon
    24 hell knights
    13 arachnotrons
    2 former commandos
    1 Angel of Death
    3 pain elementals
    10 arch-viles
    6 mancubi
    5 revenants

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 12 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 16 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 16 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 22 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 22 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 23 he entered the Lava Pits.
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Phobos Arena!
  On level 25 he finally defeated the Cyberdemon.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 The Cyberdemon reloads his rocket launcher.
 The Cyberdemon fires! You are hit!
 The Cyberdemon reloads his rocket launcher.
 You hit the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon hits you.
 You stop running.
 You hit the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon hits you.
 You hit the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon hits you. Your Angelic Armor is
 damaged!
 You wear/wield : a red armor [4/4] (100%) The Cyberdemon hits you.
 You hit the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon hits you.
 You hit the Cyberdemon. You feel like a killing machine! You're going
 berserk! The Cyberdemon hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You miss the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon hits you. Your red armor is
 damaged! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon dies. Congratulations! You defeated

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 Before him 64 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 60 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
 Is he immortal? 1 souls claim to have killed him...
 1 killed the bastard and survived.

--------------------------------------------------------------

The primary lesson I learnt from AoB was to not be stinjy. It took many failures to change my behaviour. Most of my deaths had piles of medkits in their inventories, and powerups that were left for later. I had to understand what level of health one should start using medkits and powerups, relative to the threat level.

Early game is frustrating. Doubt I could have advanced without the gift dropping tactic, of which I'm not sure is considered an exploit or not. Although it sort of brings to mind an image of Rambo, laying traps around the place. Sergeants are the issue here, since you can't dodge while advancing on them, you can't sneak on them due to lack of facing-direction in DoomRL, and they can deal a lot of damage (and push you back) when you're anywhere closer than the very edge of their field of view. Something like throwing knives would be nice - too rare to use on everything, but common enough to take out some of the sergeants. I suppose lots of partial cover from crates would help a lot too.

Barrel levels are nerve wracking, fear inducing. You can be exploded through a wall by multiple barrels, set off by a sergeant you only see the moment the world explodes around you.

But once one gets the hang of health management and gifting/etc tactics, it's not super hard anymore. Merely somewhat difficult. Repeated bad luck with enemy placement can ruin you - for example, a big open room that can't be bypassed, with big tight groups of ranged-attack-capable non-giftable enemies. For extra fun, your side of the room is littered with barrels, but not their side. These situations are usually survivable, but too many in quick succession will deplete all your healing items.

Due to lots of instances of non-avoidable damage (getting blasted the moment you peer into a room or around a corner), I chose TaN instead of HR. Difficulty doesn't ease off at this point, due to the apperance of hell knights/barons and cacodemons which are tougher and deal more damage. Even if you avoid their ranged attacks, they still do a lot of damage in melee.

First time at the cathedral in this version. I was rather stressed, since I figured the coming fight essentially determines whether you can complete the later parts of the game in AoB. Turned out to be rather easy actually, but I managed to berserk on the demons just prior to engaging the Angel of Death, so perhaps part of it was luck. I think I only ended up using 1 large medkit, just prior to engaging AoD, and went through two suits of blue armor during the fight, one of which was protection modded. Was surprising since I remember the one time I managed getting there in an older version, I was annihilated.

Prior to what some may think, the Longinus spear is not an "I Win" button. The very next level was a cave. I was feeling gutsy and took on about 3 or 4 arachnotrons. They nearly killed me, very quickly, even though I was beserking for half the battle.

Hardest late game fights I can remember were:
1) The Mortuary, due to the amount of corpses resurrected while I tried to close in, one of them even on the other side of the room raising an huge army.
2) Arena on level 24 - 2 arch viles and at least 4 mancubi, all in a tight clump. Smacking 2 arch viles while 4 mancubi blast you at range from all sides, results in extremely rapid accumulating damage. I have to wonder how horrific the Ultraviolent analogue to that encounter would be - double the arch viles and mancubi maybe?

Despite what I said in my last mortem about only going to lava pits with at least 2 enviro kits, I went there with 1 again :). Did a lot better this time, since I seemed to advance through faster as a beserker. Still took some lava damage, but nothing major.

Cybie packs a punch, but Longinus along with sufficient armor and health reserves saw me through.

Hooray! That said, I don't think I'll be doing a berserk game again for a while now :)

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Another great story :). Any suggestions on what might make AoB more interesting? Or how to make the first levels easier? (throwing knives are out of the question, it'd ruin the mood IMHO, also I want the player to fight the very first level barehanded...)

[skarczew]

How to make easier ?
More Berserk Packs (or replace Large Healing Globes once again) and more useful items (don't tease people with Advanced Rocket Launchers or other some high-tech weapons on level 2, please ;) ).

I don't know if this will not make it too easy, though :) .

[007bistromath]

and more useful items (don't tease people with Advanced Rocket Launchers or other some high-tech weapons on level 2, please ;)

This is actually something I've thought would be nice for a while. In the challenges, any special item the player can't use should get a single reroll so there's a bit more of a chance of getting something good.

[Kornel Kisielewicz]

Actually I'm against changing the layout/items/monsters in Challenges -- that's the whole point of a Challenge to beat a normal game under the given circumstances. However changing the rules (as is done with the berserk effect), or equipment is ok.