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Item rarities.

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Momentarythought:
Hello-- first time poster with a question about the rarity of unique items.  I've been mostly playing a much older version of DoomRL (pre-difficulty levels and with no advanced traits) and decided to give the latest version a try.  Some things I like in the newest version, some things I don't, and so on.
One thing that seems to be puzzling me is why certain rare items appear pretty much every game I play, and others never.  I've been playing with 0.9.9.1 for about two or three months now, and have gone through at least a hundred games.  In nearly every single one, the Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Trigun appear.  I even found the Beretta on level 1 of the base last night (not the entrance level, the first actual base level)!  Meanwhile, several other uniques listed in the wiki-- Nano Pack, BFG 10K, Onyx Armor Pack, and a few others, have yet to appear at all in any game I've played.  A few seem to turn up at least a few times (Jackhammer, Railgun, etc.) while others not even once yet.  But always, at least eight games out of ten, the Beretta and the Trigun.  Is that normal?  I personally find the 'angel arm' feature of the Trigun enormously overpowered-- stockpile a few homing phase devices, and if you find just one invulnerability globe you can burn through the last four or five levels of the game without effort (Grab invulnerabilty, nuke, phase to stairs... next level, nuke, phase to stairs... and so on, until invulnerability wears off or the Cyberdemon is nuked...).
I guess what I'd like to know, in part, is why those two uniques are so common, and how the rarity of uniques is balanced?

LockeCarnelia:
That simply shows you that the RNG loves you and wants you to run more AoMr games, in my opinion.

thelaptop:
Also you can't burn through the last four or five levels if you hope to live -- you only have 50 HP to begin with.

Also, do not question the good fortune the RNG gives you.

On another note, what names are you using for your marines?

Game Hunter:

--- Quote from: Momentarythought on September 15, 2010, 07:11 ---One thing that seems to be puzzling me is why certain rare items appear pretty much every game I play, and others never.  I've been playing with 0.9.9.1 for about two or three months now, and have gone through at least a hundred games.  In nearly every single one, the Grammaton Cleric Beretta and Trigun appear.  I even found the Beretta on level 1 of the base last night (not the entrance level, the first actual base level)! Meanwhile, several other uniques listed in the wiki-- Nano Pack, BFG 10K, Onyx Armor Pack, and a few others, have yet to appear at all in any game I've played.
--- End quote ---
Quick question: how often do you beat the game, as opposed to getting through...say...the first ten or so levels? The thing with item rarities, as far as we can understand, is that some items are bound to spawn earlier than others. Special pistols, for instance, are much more likely to show up on the first few levels, while some of the "stronger" items (such as laser rifle, plasma shotgun, etc) won't, indeed can't, appear until much later, sometimes not even until Phobos Hell.

You remind me that I need to make a record of when I find special weapons so I can actually figure out the system, heh.


--- Quote from: Momentarythought on September 15, 2010, 07:11 ---But always, at least eight games out of ten, the Beretta and the Trigun.  Is that normal?
--- End quote ---
Honestly? No, you're getting extremely lucky. Excluding BFG and chainsaw (for obvious reasons) I've only found about 150 special pieces, 43 of those uniques (excluding artifacts, also for obvious reasons) over some 500 games. Sure, half of those are probably N! death before level five, but if I were actually finding Trigun every five or so games...well, you saw how far I got with that last time. As a point of measure, I have yet to see Nano/Onyx packs, too. (They're REALLY good, by the way...I'm pretty sure I could win a game with one, regardless.)


--- Quote from: Momentarythought on September 15, 2010, 07:11 ---I personally find the 'angel arm' feature of the Trigun enormously overpowered-- stockpile a few homing phase devices, and if you find just one invulnerability globe you can burn through the last four or five levels of the game without effort (Grab invulnerabilty, nuke, phase to stairs... next level, nuke, phase to stairs... and so on, until invulnerability wears off or the Cyberdemon is nuked...).
--- End quote ---
Yeah, that's the basic idea. Getting 3-4 homing phases is pretty lucky all by itself, though. Trigun is meant to be powerful (on par with fully modded blaster and my personal favorite unique these days) and the Angel Arm is simply icing on the cake.

I'm curious as to what difficulty you're playing on: if you're getting consistent Grammatons and Triguns, you should consider bumping up to UV just for kicks (if you aren't at least playing on that difficulty). Pistol runs are my favorite style of play (albeit ridiculously hard on N!) and I certainly envy your particular case.

LockeCarnelia:
Yes, indeed, Onyx Packs and Nano Packs are astounding.  I had a Nano Pack on a Cybernetic Armor on a Ao100 run, won that one handily.

Just had an easy "fun-run" that gave me two of the best uniques in the game, along with two Assault Shotguns in a row on level 6 and 7.

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