Chaosforge Forum

  • March 28, 2024, 18:25
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.



Login with username, password and session length
Pages: [1]

Author Topic: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond  (Read 4227 times)

Firstblood

  • Backer
  • Sergeant
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile

Subtitle: Angelic, Chessmaster's Cross/HA Pwnage, Shambler's Head, half the game in UC (probably)

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DoomRL (v.0.9.9.3) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 Dave, level 18 Mancubus 2nd Lieutenant, nuked the Cyberdemon.
 on level 26 of the Phobos base.
 He survived 307879 turns and scored 1034148 points.
 He played for 1 day, 5 hours, 28 minutes and 17 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1982 out of 1990 hellspawn. (99%)
 He was a real killing machine...
 He was an Angel of Impatience!


-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 9
  Levels visited   : 9
  Levels completed : 8

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (gold cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Explorer Badge
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Angelic Badge
  Chessmaster's Token
  Chessmaster's Cross
  Hell Champion Medal
  Hell Arena Key
  Hell Arena Pwnage Medal
  Hell Armorer Badge
  Shambler's Head
  Heroic Silver Badge
  Eagerness Bronze Badge
  Eagerness Silver Badge
  Eagerness Gold Badge
  Eagerness Platinum Badge
  Eagerness Diamond Badge
  Reaper Diamond Badge
  Longinus Diamond Badge

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

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

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

  Health 124/70   Experience 163908/18
  ToHit Ranged +4  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +3  ToDmg Melee +3

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

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Hellrunner       (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 2)
    Son of a bitch   (Level 3)
    Eagle Eye        (Level 2)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 1)

  Fin->EE->EE->Fin->WK->WK->SoB->SoB->TaN->TaN->Bad->HR->HR->HR->Iro->SoB->Fin->Iro->

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

    [a] [ Armor      ]   Angelic Armor [7/7] (84%)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   nothing
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [1/1] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   modified combat knife (3d6) (ABP)

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

    [a] focused double shotgun (9d4)x3 [2/2]
    [b] modified chaingun (1d6)x4 [40/40] (T1)
    [c] hyperblaster (2d4)x3 [40/40]
    [d] assault shotgun (7d3) [6/6]
    [e] modified missile launcher (6d7) [5/5] (B1P1)
    [f] missile launcher (6d6) [4/4]
    [g] modified BFG 9000 (11d8) [169/169] (B2P1T1)
    [h] Anti-Freak Jackal (5d3) [6/6]
    [i] modified Railgun (8d9) [40/40] (P1)
    [j] modified red armor [6/6] (98%) (AP)
    [k] Azrael's Scythe (9d9)
    [l] 10mm ammo (x100)
    [m] shotgun shell (x44)
    [n] rocket (x14)
    [o] rocket (x14)
    [p] power cell (x70)
    [q] power cell (x70)
    [r] power cell (x70)
    [s] power cell (x70)
    [t] power cell (x70)
    [u] power cell (x7)
    [v] gothic boots [10/10] (160%)

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

    258 former humans
    167 former sergeants
    166 former captains
    380 imps
    163 demons
    374 lost souls
    53 cacodemons
    130 barons of hell
    1 Cyberdemon
    65 hell knights
    23 arachnotrons
    1 John Carmack
    28 former commandos
    1 Angel of Death
    16 pain elementals
    47 arch-viles
    49 mancubi
    32 revenants
    7 nightmare imps
    6 nightmare cacodemons
    10 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 Arena Master

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

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 3 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 4 he stormed the Chained Court.
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 4 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 8 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 9 he entered Hell's Armory.
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 12 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 13 he encountered an armed nuke!
  On level 15 he encountered the Phobos Hellgate.
  On level 16 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 16 he found the Azrael's Scythe!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 17 he found the Railgun!
  On level 19 he assembled a focused double shotgun!
  On level 19 he assembled a hyperblaster!
  Level 20 blasted him with unholy atmosphere!
  On level 20 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 20 he found the Anti-Freak Jackal!
  He managed to scavenge a part of the Vaults treasures.
  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!
  Level 23 blasted him with unholy atmosphere!
  On level 23 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 23 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Phobos Arena!
  He defeated the Cyberdemon and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

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

 You see : John Carmack (wounded) [m]ore | pool of blood
 You see : John Carmack (heavily wounded) [m]ore | pool of blood
 You see : John Carmack (severely wounded) [m]ore | pool of blood
 You see : John Carmack (almost dead) [m]ore | pool of blood
 John Carmack hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack hits you. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...

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

 Before him 25 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 1 of those was killed by something unknown.
 1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 1 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
 Is he immortal? 4 souls claim to have killed him...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 2 killed the bastard and survived.

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

I decided that I wouldn't take MAC or a Master Trait in this challenge.

I kinda screwed up at CC, and blew up the Chainsaw with a Rocket (nearly died from the Arena Master too, and really felt the downsides of not having Reloader when I faced off against him). I'm not sure if there is a particular N! strategy for CC in any of the guides, but I think grabbing the berserks and standing in the doorway launching rockets to wherever you suspect the Arena Master to be might be the safest bet? The lava protects you from the Barons as long as the walls don't get destroyed. It seems especially pertinent in AoI where you have no way of healing (other than the berserk packs) and the Arena Master is quite tough at the level you face him at. Can his staff be destroyed by splash damage? I'm guessing not, because it's an Artifact, and I haven't managed to blow it up yet despite consistently killing AM with rockets.

Ambushed the Shambler. Luckily it didn't teleport to anywhere I didn't have cover from, and I just wasted ammo (plenty of ammo on that level) until it died. Didn't make the same mistake as last time and destroyed his corpse straight away.
I wasted a lot of ammo on level 13 to keep my killcount up, namely rockets and BFG blasts in all directions, and pretty sure I destroyed something exotic or unique there.
Took the easy way of clearing level 15 (Rockets/BFG), but underestimated a Nightmare Imp and took some damage. I'm glad there aren't any N! Viles there.

Level 16, took simply forever. I found the minimum damage rule applies to AoD, he takes 1 damage from even the weakest of attacks, as long as they hit. If only said attacks had even a 5% critical instant death chance, it wouldn't take nearly as long. It was strange when I realised I was around 3x faster than Lost Souls in the beginning, berserked I could kill 2 adjacent Lost Souls without taking damage.
The Scythe seems to lack many of the special properties of the Longinus Spear, so given a choice between the two, I think I would prefer LS, I did note that Scythe will take down anything up to an Arch Vile in 1 hit while berserked. Whisper of Death might have some risky tactical advantages, but not on AoI.

The Railgun I found on level 17 seems to have weak stats, surprisingly, but amazing penetration and range.
I couldn't find a way into the middle Vault. On AoI, I think it would take a Nuclear weapon (and prior Invulnerability).
Invulnerability Globes & Gothic Boots said that I should attempt Lava Pits. Thankfully the envirosuits there still work on AoI, if you can get to them. The reward was not really worth it (Medical Powerarmor (not that much can compare to Angelic anyway). Lava Element was consumed instantly on pickup).

I regret finishing JC off with fists now. Most nuke kills on JC are naturally fist. Combat Knife would be a lot rarer, considering most Malicious Knife full wins would use the Cleaver or Chainsword anyway.
I wasted tons of mods experimenting in this run (they disappear on pickup). I haven't been able to successfully mod an Assembly yet, even with maxed out Whizzkid, but I see modded Assemblies in Ao100. I took Whizzkid early purposely so I wouldn't waste mods, oh well.

I need to do a few AoMr and get some silver badges to rank up. Still wondering how to get an Apostle to spawn, but it's probably way out of my league anyway.
Logged

Game Hunter

  • Programmer
  • Local Inquisitor
  • Lieutenant General
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 1044
  • Looks like game to me.
    • View Profile
    • Channel, the Roguelike
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2011, 19:13 »

I mean no offense when I ask this, but would you mind explaining your general strategy? No one else here tries for 100% victories on Nightmare!, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to go about it, even if it's just for the first few levels. Not to mention that AoI severely limits the ability to giftdrop on the earlier levels...

It's just that we haven't had a player come along this suddenly and completely make this game his bitch like this. There are no words to describe how incredibly this kind of victory is. I'd give you props but that isn't nearly enough of a compliment, geez. Maybe you're just getting some lucky runs? I know I've had my share of those, but this is too many at once to be some dumb luck. Maybe you should aim for Gargulec Cross next, we've only had one person try it and that guy was a one-time deal.
Logged
I'm just a dude playing a dude disguised as another dude.

Latest LPs: Angband, Delver

Firstblood

  • Backer
  • Sergeant
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2011, 20:25 »

The methods I use for clearing up corpses are pretty tiring,not quite as bad as killing AoD with a combat knife (outside of AoMC) perhaps, but certainly time-consuming. The first few levels are actually the hardest to 100%, because Doomguy starts off very sluggish and has the worst weapons, whereas respawn increases at the same rate on every level.

I've only just begun experimenting with giftdropping myself, so it was annoying to lose my medkits, but there's still Green Armor on level 1 of AoI. It should be enough to get all of the formers onto doorways, but getting to the armor to begin with is a lot more difficult than in most other games.
(that reminds me, if you can get a "damage all monsters" lever on Level 1-2 of an AoPc, that can put you off to a great start, as you can gain an extra 1-2 levels like that).

In this case, for level 2 I had the gift of a "flood all water" lever, which made it pretty redundant as I could just kill everything and nothing would respawn. Level 2 is usually one of the most boring/longest levels to 100%, there's a few things:
Find a chaingun (if you can use one)
Save barrels for (dead) Imps
Get formers onto doors or each other. Shoot them (with a shotgun) onto dead Imps first if there's no barrels around. You may not want to kill every former on a door just in case you need them to get rid of Imps (or worse things later).
Use a shotgun where necessary to "move" dead enemies around or on top of each other
If you can deal damage quickly enough, a "pet" demon, can sit/die on annoying Imp corpses for you. Obviously this is easier on AoMC, since demons can take quite a while to kill early on, even with a Chaingun. You might want to use a former human instead, they have a ranged attack but are much easier to kill, and a single pistol shot that strikes them will not kill them but draw their attention.
Water is very useful, especially in the centre. All you need is a shotgun and even Imps are no problem.
If you get a vault with Cacodemons, that's either lucky or unlucky depending on how you look at it.
Giftdrop liberally, and take advantage of the AI's nuances.

Hell Arena:
Clear it as quickly as possible, with a Chaingun. Pay attention to corpses that get up, even if they're out of sight, you will see them, and since they won't move for 4 seconds, they should be a sitting duck (not so much if it's a Cacodemon). Once you finish the 3rd wave enemies will no longer respawn. If you can't use a Chaingun then you need to be very good at corpse stacking and killing demons. Grab the Rocket Launcher and all of the Rockets at the end.

Level 3:
Hellknights, shouldn't be a problem if you can get them weak enough and kill them on a door, otherwise kill something weaker on top of their corpse. Cacodemons and Imps are still a problem, if you don't have the Rocket Launcher yet, or want to save the rockets, it can take a while to clear. Same as level 2, but prioritise barrels for Cacodemons.

Level 4+:
You should definitely have the Rocket Launcher now. It only gets easier from here on out. Also, once acid and napalm barrels appear, if there isn't already acid/lava in the middle of the map, if you can clear the middle and destroy a barrel there, it's only a matter of time before all of the corpses end up inside the acid/lava (as long as you saved a weapon with knockback), especially as most enemies gravitate towards the centre of the map. Note that, even the Combat Knife can induce knockback in enemies, and isn't destroyed by barrel explosions.
Acid/lava is very useful in general, enemies frequently get "stuck" on it and after that it's very easy to push them onto it. It's possible to clear all levels from here out with the environment, corpse stacking and barrels, but if you get tired or if it's a mean group of enemies, the rocket launcher usually makes short work of corpses. If it's too far from any walls, you can even rocket jump to gib corpses.

Probably the quickest way (not the way I've been doing it though) would be to just use rockets from here on out and any nearby barrels. The BFG can gib corpses too (but destroys a lot of items) if you're in a hurry. Stay stocked up on Rockets, and once you run into Mancubi & Revenants you gain the ability to "farm" Rockets.

I still don't have a failsafe/quick method for clearing level 2 because of the Imps, and level 3 because of the Cacodemons and arguably hard to kill Hellknights (depending on configurations) so it might be best to stack formers on top of them. If looking for a quick way to dispose of corpses, I recommend Rockets, which means completing Hell's Arena to get them early and guaranteed.

Hm, that's all I can think of right now, I'm not good at writing guides. (also I think all/most of this is already mentioned in different formats in guides, so it's probably not very helpful. It takes a very long time to clear levels sometimes, so I haven't developed a "fast" method yet.)

Oh one thing, in my experience "Demolition Ammo" doesn't gib corpses. Longinus Spear/Scythe (berserked) will gib smaller monsters on attack, but I haven't seen anything else do that yet.
+ another thing, you can wait around and kill Imps on doors too, as long it's safe to do so and you don't mind that the respawn rate will be increasing the whole time in general (this only works in certain places, thanks to the AI. The closer to the centre you can setup in a door, the better). I guess that's kinda obvious to mention, since you can do it with Formers (albeit much easier thanks to giftdropping), but I did that sometimes when facing large groups of Imps.

In terms of general strategy, I corner shoot and scout a lot, shoot at a lot of different angles, try to find weird angles to "bend" shots around corners and use the trick for shooting through gaps & doors to pull off otherwise impossible shots. I try to minimise the amount of time an active enemy can see me as much as possible, and wherever possible try to kill them from behind cover (as in around corners). Use chainfire to save a bullet here and there for scouting down corridors (since it uses less ammo). Ammo isn't a major problem on N! since you usually have an opportunity to farm it, and Arch Viles only add to the amount of ammo on a map, usually.

final edit: annnnd... I didn't need to write all this after all, sklres already began his YAAM runs on N!
« Last Edit: July 24, 2011, 09:20 by Firstblood »
Logged

MaiZure

  • Marketing/PR Ops Lead
  • Greater Elder
  • Major General
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 827
  • Retired 1-Star General (.993)
    • View Profile
    • Project repository
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #3 on: July 24, 2011, 03:48 »

* MaiZure is in shock


Subtitle: Angelic, Chessmaster's Cross/HA Pwnage, Shambler's Head, half the game in UC (probably)

He played for 1 day, 5 hours, 28 minutes and 17 seconds.
 ...
 He was an Angel of Impatience!

^biggest paradox of all time!
Logged
Hell Knight 1st Lt. (.997)
[22/13/9/2/0]

Firstblood

  • Backer
  • Sergeant
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #4 on: July 24, 2011, 09:34 »

If you look around, my old mortems might still be on here. The N! full win one is, called "[N!|90%|Win] My first attempt at Nightmare.", but it was made 4 years ago.
Logged

AStranger

  • First Lieutenant
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 233
  • Cyberdemon Blade
    • View Profile
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #5 on: July 24, 2011, 18:56 »

Very impressive. Did you get lucky with level generation or do you have a strategy for 'impossible' levels that makes them survivable? By impossible I mean spawning in the middle of an arachnatron cave or surrounded on all sides by B/M/R/V. I think it'd be interesting to try for near 100% kills, but I don't have the patience to spend a half an hour on the first few levels just to get murdered by the RNG.  Either way it'd be quite interesting to watch a video of run like this, even if it did take ~30 hours or so.
Logged
[24|23|20|18|13] v.0.9.9.3
[17|10|8|5|2] v.0.9.9.2
[15|11|10|6|3] v.0.9.9.1
[18|17|14|10|6] v.0.9.9

Firstblood

  • Backer
  • Sergeant
  • *
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 87
    • View Profile
Re: [N!|AoI|99%|YAFW] Eagerness, Reaper, Longinus Diamond
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2011, 23:42 »

Thanks. I haven't had any impossible or even dangerous starts yet in standard runs, some are mildly dangerous, such as starting with V/B/R in view. In AoPc, there was the starting in the middle of a arachnotron cave without hellrunner, which nearly killed me, and trying to get past most levels on AoPc feels very dangerous to me. When I have full access to weapons, nothing is that bad.

The "strategy" I have is. Equip my best weapons if possible before descending, expect the worst. If there's not much in the starting room, kill everything, consider chainfire, they are slow to react to a levelled up Doomguy. If it's bad, either start killing as fast as possible to get the numbers down, or consider moving to a better position, so tab, then run for the nearest door or wall corner and hope it's better. Generally I find killing to be preferable, taking advantage of the enemy's slow start, often I can just kill everything before they start moving, also, in every bad start, there's also usually barrels next to the enemies, so I shoot those as well if they would make things better, acid/lava can slow down quite a few strong enemies or it can kill a bunch of weaker ones. Also since it's the beginning of the level, I don't have to worry about monsters respawning much, if they do, that means an Arch-Vile nearby. I think just having strong weapons and a few levels in finesse/SoaB is what does it, but I've usually got TaN/BAD and 200% health so that helps too.

If I encounter a situation which I deem to be impossible or very withering, using a phase device (if it's still early) or a homing phase device (if monsters are already moving or if I'm in a bad way) can get me out of it. On N!, phase devices can be worth more than medkits sometimes. I just try to keep a few phases and medkits on me at all times, I don't usually carry spare armor, yet.

I haven't had many Arachnotron Caves yet, I realise those things can be killers, especially early on. I think I would use a homing phase device, or slugging it out depending on the situation. If I can take them on 1-2 at a time, then while I might take damage, they will die before me (since I have large medkits), but for a high levelled well-armed Doomguy I think they aren't a problem, and they carry one of the best kinds of ammo.

Of course I didn't have any medkits or phase devices here, but what I did have was berserk packs and invulnerability globes, usually one near the stairs, so I would take either of those and then with my equipment berserked I think I was around 5x faster than Arch Viles, and things like former humans just seem to stand still. I guess you can count taking packs/globes before going down the stairs as part of the strategy (more viable on 100% runs).

---

I've been thinking about how to get Gargulec Cross on N! or 100% AoMr (Diamond, without SoG). So far my attempts at those have been ~100% attempts, and tend towards failure for various reasons. I find Level 2-3 100% to be harder without chaingun & shotgun, and the available options for clearing are less or weaker with those angel attempts. Whereas I'm sure it can be possible to 100% either if you can find an Exotic on level 2, I haven't found a way during a normal run.

The problems:
100% AoB:
Demons, Hellknights, Cacodemons, all present problems at melee range. Demons can be killed without damage if you are lucky with environmental factors, but melee combat with a Hellknight or Cacodemon is going to be costly. Ideally you need to reach Level 3 on Level 2 of the dungeon. I feel like you need to be 1 level higher than normal to guarantee success here. Even Imps can be troublesome depending on their placement, and your restructuring options are more limited in AoB.
Cleanup of bodies is much harder at AoB, you need to be very careful where you fight/kill enemies on top of everything else. Also because you are limited to melee range, and you can't rely on the thrown knife (it's very inaccurate) to extend range, you have to be especially careful during cleanup as the delayed start of respawned monsters is not as much advantage to a melee character as a ranged character (hence be careful where you kill).

100% AoMr (no SoG):
The problem here stems from low damage and lack of knockback possibilities. You'll never beat the respawn clock on Level 2 with a single pistol and no SoG. Pistol luring might be a possibility.

..and the problem with both, is the increased danger and vulnerability you face when encountering enemies, and the fact that clearup is going to take even longer than it would do with full access to everything.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2011, 00:26 by Firstblood »
Logged
Pages: [1]