Print

Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[jupider]

Okay. I've been "trying" to play this game for a long time now (I think since 0.9.9.6G came out). If I'm lucky, I can make it through Hell's Arena on ITYTD; I've actually made it to The Wall once or twice. On HNTR, I'd be fortunate if I could even make it through the second floor. I may have even made it to the third floor a couple of times. But for the life of me, I can't fathom how so many players are able to complete the game.  Over the course of several dozen games, I'd be lucky to find maybe one or two of those "packs" that let you make advanced weapons. Most of the time I never see them. I'm stuck facing hordes of overpowered enemies while only wielding a pistol, a shotgun and a small med-pack if I even have one left. I think I managed to assemble a speedloader pistol once.
I've tried the Shottyman strategy, the Son of a ___ to deal more damage, and the Dualgunner, but they all end the same with me getting my ass kicked after running out of med-kits... usually on one of the first few floors. Looking at my Hall of Fame, I see one instance of getting to level 8, but all the rest are level 1-3.
Maybe I'm just too stuck on the "running in with both guns blazing" strategy, but are there any other strategies that I should focus on instead? I do the side-step thing (especially with Shottyman) but I just can't seem to get the knack of this.
I love this game, but I am getting very frustrated with it and I'm doing everything I can to prevent myself from starting to save-scum, which seems like my next viable strategy.

[Motorheadbanger]

Search for GameHunter's tutorial videos. They are a lot of help for the beginner.

[tylor]

I think information about cornershooting should be added to manual. Because it's completely both non-obvious and necessary to play.

[IronBeer]

I think information about cornershooting should be added to manual. Because it's completely both non-obvious and necessary to play.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, DoomRL does not play like Doom.... at first.

Early game, you're relatively weak and fragile, so you must stick to cover to survive. In fact, most builds demand that you stay in cover and cornershoot. Off the top of my head, only builds like Gun Kata and Fireangel let you truly "run and gun" or mix it up with the monsters. For a beginner, I'd suggest working towards Ammochain at first. It's got nutty synergy with weapon modding, and will massively boost your offensive capabilities.

[Evilpotatoe]

I think information about cornershooting should be added to manual. Because it's completely both non-obvious and necessary to play.

+3


The further I went on HMP before learning that was the wall... since there was obviously something I was missing, and the level just didnt look possible, even with a great start, I looked for some tutorial on youtube.

If I didnt, I would have stopped playing. My brother wouldn't have restarted playing, and a friend of mine would just have trashed the game, wondering how people can play this.
Those bases clearly should be in the introduction/manual, since playing the game without cornershooting is kinda impossible.

[Thomas]

The solution to DoomRL is always cowardice (well, a little bit)

As the others said, learning 'corner-shooting' will go a long way to making your fights less dangerous. Stand right next to a corner and fire around it, get a feel for the kind of weird shots you can get away with.

Sidestepping is great, but the idea is to use it in situations where shooting is impossible or not a good idea for some reason. Fighting numerous enemies at once out in the open is a bad idea, so you sidestep as you run from them. Or maybe you need to position yourself behind a wall so only one can see you, or maybe you need to get away from an explosive barrel, whatever. Even with shottyman I wouldn't try to just run and gun more than 1 enemy to death out in the open. Without shottyman (and especially on ITYTD, where the enemies aren't nearly as dangerous) you should just be shooting them until they die instead of trying to get fancy.

Red stairs lead to optional special levels as you've no doubt figured out. The wall is a place where marines go to die, so don't go there again until you're more confident with the game. Hell's Arena is also one of the trickier ones despite being first, but it's also a great place to learn corner shooting. A common way to set up a good fight is like this:

Code: [Select]

..####.
..####@
.O****.
.......
The cacodemon in this picture cannot see the marine and can't shoot at him either. The other great thing about this particular corner-shooting setup is that even as the cacodemon moves forward it won't get the marine in sight until he is right next to him - on the rightmost asterix.

But essentially it sounds like you're trying to kill everything you see the moment you see it or something when DoomRL is all about avoiding danger - running away from tough fights or repositioning yourself until they aren't as deadly.

[Fusilliban]

Corner shooting and radar shooting are both really useful, and I think you can get some mileage out of playing on ITYTD (which spawns more random-ammo-on-the-floor, which means you can radar-shoot a lot), and sitting down each time you take damage and figure out what you could have done differently.

There's really no such thing as too much cowardice.

Also, I am not the most experienced player, but I find that Finesse and Hellrunner are both very powerful, and allow me to be less cowardly and still survive.  They speed up my two most common actions, moving and shooting.  This means that sometimes, if I blunder into an enemy's sight-line, I can get off the first shot (which might kill them outright) or step back around a corner (which will save me a hit) before they can even react.  (Hellrunner also increases dodge chance, but dodging is kind of weird, and only useful against a handful of creature types.)

[Equality]

2#1:
"For a long time" = how many times?
As for me, I died about 60 times in ADoM even not entered in Caverns of Chaos (and +50 more till first win). And about 20 times on ITYTD difficulty in DoomRL until first Cyberdemon. It is a normal situation with a roguelike-games, a lot of unsuccessful tries per one win

[tylor]

Meh, ADoM... I gave it another try some days ago. Went five squares left of Terinyo - ambush of million or something barbarians, dead. Read some online guides, started another char, used unidentified wand in dungeon - dead. I could not even find how to switch tactics, because helps said it is \1 to \7 (without any mention of what backslash mean), while actually it was F1 to F7. This game feels like some unixoid inside joke. You have to know a lot of rules that you can't learn except by dying or by reading it somewhere (if you are lucky and this info is available). And not like other roguelikes are much different. DoomRL is an exception, because there is not as much things to learn about mechanics, and very few things will actually kill you instantly from full health (only mancubi and lots of barrels in one place, I think).

[Equality]

instadeath or something like that:

- AoPc in Hall of Carnage without homing phase
- using phase device on Wall level without rocket launcher or another phase.
- pull lava lever as in topic title :))
- pull summon enemies lever on hell episode and get 4 archviles or mancubi having only 25% health
- mancubi + barrels
- anything knockbacking + lava without envirosuit or special boots
- double reload normal (or combat) pistols or burst chaingun in non safe place
- use small medpack when surrounded by 8 lost souls
- get a full damage from spider. Or from 2 spiders...
- first time in mortuary
- activating Angel Arm without invulnerability
- any nuke
- first Angel of Death)) damn, it touch!

when we start to play we have a lot of situations that have only one result))) 

[ih8regin]

"You dualreload your guns! You die..."
Yep, had a moment of nostalgia. Perhaps, reading this, will eventually return to playing DoomRL.

[Deathwind]

Hall of Carnage on AoPc without a homing phase isn't QUITE an instadeath. I've done it several times, it just really sucks trying to get a sargent to shoot down the second door. I'd still claim it's easier and less luck dependent than brick silver...

[Evilpotatoe]

Brick silver doesn't seem THAT random to me : IIRC, AoB, arena gives a homing phase, right ? So, in a few retries, it must be quite easy to get it.

But I agree it still requires clearing the arena, and getting one lucky phase device to get behind the wall, but then, with zerk, I think it's not that hard... I already did it in my earliest games... too bad I wasn't angel of anything, and didn't got this stupid badge.
But y, for a silver one, it's pretty hard (and too much random ~~). The random aspect is also the reason why I still miss it.

Halls of carnage, in AoPc... I probably tried, twice, to escape it, but the last door seems quite hard to me.

[ZicherCZ]

Brick silver doesn't seem THAT random to me : IIRC, AoB, arena gives a homing phase, right ? So, in a few retries, it must be quite easy to get it.

Getting in is not that much of a problem, it takes a lucky phase with about 1/3 to 1/4 chance, given the layout. The problem is getting out then, which pretty much requires another phase, and much preferably a HPD instead. It is really not likely to get a PD and a HPD up to Phobos 7, not to mention that you also have to get in with the phase and then clear the whole place.

[tylor]

instadeath or something like that:

- AoPc in Hall of Carnage without homing phase
- using phase device on Wall level without rocket launcher or another phase.
- pull lava lever as in topic title :))
- pull summon enemies lever on hell episode and get 4 archviles or mancubi having only 25% health
- mancubi + barrels
- anything knockbacking + lava without envirosuit or special boots
- double reload normal (or combat) pistols or burst chaingun in non safe place
- use small medpack when surrounded by 8 lost souls
- get a full damage from spider. Or from 2 spiders...
- first time in mortuary
- activating Angel Arm without invulnerability
- any nuke
- first Angel of Death)) damn, it touch!

when we start to play we have a lot of situations that have only one result)))

Most of this is foreseeable. You get hit by Arachno once, then you roughly know what to expect from one, and from eight. And there is a quite thorough wiki, with all weapons and enemies (except one or to semi-easter eggs). If some item description is vague enough (tri-gun), you can just open wiki page and read. You know what you can expect from game.