DoomRL > Discussion
Nightmare advice?
horos:
Hi everyone. Old returning player, i'm sure there's been quite a few of those, so no need for anything special.
I saw there was a quick questions thread...but I thought the question required a more 'broad' answer then the thread might have given. If that's wrong, please feel free to get me to repost/merge it there, and sorry in advance!
Anyway, I really enjoy playing DoomRL and eagerly await the next version...if indeed there will be one, with all the Jupiter Hell activity. However, I've reached a bit of a lull in my adventures. The maximum difficulty I can reasonably attempt is UV - I don't have a problem with doing challenges on that difficulty, and indeed that's my default setting unless i'm doing a fun run or playing AoB (I could do it, I imagine, but I don't want to be running around throwing knives at a Hell Knight on the first few floors for ages just to get max kill rate. :p). However, I struggle a lot with Nightmare....
Indeed, i've only played around 10 games on nightmare in the past, going back to.. 0.9.9, if my memory serves me correctly. And I remember each time it was utterly frustrating to play - Respawning enemies is one thing, but they also have the 10% speed buff (Or you have a 10% speed penalty, I don't remember which) and on top of that, they spawn even worse then UV.
Now, this could be attributed to my playstyle. I do do a lot of camping and cornershooting with giftdropping (A recent UV game of mine was 594499 turns, and this was even after I got the BFG and the Scythe and practically destroyed the hell levels with berserk and high movespeed), which leaves a pile of corpses stacked on the wall next to me. Now, that's not that bad even if there's a few Archviles around, focus them down first, then go back to gibbing whatever they ressurected, but on N! at low levels when you're armed with a few traits and even fewer methods to clean up corpses besides stacking them, this strategy is completely unviable.
I was hoping to get some advice from some of the more experienced players on how to ease into Nightmare. Ease being a relative term, of course. I've played a few games hoping to get some experience for myself, but have had little success in getting...well, anywhere, really. And i'm really not looking forward to the N! Hellgate, which just looks flat up impossible with nightmare enemies at such a low dlevel...it makes UV Phobos Lab look like a picnic.
As an extension question - how do you complete no damage/speed challenges? Now, obviously you can kite the Angel of Death around the UC - that's no big deal if you have enough movespeed and combat knives (Or you are confident in timing your steps and attacks). And taking on enemies 1v1 damageless is also suitably easy given you have some form of cover or high movespeed. But how are you supposed to do this with multiple enemies?
Now, obviously we can't all be Neo, er, TwoDev, but I don't understand in what way he (and others! Credit where credit is due) performs some of the challenges he does - and in very little time, at that! A recent AoMs YAAM of mine gave me the line " He played for 2 hours, 35 minutes and 8 seconds.", and i'd consider that fairly fast!
In what way do you go about doing challenges like this? Things like the higher level gatekeeper badges, clearing the mortuary without damage, etc.
I understand it is supposed to be difficult, but I don't understand what basic tactics or the method you would go about doing these kinds of things. Having random creatures fireball you out of the blue happens to me more often then not unless I camp - which doesn't work on these kinds of challenges. And the Gatekeeper just seems flat out impossible, given i've never gone to the bruiser brothers without a significant paddling.
Thanks in advance for the advice. It's quite frustrating having worked out how to pick up the Dragonslayer on a recent Ao100 game I completed (No Berserker Armor spawned, unfortunately) and having the feeling of "I worked out a cool secret!" overshadowed by "It takes me over half an hour to get past Phobos Base Entry on Nightmare", so I greatly appreciate it.
Sereg:
Hopefully you'll get input from someone more qualified then myself here, because I suspect you're already well above my skill level when it comes to Nightmare challenges. The only method I've had success with is the one named in my honor - Sereging, whereby one uses (or combines with) Angel of Overconfidence to start the game in Hell, and relies on the starting items, luck, and a holy hell of a lot of attempts to complete the challenge.
While effective for some challenges, it provides very little help for things like clearing the Hellgate or handling the early levels for challenges that don't permit AoOC.
horos:
--- Quote ---because I suspect you're already well above my skill level when it comes to Nightmare challenges.
--- End quote ---
Haha, no way. I tried playing a bunch of N! AoB games to grab all the berserk packs in the CC and run through to UC for the...platinum? Badge, and didn't get any further then around dlevel 4 with maybe 30-40% kills at best. :p As I said, i'm just completely incompatible with Nightmare, seemingly. The best I had was when I had a few levels of Brute and just camped next to a doorway waiting for all the imps/formers to come and smacking them there, but then a HK appeared, and I was already tired and low on health kits... YASD right there.
Thanks for the advice on "sereging", Sereg! I'll give it a go for doing a few challenges to rank up, and with a bit of RNG it should be pretty smooth sailing. However, relying on "luck and a lot of attempts" is actually the opposite of what I wanted to do - I can do UV runs with a great deal of consistency (Well, except AoB - I haven't tried because kiting Hell Knights around a corner/container is a tad boring and risky with my skill level), and I wanted to move into N! with the same goal - to achieve consistent results. Only the most horrid RNG situations (or a few impatient keyclicks leading to pistolwhipping a shambler...) tend to mess me around, and that's where i'd like to get to on N!.
Thanks for your reply though! I'll go give it a shot when I next get some spare time.
Thomas:
30 to 40% kills would be fine (perhaps even too low) if you were using guns, but it's way too high for the first few levels of N! AoB. You should play N! AoB as a scout (for stair sense) and never fight anything between dlvl 2 and 5 unless you have a really good reason to.
You won't be able to get to the chained court consistantly on N! AoB no matter how good you are - Longinus Platinum is far easier on a standard N! game. This is because the N! strategy that works best in my experience is picking melee traits and using shotguns/explosives. Berserker is the most powerful trait in the game, and in the second half of the game it will be proccing so frequently that you'll naturally transition towards wanting to use the chainsaw or spear even though you have guns.
horos:
Hi Thomas! Thanks for the advice. I gave an attempt at Longinus Platinum a go following what you said! Here's the mortem.
--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (0.9.9.7) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
horos, level 6 Hell Baron 2nd Lieutenant Marine,
was eaten alive by a nightmare demon at the Hellgate.
He survived 14715 turns and scored 79252 points.
He played for 30 minutes and 1 second.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 210 out of 289 hellspawn. (72%)
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 1
Levels completed : 0
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
None
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#################################.................#########
#################################..................######..
########...............i.....####...................###....
########.O......i..........O.####...................#......
########.....................####...................#......
#..||..#.....................#......................#......
#......#..........c..........#......................#......
#......#............ccc......#......................#......
#....../.............X.......+......................#......
#......#............ccc......#......................#......
#......#..........c..........#......................#......
#..||.^#.....................#......................#......
########.........i...........####...................#......
########.......O.......i.....####...................#......
########.................O...####...................###....
#################################..................######..
#################################.................#########
###########################################################
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 0/60 Experience 11004/6
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +6
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Brute (Level 2)
Berserker (Level 1)
Badass (Level 2)
Vampyre (Level 1)
Bru->Bru->Ber->Bad->Bad->MVm->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] red armor [2/4] (45%)
[b] [ Weapon ] chainsaw (4d6)
[c] [ Boots ] protective boots [2/2] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] shotgun (8d3) [1/1]
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] pistol (2d4) [6/6]
[b] green armor [1/1] (100%)
[c] combat knife (2d5)
[d] 10mm ammo (x32)
[e] shotgun shell (x50)
[f] shotgun shell (x50)
[g] shotgun shell (x32)
[h] small med-pack
[i] small med-pack
[j] large med-pack
[k] large med-pack
[l] power mod pack
[m] technical mod pack
[n] steel boots [1/1] (100%)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
Acid - internal 0% torso 0% feet 25%
Fire - internal 0% torso 12% feet 0%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
44 former humans
14 former sergeants
15 former captains
71 imps
7 demons
38 lost souls
9 cacodemons
4 hell knights
6 barons of hell
2 pain elementals
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 8 he finally was eaten alive by a nightmare demon.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
There is a red armor [4/4] (100%) lying here.
There is a red armor [4/4] (100%) lying here.
You equip a red armor [4/4] (100%) from the ground.
There is a Large Health Globe lying here.
You feel like new!
You open the door.
Suddenly the walls lower! You dodge! You dodge! You are hit! You are hit! You
dodge! You dodge! You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon. The
missile hits the nightmare demon.
You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon. The missile hits the
nightmare demon. You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare imp.
You hit the nightmare demon. You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon.
You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon. The missile hits the
nightmare demon. The nightmare demon hits you. The nightmare demon hits you.
The nightmare demon hits you. The nightmare demon hits you. Your red armor is
damaged! You die!... Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
34 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
23 of those were killed.
And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
9 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
5 killed the bitch and survived.
4 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
--------------------------------------------------------------
--- End code ---
I tried my best - and was doing well, I berserked from the CC right up until the stairs of the hellgate. I wanted to try and get a lucky proc off one of the demons, but...well, as you can see...
--- Code: --- You hit the nightmare demon. You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon.
You dodge! The missile hits the nightmare demon. The missile hits the
nightmare demon. The nightmare demon hits you. The nightmare demon hits you.
The nightmare demon hits you. The nightmare demon hits you. Your red armor is
damaged! You die!... Press <Enter>...
--- End code ---
I kinda just died in one turn. How do people complete this level on N!, let alone damageless? Phase device abuse? What happens if you don't encounter one?
I tried to go as quick as I could through the levels, but the enemies are a lot more accurate and unforgiving then UV.
It's hard to pick one thing from just a mortem - i tried to gib corpses in explosions, in fluids and doors as much as possible, for example - but any advice here?
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