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Author Topic: Nightmare advice?  (Read 33336 times)

Sylph

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #60 on: January 29, 2017, 08:11 »

Are there any special levels (beyond the ones where corpse management is trivial, like Skulls and Carnage) where you feel that you come out in better shape than you went in with, or is it entirely the desire for Conqueror that makes you do them?

Always beneficial:
- Hell's arena (if you're not fussed with conquerer, and health packs are running out, only say 'yes' once... You get a lot of medpack as a reward for an easy level, and you'll have a super-easy chained court!)
- Military base for sure.
- Basic Chained court for sure.
- Hell's armoury for sure
- The wall - pretty basic.
- Containment area - but I use most of the rockets I get there!
- Halls of carnage. BFG nice!
- The lava pits / Mt Erebus - If you have envirosuits or cerb boots, the lava element you get from here is like an extra life.
- Limbo : Not too tricky, and great rewards. The nuclear BFG is just beautiful! <3

Situational:
- Chained court + is close to a deathtrap, but the modpacks and staff are great later on, so it's a 'die now or be strong later', and the extra experience often pushes me into enough experience to get hellrunner in time for phobos lab!
- Phobos lab if you are fast enough to outrun a nightmare demon, if not it's a deathtrap.
- Deimos lab is pretty much always beneficial if it doesn't kill me. There's a very real chance of having hell's armoury or deimos lab make the rest of your run *far* easier. From *any* rare modpack, you can assemble a tower shield, gravity boots, nano(machic) weapon of your choice, plasmatic shotgun, or demolition ammo pistol, and every one of those items it worth risking your life for.
- Unholy Cathedral. This is great for melee characters, and possible for most non-melee character, but certainly not worth it - you will be expending modpacks and maybe even traits specifically to get your character able to, and your reward is a melee weapon and some experience! For ranged characters with juggler I'd not-worth-it . Without juggler it's awful! For melee characters it's incredible.
- The vaults - For about the last 10 runs, the only items I've carried out of the vaults (WITH key) have been ammo boxes. Maybe it's bad luck? The lack of health here makes it situational.


Not worth it
- City of Skulls - Huge ammo drain, and the reward you already collected from the wall! I for one think this level needs a better reward! The skulls are ok for the mortuary, but most BFG owners have other answers.
- Plains of torment - Pretty dangerous but nothing too taxing. Terrible, terrible rewards though. At least this one has supercharge!
- Spider's Lair - Absolute deathtrap. Nice reward (particularly the energy cell pack), but yeah, deathtrap.
- Mortuary - I clear corpses with skulls or the BFG, wait until I'm getting overrun, then homing phase to the nuclear BFG, bunker in the corner until all cover is destroyed, then bunker in the closeby corner until all the cover is destroyed there too. After that, sometimes I manage to clear the level. I die here a lot, certainly more than anywhere else.


(And if you're tough enough to take on Hell's Arena, CC+ is comparatively easy)
Teach me your ways! :P
« Last Edit: January 29, 2017, 17:10 by Sylph »
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Tormuse

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #61 on: January 29, 2017, 09:45 »

Was supposed to be rocket launcher aimed backwards. Alas it seems like i failed.

Okay, that's what I thought it was.  It was the fact that it was facing backwards that threw me.  :)

Teach me your ways! :P

My ways currently come in two flavours:  Pistols and shotguns!  :D

Seriously, though, I have some answers for that, but I have to go to work now, so more later.  :)
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Moonshine Fox

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #62 on: January 29, 2017, 12:44 »

City of Skulls is basically only worth if for shotgun builds, as they can "easily" deal with the swarms of Lost Souls. The Mortuary (and Limbo) scare the everliving crap out of me and I don't even play Nightmare :/
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Minaro

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #63 on: January 29, 2017, 13:04 »

City of Skulls is basically only worth if for shotgun builds, as they can "easily" deal with the swarms of Lost Souls. The Mortuary (and Limbo) scare the everliving crap out of me and I don't even play Nightmare :/
Vampyre builds and MB builds carrying a shotgun can usually deal with City of Skulls.
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Sereg

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #64 on: January 29, 2017, 13:51 »

City of Skulls is basically only worth if for shotgun builds, as they can "easily" deal with the swarms of Lost Souls. The Mortuary (and Limbo) scare the everliving crap out of me and I don't even play Nightmare :/

I'm right there with you... I haven't achieved Explorer, much less Conqueror, on ANY difficulty, to say nothing of N!.

I've been following this thread without really contributing since my initial posts - it's all quite interesting, but way over my head.
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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #65 on: January 29, 2017, 21:29 »

I'm right there with you... I haven't achieved Explorer, much less Conqueror, on ANY difficulty, to say nothing of N!.

You can't do that while Sereging!  =P
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Tormuse

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #66 on: January 29, 2017, 21:44 »

Teach me your ways! :P

Okay, so I'm actually kind of surprised that CC+ is on your "situational" list, because in my view, if you're tough enough to complete Hell's Arena, you're definitely tough enough to deal with CC+, so that would be on my "Always Beneficial" list.

CC+ has the following benefits compared to HA:

1) You have more equipment (Including a rocket launcher for disposing of bodies and a chainsaw which is just plain fun)  :)

2) You have more experience (just from being a few levels higher)

3) You have more opportunities for corpse disposal (four doorways and lots of pools of lava, as opposed to Hell's Arena which just has...  a single staircase and every other corpse has to be stacked)

4) You have more healing opportunities (the equivalent of three berserk packs!  And they give you the chance to go on a berserk rampage where you have increased protection and speed!)  :)

5) A majority of the enemies are formers, which are pushovers, taking one or two hits (the Barons and Arena Master are the only real threats there and you have berserk power to help you with them)  :)

The only really significant drawback compared to HA is that if things go wrong, you can't choose when to leave because the exit doesn't open until you've killed everything.  (And for N!, they're all dead at the same time)  Even so, I don't think I've ever played a game where I completed HA, but didn't go into CC+; even if I'm out of med packs, it's okay, because the starting room has three healing sources.  What's not to love?  :)


As for the rest of your list, there are a few tweaks I would make...

Limbo as always beneficial?  Um...  no.  I mean it's nice to be able to knock enemies into the lava, but Limbo has tougher enemies (including Nightmare enemies) to make up for that.  Also, the exits are quite far from the start and you have to do quite a bit of fighting to get to them.  It's a very different fight from the Mortuary, but it's no cakewalk.  It is quite easy to be overwhelmed and I would call this level "situational" at best.

And I would put City of Skulls in the always beneficial category.  Sure, you use up lots of ammo there, but you get a fair bit in return.  As long as you stock up well before you go in there, you should be fine.  Just pace yourself so you don't have to face more than one pain elemental at a time and you shouldn't get too many lost souls ganging up on you.  (And it's worth noting that every single enemy on that level has melee attacks, so it's relatively easy to avoid getting hit; this is the level where I often earn my UAC Gold Star if I haven't earned it by that point in the game)  And you may scoff at the reward, but hatred skulls have massive potential benefit, especially if you use them in Mortuary/Limbo.


Those are the only major changes I would make to your list.  Clearly, we have some different views on some of our strategies, but other than these, I mostly agree.  :)
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Thomas

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #67 on: January 29, 2017, 22:08 »

I'm right there with you... I haven't achieved Explorer, much less Conqueror, on ANY difficulty, to say nothing of N!.

I've been following this thread without really contributing since my initial posts - it's all quite interesting, but way over my head.

Oh, the mortuary isn't so bad. And conquering is one of the easiest ways to do it too - you'll be prepared for long berserk rampages thanks to UC, and you'll have skulls and a BFG for some large-scale corpse management. Fear has no place in the mortuary, just run right in to the fray and kill everything quickly before too many corpses stand up.

You have more opportunities for corpse disposal (four doorways and lots of pools of lava, as opposed to Hell's Arena which just has...  a single staircase and every other corpse has to be stacked)

Actually, the way I do corpse management in Hell's Arena is probably 60% cacodemon shots*, 20% corpse stacking, 20% "it's just a demon - I'll kill it again if it stands up". I completely forgot that staircases would work!

Quote
And I would put City of Skulls in the always beneficial category[...]

Agreed. If every enemy in the city of skulls was worth 0 experience I would still do it for a blood or hatred skull - it's the least dangerous special level.

EDIT:
*I went back and did a couple more N! arena runs and this is a slight exaggeration - I corpse stack more than I thought I did. But it's really not that hard with how obediant pinky demons are when you have Hellrunner 2.

- Chained court + is close to a deathtrap, but the modpacks and staff are great later on, so it's a 'die now or be strong later', and the extra experience often pushes me into enough experience to get hellrunner in time for phobos lab!

Hm? And here I was getting it in time for Phobos Entry!
« Last Edit: January 29, 2017, 23:37 by Thomas »
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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #68 on: January 30, 2017, 00:42 »

You can't do that while Sereging!  =P

Very true, and perhaps that's part of the reason - my primary playstyle for higher tier badges ignores most(if not all) special levels.

On the other hand, I've still done a fair amount of legit playthroughs, even a few deliberately attempting to earn Explorer if not Conqueror, and can't manage it. Perhaps a bit more persistence is all it would take, but I'm just not tactically proficient enough to deal with the special levels well. My entire playstyle is built around answering the question, "How can I make this require as little effort and thought as possible?"... thus the prevalence of MAc builds, to ignore inventory management, and the Sereging, to ignore the first two thirds of the game.

I admit, it's not a style that lends itself well to... well, just about every DoomRL achievement I *don't* have - which is quite a lot of badges as low as gold and silver, and most of the medals.
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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #69 on: January 30, 2017, 04:24 »

Am I the only one with an unresistable urge to clear any of the special levels I encounter unless its is obviously impossible or i had a strategy beforehand that involved skipping specific levels?

if you're tough enough to complete Hell's Arena, you're definitely tough enough to deal with CC+, so that would be on my "Always Beneficial" list.

CC+ can really screw you up though if those barons decide to rush into your room together and also destroy all your berserk packs and chainsaw. Even if you survive the fight you will probably lose too much to make it worth.

- Unholy Cathedral. This is great for melee characters, and possible for most non-melee character, but certainly not worth it - you will be expending modpacks and maybe even traits specifically to get your character able to, and your reward is a melee weapon and some experience! For ranged characters with juggler I'd not-worth-it . Without juggler it's awful! For melee characters it's incredible.
It is indeed too unrewarding for non-melee builds. With all that melee theme of this special level I think that a couple of berserk packs can be added as a reward in the final room both to make the start of next level easier (and so adding incentive to visit UC even if you are not melee) and to give non-melees a chance to use the weapons they can find there!

- Spider's Lair - Absolute deathtrap. Nice reward (particularly the energy cell pack), but yeah, deathtrap.
I'd say that sometimes your build allows you to safely clear it and rewards are really good. I also don't think that it is even that dangerous if your build does not fit very well. You will burn some medpacks yes, but the rewards may be good enough to justify that. I see I forgot it is on depth 14 now.
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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #70 on: January 30, 2017, 06:11 »

Am I the only one with an unresistable urge to clear any of the special levels I encounter unless its is obviously impossible or i had a strategy beforehand that involved skipping specific levels?
Nope, you and me both. I have this irresistable urge to blue every level, even normal ones.
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Sylph

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #71 on: January 30, 2017, 08:41 »

On N! The arena is easy to conquer because of the decent cover. CC+ features *awful* cover. There's nowhere you can pillbox without being attacked from an odd angle, and if you try to stay in the starting room to use the doors and laval as corpse disposal, you have a *huge* chance of losing your chainsaw / berserk packs to a wandering baron (I watched your pistol video thinking about this all the way up until it actually happened). I was well impressed at your victory there, and I think I'm perhaps taking a little too long over it, but my general strategy for the level seems reasonably robust, albeit losing me 6-ish rockets and a couple of medpacks! It's nothing like the arena though - I can almost guarantee completing the arena, the chained court + always feels like it has wildcards, and the modpack/chainsaw reward is nowhere near as important as the rocket launcher (which I require for CC+, phobos lab, and anomaly). I really struggle without the arena rocket launcher, whereas I don't feel things are that different if I skip the CC+.
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Tormuse

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #72 on: January 30, 2017, 11:57 »

Am I the only one with an unresistable urge to clear any of the special levels I encounter unless its is obviously impossible or i had a strategy beforehand that involved skipping specific levels?

You're definitely not the only one.  :)
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Tormuse

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Re: Nightmare advice?
« Reply #73 on: February 04, 2017, 01:35 »

On N! The arena is easy to conquer because of the decent cover. CC+ features *awful* cover. There's nowhere you can pillbox without being attacked from an odd angle, and if you try to stay in the starting room to use the doors and laval as corpse disposal, you have a *huge* chance of losing your chainsaw / berserk packs to a wandering baron (I watched your pistol video thinking about this all the way up until it actually happened). I was well impressed at your victory there, and I think I'm perhaps taking a little too long over it, but my general strategy for the level seems reasonably robust, albeit losing me 6-ish rockets and a couple of medpacks! It's nothing like the arena though - I can almost guarantee completing the arena, the chained court + always feels like it has wildcards, and the modpack/chainsaw reward is nowhere near as important as the rocket launcher (which I require for CC+, phobos lab, and anomaly). I really struggle without the arena rocket launcher, whereas I don't feel things are that different if I skip the CC+.

(Oops, I forgot to reply to this)  All valid points; In all honesty, when I do CC+, I find myself winging it a lot, but in all my time playing DRL, I've learned to adapt my strategies on the fly, so I come out okay.  :)  But yeah, it would be nice if there was at least a place you could reliably camp without being snuck up on by enemies that ruin everything.  :P
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