Now I have some time so I can reply to the rest of this! :D
Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.
That one is definitely going to need a lucky phase and/or invulnerability going in. (The latter of which would mean you'd have to skip Military Base/Phobos Lab) I doubt that AoPc would be the best way to do it, although maybe... if you have Dodgemaster and choose your steps very carefully around the Bruisers? Like lure them south a bit and then run around an arc north of them, being careful not to get too close to that north wall? Personally, I prefer to just shoot them from outside their weapon ranges and/or cornershoot them with a shotgun to knock them back and not get a chance to shoot back, (bonus points if you have a shellbox for faster reloading) but if you're just going for the exit without bothering to kill anyone, then yeah, Dodgemaster would be the way to go.
I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get...
Oh, it is very, very ridiculous.
The one and only time I got it, I was phenomenally lucky; that'll probably never happen again. :) That being said, dual angeling with Darkness for the experience boost or Light Travel for the speed boost are probably the way to go.
Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency...
My advice for N! games is to not expect consistency. Skill can take you far, but N! requires a mix of luck and skill, especially for the harder challenges.
I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.
Dr Granola gave good advice, so I'll quote them here:
As a self-professed noob who cribs every strat they find and read about, who also has no business telling you any of this, I'd say go for a bit of both. Just keep pumping out runs, and getting better along the way. The beast of both worlds!
That's right, be the BEAST of both worlds! :D (I know that's probably a typo, but I liked it) :P Seriously, though, yeah, just keep playing and keep getting better. That's what I did, and as you get more experience, you learn how to adapt your strategies to each situation.
The best active player at the moment has to be Tormuse(and as far as I'm aware he also has the highest confirmed Angelic count of any player in the history of DRL)
Oh, hey, thanks! :D
Another pretty good player is
Papilio, who doesn't seem to be active lately, but was putting out Diamond and Angelic badges fairly regularly for a while and recorded a number of videos of himself playing, so there's another resource for possible strategies. (Feel free to watch my videos too; link is in my sig) ;)
...and while I suspect Dragonslayers from the cathedral are more consistent then that badge, they'd still require a massive amount of luck in the Arena. Again, you'll probably want to wait on Tormuse for that one, because he's actually done it.
I have gotten the guaranteed DS to spawn twice,
here and
here, (the second one includes videos) both of which I got the Hell Arena Pwnage medal by using AoMC, Int 2, and *lots* of bullets. I'm not sure how I would do it outside of those conditions, but I think Int 2 is a huge help, regardless.
Demonic Angelic is, if memory serves, 100% kill rate damageless nightmare? This is probably theoretically possible, but not only would it require an absurd number of attempts coupled with absolutely insane luck, it would also require player skill to be absolutely monumental. I would consider this to be on the very far end of the attainability scale.
You and me both.
...Playing is the biggest part of it, and the rest is probably engaging with the community, getting feedback on runs, and familiarizing yourself with details of gameplay, whether that's learning from other players, reading the wiki, or checking stats in game. You're doing a good job of engaging with the community on this thread, and the rest is up to you, but I think you're on the right track.
What Sereg said here. You're doing well and you're on the right track to achieving all your goals. Just keep doing what you're doing. And yes, engaging with the community is good too; some of my best games came from adapting strategies that other people suggested, even when I was skeptical of them. (The strategies, not the people) :P
Here's the very first mortem I ever posted.
Oh, hey, that's neat! You joined the forums about a week before
I did! :o I didn't realize that we're from the same era! :D
A bit late to help you out with this one, but I had this discussion awhile back when I was attempting Arena Gold. Hopefully it sheds some light on the solution for you - kudos for completing it with your method, but I suspect you'd have had an easier time this way.
There's some good AoMr stuff in that discussion. Don't underestimate Dualgunner; it was responsible for victory in a lot of my early AoMr games.
I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.
That's something else that'll come with time, I think. When you learn not to rely on Int 2, there's a lot you can do with those two levels. :)
Picking up the Dragonslayer adds 10,000,000 to the Berserk timer. It's technically possible to run out of Berserk after picking it up.
This makes me really tempted to find myself a small but heavy object to weigh down the wait key on my keyboard after picking up DS and just leave the game on, overnight, with the key depressed and see if I can run out of berserk power. :D
Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage.
Erm... I'm not sure what you're getting at here; being berserk already makes you move faster than normal running, in addition to the extra protection and melee damage. There really isn't any situation where it's advantageous to not be berserk... unless, I don't know... maybe you feel that you're doing too much damage and you want to gib Formers less frequently? (Though DS does so much damage that you would still gib them a majority of the time anyway)
I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired
I'm not. I can't even imagine any hypothetical, obscure, edge-case scenarios. Being berserk gives so many advantages, that it's pretty much objectively a good thing.
One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?
1) I'm pretty sure they have to be Combat Knives. I know for a fact that Butcher's Cleaver invalidates the Malicious Knives Cross medal from a game I played in
this thread. (At the time, I attributed it to something different I did early on in the game, but I've learned since then that it was the BC that did it) I don't know if DS invalidates MKC, but it just so happens that I will find out soon. ;)
2) That counts as a melee kill. It's based on what weapon you have in your hand when the enemy dies. This is a widely used strategy for Strongman runs, swapping to ranged weapons to weaken enemies, before swapping back to melee to land the killing blow. Juggler is good for this strategy.
3) That gets counted as whatever weapon you have in your hand at the time, and it's the source of a lot of ruined runs of this type. :P That being said, someone said that there's a line in the code for this version (that wasn't present in previous versions) that if an enemy dies at the same time that you're punching, it counts as a fist kill, even if you have a ranged weapon in hand at the time. Testing seems to confirm this, but if you're going for a fist-based Strongman badge, I wouldn't recommend it, for fear of accidentally ruining the run.
4) Are you referring to Juggler trait? I know that in previous versions, the game would always attribute the kill to whatever you have as your main weapon in hand, but I'm pretty sure this version properly attributes Juggler-based melee kills to the weapon in your prepared slot. (The previous version let you put the Chainsaw in the prepared slot, get chainsaw kills, and count them as fist kills; it was great for Strongman badges!) :D
5) Everything that dies from the Angel Arm would be pistol kills, since it immediately nukes while you have the pistol in your hand. Side note: If you nuke a level with the Nuclear BFG/Plasma Rifle and have your hands empty when the ten seconds run out, it will count those as fist kills.
Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)
Haha, yeah! That'll be Everyman Gold. Congrats! :D I kind of figure I'll get that at the same time as Everyman Diamond or Angelic if I ever achieve those. :)
Sorry about the huge wall of text; like I said, there was a lot to catch up on. I'm still following this thread and I'm interested to see what you do next. :)