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Author Topic: The Journey to 100%  (Read 97114 times)

Tormuse

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #135 on: October 22, 2017, 22:26 »
2 DS spawns on Hell 1?  O_o  How many times did you do this again?

Quote from: Icy on October 22, 2017, 13:15
Apparently, it's a rare badge too as the only players confirmed to have it are Papilio and Sereg, though perhaps others quietly have achieved it too. It's another reason I want to get it!

I think it's just a generally unpopular challenge because no one likes doing without powerups.  (Myself included)  :P
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Sereg

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #136 on: October 23, 2017, 06:13 »
True, no one likes doing it - me, especially, because I've made abundant use of Overconfidence in attempting many of my Platinums and Diamonds, and in Overconfidence, well placed powerups are critical for successful runs. Finding a fortuitous Invulnerability, Berserk Pack, or Megasphere/Supercharge on the first floor is almost always the difference between that run lasting past the first floor, or not. Finding them on deeper floors during a stairdive is often the difference between keeping the dive going, or not. Finding them before Dis can often mean winning, or not. Even small health globes are extremely important, if for nothing else then the tactics restoration.

Keep in mind that Maps, Tracking Maps, and Light Amp Goggles are also powerups, and the visibility they grant can help you find a safe path to the stairs - or even find the stairs to begin with.

Powerups are a bigger part of the game then I think most players realize - even runs like Masochism, that prevent powerups from healing you, still benefit heavily from them, because of the additional effects they offer. In my opinion, Purity is easily one of the most challenging game modes, right up there with Humanity and Masochism.
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #137 on: October 23, 2017, 07:59 »
Yeah Tormuse, having not just one, but two Dragonslayers spawning directly in my sight at the start of the game, during which I'm not able to get them at all, especially after just strategizing on how to get them was hilarious and irritating. :P

Day 45:

More attempts for Inquisitor Diamond Badge!

On a decent run to floor 4, I had mostly Formers on the left-side of the level and through a pair of rooms, I came across a pair of Homing Phase Devices:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got a little excited thinking that this run suddenly had great potential to make it to Dis. Unfortunately, I had terrible staircase luck again where I cleared out the wrong side. Keep in mind, this is also on a floor with 2 staircases, and with Homing Phase Devices, I could have easily accepted Limbo/Mortuary:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I carefully explored a good chunk of the area, but was running out of safe options:

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So I used one of the Homing Phase Devices:

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Sucks.

Here's an interesting crossroad I had:

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As nice as having a nuke is, I went for the stairs since I can still kill the Spider Mastermind anyway. The run, unsurprisingly didn't work out though.

On another run, I had a Pain Elemental cave, which is something I would later have many more times:

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These floors are pretty much the only ones that can be consistently cleared. They're the only ones I ever did anyway. They're great for experience, good chances of extra items, as well as time to buff up for the next floor. The only downside is they cost a fair amount of shells.

This particular run continued some more and I had a very nice setup despite the area being an Arachnotron cave:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, I lost control of the situation:

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The run managed to keep going, and I found a nice pair of items:

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This was my first run to floor 6, but the game put a crashing halt to that with a terrible starting position:

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:(

On another mostly unmemorable run, I got to floor 6 for the second time, and got this:

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Suddenly, things got very tense as I had a very real shot at a completion. The game then decided to spawn me on the far right side of a maze for floor 7...

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With the barrels all over and an acid river, I was actually able to create myself a safe haven:

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The other cool thing is from my angle, I had an Archvile corpse in the front of the other side, with an acid pool behind, creating an awesome spot to destroy corpses! So I slowly lured out enemies and fired away, killing a ton of them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I ran out of ammo though, and I needed to save my bullets for the Spider Mastermind, so I started to get worried about what to do. I waited for several minutes to let enough monsters pile on over to the right side of the floor where they can't get me, including a few Archviles sounds in the background, and I ran across the river:

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I was stuck, so out of desperation, I decided my best option was a Phase Device:

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I got very lucky with this and kept going, I went around a corner and got blasted a couple times, now with the stairs in sight!

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I was running out of options here. If I ran away, I might get swarmed, and if I fired back, I'd run out of ammo. I considered using my Rocket Launcher, but I was worried about knocking enemies towards me, blowing up cover, etc. After a bit of time thinking about everything, I decided to run for the stairs and hope for the best.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

</3

Literally died one tile away from reaching the Spider Mastermind. :( If I had entered there, I would have easily won the game. If only I had gone around the corner from the bottom side that would have worked. Or if the floor 7 was even just a tiny bit nicer to me and gave me the stairs around the area I actually explored, I could have made it.

Heartbroken but not undetermined, I kept going.

Not too long after, I had another run to floor 5, but then the game decided to put an end to that:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

In yet another run to floor 5, I actually got a nice break:

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Floor 6 wasn't too particularly awful and I managed to find the stairs not far away. Yet another floor with triple Invulnerability I couldn't use:

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Floor 7 starting with stairs in sight...!

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Here we go boys! On my second run to floor 7, I actually made it to Dis! Now, as I had planned, I had around 465 bullets to use with my Combat Pistol against the Spider Mastermind. I did have three Large Med-Packs if necessary, but I still took this super slow and safe. And I mean REALLY super slow and safe. I would wait and cornershoot the Spider Mastermind once, then run back, taking absolutely zero risk. This took close to half an hour, but I'd much rather do this than potentially be playing for this badge for who knows how many more hours.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I got the badge! And reached Chaos Major! This was a huge relief and extremely satisfying to get!

I want to go over some tips about going for this badge since it seems almost nobody has it, but it's way easier than people make it out to be. For the most part, this badge is a lottery, so you have to accept that beforehand. If you wear your heart on your sleeve with your emotions, you'll fall apart after every good run dies. I had one run die on floor 7 as I wrote about, a couple die on floor 6, and probably a dozen or so on floor 5. That's just how it goes when you're pushing your luck so much.

I'd argue that this badge is far more mental than technical. You have to keep focus and stay patient. Every single turn and action can be the difference between life and death, so you have to play carefully once you get a nice run started. I also strongly recommend always going for the stairs once you see them. I had a fair number of good starts die because I got greedy for extra items. Even if you can't hear monsters in the direction of where you're going, others from where you came from can catch up.

I also believe that Overconfidence and Eagle Eye x2 -> Intuition x2 is by far the most viable way to go for this badge. With my strategy of killing the Spider Mastermind with the Combat Pistol, you need all the ammo because you'll often be firing in the darkness, missing your shots half the time, and you absolutely need to know where she is as well as having the increased accuracy from Eagle Eye. You can't expect to fire at her a few hundred times and not expect to avoid taking damage the whole time if you're waiting for her to appear in your line of sight. The only other way is nuking her, but adding another layer of luck to this strategy is not the way to go in my opinion.

All that said, this badge is still incredibly difficult, but is certainly overrated and many more people can get this. In total, I took 353 runs, which seems intimidating, but keep in mind that something like ~90% of those runs lasted about 10 seconds because I had a bad start. It's kind of hard to estimate whether I had good or bad luck in my run count because of all the variables, but I'd argue I was above average in luck in getting the badge in as many runs as I took.

Not sure what's next, but I'll continue progressing as usual! Time to make that signature! :D
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Sereg

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #138 on: October 23, 2017, 18:08 »
Very impressive - and you did it with a standard win, better then my partial. Better strategy with the Int2, I guess, lol.

I suspect you will not have much difficulty in surpassing me from this point. Tormuse will still be giving you a run for your money, though - and then VANDAM, if your end goal is to equal his purported achievements.
« Last Edit: October 23, 2017, 21:34 by Sereg »
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #139 on: October 24, 2017, 13:36 »
Thanks! I actually browsed around for players to see how everyone stacks up, and it seems there's a clear gap between the top four players (VANDAM, 2Dev, Papilio, Tormuse), and everyone else (Sereg, Evilpotatoe, myself, and others). I'd like to get myself in between that gap and onward, hopefully motivating more people to play! :) It'd be interesting to see the full medal and badge counts by everyone, but there are many players who don't list all their stats. I'm sure there are lots of great lurkers as well.

Day 47:

Adding onto what I said above, I decided it's time to go for my first angelic badge! The easiest one by far seems to be Shottyman Angelic Badge, which perfectly fits my playstyle too. On top, I planned on getting the Shottyman Diamond Badge as well, which interestingly is harder to get when playing with Angel of Overconfidence. :P My plan was to create a setup where I could safely kill a Shotgun Guy hundreds of times until I had a high enough kill rate to ride out until the end, as well as all the ammo I could ever need.

My first attempt had this setup:

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And here are my stats just as I was about to enter floor 2:

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While I was early into the game, with the ammo I had, Intuition x2 + Hellrunner x2, and the Scout's awesome natural abilities (so much better than playing Marine), I should be fine.

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Unfortunately, the Invulnerability was a bit protected, and I didn't have any source of healing. It was possible it was in another room as well, so I didn't risk getting it. On floor 3, I was greeted with this:

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Not good. Then on floor 4...

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:( It's a pain to spend the time to get the kill rate high enough, only to get bad luck and killed.

I repeated this strategy two more times, and I had atrocious luck each floor afterwards. Very annoying. One of them had me start near the very bottom-right corner, in a room filled with Revenants and Archviles, giving me literally no option to handle the situation.

The issue though is Shotgun Guys are kind of rare for being this deep into Hell on Nightmare, but because stairdiving is (usually...) very easy, I decided to grind until I had a floor 7 with them of which I could do the setup. Eventually, I got one:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had two setup perfectly and a nuke for the Spider Mastermind ready too, but because I grabbed a Tracking Map, this took forever. Interestingly though as time goes on, the probability of respawning enemies increases. I'm not sure if there's a cap on this, but if there isn't, the entire collection of enemies on a floor would respawn every 10s; very scary! Towards the end of my grinding, I was getting double spawns almost every time, and quickly too. It still took some time.

After that, I nuked Dis and got my first angelic badge!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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It seems that every great player outside of the top 4 have only 2 angelic badges, so I definitely want to get there too. I think the next easiest one would be Lightfoot Angelic Badge, and Archangel of Travel actually seems like super fun too! I'll give it some effort and hopefully it goes well!
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #140 on: October 25, 2017, 10:51 »
Day 48:

Going for Lightfoot Angelic Badge is a great challenge, but much easier than I anticipated. The 30% speed bonus is a huge help!

It took me awhile to get a solid strategy for Phobos Anomaly, but generally what I do is open the door, grab a Large Med-Pack, both Large Health Globes, then dive and close the other door. Dodgemaster helps. For the Bruisers, it's very helpful to approach forward and centre to lure them inward before looping around to get to a safe corner.

Ammo is obviously quite tight, but Shotguns still work great, and the boosted speed makes combat easy enough where you aren't taking much damage most of the time.

On my best run, I had stacked Invulnerability at Deimos 7, and then:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

From this point, I was pretty much guaranteed the badge by dumb luck. However, a completely unexpected problem came up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ugggggh...... :( When moving around, I accidentally bumped a Zombieman of all things and not only did I swing at him and not only did I hit him, but I also killed him. I was hoping that maybe it wouldn't count?

I grabbed the Nuclear BFG from Limbo and went all the way to JC (like I said, massive stack of Invulnerability):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It did eventually run out though and I was killed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And no badge. :(

After that I tried some more runs, but they didn't work out for one reason or another. Like I said, this badge isn't too bad to get and doesn't require that much luck, so I should get it soon. Still, I was pretty frazzled by losing my basically won run to a really stupid mistake. I'll be sure to avoid repeating that. :P
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Tormuse

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #141 on: October 25, 2017, 14:19 »
Aw, crap!  That sounds really disappointing!  :S  And yeah, since that one punch resulted in that guy's death, that would invalidate the badge.  Still, like you say, I'm sure you'll get it eventually.  :)

May I ask what build you used?  (Or possibly, could you post the mortem?)
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Ridonk

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #142 on: October 25, 2017, 16:06 »
I definitely ruined many, too many runs accidentally bashing zombiemen trying that challenge.
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #143 on: October 26, 2017, 15:30 »
Here's that particular mortem, Tormuse:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Day 49:

Massive progress today! I've been pretty excited to share it all! :D

I started off digging more into the coding because I was curious about ammo and armor crates and what their probabilities are for each item. Here are the listings:

Ammo Crate
30/40 nothing
4/40 10mm Ammo
4/40 Shells
1/40 Ammo Chain
1/40 Shell Box

Armor Crate
45/60 nothing
4/60 Green Armor
4/60 Steel Boots
4/60 Small Med Pack
1/60 Blue Armor
1/60 Large Med Pack
1/60 Protective Boots

So given each 2x2 block of crates, you'll on average get one item. The information doesn't really change much about strategy or approach, but is nice to have solid numbers. I'd argue that a 1 in 20 chance for a big ammo box is pretty good.

I also dug into how the medals and badges get rewarded. The most infamous oversight is Destroyer Diamond Badge, which requires getting the Untouchable Cross, which is not rewarded on Angel of Confidence/Overconfidence. However, the code itself only checks for damage taken, and not medal received, which is why we can abuse the dual-angel. I was curious if there are any others like that to make some of the more difficult medals and badges easier, but I haven't found anything. I'll study every one I go for to get a precise idea of what the game wants though.

However, one interesting find I did see is Lightfoot Badges:

Code: [Select]
if player:has_won() then
player:add_badge("lightfoot2")
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_HARD                                        then player:add_badge("lightfoot3") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD  and statistics.game_time <= 20000 then player:add_badge("lightfoot4") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE and melee_tot == 0                then
player:add_badge("lightfoot5")
if ARCHANGEL then  player:add_badge("lightfoot6") end
end
end
Basically, you can get Lightfoot Diamond Badge while playing on Archangel of Travel, and not just Angel of Light Travel. I'd almost argue doubling up with Lightfoot Angelic Badge is easier since the extra 10% speed bonus is so powerful, and is a pretty good trade-off for just 3 more inventory slots. That said, Angel of Max Carnage + Light Travel could make up for carrying less ammo.

In any case, this meant I'll be getting an unexpected diamond badge!

One more discovery (which is super embarrassing) is the Phobos Anomaly portal is always open. I usually kill everything and pull the Bruisers back, and thought it being open was only on Angel of Pacifism. I've literally thrown some runs fighting the Bruisers in the back corners, being completely oblivious to the fact that I could just be leaving. After that, I decided to check the coding for stairs in Babel, but those are indeed only there on Pacifism, lol. I'm really not sure how I was always thinking it was closed. :P

After more attempts at Archangel of Light Travel, I finally got a great run, starting with an Invulnerability on floor 7:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And another on Deimos 1. I was able to get through most of the episode while Invulnerable.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I read some posts about players beating up the Cyberdemon with the Chainsaw, and then avoiding the melee kill afterwards. I wasn't keen on the idea of running into him, so I went with Dodgemaster abuse and slowly killed him with a regular Shotgun. I loaded up on shells beforehand and it was a breeze.

On Hell 1, I had yet another Invulnerability. This is usually the most important one in the run, since it's right after emptying out basically all of my ammo:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I made it far into the episode and came across a nuke!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To the right there is Limbo, meaning I had an opportunity to go for a full win and grab yet another diamond badge! I considered it for awhile, but ultimately decided not to. The two reasons were that it's possible I'll need every bit of Invulnerability to survive up to Dis, and I was also concerned with getting bounced around in the corner of Limbo due to high monster density.

I made it to Dis and blew up the Spider Mastermind, went to fight JC again, got destroyed, and got my second angelic badge!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I've now matched what most players have as their angelic badge count! The other nice thing is the first promotion with those badges is at 3, so it'll work out as a way to flaunt my progress more. :) I'm not sure which one I'll go for, but it won't be for awhile anyway.

While I did luck out a lot of my run, there were a lot of tactics and strong gameplay. I've been improving a lot more in all the micro details and interesting situations the game throws at me. I had one scenario in particular where I was stuck in a U-shaped section of a maze level filled with barrels, and having a Chaingunner and Revenant pursue me from opposite sides. Being low on health, I couldn't get hit by either or the barrels, and there was no good angle to hit only the Chaingunner. Moving would also result in barrels getting destroyed in basically every case. However, I found a solution by pushing a particular barrel to force the Revenant to go around for 1 extra step, making the Chaingunner move, and giving me a better position for the kill. Little things like that have helped immensely!

I've also started to use the minimap again. After struggling a bit on Archangel of Travel, it was pretty annoying to not be able to use all the Berserks in Chained Court since it messes with Intuition. Is it possible to move its position lower into my HUD?

Anyway, despite all that, I kept going for more! My next goal would be getting a full win on Nightmare, which I planned on doing with a double nuke strategy. I figured it wouldn't be too bad to grind for; I'd need Invulnerability before Limbo, grab the Nuclear BFG, get lucky to find a Nuke, and likely need one more Invulnerability for the ending. If that failed, I was playing on Max Carnage for a backup strat against JC.

My run started off strong:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Even stronger than I thought:

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On floor 2, I found a Tracking Map, which revealed the much needed Nuke! The challenge however was it was surrounded by enemies and directly adjacent to a barrel:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With careful movements and patience, I was able to safely grab it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Floor 3 offered another Invulnerability, but what I had left of my first two was phasing out:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Carefully dancing around with an Archvile, I managed to grab it before it was destroyed:

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I used a Homing Phase Device to jump over far in floor 4 since both staircases were nearby:

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I saw a replacement Homing Phase Device, and very carefully managed to grab it. Seriously, look at the enemies in the room I was dealing with!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Limbo was nice to me with basically no enemies nearby and an empty upper-right island:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My Invulnerability ran out before I left:

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The game was nice to give me yet another Invulnerability, but once again, I had to earn it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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On my way out, I found another Homing Phase Device, which meant I had enough to immediately leave to the end:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Floor 6 had no additional Invulnerabilities, so I left right away, but floor 7 did:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Again, look at that enemy pile-up! I still managed to grab it, meaning I had the game won at this point!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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A new promotion and I got another double badge (this one I didn't expect lol)! Now obviously, I got super lucky that the game gave me all the tools I needed, but almost all of them were not gimmes and I had to earn them! I'm honestly more happy to very clearly see my skill level improving moreso than the badges themselves. :P

Still, I wasn't satisfied yet and kept going.

My next target was Longinus Diamond Badge. Since I wasn't allowed to use Brute, Eagle Eye is the clear choice for this challenge. I figured that with enough attempts with Angel of Overconfidence that I would eventually get it. I played a bit with a few strategies. I thought at first that Scout on Max Carnage would be the way to go, since I could use Intuition instead, grab an Invulnerability, and hack away at the Angel of Death. Funny enough though due to his massive armor, the Chainsaw from Angel of Berserk is more damaging, while I'd also be taking less in return. And given that, it makes more sense to play as a Marine for the extra powerup duration. So the plan was to find an Invulnerability and Unholy Cathedral, and hopefully score a win.

On my first successful start, I brought the Angel of Death down to "almost dead", but got finished off. I saved my Chainsaw Berserk effect for when I reached him, but realized it makes more sense to use it for the Demons to kill them faster, and ultimately have more time with Invulnerability. So I tried for some more runs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I made one minor mistake of sawing the door rather than opening it, meaning I had less corpse disposal with the Demons. They fortunately never respawned though.

The Angel of Death got torn apart:

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Very easy and I had Large Med-Packs to spare! I strongly recommend using this strategy when going for this badge. The grind for a start is a bit tedious, but once you get a nearby Invulnerability, Unholy Cathedral is cake.

Of course though, I'm insatiable.

My next target was Hunter Diamond Badge. This one is pretty straight-forward; Angel of Darkness + Overconfidence, visit each of the 4 levels, then kill the Spider Mastermind. The only major source of luck needed is Invulnerability or a Homing Phase Device before Limbo/Mortuary since the other three can be immediately exited. I also use Intuition x2 as usual, which is good enough for Dis. Finding the stairs is pretty much all luck though, but the massive experience points gained with Nightmare + Darkness + Overconfidence helps a lot. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete the challenge last night despite some runs to floor 7, and had to settle with a mere 5 badges. :P

That was definitely the final night I'll ever gain that many badges in one day, although Speedunner and Demonic Angelic Badges basically count for 70 a piece. ;) I've learned a lot, improved a lot, gained a lot, and still have so much fire to keep going! I'm on the cusp of catching up to many great players, which is really exciting! I'm also confident about getting many of my missing medals and badges, whereas just about a week ago I was intimidated and didn't think I'd be ready for Nightmare.

I'm having a blast and a craving for more!
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #144 on: October 27, 2017, 15:27 »
Day 50:

Despite quite a bit of effort before, Hunter Diamond Badge came quickly after just a few more tries. The run wasn't very remarkable, just lots of luck with nearby stairs and Invulnerability. I also was able to grab the Nuclear BFG, which lead to an interesting ending:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Literally gained 5 levels, lol. :P Anyway, while I could have potentially just found the staircase and nuked Dis, there's of course a small chance I wouldn't find it and get killed by all the Mancubi, not to mention it might have been hard just getting on the stairs with them all around. By nuking floor 7 instead, I was only left with fighting the Spider Mastermind, which I'm very confident in doing safely, and because all the experience levels came just before that, I could pump out all traits that would be beneficial. I'd say doing this is a fairly obvious decision, but it's still a fun scenario!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After that, I rotated a bunch of diamond badge challenges, but wasn't able to earn the sought-after 15th. Once I get one more, I won't need any diamond badges any more for ranking promotions, and will just need more angelic badges. I'm still going to collect them all, but there's less immediate obligation to do so. I'm confident I can earn most of them, just that none of them are cakewalks anymore.

With no luck there, I played a game for Daredevil Platinum Badge, which I found pretty easy. I didn't end up earning it though because I rolled an Arachnotron cave and was quickly melted to ashes. :(

Anyway, I'm sure I'll earn another diamond badge soon. I'm curious though what you guys think would be the next easiest angelic badge after Shottyman and Lightfoot? I'm wondering how difficult Inquisitor and Quartermaster are, as they don't seem as totally insane as the others. I'm also curious about Pacifist, since I could play it on Hey, Not Too Rough difficulty. It'd be a grind for sure, but I can do grinds. Any advice?
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BBHood217

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #145 on: October 27, 2017, 19:01 »
I'm of the opinion that Pacifist Angelic is nigh impossible.  Across the 24 or so floors you have to cross, eventually something will die with the cause being enemy crossfire, a pinky running across acid, a former human's starting position being on lava, or whatever else.
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Dr. Granola

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #146 on: October 27, 2017, 20:17 »
Yeah, that challenge reeks of some serious BS.
It's not even much of a challenge, just a "hope you get lucky" kind of thing.
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Tormuse

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #147 on: October 27, 2017, 22:20 »
Quote from: Icy on October 26, 2017, 15:30
I started off digging more into the coding because I was curious about ammo and armor crates and what their probabilities are for each item. Here are the listings:

Ammo Crate
30/40 nothing
4/40 10mm Ammo
4/40 Shells
1/40 Ammo Chain
1/40 Shell Box

Armor Crate
45/60 nothing
4/60 Green Armor
4/60 Steel Boots
4/60 Small Med Pack
1/60 Blue Armor
1/60 Large Med Pack
1/60 Protective Boots

Very interesting; I didn't even realize that the game made a distinction between ammo and armour crates.  Is it based on the colour of the crates?

Quote from: Icy on October 26, 2017, 15:30
One more discovery (which is super embarrassing) is the Phobos Anomaly portal is always open. I usually kill everything and pull the Bruisers back, and thought it being open was only on Angel of Pacifism. I've literally thrown some runs fighting the Bruisers in the back corners, being completely oblivious to the fact that I could just be leaving. After that, I decided to check the coding for stairs in Babel, but those are indeed only there on Pacifism, lol. I'm really not sure how I was always thinking it was closed. :P

Aww, that means you haven't been watching my videos!  I've passed the Anomaly without killing everything there a bunch of times!  :D  And it makes the wording of the badges more significant; note that Gatekeeper Platinum says you just have to "pass" anomaly on N!, not clear it.  (I once got Gatekeeper Platinum on an AoPc game!)  :)

Quote from: Icy on October 27, 2017, 15:27
Anyway, I'm sure I'll earn another diamond badge soon. I'm curious though what you guys think would be the next easiest angelic badge after Shottyman and Lightfoot? I'm wondering how difficult Inquisitor and Quartermaster are, as they don't seem as totally insane as the others. I'm also curious about Pacifist, since I could play it on Hey, Not Too Rough difficulty. It'd be a grind for sure, but I can do grinds. Any advice?

If you think Inquisitor is a relatively easy badge to get, you're welcome to try; it definitely isn't my first choice.  :|  I got Quartermaster Angelic a while back using a Gunrunner build.  It's a very different strategy to my usual slow, calculating ways, since I frequently had to charge into the fray before I was ready, but once I got the Master trait, combined with Shottyman, it got quite ridiculous and a lot of fun.  :)  As for Pacifist...

Quote from: BBHood217 on October 27, 2017, 19:01
I'm of the opinion that Pacifist Angelic is nigh impossible.  Across the 24 or so floors you have to cross, eventually something will die with the cause being enemy crossfire, a pinky running across acid, a former human's starting position being on lava, or whatever else.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts about it; even if you play perfectly, the whole run can be lost in an instant for reasons beyond your control.  (from enemies at the opposite end of the map, even!)  :|
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #148 on: October 28, 2017, 08:23 »
Ammo crates are pinkish, and armor crates are yellowish.

I actually do intend to watch your videos when I'll need to study some more. :P I have watched bits and pieces of them, and watched through part of your Everyman Angelic Badge run.

I forgot that Angel of Purity blocks Invulnerability, so yeah, Inquisitor Angelic Badge is not immediately happening, lol. I was thinking I could just grind for luck, but it's going to take a lot more than that.

I think I'll try for Pacifist Angelic Badge sometime and see how it goes.

Day 51:

After rotating some more with diamond badges, I've decided to grind for UAC Diamond Badge, which would also earn me UAC Platinum Badge. It's very challenging and I've only had a couple runs past Babel. The main issue is that I can't really abuse Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon because of the time constraint, which is proving to be a problem. Generally, I attack with Chainsaw, but I essentially need Invulnerability and Berserk to get the kill. I've started going with Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Brute instead of Dodgemaster, but I'm now also considering going for an earlier Berserker.

No screenshots this time since UAC Diamond Badge is a rush. :P

I'm not a huge fan of this challenge since it forces me out of my slow, defensive style, so I've just been grinding for luck. Hopefully, I can get it soon and be done with speedun challenges. I have no clue how Speedunner Angelic Badge is like, mathematically possible without tens of thousands of runs. It'll certainly be the last badge I ever earn.
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Icy

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Re: The Journey to 100%
« Reply #149 on: October 29, 2017, 08:05 »
Day 52:

After some more attempts on beating Nightmare under 20 minutes, I started going for a different badge. I decided to try for Scavenger Diamond Badge by using the Azrael strat. It's a bit difficult to get a start with Angel of Berserk+Overconfidence, but I've really learned the power of RunWait in secluded areas, particularly with a door outwards. I'm finding DoomRL is much easier when you let enemies approach and you retaliate, rather than vice versa. You take so much less damage when you get the first attack against most of everything.

Anyway, I had numerous runs past Unholy Cathedral, but the main difficulty is having 3 Med-Packs before entering the Vaults. Eventually though, I got this start:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Berserk + Invulnerability lined up + Phaseshift Armor (A) + Chainsaw (A)! Level 4 in experience too with 66% towards level 5. I actually opted to use Hellrunner inside the Unholy Cathedral because it would mean I could outspeed the Angel of Death. I tried the long Knife strat around the whole building, and then a shorter more riskier one around the pillars inside, but it takes forever. Now, I'm a patient player, and if this were a situation where I couldn't immediately regain what I had in the run, I would absolutely continue throwing knives at him, but while this run had a strong start, it wouldn't be that difficult to get a pretty good one again. I chose the optimal decision based on series of runs, and not just this particular run. Got to be thinking deeper than just face value. ;)

After I grabbed Azrael's, I had an initially scary, but ultimately awesome floor 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Using RunWait with most enemies wanting to attack, they got turned inside out fast. Once the floor was clear, I found a couple Med-Packs, plus a Soulsphere!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So literally all I needed to do was dive into the Vaults and got this on floor 3:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Ohhhh! Now, I did think for a moment that because I still had 100% kills and an awesome run going, that I could be trying for Gargulec Cross, but I decided that since I had a guaranteed diamond badge, which would be my 15th for the ranking promotion, that I wouldn't risk it. The main factor is because I got Hellrunner early on, I blocked Vampyre.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With cautious tactics upon entry and 3 Med-Packs, I could use Azrael's 4 times, which is enough to kill everything. After that...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Umm????? I was still hearing a Revenant in the centre vault? I thought for a moment that maybe Azrael's Scythe has a range limit or something, but that's not right, and then I realized what happened.

So the first two Whispers of Death kill Revenants, and then after the fourth, the Archviles die. Which means that between that in that very small window of time, one of the Revenants got revived. :( Literally, if I had one more Med-Pack, that would mean I'd have enough damage to kill him, which super sucks since I dove right down the stairs on floor 3. I was extremely disappointed in this. On top, I couldn't get 100% kills now either. I did have a Shockwave Pack though and not knowing what I was even looking for, I check the left vault, but unsurprisingly found nothing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I spent the time to finish the run to at least get Berserker Platinum Badge, which is nice I guess, but since I'd be going for Gargulec Cross eventually anyway, it's kind of irrelevant.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I decided to try some more with my new knowledge. The plus side is that for sure I would need just 4 Med-Packs. I got to this crossroad in another solid run after many attempts:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found Malek's Armor right away, had Vampyre, and was in good health, but only 3 Med-Packs. I could try again for The Vaults, or I could skip it and get Gargulec Cross. After some time deciding, I went for The Vaults, in hopes I could kill everything before a Revenant gets revived again:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Thankfully, it worked this time! One of my 3 "Med-Packs" was the Chainsaw boost, which I used first. I'm pretty sure it doesn't affect the speed of using consumables, but because of dropping the Chainsaw and picking it up takes longer than just healing, I did that first. I went on to continue the run by abusing RunWait and murdered everything. In the rare cases I'd get hit, mostly when a group of monsters would come knocking on my door, Vampyre covered for damage. It's honestly a sick strategy, and I might consider using it more in regular games! The fact that it blocks Hellrunner, Eagle Eye, and Intuition isn't a big deal when you're just camping anyway.

With 100% kills, I also got my Gargulec Cross! :)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some tips for those trying for Scavenger Diamond Badge with this same strategy: I really recommend going with Brute x3 -> Berserker, rather than Brute x2 -> Berserker -> Brute, because you really need to be sure your attacks are hitting when you're hiding. The more damage you take, the less Med-Packs you'll have. Berserker isn't super helpful either when you can kill most enemies in 2 hits anyway. For the Unholy Cathedral, use the Chainsaw boost just before fighting the Demons, because all those kills with Berserker will give you enough of it for the fight against the Angel of Death, and again, you want to reduce the damage you take by as much as possible. After that, the rest of the run is pretty basic and straight-forward.

At this point now, I only need angelic badges for rankings promotions! It'll be tough, but I can definitely get 1 more for the next promotion, and as said before, since it seems most of the 2nd/3rd tier of players are at 2 angelic badges, it'll be a good way to demonstrate to myself my progress by reaching above! Hopefully, it can motivate some more activity too! :)

After all the annoyances with grinding for a diamond badge, I took it easy with one of the funnest platinum badges I was missing with Daredevil Platinum Badge, while mixing it with Max Carnage.

I actually didn't take any screenshots it seems, but it was a pretty normal game. Although not intended, I collected all the traits needed for Gunrunner, and decided to try it out (literally my first time ever), and while it seems to be somewhat popular, I really don't like it. It conflicts with my style of slowly killing all the enemies, but when you're running around and alerting everything, you'll set off a horde after you. I also don't like the idea of running around in front of enemies where it would be useful too. It's decent for crazy starts, but I literally had Phaseshift Set and Max Carnage, and didn't like it. I'd rather have more control in my gameplay. The extra run duration is alright though, but again, I'm usually already covered by the time it would normally run out anyway.

The most annoying thing I didn't realize was it blocked Whizkid. I had two Firestorm Packs which I was going to use for my Plasma Rifle, but went with Gunrunner first. Oops.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another solid day of progress! I'm going to focus on collecting more of the missing easier stuff like Gutts' Heart and some platinum badges before trying more for difficult diamond and angelic badges.
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