Print

Please login or register.

1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever

Login with username, password and session length

[iainuki]

Cyberdemon vs mancubi - there are more differences than just HP pool. First, cybies target, mancubi wander, thus you will always get all the cyberdemons up your face in a small amount of time after entering a level with them, while you can evade most of the mancubi should you hide in a corner and knockback all of visible ones out of range. Second, cybies have more range than the player, meaning you will get rockets fired at you from off screen, and should you play say MAc, this would mean they always will have an edge over you without fire protection, mancubi have equal sight radius. Third, cyberdemons are immune to (their own only, or all cybies'? Unclear) splash, from at least their own attacks, so MAYBE two cybies can eventually kill each other should you say reload a plasma shrapnel being invulnerable, but mancubi DEFINITeLY aren't immune so if caught in crossfire, you have a decent chance to both dodge all mancubi rockets, provided you are at range, and kill some of them while not firing a single shot, but you cannot do the same vs cyberdemons.

Fair points.  Assuming we're in a situation with enough armor to reduce their fire damage to 1, how much worse does that make them?  Does everyone who plays Ao666 immediately flee levels with all Cyberdemons?

[Sereg]

If you don't have the inquisitor's set by then? Yeah, pretty much =P Maybe on an easier difficulty, where you're very deep, well equipped, and highly talented before they appear, it could be doable by other means, but on a Nightmare! run where they can show up relatively early, trying to stay and fight is very likely to end the run.

[iainuki]

I found a first person account of a Cyberdemon complex on level 71 in a UV Ao100 game: https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6379.msg55396.html#msg55396.  I think Radagast did manage to kill them all, though narrowly.  Their rockets do hurt each other, apparently.

They would have more HP on Nightmare.  I don't know how cybernano phaseshift compares to cerberus armor for protection with various levels of TaN, but clearly if you wanted to undertake this insanity I'd suggest some serious study of how to maximize protection against nightmare arachnotrons and cyberdemons with reasonably common starting ingredients.  It clearly is possible to full clear one, though, even without the Inquisitor's Set.  You do need to be lucky with gear, and Radagast's Scavenger helped there.

papilio also thinks speedrunner angelic is impossible: "UAC/Demonic/Speedrunner Angelic is just absolutely impossible, at least I think."  (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7235.msg63680.html#msg63680)

[Sereg]

One quick comment on Radagast's run - note that his final killcount of Cyberdemons is 17, and he only missed one kill the entire game, meaning, at most there were only 18 on that floor, and he only claims 8-9 of them were present there(the rest were probably randomly wandering other levels, as they do on Ao100). Even those few apparently gave him almost too much trouble to prevail - and as you say, that's only a UV game. On N!, not only does the HP go up, but so do the numbers, and numbers continue to increase the deeper you find the complex... and this was about the earliest it's possible to find one.

While it certainly goes to show that there are ways to take down multiple cyberdemons at once even without immunity, I still have very strong doubts about the possibility of clearing a much larger complex of Nightmare! class cyberdemons without fire immunity. You are right that very careful research, or game knowledge, would be a huge help to such a run, allowing a player to prepare optimally for any situation they encounter(at least to the extent allowed by the RNG).

Papilio's ranking is certainly an interesting thread - do note that he lists challenges of higher difficulty(Strongman and Everyman come to mind), albeit not necessarily Luck and Skill, which have since been completed. I also do think that there's something to be said for experience and instinct over repeated Speedrunner attempts, and that grinding it long enough will eventually allow a victory. I'll concede, however, that he is definitely one of the best verifiable players this game has ever seen(behind only Tormuse in Angelics, and his Diamond count is actually even higher!), and I grant a lot of weight to his assessments here as a result.

One thing I strongly agree with him on is the Pacifism Angelic - which he rates at 30 luck and grind, and the same difficulty as Speedrunner. I'm pretty sure that if any Angelic badge is statistically impossible, it's this one, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a way to upgrade it to Archangelic level - I contend it's already there =P

[iainuki]

One quick comment on Radagast's run - note that his final killcount of Cyberdemons is 17, and he only missed one kill the entire game, meaning, at most there were only 18 on that floor, and he only claims 8-9 of them were present there(the rest were probably randomly wandering other levels, as they do on Ao100). Even those few apparently gave him almost too much trouble to prevail - and as you say, that's only a UV game. On N!, not only does the HP go up, but so do the numbers, and numbers continue to increase the deeper you find the complex... and this was about the earliest it's possible to find one.

For comparison, in the UV run I just finished I only saw 5 cyberdemons the whole game.  I am definitely too lazy to look through other UV Ao100 mortems to try to get an average count of cyberdemons with and without a cyberdemon complex, but I suspect that Radagast's "8 or 9" was actually an undercount of the total cyberdemons on that level :).  Maybe they were only estimating how many were actually visible at the same time?

Papilio's ranking is certainly an interesting thread - do note that he lists challenges of higher difficulty(Strongman and Everyman come to mind), albeit not necessarily Luck and Skill, which have since been completed. I also do think that there's something to be said for experience and instinct over repeated Speedrunner attempts, and that grinding it long enough will eventually allow a victory. I'll concede, however, that he is definitely one of the best verifiable players this game has ever seen(behind only Tormuse in Angelics, and his Diamond count is actually even higher!), and I grant a lot of weight to his assessments here as a result.

One thing I strongly agree with him on is the Pacifism Angelic - which he rates at 30 luck and grind, and the same difficulty as Speedrunner. I'm pretty sure that if any Angelic badge is statistically impossible, it's this one, and I'd be hard-pressed to find a way to upgrade it to Archangelic level - I contend it's already there =P

I think UAC, Demonic, Speedrunner, and Pacifism are the Angelics that haven't been beaten?  I agree that Pacifism is the most impossible of them, followed closely by Demonic.  I think papilio probably thinks no one has the amount of time it would take to get Speedrunner given that they rated it luck 27 and grind 23 :). Their ratings of the rest of the angelics look broadly reasonable to my eye.  They give Everyman a higher skill rating but lower luck and grind ratings, which is consistent with Tormuse having since achieved it.

[ZicherCZ]

For comparison, in the UV run I just finished I only saw 5 cyberdemons the whole game.  I am definitely too lazy to look through other UV Ao100 mortems to try to get an average count of cyberdemons with and without a cyberdemon complex, but I suspect that Radagast's "8 or 9" was actually an undercount of the total cyberdemons on that level :).  Maybe they were only estimating how many were actually visible at the same time?

Well, to provide you some data - in my AAo666 UV YAAM run I have scored 152 Cybie kills. papilio managed to do a AAo666 UV YAAM as well, with 164 kills. Neither of us found a Cybie complex, and the Cybie frequency would amount to slightly over one Cybie per four floors (counted from floor 74, where they can actually be generated first on UV). I recall meeting three Cybies on a single floor even with no complex.

[iainuki]

Out of curiosity, has anyone looked at enough Ao666 Nightmare mortems to have a good sense of how many cyberdemon complexes you'd expect to see?

[ih8regin]

Nightmare Cybie is about 90HP fatter than UV Cybie, and thus it's WAY better to stairdive on N! whenever you see one than to try whacking it down. Add 2x XP on N! to boot, and an overall tediousness of AAo666, polish with inability to save (Nightmare! What saves?) and get incorrect output in "cyberdemons killed" statistics, meaning you've met way more than you've killed. Also, are there ever enough AAo666 N! mortems to gather some statistics?

[Sereg]

You can count complexes from level messages, rather than relying on killcounts, which as you say are not indicative of total Cyberdemon presence. And as far as I know, no mortem exists for the type of game we were discussing, for which killcount would be as informative as possible for a single run.

[iainuki]

What I could find for complexes of cyberdemons with search:
https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7429.msg64653.html
https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7261.msg63832.html
https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6554.msg57378.html
https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7849.msg65862.html

Clearly not complete because Radagast's thread is not on it.

[iainuki]

Turns out the answer is 1 complex of cyberdemons per run, even though the Ao666 runs are quite a bit longer.  Also worth noting, The Good Rogue's thread, https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7849.msg65862.html, also involved a full clear, though on HMP.

[Tormuse]

I haven't really checked on this forum in a bit, but I see there's some interesting strategy discussion going on here!  :)

I've always been a fan of Ammochain builds - ammo management becomes a lot easier when you're only expending one round per burst, and that solves one of the biggest challenges of Ao100.

Personally, I've never been a fan of Ammochain, because of the lack of Eagle Eye.  I'd rather have my weapons be more accurate, so I hit my targets more often and use less ammo that way.  My preferred strategy for Ao100/ArchAo666 is to diversify my weapons, so I use a variety of ammo types, and then as much as possible, use whichever ammo there is the most of.  (Though truth be told, for ArchAo666, I'd much rather do melee, because it's only kind of tedious, instead of incredibly tedious)  :P

Note for the future - nightmare arachnotrons can shoot in melee range,

I'd like to clarify that.  Nightmare Arachnotrons have similar AI to Mancubi in that once they fire a barrage at you, they'll fire a second barrage shortly after, whether they can see you or not, even if you're in melee range.  If you can get to melee range before they fire that first barrage, they'll be left with their weak melee attack.

Regardless, your best bet when facing them without a melee build is to seek cover and try to corner-shoot them one at a time, if possible.  Unfortunately, cave levels don't always lend themselves to comfortable corner-shooting, and that's why Nightmare Arachnotron caves are one of the more dangerous levels in the game.  Still, it's your best bet if you're going for YAAM.

And now I'm tempted to try for a 100% Centurial Angelic run, just for "fun", but unfortunately my profile is on a computer that isn't easily accessible to me in the near future... nor have I ever really even come close to a N! 666 run. My Dervis' Medallion was a melee stairdive(Edit: and I apparently did it in under an hour, with a Minor Icarus Cross to boot) - to replicate even those first 100 levels going for 100% would be much more difficult, to say nothing of extremely tedious =P

Who knows, maybe Tormuse will eventually post such a mortem, though. He has a habit of doing insane things like that...

It's certainly possible...  I think the biggest obstacle would be patience, quite frankly.  I mean certainly the first bunch of levels will be extra tough, establishing yourself, and there's always the possibility of getting bad RNG, but once you get to a certain point, you have enough toughness and equipment to survive whatever the game throws at you, as long as you don't make any mistakes... which is a real occupational hazard for such a long, long, long game.  Case in point right here.  (Coincidentally, the only time I encountered a Cyberdemon Complex)

I think it's a little funny that you're talking about Cyberdemon Complexes in this thread as if they're an inevitability in DoomRL, when in all the thousands of games I've played, I've only encountered one once.  :)  They are an exceedingly rare level type.  In any case, I think you're vastly underestimating the value of Dodgemaster.  It significantly reduces the danger posed by Cyberdemons, as long as you use it properly.  It's worth noting, (as someone here pointed out) that Cyberdemons can hurt each other, even if their own rockets don't hurt themselves.  This makes it theoretically possible to thin out their numbers in a Cyberdemon Complex without firing a single shot, as evidenced by my victory at Trar's absurd "MockRL challenge.

[iainuki]

Personally, I've never been a fan of Ammochain, because of the lack of Eagle Eye.  I'd rather have my weapons be more accurate, so I hit my targets more often and use less ammo that way.  My preferred strategy for Ao100/ArchAo666 is to diversify my weapons, so I use a variety of ammo types, and then as much as possible, use whichever ammo there is the most of.  (Though truth be told, for ArchAo666, I'd much rather do melee, because it's only kind of tedious, instead of incredibly tedious)  :P

I'm glad to see my lack of enthusiasm about Ammochain validated by a better player than I :).  I honestly think it's a fairly weak master trait.  In Ao100/Ao666, as you note, its big problem is that it blocks Eagle Eye, which both saves ammo and increases your DPS because you hit more often.  I think an even bigger problem is that it cuts off access to Intuition 2.  It has other problems in other challenges and standard games.

I'd like to clarify that.  Nightmare Arachnotrons have similar AI to Mancubi in that once they fire a barrage at you, they'll fire a second barrage shortly after, whether they can see you or not, even if you're in melee range.  If you can get to melee range before they fire that first barrage, they'll be left with their weak melee attack.

Okay, I wasn't crazy then to remember hitting them in melee when I was in that arachnotron cave.  That's useful to know at least.

Regardless, your best bet when facing them without a melee build is to seek cover and try to corner-shoot them one at a time, if possible.  Unfortunately, cave levels don't always lend themselves to comfortable corner-shooting, and that's why Nightmare Arachnotron caves are one of the more dangerous levels in the game.  Still, it's your best bet if you're going for YAAM.

I think finding a good way of dealing with nightmare arachnotron caverns is probably a prerequisite for this challenge.  They're a lot more common than cyberdemon complexes, and I'd argue in many ways they're more dangerous too.  Dodgemaster doesn't help much against them.  Lucking into the Inquisitor's Set isn't necessary, but getting an energy-shielded vest might be a huge help.  Alternately, some ridiculously high defense armor that nerfs their per-shot damage might also work.