Chaosforge Forum

  • December 12, 2024, 18:44
  • Welcome, Guest
Please login or register.



Login with username, password and session length

Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.

Messages - Omega Tyrant

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 8
1
Discussion / Re: My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get
« on: December 08, 2024, 19:10 »
N! AoI + AoRA run for the first ever verified Eagerness Angelic badge, as well as picking up Quartermaster and Longinus Platinum

Ok so I'm not quite done with 0.9.9.8 yet, and well, what an unexpected badge to suddenly post as my first official Angelic. When testing out the first beta for 0.9.9.9 and finally playing some Nightmare in it, I got the urge to test if the previously never won Inquisitor and Eagerness Angelic badges really need any nerfs as has been proposed, and found them to be very winnable. Wanting to claim Eagerness Angelic officially and not wait for 0.9.9.9 to finish, I decided to boot 0.9.9.8 back up, and was successful in being the first to officially Eagerness Angelic. I also incidentally picked up Quartermaster and Longinus Platinum; the latter is a freebie once you play N! so it's whatever, and I was planning to do a pure AoRA run for the former, but if you can do Eagerness Angelic, is that really necessary? Anyway, the full writeup can be read in its own Post Mortem thread.

Having an Angelic after never getting one in 0.9.9.7, and exceeding my 0.9.9.7 Platinum badge count, my 0.9.9.8 file has indisputably exceeded my 0.9.9.7 file.

Badge count - [26|26|26|18|5|1] Medal count - 44/50 Score - 570/1500 (38.00%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

2
Nightmare! / [N!|AoI + AoRA|94%|YAVP] - First official Eagerness Angelic Badge! (with video)
« on: December 08, 2024, 18:37 »
I recorded this entire run, which you can watch in this Youtube link

In DRL since version 0.9.9.7, there has been 17 Angelic Badges, the highest tier badges available. Of those 17 badges, 7 have never been verifiably won by any player since 0.9.9.7's release back in 2013, which are; UAC Angelic (beat the standard game on Nightmare with no damage), Demonic Angelic (beat standard N! with 100% kills and no damage), Speedrun Angelic (beat standard N! in under 4 minutes), Pacifist Angelic (beat Archangel of Pacifism with only one enemy dying, which must be the Spider Mastermind), Inquisitor Angelic (beat Angel of Purity + Angel of Red Alert on N!), Eagerness Angelic (beat Angel of Impatience + Angel of Red Alert on N! with 90+% kills) and Masochist Angelic (beat Archangel of Masochism on N!). Of those 7, the formermost 4 have been deemed to be outright impossible without cheating, and the lattermost is considered possible though extremely extremely difficult. The middle 2, Inquisitor and Eagerness Angelic, while not intrinsically impossible like the aforementioned 4, were thought to be so absurdly difficult that they were bordering on impossibility and would require esoteric cheese with rare items to obtain (namely for Eagerness Angelic, finding an early Trigun and getting an Invuln chain that allows you to nuke most of the levels, or finding a Dragonslayer with Vampyre, surviving a nuke with Invuln, and then farming the infinitely spawning Nightmare Demons for a long time to buffer your kill percentage a huge amount), so me and Icy have been proposing to easen their requirements alongside the unwinnable 4.

Then the first beta version of 0.9.9.9 dropped, which made some big changes to Nightmare in response to most players finding it unfun and avoiding the difficulty altogether; these changes are enemies will not respawn in your vision, respawns do not drop their inventory (and so cannot be farmed for ammo), and most importantly, respawns no longer count towards the kill percentage. These changes still don't make the unwinnable 4 humanly viable, and don't affect Inquisitor Angelic that much, but they are significant for Eagerness Angelic; the main reason it was thought borderline impossible is the fact that the time limit of AoRA makes meticulous corpse disposal unfeasible and so all the respawns would inevitably prevent you from maintaining such a high kill percentage of 90%, thus allowing you to ignore them entirely and not have them affect your kill percentage makes the badge a whole lot more viable. There was still concern that requiring 90% kills, in conjunction with the restraints of AoI (which most importantly prevents you from carrying medkits to heal on demand), was still too much, but to be sure if the badge still needed nerfing, I tested getting it in the beta (as well as tested Inquisitor Angelic), and was able to win it (link goes to the Jupiter Hell discord). However, when looking at the winning mortem and calculating the kill % with respawns factored, it came out to... over 90%... so I would have still won the badge even without the aforementioned kill % change with respawns, meaning this badge was very possible all along. Since 0.9.9.9's official release is still likely a ways off and wanting to claim this badge first in an official version, I decided to go boot up the official release of 0.9.9.8 and win the badge officially.

When it comes for the build to use for Eagerness Angelic, Blademaster seems to be the clear best shot, as no other build can clear floors faster, and Blademaster's ability to make every killing blow an instant action gives you the capability to farm kills to make up the large amount of kills needed, namely from Pain Elementals as Blademaster can wipe out a whole swath of Lost Souls instantly (and indeed I would do a bit of Pain Elemental farming throughout this run, but it would end up proving unnecessary, as even if you removed all the Lost Soul kills, I still would have had over 90% kills). As for trait order, I leadoff with Hellrunner; since most of your actions will be just moving, the trait that makes your movement take less time is invaluable when you're on a time limit for every floor (while Hellrunner is also just great in general). I immediately deviate from Blademaster's prereqs however by taking a level of Reloader; just surviving early Phobos on Nightmare is very difficult as is without any combat-boosting traits, and getting Brute doesn't help much yet when you don't got a Chainsaw, while of the available traits, Reloader gives the biggest boost when you're relying primarily on Shotguns. Since you're doing so much reloading, making your reloads 30% faster saves you a lot of time too and thus gives you more actions to work with on each floor. I then deviate once more to get a level of Intuition; powerups are very important on N! when they're doubly effective, but especially so in AoI where you're unable to store medkits in your inventory, so you are very reliant on powerups to keep your health up, and especially especially so in AoRA when Invulnerabilities allow you to survive nukes, making immediately knowing where all powerups are located on each floor crucial. However, I do not get the second level of Intuition, as being able to detect enemies outside vision isn't too helpful when floors are so enemy dense and they're often on top of you immediately, while you desperately need to get yourself stronger ASAP, so I go for the second level of HR instead to get even more speed. At this point I'll be getting the Chainsaw, making it time to get two levels of Brute and then Berserker; Berserker is especially important, as being berserked speeds you up significantly, and when Berserker triggers from you being hit, berserk's +60% resistances get applied before damage is calculated, giving you a big defensive boost against the hard hitting VMR (or I can trigger it intentionally at nearly any time with a face rocket whenever I need said boosts). It is then the third level of Brute, and finally Blademaster. After Blademaster, I get a level of Finesse to farther increase my offense and overall speed, then I get Juggler since I'm swapping around weapons so much (especially handy when I use rocket jumping to get in an enemy's face, or to swap between my Shotguns and Chainsaw as needed without taking a hit). Then it's another level of Finesse for yet more DPS/speed, and then Whizkid to get more mods on my stuff instead of letting mods I find go to waste (though I don't take the second level, as I wasn't coming across enough mods to make it worthwhile). I finally take some levels in Ironman to give me some lategame assurance, since I could always run across some levels that deprive me of health.

Now for the actual run. With Phobos Base Entry, I just employ my usual tactic of immediately running to the base, and if Shotgunners come out early and I take a lot of damage, I Q+Y out. Otherwise there's not much to say about it, except you don't need to be fussed about trying to get the medkits as you can't bring them with you anyway. You can try to wait around and farm the respawning formers as much as you can within the time limit to both get more ammo + beef up your kill count a little, but it's not really worth doing here, and since you'll probably end up dying soon after, it's often a lot of wasted time. With the early Phobos levels, your immediate priority is to locate the stairs and kill whatever is in the way. Once you find the stairs, you can go around and kill more enemies to both get that crucial EXP and bolster your kill count, as well as grab any armor and anything else helpful that you can within the time limit (such as the Power Mod I found in an early vault, that was really helpful for my Shotgun). This early on, don't be too plussed with your kill %, you're unlikely to maintain 90+% at this point, so worry about buffing your kill count later and leave levels early if they get out of hand. For the early special levels, you absolutely have no chance of beating Hell's Arena with this challenge combination on N!, but you can dip in, clear out the first wave for extra EXP + some help for your kill %, and then immediately dip out (if you're feeling ballsy, the second wave could be doable, but you'll likely either get yourself killed or leave yourself in a crippled position if the next floor doesn't start you next to an uncontested health source). The Chained Court is then mandatory, having the Chainsaw and being a relatively safe place to get some more EXP before the really nasty enemies start showing up, yet I nearly botched it here and had some bad respawn luck with the Barons that prevented me from leaving in good health. Fortunately the next level I was able to get a health globe early and the level was about as easy as you can hope for a late Phobos level to be on N!. Phobos 7 then looked good at first, including having a Rocket Launcher at the start that is a key weapon for this challenge, and it had a very good Invuln spawn too, but when I tried getting to the Invuln as time ticked down, some Barons that picked up armor and other items nearly ruined the run, yet I was able to avoid letting the Baron blow up the Invuln and grab it just in time. Thanks to the Invlun and having just picked up Berserker, the extremely deadly N! Phobos Anomaly ambush was a nonfactor, without the Invuln I would have had to run back to the starting room and hope I can outlast all the Nightmare enemies without losing all my armor. The Bruisers can be bypassed, but with a facerocket to trigger Berserker, they can be killed without taking much damage for that sweet EXP.

Any run that makes it to Deimos is in a serious position to succeed, but Deimos 1 went rather awful, being near death at one point as I had to get a Berserk near barrels while a I could hear a Revenant, Mancubus, and Hell Knight lurking around. I managed to secure the Berserk without it blowing up or me dying, but I get banged up as I try to exit, and end up taking the stairs to Deimos Lab with my Red Armor damaged and my health in not too good of shape. I could have just exited Deimos Lab without issue, but I decided to take the risk to explore the rest of the level as the crates could have health and Blue Armors if I'm lucky, guaranteed Supercharges, a guaranteed Shell Box, two mods, and the weapon cache could have a very helpful weapon. It did get dicey but the risk mostly paid off as I exited the level in better shape, and one of the mods was a very useful Technical mod to speed up my Chainsaw, but I forgot the guaranteed Blue Armor, the weapon cache ended up having nothing good in it, and the other mod was not a Bulk mod to restore my Red Armor as I was hoping for. Luckily Deimos 2 started me next to an Armor Shard that wasn't too contested and so I got my Red Armor back in good shape, while this was the point I got a fortunate stretch of floors that really bolstered this run. Aside from that convenient Armor Shard, Deimos 2 had a vault with a Bulk mod and a Combat Shotgun, as well as an Invuln. Deimos 3 had more mods that allowed me to make a Tactical Shotgun and another Invuln, which I take advantage of to clear The Wall for a lot of EXP and a big rocket stash while taking little damage (without that Invuln, I wouldn't have entered The Wall, as with no means to heal and being on a timer, trying to clear it would have killed me or left me crippled). Then Deimos 4 gave me a very easy Pinky cave, as well as a nice Phaseshift Armor and a Power mod for it (plus another Onyx Armor I didn't need). I also fortunately got City Of Skulls instead of Abyssal Plains, which I enter as Blademaster has a very easy time with it and it allows me to rack up a huge amount of kills at little risk to buffer that kill %, being worth taking some minor damage. Deimos 5 and 6 were typical Deimos levels that weren't bad, but when playing a bit recklessly on Deimos 6 I took a concerning amount of damage, while an Invuln I was banking on got destroyed, leaving me in a not so good spot health-wise as I entered Deimos 7. Deimos 7 turned out to be an Island level, not good as a melee build when you don't have lava immunity, but in yet another fortunate turn, I happen quickly upon some medkits that were mostly uncontested, as well as another Invuln. With the rest of the floor being easy enough, I save the Invuln to take out the Cyberdemon with no damage and enter Hell in a very strong spot. Deimos 7 had a Firestorm mod too, not that useful but I slap it on my Rocket Launcher as I was unlikely to find the Bulk mods to make a Tactical Rocket Launcher at this point.

When you make it to Hell in good shape, your chances are very good that your run will succeed, but when you're unable to carry medkits, I can easily die if I overextend too much, or if I get a very nasty maze level or Arachnotron cave. The first two floors of Hell were on the easy side, and Hell 2 had an Invuln, which ended up being especially useful as Hell 3 did spawn me in an Arachnotron Cave that could have been potentially deadly without it. Hell 3 itself had an Invuln too, which I take advantage of to clear the Unholy Cathedral with no damage and secure the Longinus Spear, setting me up to finish the run. I keep the Chainsaw though to kill Pain Elementals without gibbing them as the Spear would (gibbing Pain Elementals prevent them from leaving Lost Souls behind, not that I really needed to squeeze those extra few free kills, but I just wanted to be sure I built a very good buffer in case I had to leave any preceding floors quickly). The remaining floors of Hell wouldn't threaten me and it was pretty smooth sailing the rest of the way as I blew through floors ridiculously fast, while Hell 5 even had a Sniper mod so I could make a Plasmatic Shotgun, the best weapon for destroying corpses (not that I really needed it at this point). Then there's Dis, where in AoRA, you can just wait out the nuke timer and take the partial win, which will still award the badge, but it was simple enough to run in berserked and smash the Mastermind's brains in.

Overall this took me six attempts, as well as a few more I Q+Y'd on a bad Phobos Base Entry... which isn't quite as much as you would expect to need for a badge thought borderline impossible for over a decade (and all those runs died in Phobos, with only one of them making it past The Chained Court, which died in Phobos 7). Granted, Reloader's buff in 0.9.9.8 was a big help, and 0.9.9.8's enemy reveal on the final three enemies is another advantageous factor, but this badge still should have been possible with my Blademaster strategy in 0.9.9.7 (if I tried this in 0.9.9.7, I would probably however go with Finesse for the second level and avoid Reloader altogether, and hope I get blessed with early Shell Boxes). As for the level luck, I had some pretty bad Phobos floors (that nigh-immortal Phobos 7 Baron would have haunted me if I didn't reach that Invuln in time...), but it's hard to ask for much better Deimos floors than what I got, and I had a great run of luck with not getting a single maze (those are run killers in Nightmare normally, let alone having to do so when you're under a timer and trying to kill most enemies). The item luck was pretty nice too, namely getting that early Power mod and a Rocket Launcher before Deimos were key to this run, as well as those well-time Invulns before crucial levels (it can't be stressed enough how good getting a Phobos 7 Invuln is). Very happy with how this run turned out, and better yet that it didn't require a big grind to get.

Now here is the mortem with that shiny badge never seen officially in a mortem before!

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 NOMEDKITS, level 16 Cyberdemon General Scout,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 57617 turns and scored 896737 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 39 minutes and 18 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 1269 out of 1338 hellspawn. (94%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Impatience!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 6
  Levels completed : 3

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  UAC Star (silver cluster)  50+ kills without taking damage
  Eagerness Angelic Badge    Complete AoI+AoRA on N!/90% kills
  Quartermaster Platinum Badge Complete AoRA on N!
  Longinus Platinum Badge    Complete Unholy Cathedral on N!

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  ###########................................################
  ##########...............####...............###############
  #########.......####.....####.....####.......##############
  ########........####.....####.....####........#############
  #######.........####.....####.....####.........############
  ######..........####..............####..........###########
  #####............................................##########
  #####....####............................####....##########
  #####...&####............................####..0.##########
  #####....####............................####....##########
  #####....####............................####....##########
  #####............................................##########
  ######..........####..............####..........###########
  #######.........####.....####.....####.........############
  ########........####.....####.....####........#############
  #########.......####.....####.....####.......##############
  ##########...............####.X.............###############
  ###########..................%.............################
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 82/70   Experience 125752/16
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +8  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Scout

    Ironman          (Level 2)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)
    Blademaster      (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Int->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Bru->MBm->Fin->Jug->Fin->WK->Iro->Iro->Bru->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (92%) (AP)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x46)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] plasmatic shotgun (8d3) [1/1]
    [b] tactical shotgun (8d3) [5/5]
    [c] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1] (B1F1)
    [d] blue armor [4/4] (100%) (P)
    [e] red armor [4/4] (200%) (B)
    [f] red armor [4/4] (100%) (A)
    [g] red armor [4/4] (62%) (A)
    [h] red armor [4/4] (100%)
    [i] onyx armor [2] (A)
    [j] Medical Powerarmor [6/6] (100%)
    [k] chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [l] shotgun shell (x70)
    [m] shotgun shell (x70)
    [n] shotgun shell (x70)
    [o] shotgun shell (x59)
    [p] shotgun shell (x70)
    [q] rocket (x14)
    [r] rocket (x14)
    [s] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%) (A)
    [t] shell box (x100)
    [u] rocket box (x25)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    bullet     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    melee      - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    shrapnel   - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 
    acid       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    fire       - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 
    plasma     - internal 60%   torso 60%   feet 60% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    123 former humans
    106 former sergeants
    60 former captains
    131 imps
    147 demons
    404 lost souls
    55 cacodemons
    20 hell knights
    58 barons of hell
    20 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    37 pain elementals
    16 revenants
    20 mancubi
    19 arch-viles
    4 nightmare imps
    16 nightmare cacodemons
    8 nightmare demons
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 7 he assembled a tactical boots!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 11 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 11 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 12 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 19 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 19 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 21 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 23 he found the Medical Powerarmor!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 You wear/wield : a Longinus Spear (8d8)
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You miss the Spider Mastermind. You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
 Next!

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 62 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 7 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 35 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 6 killed the bitch and survived.
 27 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------

3
Nightmare! / (0.9.9.9 Beta 1) [N!|AoP + AoRA|66%|YAVP] - Inquisitor Angelic is very possible
« on: December 05, 2024, 20:28 »
So of the seven Angelic badges that were never verifiably won in over a decade of 0.9.9.7 and in the few months 0.9.9.8 been out, Inquisitor Angelic was one of them, and as a result, me and Icy have been proposing to nerf its difficulty requirement. 0.9.9.9's first beta brought some huge changes to Nightmare! however; namely enemies can't respawn in vision (without the aid of Archviles that is), respawns don't count towards the kill percentage (so you no longer need to dispose of every corpse to get 100% kills, but also can no longer cheese a respawn to puff up your kill count for any badge that requires less), and respawns no longer drop their inventory on death (so you can no longer farm infinite ammo off of formers). With these changes, I've been playing N! a lot in testing out the beta, and it got me thinking about how they affect these unwon badges. Masochist Angelic becomes a bit more doable, as it'll make getting through Phobos Base Entry without getting hit less luck-based and you can now more safely kill things if you find a nice camping spot, allowing you to get more crucial levels (and perhaps make surviving long enough to get Vampyre viable, so someone should definitely eventually win this badge). Eagerness Angelic becomes actually realistic now without have to cheese with an early Trigun or a miraculous Dragonslayer, though its 90% kill requirement may be still a bit high (so we amended our proposal of lowering it to 75-80% instead of the 50% we proposed before these changes). UAC Angelic becomes slightly more realistic, but I still think it's virtually impossible without save scumming (and so the proposal of nerfing it to UV remains), and Demonic Angelic becomes a lot more viable in theory, but considering how ludicrously impossible it already was, still absolutely no one is getting this without lots of save scumming (and so the proposal of changing it to 100% kills + Untouchable Pin or Medal remains). Then Speedrun Angelic is virtually unaffected, while Pacifist Angelic didn't require Nightmare anyway, and so both remain just as impossible, direly needing their requirements to be changed to something more realistic.

That leaves Inquisitor Angelic, which isn't really affected by these changes all that much, as kill percent is irrelevant, and since it's AoRA, you're typically not staying around in one spot for long nor sticking around the level long enough for respawns to start becoming frequent, so easier to manage respawns isn't much a factor. Thinking it through though had me questioning if that badge was as impossible as it was hyped up to be; while AoP + AoRA is a very nasty combo (you lose most of your healing in a challenge where you're forced to rush and thus take a lot of damage you can't easily heal off, can't use Maps to find the stairs and other useful items, can't use Berserks to speed you up and lessen damage, and can't use Invulns to avoid damage or as a mulligan if running out of time), there's nothing that makes it inherently impossible unlike the other unwinnable badges, you must simply play quickly to beat the nuke timer and survive well enough to make it to Dis. No having to avoid getting hit a single time while regularly dealing with 50+ respawning enemies, no having to kill more cumulative enemies in AoRA than what Quartermaster Diamond requires on top of them respawning and being unable to heal on demand, no having to beat the game in an inhuman time limit while desperately trying to push through WTF enemy density, and no having to run through 24 floors with no traits while praying not a single enemy dies to infighting or kills themselves or spawns on lava. So why has no one won it, was it really that inhumanly difficult, or was it that few people, if any,  actually gave it a real serious grind because they were that spooked by the combo of AoP + AoRA? Seeing how Angel of Purity is one of the least popular challenges, if not the most unpopular, I was wavering towards it being the latter, and so decided to give this badge a real try myself to ascertain if the badge really needed nerfing.

Right away, while it was certainly very tough, I got a feeling it was doable, as I was able to make it to Deimos without that many tries. I was unsure of the build, and I was initially trying Scout + early Intuition, but after a few deaths that couldn't make it past mid-Phobos, I ruled Intuition out; the first level practically does nothing, as knowing where powerups are is worthless when you can't use them, and since floors get so dense on N!, you can't avoid enemies anyway and they're often on top of you, so it was much more prudent to improve your combat and speed than being able to detect enemies outside vision. After I made it to Deimos 1 with the Scout and quickly died, I decided to try a Marine instead; this sounds unideal when speed is everything in AoRA and when AoP makes the Marine's powerup bonus irrelevant, but the most often cause of failure by far is simply running out of medkits and then health when you can no longer heal by powerups nor can keep armor in good shape, while punching through lots of enemies is the much greater obstacle than just finding the stairs, so having extra HP and those inherent 20% energy resistances makes a big difference here. Once I started using the Marine, I was able to consistently make it to mid-Deimos, so I knew this was the play if I could just be a bit luckier with items and floors.

As for traits, I naturally lead off with Hellrunner when it's AoRA and I want to limit whatever damage I can. After that it's Reloader + Finesse, you're relying on the Shotgun a lot, and this combo greatly increases the reliability of corner shooting, while giving you a lot more shots you can afford to make on each floor (you go from being able to do 150 shots + reload with the Shotgun per floor at maximum to 193). I was initially going for Rel2 too, but I found it wasn't too necessary and other traits were more imperative. Then you need Hellrunner 2 ASAP; aside from all the big advantages of HR2, you need it to reliably get through Phobos Anomaly without a Phase Device or Rocket Launcher that you often won't have, and even with HR2 you can end up burning all your medkits in the Anomaly if you're unlucky, so you can't risk making it to Anomaly without it. After HR2, I then go for Bru2 and Berserker; you can't really use melee much early on when healing is so limited and having HR blocks getting Vampyre, but when you can't repair armor, Berserker (that stacks very nicely with the Marine's resistances) is a major survivability boost once VMR start popping up (while you can then utilize it to quickly kill tough enemies when it makes sense to do so). After Berserker, I get Ironman to get some desperately needed HP and to better stretch out my few medkits I often have left by mid-Deimos (while slightly reducing physical damage is a nice plus too), and then I got another level of Fin when I made it far enough. As for the special levels, they're mostly a skip unless they let you more quickly escape a level and can be run through without much danger, but I did find it helpful to dip into Hell's Arena and kill some enemies, as with HR + Fin + Rel, you can do so without taking much damage and that extra EXP is helpful. The Chained Court is also mandatory; aside from the value of the Chainsaw itself, its Berserk on pickup still works, so this is essentially a free guaranteed full heal that you often really need, while you can also pick up some more EXP without taking much damage (I wouldn't complete the level though, I would just run through the right, pick off the formers there and kill the two Barons before leaving, that one free Berserk lasts just long enough for that and the two mod packs aren't worth burning your very limited medkits). When I got Deimos Lab, I would also take the opportunity to kill some enemies there as the beginning area gives you a very safe opportunity to do so and you can easily flee once time starts running low (it may even be worth going into the teleporters and possibly getting some medkits from the crates + the two mods and a nice weapon from the cache, but I never risked it as you can easily end up getting plasma'd by a Commando after teleporting or have to punch through a bunch of Cacos at awkward angles).

After making it to mid-Deimos so consistently, I knew this was completely doable, and after 12 attempts (plus about another half dozen or so I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), my theorycrafting about the badge would be proven correct. Finding a Phaseshift Armor in early Deimos was huge, and getting luckier with a random Nano mod in late Deimos was even better (which I put on the aforementioned Phaseshift Armor to ensure I always had decent armor in conjunction with Berserker and was very fast), while the RNG blessed me with late Phaseshift Boots too. That is not to say my luck was amazing though, I did get some really nasty floors in Deimos, including an Arachnotron cave in mid-Deimos that destroyed my armor reserve before that Nano mod and most of my medkits, and this very nasty maze at the end of Deimos, which I wouldn't have survived without Berserker. Hell started me off with another maze + barrel event, but once again thanks to Berserker, I am able to get through it. First half Hell was a bit shaky, as I only had a couple large medkits, and so I skipped Unholy Cathedral as a result despite how useful the Spear would be. When Hell 4 gave me those aforementioned Phaseshift Boots though, I also found a Homing Phase after killing a Baron and got a bunch of medkits from crates, at which the point the run was sealed. Once you make it to Dis you automatically won, as you can just let the timer run out and get the partial win, but since I had a bunch of medkits and very good armor, I go in and smash the Mastermind to bits.

Unfortunate this was in a beta and so it's not really "official" (which is why I didn't record a video of it), but I still found it worth posting as the first Inquisitor Angelic Badge, and to show that it is indeed possible. This is only the first beta of 0.9.9.9 and so things can end up changing quite a bit by the official release (such as N! possibly adding back a universal speed bonus for enemies that will make this a bit more difficult), but I can't see anything that can be changed that would make this badge impossible, so I'll be removing the proposal to nerf this badge's requirement to UV (and when 0.9.9.9 releases proper, I'll be sure to record a proper run of this badge). As for doing this badge in prior versions, as the Nightmare changes aren't a big difference to this badge as explained prior, this should be fully doable in 0.9.9.8. As for the possibility of this badge back in 0.9.9.7, I did use the Marine here, whose inherent 20% energy resistances did not exist then, and this run certainly wouldn't have succeeded without those resistances (that aforementioned Arachnotron cave that nearly killed me would have done me in for sure, and those resistances crucially stretched out my medkits as explained prior), but this should still be very possible with a Scout if you get good enough item + floor luck (I was able to get to Deimos with a Scout after all, it was just less consistent than with the Marine). Doing it in 0.9.9.7 however, would mean that Deimos and Hell have a bit less enemies (due to 0.9.9.8 modifying the danger formula to get higher values in Deimos and Hell, with the difference being most pronounced on N!), so that is one way this badge would be slightly easier there (and seeing how most of my runs were failing in Deimos, that could be meaningful).

With that all said, here's the glorious mortem:

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.9 BETA 1) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PUER, level 12 Arch-Vile Lt. Colonel Marine,
 defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
 He survived 40811 turns and scored 581230 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 1 minute and 17 seconds.
 He opposed the Nightmare!

 He killed 629 out of 951 encountered hellspawn. (66%)
 He killed 677 out of 1053 enemy spawns total.
 He was an Angel of Purity!
 He was also an Angel of Red Alert!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited   : 3
  Levels completed : 0

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Inquisitor Gold Badge      Complete Angel of Purity (AoP)
  Inquisitor Platinum Badge  Complete AoP on UV
  Inquisitor Diamond Badge   Complete AoP on N! as Marine
  Inquisitor Angelic Badge   Complete AoP+AoRA on N!
  Quartermaster Bronze Badge Reach level 16 on Angel of Red Alert
  Quartermaster Silver Badge Complete Angel of Red Alert (AoRA)
  Quartermaster Platinum Badge Complete AoRA on N!

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  #######................................####################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  #............................................##############
  #....####............................####....##############
  #...&####............................###...0.##############
  #....####............................###.....##############
  #....####.....................X......#.......##############
  #..............................%.............##############
  ##..........####..............####..........###############
  ###.........####.....####.....####.........################
  ####........####.....####.....####........#################
  #####.......####.....####.....####.......##################
  ######...............####...............###################
  #######................................####################
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 77/90   Experience 62068/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +4  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +6

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Marine

    Ironman          (Level 3)
    Finesse          (Level 2)
    Hellrunner       (Level 2)
    Reloader         (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 2)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 1)

  HR->Rel->Fin->Bru->HR->Bru->Ber->Iro->Iro->Fin->Iro->WK->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [4/4] (100%) (NP)
    [ Weapon     ]   chainsaw (5d6) (BT)
    [ Boots      ]   phaseshift boots [4/4] (100%)
    [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x30)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    combat shotgun (8d3) [3/5] (P1)
    rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
    Railgun (8d8) [40/40]
    green armor [1/1] (100%)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    shotgun shell (x50)
    rocket (x8)
    power cell (x50)
    small med-pack
    small med-pack
    large med-pack
    large med-pack
    phase device
    phase device
    rocket box (x25)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    bullet     - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    melee      - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    shrapnel   - internal 90%   torso 95%   feet 90% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    73 former humans
    80 former sergeants
    37 former captains
    104 imps
    83 demons
    162 lost souls
    37 cacodemons
    16 hell knights
    29 barons of hell
    10 arachnotrons
    15 former commandos
    9 pain elementals
    7 mancubi
    13 arch-viles
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He saw, left a present and left.
  On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 9 he entered Deimos Lab.
  He decided to nuke the forbidden Lab.
  On level 10 he found the Railgun!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he assembled a tactical boots!
  Level 23 was a hard nut to crack!
  He left level 23 as soon as possible.
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
 taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
 berserk! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
 You defeated the Spider Mastermind!

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 67 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 14 of those were killed.
 13 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 5 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 35 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 1 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 14 killed the bitch and survived.
 20 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------

4
Off Topic / Re: Signs of life
« on: December 02, 2024, 15:33 »
Quote from: LuckyDee on December 02, 2024, 00:16
Hey man, good to hear from you too - I don't think we were in touch much before either of us temporarily dropped out, but I hear ya on the DRL itch. Recently moved to a new house and still working to get my office/studio set up (I finally have a room to myself rather than occupying space in the living room), but I'll be sure to give 998 a spin once it's up.

Yeah I unfortunately wasn't involved much in the community side pre-JH, only making about a dozen forum posts here and then sporadically editing the wiki over the years. Aside from playing 0.9.9.8, 0.9.9.9 just had its first beta come out (check out JH's discord channel to get it), and getting more help with testing it would be swell.

5
Off Topic / Re: Signs of life
« on: November 29, 2024, 16:31 »
I came back around about a year and a half ago after getting the itch to play DRL again, which was probably going to be a month or two burst that ended after getting a few more Diamonds, but then development on 0.9.9.8 finally started back up after all this time and so I remained around since, both playing the game a lot and helping around where I can on here, beta testing, and on the wiki.

6
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: November 21, 2024, 21:19 »
With the release of the first 0.9.9.9 beta, I'm gathering new bugs and other fixes to make regarding it here:

*Screenshots aren't being saved, unless you manually create a folder named "screenshot" in DRL's root folder

Self-explanatory, screenshots aren't saving without the aforementioned manual fix. With this version shaking up the folder structure, and moving the screenshot folder into the "drl" subfolder of the "user" folder, it simply seems the screenshot function hasn't been updated to account for the new folder setup.

*Nightmare's -10% speed penalty may not be working

So before, one of the errors listed was the player info screen not reflecting Nightmare's -10% speed penalty, but after playing Nightmare, it never seemed like I was any slower than usual, and after getting a setup to test with a Cacodemon while I was a Marine wearing equipment that neither sped me up nor slowed me down, I can confirm no speed penalty is applying (as the Cacodemon never got a double move, which it should about every 10 movements if the speed penalty was working).

After farther testing with previous versions back to 0.9.9.6 and Kornel stating he has no recollection of ever adding this "feature", it turns out it may not have actually existed in the first place (or if it did, it was silently removed back in a very old version prior to 0.9.9.6). Kornel also stated he doesn't like the idea of adding difficulty by nerfing the player, so we can probably expect it to never get (re)added to the game. However, there is the question on if enemies could get a universal +10% speed bonus instead (it has a similar effect to the speed penalty but the player won't be given a harder time on any time-sensitive event like a timed nuke level and dealing with N!'s respawning that becomes more frequent the longer the player is on the floor). It would have probably been overkill on old Nightmare that a lot of people found too difficult/unfun even with it lacking the supposed speed penalty, but with the new N! changes making respawns easier to manage and no longer needing to fuss with corpse disposal for kill %, it could be added as a farther means to spruce up N! (as well as assuage any potential complaints from returning players of the changes making N! too easy), and farther replicate the "fast monsters" aspect of actual Doom's N! difficulty (my concern though would be that it could make some barely possible badges like Everyman Angelic veer into the realm of borderline impossibility, either way this should get some discussion).

*Item reveal is not working in Nightmare. Have it activate when all active enemies are dead, or after all unique enemies have been killed once.

The enemy reveal mechanic works as it's supposed to in Nightmare (triggering when there's 3 or less active enemies alive on the floor at once), but item reveal isn't activating, even if everything is dead and you destroy every corpse. Having it activate when you have everything dead at the same time, or after all unique enemies have been killed once, will work.

*The game may crash if you attempt to use the Dragonslayer's altfire, Whirlwind.

When testing the Dragonslayer, the good news is I can confirm the permanent berserk effect now works as it's supposed to. The bad news is, we got yet another game-breaking bug with it, this time the game will get a fatal error if you attempt to use Whirlwind. After reloading saves and testing it some, the bug is not consistent and Whirlwind will sometimes work as it's supposed to, while sometimes it crashes with said fatal error, so I'm unsure what's causing it.

*Technician Gold badge wasn't awarded on the run that fulfilled its condition, and was instead awarded at the end of the immediate next run.

A weird little bug I noticed; after copying over player data I used in prior betas, I did some quick test runs to knock out some more assemblies, so I don't get any Schematics when testing Nightmare, and in the process I finished all the basic assemblies, which should give Technician Gold. However, in the run I did so, I was not awarded Technician Gold, and it was instead awarded in the immediate next run after where I died before I could even make any assemblies. The linked Discord mortems show it, but for additional info, the Power Armor assembly was the last Basic Assembly needed, and in the run I got both the Schematics for it from Armory and created Power Armor immediately after before leaving Armory, so maybe that caused this bug?

*The Mortem's kill ratio message seems to be based on the total enemy kill ratio with respawns factored, rather than the unique enemy kill ratio.

Self-explanatory, so for example if you kill every unique enemy at least once and thus fulfill 100% kills but leave any respawns alive, you won't get the "This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!" message. Badges and medals that have a requisite kill ratio are being properly awarded based on the unique enemy kill count however, so a minor bug.

*If you fulfill the clear condition for a special level (typically having every enemy spawn activated and having everything dead at once) and then leave with any respawns alive, the game will give you the level clear message in the exit text and the Mortem, as well as any badges/medals that require clearing the level, but the level will not be counted as completed for Conqueror.

Another weird bug noticed; I thought with the change to how the enemy kill count works regarding respawns, you could now have special levels be considered complete after fulfilling their complete condition without having to make sure no respawns are up when exiting. If you do complete a level and then exit with any respawns alive, you get some weird half-state of completion; the level's exit text and the Mortem's level history text will be what you get for completing the level (e.g. for The Vaults, the Mortem states "He cracked the Vaults and cleared them out!" rather than "He managed to scavenge a part of the Vaults' treasures.", as seen in this mortem), and after testing, I can confirm you still get any badges/medals tied to completing the level (as seen in this mortem, where I still got the Grim Reaper's Pin and Reaper Diamond badge after leaving Limbo with respawns alive), but the level won't be counted as actually completed in the special level count section, so you won't get the Conqueror medal and (presumably) any badges that require achieving a Conqueror run.

*Modding display menu sometimes has inaccurate info.

The new modding display menu is a good addition to inform players what they're actually doing with any mod, but I noticed a couple issues. The first is when applying a bulk mod to armor and (presumably) boots, the display will show the bulk mod making said armor/boots 10% faster when it's the other way around (when applied however, the bulk mod still works as it's supposed to with making your armor/boots -10% slower). The second is when making an assembly like Tactical Boots or the Ripper that requires a second mod of the same type that you normally can't apply, the modding display will show the added effect of the second mod despite being unable to apply it without making the assembly (for example, if assembling Tactical Boots, the effect section will display your Steel Boots going from +10% to +20% speed).

*The game will not allow you to attempt applying Firestorm and Sniper mods to non-compatible equipment, notably preventing you from assembling Demolition Ammo.

Self-explanatory, this issue would also prevent being able to make any future assemblies that require adding a Firestorm or Sniper mod to non-compatible equipment (such as the proposed Scouting and Blastproof Armors).

*If too many sounds play in quick succession, the music will be turned off.

When employing the usual camping strats on Military Base, I noticed the music stopped playing. I saved and reloaded, which got the music playing again, but then I spammed some more run -> wait while nearby all the formers in the locked room and indeed that knocked out the music again. So it seems the cause is simply having too many sounds play at once, which can happen when spamming run -> wait near a group of enemies that can't reach you. The aforementioned saving and reloading restores the music, as does entering the next floor.

*Add ammo pickups to The Mortuary (and possibly Limbo depending on future changes to it).

A major mechanical change that was tested out is respawns no longer dropping any weapons and ammo they inherently have, both enemies revived by Nightmare/Angel of Darkness and by Archviles. With the other major respawn changes (corpses in your vision don't revive in Nightmare/AoD, and respawned enemies of either variety don't count towards the kill counter), this appears to be a fair change (100% kills in Nightmare without playing a melee build is very much viable, while you conversely can no longer farm a full inventory of ammo and Plasma Rifles off of any isolated Former, nor cheese Archviles with Formers on any difficulty to get as much ammo as you want). However, the big concern is Mortuary on any difficulty, as before you could rely on all the respawn ammo drops to soften the huge ammo sink the level normally would be, and even then you would still often come out with a significant net negative in ammo. With respawns no longer dropping ammo, you're outright in danger of running out of ammo or otherwise will likely deplete your ammo to a crippling degree, and if playing Nightmare, I don't see Mortuary being even viable without melee investment + strong melee weapon or having a Nano weapon (the Nuclear BFG helps, but aside from being able to easily get destroyed before picking it up, you can't easily recharge it when you got a bunch of enemies bearing down on you and it's not even that strong). To compensate, I think Mortuary should have ammo added, which can be in the form of at least one ammo box in each corner (have 10mm Ammochain in the top left, Power Battery in top right, Rocket Box in bottom right, and Shell Box in bottom left), and then on Nightmare, double the amount of them. As for Limbo, I think it's fine without added ammo, as aside from being significantly easier, you'll typically deplete much less ammo on it due to having less corpses around, much easier corpse disposal with all the lava, and lava saving you ammo on killing things by hitting them into it. However, if the proposed Blood fluid is added, I'm thinking it should replace the lava on Limbo to put it more on par difficulty-wise with Mortuary, and if it's added exactly as proposed (which means it doesn't damage enemies), perhaps Limbo should get some ammo added too just in case (at least an ammo box of each on Nightmare in the same setup as Mortuary).

*In the Nightmare version of The Vaults, the six Red Armors that are supposed to spawn next to the right vault's Barons may be bugged as it appears only one Red Armor is spawning, and the ease at teleporter camping the center vault's Nightmare enemies should be fixed.

As part of 0.9.9.8's big difficulty buff to The Vaults, on Nightmare it has UV's Arachnotrons and Archviles replaced with their Nightmare versions, and was supposed to spawn Red Armor next to the right vault's six Barons, so that they all have very good armor instead of only having one random armor between them. However, the Red Armors' spawning appears bugged or improperly implemented, as each time I played it, I only ever saw a single Red Armor drop from a right vault Baron each time (and it doesn't appear these Red Armors are accidentally spawning anywhere else, as the left vault with Nightmare Arachnotrons has no armors and I'm not seeing a bunch of Red Armors on the center vault's Barons either). Another issue is due to all Nightmare enemies becoming immune to fluids in 0.9.9.8, the newly added N! Arachnotrons and Archviles can walk over the lava blocking the center vault's teleporters and allow them to escape. Now I don't think this is itself a bad thing, it can add quite the scare factor to the level and it can put you in a really bad spot if a N! Arachnotron or Archvile suddenly pops up in a very awkward time across the long thin halls on the level or when you're trying to clear out one of the side vaults, and when going for the Scavenger badges, you still need to get lucky with Phasing into the center vault as the Barons still can't escape it. However, once you realize this and know both teleporters deposit teleportees right next to the stairs, you can simply camp next to the stairs to more safely kill each of the center vault's Nightmare enemies one-at-a-time, and then once they're all dead, you'll have a much easier time clearing out all the vaults. To prevent this, you can replace the lava blocking the teleporters with walls that can be destroyed conventionally, or by tying them to a lever inside the center vault that will destroy them (just make sure the lever is indestructible so it doesn't get destroyed in the inevitable crossfire when a player phases inside). Alternatively, if you want to keep the Nightmare enemies telporting outside of it, change the teleport destinations so the left teleporter's is as it currently is next to the stairs, while the right teleporter's drops you off on the opposite of the map; this would still allow you to spawn camp some of them (or maybe even all if you're lucky), but some others (or even most if unlucky) will evade the spawn camping and trying such can put you in a very dangerous position if one pops up in an unwanted direction while trying to kill another that just teleported in. I'm ok with either solution; the former makes opening the center vault and phasing into it a ton more dangerous, but the latter makes general exploring of the level paranoia-inducing and can be really evil with its potential to pinsir you between some of the nastiest enemies in the game.

*When using the Dragonslayer/Berserker Set in special levels, make killing the Nightmare Demons/Cacodemons not required for completion.

So to access the super secret Apostle fight, you're supposed to make it to Hell Fortress with the Berserker Set on, which you can find randomly if you're very very lucky, but are intended to fulfill the conditions on Nightmare to get them the guaranteed way. Getting the Dragonslayer works fine enough, but then to get the guaranteed Berserker Armor from Mortuary/Limbo, you have to use the Dragonslayer. Prior to 0.9.9.8, this was very difficult, as being stuck using the Dragonslayer means you can't use any corpse disposal weapon and the Dragonslayer itself can't gib big enemies like the Spear and Scythe since it deals melee damage, but it was doable. 0.9.9.8 however, made it so that just equipping the Dragonslayer now spawns infinite Nightmare Demons, while equipping the Berserker Set spawns infinite Nightmare Cacodemons on top. This is fine on normal floors, but this makes beating Mortuary/Limbo on Nightmare with the Dragonslayer an insane task, as in addition to all the corpses repeatedly reviving, you now got the Nightmare Demons repeatedly spawning, who will also repeatedly revive when killed. When testing I was able to do it... but when playing an AoMC + AoLT game (so I guaranteed one-shot everything and guaranteed gibbed Revenants, Cacos, and Arachnotrons, while having the big speed boost of AoLT both limited damage I took and limited respawns/NDemon spawns), and when having Vampyre (which is near-IDDQD since 0.9.9.8). Even then I got low on health at points, and without AoMC + AoLT, I'm not so sure I could have gotten everything dead at once. I simply don't see beating Mortuary/Limbo on Nightmare with the Dragonslayer being viable with any build except with Vampyre and maybe Blademaster.

The simple fix to this would be to not count the infinitely spawned Nightmare Demons towards the level's completion, that way you won't end up in a state where Nightmare Demons keep spawning/respawning on opposite sides of the map and you're unable to ever get everything dead at once. I would apply this to other special levels too, as it makes completing them much more of a tedious pain (Lava Pits/Erebus could also get out of hand if you get bad luck with the Nightmare Demon spawns, especially since lava doesn't kill them anymore). If it's not possible to program it that way, perhaps the Nightmare Demon/Cacodemon spawning should be disabled on special levels, or if that isn't possible either, then maybe just cap their spawning at like 50 per floor (on any normal floor you shouldn't be ever facing more than that, and as a bonus it also limits some potential cheese strategies where you abuse the infinite Nightmare Demons to puff up your kill ratio).

*Have screen shaking intensity vary based on the strength of the projectile/explosion

A new toggable feature in 0.9.9.9 is the screen shaking whenever an explosion of any sort happens. I do sorta like it, but it's rather janky in its current implementation, as the screen shake is pretty strong and seems to always play at the same intensity, regardless of if it's a 2 damage Imp fireball or a 36 damage rocket. This obviously isn't intuitive, and is rather annoying to see the screen shaking so much when just getting pelted by Imps.

_________________________________________________________

The following aren't specifically fixes to issues with the new beta, but rather just new ideas for 0.9.9.9 in general I had that I haven't proposed here yet, and I thought I may as well get them out now instead of continuing to sit on them until it's too late:

*Have more badges require at least a standard win.

Currently, with any badge that require winning the game, a partial win will still award it, except for the few that explicitly require a full win. Unless you actually care about your run's score, this makes a standard win and partial win nearly functionally identical, when they will result in earning nearly all the same awards (the only exception is any badge/medal that has a damage limit requirement, as nuking yourself can push you beyond the damage limit, while instantly disqualifying you from any that require damageless). This also makes the Mastermind even more of a nonfactor than she usually is, since as long as you make it to her with a nuke, you can just set it off and get whatever badge(s) you were hunting without any worry of dying to her. As for what badges to change in this regard, I think every Gold to Diamond badge that require winning the game should at least require a standard win (if they don't already require a full win), with the obvious exception of Pacifist Gold (since you can only get a partial win unless you get a second nuke + Invuln near Dis and pull off a double nuke on the Mastermind + JC), and I would also leave out the Angelic badges as a bit of reprieve, since they're absurd enough as is (though if you wanted to make them require a standard win too, Pacifist Angelic would need an obvious exception, and I would make an exception for Everyman Angelic too).

*Have dying to John Carmack count as a normal death instead of as a partial win.

Something I always found a bit weird is how dying to Carmack still counts as you winning the game, and aside from that being unintuitive, due to partial wins being nearly identical to standard wins as described prior, this results in the choice to fight Carmack having no real risk to it. Die to Carmack while on a Diamond badge run? No big deal, you'll still be awarded the badge. If the prior change is implemented to make partial wins less rewarding, this would be less of an issue, though I would still make this change.

*Disallow nukes from being activated in Hell Fortress, and consider having any active powerups get turned off when entering Hell Fortress.

When fighting the Apostle most recently, I noticed the game outright doesn't let you activate a nuke when it spawns, and I thought why not have this apply to Carmack too? The Lava Element only having 9 actions of invulnerability is deliberate to prevent you from getting easy double nukes off on the Mastermind + Carmack, but as long as you find an Invulnerability on Floor 23 and can rocket jump, it's trivial to nuke the Mastermind and then make it to Hell Fortress to nuke Carmack in time too with that single Invuln (and if you have the Trigun, it's possible to get a double nuke on both with just the Lava Element). To get a full win, I think you should be required to actually fight and kill Carmack conventionally, rather than rely on getting lucky with a floor 23 Invuln and skip having to fight him altogether. On another note, perhaps have any active powerups get disabled when entering Hell Fortress too, as even without nuking Carmack, you can take a floor 23 Invuln all the way to him and easily kill him without damage, or at least get most of the work done before he is able to actually fight back (the game already tries to enforce a fair fight by punishing you for trying to shoot him from out of vision, so it'll be fitting for him to depower you upon entering).

*Spruce up Hell Fortress' Apostle fight.

So I finally got to experience fighting the Apostle in Hell Fortress... and it was even more disappointing than the A100/666 fight. No unique entrance text to indicate anything is different, just the standard victory text when winning, and there's nothing different about the level itself, so you just fight the Apostle in a big empty room (which also means its resurrecting abilities don't get displayed, as the only other enemies are the Nightmare Demons/Cacodemons spawned by the Berserker set, which the fight should end before enough of them spawn to really get involved). Aside from more flavor with unique entrance and victory text, and the prior proposed buffs to the Apostle itself, a big way I think the fight could be improved is having a ton of corpses spawn in Hell Fortress with the Apostle, so its resurrecting capabilities actually get put to use.

*In The Lava Pits and Mt. Erebus on Nightmare, remove the last remaining Radsuit.

Previously I proposed have difficulty-dependent Radsuits on Lava Pits and Erebus to make them more appropriately difficult on the harder difficulties, which was implemented. When finally playing Nightmare however, I noticed the last Radsuit was not removed. Considering Lava Pits and Erebus see no real difficulty increase on N! as is compared to UV, other than a moderately more durable Lava Elemental, having no Radsuits on the level should be a fair change, especially since Radsuits last longer on N! and you can get more use of that single Radsuit than you could on UV (well Erebus needs way more than that, but even if its difficulty is buffed up elsewhere as I proposed before, I think it should still have the Radsuit removed).

*Allow Firestorm mods to be compatible with explosive weapons that have an explosion radius smaller than 3, having them increase these weapons' explosion radius by +1 instead of the usual +2.

Currently, there's an odd restriction with the Firestorm mod, where explosive weapons with an explosion radius of 1 or 2 cannot be modded with it (with the exception of the Tristar Blaster). This restriction doesn't make any real sense and is completely unintuitive (even Icy mistakenly thought you could apply Firestorm mods to small explosion weapons, as you can see in his guide to the Napalm Launcher here), as well as needlessly farther limits the utility of a rare mod that is already limited in its usage. If there's concern of a Tactical Rocket Launcher/Napalm Launcher having its explosion radius increased from 2 to 4 or a Demolition Pistol having its radius increased from 1 to 3 being too strong, then simply have the Firestorm mod give these weapons only a +1 radius boost rather than +2.

*Let the Lava Element appear as a random drop.

The Lava Element is an item with some potentially interesting applications beyond just serving as a guaranteed means to get a full win, as a source of temporary on-demand Invuln at any time. However, even if not saving it for a full win, you only have it for a single random floor you likely won't have any trouble with and then Dis, while you can never get it in A100 where you'll be much more probable to come across a floor that you would actually want to use it. As such, I think it would be neat if you could get the Lava Element outside of Lava Pits/Erebus as a random drop if you're lucky and get to play with it in more interesting scenarios beyond "set off nuke, pop Lava Element at 2 seconds left". You could give it a spawning weight of 3 or 2, and if you want to make the random drop of it an A100/666 exclusive, then set the spawning depth at 30+ .

*More Angelic badge ideas for existing special level sets

I previously thought up ideas of badge sets for special levels that currently have none, so why not potential ideas for completing the sets that already go up to Diamond?

Reaper Angelic: Clear The Mortuary/Limbo on N! in Angel of Humanity. (This is certainly a lot harder than Reaper Diamond, and gives you a reason to actually play AoH on Nightmare).

Scavenger Angelic: Clear The Vaults by luck on N! in Angel of Light Travel. (I don't think just upping it to Nightmare is enough compared to Scavenger Diamond, so the AoLT stipulation will add even more luck to it as you won't be able to stockpile much Phase Devices nor much rockets for a Napalm Launcher, nevermind the added difficulty of just making it to The Vaults with limited ammo and medkits in your inventory that you're sacrificing to fit Phase Devices and rockets in).

Longinus Angelic: Unsure, perhaps clear Unholy Cathedral on N! without Brute, Finesse, and Hellrunner, while excluding AoMC and AoLT? (Restricting Finesse and Hellrunner means outspeeding strategies will need some very specific equipment, particularly a Ripper or else you'll need to spend hours throwing a knife, or a very very good melee armor or two with a Hatred Skull or lots of medkits, might still be too easy for an Angelic badge but could be ok if the proposed change of adding Nightmare Demons to UC on N! is implemented)

Arena Angelic: I'm unsure of this one too, maybe clear Hell's Arena on Nightmare in Archangel of Humanity? (It is difficult to think of something harder than current Arena Diamond without pushing it into the realm of impossibility or lottery luck, and I'm thinking Archangel of Humanity is the only viable option here; you're not restricted to melee-only, but missing out on those two or three extra traits is very significant and of course you only have 10-14 max HP, I think it could be harder than AoB but shouldn't be impossible with the implemented Nightmare changes)

7
Discussion / Re: My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get
« on: November 20, 2024, 20:46 »
Since 0.9.9.9 has progressed enough in development to start getting beta versions tested (which is going to be implementing some major changes for Nightmare), I'm going to put this endeavor on hold for now. When 0.9.9.9 officially launches, I'll resume it, and hopefully the unwinnable badges get fixed this time, so 100% can be actually possible.

8
Post Mortem / Re: Badge Hunters for Version 0.9.9.8
« on: November 20, 2024, 20:41 »
Currently version 0.9.9.9 is in active development and is having beta versions tested for it, so in case anyone wonders, I'm gonna clarify that Diamond and Angelic badges obtained in any of the beta versions will not be counted here. As for what to do with this thread when 0.9.9.9 launches proper, I'm thinking unlike what the previous Badge Hunters thread did (where each version had separate Badge Hunters posts), I'll just roll 0.9.9.8 and 0.9.9.9 together, due to the short timeframe between both and 0.9.9.8 not having gotten much attention before 0.9.9.9 started getting beta versions, so people won't feel forced to reobtain badges they already got in 0.9.9.8 (while using the header system to note mortems that were achieved in 0.9.9.8). If 0.9.9.9 does majorly change any badges besides the unwinnable ones though, I may rethink doing that (such as if badges that require a specific challenge stop allowing Dual Angels). I'll also note that anyone that posts a 0.9.9.8 mortem with a Diamond or Angelic badge will still be counted here during the wait for 0.9.9.9, so if you have any, still post them!

9
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: October 28, 2024, 06:54 »
For another potential hotfix for bugs and other issues, here is how I would prioritize the listed bugs and other issues based on how urgent I think they are:

Critical priority
*The trait selection lockup bug. (Uncommon but game-ending when it happens, with no way to salvage your game nor even a mortem in that state, but no apparent cause has yet been identified)

High priority
*Lightfoot Diamond and Angelic badges aren't being awarded when their requirements are fulfilled. (This is likely being caused by indirect kills being erroneously categorized as "melee" kills, which would effectively make these badges impossible to get)
*Dragonslayer doesn't grant any amount of berserk. (Aside from this notorious weapon's signature mechanic not working, this is a potential run ender if picked up by a build without Berserker or Malicious Blades, as you need to be berserked or have Malicious Blades' defensive boosts to survive being locked to a melee-only weapon)
*Halls Of Carnage's lava flood sometimes doesn't activate, allowing you to play the level at whatever pace you desire. (A beneficial bug, but aside from making a special level much easier than intended, this bug seems to occur at random and so it cannot be anticipated if any given run will benefit from this bug or not)
*You can easily softlock in House Of Pain on Nightmare and in Angel Of Darkness if you don't have the Arena Master's Staff, from an enemy reviving in an earlier room while you're locked in a later room. (While there are a couple other special level softlocks, this one stands out as it doesn't require an unwise Phase Device use, but it may not have an easy quick fix that would make this eligible for a hotfix, ideas on how to address it are in the special level section of the OP)

Mid priority
*A Technical mod's resistance boosts on armors/boots get carried over in assemblies that uses a Technical mod, as long as the mod isn't applied last to finish the assembly. (A beneficial bug, but it does make several assemblies better than they're supposed to be)
*Corpses can sometimes be ungibbable by explosions and plasma(tic) shotguns. (I see it frequently happen in House Of Pain's first room, where a Pinky corpse or two will just refuse to gib, but it's unclear what is causing it and that is not the only level it can happen)
*Brute's accuracy bonus is still not being applied properly to thrown knives/Mjollnir.
*When using the look command, you are unable to scroll the screen with your keyboard, preventing keyboard-only players in graphic mode from seeing the whole floor.
*Direct explosive hits seem to have their damage calculation occur after knockback, making them weaker than they should be or even deal no damage at all. (Would list this as high priority but it's a long-standing bug from prior versions and so may not have a simple fix)
 
Low priority
*Sharpshooter's effect doesn't work with the Demolition Pistol and (presumably) the Anti-Freak Jackal. (Could arguably be mid priority, but the affected weapons are rare and Sharpshooter isn't hurt that much by it, so it can be set aside for the next full version if it's not a simple fix)
*When rocket jumping, your targeting cursor can extend beyond immediate adjacent tiles, despite not being able to target any tile beyond that range. Previous versions would just lock its targeting to its valid range, which made rocket jumping around quicker to input. (As a heavy rocket jump user that is very annoyed by this bug, my personal bias wants to label this as mid priority, but it ultimately has little gameplay impact)
*Projectiles can occasionally clip through walls at weird angles, including explosive projectiles going through outer boundary walls without exploding. (Could be quite exploitable in the right circumstances, but happens rarely enough and is usually not impactful enough to be an urgent bug. Needs more testing to determine what causes it, I seen it happen in House Of Pain's first room a couple times in particular but seen it in random floors too)
*Ammo stacks dropped by ammo dispensing lever aren't affected by the difficulty multiplier. (Not sure if this is an actual bug or intended, but it's a minor issue either way)
*In floors beyond level 30 in A100/666, you still predominantly only see lava instead of a greater variety in fluid generation. (Not sure if an actual bug or if the new level 30+ fluid generation formula just has a very heavy bias towards lava, but either way you're not seeing greater fluid variety in deep A100)
*When the Apostle spawns on the final floor of A100/666, it and all enemies that revive/get spawned will be immediately revealed by the enemy reveal mechanic since technically everything dies when you first enter the floor, despite this being a boss fight. (Could arguably be mid or even high priority, but labelling as low priority since very very few people will actually encounter this and since the Apostle hasn't gotten its planned buffs yet that could make it an actually compelling boss fight).
*House Of Pain doesn't have a default song defined in the music.lua file, so it'll play a random song unless you add a proper entry for it in the music.lua file yourself.
*Various UI issues that don't affect gameplay. (see the OP for all that been compiled so far)

10
Post Mortem / [U|AoMC+AoCn|94%|YAFW] - Finally get Scavenger Diamond in 0.9.9.8
« on: October 26, 2024, 18:25 »
For the complete video of this run, here is the Youtube link.

I put off finally playing Nightmare to get the Scavenger Diamond badge back, which took me over a week. In previous versions, you could cheese this badge by getting Azrael's Scythe and exploiting its altfire, Whisper Of Death, which deals 20 damage to every enemy on the map at the expense of max HP, allowing you to kill every enemy in The Vaults without actually getting inside any of said vaults, technically fulfilling the requirements for the badge. In version 0.9.9.8 however, The Vaults had its spawning depth swapped with Unholy Cathedral, which made it no longer possible to get the Scythe before The Vaults, so now you must actually get inside each of the vaults in order to clear it. 0.9.9.8 also buff the enemy layout in The Vaults significantly; previously on UV difficulty, you just had 4 Archviles in the left vault, 4 Revenants in the right vault, and 4 of both in the center vault, so just coming in Fireproof Red Armor would greatly neuter the enemy thread. In 0.9.9.8 however, the left vault now has 6 Arachnotrons, 6 Barons in the right vault, and 4 of both in addition to 4 Archviles in the center vault. This mixture of different damage types means you can no longer just rely on some easily obtained fire-resistant armor, while Arachnotrons also rack up damage much more quickly even when you have strong armor, and Barons will steal the armors within the vaults to get much more resilient. So you not only need to get lucky, but also have an ideal setup to actually surviving getting teleported into a small room full of nasty enemies. 0.9.9.8 also added an alternative level to The Vaults called House Of Pain, which you cannot get the Scavenger badges in, so half of all runs will be unable to even get a chance at this badge by default (well theoretically anyway, I've been having House Of Pain spawn well more than half the time, enough so that I'm half-convinced there could be a bug giving it a disproportionate spawning rate).

For the actual strategy, first the build. To survive teleporting into the center vault, being berserked is a must and so you want Berserker, which leaves two viable masteries; Vampyre and Blademaster. Blademaster could work, but Vampyre is the clear optimal choice; that 60% resistances from berserk stacks with the 20% inherent energy resistances the Marine has, which when combined with any decent armor, will reduce all damage from The Vaults' enemies to 1. Berserked melee is also very powerful, which will give you the DPS to kill the enemies, and will ensure any Barons that get any good armor will fall swiftly (unless you're unlucky enough for them to get an armor with very good melee resistance). Vampyre giving you HP back for each kill will also keep your health up, which is crucial to keep you from dying to a death of a thousand cuts. Vampyre itself is additionally broken good in 0.9.9.8, which will allow you to rush through the game in a way you wouldn't be able to do with a weaker mastery, significantly speeding up attempts when you're likely going to have make several of them at the least.

Speaking of speeding up attempts, the Scavenger badges don't require a standard game or any specific challenge, so I do a Dual-Angel of Angel of Confidence + Angel of Max Carnage. Normally when it comes to spamming quick attempts, Angel of Overconfidence is the gold standard for starting you off in Hell. However, AoOC will give you only a single floor of preparation, so not only you will be lacking crucial levels when entering The Vaults that could leave you too weak, the odds are very low you'll also find the items you need (at least one Phase Device + decent armor), and then the odds are even lower that you'll actually get into the center vault. Angel of Confidence, on the other hand, provides a middle ground; it starts you off in Deimos instead, which gives you 8 random floors + Tower Of Babel + four special levels, giving more than enough time to get the traits and armor you need, as well as making it likely you'll get the necessary Phase Devices (on average you'll get two over the 8 random floors, if you're lucky you can get more, but if unlucky you could still get none at all). Then by combining it with Angel of Max Carnage to make everything always do max damage and have max accuracy, it'll speed the game up by allowing you to kill enemies much faster, especially as you do need to explore floors thoroughly to find as many Phase Devices as you can and anything else helpful (it is also helpful for killing Formers and Hell Nobles before they use items they may have found, which includes Phase Devices that you need, just be careful to not gib the Formers as that will destroy any items they have). Doing this in AoMC does sound counter-productive to actually surviving getting into The Vaults, and normally that would be a death sentence, but as explained earlier, Vampyre is so strong that it'll still shrug off all those hits for 1 damage as long as you have good enough armor. AoCn + AoMC did result in me dying or quitting out a few times on the first floor, as the game can start you in an unsurvivable situation, but the majority of the time I could survive whatever floor it starts me in.

When it comes to the special levels along the way, doing Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab is a must, which Berserker + AoMC makes the normally tough Shambler fights a breeze. Aside from getting much needed equipment and mods (as well as increased odds at getting a particularly helpful weapon I'll get to in a bit), I really want an Onyx or Nano mod, as Vampyre wants an indestructible or regenerating armor to bumrush through the rest of the game and thus make attempts go faster. If I didn't get a Nano nor Onyx mod from the Armory/Lab, and didn't find a Red Armor on the first floor to at least make Nanofiber Red Armor for some sort of indestructible armor, I would just Q+Y out, but for the majority of runs I got at least one of those. When I got an Onyx or Nano mod, I would try saving it for a Red Armor or something else better than Blue Armor, but if I didn't find one by the end of Deimos 3, I would just put it on Blue Armor, as that would suffice since a berserk Marine's resistances are so strong. With the rest of the special levels, I would do The Wall/Containment Area, as they're easy for Vampyre, while the Backpack + rockets is very handy for a particular strat I'll describe in a bit, and you need some sort of Rocket Launcher to open the left and right vaults, so the guaranteed Missile Launcher is nice if you haven't found a Rocket Launcher yet. City Of Skulls/Abyssal Plains can be skipped, but I do them still to get some extra EXP since they're easy for Vampyre and have lots of rockets. Then I do Halls Of Carnage since I often could use the two mods it has, but would skip Spider's Lair, as I don't really need the BFG nor anything else on the level and am surely strong enough at this point to not need anymore traits.

Now for helpful items, the best thing you want to find is a Napalm Launcher. As mentioned earlier, a Phase Device can't plop you on acid nor lava, so if you find a Napalm Launcher, you can force a Phase Device to put you in the center vault by covering every single outside floor tile in lava before using a Phase Device, guaranteeing you success. A Napalm Launcher is uncommon, but not exceedingly so, and I found it four times in over a dozen attempts. The first three times, House Of Pain spawned... but finally in this attempt where I get a Napalm Launcher in Deimos Lab, I end up getting The Vaults, allowing me to finally succeed. When trying to get Scavenger Diamond this way, you really want to build Cerberus or Lava Boots, to ensure you don't hurt yourself too much when covering The Vaults in lava. An Acid Spitter can be used similarly, but it's much less effective, as the Napalm Launcher just uses rockets and so you can stockpile a bunch of them to cover the entire map in lava, whereas the Acid Spitter will have to "absorb" the acid its single shot leaves behind, which besides being a tedious process, the Acid Spitter will be unable to leave behind a net positive of acid in the thin hallway areas of The Vaults, so you won't be able to cover the majority of floor space with it.

As for total attempts, I didn't keep track, and I Q+Y'd out of most unsuccessful runs, but it was somewhere around a dozen to two. As I said in the beginning, the vast majority of runs had House Of Pain spawn, including all my runs where I had a Napalm Launcher (before this successful run), and/or had several Phase Devices stockpiled. And in runs where I got the Vaults, I either had no Phase Device, or in two cases, a single one, which failed to get me into the center vault (you have a 29.36% chance to get teleported into the center vault, so you need two to have more than a 50% chance, and four to reach 75+% odds). Then there was a run where I got The Vaults with two Phase Devices and an Acid Spitter, but even after covering as much of the level as I could in acid, both Phase Devices failed to get me in (though I at least managed to salvage a Klear Cross out of that run). I took a break for a couple days after that very deflating failed run, but in my immediate next attempt after, I finally did get a run with a Napalm Launcher and The Vaults, netting me Scavenger Diamond at last. Once you succeed and exit The Vaults with everything dead, you can die and still get the Scavenger Diamond badge, but I go and rush through the rest of the game to finish the run.

Now for the mortem:

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PLSGIVEMETHEVAULTS,
 level 14 Cyberdemon Lt. General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 188054 turns and scored 319446 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 19 minutes and 40 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 920 out of 974 hellspawn. (94%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Confidence!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 8
  Levels visited   : 8
  Levels completed : 8

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  Cyberdemon's Head          Killing the Cyberdemon w/o taking damage
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Hell Armorer Pin           Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab
  Scavenger Platinum Badge   Clear The Vaults by luck
  Scavenger Diamond Badge    Clear The Vaults by luck on UV+

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  .........................................................X#
  .......................................................|}.#
  .........................................................|#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ..........................................................#
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 120/60   Experience 95812/14
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +18  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +9

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 3)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Bad->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Bad->Fin->Jug->TaN->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   blue armor [4] (OPT)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   tactical boots [0/0] (100%)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x95)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [3/5]
    [b] plasma rifle (1d10)x8 [40/40] (F1P3)
    [c] assault shotgun (8d3) [6/6] (P1)
    [d] napalm launcher (7d7) [1/1]
    [e] BFG 9000 (10d6) [100/100]
    [f] Angelic Armor [7/7] (100%)
    [g] rocket (x12)
    [h] power cell (x70)
    [i] power cell (x70)
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] phase device
    [n] cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%)
    [o] shell box (x100)
    [p] shell box (x100)
    [q] rocket box (x25)
    [r] rocket box (x25)
    [s] power battery (x120)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 80%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 90%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 90%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 95%   feet 80% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    43 former humans
    68 former sergeants
    21 former captains
    79 imps
    55 demons
    339 lost souls
    23 cacodemons
    34 hell knights
    50 barons of hell
    34 arachnotrons
    19 former commandos
    46 pain elementals
    39 revenants
    13 mancubi
    31 arch-viles
    10 nightmare imps
    7 nightmare cacodemons
    1 nightmare demon
    2 shamblers
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  On level 1 he entered Deimos Lab.
  On level 1 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 2 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 3 he arrived at the Containment Area.
  He emerged from the Containment Area victorious!
  On level 4 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 5 he assembled a cerberus boots!
  On level 6 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical shotgun!
  On level 8 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 9 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 9 he found the Cybernetic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Vaults completely!
  On level 11 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 11 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 12 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 12 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 12 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 14 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 14 he found the Necroarmor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 16!
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 You need to taste blood! Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : blood
 You need to taste blood!
 You reload the tactical rocket launcher. You need to taste blood! Fire --
 Choose target...
 You see : blood
 You need to taste blood! Fire -- Choose target...
 You see : floor
 You need to taste blood! You feel vulnerable again.
 You wear/wield : a Longinus Spear (8d8)
 You hit John Carmack. You are hit! That hurt! You're going berserk! You need
 to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. You need to taste blood!
 You hit John Carmack. John Carmack dies. Congratulations! You defeated John
 Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now.

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 55 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 2 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 33 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 5 killed the bitch and survived.
 26 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------

11
Discussion / Re: My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get
« on: October 24, 2024, 19:31 »
UV AoMC + AoCn run gets Fallout Platinum Cross and Klear Cross

I posted this in its own Post Mortem thread, as I believe it's the first time anyone gotten the newly added Klear Cross. I've been grinding for Scavenger Platinum + Diamond, and this run was initially aiming for that, but after a crushing failure at The Vaults in what was my most promising run yet, I decided to play out the rest of the run and happened to find a Trigun. I was just going to get the Fallout Platinum Cross out of the way with it, but when noticing that Angel Arm doesn't tire you and after getting the Nuclear BFG from Limbo + another random nuke, I realized I could get Klear Cross too, a medal I thought was going to require its own horrible grind. The improvised detour went as planned, and now my medal count is up to 44, leaving only six medals left to complete the collection and the Heroic Diamond badge.

Badge count - [26|26|26|15|4|0] Medal count - 44/50 Score - 498/1500 (33.20%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

UV AoMC + AoCn run for Scavenger Platinum + Diamond

I posted this in its own Post Mortem thread, as while I did get Scavenger Diamond previously in 0.9.9.7, I did so via the Azrael's Scythe cheese method and not through the actually teleporting into the center vault, while said cheese is no longer possible in 0.9.9.8, so this is the first time I got the Scavenger Platinum and Diamond badges through the "intended" way (albeit aided by the Napalm Launcher). With these badges, I'm now tied with my Diamond badge count of 5 from 0.9.9.7, as well as only one Platinum behind with 16 but with many more medals, putting me at roughly around the same progress I finished 0.9.9.7 with. I also only have a single Platinum I can get without playing Nightmare (Armorer Platinum, which is a terrible grind not worth going for at this moment when I'm at 590 specials found currently), and only two Diamonds I can get without playing Nightmare (Armorer Diamond, which is also not worth grinding for specifically at this time, and Quartermaster Diamond, which I got previously in 0.9.9.7 but don't quite feel like going for it again yet in 0.9.9.8).

Badge count - [26|26|26|16|5|0] Medal count - 44/50 Score - 522/1500 (34.80%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

12
Post Mortem / [U|AoMC+AoCn|98%|YAFW] - Failed Scavenger Diamond run leads to first Klear Cross
« on: October 24, 2024, 19:19 »
I've been making attempts at the Scavenger Diamond badge over the past week, and been having an awful run of luck with it; most attempts I get House Of Pain, including every attempt I found a Napalm Launcher and/or several Phase Devices, and I've only gotten two attempts up to this point where I got The Vaults with at least one Phase Device, both of which I had only one Phase Device and both failed to get me into the center vault.

This run however looked like it was finally going to be it; I've been doing Angel Of Confidence + Angel of Max Carnage to speed up attempts, and Deimos 1 started me in a precarious situation next to multiple Chaingunners and a Pain Elemental, while a horizontal acid river severely restricted where I could go and I had no good corner shooting spot. I managed to survive that start, and then pulled off a Shambler's Head in Hell's Armory, which netted me an Onyx mod + Nano mod, while the Armory also had an Acid Spitter; I much rather have the Napalm Launcher, but the Acid Spitter can also be used to eliminate eligible teleport tiles in The Vaults and thus increase my chances of phasing into the center vault. The floor immediately after that I find a random second Onyx mod and Red Armor, so my armor is set to rush through the game without worry and I shortly find Gothic Boots after to use the second Onyx mod on, which will be nice for limiting the damage I take from reloading the aforementioned Acid Spitter. I then find a Chainsaw near the end of Deimos, so I also get a better melee weapon than the Chainsword too, for that extra assurance. This of course would be all for nought though if House Of Pain spawns yet fucking again... yet this time I do get The Vaults, with the Acid Spitter and two Phase Devices.

When in The Vaults, I clear out the left and right vaults, and then start covering the level in acid. This is a tedious process, and I'm quite limited in how much acid I can spread as the damage is still racking up even with me only taking 1 damage from each acid step. I also can't effectively use the Acid Spitter in the narrow passage ways, as it both covers less tiles and would end up net negative with reloading the Acid Spitter after (since every "sucked up" acid tile becomes a water tile, restoring it as a valid teleport spot). After covering most of the left and right vaults in acid, as well as the left and right nooks where you get more space to spread acid around, I probably had around at least a third of the level covered in acid to significantly increase my odds, and so I decide it's time to pop the Phase Devices. The first Phase Device... doesn't get me in the center vault, and then the second Phase Device... still doesn't get me in the center vault either...

Well I was feeling quite deflated, finally getting a good inventory setup while The Vaults spawns and I still don't get into the center vault, Scavenger Diamond runs should not be taking anywhere near this long. At this point I would normally Q+Y out, but decide to just finish the run. Shortly after I would randomly find a third Onyx mod, pretty useless at this point but why I couldn't get this luck with The Vaults? The rest of the run would be unremarkable, if not for me finding a Trigun in Hell 5. I was actually a bit disappointed at first when I saw the Pistol Unique that spawned was the Trigun and not the GCB (as the Grammaton Cross is one of the handful of medals I'm still missing), but then thought I may as well get the Fallout Platinum Cross out of the way (another medal I haven't gotten yet), especially as I did get the Nuclear BFG from Limbo and then found a random nuke after on Hell 6 to help puff up that nuke count. On Hell 7, an Invuln would spawn, and with enough medkits stockpiled to spam Angel Arm enough for Fallout Platinum Cross, I then start spamming it to puff up that nuke count... Where I then noticed that Angel Arm doesn't tire you like I thought it did, and realized I had an opportunity to get the newly added Klear Cross here, a medal I was dreading having to grind eventual runs for. With that, I then descend into Dis still invulnerable, and spam Angel Arm until my max HP got too low to use it anymore. With the Marine's 60 max HP, I was able to get 10 Angel Arms off, which, alongside the prior activated nuke, put my nuke count at 11. I then rocket jump to the stairs to keep my invuln intact for Hell Fortress, where I overcharged the Nuclear BFG for the win and for my 12th nuke, just enough to net me the first Klear Cross.

So while this run didn't achieve its goal, I did not end up empty handed, and it's a big relief that I ended up not needing to make a big grind for Klear Cross after all. I'm getting pretty close now to getting all the medals, with only six left...

--------------------------------------------------------------
 DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------

 PLSNOMOREHOUSEOFPAIN,
 level 15 Cyberdemon Lt. General Marine,
 nuked the Mastermind at the Hell Fortress.
 He survived 96213 turns and scored 458778 points.
 He played for 1 hour, 17 minutes and 17 seconds.
 He was a man of Ultra-Violence!

 He killed 969 out of 982 hellspawn. (98%)
 He held his right to remain violent.
 He was an Angel of Max Carnage!
 He was also an Angel of Confidence!

-- Special levels --------------------------------------------

  Levels generated : 8
  Levels visited   : 7
  Levels completed : 6

-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------

  UAC Star (bronze cluster)  25+ kills without taking damage
  Aurora Medallion           Found more than 3 uniques in one game
  Fallout Platinum Cross     Nuked at least 6 levels in one game
  Klear Cross                Nuked at least 12 levels in one game
  Grim Reaper's Pin          Clear the Mortuary/Limbo
  Shambler's Head            Clear Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab w/o taking damage

-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------

  ###########################################################
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #X.........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  #..........................................................
  ###########################################################

-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------

  Health 66/10   Experience 101689/15
  ToHit Ranged +12  ToHit Melee +20  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +12

-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------

  Class : Marine

    Finesse          (Level 3)
    Tough as nails   (Level 1)
    Brute            (Level 4)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Berserker        (Level 1)
    Whizkid          (Level 2)
    Badass           (Level 2)
    Vampyre          (Level 1)

  Bru->Bru->Ber->Fin->Bad->MVm->Fin->WK->WK->Bru->Bad->Fin->Jug->Bru->TaN->

-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------

    [a] [ Armor      ]   phaseshift armor [2] (O)
    [b] [ Weapon     ]   ripper (6d6)
    [c] [ Boots      ]   antigrav steel boots [1/1] (100%) (A)
    [d] [ Prepared   ]   shell box (x87)

-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------

    [a] tactical rocket launcher (6d6) [5/5]
    [b] assault shotgun (7d3) [6/6]
    [c] Trigun (3d6) [6/6]
    [d] Acid Spitter (10d10) [0/10] {a}
    [e] red armor [4] (AO)
    [f] Berserker Armor [0]
    [g] Longinus Spear (8d8)
    [h] rocket (x14)
    [i] rocket (x14)
    [j] rocket (x10)
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] large med-pack
    [n] large med-pack
    [o] large med-pack
    [p] large med-pack
    [q] homing phase device
    [r] lava element
    [s] lava gothic boots [10] (A)
    [t] shell box (x100)

-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------

    bullet     - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    melee      - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    shrapnel   - internal 60%   torso 90%   feet 60% 
    acid       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    fire       - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 
    plasma     - internal 80%   torso 80%   feet 80% 

-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------

    19 former humans
    56 former sergeants
    38 former captains
    53 imps
    34 demons
    452 lost souls
    36 cacodemons
    20 hell knights
    49 barons of hell
    23 arachnotrons
    20 former commandos
    42 pain elementals
    31 revenants
    36 mancubi
    36 arch-viles
    9 nightmare imps
    3 nightmare cacodemons
    5 nightmare demons
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Angel of Death
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 John Carmack

-- History ---------------------------------------------------

  On level 1 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 1 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 3 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 4 he found the City of Skulls.
  On level 4 he assembled a antigrav boots!
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 6 he assembled a chainsword!
  On level 6 he assembled a tactical rocket launcher!
  On level 7 he assembled a lava boots!
  On level 8 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 9 he ran for his life from lava!
  On level 9 he entered the Vaults.
  He managed to scavenge a part of the Vaults' treasures.
  On level 11 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 11 he found the Longinus Spear!
  He then destroyed the Unholy Cathedral!
  On level 12 he was foolish enough to enter Limbo!
  On level 12 he assembled a ripper!
  On level 12 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear Limbo from evil!
  On level 13 he found the Trigun!
  He nuked level 14!
  On level 14 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 14 he found the Berserker Armor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 15!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He activated the Angel Arm on level 16!
  He left level 16 as soon as possible.
  He defeated the Mastermind and found the TRUE EVIL!
  He overloaded a nuclear BFG 9000 on level 17!
  Then finally in Hell itself, he killed the final EVIL.

-- Messages --------------------------------------------------

 You wear/wield : a ripper (6d6)
 Warning! Explosion in 9 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 8 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 7 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 6 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 5 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 4 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 3 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 2 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 You need to taste blood!
 Warning! Explosion in 1 seconds! You need to taste blood!
 Congratulations! You defeated John Carmack! Press <Enter>...
 You feel relatively safe now. You need to taste blood!

-- General ---------------------------------------------------

 54 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
 18 of those were killed.
 2 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
 And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.

 32 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
 2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
 5 killed the bitch and survived.
 25 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.

--------------------------------------------------------------

13
Nightmare! / Re: (0.9.9.7) [N!|AoB+AoLT|68%|YASD] Arena Diamond Badge & 26/26 Diamond Badges!
« on: October 16, 2024, 20:58 »
Just wanted to comment here to commemorate you winning the first Arena Diamond in over a decade and for being the first player to legitimately get every Diamond badge in any version. If any mods come around, they should definitely pin this thread.

14
Discussion / Re: My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get
« on: October 09, 2024, 20:07 »
UV A666 run for Armorer Gold and an annoying quartet of medals.

I posted this in its own Post Mortem thread, as intentionally killing yourself on the final floor of A666 to get several medals is a pretty ludicrous concept. In addition to getting four new medals (the Experience Cross, Purple Heart, and two spoilery medals), in that run I was fortunate enough to find the remaining Exotics and Uniques I haven't found yet in 0.9.9.8 to pick up Armorer Gold, so now I have all the Gold badges. With those medals, I also exceed the proportion of medals I got back in 0.9.9.7, and have just eight more left to complete the medals and get Heroic Diamond (it might take a while though to get those remaining medals however...).

Badge count - [26|26|26|15|3|0] Medal count - 42/50 Score - 476/1500 (31.73%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Standard UV run with Scavenger to get Technician Diamond

I decided to just get the last assembly out of the way that I needed for Technician Diamond and also ensure I would never get any more Schematics, so I just ran standard games with Scavenger. The first run I got Hell's Armory, not good as I would only get one rare mod, but instead of a rare mod I got the Cybernetic Armor from the mod cache, so I potentially had the very rare opportunity to build Cybernano Cybernetic Armor. Unfortunately I didn't get either a Nano nor Onyx mod throughout the rest of the run despite finding many Uniques; two of the Uniques I found were a Revenant Launcher and Lava Armor (which have guaranteed mods that aren't Nano/Onyx mods), then a Necroarmor that didn't drop one, then a Hellwave Pack I can't scavenge, and then both the Scythe and Angelic Armor didn't drop one either. In the second run, it nearly died in Phobos, as I had a rough Unchained Court where a Baron manage to blow up both Berserks right when I opened the door, and then immediately after surviving Unchained Court, I got ambushed by a Pinky group + a bunch of other nasties right at the start of floor 6 while being unable to run away with no Hellrunner nor even Agility-modded boots, and while also lacking a Shell Box to not get mauled when reloading my Shotgun. But I managed to survive it by chokeholding in the doorway I was stuck in and, for the first time ever, actually finding use from the Arena Master Staff to finish off the group after they were significantly weakened (you can see my screenshots of this ordeal in the Discord server here). After also surviving a tough Phobos Lab when I had no Shell Box nor any speed boost, I then pulled off a Shambler Head in Hell's Armory, which rewarded me with a Nano + Onyx mod and thus I could finally build Cybernano Armor regardless of any subsequent luck with Scavenger. I was ready to use it on Red Armor, but held off for a few more floors in case a very good Exotic armor or the Cybernetic Armor spawned, and I thought that paid off when, after picking up a map on Deimos 4, I saw a golden-colored Exotic armor in a vault that could be the coveted Energy-shielded Vest, but unfortunately it was a fucking Energy Shield that you can't mod and so I had to build Cybernano Red Armor (something I would normally advise against, but I just needed to get this assembly done).

The rest of the run was then mostly uneventful, while I would only find one Unique in the whole run, which was the Railgun (that meant guaranteed Sniper mod), and the two Artifacts again didn't drop a Nano nor Onyx mod, so that Shambler Head ended up proving necessary to complete Technician Diamond here. For a couple last notes, this run was one of the very rare non-AoOC runs where I never built Tactical Boots, as I somehow only got three Agility mods even with Scavenger and after recycling a half dozen Bulk mods, that were very spread out too (didn't find the second until Halls Of Carnage, which I used to build the Hyperblaster I had ready since Armory, and then the third from The Mortuary's Assault Shotgun, which I used to build Cerberus Boots because it was evident I was very unlikely to build Lava Boots instead by then and +5% more movement speed wouldn't have really mattered at that point), and I got one of those rare super fast floods on the last floor before Dis, where the lava floods each row every two seconds (I had Cerberus Boots so I was in no real danger, still rushed through to see if I could find some more plasma ammo and anything else interesting, but the level ended up having nothing of note besides a Megasphere and so I should have just let the lava flood to kill everything).

With that, I'm up to 4 Diamonds now, only one away from tying my total in 0.9.9.7.

Badge count - [26|26|26|15|4|0] Medal count - 42/50 Score - 492/1500 (32.80%)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

15
Century Lounge / [U|ArchA666|60%|666|YASD] - Intentionally dying on floor 666 for annoying medals
« on: October 09, 2024, 19:51 »
0.9.9.8 has added two new particularly annoying medals:

*The Purple Heart, which requires you to die at level 20 or above
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
(spoilered in case anyone still cares about that particular weapon and its secrets).

With me missing the Experience Cross and another spoilery medal in 0.9.9.8, also very annoying medals to get, I thought up of a way to gather them all up at once; play A666 so you can reach level 25, maximize your chances of finding the spoilery equipment in a single run to
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I wasn't completely sure if this would actually work, as I thought maybe the spoilery medal would require you to win the game or some other conflict with medals would happen, but nope, it worked exactly as planned and now I won't need to do any other separate runs specifically for any of these medals.

As for the build, I went with Blademaster, as I'm good enough to survive early A100/666 with a melee build lacking a Chainsaw, and then Blademaster will mow through those hundreds of floors faster than any other build, especially once I found the weapon I was looking for (which luckily I found in the 100s, and even with it being current bugged to not give permanent berserk, is still absurdly powerful in the hands of Blademaster and I was able to maintain being berserked 99% of the time anyway). Could have done this run much faster than 20ish hours, but I was still mostly exploring floors through most of the game instead of stair diving as I really wanted to complete Armorer Gold (the last Gold badge I need to have them all again), which required me to find an Energy-shielded Vest (the last Exotic I haven't found yet on this 0.9.9.8 file), and the game gives you no message when Exotics spawn, so I couldn't just stair dive until getting the "there is something really valuable here!" message like I could with trying to find the Uniques. Of which, I didn't find a single Energy-shielded Vest until floor 451, or at least not one that was nabbed by a Former or Hell Noble first where it would inevitably get instantly destroyed by me having such a powerful melee weapon (and then the game spawned a second one on the floor immediately after, the RNG really wanted to troll me there). After that I could breeze through the last couple hundred floors in a couple hours, and I luckily managed to find the rest of the Uniques I was missing for Armorer Gold. I also wanted to complete the rest of the assemblies I haven't made yet for Technician Diamond, but I shortly realized building Cybernano Armor would lock me out of wearing that particular spoilery armor I needed to wear at the end, so unfortunately I still need to do that in another run (was able to build the Mother-In-Law at least before finding the spoilery weapon, the other assembly I was missing, and it was very fun rocket jumping around with it until said spoilerly weapon prevented me from using it anymore).

Lastly this could have been done on HNTR, but I did it UV, partly because it's the difficulty I find most fun, and partly to maximize the amount of Cyberdemons I could find so I get Cyberdemon rank, as I needed to kill about 70ish more of them to get the rank (and I did not feel like waiting until that many more non-100/666 games to get that rank back). I didn't get a single Cyberdemon level, but I still managed to find well more than enough to fulfill the kill requirements for Cyberdemon rank (I also did some exploiting with Archviles now being able to revive Cyberdemons in 0.9.9.8 to puff up the Cyberdemon kill counts, but that probably wasn't necessary).

Here is the monster mortem for anyone that wants to see all of it, though I'll give one last spoiler warning for those that care

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 8