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136
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 28, 2017, 08:23 »
Ammo crates are pinkish, and armor crates are yellowish.
I actually do intend to watch your videos when I'll need to study some more. :P I have watched bits and pieces of them, and watched through part of your Everyman Angelic Badge run.
I forgot that Angel of Purity blocks Invulnerability, so yeah, Inquisitor Angelic Badge is not immediately happening, lol. I was thinking I could just grind for luck, but it's going to take a lot more than that.
I think I'll try for Pacifist Angelic Badge sometime and see how it goes.
Day 51:
After rotating some more with diamond badges, I've decided to grind for UAC Diamond Badge, which would also earn me UAC Platinum Badge. It's very challenging and I've only had a couple runs past Babel. The main issue is that I can't really abuse Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon because of the time constraint, which is proving to be a problem. Generally, I attack with Chainsaw, but I essentially need Invulnerability and Berserk to get the kill. I've started going with Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Brute instead of Dodgemaster, but I'm now also considering going for an earlier Berserker.
No screenshots this time since UAC Diamond Badge is a rush. :P
I'm not a huge fan of this challenge since it forces me out of my slow, defensive style, so I've just been grinding for luck. Hopefully, I can get it soon and be done with speedun challenges. I have no clue how Speedunner Angelic Badge is like, mathematically possible without tens of thousands of runs. It'll certainly be the last badge I ever earn.
I actually do intend to watch your videos when I'll need to study some more. :P I have watched bits and pieces of them, and watched through part of your Everyman Angelic Badge run.
I forgot that Angel of Purity blocks Invulnerability, so yeah, Inquisitor Angelic Badge is not immediately happening, lol. I was thinking I could just grind for luck, but it's going to take a lot more than that.
I think I'll try for Pacifist Angelic Badge sometime and see how it goes.
Day 51:
After rotating some more with diamond badges, I've decided to grind for UAC Diamond Badge, which would also earn me UAC Platinum Badge. It's very challenging and I've only had a couple runs past Babel. The main issue is that I can't really abuse Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon because of the time constraint, which is proving to be a problem. Generally, I attack with Chainsaw, but I essentially need Invulnerability and Berserk to get the kill. I've started going with Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Brute instead of Dodgemaster, but I'm now also considering going for an earlier Berserker.
No screenshots this time since UAC Diamond Badge is a rush. :P
I'm not a huge fan of this challenge since it forces me out of my slow, defensive style, so I've just been grinding for luck. Hopefully, I can get it soon and be done with speedun challenges. I have no clue how Speedunner Angelic Badge is like, mathematically possible without tens of thousands of runs. It'll certainly be the last badge I ever earn.
137
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 27, 2017, 15:27 »
Day 50:
Despite quite a bit of effort before, Hunter Diamond Badge came quickly after just a few more tries. The run wasn't very remarkable, just lots of luck with nearby stairs and Invulnerability. I also was able to grab the Nuclear BFG, which lead to an interesting ending:
Literally gained 5 levels, lol. :P Anyway, while I could have potentially just found the staircase and nuked Dis, there's of course a small chance I wouldn't find it and get killed by all the Mancubi, not to mention it might have been hard just getting on the stairs with them all around. By nuking floor 7 instead, I was only left with fighting the Spider Mastermind, which I'm very confident in doing safely, and because all the experience levels came just before that, I could pump out all traits that would be beneficial. I'd say doing this is a fairly obvious decision, but it's still a fun scenario!
After that, I rotated a bunch of diamond badge challenges, but wasn't able to earn the sought-after 15th. Once I get one more, I won't need any diamond badges any more for ranking promotions, and will just need more angelic badges. I'm still going to collect them all, but there's less immediate obligation to do so. I'm confident I can earn most of them, just that none of them are cakewalks anymore.
With no luck there, I played a game for Daredevil Platinum Badge, which I found pretty easy. I didn't end up earning it though because I rolled an Arachnotron cave and was quickly melted to ashes. :(
Anyway, I'm sure I'll earn another diamond badge soon. I'm curious though what you guys think would be the next easiest angelic badge after Shottyman and Lightfoot? I'm wondering how difficult Inquisitor and Quartermaster are, as they don't seem as totally insane as the others. I'm also curious about Pacifist, since I could play it on Hey, Not Too Rough difficulty. It'd be a grind for sure, but I can do grinds. Any advice?
Despite quite a bit of effort before, Hunter Diamond Badge came quickly after just a few more tries. The run wasn't very remarkable, just lots of luck with nearby stairs and Invulnerability. I also was able to grab the Nuclear BFG, which lead to an interesting ending:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Literally gained 5 levels, lol. :P Anyway, while I could have potentially just found the staircase and nuked Dis, there's of course a small chance I wouldn't find it and get killed by all the Mancubi, not to mention it might have been hard just getting on the stairs with them all around. By nuking floor 7 instead, I was only left with fighting the Spider Mastermind, which I'm very confident in doing safely, and because all the experience levels came just before that, I could pump out all traits that would be beneficial. I'd say doing this is a fairly obvious decision, but it's still a fun scenario!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
After that, I rotated a bunch of diamond badge challenges, but wasn't able to earn the sought-after 15th. Once I get one more, I won't need any diamond badges any more for ranking promotions, and will just need more angelic badges. I'm still going to collect them all, but there's less immediate obligation to do so. I'm confident I can earn most of them, just that none of them are cakewalks anymore.
With no luck there, I played a game for Daredevil Platinum Badge, which I found pretty easy. I didn't end up earning it though because I rolled an Arachnotron cave and was quickly melted to ashes. :(
Anyway, I'm sure I'll earn another diamond badge soon. I'm curious though what you guys think would be the next easiest angelic badge after Shottyman and Lightfoot? I'm wondering how difficult Inquisitor and Quartermaster are, as they don't seem as totally insane as the others. I'm also curious about Pacifist, since I could play it on Hey, Not Too Rough difficulty. It'd be a grind for sure, but I can do grinds. Any advice?
138
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 26, 2017, 15:30 »
Here's that particular mortem, Tormuse:
Day 49:
Massive progress today! I've been pretty excited to share it all! :D
I started off digging more into the coding because I was curious about ammo and armor crates and what their probabilities are for each item. Here are the listings:
Ammo Crate
30/40 nothing
4/40 10mm Ammo
4/40 Shells
1/40 Ammo Chain
1/40 Shell Box
Armor Crate
45/60 nothing
4/60 Green Armor
4/60 Steel Boots
4/60 Small Med Pack
1/60 Blue Armor
1/60 Large Med Pack
1/60 Protective Boots
So given each 2x2 block of crates, you'll on average get one item. The information doesn't really change much about strategy or approach, but is nice to have solid numbers. I'd argue that a 1 in 20 chance for a big ammo box is pretty good.
I also dug into how the medals and badges get rewarded. The most infamous oversight is Destroyer Diamond Badge, which requires getting the Untouchable Cross, which is not rewarded on Angel of Confidence/Overconfidence. However, the code itself only checks for damage taken, and not medal received, which is why we can abuse the dual-angel. I was curious if there are any others like that to make some of the more difficult medals and badges easier, but I haven't found anything. I'll study every one I go for to get a precise idea of what the game wants though.
However, one interesting find I did see is Lightfoot Badges:
Basically, you can get Lightfoot Diamond Badge while playing on Archangel of Travel, and not just Angel of Light Travel. I'd almost argue doubling up with Lightfoot Angelic Badge is easier since the extra 10% speed bonus is so powerful, and is a pretty good trade-off for just 3 more inventory slots. That said, Angel of Max Carnage + Light Travel could make up for carrying less ammo.
In any case, this meant I'll be getting an unexpected diamond badge!
One more discovery (which is super embarrassing) is the Phobos Anomaly portal is always open. I usually kill everything and pull the Bruisers back, and thought it being open was only on Angel of Pacifism. I've literally thrown some runs fighting the Bruisers in the back corners, being completely oblivious to the fact that I could just be leaving. After that, I decided to check the coding for stairs in Babel, but those are indeed only there on Pacifism, lol. I'm really not sure how I was always thinking it was closed. :P
After more attempts at Archangel of Light Travel, I finally got a great run, starting with an Invulnerability on floor 7:
And another on Deimos 1. I was able to get through most of the episode while Invulnerable.
I read some posts about players beating up the Cyberdemon with the Chainsaw, and then avoiding the melee kill afterwards. I wasn't keen on the idea of running into him, so I went with Dodgemaster abuse and slowly killed him with a regular Shotgun. I loaded up on shells beforehand and it was a breeze.
On Hell 1, I had yet another Invulnerability. This is usually the most important one in the run, since it's right after emptying out basically all of my ammo:
I made it far into the episode and came across a nuke!
To the right there is Limbo, meaning I had an opportunity to go for a full win and grab yet another diamond badge! I considered it for awhile, but ultimately decided not to. The two reasons were that it's possible I'll need every bit of Invulnerability to survive up to Dis, and I was also concerned with getting bounced around in the corner of Limbo due to high monster density.
I made it to Dis and blew up the Spider Mastermind, went to fight JC again, got destroyed, and got my second angelic badge!
I've now matched what most players have as their angelic badge count! The other nice thing is the first promotion with those badges is at 3, so it'll work out as a way to flaunt my progress more. :) I'm not sure which one I'll go for, but it won't be for awhile anyway.
While I did luck out a lot of my run, there were a lot of tactics and strong gameplay. I've been improving a lot more in all the micro details and interesting situations the game throws at me. I had one scenario in particular where I was stuck in a U-shaped section of a maze level filled with barrels, and having a Chaingunner and Revenant pursue me from opposite sides. Being low on health, I couldn't get hit by either or the barrels, and there was no good angle to hit only the Chaingunner. Moving would also result in barrels getting destroyed in basically every case. However, I found a solution by pushing a particular barrel to force the Revenant to go around for 1 extra step, making the Chaingunner move, and giving me a better position for the kill. Little things like that have helped immensely!
I've also started to use the minimap again. After struggling a bit on Archangel of Travel, it was pretty annoying to not be able to use all the Berserks in Chained Court since it messes with Intuition. Is it possible to move its position lower into my HUD?
Anyway, despite all that, I kept going for more! My next goal would be getting a full win on Nightmare, which I planned on doing with a double nuke strategy. I figured it wouldn't be too bad to grind for; I'd need Invulnerability before Limbo, grab the Nuclear BFG, get lucky to find a Nuke, and likely need one more Invulnerability for the ending. If that failed, I was playing on Max Carnage for a backup strat against JC.
My run started off strong:
Even stronger than I thought:
On floor 2, I found a Tracking Map, which revealed the much needed Nuke! The challenge however was it was surrounded by enemies and directly adjacent to a barrel:
With careful movements and patience, I was able to safely grab it:
Floor 3 offered another Invulnerability, but what I had left of my first two was phasing out:
Carefully dancing around with an Archvile, I managed to grab it before it was destroyed:
I used a Homing Phase Device to jump over far in floor 4 since both staircases were nearby:
I saw a replacement Homing Phase Device, and very carefully managed to grab it. Seriously, look at the enemies in the room I was dealing with!
Limbo was nice to me with basically no enemies nearby and an empty upper-right island:
My Invulnerability ran out before I left:
The game was nice to give me yet another Invulnerability, but once again, I had to earn it:
On my way out, I found another Homing Phase Device, which meant I had enough to immediately leave to the end:
Floor 6 had no additional Invulnerabilities, so I left right away, but floor 7 did:
Again, look at that enemy pile-up! I still managed to grab it, meaning I had the game won at this point!
A new promotion and I got another double badge (this one I didn't expect lol)! Now obviously, I got super lucky that the game gave me all the tools I needed, but almost all of them were not gimmes and I had to earn them! I'm honestly more happy to very clearly see my skill level improving moreso than the badges themselves. :P
Still, I wasn't satisfied yet and kept going.
My next target was Longinus Diamond Badge. Since I wasn't allowed to use Brute, Eagle Eye is the clear choice for this challenge. I figured that with enough attempts with Angel of Overconfidence that I would eventually get it. I played a bit with a few strategies. I thought at first that Scout on Max Carnage would be the way to go, since I could use Intuition instead, grab an Invulnerability, and hack away at the Angel of Death. Funny enough though due to his massive armor, the Chainsaw from Angel of Berserk is more damaging, while I'd also be taking less in return. And given that, it makes more sense to play as a Marine for the extra powerup duration. So the plan was to find an Invulnerability and Unholy Cathedral, and hopefully score a win.
On my first successful start, I brought the Angel of Death down to "almost dead", but got finished off. I saved my Chainsaw Berserk effect for when I reached him, but realized it makes more sense to use it for the Demons to kill them faster, and ultimately have more time with Invulnerability. So I tried for some more runs.
I made one minor mistake of sawing the door rather than opening it, meaning I had less corpse disposal with the Demons. They fortunately never respawned though.
The Angel of Death got torn apart:
Very easy and I had Large Med-Packs to spare! I strongly recommend using this strategy when going for this badge. The grind for a start is a bit tedious, but once you get a nearby Invulnerability, Unholy Cathedral is cake.
Of course though, I'm insatiable.
My next target was Hunter Diamond Badge. This one is pretty straight-forward; Angel of Darkness + Overconfidence, visit each of the 4 levels, then kill the Spider Mastermind. The only major source of luck needed is Invulnerability or a Homing Phase Device before Limbo/Mortuary since the other three can be immediately exited. I also use Intuition x2 as usual, which is good enough for Dis. Finding the stairs is pretty much all luck though, but the massive experience points gained with Nightmare + Darkness + Overconfidence helps a lot. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete the challenge last night despite some runs to floor 7, and had to settle with a mere 5 badges. :P
That was definitely the final night I'll ever gain that many badges in one day, although Speedunner and Demonic Angelic Badges basically count for 70 a piece. ;) I've learned a lot, improved a lot, gained a lot, and still have so much fire to keep going! I'm on the cusp of catching up to many great players, which is really exciting! I'm also confident about getting many of my missing medals and badges, whereas just about a week ago I was intimidated and didn't think I'd be ready for Nightmare.
I'm having a blast and a craving for more!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Day 49:
Massive progress today! I've been pretty excited to share it all! :D
I started off digging more into the coding because I was curious about ammo and armor crates and what their probabilities are for each item. Here are the listings:
Ammo Crate
30/40 nothing
4/40 10mm Ammo
4/40 Shells
1/40 Ammo Chain
1/40 Shell Box
Armor Crate
45/60 nothing
4/60 Green Armor
4/60 Steel Boots
4/60 Small Med Pack
1/60 Blue Armor
1/60 Large Med Pack
1/60 Protective Boots
So given each 2x2 block of crates, you'll on average get one item. The information doesn't really change much about strategy or approach, but is nice to have solid numbers. I'd argue that a 1 in 20 chance for a big ammo box is pretty good.
I also dug into how the medals and badges get rewarded. The most infamous oversight is Destroyer Diamond Badge, which requires getting the Untouchable Cross, which is not rewarded on Angel of Confidence/Overconfidence. However, the code itself only checks for damage taken, and not medal received, which is why we can abuse the dual-angel. I was curious if there are any others like that to make some of the more difficult medals and badges easier, but I haven't found anything. I'll study every one I go for to get a precise idea of what the game wants though.
However, one interesting find I did see is Lightfoot Badges:
Code: [Select]
if player:has_won() then
player:add_badge("lightfoot2")
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_HARD then player:add_badge("lightfoot3") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD and statistics.game_time <= 20000 then player:add_badge("lightfoot4") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE and melee_tot == 0 then
player:add_badge("lightfoot5")
if ARCHANGEL then player:add_badge("lightfoot6") end
end
endBasically, you can get Lightfoot Diamond Badge while playing on Archangel of Travel, and not just Angel of Light Travel. I'd almost argue doubling up with Lightfoot Angelic Badge is easier since the extra 10% speed bonus is so powerful, and is a pretty good trade-off for just 3 more inventory slots. That said, Angel of Max Carnage + Light Travel could make up for carrying less ammo.
In any case, this meant I'll be getting an unexpected diamond badge!
One more discovery (which is super embarrassing) is the Phobos Anomaly portal is always open. I usually kill everything and pull the Bruisers back, and thought it being open was only on Angel of Pacifism. I've literally thrown some runs fighting the Bruisers in the back corners, being completely oblivious to the fact that I could just be leaving. After that, I decided to check the coding for stairs in Babel, but those are indeed only there on Pacifism, lol. I'm really not sure how I was always thinking it was closed. :P
After more attempts at Archangel of Light Travel, I finally got a great run, starting with an Invulnerability on floor 7:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And another on Deimos 1. I was able to get through most of the episode while Invulnerable.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I read some posts about players beating up the Cyberdemon with the Chainsaw, and then avoiding the melee kill afterwards. I wasn't keen on the idea of running into him, so I went with Dodgemaster abuse and slowly killed him with a regular Shotgun. I loaded up on shells beforehand and it was a breeze.
On Hell 1, I had yet another Invulnerability. This is usually the most important one in the run, since it's right after emptying out basically all of my ammo:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I made it far into the episode and came across a nuke!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
To the right there is Limbo, meaning I had an opportunity to go for a full win and grab yet another diamond badge! I considered it for awhile, but ultimately decided not to. The two reasons were that it's possible I'll need every bit of Invulnerability to survive up to Dis, and I was also concerned with getting bounced around in the corner of Limbo due to high monster density.
I made it to Dis and blew up the Spider Mastermind, went to fight JC again, got destroyed, and got my second angelic badge!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I've now matched what most players have as their angelic badge count! The other nice thing is the first promotion with those badges is at 3, so it'll work out as a way to flaunt my progress more. :) I'm not sure which one I'll go for, but it won't be for awhile anyway.
While I did luck out a lot of my run, there were a lot of tactics and strong gameplay. I've been improving a lot more in all the micro details and interesting situations the game throws at me. I had one scenario in particular where I was stuck in a U-shaped section of a maze level filled with barrels, and having a Chaingunner and Revenant pursue me from opposite sides. Being low on health, I couldn't get hit by either or the barrels, and there was no good angle to hit only the Chaingunner. Moving would also result in barrels getting destroyed in basically every case. However, I found a solution by pushing a particular barrel to force the Revenant to go around for 1 extra step, making the Chaingunner move, and giving me a better position for the kill. Little things like that have helped immensely!
I've also started to use the minimap again. After struggling a bit on Archangel of Travel, it was pretty annoying to not be able to use all the Berserks in Chained Court since it messes with Intuition. Is it possible to move its position lower into my HUD?
Anyway, despite all that, I kept going for more! My next goal would be getting a full win on Nightmare, which I planned on doing with a double nuke strategy. I figured it wouldn't be too bad to grind for; I'd need Invulnerability before Limbo, grab the Nuclear BFG, get lucky to find a Nuke, and likely need one more Invulnerability for the ending. If that failed, I was playing on Max Carnage for a backup strat against JC.
My run started off strong:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Even stronger than I thought:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On floor 2, I found a Tracking Map, which revealed the much needed Nuke! The challenge however was it was surrounded by enemies and directly adjacent to a barrel:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With careful movements and patience, I was able to safely grab it:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Floor 3 offered another Invulnerability, but what I had left of my first two was phasing out:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Carefully dancing around with an Archvile, I managed to grab it before it was destroyed:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I used a Homing Phase Device to jump over far in floor 4 since both staircases were nearby:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I saw a replacement Homing Phase Device, and very carefully managed to grab it. Seriously, look at the enemies in the room I was dealing with!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Limbo was nice to me with basically no enemies nearby and an empty upper-right island:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My Invulnerability ran out before I left:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The game was nice to give me yet another Invulnerability, but once again, I had to earn it:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On my way out, I found another Homing Phase Device, which meant I had enough to immediately leave to the end:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Floor 6 had no additional Invulnerabilities, so I left right away, but floor 7 did:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Again, look at that enemy pile-up! I still managed to grab it, meaning I had the game won at this point!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
A new promotion and I got another double badge (this one I didn't expect lol)! Now obviously, I got super lucky that the game gave me all the tools I needed, but almost all of them were not gimmes and I had to earn them! I'm honestly more happy to very clearly see my skill level improving moreso than the badges themselves. :P
Still, I wasn't satisfied yet and kept going.
My next target was Longinus Diamond Badge. Since I wasn't allowed to use Brute, Eagle Eye is the clear choice for this challenge. I figured that with enough attempts with Angel of Overconfidence that I would eventually get it. I played a bit with a few strategies. I thought at first that Scout on Max Carnage would be the way to go, since I could use Intuition instead, grab an Invulnerability, and hack away at the Angel of Death. Funny enough though due to his massive armor, the Chainsaw from Angel of Berserk is more damaging, while I'd also be taking less in return. And given that, it makes more sense to play as a Marine for the extra powerup duration. So the plan was to find an Invulnerability and Unholy Cathedral, and hopefully score a win.
On my first successful start, I brought the Angel of Death down to "almost dead", but got finished off. I saved my Chainsaw Berserk effect for when I reached him, but realized it makes more sense to use it for the Demons to kill them faster, and ultimately have more time with Invulnerability. So I tried for some more runs.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I made one minor mistake of sawing the door rather than opening it, meaning I had less corpse disposal with the Demons. They fortunately never respawned though.
The Angel of Death got torn apart:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Very easy and I had Large Med-Packs to spare! I strongly recommend using this strategy when going for this badge. The grind for a start is a bit tedious, but once you get a nearby Invulnerability, Unholy Cathedral is cake.
Of course though, I'm insatiable.
My next target was Hunter Diamond Badge. This one is pretty straight-forward; Angel of Darkness + Overconfidence, visit each of the 4 levels, then kill the Spider Mastermind. The only major source of luck needed is Invulnerability or a Homing Phase Device before Limbo/Mortuary since the other three can be immediately exited. I also use Intuition x2 as usual, which is good enough for Dis. Finding the stairs is pretty much all luck though, but the massive experience points gained with Nightmare + Darkness + Overconfidence helps a lot. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to complete the challenge last night despite some runs to floor 7, and had to settle with a mere 5 badges. :P
That was definitely the final night I'll ever gain that many badges in one day, although Speedunner and Demonic Angelic Badges basically count for 70 a piece. ;) I've learned a lot, improved a lot, gained a lot, and still have so much fire to keep going! I'm on the cusp of catching up to many great players, which is really exciting! I'm also confident about getting many of my missing medals and badges, whereas just about a week ago I was intimidated and didn't think I'd be ready for Nightmare.
I'm having a blast and a craving for more!
139
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 25, 2017, 10:51 »
Day 48:
Going for Lightfoot Angelic Badge is a great challenge, but much easier than I anticipated. The 30% speed bonus is a huge help!
It took me awhile to get a solid strategy for Phobos Anomaly, but generally what I do is open the door, grab a Large Med-Pack, both Large Health Globes, then dive and close the other door. Dodgemaster helps. For the Bruisers, it's very helpful to approach forward and centre to lure them inward before looping around to get to a safe corner.
Ammo is obviously quite tight, but Shotguns still work great, and the boosted speed makes combat easy enough where you aren't taking much damage most of the time.
On my best run, I had stacked Invulnerability at Deimos 7, and then:
From this point, I was pretty much guaranteed the badge by dumb luck. However, a completely unexpected problem came up:
Ugggggh...... :( When moving around, I accidentally bumped a Zombieman of all things and not only did I swing at him and not only did I hit him, but I also killed him. I was hoping that maybe it wouldn't count?
I grabbed the Nuclear BFG from Limbo and went all the way to JC (like I said, massive stack of Invulnerability):
It did eventually run out though and I was killed.
And no badge. :(
After that I tried some more runs, but they didn't work out for one reason or another. Like I said, this badge isn't too bad to get and doesn't require that much luck, so I should get it soon. Still, I was pretty frazzled by losing my basically won run to a really stupid mistake. I'll be sure to avoid repeating that. :P
Going for Lightfoot Angelic Badge is a great challenge, but much easier than I anticipated. The 30% speed bonus is a huge help!
It took me awhile to get a solid strategy for Phobos Anomaly, but generally what I do is open the door, grab a Large Med-Pack, both Large Health Globes, then dive and close the other door. Dodgemaster helps. For the Bruisers, it's very helpful to approach forward and centre to lure them inward before looping around to get to a safe corner.
Ammo is obviously quite tight, but Shotguns still work great, and the boosted speed makes combat easy enough where you aren't taking much damage most of the time.
On my best run, I had stacked Invulnerability at Deimos 7, and then:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
From this point, I was pretty much guaranteed the badge by dumb luck. However, a completely unexpected problem came up:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Ugggggh...... :( When moving around, I accidentally bumped a Zombieman of all things and not only did I swing at him and not only did I hit him, but I also killed him. I was hoping that maybe it wouldn't count?
I grabbed the Nuclear BFG from Limbo and went all the way to JC (like I said, massive stack of Invulnerability):
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It did eventually run out though and I was killed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And no badge. :(
After that I tried some more runs, but they didn't work out for one reason or another. Like I said, this badge isn't too bad to get and doesn't require that much luck, so I should get it soon. Still, I was pretty frazzled by losing my basically won run to a really stupid mistake. I'll be sure to avoid repeating that. :P
140
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 24, 2017, 13:36 »
Thanks! I actually browsed around for players to see how everyone stacks up, and it seems there's a clear gap between the top four players (VANDAM, 2Dev, Papilio, Tormuse), and everyone else (Sereg, Evilpotatoe, myself, and others). I'd like to get myself in between that gap and onward, hopefully motivating more people to play! :) It'd be interesting to see the full medal and badge counts by everyone, but there are many players who don't list all their stats. I'm sure there are lots of great lurkers as well.
Day 47:
Adding onto what I said above, I decided it's time to go for my first angelic badge! The easiest one by far seems to be Shottyman Angelic Badge, which perfectly fits my playstyle too. On top, I planned on getting the Shottyman Diamond Badge as well, which interestingly is harder to get when playing with Angel of Overconfidence. :P My plan was to create a setup where I could safely kill a Shotgun Guy hundreds of times until I had a high enough kill rate to ride out until the end, as well as all the ammo I could ever need.
My first attempt had this setup:
And here are my stats just as I was about to enter floor 2:
While I was early into the game, with the ammo I had, Intuition x2 + Hellrunner x2, and the Scout's awesome natural abilities (so much better than playing Marine), I should be fine.
Unfortunately, the Invulnerability was a bit protected, and I didn't have any source of healing. It was possible it was in another room as well, so I didn't risk getting it. On floor 3, I was greeted with this:
Not good. Then on floor 4...
:( It's a pain to spend the time to get the kill rate high enough, only to get bad luck and killed.
I repeated this strategy two more times, and I had atrocious luck each floor afterwards. Very annoying. One of them had me start near the very bottom-right corner, in a room filled with Revenants and Archviles, giving me literally no option to handle the situation.
The issue though is Shotgun Guys are kind of rare for being this deep into Hell on Nightmare, but because stairdiving is (usually...) very easy, I decided to grind until I had a floor 7 with them of which I could do the setup. Eventually, I got one:
I had two setup perfectly and a nuke for the Spider Mastermind ready too, but because I grabbed a Tracking Map, this took forever. Interestingly though as time goes on, the probability of respawning enemies increases. I'm not sure if there's a cap on this, but if there isn't, the entire collection of enemies on a floor would respawn every 10s; very scary! Towards the end of my grinding, I was getting double spawns almost every time, and quickly too. It still took some time.
After that, I nuked Dis and got my first angelic badge!
It seems that every great player outside of the top 4 have only 2 angelic badges, so I definitely want to get there too. I think the next easiest one would be Lightfoot Angelic Badge, and Archangel of Travel actually seems like super fun too! I'll give it some effort and hopefully it goes well!
Day 47:
Adding onto what I said above, I decided it's time to go for my first angelic badge! The easiest one by far seems to be Shottyman Angelic Badge, which perfectly fits my playstyle too. On top, I planned on getting the Shottyman Diamond Badge as well, which interestingly is harder to get when playing with Angel of Overconfidence. :P My plan was to create a setup where I could safely kill a Shotgun Guy hundreds of times until I had a high enough kill rate to ride out until the end, as well as all the ammo I could ever need.
My first attempt had this setup:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And here are my stats just as I was about to enter floor 2:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
While I was early into the game, with the ammo I had, Intuition x2 + Hellrunner x2, and the Scout's awesome natural abilities (so much better than playing Marine), I should be fine.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Unfortunately, the Invulnerability was a bit protected, and I didn't have any source of healing. It was possible it was in another room as well, so I didn't risk getting it. On floor 3, I was greeted with this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Not good. Then on floor 4...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:( It's a pain to spend the time to get the kill rate high enough, only to get bad luck and killed.
I repeated this strategy two more times, and I had atrocious luck each floor afterwards. Very annoying. One of them had me start near the very bottom-right corner, in a room filled with Revenants and Archviles, giving me literally no option to handle the situation.
The issue though is Shotgun Guys are kind of rare for being this deep into Hell on Nightmare, but because stairdiving is (usually...) very easy, I decided to grind until I had a floor 7 with them of which I could do the setup. Eventually, I got one:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I had two setup perfectly and a nuke for the Spider Mastermind ready too, but because I grabbed a Tracking Map, this took forever. Interestingly though as time goes on, the probability of respawning enemies increases. I'm not sure if there's a cap on this, but if there isn't, the entire collection of enemies on a floor would respawn every 10s; very scary! Towards the end of my grinding, I was getting double spawns almost every time, and quickly too. It still took some time.
After that, I nuked Dis and got my first angelic badge!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
It seems that every great player outside of the top 4 have only 2 angelic badges, so I definitely want to get there too. I think the next easiest one would be Lightfoot Angelic Badge, and Archangel of Travel actually seems like super fun too! I'll give it some effort and hopefully it goes well!
141
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 23, 2017, 07:59 »
Yeah Tormuse, having not just one, but two Dragonslayers spawning directly in my sight at the start of the game, during which I'm not able to get them at all, especially after just strategizing on how to get them was hilarious and irritating. :P
Day 45:
More attempts for Inquisitor Diamond Badge!
On a decent run to floor 4, I had mostly Formers on the left-side of the level and through a pair of rooms, I came across a pair of Homing Phase Devices:
I got a little excited thinking that this run suddenly had great potential to make it to Dis. Unfortunately, I had terrible staircase luck again where I cleared out the wrong side. Keep in mind, this is also on a floor with 2 staircases, and with Homing Phase Devices, I could have easily accepted Limbo/Mortuary:
I carefully explored a good chunk of the area, but was running out of safe options:
So I used one of the Homing Phase Devices:
Sucks.
Here's an interesting crossroad I had:
As nice as having a nuke is, I went for the stairs since I can still kill the Spider Mastermind anyway. The run, unsurprisingly didn't work out though.
On another run, I had a Pain Elemental cave, which is something I would later have many more times:
These floors are pretty much the only ones that can be consistently cleared. They're the only ones I ever did anyway. They're great for experience, good chances of extra items, as well as time to buff up for the next floor. The only downside is they cost a fair amount of shells.
This particular run continued some more and I had a very nice setup despite the area being an Arachnotron cave:
Unfortunately, I lost control of the situation:
The run managed to keep going, and I found a nice pair of items:
This was my first run to floor 6, but the game put a crashing halt to that with a terrible starting position:
:(
On another mostly unmemorable run, I got to floor 6 for the second time, and got this:
Suddenly, things got very tense as I had a very real shot at a completion. The game then decided to spawn me on the far right side of a maze for floor 7...
With the barrels all over and an acid river, I was actually able to create myself a safe haven:
The other cool thing is from my angle, I had an Archvile corpse in the front of the other side, with an acid pool behind, creating an awesome spot to destroy corpses! So I slowly lured out enemies and fired away, killing a ton of them:
I ran out of ammo though, and I needed to save my bullets for the Spider Mastermind, so I started to get worried about what to do. I waited for several minutes to let enough monsters pile on over to the right side of the floor where they can't get me, including a few Archviles sounds in the background, and I ran across the river:
I was stuck, so out of desperation, I decided my best option was a Phase Device:
I got very lucky with this and kept going, I went around a corner and got blasted a couple times, now with the stairs in sight!
I was running out of options here. If I ran away, I might get swarmed, and if I fired back, I'd run out of ammo. I considered using my Rocket Launcher, but I was worried about knocking enemies towards me, blowing up cover, etc. After a bit of time thinking about everything, I decided to run for the stairs and hope for the best.
</3
Literally died one tile away from reaching the Spider Mastermind. :( If I had entered there, I would have easily won the game. If only I had gone around the corner from the bottom side that would have worked. Or if the floor 7 was even just a tiny bit nicer to me and gave me the stairs around the area I actually explored, I could have made it.
Heartbroken but not undetermined, I kept going.
Not too long after, I had another run to floor 5, but then the game decided to put an end to that:
In yet another run to floor 5, I actually got a nice break:
Floor 6 wasn't too particularly awful and I managed to find the stairs not far away. Yet another floor with triple Invulnerability I couldn't use:
Floor 7 starting with stairs in sight...!
Here we go boys! On my second run to floor 7, I actually made it to Dis! Now, as I had planned, I had around 465 bullets to use with my Combat Pistol against the Spider Mastermind. I did have three Large Med-Packs if necessary, but I still took this super slow and safe. And I mean REALLY super slow and safe. I would wait and cornershoot the Spider Mastermind once, then run back, taking absolutely zero risk. This took close to half an hour, but I'd much rather do this than potentially be playing for this badge for who knows how many more hours.
I got the badge! And reached Chaos Major! This was a huge relief and extremely satisfying to get!
I want to go over some tips about going for this badge since it seems almost nobody has it, but it's way easier than people make it out to be. For the most part, this badge is a lottery, so you have to accept that beforehand. If you wear your heart on your sleeve with your emotions, you'll fall apart after every good run dies. I had one run die on floor 7 as I wrote about, a couple die on floor 6, and probably a dozen or so on floor 5. That's just how it goes when you're pushing your luck so much.
I'd argue that this badge is far more mental than technical. You have to keep focus and stay patient. Every single turn and action can be the difference between life and death, so you have to play carefully once you get a nice run started. I also strongly recommend always going for the stairs once you see them. I had a fair number of good starts die because I got greedy for extra items. Even if you can't hear monsters in the direction of where you're going, others from where you came from can catch up.
I also believe that Overconfidence and Eagle Eye x2 -> Intuition x2 is by far the most viable way to go for this badge. With my strategy of killing the Spider Mastermind with the Combat Pistol, you need all the ammo because you'll often be firing in the darkness, missing your shots half the time, and you absolutely need to know where she is as well as having the increased accuracy from Eagle Eye. You can't expect to fire at her a few hundred times and not expect to avoid taking damage the whole time if you're waiting for her to appear in your line of sight. The only other way is nuking her, but adding another layer of luck to this strategy is not the way to go in my opinion.
All that said, this badge is still incredibly difficult, but is certainly overrated and many more people can get this. In total, I took 353 runs, which seems intimidating, but keep in mind that something like ~90% of those runs lasted about 10 seconds because I had a bad start. It's kind of hard to estimate whether I had good or bad luck in my run count because of all the variables, but I'd argue I was above average in luck in getting the badge in as many runs as I took.
Not sure what's next, but I'll continue progressing as usual! Time to make that signature! :D
Day 45:
More attempts for Inquisitor Diamond Badge!
On a decent run to floor 4, I had mostly Formers on the left-side of the level and through a pair of rooms, I came across a pair of Homing Phase Devices:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I got a little excited thinking that this run suddenly had great potential to make it to Dis. Unfortunately, I had terrible staircase luck again where I cleared out the wrong side. Keep in mind, this is also on a floor with 2 staircases, and with Homing Phase Devices, I could have easily accepted Limbo/Mortuary:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I carefully explored a good chunk of the area, but was running out of safe options:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So I used one of the Homing Phase Devices:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Sucks.
Here's an interesting crossroad I had:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As nice as having a nuke is, I went for the stairs since I can still kill the Spider Mastermind anyway. The run, unsurprisingly didn't work out though.
On another run, I had a Pain Elemental cave, which is something I would later have many more times:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
These floors are pretty much the only ones that can be consistently cleared. They're the only ones I ever did anyway. They're great for experience, good chances of extra items, as well as time to buff up for the next floor. The only downside is they cost a fair amount of shells.
This particular run continued some more and I had a very nice setup despite the area being an Arachnotron cave:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Unfortunately, I lost control of the situation:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The run managed to keep going, and I found a nice pair of items:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This was my first run to floor 6, but the game put a crashing halt to that with a terrible starting position:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:(
On another mostly unmemorable run, I got to floor 6 for the second time, and got this:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Suddenly, things got very tense as I had a very real shot at a completion. The game then decided to spawn me on the far right side of a maze for floor 7...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
With the barrels all over and an acid river, I was actually able to create myself a safe haven:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The other cool thing is from my angle, I had an Archvile corpse in the front of the other side, with an acid pool behind, creating an awesome spot to destroy corpses! So I slowly lured out enemies and fired away, killing a ton of them:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I ran out of ammo though, and I needed to save my bullets for the Spider Mastermind, so I started to get worried about what to do. I waited for several minutes to let enough monsters pile on over to the right side of the floor where they can't get me, including a few Archviles sounds in the background, and I ran across the river:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I was stuck, so out of desperation, I decided my best option was a Phase Device:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I got very lucky with this and kept going, I went around a corner and got blasted a couple times, now with the stairs in sight!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I was running out of options here. If I ran away, I might get swarmed, and if I fired back, I'd run out of ammo. I considered using my Rocket Launcher, but I was worried about knocking enemies towards me, blowing up cover, etc. After a bit of time thinking about everything, I decided to run for the stairs and hope for the best.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
</3
Literally died one tile away from reaching the Spider Mastermind. :( If I had entered there, I would have easily won the game. If only I had gone around the corner from the bottom side that would have worked. Or if the floor 7 was even just a tiny bit nicer to me and gave me the stairs around the area I actually explored, I could have made it.
Heartbroken but not undetermined, I kept going.
Not too long after, I had another run to floor 5, but then the game decided to put an end to that:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
In yet another run to floor 5, I actually got a nice break:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Floor 6 wasn't too particularly awful and I managed to find the stairs not far away. Yet another floor with triple Invulnerability I couldn't use:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Floor 7 starting with stairs in sight...!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Here we go boys! On my second run to floor 7, I actually made it to Dis! Now, as I had planned, I had around 465 bullets to use with my Combat Pistol against the Spider Mastermind. I did have three Large Med-Packs if necessary, but I still took this super slow and safe. And I mean REALLY super slow and safe. I would wait and cornershoot the Spider Mastermind once, then run back, taking absolutely zero risk. This took close to half an hour, but I'd much rather do this than potentially be playing for this badge for who knows how many more hours.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I got the badge! And reached Chaos Major! This was a huge relief and extremely satisfying to get!
I want to go over some tips about going for this badge since it seems almost nobody has it, but it's way easier than people make it out to be. For the most part, this badge is a lottery, so you have to accept that beforehand. If you wear your heart on your sleeve with your emotions, you'll fall apart after every good run dies. I had one run die on floor 7 as I wrote about, a couple die on floor 6, and probably a dozen or so on floor 5. That's just how it goes when you're pushing your luck so much.
I'd argue that this badge is far more mental than technical. You have to keep focus and stay patient. Every single turn and action can be the difference between life and death, so you have to play carefully once you get a nice run started. I also strongly recommend always going for the stairs once you see them. I had a fair number of good starts die because I got greedy for extra items. Even if you can't hear monsters in the direction of where you're going, others from where you came from can catch up.
I also believe that Overconfidence and Eagle Eye x2 -> Intuition x2 is by far the most viable way to go for this badge. With my strategy of killing the Spider Mastermind with the Combat Pistol, you need all the ammo because you'll often be firing in the darkness, missing your shots half the time, and you absolutely need to know where she is as well as having the increased accuracy from Eagle Eye. You can't expect to fire at her a few hundred times and not expect to avoid taking damage the whole time if you're waiting for her to appear in your line of sight. The only other way is nuking her, but adding another layer of luck to this strategy is not the way to go in my opinion.
All that said, this badge is still incredibly difficult, but is certainly overrated and many more people can get this. In total, I took 353 runs, which seems intimidating, but keep in mind that something like ~90% of those runs lasted about 10 seconds because I had a bad start. It's kind of hard to estimate whether I had good or bad luck in my run count because of all the variables, but I'd argue I was above average in luck in getting the badge in as many runs as I took.
Not sure what's next, but I'll continue progressing as usual! Time to make that signature! :D
142
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 22, 2017, 13:15 »
I'll make my signature once I reach Chaos Major. :)
For my Angel of Humanity game, I went with my usual Intuition x2->Hellrunner x2->Dodgemaster. I intend to keep using that for future runs as well.
Day 45:
I was thinking about "easy" diamond badges to get and decided to go for Eagerness Diamond Badge. I figured that with Angel of Overconfidence to help, I could just repeatedly try until I made it to the Spider Mastermind. I went with Eagle Eye x2->Intuition x2 for an easy fight at the end. After just a couple tries with lucky staircases and Invulnerabilities, I got it!
Naturally, my next choice was Inquisitor Diamond Badge...
With Angel of Purity+Overconfidence and as a Marine, I have no source at all of knowing where the stairs are, can't cheese with Invulnerability, can't really heal, and can't even use Light Amps. It's kinda hard. :P Envirosuits work though surprisingly.
The thing is though, there is potential to get super lucky and just get a ton of nearby staircases, Homing Phase Devices, and other dumb luck, and with both the power of patience and grinding, I want to get this now. It'll also make for an epic 9th diamond badge for the "Chaos" prefix! :) Apparently, it's a rare badge too as the only players confirmed to have it are Papilio and Sereg, though perhaps others quietly have achieved it too. It's another reason I want to get it!
So far, I've pumped out 150 runs, the majority of which end on the first floor because of getting obliterated, or because I'm not happy with my start.
I'm quite sad I couldn't make use of these Invulnerabilities:
Here's the game giving me the middle finger:
I've made it to floor 5 twice so far, and once to Limbo (forgetting I can't use Soulspheres :P). This was my best run, but I had a nasty start and unfortunately, the stairs were on the wrong side:
And here's the game giving me the other middle finger:
Some minor strategies do exist based around the bonus levels. Of course, it's always wise to take the first staircase you find, but if you have the option to enter Unholy Cathedral, Vaults, or Lava Pits/Mt Erebus, they're great for a quick item buffer and setup. Also in the odd case where you have a Homing Phase Device by floor 4 and happen to find Mortuary/Limbo, they can be advantageous as the Homing Phase Device is still taking you to floor 5, but through the bonus level, you can grab a Red Armor and Large Med-Pack as well, potentially also a Nuclear BFG. The only downside is if you luck out finding the normal staircase nearby, you could instead be going to floor 6.
My plan when I actually do get to the Spider Mastermind is just the same cheesy cornershooting. With a Combat Pistol, Ammo Chain, and all the ammo in the Minigun, I have more than enough to slowly poke away at her health. This is nice because I can freely use all the shells I need on the other floors.
I intend to continuously grind for the badge until I get it. Hopefully, the luck comes sooner than later! ;)
For my Angel of Humanity game, I went with my usual Intuition x2->Hellrunner x2->Dodgemaster. I intend to keep using that for future runs as well.
Day 45:
I was thinking about "easy" diamond badges to get and decided to go for Eagerness Diamond Badge. I figured that with Angel of Overconfidence to help, I could just repeatedly try until I made it to the Spider Mastermind. I went with Eagle Eye x2->Intuition x2 for an easy fight at the end. After just a couple tries with lucky staircases and Invulnerabilities, I got it!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Naturally, my next choice was Inquisitor Diamond Badge...
With Angel of Purity+Overconfidence and as a Marine, I have no source at all of knowing where the stairs are, can't cheese with Invulnerability, can't really heal, and can't even use Light Amps. It's kinda hard. :P Envirosuits work though surprisingly.
The thing is though, there is potential to get super lucky and just get a ton of nearby staircases, Homing Phase Devices, and other dumb luck, and with both the power of patience and grinding, I want to get this now. It'll also make for an epic 9th diamond badge for the "Chaos" prefix! :) Apparently, it's a rare badge too as the only players confirmed to have it are Papilio and Sereg, though perhaps others quietly have achieved it too. It's another reason I want to get it!
So far, I've pumped out 150 runs, the majority of which end on the first floor because of getting obliterated, or because I'm not happy with my start.
I'm quite sad I couldn't make use of these Invulnerabilities:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Here's the game giving me the middle finger:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I've made it to floor 5 twice so far, and once to Limbo (forgetting I can't use Soulspheres :P). This was my best run, but I had a nasty start and unfortunately, the stairs were on the wrong side:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And here's the game giving me the other middle finger:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Some minor strategies do exist based around the bonus levels. Of course, it's always wise to take the first staircase you find, but if you have the option to enter Unholy Cathedral, Vaults, or Lava Pits/Mt Erebus, they're great for a quick item buffer and setup. Also in the odd case where you have a Homing Phase Device by floor 4 and happen to find Mortuary/Limbo, they can be advantageous as the Homing Phase Device is still taking you to floor 5, but through the bonus level, you can grab a Red Armor and Large Med-Pack as well, potentially also a Nuclear BFG. The only downside is if you luck out finding the normal staircase nearby, you could instead be going to floor 6.
My plan when I actually do get to the Spider Mastermind is just the same cheesy cornershooting. With a Combat Pistol, Ammo Chain, and all the ammo in the Minigun, I have more than enough to slowly poke away at her health. This is nice because I can freely use all the shells I need on the other floors.
I intend to continuously grind for the badge until I get it. Hopefully, the luck comes sooner than later! ;)
143
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 21, 2017, 09:39 »
The Berserker's Armor isn't necessary for Gutts' Heart, though getting it for an Apostle kill with that method is definitely crazy. Max Carnage helps for that first Gutts' Heart strat, but it's still a long game of not getting hit too many times. More particularly, I'm not fond of fighting the Angel of Death in that kind of run.
Day 44:
Very exceptional day for progress! I had a rocky start going for Angel of Humanity as a Conquerer and got pretty far on one decent run. Deimos Lab was nice to me with its weapons:
I also used a Run->Wait trick to take out the Arachnotrons with a Chainsaw:
Run->Wait is so good for Deimos Lab! :D
Then after healing with a Large Med-Pack, I fought the Shamblers and got one-shotted:
Pretty insane. I might have to hope for Hell's Armory to reasonably be able to complete this challenge. Again though, Angel of Death might be a problem on Angel of Humanity.
So after that, I decided to go for Reaper Diamond Badge, which is clearing Mortuary/Limbo on Angel of Confidence. My plan was to use the same Nuclear BFG strat as before, just with some extra stairdiving and such beforehand. On my run, I totally luckboxed it again by getting probably 8-10 Invulnerabilities through all the floors leading up, and even got Cyberdemon's Head lol:
I was fortunate to roll Limbo, which is significantly easier, but the spawns inside were bad and I had an Archvile on the Nuclear BFG island:
The issue here is I literally used all my ammo, so I only had my Nuclear BFG:
As I was firing away to the other islands, I kept getting swarmed by Nightmare Cacodemons. I had to fight about 6 of them, all while letting my Nuclear BFG recharge. Dodgemaster saved the day, but it was pretty intense and scary. Fortunately on Nightmare, enemies tend to be more aggressive with attacking and not so much with movement, so I was usually able to recharge before they go too close:
I took a few hits, but was lucky enough to have enough med packs to make it across:
From there, it was just more clearing:
I happened to get another Invulnerability before Dis and figured why not go for a full victory for a shot at another medal. It went about as well as you could expect. :P
The next badge I went for was Daredevil Diamond Badge, which is just beating Overconfidence on Nightmare with 80% kills. This didn't take too many tries and basically was just getting to floor 7 with an easy enemy to repeatedly kill:
I killed him several hundred times to get a high enough kill rate before fighting the Spider Mastermind. Thankfully, Run->Wait makes this so much easier than mashing Wait. :P I might not have tried it if not for that technique. Even just a hundred last time I did before was awful.
And with that badge:
So now I'm just 2 more diamond badges away from getting the awesome "Chaos" prefix to my ranking title! I'm not sure which I'm going to go for yet, but I'll do some more rotating and hopefully get some luck. :)
Day 44:
Very exceptional day for progress! I had a rocky start going for Angel of Humanity as a Conquerer and got pretty far on one decent run. Deimos Lab was nice to me with its weapons:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I also used a Run->Wait trick to take out the Arachnotrons with a Chainsaw:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Run->Wait is so good for Deimos Lab! :D
Then after healing with a Large Med-Pack, I fought the Shamblers and got one-shotted:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty insane. I might have to hope for Hell's Armory to reasonably be able to complete this challenge. Again though, Angel of Death might be a problem on Angel of Humanity.
So after that, I decided to go for Reaper Diamond Badge, which is clearing Mortuary/Limbo on Angel of Confidence. My plan was to use the same Nuclear BFG strat as before, just with some extra stairdiving and such beforehand. On my run, I totally luckboxed it again by getting probably 8-10 Invulnerabilities through all the floors leading up, and even got Cyberdemon's Head lol:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I was fortunate to roll Limbo, which is significantly easier, but the spawns inside were bad and I had an Archvile on the Nuclear BFG island:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The issue here is I literally used all my ammo, so I only had my Nuclear BFG:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
As I was firing away to the other islands, I kept getting swarmed by Nightmare Cacodemons. I had to fight about 6 of them, all while letting my Nuclear BFG recharge. Dodgemaster saved the day, but it was pretty intense and scary. Fortunately on Nightmare, enemies tend to be more aggressive with attacking and not so much with movement, so I was usually able to recharge before they go too close:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I took a few hits, but was lucky enough to have enough med packs to make it across:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
From there, it was just more clearing:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I happened to get another Invulnerability before Dis and figured why not go for a full victory for a shot at another medal. It went about as well as you could expect. :P
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The next badge I went for was Daredevil Diamond Badge, which is just beating Overconfidence on Nightmare with 80% kills. This didn't take too many tries and basically was just getting to floor 7 with an easy enemy to repeatedly kill:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I killed him several hundred times to get a high enough kill rate before fighting the Spider Mastermind. Thankfully, Run->Wait makes this so much easier than mashing Wait. :P I might not have tried it if not for that technique. Even just a hundred last time I did before was awful.
And with that badge:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
So now I'm just 2 more diamond badges away from getting the awesome "Chaos" prefix to my ranking title! I'm not sure which I'm going to go for yet, but I'll do some more rotating and hopefully get some luck. :)
144
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 20, 2017, 15:23 »
Sure thing Tormuse, I'll just nab a few angelic badges, don't mind me. ;)
I'm not sure what would cause a melee weapon to spawn in those bonus levels:
Most of every other weapon is itemtype_ranged except the melee weapons of course. Did you perhaps get one on an older version?
Also, I made an embarrassing mistake regarding the rewards on Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab. Onyx Packs can appear just like the others, just that they were listed last and past where I could see on my screen. :P I didn't notice the horizontal scrollbar and overlooked that bit.
The corrected information is Deimos Lab gives a random pair of regular packs and a random pair of special packs, all with equally probability. Hell's Armory gives a pair of regular packs and one random special pack. If you complete Hell's Armory without damage, one of the regular packs is replaced by a Nano Pack, unless the original special pack is already a Nano Pack, in which case, the extra is an Onyx. In simpler terms, you have a 50% chance of Nano+Onyx, 25% chance of Nano+Firestorm, and 25% chance of Nano+Sniper. That should be correct. :P
Schematics of course change the results, but they're not really important information once you've got all the assemblies anyway.
Another interesting piece of code I noticed was in Phobos Lab:
I always wondered why that would happen.
Day 43:
I put my attention on Lightfoot Platinum Badge, and started grinding for it on the correct difficulty this time. :P It's pretty straight-forward; play with Max Carnage+Light Travel, get Dodgemaster before reaching the Cyberdemon, hold onto enough Shells, and stairdive away. I had a lot of great runs die though, some to silly mistakes, others to bad luck. In particular, I was getting killed by the same thing repeatedly:
Funny enough, on my completed run, I found Acid-Proof Boots very early, though they didn't see any use.
Next up will be more rotating on a few challenges. I also noticed that some of my remaining medals are carbon copies of platinum badges. I would like to finish off my medals page at some point, and I've been thinking of tackling Gutts' Heart, and I've got three strategies in mind:
1) Hell Arena Pwnage: This is the only way to guarantee a Dragonslayer, but requires beating Hell's Arena with 0 damage, surviving the rest of Phobos and Deimos, and then killing the Angel of Death, all on Nightmare. I'm not exactly keen on trying this strategy out.
2) Angel of Berserk+Overconfidence: I get a Chainsaw, have many extra sources of Berserk, and start on the first floor that the Dragonslayer can actually spawn on. The drawbacks is it's a little tougher to get a run started and I can't use other weapons as backup. This might be the ideal strategy to use.
3) I'm Too Young To Die Grinding: By playing on the easiest difficulty, I can waltz through the floors, collect a pile of gear, and basically be immortal with how deep into game I'm at now. The obvious downside is there's a lot of gameplay before even having a chance to spawn the Dragonslayer, though those extra floors can be used to clear out some of the uniques.
I won't be grinding for Gutts' Heart right away, but it's a pretty low-key challenge that I can do when I'm having a poor session, or to wind down after more difficult gameplay. I'd like to get it out of the way soon.
I'm not sure what would cause a melee weapon to spawn in those bonus levels:
Code: [Select]
register_item "ubutcher"
{
name = "Butcher's Cleaver",
color = LIGHTGREEN,
sprite = SPRITE_CLEAVER,
psprite = SPRITE_PLAYER_CLEAVER,
level = 1,
weight = 2,
desc = "Now that is a BIG cleaver. Butcher them!",
firstmsg = "Aaaah, fresh meat!",
flags = { IF_UNIQUE, IF_HALFKNOCK, IF_CLEAVE, IF_BLADE },
type = ITEMTYPE_MELEE,
damage = "5d6",
damagetype = DAMAGE_MELEE,
group = "weapon-melee",
}Code: [Select]
local vault_weapon = { level = 20, type = ITEMTYPE_RANGED, unique_mod = 5 }
['a'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['b'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['c'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['d'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['e'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['f'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['g'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['h'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['i'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },
['j'] = { "floor", item = level:roll_item( vault_weapon ) },Most of every other weapon is itemtype_ranged except the melee weapons of course. Did you perhaps get one on an older version?
Also, I made an embarrassing mistake regarding the rewards on Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab. Onyx Packs can appear just like the others, just that they were listed last and past where I could see on my screen. :P I didn't notice the horizontal scrollbar and overlooked that bit.
The corrected information is Deimos Lab gives a random pair of regular packs and a random pair of special packs, all with equally probability. Hell's Armory gives a pair of regular packs and one random special pack. If you complete Hell's Armory without damage, one of the regular packs is replaced by a Nano Pack, unless the original special pack is already a Nano Pack, in which case, the extra is an Onyx. In simpler terms, you have a 50% chance of Nano+Onyx, 25% chance of Nano+Firestorm, and 25% chance of Nano+Sniper. That should be correct. :P
Schematics of course change the results, but they're not really important information once you've got all the assemblies anyway.
Another interesting piece of code I noticed was in Phobos Lab:
Code: [Select]
OnTick = function ()
if level.status == 1 then
if player.x < 12 then
ui.msg("The walls lower!")
generator.transmute( "wall", "floor", level.data.trap11 )
generator.transmute( "wall", "floor", level.data.trap12 )
------------------------------->player:remove_affect("enviro")
player:play_sound("door.open")
level.status = 2
end
elseif level.status == 2 then
if player.x > 30 then
ui.msg("The walls lower!")
generator.transmute( "wall", "floor", level.data.trap21 )
generator.transmute( "wall", "floor", level.data.trap22 )
------------------------------->player:remove_affect("enviro")
player:play_sound("door.open")
level.status = 3
end
end
end,I always wondered why that would happen.
Day 43:
I put my attention on Lightfoot Platinum Badge, and started grinding for it on the correct difficulty this time. :P It's pretty straight-forward; play with Max Carnage+Light Travel, get Dodgemaster before reaching the Cyberdemon, hold onto enough Shells, and stairdive away. I had a lot of great runs die though, some to silly mistakes, others to bad luck. In particular, I was getting killed by the same thing repeatedly:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Funny enough, on my completed run, I found Acid-Proof Boots very early, though they didn't see any use.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next up will be more rotating on a few challenges. I also noticed that some of my remaining medals are carbon copies of platinum badges. I would like to finish off my medals page at some point, and I've been thinking of tackling Gutts' Heart, and I've got three strategies in mind:
1) Hell Arena Pwnage: This is the only way to guarantee a Dragonslayer, but requires beating Hell's Arena with 0 damage, surviving the rest of Phobos and Deimos, and then killing the Angel of Death, all on Nightmare. I'm not exactly keen on trying this strategy out.
2) Angel of Berserk+Overconfidence: I get a Chainsaw, have many extra sources of Berserk, and start on the first floor that the Dragonslayer can actually spawn on. The drawbacks is it's a little tougher to get a run started and I can't use other weapons as backup. This might be the ideal strategy to use.
3) I'm Too Young To Die Grinding: By playing on the easiest difficulty, I can waltz through the floors, collect a pile of gear, and basically be immortal with how deep into game I'm at now. The obvious downside is there's a lot of gameplay before even having a chance to spawn the Dragonslayer, though those extra floors can be used to clear out some of the uniques.
I won't be grinding for Gutts' Heart right away, but it's a pretty low-key challenge that I can do when I'm having a poor session, or to wind down after more difficult gameplay. I'd like to get it out of the way soon.
145
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 19, 2017, 15:35 »
Interesting bit on RunDelay. I did some testing myself and couldn't find any difference either, but that's likely because I play on tiles. I never used the Run command since I can just move the way I want to myself and figured it was just a convenient movement option for ASCII players. Also good to better understand actions/turns/seconds, etc. One minor thing I did in the floor above Phobos Anomaly was switch to a Blue Armor when I grabbed the Invulnerability, which may have been enough to make the difference. More importantly though, I learned a valuable lesson in a scenario where nothing major was at stake.
Also really cool to see the Apostle's colour! I assume he looks like a regular Archvile with tiles then? Congrats on your run there, Tormuse!
Day 42:
I actually didn't play as much since I got way too interested in digging through the source code. :D I'm not a professional by any means, but I've done some programming before and could figure out most of what's going on while I was reading through.
Some things I figured out:
The massacre/damaging levers do 20 fire damage. This is enough to gib Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys, Chaingunners, and also kill Imps, while everything else just gets damaged. Armor should be applied to this damage too.
On the wiki, Lost Souls' speed value is listed as "varies". When moving normally around, they have 100% speed, and when attacking, they technically don't change speed value and instead move in a pre-set charging manner. I didn't dig into the fine details of exactly how it works, though deeply analyzing the enemies' AI might be a good investment in the future when going for the ridiculous angelic badges.
Bonus levels that have randomly spawned weapons (Hell's Armory, Deimos Lab, Vaults) always spawn ranged weapons, so no melee ones.
When generating items in a level, the full list of uncollected uniques is added into total weight, which I believe would imply that as you continue to gain uniques, the chances of getting a certain other one improves. In other words for example, finding a Dragonslayer is easier if you've already collected several other uniques.
With the above two in mind, it's very useful to collect all uniques, even if you don't intend to use them so that you can remove their weight values from the item generation list. On top, if you're seeking a Dragonslayer, or other unique melee weapon, it's recommended to enter all these bonus levels to try and force out some of the ranged uniques. Lava Pits and Mt Erebus are good too to try and spawn unique armors and boots.
Deimos Lab's special mod packs are a pairing of Firestorm, Nano, and Sniper. If I'm understanding it correctly, you can't get Onyx from this level.
Hell's Armory spawns a random pair of regular mod packs, and then one of Firestorm, Nano, and Sniper. If you clear the level damageless, one of the regular mod packs is then replaced by a Nano Pack, unless the spawned special mod pack is another Nano Pack, in which case the bonus one is an Onyx Pack. In simpler terms, you're guaranteed a Nano Pack, and have a uniform distribution of the others (all 1 in 3).
Angel Arm doesn't work when your health is 10 or less (as mentioned before in this thread), but the game also won't prompt you when you try:
This also explains why I couldn't get it to do anything on my Angel of Humanity run awhile back.
Interestingly, Azrael's Scythe has its coding done a little differently:
The game will only check if you're tired or not, but will not decrease your max HP below 5. In other words, you can use Whisper of Death indefinitely. With enough Med Packs, you can pseudo-nuke a floor (I used this strategy for clearing the vaults by luck awhile back).
---
I'm pretty sure I've analyzed everything above correctly, but if anyone notices mistakes, let me know!
Following that, I did still play a bit and went for Reaper Platinum Badge. The plan was to grab the Nuclear BFG which took care of both my ammo and my corpse problems. I had one good run with triple Invulnerability before the stairs, but rolled Mortuary and lost control. Limbo is better as the enemies are more stranded.
On my next good run, I had a great start:
And before the stairs, I had my first ever quadruple Invulnerability! Really insane! One of them was blown up, but I grabbed the other three, and fortunately also rolled Limbo! You can barely make out all four of them in my screenshot:
I made it to the Nuclear BFG without it being destroyed, and started firing away:
This badge is honestly really easy once you're properly setup. The only thing extra you'll need is some Med Packs when crossing the lava, but since there's one by the Nuclear BFG, it's not a big deal. The other nice thing is the distance from the switches to the far corners is short enough for the BFG shots to reach, so you never have to put yourself in danger. After patient killing, I cleared out Limbo on Nightmare!
Nice to get another badge without too much time spent playing.
More to come as always!
Also really cool to see the Apostle's colour! I assume he looks like a regular Archvile with tiles then? Congrats on your run there, Tormuse!
Day 42:
I actually didn't play as much since I got way too interested in digging through the source code. :D I'm not a professional by any means, but I've done some programming before and could figure out most of what's going on while I was reading through.
Some things I figured out:
The massacre/damaging levers do 20 fire damage. This is enough to gib Zombiemen, Shotgun Guys, Chaingunners, and also kill Imps, while everything else just gets damaged. Armor should be applied to this damage too.
On the wiki, Lost Souls' speed value is listed as "varies". When moving normally around, they have 100% speed, and when attacking, they technically don't change speed value and instead move in a pre-set charging manner. I didn't dig into the fine details of exactly how it works, though deeply analyzing the enemies' AI might be a good investment in the future when going for the ridiculous angelic badges.
Bonus levels that have randomly spawned weapons (Hell's Armory, Deimos Lab, Vaults) always spawn ranged weapons, so no melee ones.
When generating items in a level, the full list of uncollected uniques is added into total weight, which I believe would imply that as you continue to gain uniques, the chances of getting a certain other one improves. In other words for example, finding a Dragonslayer is easier if you've already collected several other uniques.
With the above two in mind, it's very useful to collect all uniques, even if you don't intend to use them so that you can remove their weight values from the item generation list. On top, if you're seeking a Dragonslayer, or other unique melee weapon, it's recommended to enter all these bonus levels to try and force out some of the ranged uniques. Lava Pits and Mt Erebus are good too to try and spawn unique armors and boots.
Hell's Armory spawns a random pair of regular mod packs, and then one of Firestorm, Nano, and Sniper. If you clear the level damageless, one of the regular mod packs is then replaced by a Nano Pack, unless the spawned special mod pack is another Nano Pack, in which case the bonus one is an Onyx Pack. In simpler terms, you're guaranteed a Nano Pack, and have a uniform distribution of the others (all 1 in 3).
Angel Arm doesn't work when your health is 10 or less (as mentioned before in this thread), but the game also won't prompt you when you try:
Code: [Select]
if being:is_player() and being.hpmax > 10 thenThis also explains why I couldn't get it to do anything on my Angel of Humanity run awhile back.
Interestingly, Azrael's Scythe has its coding done a little differently:
Code: [Select]
OnAltFire = function(self,being)
if being.tired then
ui.msg("You are too tired to invoke the Scythe!");
elseCode: [Select]
being.hpmax = math.max(being.hpmax - 5,5)The game will only check if you're tired or not, but will not decrease your max HP below 5. In other words, you can use Whisper of Death indefinitely. With enough Med Packs, you can pseudo-nuke a floor (I used this strategy for clearing the vaults by luck awhile back).
---
I'm pretty sure I've analyzed everything above correctly, but if anyone notices mistakes, let me know!
Following that, I did still play a bit and went for Reaper Platinum Badge. The plan was to grab the Nuclear BFG which took care of both my ammo and my corpse problems. I had one good run with triple Invulnerability before the stairs, but rolled Mortuary and lost control. Limbo is better as the enemies are more stranded.
On my next good run, I had a great start:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
And before the stairs, I had my first ever quadruple Invulnerability! Really insane! One of them was blown up, but I grabbed the other three, and fortunately also rolled Limbo! You can barely make out all four of them in my screenshot:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I made it to the Nuclear BFG without it being destroyed, and started firing away:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This badge is honestly really easy once you're properly setup. The only thing extra you'll need is some Med Packs when crossing the lava, but since there's one by the Nuclear BFG, it's not a big deal. The other nice thing is the distance from the switches to the far corners is short enough for the BFG shots to reach, so you never have to put yourself in danger. After patient killing, I cleared out Limbo on Nightmare!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Nice to get another badge without too much time spent playing.
More to come as always!
146
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 18, 2017, 15:04 »
Interesting discussion! The extra medals must be dummied out as BBHood said, I would have achieved "Gutts' Sorrow".
Day 41:
After previous struggles, I tried some more for Chessmaster's Cross and got it pretty quickly. Getting better! I was more patient with each wave to wipe out as many Cacodemon corpses as possible before summoning more enemies.
Next, I decided I was going to get my 5th diamond badge to reach the next ranking. I figured that Gatekeeper Diamond Badge would be pretty easy, but wasn't 100% sure about the wording around "clear". I was planning on using a Phase Device in Phobos Anomaly as anyone would, but wanted to know if I would need to kill all the rest of the enemies, so I watched Sereg's video of him earning the achievement.
The first thing that caught my eye was his method of doing Phobos 1, in that, he would stand at a corner and force a monster to instantly appear. It dawned on me that I was unaware of the Run->Wait trick. Usually when I would wait for enemies to approach, I would just mash Wait, or if I was feeling bold and careless, hold it. I never knew you could do Run->Wait! So +1 for watching the run. I also watched Phobos Anomaly of course and was curious about his off-corner position, but it makes sense with Run->Wait since the trick ignores Intuition, the one downside. This will help my gameplay out a bit more, rather than recklessly approaching enemies, though I suppose having done that all this time, my combat positioning is probably a lot better than it could be.
So I started my run. On Phobos 2, I got insane luck:
First time ever seeing one so early! Then on the floor before Phobos Anomaly:
On that note, I was wondering exactly how the damage from a massacre lever works? It gibs weak enemies, but doesn't kill Lost Souls or Demons, so I'm guessing it does 15-20 fire damage?
Anyway, I wasn't 100% sure if nuking Phobos Anomaly would count for the badge, but I had no Phase Device and figured it would be a good learning experience. Except...
:(
On the next run, it went a lot more regularly, and I got a lucky Phase Device positioning; almost the exact same as Sereg had! ;)
From there, I tried out my first major usage of Run->Wait, which helped a lot. Unfortunately, it was still defaulted to 20, which I've since raised to 10000, so it still took awhile. After clearing Phobos Anomaly, I stairdived to Babel and very carefully took out the Cyberdemon with Dodgemaster abuse.
Another diamond badge down and another rank up! I'm excited to get closer to that "Chaos" prefix for my ranking to flaunt!
Day 41:
After previous struggles, I tried some more for Chessmaster's Cross and got it pretty quickly. Getting better! I was more patient with each wave to wipe out as many Cacodemon corpses as possible before summoning more enemies.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Next, I decided I was going to get my 5th diamond badge to reach the next ranking. I figured that Gatekeeper Diamond Badge would be pretty easy, but wasn't 100% sure about the wording around "clear". I was planning on using a Phase Device in Phobos Anomaly as anyone would, but wanted to know if I would need to kill all the rest of the enemies, so I watched Sereg's video of him earning the achievement.
The first thing that caught my eye was his method of doing Phobos 1, in that, he would stand at a corner and force a monster to instantly appear. It dawned on me that I was unaware of the Run->Wait trick. Usually when I would wait for enemies to approach, I would just mash Wait, or if I was feeling bold and careless, hold it. I never knew you could do Run->Wait! So +1 for watching the run. I also watched Phobos Anomaly of course and was curious about his off-corner position, but it makes sense with Run->Wait since the trick ignores Intuition, the one downside. This will help my gameplay out a bit more, rather than recklessly approaching enemies, though I suppose having done that all this time, my combat positioning is probably a lot better than it could be.
So I started my run. On Phobos 2, I got insane luck:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
First time ever seeing one so early! Then on the floor before Phobos Anomaly:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
On that note, I was wondering exactly how the damage from a massacre lever works? It gibs weak enemies, but doesn't kill Lost Souls or Demons, so I'm guessing it does 15-20 fire damage?
Anyway, I wasn't 100% sure if nuking Phobos Anomaly would count for the badge, but I had no Phase Device and figured it would be a good learning experience. Except...
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
:(
On the next run, it went a lot more regularly, and I got a lucky Phase Device positioning; almost the exact same as Sereg had! ;)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
From there, I tried out my first major usage of Run->Wait, which helped a lot. Unfortunately, it was still defaulted to 20, which I've since raised to 10000, so it still took awhile. After clearing Phobos Anomaly, I stairdived to Babel and very carefully took out the Cyberdemon with Dodgemaster abuse.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Another diamond badge down and another rank up! I'm excited to get closer to that "Chaos" prefix for my ranking to flaunt!
147
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 17, 2017, 15:42 »
Thanks for the responses and information, Tormuse! I'm always happy to read long posts, so if you have more walls of text to share, please do! :)
Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge? It'd be ideal if I can just set my damaging weapon in my prepared slot, rather than pulling from my inventory each time I need to prep for a kill. That Juggler/Chainsaw trick sounds cool, but I assume it's been corrected now?
Day 40:
Off to Nightmare! I've been a little reluctant to playing Nightmare, not so much because of the difficulty, but moreso because of the lack of feeling of completion when playing. In actual Doom and Doom 2, I never really enjoyed Nightmare mode because there are literally an infinite number of monsters via respawning, and there's no sense of accomplishment or getting that mental checklist check when only temporarily killing a monster. I usually opted to play UV with the -fast parameter because of that.
However, I've come to realize in DoomRL, this isn't a big deal since corpses when destroyed are no longer active. Simply by changing my mentality towards Nightmare to needing to kill and dispose of corpses has actually made the difficulty more playable and more importantly a lot more fun! The tricks with using staircases, fluids, corpses on top of each other, and so forth adds more room for ingenuity in the game, which I like! The other thing is Nightmare offers some player advantages over Ultra-Violence through more experience points, double effect bonuses (I particularly like the Small Health Globes), and extra ammo. Stocking up on Shotgun Guys and Zombiemen is also fun!
One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.
Anyway, I figured the best way to practice and learn would be going for the Hell's Arena related badges and medals. With abuse of Max Carnage+Light Travel, I got Arena Platinum Badge on my first try:
This is also nice to get since I can show off all my missing platinum badges in one screenshot now. :P
Following that, I figured I could do it again, just that I would need to avoid taking damage for Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal, and after a couple tries and careful play, I got it pretty easily:
I dropped it on the ground in favor of ammo, but I had a rare Phobos 2 Rocket Launcher pick-up for Hell's Arena, which helped!
Following that, I grinded for Chessmaster's Cross, but haven't been able to get it yet. I learned a lot about knockback control by mixing up with Chaingun and Shotgun, but my skill with it is still improving. On my last run though, I did get to the third wave, but had extremely bad luck with a Baron being revived immediately after killing him, along with a Cacodemon right behind me. I did learn from this though in that, I should try to time my kills to skip over respawn cycles, which is a very important mechanic to control.
So I'm enjoying learning on Nightmare now and things are going well! I'm going to continue grinded for Chessmaster's Cross and maybe a few more easier badges and medals!
Referring to my 4th question about Knives/Fists challenges, I was asking if I have a Knife/Fist in my main slot and have a Shotgun in my prepared slot, would that mess with getting the badge? It'd be ideal if I can just set my damaging weapon in my prepared slot, rather than pulling from my inventory each time I need to prep for a kill. That Juggler/Chainsaw trick sounds cool, but I assume it's been corrected now?
Day 40:
Off to Nightmare! I've been a little reluctant to playing Nightmare, not so much because of the difficulty, but moreso because of the lack of feeling of completion when playing. In actual Doom and Doom 2, I never really enjoyed Nightmare mode because there are literally an infinite number of monsters via respawning, and there's no sense of accomplishment or getting that mental checklist check when only temporarily killing a monster. I usually opted to play UV with the -fast parameter because of that.
However, I've come to realize in DoomRL, this isn't a big deal since corpses when destroyed are no longer active. Simply by changing my mentality towards Nightmare to needing to kill and dispose of corpses has actually made the difficulty more playable and more importantly a lot more fun! The tricks with using staircases, fluids, corpses on top of each other, and so forth adds more room for ingenuity in the game, which I like! The other thing is Nightmare offers some player advantages over Ultra-Violence through more experience points, double effect bonuses (I particularly like the Small Health Globes), and extra ammo. Stocking up on Shotgun Guys and Zombiemen is also fun!
One question I had about Nightmare is how the Marine's effect bonus works since the writing is slightly unclear. Is the bonus 25% or is it 50%+25%=75%? I'm assuming the former.
Anyway, I figured the best way to practice and learn would be going for the Hell's Arena related badges and medals. With abuse of Max Carnage+Light Travel, I got Arena Platinum Badge on my first try:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This is also nice to get since I can show off all my missing platinum badges in one screenshot now. :P
Following that, I figured I could do it again, just that I would need to avoid taking damage for Hell's Arena Pwnage Medal, and after a couple tries and careful play, I got it pretty easily:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
I dropped it on the ground in favor of ammo, but I had a rare Phobos 2 Rocket Launcher pick-up for Hell's Arena, which helped!
Following that, I grinded for Chessmaster's Cross, but haven't been able to get it yet. I learned a lot about knockback control by mixing up with Chaingun and Shotgun, but my skill with it is still improving. On my last run though, I did get to the third wave, but had extremely bad luck with a Baron being revived immediately after killing him, along with a Cacodemon right behind me. I did learn from this though in that, I should try to time my kills to skip over respawn cycles, which is a very important mechanic to control.
So I'm enjoying learning on Nightmare now and things are going well! I'm going to continue grinded for Chessmaster's Cross and maybe a few more easier badges and medals!
148
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 16, 2017, 15:42 »
Tormuse, that screenshot you were confused about shows a level where I had both an acid flood ("You feel the sudden need to run!") and a lever to flood the whole floor with water ("The air is really humid"). After the acid flood fills part of the level, you can hit the lever to revert some of the acid to water behind the "wave". Potentially, you could undo the entire flooding of acid.
Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage. I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired, but it would never happen in a real game nor would anyone actually wait out the berserk's effect. :P
Day 39:
My targets this time were my last two gold badges. I started with Hunter Gold Badge and initially thought it would be best to do a full game run for more kills available and to make use of the doubled experience, but I decided to try mixing it with Overconfidence first. I had a pretty nice setup on floor 4 where I blew up every corpse except for one remaining Zombieman, which I killed repeatedly. I figured with a rough high of 20ish monsters per remaining floor (for 60ish total), I could kill the Zombieman enough times to allow me to stairdive through the remaining floors, so I did just that! It took awhile, but that's the power of patience!
Along that run, I was also curious about the "relatively safe" message that comes up when everything is dead. Obviously with respawning monsters, it'd never be the case that you'd be relatively safe, but wondered if on top you disposed of all the corpses if you would then get it. Nope! It never comes up!
That left Strongman Gold Badge and it was quite tough to get! Being that I was only allowed Fists and Knives, it's easy to assume Malicious Knives is the way to go, but it takes awhile to get started with that strategy and after many attempts, I changed course and went with a Scout for the extra speed and knowing where the stairs are. I figured Blademaster would be useful enough too.
I was pretty well set to beat the game with this challenge, but I ended up unncessarily luckboxing it anyway! :) I found a nuke early on in Deimos, some conveniently placed Invulnerabilities, and Hell floors 4 through 7 had the stairs about 50ish tiles total away from the starting point across all four floors. From there I did a nuke sacrifice against the Spider Mastermind and completed 26/26 gold badges!
One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?
Anyway, here's some updated status screenshots!
The unseen missing platinum badge is Arena Platinum Badge.
Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)
Next up will be more picking away at badges and rotating on what I go for! Hopefully I don't get stuck with progress for too long!
Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage. I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired, but it would never happen in a real game nor would anyone actually wait out the berserk's effect. :P
Day 39:
My targets this time were my last two gold badges. I started with Hunter Gold Badge and initially thought it would be best to do a full game run for more kills available and to make use of the doubled experience, but I decided to try mixing it with Overconfidence first. I had a pretty nice setup on floor 4 where I blew up every corpse except for one remaining Zombieman, which I killed repeatedly. I figured with a rough high of 20ish monsters per remaining floor (for 60ish total), I could kill the Zombieman enough times to allow me to stairdive through the remaining floors, so I did just that! It took awhile, but that's the power of patience!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Along that run, I was also curious about the "relatively safe" message that comes up when everything is dead. Obviously with respawning monsters, it'd never be the case that you'd be relatively safe, but wondered if on top you disposed of all the corpses if you would then get it. Nope! It never comes up!
That left Strongman Gold Badge and it was quite tough to get! Being that I was only allowed Fists and Knives, it's easy to assume Malicious Knives is the way to go, but it takes awhile to get started with that strategy and after many attempts, I changed course and went with a Scout for the extra speed and knowing where the stairs are. I figured Blademaster would be useful enough too.
I was pretty well set to beat the game with this challenge, but I ended up unncessarily luckboxing it anyway! :) I found a nuke early on in Deimos, some conveniently placed Invulnerabilities, and Hell floors 4 through 7 had the stairs about 50ish tiles total away from the starting point across all four floors. From there I did a nuke sacrifice against the Spider Mastermind and completed 26/26 gold badges!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?
Anyway, here's some updated status screenshots!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The unseen missing platinum badge is Arena Platinum Badge.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)
Next up will be more picking away at badges and rotating on what I go for! Hopefully I don't get stuck with progress for too long!
149
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 15, 2017, 08:53 »
You know it's funny, I couldn't get a run with Son of a Gun, mistook what the trait did, and managed to rationalize why it wasn't great. :P Definitely meant firing speed, lol.
I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.
Day 38:
Feeling rejuvenated, I went hard for some more gold badges and my first target was Speedrunner Gold Badge. I tried a few Intuition/Shotgun builds, and abused Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon, but even though I wasn't taking any damage, I really couldn't kill him in a decent pace. So, I opted for a Vampyre melee build instead.
None of it was necessary, but I had some really good luck on this run. I Phase Deviced past all the enemies in Phobos Anomaly right by the Bruisers, had just enough Large Med-Packs for the Cyberdemon, found Malek's Armor nearby the staircase on one of the floors (which I almost missed since I was berserk), and then had an Invulnerability just before the Spider Mastermind!
My next target was UAC Gold Badge, which is just beating a standard game on Ultra-Violence. Since re-adjusting my playstyle, I decided to focus on early Hellrunner, and it's SO helpful! I'm really starting to appreciate stronger evasive tactics and the extra movement speed is amazing! I also used Tactical Boots to build on it some more. Of course though, Intuition came first, but Hellrunner was next. I honestly didn't struggle that much at all until I ran into some bad luck:
Just as I decided I was ready to fight the Spider Mastermind and stopped killing everything in favor of stairdiving, the game gave me a triple stacked Invulnerability right by the stairs:
The good luck continued:
Then on Hell 7, I had a really nice setup for cleaning out enemies. I made the mistake of letting an Archvile have a chance to attack though:
But with enough healing and luck, I managed to dash and survive!
Now that I'm greatly appreciating movement speed, I'm having to also re-adjust how I play. When I would use a slower style, I would take a lot less risks and play a campier game. Being much faster early on has lead to me making dumb risks and mistakes I wouldn't otherwise make, so I have to change that a bit as I play more. I'm really starting to think Hellrunner is one of the best traits! The only that I'm a bit hung up on is I still love using the power of infinity with an early game Nanofiber Red Armor, which is -20% movement speed. In the same way, I'm also thinking that Inquisitor Armor (and the set) are ridiculously good more and more.
Obviously with a game as detailed and complex as DoomRL, claiming a single trait path is the best in all cases is wrong, but I think for most of my usual Scout runs, I'll be doing Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster, before putting focus into a master trait. I think the last two gold badges won't be too difficult for me to get now, but might take some luck. Then I'll be ready for lots of Nightmare come collecting platinum badges!
Good progress today and great skill development!
I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.
Day 38:
Feeling rejuvenated, I went hard for some more gold badges and my first target was Speedrunner Gold Badge. I tried a few Intuition/Shotgun builds, and abused Dodgemaster against the Cyberdemon, but even though I wasn't taking any damage, I really couldn't kill him in a decent pace. So, I opted for a Vampyre melee build instead.
None of it was necessary, but I had some really good luck on this run. I Phase Deviced past all the enemies in Phobos Anomaly right by the Bruisers, had just enough Large Med-Packs for the Cyberdemon, found Malek's Armor nearby the staircase on one of the floors (which I almost missed since I was berserk), and then had an Invulnerability just before the Spider Mastermind!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
My next target was UAC Gold Badge, which is just beating a standard game on Ultra-Violence. Since re-adjusting my playstyle, I decided to focus on early Hellrunner, and it's SO helpful! I'm really starting to appreciate stronger evasive tactics and the extra movement speed is amazing! I also used Tactical Boots to build on it some more. Of course though, Intuition came first, but Hellrunner was next. I honestly didn't struggle that much at all until I ran into some bad luck:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Just as I decided I was ready to fight the Spider Mastermind and stopped killing everything in favor of stairdiving, the game gave me a triple stacked Invulnerability right by the stairs:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
The good luck continued:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Then on Hell 7, I had a really nice setup for cleaning out enemies. I made the mistake of letting an Archvile have a chance to attack though:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
But with enough healing and luck, I managed to dash and survive!
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Now that I'm greatly appreciating movement speed, I'm having to also re-adjust how I play. When I would use a slower style, I would take a lot less risks and play a campier game. Being much faster early on has lead to me making dumb risks and mistakes I wouldn't otherwise make, so I have to change that a bit as I play more. I'm really starting to think Hellrunner is one of the best traits! The only that I'm a bit hung up on is I still love using the power of infinity with an early game Nanofiber Red Armor, which is -20% movement speed. In the same way, I'm also thinking that Inquisitor Armor (and the set) are ridiculously good more and more.
Obviously with a game as detailed and complex as DoomRL, claiming a single trait path is the best in all cases is wrong, but I think for most of my usual Scout runs, I'll be doing Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster, before putting focus into a master trait. I think the last two gold badges won't be too difficult for me to get now, but might take some luck. Then I'll be ready for lots of Nightmare come collecting platinum badges!
Good progress today and great skill development!
150
Discussion / Re: The Journey to 100%
« on: October 14, 2017, 13:27 »
Day 37:
Today's target was Arena Gold Badge, one of the five missing gold badges, and it was very challenging and often unforgiving! I tried many runs going into Hell's Arena and did fine with circling the pillars, but the moment I had 2 or more enemies targeting me, it was over. Demons also outsped me, so my strategy was to take pot-shots from a distance, run and hide, then let them stop chasing and repeat. Unfortunately, this was difficult when Demons would group up with each other or other enemies.
I always went with Marksmanship+Light Travel and almost always went with Intuition x2, but changed strategies a few time for the third trait I'd gain part way into the Arena. I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain. I also tried Tough as Nails since I would always enter with very little healing, but again, it didn't really solve my problems.
One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!
Another more indirect detail with using aimed shots is avoiding the case where I miss my target and hit something else, leading to more enemies after me. I had a really great run in Hell's Arena where I missed a Cacodemon, hit another Cacodemon instead, and unfortunately got swarmed. To be fair, this is more my mistake and is an important part of the game I should pay more attention to.
With that in mind, I also tried using Eagle Eye for my third trait, especially when taking my shots at Demons, but they would still often get to me before dying and a guaranteed 6+ damage per hit by them stacks up way too quickly. So after some more attempts, I ultimately decided that Hellrunner would be the best trait to go with. In combination of Scout+Light Travel+Hellrunner, I was fast enough to start circling Demons too, which is significantly easier to deal with.
Once I had my gameplan on lock, I still lost a couple runs due to bad spawn luck and enemy movement luck, where I would be forced to hide behind a pillar in dire hopes that one of them would run away somewhere else.
Eventually though, I finally got my completion:
This was very difficult and rewarding! I'm happy to finally get it! I learned a lot through playing and have shifted some minor details in my mindset and playstyle because of it. I'm a little disheartened that in Papillo's difficulty rating thread that he rates this as a 9/30 skill challenge, but I suppose I could repeat this challenge now that I know what I'm doing. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's a solution to runs where you start in the centre of Hell's Arena and surrounded by Demons and Cacodemons. I also don't yet see how players do these kinds of things without Intuition x2.
I got over a plateau I had and feel ready for more!
Today's target was Arena Gold Badge, one of the five missing gold badges, and it was very challenging and often unforgiving! I tried many runs going into Hell's Arena and did fine with circling the pillars, but the moment I had 2 or more enemies targeting me, it was over. Demons also outsped me, so my strategy was to take pot-shots from a distance, run and hide, then let them stop chasing and repeat. Unfortunately, this was difficult when Demons would group up with each other or other enemies.
I always went with Marksmanship+Light Travel and almost always went with Intuition x2, but changed strategies a few time for the third trait I'd gain part way into the Arena. I started with Son of a Gun for the extra damage and reload speed, but it didn't help too much since the extra damage likely didn't save me an extra shot too often, and I would already reload quickly with the Ammo Chain. I also tried Tough as Nails since I would always enter with very little healing, but again, it didn't really solve my problems.
One thing I started to adapt to was using more aimed shots with the pistols. Initially, I figured taking twice as long to fire offsets the missed shots I would otherwise likely hit with the accuracy bonus, but there are some subtle details that make aimed shots significantly better. For starters, the consistency goes way up, which allows for stronger planning of how to move around and firing. The other thing is if there were nearby enemies that were nearly dead, I would occasionally miss each shot and take unnecessary damage. I've used aimed shots before, but now I've started using them constantly, and it helps a lot!
Another more indirect detail with using aimed shots is avoiding the case where I miss my target and hit something else, leading to more enemies after me. I had a really great run in Hell's Arena where I missed a Cacodemon, hit another Cacodemon instead, and unfortunately got swarmed. To be fair, this is more my mistake and is an important part of the game I should pay more attention to.
With that in mind, I also tried using Eagle Eye for my third trait, especially when taking my shots at Demons, but they would still often get to me before dying and a guaranteed 6+ damage per hit by them stacks up way too quickly. So after some more attempts, I ultimately decided that Hellrunner would be the best trait to go with. In combination of Scout+Light Travel+Hellrunner, I was fast enough to start circling Demons too, which is significantly easier to deal with.
Once I had my gameplan on lock, I still lost a couple runs due to bad spawn luck and enemy movement luck, where I would be forced to hide behind a pillar in dire hopes that one of them would run away somewhere else.
Eventually though, I finally got my completion:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
This was very difficult and rewarding! I'm happy to finally get it! I learned a lot through playing and have shifted some minor details in my mindset and playstyle because of it. I'm a little disheartened that in Papillo's difficulty rating thread that he rates this as a 9/30 skill challenge, but I suppose I could repeat this challenge now that I know what I'm doing. Still, I find it hard to believe that there's a solution to runs where you start in the centre of Hell's Arena and surrounded by Demons and Cacodemons. I also don't yet see how players do these kinds of things without Intuition x2.
I got over a plateau I had and feel ready for more!