Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Discussion => Topic started by: Icy on September 08, 2017, 16:12

Title: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 08, 2017, 16:12
Hello! I'm a long-time lurker who's played off and on for a few years now, and recently decided to pick the game up again! I'm already fairly competent with the game, but by no means a veteran. I've only ever played with graphics, though I also did play back when the game's name still had vowels.

I've been a competitive gamer for close to 15 years now and always love a good challenge! When I originally started to play and again from a fresh start a couple years later, I wanted to go hard to get as many of the badges as possible, but I never really got around to it between other games, work, school, IRL, and so forth. Lately, I've been in a bit of a rut and interested to start once again and really grind for it this time! I thought it would also be interesting to write about my progress here to share with others, perhaps also motivating more people to play. Kind of like a blog I suppose to also help myself be accountable for not giving up when things get tough. Hopefully it doesn't come off as obnoxious spam or anything. :P

In particular, I remember seeing when Vandam showed off that he had 16 on the Angelic Badges, and I thought it was so cool! In this day and age with the internet and all, it's very rare for a masterfully skilled player/athlete/person/etc to come from out of the blue and re-define what top-level play is like. Almost romantic in a sense. On top, if he was able to do it, then so can I! I'm a pretty smart cookie if I do say so myself, and I'm definitely a grinder when I want to achieve something.

So with all that said, I'll continually post little updates, fire up discussion here, and maybe share some cool post mortems! I'll be starting completely from scratch once again, and will probably need a little derusting, but I'm confident I'll be able to catch up quickly!

I happen to have two post mortems saved from years ago if you'd like to read those too:

My first Angel of 100 completion, back in mid 2013:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And my first Angel of 100 with Max Carnage completion, back in 2015:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 08, 2017, 18:19
Day 1:

I had to get used to the controls again, but caught on pretty quickly. Funny enough, I subconsciously knew how to do a bunch of commands just by muscle memory. The brain is really amazing! :P

I played through my first game on wimp mode to get a feel and flow, and it worked out fairly well overall! I had some insane assembly pak luck, getting both a Sniper and a Nano, on top of a pile of others! A total of 12 assemblies! I made it all the way to JC and since I was going for 100% kills and couldn't remember how the final floor worked in terms of kill count, I fired my remaining BFG shot at a Baron, rather than securing the win. Unfortunately, ammo ran low, my armor was destroyed, and I got finished off. :( I'll get him next time!

I won't post every single mortem, only relevant ones. That said, here's the run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 08, 2017, 19:50
Hi there, and welcome to the forums!  :D

Lately, I've been in a bit of a rut and interested to start once again and really grind for it this time!

I hear ya, there.  I seem to do all my best gaming when things are going wrong in other parts of my life.  :)

...perhaps also motivating more people to play.

That certainly would be nice; the forums have been pretty dead lately.  :)

Kind of like a blog I suppose to also help myself be accountable for not giving up when things get tough. Hopefully it doesn't come off as obnoxious spam or anything. :P

Obnoxious?  Naw, I'm interested to see what you can do.  :)  Let me know if you'd like me to set goals for you or something.  :)

In particular, I remember seeing when Vandam showed off that he had 16 on the Angelic Badges, and I thought it was so cool! In this day and age with the internet and all, it's very rare for a masterfully skilled player/athlete/person/etc to come from out of the blue and re-define what top-level play is like. Almost romantic in a sense. On top, if he was able to do it, then so can I! I'm a pretty smart cookie if I do say so myself, and I'm definitely a grinder when I want to achieve something.

Erm...  hmm...  How should I put this?  I don't want to sour the atmosphere here, but I have to admit that I'm skeptical of Vandam's claims of Angelic achievements.  I'm sure Vandam is a very skilled player, but I'd be able to take them a bit more seriously if they'd posted any mortems.  Have you ever seen any mortems from Vandam?

I had to get used to the controls again, but caught on pretty quickly. Funny enough, I subconsciously knew how to do a bunch of commands just by muscle memory. The brain is really amazing! :P

Just like riding a bike, eh?  :)

I made it all the way to JC and since I was going for 100% kills and couldn't remember how the final floor worked in terms of kill count

Then I think it's worth pointing out that in this version, unlike some previous versions, when you kill JC, all his summons die at the same time.  I find it's best to focus on him and kill him as quickly as possible.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 08, 2017, 21:40
Welcome( back?)!

I would be very interested in seeing someone attempt to replicate VANDAM's (supposed) achievements - as Tormuse said, there have never been any mortems(or videos, which Tormuse and I have both posted for some of our more impressive runs[though his are significantly more impressive then mine]), but I'm less skeptical then he is; I think there's a fairly good chance that VANDAM actually did what he claimed to, and even if not, my personal opinion is that he's most likely still one of the top players in the history if DRL.

Regardless of that, though, seeing some fresh mortems would be a nice change around here. Everything seems to have gone fairly quiet as we all wait for Jupiter Hell, other then the brief flurry of activity from the Xtreme Arena thread(which I also encourage you to check out).

I wish you the best of luck in your quest, and I'll be lurking around watching for your mortems - hell, if I have time, I might even try to post some of my own, but I feel like I've almost reached the limit of my own skill level, which is why I've sort of dropped off playing for the last few months. Still, seeing new achievements is always inspiring, and might be exactly what I need to get back into it myself.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on September 09, 2017, 00:22
Welcome indeed! Feel free to log your progress for posterity, and indeed, like Tormuse said, the forum could do with a little more life. Seeing as you previously took the time to complete a dual AOMC/A100 on UV, I'd say you ought to be skilled enough to impress some people around here. Show us what you got!

Also:

I hear ya, there.  I seem to do all my best gaming when things are going wrong in other parts of my life.  :)

Based on your track record, should we be worrying about you, 'muse? ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 09, 2017, 01:26
Based on your track record, should we be worrying about you, 'muse? ;)

Well...  I'm not gonna off myself, if that's what you're asking.  I do have issues with chronic depression, but I have ways of coping, so I'll be okay.  Thank you for your concern.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 09, 2017, 13:43
Thanks for the welcome!

Yeah, I suppose it's reasonable to be skeptical about Vandam, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. In any case, I'm still going to pursue what he's done. Also I meant I'm more in a gaming rut, rather than a general run, haha. Things are good! :)

Day 2:

After losing to JC last night, I opted to collect some more badges, and did far more than I had expected on an Angel of Berserk run! I gained a huge pile of them, as well as beating the Mortuary for the first time! I got quite a few more assemblies and badges; I reached Sergeant Major after just my 2nd completion! Vampyre with the Angelic set is quite powerful, and I actually forgot that the Angelic Armor can break, ha. I'm used to always using indestructible gear.

Mortem here:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Following that, I decided to play another Angel of 100 + Angel of Max Carnage on UV for 100%! I used basically the same build as before, with focus on Cateye and rapid-fire weapons. It's honestly a superb build for the challenge and very fun to play! The entire game is quite easy to execute, but any mistake can be fatal. You dance with death the entire game. Unfortunately, the biggest weakness of the build is overconfidence and I got killed due to some bad luck, but by no means exceptionally bad luck. Entirely my fault for not respecting the danger. If you play intelligently, you basically can't die, just have to respect the danger. Seriously. Respect the danger.

Generally I shoot for getting Cateye as soon as possible, and then work towards Cerberus Boots, Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, and Cybernano Energy-Shielded Vest. I had no luck with getting Nano Packs though and also unfortunately died before reaching the level 51 mark. I also passed on a Dragonslayer spawn to avoid ruining my run; cool to finally know how to pick it up now! ;) I'll revisit this challenge some more later and put focus onto unlocking Angel of Overconfidence and start cheesing to collect a bunch more badges.

Here's the mortem:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 09, 2017, 13:58
Impressive runs... that AoB mortuary clear already surpasses anything I've done. If this is the pace you intend to keep,  it won't be long until you reach your goal of surpassing VANDAM.

Keep it up... I'll be looking forward to your next mortem.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 09, 2017, 17:56
Yeah, I suppose it's reasonable to be skeptical about Vandam, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. In any case, I'm still going to pursue what he's done.

It's entirely possible that I'm being overly sensitive after the whole 2Dev thing and perhaps I should give Vandam the benefit of the doubt too.  I still would like to see those mortems, though.  :)

Vampyre with the Angelic set is quite powerful, and I actually forgot that the Angelic Armor can break, ha. I'm used to always using indestructible gear.

Wha?...  It can break?  :o  Ah, I see what you mean.  It doesn't actually "break" as in be destroyed, but yeah, it can certainly go down to 0% and lose functionality.  An armour shard or Megasphere will bring it back, though.  :)

And Vampyre is generally quite powerful, if used properly.  It's my favourite trait and is responsible for a lot of my best runs!  :D
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: MaiZure on September 09, 2017, 19:25
Interesting blog series going on here. I'll be following!

It's entirely possible that I'm being overly sensitive after the whole 2Dev thing and perhaps I should give Vandam the benefit of the doubt too.  I still would like to see those mortems, though.  :)

For what it's worth, I can rule out VANDAM using time manipulations or VM save-stating in XA. When you start a new game in XA, it tells my server and both your game and my server start independent timers for that session (no comms during game play). When your game ends and it reports your final score, it won't save it if both timers aren't within 99% of each other. Well...VANDAMs games were always in sync! I can also confirm that he didn't start-scum (server sees new games and can count games that never finished). Fun trivia: out of the ~750 games played in this version, there were 1850 games that never ended (rage quit :P) There are many other options to cheat, but he passes on those low-hanging fruit

EDIT: He started out a very good player and did improve with more games, but he was setting high scores at the outset. There wasn't an indication that he was average or below average but then suddenly exploded with skill. He also had a fair number of bad luck runs too...not perfect. These obviously aren't scientific tests, but anecdotally, I'd say he seems like a competition-level gamer. EDIT2: People that operate with that mindset also tend to cheat on the side, moreso to better understand the games, their systems, and force themselves in to outlier situations and build experience that way. It gives them an edge in legit gameplay, and if extra glory comes their way on the side, then great :P. If VANDAM cheats, I don't think he's detracting from the larger community in the process...2Dev on the other hand... 

Sorry for derailing this blog post with this rant! Let's get back to D**mRL!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 09, 2017, 22:30
There's no doubt in my mind that Vandam is an excellent player and I don't mean to accuse them of cheating at all.  (I say "them" because someone drew my attention to the fact that we don't know Vandam's gender)  :)  I just can't fathom the mindset of someone would do all the work to get those ridiculous achievements and then not share it.  I just don't get that at all.  :S

But yeah, perhaps I'm derailing this topic too much; this is Icy's thread, after all.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 10, 2017, 10:33
Thanks Sereg, but AoB Mortuary wasn't that amazing really. With Vampyre and being Berserk the whole time, I just needed to rush the Archviles. I did still almost die twice, and it was on Hey, Not Too Rough. And yeah, misuse of "break" regarding Angelic Armor, haha.

Day 3:

I spent some time grinding out more of the easy medals and badges, as well as assemblies. My ranking is a bit clogged with needing to Pistol kill Hell Knights, but I've already got a ton of overall kills and melee kills. Reaching the Arch-Vile rank shouldn't be too bad, but needing 100 Cyberdemons, and 50 JCs will take some time to get. I'll slowly grind for them on days when I don't have as much free time.

I've been using Angel of Overconfidence a bunch to cheese out some easy badges and medals. My favorite one in particular was combining it with Angel of Pacifism; fun fact: you don't get a nuke! By dumb luck, I managed to find one anyway:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Also, I felt like revisiting my Max Carnage/Angel of 100/UV/100% Kills, and got it very easily. My Cateye build is so overpowered once it gets going. Here's the post-mortem to start off with:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So basically, I get an infinite ammo Plasma (ideally nanomachic instead of nuclear), and with Cateye, 2x Intuition, 2x Triggerhappy, and 5x Son of a Bitch, I become immortal. You can see so far away, and with Max Carnage, accuracy variance doesn't matter, and damage variance doesn't matter. I point and click at purple Xs, and everything dies. I was even killing Shamblers and Elementals in 2 clicks, with Cyberdemons in 5!

Starting off can be rough, and requires quite a bit of ammo. You're very dependent on finding a Nano Pack, and you still can't be making mistakes. The thing is though, if you aren't getting hit, Max Carnage is all benefits, not disadvantages. On top, the Plasma can pierce through walls for even easier targeting. I still of course used a heavy-duty armor and was loaded on Med Packs, but they weren't really necessary at all. My kill streak was frequently in the multiple hundreds.

The only things that can stop you are potentially Cyberdemons, extremely unlucky starts, and your own overconfidence and impatience. It's easy to fall into the idea of being aggressive when picking up Invulnerability and getting into other advantageous situations, but they should be treated as insurance for mistakes. Nuke levels and hard wall levels are also a bit of a pain, but manageable. Even Shamblers and Elementals couldn't fight meaningfully since they're slow after teleporting. If anything ever did go wrong, I also had Phase Devices. It's seriously very, very easy to complete once you get going!

Here's the worst start that I had, but I still didn't get touched:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's my ending main screen. I was very disappointed for not hitting Level 25. I think I'll have to play through 666 to get it, but since I can't combine it with Max Carnage, I might opt for a Shotgun build and PPN+P Super Shotgun instead.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And here's my in-game stats screen just before I left Level 100:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So all in all, it was a lot of fun! It was great that I could repeat my best feat already and with such ease, as well as collecting several medals and badges (Platinum, woo)! My next couple of goals will be killing 50 Hell Knights with a Pistol, and collecting the rest of the Bronze Badges. I also just need one more basic assembly (Tower Shield), but Onyx Packs are hard to come by.

I'm having a blast and playing well!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on September 10, 2017, 11:28
I've been using Angel of Overconfidence a bunch to cheese out some easy badges and medals.

The technical term is "to Sereg" ;)

Other than that, good work. Do you have any experience playing a Sharpshooter?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 10, 2017, 17:26
Man, I don't know how you have the patience to do 100 levels of AoMC; I barely have the patience to do 25!  :P  (I think impatience has become my number one killer in this game)  :)

Here's the worst start that I had, but I still didn't get touched:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Aw, that doesn't look so bad; you've got some easy cover northeast of you there.  I'd expect worse from UV;  are you sure the RNG wasn't going easy on you?  :)

Also, I hope you don't mind a minor tip...

...
 There is a cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%) (A) lying here.
 You picked up a cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%) (A).
 You wear/wield : a cerberus protective boots [0/0] (100%) (A)
...

I don't know if you're aware, but in this version of DRL, you can push the U key to use wearable/wieldable/usable items directly from the ground, rather than doing it in two steps like you did here.  It's a minor thing, but sometimes, that extra second you save can mean the difference between life and death, wearing armour from the ground, or using a med pack from the ground, etc.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: scotherns on September 11, 2017, 01:21
When you start a new game in XA, it tells my server and both your game and my server start independent timers for that session (no comms during game play). When your game ends and it reports your final score, it won't save it if both timers aren't within 99% of each other.

Hmm, I often get interrupted and have to temporarily leave active games (usually closing/sleeping my laptop - it resumes them just fine when waking up). Does this mean those games wont be counting?

Back ON Topic: Very interested to see this blog, looking forward to seeing how it develops!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: MaiZure on September 11, 2017, 02:07
Hmm, I often get interrupted and have to temporarily leave active games (usually closing/sleeping my laptop - it resumes them just fine when waking up). Does this mean those games wont be counting?

Seems like your games have been counting so far...
There's a little more to it than the little bit I described there, so I wouldn't worry about it
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 11, 2017, 06:25
100 levels of AoMC isn't as bad as you think,  at least not with his build. Personally, I sometimes enjoy a slaughter fest, and I've made ArchAo666 attempts looking for YAAM before, so if you have that mindset it's not really such a grind,  either.

As far as the build goes, like he said he can kill everything long before it's anything more then a purple X, so there's no major safety issue... once that build gets rolling,  it's not even really an issue of careful play.

 Honestly,  that's one of my favorite aspects of 100 and especially 666 - that feeling of being utterly unstoppable. Whenever I did get back into DRL, it will likely be to attempt my Diamond and Angelic Centurial Badges.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 11, 2017, 11:03
Thanks for the U key tip, Tormuse! That's definitely important to know! Awhile back, I actually didn't know you could unload weapons with it, and being a perfectionist and overpreparing, I would manually pick up every weapon, empty it, then toss it on the ground. :P The U key is a savior!

Day 4:

Nothing too exciting post-mortem-wise, but I grinded out a whole lot of the easy stuff to get them out of the way. I've reached the ranking of Hell Baron/Major; glad I don't need to be Pistol killing anything anymore. :P I still need 2000 melee kills, 25000/50000 kills, 100 Cyberdemon kills, and 50 JC kills to finish the ranks! Those honestly aren't that bad and progress naturally, but like I said earlier, 50 JCs will take awhile to finish. I'm content with what I'm at so far for now.

I've found every special item now, and only missing 12 more uniques:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And I've also made every basic assembly, just missing 5 advanced and 1 master assembly now:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also finished up collecting the rest of the bronze badges I was missing and have all 26 now:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As well as 18/26 silver badges, missing mostly easy ones too:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Like I said, mostly just getting the easy stuff out of the way. Next goals will be 26/26 silver, and getting the rest of the assemblies!

One funny post-mortem I had was another round of Angel of Pacifism, this time with Angel of Confidence, and once again, forgetting I don't get a nuke. Fortunately, I found a little helper in the Mortuary to solve my problem. :P I actually didn't realize it at first and ran at the Spider Mastermind to accept death, but fortunately I also had a Phase Device to have enough time to survive.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another lucky fluke for Pacifism, haha.

That's all for today!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on September 11, 2017, 11:21
I'm a bit late, but still - welcome, and thanks for your "blog", it's nice to see someone doing and recording their overall progress :).

I still need 2000 melee kills, 25000/50000 kills, 100 Cyberdemon kills, and 50 JC kills to finish the ranks!

If you are willing to go through an ultra-grind, just go for a single UV AAo666 game. You don't even need to focus on melee at all - with some luck, you can find a chainsaw to rack up easy melee kills, and 50k kills / 100 Cybies can be done in a single playthrough. Of course, there's no JC along the way, but it's more than enough for a Cyberdemon rank.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 12, 2017, 15:33
Day 5:

I mostly focused on getting a couple more assemblies and silver badges, then decided to play Ao666 on Hey, Not Too Rough as a test run and for reaching Level 25 for the medal. Because I can't combine it with Max Carnage, I decided to go with a Shottyhead build.

Part way into the run, I noticed that the game is treating it like Angel of 100, saying things like "25 floors to go!" and so forth, and I also noticed in my stats screen it says Ao100. Odd. I was pretty sure I had clicked Archangel of 666, but I was thinking that perhaps the programming of the game doesn't change these messages. Or maybe I just did misclick. Realizing this fact and that it's indistinguishable from a true Angel of 100 game, I thought I had messed it up. On top, around the 92nd floor or so, I also noticed I had somehow missed killing a monster, so I'm scrapping the plan of getting 100% kills now.

Oh and on floor 100, the game told me I have 566 more to go. :P Things like this are why test runs are good!

I'm currently rocking an Assault Shotgun (PPPTT), Super Shotgun (PP), 2x Burst Cannon Nuclear Plasma Rifles (P), Nuclear VBFG9000 (P), Cerberus Boots (A), and Nanofiber Red Armor (P). Throughout 100 floors, I have yet to find a much needed Nano Pack, though to be fair, this is on the easiest difficulty acceptable and I did nuke a few floors, but still. No Onyx, Firestorm, or Sniper Packs for that matter either.

I've been debating on Enviroboots vs Cerberus Boots vs Phaseshift Boots vs Inquisitor Boots, and I'm starting to see the argument in favor for Inquisitor more. I generally lean for Cerberus (A) + Cybernano Energy-Shielded Vest (P), but I did some reading in the Post-Mortem sub-board with Papilio's 2 (!) completions of Centurial Angelic badges, and yeah, might need to go for fire immunity. I've already tossed the Inquisitor Boots I found this run, so that's not happening this time in any case. I do intend to do a completion of Ao666 on UV with 100% kills for a fun, personal challenge at some point, as well as Ao666 on Nightmare, but it won't be for a long while yet. I just wanted to do this on an easier difficulty for practice, learning, and to boost up my stats for medals, rankings, and badges. It's going well so far!

Also, I noticed the heavy emphasis on using Biggest Fucking Nuclear BFG9000 (F) and its stats, which seems ridiculously destructive! Can you damage yourself with it like with Demolition Ammo? I opted for VBFG9000 since I already had the mods for it, it was one of my last three missing assemblies (just need Double Chainsaw and Ripper now), and I was concerned about potentially killing myself with BBFF+F.

Anyway, I'll be continuing my warpath, hopefully finally getting a Nano Pack to complete my Super Shotgun, and reaching Level 25 before getting killed. I also want to collect as many specials and uniques along the way to boost up my count on them. In the off-chance I find Dragonslayer after reaching Level 25 and having Berserk nearby, I'm definitely going to botch my run to get it! :P

All that said, I've been having a blast plowing through 100 levels! Here's to 566 more!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 12, 2017, 21:24
Part way into the run, I noticed that the game is treating it like Angel of 100, saying things like "25 floors to go!" and so forth...

...Oh and on floor 100, the game told me I have 566 more to go. :P Things like this are why test runs are good!

Haha, yeah, I remember how I felt the first time playing ArchAo666; I was taking notes, getting ready to make a bug report about those messages, but the "566 more to go" line makes it too funny to consider making any changes.  :D

...2x Burst Cannon Nuclear Plasma Rifles (P)...

Two of them?  Why would you need anything else?  :D  That's a new favourite of mine; when combined with a couple levels of Eagle Eye, it's absolutely devastating.

...but still. No Onyx, Firestorm, or Sniper Packs for that matter either.

Give it time...  666 levels is *a lot* of levels; you're bound to find at least one of everything before the end.  :)

I've been debating on Enviroboots vs Cerberus Boots vs Phaseshift Boots vs Inquisitor Boots, and I'm starting to see the argument in favor for Inquisitor more. I generally lean for Cerberus (A) + Cybernano Energy-Shielded Vest (P), but I did some reading in the Post-Mortem sub-board with Papilio's 2 (!) completions of Centurial Angelic badges, and yeah, might need to go for fire immunity. I've already tossed the Inquisitor Boots I found this run, so that's not happening this time in any case. I do intend to do a completion of Ao666 on UV with 100% kills for a fun, personal challenge at some point, as well as Ao666 on Nightmare, but it won't be for a long while yet. I just wanted to do this on an easier difficulty for practice, learning, and to boost up my stats for medals, rankings, and badges. It's going well so far!

The Inquisitor set is quite powerful...  overpowered, really...  A decent boost to speed, total immunity to all the late game monsters, and decent protection from everything else.  (The ability to avoid damage from lava is also very nice)  It's extremely useful in any game, especially a long run like this so I have to say...

...I've already tossed the Inquisitor Boots...

You what?!?  O_o  TheLaptop will not be pleased...

(All that being said, for the really late game in this kind of game, I think you're gonna find the Phaseshift set more useful, because you're gonna want to get to the exits fast)

Also, I noticed the heavy emphasis on using Biggest Fucking Nuclear BFG9000 (F) and its stats, which seems ridiculously destructive! Can you damage yourself with it like with Demolition Ammo?

No, and good thing too; it destroys something like half the map, so if it damaged you, it would be impossible to avoid dying.  EDIT:  The BFG10K does damage you, though, so watch out for that one.  I found that out the hard way.  :P

I look forward to seeing the mortem from this; you should have no trouble with your goal of reaching level 25.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 13, 2017, 06:37
EDIT:  The BFG10K does damage you, though, so watch out for that one.  I found that out the hard way.  :P

I look forward to seeing the mortem from this; you should have no trouble with your goal of reaching level 25.  :)

I would just like to add that I, too, have turned myself into wallpaper with the BFG10k. Unfortunately I can't find the mortem for it, but it definitely happened - to this day I still simply pickup(to log the find) and immediately drop that gun whenever I find it. I'm sure it has some uses, but it's way too dangerous in the hands of someone like myself, who tends to just blaze away with whatever I'm holding until the screen is clear.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 13, 2017, 14:31
Burst Cannon Nuclear Plasma Rifles are quite good, definitely the best semi-infinite rapid-fire weapon, but because my build is based around Shottyhead, Eagle Eye is blocked. I just used them for when I ran out of shells.

Like I mentioned, I'm not yet a fan of Inquisitor set compared to my usual go-tos, but I also haven't been surrounded by dozens of fire monsters. Keep in mind that this is still just on Hey, Not Too Rough, so I should be fine without. Maybe I'll be proven wrong, but hey, it's a test run after all! I am a huge data, strategy, and optimization junkie, so I'll definitely do more thorough research as my experience with high-level play increases.

Day 6:

At floor 108, I discovered my first special mod pack, being an Onyx! Not exactly what I was hoping for, but I didn't want to complain too much as I do need one of those too. Still, I wanted a Nano Pack and was starting to get a bit more desperate for one. Then on floor 109, two spaces away from me was a Nano Pack! Immediately I finished my Nano-Shrapnel Super Shotgun (P) and have turned the game into Cookie Clicker! :P It's insanely good, even Cyberdemons usually get just 1 (often missed) Rocket in before they get killed by sheer firing speed!

Following that, I also reached Level 25 for my first time ever!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I kind of ran out of useful traits, so I went with Brute and Berserker. I figure that if I'm somehow getting hit hard enough to trigger Berserker, I probably need the +60% Resistances.

So basically, I murdered most everything up to floor 201 where I left off. Nothing too exciting really, haha. I'm on the look out for specials and uniques because I require 3 of each and 1000 total to get some badges, but other than that, all I ever pick up are Large Med-Packs, Phase Devices (mostly homing), Thermies, boosters and health items, and not much more. I'm hoping I can finally find an Energy-Shielded Vest to complete the armor I want (I already have all 5 mods for it), and I also am hoping for Chainsaws to complete my missing assemblies, and a Nuclear BFG wouldn't hurt either to slowly upgrade my current Nuclear VBFG.

My original plan was to botch my run if I stumble upon Dragonslayer, but I'm thinking this opportunity for hunting Cyberdemons as well as massively racking up my kill count is a better idea. I could potentially find a Dragonslayer on any run, but not often do I get to go on a murder spree.

That's all for now! More of this run to come!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 13, 2017, 16:42
 If memory serves,  there might be issues with vest assemblies... but memory is very hazy so I could be completely off base with that one.  What exactly are you planning to make?

Also, be advised that picking up the Dragonslayer will not throw your run, especially since you have those 2 levels in Brute.  It is absolutely homicidal.  The only downside is the permanently red screen,  which makes differentiating mod packs(among other things)  a pain in the dick, especially if you're still looking to make assemblies.

Edit: just looked at your skill build... 3 levels of brute and 3 of hellrunner *AND* 3 of finesse? You would have to be outside of your mind to leave the Dragonslayer on the ground...
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 13, 2017, 21:25
Yeah, what Sereg said.  Don't get me wrong, a Nano-Super Shotgun with Shottyhead sounds blisteringly devastating, (and probably a lot of fun!)  :D  but I think you are vastly underestimating the destructive power of the Dragonslayer if you think it will "botch your run."

Burst Cannon Nuclear Plasma Rifles are quite good, definitely the best semi-infinite rapid-fire weapon, but because my build is based around Shottyhead, Eagle Eye is blocked. I just used them for when I ran out of shells.

In that case, personally, I would've put Sniper mods on them.  (I mean if you ever did find any?)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 14, 2017, 15:12
I read up on Dragonslayer more carefully and realized what I overlooked. It does an average of 45 damage, which is solid for sure, but my Shotgun is obviously better. However, I forgot to consider that permanent Berserk also means permanent double melee damage! So yeah, Dragonslayer is kind on insane, ha!

And no, I never found any Sniper Packs before tossing them.

Day 7:

Many, many floors of murdering everything, but really nothing too thrilling. Some more uniques, lots of specials to increase my count towards 1000, and many, many kills. Lots of Cyberdemons too, which is good!

Then on floor 286, I finally found an Energy-Shielded Vest! Check it out:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's insanely protective and I usually take 1 damage from everything now! Shortly after that, I found a second Nuclear BFG! Currently it's (BBF), so even just one more Firestorm Pack would be awesome!

So of course, I spent some more time thinking about Dragonslayer, and I've definitely shifted my opinion (back) to picking it up should I find it. I believe now it's the only missing unique besides Azrael's (which I could easily get), and it would be nice to get that badge, as well as work towards getting 3 for another badge in the future. With my Cybernano Energy-Shielded Vest, I should be fine enough to survive everything anyway, especially with +60% more resistances! On top, I'm going to be bottlenecking my ranking until I get more melee kills, so it'd be helpful for that too. The only downside is my armor is stuck to me, so I won't be able to pair up with Berserker's Armor, but that's okay.

I'm just a bit shy from the half-way mark now, and am getting faster at clearing levels. So long as I don't die, I should get this finished sometime during the weekend! It's a lot of fun, but it definitely takes some time, ha. I'm looking forward to going back to more normal games and collecting some more badges!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 14, 2017, 21:28
I guess I was hallucinating or something - looks like your vest assembly worked just fine. That is one hell of a piece of armor.

I know it's a grind, but keep it up - hopefully you do find the time to finish it this weekend.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on September 15, 2017, 01:13
Quote from: DRL Wiki (energy-shielded vest page)
In the Cybernano assembly, it's almost IDDQD.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 15, 2017, 14:46
Yeah, the armor is ridiculous! There are only a handful of other end-game contenders with it really. Since most damage gets reduced to 1, the multi-firing monsters are the only ones that can do anything really noticeable.

Day 8:

Powered through another 120ish floors and now at floor 450! Given that Biggest Fucking Gun at this point won't really change much of my gameplay, and there's not too much I can find that's useful, I've just been killing groups of monsters, searching for Cyberdemons, then leaving. If there are Computer/Tracking Maps around, I'll use those to seek out some more specials, Thermies, and Firestorm Packs, but otherwise, I'm not spending the time to fully explore the floors now. It's a diminishing return to spend 40 seconds looking for a single stray monster or a possible item, when I could get a fresh floor instead. Of course I still get uniques and listen for Cyberdemons, but not much else is really worth it. Kinda wishing I played on Ultra-Violence instead now for higher monster density, but that's okay.

My kill count is now just shy of 12000, which is a huge chunk of the progression towards the needed 50000! I also likely have collected 3 of every special, and have most of the uniques. It'll be nice for regular runs to finish all of these side-goals so that they don't distract from normal gameplay, such as holding onto useless mod packs only because they could make an assembly I hadn't made yet.

I have zero fear of dying given that I've only gone below 80 health once after a few hundred floors. Given that I have 100 HP, monsters can barely do anything, there are constant power-ups, I have a huge pile of Large Med-Packs and Phase Devices (and the Hell Staff), etc, there's just really no way I'm going to get killed. It's definitely fun being an unstoppable god, but it's unfortunately not really challenging, haha. The only scary thing is when barrels are beside specials.

I'm really looking forward to reviewing my own mortem and of course sharing it here when this is all done! I might be able to power through the rest of the run since I'm not fully exploring every floor anymore. We'll see!

Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 16, 2017, 11:11
Day 9:

Mission accomplished!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After nearly 15 hours, I finally finished Ao666! Like I had been saying, it was easy, just long. It was a lot of fun and I will definitely do it again on UV for 100% kills in the future!

Along the way on floor 498, I had my first (and only) staircase adjacent to me, and while there was no Compuer/Tracking Map, I decided for whatever reason to look around a bit, and found my first Chainsaw! A number of levels later to collect the mod packs, I made the Ripper with it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I figured to make that and leave out Double Chainsaw for another time; it was the obvious choice. Besides that, it was just more slaughtering and stair-diving. Surprisingly, I never found a second Firestorm Pack, so that kind of sucked. Like I've mentioned though, I did nuke a ton of levels as well as started skipping chunks of them later on, but still somewhat unlucky to never find another. I think in total, I found 3 Onyx, 7 Nano, and 3 Sniper. Here's some final screenshots before I completed the run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So with that completed, I got my Level 25 Medal, and a huge increase to my special/unique count and number of kills!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My Cyberdemon kill count is now a decent 61, leaving just 39 more! I was pretty disappointed on never finding any Cyberdemon caves throughout 666 floors. I still need a huge number of kills in general, and about 500 more melee kills, but a very good step forward! During the Ao666, I found every unique except for Dragonslayer :P, Berserker's Armor, and Subtle Knife, of which I only previously had Berserker's Armor, while also missing Azrael's Scythe. My total special/unique count was quite a bit lower than I thought it would be, so it'll still take a long time to reach 1000 with that. At least I have almost 3 of every special and 2 of the ones I don't. Overall, an excellent journey and improvement to getting to 100% in this game.

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

The first thing to take care of was getting Double Chainsaw. The most sensical way of doing that was playing a Technician and going through all the bonus levels, as well as getting a guaranteed Chainsaw. I had some bad luck with packs, but I got it and completed my assembly list!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With that, I got my first diamond badge, my second platinum badge, and no longer need to build unnecessary assemblies! Very nice milestone to hit!

Next was getting Azrael's Scythe. The obvious way of doing this was playing on Ultra-Violence with a dual-angel of Berserk and Overconfidence, along with some good luck. My very first attempt was actually quite close, but the Angel of Death unfortunately barely won. A few tries later and I had an insane start:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With an Invulnerability 2 steps away, and a huge pack of monsters for experience in the other direction, I flew up the levels quickly, and the floor was cleared with ease! As expected, it was the run that got me Azrael's!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's ridiculously strong and thought it'd be fun to play out the rest of the run. I tried out Whisper of Death too, which is cool. In fact, I ended up finishing with 100% kills!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I noticed after this run that I had 23 medals; 1 shy of getting a well-needed gold badge, and I figured the easiest one to get would be completing Hell's Armory without damage. Max Carnage+Confidence helped a lot, though I unfortunately got Deimos Anomaly. With some luck with teleporting into a non-attacking Zombieman, an Assault Shotgun waiting for me in the weapon room, a Power Pack, and luck with the Shamblers not hitting me, I managed to earn the medal on the harder of the two levels!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And finally, to get my 12th gold badge, I went for completing Angel of Shotgunnery on Ultra-Violence, with the help of Overconfidence! I stumbled onto a Super Shotgun and Hellwave Pack on the first floor, found some life-saving Phase Devices, and just barely survived on two different occasions! On the 7th floor, I started in a room with Archviles and Mancubi, with the staircase in the next room over. I literally was down to 1 HP left before healing. With a ridiculous amount of shells, and a Super Shotgun, I was set to get the badge, so long as I was patient. About two-thirds of my run here was slowly fighting the Spider Mastermind:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As long as you cornershoot, never step into the corners of the pillar, or shoot twice, it's very rare to get hit. I have a huge supply of patience, so I took the time, especially since this opportunity would likely not come back anytime soon. After a long battle, I got an untouched kill and reached the next ranking:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Excellent progress and very happy with all of these results! Moving forward will be 39 more Cyberdemon kills, leaving just 20000 more general kills and 50 JC kills to reach the Apostle ranking! I'll also be finishing up some more silver badges, collecting more specials/uniques, and slowly picking away at the more difficult badges! More to come!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 17, 2017, 09:43
Day 10:

I started off grinding some melee runs to finish getting 3 Longinus Spears, and getting to 2000 melee kills, and they came along quite easily. With those runs, I now maxed out my needed melee kills and reached Archvile rank!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I've also got 3 of each super special, except for Azrael's of which I only have 1 of so far. I also have 3 of every special except for Tristar Blaster, which I need just 1 more. Good progress in that area, but I still need a lot of uniques! I'm tempted to do another Ao666... :P

I continued picking away at some of the easier badges and medals, including Conqueror Badge, Lightfoot Badges, and Inquisitor Platinum Badge! One of my Humanity/Overconfidence runs went extremely well actually and I had made it to the Spider Mastermind with 2 Invulnerabilities stacked, and 0 damage prior, all set to get the Untouchable Medal and Cross. I played uncharacteristically risky like a dumbass and approached instead of camping around the pillar. The Spider Mastermind was extremely damaged, but just as I was about to get the kill, my Invulnerability ran out and I was quickly disposed of:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So that super sucked. Though I later realized I wouldn't have received the medals anyway. :P Following that, I got another similar run and just went with a nuke to score an easy victory:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Following that, I went to complete Angel of Purity on Ultra-Violence with the help of Overconfidence! The run was basically to survive the 7 floors as much as possible and take it super slow with the Spider Mastermind. You start off with enough ammo to kill her if you're patient enough, so I just had to play out enough runs to make it. That said, ammo was still quite tight and the battle was long. I think I spent about 12ish minutes, ran out of shells, and had to attack with the Combat Pistol (more ammo/damage efficiency than Minigun), but it got the job done! I was ready to throw my Combat Knife endlessly if necessary. :P

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Getting my 2nd platinum badge also gave me another rank up!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next, I played out some Light Travel. I came up with the strategy of going with a Cateye build combined with Max Carnage dual-angel, and used a mix of Shotguns and Chainguns. This sounds contradictory given that I have so little space in my inventory, but because I can see from so far away and always do max damage, I didn't really need to worry about carrying Med-Packs, and could entirely focus on ammo. I mostly used Shotgun/Combat Shotgun/Tactical Shotgun for the bulk of enemies, but had Chaingun/Gatling Gun in reserve for bosses and whenever I lost control of the level. Generally, my inventory would be both weapons, upgraded Red Armor, Boots (A), 1x Large Med-Pack, 1x Ammo Chain, and the rest being Shell Boxes/Shells. It worked wonderfully; the speed really helps a lot!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's also super fun! So I did the same thing again on Hurt Me Plenty to get the gold badge:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It went well overall, except for a sketchy moment:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...and I even cleared out the City of Skulls and the Mortuary! I also had the opportunity to fight JC, but made the mistake of hitting him as a purple X, spawning Barons all over, and quickly getting flooded over by enemies. I think I could have won if not for that mistake, but oh well. Still got the medal and learned a little bit more! Funny that I still have 0 kills on JC since restarting this game. :P

One other little detail is I'm picking up more on advanced gameplay. When I was playing on Light Travel, I had an Invulnerability, Homing Phase Device, and the staircase all scattered throughout the level. Now, obviously I wouldn't be willing to give up one of my precious slots just for an easier next floor, but I realized the power of the U key and setup myself nicely:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I actually hadn't pieced this trick together before and would normally always carry the Homing Phase Device. In my defense I only had just learned about using U. :P Still, it's nice to see personal improvement in other ways besides badges, medals, etc.

I'm now currently at 26/20/16/3/1/0 for badges, and still slowly picking away at the rest of the silver badges. :P I'll get them done soon. I'm also seriously thinking of doing another Ao666 on Ultra-Violence for 100% kills to work on getting my ranking maxed out and to collect more specials and uniques. I had a lot of fun, and think that having more of a challenge next time would make it even funner! I'm wondering how well a Vampyre build would work?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 17, 2017, 13:30
Well you've surpassed my bronze count, and you appear to be on track to catch silver soon.  The way you play,  you'll probably catch my platinum and diamond counts before too long, too. Keep at it... I look forward to continuing to follow this thread.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 17, 2017, 19:54
...The Spider Mastermind was extremely damaged, but just as I was about to get the kill, my Invulnerability ran out and I was quickly disposed of

Ouch, that does suck.  :|  Remember to keep an eye on the INV message at the bottom of the screen while you're invulnerable; it darkens a few moves before the invulnerability wears off.  (Same with other power-ups too)  It's subtle and easy to miss, but really important in a battle like this.

One other little detail is I'm picking up more on advanced gameplay. When I was playing on Light Travel, I had an Invulnerability, Homing Phase Device, and the staircase all scattered throughout the level. Now, obviously I wouldn't be willing to give up one of my precious slots just for an easier next floor, but I realized the power of the U key and setup myself nicely:

Yup, adapting new strategies on the fly is my favourite part of this game.  :)

I'm now currently at 26/20/16/3/1/0 for badges, and still slowly picking away at the rest of the silver badges. :P I'll get them done soon.

*Gasp!*  You've caught up with my Bronze count!  :D  Might I suggest that you put your medal counts in your sig?  It's a nice thing to show off.  :)

I'm also seriously thinking of doing another Ao666 on Ultra-Violence for 100% kills to work on getting my ranking maxed out and to collect more specials and uniques. I had a lot of fun, and think that having more of a challenge next time would make it even funner! I'm wondering how well a Vampyre build would work?

Vampyre builds always work.  :)  The real question is do you have the patience to do 600+ levels of red screen?  :)

Well you've surpassed my bronze count...

Now I'm really curious about which Bronze you're missing.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on September 17, 2017, 20:28
[JK]I'm starting to wonder if you people have no lives at this point. Or you have WAY too much free time. Looking at you Icy.[/JK]

But seriously, I applaud your DETERMINATION (Caps mandatory, you've earned it) and saintly patience for even thinking about doing this. Good job.

EDIT: And what does Sereg'd mean?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 17, 2017, 20:41
Now I'm really curious about which Bronze you're missing.

Eagerness. I suspect my only AoI wins have been Sereg'd.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 18, 2017, 00:28
[JK]I'm starting to wonder if you people have no lives at this point. Or you have WAY too much free time. Looking at you Icy.[/JK]

Funny you should say that; I quit my job recently, so I actually do have extra free time lately.  :)

EDIT: And what does Sereg'd mean?

Sereg has become known for his habit of using the Dual-Angel ability to combine difficult challenges with Angel of Overconfidence to get a shortened game.  "Sereging" has become a term for getting extra badges for those challenges by winning that shortened game.

EDIT:  That was supposed to say "quit," not "quite," damn typos!  :P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 18, 2017, 05:59
 And no,  my ego isn't big enough that I invented the term,  but after coming back from a leave of absence to find it in use, I found it appropriate and adopted it as well... god knows it's a common enough occurrence in my mortem write-ups.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: thelaptop on September 18, 2017, 07:44
And no,  my ego isn't big enough that I invented the term,  but after coming back from a leave of absence to find it in use, I found it appropriate and adopted it as well... god knows it's a common enough occurrence in my mortem write-ups.
I take full responsibility for that (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6725.msg59248.html#msg59248).  =D

Edit: Wow, a 4-year-and-a-day term!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 18, 2017, 13:12
I take full responsibility for that (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6725.msg59248.html#msg59248).  =D

Edit: Wow, a 4-year-and-a-day term!

The origin of a legend.  :D  The term's been in use so long, I'd completely forgotten who it came from.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on September 18, 2017, 13:52
I'll never forget, at least. Smug bastard even corrected me when I used it wrong - by his standards. Pah.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 18, 2017, 15:12
Thanks for the tip on power-ups, Tormuse, I didn't know that! Very good information to have; I'll have to test it out sometime and get a feel for how much time I have remaining during the colour changes.

Day 11:

So I tried out my Vampyre idea for Ao666 and perhaps expectedly, it didn't pan out well. I also tried a little bit with my usual Shottyhead setup, but didn't get anywhere worth mentioning. After that, I instead turned my attention to collecting some of the more annoying medals and badges.

To start, I got both Malicious Knives Cross and Strongman Silver Badge. Nothing too interesting really; I went with a Vampyre build with a Marine and killed everything with a Combat Knife (B), lol. :P It helped that I could earn both on I'm Too Young To Die, so it wasn't too challenging, but here's the mortem anyway:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next was Brick Silver Badge. Now, I realized the trick to this was obviously Phase Devices, but I had a different strategy in mind:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...unfortunately, it didn't work. :P

So I buckled down and decided to get it done the old-fashioned way. However, in my run, I didn't find any Phase Devices, but was lucky enough to get a Sniper Pack from Hell's Armory to make a Plasmatic Shrapnel. Unfortunately, I had used up my Power Pack earlier on an armor. Then the game decided to just give me the run anyway, despite my embarrassing mistake. On Deimos 2, I found a Shockwave Pack, and then on Deimos 3, I found another one!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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It was just enough to pierce open the wall, and even provided me with a spot to cornershoot from! It took some time to get all the kills, but I played it safely and eventually got the Backpack and badge!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also completed my collection of 3 of every special on a run shortly after by getting a third Tristar Blaster:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next, I set my sights on the Gambler's Shield medal. I figured I would need to rely on generated level luck, getting Phobos Lab, Deimos Lab, etc. I also used Hell's Arena, but left before getting the last kill to get some early experience, and to still get three levers in Chained Court. After some runs not being enough, I decided that I should rely on Limbo as well. I should mention that I had never even completed Limbo before, though I have beaten the Mortuary several times and have used a Homing Phase Device in Limbo to escape a couple times too.

So, I went with Max Carnage + Light Travel dual-angel for maximum offensive power, though still continuing to play safe and slow. I did my usual setup of Gatling Gun + Tactical Shotgun and everything was going swimmingly. No Phobos Lab (I never had this even once on my badge attempts), but I got Deimos Lab, a couple of multi-hit levers with summoning, and healing, and I even got City of Skulls for an extra one. On floor 12, I also got Enviroboots, which are exceptionally helpful, and in Deimos Lab, I got both a Minigun to replace my Gatling Gun, and a Firestorm Pack! On my run, I had the Cyberdemon spawn just a few spaces away from me, but I turned him into swiss cheese!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One mistake I stumbled upon later in the run was when I found an armor healing lever, I had both Enviroboots and Red Armor (O), so I couldn't use it. Good mental note to make for sure.

So I got Limbo and I was behind on the required lever count, and decided I didn't have any choice. Given that I have my dual-angel, my insane Minigun, and Enviroboots, I figured I could make it work. In fact, it went so well, that my very first completion of the level also earned me Angelic Badge! It was totally surreal, but I suppose in hindsight, not that surprisingly really. I destroyed the first couple of Archviles before they could do anything, wiped out the right-side, and took out the left. I also grabbed the Nuclear BFG9000 since I figured it's helpful with Max Carnage.

I was getting near the end of the game now and at 21 levers when I got Mt Erebus! At this point, I had to get into a serious mentality because I realized how awful this medal is to get, while I was guaranteed to get it so long as I played well. I wasn't nervous, but I had to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. It went very well, but I had a rough floor 23 and nearly died! Remember that I only had one Large Med-Pack and this was Max Carnage. Naturally, I would have to take the Spider Mastermind slow, though I did find a replacement Med-Pack before entering.

So I'm at the Spider Mastermind now and hit both levers (took awhile to do safely) when I realized that because I still had my Nuclear BFG and a Lava Element, I could take another shot at JC! I made sure that he clearly saw me this time. :P Once again though, the Minigun (F) with 2 levels of Triggerhappy, the dual-angel I was playing, all with an ammo chain to feed it, I swiss cheesed him too and finally got my JC kill! :P

In hindsight, the Enviroboots and Minigun were the MVPs, but I was so ecstatic to get such an insane run when trying for one of the most annoying medals to get, and finishing my collection of standard medals! I got exactly 26 levers pulled, I gained an extra medal with Angelic Badge that I was not in the slightest expecting to get, and I got to kill JC as a lovely bonus! What a fantastic run!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To put lightly, I got ridiculous luck with getting these medals and badges, and glad to be done with them. Now onto more fun challenges!

I'm now at 22/26 silver badges, missing UAC (lol), Lava, Skull, and Arachno. I'm confident I can easily get them all, but they may take some more luck to achieve. I'll try them out today and see how it goes!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 18, 2017, 22:09
So I tried out my Vampyre idea for Ao666 and perhaps expectedly, it didn't pan out well.

Like many builds, it's tricky to get started, but powerful once it gets going.  For the first bunch of levels, you're probably going to want to rely pretty heavily on your shotgun, (since Vampyre blocks Eagle Eye and SOB, so your Chaingun won't be very effective) and maybe wait until you get a Chainsword before you start to rely on melee.  In any case, good luck if you decide to try again.  :)

Next was Brick Silver Badge. Now, I realized the trick to this was obviously Phase Devices, but I had a different strategy in mind:

...

...unfortunately, it didn't work. :P

Ah yes, it's probably worth mentioning that it doesn't count the level as complete unless you go down the stairs.  :)

So I buckled down and decided to get it done the old-fashioned way. However, in my run, I didn't find any Phase Devices, but was lucky enough to get a Sniper Pack from Hell's Armory to make a Plasmatic Shrapnel. Unfortunately, I had used up my Power Pack earlier on an armor. Then the game decided to just give me the run anyway, despite my embarrassing mistake. On Deimos 2, I found a Shockwave Pack, and then on Deimos 3, I found another one!

Two shockwave packs is an amazingly lucky find!  :o  I suppose it's a bit late to mention it now, but if I'd known that you were trying for this badge, I would've pointed out that in AoB, you get a guaranteed Homing Phase Device at the end of Hell's Arena.  This makes that badge ever so slightly less luck-based.

...and in Deimos Lab, I got both a Minigun to replace my Gatling Gun, and a Firestorm Pack! On my run, I had the Cyberdemon spawn just a few spaces away from me, but I turned him into swiss cheese!...

...Once again though, the Minigun (F) with 2 levels of Triggerhappy, the dual-angel I was playing, all with an ammo chain to feed it, I swiss cheesed him too and finally got my JC kill! :P

Firestormed Minigun in AoMC sounds epically brutal!  :D  (or brutally epic?)  That must've been something to see.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 19, 2017, 14:38
Day 12:

I started by getting UAC Silver Badge out of the way. Hurt Me Plenty was pretty easy overall, though I nearly died on Spider's Lair. I camped the upper-left wall, but got surrounded and had to use a Phase Device. I was sent almost directly to the staircase and considered just escaping, but I managed to regain control and grab the BFG. I generally play Shottyhead builds on runs without restrictions, but the Cyberdemon is a bit of a challenge, so getting the BFG was very important. Once I got far enough into the game and comfortable stair-diving, I quickly finished the game.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My next target was Lava Silver Badge. I went back and forth on playing through a Technician to get Cerberus Boots by the time I would reach Mt Erebus/Lava Pits, or playing out a Scout on Overconfidence and hoping for lucky item drops.

My first good run was with the Technician strat, and I built the boots on floor 7, which is insanely early! Especially considering the 4th pack must be Power, it was very lucky and I was set to go. Unfortunately though, I was fighting against an Elite Shotgun Guy in Military Base and didn't realize that his blasts can destroy the walls and my cover, which lead to me getting killed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Frustrated, I tried a couple runs with the Scout strategy and wasn't having the luck needed. I had one particular run where I was looking set to go, but a Mancubus hit me and I got chained into a series of barrel explosions and died:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

A couple runs later, I wasn't having the luck again, but I happened to stumble upon Grammaton Cleric Beretta, and decided to turn it into a run for killing the Spider Mastermind with it. All was going well, but on floor 7, I got banged up badly with an awkward position in a Cacodemon cave:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Keep in mind that with this being Angel of Impatience, I had no way of healing. So as usual, I took the Spider Mastermind on very slowly:

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The plan was to damage her enough down to "almost dead", and then finish her off with Grammaton Cleric Beretta:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fortunately, it went well and I got a surprise medal instead!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'll probably try some more for that badge and rotate a bit with other goals!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 19, 2017, 15:04
Nice progress.

I thought I saw someone mention this before, but I can't seem to find it now that I went to go quote it, so...

You should consider putting your Badge count in your signature, like Tormuse and I have(and several others on these forums) have them. I realize the way you're playing means you would have to be constantly updating it, but it'd be nice for those of us following your thread here to have a quick way to track your overall progress.

That, and the way you're going, it'll be a status symbol before long ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 20, 2017, 14:45
I definitely will in the future, but like you said, I'd be updating it constantly. Once all the easier badges and medals are all done, I'll start using one.

Day 13:

I decided to put my focus onto getting the Iron Skull medal today and did a little theorycrafting for this, knowing it would be a long grind to get. Given the requirements, I needed both a source of 10000 damage and a source of 10000 healing, and given that I'm restricted to normal games (no Ao100/666), that left Medical Armor and Vampyre for healing. I considered a Medical Armor (N) strategy with jumping in and out of lava/acid, but I wasn't 100% sure if it would like I envisioned it to, and it would also take quite a bit longer, at the trade-off of being significantly easier to execute.

So I went with Vampyre and played around in the City of Skulls. I wasn't too big of a fan of the strategy since I wasn't safe from being swarmed against Lost Souls, and would occasionally need to leave the nearby area to pick off a few at a time to heal back up. On top, the Pain Elemental is always roaming around and attacking. I came up with a better strategy idea and fortunately, I had the perfect setup for it in the same run just a couple floors later.

Essentially, I'd trap a Pain Elemental in a room with a barrel blocking its way, in order to cause it to continually create Lost Souls, without being able to move around, attack, etc, while at the same time, blocking off all walls around me so that only one Lost Soul could hit me if desired.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I would camp in this position and attack to the left until I reached maximum health before decay (150% since I only had one level of Badass). Then I would run out to get hit repeatedly:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Once I dropped to about 50%, I would run back in my hole to regain health. Rinse and repeat. This was much easier to execute, it was safer, and it was much faster too! I peaked around 120 damage a minute when I was clicking my mouse fast, and with some Lost Soul luck of jumping into the hole at a fast rate. After about an hour or so, I met the requirement:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Following that, I went to clear out the rest of the floor with my Super Shotgun and Invulnerability. There was literally a Lost Soul on every tile possible!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After all of that, I went on to finishing the run as well to get an easy Cyberdemon kill, as well as more in general too. Another benefit to this strategy compared to using Medical Amor is I increased my general kill count by well over 10000! I'm now about 900 more to reaching 50000 and maxing that statistic out for the rankings!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Following that, I went back to going for the Lava Silver Badge. I used the Scout strategy some more, had a few decent runs where I had no way across (I even tried rocket jumping :P), but then on one particular run...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The single best item I could hope for! All I had to do was survive this floor and make it into the secret staircase! Unfortunately though, I was getting swarmed and had a lot of trouble with Barons. I almost died in a situation where one could have attacked and luckily didn't, just as I ran to hide behind a wall:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then going into the next floor, I had an Archvile starting with me in a room with no cover, and I just barely killed it!

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And then finally, I was at the staircase down, but with barely any health and the risk of Cacodemons surrounding me upon entry, I went for some healing and ran into an Archvile, who then resurrected a Baron. I ran out of options and...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Definitely my most heartbreaking death. Getting Enviroboots on a run going for this badge is extremely lucky, but it went to waste. One important note with Angel of Impatience is that it's hard to recharge your running tactics when you can't carry health packs, and it's a very key part of using Shotgun builds.

A little later, I had another run where I scooped up Invulnerability just outside the staircase and actually made it across alive on Mt Erebus! I had a good supply of weapons and ammo, but I got blasted off by a Hell Knight and dunked into lava:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So no luck yet. It's been a battle so far trying to get this badge, so it'll be my main focus until I get it now. Hopefully soon!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 21, 2017, 16:03
Day 14:

And so was another day attempting to get the Lava Silver Badge. It's honestly not that hard, but I've had a string of bad luck trying to get it. It's been quite elusive compared to everything else I've gone for so far, which has been annoying, but it's also expected as the easiest achievements are all done now.

I tried some more Scout strategy runs but wasn't getting anywhere, so I decided to buckle down with the Technician strategy again. Like last time, I combined Impatience with Light Travel and focused on building Cerberus Boots. Early on, I was close to finishing the boots, but they were starting to get quite damaged:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I entered Hell's Armory for a bunch more useful mod packs, and potentially some specials and uniques since I decided to go with Scavenger for weapon buffs. Lucky for me, the two in the room were Agility and Power, so I finished and maxed out the boots right away:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After I got the kill on the Shambler, something I hadn't seen before happened! Instead of a special mod pack, I had a Cybernetic Armor waiting for me! I thought it might be because I was using a Technician, but I learned more about how it worked after reading the wiki. I also learned how to get an additional rare mod pack, which is good information for future runs.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I wasn't certain if I should have worn the Cybernetic or used Scavenger, but ultimately I decided to use it with a Power Pack, along with setting myself up really well for finally getting the badge:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As my Cerberus Boots were already partially damaged, I wasn't receiving 100% resistances and cooked myself in the lava. It took me a moment to figure out what happened, and I was super disappointed with my own mistake. At least I learned a little more!

Not wanting to repeat that effort right away, I grinded some more Scout runs. After a number of them, I had one with Invulnerability right outside of Limbo, so I grabbed the Nuclear BFG9000, and then had 2x to stack them for Mt Erebus. After blowing up the level and still having a close battle with the Lava Elemental, I finally killed it on Angel of Impatience and got out of there! One of the cheesiest ways to get it for sure, but I was getting fed up with awful deaths trying to get it otherwise.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The next target was Skull Silver Badge. I went with a Vampyre build and wiped out the Abyssal Plains, but after hunting down a missing Hell Knight, I ended up getting blown up. The next run, I had the same issue with a missing Imp, but decided to leave and unsurprisingly wasn't rewarded the badge. Though on the positive, I happened to kill JC for a second time on that run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With having an issue of monsters escaping, I considered grinding for City of Skulls with the same strategy, but decided it might be best to use a Shotgun build instead. I got City of Skulls anyway and easily cleared out the level:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I should mention that I actually was killed on this run, but I guess with the game being on Red Alert, the bomb killed the Spider Mastermind? It actually crashed the game for me and I was worried I'd have lost my badge, but fortunately that wasn't the case. :) Good programming, Kornel! <3

I actually risked this run earlier by being greedy in the Hell's Armory. I was down to 10 seconds and went for both of the mod packs within reach and escaped by the narrowest margin:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Finally, I decided to go for a faster grind with trying to collect more Azrael's Scythes to hit 3. After a few runs of mostly getting killed immediately, I managed to grab my second one. It was actually an exceptional run too with a Homing Phase Device, and several health packs, which is when I realized, I could go to The Vaults and use the Azrael strategy! So I did that successfully and got a surprise platinum badge I wasn't intentionally going for!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With that, I'm only missing Archno Silver Badge for silvers, and I'd like to get another platinum for Br. General ranking. I think I'm also going to target Apostle Insignia. The plan will be grinding Ao100 on Hey, Not Too Rough and hoping I get both Dragonslayer and Berserker Armor, likely with using a Vampyre build. Perhaps I can grab some more Cyberdemon kills while doing that too.

As for my overall progress so far:

Rankings: 72/100 Cyberdemon kills, 2/50 JC kills, everything else completed.
Medals: 29/43; all standard ones completed.
Items: 65/67 missing Dragonslayer and Subtle Knife, need 3 of both of those, 2 of Shielded Armor, Mjollnir, Trigun, BFG10K, 1 of Berserk Armor, Revenant's Launcher, Lava Armor, Azrael's Scythe, and I have 439/1000 for a badge.
Assemblies: 100% completed.
Bronze Badges: 100% completed.
Silver Badges: 25/26; missing Arachno Silver Badge.
Gold Badges: 16/26.
Platinum Badges: 4/26.
Diamond Badges: 1/26 (Technician Diamond Badge).
Angelic Badges: 0/17.

The more pages I can completely finish, the better! I'm definitely the type of person who absolutely loves getting those little checks on a checklist of things to do, so I want to finish up some more nearly completed pages and focus entirely on the harder stuff. I've made good progress overall in just 2 weeks, but still have a long way to go for 100%!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 21, 2017, 17:31
Nice progress - I think you've now pulled down all the Silver badges I'm missing, which are mostly special levels on challenges that don't play well together.

As far as grinding JC kills, I haven't done it yet because I can't stand the idea of playing that many games at such a low difficulty and losing my feel for UV and N!, but probably the quickest method would just be ITYTD Conqueror runs. You don't have to do all the levels, but you still get the supplies to make it to JC, and everything is super easy.

Ao100 and pray for DS/BA is probably one of the least efficient methods of grinding Apostle Insignia - in fact, I'm not entirely sure that Apostle kills count toward the JC killcount for Apostle rank =P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 22, 2017, 10:49
Day 15:

My first target this time was Arachno Silver Badge to reach 26/26, and went with Darkness+Confidence to start. I had a couple of early runs with rummaging through Deimos Lab for equipment, but kept getting Halls of Carnage:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I eventually got one run with Spider's Lair, but had no Rocket Launcher for destroying corpses and ended up dying. I noticed after a little wiki browsing that regular Arachnotrons have -100% melee resistance, which I didn't know, so I went with a Vampyre build and using Light Travel. I had a long, solid run that was set to go, but again, got Halls of Carnage. Fortunately, my run after was insanely well-prepared and I rolled Spider's Lair:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As you can imagine, I crushed it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another JC kill was nice too! And with that, I've collected all of the silver badges!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next was getting another platinum badge to reach the next ranking. I tried a few others, but ultimately went for Eagerness Platinum Badge using Impatience+Overconfidence and had a huge stroke of good luck with a pair of Invulnerabilities next to each other on floor 3, and then a second pair on floor 4, so I entered the Mortuary with 4x stacked Invulnerability! I grabbed the Nuclear BFG9000 and did some stair-diving until the end. They finally wore out when I was a few steps away to the stairs on floor 7, but the area was clear. Following that, I blew up the Spider Mastermind and reached Br General!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

To fill in a few more easy medals, I went for Sunrise Iron Fist using a Vampyre build on I'm Too Young To Die, and it was total cake:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then finally, I went for Every Soldier's Medal using Humanity+Confidence and played very, very slowly. I found a Missile Launcher and a Trigun in Deimos Lab, so Invulnerability or not, I was set to go. I rolled The Wall, and camped hard until the level was clear. I decided then that I should go for Spider-Killer Cross too if I'm lucky enough to get the level to spawn, and perhaps get Invulnerability just before entering. I actually did find one on floor 5, but it ran out before I could enter Spider's Lair, so I did it slow style with a Tactical Shotgun and careful camping to score the medal! To finish off, I was planning on nuking the Cyberdemon, but I couldn't get the Trigun to work? Was it because my gun was fully loaded? Or is it prevented on Angel of Humanity? Perhaps I just mis-clicked a bunch or something, but I couldn't set it off and died.

So doubling my initial goal, I got both of those Humanity medals, which brought my medal total to 32/43 and thus rewarding me with Heroic Platinum Badge! Very happy with that result!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm not entirely sure what my next goals will be as everything is getting grindier and more challenging, so I'll likely rotate what I go for and see what happens!

Here's my current checklist of what I'm missing to get to 100%:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 23, 2017, 15:21
Day 16:

I was very successful and lucky in my play after rotating around and trying for a bunch of different medals and badges!

My first target was Longinus Platinum Badge, which while difficult is pretty reasonable with Berserk+Overconfidence. After many attempts, I rolled an insane floor 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And by a stroke of luck, I was warped just outside the Angel of Death's room with the Phase Device:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With Brute, Invulnerability, and a Chainsaw (T), I was barely able to kill the Angel of Death after countless attacks, and followed that up with clearing the rest of the level!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With that, I was one diamond badge away from another rank increase, so I tried a few and unsurprisingly struggled a lot. I'm not quite at the skill level required for these yet and went with strategy and luck grinding instead. I opted for Marksman Diamond Badge as I could play for getting a nuke on Spider Mastermind, and with some Invulnerability luck, I did just that! It was nice I also received Marksman Gold Badge too, which I was also missing!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm definitely running out on easy stuff now as I've kept saying, but moreso after every badge and medal! I went for Max Carnage+Overconfidence next and tried to avoid as much damage as possible to get the badge, though realized that this wouldn't work since Untouchable is incompatible with Overconfidence. I decided to play out the run anyway and hey, it turns out it does work! My guess is the Destroyer Badges check for damage itself rather than the medal.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Naturally, I went for Platinum next:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very cool to get it the very next run! And of course, that left the Destroyer Diamond Badge on Nightmare! This one took some effort to get, and I had a few extremely trollish runs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

But with enough attempts, I got it! I lucked out on a string of Invulnerabilities and not only did I take less than 50, but I actually didn't take a single point of damage!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With having earned a surprise diamond badge I wasn't anticipating, I just needed another platinum badge to reach yet another rank increase! I went for Shottyman Platinum Badge with the intention of nuking the Spider Mastermind like usual, but instead, I had 2x stacked Invulnerability and just fired point blank until she died:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I'm now at Lt. General with my badge count being 26/26/18/9/3/0! With my current struggles for more difficult badges, I'm going to put my focus into reaching Apostle ranking for the next while until it's done. I currently need 22 more Cyberdemon kills to reach Cyberdemon, and then 47 more JC kills to be 100% completed with that section. I've messed with a few strategies, including trying to get another Ao666 going, but I think the most efficient way so far for Cyberdemon killing is Angel of Pacifism and using the nuke on him. I've also messed with mixing it with Masochism for a consistent health boost every few floors, but am undecided which is easiest. I'm also not certain whether Scout or Marine is best for this grind, so I change up how I play frequently. 22 more is peanuts though and I wouldn't mind some more relaxed gameplay for awhile.

After that, I believe the most efficient way of getting JC kills is Berserk+Overconfidence Marine runs. Vampyre is excellent, and getting the Longinus Spear is very consistent and effective. I think fresh runs from the beginning aren't worth the time investment and getting a nuke+Invulnerability can be tricky. Perhaps there's a better method of grinding for JC kills, so I'll experiment a bit more, but these will be my goals for now!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 23, 2017, 16:11
Nice progress... and congratulations on the damageless N! win. Sure it was on AoOC, so no Angelic Badge, but even I haven't managed that.  You are correct about Destroyer checking damage not the Medal - I also got my badge with OC, which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one.

Keep up the good work... even if you feel like you're hitting a wall,  keep at it. There's always something else within reach,  and the more you push yourself,  the better you'll get under the conditions for the harder badges.

As far as that goes,  thanks again for starting this thread and motivating me to keep pushing myself, too. I've gone a bit quiet lately but I'm in the middle of a project which will take my profile to new heights,  and it's thanks to you that I'm doing so.

Edit: interesting thought on the JC farming with Berserk plus Overconfidence... that is probably faster then my ITYTD method, and I'm surprised and a bit disappointed that I didn't come up with it myself. Maybe we'll need to re-christen AoOC abuse as Icy-ing ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 24, 2017, 08:59
Thanks! Looking forward to seeing what you're trying to complete yourself!

Day 17:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After some experimentation and research, I'm quite confident I've discovered the absolute best way to farm Cyberdemon kills. It honestly could be faster to use this method from 0 to 100 than even an Ao666 run on Ultra-Violence!

Start with choosing Angel of Pacifism, Hey, Not Too Rough, and Marine. Build your character with Hellrunner->Hellrunner->Tough as Nails->Tough as Nails->Dodgemaster, and then your pick between Badass and Ironman. I think Badass is the better pick, but there's an argument for both, and by the time you're far enough to choose between them, it's pretty negligible overall.

I tried using the Scout with his superior speed and early Intuition to search for Computer/Tracking Maps and Invulnerability, but the Marine's extra beefiness and in particular, extra power-up duration makes him by far the best choice. I was getting a Cyberdemon kill once about every 7-8 minutes, and with close to 95% run completion consistency! The first 4 floors can be a bit tricky to survive since you're quite weak, but on floor 5, you have access to Chained Court. It's definitely worth it to seek out the bonus level, even if the regular staircase starts in plain sight because 5x stacked Berserk Packs with their extra movement speed and resistances is extremely good! So long as you can find the staircases reasonably fast on floors 6 and 7, you'll be well into Deimos before they wear off!

Once you're in Deimos, you have a pile of Large Med-Packs from Phobos Anomaly and hopefully previous floors, nearly full health, and a fresh Red Armor. Most of the levels in this episode also have two sets of staircases, which significantly increases the speed of finishing each floor, and once you have Tough as Nails (received as soon as you finish Phobos), you're significantly sturdier when you're getting pelted by everything, in particular, melee attacks. The only bonus levels in Deimos I would skip are Abyssal Plains (though I did beat it once) and Halls of Carnage.

There's also a very cool trick for Angel of Pacifism. It's not correct to say that you get a level-up every third floor, rather, you get one on floors, 3, 6, 9, 12, etc, even if you enter bonus levels in between. However, if you enter a bonus level on any of these floors, you get an additional level-up as the game still treats you on that number! So for example on floor 9 when you receive a level-up, you can then enter Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, still be treated as if you were on floor 9, and get an immediate level-up again! This helps a lot with building up your character, and while it's not necessary to go out of your way to find the bonus levels, they only make the run easier for when you do!

I completed nearly every attempt I did with this strategy, only dying to the early floors a few times, and zero deaths after Chained Court! My longest run was also just over 11 minutes, with my fastest being close to under 5 minutes! The speed, the consistency, the ease of execution all make this strategy phenomenal, and when you actually don't get a run, it's often due to a death at the beginning, so no real progress lost!

So with all that, I quickly finished off all the Cyberdemons I needed to get to the next ranking! All that remains now is 47x JC kills. I'll be doing some more research into figuring out the optimal way to grind for these and hopefully get Apostle ranking in a reasonable amount of time. I think Berserk+Overconfidence is the way to go, but perhaps a double nuke strat with Pacifism could be better? I'll have to see.

Here's the post-mortem of my fastest run. I'm very confident much faster can be completed too with good luck and intent to specifically finish as fast as possible:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 24, 2017, 22:49
To finish off, I was planning on nuking the Cyberdemon, but I couldn't get the Trigun to work? Was it because my gun was fully loaded? Or is it prevented on Angel of Humanity? Perhaps I just mis-clicked a bunch or something, but I couldn't set it off and died.

None of those things should prevent it from working; shift-R should do the alternate reload which will give you a prompt that says something like "Activate the dangerous Angel Arm? [Y/n]" and then pushing shift-Y will immediately nuke the level.  I've never had any problems with it, so I'm not sure what happened in your game.

My first target was Longinus Platinum Badge, which while difficult is pretty reasonable with Berserk+Overconfidence.

Just out of curiosity, did you take advantage of the free berserk power-up you get from dropping and picking up the chainsaw?  (I love doing that)  :)

...
  On level 2 he finally killed by a arachnotron.
...

I was momentarily confused by the weird grammar of the message, but then I realized that the Arachnotron killed you with its wimpy melee attack!  That's gotta be a rare event!  :D

There's also a very cool trick for Angel of Pacifism. It's not correct to say that you get a level-up every third floor, rather, you get one on floors, 3, 6, 9, 12, etc, even if you enter bonus levels in between. However, if you enter a bonus level on any of these floors, you get an additional level-up as the game still treats you on that number! So for example on floor 9 when you receive a level-up, you can then enter Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab, still be treated as if you were on floor 9, and get an immediate level-up again! This helps a lot with building up your character, and while it's not necessary to go out of your way to find the bonus levels, they only make the run easier for when you do!

Ah, thanks for this!  I noticed long ago that the AoPc level-ups don't happen as the game describes and that I sometimes get extra level-ups by entering special levels, but I never actually investigated it to figure out the pattern.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 25, 2017, 13:50
My guess is the Trigun doesn't work on Angel of Pacifism? Maybe there's a limit to how low your HP can go. I actually was wondering that if you had 12 max HP (Pacifism+Ironman) and used it 3 times, would your maximum HP be set to 0, or is there potential for a glitch due to an oversight and going into the negatives? Kind of wish I had tested it in hindsight.

I actually didn't know about the Chainsaw Berserk trick! That makes a huge difference!

Day 18:

I didn't progress too much as my focus was on theorycrafting an efficient strategy for JC, and I've narrowed it down to 4 different kinds. I still killed JC 5 times though and now at 8 kills, but still a long way to go before hitting 50.

Strat #1: Angel of Berserk + Overconfidence

With massive melee power with semi-permanent Berserk and Longinus Spear, the Mortuary/Limbo are quite easy, though Mt Erebus/Lava Pits can be an issue if you have to wade through lava. The resistances help though. This strategy gives the easiest time fighting JC, but getting started is hard given that you need to wipe out most of floor 1, followed by all of Unholy Cathedral. Not having known the Berserk trick with the Chainsaw though, that changes a lot and perhaps using this strategy will be much better. Before entering Unholy Cathedral, I like to be at level 2 + 44% so that I unlock Berserker just as I reach the Demons. They can be lured out into the lava, but not all of them will chase you into there.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Strat #2: Angel of Max Carnage + Red Alert

Instead of relying on finding nukes and going through Mortuary/Limbo, Red Alert provides that for you, so all you need is the Lava Element. Even stacked Invulnerability won't last enough and you can't set a fresh nuke when one is already counting down. Max Carnage is to help speed up the kills so you don't run out of time in each level, as well as making Mt Erebus/Limbo go faster. It's nice that you can skip all the bonus levels and can just play normal floors. For the Cyberdemon, I pick up Dodgemaster early and play it safe, then it's easy.

The downside to this strategy is you have to play through the entire game for each JC kill, so while it's reliable and pretty consistent as long as you don't make any mistakes, it takes awhile for each kill.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Strat #3: Angel of Max Carnage + Overconfidence

Being given an Assault Shotgun and Minigun while paired with Max Carnage makes getting kills easy. I get Intuition right away and take my time with each kill. Mortuary/Limbo isn't too bad with Plasma Rifle and Minigun against the Archviles, but if the run ever gets out of hand, it's nearly impossible to get back on track. The other nice thing is with no time limit like with Red Alert, I can camp with Nuclear BFG and kill everything slowly; particularly helpful in Lava Pits/Mt Erebus since Radiation Suits can be hard to find in time.

This is the main strategy I've been using as it's a very good balance of consistency and efficiency. It's also not too uncommon to find an additional nuke for JC, but if I have to fight him, Plasma Rifle and Minigun helps a lot. Fortunately in all of my runs with this strat, I've been able to blow him up right away, but JC is certainly the most dangerous to fight without a nuke when using this strategy, which is the main disadvantage.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Note that in the above run, it took much longer than necessary as I was firing my Nuclear BFG in the Lava Pits forever, not realizing there's a maximum projectile distance and that I wasn't killing all the Hell Knights. :P

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Strat #4: Angel of Pacifism

By grabbing an additional nuke (Nuclear BFG or Thermie) along with Invulnerability before Spider Mastermind, you can double nuke the ending to kill JC. The Marine with this strat is very sturdy because of all the fast level-ups, as well as having a pretty easy start, but the obvious disadvantage is low consistency with relying on good luck towards the end. I tried it a bunch but actually haven't completed a run with this strategy. I definitely don't think it's worth using.

---

I'm leaning on using Max Carnage + Overconfidence as the best strat for efficient JC kills, but I'm going to revisit the Berserk strategy now that I know the Chainsaw trick to fix one of the hardest parts of those runs. The big plus is that if I ever am playing poorly or on a bad streak with a strategy I can rotate and use a different one. I'm not sure what strategy my kills will mainly be composed of, but regardless of how I play, I'm keeping my focus on getting those JC kills.

I might not get too many more kills right away as I do more research and testing, and this will all take awhile in any case, but I want to reach Apostle ranking!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on September 25, 2017, 17:21
That run was long over, but I still need to mention something regarding cybernano armor and the Dragonslayer: You can't take off cybernano armor once you wear it.  I mean it's a moot point now since you didn't find the Dragonslayer, but it's something to keep in mind for next time.

you can't set a fresh nuke when one is already counting down

I found this out during one of my Ao666 runs, I tried to use a nuke when the dlevel already started with one and the game just yelled at me if I was crazy and prevented my nuke from being used.  I wonder if an active nuke would also prevent the Trigun's nuclear option from being used.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on September 25, 2017, 23:27
My guess is the Trigun doesn't work on Angel of Pacifism?

AoPc only blocks firing of weapons, not reloading.  You can still use the Angel Arm in AoPc because it's an alt-reload action.

Maybe there's a limit to how low your HP can go. I actually was wondering that if you had 12 max HP (Pacifism+Ironman) and used it 3 times, would your maximum HP be set to 0, or is there potential for a glitch due to an oversight and going into the negatives? Kind of wish I had tested it in hindsight.

This is possible; I don't actually know.  The Trigun is such a rare find that I've never really tested it because I'm afraid of making my max hitpoints go too low.

As for all your theorycrafting for getting JC kills, you made me curious about what I did, so I dug through my old mortems...  It seems that back in version 0.9.9.4, I just did a bunch of Scout Blademaster speedruns at HNTR.  (I use the word "speedrun" loosely; they weren't really that fast, because I had to secure the Nuclear BFG and Lava Element; 30-40 minutes each)  More recently, in 0.9.9.7, I padded my JC kills by playing AoB+AoOC and that went a lot faster.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: MaiZure on September 26, 2017, 05:27
This is possible; I don't actually know.  The Trigun is such a rare find that I've never really tested it because I'm afraid of making my max hitpoints go too low.

Alt-reload behavior on Tri-Gun:
being.hpmax = math.max( being.hpmax - 5, 10 )

Looks like it won't go below 10. Since that's the starting health on Angel of Humanity...feel free to nuke 'em till they glow :P

EDIT: Scratch that - you MUST have more than 10 hps to activate angel arm. Boo!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 26, 2017, 05:53
Open source to the rescue again. Thanks for having a look at that, Maizure.

I suppose now that I'm trying to take up coding, I ought to get a copy of the source and see what I can learn from it...
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on September 26, 2017, 06:21
I suppose now that I'm trying to take up coding, I ought to get a copy of the source and see what I can learn from it...

Go for it - the source can provide you with a good number of code-reading exercises.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: MaiZure on September 26, 2017, 07:30
I suppose now that I'm trying to take up coding, I ought to get a copy of the source and see what I can learn from it...

Or porting it to something nicer than Pascal ;)

Actually, I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet...or maybe it has and I'm just behind the times
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 26, 2017, 14:59
Yes, I typo'd and meant Angel of Humanity, not Pacifism, but seems you guys figured that out. Interesting detail on how it works with the Trigun! That would explain why I couldn't get to work. Good to know!

Day 19:

I learned the Chainsaw trick on Angel of Berserk+Overconfidence and tested it a little. I actually forgot that you also get the health boost to 100%, so it's even better than I initially imagined!

I also made the important discovery that it actually adds to your special/unique counter too! In fact, on Angel of Overconfidence when you start with the Combat Pistol, Assault Shotgun, and Minigun, you can add 3 each time by dropping them and picking them back up! So being distracted by that instead of grinding JC kills, I reached 1000!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's a big scratch on another page, another platinum badge collected, and this helps significantly in regular games by having less distractions (collecting specials/uniques purely for increasing the counter)! I played on Max Carnage for runs where a unique spawned on floor 1, and I actually grabbed a few additional ones I needed towards getting 3 of each! All that remains now is Subtle Knife x3, Dragonslayer x3, BFG10K x2, Trigun x1, and Revenant's Launcher x1!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So with grinding that, I didn't play out as many JC runs as I was planning to, but still got a couple in and thoroughly tested Angel of Berserk+Overconfidence with my new knowledge. With essentially carrying around a Berserk Pack at the start, killing the Angel of Death to get going is now very common, rather than a grind to get a run! With Berserk's effects, ridiculous killing power, self-healing with Vampyre, and a trivial fight against JC himself, I'm very confident this is the #1 strategy for efficient JC kills! Max Carnage+Overconfidence is a bit too risky, especially when fighting JC, and Max Carnage+Red Alert, while certainly the easiest to play and extremely consistent, is quite a bit slower.

I got 2 more kills and now at 10/50, so still quite a few to go. Now that the research phase is complete though, I'll just be grinding runs and hopefully get my total increasing at a better rate.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Mt Erebus was interesting:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Good thing I had a Homing Phase Device! I also got a rather interesting colour aesthetic with the generated items:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

If you are personally interested in hitting 1000 specials/uniques, definitely use the Overconfidence trick, and if you're interested in JC kills, I highly recommend going with Berserk+Overconfidence! I'll be continuing JC runs and perhaps hit 50 within a week to reach Apostle!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on September 26, 2017, 21:19
Nicely done. I've completed my current mission, but despite it being a full 666 completion, and me stopping to collect every damn special item I could see, I'm still only at 517 or so. Although I suppose I don't really need the platinum badges anymore, I may decide to use your method(dude, you're really taking over the Sereging from me, here =P) in the interest of completion.

It also looks like you'll soon pass me in Experience Rank, and once you're done with your current grind, I have no doubt you'll catch my Skill Rank quickly.

Good luck, and keep it rolling.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 27, 2017, 14:52
I saw your Ao666 completion, very nice! Yeah, I didn't get anywhere close to 1000 after my own Ao666.

I've always been a defensive, low-risk, strategic player, and I always specialize on figuring out every detail about games I play, what I can abuse, and all of what's possible. I have zero problems with cheesing for medals. Some people who have a similar playstyle tend to replace that with actual skill, but I'm very keen on developing that too. To be the best at anything and to reach difficult goals, you must be all encompassing and not restrain yourself over imaginary honor or swag. Optimization is the funnest aspect of gaming to me. <3

Day 20:

Nothing too exciting, just some more JC kills. After spending some more time using the Berserk+Overconfidence strat, it is without a doubt the #1 efficient way to farm runs! I got 6 more kills, bringing my total to 16/50. Still quite a bit to go!

Here's a post-mortem of another very fast run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This run was also neat in that I got an early nuke and skipped Mortuary. With that, I was able to get 100% kills:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

More to come!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 28, 2017, 13:46
Day 21:

Still continuing JC kills, now at 20/50! I had a bad streak of games due to poor decision making, terrible luck, and sometimes combinations of both, so I played out some Max Carnage+Overconfidence for a change of pace, and here's how that went:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yeah...

This was my first run without having a double nuke and having to fight JC the old fashioned way. Unfortunately contrary to what I thought, the Minigun doesn't immediately tear him apart because of constant spawns getting in the way, him phasing into the dark, needing to heal frequently, and so forth. I eventually tried phasing away myself to regain control, but it turns out he'll endlessly fire rockets and spawn enemies, even from the opposite side of the level. Eventually, I got completely flooded over and started running out of ammo. This strat doesn't work nearly as well as I thought it did.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

This run was pretty standard with the Berserk+Overconfidence strat, but I lucked out with stacked Invulnerability and a Homing Phase Device on floor 6, so I was able to skip the Lava Pits!

One of the big factors with Berserk being so good against JC is how powerful it is without need of Max Carnage, having constant healing through Vampyre, double damage with Berserk, and at least 60% melee resistance, but also frequently 85% fire resistance through stacking any leftover Envirosuits.

I'll need to buckle down and stick with Berserk strat and perhaps use Red Alert instead if I'm not playing particularly well.

That's all for now!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 29, 2017, 14:01
Day 22:

25/50; halfway there! I had a hot streak early on and was hoping for more runs, but things went sour shortly after.

On one run, I had stacked Invulnerability and a Homing Phase Device again to skip Mt Erebus and finished with my fastest run yet for the sub 15!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And just two runs after that, I smashed it!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Following these runs was a bad streak of gameplay and luck, and sitting at 24/50, I really wanted to reach the half-way milestone, so I went with the true backup strat that actually works with Max Carnage+Red Alert, but as you can see by the completion time, it's strictly a backup strat:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also had a funny run where I had collected 7 Phase Devices, none of which were Homing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

One detail I forgot to mention for the last few days is the usefulness of Combat Knives. I frequently carry at least one for destroying barrels, mainly for creating a more direct path from Invulnerability to the stairs, but occasionally for attacking monsters too.

I'm going to go beast mode this weekend and hopefully hit 50!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on September 30, 2017, 09:14
Day 23:

32/50 now! Lots of solid runs and not too much difficulty in getting kills this time. I had one run to Lava Pits where I ran out of health and had to bail in hopes of finding a replacement Invulnerability on floor 7, but it didn't pan out. On a different run, I had Mt Erebus with no Envirosuits and played roulette with a Phase Device and happened to get one of the best possible locations:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here's some post-mortems for your reading pleasure:

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)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then on floor 1 of a run, I found a Trigun!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Since it was an early start, I opted to go for Fallout Platinum Cross, I just needed to rely on luck with Invulnerability since there are so few floors on Angel of Overconfidence. Well, with some super appreciated luck, I got one on floor 2, with stairs nearby, and started to nuke everything!

On floor 5 it finally ran out and I started to get a little worried about completing. I was also worried about dying since I wasn't using my standard trait setup, on top of low inventory and low health. I clicked a Computer Map on floor 6 and this was revealed to me:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I carefully went straight for the Invulnerability and nuked some more floors. I was tempted to grab the Lava Element, but I didn't want to ruin such a rare run. In hindsight, there wasn't any risk, but I figured that I can always get another JC kill and not really another Trigun run. I made it to Dis just as Invulnerability ran out, so I missed out on killing JC, but that's perfectly fine by me.

One other cool thing that happened is with the heavy usage of Angel Arm, my health actually exceeded 200% for awhile:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I assume this happened since my health was larger than my maximum health and it doesn't scale down. Pretty neat! I used to simplify my thinking in that Badass x2 removes health decay, but since you can go over 200%, that's technically not true!

With that, I scratched another medal, of which is super annoying to get! My original plan was to grind a Scout with Intuition on Angel of Confidence and scouring through Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab until I got a Trigun. I'm very happy I don't have to do that! On top, this was my 3rd Trigun, so now I'm just missing Dragonslayer x3, Subtle Knife x3, and BFG10K x2!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Good progress with an extra surprise!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 01, 2017, 09:32
Day 24:

38/50, getting closer to the end of this! I'm really looking forward to moving onto other goals afterwards.

I had one Max Carnage+Red Alert run that I was playing out trying to get 100% kills for the badge, but on one floor, I took one step around a corner and a Former Commando immediately melted me. Pretty crushed about that one, but at least I've seen the challenge is pretty easy and I look forward to trying it again.

Another little detail I've learned a few days ago is when you gib a Pain Elemental, it doesn't produce Lost Soul spawns on death, which is very handy to know! It helps plan out when I want to go Berserk, because they're quite annoying to deal with, and are one of the main causes of early deaths in my runs. I definitely miss having ranged attacks. :P

Also one on of my runs, I got a really cool map unlike one I've ever seen before so far:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Really neat how tiny the level was!

All that said, nothing too exciting again. I'm learning a lot of minor details in my play and getting better at my reasoning with the game, so I'm really keen on playing for badges and medals again!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 01, 2017, 20:12
Interesting level - not sure I've seen that before.

Keep up the good work - not alot to say right now during your JC grind, but I'm still following your progress.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 02, 2017, 14:04
Yeah, not too fascinating with grinding the same thing repeatedly, but progress will be more interesting soon!

Day 25:

45/50 JC kills now and at the home stretch! If my luck pans out well, I'll get this done tonight!

I went for another attempt at Max Carnage+Red Alert for the Quartermaster Gold Badge while getting a JC kill and pulled it off this time:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also had another neat level on one of my runs with an island completely detached from any bridges and walkways:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That's pretty much it for today! Apostle soon!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 03, 2017, 15:01
Day 26:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After about a week of grinding for JC kills, I've finally reached 50 and achieved Apostle ranking! :D 100% completion of the ranking, all done forever!

I had a bit of a struggle getting the last 5 runs, but I was very motivated to get it done. After getting a bit annoyed again with Berserk+Overconfidence, I tried some more Max Carnage+Overconfidence and lucked out one run with a second nuke. Another run with it, I had the Jackhammer and yet I was still killed by JC. Once again, this strategy is very inconsistent and very difficult to complete without another nuke. With an extra however, it's very fast and easy.

Another run died to this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Funny that it came up after the topic of rare maps.

I also am continuing to develop my gameplay skills and created a nice setup to deal with Cacodemons without putting myself in danger. I thought it was a bit clever. :)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

When I got to 49/50, I had some more unlucky deaths and eventually got another run going where I started off with a nuke on floor 1, allowing me to skip Mortuary/Limbo. However, I repeatedly got into bad situations, had very low gear all throughout, and had to start stair-diving. I got to just outside the Lava Pits, but had no Platsteels, no Phase Devices, no Envirosuits (one on the next floor though :P), nothing, so the only hope left was finding Invulnerability on floor 7.

I step down and see this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And with that, I was set to fight JC with by far the worst setup I've had compared to all of my 49 kills, making for a very climactic finish. I barely scrapped by with enough health and almost died a couple times, but did indeed secure the win:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So with that, no more JC runs! I'll probably be rotating around again on what to do next with all the badges and medals left! I could continue collecting the rest of the gold badges, or finishing more of the easy medals, or seeking out Dragonslayer, Subtle Knife, and BFG10K, or perhaps earn my first angelic badge! In any case, it'll be far more exciting and fun than what I've been up that last while here!

Very happy with this achievement!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: scotherns on October 04, 2017, 01:10
Congratulations!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 04, 2017, 14:42
Thanks!

Day 27:

With Apostle now done, I tried out a few challenges and rotated around. I had a few decent runs at some of them, but died repeatedly. Eventually, I decided to try for Masochist Gold Badge, and tried to combine Masochism+Pacifism, given that I'd get a guaranteed health boost every 3 levels. I think it's a decent strategy, but it wasn't working out for me. Instead, I opted for Max Carnage instead and that worked out much better. Since I'm a fairly careful and defensive player, the lack of health wasn't too big of a deal.

I focused a lot on killing everything since I wanted to keep up a flow of healing, and ended up getting 100% kills! I was at the Spider Mastermind and decided to nuke her for fun and continue the run with JC. Until now, I never got a kill on him with Max Carnage, but with more levels, Dodgemaster, and a BFG, it went much better! 51/50! :P

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Dodgemaster is slowly becoming one of my new favorite traits! Fighting the Cyberdemon with it is a total joke.

After that, I went for Hunter Platinum Badge with Darkness+Overconfidence. Despite it being Nightmare, I figured I could luck out with Homing Phase Devices, Invulnerability, and nearby staircases. I had quite a few games where I got essentially insta-killed, and lots of troll runs too:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Guess I didn't have a choice with the game taunting me. :P

Eventually though, I managed to get a completed run. With Intuition, the Spider Mastermind fight was easy and I went about my usual corner camping to slowly kill her:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pretty good to get 2 more badges! I can only expect that I'll have days, and eventually even weeks where I won't be earning anything new. It's already getting pretty tough! Hopefully things will keep going well for now!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 05, 2017, 15:46
Day 28:

I went for a variety of badges and medals and actually got quite a few!

To start, my first target was Lightfoot Platinum Badge and figured the easiest way to go for it was Max Carnage+Light Travel. 20000 turns is quite a bit of leeway if you stairdive, and Max Carnage with Shotguns helps cover for a low experience level. It took a couple tries, but easily got it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...or so I thought. I thought that maybe there was some additional restriction? I checked in-game and definitely completed what it says to do, so I checked the wiki, and it says the challenge must be done on Ultra-Violence, which I did not do. :/ A little annoyed by that, though it does make sense given it's a platinum badge. I'll go for it again on the correct difficulty in the future.

Next target was Chessmaster's Token which I got in one try!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Easy stuff with Max Carnage, though I definitely had a little luck on my side as well.

Next were Untouchable Medal and Untouchable Cross. These I was pretty confident I could get without too much trouble since they work well with my playstyle, though I still had to deal with tricky situations. I made a few foolish mistakes in one run, so ended up with just the Untouchable Medal:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Max Carnage+Light Travel is one of absolute favorite ways to play the game however, and since I was fairly close, I gave it some more effort. This time I played far more cautiously than even I would normally do, which was actually a lot of fun! I only got hit by enemies twice, and was forced to cross two acid rivers, but other than that, it was a flawless run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So with that, I got 3 more medals, now totalling 36/43! My next target is another medal: Apostle Insignia! Time to grind for another kind of Apostle. :P

Strategy discussion time!

Going for this will be tricky since I rely on getting both Dragonslayer, Berserker Armor, and also surviving until the end. The obvious way of doing this is Ao100 or Ao666, of which, I'm leaning on 666 since I'll likely need as many floors as possible. Last time I did Ao666, I got every unique except for the Apostle set and Subtle Knife, so I don't want to be spending time on Ao100.

I also need a solid melee build for this, and I'm not a huge fan of Vampyre for long games. Malicious Blades looks cool, but it doesn't work in full with Dragonslayer, so that leaves Blademaster and it seems wicked! Of the traits available, I'll be wanting: Blademaster x1, Brute x5, Berserker x1, Hellrunner x3, Dodgemaster x1, Finesse x3, Intuition x2, Whizkid x2, and Ironman x5. That leaves 2 extra slots. Since it's also easiest to go from Shotgun->Melee, I'm one trait shy of Reloader x2 and Shottyman x1. Eagle Eye is useless, Juggler isn't really necessary, and the rest are blocked. I'll probably opt to skip Shottyman or Ironman, not sure which yet. Shottyman also becomes obsolete when I get Nano Super Shotgun, so it'll probably be skipped, and I'll temporarily gain from Reloader. If I stumble upon a very early Dragonslayer, maybe I'll go for Eagle Eye over Reloader since it's very mildly less useless.

As for armor and boots, perma-Berserk covers a good chunk of resistances with 60% to all, so I'll likely be more focused on movement speed. Phaseshift Armor (AOP) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) give 40% + 60% movement speed with 4 protection, indestructibility, 90% total resistance to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel, and immunity to fluids. Pretty awesome! Inquisitor set is also quite nice with 90% total resistance to the other damage types, with total fire immunity and good movement speed too. I recall acid fluid not being a huge deal late into my Ao666, so I can live without needing that. Early on, I'll likely be rocking Cerberus Boots (A) as usual, or possibly Enviroboots if I find them. It's interesting that Cerberus Boots (A) is -20% movement speed, Enviroboots are -25% and Cerberus Boots are -30%. :P (PPTA+A) is an expensive cost for 5% extra movement speed!

Berserker Armor is pretty cool, but is super slow and protects as much as Phaseshift Armor, though the increase of it is an interesting mechanic. I imagine with my massive resistances already though that I'll be reducing a lot of hits down to 1 anyway and the extra bump to Melee/Bullet/Shrapnel probably isn't worth the slow movement speed and the spawning Nightmare Demons. I'll likely leave it in my inventory until just the very end. When I do wear it, I'll definitely be ditching Inquisitor set for Cerberus Boots (A) and Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A), since the boots when solo are outclassed.

As for weapon before finding Dragonslayer, I'll definitely be using Nano Super Shotgun, or if I can't find one, Nano Shotgun. The other Shotguns are weaker and/or have a worse shotgun blast type, funny enough. Tactical Shotgun (P) is definitely the way to go until finding the needed Nano Pack.

It'll be pretty fun to test out all 3 sets that I haven't used before! I'm definitely going to build around using Shotguns until I find Dragonslayer, but I want to make sure I have Berserker early to help with picking it up. Maybe a spare Rocket Launcher and some Hatred Skulls will come in handy too. Scouts are also great with their extra movement speed and stair sense, along with the speedy Phaseshift set that I'll be able to fly through the floors once my build is complete. I'll need to kill most of everything early on to get that experience, but later will just be trying to get to the end without dying. I imagine the Apostle himself is weak though. This will also be a decent warm-up and learning experience for the eventual Ao666 on Nightmare.

With any luck, I can also find Subtle Knife and BFG10K as well to work on finishing my badges around collecting Uniques. I intend to grind for Apostle Insignia until I get it, but I'm also going to repeat this challenge a couple times until I also get 3x of everything. Shottyhead helped a lot last time, but I think with some caution, I'll be just fine without it.

I'm sure most of this strategizing is known and/or obvious, but it's my favorite part about gaming and I can't help but gush about it! <3 I think this grind will be a blast to do!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 05, 2017, 16:31
While it's true that the Berserker Armor slows you down a lot, you can still get your movement speed down to 0.25 seconds with Hellrunner 3, antigrav phaseshift boots (A), and the permanent berserk effect from the Dragonslayer; and even a little bit faster than that as a scout.

Regardless, good luck with the Apostle.  And remember not to wear any armor you won't be able to remove other than the Berserker Armor.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 05, 2017, 19:48
Congrats on the Apostle rank!  :D

On a different run, I had Mt Erebus with no Envirosuits and played roulette with a Phase Device and happened to get one of the best possible locations:

That definitely was lucky; I once found out the hard way that there's a chance of teleporting inside the structure on that level and being unable to get out.  I avoid using phase devices on Mt. Erebus now.  Lava Pits, on the other hand, are a really good candidate for phase devices because they're pretty much guaranteed to take you closer to the envirosuits which you can use to get back again.

...or so I thought. I thought that maybe there was some additional restriction? I checked in-game and definitely completed what it says to do, so I checked the wiki, and it says the challenge must be done on Ultra-Violence, which I did not do. :/ A little annoyed by that, though it does make sense given it's a platinum badge. I'll go for it again on the correct difficulty in the future.

Yeah, that's an in-game typo.  You're not the only one to find that out the hard way.  :P

Strategy discussion time!...

You've got lots of sound strategy ideas.  I'll toss in my own two cents and say that for a lot of the mid-game of this challenge, it's a toss up whether to wear the Phaseshift set or the Inquisitor set; In my games, I would go back and forth between them, depending on what I was facing.  Once I'd assembled the Phaseshift antigravity boots and got that Onyx mod on the suit, though, the Phaseshift set was the way to go.  There's a lot to be said for being so fast you can get ten moves on your enemies before they can react.  :)

Also, it's worth noting that if you use the Inquisitor set, it's easy to get dependent on that 100% fire protection and forget to be cautious for those occasions when it dips below 50% durability and you lose the fire protection.  I found that out the very, very hard way. (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6504.0.html)  :P  It's still an amazing set, but don't let your guard down.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 06, 2017, 12:33
Thanks, yeah I'm starting to really appreciate extremely high levels of movement speed. It's somewhat like being able to teleport around. I agree that I'll likely be using the Phaseshift set over Inquisitor set since fire immunity isn't that amazing, but I suppose at higher difficulties, taking 1 damage infinite times is far worse than taking 0 damage infinite times. I've also learned to watch the durability when I cooked myself in lava with damaged Cerberus Boots before, but that's nothing like what you did, jeez!

I also imagine Dragonslayer + Phaseshift Armor (AOP) + Antigrav Phaseshift Boots (A) is absurdly powerful with Blademaster since I can quickly move to any spot, obliterate an enemy instantaneously, and carry on at the same speed. Sounds like lots of fun!

Day 29:

I started trying some Ao666 after I studied the blade yesterday and got a decent run going, but unfortunately died due to a dumb mistake. Along the way though, I got a pretty cool cave map:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

So I started a new run and got caught up pretty quickly. On one map, I ended up in a really cool tactical spot that only works because I had Cerberus Boots quite early:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My setup for traits has been Intuition x2, Finesse x2, Whizkid x2, then mixing with Hellrunner, Ironman, Dodgemaster, and Finesse. I'm taking a slight risk by getting Brute, Berserker, and Blademaster later on, but survivability while playing as a temporary Shotgun build is important.

This was my preliminary equipment setup, which is quite cheap to make:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not too long after, I found Phaseshift Boots! Unfortunately, I forgot how the Antigrav assembly goes...

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Whoops. I'll have to find a second pair.

I also got a Nano Pack and Onyx Pack relatively early, the former being very important. I'll be hanging onto it for as long as possible since I need it for Phaseshift Boots, but if ammo gets tight, it'll be used on either a Super Shotgun or a regular Shotgun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I later decided to opt for more mid-game survivability and made a Cerberus Ballistic Vest (O), which has 0 armor, but insane resistances with 50% across with 70% for fire and acid! There's actually not enough space to list all 6 resistances in the upper-right corner, which is funny:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Some more time later, I found Inquisitor Boots and Phaseshift Armor! I've since thrown away the Phaseshift Boots though and used my Onyx Pack, but I can get more so it's not a big deal.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then on the fairly early floor of 49, I got this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very happy to get this so early! As long as I can actually find Dragonslayer now, I should be good to go for killing the Apostle!

So with that, I got to floor 51 and am already quite ahead of pace of where I want to be! The most important item I can find right now is a Super Shotgun to complete my Nano Super Shotgun (P). I'm also on the hunt for Inquisitor Armor, another pair of Phaseshift Boots, Onyx and Nano Packs, and of course, Dragonslayer. Here's my status so far:

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Funny enough, I haven't accomplished anything yet in terms of actual progress towards 100%. The only useful things that can come from this run are finding Dragonslayer, BFG10K, Subtle Knife, and killing the Apostle, all of which of course haven't happened yet. At this rate though, things are looking good! Hopefully I don't die! :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 07, 2017, 09:57
Day 30:

Pictures galore today! I've progressed significantly in my run and am totally ready to be finding Dragonslayer!

Continuing from yesterday, I found an extra Nano Pack, which I can use for a Nano-Shrapnel:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I held onto my Shotgun for awhile if things got tight with ammo and I couldn't find a Super Shotgun. After awhile of close calls and getting annoyed with carrying ammo, I decided to take the plunge and made a Nano Shotgun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My usual progression when I play Shotgun builds is Shotgun->Combat Shotgun->Tactical Shotgun->Nano Shotgun->Nano Super Shotgun. The first two improvements are nice, but not dramatically different, but going to a Nano Shotgun is worlds better! Infinite ammo implies so much more since I no longer need to worry about reloading, picking up items (ammo) on the ground, I have way more inventory space, I don't need to attack in certain ways to conserve ammo, and so much more! I've read around a lot that people believe Ammochain is one of the best master traits, and I'm honestly sure it is, but I just can't stand not having a source of infinite ammo in Ao100/666. I suppose Ammochain's main advantage is not having damage reduction since modding weapons isn't focused on nanomachic/shrapnel, and it's also great for regular games, but it's totally not my style for Ao100/666.

Later on, I got myself into an interesting situation where a Cyberdemon was trying to fire at me, couldn't damage me, but insisted on not moving. Really weird, but also advantageous tactic:

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Further on, I got super lucky and found this, bringing my mission here to 25% completed:

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I'm very happy to have found this! Now whether I get 100% of my goals, or die, at least this run wasn't in vain and I've progressed at least somewhat! Now I only need 1 more BFG10K!

Some more floors later and I found one of my #1 items I was on the hunt for:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It's honestly insane the difference between Nano Shotgun (2nd best of its kind) and Nano Super Shotgun! From damage, to knockback, to double firing, it's yet another big step forward in offence!

I had the Power Packs and used my second Nano Pack right away to max it out:

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You can really see the power difference here:

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Not too much later and I found my third Nano Pack, which is waiting for a fresh pair of Phaseshift Boots:

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Shortly after, I also found a Chainsaw:

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Given that I'm using Blademaster on this run, a Ripper is arguably the next best melee weapon, so I started building towards that. It provides a little bit of practice with the melee style of this character, as well as providing another source of berserk for when I find Dragonslayer.

After several experience levels, I got to this with my traits:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Anything at this point is no longer useful for a Dragonslayer/Blademaster build, so naturally, I started picking things to help for the pre-Dragonslayer part of this run. Juggler is the obvious pick since I'm rocking a Ripper, but I discovered an amazing purpose for Eagle Eye too! Despite having Brute x5, the Ripper's accuracy goes below the maxed out 98% while running, and is actually off by just 2 accuracy values to max out again, which is where Eagle Eye comes in! An extremely negligible detail really, but it gives a purpose to selecting Eagle Eye over Reloader. It's almost a bit mathematically beautiful how it works out so perfectly!

I started to collect Nano Packs since I kept finding them, since it feels so wrong to throw them away:

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Later on, I found my second Onyx Pack to finish my Phaseshift Armor:

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I also got a second Firestorm Pack, waiting for a Nuclear BFG:

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And then I also built possibly my new favorite weapon:

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With this Nanomachic Napalm Launcher, I can do some serious landscaping on each floor! It pairs super well with Cerberus Boots and is yet another handy source of berserk! I usually play with Nano Super Shotgun and Ripper in my direct arsenal, and switch to my launcher if I need it. It helps block off some enemies too when I start to get surrounded, and opens up more direct paths to staircases when there's a nearby Invulnerability. The only disappointing thing was learning it can't be modded with Firestorm, so I went with Power. :P

Later, I also maxed out my experience level:

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This is what my inventory generally looks like right now:

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I found yet another Onyx Pack, but like my Nanos, I started to chuck them. It still feels so wrong, but there's literally no more use for them:

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After some more floors, I decided to start stairdiving and skipping enemies too. This was the first floor I started doing it, whereas I had cleared out every monster beforehand:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As cool as it would be to get 100% kills on Ao666, it's not efficient use of my time, it puts my run at slight risk, and they don't do anything towards my goals. I generally hunt for a Computer/Tracking Map if one is around, or otherwise I'll clear the level before jumping down the stairs. The nice thing is that the only other armor I need is Inquisitor, and since that prompts me at the start of the level, I also don't have to worry about killing every enemy that could pick up an armor. I'm thinking I could start using it too:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

(Not really, I would rather have Phaseshift Boots)

So that's everything for today! I'm about as prepared as possible now, and I've at least progressed a little with my BFG10K pickup, so here's hoping it continues well and I can get myself the Dragonslayer!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 08, 2017, 10:05
Day 31:

The adventure continues!

Shortly after starting, I came across Inquisitor Armor, giving me the complete set for the first time:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

That 100% fire resistance is pretty awesome, but I was also really happy to see a very high movement speed with the set:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I tried it out a lot and I can definitely appreciate fire immunity, but it's not a total cakewalk. While Archviles aren't a threat, they still need to be killed while reviving everything, and Mancubi and Revenants end up destroying every wall and item. I mostly took the set as insurance for mistakes. I also miss having acid fluid immunity, but I suppose the set would be too broken if it had that too. I noticed that the armor is indestructible, but while the boots have self-repair, they don't specifically say they're also indestructible. Could I potentially destroy the boots if I stand in acid for too long?

All that said though, I discovered a really cool trick that significantly improves use of the Inquisitor set for this type of run. Despite taking no damage from explosions, they can still trigger Berserker trait and with my Nanomachic Napalm Launcher...

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

...I can essentially give myself permanent berserk! After every few floors, I'd blow myself up repeatedly to provide myself a ton of berserk for a speed and resistance boost! I imagine there's some sort of hard cap with how much berserk I can stack, so it's not true permanent berserk, but it's pretty dang close!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Throughout the floors, I found some more interesting layouts and happenings. This island stuck out in particular to me:

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I also learned on a floor with a flood of acid/lava that also has a flooding lever, you can cut off the area where the incoming flood takes up:

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Pretty cool niche mechanic!

Some more floors later, I hit 50%:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I finally got my first Subtle Knife, leaving just the legendary Dragonslayer to complete my collection of specials and uniques! For fun, I also pulled a summoning lever, and they get pretty insane on deeper floors:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

At this point, I've collected everything I wanted outside of a pair of Phaseshift Boots, Nuclear BFG, and Dragonslayer of course. Given that I had no problem killing everything, surviving, and I was fast enough with the Inquisitor set, I decided to purely stairdive until I'd get floors that prompt me there's a unique. With my berserk spam trick, tons of health, speed, etc, I was flying through the game. Eventually, near the exit of one of the floors, I found one of the items I was looking for:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

With the Firestorm Packs I collected, I built my first Biggest Fucking Nuclear Gun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have to say it was pretty underwhelming based on what I've read about it. It's pretty awesome it completely destroys a section of the map, but it's also destroying all the items, the walls for cover, not necessarily killing everything, and has a big recharge. Of course, there needs to be some limitations to avoid being overpowered, but perhaps I'm spoiled with Nano Super Shotgun. Or perhaps it is insane but just doesn't mesh with my playstyle. In any case, I'm not the hugest fan.

After doing a ton more stairdiving, it happened:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

eeeeeeeeeeee

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I finally got the Dragonslayer! I never figured out how to get it back in the day and had some struggle finding it, but I finally got it! This also completes my item collection and sets me up for also killing the Apostle! I also noticed that I could still put an item into my prepared slot, despite not being able to switch, so I imagine Dragonslayer with Malicious Blades. Perhaps mixing it with Butcher's Cleaver would get into some serious insanity. :P The whirlwind alternate fire is also really awesome!

I cleaned out my inventory of weapons and lesser armors for extra space, though I couldn't bare tossing my Cerberus Ballistic Vest seeing those resistances:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I tossed my Phaseshift Armor since the Inquisitor set was doing just fine, and I wanted to put my focus into just getting to the end. I found about 8 Phaseshift Armors, but only the one Phaseshift Boots that I busted. I did find a second pair though, but left it behind:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Having collected all the uniques I wanted, having all the gear I need, and with just one goal left, I started purely stairdiving without restriction. I was healing faster than I could lose health too with the massive movement speed and Soulspheres/Megaspheres everywhere. On floor 650, I decided it was time to put on the Berserker Armor:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have to say, I don't like it. It's so much slower, it's a big drop in the resistances I had, and the protection is redundant when I was already taking just 1 damage by most things (or 0):

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I noticed my rate of damage went way up and actually had to focus into playing again, which while not being in danger of death, was a bit scary.

I finally got to floor 666:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Met the Apostle:

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And got the kill:

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That error message is super scary, but it didn't seem to do anything fortunately. So with that, I completed my goal 100%! I got all 3 uniques I wanted, and got my first Apostle kill!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I got to learn a lot from this run, did several things for the first time I had never done, and made a great step forward in progressing in this game! After comparing to all the different super weapons, Nano Super Shotgun is definitely my favorite in the game! I just love the control it offers, not needing to worry about accuracy, the spread it has, and just everything about it! Nanomachic Napalm Launcher is also up there too, and is probably ideal for a Nightmare/Angel of Darkness run. I didn't get to try out the Phaseshift set unfortunately, but I imagine it's pretty similar to Inquisitor set, but even more ridiculously fast. The Inquisitor set is also amazing and I love using it to nullify a ton of potential errors I can make, as well as its combo power with launchers!

Dragonslayer is very cool with permanent berserk and whirlwind, but melee just doesn't quite fit my playstyle, and though healing isn't too big of a deal, it can be a bit tricky with certain situations. Lack of wall destruction, damage spread, Intuition, etc are all downsides I don't like. Killing Cyberdemons in 2-3 hits is pretty sick though.

I also really dislike Berserker Armor and don't think I'll ever use it again outside of desire to kill the Apostle again, which I don't think I'll do. It's just way too slow and not that strong relative to other super armors, which is a big hindrance when playing melee. I don't think I'll be using Biggest Fucking Gun again with how costly it is, but I think it'll have its niche on Ao666 on Nightmare because of corpse destruction. With how well this run went, I think once fully geared that I could beat this on Nightmare, but no plans for that for awhile yet.

So what's next? Well, another run of course! I still need 2 more Dragonslayers and Subtle Knives, as well as another BFG10K to finish getting 3 of every special and unique for Armorer Diamond Badge. I'll likely use the same build, but perhaps use another Cybernetic Energy-Shield Vest since I'm not restricted by cursed armors this time. I think I'll go with Shottyhead this time over Blademaster as well since my run will likely end with finding Dragonslayer anyway. Also, should I find all 3 items, I'll be suiciding immediately since completing the full 666 floors isn't helpful for progressing in the game and would just be a slog.

Very happy to have 100%ed my run here and everything that came with it!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 08, 2017, 23:16
Congrats!  The Apostle sure was a whole lot of nothing, wasn't he? :P

Just wanna reply to a couple of things.  It is annoying that the berserk effect's red filter makes Intuition's purple X's blend in with the black, but you can still use the minimap to see Intuition's marks.  Or just play in console mode, all ASCII and no color filters.

And also with the sole exception of the Backpack (advice: Do not try to pick it up while barons are around.), unique items are almost indestructible.  They can survive any explosion (even nukes), dropping them in acid and lava that would destroy other items does nothing to them, and unique armors and probably boots as well continue to survive even at 0% durability.  The only way to truly destroy them is to gib a former human or hell noble that's picked them up, so it's really only applicable to unique armors... I think.  Do they also pick up the staffs and Hellwave pack?

Anyway, that's it and congrats again.  I'm still wondering how to do my next Ao666 run, it'll probably be on Nightmare and will just be a mad dash to the end with hopefully the Dragonslayer.  Assuming I can survive that long.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 09, 2017, 09:39
Cool. I prefer playing without ASCII or minimap, so I'll just deal with not being able to see them. It's not too important, but perhaps I'll change my settings for more difficult melee runs when going for badges.

Once I've collected all 3 of the uniques I need, I'll bathe in acid while wearing Inquisitor Boots to test their indestructibility.

Day 32:

I didn't play as much after finishing my Ao666 run on the previous day, so not much to update. I played enough to get a new run going, where I've already collected a Napalm Launcher, 2x Nuclear BFGs, a Nuclear Plasma Rifle, Super Shotgun, Hell Staff, and the Inquisitor Set, all along floors 30-60! I've been very lucky with my drops. Still no BFG10K, Subtle Knife, or Dragonslayer yet though, and I could also use a Nano Pack, but my nuclear weapons have me covered if ammo runs out.

I also had a ridiculously good floor 1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not that it matter too much, but it sure was a lucky start before all the additional luck that followed!

As I said, once this run is finished, I'll test out the boots and see if acid destroys them. Even if they do, I can't really imagine that being a realistic situation to happen, and I'd assume most people would have Cerberus Boots as a backup. Maybe on an acid flood, but even then, you can just switch to Cerberus Boots and hide at the edge of the ocean.

One other thing is that Shottyhead + Dodgemaster + Inquisitor Set is ridiculously good at dodging attacks. Most enemies get pulped before they can strike back, and when they are about to, I have so much movement speed and Dodgemaster to avoid most attacks anyway. It's a really great combo! The Blademaster route I took last time is still of course better for a run intending to pick up Dragonslayer, but this is working out very well too!

And of course, once I finish this current run, I'll need to do one more to get a third Dragonslayer and Subtle Knife!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 10, 2017, 16:12
Day 33:

After a very strong start to my run, I continued on mostly stairdiving in hunt for the 3 uniques I was after.

#1:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

#2:

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#3:

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Another successful run! What's interesting is early on, I found a Grammaton Cleric Beretta, despite thinking I had already found one earlier. I was wondering if I somehow misread what the first one was if it were an Anti-Freak Jackal, but also thought that perhaps uniques can re-appear if you don't actually pick them up. After finding my apparently third Grammation Cleric Beretta, indeed that is the case! I had actually skipped a few other uniques which I saw a second time later, so it's fortunate I still found all 3 uniques I needed.

As I also said, I wanted to test the indestructibility of Inquisitor Boots, since the wiki doesn't specifically say they are, just that they self-repair. It was pretty difficult to find some acid so late into the run, but eventually I came across some:

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Mystery solved!

Following that, I suicided as intended:

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It wouldn't have been very difficult to finish the run, but I'd gain nothing from it so there was no point. Hopefully that decision doesn't break too many hearts. :P I honestly find Ao100/666 games very easy and I imagine most veterans here would too.

With that, I need just one more Dragonslayer and one more Subtle Knife to gain Armorer Diamond Badge and to complete yet another page on my player stats! It'll be very nice because I'll no longer have to put runs at risk when a needed unique appears and I go out of my way to get it. The only exception is a Dragonslayer run for killing the Spider Mastermind, but I'll be working on getting that at some point too.

I already started my 3rd unique hunting run and got an insanely early Super Shotgun:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

However, this time I'm struggling a lot more with ammo and lack of Nano Packs. Even a Blaster or Nuclear Plasma Rifle/BFG would be appreciated. Hopefully, I can complete my run!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 11, 2017, 14:29
Day 34:

Continuing the same run, I still was struggling with ammo and no sight of Nano Packs either. I had about 150ish shells for emergency, but I decided that I had to start stairdiving in hopes of finding the uniques right away, or bumping into a Nano Pack on my path to the end of each floor. I collected a Phaseshift set to try out and while they're not complete (need Onyx for the armor and Nano for boots), they're still incredibly fast! It's pretty crazy to see all the enemies essentially be inanimate. I'm somewhat tempted to go for a Cybernano Phaseshift Armor, which is better than Phaseshift Armor (AOP), but obviously the disadvantage is being forced to committing to it. No Inquisitor Armor yet.

I'm somewhere in the 200s now, but I've already had a few close calls that I barely survived. Even though I now have 2x Nuclear Plasma Rifles, I'm too deep in to be able to stop stairdiving unless I find the very elusive Nano Pack for my Super Shotgun. The number and danger of the enemies is way too high at this point. I just have to keep running and hope for the best!

With any luck, I'll just find the uniques. I'm thinking of grinding for a Dragonslayer to use against the Spider Mastermind after this goal is complete, so I'll happily settle for just a Subtle Knife this run if I die early on.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on October 11, 2017, 16:15
I'm doing my own Ao666(100%). Almost 300 floors in and no sign of nano packs, but I found 3 Sniper packs (worthless to me) at least!
The question I would ask though is if I should make a NSuper shotgun, or Antigrav Phaseshift boots first?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 11, 2017, 22:00
I've never really found much use for nanoshrapnel shotguns, but I always use antigrav phase boots if I'm not using the inquisitor set.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on October 12, 2017, 07:10
I've never really found much use for nanoshrapnel shotguns, but I always use antigrav phase boots if I'm not using the inquisitor set.

Too late, gave up on run and suicided.
How can a gamemode be so boring? Seriously, I was going nuts from tedium.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on October 12, 2017, 07:37
Too late, gave up on run and suicided.

After 300-something levels? Please tell me you mean you got yourself killed so at least the several millions of kills and item finds still count...
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on October 12, 2017, 09:54
Took a lava bath.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on October 12, 2017, 12:03
Took a lava bath.

<3
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 12, 2017, 15:45
Day 35:

More stairdiving and more struggling. I didn't find any Nano or Onyx Packs again, so I just had to keep running for the stairs, collecting health, and conserving ammo. Still was hoping for Inquisitor Armor too. I had some pretty fast floors with Phaseshift Set though, which is very nice. I also learned that you can click over fluids and the in-game movement doesn't get restricted with it, which is cool!

Fortunately, I got a different form of luck:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And that luck continued:

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So despite my run not being ideal, I still completed my goals again! And with that, I now have collected 3 of every special and unique, giving me Armorer Diamond Badge!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.

I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get. Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency. I recall 2Dev claiming he could regularly get Dragonslayers from Unholy Cathedral, or Vandam's achievement of Demonic Angelic Badge, which seems totally fucked.

A higher skill level from what I'm aware of would involve things like knowing the math at a deeper level, planning movements of all enemies simultaneously, optimizing each decision based on probability, and so forth, but with the sheer luck and variance in the game, I don't see any way to complete difficult badges with ease, and not relying on countless attempts on top of great skill. I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.

Any tips, advice, or wisdom is appreciated. :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on October 12, 2017, 17:48
As a self-professed noob who cribs every strat they find and read about, who also has no business telling you any of this, I'd say go for a bit of both. Just keep pumping out runs, and getting better along the way. The beast of both worlds!
(WARNING! Noobiness may affect reliability of advice.)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 12, 2017, 23:12
There's severe doubt about the legitimacy of any of 2Dev's achievements.

VANDAM is alot more likely to be legit, at least in my opinion, but there were never any mortems or videos of his claims.

The best active player at the moment has to be Tormuse(and as far as I'm aware he also has the highest confirmed Angelic count of any player in the history of DRL), and I know he's following your thread, so perhaps he will have some thoughts for you, but until then I can only speak for myself.

When it comes to the higher difficulty challenges, I am *extremely* inconsistent. My most impressive achievements have only come about through innumerable attempts culminating in one final run where I had pretty incredible luck. I can't speak to Arena Diamond(that one seems just as impossible to me as it does to you - there are at least 4 more Angelics[Veteran, Elite, Quartermaster, and Centurial] I'll go for before I'd even consider trying that), and while I suspect Dragonslayers from the cathedral are more consistent then that badge, they'd still require a massive amount of luck in the Arena. Again, you'll probably want to wait on Tormuse for that one, because he's actually done it.

Demonic Angelic is, if memory serves, 100% kill rate damageless nightmare? This is probably theoretically possible, but not only would it require an absurd number of attempts coupled with absolutely insane luck, it would also require player skill to be absolutely monumental. I would consider this to be on the very far end of the attainability scale.

Even the easier Diamonds and Angelics can't really be pulled off consistently, regardless of player skill - there is an optimal move on every single turn of the game, but the information required to make it is rarely fully available, and even with the intuition developed over hundreds of games that would decide a questionable move in the absence of complete information, the RNG will ensure that some runs simply cannot succeed regardless of player input, and this is especially true for achievements that rely on taking low(or no) damage.

As far as how to improve from here, keep trying difficult achievements. As Granola said, do both - playing large numbers of games will improve your feel for the game and help you make correct decisions even without full information, and you'll improve your base skill level along the way. This, at least, has been the case for me. When I first started posting, I think I was something like a Mancubus 2nd Lieutenant and struggling for whatever I needed for the next rank, which was probably a handful of gold badges. From there I made it all the way up to Cyberdemon Lt. General, which was the pinnacle of my achievement until I started a brand new profile on a new computer, wondering whether I'd even be able to replicate my former achievements.

Well, I have, and then some. Playing is the biggest part of it, and the rest is probably engaging with the community, getting feedback on runs, and familiarizing yourself with details of gameplay, whether that's learning from other players, reading the wiki, or checking stats in game. You're doing a good job of engaging with the community on this thread, and the rest is up to you, but I think you're on the right track.

Edit: I was close - it was Cacodemon 2nd Lieutenant. Here's the very first mortem (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,3810.msg31616.html#msg31616) I ever posted.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 13, 2017, 15:26
Cool, nice to hear. I just wasn't sure if my struggling is a result of bad skill or if that's normal and expected given how difficult the game is.

Day 36:

I rotated around again, but mostly went for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge some more. I can tell most of the story in a few pictures:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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I hope this kind of luck isn't always necessary! :P

After that, I didn't get too far in other challenges. I think I'm going to put focus on finishing up the last 5 remaining gold badges to complete that page. In total, I only have 64 remaining medals and badges left to collect, and I'm confident I can get many of them still. I intend to keep going as long as I can continue to achieve more.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 14, 2017, 22:58
A bit late to help you out with this one, but I had this discussion (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6447.0.html) awhile back when I was attempting Arena Gold. Hopefully it sheds some light on the solution for you - kudos for completing it with your method, but I suspect you'd have had an easier time this way.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on October 15, 2017, 00:45
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.

For the record, SOG increases fire speed, not reload speed.

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!

And I'll trade that bit of info for this one: I had totally forgotten this is an option. And on my current run (MSs Ao666 around dlev 30 - and with a GCB!) this might well come in handy. Although with a mandatory EE3, I don't know how much difference it'll make. Anybody care to do the math on this one?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 15, 2017, 04:08
And on my current run (MSs Ao666 around dlev 30 - and with a GCB!) this might well come in handy. Although with a mandatory EE3, I don't know how much difference it'll make. Anybody care to do the math on this one?
At EE3 there would be a noticable difference only if you 1) use running tactics and 2) full-auto mode and 3) your target is at the far end of your LOS. Even then you would still have a 84% hit chance. If a single condition mentioned above is not true, the hit chance goes up to 95%. If two or three of the conditions are not true (or if you fire in single shots, without regard to anything else), there would be no difference at all, and your hit chance is at >98%, the maximum possible.

Well, those were the maths. And since neither the Wiki nor the source code mention any existence of GCB alt-fire, all of the maths may be moot.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on October 15, 2017, 07:56
And since neither the Wiki nor the source code mention any existence of GCB alt-fire, all of the maths may be moot.

Good point. Still, I salute you.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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!

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:

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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)

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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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 16, 2017, 05:56
Oh dear, I've fallen way behind in this thread; I need to catch up on reading!  :o

I noticed that the armor is indestructible, but while the boots have self-repair, they don't specifically say they're also indestructible. Could I potentially destroy the boots if I stand in acid for too long?

All uniques are indestructible, even if you drop them in lava, even if you nuke the level they're on.  No unique armour or boots can be destroyed while you're wearing them.  The only exception to this is if a Former wears unique armour and then gets gibbed.

All that said though, I discovered a really cool trick that significantly improves use of the Inquisitor set for this type of run. Despite taking no damage from explosions, they can still trigger Berserker trait and with my Nanomachic Napalm Launcher...

Yeah, it's pretty nice.  :)  The trigger for the berserk is based on how much damage you *would have* taken.  Knockback works like that too; you can use a rocket launcher to rocket-jump around while wearing the Inquisitor set and not take any damage.

I imagine there's some sort of hard cap with how much berserk I can stack, so it's not true permanent berserk, but it's pretty dang close!

I'd be curious to know what the cap on berserk time is too; maybe someone who is more adept at reading the source code can tell us.  :)

I also learned on a floor with a flood of acid/lava that also has a flooding lever, you can cut off the area where the incoming flood takes up:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Pretty cool niche mechanic!

I'm not quite clear what you mean.  What's happening here?

I also noticed that I could still put an item into my prepared slot, despite not being able to switch, so I imagine Dragonslayer with Malicious Blades. Perhaps mixing it with Butcher's Cleaver would get into some serious insanity. :P

You better believe it!  :D (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,7699.0.html)

Too late, gave up on run and suicided.
How can a gamemode be so boring? Seriously, I was going nuts from tedium.

I feel your pain; my current game is into the 570's and even with the finish line in sight, I feel the temptation to just end it too.  I think the secret is to take lots of breaks and do only tiny bits at a time.  It's really important to find other interesting things to do in between sessions so you don't get bored.



I'll probably have more to say once I've read some more posts here; I'll be back later.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tavana on October 16, 2017, 06:24
I'd be curious to know what the cap on berserk time is too; maybe someone who is more adept at reading the source code can tell us.  :)

Picking up the Dragonslayer adds 10,000,000 to the Berserk timer. It's technically possible to run out of Berserk after picking it up. As to the maximum that stat could be, BerserkLimit is a LongInt, so that means you could have up to 2,147,483,647 on your Berserk timer before the game would be upset with you.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 16, 2017, 07:02
As to the maximum that stat could be, BerserkLimit is a LongInt, so that means you could have up to 2,147,483,647 on your Berserk timer before the game would be upset with you.

Only in theory. For the Berserker trait, the more turns you already have on your berserk "counter", the smaller are further increases. If you are not yet zerking, you gain 20 turns. If you already are and have n turns remaining, you only gain 10 - (n div 10), minimum 1 turn. This effectively means that the cap is 90 turns - after each next Berserker proc, you would only gain a single turn. This math is valid for both type of Berserkers procs (four hits in a row, and being hit hard enough).
For the record, Berserk Packs give 40 turns and Hatred Skulls give 5 turns per corpse destroyed. These items may surpass the effective cap of the Berserker trait, but of course they are not that common.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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!

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!

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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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 16, 2017, 22:47
Now I have some time so I can reply to the rest of this!  :D

Next, I started going for Gatekeeper Platinum Badge. I figured Angel of Pacifism would be easiest since I could rely on either Invulnerability + Nuke, or use a Phase Device and hope for the best. Early on, I had two Phase Device runs and was inside the teleporter room, but was hit by splash damage both times. Very troll. I also tried a bit of Max Carnage + Light Travel, but the room before the Bruisers is way too insane to not be getting hit in.

That one is definitely going to need a lucky phase and/or invulnerability going in.  (The latter of which would mean you'd have to skip Military Base/Phobos Lab)  I doubt that AoPc would be the best way to do it, although maybe...  if you have Dodgemaster and choose your steps very carefully around the Bruisers?  Like lure them south a bit and then run around an arc north of them, being careful not to get too close to that north wall?  Personally, I prefer to just shoot them from outside their weapon ranges and/or cornershoot them with a shotgun to knock them back and not get a chance to shoot back, (bonus points if you have a shellbox for faster reloading) but if you're just going for the exit without bothering to kill anyone, then yeah, Dodgemaster would be the way to go.

I'm really curious what higher level skill is like in this game. A badge like Arena Diamond Badge (complete Hell's Arena on Nightmare on Angel of Berserk) seems ridiculously impossible to get...

Oh, it is very, very ridiculous.  The one and only time I got it, (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,4018.0.html) I was phenomenally lucky; that'll probably never happen again.  :)  That being said, dual angeling with Darkness for the experience boost or Light Travel for the speed boost are probably the way to go.

Like, certainly after a number of games it would eventually get completed, but I'm curious about consistency...

My advice for N! games is to not expect consistency.  Skill can take you far, but N! requires a mix of luck and skill, especially for the harder challenges.

I'm slowly starting to hit that point now that many of my remaining goals require playing on Nightmare, but I'm also a grinder and willing to play repeatedly. I'd just like to know if I should focus on personal gameplay improvement, or pumping out a large number of runs.

Dr Granola gave good advice, so I'll quote them here:

As a self-professed noob who cribs every strat they find and read about, who also has no business telling you any of this, I'd say go for a bit of both. Just keep pumping out runs, and getting better along the way. The beast of both worlds!

That's right, be the BEAST of both worlds!  :D  (I know that's probably a typo, but I liked it)  :P  Seriously, though, yeah, just keep playing and keep getting better.  That's what I did, and as you get more experience, you learn how to adapt your strategies to each situation.

The best active player at the moment has to be Tormuse(and as far as I'm aware he also has the highest confirmed Angelic count of any player in the history of DRL)

Oh, hey, thanks!  :D

Another pretty good player is Papilio, (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?action=profile;u=36456) who doesn't seem to be active lately, but was putting out Diamond and Angelic badges fairly regularly for a while and recorded a number of videos of himself playing, so there's another resource for possible strategies.  (Feel free to watch my videos too; link is in my sig)  ;)

...and while I suspect Dragonslayers from the cathedral are more consistent then that badge, they'd still require a massive amount of luck in the Arena. Again, you'll probably want to wait on Tormuse for that one, because he's actually done it.

I have gotten the guaranteed DS to spawn twice, here (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,5334.0.html) and here, (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8011.0.html) (the second one includes videos) both of which I got the Hell Arena Pwnage medal by using AoMC, Int 2, and *lots* of bullets.  I'm not sure how I would do it outside of those conditions, but I think Int 2 is a huge help, regardless.

Demonic Angelic is, if memory serves, 100% kill rate damageless nightmare? This is probably theoretically possible, but not only would it require an absurd number of attempts coupled with absolutely insane luck, it would also require player skill to be absolutely monumental. I would consider this to be on the very far end of the attainability scale.

You and me both.

...Playing is the biggest part of it, and the rest is probably engaging with the community, getting feedback on runs, and familiarizing yourself with details of gameplay, whether that's learning from other players, reading the wiki, or checking stats in game. You're doing a good job of engaging with the community on this thread, and the rest is up to you, but I think you're on the right track.

What Sereg said here.  You're doing well and you're on the right track to achieving all your goals.  Just keep doing what you're doing.  And yes, engaging with the community is good too; some of my best games came from adapting strategies that other people suggested, even when I was skeptical of them.  (The strategies, not the people)  :P

Here's the very first mortem (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,3810.msg31616.html#msg31616) I ever posted.

Oh, hey, that's neat!  You joined the forums about a week before I did! (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,3852.0.html)  :o  I didn't realize that we're from the same era!  :D

A bit late to help you out with this one, but I had this discussion (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6447.0.html) awhile back when I was attempting Arena Gold. Hopefully it sheds some light on the solution for you - kudos for completing it with your method, but I suspect you'd have had an easier time this way.

There's some good AoMr stuff in that discussion.  Don't underestimate Dualgunner; it was responsible for victory in a lot of my early AoMr games.

I did consider and try out Son of a Gun x2 + Dualgunner, but I really wasn't a fan of playing blindly without Intuition. Perhaps that'll be a big skill improvement for me in the future where it isn't used as a crutch and I can build up other traits earlier.

That's something else that'll come with time, I think.  When you learn not to rely on Int 2, there's a lot you can do with those two levels.  :)

Picking up the Dragonslayer adds 10,000,000 to the Berserk timer. It's technically possible to run out of Berserk after picking it up.

This makes me really tempted to find myself a small but heavy object to weigh down the wait key on my keyboard after picking up DS and just leave the game on, overnight, with the key depressed and see if I can run out of berserk power.  :D

Also, that's interesting about the berserk limit! I wonder if there are any hypothetical situations where it would be best to have the Dragonslayer's effect run out. Perhaps if you're on the final level of Ao100/666, have a distant and stranded group of Chaingunners you need to get past, it would be best to use the running tactic for extra dodging percentage.

Erm...  I'm not sure what you're getting at here; being berserk already makes you move faster than normal running, in addition to the extra protection and melee damage.  There really isn't any situation where it's advantageous to not be berserk...  unless, I don't know...  maybe you feel that you're doing too much damage and you want to gib Formers less frequently?  (Though DS does so much damage that you would still gib them a majority of the time anyway)

I'm sure there's some sort of mathematical situation where it would be desired

I'm not.  I can't even imagine any hypothetical, obscure, edge-case scenarios.  Being berserk gives so many advantages, that it's pretty much objectively a good thing.

One of the challenges with this badge is I wasn't sure exactly what the restrictions were. I did a little reading but still have some questions about challenges like this: 1) Do all blades count as knives (Dragonslayer, Butcher's Cleaver, etc), or just Combat Knives? 2) If I damage an enemy with a Pistol or any other weapon, but get the kill in melee, does that count? 3) If I have a non-Knife/Fist in my main slot and an enemy dies by suicide or friendly fire, does that count? 4) Same as #3 but in my prepared slot? 5) What about Trigun's Angel Arm?

1)  I'm pretty sure they have to be Combat Knives.  I know for a fact that Butcher's Cleaver invalidates the Malicious Knives Cross medal from a game I played in this thread. (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6289.0.html)  (At the time, I attributed it to something different I did early on in the game, but I've learned since then that it was the BC that did it)  I don't know if DS invalidates MKC, but it just so happens that I will find out soon.  ;)

2)  That counts as a melee kill.  It's based on what weapon you have in your hand when the enemy dies.  This is a widely used strategy for Strongman runs, swapping to ranged weapons to weaken enemies, before swapping back to melee to land the killing blow.  Juggler is good for this strategy.

3)  That gets counted as whatever weapon you have in your hand at the time, and it's the source of a lot of ruined runs of this type.  :P  That being said, someone said that there's a line in the code for this version (that wasn't present in previous versions) that if an enemy dies at the same time that you're punching, it counts as a fist kill, even if you have a ranged weapon in hand at the time.  Testing seems to confirm this, but if you're going for a fist-based Strongman badge, I wouldn't recommend it, for fear of accidentally ruining the run.

4)  Are you referring to Juggler trait?  I know that in previous versions, the game would always attribute the kill to whatever you have as your main weapon in hand, but I'm pretty sure this version properly attributes Juggler-based melee kills to the weapon in your prepared slot.  (The previous version let you put the Chainsaw in the prepared slot, get chainsaw kills, and count them as fist kills; it was great for Strongman badges!)  :D

5)  Everything that dies from the Angel Arm would be pistol kills, since it immediately nukes while you have the pistol in your hand.  Side note:  If you nuke a level with the Nuclear BFG/Plasma Rifle and have your hands empty when the ten seconds run out, it will count those as fist kills.

Pretty good! Looks like I have a gold badge that Tormuse doesn't! ;)

Haha, yeah!  That'll be Everyman Gold.  Congrats!  :D  I kind of figure I'll get that at the same time as Everyman Diamond or Angelic if I ever achieve those.  :)



Sorry about the huge wall of text; like I said, there was a lot to catch up on.  I'm still following this thread and I'm interested to see what you do next.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tavana on October 17, 2017, 04:55
More on Berserking - I was incorrect.

Firstly, the flag isn't FBerserkLimit, its FBersekerLimit. Kornel has some lovely artifacts from either typos or previous iterations. I love you Kornel! :D Secondly, it looks like FBersekerLimit is actually used to test if you should go berserk with incoming damage, not how long you're going berserk. I'm still not that good with FreePascal, but I think what we're looking for is simply called "duration" in dfaffect.pas, in the call TAffects.Add(). That's a DWord, which is the same as a LongWord, and it's basically an unsigned version of LongInt. So, technically (and theoretically) you could add 4,294,967,295 to your berserk timer at a time. However, I don't see anything defined for what the maximum duration actually CAN be. I'm not really inclined to do more code diving at this point, either.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 17, 2017, 18:38
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?

The kill would be attributed to the Knife/Fist in your main slot.

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.

As far as I know, you get the double powerup duration from N! difficulty plus 25% from being a marine.  I've never timed them, so I don't know exactly how they stack.

EDIT:  Okay, I just did a quick test where I played four games where I picked up the first berserk that I saw and just spent them by walking back and forth and counting the moves.

1)  HNTR Scout:  40
2)  HNTR Marine:  60
3)  N! Scout:  80
4)  N!  Marine:  100

The act of picking up the berserk counts as the first move and the last move is when the screen stops being red.  And the indicator at the bottom of the screen changed to indicate that berserk was running out five moves from the end in each case.  So, when the in-game description says that Marines get 25% more time, it means 25% of the new value after it's doubled by N!

More on Berserking - I was incorrect...

While I appreciate the effort you put into your code-diving, I think Icy and I kind of meant how high it can practically go by whacking enemies with Berserker trait and ZicherCZ covered that.  Thanks, though.  :)

Still, you provided interesting information about DS's berserk counter;  I seem to remember, a while back, when ArchAo666 was invented, someone wondering if it was possible to run the DS's berserk timer out through regular gameplay of that challenge.  For the record, I'm gonna say no to that, because in my current ArchAo666 game that I'm playing, I'm less than 50 levels from the end and my turn counter is just over 400000, so not even 1 million, let alone 10 million.  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: MaiZure on October 17, 2017, 20:28
Still, you provided interesting information about DS's berserk counter;  I seem to remember, a while back, when ArchAo666 was invented, someone wondering if it was possible to run the DS's berserk timer out through regular gameplay of that challenge.  For the record, I'm gonna say no to that, because in my current ArchAo666 game that I'm playing, I'm less than 50 levels from the end and my turn counter is just over 400000, so not even 1 million, let alone 10 million.  :)

Hold down the wait button (.) for exactly one minute and see how much time passes. Then extrapolate how long you'd have to weigh down your keyboard with a battery or something like that. I'm actually curious. My guess is that the game samples the input at some fixed rate (24,30,60) times per second.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 17, 2017, 20:40
Maybe we can finally see the Apostle's real colors without the red filter.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tavana on October 17, 2017, 22:12
Oh, one more thing I found while Code Diving (TM): It appears that there's a medal missing from the wiki, so if you're looking for 100% completion you'll have a hard time getting it. It's incredibly hard to get unintentionally, so I'll just tell you the name of it and put the conditions to earn it in a spoiler. If you read the name it should be fairly obvious how to get it, though. Happy hunting!

Medal: Gutts' Sorrow
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 17, 2017, 22:57
Hold down the wait button (.) for exactly one minute and see how much time passes. Then extrapolate how long you'd have to weigh down your keyboard with a battery or something like that. I'm actually curious.

Why so complicated? Set your RunWait command duration to 10M turns. Get the Dragonslayer. Clear a level, so nothing can disturb you. Use the RunWait command. Grab a coffee or two before the game processes 10M turns.

My guess is that the game samples the input at some fixed rate (24,30,60) times per second.

IMHO, I don't think so. From my experience, the game does not redraw the screen during long RunWaits, until there is actually something to redraw (e.g. a monster enters your line of sight). This makes long runwaiting quite tedious if you grabbed a Tracking map earlier, and the game animates all the monster movements.

EDIT: So I decided to actually test this. I set up the MaxWait parameter to 10 000 000, cleared Phobos base and level 2, and positioned myself to see water (fluids are animated while you're just idling around, but the animation freezes during runwaiting - with that I had an easy visual check that the game was still processing). Then I pressed the RunWait command.

After exactly 10 minutes, the water animation was still frozen, so the game was still processing. I interrupted the runwait and checked the "@" screen. The result is attached - 21 418 426 "turns" have passed. Now, the "turns" in the "@" screen mean 0.1s of ingame-time ticks, a wait command always takes 1.0s of ingame time (= 10 "turns"), and when I started, I was at 3086 "turns".

So in 10 minutes, slightly over 2M of "wait" actions were processed, and 10M turns would pass in ~47 minutes.

My computer is a five years old laptop - more up-to-date machines could probably handle the processing quite a bit faster.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 18, 2017, 03:42
Medal: Gutts' Sorrow
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Is that really in there?  I just searched the forums and the only reference to it is when TheLaptop said that it was going into the next version!  :o

Why so complicated? Set your RunWait command duration to 10M turns. Get the Dragonslayer. Clear a level, so nothing can disturb you. Use the RunWait command. Grab a coffee or two before the game processes 10M turns.

That's a good idea!  I might just do that on the second last level of my current game!  :D

Maybe we can finally see the Apostle's real colors without the red filter.

I'll post a screenshot.  ;)

EDIT:

EDIT: So I decided to actually test this. I set up the MaxWait parameter to 10 000 000, cleared Phobos base and level 2, and positioned myself to see water (fluids are animated while you're just idling around, but the animation freezes during runwaiting - with that I had an easy visual check that the game was still processing). Then I pressed the RunWait command.

After exactly 10 minutes, the water animation was still frozen, so the game was still processing. I interrupted the runwait and checked the "@" screen. The result is attached - 21 418 426 "turns" have passed. Now, the "turns" in the "@" screen mean 0.1s of ingame-time ticks, a wait command always takes 1.0s of ingame time (= 10 "turns"), and when I started, I was at 3086 "turns".

So in 10 minutes, slightly over 2M of "wait" actions were processed, and 10M turns would pass in ~47 minutes.

My computer is a five years old laptop - more up-to-date machines could probably handle the processing quite a bit faster.

I did the same, only I timed it for exactly one minute and got a result of about 3.2 million turns (or 320000 in-game seconds)  I guess my new computer is slightly faster than yours.  :)  I should be able to run DS out in about half an hour, I think.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: thelaptop on October 18, 2017, 07:15
Medal: Gutts' Sorrow
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
What?  That got left in when KK released the source?  Holy crap... he said he didn't like the negative medals...  =.=

Must've been too funny to resist.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 18, 2017, 09:19
Icy does have one mortem that met the medal condition, yet no such medal was awarded.  Guess it was dummied out.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 18, 2017, 12:10
What?  That got left in when KK released the source?  Holy crap... he said he didn't like the negative medals...  =.=

Must've been too funny to resist.
Well, since DRL 0997.1 Sneak Repo was already out for some time ...

For the record, Gutts' Sorrow is not the only "new" medal left in the source. I also noticed a "Klear Cross" - those who remember Klear as a forum member might guess what the medal is awarded for, and others can, well, guess too (or code-dive for it).

EDIT: Another such medal noticed - the Purple Heart. A hint here - Tormuse recently stated that he learned something the very very hard way. He would receive the medal in that game (although the requirements are not quite as strict).
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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.

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 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce9kuVcWJ0k) 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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 18, 2017, 16:11
...I never knew you could do Run->Wait!...

Oh!  I didn't realize you didn't know that!  :o  It's super useful, especially if you combine it with dropping med packs in doorways to attract Formers who like to pick them up.  (Commonly called "gift-dropping")  And yes, you'll want to adjust the "MaxWait" and probably also "RunDelay" as well.  The game normally puts a delay between each wait action.  I personally have RunDelay set to 1 just in case I decide I want to interrupt the waiting for some reason, but some more bolder players set it to zero, so all the waiting occurs instantly.

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?

I've wondered about that myself.  I think you're right that it's fire damage;  Lost Souls are resistant to bullets and fire, so it would have to be one of those two, but fire is much more likely to gib things; if it was doing enough bullet damage to gib Formers, the Lost Souls would not survive.

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)

:(

Oh...  ouch...  that's unfortunate.  :|  That's a really harsh lesson in how invulnerability works...  Invulnerability duration (and all other powerups too) is based on the number of actions you take, not time, so if you move quickly, (or otherwise do actions that take little time) you use up the invulnerability faster.  I notice that in the screenshot, you were running; that was a mistake.  Even the mere act of switching to running is considered an action that takes a tenth of a second; if you hadn't been running, you would've been fine.

Then again, having an invulnerability wear off just before a nuke goes is kind of a rite of passage for DRL players; I'm pretty sure everyone who has ever played the game has done that at least once.  :)  EDIT:  I mentioned it in a post once!  :D (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6098.msg56816.html#msg56816)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 18, 2017, 18:09
That thing with the invulnerability running out right before the nuke goes off? I've done (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6430.msg55884.html#msg55884) that.  I've also managed to run wait through a nuke countdown.

Glad you found my video helpful... even moreso that you managed to learn something new from it.

Congratulations on General rank... looks like you're still going strong,  so I'll continue looking forward to your next achievement.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 19, 2017, 00:14
... and probably also "RunDelay" as well.  The game normally puts a delay between each wait action.  I personally have RunDelay set to 1 just in case I decide I want to interrupt the waiting for some reason, but some more bolder players set it to zero, so all the waiting occurs instantly.

RunDelay affects the delay between turns only if you are actually running - RunWait is unaffected and always occurs instantly. The test of RunWait performed by both Tormuse and me confirms this (with Tormuse's setting of RunDelay = 1 the game would only be able to process 60k wait actions per minute, and with my setting of RunDelay = 20 turns only 3k actions per minute).

What also needs to be mentioned - the Wait command always takes 1.0s, ignoring any player speed modifiers. Thus, a fast enough monster can enter your line of sight and get a shot at you before the player's Wait action actually ends. Keep that in mind and try to pick a safe location for runwaiting.

EDIT: Two more real-color-Apostle considerations - if you actually go for it, don't put Berserker armor on before you actually run DS out. BA causes nightmare demons to be spawned constantly, which would break any chance of running DS out in any reasonable timeframe.
Also note that the Apostle has longer line of sight, great speed and a good chance to attack, so it may attack you well before you actually see it. And if it does, the attack is strong enough to always proc Berserker trait.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: LuckyDee on October 19, 2017, 00:58
I also noticed a "Klear Cross" - those who remember Klear as a forum member might guess what the medal is awarded for, and others can, well, guess too (or code-dive for it).

Hehehe... this will most likely have something to do with
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 19, 2017, 01:25
Hehehe... this will most likely have something to do with
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Correct :).
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 19, 2017, 02:05
Psst...  The Apostle is yellow! (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8223.0.html)  :D

RunDelay affects the delay between turns only if you are actually running - RunWait is unaffected and always occurs instantly.

Incorrect.  I just tested it by setting the rundelay to 100.  It slowed down run-waiting and run-moving.

Also note that the Apostle has longer line of sight...

Ah, that explains how he was able to shock me so frequently!

...And if it does, the attack is strong enough to always proc Berserker trait.

Unless I don't have Berserker trait!  :)  (Malicious Blades FTW!)  :D
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on October 19, 2017, 02:23
Psst...  The Apostle is yellow! (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8223.0.html)  :D

Incorrect.  I just tested it by setting the rundelay to 100.  It slowed down run-waiting and run-moving.

Hmm. Might be different for tiles vs. ASCII version (I tested on tiles).

Unless I don't have Berserker trait!  :)  (Malicious Blades FTW!)  :D

Exactly :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 19, 2017, 13:27
Hmm. Might be different for tiles vs. ASCII version (I tested on tiles).

Oh, hmm...  I just retested with the graphics version and it seems that RunDelay has no effect whatsoever!  All the time passes instantly if you can't see the enemies, but if you can see them, (via tracking map) it animates every move at the same speed whether you set the delay to zero or 1 or 100 and it similarly doesn't affect run-moving.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

Code: [Select]
if being:is_player() and being.hpmax > 10 then
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:

Code: [Select]
OnAltFire = function(self,being)
if being.tired then
ui.msg("You are too tired to invoke the Scythe!");
else

Code: [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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 19, 2017, 17:44
Bonus levels that have randomly spawned weapons (Hell's Armory, Deimos Lab, Vaults) always spawn ranged weapons, so no melee ones.

Uniques if they spawn are an exception, as I've gotten unique melee weapons like the Mjollnir from those levels before.

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.

I had a feeling it worked that way, though I pick them up anyway for logging purposes even if I don't intend to use them.

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.

Strange, I've gotten onyxes from Deimos Lab before.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 20, 2017, 03:12
Psst...  Icy...  I caught up with your Gold badge count.  Your move.  :D
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

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.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 20, 2017, 17:15
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.

I seem to recall that you're pretty fond of AoMC, though.  Wouldn't that make it relatively easy to get that medal?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 20, 2017, 18:10
My biggest question with that strategy is how anyone is supposed to get the berserker armor.  Since DS comes first, how is it then possible to clear the mortuary on nightmare?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 20, 2017, 21:35
Ah, hmm...  I was about to say you can stand over the bodies to let your enemies gib them, but then I realized that even with the berserk resistances, you're gonna take a lot of damage from the AoMC aspect of things.  :|  I guess you just wanna do it as fast as possible, before they have much time to revive anything.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 20, 2017, 21:37
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?

Nah, it's been the current version for a few years now and I only started playing this game this year.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

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. :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 21, 2017, 13:48
Congrats on the Diamonds!  :)  Gentle reminder to put your badges in your sig so we know your progress.  :)

I'm curious to know what build you're using for the AoHu game; obviously, Dodgemaster is a must for that Shambler battle, and you might want to consider leaving some of those crates intact so you have some cover.  (That corridor you died in was a really unfortunate place to be fighting them; no room to maneuver)

As for the AoD, possible strategies:

1)  Make Ballistic Armour assembly (or wear Ballistic Vest or similar) for the melee protection and just brute force it.

2)  Get yourself some high movement speed and a Ripper and kite the AoD while circling the Cathedral.

3)  Same as above, but throw Combat Knives.  (Takes a lot longer, but probably safer)

(Disclaimer:  I have never actually achieved Everyman Diamond; these are just ideas)

...
    3 former humans
    15 former sergeants
    582 former captains
    5 imps
...

I think these ratios are hilarious.  :D
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 21, 2017, 18:00
They're chaingunners, they deserve it.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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!

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! ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 22, 2017, 19:42
Nice progress. I will say that Inquisitor Diamond is probably not your next easiest option, however... that's easily one of the most difficult Diamond challenges, and I only got mine (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8173.0.html) through absolutely incredible luck.

Not that I want to encourage you to give up, but if you're simply going for rank progression for now, I'd save that particular badge for later.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 22, 2017, 22:26
2 DS spawns on Hell 1?  O_o  How many times did you do this again?

Apparently, it's a rare badge too as the only players confirmed to have it are Papilio and Sereg, though perhaps others quietly have achieved it too. It's another reason I want to get it!

I think it's just a generally unpopular challenge because no one likes doing without powerups.  (Myself included)  :P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 23, 2017, 06:13
True, no one likes doing it - me, especially, because I've made abundant use of Overconfidence in attempting many of my Platinums and Diamonds, and in Overconfidence, well placed powerups are critical for successful runs. Finding a fortuitous Invulnerability, Berserk Pack, or Megasphere/Supercharge on the first floor is almost always the difference between that run lasting past the first floor, or not. Finding them on deeper floors during a stairdive is often the difference between keeping the dive going, or not. Finding them before Dis can often mean winning, or not. Even small health globes are extremely important, if for nothing else then the tactics restoration.

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

Powerups are a bigger part of the game then I think most players realize - even runs like Masochism, that prevent powerups from healing you, still benefit heavily from them, because of the additional effects they offer. In my opinion, Purity is easily one of the most challenging game modes, right up there with Humanity and Masochism.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 23, 2017, 07:59
Yeah Tormuse, having not just one, but two Dragonslayers spawning directly in my sight at the start of the game, during which I'm not able to get them at all, especially after just strategizing on how to get them was hilarious and irritating. :P

Day 45:

More attempts for Inquisitor Diamond Badge!

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

I suspect you will not have much difficulty in surpassing me from this point. Tormuse will still be giving you a run for your money, though - and then VANDAM, if your end goal is to equal his purported achievements.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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:

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!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 25, 2017, 10:51
Day 48:

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

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

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It did eventually run out though and I was killed.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And no badge. :(

After that I tried some more runs, but they didn't work out for one reason or another. Like I said, this badge isn't too bad to get and doesn't require that much luck, so I should get it soon. Still, I was pretty frazzled by losing my basically won run to a really stupid mistake. I'll be sure to avoid repeating that. :P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 25, 2017, 14:19
Aw, crap!  That sounds really disappointing!  :S  And yeah, since that one punch resulted in that guy's death, that would invalidate the badge.  Still, like you say, I'm sure you'll get it eventually.  :)

May I ask what build you used?  (Or possibly, could you post the mortem?)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Ridonk on October 25, 2017, 16:06
I definitely ruined many, too many runs accidentally bashing zombiemen trying that challenge.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 26, 2017, 15:30
Here's that particular mortem, Tormuse:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Day 49:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Code: [Select]
if player:has_won() then
player:add_badge("lightfoot2")
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_HARD                                        then player:add_badge("lightfoot3") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD  and statistics.game_time <= 20000 then player:add_badge("lightfoot4") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE and melee_tot == 0                then
player:add_badge("lightfoot5")
if ARCHANGEL then  player:add_badge("lightfoot6") end
end
end

Basically, you can get Lightfoot Diamond Badge while playing on Archangel of Travel, and not just Angel of Light Travel. I'd almost argue doubling up with Lightfoot Angelic Badge is easier since the extra 10% speed bonus is so powerful, and is a pretty good trade-off for just 3 more inventory slots. That said, Angel of Max Carnage + Light Travel could make up for carrying less ammo.

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

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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)

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

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

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

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

My run started off strong:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Even stronger than I thought:

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)

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

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

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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:

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

Of course though, I'm insatiable.

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

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

I'm having a blast and a craving for more!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 27, 2017, 15:27
Day 50:

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

Anyway, I'm sure I'll earn another diamond badge soon. I'm curious though what you guys think would be the next easiest angelic badge after Shottyman and Lightfoot? I'm wondering how difficult Inquisitor and Quartermaster are, as they don't seem as totally insane as the others. I'm also curious about Pacifist, since I could play it on Hey, Not Too Rough difficulty. It'd be a grind for sure, but I can do grinds. Any advice?
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 27, 2017, 19:01
I'm of the opinion that Pacifist Angelic is nigh impossible.  Across the 24 or so floors you have to cross, eventually something will die with the cause being enemy crossfire, a pinky running across acid, a former human's starting position being on lava, or whatever else.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Dr. Granola on October 27, 2017, 20:17
Yeah, that challenge reeks of some serious BS.
It's not even much of a challenge, just a "hope you get lucky" kind of thing.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on October 27, 2017, 22:20
I started off digging more into the coding because I was curious about ammo and armor crates and what their probabilities are for each item. Here are the listings:

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

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

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

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

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

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

If you think Inquisitor is a relatively easy badge to get, you're welcome to try; it definitely isn't my first choice.  :|  I got Quartermaster Angelic a while back using a Gunrunner build. (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6758.0.html)  It's a very different strategy to my usual slow, calculating ways, since I frequently had to charge into the fray before I was ready, but once I got the Master trait, combined with Shottyman, it got quite ridiculous and a lot of fun.  :)  As for Pacifist...

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

This pretty much sums up my thoughts about it; even if you play perfectly, the whole run can be lost in an instant for reasons beyond your control.  (from enemies at the opposite end of the map, even!)  :|
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy 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.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 29, 2017, 08:05
Day 52:

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Another solid day of progress! I'm going to focus on collecting more of the missing easier stuff like Gutts' Heart and some platinum badges before trying more for difficult diamond and angelic badges.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 30, 2017, 13:52
Day 53:

I put most of my focus on getting Gutts' Heart this time. I figured that because of how rare it can be to get an opportunity for this medal, I might be tempted to botch a different run if I had a random Dragonslayer appear. Instead of potentially ending up in that crossroad, I grinded for it a ton to get it done.

I tried a bit of the I'm Too Young To Die strategy, but it takes way too long to get going, so I mostly used Angel of Berserk + Overconfidence. To my surprise it was laughably easy, which is cool to see since I struggled with it before when I was grinding for JC kills. The monster count and dangerousness is so low compared to all the Ultra-Violence and Nightmare runs I've been doing lately.

During a few attempts, I had a couple of cool runs. One in particular was when I found the Trigun on floor 2 and found a lot of Invulnerabilities, so I went for a goofy mass nuking! :D I even got a second Fallout Platinum Cross, and another JC kill!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I actually had a couple more early Trigun runs, but this was the best one.

I also noticed with how empty the levels are, I could really speed through each floor waiting for "Something valuable", and decided to see just how fast I could do it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Not bad! ;) Now to do that with all 3 episodes on Nightmare at the same pace and we'll be in business.

On another interesting run, I found Berserker Armor on floor 1 and decided to see if a Baron would pick it up, and it seemed like it didn't. To confirm, I checked the coding:

Code: [Select]
OnEquipCheck = function (self,being)
if not being:is_player() then return false end
if not being.eq.weapon or being.eq.weapon.id ~= "udragon" or (being.hp >= being.hpmax / 2) then
ui.msg("How am I supposed to wear this thing??")
return false
end
return true
end,

It seems that this is the only armor that has this check. I suppose nearly invincible enemies would be too dangerous, though a lot of fun! :P I was thinking of possible strategies with abusing this, such as giftdropping damaged Gothic Armor (BO) to slow down enemies to a halt. The main downside is the armors can be potentially destroyed by explosions. Fully damaged Necroarmor seems like a fun way to drain out enemy HP, but isn't really all that viable.

Anyway, after goofing around in a lot of runs, I had a big mental swing on floor 7 of one run:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Given that I was already invincible and on the floor just before Dis, this was the perfect setup! Once equipped, I still took the floor slow to eliminate any risk of dying. I definitely didn't want to have to repeat finding Dragonslayer. I set myself up with a great camping spot:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

As you would expect, everything got demolished.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Gutts' Heart achieved and 41/43 medals reached! That just leaves Thomas's Medal and Dervis' Medallion. Funny enough, going for these will give me 2 rewards and 3 rewards, both for a total of 5! I think I'll try some Angel of Humanity Conqueror attempts soon. I watched through parts of Papilio's run on Ultra-Violence (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZaBsqUWcqQ) to pick up on some tricks. I actually didn't learn much besides the two-stepping trick against the Angel of Death, which will be super useful. Is it perfectly safe? The rest I picked up on was playstyle differences. I'm assuming others play a lot like him with blind firing and more inventory variety, but it's such a contrast to how I play DoomRL. I absolutely love using Intuition and Shotguns, and I'd rather not stray from that. Besides, it's done me well so far! :)

I did another thorough checking through the players on the boards here to see how others have done in collecting all the medals and badges. Tormuse and Papilio are the two best confirmed players by far and completely edge me out at the moment, while there are also VANDAM and 2Dev who I understand have some suspicions about their legitimacy. I also noticed Evilpotatoe and Thomas outdo me in platinum badge counts (especially Thomas at 25/26!), and Appuru who has at least 3 angelic badges. There are also Ridonk and Fanta Hege who may be ahead of my counts, though I can't confirm that. Who knows what lurkers out there have too, and there are possibly players out there with 42/43 or 43/43 medal counts.

Now mind you, I'm not playing strictly to compare myself to others, but as I'm getting further and further ahead with badges, it's nice to know what to expect in terms of difficulty for the rest. Matching their achievements also makes for nice short-term goals, and like I've mentioned before, perhaps firing up some activity and friendly competition! :) My end goal is still to get absolutely 100% in everything, but I have no clue how long it will take me to get some of the scary angelic badges. Some other active players to bounce ideas off with or to motivate each other in progress could be very helpful. I'm also more than happy to help out anyone who wants some tips or to share strategies with for anything I've done so far! :D

I think my next focus will be Angel of Humanity as a Conqueror, but it's quite the challenge it would seem! The main advantage is that I can play on Hey, Not Too Rough, so I have a lot more control on each level, but a full game with basically no mistakes will be tough. Unholy Cathedral, Limbo/Mortuary, and Abyssal Plains in particular will require lots of careful planning and strategizing!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on October 30, 2017, 16:36
Of course formers and barons can't wear the Berserker Armor, they don't and can't ever have the Dragonslayer :P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: khiijol on October 31, 2017, 12:59
first time checking in on this thread, some incredible progress being made here

i would suggest tackling veteran angelic next with max carnage. its a lot easier than it sounds on the surface when using a burst build. most of the strategy involves finding a saferoom to gift drop, using run-wait and blasting away. by the time you encounter the bigger monsters, you should have either a gatling gun or plasma rifle, which on max carnage, will kill nearly everything in one burst
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on October 31, 2017, 14:30
Thanks!

That's some solid advice for sure, and I agree that it'll likely be the next angelic badge I go for. :) I'm quite confident I can do it, but it might take a little luck with corpse control and getting a good start on every floor.

Day 54:

With just 2 medals left, I put my attention to Thomas's Medal, which would also give me Everyman Platinum Badge. Despite running around with just 10 HP, Hey, Not Too Rough is super easy to play. :P I've mostly been finding a safe spot and spamming RunWait to kill everything.

One issue I had before that I forgot about was handling Deimos Lab, and I rolled it again. I was a little more prepared this time with some fancy Blue Armor:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I also setup a super good strat for the Arachnotrons:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Basically, I close one of the doors, step outside the other, and use RunWait. Once one appears, I go to the top right corner to cornershoot the Arachnotron once it goes outside the little room. It's perfectly safe and easy!

I left all the crates intact this time for cover against the Shamblers, but I got a little worried with them roaming around, so I opted to do a cornershoot strat. Unfortunately, one appeared directly beside me. I switched the Super Shotgun, though I forgot I didn't have Juggler, and after firing I made the stupid mistake of reloading, got double melee hit and died. :(

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm absolutely certain I can beat Hell's Armory, not just because there's only one Shambler, but because the landscape is significantly better for fighting them. However, I still haven't come up with a solution for Deimos Lab. I was considering Brute x2 + Berserker, but it's a massive waste of traits, especially since I can use the two-step trick against Angel of Death.

Perhaps I'll just grind out runs until I roll Hell's Armory instead. In any case, I was a bit unmotivated to start another run, despite being able to save for this challenge, so I spent my time doing a little theorycrafting and planning. The entirety of Phobos is pretty easy, with the only scary parts being Chained Court and Phobos Anomaly, but both are consistent enough not to worry too much. Deimos has Deimos Lab to worry about as said, and Abyssal Plains is a bit risky with the cramped area. The other levels are all pretty easy, and I'm not too concerned about Spider's Lair either. The Cyberdemon can be killed with Dodgemaster abuse.

Phobos Lab is a bit annoying with the cancellation of Envirosuit, so I might use a Phase Device in that case. The other thing is if I'm unlucky and get warped to the same area in the acid, I'll have enough time with the power-up to continue on as if I hadn't used a Phase Device. I might also consider using one for Abyssal Plains.

Unholy Cathedral should be fine, so long as the strat is as simple as it looks. I'll definitely have Hellrunner x3 and Tactical Boots by then, so it shouldn't be a problem. The Vaults is also cake. However, Mortuary and Limbo are both scary, and I'm not entirely sure what I'll do for those. I believe I actually can nuke them and still achieve Conqueror, so I'll absolutely do that if possible. Otherwise, I'll probably just make a mad dash for the Nuclear BFG and hope for the best. This is kind of a problem, so if anyone has some advice, that'd be greatly appreciated. :)

Lava Pits and Mt Erebus are easy, so long as I have an Envirosuit or two. And besides all those special levels, the regular floors are all easy. Only an Arachnotron cave or an exceptionally awful start filled with dangerous enemies can pose a threat. Dis is also super easy.

It might take awhile to get this medal, only because the runs themselves are quite long, but I also need some special level luck. I think ideally, I would want Military Base, Hell's Armory, The Wall, City of Skulls, Halls of Carnage, Limbo, and Mt Erebus. Hopefully I can get some fortune there.

Not much more else to say! Please give me some tips though! :D
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Ridonk on October 31, 2017, 16:01
I've been trying this challenge a bit recently, and the best thing I can come up with for Mortuary/Limbo is a nano super/double shotty with Shottyhead. That way you can radar shoot everything out of your vision and avoid getting hit..... It does rely on many other things coming together beforehand of course. :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on October 31, 2017, 18:08
Am I correct in assuming Dervis is the other of your unachieved medals?

If so, you might consider going for your Centurial Angelic. Since you have achieved the maximum number of Diamond badges that can affect your skill rank,  there's no point trying to do Centurial Diamond separately.

As far as that goes, congratulations on surpassing me.  Only 2 confirmed players to go,  and after that,  VANDAM... by the way,  if you pull off Centurial Angelic,  you'll be a step ahead of him in a sense, because that was the only Angelic he didn't claim to have earned.

I have no advice for Thomas,  however... I never had much luck with AoHu or conqueror,  so combining them is definitely not my area of expertise.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 01, 2017, 02:53
Dervis is the other missing medal, yes. You can click the image in my signature for full details of what I need to get.

While true that Centurial Angelic covers for that and Centurial Diamond, I'd argue the difference in difficulty is significant enough to warrant doing them separately, so that I can enjoy having earned the easier rewards earlier.

Also, I believe VANDAM did achieve Centurial Angelic, according to his signature.

Day 55:

I tried some more for Angel of Humanity as a conqueror, and had a really sick start by the end of floor 2:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, with a single misclick, I got killed, lol. :(

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Boo. After that, I tried some more of beating Nightmare under 20 minutes, but still no luck there.

Afterwards, I starting looking into the coding some more and I'm quite confident in saying I believe I've made a new discovery!

Code: [Select]
OnMortem = function ()
if player:has_won() then
player:add_badge("everyman3")
if statistics.bonus_levels_completed == statistics.bonus_levels_count then
player:add_badge("everyman4")
player:add_medal("thomas")
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD then
player:add_badge("everyman5")
end
end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE and ARCHANGEL then
player:add_badge("everyman6")
end
end
end,

It seems that the game only checks if your bonus levels completed and count are equal, instead of checking if you're actually a conqueror! This means that if you were to play Humanity + Confidence / Overconfidence / 100, you won't get the reward for being a conqueror, but the game will still give you Thomas's Medal and Elite Platinum Badge! Seems that it's a very similar oversight to the Max Carnage + Overconfidence trick for the Destroyer Badges.

This trick will also work for Everyman Diamond Badge if it works for the others!

Here's some other chunks of code that would usually avoid this error:

Code: [Select]
-- elite badges
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD  and is_conqueror then player:add_badge("elite4") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE then
if is_90kills then player:add_badge("elite5") end
if is_maxkills and is_conqueror then player:add_badge("elite6") end
end

Code: [Select]
register_challenge "challenge_aocn"
{
name        = "Angel of Confidence",
description = "Are three episodes too much of a grind? Try beating the game in just two! Having seen the destruction of Phobos beforehand, you asked to be dropped off at the Deimos base to save yourself the trouble. At least they were nice enough to give you some more gear.",
rating      = "VERY HARD",
rank        = 4,
abbr        = "AoCn",
let         = "N",
removemedals = { "icarus1", "icarus2", "explorer", "conqueror", "competn1", "competn2", "competn3", "untouchable1", "untouchable2", "untouchable3" },

Code: [Select]
register_challenge "challenge_aooc"
{
name        = "Angel of Overconfidence",
description = "Not three episodes, not even two: now we're down to a single count! You were so ready to face the legions of Hell that you were sent directly to their home turf. Good thing you snuck some extra supplies!",
-- In memory of our best abuser of AoOC
rating      = "SEREG",
rank        = 6,
abbr        = "AoOC",
let         = "V",
removemedals = { "icarus1", "icarus2", "explorer", "conqueror", "competn1", "competn2", "competn3", "untouchable1", "untouchable2", "untouchable3" },

Code: [Select]
register_challenge "challenge_a100"
{
name        = "Angel of 100",
description = "100 levels, and you win. No Cybie, no Spidey, no JC, no special levels, just 100 normal levels. And yes, there are more and more enemies after level 25...",
rating      = "HARD",
rank        = 5,
abbr        = "A100",
let         = "O",
removemedals = { "gambler", "aurora", "explorer", "conqueror", "fallout1", "fallout2", "fallout3", "ironskull1" },

Now, Confidence and Overconfidence with Humanity, while in theory should give Thomas's Medal, are still very difficult, if not more difficult because you won't have the Arena Master's Staff for The Vaults. It could potentially be done on Ultra-Violence with use of Azrael's Scythe since you can use it indefinitely as far as max health is concerned, but then the Angel of Death is an issue.

So instead, I'm genuinely considering going for Angel of Humanity + Angel of 100 for Thomas's Medal and Everyman Platinum Badge! While it's a ton of floors, they're all just normal floors, of which I can skip through, don't need to kill everything, etc. No more having to deal with Deimos Lab or Mortuary or Abyssal Plains or any of those! :P When I did my Ultra-Violence 100% kill Angel of 100 awhile back, I would go through dozens of floors before ever getting touched, and now that I'm significantly better at the game and would be playing on Hey, Not Too Rough, I honestly think I can do it! Plus, it would be an amazing proof of concept! I searched through the mortems, and there isn't a single Angel of Humanity + Angel of 100 in there, which might be why this wasn't discovered.

It's still possible there's some sort of code preventing this trick, but I can't find such a thing and I'm ~99% sure it does actually work. If anyone can confirm if it does or doesn't, please share!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on November 01, 2017, 05:48
Ah, I see... hadn't noticed his updated signature until I went looking just now.

Still, it was the only one missing from his original profile of 16/17, so there's that.

Thanks for the mention in your proposed AoOC code, by the way ;)

And now for the fateful words - if you manage to earn Thomas' Medal on Ao100, I will be very impressed. (shh, don't let Tormuse overhear >.> <.< >.>)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 02, 2017, 13:50
I think you misunderstood, Sereg; that's the actual code in the game. I was pointing out that with how it's structured it prevents the conqueror trick for other challenges.

Day 56:

With my new strategy idea, I've been trying Angel of Humanity mixed with Angel of 100 for Thomas's Medal and Everyman Platinum Badge. I'm still close to certain it works, but there's still the obstacle of actually doing the challenge, and it's quite hard.

So far on all of my runs, I've been instakilled by something. It's pretty insane actually how safe I have to be playing. Letting up defense just for one moment against just one enemy kills the run. I have to really respect the danger and assume the worst scenario with every decision. I'm also thinking that Cerberus Boots are going to be almost essential since fluid damage is massive and there are cases where I can't get around dealing with it. I'd rather not have to always be carrying an Envirosuit, so I'll definitely need those boots, or at the very least, Enviroboots.

After dying there a few times, I tried some more of beating a standard Nightmare game in under 20 minutes. On my first attempt of the night, I had some luck in Deimos with an early Invulnerability, got through some floors, found a few Homing Phase Devices, and just before fighting the Cyberdemon, there was an Invulnerability that was literally adjacent to the stairs! I also switched off from choosing Dodgemaster as my fifth trait for Brute to massively increase my melee damage (mostly due to the accuracy buff). I destroyed the Cyberdemon and reached Hell for the first time in awhile. From there, I finally got the stacked Invulnerability needed to get through in a reasonable amount of time, and then for the last touch of good luck, had another double Invulnerability on the last floor before Dis!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

It was very relieving to finally get these badges! On top, I finished with a pretty good 12:16, though it's sadly still so far away from the angelic badge. Besides Speedunner Angelic Badge, I now have all the real-time badges and medals, which is nice so that I can actually play at my preferred pace.

Since I was speedrunning, I didn't take much for screenshots, but I did snap this ending here since I noticed the swag experience level of 6/66%! ;)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Happy to get some progress, especially since it came unexpectedly while I was just rotating challenges. I'm going to try some more for Humanity, but I'm beginning to think that despite how cool it would be and how simplified playing is, that I might not do Angel of 100 after all. I might try some stairdiving next time and see how that goes.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on November 02, 2017, 14:20
Very interesting build choice for the UAC Diamond game!  I'm impressed!  :o  I always thought melee builds are the way to go for that challenge, since it eliminates a lot of button presses and saves time.

Am I correct in assuming Dervis is the other of your unachieved medals?

If so, you might consider going for your Centurial Angelic...

Good idea, but unfortunately, ArchAo666 blocks Dervis' Medallion.  (I haven't read the code, but I didn't get it with my Centurial Angelic game)

Thanks for the mention in your proposed AoOC code, by the way ;)

Oh, did Icy add the "SEREG" in there?  That explains it.  :P  (I was wondering if he was reading from code for a future version of the game or something)  In any case, it's very fitting!  :D

And now for the fateful words - if you manage to earn Thomas' Medal on Ao100, I will be very impressed. (shh, don't let Tormuse overhear >.> <.< >.>)

Oh, don't say that!  I'll feel compelled to do the same thing, but at UV difficulty!  :D  (Just kidding...  or am I?)  :P
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on November 03, 2017, 01:08
Oh, did Icy add the "SEREG" in there?  That explains it.  :P  (I was wondering if he was reading from code for a future version of the game or something)  In any case, it's very fitting!  :D
The sentence in parentheses is the correct explanation: Sereg actually made it into the source code for 0.998. The previous line from the same code ("-- In memory of our best abuser of AoOC") says the same - the devs wanted to pay homage to the most prominent master of sereging ;).
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on November 03, 2017, 06:01
Ah, that explains some things...  I notice that there are other things listed in the source code that don't exist in the game, such as the middle line here, from the berserk code...

Code: [Select]
message_init   = "You feel like a killing machine!",
message_ending = "You feel your anger slowly wearing off...",
                message_done = "You feel more calm.",

It seems that they intended to include lines to warn the player when powerups are wearing off!  Too bad we didn't get to see that in action.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on November 03, 2017, 08:02
Ah, that explains it. I thought it was Icy's addition, because the game still lists AoOC as Very Hard. I didn't realize the 998 source was available...

Well in that case - thanks for the mention, Kornel ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 03, 2017, 09:00
Melee builds are probably the way to go for speedrunning, but I figured I had enough time to work with to use something I'm more capable with. For the Speedrunner Angelic Badge, I'll definitely be using melee. Keep in mind that the majority of that run was me speeding through while Invulnerable. The traits I chose are the ones to best support doing that.

Yes, Dervis' Medallion is only earned on Angel of 100, while Centurial Angelic Badge is only earned on Angel of 666 (obviously). However, Centurial Diamond Badge can be earned on either. Here's the code for why that is:

Code: [Select]
OnMortem = function ()
if player.depth >= 16 then player:add_badge("century1") end
if player.depth >= 51 then player:add_badge("century2") end
if player:has_won() then
player:add_badge("century3")
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_VERYHARD then player:add_badge("century4") end
if DIFFICULTY >= DIFF_NIGHTMARE then
if ARCHANGEL then player:add_badge("century6") end
player:add_badge("century5")
end
end
end,

Code: [Select]
if ARCHANGEL then
ui.msg_enter("Or wait... false alarm. Still 566 to go.")
else
if DIFFICULTY == DIFF_NIGHTMARE then
player:add_medal("dervis")
end
player:win()
end

On that note of digging into the code, I was curious what the lever beneficial/neutral/dangerous feelings refer to when you only have Intuition x1, so I made a quick list:

Beneficial: Enemy damage, armor repair, health boost
Neutral: Water flood, forces explosions
Dangerous: Acid flood, lava flood, destroys walls, summons enemies

Day 57:

I tried more for Angel of Humanity + 100, but it's simply too luck-based when the intended method is much easier. Most of the combat is fine, you just need to be careful, but any bad start is hard to deal with. It'd be very unlikely to avoid Arachnotron caves for an entire 100 floors, or any starts with a dangerous group of enemies nearby. Almost all of my deaths were unfortunate insta-kills, but given that I've been making it to the 30s in floors, that's a good sign I can get through the floors of a normal game. As cool as it would be to flaunt the new strategy of Humanity + 100, I'm going to go back to normal attempts next time I try for it. I'm undecided which I'll do for Everyman Diamond Badge though.

I played for Quartermaster Platinum Badge this time with mixing Max Carnage. It plays a lot like a regular game, but there's a slight time limit. I had a few close calls, but never blew up on any floors.

On one of my runs, I reached the Cyberdemon with a collection of guns, including Elephant Gun, Double Shotgun, Chaingun, Plasma Rifle, and also a Chainsaw. I went for the Dodgemaster abuse strategy and was continually shot each reload, and ended up dying. I never realized that the Shotgun is the fastest weapon at reloading! I also really dislike the Elephant Gun with it's awful reloading speed. Combined with Shottyman trait is nice though, but I never reached that point. I also tried Gunrunner again and still hate it. :P

Juggler is a really sick trait to have for Max Carnage runs by the way, especially with the mouse wheel trick. :)

I had another nice run that got far into Hell, but a single Arachnotron cave was the end of that. While I'm still dying at the same rate as I would on Angel of Humanity, at least Max Carnage allows me to fight back properly in most cases. So I tried some more and got a solid run going.

This was a particularly nasty start given I was on Max Carnage:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fortunately, I managed to scrape by and grab the Invulnerability too:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Towards the end of the run on Hell 5, I happened to leave a single tile uncovered on the far right side, which I later learned was hiding the stairs. Because I had to quickly run over there through a group of Mancubi to avoid the nuke killing me, I used up most of my health items and other gear. I got super lucky with a nice Hell 6 though:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Those are Phaseshift Boots by the way. :) After that I had a pretty simple, though slightly scary Hell 7:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Once I got to Dis, I clicked RunWait and got the badge!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hitting the nice milestone of platinum badge count being the big two-oh is really awesome! Next will be some more platinum badges that I think I can get. Angel of Humanity as a Conqueror is on the backburner for now. I do want to get that finished at some point though since I would really like to finish collecting all the medals and being done with that, but it'll have to wait for now.

Good progress and lots of fun! :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 04, 2017, 07:06
Day 58:

The focus this time was on the Masochist Badges. Since I could mix them with Max Carnage, they weren't too bad to go for. They played out mostly like a normal Max Carnage run where I couldn't heal, so I just needed to be a little extra careful. Invulnerability and Berserk still works like normal, so that helps a lot.

I went for Masochist Platinum Badge first and got it pretty quickly. Nothing really remarkable happened, just careful gameplay and normal levels:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Next was Masochist Diamond Badge in the same manner. On runs outside of Angel of 100/666, I never get high enough experience levels to ever want Ironman or Badass, so that restriction wasn't a big deal.

Part way into the run, I had an interesting scenario. I entered with a nuke nearby while already Invulnerable, but there was another Invulnerability not far off. I also was in dire need of healing. I decided to set off the nuke in place and made a mad dash for the second one:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I fortunately made it before the Mancubus shot at me:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had another arena level two floors later and found a Phaseshift Armor:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Found another Invulnerability nearby:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

After the Cyberdemon, I had a bit of luck with the stairs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Which kept continuing:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then on Hell 5, I had another Invulnerability spawn, which meant my run was quite close to being finalized:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Unfortunately, the spawned enemies on both sides of me were not nice:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Sucks since I was so close to the ending, but that's how it goes on Nightmare sometimes. All it takes is one nasty floor and the run is over. Of course, I kept trying though. Getting pretty deep into a new run, I had a nasty room but some awesome luck:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Immediately after was essentially an Arachnotron cave. I had Enviroboots so close by, but I unfortunately couldn't risk grabbing them:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Into Hell, I had some much-needed Invulnerability luck:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Then on Hell 6, being near the end again, I got another totally awful floor with a tough maze with both staircases on the far opposite side:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Through some close calls and clever tactics, I managed to not die:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The game gave me a break at the end, which followed with another easy Spider Mastermind kill:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Very happy to get this pair of badges done! I've now got Tormuse matched and beaten in platinum and diamond, with just Evilpotatoe, Thomas, and Papilio edging me out in platinum, and with just Papilio left in diamond badges. Of course there are others, but nobody else who are confirmed. Pretty cool!

I'd like to try for another angelic badge soon, and going off Khiijol's advice, I think I'll do Veteran Angelic Badge next. Given that I can abuse any of Max Carnage, Light Travel, and Overconfidence, it doesn't seem too insane of a challenge. The main issue will be killing JC. Ideally, I'd just double nuke the ending, but I need to survive which is the problem. I'll see what I can figure out for that! It'd be great to get another ranking promotion and match some more players! :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 04, 2017, 14:06
Day 59:

First time posting progress on the day of in quite awhile! :D

So as said, I decided to go for Veteran Angelic Badge with combining Max Carnage and Overconfidence. I had a pretty good start:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Part way into the level, I found the unique that spawned, which was Revenant's Launcher! Definitely a big help for corpse disposal:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

All the rockets collected from annoying Mancubi and Revenants will come in handy now. I generally don't like using Rocket Launchers since they destroy walls and scatter enemies around, but I didn't have much of a choice for this challenge. I got through the first floor pretty well, which is nice. Not much struggling yet!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Floors 2 and 3 weren't anything special; I just killed enemies with the Assault Shotgun and then blew them up. One thing that stood out for me though is I was playing exceptionally well and had a massive kill streak after just a few levels:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Floor 4 is very crucial to the run since I need to safely get the Nuclear BFG. While an Invulnerability did spawn, it was unfortunately very far away from the stairs:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I actually took my first hit in awhile here to a Nightmare Cacodemon, which got me back on alert:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I found a Power Battery and the Hell Staff close together! Two very critical items for success!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The good luck continued with rolling Limbo. I didn't really have a plan for Mortuary, so I'm glad I got this:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I had quite the arsenal ready for Limbo. I had to be very careful to getting to the top-right:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Fortunately, there were no Archviles on that island and I made it there while still Invulnerable. I made the stupid mistake of forgetting that the corpses around can respawn and nearly died for it:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I really wanted to save the Soulsphere, but didn't have a choice and had to use it right away to blow up the island. Once that was done, I started firing away at the enemies:

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I didn't bring much for health, so I had to run across earlier than I had planned while I had over 100% health. Once I cleared out the middle area, I used up my last Large Med-Pack to cross again:

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I was very careful on keeping one of the middle Soulspheres intact for later. Once again, I continued firing off to the far-off islands:

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Once the level was cleared out, I was in fairly good shape overall:

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I was already at the one hour mark as this takes forever to do. I started considering that a Trigun run with floor 7 Invulnerability might be a much better strategy, although it would be a massive grind to get that luck. Limbo on Nightmare is so brutal though.

Floor 5 was pretty easy and nothing special. Floor 6 greeted me with this however:

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I was super tempted to use the Nuclear BFG to wipe out a ton of enemies, but I was worried I could potentially destroy a nuke or something, so I just took cover and fired away countless shells into the crowd:

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Turns out, doing that was a good idea:

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I rolled Mt Erebus, which I definitely prefer over Lava Pits. Happy to have got both bonus levels I wanted. Once I cleared out some of the Pain Elementals and Lost Souls around the starting area, I used the Hell Staff:

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Kind of lucky to get inside honestly, as clearing out the Revenants while having cover is nice. Once they were cleared, I phased out some more:

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Eep.

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So stupid. I had to waste all of my Med-Packs. After grinding this run for a good chunk of time, this would be the dumbest way to lose the run. This is one major disadvantage of Mt Erebus over Lava Pits. I had one try left:

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Thank god, and honestly, I got warped in the ideal place too. I flipped the lever and cleared out the enemies around:

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I noticed this Mancubus's corpse wouldn't get gibbed, so I stood on it for a moment while killing the others:

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Even a BFG shot wouldn't destroy it?

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Lava Armor!

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I was pretty well set for the Lava Elemental:

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Killed him without getting hit! Pretty good!

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After leaving behind the two undestroyable corpses, figuring they were dummied out or something, I checked my status to be sure:

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Had to waste an Envirosuit, which was worrying:

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One of them would be destroyed after respawning, but the other still wouldn't so I dunked him in lava instead:

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So I was pretty well set to fight JC now, but I wasn't entirely sure how I'd go about killing him, since I've had awful luck every time I tried during my Apostle rank grind. I was really hoping floor 7 would give a second nuke and a nearby Invulnerability. I got a decent floor, but nothing I really needed:

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Some complications with clearing:

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Entering Dis, this was my status:

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After I blew up the Spider Mastermind, I was a little undecided what to go with for JC, but I went with this setup:

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At this point, I was actually set for the angelic badge, and this was all on my first attempt, but I honestly was worried:

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This realization however made my heart rate spike WAY up:

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The Revenant's Launcher is SO GOOD for JC, and I realized I might actually kill him!

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Once I read "severely wounded", I started to get a bit nervous as I had a real shot at killing him now. 15 years of competitive gaming and at this point, it's exceptionally rare for me to feel nervous when playing. This was one of those moments. JC backed me up by taking a rocket hit, which worked out since I block most of fire damage and wanted to be out of sight of the other enemies:

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HOLY SHIT I DID IT ON MY FIRST TRY!!!

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This was BY FAR by leaps and bounds the most amazing thing I've ever done in DoomRL! This was literally my first attempt at going for this angelic badge and the run immediately after when I got Masochist Diamond Badge! A ton of it was good luck with Revenant's Launcher, Hell Staff, both good bonus levels, clear Nuclear BFG, not getting stuck in Mt Erebus, and no nasty floors! It's hard to show of course, but I definitely performed very well here and used a ton of great tactics throughout too! I really didn't think I would get this badge without some insane, goofy Trigun run, but I did it! I'm so elated!

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Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Ridonk on November 05, 2017, 09:14
Magnificant :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on November 05, 2017, 19:11
Very nice.

Lucky run, to be sure, but very well played. You have well and truly exceeded my ability, now... definitely looking forward to your next attempts.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 06, 2017, 06:41
Thanks guys! Shoutouts to Khiijol again for the suggestion too! :D

Day 60:

I dabbled a little bit with Pacifist Angelic Badge, and it's super dumb, lol. The furthest I got to before dying or having an enemy die was floor 5, so this will definitely require a mega grind to get. On the plus side, the actual execution is pretty simple, but it'll take many, many attempts to get the needed luck.

I also tried a bit more for Angel of Humanity as a Conqueror on a normal game and on Angel of 100, but neither were working out. After awhile, I did some brainstorming and I came up with an absolutely amazing strategy for the run!

As shown in the code before, you can do Angel of Humanity + Overconfidence, complete the 4 floors, and receive the rewards, but all of the bonus levels are pretty insane to do. However, a very important point is that when you start off with one of each basic mod pack, a Combat Knife, and a Red Armor, you can create both a Ballistic Red Armor and a Chainsword immediately! This trivializes Unholy Cathedral! You can use a nice setup for the Lost Souls, destroy all the Demons once Berserk, and then fighting the Angel of Death with Berserk + Ballistic Armor, you'll only be taking 1 (10%) damage each hit!

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Once a Lost Soul appears, step into the corner and ideally, the Lost Soul goes where you just were, giving a safe kill. Dancing around isn't too hard if they're uncooperative, and you'll usually need to use a Large Med-Pack anyway, so it's a great way to starting the level.

The other important key is that with both Angel of Humanity and Overconfidence, you receive all the Large Med-Packs for both challenges, giving you a total of 4 of them! You'll almost certainly need 2 for the Unholy Cathedral, but still have a pair for before or after.

Now, if you play on Hurt Me Plenty, which is harder than the necessary difficulty of Hey, Not Too Rough for the challenge, you can get Azrael's Scythe, which is the absolute key to completing the other bonus levels! Because you can use it indefinitely so long as you can keep healing (maximum HP has a minimum but still works), you can use it and wipe out both The Vaults and Mortuary/Limbo! In fact for Mortuary/Limbo, you start beside two Soulspheres, so you don't even necessary need all the Med-Packs. Once you clear the level by Whisper of Death spam, you then gain 4 extra Large Med-Packs, Angelic Armor, Red Armor (P), a nuke (via Nuclear BFG), and a Soulsphere on your exit! These two floors are also fantastic for experience!

Ideally for Lava Pits/Mt Erebus, you can enter while Invulnerable and nuke the place, then killing the Lava Elemental (2ish hits) once it warps to you. With Red Armor (P) + Berserk + Large Med-Packs, you have enough healing to survive, so long as you don't get dunked in lava.

With the Lava Element, you can then use it for floor 7 if you still have your nuke (for Dis), or otherwise enter Dis, spam all that you can left of Azrael's Scythe, then approach while Invulnerable and repeatedly make the Spider Mastermind flinch until she dies.

It's such an amazing strategy for this challenge! I can't recommend it enough! The start of floor 1 can be tricky, but Assault Shotgun + Shell Box is usually enough. It's important to also be collecting all the Med-Packs you can and to grab an Envirosuit if possible for the Lava Elemental. Another minor detail is if you find a Rocket Launcher before The Vaults, you can scavenge both of the side vaults for potential goodies.

I strongly recommend using the Scout and going with Brute x2 -> Berserker -> Brute -> Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> beyond. The first four are for key for Angel of Death, though with a low experience floor 1, reaching just level 3 is fine. Intuition is also critical in my opinion because after spamming Azrael's, you absolutely need to minimize damage as you're running around with 5 HP and really benefit from seeing where Invulnerabilities are. Despite collecting the traits for Blademaster, it's not really useful since you should be avoiding groups of enemies.

I also recommend using a Scout for stair sense. I tried a bit with Marine, but wandering around the floors is too dangerous, despite having Vampyre and double Berserk/Invulnerability bonuses.

Once I pieced the strategy altogether, it took a few runs to get going, as well as getting a touch of luck, but it's very easy! You can also use the same strategy on Ultra-Violence for Everyman Diamond Badge, which I plan on doing in the future.

This was my setup at the end of floor 1:

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Double Invulnerability on floor 5:

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Lava Pits two steps away on floor 6:

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Some bad luck with a late warp by the Lava Elemental:

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Envirosuit + Berserk saving the day. I killed the Lava Elemental in just 2 attacks, though I did need to be careful and used some Med-Packs:

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Lucky floor 7:

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Lava Element setup for Dis:

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And indeed, I received both Thomas's Medal and Everyman Platinum Badge! Very happy to get these, but also to do so with brainpower! :)

At this point now, I just need one more medal, which is Dervis' Medallion. With that, I'll also receive two diamond badges with Centurial Diamond Badge, and Heroic Diamond Badge! I'm pretty confident I can beat Angel of 100 on Nightmare. I'm tempted to use Max Carnage, but I'm thinking it'll make the ending way too difficult, and will probably just do a standard challenge. The only thing is that the run itself takes some time and I don't really want to have my computer running overnight, so I'll try for this on the weekend. In the meantime, I think I'll go for Everyman Diamond Badge next and rotate a bit for the remaining platinum badges I haven't achieved.

Getting all the medals is a major milestone I'm looking forward to completing!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: khiijol on November 06, 2017, 10:16
awesome runs, congratulations! for a100 on max carnage i've been able to get around level 70 or so before monsters become too overpowering. i was using a cateye build, but maybe shottyhead would be more effective if you could get lucky and get a super shotgun and make it into a nanoshrapnel p-modded gun
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on November 06, 2017, 10:27
Brilliant theorycrafting there - if you can keep that up,  you'll have a definite edge approaching your remaining Angelic challenges.

For Dervis, I don't recommend max carnage.  There's no reason you need to be killing anything other then what's directly in your path to the stairs, so I'd recommend a melee stairdive as a scout. It may take a few attempts before you get it rolling,  but once you do it'll go fast... you won't need to leave the computer running overnight.

For reference I submit my Dervis mortem (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8181.msg67979.html#msg67979), which I completed in under an hour real-time.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 07, 2017, 13:57
Thanks guys! :)

That's good to know that Angel of 100 on Nightmare doesn't actually take very long at all! Maybe I'll try for some tonight then.

Day 61:

Not much in terms of progress! I played some for Everyman Diamond Badge, and while it's functionally the same as the way I did Everyman Platinum Badge, the bump up to Ultra-Violence is enough where it's significantly harder to complete. More enemies, more damage, and the bonus levels require extra Med-Packs when using Azrael's. No luck on completing it yet.

I also tried for some Quartermaster Diamond Badge with use of Max Carnage. I had a few good runs, but died in all of them. Arachnotrons and Former Commandos are brutal. :(

Playing for Quartermaster Diamond Badge is a lot of fun, so I'll probably focus on that next. That's all for now!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 08, 2017, 10:08
Day 62:

Good progress this day! First was more attempts at Quartermaster Diamond Badge. For the most part, gameplay is just based around not getting hit and making sure to find the stairs while exploring the levels. There's usually enough time to be killing every enemy with Max Carnage, except for the odd cases where they're teleporting around, or they become difficult to control. As you get further into the game, the difficulty stays roughly the same, maybe a bit easier as you get more useful traits to speed up, as well as buffed up weapons. A Plasma Rifle with plenty of ammo is enough to clear entire floors very fast!

Some screenshots; I went for a full clear on Hell's Armory and barely escaped in time:

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On one floor, I had a double Invulnerability stacked near each other but didn't know where the stairs were. The floor was a "city" and one of the rooms hadn't been explored in, yet it turned out the stairs was on a random dark tile I hadn't checked yet. Fortunately before discovering that, I decided to use my Homing Phase Device after grabbing the Invulnerabilities, and it also turned out to be a good idea for the following floor:

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The rest of the run was pretty basic stuff. It's not too hard of a challenge, but it's a fairly long game where you can't make too many mistakes for the entire duration. Each floor individually is easy, but playing flawlessly as a whole is a bit tough.

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Slightly off-topic, here's a cool screenshot of a random game I played about a week ago that I forgot about:

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Anyway, after that badge, I went for Berserker Diamond Badge. Given that melee is very hard on Nightmare when you can't be skipping everything, I opted to rush to floor 7, and then create a setup where I could repeatedly kill a weak enemy to buff up my kill count requirement. I got lucky with getting a run after just a few tries!

This was definitely a lucky start to this floor, and was also fantastic for experience:

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And even luckier than it would appear!

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With the double Invulnerability and a lucky floor 6...

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I was able to clear out an arena type floor on Hell 7, and wiped out all the corpses too, leaving just a single Revenant. While they're fairly dangerous, they have very low HP and are easy to repeatedly kill:

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Once I reached enough kills (went a fair bit higher than necessary lol), I used the Chainsaw Berserk trick on Dis, charged the Spider Mastermind, and hit her with flinching hits until she died!

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Two diamond badges in one night is pretty sweet at this point! This brings my count to 19, still with Heroic and Centurial in the bank waiting! :)

I'll probably start playing for Angel of 100 on Nightmare now and hopefully it doesn't take too long. :P I'm thinking of doing a Shotgun->Melee build with Intuition x2 -> Hellrunner x2 -> Dodgemaster -> Brute x2 -> Berserker -> Brute -> Beyond. It works out well since I'd of course want Blademaster, but only take 3 extra traits beforehand, all of which are helpful for melee builds anyway. Completing this challenge will give the double diamond badge and the last remaining medal, giving me my last major group of rewards, completing another page on my player stats, and leaving a great mark on my progress!

Hopefully I get some good luck on my runs!

Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on November 08, 2017, 10:58
(Psst...  in AoRA, if you pick up an invulnerability just before the nuke goes off, you survive the nuke and it's an easy way to clear the level)  :)

As Sereg said, brilliant theorycrafting!  :)  I was ready to criticize back when you said your strategy revolved around finding a Trigun or Power Battery, (I know I said that N! games require luck, but being lucky isn't really a "strategy")  :P  but hey, if you're getting results, who am I to complain?  :D

For reference I submit my Dervis mortem (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,8181.msg67979.html#msg67979), which I completed in under an hour real-time.

Oh, hey, that's cool!  I didn't realize that game was that quick!  I remember a time, back in version 0.9.9.1, when your game had to be under an hour to get Centurial Diamond; no one ever achieved it and it was deemed impossible, so I guess you proved that wrong!  :D  (Mind you, there was no Scout class, and so no stair sense back then)

Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 09, 2017, 15:55
Surviving the nuke is nice for quick clears, but I didn't want to risk the Invulnerabilities getting destroyed or getting attacked in the open. Hoping for luck or using cheesy tactics may not be the most appealing method for many players, but I'm an optimizer and strategist, and will always use all my resources available to achieve my goals. :)

Day 63:

Against what was recommended, I tried some Angel of 100 with Max Carnage on Nightmare and it didn't go too well. :P While Max Carnage is advantageous in combat and ammo conservation, the monster density is high enough where many starting points are surrounded and hard to control. I'll have to settle with raw Angel of 100 attempts.

I rotated a bit more, but didn't do anything spectacular. I also tried some more for Pacifist Angelic Badge and reached a new furthest point. This was a sketchy situation with nothing dying fortunately:

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Lucky floor 5:

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Lucky floor 6:

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Rougher floor 7. To avoid monsters killing each other, I had to take a long swim through acid:

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It seems that for Phobos Anomaly though, you need yet even more luck with a Phase Device for a realistic chance to get through without anything dying:

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Another Lost Soul got trashed too lol:

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And now for an overall progress discussion and how I'm feeling about all the remaining challenges. :)

One of the things with massively improving (in anything really) is having a stronger realization and understanding of how difficult certain tasks are, how talented top players are, and what's realistic. When I first started playing and writing here, I figured that while being a noob, I could eventually develop enough skill to get absolutely everything. Of course with plateaus, you begin to think that (now easy) other challenges are impossible until they are overcome and the process cycles until the next bump.

The thing is that I've learned a ton about this game now and I'd like to think I'm quite competent with how to play effectively. Yet, I truly don't think I'll ever achieve absolutely 100% of everything, not that I couldn't, but I don't want to end up investing thousands of hours just for certain badges. Speedrunner Angelic Badge comes to mind, but there are a couple others that are totally fucked too. Surely, anyone can get Speedrunner Angelic Badge with enough luck, but to beat the game in 4 minutes on Nightmare has very little to do with skill or learning. It's entirely a slot machine that would take a ridiculously stupid amount of time to get, which could of course be used on countless other things.

With all of this in mind, I also have a much better understanding of why people are very skeptical about 2Dev and VANDAM. I'm a firm believer of innocent until proven guilty, but being so casual about Demonic Angelic Badge doesn't make any sense, not to mention actually achieving it. If there were a supercomputer that would calculate all the mathematics and probabilities of every action and choose the best one each time, I imagine it still wouldn't be able to achieve the badge on most runs. Or just maybe, they know some secret tactics that I haven't figured out yet. Or perhaps they clocked in an ungodly number of hours.

For confirmed players, I'd strongly argue Papilio is the DoomRL's #1 with countless videos and mortems of super difficult challenges, duplicating many of those badges, and beating many without challenge abuse. Tormuse is definitely in that same tier by flaunting the most confirmed angelic badges, especially Everyman Angelic Badge. I'd say I'm a comfy 3rd place, but still behind by a major skill gap that I want to overcome.

Now, this isn't me giving up and vanishing or anything like that, but having learned and improved a lot with the game, I'm definitely going to scale my goals back a bit. Mindless grinding with little to no meaningful input by the player is not appealing at all (I'm perfectly fine with churning out runs though), but there are still many badges that offer a fair and difficult challenge that I want to accomplish. And because the game is a ton of fun, I'm definitely going to do a lot of my own personal challenges. One in particular I want to do eventually is a 100% kill game of Archangel of 666 on Ultra-Violence. I also want to do a bunch more of Max Carnage + Angel of 100 runs. Perhaps I'll also go for "un-Sereg'd" badge challenges too.

Here are my current thoughts on my remaining unachieved badges:

Strongman Platinum Badge - Tough, but doable with Invulnerability luck and using the Chainsaw for Babel and Dis.
Elite Platinum Badge - I don't think this challenge is too bad, but having to go through a long game with Mortuary/Limbo waiting near the end is scary. I'll probably go for 100% kills on this run for the needed experience.
Demonic Platinum Badge - Many of the bonus levels can be immediately exited, so I don't think this is too much harder than a regular Nightmare game. Again, Mortuary/Limbo waiting near the end is going to kill a lot of long runs, but I can definitely get this.
Marksman Platinum Badge - Probably the hardest platinum badge in my opinion. I'll likely go with a Sharpshooter build for this, but I've really never been a fan of using Pistols. Needing to kill everything keeps the player honest and also means mixing with Overconfidence is unrealistic.

Heroic Diamond Badge/Centurial Diamond Badge/Dervis' Medallion - Mostly needs a lucky start, ideally early Inquisitor set, and then it's just a stairdive. Even if this was much tougher, my last medal and a pair of diamond badges is a huge incentive to finish this soon.
Strongman Diamond Badge - Pretty damn hard. Papilio has achieved it, but I might be skipping this one.
Elite Diamond Badge - Basic Nightmare game with respawn grinding on the floor before Dis. Pretty easy, but time-consuming.
Demonic Diamond Badge - Very hard badge to earn. I think it will take a really lucky Phobos episode, followed by Invulnerability luck. Might skip it.
Everyman Diamond Badge - A step up in difficulty from platinum, but I can and will definitely get it.
Arena Diamond Badge - Really dumb luckfest badge, lol. I think only Tormuse has got it? I think the only way I'll be getting it is with a Butcher's Cleaver on floor 2, which I'm not too ecstatic to go for.

UAC Angelic Badge - Totally fucked. Nobody confirmed to have achieved.
Strongman Angelic Badge - Only Tormuse has it, and I'm not exactly excited for punching enemies for hours on end lol. Will probably skip it.
Speedrunner Angelic Badge - lol
Elite Angelic Badge - A couple players have this one which is surprising to me. Maybe I can get it on a Trigun run. :P
Demonic Angelic Badge - Shouldn't be realistically possible.
Berserker Angelic Badge - Tormuse has it from a lucky run. I'd definitely need more Invulnerability luck to get it.
Marksman Angelic Badge - Papilio and a couple others have it I think? I'm already not keen on Marksman Platinum Badge lol. I think a stair-dive with respawn grinding at the end would work, but I don't think I'll go for it.
Eagerness Angelic Badge - Nope.
Inquisitor Angelic Badge - Totally fucked.
Quartermaster Angelic Badge - It seems quite a few players have this one, and I think I can get it too. I'll definitely play for it.
Masochist Angelic Badge - I believe this is the "easiest" unachieved angelic badge? While health boosts are blocked, you can still run around Invulnerable. It's essentially a lighter version of UAC/Demonic, except you can't restore tactics either. I might try for it.
Centurial Angelic Badge - Will definitely get this one at some point.
Pacifist Angelic Badge - Never achieved and I don't think I will be getting it either. It requires far too much luck to be worth grinding for. On the plus side though, it's a nice fallback during a bad gameplay session, or for a few quick runs, so who knows. Maybe after long enough, I'll accidentally get it.
Everyman Angelic Badge - Totally fucked, but Tormuse somehow got it. Of all things though, not being able to use Intuition x2 is keeping me away from it lol.

In summary, I will go for all the remaining platinum badges, most of all the diamond badges (skipping Strongman, Demonic, and Arena), and I'll get at least up to 6 angelic badges for another ranking promotion. I'll probably be getting Centurial Angelic Badge, Quartermaster Angelic Badge, and one other, maybe Elite Angelic Badge.

I'm still overall happy with my progress thus far and have been having a blast, but this is now The Journey to 95%. :P When you shoot for the stars, you still get pretty far into space, and I definitely wouldn't have got as far as I have if not going for 100% to begin with. The top 10 in anything competitive are not players who just want top 10, but 1st.

You do indeed earn your namesake with "No-Life King", and I'm not willing to take that kind of plunge. :P I'll continue doing my best and while I think I won't be going beyond 3rd place in ranks/badges, I'd like to close the gap a bit to Papilio and Tormuse, as well as getting as far up as I can. I just wanted to share my thoughts on the game at this point where I'm seriously running low of realistically doable challenges and being nearly forced to grind for stupidly difficult challenges, but as I said, I'll still be continuing strong, so don't worry. :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: khiijol on November 09, 2017, 17:42
i have strongman diamond and found it pretty easy compared to the others. just use the shotgun to soften up demons on the early levels and make sure to switch to your fist for the killing blow. HMP you don't encounter hell knights until after the chained court so you should be able to get bru3 + ber by then, and anything bigger won't be until after the anomaly where you'll definitely have vampyre
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on November 10, 2017, 12:22
Like Khiijol said, I think you're overestimating the difficulty of Strongman Diamond.  I mean sure, it's challenging, but if you think it's undoable for you, then I think you need to reevaluate your strategy and abilities.  I know I razzed you earlier for luck-based strategies, but I think it's safe to say that you are a plenty competent and capable player.  You've clearly learned a lot and you're clearly still learning; I think that, with time and practice, and figuring out how to adapt what you know into your playstyle, you'll be able to get this one.  Here's another Strongman Diamond for inspiration. (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6921.0.html)  :D

The same can also be said of Marksman Platinum and Demonic Diamond; actually, considering how much you like Intuition 2, I would have thought those two would be right up your alley!

Or perhaps they clocked in an ungodly number of hours.

For the record, 2Dev posted his "Quad Angelic" game the very first day that version 0.9.9.7 came out.  (The first version that Angelic badges existed)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: ZicherCZ on November 10, 2017, 12:41
Marksman Platinum Badge - Probably the hardest platinum badge in my opinion. I'll likely go with a Sharpshooter build for this, but I've really never been a fan of using Pistols. Needing to kill everything keeps the player honest and also means mixing with Overconfidence is unrealistic.
It may be a playstyle difference, or just my fondness of Sharpshooters - but I tend to disagree with the badge being one of the hardest. It's probably the fact that I only have five Platinum badges, out of which two were received on a single AoMr UV run. (https://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,6533.msg57099.html#msg57099) (damn, almost five years ago?)
Give it a shot, preferably a sharp one (sorry for the lame pun).
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 10, 2017, 13:57
Thanks guys, I appreciate it. :) I've just been stuck on a lot of challenges lately and wanted to vent a bit and express some frustrations. Journeys come with bumps sometimes I guess. :P

Day 64:

Continuing on from yesterday, nothing new or any decent runs at all, lol. I tried some more for Pacifist Angelic Badge and had a few more runs near the end of Phobos. It really is a great challenge to go for on the side, so if I play for long enough, I think I will actually get it eventually.

On the positive, I have a long weekend and want to grind hard, so hopefully I'll get some new shinies. :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Sereg on November 10, 2017, 21:05
If it helps to motivate you, you are, by this point, clearly a stronger player then I am, so here are the badges I have that you don't yet:

Elite Platinum
Marksman Platinum
Centurial Diamond.

Huh. I thought that would be a longer list - you've sure cleared out alot of challenges.

Suffice it to say, those, at least, are quite doable. The platinums only require UV games, and while they do take a bit of time to get started occasionally, they're usually not too bad to finish once you get one going. I know you've done Conqueror before, and bringing it up to UV isn't too much of an increase in difficulty. Actually, the game where I earned Elite Diamond is the only time I have ever done Conqueror, so if I can do it on UV, you definitely can.

Centurial Diamond is, of course, just a matter of time before you get a good run started.

After that, my advice for you will probably cease to exist, because you will have fully surpassed my achievements in every possible way - well done, lol.

Edit: One other observation I've made - you have more Diamond badges now then Tormuse, by a not-insignificant margin. It's true that he's mostly focused on Angelics now, while you're looking towards full completion, but still... You have more Diamond badges then the legendary Tormuse. That's an acheivement in and of itself.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Icy on November 11, 2017, 06:32
Thanks, Sereg!

Day 65:

A whole lot more of nothing. I definitely think and agree I overrated the difficulty of a few badges, and I'm capable of a lot more than what I posted previously.

That said though, I think I'm going to take a break from playing for awhile and let the fire re-ignite. DoomRL is a super fun game and very well-designed, but with going non-stop in my free time for over 2 months now, I'm burning myself out a bit. I'm at well over 200 hours of play already! I'd rather take a break than to end up quitting altogether, as I've done in the past with other games, so that's what I'm going to do.

I'll be back with new badges sometime soon. The journey will continue!
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: BBHood217 on November 11, 2017, 20:07
Yeah, a break would be a good idea.  You could play some other games in the meantime.

Like actual Doom ;)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Tormuse on November 12, 2017, 13:44
Yeah, sometimes Real Life has to take over.  (the other RL)  ;)  I'm sure we'll see you around.  Don't be a stranger!  :)
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: thelaptop on November 13, 2017, 15:02
I'll be back with new badges sometime soon. The journey will continue!
If you return after a long while and find this thread locked, don't forget to PM either me or LuckyDee to unlock it for you so that you can continue your journey without having to start a new thread.
Title: Re: The Journey to 100%
Post by: Simon-v on November 17, 2017, 05:17
What completely blows my mind in this whole story, is how little time it took you to get where you are.