Chaosforge Forum

DoomRL => Discussion => Topic started by: Ghaleon on February 20, 2014, 23:10

Title: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 20, 2014, 23:10
First off, this game is mega-fun. I can't keep my hands off it! I finished it twice now onHNTR, and NEARLY finished it on HMP but.. more on that later. I'd like to ask questions, and critique the game though, so take it as you will.

1: First off, I read the newbie guide here awhile ago and one of its earlier points is damage avoidance...I understand dodging, the I'm not too sure on the cover mechanics because the pictures on the guide aren't showing for me despite looking at it on 3 seperate computers and browser. Sometimes I would assume I'm behind cover cuz I'll be behind a door and the dude I'm shooting at is approximately a 45 degree angle from the door at a distance. However they still hit me about half the time.. I know about acorner shooting, and how they wont even try to shoot me then, but...well, sometimes that's just not an option, unless I gift drop maybe, but tbh I don't intend to attempt that level of play just yet. I'm still in just have fun mode rather than try to clear on nightmare without taking a single hit mode =P. HOWEVER I watched a youtube video of this one dude who was just standing in the open with like 8 dudes shooting at him and he was not getting hit? wtf? Is this just just OBSCENELY lucky? or are the cover mechanics totally unintuitive and working for him here?

The "wtf" portion is at 0:40-0:50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNICVUI6hlg

Seriously, I feel if I was playing on even the easiest mode, I'd be dead before entering the damn base....this dude looks like a straight up hacker from my experience, but I'm guessing I'm missing some mechanic or something?

Anyway, moving on to my critiques about the game (it's amazing, I'm just a critic, so don't think I'm bashing it), please consider this as just player feedback for future improvements or whatever (and if anyone thinks this is based of noob ignorance, lemmie know, I'm open).

1: The player customization/specs seem kinda...well they seem less about picking a playstyle/strategy, and more about gambling on what weapons you are hoping to obtain. I mean every master spec seems to cater around a particular gun family, and the problem with that is you really can't control what guns you get or not. Even basic mods can screw you (my first clear I didn't find a single bulk mod until the vault.. yes, the vault... on my 2nd playthru, I didn't get a single power mod until late deimos... and on my 3rd playthru, let's not even go there). I know randomness and roguelikes is like peanut butter and jelly, but talents/perks/skills are clearly very weapon-familiy oriented in this game (advanced ones anyway). I hope the skills in Jupiter hell will be less "pick what guns you think you'll actually find good drops for!" specs, and more playstyle specs...

2: I plan on playing the 100 floor challenge next game so no comment there. But for the "normal" game, it seems to me that loot is pretty much non-existant aside from the optional floors. I can't think of a single time I got a unique or artifact from a random-generated floor, they're ALWAYS from the special floors. Am I just unlucky or?

3: I was lucky and this happened when I was doing a burst build (and hence could simply outgun him), but when you're in the tower of babel...the cyber demon can spawn RIGHT NEXT TO YOU.... Pretty sure you can't even make it to the nearest possible cover if you need to otherwise... I just stood there and burst-fired him to death (he still got a couple shots off but he died first because I had those few free turns you get when you first enter a new floor, which I suspect aren't enough to dash for cover unless you're some kinda speed demon build with phaseshift boots and armor and and and and....

4: Spider overlord seems pretty easy for a final boss. Maybe add motor fire to the floor? Maybe it's just cuz I've only faced him on HNTR though, not sure.

5: having a modable tag on items would be nice. I really have no way of knowing if an item is modable or not without simply trying to mod it.

6: Question: Is the game itself modable? not sure if I want to even try any at this point, but it would be cool to at least have a level editor and for players to make their own campaigns.

7: question: If anyone can show me any great guides other than the newbie guide thingie stickied on these boards let me know, I'd love to look at them!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: LuckyDee on February 20, 2014, 23:52
Hey there! Welcome to DoomRL and the Chaosforge Forum! Unfortunately I don't have the time to write you an elaborate story - which your post deserves - and by the time I do, at least half a dozen other will have beat me to it. A couple of things I can point out:

1) Yes, luck does play an important factor. It's definitely not the be-all and end-all, but it's impact is not to be underestimated. I had a look at the bit of movie you referred to, and that smells lucky to me (and I should know, you'd say. Or at least I do). Having the Cyberdemon spawn next to you may sound unlucky, but if you're playing a melee game of course... And good items are definitely not restricted to special levels, although some of the levels give you certain guarantees that normal levels definitely don't.

2) Go to YouTube and find videos by Game Hunter (I believe his YT channel is UberHunter or TheUberHunter). It's in console mode - I don't think graphics mode was even released back then - but his spoken commentary is a big help, and he has a nicely soothing voice.

3) Stick around these forums. Ask anything and everything. You'll get more help than you'll know what to do with.

Go get em, tiger!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Equality on February 21, 2014, 00:22
Quote
The "wtf" portion is at 0:40-0:50.
and so what? You are standing at edge of visible range (accuracy fall with distance!). Formers do not gain accuracy bonus from equipped pistols (? not sure but seems so). It is Easy difficulty. You are lucky! :)

Quote
1: The player customization/specs seem kinda...well they seem less about picking a playstyle/strategy, and more about gambling on what weapons you are hoping to obtain
do not understand. You play the game. You have a favorite tactics. For example you DO NOT love pistols. But loves shotguns. You choose a shotgun build and just drop away all junk like blaster-combat pistol-Trigun etc :) And go with your lovely shotgun. If you find a Jackhammer - good. But you can win having only shotgun, why not? No, do not change tactics if you find something. No, do not hope to obtain special weapon - you can not obtain it if you are not lucky. Even guaranteed specials like missile launcher, chainsaw or BFG not guaranteed at all! Situations becomes hot, and you do not go to special level for that weapon. So, you choose what you will do - and DO! namely picking playstyle and do not worry about special/uniques that you may find.

Quote
I can't think of a single time I got a unique or artifact from a random-generated floor, they're ALWAYS from the special floors. Am I just unlucky or?
artifacts always on special floors. Uniques are rare and you can find 1 in 20 runs. Or 2 in one. Luck, random and nothing more. But some of special floors have a good chance for uniques generation.

PS sorry for my english :)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Tormuse on February 21, 2014, 00:41
First off, welcome to the forums and welcome to DoomRL!  :D  I agree that it's a pretty awesome and addictive game; I can't keep my hands off it myself.  :)

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 20, 2014, 23:10
1: First off, I read the newbie guide here awhile ago and one of its earlier points is damage avoidance...I understand dodging, the I'm not too sure on the cover mechanics because the pictures on the guide aren't showing for me despite looking at it on 3 seperate computers and browser. Sometimes I would assume I'm behind cover cuz I'll be behind a door and the dude I'm shooting at is approximately a 45 degree angle from the door at a distance. However they still hit me about half the time.. I know about acorner shooting, and how they wont even try to shoot me then, but...well, sometimes that's just not an option, unless I gift drop maybe, but tbh I don't intend to attempt that level of play just yet. I'm still in just have fun mode rather than try to clear on nightmare without taking a single hit mode =P. HOWEVER I watched a youtube video of this one dude who was just standing in the open with like 8 dudes shooting at him and he was not getting hit? wtf? Is this just just OBSCENELY lucky? or are the cover mechanics totally unintuitive and working for him here?

The "wtf" portion is at 0:40-0:50.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNICVUI6hlg

Seriously, I feel if I was playing on even the easiest mode, I'd be dead before entering the damn base....this dude looks like a straight up hacker from my experience, but I'm guessing I'm missing some mechanic or something?

Naw, your instincts are correct; I don't know who this guy is, but he's clearly not doing anything to seek cover at all.  I'd say it's just lucky that all those former humans kept missing him.  (To be honest, I felt like yelling at the screen several times during that video)  :P

As for the newbie guide, do you mean this one? (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php?topic=6278.0)  If so, it's not a problem with your browser; I'm getting a 404 error when I try to view the images, meaning they don't exist or have been moved or something.  Someone should probably update that.

a 45 degree angle from the door does nothing to protect you; corner-shooting looks more like this...  (excuse my ASCII art)

Code: [Select]
.B........
######@...
######....
######....

...where "@" is you and "B" is a Baron, for example.  From this position, you can shoot at him without him seeing you.  Trouble is you can't see him either from here, so sometimes, it's preferable to get into this position...

Code: [Select]
.B........
######.@..
######....
######....

...because now, you can see him (which makes your rapid weapons more accurate) and shoot him without him shooting you, but it's a little riskier because he'll start shooting you when he gets two or three squares away, whereas in the first image, he won't attack until he's at point-blank range.  You kind of have to gauge your surroundings and figure out what works best in any given situation.

As for all the other stuff...

1)  Yes, the master traits are based around a particular weapon type and yes, the RNG can really screw you over by giving you the wrong equipment for the character you are trying to build sometimes; sometimes you just have to adapt your strategy as you go and hope for the best.  The play balance for the randomness has been adjusted many times with each version of the game over the years;  I agree it can be frustrating when you get an unlucky game, but I guess you just kind of have to remind yourself about the PB+J and not let it bother you too much and hope you get a better one next time.  (Incidentally, I recommend trying the optional levels; they can be pretty tough, but also very rewarding!  They're a major source of mod packs if that's what you're looking for)

2)  There's a reason that there's a medal for getting three uniques in one game; it doesn't happen very often.  It makes it all the more valuable when you do get them.  (I've had the occasional lucky game when I got 6 uniques!  Just luck of the draw)  Also, I'm pretty sure that if you get a weapon that perfectly suits your build, like say, a Grammaton Cleric Berreta on a Gun Kata build, you are legally required to emit an evil laugh.  :P  As for the other occasions, well...  Someone made a comic on that subject. (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,4314.msg39985.html#msg39985)  :)

3)  That's a freakin' unlucky starting point...  :|  unless you're playing a melee build, in which case that's a freakin' lucky starting point!  ;)  (Seriously, I've had games when I wished for that kind of setup)  There's your PB+J again.  :)

4)  The Spider Mastermind is a relatively new addition to the game and I know that her AI has been tweaked a few times; it could be that she needs some more tweaking.

5)  I agree that would be nice.  In the meantime, you can find info on the DoomRL wiki. (http://doom.chaosforge.org/wiki/DoomRL_Wiki)

6)  Absolutely!  We have a whole sub forum (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/board,22.0.html) dedicated to everything related to modding.  I dabbled a bit with it myself, but never created anything as ambitious as a campaign.  If you create anything like that, I'd be curious to see it.

7)  I'm not sure, to be honest; someone else will have to post that.  I honed my DoomRL skills by just playing lots.  :)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 21, 2014, 11:25
1: You're probably doing corner shooting correctly. Enemies don't shoot back when you are corner shooting correctly.
Dodge mechanics are a seperate thing, and actually work quite intuitively - enemies can miss you anytime, but you only dodge when you are moving (and if you don't dodge in the right direction, you'll get hit anyway) - effectively, there are 3 things that can happen to a shot - it can hit the target, it can miss the target (pass right over her), or it can hit the square upon which she was standing last turn.
The third possibility is extremely common. In running mode, slow projectiles (like imp or baron bullets) only roll 'hit' something like 1/5 attacks.

Oh, and that video was very good luck. Something like 1/200 good luck!
(That said, it's not impossible for even experienced players to utilise the 'stand in the open and get lucky' strategy to avoid death - I got some flak for 1:45 - 2:26 in this video!:)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEGKushTuBQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=105


Second1: Player customisation isn't as bad as it may seem! Lots of the best builds are actually *not* master builds (in fact master builds are ideal for maybe 1/3 games at a high level of play). Even without master builds, though, things tend to get pretty specialised, as you noticed. The trick is balancing skills that you need now, vs those which you will need in future. Example; pistols make for a very weak early game, but Son of a Gun level 5 is probably the most powerful skill in the game when you're above level 12! A lot of character build planning is about what you can get away with given the weapon drops, and primarily concerns how long you can sit on 'neutral' traits like hellrunner and finesse (and especially 'juggler') before you specialise. A similar dilemna surrounds many modpacks - Can you hold on to those bulk packs, in the hopes of finding a nano in the armoury, when you''d really like to be able to use them to build a gatling gun right now?
I'd like to mention it's *possible* to play end-game high-difficulty jack-of-all-trades characters (I have a great pistol/melee/shotgun build), but it's a tricky path to tread!

2: You get some great loot on normal floors! Special levels, though, as you noticed, are probably more instrumental in your fancy arsenal!

3: Even if you appear far from the cyberdemon, it's worth noting that getting behind cover doesn't mean much against him... His weapon has a large blast radius, don't think he doesn't know how to use it strategically!

4: The spider overmind can be a little easy for many characters, yes. She's mainly soft, brainy tissue though, she can't be that tough! ;)

5: Good point about mods - it's confusing to inexperienced players. Weapons and armour should probably have 'empty slots' to demonstrate how they can be modded.

6: The game is slightly moddabale

7: I wrote a guide a long time ago (years ago), which was well received, especially (wierdly) on forums outside chaosforge!
I've been hugely expanding it, meaning to comprehensively update it, and it's currently close to ready - only a few of the special levels (the ones after the wall), and the parts after 'assemblies' concerning traits, builds, and monsters) are still out of date.

I've hosted the 'half update' version here, as an exclusive special scoop just for you!

http://sylph.me.uk/2%20games/doomrl/DoomRLGuide.txt

 (Hope you feel really special! x)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 21, 2014, 23:11
Holy smokes, thanks a ton for that guide! It was a great read, and while some if it was somewhat common sense, there were some amazing bits of info that I didn't know about that will make the game play SOOO much different.

First off, I didn't know abut the "auto-walk" feature, and even if I read about it somewhere else, I'm sure I wouldn't have assumed you can "auto-wait"...Not only will this obviously save me from taking damage way more often since I currently just wander around and often take stray hits from enemies shooting at me as I move towards them in visible range, but it will make gift dropping an option that I will no longer feel too tedious to worry about at my current level of play. This alone I'm pretty sure will more than improve my game by an entire difficulty setting at LEAST.

That, and while I personally have been telling myself to use running mode more often, this guide will certainly help. Before I've had the bad habit of using running mode only for situations where I'm in an enemy's shooting range, and have no cover nearby, which was not nearly as often as I get opportunities to refresh tired status from health orbs and such. I knew that it helped dodging alot, but I guess I forgot how much it helps you avoid attacks by enemies simply "missing". Also you said it reduces damage too, did you mean simply because they miss more often? or do the hits you take deal less damage as well somehow? I can't find that info on the wiki, do you know how much it is reduced by?

I also had no idea -4 meant their 50% chance to hit becomes 9%, I'm seriously dumbfounded.

I also already put rocket launchers to adjust my surroundings to my favor a few times, however I never thought about doing it for chained court + to deal with dem hell knights. I don't know if I EVER would have thought of that... Likewise, blowing up those teleporters for spider nest.

Not only that, but by knowing how to auto-wait, I'll feel far more comfortable running around in tactical armor (I always made tactical boots). The speed boost will be great.

It's hard to imagine the guide isn't finished... I hope you understand how excited I am to put what I learned into practice!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 22, 2014, 01:18
One warning about autowait: A wait action _always_ takes 1.0s, no matter what your movement speed is. Thus, a faster enemy may (and fairly often will) move into you line of sight and get a shot at you before you can react. Neither tac armor nor boots are any help in this.
Autowait is still a very safe and sound tactics if you use it in conjuction with safe positioning. If you happen to find a sweet spot like this:
Code: [Select]
#########
........#
........#
........#
#######@#
........#
........#
........#
#########

nothing can come to you without you seeing it first, so you can autowait and cornershoot all the monsters on the floor without seeing much more than this section of it.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 22, 2014, 03:00
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 21, 2014, 23:11
Holy smokes, thanks a ton for that guide! It was a great read, and while some if it was somewhat common sense, there were some amazing bits of info that I didn't know about that will make the game play SOOO much different.

First off, I didn't know abut the "auto-walk" feature, and even if I read about it somewhere else, I'm sure I wouldn't have assumed you can "auto-wait"...Not only will this obviously save me from taking damage way more often since I currently just wander around and often take stray hits from enemies shooting at me as I move towards them in visible range, but it will make gift dropping an option that I will no longer feel too tedious to worry about at my current level of play. This alone I'm pretty sure will more than improve my game by an entire difficulty setting at LEAST.
'Run-on-the-spot' is extremely important in playing doomrl. 'At least' indeed! You'd perhaps be under-estimating it's importance if you were only attributing it to a single skill level increase. ;)

Quote
That, and while I personally have been telling myself to use running mode more often, this guide will certainly help. Before I've had the bad habit of using running mode only for situations where I'm in an enemy's shooting range, and have no cover nearby,
Actually, that sounds about right. If there are no enemies in shooting range, or you're in cover, then there's no real reason to use running mode, since you can't be attacked. :)

Quote
I knew that it helped dodging alot, but I guess I forgot how much it helps you avoid attacks by enemies simply "missing". Also you said it reduces damage too, did you mean simply because they miss more often? or do the hits you take deal less damage as well somehow? I can't find that info on the wiki, do you know how much it is reduced by?
I also had no idea -4 meant their 50% chance to hit becomes 9%, I'm seriously dumbfounded.
Running mode doesn't reduce damage when an attack hits you, no. That's a point I need to clarify in the guide.
I see you've been doing research! Yes, going from 10 (former humans) to 6 accuracy reduces chance to hit from 50% to 9%! It's worth remembering, though, that while the effect of running is in the region of -40-50% to hit for most enemies, it usually isn't so dramatic a change, because an 80% chance to hit will go down to 35% or so - still less than half what it used to be, but not the 4/5ths reduction that you get against formers!

It's really worth mentioning the *dodge* bonus here though. You can rely on that 9% miss chance when running against former humans, but against bigger monsters, dodging is much more reliable than relying on enemies missing. Bullets have 10% dodge chance, plasma has 20%, and the fire/acid/plasma balls that some enemies throw/spit at you have 50%. You also get in the region of 20% added on to that for every 5 squares away the enemy is, so standing 5 squares away from a hell knight actually already gives you a ~75% chance of dodging - he only lands 1 in 4 attacks!
Running mode increases this by a further 20%. That might not sound like much, but when you're running for cover, your expected turns to run before being hit just jumped from 4 squares, to 20 squares! When you add on hellrunner (+15%) or tactical armour (10%) dodging starts to become a lovely, reliable option to avoid taking damage!
Cover is much better than fighting while running (you know this, but...), always consider that an ideal cover situation should equate to 100% damage reduction, and wastes far less ammo than firing while in running mode, so seek cover! You don't need to be fighting while dodging, if you can dodge your way to good cover.
Any player that has taken the 'dodgemaster' trait already knows how good dodging all those shots are, but it takes a bit of experience before you realise that most characters are capable of achieving similar dodging frenzies with the right items or tactics!

Quote
I also already put rocket launchers to adjust my surroundings to my favor a few times, however I never thought about doing it for chained court + to deal with dem hell knights. I don't know if I EVER would have thought of that... Likewise, blowing up those teleporters for spider nest.
I'm not sure whether you still can blow up the spider's nest teleporters. I'm suspicious that it was removed.
The chained court+ strategy, though, took me a long time to come up with, with at least a couple of threads on these forums dedicated to throwing about ideas! I wouldn't be surprised if somebody hadn't found something even better, this is a strategic game and good players come up with some ingenious ideas that I had not thought of (like luring the demons out of their tunnels on phobos lab using rocket explosions), so soon enough you'll trump my ideas for tackling levels with your own. The chained court+ though, in particular, was a lovely one to finally 'crack'. :D

Quote
Not only that, but by knowing how to auto-wait, I'll feel far more comfortable running around in tactical armor (I always made tactical boots). The speed boost will be great.
+Speed items (tactical armour & boots, among others) only decrease the time it takes to move, not to stand still. If you want to stand still safely, either be in a position where no enemies will be able to shoot at you the turn after they first see you, use 'z' to switch weapons (0.8s per turn), fire a fast-firing weapon (SoaG can get a pistol down as low as 0.1s)(there's a lot these 2 tacticas going on in the first few levels of that youtube game I posted earlier) or, if you're *really* desperate to get that first turn, start to drop items on the floor (0.5s each). It's very rare, though, that such extreme measures as dropping items or wasting bullets are necessary, and they carry with them their own risks!
The main point of +speed items (and they're probably the most powerful items in the game) is being able to get to cover without taking any damage.
(Also refer to the hyperblaster section in the guide concerning speed)

Quote

It's hard to imagine the guide isn't finished... I hope you understand how excited I am to put what I learned into practice!
Awwww, that's a lovely first bit of feedback on it! It's not finished though, no (as seen with the confusion about running damage reduction, and spider's lair teleporters), and there's a *lot* of content to add about challenge modes, nightmare strategy, character builds/traits, and best build paths and mod choices per weapon!
The original version of that guide was written to be quite short and punky, but it's grown into a bit of a hybrid now, and has a lot of growing to do before it's comprehensive. Nice to see that it's still well-received though, after all these years! :D
Thankyou ever so much.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 22, 2014, 04:27
I started reading that guide today, and though I didn't get through much yet (I was on my lunch break) I found it to be very well written and helpful, too!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 23, 2014, 02:48
Well I just finished my first Hurt me plenty game, finished 2 not too roughs before this thread. While part of me wants to try ultra violence, or a 100 floor challenge, part of me wants to try different classes/builds on difficulties I'm familiar with, just to see what I like first.

That said, am I unlucky orr.... In all 3 of my completed games, I never, not once, found a single rare mod, no sniper, no onyx, no firestorm, no nano. Furthermore, seems I'm good at attracting situational exotics. translocator, phase shifter (or whatever it's called that makes enemies "tired", whatever), dragonslayer (when I'm not even a melee character), some weird rapid fire bfg (was it bfg10k? I forget) that wiki says can blow yourself up with random secondary explosions even if you shoot really far away form yourself, so I dare not use it...

Every game I finish with just a basic assembly to a basic weapon. qq.

Also has anyone ever tried nuking JC? I'm kinda hitting myself, I had found a nuke on hell 2 or something so I nabbed it for Spider mastermind, then I found ANOTHER nuke on hell 5 or so, which I ignored since my inventory was limited. Then I did the lava pools for you know what... But...there was an invulnerability orb right next the stairs down to dis, so I never even needed to use my lava elemental in dis when I nuked it. I could have nuked jc safely too if only I took the 2nd nuke I found. *cries*.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 23, 2014, 04:33
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 23, 2014, 02:48
That said, am I unlucky orr.... In all 3 of my completed games, I never, not once, found a single rare mod, no sniper, no onyx, no firestorm, no nano. Furthermore, seems I'm good at attracting situational exotics. translocator, phase shifter (or whatever it's called that makes enemies "tired", whatever), dragonslayer (when I'm not even a melee character), some weird rapid fire bfg (was it bfg10k? I forget) that wiki says can blow yourself up with random secondary explosions even if you shoot really far away form yourself, so I dare not use it...

Every game I finish with just a basic assembly to a basic weapon. qq.

In my experience, outside of Ao100, you aren't likely to find either a rare mod or a exotic that fits your build. Exotics DO seem a lot more common, and sometimes I've been able to find a fitting one (more often with rapid-fire builds if I recall correctly), but I don't think I've ever gotten the appropriate rare mod for the specific assembly I was hoping to make. Makes you really appreciate them, I guess!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 23, 2014, 05:10
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 23, 2014, 02:48
That said, am I unlucky orr.... In all 3 of my completed games, I never, not once, found a single rare mod, no sniper, no onyx, no firestorm, no nano. Furthermore, seems I'm good at attracting situational exotics. translocator, phase shifter (or whatever it's called that makes enemies "tired", whatever), dragonslayer (when I'm not even a melee character), some weird rapid fire bfg (was it bfg10k? I forget) that wiki says can blow yourself up with random secondary explosions even if you shoot really far away form yourself, so I dare not use it...

Every game I finish with just a basic assembly to a basic weapon. qq.
You didn't mention the Armory / Deimos Lab. Do you visit and complete those? A high-level mod (might be replaced Cybernetic Armor) is guaranteed upon completing the level. Plus, you don't even need the higher mods to create some of the advanced or master assemblies. Otherwise, it's simply bad luck for you (and the same goes for finding exotic or unique items unsuitable for your build and/or challenge).

And being able to win with only basic assemblies and basic weapons is a display of some commendable skill, and a sign of a good player :).
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 23, 2014, 05:34
Zicher is exactly right. Do the lab/armoury and you have a good chance of getting a good mod. I think you also get a schematic, but once you have discovered all assemblies, you get a mod instead of the schematic as well!

Regarding your unique finding - it's pretty rare to find 3 uniques in a single run, and I've not seen a BFG10k in years! I regard it as one of the best finds in the game, and it's a brute-force weapon, not what I'd call a situational exotic! :)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 23, 2014, 08:23
I had forgotten about the Armory. Probably because I usually get myself killed by Shamblers. ;) Though it does remind me that I have found schematics for assemblies I already discovered before. So don't rely on those. (Maybe that isn't supposed to happen and should be fixed? Don't know.) And you don't get a specific mod, so don't rely on that, either. But there's nothing wrong with standard fare! :P
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 23, 2014, 10:12
Quote from: Thiebs on February 23, 2014, 08:23
Though it does remind me that I have found schematics for assemblies I already discovered before. So don't rely on those. (Maybe that isn't supposed to happen and should be fixed? Don't know.)
Are you sure? According to the Wiki, you can only receive schematics you don't already know. This would have been a bug then, probably.
I vaguely recall someone's post about how he arrived to the Armory, cleared it, picked up the mods and assembled a previously unkown assembly. And then he picked up the schematics, only to find that the schematics were precisely for the freshly assembled item. The conclusion was that the Armory rewards are generated upon arriving the to level, and as such, not a bug.

Oh, and to return to the rewards: Deimos Lab cache contains one more rare mod over Armory. Then again, it also contains one more Shambler over Armory ...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 23, 2014, 11:03
That makes a lot of sense, and I do remember a distinct feeling of 'not this again!', so it's pretty likely that's what happened to me.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 23, 2014, 13:47
Quote from: ZicherCZ on February 23, 2014, 10:12
Oh, and to return to the rewards: Deimos Lab cache contains one more rare mod over Armory. Then again, it also contains one more Shambler over Armory ...
Unless you clear the armoury damageless. :)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 01:33
Well, I got the armory in all 3 of my games and cleared it each time, the room that opens up after I kill the shambler never had a rare mod, it's always 2 common mod and 1 schematic...I'm guessing the schematic is the one rare mod once I've "learned" all the mod schematics.

I'm in my 4th game now, and got Deimos lab for the first time, just cleared it and got a sniper mod!....I didn't get a 2nd mod though, and no mod schematic. It had 2 common mods before the shamblers, 2 exotic weapons before as well (Another translocator though, sigh...and a laser rifle!!...well except I am deliberately NOT playing a rapid fire gun build this game since that's what I used in my last 2... doh!).

I got exotic armor though! Cybernetic armor!...oh wait.. that's another bust. *runs away crying*. Oh well, hopefully I'll make good use of my sniper mod at some point, I'm trying gun kata for the first time though and don't really wanna use it on a regular pistol just yet. They seem to get the job done fine and I don't need the accuracy just yet, and if a Clerica whatever drops and I used my sniper mod already I'll cry.

Note I didn't know you get bonuses for clearing stuff without taking a hit, is this armory only? How do you reliably never take a hit from shamblers anyway? I know you can kinda sorta avoid taking hits most of hte time by not moving and just letting it teleport around while you just sidestep back and forth around an area with lots of cover but... well, sometimes they just decide to keep moving towards me and then I got myself either backed into a corner, or with no where to go but directly away (killing the ability to dodge perpendicularly.

I guess maybe if I make a hole in a couple of the rooms...somehow I don't think that's what other people do though.

edit: Oh god, thank god for laser gun, my pistols do nothing against revenants =P.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 24, 2014, 04:56
Sniper mod is pretty bad really. I like finding it on a shotgun build or on nightmare for a plasma shotgun, but other than that I only really think it's worth it on an ammochain character. Same goes for cybernetic armour! You were unlucky with those drops!
As for clearing the armoury damageless: is something I've never really tried. Sounds like a fun pet project if you're up to it!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 24, 2014, 06:27
Clearing the Armory damageless is not as hard as it sounds, especially on HNTR, I've done it with a shotgun build. It's all about staying in the starting part of the level and a heavy use of cornershooting. All monsters (besides lost souls, which are one-hit-kil with a shotgun) will come to you through the central corridor. Just autowait for them.
Against Shambler then, it's also about cornershooting (preferably with a double/super shotgun) and a bit of luck so he doesn't teleport next to you.
Higher difficulties render this strategy much more difficult due to cacos being added to the mix.
Deimos Lab, on the other hand, seems almost impossible to do damageless to me - two Shamblers and the cover-depraved layout of the central chamber makes the final battle a much more daunting task.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: LuckyDee on February 24, 2014, 09:52
@Ghaleon: Well, like I said earlier, it looks like you won't find your questions going unanswered. I think it's time to take this to the next level and start showing us a mortem or two...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 24, 2014, 15:25
Quote from: ZicherCZ on February 24, 2014, 06:27
Deimos Lab, on the other hand, seems almost impossible to do damageless to me - two Shamblers and the cover-depraved layout of the central chamber makes the final battle a much more daunting task.
The cover situation isn't as bad as all that, provided you don't break open all the destructible crates until after you've finished the shamblers!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
Quote from: LuckyDee on February 24, 2014, 09:52
@Ghaleon: Well, like I said earlier, it looks like you won't find your questions going unanswered. I think it's time to take this to the next level and start showing us a mortem or two...

I'll give you my most recent victory...and my most recent shameful defeat (Military base of all things, I was near the end where you get the mod, large health orb, combat shotgun and whatever, and there was nothing left but an elite captain. I had 50% health left, and never, have I ever seen elite captains pose any threat whatsoever... AND he was really far away, so I just carelessly reloaded knowing he might move and shoot me during that time (I didn't have reloader and I was dual gunning so reloading takes awhile).. but no matter, I had green armor, they only use peashooter miniguns, and he was far away, he'd miss most of the time, and when he didn't. I had 25% bullet resist right?

WELL HE HAD A LAZOR GUN MOFO *pewpewpew* *dies instantly*...

I didn't know they sometimes carted around laser guns... *cries*..

anyway, I'll post em up here as soon as I figure out HOW... reading the post mortem forum rules and it's all in imp scratch.

edit:
Here the are (they don't have to be int he mortem subforum if I'm not trying to show em off or anything do they?

Note it looks like I had a bunch of failed games, yeah I failed some, but most of those fails are at like floor 1 me just goofing around experimenting with dodging and stuff, not to mention a few caused by me not understanding how cover worked (grr at that newbie guide was so misleading when it had no pictures working!).

and I had like 3 deaths caused by me trying the 100 floor challenge, and spawning RIGHT NEXT TO like effing 2 hungry demons in the open with no doors to hide behind or barrels to save me right in the first room. how dumb is that... is there anything you can do about that?

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And my shameful death

Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: LuckyDee on February 24, 2014, 23:14
Well, there you have another important lesson: just don't reload when in plain sight of something :) If you run for cover it'll chase you anyway.

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
Here the are (they don't have to be int he mortem subforum if I'm not trying to show em off or anything do they?

I was actually trying to encourage you to move away from this topic and into uncharted territory, but that's alright. Mortems in other discussions are just fine if they serve to illustrate a point, otherwise if it's worth posting it's worth posting on the mortem board.

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
Note it looks like I had a bunch of failed games, yeah I failed some, but most of those fails are at like floor 1 me just goofing around experimenting with dodging and stuff, not to mention a few caused by me not understanding how cover worked (grr at that newbie guide was so misleading when it had no pictures working!).

Pah, just have a look at the win/loss ratio under most mortems. This game expects you to die. A lot. Really. A lot.


Quote from: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
and I had like 3 deaths caused by me trying the 100 floor challenge, and spawning RIGHT NEXT TO like effing 2 hungry demons in the open with no doors to hide behind or barrels to save me right in the first room. how dumb is that... is there anything you can do about that?

Run like Hell the wind. Unless you can take em out right away (there's always a slight delay at the start of a level before the enemies begin to move), retreat. This may well take you out of the frying pan and into the fire, but hey... living on the edge!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 24, 2014, 23:31
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
WELL HE HAD A LAZOR GUN MOFO *pewpewpew* *dies instantly*...
Just wait until you meet elite former _commandos_ ...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 00:25
Quote
I was actually trying to encourage you to move away from this topic and into uncharted territory, but that's alright. Mortems in other discussions are just fine if they serve to illustrate a point, otherwise if it's worth posting it's worth posting on the mortem board.

I'm sorry, I don't understand... is there some forum etiquette thing I'm breaking here? Am I spamming the thread too much? I ask questions alot because I like learning but if people are tired of reading you need not answer, I wont be upset? Seriously I have no clue what you mean by this. I HAVE checked some of the other threads and such but the more I read, the more questions I get =P

One last question, I know HMP is considered the game's version of "hard", and HNTR is "normal"...But, I still feel wussy for not playing UV or N! yet, so angel challenge + HMP seems like a nice middle ground. But sometimes it feels like there's just no way to solve a situation with my self imposed challenge on HMP (I'll go into that further). What difficulty would a "vet" play these angel challenges on provided they are kind of ALMOST able to Clear N! (without any angel challenges), but not quite, and are keep on trying at it? That's kind of the bar I want to be at atm.

anyway...
Died again, was doing good too, was doing HRP marksman medal. Incidently, it's kind of a shame that containment area doesn't give you alternative means of getting that backpack if you lack rockets (I'm not even allowed to use em so blah). I mean it seems that the arena was "smart" enough to give me a mod instead of a rocket launcher, so why aren't containment area/the wall smart enough to put stairs on the other side and give you a homing phase thing or something. Oh well.

I got the alternative to the armory again (forgot what it was called), the double shamblers were actually pretty simple, and i was still just using 2 ordinary joe pistols, well one was a speedloader (people say speedloader is useless for gunkata, and I understand the theory why, but I find sometimes 6 rounds is just not enough for 2 ordinary pistols to take out barons of hell at long distance, and DEFINITELY not revenants...(and of course bosses). Anyway I could have made a high power pistol but one of those and 1 speedloader just makes no sense, and I was waiting for the armory to see if I would get some sweet drops first...which I did. Combat pistol! I immediately made it into a high power combat pistol, which kinda makes a good combo with the speedloader. Make the speedloader your primary, and if 6 shots isn't enough (which it often is with a high power combat on the side), you only need reload the speedloader, and you got 4 more high power dual shots.

Anyway, I was cleaning house (or hell), when that dungeon came up... you know... that one. The one I KNEW would be a VERY bad Idea for a pistol-only character to attempt. But I thought to myself, part of roguelikes is getting killed learning stuff right? Let's see HOW bad an idea it is to attempt it! I thought I een had a chance because I could dish out some great damage on the agony elemental pretty quick, and once she meatshields with lost souls, I had like 10 health kits (I normally don't carry that many but this was part of my plan) to use in conjunction with the arena masters staff. I know they resist fire alot, but they are so squishy, and they are so packed, I figure the aoe from each other would smoke em in one or two shots a go anyway.

Anyway, I got trapped in there obviously, got swarmed, put up a good fight (took like 5 uses of the staff to kill anything!), even KILLED the agony elemental! And she dropped, oh god please be a fire skull to nuke these suckers!...FIRE SKULL (I didn't know lost souls leave no corpses, I thought they left dust along with the blood or something qq)..used it...saw absolutely nothing happen (even the agony elemental didn't blow up, whyyy!?), and got munched on to death... *sobs*.

anyway
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I died alot since before this game, had many many many bad games cuz of the arena.. being stuck using pistols only in the arena when you don't even have dual gunner yet is awful. Wallshooting works great and all...except like effing 5 games in a row I'd have to deal with 2 demons and a cacodemon or two at the same darn time in there (which is near impossible when you have nothing but a trusty old pistol, sometimes not even armor. Running away from demons only gives me like 3 squares of distance after the full duration of the run that early in the game since I don't have hellrunner yet, and even if I got hellrunner, I'd have to lose son of a gun in a pistol only challenge, which would probably be flat out lunacy).

Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: thelaptop on February 25, 2014, 00:28
Quote from: LuckyDee on February 24, 2014, 23:14
Pah, just have a look at the win/loss ratio under most mortems. This game expects you to die. A lot. Really. A lot.
You've played only 20 games.  This is not Call of Duty, hell, this is not even Duke Nukem Forever.  Rogue-like means that you will die a lot, and we won't even bat an eyelid to that.  Hell, if it were some avoidable type of death, we might even laugh at you.

I've noticed you like to cry a lot with each post.  Here's a tip:

Less QQ, more pew pew.

I think Tormuse once said someone told him that he deserved to die in DoomRL.  See where that has got him now?

Also, stop theorising, just get out there and play more games.  HMP is a nice comfortable difficulty to get used to before venturing on to crazier things in UV and N!.  The mechanics of DoomRL are extremely straightforward compared to many rogue-likes out there, and you can figure out most of them soon enough without breaking into much of a sweat.

Post your thoughts once you've gotten at least 200 games under your belt.  Then come back to this old thread and see how you have changed your perspective.  You might even appreciate what I'm saying here too.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: LuckyDee on February 25, 2014, 01:23
Quote from: thelaptop on February 25, 2014, 00:28
...stuff...

What thelaptop said, but less bluntly put: you’ll find a lot of your questions answered by simply playing more. Not only that, you’re going to need the experience in order to get a feel of the game, your traits, your enemies, etc. Of course you’re always allowed to ask your questions if you can’t seem to find a satisfying answer to them yourself – I know I do – but in most cases nothing beats firsthand experience.

And again, yeah, you’ll die a lot, you’ll be confronted with nasty situations a lot, and before the month is through there’ll be a worn out spot on your desk from smashing your face into it. Savor those moments. They’re the best you can get in terms finding stuff out.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 25, 2014, 01:33
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 00:25
...a rather long post ...
You try to learn, which is all good and fine, but you really seem to complain a bit over the top. I kinda have to agree with thelaptop - even if he might have been a bit too harsh on you, he's very right in the fact that roguelikes are not "live and learn", but more like "die and learn".

Anyway, to your questions:

Yes, sometimes there is no viable solution to a given situation. If you picked up Marksman challenge, then complaining about having to use only pistols is not going to earn much credit here. Don't expect the game to help you with challenges.
As for the Arena - the rewards for completing it are always challenge-specific. And being difficult pistols-only? Well sure. Remember, you _don't_ have to even enter the Arena, and there is a reason why it earns you a special badge when completed on UV AoMr.
As for the Wall / Containment Area: Again, no reason to enter these levels at all if you have no means to get through. And again, clearing these levels on AoMr grants you an extra badge - but it requires either luck or some creative thinking on your part.
City of Skulls is a bad bad idea on AoMr pretty much all the time. Arena Master's Staff is not a good idea at all against lost souls with their fire resistance. And you learned the hard way that skulls need corpses to be effective at all.

One final advice: Try different challenges and different character builds. Angel of Shotgunnery, for instance, gives a much easier early game then AoMr.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 02:10
It seems I need to clarify some things. I'm not actually whining (and certainly not crying) whenever I *cries* or qq or whatever. I just enjoy my videogames with a certain dramatic flair =P. I mean I'm not a hardcore roleplayer in games that aren't rpgs (I don't even play on rpg servers when they are an option for an mmo or whatever), but if some friend of mine or something kills me in a game, I'll probably exclaim what a monster they are and how I'll get them, or comment on how my character's innocent children are nor orphans, or whatever. Please do not misinterprit my dramtic lamentations for me being actually upset, even to the slightest extent.

As for complaining about marksmanship badge in containment area not being able to blow up the walls (I know you probably can by moding your pistols with explosive ammunition or something but that requires great mod luck and such). That wasn't a complaint in the sense of "that's stupid, blah blah", just more like an observation of inconsistencies (arena adjusts itself to challenges, so I merely noticed that it seems others like containment are overlooked). Plus I was actually praising my lucky stars for getting that juicy combat pistol, and admitted that even attempting the agony elemental with my build/challenge was a bad idea, but figured it would be fun trying it anyway.

Anyway, I have questions that if you do not feel like answering, I wont pester anyone by asking again and again the same question. It' snot that I'm lazy and am scared to experiment (trust me I'm not), I just fancy myself as capable of learning both ways. I find it kind of sad that people who learn best via hands-on experience think the whole world must be like them and also learn best hands on...other people learn best with theory. I'm greedy and I wanna learn both ways as fast as possible whatever is more convenient! that's just who I am, I'm happy with either as they come. But please don't go telling me that one way is correct or not. If you do not want to share some information (like I know is the case for dragonslayer sword mechanics and such), I'll respect those wishes.

Anyway, I do not intend to annoy or pester anyone here with questions, but since it's made obvious that they are seen as such I'll stop...I was just as chatty as I was earlier because I figured I owed people like sylph at hte very least my own efforts of communication in return for what I was given =).

Anyway, nobody was being too blunt or offensive or anything, not sure why some people mention that. No insults were hurled or anything.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: thelaptop on February 25, 2014, 03:16
I'll repeat myself one more time; no need for any justifications for anything.  It's just a game, and this is just a forum for people who like the game.  =)

Quote from: thelaptop on February 25, 2014, 00:28
Post your thoughts once you've gotten at least 200 games under your belt.  Then come back to this old thread and see how you have changed your perspective.  You might even appreciate what I'm saying here too.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 25, 2014, 11:40
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 02:10
It seems I need to clarify some things. I'm not actually whining (and certainly not crying) whenever I *cries* or qq or whatever. I just enjoy my videogames with a certain dramatic flair =P
I never thought you were. A few replies in this topic made my eyes widen a little in surprise. :)

Quote
What difficulty would a "vet" play these angel challenges on provided they are kind of ALMOST able to Clear N! (without any angel challenges), but not quite, and are keep on trying at it? That's kind of the bar I want to be at atm.
I'm not sure whether you've tried much Nightmare, but I find there's a *huge* skill-wall when you start playing it. Seriously, one of the steepest skill-walls I've seen in a videogame. I got to a point where I found ultra-violence games a complete walk in the park before I even managed a single nightmare victory.
On that note, I'd say anyone who can complete nightmare probably finds ALL the 'angel' challenges on any other difficulty very easy. In recent versions, though, we have the arch-angel challenges, which present more of a problem, as do certain dual-angels (marksmanship + berserk).
If you're taking a bite out of angels on HMP, you're probably able to take a bite out of UV, but, if your experience is anything like mine was, N! will be an absolute brick wall round about the first couple of hell knights. [Edit - thinking about it, when I started on Nightmare there was no blowing up corpses, which is a feature I think makes nightmare significantly easier, despite the faster speeds N! enemies got to compensate.]

Quote
I could have made a high power pistol but one of those and 1 speedloader just makes no sense
Highpower is very strong for a pistol user for one particular reason - any attack that deals 12 damage knocks a target back. A standard or speedloader pistol, with SoGx3, can only do a max of 11 damage, not enough for knockback. The same character using a highpower pistol will do 12 or more damage nearly every third shot, and fires 2.5 shots per second. Even when you have to reload, this is often enough to keep a target at arm's length and unable to retaliate when corner shooting.
Sorry to refer to that N! AoMr run again, but at 41:31 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=DEGKushTuBQ#t=2491) you can see the kind of thing I'm talking about. There's also knocking creatures into lava, and other fun. :)
In my eyes, the highpower pistol does things that other pistols can't, which makes them invaluable. Don't overlook them. :)

Quote
Anyway, I do not intend to annoy or pester anyone here with questions, but since it's made obvious that they are seen as such I'll stop...I was just as chatty as I was earlier because I figured I owed people like sylph at hte very least my own efforts of communication in return for what I was given =).
Very much appreciated. We all enjoy discussing doomrl all day here. I think TheLaptop's post was simply to motivate you into dying a little more liberally. ;)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Tormuse on February 26, 2014, 01:34
Quote from: thelaptop on February 25, 2014, 00:28
I think Tormuse once said someone told him that he deserved to die in DoomRL.  See where that has got him now?

For the record, I got good at the game through patience and persistence, not by forum members condemning me to death.  ;)

I recognize that it seems to be part of the culture here on this site to look down on people who complain about the game being too hard or "unfair" or whatever, but personally, I think all feelings are valid and feeling upset that you lost a game that was going really well is very understandable and sometimes it's therapeutic to complain about it.  :)  I don't begrudge anyone for ranting a bit.  (That Elite Former Captain thing looked like a frustrating way to die!)  :|

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 02:10
Anyway, I have questions that if you do not feel like answering, I wont pester anyone by asking again and again the same question. It' snot that I'm lazy and am scared to experiment (trust me I'm not), I just fancy myself as capable of learning both ways. I find it kind of sad that people who learn best via hands-on experience think the whole world must be like them and also learn best hands on...other people learn best with theory. I'm greedy and I wanna learn both ways as fast as possible whatever is more convenient! that's just who I am, I'm happy with either as they come. But please don't go telling me that one way is correct or not. If you do not want to share some information (like I know is the case for dragonslayer sword mechanics and such), I'll respect those wishes.

Well said.  I'm getting flashbacks to my college days now, because I asked lots of questions in class because that's the way I learn too, and I didn't find out until later that certain classmates resented me for asking so many questions and "making the class go longer."  :P  Anyway, in my experience, asking questions is the best way to get discussion going because it encourages people to talk to you, and in my opinion, it would be silly to discourage discussion in a discussion forum.  (Especially with how quiet the forum has been lately; it could use some livening up)  :)  I don't know if anyone is actually bothered by your questions, but if they are, I would suggest that they just not follow the thread any more.

As for your "dramatic flair," I just saw that as your personal style and didn't interpret it as you actually crying.  It made things more entertaining, actually.  :)  I would fully encourage more dramatic flair in any mortems you post.  :D  Speaking of which...

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 24, 2014, 18:58
anyway, I'll post em up here as soon as I figure out HOW... reading the post mortem forum rules and it's all in imp scratch.

I think it's laid out pretty well in the spoiler tag at the top of this post. (http://forum.chaosforge.org/index.php/topic,561.0.html)  If you still don't understand after reading that, then I suggest you look at the other threads for clues and model your thread after them.

Quote from: Ghaleon on February 25, 2014, 00:25
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Oof, I hope you don't mind if I hand out a few tips here, because it looks like you made quite a few mistakes here.  :o

First off, Abyssal Plains is doable in AoMr, but I would recommend you only try if you have a phase device to get you out of that Agony Elemental ambush.  You do *not* want to get trapped in there and surrounded by bullet-resistant enemies with only bullet weapons.  Phase out, keep your distance, and take them on one at a time.  The elementals only summon stuff when they can see you, (or you shoot them) so as long as they're out of sight, you should be safe from being overwhelmed.

Secondly, it looks like you were wearing fireproof armour in there.  Fireproof armour gives a penalty to melee resistance and you were wearing it while fighting enemies with melee attacks!  (Extra owie!)  :o

Thirdly, if you must stay in that ambush, go into the corner so that only three of them can hit you at a time.  Yeah, I know you were going for the fire skull, but still, being surrounded on all eight sides is bad news.  :|

Fourthly, I think it's worth mentioning that you really never need to use the dual-reload feature of your pistols.  One of the undocumented features of the Dualgunner trait in this version is that if your equipped weapon and your prepared weapon are both pistols, you can swap them in zero time.  This lets you individually reload whichever one you want at any time, which I think might have been handy in this situation.

I hope this helps.  :)

Quote from: Sylph on February 21, 2014, 11:25
7: I wrote a guide a long time ago (years ago), which was well received, especially (wierdly) on forums outside chaosforge!
I've been hugely expanding it, meaning to comprehensively update it, and it's currently close to ready - only a few of the special levels (the ones after the wall), and the parts after 'assemblies' concerning traits, builds, and monsters) are still out of date.

I've hosted the 'half update' version here, as an exclusive special scoop just for you!

http://sylph.me.uk/doomrl/DoomRLGuide.txt

 (Hope you feel really special! x)

This guide really takes me back!  :D  Version 0.9.9.1 was the one that I started out on, and it's funny seeing the differences from so long ago reflected in the guide.  :)  I mean sure, plenty of the game is still the same and is still valid, but there's enough difference that I think if I played 0.9.9.1 again, it would feel like a totally different game.  :)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 04:49
Quote from: Tormuse on February 26, 2014, 01:34
For the record, I got good at the game through patience and persistence, not by forum members condemning me to death.  ;)

I recognize that it seems to be part of the culture here on this site to look down on people who complain about the game being too hard or "unfair" or whatever, but personally, I think all feelings are valid and feeling upset that you lost a game that was going really well is very understandable and sometimes it's therapeutic to complain about it.  :)  I don't begrudge anyone for ranting a bit.  (That Elite Former Captain thing looked like a frustrating way to die!)  :|

There was no intention to even SUGGEST that I thought the game was too hard or unfair though =/ ? Hard or not, I just like to dramatically baw at the horrible fate of my character (provided it was horrible). Difficulty is often a selling point to me, not a problem, I'd elaborate but that tends to go into e-peen measuring territory. But you address something important...The forum culture, I'm new here and I don't really know anyone here, so if someone makes some kind of subtle inside-community-understood comment like "share mortems", and that's somehow supposed to tell me to experiment for myself or something, well, then it'll fly past my head =P.


Quote
I don't know if anyone is actually bothered by your questions, but if they are, I would suggest that they just not follow the thread any more.

I like to think that I write posts for the people who want to read em, and if you don't, don't. That said you can never be sure if a new community as a whole you don't know frown upon some things others normally would not, so it doesn't hurt to be careful too IMO.


Oof, I hope you don't mind if I hand out a few tips here, because it looks like you made quite a few mistakes here.  :o

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First off, Abyssal Plains is doable in AoMr, but I would recommend you only try if you have a phase device to get you out of that Agony Elemental ambush.  You do *not* want to get trapped in there and surrounded by bullet-resistant enemies with only bullet weapons.  Phase out, keep your distance, and take them on one at a time.  The elementals only summon stuff when they can see you, (or you shoot them) so as long as they're out of sight, you should be safe from being overwhelmed.

Yeah, tbh I didn't think of phasing out, not sure why. I'll be sure to do that next time. I KNOW being trapped in there as a bullet-only spec was probably suicide as I mentioned but I wanted to see how bad it was...just so I could gauge future runs if it'd be doable or not given more or less equipment.


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Secondly, it looks like you were wearing fireproof armour in there.  Fireproof armour gives a penalty to melee resistance and you were wearing it while fighting enemies with melee attacks!  (Extra owie!)  :o

Oh, it has a penalty to melee? I didn't realize...I was only wearing it though because they already shreded my other armor to bits and I was just desperate for more protection (as in the #, which is 4 on red sooo).


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Thirdly, if you must stay in that ambush, go into the corner so that only three of them can hit you at a time.  Yeah, I know you were going for the fire skull, but still, being surrounded on all eight sides is bad news.  :|
I actually did that, I only moved out later on to finish off and grab the fire skull which I only did because I didn't realize it would do nothing qq. It'd be pretty dumb if I didn't do that before =P...like.. really dumb! Kinda like going there in the first place as a pistol user, but like I said, that was an intentional "see how fast I die" kinda thing. Honestly, I didn't expect to kill the agony elemental at all when I started, so I considered the experiment a success somewhat.

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Fourthly, I think it's worth mentioning that you really never need to use the dual-reload feature of your pistols.  One of the undocumented features of the Dualgunner trait in this version is that if your equipped weapon and your prepared weapon are both pistols, you can swap them in zero time.  This lets you individually reload whichever one you want at any time, which I think might have been handy in this situation.
Oh you mean it has a built in juggler thing for pistols only? I did NOT know that. Thanks a bunch! As for the Agony elemental, I never actually dual reloaded around it, I think it automatically says you dual reload when gun kata reloads for you after killing something...Unless you were referring to that bit about the elite captain, I think I manually dual reloaded there yes *hangs head in shame*... If only I knew they could have laser guns sometimes (increased accuracy at long range, bypasses my armor's bullet resistance, etc, etc).

speaking of which, I just found out for myself in this game that not only can those human dudes pick up loot (I always knew this), and use med kits (knew this too), but if they pick up armor...it actually affects their stats! I blasted a non-elite former sergeant point blank with a combat shotgun like 3 times, and he was still not even almost dead. I thought "this guy must be wearing some ridiculous armor"...sure enough he was (bullet-proof armor).

But yeah, I'll be glad to know about the free mini-juggler thing with that pistol trait.


Anyway since evidently some people don't mind (yay), Another random question, That angelic armor...It seems kinda redundant to me, is there some kind of hidden use I'm not aware of? I mean I can see it's great for melee and bullet resistance, but you get it so late in the game that you are unlikely to see a single former human at all, so bullet/shrapnel resistance is useless (well bullet good for spider queen I guess but she's a complete pushover anyway. The melee thing would be good for actual melee players I suppose but again, it's really late and just seems like a waste somewhat that you can't get this armor BEFORE the unholy cathedral.

Anyway I cleared another HMP. I chose kinda weird traits at the start (hellrunner first, then dodgemaster, then intuition, then finesse, etc). Because I wanted to be able to select gun kata OR shottyman depending on what I got by the armory. Armory had an assault shotgun AND a plasma shotgun (the cover killing part, and ammo difficulty makes it kinda lame but I actually made good use of it when I was low on shells, and for bum-rushing archvilles before they could do anything, etc), so I ended up going shottyman. An otherwise uneventful clear but I thought it was cute that on the 2nd last floor, I got a "Yes, it actually happened. Hell froze over!" event thing =P

Now I'm trying a 100 floor challenge (am at 52 atm), using the same spec, only I dragged out the "neither spec" traits for longer because it took FOREVER to get anything...finally I found a super shotgun so I went shotgun spec, if only I got a nano mod instead of this crummy old sniper mod (sniper mod for shotgun spec...yay). Unfortunately I'm now just going for staircases rather than killing everything because of ammo issues, and yes, I'm making sure I'm blowing stuff up with barrels and rocketlaunchers if I hear archvilles.

Anyway, thanks for the encouragement, I continue to enjoy the game =P
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 26, 2014, 07:35
I like your switching build! Good thinking there. :)
Have you played many chaingun games? Pistols have always been like a weaker version of the chaingun...

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if only I got a nano mod instead of this crummy old sniper mod (sniper mod for shotgun spec...yay).
Have you discovered the plasmatic shrapnel assembly yet?
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 17:32
Quote from: Sylph on February 26, 2014, 07:35
I like your switching build! Good thinking there. :)
Have you played many chaingun games? Pistols have always been like a weaker version of the chaingun...
Have you discovered the plasmatic shrapnel assembly yet?

I played a couple ammochain builds, but i find that i do better using shotguns over miniguns in the early levels (reloader is better for shotguns after all), once i get a plasma gun though, i switch to that ftw. For the scout class though i find the rapid fire master trait thing doesnt appear as good as ammochain, im already having ammo issues with my shotgun, i cant imagine how bad it'd be with rapid fire sans ammochain.

But anyway i never succeeded in a full gunkata build but they seem incredibly powerful over chainguns for me, not plasma but ammo... Plus ive found gunkata to be pretty darn fun. I have yet to try melee though.

Also the scout's minigun traits are just too incompatible with its pistol and shotgun spec since it needs triggerhappy and both the other specs block son of a bitch. So that kinda ruins the "pick traits based on armory/deimos rare drops" plan.

I havent discovered plasma shrap, and i should have crafted it just to kill the possibility of getting it in armory, but i forgot to. Bu it was unneccesary since i had a plasma shotgun already and i liked being able to choose between a normal tactical shotgun for normal use, and the plasma for situations where blowing up my own cover wouldn be too bad.

Also, as for pistols, if i get 5 ranks of son of a gun, my attackspeed is 0.1s instead of 0.0 because 0.1 is the hard cap minimum for attack speed. However if i have dual gunner does it add 20% making it 0.3s? Or does it become 0.12? Or does it go 0.0 x 120% = 0.0 again THEN hard cap at 0.1?

If it goes 0.3 does finesse reduce it down to 0.15 or does it stay at 0.3 since dual gunner 20% thing get calculated after the forced cap thing?
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 26, 2014, 18:34
I'm not sure, why don't you test? :D

Seriously, I have a feeling it sits on the 0.1s cap...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 23:46
Quote from: Sylph on February 26, 2014, 18:34
I'm not sure, why don't you test? :D

Seriously, I have a feeling it sits on the 0.1s cap...

that's way better than sitting at 0.3...that said if it sits at 1, I can't imagine how minigun builds would be better excluding ammochain ammo efficiency issues.

As for why I don't test, I intend to, but as I said, I haven't had actual luck with gunkataing yet (the one time I was doing well, I did that agony elemental fiasco event hough I knew it was suicide given my current resources).

There isn't some kind of way to toggle an in game clock is there? Or is the only way I can test is by seeing how many times I can shoot in the timespan of enemy movement whose speed I know in advance?
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 01:50
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 23:46
that's way better than sitting at 0.3...that said if it sits at 1, I can't imagine how minigun builds would be better excluding ammochain ammo efficiency issues.
You're generally right here, but keep in mind that special pistols are fewer and generally less powerful than rapid specials, in addition to how much harder your early-game is. I still prefer pistols myself, though!
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 23:46
There isn't some kind of way to toggle an in game clock is there? Or is the only way I can test is by seeing how many times I can shoot in the timespan of enemy movement whose speed I know in advance?
Don't know about that, but against a cacodemon (speed 100%), it should be easy to test.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 27, 2014, 02:14
Quote from: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 01:50
Don't know about that, but against a cacodemon (speed 100%), it should be easy to test.

something just occured to me though.. problem is cacodemon's (and others, given different #s), have only a 40% chance of attacking when they actually have the chance to.figuring out when they DID attack between when they COULD have but simply decided not to will be a pain, particularly since I can only fire 6 times before needing to reload with pistols.

I'll try to myself anyway but unless someone beats me to it, I'll welcome any comments to any mechanics I don't know about "such as dualwielding auto-juggler thing mentioned above. maybe some reload mechanic will exist too that I don't know about).

that said I still have to finish my 100 floor challenge first, I just got home today, and the day after is an unusual busy day for me, and 2 days after that are USUAL busy days.. blah, might be awhile.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 27, 2014, 03:54
Nobody recalls the "@" screen? All speeds are displayed there ;).

About other rapid-fire builds: They have distinct advantages of their own.
- Cateye extends your line of sight by two squares. Since almost all of the monsters have sight range equal to your default one, this allows you to see them before they see you, allowing you to have the first strike on them. With the EE-enhanced accuracy and some SoB and TH to boot, you can fairly easily kill most enemies before they even know what hit them.
- Entrenchment seems to be played the least, at least from what I see from the posts here. It grants 30% resist all when chainfiring. Not that much by itself, but throw some nice armor into the mix and you're close to invulnerable. Take fireproof red armor, meet Cybie and start chainfiring. Wham - 85% fire resist makes his rockets barely something more than a nuisance.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 05:10
Quote from: ZicherCZ on February 27, 2014, 03:54
Nobody recalls the "@" screen? All speeds are displayed there ;).
Not sure if this factors in duel pistols. Does it?
And if not, don't worry about attack chance: they'll simply move otherwise, they never stand still.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on February 27, 2014, 05:53
Quote from: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 05:10
Not sure if this factors in duel pistols. Does it?
Yes, and it even recognizes it - SoG2 + DG results in "0.72 seconds/dualshot" on the @ screen.
Note that the @ screen does _not_ display dualreload time - instead it displays reload time of the equipped (not prepared) pistol.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 07:12
That's pretty cool!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 27, 2014, 08:04
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 26, 2014, 23:46
that's way better than sitting at 0.3...that said if it sits at 1, I can't imagine how minigun builds would be better excluding ammochain ammo efficiency issues.
I'm no authority, but I'd wager it's partly because cateye and entrenchment both make the player pretty much unkillable, partly because of reloading reducing your pistol DPS down way below a burst laser rifle/burst nuclear plasma! Mainly, though, because you need level 13 to reach this pistol firing speed! Have a look through the mortems here - even on nightmare, most players finish at about level 14. For 12/14 of those levels your pistol build won't have this lovely 01s firing power.

If you're still unconvinced, have a count of how many times your character dies before reaching level 13, and compare it to the amount of your characters that die at 13 or greater. :)
Make no mistake, pistols are way weaker than rapidfire weapons for the majority of the game. It's not even close, either! Ammochain is really deceiving for rapidfire first impressions, because it blocks the most important chaingun trait! It's like if gunkata blocked Son of a Gun! Once you've played a few serious games with masterless chaingun builds, you'll feel that pistols are underpowered weapons with a niche in the super-late game. (though a nice complementary sidearm due to their bullet efficiency.)

As for chainguns, I've thrown this around a few times here, but getting 1 or even 2 levels of eagle eye as your *first* traits is key to chaingun power (2 is more powerful for chainguns, gatling guns, and burst plasma, but 1 is better if you find a laser rifle or make a hyperblaster later on). EE->SoB->SoB->TH->TH, for example, is a fun way to start.
Later on, you have a *very* high chance of being able to grab yourself a burst laser rifle, burst nuclear plasma rifle, or nanomachic plasma rifle, all 3 of which are ridiculously powerful weapons to be using in the lategame, and imo eclipse the (if you're lucky) combat pistol variant that a pistol user will be relying on.

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As for why I don't test, I intend to, but as I said, I haven't had actual luck with gunkataing yet (the one time I was doing well, I did that agony elemental fiasco event hough I knew it was suicide given my current resources).
Aww, you could always try a technician pistol build? It's a little more powerful, and a little more forgiving.
Really, though, this is what I'm getting at with pistols! Specialising with pistols should really be considered a very mild 'challenge' game - like a warmup to the angels. In fact, I dare say angel of berserk is usually easier than taking a pistol master trait!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 27, 2014, 15:22
I actually found that pistols seems really really good as soon as I make it out of the arena...The arena itself though is really nasty because you don't have enough dps to burst down a demon just yet, and I'm not fast enough to outrun them either yet. It's really not that bad if you aren't unlucky, but I kept getting one arena after another after another where I'd spawn right on top of like 2 demons and 1-2 cacodemons. Even with 3 free turns it's just too much for a pistol user with just 1 level =P.

About rapid builds though aside from ammochain, that's correct, I failed to consider how much more useful miniguns would be if they were more accurate. I still can't help but wonder though how one deals with the ammo efficiency issues, because even with pistols (which are more efficient at ammo conservation), ammo is an issue...though I guess maybe it's outweighed by the fact that as dw pistols, you can't use 250x ammo boxes.

I also wanna try single-wield pistol with 3 ranks of sonnofagun, and 2 ranks finesse (only cuz you can't get rank 4 and 5 of SoG until way late). I'll probably try this approach for those general master traits that don't favor any weapons.

Anyway I finished my 100 floor thing with shotgun. It's kinda sad, immediately after I committed to shotguns, I had clerica beretta's drop...like 8 of them, seriously...it was just mean, I also saw a single combat pistol (which I like more but only 1). I got 2 more sniper mods, and a firestorm mod, never got to nano my super shotgun, which would have been nice because I REALLY had to skip killing monsters to conserve ammo later on. Archvilles were the most common enemy, not sure if that's weird or not.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on February 27, 2014, 23:48
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 27, 2014, 15:22
I still can't help but wonder though how one deals with the ammo efficiency issues, because even with pistols (which are more efficient at ammo conservation), ammo is an issue...though I guess maybe it's outweighed by the fact that as dw pistols, you can't use 250x ammo boxes.
If you find yourself having ammo issues a lot, it might be that you're building your traits a little too aggressively. Triggerhappy and Finesse are great for raw DPS, but SoB and EE are better for making each round count.
Also, and you might already know this, so sorry if it sounds stupid, but you can carry those ammo boxes around and use 'U' to unload them when your 100x stacks are running low.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on February 28, 2014, 04:09
Theibs is right - pistol users can use ammo boxes to store bullets just fine, they just don't get a reload speed bonus from carrying them in the offhand!

As for rapidfire ammo issues - Sure, pistols use less bullets than chainguns, but rapidfire characters also get to use cells as a main ammo source. This is like having twice as much ammo drop! This alone is enough ammo to play through the game with, but there are other tips to offer if you're somehow still struggling:

Miniguns and BFGs are a great way of storing ammo (although you might want to use the first mnigun you find for a highpower or TTTAF modding project!). Then there's nuclear plasma rifles, nano/nanomachic, and (on nightmare or vs archviles) corpse-farming, but none of these are necessary, they're just useful to haves.
Finally, carry a shotgun and a single stack of shells as a backup weapon. Shotguns are remarkably ammo-efficient. Also, I like to carry the chainsaw with me most of the time. A few ranks of eagle eye and good use of 'tagging' tricks make the chainsaw a surprisingly reliable weapon to conserve ammo.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on February 28, 2014, 19:29
I actually didn't realize you could 'U' an ammo box, that will help alot! thanks!

Still have to experiment on the math with gunkata builds but I did the sharpshooter build recently and discovered that 3 ranks of son of a gun makes finesse near useless... In that situation attack speed is multiplicative, not added, so your 0.4s attackspeed merely drops down to 0.34. Hopefully the 20% penalty with the dual wield trait is also multiplicative instead of added, otherwise you are better off using 1 pistol with 5 ranks of SoG over using 2.

That said I managed to die in halls of carnage of all places qq. I was at the end and was just roaming around trying to peg off the last baron for 100% kill completion, I had 44% health and was wearing armor, Id idn't think a baron could hit that hard in one hit.. welp, apparently they can *cries*, I turned a corner looking for it, got acid-balled to the face, and died. Halls of carnage.. seriously, it's like the easiest special floor in the game.. ugh.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: aka_Cthulhu on March 01, 2014, 01:26
Quote from: Ghaleon on February 28, 2014, 19:29
I actually didn't realize you could 'U' an ammo box, that will help alot! thanks!

Still have to experiment on the math with gunkata builds but I did the sharpshooter build recently and discovered that 3 ranks of son of a gun makes finesse near useless... In that situation attack speed is multiplicative, not added, so your 0.4s attackspeed merely drops down to 0.34. Hopefully the 20% penalty with the dual wield trait is also multiplicative instead of added, otherwise you are better off using 1 pistol with 5 ranks of SoG over using 2.

I recently did a run on Ao666 using a gun kata build. Didn't really pay attention to the math, but here's what I found. Attack speed was around .9 I think? Maybe less than that. Using a storm bolter combat pistol and a grammaton at burst mode on the other hand, it took around 2 shots max on hell knights. Archviles, mancubi, barons usually took 2-3. Shamblers, nightmare archviles, agony elementals, and flame elementals took... I didn't really pay attention to how many shots were fired, but they were killed before both guns went empty. Cyberdemons required me to reload manually once before they go down.

The combat pistol with the storm mod and the beretta were fast at taking anything down (even without the beretta, a second storm bolter had helped me out). Like... when I enter a new floor I could be surrounded by two groups of barons of hell and archviles. Before any of them could fire, I would have finished them all out so long as I had the bullets to spare, which I did. Every few floors there's usually a group of former captains, and all I had to do was be careful not to accidentally hit a barrel, and make sure mancubi and revenants were out of sight before taking the ammo.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on March 01, 2014, 03:06
So I'm doing a 100 floor gunkata, at floor 37 now, everything going fine except for the fact that 9mm is not dropping again. Down to my last ammo box (learning I could 'U' them was a lifesaver). I made myself a tactical shotgun in case of emergency ammo issues but it's pretty weak now. I plan on making some energy pistols for when I run out of regular ammo but I still don't have wizkid yet, I don't even have finesse yet, it's what I'm getting on my next level up.

Anyway, for those interested, the math with pistols works like this:
5 ranks of sunnofa gun = 0.1s attackspeed, dual wield = 0.1 * 1.2 = 0.12 attackspeed - Scout class = 0.11 attackspeed.
Soo, Basically my semi-auto pistols fire faster than a gattling gun (do more damage per bullet too cuz 5 ranks of sunnofa gun, and 2d4 base instead of 1d8 =P. I made them both high power because ammo is an issue more than anything, and I did take keeneye pretty soon.

That said I quit for safety purposes... I've had this problem for awhile now but it's happening particularly frequently right now. So I saved and quit until I hopefully fix it...Basically my game (only doom, no other games or programs) simply goes ape-dung on the controls, it'll mash the keyboard on its own or something. caps lock, open inventory, show grid, un-equip armor, move around randomly (this is why I quit because it could move me to my death), and not slowly either...Very scary... Even if I alt-tab it'll alt-tab back to the game and continue to eff around. It's almost like a virus starts taking over my keyboard but like I said, it's doomrl only. What the dill.

I haven't looked at the tech support/whatever forums yet so I'll do so now but blah. As for Cthulhu, I haven't found a single exotic/unique pistol or mod yet so I'm still running around with dual high-powers. But with 5 ranks of SoG, they seem capable of killing everything before reloading except maybe revanants and bruiser brothers...Note I haven't bumped into any cyberdemons or agony elementals yet. with a 0.11s attackspeed too, I can pretty much just stand there in the open shooting at mancubus without fear of being shot at. Unfortunately they are nearly never alone, and almost always have Arch-villes with them, who maddeningly love hiding behind their meatshield that I don't want to simply blast thru to get at archie since hell is hell because it has no effing ammo (except rockets, lots and lots of effing rockets, argh). =P.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on March 01, 2014, 04:55
Rockets dispose of corpses, though...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: aka_Cthulhu on March 01, 2014, 05:18
Switching to rockets on a gun kata build can get a bit time consuming, though. At that point, the only thing I do in a pinch is try to move around, carefully navigate my way out of the line of fire of mancubi or revenants or whatever the arch vile could revive and make my way to the point where the vile is in my line of sight. It can get pretty hectic since past floor 100 or 200 it seems that there's a decent number of them. Of course, there's also the problem if the meatshield is standing between me and the archvile so I can't get a good shot in. After so many games, I keep forgetting about making use of dodgemaster. Those mancubi can hit hard, which became my downfall much later since I had no choice but to discard the inquisitor's set for the cybernano phaseshift armor - that one was good, but it didn't have the fire resistance that I needed.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on March 01, 2014, 07:28
That was kinda sarcastic, sorry. Should have remembered to put the ol' internet-sarcasm-alert-winkey-face in. But you could use Juggler, should you end up valuing it enough.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Ghaleon on March 01, 2014, 11:32
Quote from: Thiebs on March 01, 2014, 07:28
That was kinda sarcastic, sorry. Should have remembered to put the ol' internet-sarcasm-alert-winkey-face in. But you could use Juggler, should you end up valuing it enough.

Rockets gibbing enemies is nice yeah, but ive had too many occasions where they blow up loot/ammo.
There have even been a couple floors where i felt "something valuable", fired all of 1 or 2 rockets, missed, and then later on, discover that there was in fact nothing valuable. I thought special drops were immune to complete destruction but evidently not.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on March 01, 2014, 12:55
They don't get destroyed on the floor... Chances are an enemy picked up a unique armour, and you shot it to pieces while trying to kill that enemy.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: ZicherCZ on March 01, 2014, 14:55
From the Wiki:
"Uniques are, just as the name says, unique in a particular run-through of DoomRL. They only appear once per game, and can only be modded by Technicians (though this depends on the unique, see below). Uniques are normally indestructible by normal means (explosions, including nuking a level), but will be lost if an enemy carries them, and is gibbed."

So, an unfortunate missed rocket hitting an off-LOS unfortunate former, unfortunately wearing that Malek's Armor ...
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Tormuse on March 03, 2014, 00:40
Quote from: Sylph on February 28, 2014, 04:09
Theibs is right - pistol users can use ammo boxes to store bullets just fine, they just don't get a reload speed bonus from carrying them in the offhand!

I have to correct you on that; ammo boxes do give you a reload speed bonus when they're in your prepared slot.  Ammo boxes are especially useful with slow-reloading pistols like the Trigun; I've used them myself for that purpose several times.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on March 03, 2014, 00:54
I think he meant that he couldn't get a reload speed bonus while dual-weilding. Still good to know when playing a Technician!
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: aka_Cthulhu on March 03, 2014, 05:58
Quote from: Thiebs on March 03, 2014, 00:54
I think he meant that he couldn't get a reload speed bonus while dual-weilding. Still good to know when playing a Technician!

I remember a close call I had regarding ammo boxes. So I had several ammo boxes for my dual wielding pistols. I'm almost out of non-ammo box ammo, and I was fighting off a group of mancubi and a nightmare archvile. So I run out of ammo, and as it turns out the gun kata doesn't auto-reload from ammo boxes in the inventory. I managed to run like hell out of enemy fire and unload that ammo box to save my ass.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on March 04, 2014, 07:54
I meant while dual wielding, but thanks for clarifying, I should have made that more clear.

Since a new beta of doomrl just got served up, I just did a HMP run (because UV has to be unlocked), and thinking of this thread, I went with a masterless rapidfire/hybrid build, streaming and recording the entire run. Despite pretty poor luck (no nano packs, no laser rifle, no minigun, no firestorm packs, no nuclear plasma, no plasma until after the armoury), I still didn't encounter a single ammo issue throughout the entire run. Clearing the mortuary required a little pistol/melee trickery, but I basically got by without a hitch. I'm actually thinking that 'juggler' might be a key skill when it comes to ammo conservation, weird as it sounds. Being able to switch to melee for a finish, or switching to shotgun or rockets in situations where they are the most suitable weapon/all you need, turns out to actually be a huge ammo saver. My build was a typical EagleEye/SonOfaBitch/TriggerHappy start, followed by whizkid and juggler, then finished up with hellrunner.

Just as I finished building tactical armour, I found an onyx pack, I was gutted! I would have used all those agility packs on a hyperblaster or something! I think in future I'll mod the boots and armour, but save assembling tacticals until after the armoury. Still, I ended up switching between my tactical, and my onyx red, depending on whether I was moving, or gunning.
I was really quite surprised to see how reliably the cyberdemon's rockets can be dodged with a single suit of tactical armour! I never realised it was such a straightforward way of taking him down!

Anyway, since I had the misfortune to not come across any of the optimal exotics or uniques for a rapidfire character (no nuclear plasma, nano pack, firestorm pack, laser rifle, or minigun), but still had no real ammo difficulties, I thought I'd post the run here as an example of how reliably powerful masterless rapidfire builds can be despite poor fortune.

If you miss the rest of the run, at least watch the lava pits! It's pretty funny, looking back, how closely I missed 'conquerer'. ♥

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdPcxR6yDbQ



Oh, and:
Quote from: Thiebs on March 03, 2014, 00:54
I think he meant that he couldn't get a reload speed bonus while dual-weilding. Still good to know when playing a Technician!
If you meant me, you got the pronouns wrong. You should be able to tell by how much I like to talk! ;)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on March 04, 2014, 08:14
Sorry, I figured as much, I just didn't bother to look at who the 'he' I was referring to was. If that makes sense.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sambojin on March 17, 2014, 18:50
On the possible rapidfire/shotty builds, the MAc or MAD runup is the easiest version of it. Shotty traits first, then make a choice after SM depending on what you find. Both guarantee a nice weapon with good ammo conservation and a fairly easy game (although you're more or less locked into shotties and rockets with MAD if you choose that route). Although tec or scout masterless builds are both possible and slightly more powerful and adaptable.

Juggler is *still* the best trait in the game though. Almost to the point that it needs a nerf (0.1 sec switching? Not a huge difference, but at least it has some cost).

I'll watch your run shortly Sylph. Youtube, DoomRL and a tiny phone screen really don't show the game well. It made me happy that it's more than just me that takes 2 1/2 hours to finish a run. Sometimes I go through mortems on here and wonder what I'm doing wrong.

It sounds like you're picking up the game really well Ghaleon, far faster than I did at any rate. Well done.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: emulord on March 18, 2014, 00:03
I would love for juggler to have 0.1 sec switching time, but affect any weapon whatsoever. That sounds more fair and less meta.
The only problem is that people would use it for microwaits and always get the first hit. 1sec period(.) resting exists for that reason.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sylph on March 19, 2014, 15:10
Quote from: Sambojin on March 17, 2014, 18:50
Juggler is *still* the best trait in the game though. Almost to the point that it needs a nerf (0.1 sec switching? Not a huge difference, but at least it has some cost).

You probably forgot berserker there, and a lot of master traits, and probably hellrunner...
I get what you're saying, juggler is certainly powerful, but it's not allowed for *so* many challenges, not a prerequisite for many useful masters, requires dumps into finesse which don't help your burst, and does nothing to increase your damage, instead saving you a single turn of changing weapons. Compare that with many rapidfire or pistol traits around the early game that nearly double your damage/turn.
 
I'm a *big* fan of juggler, I ♥ it! But I'm a fan because of the amount of strategies it opens up for nice builds, not because it's powerful. (It is), but no more so than many more versatile traits. It's a well-balanced trait that offers different playstyles without disrupting balance, which I think is great! If it were nerfed, I'd hate to end up just taking hellrunner + berserker for all my 'hybrid' builds. (I don't think there are currently any N! character archetypes, like pistol+shotgun or rapidfire+melee for example, that are easier with juggler than they are with hellrunner+berserker)... Nerfing juggler is a bad idea in my mind. :(
Oh, and while we're talking about it, changing wait time to 0.1s wouldn't be a nerf to juggler. It would be a massive buff, probably to the point of making it the best trait in the game.

Also, yeah, I take ages to play turn-based games- I'm the same with all roguelikes, and candycrush! If I want to give myself a seizure, I play league of legends, Starcraft 2, psyvariar 2, or mutant storm. ;)
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Sambojin on March 21, 2014, 15:52
Didn't actually cross my mind that it'd be used for 0.1 second waiting (which it would). I completely retract my statement on that as a nerf.

Actually, watching your Let's Play made me realize how rarely I use gift-dropping and waiting in comparison to other players. I do use it, but only to clear a room or two in a tricky situation, not as an extensive tool. I'll have to start doing so. I don't have too much of a problem getting a few wins on UV, but it looks like my win % will go up drastically if I used it more often.

I'll agree that there's plenty of powerful traits, even very versatile ones, but that shows a good levelup system at work. Even "lesser" traits are often just a step on the road to something very powerful or synergistic to a build. I guess my thoughts on Juggler are based on my playstyle. I'm not very cautious and have been known to play rather drunk (and thus not strategizing well or at all). Then Juggler is an absolute lifesaver. It allows you to be slightly more oblivious to game mechanics and obvious situations that should be used to your advantage yet still come out on top.
Title: Re: Only played this for a weekish now, some praises/questions
Post by: Thiebs on March 21, 2014, 16:13
I'm not in favor of a Juggler nerf, either. But should such a thing happen, it'd be more realistic and less game-breaking to just make it not be a free reload between guns of the same type. You'd still get more time between reloads by being able to switch to different type guns, but being able to juggle shotties to get better reload speeds than a dedicated shotty build (with fewer perks) makes the early-to-mid very easy compared to some other builds, and doesn't really do too much to nerf later-game use, since you don't spam shotty blasts carelessly so much against later enemies, and have a wider variety of weapons to switch to, anyway.

Again, I like Juggler the way it is. Even the reload thing isn't really that good, since it's use wears out quickly as the game progresses, so I don't feel it's broken, especially not compared to Vampire and it's ilk. Just food for thought.