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Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: March 11, 2025, 05:36 »
Now here is the big post about special level adjustments to account for the new enemies added.
First I want to state that I think the EXP multiplier in Nightmare should be lowered to the standard x1.0, or at least x1.1 if it must have a higher EXP multiplier than UV. A big part of why later N! loses a lot of bite is that you get so much EXP between the boosted multiplier, even greater enemy density than UV, and special levels having stronger enemies with greater EXP yields, so the difficulty gets somewhat compromised by how much stronger the player gets. Currently, killing everything and clearing the special levels will have you regularly entering Deimos at level 9 and you'll soar past level 12 by the halfway point, while enemies with even greater EXP yields are going to be added to special levels and a new special level pair is going to be added in Phobos, which will make the player's level on N! soar to even greater extents if the EXP multiplier is not toned down to compensate.
Now onto the special levels:
Hell's Arena
Fine as is on UV, and I seen Kornel has plans to modify it below UV, which will be interesting to see. Nightmare is where it's in dire need of adjustment currently though, and how to modify it depends on what is done to address the ordeal that is trying to get everything dead at once while lacking the means for proper corpse disposal this early when the corpse stacking strategy has been rendered mostly unviable by patrolling AI.
*If it's adjusted so you just need to kill every unique enemy once rather than having everything dead at once, then Hell's Arena enemy force is probably fine as is, considering how much more difficulty respawning adds to the level (maybe you could replace the Lost Souls with their Nightmare counterparts to spice things up a bit and add a couple of them to the second wave too). Also when clearing the final wave, maybe consider not only disabling respawning, but have every remaining respawned enemy drop dead too.
*If it's adjusted to disable respawning entirely, then the enemy force will need to be buffed considerably. How to is uncertain though, you certainly can't just replace Pinkies and Cacodemons with their Nightmare counterparts this early as it would probably make the level near impossible for most runs. You could replace the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls though and add some to the second wave, as well as perhaps throw in extra Cacos and Pinkies, and then for the final wave, maybe you could throw some Nightmare Imps in to assist the Barons?
The Chained Court
Fine as is on UV and below. As for Nightmare, it's too a level that would greatly appreciate changing the clear condition to killing everything once, or even disabling respawning, as otherwise you have to do a ton of door camping to get everything dead when you'll still probably lack any means of corpse disposing weapons (especially as accessing this version of Chained Court means you didn't clear Hell's Arena and thus didn't get the guaranteed Rocket Launcher). Whatever is done, I think the Former Humans should be replaced with Sergeants on N!, as currently its enemy force is the same as UV, and whichever method is implemented to make clearing less tedious, the level would probably be easier than UV if the enemies aren't altered, considering you'll come in a level or two higher and the berserks will last twice as long,
The Unchained Court
The enemy force is fine as is for UV and below, but if possible, I would give the Arena Master the old free roaming AI so that he can rush you before you're ready for him, unlike now where he'll stay far from the central building while you take care of the enemies around there at your leisure (enrage mode and larger patrol zones being added could address this though). On N!, similar to its normal counterpart, destroying all corpses is tedious here, even with the guaranteed Rocket Launcher since your rockets will be limited, so changing the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning would be greatly appreciated. Beyond that, again replace the Former Humans with Sergeants to buff up the enemy force to compensate for N!'s double extended Berserks.
Military Base
The enemy force is fine as is on all difficulties, I'll just reiterate the previous proposal to remove the Tracking Map on UV and N!. Additionally, clearing all the Former corpses here on N! is a tedious affair as well, and beating the level fast enough before anything revives is a flatout impossible task when there's so many enemies and the level makes you go all over the place, so again another special level that would greatly appreciate the clear condition being changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning. If the latter is done, you wouldn't need to buff the enemy force here, as the main threat of the level, the Elite Formers, couldn't respawn anyway.
Phobos Lab
Fine as is on all difficulties, just again another level on N! that would appreciate killing everything once being the clear requirement or disabling respawning, so you don't need to lure every Former and Imp on the level over doors or near acid to destroy their corpse to get everything dead at once (especially again when like Military Base, this is a level with a ton of enemies and requires going all over the map, making frequent respawning inevitable).
Phobos Anomaly
Fine as is on UV and below (as long as the infighting adjustments I mentioned in the previous post get implemented). As for N!, after the huge buff the Nightmare Cacodemons got, I think they're too strong to have in the ambush; the N! Anomaly ambush already bordered on insanity previously, being largely luck-based to get past without rocket jumping, and now the Nightmare Cacos hit about as hard as the Bruisers do... but faster with plasma damage and more accurately, not to mention that they're a lot harder to kill now too with their buffed HP and insane energy resistances. So perhaps each Nightmare Caco should be replaced with double or thrice the amount of Nightmare Souls. If this is done, space would need to be made for those extra Nightmare Souls in the ambush walls... which may need to be filled up with stuff on lower difficulties to keep the player from inadvertently phasing into one of the empty wall spots and getting softlocked if you can't turn those spots into no phase zones (you could just fill them up with normal Lost Souls on lower difficulties, 4 or 8 more of them shouldn't be too much). Alternatively, the Nightmare Cacos could be toned down a bit (regardless at the very least, they should have their 50% fire and acid resistances removed that don't make much sense on them, keep the 50% plasma resistance though, I like giving rapid builds a reason to not entirely ditch bullet weapons for plasma).
Hell's Armory
Fine as is on UV and below, especially now that patrolling AI means you can no longer just camp in the starting north building to safely kill everything before the Shambler, making the level not the complete breather it was previously. As for N!, another level that it would be nice to change the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning as you're still not quite at the point that you can easily corpse dispose and the tight corridors of the level makes it not so easy to blow up corpses without hurting yourself. For the enemy force on N!, it's the same as UV except the Shambler has more HP and is more aggressive, which could be considered enough, but if you want to add some oomph on N!, you could replace the Imps here with their Nightmare counterparts (or with a mixture of Revenants and Arachnotrons), as well as replace 4 of the Cacos with their Nightmare versions as well (though certainly not all, again given how strong and durable they now are).
Deimos Lab
Enemy layout is fine as is on UV and below, I'll just note that if it's made available on ITYTD, then you must remove one of the Shamblers on that difficulty, as the dual Shambler will certainly slaughter any newbie even with ITYTD advantages. Additionally, the Formers near the teleport destinations should be moved away, as due to the patrolling AI, there's a high random chance that stepping into the teleporter will drop you right in view of a Captain, or much worse a Commando, where they will then get a full burst on you with no chance to dodge (and because teleporting takes extra time, they might even get a double attack, which with a Commando could mean instant death from full health if you're unlucky). Larger patrol zones could help, but minimizing the chance of getting instantly shredded when stepping into the teleporter will be ideal.
As for N!, once more a level that should have the clear condition changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning, especially so when unlike Hell's Armory you don't got a stash of rockets around outside the dozen rockets you get from the Revenants, and when you don't exactly want to be destroying your cover when you got the dual Shamblers to fight. For the enemy force, it's the same as UV... except for a single extra Cacodemon. You could keep the enemy layout the same as UV though as the buffed HP and extra aggressive for the Shamblers is a big deal in this fight, but if you want to add extra spice to it, like with Armory you could replace a few of the Cacos here with their Nightmare versions.
The Wall
Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, I think this is one of the few special levels you can keep having everything dead at once being the clear requirement, given Archviles are a big part of this level's challenge on N! and UV (while you also get the Missile Launcher and a big stash of rockets to easily dispose the corpses here). With the enemy force, it's the same as UV, which definitely has to be buffed as that currently makes The Wall a special level that is actually easier on N! for this point of the game. Simply replacing half the Barons with the new Nightmare Knights on N! should be sufficient and fitting.
Containment Area
Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, like The Wall it's fine forcing everything to be dead at once to count as clearing it (just maybe add some extra rockets on N! since you only got the single Rocket Box and the 4 rockets in the Missile Launcher). Unlike The Wall, I wouldn't add Nightmare Knights to the Backpack ambush, N! adding a second Archvile to it already makes it very difficult, and Nightmare Knights would probably make it impossible for most builds to survive without a Homing Phase. You could replace all the Imps and Pinkies here with their Nightmare counterparts however to make the pre-ambush part of the level no longer a breeze.
City of Skulls
Fine as is on HMP and below, but maybe the Agony Elemental should be added to ITYTD, it's weird that City of Skulls lacks it but Abyssal Plains has it. On UV, I was thinking this level could be buffed as I always found it very easy unless I was playing AoMr, but the Elemental AI changes and summoned enemies activating faster does make things a bit more hairy. N! definitely needs a big buff however, as currently the only difference with it is the Agony Elemental having more HP, while respawning isn't even a factor here when no enemy here can respawn. Replacing all the preset Lost Souls in the first wave with Nightmare Souls is obvious, and for the second wave, I say replace 3 or 4 of the Pain Elementals with Nightmare Elementals (more than that though in conjunction with the Agony Elemental would probably get too insane and consume way too much ammo).
Abyssal Plains
Firstly, if City Of Skulls not having the Agony Elemental on ITYTD is kept, then Abyssal Plains shouldn't have it either, especially if the reasoning is that it's too hard for newbies when Abyssal Plains features a more difficult fight with it. Secondly, I think Abyssal Plains may be a bit too hard on HMP; all the Imps being replaced with Hell Knights makes the opening ambush nasty, enough that I think Abyssal Plains could be the hardest special level on HMP outside of Mortuary/Limbo and Deimos Lab, while the jump to UV isn't significant (just two of the Lost Souls get replaced with Pain Elementals and the Agony Elemental gets extra HP, which is negated by you coming in a level or two higher). For adjusting HMP and UV:
*On HMP, keep the 8 Imps from HNTR intact instead of replacing them with Hell Knights. Enough changes are made elsewhere (5 of the Cacos getting replaced with Arachnotrons and extra Lost Souls + Pain Elementals being added to the trap) that replacing the Imps with Hell Knights is excessive.
*On UV, rather than replace the 8 Imps with Hell Knights, do what N! does and replace them with Nightmare Imps instead. Always felt UV should have Nightmare Imps somewhere aside from Limbo and the rare lategame vault with them, and it's more unique than the 14 Hell Knights that are currently here, while being a more natural evolution from HMP. I think you could additionally replace the 15 preset Lost Souls here with Nightmare Souls too, since the preset Souls don't really do much at this point in UV.
As for N!, the main setpiece (the Agony Elemental trap) isn't affected by respawning, but since you do got lots of enemies around that do respawn and in a level that will naturally take a long time as you have to make a complete circle as well as deal with the aforementioned Agony Elemental, changing the clear condition to be killing every enemy once would be very nice here. For enemy adjustments, alongside keeping the changes of UV, I would say replace the two Pain Elementals wandering outside the trap area with their Nightmare versions, but probably not more than that to keep City Of Skulls' extra Nightmare Elementals and Nightmare Souls a unique hazard to it (plus N! already does add a ton more Pain Elementals to the Abyssal Plains trap).
Halls of Carnage
Fine as is on all difficulties. Respawning isn't even a issue on N! as the flood will destroy the corpses anyway and it floods so fast. Maybe you could just change the requirement to killing everything once though, so if something does respawn after you killed everything, you can just exit the level instead of waiting for the flood to take them out or having to kill them again. The only thing I will note is that there is currently no special clear message for Halls of Carnage, so having one would be nice.
Spider's Lair
Fine as is on UV and below. Making the clear condition on N! being kill everything once would be nice, but the main issue with the level is that it is the same as UV, which results in it being one of the easiest special levels on N!, especially when compared to how brutal its counterpart gets on N!. Just simply replacing the 8 outer Arachnotrons here with Nightmare Arachnotrons should give this an appropriately big bump in difficulty (but certainly not all, as that would almost certainly make the level get unreasonably difficult with how deadly just a single Nightmare Arachnotron can be). Also, maybe you can do what Hell's Arena does and disable respawning once you clear it, since a bunch of rewards get spawned all over the level and trying to get them without disposing of all corpses first is hazardous as a result.
The Vaults
Fine as is on HMP and below. For UV, I mentioned the error previously with the missing Barons in the right vault and how an extra Red Armor should be added there in conjunction with the two missing Barons. As for N!, I will first say this is a level where it's fine to require having everything dead at once to clear the level since Archviles are a big part of the challenge here (but you could disable respawning to have it consistent with House Of Pain and since respawning isn't a serious issue here either way). For the enemy adjustment, as we got a proper Nightmare versions of the Barons now, you can replace them with the Nightmare Knights. Just if you do that, you really have to do something to prevent the Nightmare enemies from teleporting out of the center vault, as otherwise it would make getting the Scavenger Platinum and Diamond badges (as well as the proposed Angelic) much simpler.
House of Pain
Aside from the proposal to make the Arena Master's Staff required to access the Large Health Globes (and perhaps removing two of them entirely, getting four full heals is pretty excessive, I rarely ever have to use any medkits here), and maybe a clear message once you beat the final fight, the enemy loadout could use some changes.
*Fine as is on HNTR.
*For HMP, I'm thinking the Nightmare Archvile should get some help, as a player skilled enough for HMP probably knows to dispose of the corpses in the first room ahead of time, and a single Nightmare Archvile isn't too scary of a fight at this point in the game. To fit with how this fight will evolve on harder difficulties, I first thought of 4 Hell Knights to help him, but since they can steal the prize armors, that's probably too harsh for HMP, so 4 Nightmare Imps backing him up should be fine enough.
*For UV, just like HMP, the final fight with the two Nightmare Archviles should get backup, as I've repeatedly found the fight to be overly easy once you know to dispose of the corpses ahead of time. Replacing the 4 Nightmare Imps with Hell Knights that can steal the prize armors should be the appropriate big bump.
*For N!, the Pinkies in the starting room should be replaced with Nightmare Demons. Then the final fight could keep the Barons backing up the Nightmare Archviles, but you could also replace them with Nightmare Knights if you really want to amp up the final fight (maybe you would want to keep the Nightmare Knights exclusive to The Vaults in this level pair though).
Unholy Cathedral
If you were to make Unholy Cathedral actually challenging for lategame melee builds, it would make it nearly or even outright impossible for non-melee builds, so that wouldn't be ideal (melee investment or getting lucky with a nuke + Invuln shouldn't be necessary for Conqueror runs). However, once you learn the outspeeding timing trick to kill the Angel Of Death, this ends up becoming a pretty easy level that doesn't really get any harder on higher difficulties (actually being easier as you get more levels to more easily get the necessary levels of Fin + HR in), while you got more options than before to build up the physical defenses needed to actually duke it out with the AoD without being a proper melee build, and the enemy force before the AoD usually isn't much of a factor, which all results in Longinus Diamond being one of easiest Diamond badges to get. I had ideas on sprucing the enemy loadout on harder difficulties here (namely, replacing the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls on UV and then replacing the Pinkies with Nightmare Demons on N!), but the planned Enraged mode is potentially a big wrinkle here, as depending on how strict it is and if it gets stricter on harder difficulties, that alone could make beating Unholy Cathedral on harder difficulties a lot more arduous with the outspeeding strat. So I will want to see Engraded mode in action before really pushing for buffing enemy loadout on Cathedral.
The Mortuary
Aside from what I mentioned in my previous post about how ammo pickups should be added to compensate for respawns no longer dropping ammo, Mortuary's enemy loadout is otherwise fine as is on all difficulties; Mortuary should even keep the clear condition being having everything dead at once, since killing all the respawns is so central to its challenge and theming. If the disabled infighting flag is added, Mortuary should definitely have infighting disabled however. Additionally, having enemy here AI roam rather than patrol would be ideal, as patrolling AI does make it a lot easier when you no longer have to worry about being pincer'd (but if larger patrol zones are added with Enraged mode, that could be enough to bring back the difficulty lost from that).
Limbo
Like Mortuary, it should have ammo picks up added, disabled infighting, roaming AI (unless larger patrol zones + Enraged mode is added), and should retain the clear condition of everything being dead at once. Some adjustments to the enemy loadout though:
*On HNTR, add Nightmare Imps to the corpse pool, while also removing Nightmare Demons and Revenants. Having Nightmare Demons on HNTR made more sense back when Limbo had lava and Nightmare Demons had no lava immunity so they just inevitably killed themselves in it shortly after being resurrected, but now when that is no longer an issue here, the Nightmare Demons are far more threatening than the Nightmare Imps are and so can be rather much for a HNTR player to deal with. I would remove Revenants on HNTR too, as with them being fast and their undodgeable projectile that inflicts a lot of knockback, they are the most often source of knocking the player multiple tiles deep into fluids, and with Limbo now having blood instead of lava, that can be a swift death sentence for an unprepared player.
*On HMP, add Nightmare Demons and Revenants back to the corpse pool. Unlike currently how there's barely a difficulty bump in Limbo on HMP, you'll really notice the bump with this adjustment.
*On UV, add Nightmare Cacodemons to the mix as currently, as well as the new Nightmare Knight.
*On N!, add Nightmare Arachnotrons as done currently.
The Lava Pits
Fine as is on HNTR and below (well, the combat looks really light on ITYTD, but I'm not fussed about trying to make things harder on ITYTD). For HMP, all the preset Lost Souls could be replaced with Nightmare Souls, I think there should be somewhere that you can encounter Nightmare Souls on HMP in the standard game and individual Lost Souls are generally very unthreatening this late in the game. For UV, alongside keeping the Nightmare Souls, maybe you could replace a couple of the Pain Elementals with Nightmate Elementals if you want to have somewhere to fight them on UV but I'm fine without, the main challenge of Lava Pits is the resource attrition rather than the combat. On N!, I think it's about time that Nightmare Revenants get utilized by replacing all the Revenants with them here, and about half the Pain Elementals should be replaced with Nightmare Elementals too. This would be a big bump in the enemy force, but respawning is basically a complete nonfactor on this level, and currently N! Lava Pits really isn't any harder than it is on UV (there's also the proposal to remove the last radsuit, which could be done in conjunction with this, but the radsuit could be kept if you want to exhibit some mercy here).
Mt. Erebus
Lots to do here, Mt. Erebus is supposed to be the combat-centric alternative to Lava Pits but is a complete pushover on harder difficulties.
*First, add two more enemies into the innermost mountain (to make room for them, just move the two rocket stacks there into the outer ring), it is weird that only a single enemy is released with the final lever, while adding two more would also have inner mountain enemies be equivalent in number to the outer mountain enemies.
*Mostly fine as is on ITYTD, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Hell Knights being added inside the innermost mountain).
*Mostly fine as is on HNTR, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Mancubi being added inside the innermost mountain).
*On HMP, replace all the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls for the same reason as in Lava Pits, but especially so here in the combat-cenetric counterpart level. The aforementioned change should additionally result in two Revenants being added inside the innermost mountain.
*On UV, keep the Nightmare Souls, but do not replace the Cacodemons with Pain Elementals, replace them with Nightmare Cacodemons instead (aside from Nightmare Cacodemons being a much bigger threat here and adding diversity in damage types, it differentiates this level more from Lava Pits, and is more faithful to the original Mt. Erebus in Doom, where it was the official Doom level with the most Cacodemons in it). Additionally, have the Mancubi back on the outside of the mountain, while replacing the 7 Revenants inside the mountain with their Nightmare versions (for this level this late into the game, I think UV can handle it, and it will make that lone radsuit a more stringent resource if you do not have very strong fire resistance on hand).
*On N!, in addition to keeping the Nightmare Souls and Nightmare Cacodemons, swap the Nightmare Revenants to the outside of the mountain, and then replace the 7 Mancubi inside the mountain with Nightmare Mancubi, introducing the last of the Nightmare enemies, who will eat away at the amount of safe land you have here with their acid splashing. I would also definitely remove the last radsuit here to really hammer in the threat of the Nightmare Mancubi and the subsequent battle with the Lava Elemental.
I mentioned previously, in the original proposal post about buffing the difficulty of Erebus a while ago, about how potentially Erebus could end in fighting two Lava Elementals, but with these big enemy buffs, perhaps that won't be necessary.
First I want to state that I think the EXP multiplier in Nightmare should be lowered to the standard x1.0, or at least x1.1 if it must have a higher EXP multiplier than UV. A big part of why later N! loses a lot of bite is that you get so much EXP between the boosted multiplier, even greater enemy density than UV, and special levels having stronger enemies with greater EXP yields, so the difficulty gets somewhat compromised by how much stronger the player gets. Currently, killing everything and clearing the special levels will have you regularly entering Deimos at level 9 and you'll soar past level 12 by the halfway point, while enemies with even greater EXP yields are going to be added to special levels and a new special level pair is going to be added in Phobos, which will make the player's level on N! soar to even greater extents if the EXP multiplier is not toned down to compensate.
Now onto the special levels:
Hell's Arena
Fine as is on UV, and I seen Kornel has plans to modify it below UV, which will be interesting to see. Nightmare is where it's in dire need of adjustment currently though, and how to modify it depends on what is done to address the ordeal that is trying to get everything dead at once while lacking the means for proper corpse disposal this early when the corpse stacking strategy has been rendered mostly unviable by patrolling AI.
*If it's adjusted so you just need to kill every unique enemy once rather than having everything dead at once, then Hell's Arena enemy force is probably fine as is, considering how much more difficulty respawning adds to the level (maybe you could replace the Lost Souls with their Nightmare counterparts to spice things up a bit and add a couple of them to the second wave too). Also when clearing the final wave, maybe consider not only disabling respawning, but have every remaining respawned enemy drop dead too.
*If it's adjusted to disable respawning entirely, then the enemy force will need to be buffed considerably. How to is uncertain though, you certainly can't just replace Pinkies and Cacodemons with their Nightmare counterparts this early as it would probably make the level near impossible for most runs. You could replace the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls though and add some to the second wave, as well as perhaps throw in extra Cacos and Pinkies, and then for the final wave, maybe you could throw some Nightmare Imps in to assist the Barons?
The Chained Court
Fine as is on UV and below. As for Nightmare, it's too a level that would greatly appreciate changing the clear condition to killing everything once, or even disabling respawning, as otherwise you have to do a ton of door camping to get everything dead when you'll still probably lack any means of corpse disposing weapons (especially as accessing this version of Chained Court means you didn't clear Hell's Arena and thus didn't get the guaranteed Rocket Launcher). Whatever is done, I think the Former Humans should be replaced with Sergeants on N!, as currently its enemy force is the same as UV, and whichever method is implemented to make clearing less tedious, the level would probably be easier than UV if the enemies aren't altered, considering you'll come in a level or two higher and the berserks will last twice as long,
The Unchained Court
The enemy force is fine as is for UV and below, but if possible, I would give the Arena Master the old free roaming AI so that he can rush you before you're ready for him, unlike now where he'll stay far from the central building while you take care of the enemies around there at your leisure (enrage mode and larger patrol zones being added could address this though). On N!, similar to its normal counterpart, destroying all corpses is tedious here, even with the guaranteed Rocket Launcher since your rockets will be limited, so changing the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning would be greatly appreciated. Beyond that, again replace the Former Humans with Sergeants to buff up the enemy force to compensate for N!'s double extended Berserks.
Military Base
The enemy force is fine as is on all difficulties, I'll just reiterate the previous proposal to remove the Tracking Map on UV and N!. Additionally, clearing all the Former corpses here on N! is a tedious affair as well, and beating the level fast enough before anything revives is a flatout impossible task when there's so many enemies and the level makes you go all over the place, so again another special level that would greatly appreciate the clear condition being changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning. If the latter is done, you wouldn't need to buff the enemy force here, as the main threat of the level, the Elite Formers, couldn't respawn anyway.
Phobos Lab
Fine as is on all difficulties, just again another level on N! that would appreciate killing everything once being the clear requirement or disabling respawning, so you don't need to lure every Former and Imp on the level over doors or near acid to destroy their corpse to get everything dead at once (especially again when like Military Base, this is a level with a ton of enemies and requires going all over the map, making frequent respawning inevitable).
Phobos Anomaly
Fine as is on UV and below (as long as the infighting adjustments I mentioned in the previous post get implemented). As for N!, after the huge buff the Nightmare Cacodemons got, I think they're too strong to have in the ambush; the N! Anomaly ambush already bordered on insanity previously, being largely luck-based to get past without rocket jumping, and now the Nightmare Cacos hit about as hard as the Bruisers do... but faster with plasma damage and more accurately, not to mention that they're a lot harder to kill now too with their buffed HP and insane energy resistances. So perhaps each Nightmare Caco should be replaced with double or thrice the amount of Nightmare Souls. If this is done, space would need to be made for those extra Nightmare Souls in the ambush walls... which may need to be filled up with stuff on lower difficulties to keep the player from inadvertently phasing into one of the empty wall spots and getting softlocked if you can't turn those spots into no phase zones (you could just fill them up with normal Lost Souls on lower difficulties, 4 or 8 more of them shouldn't be too much). Alternatively, the Nightmare Cacos could be toned down a bit (regardless at the very least, they should have their 50% fire and acid resistances removed that don't make much sense on them, keep the 50% plasma resistance though, I like giving rapid builds a reason to not entirely ditch bullet weapons for plasma).
Hell's Armory
Fine as is on UV and below, especially now that patrolling AI means you can no longer just camp in the starting north building to safely kill everything before the Shambler, making the level not the complete breather it was previously. As for N!, another level that it would be nice to change the clear condition to killing everything once or disabling respawning as you're still not quite at the point that you can easily corpse dispose and the tight corridors of the level makes it not so easy to blow up corpses without hurting yourself. For the enemy force on N!, it's the same as UV except the Shambler has more HP and is more aggressive, which could be considered enough, but if you want to add some oomph on N!, you could replace the Imps here with their Nightmare counterparts (or with a mixture of Revenants and Arachnotrons), as well as replace 4 of the Cacos with their Nightmare versions as well (though certainly not all, again given how strong and durable they now are).
Deimos Lab
Enemy layout is fine as is on UV and below, I'll just note that if it's made available on ITYTD, then you must remove one of the Shamblers on that difficulty, as the dual Shambler will certainly slaughter any newbie even with ITYTD advantages. Additionally, the Formers near the teleport destinations should be moved away, as due to the patrolling AI, there's a high random chance that stepping into the teleporter will drop you right in view of a Captain, or much worse a Commando, where they will then get a full burst on you with no chance to dodge (and because teleporting takes extra time, they might even get a double attack, which with a Commando could mean instant death from full health if you're unlucky). Larger patrol zones could help, but minimizing the chance of getting instantly shredded when stepping into the teleporter will be ideal.
As for N!, once more a level that should have the clear condition changed to killing everything once or disabling respawning, especially so when unlike Hell's Armory you don't got a stash of rockets around outside the dozen rockets you get from the Revenants, and when you don't exactly want to be destroying your cover when you got the dual Shamblers to fight. For the enemy force, it's the same as UV... except for a single extra Cacodemon. You could keep the enemy layout the same as UV though as the buffed HP and extra aggressive for the Shamblers is a big deal in this fight, but if you want to add extra spice to it, like with Armory you could replace a few of the Cacos here with their Nightmare versions.
The Wall
Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, I think this is one of the few special levels you can keep having everything dead at once being the clear requirement, given Archviles are a big part of this level's challenge on N! and UV (while you also get the Missile Launcher and a big stash of rockets to easily dispose the corpses here). With the enemy force, it's the same as UV, which definitely has to be buffed as that currently makes The Wall a special level that is actually easier on N! for this point of the game. Simply replacing half the Barons with the new Nightmare Knights on N! should be sufficient and fitting.
Containment Area
Fine as is on UV and below. For N!, like The Wall it's fine forcing everything to be dead at once to count as clearing it (just maybe add some extra rockets on N! since you only got the single Rocket Box and the 4 rockets in the Missile Launcher). Unlike The Wall, I wouldn't add Nightmare Knights to the Backpack ambush, N! adding a second Archvile to it already makes it very difficult, and Nightmare Knights would probably make it impossible for most builds to survive without a Homing Phase. You could replace all the Imps and Pinkies here with their Nightmare counterparts however to make the pre-ambush part of the level no longer a breeze.
City of Skulls
Fine as is on HMP and below, but maybe the Agony Elemental should be added to ITYTD, it's weird that City of Skulls lacks it but Abyssal Plains has it. On UV, I was thinking this level could be buffed as I always found it very easy unless I was playing AoMr, but the Elemental AI changes and summoned enemies activating faster does make things a bit more hairy. N! definitely needs a big buff however, as currently the only difference with it is the Agony Elemental having more HP, while respawning isn't even a factor here when no enemy here can respawn. Replacing all the preset Lost Souls in the first wave with Nightmare Souls is obvious, and for the second wave, I say replace 3 or 4 of the Pain Elementals with Nightmare Elementals (more than that though in conjunction with the Agony Elemental would probably get too insane and consume way too much ammo).
Abyssal Plains
Firstly, if City Of Skulls not having the Agony Elemental on ITYTD is kept, then Abyssal Plains shouldn't have it either, especially if the reasoning is that it's too hard for newbies when Abyssal Plains features a more difficult fight with it. Secondly, I think Abyssal Plains may be a bit too hard on HMP; all the Imps being replaced with Hell Knights makes the opening ambush nasty, enough that I think Abyssal Plains could be the hardest special level on HMP outside of Mortuary/Limbo and Deimos Lab, while the jump to UV isn't significant (just two of the Lost Souls get replaced with Pain Elementals and the Agony Elemental gets extra HP, which is negated by you coming in a level or two higher). For adjusting HMP and UV:
*On HMP, keep the 8 Imps from HNTR intact instead of replacing them with Hell Knights. Enough changes are made elsewhere (5 of the Cacos getting replaced with Arachnotrons and extra Lost Souls + Pain Elementals being added to the trap) that replacing the Imps with Hell Knights is excessive.
*On UV, rather than replace the 8 Imps with Hell Knights, do what N! does and replace them with Nightmare Imps instead. Always felt UV should have Nightmare Imps somewhere aside from Limbo and the rare lategame vault with them, and it's more unique than the 14 Hell Knights that are currently here, while being a more natural evolution from HMP. I think you could additionally replace the 15 preset Lost Souls here with Nightmare Souls too, since the preset Souls don't really do much at this point in UV.
As for N!, the main setpiece (the Agony Elemental trap) isn't affected by respawning, but since you do got lots of enemies around that do respawn and in a level that will naturally take a long time as you have to make a complete circle as well as deal with the aforementioned Agony Elemental, changing the clear condition to be killing every enemy once would be very nice here. For enemy adjustments, alongside keeping the changes of UV, I would say replace the two Pain Elementals wandering outside the trap area with their Nightmare versions, but probably not more than that to keep City Of Skulls' extra Nightmare Elementals and Nightmare Souls a unique hazard to it (plus N! already does add a ton more Pain Elementals to the Abyssal Plains trap).
Halls of Carnage
Fine as is on all difficulties. Respawning isn't even a issue on N! as the flood will destroy the corpses anyway and it floods so fast. Maybe you could just change the requirement to killing everything once though, so if something does respawn after you killed everything, you can just exit the level instead of waiting for the flood to take them out or having to kill them again. The only thing I will note is that there is currently no special clear message for Halls of Carnage, so having one would be nice.
Spider's Lair
Fine as is on UV and below. Making the clear condition on N! being kill everything once would be nice, but the main issue with the level is that it is the same as UV, which results in it being one of the easiest special levels on N!, especially when compared to how brutal its counterpart gets on N!. Just simply replacing the 8 outer Arachnotrons here with Nightmare Arachnotrons should give this an appropriately big bump in difficulty (but certainly not all, as that would almost certainly make the level get unreasonably difficult with how deadly just a single Nightmare Arachnotron can be). Also, maybe you can do what Hell's Arena does and disable respawning once you clear it, since a bunch of rewards get spawned all over the level and trying to get them without disposing of all corpses first is hazardous as a result.
The Vaults
Fine as is on HMP and below. For UV, I mentioned the error previously with the missing Barons in the right vault and how an extra Red Armor should be added there in conjunction with the two missing Barons. As for N!, I will first say this is a level where it's fine to require having everything dead at once to clear the level since Archviles are a big part of the challenge here (but you could disable respawning to have it consistent with House Of Pain and since respawning isn't a serious issue here either way). For the enemy adjustment, as we got a proper Nightmare versions of the Barons now, you can replace them with the Nightmare Knights. Just if you do that, you really have to do something to prevent the Nightmare enemies from teleporting out of the center vault, as otherwise it would make getting the Scavenger Platinum and Diamond badges (as well as the proposed Angelic) much simpler.
House of Pain
Aside from the proposal to make the Arena Master's Staff required to access the Large Health Globes (and perhaps removing two of them entirely, getting four full heals is pretty excessive, I rarely ever have to use any medkits here), and maybe a clear message once you beat the final fight, the enemy loadout could use some changes.
*Fine as is on HNTR.
*For HMP, I'm thinking the Nightmare Archvile should get some help, as a player skilled enough for HMP probably knows to dispose of the corpses in the first room ahead of time, and a single Nightmare Archvile isn't too scary of a fight at this point in the game. To fit with how this fight will evolve on harder difficulties, I first thought of 4 Hell Knights to help him, but since they can steal the prize armors, that's probably too harsh for HMP, so 4 Nightmare Imps backing him up should be fine enough.
*For UV, just like HMP, the final fight with the two Nightmare Archviles should get backup, as I've repeatedly found the fight to be overly easy once you know to dispose of the corpses ahead of time. Replacing the 4 Nightmare Imps with Hell Knights that can steal the prize armors should be the appropriate big bump.
*For N!, the Pinkies in the starting room should be replaced with Nightmare Demons. Then the final fight could keep the Barons backing up the Nightmare Archviles, but you could also replace them with Nightmare Knights if you really want to amp up the final fight (maybe you would want to keep the Nightmare Knights exclusive to The Vaults in this level pair though).
Unholy Cathedral
If you were to make Unholy Cathedral actually challenging for lategame melee builds, it would make it nearly or even outright impossible for non-melee builds, so that wouldn't be ideal (melee investment or getting lucky with a nuke + Invuln shouldn't be necessary for Conqueror runs). However, once you learn the outspeeding timing trick to kill the Angel Of Death, this ends up becoming a pretty easy level that doesn't really get any harder on higher difficulties (actually being easier as you get more levels to more easily get the necessary levels of Fin + HR in), while you got more options than before to build up the physical defenses needed to actually duke it out with the AoD without being a proper melee build, and the enemy force before the AoD usually isn't much of a factor, which all results in Longinus Diamond being one of easiest Diamond badges to get. I had ideas on sprucing the enemy loadout on harder difficulties here (namely, replacing the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls on UV and then replacing the Pinkies with Nightmare Demons on N!), but the planned Enraged mode is potentially a big wrinkle here, as depending on how strict it is and if it gets stricter on harder difficulties, that alone could make beating Unholy Cathedral on harder difficulties a lot more arduous with the outspeeding strat. So I will want to see Engraded mode in action before really pushing for buffing enemy loadout on Cathedral.
The Mortuary
Aside from what I mentioned in my previous post about how ammo pickups should be added to compensate for respawns no longer dropping ammo, Mortuary's enemy loadout is otherwise fine as is on all difficulties; Mortuary should even keep the clear condition being having everything dead at once, since killing all the respawns is so central to its challenge and theming. If the disabled infighting flag is added, Mortuary should definitely have infighting disabled however. Additionally, having enemy here AI roam rather than patrol would be ideal, as patrolling AI does make it a lot easier when you no longer have to worry about being pincer'd (but if larger patrol zones are added with Enraged mode, that could be enough to bring back the difficulty lost from that).
Limbo
Like Mortuary, it should have ammo picks up added, disabled infighting, roaming AI (unless larger patrol zones + Enraged mode is added), and should retain the clear condition of everything being dead at once. Some adjustments to the enemy loadout though:
*On HNTR, add Nightmare Imps to the corpse pool, while also removing Nightmare Demons and Revenants. Having Nightmare Demons on HNTR made more sense back when Limbo had lava and Nightmare Demons had no lava immunity so they just inevitably killed themselves in it shortly after being resurrected, but now when that is no longer an issue here, the Nightmare Demons are far more threatening than the Nightmare Imps are and so can be rather much for a HNTR player to deal with. I would remove Revenants on HNTR too, as with them being fast and their undodgeable projectile that inflicts a lot of knockback, they are the most often source of knocking the player multiple tiles deep into fluids, and with Limbo now having blood instead of lava, that can be a swift death sentence for an unprepared player.
*On HMP, add Nightmare Demons and Revenants back to the corpse pool. Unlike currently how there's barely a difficulty bump in Limbo on HMP, you'll really notice the bump with this adjustment.
*On UV, add Nightmare Cacodemons to the mix as currently, as well as the new Nightmare Knight.
*On N!, add Nightmare Arachnotrons as done currently.
The Lava Pits
Fine as is on HNTR and below (well, the combat looks really light on ITYTD, but I'm not fussed about trying to make things harder on ITYTD). For HMP, all the preset Lost Souls could be replaced with Nightmare Souls, I think there should be somewhere that you can encounter Nightmare Souls on HMP in the standard game and individual Lost Souls are generally very unthreatening this late in the game. For UV, alongside keeping the Nightmare Souls, maybe you could replace a couple of the Pain Elementals with Nightmate Elementals if you want to have somewhere to fight them on UV but I'm fine without, the main challenge of Lava Pits is the resource attrition rather than the combat. On N!, I think it's about time that Nightmare Revenants get utilized by replacing all the Revenants with them here, and about half the Pain Elementals should be replaced with Nightmare Elementals too. This would be a big bump in the enemy force, but respawning is basically a complete nonfactor on this level, and currently N! Lava Pits really isn't any harder than it is on UV (there's also the proposal to remove the last radsuit, which could be done in conjunction with this, but the radsuit could be kept if you want to exhibit some mercy here).
Mt. Erebus
Lots to do here, Mt. Erebus is supposed to be the combat-centric alternative to Lava Pits but is a complete pushover on harder difficulties.
*First, add two more enemies into the innermost mountain (to make room for them, just move the two rocket stacks there into the outer ring), it is weird that only a single enemy is released with the final lever, while adding two more would also have inner mountain enemies be equivalent in number to the outer mountain enemies.
*Mostly fine as is on ITYTD, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Hell Knights being added inside the innermost mountain).
*Mostly fine as is on HNTR, just make the aforementioned change (which would result in two Mancubi being added inside the innermost mountain).
*On HMP, replace all the Lost Souls with Nightmare Souls for the same reason as in Lava Pits, but especially so here in the combat-cenetric counterpart level. The aforementioned change should additionally result in two Revenants being added inside the innermost mountain.
*On UV, keep the Nightmare Souls, but do not replace the Cacodemons with Pain Elementals, replace them with Nightmare Cacodemons instead (aside from Nightmare Cacodemons being a much bigger threat here and adding diversity in damage types, it differentiates this level more from Lava Pits, and is more faithful to the original Mt. Erebus in Doom, where it was the official Doom level with the most Cacodemons in it). Additionally, have the Mancubi back on the outside of the mountain, while replacing the 7 Revenants inside the mountain with their Nightmare versions (for this level this late into the game, I think UV can handle it, and it will make that lone radsuit a more stringent resource if you do not have very strong fire resistance on hand).
*On N!, in addition to keeping the Nightmare Souls and Nightmare Cacodemons, swap the Nightmare Revenants to the outside of the mountain, and then replace the 7 Mancubi inside the mountain with Nightmare Mancubi, introducing the last of the Nightmare enemies, who will eat away at the amount of safe land you have here with their acid splashing. I would also definitely remove the last radsuit here to really hammer in the threat of the Nightmare Mancubi and the subsequent battle with the Lava Elemental.
I mentioned previously, in the original proposal post about buffing the difficulty of Erebus a while ago, about how potentially Erebus could end in fighting two Lava Elementals, but with these big enemy buffs, perhaps that won't be necessary.
2
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: March 04, 2025, 15:57 »
A new post to organize bugs/issues in the latest beta:
*Special levels are even more obnoxious to clear on Nightmare without good corpse disposal tools, so clear conditions need to be addressed.
Clearing special levels on Nightmare always been a pain in the ass, with them all requiring you to have everything dead at once, especially the early special levels where you lack good corpse disposal tools and so had to meticulously corpse stack everything or camp near a door. With the new patrolling AI, this problem has gotten exponentially worse, as now you cannot camp in a good spot and viably corpse stack more than a handful of enemies, while by the time you go from one side of the map to the other, something would have inevitably revived on the other end. Hell's Arena in particular demonstrates how severe this problem is, and the only remotely viable ways to clear it on Nightmare is either come in berserked, kill everything ASAP, and get very lucky with both little to no enemies respawning and having the spawns of the final wave near each other, or go through a long drawn out process where you repeatedly lure Cacos and Barons to corpses to blow them up for you, while being lucky enough to have come in with enough medkits to withstand the tons of damage you'll have to take in that process (you can see me going through the ordeal of clearing N! Hell's Arena with patrolling AI even as an optimal build here).
The obvious ideal solution would be to have special levels' clear condition require every unique enemy being killed once, rather than having everything dead at once, thus you don't need to bother with any corpse disposal to clear special levels but respawning will remain a challenge (and lining up with how the kill rate now works too). I would just make an exception for Mortuary/Limbo, since putting all the respawns back down is an intrinsic part of their theme, and maybe you could make an exception for The Wall, Containment Area, The Vaults, and House of Pain, since Archviles are a primary part of those special levels' challenge on UV/N! too (while both level pairs also have lots of rockets around to aid with corpse disposal). If it's not possible to program it this way, then I would say disable respawning in all special levels outright aside from Mortuary/Limbo, or at least, disable respawning in all Phobos special levels and in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab (as after that point you'll likely have sufficient means of corpse disposal, but not being forced to do any corpse disposal would be ideal), while buffing up the difficulty in those levels on N! through other means.
*AI issues
Several of the reported AI issues after the big AI adjustment have been addressed already in the hotfixes, but a few remain.
**Formers and Hell Nobles sometimes get stuck right on top of items, not picking them up nor moving unless you aggro them. Any surrounding Formers and Nobles will also get stuck trying to reach the item another Former/Noble has parked their ass on and won't move off of (here's a screenshot with a big group of them stuck because one wouldn't pick up the item).
**Formers and Nobles sometimes will not use items even when their health drops below 50%.
**Elementals may sometime remain permanently aggro'd? In this instance, I had a Pain Elemental chase me all the way across a floor, when enemies normally deaggro long before then. When playing Cateye, I also noticed that it seems Elementals may not aggro when you hit them out of their vision? That will need some more testing but I thought to report it here in case.
**I noticed that sequential AI will no longer fire a second volley when you're in melee range, whereas previously they would ignore melee before letting off that second volley (as seen in this instance where a Nightmare Arachnotron melee me after firing only once).
**With patrolling AI, if an enemy steps into a teleporter that brings them outside their patrol zone, they will they try getting back to that zone, but can get stuck doing so (as seen in this instance on Deimos Lab).
**Not all Pinky errors have been fixed, as I got one here after a Pinky killed an Imp.
*Infighting fixes.
Proper infighting has been reimplemented, and it's not breaking things like I thought it would, though some more exceptions should be added to keep it from trivializing certain difficult battles. Some ideas:
**Add a "no infighting" level flag like Doom 64 did, which will disable infighting on any level that it's applied to. This could be used on all boss levels (as currently you get stuff like Bruisers fighting each other in Anomaly and Carmack's spawns fighting each other, making these fights much easier), as well as on certain special levels (such as Mortuary/Limbo, given that they're supposed to be super hard and infighting does lessen their difficulty a bit, and Deimos Lab so you can't cheese the dual Shamblers, unless the following suggestion is applied).
**Don't have enemies infight their own species, just like how Doom does. If you want to emulate Doom farther, you add this exception but don't have it apply to Formers (who would still infight in Doom because hitscan attacks ignored this rule).
**Don't have enemies retaliate against Archviles, just like how Doom also does (you don't kill your healer!).
**If possible, perhaps enemies in monster groups shouldn't infight with others from their same monster group? This one I imagine may not be programmable, but I noticed spawning near monster groups is less dangerous now as ones in the back of the group will inevitably hit those in the front trying to hit you, which then makes the group infight each other, giving you time to escape and leaving you with less of them to mop up after.
*Trait adjustments.
We got big balancing changes a couple betas ago, so this will be what I think should be adjusted:
**Survivalist should have the double healing on Small Medkits and Health Globes removed.
After the TaN buff to give +10% energy resistances per level, and the SoG change that makes investing in Pistols for offense much more efficient, Survivalist is now overturned even with the Marine nerf. It's not at 0.9.9.8 Vampyre levels of broken, but I found Survivalist has become too tanky with just modded Red Armor, and it's not struggling as much with offense as it did previously either, while it also can now get Hellrunner to not be slow in the late game. If TaN was toned down to give +5% energy resistances per level as originally proposed, Survivalist could be back to being ok, but if not, Survivalist will need the double healing ability to go, so that it at least can't stockpile a huge health reserve so easily (especially so on Nightmare, where Small Medkits basically become pseudo-Supercharges as the double healing stacks on N!'s own double healing bonus).
**Entrenchment should have to build up its resistance boost when Chainfiring, or have its resistance boost reduced back to +30%.
I found Entrenchment has also became too tanky, as the original +50% resistance proposal was made back before the aforementioned TaN buff. With no armor at all, chainfiring will have Entrenchment with massive 70% energy resistances, that on top of the inherent 2 protection from TaN2, will reduce an Archvile zap all the way down to 4 damage, and just donning unmodded Red Armor will reduce nearly every energy attack down to 1 damage. An idea is that Entrenchment will have to build up its resistances when Chainfiring (so it starts at +20%, then the next volley it will become +30%, and then reaches +50% once chainfiring is fully on), thus Entrenchment can't suddenly get 70+% resistances on demand and it will be more thematically fitting, but if it's too difficult to program, then reducing it back to a flat +30% resistances should do.
**Reduce Bullet Dance's firing speed penalty to +20%.
An idea Kornel mentioned himself and is probably already planning for the next beta, but I thought to post it here as a reminder just in case. It was also thrown around to remove the firing speed penalty entirely, but I would start with reducing it to +20% since Dual Gunner had its firing speed penalty entirely removed, and seeing how much stronger dual gunning got, I want to err on the side of caution. There is also the original proposal still to let Bullet Dance reload faster when dual gunning, but we can wait to see how Bullet Dance performs first with the firing speed buff before buffing it farther.
I also would still like Finesse becoming a 5 level trait as Kornel mentioned he may be willing to do as a compromise with nerfing it, but I don't feel too strongly yet about it and am willing to do more testing with it as a nerfed level 3 trait. There is additionally the idea of replacing Fireangel's new ability to turn all missiles explosive with making all its Shotguns have +1 spread size, it's not something I'm fully on yet either (as turning all missiles explosive is a cool idea even if it is a bit niche in application), but thought to post here, as it has been discussed previously to possibly give Fireangel a Shotgun-based perk since it's supposed to be a Shotgun mastery.
*In the new Grappling Armor assembly, the requisite Agility mod speed buff or Bulk mod speed penalty gets carried over.
Like previous assembly bugs, if you apply the Agility mod first and then assemble Grappling Armor, the +15% speed buff will get carried over, while if the Bulk mod is applied first, then the -10% speed penalty gets carried over (but oddly the boosted durability does not).
*Issues with enemy placement of The Vaults.
The Barons got their Red Armors in The Vaults, but a couple new issues have arose on the level.
1: Two of the Barons in the right vault on UV/N! were removed (removing the symmetry that existed previously with the six Arachnotrons in the left vault), while with the way the Red Armors are placed, one Baron will always go for the random armor instead that is often worse, leaving a fresh Red Armor for the player. I would recommend adding the two missing Barons back and one more Red Armor in the right vault, that way five of the Barons will get the Red Armors and then the last will get whatever the random armor is.
2: On Nightmare, one of the center vault's enemies will erroneously spawn in the right vault, as seen in these two posts on Discord (first and second).
*Give the Cybernetic Armor a much lower drop rate in the Deimos Lab prize cache.
Previously, the Cybernetic Armor would rarely drop as a prize in Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab. In Armory, since it's in the drop pool with the standard mods that have much higher spawning weights, it's still rare. But in Deimos Lab, since it's in the drop pool with the rare mods and it'll get rolled twice, it's much more common. So over a third of the time, one of the rare mods in Deimos Lab will be replaced with a reward that is almost worthless for Marines and Scouts, and isn't much better for Technicians unless the other rare mod is a Nano or Onyx mod (or they otherwise are lucky enough to find one soon). Looking at the source code for Deimos Lab in 0.9.9.8, it looks like the Cybernetic Armor previously had a separate roll that determined if it replaced one of the rare mods or not so that it would be more rare, rather than being thrown into the drop pool with the rare mods. This should be reimplemented, or if not, at least do what Armory does and have Cybernetic Armor in the spawn pool with the standard mods.
*In Halls of Carnage, a Former can spawn where you're supposed to, which then spawns you in the starting wall.
A funny bug, as seen here. Don't know if this is unique to the beta or just a bug that always existed but been rare. You can just move out the wall normally, so it's not particularly harmful (being slightly beneficial even, as you can get a headstart out of the starting room if you don't care about picking up the Health Globe first).
___________________________________________________
The following is a compilation of previous bugs/issues in the 0.9.9.9 betas that have not been addressed yet. I thought to compile them here so Kornel doesn't need to go through my previous posts to pick out the ones he missed (and to keep this post from getting too big I'll hide their explanations in spoilers):
*Various audio issues
*If too many sounds play in quick succession, the music will be turned off.
*Warning messages are not colored
*Technician, Armorer, and Heroic badges aren't being rewarded on the run you fulfilled their requirements, but rather in the immediate run you do after.
*The Mortem's kill ratio message is based on the total enemy kill ratio with respawns factored, rather than the unique enemy kill ratio.
*If an item's name gets too long, it'll take up two lines of space in your inventory menu, and push other items off the screen.
*If you reload a save, when you run -> wait with enemies revealed, you cannot stop it manually. (Note I haven't checked if this bug is still in the latest beta.)
*Add ammo pickups to The Mortuary and Limbo.
*In the Nightmare version of The Vaults, the ease at teleporter camping the center vault's Nightmare enemies should be fixed.
*Have screen shaking intensity vary based on the strength of the projectile/explosion
*Special levels are even more obnoxious to clear on Nightmare without good corpse disposal tools, so clear conditions need to be addressed.
Clearing special levels on Nightmare always been a pain in the ass, with them all requiring you to have everything dead at once, especially the early special levels where you lack good corpse disposal tools and so had to meticulously corpse stack everything or camp near a door. With the new patrolling AI, this problem has gotten exponentially worse, as now you cannot camp in a good spot and viably corpse stack more than a handful of enemies, while by the time you go from one side of the map to the other, something would have inevitably revived on the other end. Hell's Arena in particular demonstrates how severe this problem is, and the only remotely viable ways to clear it on Nightmare is either come in berserked, kill everything ASAP, and get very lucky with both little to no enemies respawning and having the spawns of the final wave near each other, or go through a long drawn out process where you repeatedly lure Cacos and Barons to corpses to blow them up for you, while being lucky enough to have come in with enough medkits to withstand the tons of damage you'll have to take in that process (you can see me going through the ordeal of clearing N! Hell's Arena with patrolling AI even as an optimal build here).
The obvious ideal solution would be to have special levels' clear condition require every unique enemy being killed once, rather than having everything dead at once, thus you don't need to bother with any corpse disposal to clear special levels but respawning will remain a challenge (and lining up with how the kill rate now works too). I would just make an exception for Mortuary/Limbo, since putting all the respawns back down is an intrinsic part of their theme, and maybe you could make an exception for The Wall, Containment Area, The Vaults, and House of Pain, since Archviles are a primary part of those special levels' challenge on UV/N! too (while both level pairs also have lots of rockets around to aid with corpse disposal). If it's not possible to program it this way, then I would say disable respawning in all special levels outright aside from Mortuary/Limbo, or at least, disable respawning in all Phobos special levels and in Hell's Armory/Deimos Lab (as after that point you'll likely have sufficient means of corpse disposal, but not being forced to do any corpse disposal would be ideal), while buffing up the difficulty in those levels on N! through other means.
*AI issues
Several of the reported AI issues after the big AI adjustment have been addressed already in the hotfixes, but a few remain.
**Formers and Hell Nobles sometimes get stuck right on top of items, not picking them up nor moving unless you aggro them. Any surrounding Formers and Nobles will also get stuck trying to reach the item another Former/Noble has parked their ass on and won't move off of (here's a screenshot with a big group of them stuck because one wouldn't pick up the item).
**Formers and Nobles sometimes will not use items even when their health drops below 50%.
**Elementals may sometime remain permanently aggro'd? In this instance, I had a Pain Elemental chase me all the way across a floor, when enemies normally deaggro long before then. When playing Cateye, I also noticed that it seems Elementals may not aggro when you hit them out of their vision? That will need some more testing but I thought to report it here in case.
**I noticed that sequential AI will no longer fire a second volley when you're in melee range, whereas previously they would ignore melee before letting off that second volley (as seen in this instance where a Nightmare Arachnotron melee me after firing only once).
**With patrolling AI, if an enemy steps into a teleporter that brings them outside their patrol zone, they will they try getting back to that zone, but can get stuck doing so (as seen in this instance on Deimos Lab).
**Not all Pinky errors have been fixed, as I got one here after a Pinky killed an Imp.
*Infighting fixes.
Proper infighting has been reimplemented, and it's not breaking things like I thought it would, though some more exceptions should be added to keep it from trivializing certain difficult battles. Some ideas:
**Add a "no infighting" level flag like Doom 64 did, which will disable infighting on any level that it's applied to. This could be used on all boss levels (as currently you get stuff like Bruisers fighting each other in Anomaly and Carmack's spawns fighting each other, making these fights much easier), as well as on certain special levels (such as Mortuary/Limbo, given that they're supposed to be super hard and infighting does lessen their difficulty a bit, and Deimos Lab so you can't cheese the dual Shamblers, unless the following suggestion is applied).
**Don't have enemies infight their own species, just like how Doom does. If you want to emulate Doom farther, you add this exception but don't have it apply to Formers (who would still infight in Doom because hitscan attacks ignored this rule).
**Don't have enemies retaliate against Archviles, just like how Doom also does (you don't kill your healer!).
**If possible, perhaps enemies in monster groups shouldn't infight with others from their same monster group? This one I imagine may not be programmable, but I noticed spawning near monster groups is less dangerous now as ones in the back of the group will inevitably hit those in the front trying to hit you, which then makes the group infight each other, giving you time to escape and leaving you with less of them to mop up after.
*Trait adjustments.
We got big balancing changes a couple betas ago, so this will be what I think should be adjusted:
**Survivalist should have the double healing on Small Medkits and Health Globes removed.
After the TaN buff to give +10% energy resistances per level, and the SoG change that makes investing in Pistols for offense much more efficient, Survivalist is now overturned even with the Marine nerf. It's not at 0.9.9.8 Vampyre levels of broken, but I found Survivalist has become too tanky with just modded Red Armor, and it's not struggling as much with offense as it did previously either, while it also can now get Hellrunner to not be slow in the late game. If TaN was toned down to give +5% energy resistances per level as originally proposed, Survivalist could be back to being ok, but if not, Survivalist will need the double healing ability to go, so that it at least can't stockpile a huge health reserve so easily (especially so on Nightmare, where Small Medkits basically become pseudo-Supercharges as the double healing stacks on N!'s own double healing bonus).
**Entrenchment should have to build up its resistance boost when Chainfiring, or have its resistance boost reduced back to +30%.
I found Entrenchment has also became too tanky, as the original +50% resistance proposal was made back before the aforementioned TaN buff. With no armor at all, chainfiring will have Entrenchment with massive 70% energy resistances, that on top of the inherent 2 protection from TaN2, will reduce an Archvile zap all the way down to 4 damage, and just donning unmodded Red Armor will reduce nearly every energy attack down to 1 damage. An idea is that Entrenchment will have to build up its resistances when Chainfiring (so it starts at +20%, then the next volley it will become +30%, and then reaches +50% once chainfiring is fully on), thus Entrenchment can't suddenly get 70+% resistances on demand and it will be more thematically fitting, but if it's too difficult to program, then reducing it back to a flat +30% resistances should do.
**Reduce Bullet Dance's firing speed penalty to +20%.
An idea Kornel mentioned himself and is probably already planning for the next beta, but I thought to post it here as a reminder just in case. It was also thrown around to remove the firing speed penalty entirely, but I would start with reducing it to +20% since Dual Gunner had its firing speed penalty entirely removed, and seeing how much stronger dual gunning got, I want to err on the side of caution. There is also the original proposal still to let Bullet Dance reload faster when dual gunning, but we can wait to see how Bullet Dance performs first with the firing speed buff before buffing it farther.
I also would still like Finesse becoming a 5 level trait as Kornel mentioned he may be willing to do as a compromise with nerfing it, but I don't feel too strongly yet about it and am willing to do more testing with it as a nerfed level 3 trait. There is additionally the idea of replacing Fireangel's new ability to turn all missiles explosive with making all its Shotguns have +1 spread size, it's not something I'm fully on yet either (as turning all missiles explosive is a cool idea even if it is a bit niche in application), but thought to post here, as it has been discussed previously to possibly give Fireangel a Shotgun-based perk since it's supposed to be a Shotgun mastery.
*In the new Grappling Armor assembly, the requisite Agility mod speed buff or Bulk mod speed penalty gets carried over.
Like previous assembly bugs, if you apply the Agility mod first and then assemble Grappling Armor, the +15% speed buff will get carried over, while if the Bulk mod is applied first, then the -10% speed penalty gets carried over (but oddly the boosted durability does not).
*Issues with enemy placement of The Vaults.
The Barons got their Red Armors in The Vaults, but a couple new issues have arose on the level.
1: Two of the Barons in the right vault on UV/N! were removed (removing the symmetry that existed previously with the six Arachnotrons in the left vault), while with the way the Red Armors are placed, one Baron will always go for the random armor instead that is often worse, leaving a fresh Red Armor for the player. I would recommend adding the two missing Barons back and one more Red Armor in the right vault, that way five of the Barons will get the Red Armors and then the last will get whatever the random armor is.
2: On Nightmare, one of the center vault's enemies will erroneously spawn in the right vault, as seen in these two posts on Discord (first and second).
*Give the Cybernetic Armor a much lower drop rate in the Deimos Lab prize cache.
Previously, the Cybernetic Armor would rarely drop as a prize in Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab. In Armory, since it's in the drop pool with the standard mods that have much higher spawning weights, it's still rare. But in Deimos Lab, since it's in the drop pool with the rare mods and it'll get rolled twice, it's much more common. So over a third of the time, one of the rare mods in Deimos Lab will be replaced with a reward that is almost worthless for Marines and Scouts, and isn't much better for Technicians unless the other rare mod is a Nano or Onyx mod (or they otherwise are lucky enough to find one soon). Looking at the source code for Deimos Lab in 0.9.9.8, it looks like the Cybernetic Armor previously had a separate roll that determined if it replaced one of the rare mods or not so that it would be more rare, rather than being thrown into the drop pool with the rare mods. This should be reimplemented, or if not, at least do what Armory does and have Cybernetic Armor in the spawn pool with the standard mods.
*In Halls of Carnage, a Former can spawn where you're supposed to, which then spawns you in the starting wall.
A funny bug, as seen here. Don't know if this is unique to the beta or just a bug that always existed but been rare. You can just move out the wall normally, so it's not particularly harmful (being slightly beneficial even, as you can get a headstart out of the starting room if you don't care about picking up the Health Globe first).
___________________________________________________
The following is a compilation of previous bugs/issues in the 0.9.9.9 betas that have not been addressed yet. I thought to compile them here so Kornel doesn't need to go through my previous posts to pick out the ones he missed (and to keep this post from getting too big I'll hide their explanations in spoilers):
*Various audio issues
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*If too many sounds play in quick succession, the music will be turned off.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*Warning messages are not colored
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*Technician, Armorer, and Heroic badges aren't being rewarded on the run you fulfilled their requirements, but rather in the immediate run you do after.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*The Mortem's kill ratio message is based on the total enemy kill ratio with respawns factored, rather than the unique enemy kill ratio.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*If an item's name gets too long, it'll take up two lines of space in your inventory menu, and push other items off the screen.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*If you reload a save, when you run -> wait with enemies revealed, you cannot stop it manually. (Note I haven't checked if this bug is still in the latest beta.)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*Add ammo pickups to The Mortuary and Limbo.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*In the Nightmare version of The Vaults, the ease at teleporter camping the center vault's Nightmare enemies should be fixed.
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
*Have screen shaking intensity vary based on the strength of the projectile/explosion
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
3
Requests For Features / Re: I am way behind on 0.9.9.7+ features, but, technician buff?
« on: February 24, 2025, 22:10 »
Technicians did get buffed in 0.9.9.8 by getting exclusive access to Whizkid 3 (so up to seven mods on ranged weapons, four mods on armors/boots/melee weapons, and two mods on assemblies), which allows them to get better equipment than the other two classes can possibly have, and they can mod much more uniques than before too (this wiki page covers what they can mod and to what extent). Their masteries were still largely lousy though aside from Scavenger (which also got buffed in 0.9.9.8 to be able to scavenge armors, boots, and melee weapons), but that is getting addressed in 0.9.9.9 (the exact changes aren't finalized yet, but so far; Malicious Blades deals a lot more damage with blades; Fireangel gets larger explosions and can make all non-shotgun ranged weapons explosive; SoG now deals +3 damage per level in exchange for only -10% firing speed, which completely reverses Sharpshooter's early game hell; Scavenger gets even more trait freedom than before; and with indirect buffs like Tough As Nails giving 10% energy resistances per level and direct buffs like ammo reduction on subsequent chainfire volleys, Entrenchment is actually good now instead of horribly awful).
Non-pistol Technicians still have a much harder early game than Scouts and Marines though, as the modding advantage and improved masteries don't manifest until later into the game, and near-instant item use and turning Computer Maps into Tracking Maps are more situationally useful than 10% faster speed on all actions or extra HP + inherent energy resistances, while the starting Technical Mod also doesn't really immediately help much unless you're a Pistol build or you get an early vault with a Combat Shotgun or good armor in it. I'm not sure how this can be addressed though; your proposed extra ammo capacity isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it wouldn't help the Technician's harder early game, the area they're struggling most in. I had an idea where they could get one "mulligan" per floor with activating levers, i.e. they can trip a dangerous lever once per floor without it activating (as it fits into their "hacking" theme and levers are more potentially useful early in the game where healing and armor recovery is more limited), but that ability is situational too and could be a hassle to program. Perhaps Technicians will just have to be accepted as the class that starts out weaker, but has stronger potential in the end than Scouts and Marines do with being able to obtain superior equipment.
Also since you brought up the Marine's energy resistances, I thought to let you know they are being nerfed to 10% in 0.9.9.9, as the 20% proved too strong since it still stacked with berserk and armors (which made Vampyre stupidly broken and Ammochain borderline broken too). But that 10% will still stack with all other resistances, including the aforementioned buffed TaN, and so they'll still be noticeably more tanky than the other classes (even without any armor nor TaN they'll still be able to take a couple extra hits, while the difference becomes very pronounced once they do get strong armor to stack that resistance on).
Non-pistol Technicians still have a much harder early game than Scouts and Marines though, as the modding advantage and improved masteries don't manifest until later into the game, and near-instant item use and turning Computer Maps into Tracking Maps are more situationally useful than 10% faster speed on all actions or extra HP + inherent energy resistances, while the starting Technical Mod also doesn't really immediately help much unless you're a Pistol build or you get an early vault with a Combat Shotgun or good armor in it. I'm not sure how this can be addressed though; your proposed extra ammo capacity isn't necessarily a bad idea, but it wouldn't help the Technician's harder early game, the area they're struggling most in. I had an idea where they could get one "mulligan" per floor with activating levers, i.e. they can trip a dangerous lever once per floor without it activating (as it fits into their "hacking" theme and levers are more potentially useful early in the game where healing and armor recovery is more limited), but that ability is situational too and could be a hassle to program. Perhaps Technicians will just have to be accepted as the class that starts out weaker, but has stronger potential in the end than Scouts and Marines do with being able to obtain superior equipment.
Also since you brought up the Marine's energy resistances, I thought to let you know they are being nerfed to 10% in 0.9.9.9, as the 20% proved too strong since it still stacked with berserk and armors (which made Vampyre stupidly broken and Ammochain borderline broken too). But that 10% will still stack with all other resistances, including the aforementioned buffed TaN, and so they'll still be noticeably more tanky than the other classes (even without any armor nor TaN they'll still be able to take a couple extra hits, while the difference becomes very pronounced once they do get strong armor to stack that resistance on).
4
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: February 24, 2025, 21:36 »Crates should be buffed/diversified, especially for late game.
Their utility early on is somewhat nice since you can find an armor or boots here or there, with the obvious prizes being ammo boxes... but their utility drops off as you advance along the game. In later levels you're not likely to find much of anything of use - if you open them in hell (or Beyond, for ao100), you're likely to still be getting just green armors, bullets, the occasion steel boots.
I'd like to propose that as levels increase, you can find other stuff that could be useful in the crates. The main idea would be plasma cells and rockets (their associated ammo boxes too maybe?), although there's plenty of other stuff to consider - medkitz, maps, phase devices, red armors... could even consider a mod pack here or there. This is without even considering if any uniques could have a super-low chance of appearing.
Crates are funny to blow up and see what goodies may be inside, and replicating that feeling beyond Phobos seems like it -shouldn't- be that difficult. It'll help add some more variance, and IMO shouldn't be too problematic, especially since in later levels a lot of enemies are prone to just destroying them along with any goodies they may contain. So it sets up its own sort of minigame of how to approach and dodge/tank if you want to try to open up the crate without the given enemy destroying it first.
I know stuff like exotics and rare mod packs are off the menu (maybe in Ao666?), but even with what I've mentioned above it feels like it'd improve the treasure hunting experience, so to speak.
As discussed in the Discord server, I'm in agreement with this. Crates mostly lose their value by mid Deimos, unless you're in need of health or are playing a Shotgun build that's really short on ammo. The current drop values for them are staticly:
Ammo crates = 30/40 nothing, 4/40 10mm Ammo, 4/40 Shells, 1/40 Ammochain Box, 1/40 Shell Box.
Armor crates = 45/60 nothing, 4/60 Green Armor, 4/60 Steel Boots, 4/60 Small Medkit, 1/60 Blue Armor, 1/60 Large Medkit, 1/60 Protective Boots.
Even the stuff that can still be useful in the later game (the ammo boxes, Large Medkits, and a backup backup Blue Armor) have very low drop rates, and so it's rarely worth your while to bother breaking crates beyond early Deimos. Ideally as the game progresses, you could up the drop rate on the aforementioned stuff and add some more stuff to the crates' drop table (such as other ammo types, Red armor, Plasteel Boots, Phase devices, maybe mods and a very very low chance for certain exotic armors/boots). If it's too much hassle to give crates a level-dependent drop table that improves over time, then perhaps "enhanced crates" can be added as a separate object that start appearing later in the game with the better stuff in them.
5
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: February 14, 2025, 19:04 »- Levels that only have Nightmare enemies should have their own feeling, feels appropriate. Something along the lines of "A dreadful silence rings in your ears..." to tie into the fact that they do not make noise.
- Acid Spitter should reload -much- faster, given how finicky it is to do so in the first place.
- Enviroboots should have more plasma resistance. I understand preferring to keep the bloodboots as the only one with 100% immunity, but the enviroboots should have at least 50% if not more.
-Nightmare enemy only levels having a special message can be nice, but I'll note it's proposed to give them sounds (+ sounds to all the silent bosses too) and it has been discussed in the Discord, due to it seeming unintentional and the current modding grey area that exists with modding them in sounds yourself like I do (Kornel also mentioned he forgot to give them sounds when adding all the new Nightmare enemies).
-I wouldn't oppose the Acid Spitter reloading faster, but it ultimately wouldn't matter, as it's not a weapon you can reload with enemies around regardless, whether its reload time is 1.2 seconds or 0.1 seconds (reload time only matters when you got an enemy in vision/pursuit or some time sensitive event is going on). In any active combat scenario, you get one shot with it, and then you have to wait until the immediate threat is gone before you can get to scooping the acid back up.
-Yeah Enviroboots aren't great for plasma protection (only reducing blood damage from 12 to 9, 1 more than unmodded Plasteel Boots), but as mentioned in the Discord, it doesn't affect their usage that much; in A100 you're still building Cerberus Boots regardless, and in the standard game, they'll be virtually identical except with Enviroboots being worse for Limbo and the rare late blood cave but it won't require the massive mod cost that Cerberus Boots does, making Enviroboots still a very valuable find. So I would be ok with Enviroboots getting that plasma buff, or keeping it as is to give some extra flavor difference between them and Cerberus Boots.
6
Bug Reports / Re: Level feel 1 description
« on: February 11, 2025, 10:36 »
I don't do any of the developmental stuff myself, I've just been beta testing, proposing ideas, and giving + organizing feedback. I would recommend joining the JH Discord to ask Kornel/Epyon that stuff, he might see it here but you could get a faster response asking him directly there. Here is the link to the Discord. If you don't have a Discord account, you could also try posting on the Github page itself.
7
Bug Reports / Re: Level feel 1 description
« on: February 10, 2025, 19:48 »I hate to mention this because you guys do a fantastic job. It's a just a little graphical issue.
I died in the Arena in N! doing AoSh, second group of monsters (second attachment).
I then jumped into a fresh game with the same parameters, and found that the level feeling had not been reset. It still showed the Arena Master's voice booming (see attachment).
I tested and can confirm this bug is in the current 0.9.9.9 beta (killed myself on the second floor and upon immediately restarting another run, Phobos Base Entry did indeed have the same level feeling).
8
Nightmare! / Re: [N!|Ao100|57%|YAVP] Centurial Diamond - easier than expected
« on: February 10, 2025, 19:20 »Certainly that was my first thought too. As much as I enjoyed the win, it's better to recognise genuine skill. Completed my first AoB/N! yesterday on the same strat but didn't watch my kill count and just drifted below 60%. Given what you've said, I'll switch to some other challenges (rather than cheesing) and reassess when 0.9.9.9 comes out.
Shame to come just short of the Diamond like that, 0.9.9.9 will be making some changes to Nightmare to make it less tedious, and one such change is that the respawns will no longer count towards the kill percent, though several of the badges that require a certain kill percentage on N! may end up changing. Ain't nothing wrong though with getting badges by whatever means the game grants you, but yeah I would recommend trying to branch out to other builds and try to take HMP then UV games with them, to help build your fundamental skill at the game and better prep you for challenges where the cheese option isn't available.
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The manuals sometimes skimp on detail (which leaves the experience appreciably open).
Funny you bring this up, as a recent topic of contention about DRL in the JH Discord is how much of a "wiki game" DRL is and how much it detriments the game. Some things have been discussed to make ingame guides available and general information more available ingame, though nothing concrete yet (other than a new modding UI that shows what the mod you're applying to your equipment will actually do).
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Haven't even attempted one yet, although I did punch the odd barrel to start berserk mode.
Nice, this is a fun trick to do in AoB (or in any other scenario where you don't have rockets) when you need to trigger Berserker before taking on a pack of enemies (especially Arachnotrons or other enemies that can't trigger Berserker from hitting you) or for just a general speed boost when you need it. (Napalm Barrels will nearly always trigger it, Acid Barrels usually will but can sometimes fail and their acid damage is harder to get good resistance against, and normal Barrels will have a slightly less than 50% chance of doing so)
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As a new player, I searched but failed to find any information on why Sereg got his name on a difficulty mode. This fills in an important lore gap for me.
Yes, was an easter egg added in 0.9.9.8 to reference his infamy with exploiting AoOC. You can check out the old Badge Hunters thread to see all the Diamonds he got from his namesake strategy. Speaking of the Badge Hunters thread, I added your run to the new thread, it is nice to get a new name on there as it has been a while!
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tbh that was a weigh up too. However I wasn't sure if they would perish on lava or acid. The help files don't declare it even though it makes physical sense.
Antigrav Boots do retain the Nano mod's durability regeneration, so you don't really need to worry about their durability (especially if you make them out of Plasteel Boots or better Phaseshift Boots), and they also can't be destroyed even if you were to run on enough acid/lava in such a short period to actually wear them out.
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Wunderbar! and a huge thanks for taking the time to level me up.
Always happy to help people when I can!
9
Nightmare! / Re: [N!|Ao100|57%|YAVP] Centurial Diamond - easier than expected
« on: February 08, 2025, 23:41 »
Nice job, good thing you got this done now, because Vampyre is slated for some pretty serious nerfs in 0.9.9.9 as it is super busted in 0.9.9.8 :p
As a testament to its power, I see you didn't even get any sort of indestructible armor and still survived clinging on to crummy Blue Armor (a tip for if you try getting more badges with Vampyre before its nerfing, just build a Nanofiber Red Armor, even with no TaN and no Power mod on it, it on top of Berserk resistances stacked with the Marine's resistances will be enough to reduce any fire hit to 1 damage, reduce a max damage Baron acid ball to 2 damage, and reduce a max damage Shambler bolt to 3 damage while any lesser plasma hit can't deal more than 1). Also don't ditch the Rocket Launcher, it's Vampyre's best friend as rocket jumping will cover for your lack of movement speed to let you close gaps against troublesome enemies instantly, and you can face rocket yourself to trigger Berserker whenever (when Berserker triggers from being hit, its resistances are applied before damage is inflicted to you, so you'll just be trading 1 HP for 20 actions of Berserk if you got any half decent armor on). Without using 0.9.9.8 Vampyre, I definitely wouldn't recommend going for Centurial as someone's first Diamond though; if someone just wants to get Diamonds no matter how, trying to cheese them through getting lucky AoOC stair dives are far easier ("Sereging" as it's known), and otherwise I would say stuff like Strongman Diamond and Gatekeeper Diamond are far easier than Centurial (ignoring the pure grind badges like Technician and Armorer). The lack of guaranteed items and extra EXP from special levels makes the early game hell of Nightmare even worse in A100, and trying to just stair dive through is far less viable when you got 100 floors to get through and some inevitable very nasty ones if your level and equipment aren't up to snuff (though I suppose that makes it more bragworthy to have Centurial as your first Diamond).
Powered Red Armor (or even Powered Blue Armor) definitely would have been the better option, it would be already reducing basically every hit to 1 damage when you're berserked and would reduce many melee hits to 1 damage without berserk too, while more importantly, it wouldn't have slowed you down at all (which Vampyre greatly appreciates when the Hellrunner block is basically its only hindrance in 0.9.9.8). Alternatively, Antigrav Boots or even a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher would have been even better options for Vampyre, as the former makes you way faster for a build that wants any movement speed it can get, and the latter would grant you infinite rocket jumps and Berserker face rockets.
You just need to copy paste your mortem inbetween the mortem tags
As a testament to its power, I see you didn't even get any sort of indestructible armor and still survived clinging on to crummy Blue Armor (a tip for if you try getting more badges with Vampyre before its nerfing, just build a Nanofiber Red Armor, even with no TaN and no Power mod on it, it on top of Berserk resistances stacked with the Marine's resistances will be enough to reduce any fire hit to 1 damage, reduce a max damage Baron acid ball to 2 damage, and reduce a max damage Shambler bolt to 3 damage while any lesser plasma hit can't deal more than 1). Also don't ditch the Rocket Launcher, it's Vampyre's best friend as rocket jumping will cover for your lack of movement speed to let you close gaps against troublesome enemies instantly, and you can face rocket yourself to trigger Berserker whenever (when Berserker triggers from being hit, its resistances are applied before damage is inflicted to you, so you'll just be trading 1 HP for 20 actions of Berserk if you got any half decent armor on). Without using 0.9.9.8 Vampyre, I definitely wouldn't recommend going for Centurial as someone's first Diamond though; if someone just wants to get Diamonds no matter how, trying to cheese them through getting lucky AoOC stair dives are far easier ("Sereging" as it's known), and otherwise I would say stuff like Strongman Diamond and Gatekeeper Diamond are far easier than Centurial (ignoring the pure grind badges like Technician and Armorer). The lack of guaranteed items and extra EXP from special levels makes the early game hell of Nightmare even worse in A100, and trying to just stair dive through is far less viable when you got 100 floors to get through and some inevitable very nasty ones if your level and equipment aren't up to snuff (though I suppose that makes it more bragworthy to have Centurial as your first Diamond).
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My chief regret was wasting a nano mod. I couldn't work out whether to take a powered armor, or to nano a cerberus red.
Powered Red Armor (or even Powered Blue Armor) definitely would have been the better option, it would be already reducing basically every hit to 1 damage when you're berserked and would reduce many melee hits to 1 damage without berserk too, while more importantly, it wouldn't have slowed you down at all (which Vampyre greatly appreciates when the Hellrunner block is basically its only hindrance in 0.9.9.8). Alternatively, Antigrav Boots or even a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher would have been even better options for Vampyre, as the former makes you way faster for a build that wants any movement speed it can get, and the latter would grant you infinite rocket jumps and Berserker face rockets.
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The forum help file suggested I post my victory. I found the file but couldn't work out how to make it look schmick like @Tormuse does.
You just need to copy paste your mortem inbetween the mortem tags
Code: [Select]
[mortem] [/mortem]
10
Century Lounge / Re: [M|Ao100|100%|YAAM] PISTOLERO! (Masterless Marine Win)
« on: January 18, 2025, 13:50 »Interesting strategy - been a while since I played A100 or a pistol build (or much at all), but I have fond memories of Sharpshooter builds for that challenge. Combine that with HR and INT and you can get yourself out of harms way and snipe a ton of enemies off before they become a problem. That worked on HNTR though, don't think I ever tried higher difficulty A100 runs.
Pistols can still work on higher difficulties in A100, though the early game problems get really exacerbated in A100. I've done Sharpshooter in UV A100 before, but I think a Scavenger works best for a Pistol build in A100; you can get traits to help you survive the early game, and then get SoG when you find a pistol actually worth using, while Scavenger lets you get all the rare mods that really benefit pistols (if you ever want to achieve the dream of wielding a P3N2S2 Combat Pistol or P3N1S2 Blaster, Scavenger makes that actually possible without playing A666). You lose out on Dualgunner, but I think Dualgunner is a trap anyway on higher difficulties without a Nanomachic Pistol or Nano-modded Blaster, where you'll far too often empty your pistols while several enemies are still in range, and so a single souped up pistol + ammo box is much more reliable. Cateye is another nice A100 pistol build option if you want to keep Dualgunner and want to stack SoG with SoB, while having a mastery that still helps pistols. Not too viable in the standard game as it requires so many traits (which will make you either not get Cateye or your pistols up to speed until very late), but in A100 you got more than enough time to make it work, while having a much smoother early game than with the actual Pistol masteries. I once did a UV A100 + AoMC run with Cateye where I finished as a pistol build and it was quite fun.
My most hated enemies by far were the VMR and the Nightmare Arachnotrons (which came probably the closest to ending me in the second big cave near the end). I ended up using a Hellwave Pack to even the odds against a mess of Viles and Mancs that were too tightly packed together for me to get at the Viles easily. I also ended up having to fight two Cyberdemons near the end of the run, one on an island level where he was right in the lava, and another in a regular level, and in both cases, they took two full double-mags to bring down.
If you really hate VMR, I would strongly advise picking up Berserker in A100 runs even if you have no intention to use melee (and it's just nice insurance in general to protect you in case you do get ambushed by a big hit or accidentally push a Napalm Barrel into lava). Archvile zaps will always trigger it, and Mancubus and Revenant rockets will trigger it nearly half the time, while when it does trigger, berserk's +60% resistances are applied before damage calculation. This is especially powerful with the 0.9.9.8 Marine, as those resistances stack on top of their inherent 20% energy resistances, and so you're basically running around with inherent 80% resistances against them before your own armor is factored (this reduces an Archvile zap down to 4 damage, and even a max damage Revenant/Mancubus rocket won't deal more than 5, while unmodded Red Armor or even weak Nanofiber Red Armor brings that down to 1). It's not just VMR either, high damage rolls from other several hard-hitting enemies, like Barons and the bosses, as well as barrels, and your own splash damage, will trigger it too. And of course when you're berserked, you're now much faster at everything to help you kill them easier (or escape if needed). Alternatively, if you don't want to get Berserker (or before you can get it), just simple Fireproof Red Armor will neuter the VMR's threat; with a Scout/Technician, it'll reduce an Archvile zap down to 5 damage and Revenants/Mancubi won't do more than 7 at max, while with the Marine's energy resistances, it'll just outright reduce their damage down to 1 without any mods nor TaN.
As for Nightmare Arachnotrons... yeah they're the biggest bastards and there's no way to effectively eliminate their threat, while they can't trigger Berserker either, and even if you got the defenses to reduce all their hits down to 1, you still won't be able to tank a swarm of them. If you spawn into a Nightmare Arachnotron cave and have Berserker, you could facerocket yourself to at least trigger it and speed yourself up, you really need speed to not get overwhelmed by them. They're also a very big reason you want to keep Tactical Boots or other speedy boots handy and don't want to only have a pair of heavy boots (especially when you got no Hellrunner...), speed is crucial to survive them and if each movement takes you over a second, a swarm of Nightmare Arachnotrons will just gun you down as you try maneuvering to better positioning (at least on HNTR, caves will have relatively few enemies and so you can more realistically stand your ground against them, but if you ever try A100 on the harder difficulties, definitely don't leave behind those speed-boosting boots).
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I entered the final level on an Invulnerability, and since it was another Pitch Black level, I decided fuck it and busted out the Angel Arm for the first and only time on the run to finish things off with a bang.
Darkness levels are very nasty, especially when you don't got Berserker to protect you if you stumble into a big hit, so I would say just nuking it was a wise decision!
11
Requests For Features / Re: Compilation of fixes, changes, and new ideas for version 0.9.9.9
« on: January 01, 2025, 22:15 »
This post is to organize new bugs and issues found in the 2nd beta of 0.9.9.9.
*Various audio issues
In addition to certain sounds having defaults that have always ignored any new sound you try defining for them in the sound.lua and now audio.lua files (such as the Nightmare Cacodemon and Lava Elemental projectiles using the default fireball sound regardless of what you put in for them, or the Revenant's projectile using the Rocket Launcher's sound even if you try giving it a different sound), I have found new sounds that ignore what you set for them.
*The Shambler's projectile now always uses the default fireball sound, ignoring what you set it for it in the audio file.
*All melee weapons use the default fireball sound when attacking with them, not only ignoring what you set for them but also the default sounds that were already assigned to some of them.
*Activating levers uses the powerup sound, rather than what you set for them nor the default switch sound (this does not apply to levers in special levels however, which are correctly using the switch sound).
One other minor audio issue is when releasing the Shamblers in Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab, their act sound upon releasing is distance-based. This is fine for Deimos Lab when you're right next to the spot they spawn when hitting the lever to release them, but in Hell's Armory, since the Shambler is released on the other side of the map, you don't hear it at all. Maybe you could argue it's better this way, but previously this sound wasn't distance-based.
*Warning messages are not colored
Self-explanatory, warning messages for when your armor is damaged/destroyed, when a nuke countdown is happening, or simply from killing everything on the level, are no longer colored. You can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*If an item's name gets too long, it'll take up two lines of space in your inventory menu, and push other items off the screen.
Also self-explanatory, you can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*If a run earns enough unique medals to earn one of the Heroic badges, you won't be awarded said badges until the next run you complete.
So like with the Technician badges, it appears the Heroic badges are also bugged to not be awarded on the actual run you earn them in, with the game instead giving them on your next run you complete, as seen in this Discord message. I assume this issue will also apply to the Armorer badges.
*You are unable to equip autoequip weapons from the ground if you are already holding another weapon, even if you have inventory space for it.
Yet another self-explanatory issue, you can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*Gunrunner's autofiring is bugged.
So with the new JH targeting opening up the possibility to control Gunrunner's autofiring when running instead of only firing at the closest enemy, I thought to try testing if it worked that way now... only to find that Gunrunner's autofiring doesn't work at all. You'll run, and the targeting cursor will go to the closest enemy if you have it targeting a different enemy, with no firing happening. And even if you were pre-targeting the closest enemy, it still doesn't autofire. A pretty crippling bug that needs to be fixed ASAP (and hopefully Gunrunner will gain control over where its autofire shoots when that is fixed).
*If you reload a save, when you run -> wait with enemies revealed, you cannot stop it manually.
Normally, if you do run -> wait when enemies are revealed from a Tracking Map or the enemy revealed mechanic, you are able to interrupt it before whatever max wait time you have set in your config file. However in the current beta, if you save and then reload it, you are unable to stop it until an enemy gets in your vision or it hits the max wait time, and any inputs you do try inputting seemingly get "buffered" to get inputted immediately after you reach the max wait time. Weirdly this bug seems to only be present when you reload a save, as I have not encountered it on any run before saving.
*Cerberus Boots have a flat 50% plasma resistance, rather than giving +50% resistance to the base boots with a cap of 100%.
Not a bug, but something I noticed when making Cerberus Plasteel Boots, they had 50% plasma resistance rather than 60%. This isn't a big deal in this particular instance, but the main reason I bring it up is if you were to make Cerberus Boots out of the new Blood Boots, the resulting Cerberus Blood Boots would have 50% plasma resistance rather than 100%, which makes no sense. Since the only other moddable boots with any plasma resistance is Plasteel boots, this change would mainly just allow you to make Cerberus Blood Boots that retain their blood immunity (and make Plasteel boots a slightly better option for Cerberus Boots, which isn't a bad idea to help differentiate the resulting Cerberus Boots based on which boots you use, as otherwise they're all identical aside from Cerberus Gothic Boots having 200% durability).
*Blood Boots (almost) cannot be obtained outside of A100/666
I noticed in the source code that Blood Boots have a minimum depth of 25, which considering boots cannot spawn in vaults, this make Blood Boots almost unobtainable outside of A100/666 (I say "almost", because you can obtain them in Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus since item spawns there are based on floor 25, but your chances are very low that you'll get them there). I imagine this was intentional, given blood is primarily an A100 feature, with its only standard game appearance currently being in Limbo and rarely in caves on UV/N!. However, making Blood Boots an almost A100 exclusive makes it a particular pain in the ass for the Armorer badges, as now you cannot possibly get Armorer Gold without playing A100 or getting very lucky in the one special level you can find them, which isn't a big deal, but the bigger pain comes in that you now wouldn't be able to get Armorer Diamond without playing A100 at least three times (and likely more as you can go entire A100 runs without ever finding the Blood Boots), or otherwise getting very lucky with them spawning in Lava Pits/Erebus three times. And Blood Boots could still be useful in the standard game, so being able to get them if you're lucky could be nice (whether to make Limbo easier or as a life saver if you get a really bad late blood cave on UV/N!). A minimum depth of 17 or even 20 for the Blood Boots can work. If these boots must be kept an A100 exclusive, I wouldn't mind the Armorer badges being overhauled however to be less of a pure grind.
_________________________________________________________
The following aren't bugs/issues, but a couple more balancing ideas.
*Lessen the speed penalty on heavy boots.
A new mechanic added is fluids slowing your movement down by 20%. I like this change, but I think this change is excessively punishing on heavy boots that were given a big movespeed penalty to previously compensate for their ability to run through fluids with little to no damage, back when there was no speed penalty from fluids. For example, when playing a Scout wearing Cerberus Boots with no Hellrunner, you will have an abysmal 1.48 second movement speed in fluids with no armor on (or armor with no speed bonus/penalty), and an abominable 1.77 second speed when wearing Red Armor that wasn't agility-modded on top of those boots (better hope there's no speedy enemies around or you might get triple-attacked). And of course those numbers would be even worse for the Marine and Technician, while if the N! enemy speed bonus is added back on top, maybe a quadruple attack could be possible... As such, I propose the following move speed adjustments:
Gothic Boots: -15% -> -10%
Environmental Boots: -25% -> -15%
Enviroboots: -25% -> -15%
Lava Boots: -30% -> -20%
Cerberus Boots: -30% -> -20%
I'll also note that these new values still make these boots slower in fluids than they were in versions prior to the fluid-slowing moving mechanic, and they're still slow enough that you would rather wear movement-boosting boots normally, even after agility-modding them (-10% speed Cerberus Boots vs +25% speed Tactical Boots is no contest for what you want to be wearing at all times).
*Buff Tough As Nails to give +5% inherent energy resistances per level in addition to +1 inherent protection, nerf the Marine's inherent energy resistances to 10%, nerf Berserk's resistance bonuses to +50%, change Vampyre's SoB block to TaN, and change Malicious Blades' TaN block to Badass or SoG.
This is several different things but I'm putting them all under the same entry, as they're tied together, addressing TaN being an underpowered trait whose block means little to any mastery that blocks it, a requisite Marine nerf that would be needed if TaN is buffed to keep Marines from getting too tanky, addressing the overpowered defenses granted by Berserk and the Berserker trait, and a way to farther nerf the currently broken Vampyre, while giving the currently underpowered Malicious Blades something. I wrote up a big post explaining the rationale behind these changes in the JH Discord, but in case the person reading this isn't in the JH Discord or don't want to open Discord up, I'll repost it here under the following spoiler tags:
*Various audio issues
In addition to certain sounds having defaults that have always ignored any new sound you try defining for them in the sound.lua and now audio.lua files (such as the Nightmare Cacodemon and Lava Elemental projectiles using the default fireball sound regardless of what you put in for them, or the Revenant's projectile using the Rocket Launcher's sound even if you try giving it a different sound), I have found new sounds that ignore what you set for them.
*The Shambler's projectile now always uses the default fireball sound, ignoring what you set it for it in the audio file.
*All melee weapons use the default fireball sound when attacking with them, not only ignoring what you set for them but also the default sounds that were already assigned to some of them.
*Activating levers uses the powerup sound, rather than what you set for them nor the default switch sound (this does not apply to levers in special levels however, which are correctly using the switch sound).
One other minor audio issue is when releasing the Shamblers in Hell's Armory and Deimos Lab, their act sound upon releasing is distance-based. This is fine for Deimos Lab when you're right next to the spot they spawn when hitting the lever to release them, but in Hell's Armory, since the Shambler is released on the other side of the map, you don't hear it at all. Maybe you could argue it's better this way, but previously this sound wasn't distance-based.
*Warning messages are not colored
Self-explanatory, warning messages for when your armor is damaged/destroyed, when a nuke countdown is happening, or simply from killing everything on the level, are no longer colored. You can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*If an item's name gets too long, it'll take up two lines of space in your inventory menu, and push other items off the screen.
Also self-explanatory, you can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*If a run earns enough unique medals to earn one of the Heroic badges, you won't be awarded said badges until the next run you complete.
So like with the Technician badges, it appears the Heroic badges are also bugged to not be awarded on the actual run you earn them in, with the game instead giving them on your next run you complete, as seen in this Discord message. I assume this issue will also apply to the Armorer badges.
*You are unable to equip autoequip weapons from the ground if you are already holding another weapon, even if you have inventory space for it.
Yet another self-explanatory issue, you can see a screenshot of it in this Discord message.
*Gunrunner's autofiring is bugged.
So with the new JH targeting opening up the possibility to control Gunrunner's autofiring when running instead of only firing at the closest enemy, I thought to try testing if it worked that way now... only to find that Gunrunner's autofiring doesn't work at all. You'll run, and the targeting cursor will go to the closest enemy if you have it targeting a different enemy, with no firing happening. And even if you were pre-targeting the closest enemy, it still doesn't autofire. A pretty crippling bug that needs to be fixed ASAP (and hopefully Gunrunner will gain control over where its autofire shoots when that is fixed).
*If you reload a save, when you run -> wait with enemies revealed, you cannot stop it manually.
Normally, if you do run -> wait when enemies are revealed from a Tracking Map or the enemy revealed mechanic, you are able to interrupt it before whatever max wait time you have set in your config file. However in the current beta, if you save and then reload it, you are unable to stop it until an enemy gets in your vision or it hits the max wait time, and any inputs you do try inputting seemingly get "buffered" to get inputted immediately after you reach the max wait time. Weirdly this bug seems to only be present when you reload a save, as I have not encountered it on any run before saving.
*Cerberus Boots have a flat 50% plasma resistance, rather than giving +50% resistance to the base boots with a cap of 100%.
Not a bug, but something I noticed when making Cerberus Plasteel Boots, they had 50% plasma resistance rather than 60%. This isn't a big deal in this particular instance, but the main reason I bring it up is if you were to make Cerberus Boots out of the new Blood Boots, the resulting Cerberus Blood Boots would have 50% plasma resistance rather than 100%, which makes no sense. Since the only other moddable boots with any plasma resistance is Plasteel boots, this change would mainly just allow you to make Cerberus Blood Boots that retain their blood immunity (and make Plasteel boots a slightly better option for Cerberus Boots, which isn't a bad idea to help differentiate the resulting Cerberus Boots based on which boots you use, as otherwise they're all identical aside from Cerberus Gothic Boots having 200% durability).
*Blood Boots (almost) cannot be obtained outside of A100/666
I noticed in the source code that Blood Boots have a minimum depth of 25, which considering boots cannot spawn in vaults, this make Blood Boots almost unobtainable outside of A100/666 (I say "almost", because you can obtain them in Lava Pits/Mt. Erebus since item spawns there are based on floor 25, but your chances are very low that you'll get them there). I imagine this was intentional, given blood is primarily an A100 feature, with its only standard game appearance currently being in Limbo and rarely in caves on UV/N!. However, making Blood Boots an almost A100 exclusive makes it a particular pain in the ass for the Armorer badges, as now you cannot possibly get Armorer Gold without playing A100 or getting very lucky in the one special level you can find them, which isn't a big deal, but the bigger pain comes in that you now wouldn't be able to get Armorer Diamond without playing A100 at least three times (and likely more as you can go entire A100 runs without ever finding the Blood Boots), or otherwise getting very lucky with them spawning in Lava Pits/Erebus three times. And Blood Boots could still be useful in the standard game, so being able to get them if you're lucky could be nice (whether to make Limbo easier or as a life saver if you get a really bad late blood cave on UV/N!). A minimum depth of 17 or even 20 for the Blood Boots can work. If these boots must be kept an A100 exclusive, I wouldn't mind the Armorer badges being overhauled however to be less of a pure grind.
_________________________________________________________
The following aren't bugs/issues, but a couple more balancing ideas.
*Lessen the speed penalty on heavy boots.
A new mechanic added is fluids slowing your movement down by 20%. I like this change, but I think this change is excessively punishing on heavy boots that were given a big movespeed penalty to previously compensate for their ability to run through fluids with little to no damage, back when there was no speed penalty from fluids. For example, when playing a Scout wearing Cerberus Boots with no Hellrunner, you will have an abysmal 1.48 second movement speed in fluids with no armor on (or armor with no speed bonus/penalty), and an abominable 1.77 second speed when wearing Red Armor that wasn't agility-modded on top of those boots (better hope there's no speedy enemies around or you might get triple-attacked). And of course those numbers would be even worse for the Marine and Technician, while if the N! enemy speed bonus is added back on top, maybe a quadruple attack could be possible... As such, I propose the following move speed adjustments:
Gothic Boots: -15% -> -10%
Environmental Boots: -25% -> -15%
Enviroboots: -25% -> -15%
Lava Boots: -30% -> -20%
Cerberus Boots: -30% -> -20%
I'll also note that these new values still make these boots slower in fluids than they were in versions prior to the fluid-slowing moving mechanic, and they're still slow enough that you would rather wear movement-boosting boots normally, even after agility-modding them (-10% speed Cerberus Boots vs +25% speed Tactical Boots is no contest for what you want to be wearing at all times).
*Buff Tough As Nails to give +5% inherent energy resistances per level in addition to +1 inherent protection, nerf the Marine's inherent energy resistances to 10%, nerf Berserk's resistance bonuses to +50%, change Vampyre's SoB block to TaN, and change Malicious Blades' TaN block to Badass or SoG.
This is several different things but I'm putting them all under the same entry, as they're tied together, addressing TaN being an underpowered trait whose block means little to any mastery that blocks it, a requisite Marine nerf that would be needed if TaN is buffed to keep Marines from getting too tanky, addressing the overpowered defenses granted by Berserk and the Berserker trait, and a way to farther nerf the currently broken Vampyre, while giving the currently underpowered Malicious Blades something. I wrote up a big post explaining the rationale behind these changes in the JH Discord, but in case the person reading this isn't in the JH Discord or don't want to open Discord up, I'll repost it here under the following spoiler tags:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
12
Discussion / Re: 0.9.9.8 Build Tier List
« on: December 31, 2024, 22:57 »Nice summary, I'll go through it in detail when I plan to do another run. Question though - what do you mean by floors and ceilings?
Floor means how good the build will be at its worst with bad RNG (particularly regarding item drops and generated EXP pool), and ceiling means how good a build will be at its best. So a good floor means the build will still function well even if you're getting repeated difficult bad levels while stuck with nothing more than common items and whatever you can get guaranteed from special levels, and a good ceiling means the build becomes that much more exponentially powerful when you do get all the good stuff.
13
Discussion / 0.9.9.8 Build Tier List
« on: December 31, 2024, 22:17 »
I posted this 0.9.9.8 (and early 0.9.9.9 beta) build tier list on the JH Discord and was asked to post it here so I could include the short summaries I wrote explaining my rationale for each ranking.
This tier list factors how the build does at every point in the game and overall consistency, not just ranking on potential (what good is potential if you'll always die before reaching it or will almost never get the rare equipment you need for it?), nor how likely a build gets you past Phobos (sure Phobos is usually the hardest part, but Phobos deaths are much less painful than deaths in Deimos and especially Hell, so increasing your odds of not dying in Deimos and Hell is still important), and considers how much the build actually helps you clear difficult levels and survive arduous combat situations (any build can 100% clear a level without damage with a perfect corner shooting spot and a Tactical Shotgun, but rarely will you find such ideal conditions, especially on harder difficulties, so the less you have to depend on ideal conditions the better). Tiers are ordered, but the ordering isn't super important.
S tier
(Clearly broken and needs to be nerfed)
*Vampyre - Trivializes the standard game when it gives you near-IDDQD even in Angel Of Max Carnage and is by far the easiest option for most challenges/badges. Strategy with Vampyre also often amounts to little more than "run into enemies, mash click until they die", with maybe some rocket jumps in there to close gaps and calculated facerockets to trigger Berserker before rushing in. Its only weaknesses is a mediocre early game (that is mitigated with the free trait you get and being a level 6 mastery), and the Hellrunner block makes it not so ideal for any time-sensitive challenges, but it's so strong it could probably still work in those. The gap between Vampyre and every other build grows even farther on Nightmare, when melee is very powerful at corpse handling and Vampyre can abuse respawns for a full health refill whenever needed. It also requires nothing more than a mundane Nanofiber Red Armor and Chainsaw (or even just a Chainsword) to break the game, no need for rare or otherwise hard-to-get equipment, so it's super consistent and its floor is greater than nearly every other build's ceiling.
A+ tier
(Borderline broken, might need a nerf but doesn't outright trivialize the game)
*Ammochain - EE block makes typical rapid fire weapons unreliable and not being able to get WK1/2 until level 10/11 minimum without putting off Ammochain sucks, but consuming 1 cell per plasma burst is so powerful, both ammo-conservation and combat wise (other builds can't do more than five consecutive shots with a Plasma Rifle + TH2 without needing to go through a long reload or building a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, while Ammochain can do 40 consecutive shots with a vanilla Plasma Rifle without reloading), and having Reloader makes Shotguns a very reliable fallback, while that in addition to the Marine's durability makes the early game easy too. Also has the uncommon ability to get both HR + Berserker to make it even more powerful late game, and its non-EE blocks are irrelevant. Overall has a very high floor with one of the highest ceilings (just needs a Hyperblaster to crush the game, while getting any of the rare mods, a Laser Rifle, or Nuclear Plasma Rifle sends it into the stratosphere), with few special levels and challenges posing any issue.
A tier
(Very powerful and often optimal builds, but have enough drawbacks to usually not make the game a cakewalk)
*Shottyhead - One of the strongest mastery effects despite its simplicity, while also having very strong prereqs, being able to get WK at a reasonable level, doesn't require ancillary traits but still retains strong post-mastery options like Berserker and Intuition, and has probably the easiest early game of any build. Its only stumbling is the SoB + EE block makes any sort of Plasma Rifle much less effective, but this isn't a big deal unless the RNG is very stingy with shells when you essentially got rapid fire shotguns. It has one of the highest floors with one of the highest ceilings, while being good at every point of the game and rarely being worse than a solid pick for any given challenge, but being vulnerable to ammo concerns without a Nano mod keeps it from the A+ tier.
*Scavenger - Essentially plays like a masterless build, but gets more mods than usual and a lot more of those very coveted rare mods, that combines very nicely with the Technician's inherent abilities. While luck dependent, it'll usually get better equipment than other builds around the midgame, and is far more likely to obtain the super equipment that will trivialize the game. While it has the fewest blocks of any mastery and two of the blocks are pretty irrelevant, the Berserker block is painful and can leave the build somewhat vulnerable lategame without good armor. Like masterless builds, it can also lack power in late Phobos and early Deimos before you get the aforementioned buffed equipment, but is usually no worse than solid for any challenge that doesn't require immediate power.
*Cateye - The best build at damage avoidance, while it also offers a level of flexibility not seen in most other masteries, and has a good effect that benefits any weapon type, making it more of a "generalist" mastery than the actual intended generalist Scout mastery. Can have the problem of wanting too many traits however (particularly being unable to fit Int2 + WK2 + EE + HR in a timely manner), and Cateye can be lacking in power when damage avoidance is not possible, which cannot be alleviated by getting Berserker either as it's blocked (which also makes the build more fragile in the lategame). Often a viable pick regardless of the challenge, and does have the particular perk of being brokenly good in Angel of Max Carnage.
*Blademaster - No other build can clear floors faster, and Berserker in general is very strong, while its power scales up the higher the difficulty as its ability becomes more useful the more enemies there are. Its early game is on the weaker end and the late Whizkid acquisition sucks, while its effect doesn't really do much against isolated enemies, keeping it from being broken, but it remains consistently good floor and ceiling wise, and it remains an optimal pick for many challenges/badges, or when you just want to rush through the game with more power than a masterless build offers.
*Masterless Scout - The unequivocal best stair dive build, and the ultimate flexibility combines nicely with the Scout's inherent abilities. For more complete playthroughs however, its lack of power in the mid and late game can hold it back in difficult combat encounters and harder special levels, and generally specialization towards something will be more useful for any challenge/badge that isn't a stair dive. Still remains A tier for its stair diving dominance and the fact you can never really go wrong with it.
B tier
(Powerful builds with their fair share of drawbacks that keep them from being top tier picks)
*Masterless Marine - Generally outclassed by Masterless Scout and other Marine masteries, which fulfill their respective roles better, but it still has the strengths of versatility in a masterless build, and has a strong niche when you need a bulkier build than Masterless Scout while also needing said masterless versatility (particularly if you want Hellrunner on something bulky, which all non-Ammochain Marine masteries block, without having to make a detour for Triggerhappy as Ammochain would require).
*Survivalist - It fulfills its role well as the tank build, at the expense of having the worst offense in the game and a painful Hellrunner block. Usually terrible offense would tank a build's viability, but Survivalist makes tanking actually viable and gives you a big margin of error to play with, allowing you to get away with repeated mistakes and bad RNG rolls that would be fatal for nearly any other build. The lack of offense and speed can still get it overwhelmed though, and it's bad for any time-sensitive event, which alongside being generally outclassed by Vampyre, keeps it from being top tier.
*Masterless Technician - Mostly outclassed by Scavenger if you want to make the most of a generalist Technician, and mostly outclassed by the other Masterless builds if you want to make the most of having no mastery, as the Scout and Marine have stronger innate bonuses (particularly in the early game). But as a masterless build it's still pretty good, and it does have the niche of a generalist Technician's advantages that retains access to Berserker (which is particularly relevant in Angel Of Humanity).
*Army of the Dead - Probably has the lowest ceiling of any build, with probably the weakest mastery effect in the game (aside from Entrenchment) that becomes irrelevant with Nano-Shrapnal and Plasma(tic) Shotguns, and is probably never an optimal pick for any challenge/badge. But it has a good early and mid game with Shotgun specialization, Marine's durability, and relatively quick access to Whizkid, while Shotguns never become bad and it can still spec into a Berserker sidearm to help in the lategame if needed. With a high consistent floor that depends little on equipment/item luck, this build is rarely an outright bad pick outside of any challenge/badge that requires Hellrunner.
C tier
(Functional but held back by serious flaws, could use a buff)
*Sharpshooter - One of the strongest mastery effects in the game, and thanks to Technician, doesn't need to invest in Finesse to get Whizkid, which is very useful for a Pistol build. As a result, it has one of the strongest mid games and a still impressive late game, which is also boosted by it retaining access to the Good Stuff to bolster it farther in the later game (with the SoB block being its only real painful block). However, due to Pistol specialization and awful prereqs, it has an absolutely abysmal early game, the worst of any build, which gives it an awful survival rate in Phobos on harder difficulties if you're not very good at the game, and makes it very unideal for any challenge/badge where early power is needed. Such a polarizing mastery can be hard to rank, on a pure winrate basis it would be possibly the worst and generally Phobos is the hardest part, but since Phobos deaths are much less punishing time-investment wise, a build that offers such good mid and late game consistency still has value.
*Gunrunner - Has one of the highest potential ceilings in the game, being able to effectively get Pistol firing rates on Shotguns and Rocket Launchers while firing/moving/reloading all at the same time, and any combination of HR + Fin + Rel gives it an easy early game. But this mastery requires significant ancillary investment as it needs Shottyman to actually do anything worthwhile, which combined with a very late Whizkid acquisition and requiring the generally unhelpful Dodgemaster, gives it a very weak mid game. Gunrunner itself can also be rather finicky to utilize and is very ammo hungry whenever you use it, while the Brute block prevents you from effectively using a melee backup, as well as leaves you always frail. It can feel very good to wipe out a nasty horde in a quick run rampage, but deaths in Deimos are always painful and Shottyhead generally outclasses it (which you'll need to actively forego as you build to Gunrunner + Shottyman, as it overlaps Shottyhead's prereqs).
*Fireangel - Its defensive benefit is potentially very handy and no-damage rocket jumps is a nice benefit, but it offering no sort of offensive boost, while also blocking SoB and EE, leaves it with one of the worst offenses in the game, and the defensive benefit is not so good as to be worth the tradeoff. It has a tantalizing ceiling with being able to blow up everything with the Mother-In-Law, Nanomachic Tristar Blaster, or a nano-modded BFG 10K with no risk of blowing yourself up, but you'll very rarely get such weapons and often won't even get a Nano mod just to build a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher, which is necessary to take extensive advantage of rocket launchers offensively since rockets come in such small ammo quantities. It retains access to Berserker to compensate for the lack of offense, but besides not being easy to fit in, Fireangel removes the ability for you to get Berserker procs off of facerockets and barrels, making it not as strong as Berserker is in the hands of other builds. Overall it's not that bad, and has a decent early game thanks to Shotgun specialization, but it's never really any good either, outside of a particular niche with the Gatekeeper badges.
*Malicious Blades - The mastery effect is decent, but its offensive and defensive benefits are almost entirely outclassed by those of Berserker, which it blocks. The mastery has the benefit of its defense-boosting effects being usable with non-melee weapons, which when combined with it not blocking SoB like the other melee masteries, allows it to function more effectively as a hybrid-melee build, but such a build requires a ton of traits that leaves it weak for a long time, and having to keep a blade in your prepared slot to get said defense-boost prevents you from utilizing ammo boxes, hurting it farther in a hybrid build. Whether as a pure melee Technician or hybrid melee build, you are better off going masterless and getting Berserker instead, and a build specializing in blades specifically would still do much better with the other melee masteries. I don't see any challenge/badge where this is a remotely optimal pick, but it's never bad enough to rank it in the lower tiers.
D tier
(These builds aren't unplayable, but they're severely flawed and using them makes the game much harder, in need of significant buffs)
*Gun Kata - HR investment gives it a slightly easier early game than other Pistol masteries, but investing in Pistols still gives you a much harder early game compared to non-Pistol builds (and ultimately with pistols, you would rather stack SoG with SoB and get a level of EE early rather than get HR, as getting your combat to something acceptable is of upmost importance, so Pistol builds that don't go with any Pistol mastery still have the least painful early game). Unlike Sharpshooter however, it requires several ancillary traits to be effective; it technically doesn't require SoG3 but you need it ASAP or else your Pistols don't do shit, making Gun Kata effectively a level 8 mastery, but you also need two levels of Fin before you can get WK that's desperately needed for Pistol builds, then you need SoG 4 and 5 after that, still really want at least one level of EE so you stop missing so much, and you would want to fit in Int too... The SoB block without Sharpshooter's guaranteed max damage also makes your Pistols quite weak and unreliable, at least before you get SoG5, or before you get a Unique pistol or an Exotic pistol maxed out with Power mods. You altogether get a build with a weak early game, an abysmal mid game, and a still unimpressive late game, so you're always lagging behind other builds at every stage of the game. Gun Kata's effects itself can also be rendered pointless, as the "shoot faster after dodging" bonus doesn't matter once you reach the firing speed cap (nevermind the unreliability, if not outright impracticality, of utilizing it in typical difficult combat scenarios), and the reloading bonus doesn't matter if you get a Nanomachic Pistol or a Blaster (while being a finicky effect to utilize in general, especially compared to just using one Pistol and an ammo box). If you want to use Pistols with a Scout, you're better off going masterless or even Cateye, which doesn't block SoB and has an effect that is always useful regardless of what Pistols you have.
*Bullet Dance - It has theoretically the highest DPS ceiling of any build, but similar to Gun Kata it requires a grotesque amount of ancillary traits, while having the "Pistols suck in early game" problem exasperated by having to pick an actually useless trait in Triggerhappy, and Bullet Dance itself does more harm than good unless you find a Nano mod to build a Nanomachic Pistol or find a Combat Pistol and bulk mod the crap out of it, which you often won't. Said DPS ceiling is also rather overkill, when a Pistol with SoG5 and several levels of SoB will quickly kill anything before they can retaliate without the ammo-draining drawbacks of Bullet Dance. So you get a very weak early and mid game, for a late game that usually isn't all that hot either. If you want to use Pistols with a Marine, you're again better off going masterless, as you don't need to pick up Triggerhappy nor bother with Dualgunner until it's actually useful, while retaining freedom to get HR and even Berserker if you want extra lategame assurance (particularly in A100).
E(ntrenchment) tier
(Outright sucks, in desperate need of serious buffs or being overhauled completely)
*Entrenchment - Has awful prereqs that makes the early game hard, Finesse block cripples its offense with any weapon, requires a lot of ancillary traits that gives it a very hard mid game, all for a very underwhelming purely defensive mastery that both only kicks in when Chainfiring and gives resistances that are only slightly better than the resistances the Marine has inherently at all times. Then for the cherry on top, if you actually try to utilize it extensively, you'll waste a lot of ammo and quickly empty your clip, where you're then stuck with having to reload weapons that have 2+ second reload times while no longer having your resistances and not even being able to get Reloader to lessen the mauling you'll suffer. So you need to either find a Minigun and tons of bullets, or a Nano mod to make a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, just to make the build even functional.
This tier list factors how the build does at every point in the game and overall consistency, not just ranking on potential (what good is potential if you'll always die before reaching it or will almost never get the rare equipment you need for it?), nor how likely a build gets you past Phobos (sure Phobos is usually the hardest part, but Phobos deaths are much less painful than deaths in Deimos and especially Hell, so increasing your odds of not dying in Deimos and Hell is still important), and considers how much the build actually helps you clear difficult levels and survive arduous combat situations (any build can 100% clear a level without damage with a perfect corner shooting spot and a Tactical Shotgun, but rarely will you find such ideal conditions, especially on harder difficulties, so the less you have to depend on ideal conditions the better). Tiers are ordered, but the ordering isn't super important.
S tier
(Clearly broken and needs to be nerfed)
*Vampyre - Trivializes the standard game when it gives you near-IDDQD even in Angel Of Max Carnage and is by far the easiest option for most challenges/badges. Strategy with Vampyre also often amounts to little more than "run into enemies, mash click until they die", with maybe some rocket jumps in there to close gaps and calculated facerockets to trigger Berserker before rushing in. Its only weaknesses is a mediocre early game (that is mitigated with the free trait you get and being a level 6 mastery), and the Hellrunner block makes it not so ideal for any time-sensitive challenges, but it's so strong it could probably still work in those. The gap between Vampyre and every other build grows even farther on Nightmare, when melee is very powerful at corpse handling and Vampyre can abuse respawns for a full health refill whenever needed. It also requires nothing more than a mundane Nanofiber Red Armor and Chainsaw (or even just a Chainsword) to break the game, no need for rare or otherwise hard-to-get equipment, so it's super consistent and its floor is greater than nearly every other build's ceiling.
A+ tier
(Borderline broken, might need a nerf but doesn't outright trivialize the game)
*Ammochain - EE block makes typical rapid fire weapons unreliable and not being able to get WK1/2 until level 10/11 minimum without putting off Ammochain sucks, but consuming 1 cell per plasma burst is so powerful, both ammo-conservation and combat wise (other builds can't do more than five consecutive shots with a Plasma Rifle + TH2 without needing to go through a long reload or building a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, while Ammochain can do 40 consecutive shots with a vanilla Plasma Rifle without reloading), and having Reloader makes Shotguns a very reliable fallback, while that in addition to the Marine's durability makes the early game easy too. Also has the uncommon ability to get both HR + Berserker to make it even more powerful late game, and its non-EE blocks are irrelevant. Overall has a very high floor with one of the highest ceilings (just needs a Hyperblaster to crush the game, while getting any of the rare mods, a Laser Rifle, or Nuclear Plasma Rifle sends it into the stratosphere), with few special levels and challenges posing any issue.
A tier
(Very powerful and often optimal builds, but have enough drawbacks to usually not make the game a cakewalk)
*Shottyhead - One of the strongest mastery effects despite its simplicity, while also having very strong prereqs, being able to get WK at a reasonable level, doesn't require ancillary traits but still retains strong post-mastery options like Berserker and Intuition, and has probably the easiest early game of any build. Its only stumbling is the SoB + EE block makes any sort of Plasma Rifle much less effective, but this isn't a big deal unless the RNG is very stingy with shells when you essentially got rapid fire shotguns. It has one of the highest floors with one of the highest ceilings, while being good at every point of the game and rarely being worse than a solid pick for any given challenge, but being vulnerable to ammo concerns without a Nano mod keeps it from the A+ tier.
*Scavenger - Essentially plays like a masterless build, but gets more mods than usual and a lot more of those very coveted rare mods, that combines very nicely with the Technician's inherent abilities. While luck dependent, it'll usually get better equipment than other builds around the midgame, and is far more likely to obtain the super equipment that will trivialize the game. While it has the fewest blocks of any mastery and two of the blocks are pretty irrelevant, the Berserker block is painful and can leave the build somewhat vulnerable lategame without good armor. Like masterless builds, it can also lack power in late Phobos and early Deimos before you get the aforementioned buffed equipment, but is usually no worse than solid for any challenge that doesn't require immediate power.
*Cateye - The best build at damage avoidance, while it also offers a level of flexibility not seen in most other masteries, and has a good effect that benefits any weapon type, making it more of a "generalist" mastery than the actual intended generalist Scout mastery. Can have the problem of wanting too many traits however (particularly being unable to fit Int2 + WK2 + EE + HR in a timely manner), and Cateye can be lacking in power when damage avoidance is not possible, which cannot be alleviated by getting Berserker either as it's blocked (which also makes the build more fragile in the lategame). Often a viable pick regardless of the challenge, and does have the particular perk of being brokenly good in Angel of Max Carnage.
*Blademaster - No other build can clear floors faster, and Berserker in general is very strong, while its power scales up the higher the difficulty as its ability becomes more useful the more enemies there are. Its early game is on the weaker end and the late Whizkid acquisition sucks, while its effect doesn't really do much against isolated enemies, keeping it from being broken, but it remains consistently good floor and ceiling wise, and it remains an optimal pick for many challenges/badges, or when you just want to rush through the game with more power than a masterless build offers.
*Masterless Scout - The unequivocal best stair dive build, and the ultimate flexibility combines nicely with the Scout's inherent abilities. For more complete playthroughs however, its lack of power in the mid and late game can hold it back in difficult combat encounters and harder special levels, and generally specialization towards something will be more useful for any challenge/badge that isn't a stair dive. Still remains A tier for its stair diving dominance and the fact you can never really go wrong with it.
B tier
(Powerful builds with their fair share of drawbacks that keep them from being top tier picks)
*Masterless Marine - Generally outclassed by Masterless Scout and other Marine masteries, which fulfill their respective roles better, but it still has the strengths of versatility in a masterless build, and has a strong niche when you need a bulkier build than Masterless Scout while also needing said masterless versatility (particularly if you want Hellrunner on something bulky, which all non-Ammochain Marine masteries block, without having to make a detour for Triggerhappy as Ammochain would require).
*Survivalist - It fulfills its role well as the tank build, at the expense of having the worst offense in the game and a painful Hellrunner block. Usually terrible offense would tank a build's viability, but Survivalist makes tanking actually viable and gives you a big margin of error to play with, allowing you to get away with repeated mistakes and bad RNG rolls that would be fatal for nearly any other build. The lack of offense and speed can still get it overwhelmed though, and it's bad for any time-sensitive event, which alongside being generally outclassed by Vampyre, keeps it from being top tier.
*Masterless Technician - Mostly outclassed by Scavenger if you want to make the most of a generalist Technician, and mostly outclassed by the other Masterless builds if you want to make the most of having no mastery, as the Scout and Marine have stronger innate bonuses (particularly in the early game). But as a masterless build it's still pretty good, and it does have the niche of a generalist Technician's advantages that retains access to Berserker (which is particularly relevant in Angel Of Humanity).
*Army of the Dead - Probably has the lowest ceiling of any build, with probably the weakest mastery effect in the game (aside from Entrenchment) that becomes irrelevant with Nano-Shrapnal and Plasma(tic) Shotguns, and is probably never an optimal pick for any challenge/badge. But it has a good early and mid game with Shotgun specialization, Marine's durability, and relatively quick access to Whizkid, while Shotguns never become bad and it can still spec into a Berserker sidearm to help in the lategame if needed. With a high consistent floor that depends little on equipment/item luck, this build is rarely an outright bad pick outside of any challenge/badge that requires Hellrunner.
C tier
(Functional but held back by serious flaws, could use a buff)
*Sharpshooter - One of the strongest mastery effects in the game, and thanks to Technician, doesn't need to invest in Finesse to get Whizkid, which is very useful for a Pistol build. As a result, it has one of the strongest mid games and a still impressive late game, which is also boosted by it retaining access to the Good Stuff to bolster it farther in the later game (with the SoB block being its only real painful block). However, due to Pistol specialization and awful prereqs, it has an absolutely abysmal early game, the worst of any build, which gives it an awful survival rate in Phobos on harder difficulties if you're not very good at the game, and makes it very unideal for any challenge/badge where early power is needed. Such a polarizing mastery can be hard to rank, on a pure winrate basis it would be possibly the worst and generally Phobos is the hardest part, but since Phobos deaths are much less punishing time-investment wise, a build that offers such good mid and late game consistency still has value.
*Gunrunner - Has one of the highest potential ceilings in the game, being able to effectively get Pistol firing rates on Shotguns and Rocket Launchers while firing/moving/reloading all at the same time, and any combination of HR + Fin + Rel gives it an easy early game. But this mastery requires significant ancillary investment as it needs Shottyman to actually do anything worthwhile, which combined with a very late Whizkid acquisition and requiring the generally unhelpful Dodgemaster, gives it a very weak mid game. Gunrunner itself can also be rather finicky to utilize and is very ammo hungry whenever you use it, while the Brute block prevents you from effectively using a melee backup, as well as leaves you always frail. It can feel very good to wipe out a nasty horde in a quick run rampage, but deaths in Deimos are always painful and Shottyhead generally outclasses it (which you'll need to actively forego as you build to Gunrunner + Shottyman, as it overlaps Shottyhead's prereqs).
*Fireangel - Its defensive benefit is potentially very handy and no-damage rocket jumps is a nice benefit, but it offering no sort of offensive boost, while also blocking SoB and EE, leaves it with one of the worst offenses in the game, and the defensive benefit is not so good as to be worth the tradeoff. It has a tantalizing ceiling with being able to blow up everything with the Mother-In-Law, Nanomachic Tristar Blaster, or a nano-modded BFG 10K with no risk of blowing yourself up, but you'll very rarely get such weapons and often won't even get a Nano mod just to build a Nanomachic Rocket Launcher, which is necessary to take extensive advantage of rocket launchers offensively since rockets come in such small ammo quantities. It retains access to Berserker to compensate for the lack of offense, but besides not being easy to fit in, Fireangel removes the ability for you to get Berserker procs off of facerockets and barrels, making it not as strong as Berserker is in the hands of other builds. Overall it's not that bad, and has a decent early game thanks to Shotgun specialization, but it's never really any good either, outside of a particular niche with the Gatekeeper badges.
*Malicious Blades - The mastery effect is decent, but its offensive and defensive benefits are almost entirely outclassed by those of Berserker, which it blocks. The mastery has the benefit of its defense-boosting effects being usable with non-melee weapons, which when combined with it not blocking SoB like the other melee masteries, allows it to function more effectively as a hybrid-melee build, but such a build requires a ton of traits that leaves it weak for a long time, and having to keep a blade in your prepared slot to get said defense-boost prevents you from utilizing ammo boxes, hurting it farther in a hybrid build. Whether as a pure melee Technician or hybrid melee build, you are better off going masterless and getting Berserker instead, and a build specializing in blades specifically would still do much better with the other melee masteries. I don't see any challenge/badge where this is a remotely optimal pick, but it's never bad enough to rank it in the lower tiers.
D tier
(These builds aren't unplayable, but they're severely flawed and using them makes the game much harder, in need of significant buffs)
*Gun Kata - HR investment gives it a slightly easier early game than other Pistol masteries, but investing in Pistols still gives you a much harder early game compared to non-Pistol builds (and ultimately with pistols, you would rather stack SoG with SoB and get a level of EE early rather than get HR, as getting your combat to something acceptable is of upmost importance, so Pistol builds that don't go with any Pistol mastery still have the least painful early game). Unlike Sharpshooter however, it requires several ancillary traits to be effective; it technically doesn't require SoG3 but you need it ASAP or else your Pistols don't do shit, making Gun Kata effectively a level 8 mastery, but you also need two levels of Fin before you can get WK that's desperately needed for Pistol builds, then you need SoG 4 and 5 after that, still really want at least one level of EE so you stop missing so much, and you would want to fit in Int too... The SoB block without Sharpshooter's guaranteed max damage also makes your Pistols quite weak and unreliable, at least before you get SoG5, or before you get a Unique pistol or an Exotic pistol maxed out with Power mods. You altogether get a build with a weak early game, an abysmal mid game, and a still unimpressive late game, so you're always lagging behind other builds at every stage of the game. Gun Kata's effects itself can also be rendered pointless, as the "shoot faster after dodging" bonus doesn't matter once you reach the firing speed cap (nevermind the unreliability, if not outright impracticality, of utilizing it in typical difficult combat scenarios), and the reloading bonus doesn't matter if you get a Nanomachic Pistol or a Blaster (while being a finicky effect to utilize in general, especially compared to just using one Pistol and an ammo box). If you want to use Pistols with a Scout, you're better off going masterless or even Cateye, which doesn't block SoB and has an effect that is always useful regardless of what Pistols you have.
*Bullet Dance - It has theoretically the highest DPS ceiling of any build, but similar to Gun Kata it requires a grotesque amount of ancillary traits, while having the "Pistols suck in early game" problem exasperated by having to pick an actually useless trait in Triggerhappy, and Bullet Dance itself does more harm than good unless you find a Nano mod to build a Nanomachic Pistol or find a Combat Pistol and bulk mod the crap out of it, which you often won't. Said DPS ceiling is also rather overkill, when a Pistol with SoG5 and several levels of SoB will quickly kill anything before they can retaliate without the ammo-draining drawbacks of Bullet Dance. So you get a very weak early and mid game, for a late game that usually isn't all that hot either. If you want to use Pistols with a Marine, you're again better off going masterless, as you don't need to pick up Triggerhappy nor bother with Dualgunner until it's actually useful, while retaining freedom to get HR and even Berserker if you want extra lategame assurance (particularly in A100).
E(ntrenchment) tier
(Outright sucks, in desperate need of serious buffs or being overhauled completely)
*Entrenchment - Has awful prereqs that makes the early game hard, Finesse block cripples its offense with any weapon, requires a lot of ancillary traits that gives it a very hard mid game, all for a very underwhelming purely defensive mastery that both only kicks in when Chainfiring and gives resistances that are only slightly better than the resistances the Marine has inherently at all times. Then for the cherry on top, if you actually try to utilize it extensively, you'll waste a lot of ammo and quickly empty your clip, where you're then stuck with having to reload weapons that have 2+ second reload times while no longer having your resistances and not even being able to get Reloader to lessen the mauling you'll suffer. So you need to either find a Minigun and tons of bullets, or a Nano mod to make a Nanomachic Plasma Rifle, just to make the build even functional.
14
Discussion / Re: My mortem dump thread and progression record to as close to 100% as I can get
« on: December 14, 2024, 21:08 »
N! AoP + AoRA run for the first ever verified Inquisitor Angelic badge, as well as picking up Inquisitor Diamond
Just like with getting Eagerness Angelic in the 0.9.9.9 beta and wanting to get it officially without having to wait until 0.9.9.9 properly releases, I booted up 0.9.9.8 once more to claim the first ever official Inquisitor Angelic badge. I incidentally get Inquisitor Diamond too, which I would rather do a pure run for like other badges, but considering AoRA makes it so much harder and it gives you no benefits in AoP, I suppose I "proved" enough that I don't need dual angel cheese to get that badge. For the full writeup on this run, go see its own Post Mortem thread.
Aside from getting the big second Angelic, I also now exceed my 0.9.9.7 Diamond badge count, and get my "completion percentage" into the 40s. I think this could be it for 0.9.9.8 though, I might go get Quartermaster Diamond again and Quartermaster Angelic since those don't require N! and thus likely won't be changed much for 0.9.9.9, and I'm on an AoRA kick as is, might as well solidify myself as the AoRA master. It'll depend on if 0.9.9.9 starts seeing more progress soon.
Badge count - [26|26|26|18|6|2] Medal count - 44/50 Score - 618/1500 (41.20%)
Just like with getting Eagerness Angelic in the 0.9.9.9 beta and wanting to get it officially without having to wait until 0.9.9.9 properly releases, I booted up 0.9.9.8 once more to claim the first ever official Inquisitor Angelic badge. I incidentally get Inquisitor Diamond too, which I would rather do a pure run for like other badges, but considering AoRA makes it so much harder and it gives you no benefits in AoP, I suppose I "proved" enough that I don't need dual angel cheese to get that badge. For the full writeup on this run, go see its own Post Mortem thread.
Aside from getting the big second Angelic, I also now exceed my 0.9.9.7 Diamond badge count, and get my "completion percentage" into the 40s. I think this could be it for 0.9.9.8 though, I might go get Quartermaster Diamond again and Quartermaster Angelic since those don't require N! and thus likely won't be changed much for 0.9.9.9, and I'm on an AoRA kick as is, might as well solidify myself as the AoRA master. It'll depend on if 0.9.9.9 starts seeing more progress soon.
Badge count - [26|26|26|18|6|2] Medal count - 44/50 Score - 618/1500 (41.20%)
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
15
Nightmare! / [N!|AoP + AoRA|66%|YAVP] - First official Inquisitor Angelic Badge! (with video)
« on: December 14, 2024, 20:37 »
I recorded this entire run, which you can watch in this Youtube link.
I previously posted about obtaining Inquisitor Angelic in the first beta for 0.9.9.9 to test if the badge actually needed any nerfs despite nobody ever winning it prior in the 11 years since 0.9.9.7, but I don't consider obtaining badges in the beta versions to count, and like with Eagerness Angelic, I didn't want to wait around until 0.9.9.9 launches proper to get the badge officially. So I went back to 0.9.9.8 once more and was able to obtain Inquisitor Angelic there to officially claim being the first person to have verifiably won it.
I would recommend reading the linked thread about my 0.9.9.9 beta Inquisitor Angelic run, for my thoughts on the badge and my general strategy, so as to not repeat myself here. The differences compared to that run is that I lead off with Finesse instead of Hellrunner, to increase the chances that I kill the Sergeants in Phobos Base Entry without them using the Small Medkits, and since I'll get Hellrunner very shortly into Phobos 2 anyway. Then in the lategame after getting Berserker, I end up just getting as much Ironman as I could and even a level of Tough As Nails, rather than Fin2 + Whizkid, since I was perpetually short on medkits and had no good armor in the later half, desperately needing all the extra survivability I could scrounge up.
If you're interested in reading the floor-by-floor breakdown I wrote up rather than watching the video (or even read it alongside to see my thoughts throughout), you can find it in the spoiler tags:
Curiously, while in the 0.9.9.9 beta I could consistently make it to Deimos and then kept losing there, taking me 12 attempts overall (not counting the runs I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), here in 0.9.9.8 I kept dying in Phobos, but then the first attempt I make it to Deimos I end up going all the way, with it taking 8 attempts instead overall (again not counting runs that were abandoned in Phobos Base Entry). Maybe corpses not respawning in sight does help a bit with making Phobos more consistent even if you're rushing through levels, or maybe I just had a good run of luck in the beta and bad run of luck in 0.9.9.8. Overall for this specific run, my level and item luck was pretty mixed (the Super Shotgun and Laptop Boots were very nice, as was being able to go into Deimos with several Large Medkits, but I would have really liked a second Red Armor and another Power Mod), and I was often teetering on the knife edge there in the later half, but not having ideal luck makes succeeding in such a difficult challenge all the more sweeter.
Now for the first mortem to officially have the Inquisitor Angelic Badge! (And a cool Inquisitor Diamond too, which isn't a badge you see all that much either, granted the Marine's buffs does make that badge quite a bit easier now, definitely wouldn't try to double it up with Inquisitor Angelic back in 0.9.9.7).
I previously posted about obtaining Inquisitor Angelic in the first beta for 0.9.9.9 to test if the badge actually needed any nerfs despite nobody ever winning it prior in the 11 years since 0.9.9.7, but I don't consider obtaining badges in the beta versions to count, and like with Eagerness Angelic, I didn't want to wait around until 0.9.9.9 launches proper to get the badge officially. So I went back to 0.9.9.8 once more and was able to obtain Inquisitor Angelic there to officially claim being the first person to have verifiably won it.
I would recommend reading the linked thread about my 0.9.9.9 beta Inquisitor Angelic run, for my thoughts on the badge and my general strategy, so as to not repeat myself here. The differences compared to that run is that I lead off with Finesse instead of Hellrunner, to increase the chances that I kill the Sergeants in Phobos Base Entry without them using the Small Medkits, and since I'll get Hellrunner very shortly into Phobos 2 anyway. Then in the lategame after getting Berserker, I end up just getting as much Ironman as I could and even a level of Tough As Nails, rather than Fin2 + Whizkid, since I was perpetually short on medkits and had no good armor in the later half, desperately needing all the extra survivability I could scrounge up.
If you're interested in reading the floor-by-floor breakdown I wrote up rather than watching the video (or even read it alongside to see my thoughts throughout), you can find it in the spoiler tags:
Spoiler (click to show/hide)
Curiously, while in the 0.9.9.9 beta I could consistently make it to Deimos and then kept losing there, taking me 12 attempts overall (not counting the runs I Q+Y'd on Phobos Base Entry), here in 0.9.9.8 I kept dying in Phobos, but then the first attempt I make it to Deimos I end up going all the way, with it taking 8 attempts instead overall (again not counting runs that were abandoned in Phobos Base Entry). Maybe corpses not respawning in sight does help a bit with making Phobos more consistent even if you're rushing through levels, or maybe I just had a good run of luck in the beta and bad run of luck in 0.9.9.8. Overall for this specific run, my level and item luck was pretty mixed (the Super Shotgun and Laptop Boots were very nice, as was being able to go into Deimos with several Large Medkits, but I would have really liked a second Red Armor and another Power Mod), and I was often teetering on the knife edge there in the later half, but not having ideal luck makes succeeding in such a difficult challenge all the more sweeter.
Now for the first mortem to officially have the Inquisitor Angelic Badge! (And a cool Inquisitor Diamond too, which isn't a badge you see all that much either, granted the Marine's buffs does make that badge quite a bit easier now, definitely wouldn't try to double it up with Inquisitor Angelic back in 0.9.9.7).
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DRL (0.9.9.8a) roguelike post-mortem character dump
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ONLYMEDKITS, level 12 Cyberdemon General Marine,
defeated the Mastermind at the City of Dis.
He survived 46179 turns and scored 598958 points.
He played for 51 minutes and 23 seconds.
He opposed the Nightmare!
He killed 628 out of 949 hellspawn. (66%)
He was an Angel of Purity!
He was also an Angel of Red Alert!
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
Levels generated : 11
Levels visited : 3
Levels completed : 0
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
UAC Star (bronze cluster) 25+ kills without taking damage
Inquisitor Diamond Badge Complete AoP on N! as Marine
Inquisitor Angelic Badge Complete AoP+AoRA on N!
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
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-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 42/100 Experience 66284/12
ToHit Ranged +0 ToHit Melee +4 ToDmg Ranged +0 ToDmg Melee +6
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Class : Marine
Ironman (Level 4)
Finesse (Level 1)
Hellrunner (Level 2)
Tough as nails (Level 1)
Reloader (Level 1)
Brute (Level 2)
Berserker (Level 1)
Fin->HR->Rel->HR->Bru->Bru->Ber->Iro->Iro->Iro->TaN->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] blue armor [1/2] (7%)
[b] [ Weapon ] chainsaw (4d6) (T)
[c] [ Boots ] Nyarlaptotep's Boots [6/6] (100%)
[d] [ Prepared ] nothing
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] shotgun (9d3) [1/1] (P1)
[b] combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
[c] rocket launcher (6d6) [0/1]
[d] super shotgun (8d4)x2 [2/2]
[e] green armor [1/1] (41%)
[f] green armor [1/1] (21%)
[g] green armor [1/1] (16%)
[h] blue armor [1/2] (24%) (B)
[i] shotgun shell (x38)
[j] rocket (x10)
[k] rocket (x10)
[l] rocket (x9)
[m] large med-pack
[n] plasteel boots [2/2] (100%)
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
bullet - internal 100% torso 95% feet 95%
melee - internal 100% torso 95% feet 95%
shrapnel - internal 100% torso 95% feet 95%
acid - internal 80% torso 80% feet 95%
fire - internal 80% torso 80% feet 95%
plasma - internal 80% torso 85% feet 80%
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
57 former humans
62 former sergeants
25 former captains
147 imps
50 demons
139 lost souls
32 cacodemons
13 hell knights
24 barons of hell
16 arachnotrons
16 former commandos
7 pain elementals
9 revenants
15 mancubi
14 arch-viles
1 Cyberdemon
1 Spider Mastermind
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
He saw, left a present and left.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
On level 19 he found the Nyarlaptotep's Boots!
He left level 22 as soon as possible.
On level 22 he arrived at Mt. Erebus.
He decided it was too dangerous.
On level 23 he encountered an armed nuke!
Then at last he found Dis!
On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You're going
berserk! You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind flinched! You need to
taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You need to taste blood!
You hit the Spider Mastermind. The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations!
You defeated the Spider Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
70 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
18 of those were killed.
14 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
36 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
2 sacrificed itself for the good of mankind.
7 killed the bitch and survived.
27 showed that it can outsmart Hell itself.
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