- June 17, 2025, 03:10
- Welcome, Guest
Show Posts
This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.
Pages: [1] 2
1
Pre-0.9.9 / Re: [M|AoB|72%|YAVP] Melee win, spider's lair included.
« on: December 17, 2007, 11:07 »Imp SergeantHuh? Only Imp Sergeant? Did you restart or do you play even less than me?***Public service announcement, GET THIS TRAIT.Amen to that. I always tell them that but they never listen* Malek Deneith shakes head mocking others "Ironman is better than TaN. Pfft."
If you're going to mock others, you shouldn't fabricate BS implied statements to do it. I would never argue for Ironman in a melee game, where you take a lot more hits, and lower damage ones at that. TaN is obviously better for AoB. All my other points still stand and are valid.
Also, you yourself admitted Ironman is better if the player is skilled.
Find something better to do with your mocking time, for example, accurately grasping the basic assumptions an argument is based on before mocking it.
PS - Good game Thomas, still haven't done that myself. Probably because I try to kill everything. I would have guessed the Spider's Lair was easy. Just hit the teleporter, move a space, and patiently wait while the majority of the spiders teleport into your melee-range, eliminating their plasma advantage. Was it any trouble at all?
2
Pre-0.9.9 / Re: DoomRL 0.9.8.7 BETA 3 released!
« on: December 13, 2007, 14:32 »
Thanks for the info, Blade. I've been trying to get a functional game going in UV but I'm just not good enough yet I guess. Tend to meet disaster well before level 10 in most cases.
So, you're of the opinion that Eagle Eye 2 is worth it? One for sure, but I found my hit rate to be pretty effective with just the one point. My reasoning is that that second point of Eagle Eye (and technically the first, I suppose, though I'd never skip having at least 1 point) does you no good if you are already 'destined to hit.' What I mean is, and I'm just throwing numbers out here to illustrate, if your base hit chance is 50% and Eagle Eye added 30% per point, that second point is marginally less effective than the first. However, if you are a very strong advocate for Eagle Eye 2 I'll certainly start picking it up myself.
I certainly agree with the Plasma Rifle eating up ammo. It is devastating, but you're totally right about how it will often kill enemies in 2 bursts the same as the Chaingun, making it much more wasteful. Of course, it also needs to be reloaded substantially more frequently. I also noticed exactly what you talk about with the rocket launcher. I tried using it to clear the Wall (other than blowing it open) and was getting my butt handed to me, especially while reloading. I'd never had this problem before, possibly due to trait selection, but I was being fired on sometimes repeatedly during a single reload by Barons not even on my screen when I began reloading. As soon as I switched back over to the chaingun things became immensely more manageable. Later in the game, I dumped my advanced RL despite its having 4 mods as it just wasn't effective.
I'm curious to hear your reasoning and opinion on two issues respectively, Blade. First, I'm curious to know how much ammo you feel is necessary to carry around for the chaingun in a game of this type, let's say, on H or UV. Second, and more importantly, if I am reading your response right you will dump even large health kits for 9mm ammo stockpiles? If so, is this because you do a drastic amount of your firing at off-screen enemies (and if yes, do you feel the restriction to off-screen aiming is much of a nerf? it seems you can still get most angles of attack, albeit less reliably...)
I generally feel that the large medkit is the most valuable regular item to have in an inventory slot, and I typically will dump most any other item for it, except sometimes for good armor. I have certainly found myself in situations where, having 6 large med kits I won, but would have lost having less. I realize these sorts of melees are of the type that I may have been able to avoid, but sometimes you get dumped in an arena or caves type level with 4 or more Arachnotrons or other big nasty already on screen, and if you aren't wearing Red Armor, you are looking at a battle of attrition. However, as noted in my mortem, and this is a recurring theme for me, when I do clear the game it is almost universally with many, many supplies of medkits left over. Obviously, your results are better than mine and I'd like to hear your input, especially as it pertains to H/UV.
So, you're of the opinion that Eagle Eye 2 is worth it? One for sure, but I found my hit rate to be pretty effective with just the one point. My reasoning is that that second point of Eagle Eye (and technically the first, I suppose, though I'd never skip having at least 1 point) does you no good if you are already 'destined to hit.' What I mean is, and I'm just throwing numbers out here to illustrate, if your base hit chance is 50% and Eagle Eye added 30% per point, that second point is marginally less effective than the first. However, if you are a very strong advocate for Eagle Eye 2 I'll certainly start picking it up myself.
I certainly agree with the Plasma Rifle eating up ammo. It is devastating, but you're totally right about how it will often kill enemies in 2 bursts the same as the Chaingun, making it much more wasteful. Of course, it also needs to be reloaded substantially more frequently. I also noticed exactly what you talk about with the rocket launcher. I tried using it to clear the Wall (other than blowing it open) and was getting my butt handed to me, especially while reloading. I'd never had this problem before, possibly due to trait selection, but I was being fired on sometimes repeatedly during a single reload by Barons not even on my screen when I began reloading. As soon as I switched back over to the chaingun things became immensely more manageable. Later in the game, I dumped my advanced RL despite its having 4 mods as it just wasn't effective.
I'm curious to hear your reasoning and opinion on two issues respectively, Blade. First, I'm curious to know how much ammo you feel is necessary to carry around for the chaingun in a game of this type, let's say, on H or UV. Second, and more importantly, if I am reading your response right you will dump even large health kits for 9mm ammo stockpiles? If so, is this because you do a drastic amount of your firing at off-screen enemies (and if yes, do you feel the restriction to off-screen aiming is much of a nerf? it seems you can still get most angles of attack, albeit less reliably...)
I generally feel that the large medkit is the most valuable regular item to have in an inventory slot, and I typically will dump most any other item for it, except sometimes for good armor. I have certainly found myself in situations where, having 6 large med kits I won, but would have lost having less. I realize these sorts of melees are of the type that I may have been able to avoid, but sometimes you get dumped in an arena or caves type level with 4 or more Arachnotrons or other big nasty already on screen, and if you aren't wearing Red Armor, you are looking at a battle of attrition. However, as noted in my mortem, and this is a recurring theme for me, when I do clear the game it is almost universally with many, many supplies of medkits left over. Obviously, your results are better than mine and I'd like to hear your input, especially as it pertains to H/UV.
3
Pre-0.9.9 / [M|100%!YAVP] Triggerhappy
« on: December 13, 2007, 10:23 »--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (v.0.9.8.7 BETA 3) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
Jay, level 11 Demon Lieutenant, defeated the Cyberdemon
on level 25 of the Phobos base.
He survived 216889 turns and scored 106731 points.
He didn't like it too rough.
He killed 454 out of 454 hellspawn. (100%)
This ass-kicking marine killed all of them!
He found the Phobos Arena.
He stormed the Chained Court.
He ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
He fought on Hell's Arena.
He became a champion of Hell's Arena!
He faced The Wall.
And he cleared it completely!.
He was caught in the Mortuary!
And he managed to clear it!
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
###########################################################
#X.........................................................
#..........................................................
#................................###.......................
#................................###.......................
#................................###.....................##
#..|...............................................###...##
#..|...............................................###...##
#..}...............................................###.....
#..........................................................
#..............###.......###..###........###...............
#..............###.......#>#..###........###...............
#..............###.......###..###........###...............
#..................................###.....................
#..................................###.....................
#............................###...###..###................
#............................###........###................
#............................###........###................
#..........................................................
###########################################################
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
Health 118/70 Experience 54739/11
ToHit +3 ToDmg Ranged +3 ToDmg Melee +3
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
Ironman (Level 2)
Finesse (Level 2)
Tough as nails (Level 1)
Son of a bitch (Level 3)
Eagle Eye (Level 1)
Triggerhappy (Level 2)
SoB->SoB->TH->Iro->TH->EE->Fin->Fin->TaN->SoB->Iro->
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
[a] [ Armor ] Angelic Armor [6/6] (87%)
[ b] [ Weapon ] advanced BFG 9000 (8d9) [90/130] (D1R1M1)
[c] [ Boots ] plasteel boots [8/8] (69%)
[d] [ Prepared ] modified plasma rifle (1d8)x8 [0/52] (M1)
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
[a] modified chaingun (1d7)x5 [50/50] (D1)
[ b] modified BFG 9000 (8d8) [100/100] (R1)
[c] blue armor [2/2] (100%)
[d] red armor [4/4] (100%)
[e] red armor [4/4] (58%)
[f] 10mm ammo (x36)
[g] power cell (x46)
[h] power cell (x70)
[ i] power cell (x70)
[j] large med-pack
[k] large med-pack
[l] large med-pack
[m] large med-pack
[n] large med-pack
[ o] large med-pack
[p] large med-pack
[q] large med-pack
[r] large med-pack
[ s] phase device
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
50 former humans
37 former sergeants
28 former captains
31 imps
37 demons
34 lost souls
62 cacodemons
16 barons of hell
1 Cyberdemon
12 hell knights
39 arachnotrons
7 former commandos
11 pain elementals
9 arch-viles
9 mancubi
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
On level 5 he stormed the Chained Court.
On level 7 he witnessed the Wall.
He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
On level 13 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
On level 22 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
Then at last he found Phobos Arena!
On level 25 he finally defeated the Cyberdemon.
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon.
Fire -- Choose target... The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits
the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. Boom! The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon.
Fire -- Choose target... The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits
the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The missile hits the
Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon fires! You are hit!
You swap your weapon. The Cyberdemon reloads his rocket launcher.
Fire -- Choose target... The missile hits the Cyberdemon. The Cyberdemon
dies. Congratulations! You defeated the Cyberdemon! Press <Enter>
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
Before him 128 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
119 of those were killed.
4 of those were killed by something unknown.
1 didn't read the thermonuclear bomb manual.
And 2 couldn't handle the stress and committed a stupid suicide.
Some rumours though, say that the Cyberdemon was killed already!
Is he immortal? 2 souls claim to have killed him...
2 killed the bastard and survived.
--------------------------------------------------------------Just wrapped up a medium game using SoaB -> Triggerhappy, and it is really devastating. Chaingun one-rounds Cacodemons/Pain Elementals over 3/4th of the time, Arachnotrons/Hell Knights down in two vollies, only Barons and Viles reliably required 3. Cyberdemon got one shot off before the plasma fried him. I didn't even need the BFG in the mortuary, the plasma rifle decimated the Viles more efficiently, and this is perhaps the first game I didn't have major cell shortage problems near the end. I think I could have (easily) completed the game with just the chaingun, especially if I found an advanced one. My main problem was inventory space, and I was commonly leaving behind health packs to keep what I thought would be a necessary stockpile of cells for the Mortuary. When the cyberdemon fell I still had 9 large health packs, ~175% health from a Hell 9 supercharge, 2 extra red armors, 1 extra blue armor and Angelic Armor at ~87%. I cleared the Mortuary while still boosted from the initial supercharge (having used only one in the level, had about 110% life when it fell silent) and with the only red armor I wore there still at 46%. I've never come close to clearing it without multiple health packs and some fancy fleeing.
Honestly, despite how friggin cool this spec is, I think it may even be a little overpowered. It turns the chaingun into a real beast, and it is quite easy to stock up on 9mm ammo. To be fair, it kind of needs a point in Eagle Eye or the miss-rate is pretty maddening, and of course it only works on two weapons, and frequently wastes ammo against the weakest foes. I don't want to see it nerfed I guess, just I was impressed with its utility.
I was mulling over the related damage numbers and I think these examples are accurate, please point out the inaccuracies if they exist. Of course, I assumed all shots fired hit.
Chaingun (no traits, target 0 armor)
(1-6) x 5 = 5-30 / round, 3.5 dmg/9mm
(target 3 armor)
([1-6] x 5) - (3 armor x 5) = 0?-15, 1.5 dmg/9mm
Chaingun (SoaB 3, target 0 armor)
(4-9) x 5 = 20-45 / round, 6.5 dmg/9mm
(target 3 armor)
([4-9] x 5) - 15 = 5-30 round, 3.5 dmg/9mm
Chaingun (SoaB 3, Triggerhappy 2, target 0 armor)
(4-9) x 9 = 36-81 / round, 11.7 dmg/9mm -> (72% - 162% damage on the doom character [no ironman]!? this could be a problem if there ever is, in fact, a deathmatch/multiplayer.)
(target 3 armor)
([4-9] x 9) - (3 armor x 9) = 9-54 / round, 8.7 dmg/9mm -> (18% - 108% damage as represented on the doom guy)
The numbers for the plasma rifle are even more devastating, since it gets substantially more effect from SoaB, starting at 8 shots, and as a rule has better armor penetration.
Plasma Rifle (SoaB 3, Triggerhappy 2, target 0 armor)
(4-11) x 12 = 48 - 132, 7.5 dmg/cell -> (96% - 264% damage!?)
(target 3 armor)
([4-11] x 12) - (3 armor x 12) = 12 - 96 / round, 4.5 dmg/cell (24% - 192% damage, with 3 armor!?)
In order to create a scenario where you CANNOT be one-rounded at 100% health, by a plasma rifle with no mods, and SoaB 3 / Triggerhappy 2, you would need a whopping 7 armor.
([4-11] x 12) - (7 armor x 12) = 0? - 48 / round, 2 dmg/cell (0-96% damage still possible, in ONE ROUND, with 7 armor!!)
Of course, the BFG clocks in with an 8-64 damage + (undisclosed detonation damage) + (area damage), which I hypothesize produces, at very best (less against armored targets) 70-90 damage on the main target, giving it a theoretical best case scenario against single targets of about 2 dmg/cell. I believe that's a very generous assessment of the main target damage, and that it in fact never reaches this efficiency outside of closely massed packs.
Once you begin adding damage and speed mods, as well as magazine mods into the picture, it even makes the BFG a weak and inefficient use of cells unless there is a certifiably enormous pack to fire it into.
Additionally, I found SoaB to be very effective in making shotguns a lot more useful at medium to long range, especially against lower life enemies such as the various classes of human, since it helps to nullify the damage/range reduction. This makes the combat shotgun a pretty handy "off-screen shooter" in places like the Arena, as you can get a good distance away, take advantage of the auto-hit + spread, and still enjoy decent damage (relative to your safety level).
Anyhow, just some thoughts, and I'd be interested to hear anyone else's take on SoaB/Triggerhappy. I'm not sure offensive traits like Reloader and Finesse (though obviously Whizkid is very valuable, and Shottyman with Double Shotguns is quite fun) can compete with this amount of utility.
4
Requests For Features / Re: request for new challenges (and other things)
« on: December 08, 2007, 09:00 »
Angel of Carnage
Starts with standard Shotgun
Can only equip Shotguns/Combats/Double Shotguns
More shells are spawned in lower levels
Perhaps a guaranteed Advanced Combat Shotgun and Double Shotgun at certain level landmarks
Also, on the topic of shotguns...Is Reloader supposed to be useless for shotguns once you get Shottyman? If you are focusing on shotguns, it kinda makes Shottyman a 3 point trait. What about either tying Shottyman into Hellrunner (2)? Alternatively, what about making Reloader reduce the distance the game considers your targets at for rolling shotgun damage by 1 square/level?
Starts with standard Shotgun
Can only equip Shotguns/Combats/Double Shotguns
More shells are spawned in lower levels
Perhaps a guaranteed Advanced Combat Shotgun and Double Shotgun at certain level landmarks
Also, on the topic of shotguns...Is Reloader supposed to be useless for shotguns once you get Shottyman? If you are focusing on shotguns, it kinda makes Shottyman a 3 point trait. What about either tying Shottyman into Hellrunner (2)? Alternatively, what about making Reloader reduce the distance the game considers your targets at for rolling shotgun damage by 1 square/level?
5
Requests For Features / Re: Generate Every Special Level For Every Character
« on: December 07, 2007, 06:52 »In fact, Nethack's a bit of a bad example as most of its bonus levels are indeed guaranteed. Even Grayswandir, if you're lawful and feel like spending hours of sacrificing on an altar.
That's kind of why I chose it, since I think most would agree it wouldn't be too cool to have a gnomish mine-less, sokoban-less character. But I digress.
6
Requests For Features / Re: AliensRL Ammo System Seems Right At Home In DoomRL
« on: December 07, 2007, 06:49 »
I seem to have good luck with the Phase Devices getting me out of trouble, I generally drop small kits to keep 2 along. However, the nuke is something I rarely have room for, especially if found early.
7
Requests For Features / Re: Generate Every Special Level For Every Character
« on: December 06, 2007, 22:14 »BTW, the BFG requirement is covered by the halls of carnage -- there is a granted BFG there, and the level itself is granted -- so you can ALWAYS get a BFG. The cathedral and mortuary also ALWAYS appear on difficulty > I'm too young to die, and never on lower.
The only random appearing levels are hell's armory, city of skulls and spider's lair -- and those don't have any unique rewards.
Thanks for educating me on the Halls and Mortuary generation. Though the Armory will be a much greater help when modifying standard weapons + new Whizkid is in release, I didn't realize the others were guaranteed.
Also, as for the Nethack example...obviously guaranteeing GS is silly and not really similar to what I mean. Sokoban, Minetown w/ Cellar + Luck Stone, Fort Ludious (yet to ascend and not see it), these are guaranteed 'bonus' levels I think of. Most of the 'bonus' levels that come immediately to my mind, like the Bigroom, weren't bonuses since they simply replaced another standard level in the dungeon.
8
Requests For Features / Re: Experience For Bleeding Deaths
« on: December 06, 2007, 22:01 »The problem is DoomRL tracks who killed what, to handle (unfortunately invisible) monster experience. Sure I could change it so the player would get all experience for all kills, but that would destroy the planned feature of monster infighting... And the game can't track who did the bleeding separately.
I've experience this, having seen a monster gain a level in a particularly large crossfire. Maybe if you want to address the bleeding issue, you can simply make it so any bleeding related death yields player experience, assuming they were somehow involved. There are probably more player caused bleeding deaths than non-player caused.
9
Requests For Features / Re: AliensRL Ammo System Seems Right At Home In DoomRL
« on: December 06, 2007, 21:53 »
This certainly solves the problem and would be a lot easier, both to implement and to understand. It'd be really great to stack health kits, phase devices, and mods since those are the real inventory killers.
10
Requests For Features / Re: Generate Every Special Level For Every Character
« on: December 06, 2007, 10:46 »"Penalized 100% purely based on luck"?? Hello there, special levels are privilage, not right. And trust me - missing Armory or Halls of Carnage doesn't make game too hard or unbeatable - you just need to try harder, and smarter, instead of relying on "The Big Gun" to see through all the odds.
The game was beaten pure melee before LS was introduced. I think there was sucessfull play through AoMr before mods (not sure though). Blade got somewhere to level 12 or 17 using only knives. I constantly try beating the game with shotguns and shotugns only, and keep getting better at it. There is no reason to give up just beacuse you don't get BFG from Halls or ammo boost from Armory.
What do you call a penalization entirely 100% based on chance. Not Luck? It doesn't matter whether you want to call these levels a privilege or a responsibility, that has absolutely 0 bearing on my point that your ammo, health, and armament situation are highly dependent on your special level selection, which is purely based on chance. I'd even prefer an unlocking system to this, for example, you only generate the Halls of Carnage in your game if you have defeated 95%+ of hell spawn up to that point, or whatever. Also, you must have missed where I said that if the benefits from the special levels are considered too great as a sum total, then they could be reduced. Malek, your rebuttal fundamentally says 'this would make it too easy, these 'bonuses' aren't all necessary,', and thus you should be in agreement with at least most of my suggestion, rather than arguing against it.
Maybe on the lower difficulty levels it makes no difference, on easy those levels can be looked at as bonuses. Is it really in the realm of feasibility for anyone but the elite to manage those accomplishments on Ultra-Violence without the Halls, Armory etc? Even Hurt Me Plenty is pretty brutal. The benefits are three-fold, bonus controllable experience, bonus items, and you can typically expect to leave most of those bonus levels with more health than you entered with thanks to placed supercharges, etc. I know I will be super-pissed if I make it to around level 15 on UV and have not seen a Halls. That will easily be a defining point in the game that I can point to when I die, because chances are that is exactly what will happen in Hell if you are BFG-less on Ultra-Violence. Perhaps I just need to 'try harder and be smarter,' or perhaps you can admit that the higher difficulty levels border on near-impossible and unplayable if you have some bad luck in your early item and level generation, and *then* get hit with a game lacking all the optional special levels. ( DoomRL god-players, not withstanding)
I can see why you'd want to prevent someone from seeing it all in one game to increase replay-ability, but I think you've designed that right into the game. Let's be serious, DoomRL is hard enough that very few people are going to complete it, even on lower difficulty levels, ever. Let alone clear all the special levels. Aside from that fact, the challenge modes often force you into or out of certain special levels, changing the path through the game. Also, though this is not a technical requirement, you've also made it pretty unwise to enter the Mortuary without a BFG. Hell, I've completed the game perhaps 4 times , (and died a couple hundred probably) including AoMr and I've never even seen the Cathedral, and I've cleared the halls perhaps 3 times due to rarely encountering it. I know for a fact if I manage to get that deep in Ultra-Violence, a win simply will not come without seeing the Halls unless I find a lucky BFG. Not to mention that, at least for me, I find it a pretty big buzzkill when I have a solid character going not to get to test his meddle against every possible challenge I come across. It is especially fun to test your stronger characters against the ever-dangerous Mortuary. Shouldn't this be a possibility for every character?
I know this is probably a little more work than the average change, but if the issue is keeping things fresh and varied, consider taking a page from Nethack special level generation (Mine-town is a good example.) Have multiple versions of the Armory for example, guarantee one in each game, but chosen at random, such that someone would have to play each special stage at least 3-4 times to see all the varieties of it. Actually, this sounds like a positive change worth considering regardless. If all else fails, at least increasing the chance to generate all the special levels would be, in my mind, a positive band-aid fix.
Aren't there enough totally random occurences of fireballs being launched at you from off-screen, setting off deadly barrel reactions and every other possible twist of fate, that we don't necessarily need to leave the path of the dungeon purely to chance as well? Is it really a positive thing to generate two identical characters, one of them receiving every bonus level in his dungeon generation, and the other seeing only the Arena, the Court, and perhaps the Wall?
Life may not be fair, but it should be whenever possible.
Edit 1: It would be really easy to reduce the rewards in the special levels, I would think. Delete 1-2 supercharges from the Halls. Knock half the mods and armor out of the Armory. With the Halls, at least, once you have done that the stage has potentially more risk than reward, making it less of a 'bonus' and more of an 'extra challenge'.
11
Requests For Features / Re: AliensRL Ammo System Seems Right At Home In DoomRL
« on: December 06, 2007, 10:11 »
Well, the way it functions now on the lower difficulty levels I think that plasma is often totally useless. You will regularly cart it for 5+ levels, passing up small med-packs or mods as luck would have it.
I think there's plenty of room for a middle ground. Have those first 100 cells go into your 'bandoleer' and make any subsequent ones need to be carried in standard fashion. You could even create a new bandoleer item just for this purpose, it could even be an armor with 0 reduction and operate similar to the Gyro-Stabilizer in AliensRL, providing abilities but not protection and adding another level of tactical decision. Or, of course, this functionality could be built into the backpack instead. I think this might even solve some other problems, since by the time you are around the Wall, you tend to be using your resources faster and inventory is a bit less of a problem, making the actual benefits of those additional slots a little less overpowering. Also, I think this would solve the 'deep shotgun game' problem, where the only way to try and do a mostly shotgun clear of the game (or, realistically, even to use shotguns regularly past level 15) is to cart practically every shell you come across in the early levels into the much later levels where it is nigh impossible to find any shells (and sometimes, 9mm.) This, of course, it not typically that feasible since you need to conserve health resources from those earlier levels in your inventory so you can clear said later levels.
Again, I'm not suggesting all ammo should be like this, but even allowing a clip or two per weapon in 'old Doom ammo' style would make a lot of the early ammo drops less useless and minimize inventory shuffling between stages. Since the problem is overflow, even a small increase to an 'invisible' ammo stash would change or eliminate the need to create large piles of ammo at the downstairs and decide whether to take just your in-gun clip to the next level or dump a health pack for an extra stack.
Really I guess the main issue I'm getting at, inventory annoyance aside, is the fact that if you have got any reasonable amount of Armor/Health/Nukes/Phase Devices, it's pretty much totally impractical to try and keep a type of shotgun, a chain gun, a rocket launcher, and a cell weapon. I often find myself in positions where even three of those will not fit in my inventory, because to cart along those (easily replaceable) shells and bullets, I have to dump medkits. Even worse is trying to carry mods you can't apply, especially in the Armory, though this is much mitigated by the new Whizkid changes incoming and modifying normal weapons. The way the game typically plays for me now is I'll pick two weapons, typically a rocket launcher and a plasma rifle/chaingun as I find them, and just bulk up on the ammo for those two. I think it fits the spirit of Doom more to have a wide selection of usable weapons with a shorter ammo supply.
That's certainly how I remember Doom and Doom II, having 5 shells, 2 rockets, 28 bullets and 14 cells and trying to figure out how to clear the way from point A and B. What I don't remember, is entering the stage with a chaingun, a rocket launcher, 800 bullets, and 50 rockets and using exactly the same weapons and strategy in every room because the tactical benefits of using the right weapon for the right job is completely negated by being forced to dump healthpacks to make that possible.
I think there's plenty of room for a middle ground. Have those first 100 cells go into your 'bandoleer' and make any subsequent ones need to be carried in standard fashion. You could even create a new bandoleer item just for this purpose, it could even be an armor with 0 reduction and operate similar to the Gyro-Stabilizer in AliensRL, providing abilities but not protection and adding another level of tactical decision. Or, of course, this functionality could be built into the backpack instead. I think this might even solve some other problems, since by the time you are around the Wall, you tend to be using your resources faster and inventory is a bit less of a problem, making the actual benefits of those additional slots a little less overpowering. Also, I think this would solve the 'deep shotgun game' problem, where the only way to try and do a mostly shotgun clear of the game (or, realistically, even to use shotguns regularly past level 15) is to cart practically every shell you come across in the early levels into the much later levels where it is nigh impossible to find any shells (and sometimes, 9mm.) This, of course, it not typically that feasible since you need to conserve health resources from those earlier levels in your inventory so you can clear said later levels.
Again, I'm not suggesting all ammo should be like this, but even allowing a clip or two per weapon in 'old Doom ammo' style would make a lot of the early ammo drops less useless and minimize inventory shuffling between stages. Since the problem is overflow, even a small increase to an 'invisible' ammo stash would change or eliminate the need to create large piles of ammo at the downstairs and decide whether to take just your in-gun clip to the next level or dump a health pack for an extra stack.
Really I guess the main issue I'm getting at, inventory annoyance aside, is the fact that if you have got any reasonable amount of Armor/Health/Nukes/Phase Devices, it's pretty much totally impractical to try and keep a type of shotgun, a chain gun, a rocket launcher, and a cell weapon. I often find myself in positions where even three of those will not fit in my inventory, because to cart along those (easily replaceable) shells and bullets, I have to dump medkits. Even worse is trying to carry mods you can't apply, especially in the Armory, though this is much mitigated by the new Whizkid changes incoming and modifying normal weapons. The way the game typically plays for me now is I'll pick two weapons, typically a rocket launcher and a plasma rifle/chaingun as I find them, and just bulk up on the ammo for those two. I think it fits the spirit of Doom more to have a wide selection of usable weapons with a shorter ammo supply.
That's certainly how I remember Doom and Doom II, having 5 shells, 2 rockets, 28 bullets and 14 cells and trying to figure out how to clear the way from point A and B. What I don't remember, is entering the stage with a chaingun, a rocket launcher, 800 bullets, and 50 rockets and using exactly the same weapons and strategy in every room because the tactical benefits of using the right weapon for the right job is completely negated by being forced to dump healthpacks to make that possible.
12
Requests For Features / Re: Tough As Nails Need Improvement Relative to Ironman?
« on: December 06, 2007, 09:45 »
While I won't argue with your observations, I'm not sure they quite address my main issue. I think my big problem with TaN is it, as I noted earlier, gives drastically different benefits based on the enemy target, and it can theoretically sometimes give no help whatsoever (under the assumption that you can't damage reduce past 1 damage/hit) . It is obviously highly useful if you are fighting something with rapid fire (Arach, Commando, Captain) unless you are already hitting the armor limit, which I think may occur with just a Red Armor with captains.
For simplicity's sake, I'll assume a captain's chaingun does the standard 1d6 damage. If I understand armor correctly, that makes only two possible damage outcomes if you are hit wearing Red Armor.
1d6 = (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) - 4 = 1
1d6 = (6) - 4 = 2
This means that only 1 out of 6 shots does level 1 TaN even do *anything* whatsoever, and any levels beyond 1 are totally wasted. A 50% reduction in damage 1/6th of the time leads to barely an 8% reduction in damage taken, against what would be argued as one of the enemies against whom TaN is most effective. The Arachnotron and Commando damage tables would similarly cause at least a modest percentage of hits where TaN is totally wasted. I know you can't plan around a Red Armor all the time, but even if you make it a blue armor you are still faced with TaN doing absolutely nothing against 50% of the shots you are hit by, in the case of the commando. Of course, this is to say nothing of those enemies where TaN is at an even greater disadvantage because of single, substantially higher damage projectiles, which in my opinion also make up the majority of the main threats throughout the game. I haven't taken the trait too frequently as of late, but I don't recall noticing much help from it at all against Barons, Viles, and Cacos.
Now, it's true that sometimes Ironman isn't particularly helpful for one level, but it's not too common that you are completely out of healing items and operating on the skin of your teeth, and many times when you are there neither of these traits is going to save you, so it's not entirely fair to say Ironman always loses in that position. Though Ironman is more of a no brainer when you have 9 large med packs of course, I think when resources are low it is often just as important to get the most out of every small/large life globe you manage to stumble upon.
After reflecting on it a bit more, I think it's a bit less underpowered than I initially thought, but I think my suggestion of having it improve armor's effect is quite workable. What this does it take the times when TaN is at its greatest disadvantage (when you have heavy armor) and therefore least useful, and give it a supplementary use that doesn't fully stack. The idea would be if you have, say, Red Armor that is trivializing your armor from TaN to some extent, that the effect of increasing your armor's durability would counteract that weakness. If you are gaining all the benefit from TaN because you are short on armor, the armor durability effect will be of less use to you. I don't think this would add too much total benefit to TaN while keeping it a more level choice across the board.
For simplicity's sake, I'll assume a captain's chaingun does the standard 1d6 damage. If I understand armor correctly, that makes only two possible damage outcomes if you are hit wearing Red Armor.
1d6 = (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5) - 4 = 1
1d6 = (6) - 4 = 2
This means that only 1 out of 6 shots does level 1 TaN even do *anything* whatsoever, and any levels beyond 1 are totally wasted. A 50% reduction in damage 1/6th of the time leads to barely an 8% reduction in damage taken, against what would be argued as one of the enemies against whom TaN is most effective. The Arachnotron and Commando damage tables would similarly cause at least a modest percentage of hits where TaN is totally wasted. I know you can't plan around a Red Armor all the time, but even if you make it a blue armor you are still faced with TaN doing absolutely nothing against 50% of the shots you are hit by, in the case of the commando. Of course, this is to say nothing of those enemies where TaN is at an even greater disadvantage because of single, substantially higher damage projectiles, which in my opinion also make up the majority of the main threats throughout the game. I haven't taken the trait too frequently as of late, but I don't recall noticing much help from it at all against Barons, Viles, and Cacos.
Now, it's true that sometimes Ironman isn't particularly helpful for one level, but it's not too common that you are completely out of healing items and operating on the skin of your teeth, and many times when you are there neither of these traits is going to save you, so it's not entirely fair to say Ironman always loses in that position. Though Ironman is more of a no brainer when you have 9 large med packs of course, I think when resources are low it is often just as important to get the most out of every small/large life globe you manage to stumble upon.
After reflecting on it a bit more, I think it's a bit less underpowered than I initially thought, but I think my suggestion of having it improve armor's effect is quite workable. What this does it take the times when TaN is at its greatest disadvantage (when you have heavy armor) and therefore least useful, and give it a supplementary use that doesn't fully stack. The idea would be if you have, say, Red Armor that is trivializing your armor from TaN to some extent, that the effect of increasing your armor's durability would counteract that weakness. If you are gaining all the benefit from TaN because you are short on armor, the armor durability effect will be of less use to you. I don't think this would add too much total benefit to TaN while keeping it a more level choice across the board.
13
Requests For Features / Re: Barons and Hell Knights Use of Weapons and Medkits
« on: December 06, 2007, 09:27 »Is a former human who picks up a shotgun advanced to former seregant? :P Also the feature is there to provide some "OMG" factor to the game. "OMG! I didn't know they could use medpacks!"
Even more poignant is the "OMG! I didn't know that rocket launcher on the ground was loaded." Perhaps you could reduce the life they receive from the LARGE medpack in particular, while also removing their ability to pick up pistols or standard shotguns.
14
Requests For Features / Re: Experience For Bleeding Deaths
« on: December 06, 2007, 09:24 »
It's interesting to hear that the first bleeding tick gives experience. Perhaps I haven't paid close attention, I don't remember ever seeing an experience tick from a bleeding kill whatsoever.
This may be one of those things that is more trouble to code than it is ultimately worth. Then again, I think you may as well get experience for all kills, even the ones you create by causing crossfires. Not to award experience kind of implies those aren't 'kosher' methods of killing, and starting crossfires was not only a mainstay but directly designed into tons of Doom levels. Not only that, but it typically creates much more risk trying to do it in DoomRL than it ever did in Doom, and where there's risk, there ought to be reward.
This may be one of those things that is more trouble to code than it is ultimately worth. Then again, I think you may as well get experience for all kills, even the ones you create by causing crossfires. Not to award experience kind of implies those aren't 'kosher' methods of killing, and starting crossfires was not only a mainstay but directly designed into tons of Doom levels. Not only that, but it typically creates much more risk trying to do it in DoomRL than it ever did in Doom, and where there's risk, there ought to be reward.
15
Requests For Features / Generate Every Special Level For Every Character
« on: December 05, 2007, 08:13 »
I can't see any reason why these aren't auto-generated for every character. Missing the Halls of Carnage and the Armory, and sometimes even only one of these, can really put a huge damper in any game beyond 'I'm Too Young To Die' difficulty, through entirely no fault of the player whatsoever. I know randomness is a big part of RL games but I really can't see any reason why any player should be penalized 100% purely based on luck. The only real reason to restrict it is if you feel that the total benefit from clearing all the bonus levels is more than a single player should have. If that is the case, however, the proper course is to reduce the individual level rewards to be more consistent, rather than let the random number generator turn some characters into gods and some into welfare recipients.
Also, it might be really nice if The Wall had a switch somewhere in the starting chamber that collapsed all the walls on the level. This could allow AoMr and maybe even crazy AoB characters to attempt to clear the wall or pick up a backpack. You could even counteract the advantage of this alternate entry by the disadvantage of collapsing all your cover and not having the wall to use to maneuver the Barons/Knights around
Also, it might be really nice if The Wall had a switch somewhere in the starting chamber that collapsed all the walls on the level. This could allow AoMr and maybe even crazy AoB characters to attempt to clear the wall or pick up a backpack. You could even counteract the advantage of this alternate entry by the disadvantage of collapsing all your cover and not having the wall to use to maneuver the Barons/Knights around
Pages: [1] 2