DOOMRL IN GRAFIX IS OUT OH YEAH

[Stabwound]

I've been playing the new version, pretty fun. The last time I played DoomRL extensively was before there were badges, so yeah, there's a ton of new shit. As far as I remember I've only won once, on second-lowest difficulty, and by the looks of it the game has a whole new section after what used to be the old ending (Cyberdemon level) so, yeah. I quit playing for a long time because the game would constantly lock up on my computer, making me start over. Kornel promised that the SDL version would fix that, so here we are today with the SDL version finally out.

The game is great, though. Such a high quality game, especially considering it's all made by one guy. The Doom music and sound effects definitely help, though.

After playing with the tiles I like them more, but I find some things hard to identify by just looking at the tile (monsters aside, which are pretty good representations of the actual thing). I agree that the view seems a little claustrophobic, however.

By the way, does anyone experience the game screwing up and no longer telling you what you're standing on? I play with keyboard only, but randomly this will happen and I have no idea why. It's irritating as fuck, especially because of how difficult it is to visually discern what the objects are.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

For whatever reason I haven't had any trouble discerning the items on the ground just by looking at them (better monitor maybe?), so I've been ignoring the what you're standing on messages.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

Played for the first time, got up to level 8, good stuff.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Seen the news about this and decided to make it my first roguelike - couldn't ignore the idea of topdown turn-based shoopin' in Doom.

Oh God bros, it's so awesome

 

[empi]

Fun little roguelike
Graphics keep doom atmosphere
Great for what it is

 

[Gord]

Has anyone some experience with the Technician class?
The special abilities seem a bit underwhelming to me and there aren't too many occasions to actually mod much or use advanced assemblies.
Unless mod packs become much more common later on, I'm not so sure about the usefulnes of the class so far.

 

[mkultra]

Better news is that he is moving on to AliensRL, yay!

Graphics version? Where did you read that?

Made a little donation to him.. AliensRL would be awesome (can't stand ASCII though).

 

[spectre]

Gord
Regarding the starting traits,
I like Map hacking, it is as good as 2xintuition on the maps when you can use it. Instant item use ain't bad too.
Having immediate acces to wizzkid is also a nice plus, because from what I gather you used to be able to put two mods into everything from the get go in the earlier versions,
now you need at least one level of Wizzkid for the simplest assemblies.
EDIT: Hum, turns out that's actually not true. You CAN make make basic (two-mod) assemblies, even though the items initially accept only one mod.

At first glance, technicial looks like he's all about using the shit out of assemblies and modpacks.
But, looking at the master traits themselves, i thinks he's the guy to try for some oddball builds, like a non-dual wield pistol specialist, or a dual wielding chainsword melee guy.

So far I'm playing mostly as scout, but I've been planning a Technican build around the assault rifle - you can build it quickly, it only takes some luck to find the third, non-guaranteed agility mod.
Then you can just pursue the chaingun master trait that increases your resistances for added durability.

By the way, anyobody has any tips on beating the wall consistently? Last time I managed that, I blasted the entire place to hell with rokkits. They ate up all the rewards in the process, so I was understandably underwhelmed.
I'm beginning to wonder if the backpack thingie is worth the hassle, because it seems that the place is best skipped unless I get really lucky with the drops until then.

 

[Stabwound]

Yeah, I don't see how The Wall is possible at that point without rocketing the piss out of everything that comes in sight. I'm avoiding all spoilers so maybe there are better tactics.

On and regarding my complaining about not being able to tell what the graphic tiles were, changing from windows to fullscreen solved that issue.

What a great, addictive game.

 

[spectre]

I tried tactical shotgun sniping with intuition. Worked Ok-ish, for as long as I fought the regular knights 1v1. I ran out of medikits eventually :-/
I have a feeling that you have to exploit the AI sight mechanics to pull this off perfectly, but I still need more practice with that. It does feel cheesy when it works though.
Oh well, can't have good roguelikes without cheesy tactics, I suppose.

 

[someone else]

Graphics version? Where did you read that?

No mention of graphics version.

 

[Darth Roxor]

By the way, anyobody has any tips on beating the wall consistently?

My last few runs were with a superfast shotgunmaster scout (scout -> tacticool armour -> shottyman -> hellrunner at the point of the wall), and the wall wasn't much of a problem. Stay on the edge of sight, keep shooping. With uberspeed, you should even get 2 shots off before they go into vision, bonus points if you also cause knockback. Then you take a step back. Shoop again. Rinse and repeat. Takes a while and you're likely to run out of shotgun ammo if you don't collect it like mad in all previous levels, but it seemed effective.

 

[Gord]

What rewards are there supposed to be at The Wall?
When I finally beat it yesterday I only found a couple of rockets, didn't even replace the ones I had to use.

Then again, I had blasted most of the enemies with rockets and only applied a few doses of double-shotgun in between.

spectre
Map hacking is nice, yes, but you are probably right and the technician is more about unusual builds instead of assemblies, but both approaches make it a somewhat back-loaded class, as you need decent exp and equipment to play its strengths (barring the likely possibility that I'm just a hopeless noob and fail to grasp its strengths).
Incidentally I found a shit-ton of mod packs with my last scout character...

 

[spectre]

Finally managed to nail the wall proper good.
What's better, all I got were utterly shit drops, had to do it with just a regular shotgun.
Turned out, it's doable, I breached the wall in such a way, that there will be corners to hide behind. Then I just proceeded to lure the barons one by one (easy with intuition) and shotgunsnipe them until they die.
In fact, the hide behind corners trick made it very, very easy. I still had to take a few meds, but 2x large medpac + 2x small medpack ain't too bad trade.

Just to rub it in, I only got the assault shotgun on Deimos (with mods to make a tactical shotty at taking up inventory space for a few levels now)

Finally died to the shambler. Wasn't prepared for it I guess.

Spoiler

The rewards are a backpack that increases ammo stacks by 40% and an exotic rocket lancher that has a magazine and +10 accuracy. Not a big fan of regular RLs, because they miss a lot for me, but the backpack and exp were worth it.
(Fuck, where did the spoiler tag go?)

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Yeah the rewards at the Wall are definitely worth it if you can avoid blowing them up. Part of the problem with the rocket launcher type weapons is you cant aim them at a specific square for the splash damage, if you don't hit your target, the rocket sails past and until it hits something. On my current run I finally got past the Cyberdemon (BFG says hai), and I'm into Deimos. Using a Scout with all the shotgun traits, but unfortunately I blew up the goodies at the wall, so ammo/inventory space is a little problematic. Anyway, I basically have been using spectre's tactics for the wall. Of course, I haven't bothered with intuition, so it's a little tougher, and the whole thing can quickly go sour when I aggro 3 barons and they start blowing up my cover.

Good times.

Edit: Ended up getting a total win on that run. Spider Mastermind is no match for the Jackhammer.

--------------------------------------------------------------
DoomRL (v.0.9.9.6G) roguelike post-mortem character dump
--------------------------------------------------------------
 
Obvs, level 12 Imp Corporal Scout,
defeated the Mastermind on level 8 of Hell.
He survived 112106 turns and scored 116147 points.
He played for 3 hours, 27 minutes and 16 seconds.
He didn't like it too rough.
 
He killed 835 out of 868 hellspawn. (96%)
He held his right to remain violent.
 
He saved himself once.
 
-- Special levels --------------------------------------------
 
  Levels generated : 11
  Levels visited  : 11
  Levels completed : 9
 
-- Awards ----------------------------------------------------
 
  UAC Star (bronze cluster)
  Aurora Medallion
  Explorer Badge
  Grim Reaper's Badge
  Hell Champion Medal
  Hell Armorer Badge
  UAC Bronze Badge
  Lava Bronze Badge
  Reaper Bronze Badge
  Reaper Silver Badge
  Reaper Gold Badge
  Scavenger Bronze Badge
  Scavenger Silver Badge
 
-- Graveyard -------------------------------------------------
 
  ###########################################################
  #>#####################................................####
  ######################...............####...............###
  #####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
  ####################........####.....####.....####........#
  ###################.........####.....####.....####.........
  ##################..........####..............####.........
  #################..........................................
  #################....####............................####..
  #################...&####............................####..
  #################....####............................####&.
  #################....####............................####..
  #################.............%............................
  ##################.........X####..............####.........
  ###################.........####.....####.....####.........
  ####################........####.....####.....####........#
  #####################.......####.....####.....####.......##
  ######################...............####...............###
  #>#####################................................####
  ###########################################################
 
-- Statistics ------------------------------------------------
 
  Health 40/60  Experience 64470/12
  ToHit Ranged +0  ToHit Melee +0  ToDmg Ranged +0  ToDmg Melee +0
 
-- Traits ----------------------------------------------------
 
  Class : Scout
 
    Ironman          (Level 1)
    Finesse          (Level 1)
    Hellrunner      (Level 2)
    Reloader        (Level 2)
    Juggler          (Level 1)
    Dodgemaster      (Level 1)
    Intuition        (Level 2)
    Shottyman        (Level 1)
    Shottyhead      (Level 1)
 
  Rel->Rel->SM->HR->Fin->Jug->MSh->Iro->HR->DM->Int->Int->
 
-- Equipment -------------------------------------------------
 
    [a] [ Armor      ]  Necroarmor [6/6] (97%)
    [b] [ Weapon    ]  Jackhammer (8d3)x3 [0/9]
    [c] [ Boots      ]  Enviroboots [0]
    [d] [ Prepared  ]  nuclear BFG 9000 (8d8) [40/40]
 
-- Inventory -------------------------------------------------
 
    [a] plasmatic combat shotgun (7d3) [5/5]
    [b] rocket launcher (6d6) [1/1]
    [c] BFG 9000 (11d8) [100/100] (P1)
    [d] Angelic Armor [1/7] (7%)
    [e] shotgun shell (x50)
    [f] shotgun shell (x41)
    [g] rocket (x2)
    [h] small med-pack
    [i] large med-pack
    [j] large med-pack
    [k] large med-pack
    [l] large med-pack
    [m] homing phase device
    [n] power mod pack
    [o] technical mod pack
    [p] bulk mod pack
    [q] lava element
    [r] phaseshift boots [4/4] (84%)
    [s] shell box (x94)
    [t] shell box (x100)
 
-- Resistances -----------------------------------------------
 
    Acid      - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 100%
    Fire      - internal 0%    torso 0%    feet 100%
 
-- Kills -----------------------------------------------------
 
    177 former humans
    82 former sergeants
    31 former captains
    63 imps
    58 demons
    229 lost souls
    46 cacodemons
    42 hell knights
    38 barons of hell
    28 arachnotrons
    3 former commandos
    13 pain elementals
    6 revenants
    11 arch-viles
    2 bruiser brothers
    1 shambler
    1 lava elemental
    1 agony elemental
    1 Cyberdemon
    1 Spider Mastermind
    1 Arena Master
 
-- History ---------------------------------------------------
 
  He started his journey on the surface of Phobos.
  On level 2 he entered Hell's Arena.
  He left the Arena as a champion!
  On level 4 he stormed the Chained Court.
  On level 4 he found the Arena Master's Staff!
  On level 4 he assembled a tactical boots!
  He defeated the Hell Arena Master!
  On level 6 he found the Grammaton Cleric Beretta!
  On level 6 he assembled a fireproof armor!
  On level 7 he witnessed the Wall.
  He massacred the evil behind the Wall!
  On level 8 he encountered the Phobos Anomaly.
  On level 10 he entered Hell's Armory.
  On level 10 he found the Acid Spitter!
  He destroyed the evil within and reaped the rewards!
  On level 11 he assembled a plasmatic shrapnel!
  On level 11 he ventured into the Halls of Carnage.
  On level 13 he found the City of Skulls.
  He wiped out the City of Skulls.
  On level 14 he found the Trigun!
  On level 14 he ventured into the Spider's Lair.
  He cleared the Lair, kickin' serious spider ass!
  On level 15 he found the Enviroboots!
  On level 16 he found the Tower of Babel!
  On level 17 he invaded the Unholy Cathedral!
  He fled the Unholy Cathedral seeing no chance to win.
  On level 19 he found the Jackhammer!
  On level 19 he entered the Vaults.
  On level 19 he found the Berserker Armor!
  He managed to scavenge a part of the Vaults treasures.
  On level 20 he was foolish enough to enter the Mortuary!
  On level 20 he found the Angelic Armor!
  He managed to clear the Mortuary from evil!
  On level 22 he entered the Lava Pits.
  On level 22 he found the Necroarmor!
  He managed to clear the Lava Pits completely!
  Then at last he found Dis!
  On level 24 he finally defeated the Mastermind.
 
-- Messages --------------------------------------------------
 
You swap your weapons instantly!
You swap your weapons instantly!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You reload the Jackhammer. You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are
hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You feel vulnerable again.
You are hit! You are hit! You are hit! You are hit!
You start running!
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The Spider Mastermind dies. Congratulations! You defeated the Spider
Mastermind! Press <Enter>...
You feel relatively safe now.
lying here.
 
-- General ---------------------------------------------------
 
14 brave souls have ventured into Phobos:
13 of those were killed.
 
1 souls destroyed the Mastermind...
1 killed the bitch and survived.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Heresiarch]

Got killed AGAIN by the Mastermind. Was running an Angel of Shotgunnery. I suffered at least two lethal mistakes:

1. Equipped the Cybernetic Armor at around level 12. Turns out that while it helped for the first 2 levels, it turned to be a massive burden in all the later levels. An unrepairable, unmoddable, un-unequipable armor that also slows you by 30% which can be reduced to 0 armor easily due to the massive firepower of late game demon hordes, SUCKS.
2. I explored the Vault thinking I could handle everything easily. I jumped in with invulnerability on and used the Arena Master's Staff to blow up all the openable walls. Turns out that was a big mistake - the Arachnotrons and Barons all randomly wandered around and easily flanked me. After killing them, the only stuff worth mentioning in the level was a BFG 10K. But I was on a AoSh run!!! I wasted at least 3 large kits for nothing.

In the end I was forced to face the Mastermind with 100% health, an -30% speed armor with 0 defense, and only one large medkit. And TONS of ammo, because my last AoSh run ended at like level 20 because I ran out of shells...so I preserved a TON of shells this time. And guess what, apparently with using the elephant gun (which absolutely rocks) a lot, I could preserve the shells in hundreds...

 

[Stabwound]

Note to self: do not enter Spider's Lair.

 

[Occasionally Fatal]

Well what build did you have? Each time I managed to hit the Spider's Lair, I was able to use the micro launcher (RL w/ size 4 magazine) on the 4 visible spider dudes and then make a break for the nearest teleporter. Once I was over on one of the sides I was able to split them up and manage them one at a time. On runs where I didn't have the micro launcher, I could still just blitz to the nearest TP before taking any damage. Could be because I was a scout.

So I've been trying to do the Angel of Marksmanship (pistols only). It's fun, but frustrating. Just had a good run where I made 2 speedloader pistols and blitzed towards Gun Kata as (you guessed it) a Scout. Past runs I had taken Intuition after Dual Gunner, but I had been fucking up before getting to Gun Kata and I really wanted to see it in action so I passed on Intuition this time. Took out the Bruiser Brothers without too much hassle, the Souls were probably harder, though I just ran out to trigger them then booked it back to the starting point for the choke. Things were going OK on the second episode, rolled through Hell's Armory and The Mortuary (I think, the place where the Lava burns everything behind you). Finally got Gun Kata. It was pretty kool. But then! A revenant appears! And he's 50% resistant to bullets! FUUUUUCK. Also, earlier in the level, I hit a lever that removed all the walls on the level. FUUUUUUUUUUCK. I tried attacking him, but got worked, as there was nowhere to hid from his missiles and I did shit damage. So I ran away. Killed everything else on the level. But my armor was destroyed and things were no longer looking so rosy. I thought I would now just run over to the exit and get out of there. As I was running past a lava pit and barrel, in an area I thought was away from the Revenant, suddenly, BOOM, KABOOM I die! Bastard happened to be in the corner I was trying to use to get around where I thought he was. There was no opportunity to react, he appeared on screen and rocketed me. But, I dodged! Unfortunately the lava barrel beside me did not dodge, thus I was hit by the rocket, the exploding barrel, AND the subsequent lava. Death on level 13.

This is my tale of woe.

 

[Stabwound]

I've been avoiding any spoilers or tactics spoilers so it's kind of rough going. I basically just went into the stairs and got annihilated before I could even reach one of the teleporters.

Good times, anyway.

 

[trotof]

I basically just went into the stairs and got annihilated before I could even reach one of the teleporters.

Not sure if you know this but hitting Tab will change your tactic to running. This will give you bonus to movement speed and dodge and you can usually reach teleporter or stairs without much trouble.
Be aware that after running for some time you'll become tired and must use medkit or descend to the next level to be able to run again. It's kind of panic button.

 

[Stabwound]

Yeah, I totally forgot about the running thing, and I also had a homing phase device in my inventory which means it was pretty much the stupidest death ever. I "mis-underestimated" how much damage a ring of spiders would do in one round.

Another question, is it just me or is the chaingun almost a useless weapon? I find myself using the shotgun almost exclusively, upgrading to better shotguns before getting something like the plasma rifle. The shotgun has knockback, a wide spread to hit multiple enemies, and the chaingun doesn't and also seems to miss 50% of the time. The enemies keep advancing on you while the chaingun is firing.

It seems like the game is a lot longer than it used to be and barely qualifies as a "coffeebreak" roguelike anymore. I guess it's cool that it's fleshed out, but I kind of liked the fact that the average player could breeze through a game in 20 minutes before. Yeah I'm sure good players can still do it, but my last game was 1.5 hours when I died, and I don't think I was even 1/2 through the levels.

 

[Gord]

With one or two levels of Eagle Eye the chaingun can be a nice weapon in the early game, as most weak enemies will dye from one burst. Especially if you are far away from an enemy it gives better results than a shotgun, at least to me. I usually stop using it when I find better shotguns and stronger enemies turn up, though.

 

[desocupado]

How you deal with a fuckton of Lost Souls? I reached a level where there were a fuckton of them, and no chokepoints. I was always surrounded, and I ran out of shotgun bullets. Died there.

 

[spectre]

In general, shotguns and running are your friends against lost souls. Double barreled shotgun is especially effective when surrounded, cause it can hit 3 places directly in front of you, but the reload is slow.
Running is also good, because the to-hit penalty you get doesn't do anything. Shotguns always hit, although running is only good for minimizing damage in this case - you will get hit once every step, instead of twice.

I only remember two levels with a fuckton of lost souls, first one is deimos anomaly, in this case your best bet is to run backwards and shotgun them, using a large medikit or two and hoping that your red armor lasts. Sometimes the cacodemons actually help you out by blasting a few by accident. It's also a bit easier to pull off if you have a phase device on you.
The second such incident is the city of skulls, in this case you should have a tactical shotgun on you and a BFG, which is about all that you need in a situation like that. It's kinda mandatory to have at least 100x shells in this situation, so I would skip CoS if you don't (and make a mental note to stock up on spare shells for situations like this, it also helps in the inevitable archvile + lots of formers scenario) - the reward is not THAT special, imo.

Stabwound I just managed to consistently clear the arachnotron lair. Got the same reward on both times, it was kinda underwhelming so if it's indeed guaranteed, I'd have to concurr that it's not worth the hassle.
The trick is getting to the first teleporter, easily done with running. It should place you somewhere closer to cover where you can wait for the spiders to come one after another and cornershot them. Only problem is when you have to deal with two
on both sides of the wall you're hiding behind (happens from time to time), in such case you just have to take it like a man and be ready to use up a medikit or two.

Another question, is it just me or is the chaingun almost a useless weapon? I find myself using the shotgun almost exclusively, upgrading to better shotguns before getting something like the plasma rifle. The shotgun has knockback, a wide spread to hit multiple enemies, and the chaingun doesn't and also seems to miss 50% of the time. The enemies keep advancing on you while the chaingun is firing.

I too find shotguns superior. Always wanted to make a machinegunner, but ended up just using the tactical shotgun. The knockback, as observed, is better and shotguns seem much more ammo-efficient. Although it's not like CG builds can't be fun.
Looking at the math, I think it all boils down to this - you can use a shotgun efficiently with no traits (although shotgunner and army of the dead make it really shine, anybody can utilize a tactical shotgun and get good results), chaingun builds give more raw damage (4d6 is slightly better dice than 8d3, taking into account that you always do at least 1 damage with each succesful hit) and are much more receptive to traits to increase that damage even further.
It will eat up ammo like mad, but to be honest, try killing an archivile with shells only and no army od the dead and tell me if it's ammo efficient. Anyways, there are ways to mitigate that. An assault rifle can be assembled easily if you got first level of wizkid (two agility mods are guaranteed, third can be found with some luck) that has nice accuracy and good damage (2d4 per bullet x2, gets pretty sick whem you slap triggerhapy on top and start chain firing), allows to conserve ammo a bit more, and you get a nice increase for every level of triggerhappy and son of bitch here.
Finally, virtually any skills that pump CG are useful for a plasma rifle, so your build remains useful. It's debatable whether it's as efficient as my current favorite - BFG +3x bulk mod for mopping up and boss fights plus tactical shotgun for everything else, but it should be viable.

 

[desocupado]

It was the City Of Skulls. I had the BFG but at the time I thought it did friendly fire, so I ended up not using it much. I had the double barreled shotgun, but almost no shells.