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Thread: 3rd victory, 1st in 10 yrs, OCG ending, wow has adom changed (video within)

  1. #1
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    Default 3rd victory, 1st in 10 yrs, OCG ending, wow has adom changed (video within)

    Needless to say, this is spoily. I'll start out with some general thoughts on the game and then describe the playthrough on the subsequent post (it goes over the character limit)

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    First snip of flg:



    After not beating the game or playing it seriously since 2005 (ultra chaos god, and the one before that was a vanilla ending) , I started dabbling in ADOM more seriously again a year ago, spamming the creation of mist elven duelists (I was always drawn to lithe, agile characters and really wanted to make this work).

    A painful system crash after conquering the TOEF and the fact that it was getting a little addictive made me set it aside for another year. After two or three false starts during january, I got 'Toa' going (literally I just slam some gibberish onto the keyboard with little thought), later renamed to 'Kinky' because like all self-respecting mist elven duelists, she wielded a whip quite effectively. The femaleness/high AP also helped offset the shop penalties of mist elves a little bit.

    This character is a bunch of firsts:
    1. first OCG ending (deliberately set out to do this since it's one I've not done, and I'm honestly not that keen on ultra endings... they're weird, cryptic, meta-gamey, and I wanted to see what a traditional ending would be like). Plus OCG are in some ways more challenging once you know how to do both, which increased the appeal. I just convince myself that the champion of law that ultimately wastes my char is another PC of mine. :P
    2. First time with a stat of 99 (dexterity) after non-temporary modifiers (corruption, equipment). The RNG was insanely kind to me. I never was skilled enough to try the old exploits back when they worked (wish engine, crystals of knowledge, etc.) so it was just good old fashioned luck and grinding that got me there.
    3. First time with a base speed of over 200.
    4. First time with a DV of over 100-- when berserk. Over 200 in coward mode. (flv shows lower because I switched from whip to sceptre due to mistakenly thinking it was necessary).
    5. First time attaining grand master in any weapon skill slot (and prior to the class power kicking in).
    6. First time maximizing alchemy, and putting it to good use.

    It was also my first time playing the game seriously with the new music and tiles. The tiles are nice, and I especially like being able to see the health bar of enemies and their friendly/neutral/hostile state at a glance, that's almost a gameplay-changer.

    The music is BEAUTIFUL. One epic moment stood out: when I woke Yuglash from his slumber with a ball spell, and he suddenly started teleporting around the map and me taking shots at him, while the piece "path of the damned" started playing. It was pure coincidence but happened to beset the moment beautifully.

    (One concern of mine was that after playing the whole soundtrack afterward in the music folder, I realised that I'd not even heard half of the music! I'm wondering if it's playing properly, or is just a bit random. I think perhaps the scores should be a bit more forceful in playing, at least for the first time, on a map. I was also a little bummed that the music was no different upon beating the game, it was identical to death music--despite a score called 'grand finale' in the game folders?).

    One thing I definitely don't miss since I used to play is the 'uber-jackal' effect. That's another reason I stopped playing, as we were saddled with the busted 1.1.1 for a long time. I was definitely in the camp of those who absolutely hated it. I still think enemies can scale in an unbelievable manner that can cheat you out of a sense of progression sometimes, but it is very hard to make anything 'uber' anymore.

    Another stand-out change I think is worth commenting on is the change to stat potential behaviour, and the utiliziation of unmodified stats when determining bonuses. I think this is a mixed blessing. I've not played a wide range of characters to see all of the implications, but my characters certainly seem to manage. But what if the rng fails to throw potions of potential stat your way? They're now one of a VERY few ways to unlock higher stats, so if you don't get them you're kind of stuck, or at least have to reign in your ambitions for what you want your character to achieve. There seem to be some corpses (mainly orb guardians) that force a gain in spite of potentials, but a great many of them don't (I ate oracle corpse and got nothing, for example). I've eaten titan corpses at fairly low strength (not this playthrough, but a more recent one which I'll post about later) and gotten nothing. It also seems counter-intuitive that pouring money into training with Garth can do absolutely nothing.

    On the plus side, I like the simplicity of not having to think about modifiers. It worked both ways: I remember unequipping my bracers of toughness in older versions to maximize morgia root (took me a while to figure out why it wasn't working), which was annoying to have to think about. I'd also do scummy things like sell all the corpses from the ogre village to waldenbrook, then return later with a ring of weakness (which I thought of doing myself, even though no doubt others have as well). At first this felt rewarding, but after a while this became a joyless chore that I did simply to maximize my success chances, not to maximize my fun, so I'm sort of glad the game reigned in my ability to do it, but the game also became less deep for it and doesn't reward creativity as much? I still feel that the system might benefit from being tweaked a bit more, though, particularly as the vast majority of often very rare corpses are useless or hurt more than they help.

    Another change I sort of like is the appearance thwarting the effects of chaos. I managed to keep high appearance most of the game and I tolerated corruptions quite well. It's a pity charisma is still flagging behind on the usefulness scale! It does make me wonder how much more punishing the game is though for low appearance races. I wonder if I'm pretty much in easy mode when I play elves, and mist elves in particular. They do seem like a VERY strong race once you compensate for their weaknesses.

    Anyway, here are the sketchy details that I remember of my characters' journey...
    Last edited by auricbond; 03-11-2015 at 04:49 PM.

  2. #2
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    Abridged version


    In more detail
    She did my usual routine of delving into SMC and retrieving the blanket, then rescuing or at least pre-generating the puppy, AND completing kranach's quest. It's a compulsion of mine.

    She dug in the uninteresting dungeon with a pick-axe for reasons I no longer recall, and a stone giant dropped seven league boots--the same ones I ended up finishing the game with! Normally they get destroyed at some point as I get careless around dragons.

    The change to goblin-slavemasters has been a huge boon for these whip builds. I had a whip of mayhem for a while until later on I wished for a whip of the snake. Until she later got the atlas spell, she mostly used whip and shield. She saved up money for some +5 dx gloves that spawned in the hmv shop, which she also kept on until the final battle.

    Close brush with death #1
    TOEF. I think I'd actually grown bored for some reason after scumming for something in the tomb of the high kings... might be a means of saving khelevaster, since I like to do that even if not shooting for ultra endings. Anyway, I went into the tower very ill-equipped, with only one or two levels of fire resistance, I was taking too much damage. I thought I might be okay with the piles of spenseweed I had, but by reaching the top I'd almost ran out. I think I also tried wearing some regenerating item, I forget what now, that injured my mist-elven skin but I was hoping would offset the damage better than other gear, but no such luck... actually after getting my ass kicked somewhat, I decided to wear the crown of science. Suddenly I had no trouble meleeing the elementals and demons despite the dooming (I was previously attempting ranged combat and failing badly), and a pv of less than 40.

    Now here's the weird thing: I've always considered the second-most dangerous thing in the top level of the tower (besides the wyrm itself) to be the fire elementals and demons--or specifically, their critical hits. I've had quite high PV in the past, in the fourties, only to receive 100 or so surprise damage. In fact I think I was once killed from around 100 with an earlier mist elf, despite the melee damage reduction.

    Which makes it all the more strange that this doomed character with lower pv scarcely received any criticals, if any at all. I'm wondering if it's something to do with enemy leveling (something which the ancardia wiki doesn't dissect as far as I can see). It seems that both critical and armour penetrating chances increase, even for enemies that normally never penetrate armour. They also gain extra attacks in sudden jumps. Now maybe this playthrough, the enemies were for some reason scaled to a lower level and so had a noticeably reduced crit chance and/or the number of hits they dealt?

    That seems kind of awry to me, that the differences can be so erratic and extreme, but since I've not done any testing I can't confirm anything. All I know is, the common enemies of the tower felt easier despite arriving with a character with lower stats than on previous attempts. Maybe I was simply lucky not to get hit so badly, but I swear I've had significantly higher defensive stats on other occasions and struggled not to take heavy damage from the demons & elementals.

    I honestly don't even remember how I took care of the wyrm itself, but I know that I left with middling health and no means of healing except prayer, taking constant damage on the way out. I remember I initially came in with sword of nonnak and a shield (early game I always equip shields on the duelists, despite not being their forte) so that means I had dealt with the graveyard. When the sword strategy wasn't working I switched to another strategy.

    That reminds me of close brush with death #2. I stayed neutral everything up until dealing with the unicorn. I dug the graves in nonnak's graveyard (again probably hoping to save khel) and would interrupt my crimes with a bout of self-flaggelation, assisted with some negative-pv armour. It was quite efficient actually at drawing my alignment back to neutral, perhaps one of the most effective methods? Anyway I eventually dug up an emperor and I was out like a shot.

    I accidentally whacked a cat when auto-piloting a bit too much and careened around a corner of the arena. It wasn't even a cat that I teleported out, it just happened to be there.

    Close brush with death #3 was bug temple. I was able to melee the greater claw bugs (or shoot them), but I had simply forgotten that there was a ring of killer bugs when you enter the main temple (it's been a while). I pulled several of them but was able to leave and teleport away.

    There was a greater vault in the frost giant cave (guarranteed?), it contained both sun's messenger and true aim. Almost seems too good to be a coincidence, perhaps some vaults are themed? I can't actually remember if it was with this that I returned and finished the emperor lich (and the graveyard digging) or if I managed to do it earlier. Bah!

    I returned to the bug temple at some point, I don't remember how I dealt with the ring of bugs but once I'd closed off the tunnels with doors I could melee them provided I dealt with them one at a time, occasionally softening them with spells. I then used the scrolls from the temple to do the minotaur maze.

    By the mid-late game I was a pretty good spell-caster. I'd gained only corruptions that I was quite happy with (might have removed battery or poison hands once) and often worked in favour of the high dexterity build I was going for. I kept the first half of corruptions for the entire game after getting them as they were a boon. I had spent a wish (don't recall when) on a a whip of the snake, which I kept up until my dex hit 99 near the end after which I switched to a SoIMD-buffed whip of slaughtering.

    After the dive for the sceptre and rescuing khel, I had 13 corruption removal scrolls (maybe more). A lucky ed potion/scroll (not sure which) gave me alchemy, and another lucky potion of training got it to 100. Recipe was potion of boost speed + strength. After the infinite dungeon dive and some potion shop emptying, I had a LOT of boost speed potions. By sheer luck, I gained 3 djinn rings after a regular and greater vault in the COC in-between doing the temples, and spent them all on potions of strength (funnily enough, I didn't see a single randomly generated potion of strength). I also gained one or two djinn rings from potion dipping (nerfed, now ), and got a glowing wand as a random drop in the ice dungeon. This, plus the PoGA's from the black unicorn and minotaur emperor explains the high stats!

    Speaking of the ice dungeon, isn't this like an overpowered replacement for the BDC? Unlike BDC you can protect your gear with a ring of fire, and there's little or no corruption on the level.

    Close brush with death #4 was very late game, when I decided to take care of Kherab's quests on a whim (not for the reward, certainly). I'd sold a lot of si's to waldenbrook and it seems npc levels are limitless (bug?). After really struggling to hurt him with missiles (poisoned true aim and sun's messenger) but having no trouble keeping my distance, curiousity and impatience got the better of me and I meleed him for a turn. And well...



    Yeah. 26 attacks. When I ended up hitting space multiple times I thought 'now I've done it'--Fortunately I dodged all but two of the hits, LOL.

    I ended up finishing him with ball spells, arrows were just too slow-going.

    Close Brush with death #5 happened when, again out of boredom--this time due to being OP--I went into the small cave. I was able to (sort of) deal with the enemies there, meleeing the more basic monsters, although I didn't realise that the map could spawn monsters of higher danger level (I thought it simply leveled up the lv1 monsters). I ran out of there when I encountered a water elemental, since I didn't know if its levelled up breath attack could be like the great water dragon's but worse? I also ran into a quicking king that I somehow took out in melee despite being hit a LOT. If it were a queen I'd probably have died, since I think they ignore PV.

    Close brush with death #6 was a blind-raging greater moloch that took half my life away (this was, I believe, on my final trip to finish the game).

    Andor Drakon was pretty straight-forward. He was no match for me, but then an unexpected contingency happened when I splashed him with my acid blood. I could NOT track him down, he was teleporting every turn, and I foolishly corrupted myself splashing around in the pools, failing to notice the message that it was corrupting me, as I raced from one point to another trying to get at him. I was starting to get scared that I may actually fail. Eventually he recovered, and I happily discovered I could dig the squares (For some reason I just assumed at first that they'd be immune to digging) giving me a clear shot, and shot him a few times and wiped some summoned enemies that were in the way with ball spells. Hit him with the sceptre for the finishing blow as I mistakenly thought it was a requirement, like TOTRR is for ultra ending.

    I captured the penultimate and final battle on video. I killed the minions just for something to do while my corruption built. (Only edited this slightly, and it goes on for 54 minutes, so perhaps not very entertaining to watch...)

    Last edited by auricbond; 03-11-2015 at 04:51 PM.

  3. #3
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    No room for inventory, well over character limit.



    Weapon skills, skills, spells, corruption:

  4. #4
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    Conclusion/epilogue, artifacts, stats, monsters slain:

  5. #5
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    I would just like to say, this is quite an impressive post and quite an impressive victory! (Especially for your first one in 10 years!)

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by pjsb1 View Post
    I would just like to say, this is quite an impressive post and quite an impressive victory! (Especially for your first one in 10 years!)
    I appreciate it. The question is what now. Might take a break until the steam version comes out, as the challenge modes might add some extra replayability. I suppose there's also the other race/class combos to try, but i'm not sure they alter the way you experience the game in a huge way...

    *EDIT Another difference in ADOM from when I last played that I forgot to comment on: I hardly ever see armour damage anymore. I know in one of the versions it was so extreme to the point of a bug, but I can't honestly recall a single piece of equipment damage (from heavy hits) in any of the 1.2.0 series. I'm wondering if I was simply doomed in those older games and due to my lack of experience did not realise it? I just remember it was a major annoyance in old games carrying these useless +3 eternium plates and such.
    Last edited by auricbond; 03-12-2015 at 12:35 AM.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by auricbond View Post
    *EDIT Another difference in ADOM from when I last played that I forgot to comment on: I hardly ever see armour damage anymore. I know in one of the versions it was so extreme to the point of a bug, but I can't honestly recall a single piece of equipment damage (from heavy hits) in any of the 1.2.0 series. I'm wondering if I was simply doomed in those older games and due to my lack of experience did not realise it? I just remember it was a major annoyance in old games carrying these useless +3 eternium plates and such.
    Just a question, is ME shield applied BEFORE or AFTER armor PV reduction. Since this can be a proper answer on this mystery.
    Quote Originally Posted by Grey View Post
    This is a gameplay challenge, not an exercise in tedium.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by littlebrather View Post
    Just a question, is ME shield applied BEFORE or AFTER armor PV reduction. Since this can be a proper answer on this mystery.
    Hm, good point, that could well be the reason as I haven't experimented with other races much.

  9. #9
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    very impressive, and this
    212 ancient blue dragons
    brr I don't like lightning monsters.

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