Impressions on Descent: Insane, cold start, no-death, 100%

[Alter-Fox]

I think A Future Pilot added cd music dxas to his DXX-rebirth installer... if you can't find it there I know I have at least one of them.
I really like the Descent 2 redbook songs; once you get past the industrial guitars and distorted voices it really feels a lot more like Descent 1's music than the midis in Descent 2 do.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Xfing, about the music in D2, I am not a fan of 4 repeating tracks, too. But Calmarius said somewhere that he plays without music and then just adds the music track he likes in video editor.
And this is what I do, either. Because when playing on Insane no death no save failure to hear and react to robot or door sound may be very high. But probably it should be a matter of editing mission resources, a level designer should know how to add music to a mission.

[Xfing]

Ok, I got all the soundtracks. Unfortunately, I can't get Rebirth to play them without renaming them to or "descent2.dxa". There are no problems of that sort with D1X, it's only a D2X issue. Is there a way for Rebirth to acknowledge them without renaming? At this rate I'm gonna lose track as to which soundtrack is which

EDIT: Scratch that. I just forgot that I had an OPL midi soundtrack already in the main folder. Rebirth just can't handle two

[kakhome1]

While it is admittedly not as good as D1's musics, I wouldn't mind it only if there were not just FOUR repeating songs. Maybe have done at least twelve, so you hear each only twice - or even just reusing D1 tracks apart from the four new ones and picking which fits best on each level (as opposed to just going in sequence) would have been better.

Thankfully, several custom missions, though not all, include extended soundtracks. Of the big ones, TEW and AF are weakest on this regard (AF is obviously the weakest in that it has no new music at all), while Vignettes and LL are strongest, including full or nearly full-length soundtrack. I think Vignettes is my favorite soundtrack of any mission that (primarily) does not use original compositions (Levels 7/19/20 are originals from Pumo; Level 9 and Level 14 in D1/15 in D2 are from Contra; Levels 3/25 are from Lufia II; Levels 17/21 are from Metroid Prime; Level 22 I've not determined the source for; and remaining levels are from Battletoads/Double Dragon games). However, LL has fitting music on each level too, IMO, incorporating 13 D1 tracks (normal levels up to Level 18, excluding Level 13), 6 FF7 tracks (boss levels), 3 Sonic tracks (Levels 19/22/23), 1 Ultimate DooM track (Level 21), and an independent composition (Level 13).

[Alter-Fox]

Was never a fan of the FF7 music in LL, it just never seems to fit in as well as it does in its own game which makes it feel tacked on.

[Sirius]

Yeah, the reason AF didn't have a soundtrack was that we no longer knew of active composers in the community. It's not something that was done purposely.

[Xfing]

On a different note though - damn, is level 10 hard... haven't been able to even make it to the blue key thus far. Reminds me of the difficulty of level 11 from Descent, this one does.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Accidentally yesterday I played it for my collection of difficult D2 level 100% coldstarts, took a while to learn and quite many attempts to record a successful run (but I think less than 15, and maybe 3-4 long ones, others were early restarts or deaths due to running out of energy). But at last made it to the exit with 200 shields. I think this level is very interesting and very well designed wrt to robot/weapon/powerup placement and overall gameplay, and good strategy and knowledge of powerup locations is absolutely necessary to make a good run, especially a 100% run. Has some very nasty traps, too. But for those who want an easier way, this level allows to skip a lot of robots and matcens activations if you know how it works, makes it relatively easy if your goal is simply to get to the exit. But of course for us skipping anything is not a way to go Definitely it became one of my favorite levels (level 12 is of the same kind, and similar design, BTW, but a bit harder because of the boss). But I won't compare it to D1 L11 directly, because mostly this D2 L10 level can be learned and practiced, you only need a bit of luck in the beginning to get to the energy center. And it does not kill you instantly like D1 level does. Where D1 L11 needs A LOT of luck in every part of it. I think CS L 21, L22 provide more similar challenge to D1 L11.

[Alter-Fox]

Yeah, the reason AF didn't have a soundtrack was that we no longer knew of active composers in the community. It's not something that was done purposely.

Well, it meant you could play it with the cd music without losing anything, and get more music tracks that way. Probably better than having just four custom songs.
As far as I got into AF in co-op, Descent Maximum's track order seemed to be best for it.

[Xfing]

Still struggling with the level. It's the evilest level I've played so far, bar none. The farthest I've made it so far is to the yellow door, and that only twice out of ~100 tries. Screw this level with a red hot iron rebar.

[kakhome1]

Where are you generally taking big hits to your health (or running out out of energy with no center being reachable)? I doubt this level is even the hardest, it's only Level 10 after all. But perhaps someone here can help you if they know where you keep being toasted (not me, sorry, because I do not even close to play Insane cold start no save).

[AlexanderBorisov]

Still struggling with the level. It's the evilest level I've played so far, bar none. The farthest I've made it so far is to the yellow door, and that only twice out of ~100 tries. Screw this level with a red hot iron rebar.

It is definitely harder than everything before, but not that bad, you probably do smth non optimally, For the hardest, wait until 21 or 22. I will put my run on Youtube today late evening. You can look at least at the beginning if you don't want too much spoilers. Unfortunately Calmarius run skips a lot of things there but I used some of his tricks, too. It is also worth to look up all cloaks and invuln, and strong missiles in the level (maybe in level editor) before developing final strategy.

[Xfing]

It's not about instant deaths - you'll learn to avoid those in both games with any amount of skill and knowledge of the level. Descent 2 is more about wearing you down bit by bit. You can still die instantenously in this level though. The blue area itself is probably the easiest for me so far, though I make it to exploring it only like once every 10 tries or so. Also, getting rid of all the yellow buggers can be tricky, but it's necessary if going for 100%. The yellow area is a death trap, and while the omega matcen can help you big time, your gauss ammo is limited, and there is no real way to recharge energy from there either, so you need to plan this extra carefully. I made it to that part only twice so far, cleared out most of the area but i got pwned by enemies on the way out. It's definitely doable, but damn is it hard

I'm not one to give up easily though, you'll likely have a demo by the end of the week.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Yes I think you can do it if you got to the red key area at last. Everything beyond it only needs corrects strategy, not so hard. I put my run with explanations on Youtube

at least you could compare it later to yours. Especially from the point of strategy used.

[Xfing]

Great run! Very elegant and well-strategized. I like how you took care of the thief right away, I didn't know it was possible, especially since the road to the energy center is quite long. Great use of cloaks and invulnerabilities too, and the strategy for the yellow door area was brilliant. You have however missed some secrets, namely the second quad laser powerup in a hidden area in the ceiling right next to the entrance to the first hostage cell by the energy center and the 4 homing missiles hidden in the ceiling of that one cube alcove in the red brick area beyond the blue door. I might try and recreate some of your strategies in my next run, see how I do.

[AlexanderBorisov]

I knew about the quad laser near the hostage cell, but not about the homing missile pack. But I usually don't care much about the secrets I don't need.
I think the strategy can be further improved on some points : 1) Don't waste energy trying to hit the switch from afar in the first grated corridor. Those few missing energy units cost me a lot of damage later because I was unable to kill the diamond claw and e-bandit that came from the blue key pit, before going to the energy center. 2) I could probably use the invulnerability in the secret near the red key to clear all hornets (but then you are risking a bit when clearing the matcens when returning through yellow door). Anyway hornets are not a big danger, so who cares, and I had 200 hp in the end anyway. Wish you luck with this level, too!

[Xfing]

Level 10: Finally made it! What a ★■◆● of a level, really. A bit easier if you know what you're doing, but plenty of things can still go wrong. Of all though, I would say the initial portions of the level are the hardest. Once you get the blue key, the restricted areas are quite a bit more forgiving. What's funny, on my successful run, I botched getting the invulnerability secret in the reactor chamber, as two smelters were blocking all my guideds, so I had to clear that area the old-fashioned way. The red area was very suboptimal, but somehow I managed. I'm soooo glad to be done with this level at long last!

As for my impressions on the level itself - it does have this D1 feel to it in places, especially with the grated passages reminescent of D1 level 26. The texturing in some places also brings level 11 to mind, though of course the geometry is much more elaborate than in D1. The matcens are placed very strategically so that there's almost always something in your way when backtracking, the level is punishing through and through. But it's pretty well designed, I'll give it that. Now I don't want to even think about the problems I'm gonna have with the subsequent levels...

DEMO: https://www.sendspace.com/file/669ee8

Oops, turns out the demo glitches out at one point beyond the yellow door, and there's not much I can do about it :< Perhaps it's too large? I sure as hell don't want to record it again

EDIT: And I did record it again! Of course my perfectionism wouldn't let me stand for a lack of proof of my success - this time the run was much more successful, no major screwups at all, a healthy amount of shields at the exit, and all secrets obtained, including the ones that only become accessible once the reactor's been busted. Too bad though, because it also glitches for me, and at the very same part of the level! I'll try to play it back on DOSBox vanilla and if it runs smoothly there, I'll let Zico know that the newest version of Rebirth might be producing damaged demo files. Anyway, it's quite surprising how quickly you can succeed again once you do it the first time. I found that most situations in the level have become predictable, and if I know what I'm doing, I can't really fail, bar sloppy play of course. Still, it's a hard level that requires you to know what weapons to use at what time, have foreknowledge of traps and situations that will await you and be quick, precise and deliberate.

NEW DEMO: https://www.sendspace.com/file/vm8tjw

Turns out vanilla Descent plays it back no problem, the same is true for the first demo too! In the meantime, I'll submit a bug report for Zico. You might be able to play the demos back in a stable version of Rebirth too.

[AlexanderBorisov]

BTW the first demo works ok in my Rebirth 0.58.1 (apart from the door behind the yellow door, which stayed half-opened for a second), however, robot behavior in the beginning seems a bit different, in yours thief didn't show up before you got to the energy center, and e-bandits in the second room (right from the start room) did not attack like they do for me, the diamond claw around the blue key, too. Maybe it was just the lucky RNG, I'll definitely look at the second demo too. I see, zero shields at exit, definitely worth another run. Also seen some "strategical" faults in the first run like attacking a seeker near the red door with lasers instead of Vulcan or Gauss, or seeker near the blue+yellow door not cloaked (on my version it often dodges, than advances and does a lot of damage since you cannot dodge missiles in the grated corridor). Of course, exit traps should be handled by smart mines (I forgot it in my run, too), and fighting hornets+omegas in the red area from the hostage area is not the best idea...
Still don't understand how you returned to the red area and found more red hornets, I thought you eliminated them all in the first fight.

But liked how you took the Gauss in the beginning (I delayed it for some reason, maybe because I was ok with Vulcan for seekers and lou guard and used lasers and helix for everything else). However Gauss is definitely helpful against those yellow buggers. I also thought that taking Gauss activates the matcens between blue and yellow doors. And how you dealt with the matcens trigger that fires when you cross the waterfall and go to another blue door by returning to it immediately.

[Xfing]

BTW the first demo works ok in my Rebirth 0.58.1 (apart from the door behind the yellow door, which stayed half-opened for a second), however, robot behavior in the beginning seems a bit different, in yours thief didn't show up before you got to the energy center, and e-bandits in the second room (right from the start room) did not attack like they do for me, the diamond claw around the blue key, too.

In all my runs (must have been over a hundred), the thief never came to the entry area of the level. I always "woke him up" once I reached the area with the matcen, and dealt with him from there. With more tries, I found more places to trap him at, be it the beginning of the level like you did, against the red door or in the first tunnel with the two grated sections - for some reason he insists on coming at you while there instead of fleeing, which makes him basically impale himself on my laser fire. As for the two seekers, I've almost always gotten the first one to lurk behind the pit like in the demo, and the second one rarely gets alerted before it makes visual contact. The diamond claw in the blue key pit, on the other hand, has a strong tendency to roam. He did do it in my second demo.

Maybe it was just the lucky RNG, I'll definitely look at the second demo too. I see, zero shields at exit, definitely worth another run.

I think it was like 18 to be precise, I did pick up the hidden shield stash

Also seen some "strategical" faults in the first run like attacking a seeker near the red door with lasers instead of Vulcan or Gauss

Believe it or not, that run was in no way indicative of my usual proceedings in regards to that Seeker. I usually jump him with Vulcan right after the immediate area is cleared and the matcens drained out to allow for comfortable movement. I just happened to beat the level while doing it this extremely stupid and suboptimal way with lasers

or seeker near the blue+yellow door not cloaked (on my version it often dodges, than advances and does a lot of damage since you cannot dodge missiles in the grated corridor).

With this guy I actually haven't had a lot of trouble. He only came to me like once. Usually he's simply too far to both open fire at you and start doing anything crafty, so he can be picked off reliably. The problem is the remaining two bots in that area, since they can get in your line of fire and give it time to start doing something silly. Happened to me very seldom though.

Of course, exit traps should be handled by smart mines (I forgot it in my run, too), and fighting hornets+omegas in the red area from the hostage area is not the best idea...
Still don't understand how you returned to the red area and found more red hornets, I thought you eliminated them all in the first fight.

I didn't even think of using smart mines, even in my second run. They'd definitely have helped against that e-bandit that races at you from the ceiling trap once the reactor's destroyed, but Helix does just fine too. The lou guard at the far end is so far that you don't even need to dump your Mega on him, just fire your lasers or gauss and you're golden. On my second run, I left the level with a surplus of 12 smart mines and 3 Megas, definitely a bonus if we're thinking of continuous play. I simply had no idea what I could fire any of those Megas on. Maybe I could have used one on the hornets and omegas near the last hostage cell, but I managed to do just fine without it. And I think that if you establish a good foothold and have considerable dogfighting skill, fighting those guys off from that hostage cell shouldn't be too problematic. I only died there like once, all my other attempts were successful. Sometimes what one pilot considers too big a risk to take, another pilot will deem acceptable.

But liked how you took the Gauss in the beginning (I delayed it for some reason, maybe because I was ok with Vulcan for seekers and lou guard and used lasers and helix for everything else). However Gauss is definitely helpful against those yellow buggers. I also thought that taking Gauss activates the matcens between blue and yellow doors.

That was inspired by Calmarius' run. The blue area is separated into a big section accessed from the other blue door, and a small room accessed from the one at the junction. The Gauss is easy to pick up, and it helps dramatically, not to mention its ammo economy is necessary - with Vulcan you'd have run out of ammo in no time. Also, you can pick off the Lou Guard just beyond the door separating this room from the rest of the blue door area. Just be careful not to fly into the cube that narrows down into the door - the trigger for the matcen back at the junction is coming back through that cube. As long as your entire ship doesn't enter the cube with no part of it remaining in the previous one, you will not trigger the matcen. Compared to the other two triggers for the junction matcen this one is not one-shot, so come back through there at your own peril. I usually chose not to and backtracked all the way back to the other blue door, but on my run from the second demo, I rushed in there on impulse, since it's there that a yellow omega minelayer was destroyed and it was carrying two vulcan ammo cartidges. I needed those Anyway, it's fully possible to avoid ever triggering the junction matcen in the blue area, basically don't ever fly into the door and back, or into this chamber from the other side.

And how you dealt with the matcens trigger that fires when you cross the waterfall and go to another blue door by returning to it immediately.

With the Afterburner this is a cinch. Luck does play a part though, not having a Seeker spawn first is very, very helpful on those two triggerings of that matcen - the one where you fly thought the lava falls to the blue door area, and the one when you fly out of the pit where the blue key is. The lava falls trigger is one-shot, but the blue key pit one isn't - luckily you only ever need to go down into that pit once to do your business.

[Xfing]

Oh, and I tried running the level again in DOSBox D2 just to make sure - yeah, the thief was definitely much more twitchy. He didn't come all the way to the entry hub, but then again, I didn't wait for him - he did meet me at the red chamber with the 3 smelters already. Other than that, the diamond claw and the e-bandits in the main area were much quicker to jump at me than in the source port, especially the diamond claw, whom I usually had to draw out for a bit before he came out. I wouldn't say this has hugely affected the difficulty of the level, so I still consider my run valid, but I think I'll switch back to a stable 0.58 for any subsequent attempts.

AI routines loading with a delay has been a problem in recent Rebirth versions - I've noticed it, particularly with bosses. It is most likely getting fixed soon, since it's quite an important function of the game.

[AlexanderBorisov]

I looked at the second run, looks way better. Still dangerously low shields at one point, but the red area and reactor room are handled well.
It is cool how many hidden shields can be found on exit run, I didn't knew about all of them! And also didn't knew about the second Gauss cannon.

I think it was like 18 to be precise, I did pick up the hidden shield stash

I meant, it was exactly zero at one point during exit run. I had it only once, finished Enemy Vignettes level 13 (mind the number!) with zero shields.

Oh, and I tried running the level again in DOSBox D2 just to make sure - yeah, the thief was definitely much more twitchy. He didn't come all the way to the entry hub, but then again, I didn't wait for him - he did meet me at the red chamber with the 3 smelters already. Other than that, the diamond claw and the e-bandits in the main area were much quicker to jump at me than in the source port, especially the diamond claw, whom I usually had to draw out for a bit before he came out. I wouldn't say this has hugely affected the difficulty of the level, so I still consider my run valid, but I think I'll switch back to a stable 0.58 for any subsequent attempts.

Interesting, seems every version had a bit different behavior... Because in mine the thief always comes to you (in every level i've played) if it is not locked somewhere. It's up to you to decide how valid the run is, looks like the most differences to other versions concern the beginning of the level and are minor so no big deal. You can play the beginning in Rebirth 0.58 however, to see whether it is more difficult or not. I still think the seeker between the blue and yellow door behaves in more aggressive and dangerous way in Rebirth 0.58. But not sure. About everything after it i'd say that I don't see any difference. Anyway using 0.58 for recording is a good idea. But it is not glitch-free, either! For example I had a glitch with Magnacore boss (L12) when it suddenly loses the boss AI (so does not teleport or spawn robots, just cloaks, moves and fires at you!). Of course both times during recording runs, once in CS L12 another time in PS L11 (has the same Magnacore boss). Still I do not want to re-record those.

Believe it or not, that run was in no way indicative of my usual proceedings in regards to that Seeker. I usually jump him with Vulcan right after the immediate area is cleared and the matcens drained out to allow for comfortable movement. I just happened to beat the level while doing it this extremely stupid and suboptimal way with lasers

I DO believe it! In my own experience, the runs with many stupid moves in the beginning tend to succeed for some reason .

Maybe I could have used one on the hornets and omegas near the last hostage cell, but I managed to do just fine without it. And I think that if you establish a good foothold and have considerable dogfighting skill, fighting those guys off from that hostage cell shouldn't be too problematic. I only died there like once, all my other attempts were successful. Sometimes what one pilot considers too big a risk to take, another pilot will deem acceptable.

True, the very fact that you succeeded twice with it made it acceptable. But the second time when you did it cloaked, looked much better.

Also, you can pick off the Lou Guard just beyond the door separating this room from the rest of the blue door area. Just be careful not to fly into the cube that narrows down into the door - the trigger for the matcen back at the junction is coming back through that cube.

I still like to approach those green bastards in more straightforward way, fly towards them, dodge the first volley, and then dispose of them when they are reloading (of course when there is enough space to dodge and no other dangers around). Too often they jump into the doorway and fire when you least expect it.

[Xfing]

Well, truth be told, I can record even in DOSBox. The only problems are bad resolution (which I set deliberately for nostalgia purposes) and too high pitching sensitivity that takes getting used to, compared to Rebirth. That and the delay that I get every time I switch to the automap, that's annoying as hell!

[AlexanderBorisov]

I myself would never turn back to DOSBox, for the exactly the same reasons you mentioned (mouse sensitivity problems, low resolution). Never noticed the automap bug, though. I think Rebirth small glitches are a kind of "least evil". At least they are minor, happen rarely, etc.especially in the stable versions. And I am not even sure that boss AI glitch I mentioned never happens in DOSBox. But I would avoid anything that changes AI in the way that makes it less interesting to play (i. e stuck robots, or robots that see and fire at you through the walls from any distance or those rushing lifters, that i've seen in XL).

[Xfing]

I myself would never turn back to DOSBox, for the exactly the same reasons you mentioned (mouse sensitivity problems, low resolution). Never noticed the automap bug, though. I think Rebirth small glitches are a kind of "least evil". At least they are minor, happen rarely, etc.especially in the stable versions. And I am not even sure that boss AI glitch I mentioned never happens in DOSBox. But I would avoid anything that changes AI in the way that makes it less interesting to play (i. e stuck robots, or robots that see and fire at you through the walls from any distance or those rushing lifters, that i've seen in XL).

Actually I was talking about the keyboard, I use the numpad for pitching directions and WSAD for sliding It's kind of ironic if you ask me, that a 360dof game is playable without the mouse, while the same can't be said of simpler games like Doom or Quake

[AlexanderBorisov]

It is cool that you manage to fly like this with keyboard, I was thinking you use mouse like me. But mouse in DOSBox is not very fun to use, for sure... I tried various control schemes BTW when I started to play again a year ago (in my youth I was using keyboard too), and came to this one (pretty standard one I think)
WSAD as in DOOM/Quake, Space/Shift - slide down/up, Caps Lock - afterburn, mouse - aiming, two side buttons under the thumb for rolling (banking), middle - bombs (used rarely). I think WSAD for sliding is used more rarely, not sure why. And mouse have real advantage for aiming (at least in D2) when you have to keep your aim at fast bot like ITD or ITSC or Sniper NG while dodging it's fire. Of course, you should be careful to move the mouse smoothly because of maximum turn rate cap. And you need to raise it when circle strafing a robot, a bit of a disadvantage. I also don't think one can play well in Multiplayer with keyboard. At least it is MUCH harder to learn. But I think you should at least try using mouse, could make you life easier.

[Xfing]

I don't like the mouse, as I feel the turn rate of your ship is way too slow with it. The keyboard gives much more freedom of movement - though I've been replacing my versions of Rebirth quite a lot of times recently and I gotta say the max sensitivity started being a bit too sensitive for me, so I brought it down two notches in all categories. Not sure why, I used to play on max and be fine.

I'll admit though that the mouse is much better for keeping aim on faster robots and precise long-distance aiming.

[Marvin]

Glad to hear I'm not the only player who keeps playing with keyboard only . I actually didn't even try mouse for this game..

[Xfing]

Glad to hear I'm not the only player who keeps playing with keyboard only . I actually didn't even try mouse for this game..

Well, if YOU of all people play with the keyboard, then this proves it's perfectly adequate

[AlexanderBorisov]

Not sure, Marvin plays D1 mostly as far as I understand. Where you have less need to aim at fast robots from the distance. Anyway mouse is worth trying for anyone, there is a chance it will work better after small burn-in period. No objections that it is playable with kbd, of course. Still most people use mouse or joystick. About ship turn rate, no it is the same with mouse and kbd in Rebirth (I checked it), just need to choose mouse sensitivity that works best.

[Xfing]

Level 11: This level is easy to do and comfortable, with plenty of shields and energy to spare, it's quite forgiving when it comes to making mistakes. Except for mistakes made in the reactor chamber - you need to know where the matcens are triggered and avoid flying into that cube at all costs. Also, there's a design oversight in the level where the wall that closes behind you in the reactor chamber can close again, even after you hit the switch taht opens it back up. That way you're stuck permanently and your only choice is to try and blow up the reactor once you're there and hope for an exit sequence death. Other than that though, this level is really easy and fun, though knowledge does pay when it comes to some of the traps in it. Definitely leagues easier than level 10, probably level 9 too, though not sure about that. Not putting up the demo this time, since it's an easy level anyway. One more fire level to go, and that one's super tough, so it's going to take some attempts for sure. I've just about had enough of all those red levels - so much red in a row is really getting tiresome. Ice is going to be a very nice change of pace for my eyes

Oh, and that tricky puzzle with the cloak and the invulnerability is actually quite easy as long as you know what you're doing, and doesn't require using any markers. I consider those cheating, like I said before, so no marker use in my run

[kakhome1]

^Yeah, Brimspark fatigue at its finest...Doing four massive levels in a row with almost identical textures wasn't really a good idea, IMO. At least other units have one or two levels that aren't as big.

[Xfing]

Red levels are just depressing for some reason. I remember having similar feelings for the Mars levels of D1, though those were nowhere near as long and apart from L9, quite short and just the right difficulty. Level 8 is one of my favorite ones to play in the game actually, I just like how most of the opposition in that level comes to you, so you don't have to look for them instead. D2 so far hasn't been half as reliant on roaming robots, since it's much more dependent on stationary traps. Kind of a shame, that was a thrilling gameplay element for sure.

[Xfing]

I almost beat level 12, only dying when the boss teleported right on top of my head. Call it bad luck I guess - but from a distance he's actually not that bad, I've got experience dodging Phoenix and his Megas are quite easy to lose with the afterburner. As for the earlier parts of the level - no comments yet, I'll do a writeup when I finally succeed.

[AlexanderBorisov]

Red levels are just depressing for some reason. I remember having similar feelings for the Mars levels of D1, though those were nowhere near as long and apart from L9, quite short and just the right difficulty. Level 8 is one of my favorite ones to play in the game actually, I just like how most of the opposition in that level comes to you, so you don't have to look for them instead. D2 so far hasn't been half as reliant on roaming robots, since it's much more dependent on stationary traps. Kind of a shame, that was a thrilling gameplay element for sure.

I feel the same, red color makes me feel nervous. Just as with green, gray and blue, and any other "cold" colors, I feel at home.
About D1 L8, I prefer L9 where robot roaming is even more of a threat. It would be cool if you manage to create smth like this in D1.5. But I am not sure AI in D2 can copy the D1 behavior; recently I studied AI code in Rebirth, but still the difference btw normal and station is not clear to me, although I know that "station" always return to its station where normal can go everywhere; "still" mostly doesn't move but can dodge your fire. The "snipe" AI was easy to "decode" however; first it gets +50% max speed, 50% more shots per volley, turn rate is half of Insane skill turn rate on all skill levels; robots have much smaller penalty for inertia. And it is like a finite state machine of 4 states, attack, "active" and "passive" retreat, wait. Each is timed. They never move before they see you or your missile for the first time. Thief has the same algorithm but with different timings. And other AI types are a bit simpler, with states like, make path to you, make random path and inactive (not timed, mostly random but depending on agitation, circle distance and distance to you). And dodging stuff, of course. And in D1 some of the constants like detection distance are different. Hope I will find the time to find out the details.

Good luck to you with L12, BTW the boss is rather easy to beat with camping strategy, but it would be cool if you manage to do it another way. Do you find the part before the boss harder than L10?

[Xfing]

Red levels are just depressing for some reason. I remember having similar feelings for the Mars levels of D1, though those were nowhere near as long and apart from L9, quite short and just the right difficulty. Level 8 is one of my favorite ones to play in the game actually, I just like how most of the opposition in that level comes to you, so you don't have to look for them instead. D2 so far hasn't been half as reliant on roaming robots, since it's much more dependent on stationary traps. Kind of a shame, that was a thrilling gameplay element for sure.

I feel the same, red color makes me feel nervous. Just as with green, gray and blue, and any other "cold" colors, I feel at home.
About D1 L8, I prefer L9 where robot roaming is even more of a threat. It would be cool if you manage to create smth like this in D1.5. But I am not sure AI in D2 can copy the D1 behavior; recently I studied AI code in Rebirth, but still the difference btw normal and station is not clear to me, although I know that "station" always return to its station where normal can go everywhere; "still" mostly doesn't move but can dodge your fire. The "snipe" AI was easy to "decode" however; first it gets +50% max speed, 50% more shots per volley, turn rate is half of Insane skill turn rate on all skill levels; robots have much smaller penalty for inertia. And it is like a finite state machine of 4 states, attack, "active" and "passive" retreat, wait. Each is timed. They never move before they see you or your missile for the first time. Thief has the same algorithm but with different timings. And other AI types are a bit simpler, with states like, make path to you, make random path and inactive (not timed, mostly random but depending on agitation, circle distance and distance to you). And dodging stuff, of course. And in D1 some of the constants like detection distance are different. Hope I will find the time to find out the details.

Good luck to you with L12, BTW the boss is rather easy to beat with camping strategy, but it would be cool if you manage to do it another way. Do you find the part before the boss harder than L10?

Actually I managed to get to the boss with 190 shields, and kept that amount of shields for quite a while, managed to clear out the room of the small fry, and then he still got me. After I unloaded all 4 of the megas I had on me on him along with several rounds of gauss. He's pretty durable on Insane alright The biggest problem is when he for any reason comes close to you, in that case you're in for rough sailing. As for the rest of the level - it's nowhere near as tough as level 10. I've already made it to the boss like 3 times. The toughest part of the level is definitely getting to the first energy center - Calmarius even chose to think you need the invulnerability to get there, but I've gotten there several times without using it. Still, clearing out all the minibosses is the toughest part of the level and has the most stuff that can go wrong. I found the blue area to be reasonably easy (after I clear out all the hornets at least, which I choose to dump a mega missile on), the yellow area is a bit tougher but still rather straightforward and predictable.

As for the boss, I definitely like fighting it openly, camping is not for me - not to mention it's quite dangerous if he just happens to teleport near your hiding spot. Taking cover is definitely a help though. We'll see, I might succeed sometime soon if I get good luck with the boss. Shame I didn't win on that run where I had 190 shields upon entering the reactor chamber - that just shows how much easier this level actually is than level 10.

[Xfing]

Level 12: Ok, got super lucky today and caught the boss idle for long enough to kill his ass with Gauss nad Mercuries. It does happen sometimes, so I consider this legit I guess. As for this level's overall difficulty - I've noticed I've been able to get to the boss area quite often and after quite a low number of tries compared to my toil with level 10, so it's definitely easier than that one, though the boss battle can be stressful for sure. The level's simple, branched design is supported by reasonably simple yet elegant geometry reliant on large chambers and it definitely does it favors in terms of design, as do its strategically played traps.

I've also played very sloppily this time, this wasn't even remotely one of my best runs. I've taken tons of damage and went dangerously low on shields. But this just goes to show the stupendous amounts of shield boosts this level has in it, letting you tackle the boss with tons of health to spare. I came down to like 16 shields trying to clear out the large chamber on the way to the blue key, I also lost a lot more shields than I usually do fighting the three minibosses in the main hub area. I can pull off no-damage passes every once in a while in this section. But that's no harm done - the blue key area gives you plenty of boosts to refill on. Afterwards, in the blue area, I took way too much damage from the seeker, and also flew straight into a volley from the Lou Guard, but I was still able to refill afterwards. I usually handle the area with all the hornets a bit differently, flying in first, but in this run they blocked my entry so I decided to fire the mega off immediately. After the hornets are done, the blue area is not difficult at all - though this time the return didn't go well, as I got surprised by the 3 hornets that come out of one of the snipe mode hornets. The yellow area went without a hitch - it's the first time I decided to fire two smarts to get rid of the lou guard in the secret goodie cache (usually I'd just fly in Gauss blazing), but instead I completely forgot about the two bulk destroyers he leaves behind and took more damage than I needed to. I also took a pounding from one of the minibosses that get released afterwards, while usually I can just stunblock them with Gauss and take no damage at all. As for the boss, not much to say here - I got lucky he decided not to go after me and just sit there and take my shots. I have no idea if this stuff could ever happen in vanilla, but this definitely wasn't the case of his AI routine not loading, as he did cloak and teleport earlier in the fight. Anyway, glad to be done with Brimspark finally. Not as hard a system as I expected, though I'd generally say it was around the same difficulty as Quartzon was. Hard to compare, since it's been a while since I tried any of the Quartzon levels. I did get hanged up on level 10 probably the longest of them all so far though. In terms of difficulty:

10 >>>>>>> 12 > 11 ~ 9

DEMO: https://www.sendspace.com/file/hgtq7f

[Alter-Fox]

I have to say, you make it sound exciting to watch.

[Xfing]

As exciting as watching Descent can be, lol. Doom is a way more exciting game to watch, as just more stuff happens on screen at any given time. Descent is a slower-paced, strategic game I think

[kakhome1]

I think Xfing is right with how he compares the two. I've been doing videos from DooM lately (on YouTube) but when I do play Descent I try to record it as well, just put up videos of what I'm playing.

As for this thread's topic...sounds like Level 10 must have been a real, no questions asked nightmare of a level! If I was doing this stuff I'd be fearing Level 12 and 16 more, just because you have a boss at the end of a very long level.

Hope you have plenty of Gauss left though...because the next level has no energy in it!

[AlexanderBorisov]

Cool run, but for me the strategy is extremely risky, you can beat the whole level without taking serious damage this way

The camping strategy for the boss (that Calmarius used and I tried to use it too, but did it the other way in my vid, because of the boss glitch) allows for more than 50% success rate, and you can always hear when the boss teleports nearby and safely drive it away with guided or smart missile. Where with this startegy, I think you will succees 1 of 10 on the boss if not less... Your run was indeed very lucky when it concerns the boss.
But probably my way makes it way too easy and thus less exiting, so you run with more straightforward approach is very interesting to watch.
The next level gives you Gauss cannon quickly and enough ammo, don't fear it. Ant it is really easy.

I also hope to do some good Doom stuff later, but for now have no time for it, also had a desire to upload Obsidian Insane walkthrough before doing any DooM, very well designed and difficult mission with no YT walkthroughs. Still nourishing the idea of doing AF walkthrough on Insane, but not sure whether any amount of skills will allow to do it no death no save in reasonable time...