Back at it again

[RogerS]

Hi.

I've started playing DM again.

Since I've switched to Linux recently, my AHK buffing scripts would not work anyway, so I'm playing the Amiga version (3.6) this time.

I like the improved sounds of the Amiga version and the proper full screen in FS-UAE. The save states are convenient too.

I've chosen reincarnated Elija and Chani as my champions, and I'm currently at the last section of level 9 having just picked up the first boots of speed.

I'm only doing Ku and Dane potions this time. I can't be bothered with the other two, since I have to do them manually now and the Ku and Dane potions are the most beneficial ones.

They are currently Adept Fighter, Artisan Ninja, Expert Priest and Adept Wizard.

These old dungeon crawlers sure are fun

[jayrshaw]

Hi Roger,

This is definitely a great game - sounds like you're a significant portion of the way through your playthrough already. I've only ever played the SNES version of Dungeon Master, myself (I haven't played too many games on an actual PC other than a couple MMORPGs and several old adventure games my wife likes a lot).

Good to see someone else on here who likes to use the buffing potions - I agree that the Dane (Wisdom) and Ku (Strength) potions are significantly more useful than the Ros (Dexterity) and (especially) Neta (Vitality) potions, but I kept all four types of buff up during my last playthrough - maintaining all four buffs was a royal pain, though, and I had to do it pretty frequently to keep my characters' buffed stats in the 140-150 range....


--Jay

[RogerS]

Regarding the buffing potions, a Lo level buffing potion (except Ku) gives 9 or 10 points up until 120, and from then on only gives 6 points per potion.
Lo level Ku potions give 6 points up until a strength of 120, and then only gives 4 points per potion afterwards.

If you buff a stat to more than twice it's natural level, it starts decreasing twice as fast, reducing by 2 points each time instead of 1. For that reason, I don't bother buffing them to more than twice the base level or slightly above, and won't buff a stat if it's already been buffed to above 120.

[jayrshaw]

That's pretty funny - I never knew the exact formula before you mentioned it, but I did observe the basic phenomena you described during my 2020 playthrough of this game and mentioned it in the following post:

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=31342&p=160497&hilit=buff#p160497


--Jay

[RogerS]

I've just completed the firestaff and had decided that I wanted to see the alternative ending this time before defeating Lord Chaos, so I threw the completed firestaff through the door, went through the door and picked it again up and put it in my inventory, and ran all the way up to the entrance door at level 0.

Nothing happened. I tried placing the firestaff in either champions hand, tried taking a step back and then forward to the door again, and even tried going down to level 1 then back up to the dungeon entrance door again, but still nothing happened.

Was this removed in the Amiga version, or perhaps Amiga version 3.6?

[RogerS]

After some searching, I found out that the alternative ending could only be done with the non-completed firestaff, so I loaded the save state before I completed it, and it worked.

I've now defeated Lord Chaos. It was tricker than I remembered to trap him. I had to drop down a pit to level 13 a couple of times and once went up the stairs to level 11 to heal up and refresh my fire shields, and the last time I dropped down the pit I also had to refresh my wisdom and strength buffs.

On the 4th attempt, I was finally able to get him though





Initially I had Chani using the firestaff while Elija was wielding Diamond Edge, but then Elija got a ninja level while killing a couple of demons, so I then switched so that Elija was wielding the firestaff and Chani wielding Diamond Edge.

Unfortunately when I tried to reload the save state I had made after Elija gaining a ninja level and just before beating the game, the UI was unresponsive to any mouse clicks and I was unable to move. It has happened two times before during this play through. One of those two times, the emulator even froze and crashed with a guru meditation any time I tried loading that particular save state.

[jayrshaw]

Great job getting through the game so quickly! I remember that I followed the advice in the Dungeon Master Encyclopaedia to trap Chaos in the corner of the tiny, enclosed, four-space room in the northeast corner of the floor - doing this enables you to trap him using only two Fluxcages instead of the normal four.....


--Jay

[RogerS]

Thank you. I'll try to remember to give that room a go the next time I play DM.

[Ameena]

Woo, gratz on the win . My preferred spot to trap Chaos is inside the main room, off to the right from the entrance, near the corner - I think I normally use one wall as part of the trap so only need to cast three fluxcages, then just stand there refreshing them until he comes over, then step back and boom, gotcha .

[RogerS]

Thanks

Reading your comments, I realize I've probably been going about it the wrong way when trying to defeat him, not fully understanding how I was supposed to do it.

I was running around casting fluxcage quickly followed up by fuse directly on Lord Chaos. I kept doing that until I probably got lucky and he happened to get stuck between some of the other fluxcages I had strewn around the room (each of them cast directly at Lord Chaos).

I went about it the same way the previous time I played as well, but I probably got luckier that time which might explain why I remember it being easier the previous time.

If I had realized from the beginning that I was supposed to cast the fluxcages around him instead of at him, it would probably been a lot easier.


By the way, I've been looking into Amiga versions of CSB here: viewtopic.php?f=28&t=31481

[Ameena]

Yeah, my method is to cast fluxcages around myself (or if I'm by a wall I can skip that one), refreshing them every few seconds, then back up when Lord Chaos comes walking toward me - he doesn't seem to cast spells when there's a fluxcage in the way (unless he's in the middle and you're too slow to Fuse), so when he steps into the fluxcage in front of me I just step back, then he steps forward again and is now in the middle. And then boom .

[jayrshaw]

Yeah - the way it works with the enclosed room in the northeast corner of the floor is as follows: Enter the room, shut the doors, and simply wait until Chaos teleports into the room (which he will do eventually, especially if you try sleeping). Once Chaos is in the room, lure him to a location where he is adjacent to two walls (and not adjacent to a door); then you just need to quickly move away from him and use the Firestaff to place two Fluxcages in the two empty spaces in the room next to him. Note that Chaos needs to be entirely surrounded by Fluxcages and/or walls to be defeated and that a door does *not* count as a wall.


--Jay

[RogerS]

Thanks. I will try that next time.

[Ameena]

I don't think I've ever been in that little room - I know the one you mean as it's on the map but I can never be arsed to go all the way over there past all the demons and stuff - I'd rather hang around in the corner of the room near the entrance and not worry about most of that big ol' space full of bad stuff .

[jayrshaw]

It's actually pretty easy to quickly rush past all of the Demons to the northeast corner room (and once you're in there with the doors closed, they can't come after you) - it's a bit like sneaking past the Dragon on the 13th level of the dungeon.....


--Jay

[Ameena]

Oh but I never try to sneak past the Dragon, it's too much fun fighting him. Step-dance, easy kill .

[jayrshaw]

I went ahead and fought the Dragon the first time I ventured down to the 13th Floor, but I ended up doing a lot of reloading and experimentation around that point in the game in an attempt to figure out what caused the passage back to the earlier floors in the game to become sealed in the SNES version of the game - I quickly found out that it was way faster to simply run past the Dragon than to go through with fighting him every time I wanted to test something different out on the 13th Floor......


--Jay

[terkio]

I wonder wether the trick of throwing the equipped firestaff over the door still is intentional or a bug.
Looks more like a bug to me. There is no rational way to figure that out ! How was that found ?

[ChristopheF]

This is not a bug in the game engine itself. You may call it a loophole in the dungeon because the designer did not imagine that throwing the Firestaff would bypass the mechanism to prevent the player from going back to the upper levels. This was changed and fixed when they made the SNES dungeon, which has many layout differences introduced to minimize the size of the dungeon so that saved games would fit into the limited amount of SRAM in the SNES (and possibly to make the game a bit easier too). They also had to change the saved game format to store only the differences from the initial dungeon instead of storing the full dungeon data in the saved game file like on all other platforms.

Have a look at http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/1608#toc27 to compare the maps of level 13 between the PC and SNES dungeons:
- The PC version (on the left) has an enclosed teleporter in the top right corner. When you walk on the pressure plate to get out of the room where you get the complete Firestaff, that teleporter is enabled, teleporting a coin to level 12 over another pressure plate that closes two walls. When you throw the Firestaff over that pressure plate, it is not triggered which bypasses the mechanism.
- In the SNES version (on the right), the mechanism on level 13 was removed. On level 12, a pressure plate to close the wall was added directly on the stairs going to level 13. As you cannot throw the Firestaff through stairs, this fixes the loophole as you must come back from level 13 through these stairs.

[jayrshaw]

That's really excellent information, ChristopheF - thank you for providing all of those details! During my 2020 playthrough of Dungeon Master, I noted and tried to document the main differences I observed between the SNES version of the game I was playing and the PC version of the game - while I noticed some differences at various points in the game (e.g., the addition of items like the PowerTowers, the DexHelm, and an extra Skeleton Key), the final portions of the game (beginning with when you explore Floor 6 to retrieve the Firestaff) were the most markedly different from what I expected based upon my research of the PC version of the game.

I don't know the details of the exact code in the SNES version of the game involving the pressure plate in the stairwell between Floors 12 and 13, but I can confirm that you don't actually need to possess the completed Firestaff to trigger this pressure plate and seal off the way back to earlier floors in the SNES version of the game. My final post in this thread contains a more detailed explanation:

viewtopic.php?p=160571#p160571


--Jay

[ChristopheF]

Let me add a few more details:
- The wall on level 12 that seals off the way back to the upper levels is triggered by the pressure plate on the stairs between level 12 and 13 if you carry the Firestaff (the incomplete version or the completed one). There is no other way to close this wall.
- When you enter the large room on level 12, there is indeed a hidden pit that opens only if you carry the incomplete Firestaff, getting you directly to level 13. But this does not close the wall. I guess they added this to make sure people would not lose too much of their time on level 12 as the next thing to do is below.

[jayrshaw]

Thanks for the additional details, ChristopheF! The way the developers coded the stairwell pressure plate makes sense - they probably generally wanted to make entering the part of Floor 12 with Chaos and the Demons a "point of no return" but also wanted a way to make sure that the wall leading back to earlier floors didn't get sealed off if for some reason a player managed to make it to the 13th Floor without the Firestaff...


--Jay