Road to full team of Archmasters (SNES)

[Diecast]

Hi guys,
I've been grinding for a while now on this new run. Going for Archmaster in all four categories for all four Champions on the team. I managed to get all of them past Master and to equal levels for each character so far (See pictures below). However, it's gotten really tough now. Not sure how much time it'll take to max out everything, but I thought it would be cool to post my progress in a thread, in case some would enjoy.
So hear it is.









Mods, please delete if this goes against normal practice.
Cheers!

[jayrshaw]

It's cool to see someone playing the same version of Dungeon Master that I did last year! I think the furthest I was willing to go with training my characters was "b Master" Fighter and Ninja and "d Master" Healer and Wizard, so you've already gotten past me in terms of your Fighter levels.

Where are you training your characters? Based on various posts I read on the topic last year, the fastest place to train is supposedly on the 12th Floor where you can get a Black Flame to repeatedly generate (I did all of my training in the Screamer room of Floor 3 of the dungeon myself, though, since I prefer the more mindless training experience there combined with the Screamer room's very close proximity to food and water sources)...


--Jay

[Clodius_one]

I used to train at the rat room. I put all my VI potions on the floor and cut them down with axes. A more aggressive way

[Gambit37]

Interesting screenshots. Those alpha prefixes (a, b, etc) would suggest a bug, or incomplete feature. The characters should be mapped to runes, so you should be seeing the power runes displayed there instead.

[jayrshaw]

I didn't really consider that the lower case alphabetical prefixes for Master skill levels in the SNES version of Dungeon Master might be a bug, but I hadn't thought about it much until now - up until now, I had just assumed the developers decided to code the SNES version of the game that way because they thought the players might have an easier time quickly figuring out which skill level the sequential alphabet letters were than they would doing the same for the different power runes....


--Jay

[Gambit37]

Yeah, true, that's possible too, although that then spoils the Dungeon Master lore somewhat.

[Prince of Elves]

I don't think it's for "too dumb players". Because a) the succession of the runes is always shown on the side, b) by the time a player reaches master they should be pretty familiar with the runes and c) they trusted us to figure out most of the spells on our own too.

[ChristopheF]

This is definitely a bug, I checked then added it here: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/620#toc18

[jayrshaw]

Yeah - I suppose I was just used to seeing the alphabetical letters used for the skill levels since I've only ever played the SNES version of the game....


--Jay

[Diecast]

This is definitely a bug, I checked then added it here: http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/620#toc18

Interesting. I just read a little further as well and saw this:
"Dungeon Master for Super Famicom version 1.0 (Japanese NTSC)
Note: This version contains a bug that was fixed in version 1.1 and in both English versions: if you come back to the dungeon entrance with the Firestaff (not completed with the power gem) to see the alternate ending, the game hangs and the saved game data is corrupted so that you cannot restore it anymore."

Does anyone know if this bug is also present on the SNES version? I would have to level all these characters and lose my save game by going back to the dungeon entrance for the alternate ending...

[Diecast]

It's cool to see someone playing the same version of Dungeon Master that I did last year! I think the furthest I was willing to go with training my characters was "b Master" Fighter and Ninja and "d Master" Healer and Wizard, so you've already gotten past me in terms of your Fighter levels.

Where are you training your characters? Based on various posts I read on the topic last year, the fastest place to train is supposedly on the 12th Floor where you can get a Black Flame to repeatedly generate (I did all of my training in the Screamer room of Floor 3 of the dungeon myself, though, since I prefer the more mindless training experience there combined with the Screamer room's very close proximity to food and water sources)...


--Jay

I'm training in the Screamer room. It takes more time, but it's less management.
Since the Screamers can't kill me at this level, I just park in front of them, and let this turbo controller run on auto for either the Vorpal Blade's Disrupt, or War Cry. Then turn off the TV, and set the timer on my phone that let's me know when it's time for water or food.



As far as leveling Ninja, I use punch on the Screamers when it's time to feed.
Once I'm maxed out on Fighter, Healer, and Wizard, I might go down to do the same autopilot technique with punch on a Ghost in the main room of Level-7. Either that or go all the way to Level-12 to train on the flame, but I have a feeling it'll be more management since it's likely to deal enough damage to make me have to babysit the training too much.

[Diecast]

Leveling update:
Slow going, but making progress...

[jayrshaw]

Yeah - looks like you're doing pretty well. You can train Ninja levels in the Screamer room without having to generate new Screamers if you let the Screamers flank you from the side and stab at a wall or the air with a dagger using a character who isn't on the same side the Screamers are facing you from. Also, be advised that in the SNES version of the game, your characters can perform repetitions much faster if you execute them while the character menu is open instead of when the menu is closed and you are viewing the dungeon (for some reason, repetitions go the fastest if you have one character's menu open and perform the repetitions with a different character).

Glad I didn't try taking the incomplete Firestaff up to the entrance of the Dungeon, by the way - I had no idea that doing that could potentially corrupt the game!


--Jay

[ChristopheF]

That bug is only in the Japanese 1.0 version. It is safe to go back to the entrance in English versions and in Japanese 1.1.

[Diecast]

Thank you ChristopheF! That’s good to know!

Yeah - looks like you're doing pretty well. You can train Ninja levels in the Screamer room without having to generate new Screamers if you let the Screamers flank you from the side and stab at a wall or the air with a dagger using a character who isn't on the same side the Screamers are facing you from. Also, be advised that in the SNES version of the game, your characters can perform repetitions much faster if you execute them while the character menu is open instead of when the menu is closed and you are viewing the dungeon (for some reason, repetitions go the fastest if you have one character's menu open and perform the repetitions with a different character).

Glad I didn't try taking the incomplete Firestaff up to the entrance of the Dungeon, by the way - I had no idea that doing that could potentially corrupt the game!


--Jay

Thanks Jay! Yeah, I’ve been grinding in the menu on a non-selected character. Read that a while back and applied it on my quest here. I didn’t know about letting the Screamers flank you from the side though. Are you sure we get the enemy XP multiplyer that way? Also, do we know what gives more XP between a barehanded punch and a dagger stab?

Thanks for all the insight, guys!

[jayrshaw]

Here are some notes from my playthrough last year:

"Also, it seems to vary based on which version of the game you are playing, but in the SNES version of the game I am playing, the amount of experience your characters earn can vary depending on whether or not your characters are directly facing an enemy and/or whether they are attempting to perform the action from the back row. In the SNES version of the game, your characters definitely earn significantly more experience for performing an action from the action menu when they are directly facing the enemy from the front row than they would if they performed the same action from the back row or while facing away from the enemy. War Cry is a bit different, though - in the SNES version of the game, you seem to get the same amount of Fighter/Healer experience for using War Cry while facing the enemy from the back row as you do when facing the enemy from the front row; however, you gain less Fighter experience and no Healer experience at all for using War Cry while facing away from the enemy (even if the enemy is actively attacking your flank while you are performing your War Cry repetitions).

Also, despite the fact that my characters would earn significantly more Ninja experience per repetition by using "Stab" directly at screamers from the front row (my guess is twice as much), I have found that they can actually earn Ninja experience faster over time by performing Stab at the air or a wall while a screamer flanks my party from the side due to the sheer number of repetitions of the action you can perform from the character inventory menu (where the speed of time is approximately doubled). This method of gaining experience also benefits from the fact that you don't have to periodically clean up after dead screamers and temporarily leave the room to regenerate new ones. Finally, it can take a longer amount of time than you might think for a group of newly-generated screamers to actually attack your party, so you would also frequently lose the 2X multiplier for being attacked by an enemy within the past 4.17 seconds if you were earning experience by attacking/killing/regenerating the screamers instead of just attacking nothing while letting them flank you."

Some more general information on experience in Dungeon Master is available at ChristopheF's Dungeon Master Encyclopedia at the following links:

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/692

http://dmweb.free.fr/?q=node/690


Bottom line, though, is that using "Stab" at a wall or the air while being flanked by a Screamer is the fastest way I was able to gain Ninja experience in the Screamer Room during my playthrough of Dungeon Master last year.


--Jay

[Diecast]

Many thanks again, Jay, for the advice. Letting the Screamers flank from the side has really helped simplify my Ninja leveling. I’ll post an update tomorrow (Sunday). It was a good week overall, but it’s getting really time consuming to level now…

[jayrshaw]

Glad to hear it is working for you, Diecast! My memory is a bit fuzzy, but if I recall correctly, I think the amount of time it took for me to gain a Ninja level for a character using the Screamer flanking technique was roughly comparable to the amount of time it took me to gain the same Fighter level using War Cry directly at a Screamer....


--Jay

[Diecast]

Yeah, that sounds about right. Side flank Ninja leveling is about the same amount of time as facing War Cry Fighter leveling.

[Diecast]

Okay, so here's an update. This is starting to get tough. Leveling Fighter and Healer is the easiest by far. If I start with a Champion full of food and water, I can let the turbo controller go for just under 3hours before I need to feed. So it's pretty easy to babysit. It's about 1 hour and a half for side flank stabbing for Ninja, as well as Vorpal Blade Disrupt for Wizard. Leveling is taking a while at this point, and Wizard levels are the worst. It took me about 7 hours of Vorpal Blade Disrupt to go from c-Master Wizard to d-Master Wizard for each character. The last two levels will definitely be a pain. Good thing I work from home lol.

Anyways, here is my progress:

[Paul Stevens]

It took me about 7 hours of Vorpal Blade Disrupt to go from c-Master Wizard to d-Master Wizard for each character.

The important thing is that you are having fun.

[Diecast]

lol. I do enjoy the challenge. Makes me wonder how many people ever maxed out all 4 champions.

[jayrshaw]

Yeah - the experience curve in this game is pretty brutal with each additional skill level requiring twice as much experience as the one you just managed to attain....


--Jay

[Diecast]

Yeah, it’s indeed brutal.

By the way, do we know what is more efficient for leveling Healer between War Cry while facing an enemy and the Teowand Calm while facing an enemy? I have one of my characters at Archmaster Fighter, and just looking for the most efficient way to level the rest of Healer.

[jayrshaw]

Unless the recovery time is significantly faster for Calm, I would stick with War Cry. Last year, I calculated that I was earning roughly 40 experience points of Fighter experience per War Cry repetition (and therefore slightly less than this amount of Healer experience per repetition due to the fact that I earned Healer levels slightly more slowly using War Cry than I earned Fighter levels using this technique). ChristopheF's Dungeon Master encyclopedia states that you get 35 base Healer experience points for using Calm, but this is supposedly "hard coded" experience which is not increased by the normal experience multipliers which exist in the game.

However, the amount of Healer experience you get for using War Cry in the SNES version of the game generally does not conform to the numbers in ChristopheF's encyclopedia (even if you try a few different ways of working with the calculations and applying the experience multipliers). This may indicate that the experience numbers in the Dungeon Master encyclopedia may sometimes differ from the amount of experience you actually get in the SNES version of the game. As a result, I would probably err on the side of using War Cry in the SNES version of the game because it is a known commodity (unless you hear someone report through experimentation that they have been able to train Healer experience faster using Calm)....


--Jay

[jayrshaw]

Furthermore, I also just noted that the Dungeon Master encyclopedia states you will only get half the hard-coded experience amount if the monster resists the fear effect of Calm (which I believe the Screamer monster always will based on the fact that its Bravery level is the maximum possible value of 15); this means that if the numbers for Calm are the same for the SNES version of the game as the numbers indicated in the encyclopedia, you would only be getting 17-18 experience points for each Calm repetition against a Screamer....


--Jay

[Diecast]

Thank you once again Jay.
You are a veritable asset to this community.
I should have my first full Archmaster Champion ready to share in a few days. Can’t wait!

Thanks again for all the help!

[ChristopheF]

My ReDMCSB source code does not include the SNES versions yet.
However, last week I found a tool called DiztinGUIsh that allows me to seriously start working on the SNES ROM of the game to identify code and data.
The good news is that most of the code seems to have been compiled on Macintosh with the same C compiler that was used for the Apple IIGS version (which uses the same processor as the SNES console). So I could update my source code for the SNES, compile it, then compare the produced machine code with the original machine code to make sure the source code is accurate.

This probably means months of work before I can create and include the SNES source code variations in ReDMCSB, but that tool opens up that opportunity. Then we'll be able to properly answer questions such as potential differences in the way experience is managed on the SNES version.

[jayrshaw]

ChristopheF - It's great to hear that you're working on this (even if it ends up taking a long time) - I have been able to figure some things out about the SNES version of Dungeon Master through experimentation and based on the information you have documented on more standard versions of the game, but it would be awesome if you could uncover more solid information about the SNES version of the game based on its actual code....

Diecast - Keep us posted on how you're progressing with your attempt to get to Archmaster with the rest of your characters' skills. I recall that I was actually able to see one of my characters at Archmaster Wizard level during my playthrough last year when I equipped that character with both a Pendant Feral (which raises Wizard level by 1) and the complete/fused Firestaff (which raises all skill levels by 2)....


--Jay

[Diecast]

Great stuff ChristopherF. Can't wait to read about what you eventually dig up!

Yeah, Jay. I'm definitely going to save a Wizard level for the Pendant Feral on one of my champions. I might not count on the Fused Firestaff for this little endeavor though. Unless I find a way around the point of no return with it in hand.