I went to a lot of trouble to get that strategy to work. Other runs I lacked the right launchers, and in this run I lacked matter and time. I've only done this strategy -really smoothly- about twice so far. If it's this hard, and the other methods are apparently easier than I think, then what is the purpose behind nerfing this strategy?
Well, technically it's not a nerf. That part of the game was broken and I only discovered it while working on Alpha 5
. The intention of so-called "barrier walls," brighter walls you see around sensitive areas, is that you'll be forced to employ a narrower range of specific tactics to access them, rather than simply having a launcher. I forgot to have AOE damage spread across terrain like it does robots, and launchers do a massive amount of total damage (
because it normally spreads), so that had to be fixed.
And yes, you can blast through the Behemoth-guarded wall with a shot from pretty much any late-game cannon. It would certainly have been more risky in your beat up state by that point, yeah.
That said, It's likely I'll also be adding a completely new way to get that back door open in Access, one that wouldn't require hacking or serious firepower (and one that you might've been able to use in your situation). It's related to a new mechanic you'll see in Alpha 5. So don't worry, there will always be options. I like having as many options as possible
(I just don't want any one of them to be the obvious easy way, e.g. blasting through the wall with any old launcher.)
I don't know about a second way to open sealed doors. If it's been mentioned before I've forgotten it.
To my knowledge only one player has discovered it, and in the most coincidental of circumstances--it enabled them to win the game by accident. Even if you know about it it's not reliable, however, just a backup possibility.
At some point I'll need to experiment more at the risk of losing otherwise winnable games. For some reason, I find this hard to do. I also take the path of least resistance in DCSS, as almost all my wins are 3-rune games.
I would not want to enter a map to get weapons to employ this strategy as it sounds like hacking would then be the easier method. But I'll have to see.
Oh I agree, that would be tough. I think it will continue becoming easier to explore alternative approaches to the late game, with Complex 0b10 difficulty generally trending downward with each new release.
