Anyone interested in a new contest? 10,000 gold in CoW

[Ratty]

I play PK lots of different ways--use only the painkiller, take no damage, etc. After seeing FragManiac's Leningrad video I became obsessed with acquiring gold, way more than I'd ever need.

My record so far is around 8500 in City on the Water. I don't think it's possible to get more gold in any other level. I'm pretty sure that with the right combination of cards it should be possible to break 10,000. Collecting extra gold means taking a lot of damage, so I'm thinking Soul Redeemer and Mercy for the silver cards, and Iron Will for one Gold card with a few possibilities for the other two: possibly Haste and Speed.

I've played CoW a few times now, getting better all the time, though not yet with a collection of cards chosen to specifically increase my gold yield. And thinking about the different places there are several spots where I could have gotten quite a bit more gold by taking a lot more damage. I'm certain that *I* can break 10,000, which means other players could probably net quite a bit more. So what do you guys think?

[Mr. Q]

What about "Greed", isn't it doubling the amount of gold.

[Ratty]

What about "Greed", isn't it doubling the amount of gold. Personally I wouldn't use Greed because I think ultimately you'd end up with more gold using Soul Redeemer, but who knows? It would be interesting to find out.

[Artas1984]

Alright guys, what you are saying confuses me a little bit.
First of all, if not mentioning the greed and all cards:
when saying 10000, do you mean those extra 9228 gold pieces should have been gotten by gibing? We know that in COW there are 772 gold pieces: 4 artifacts and 182 monets.
There are 249 monsters in the game: that would mean, if from every monster you would gib more tham 3 rings and each of them would give 15 value, you really could reach more than 10000!
I do not know, mayby it is due the difficulty level settings, but when you get 15 and when 20 from one ring? Is it - 20 from daydream, insomnia and 15 - from nightmare and trauma? Have not checked that, most money i get with artifacts.
But anyway, lets say we play it on nightmare, each monster we would gib 3 times, though we know that is not possible due that lots of them are on the roofs. Maybe 180 would be really gibable.
Ratty, paste your screen!
Did you used greed? That wuold mean yuo have gotten 4250 money!
Huge! But, check this thread first before saying anything about greed:

http://dreamcatcherinteractive.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24782

So you see! Some people say that greed works only in the game while collecting but does not save results in other loadings.
I have not noticed that, since i never used greed card.
I think this card is worthless, when you have all cards, you definitelly would like to load mercy/soul catcher.
You should speak with kalme about it.
I will check it myself of course.
And BTW, i like challenges, i like such people liek Ratty and Q, but City on Water is a bad choise for money collecting.
I like the level only for the architecture, but i hate this level in general! CoW is my unfavorite level due the killing water effect and stupid monsters - the hellbikers.
That sucks, so i better think of such challenge in other levels.

[Ratty]

By total gold I meant what you find plus what you get from gibbing. The two numbers on your final screen added together, with or without Greed.

I'm surprised about Greed. I used to use it a long time ago when I first started playing and I could swear the number carried over because I remember being able to place more cards after I used it. But I'm not certain of that. In any case, I decided long ago you could get so much extra gold from gibbing that using Greed wasn't really worth it. Since--I don't think--Greed doesn't work with gibbed gold.

I chose CoW only because you can get so much extra gold in that level. No other level even comes close to the amount of gold you can get in CoW. It's the only level where 10,000, a nice round number, is remotely possible. Not even SYS or FragManiac could get anything close to that in any other level.

I didn't know the gibbed goodies had different values with different difficulty levels! I thought they just had 15! Obviously the difficulty will have to be Nightmare or Trauma for a challenge then!

I'll post a screenie tomorrow.

[kalme]

I didn't know the gibbed goodies had different values with different difficulty levels!
Maybe that's because they really don't.

I thought they just had 15!
You are right. All items you get by (I go back to the quake-like meaning of the word gib here) "juggling" with the second painkiller mode have a value of 15. But if you manage to gib (=explode) an enemy mid-air e.g. with a rocket etc., you'll receive a ring instead of the golden blocks, and those have a value of 20. It has nothing to do with the difficulty level.

[Ratty]

But if you manage to gib (=explode) an enemy mid-air Aha, so that's when you get those sparkling rings with the great sound they make when you pick them up! (Anyone else appreciate what great sounds Painkiller has--better than any other game I can think of) I knew *occasionally* you could get rings when you used a rocket but I never figured out exactly how. So if you were quick and PK juggled somebody high up in the air and managed to get your rocket out fast enough and blast them, a ring would come out??! Heh heh. Now you've done it! I'll be playing PK all night tonight trying this out!

[BloodBuster]

But if you manage to gib (=explode) an enemy mid-air e.g. with a rocket etc., you'll receive a ring instead of the golden blocks, and those have a value of 20. It has nothing to do with the difficulty level.

Thank you - another enigma de-enigma'd

[Artas1984]

Ou ye, after all this time gaming i've just to notice the difference.
Little crates from gibing leave 15, and all are the same, and granade, rocket, granade-stake shoots leave rings if the enemy is blasted in pieces.
But tell me does the greed doubles the gibed money?
And city on water perhaps is easy in such challenge that the enemies are loosers to be gibben.

[Frag Maniac]

What about "Greed", isn't it doubling the amount of gold.There's a problem with that actually, as the Greed card only doubles the gold value of Destroyable Objects and Holy Items.

Where the problem is, in PK anyway, as I assume we're not talking about any BOoH levels here, is that they've designed the game so that levels that are easy to gib in, such as COW, don't have nearly as much gold as say Docks, which is very hard to gib in.

When I went for my total gold goal, a one run through the entire game while going for cards, I wound up a little over $47,000, and my COW total was $6,670, without using any cards (in the gibbable levels).

I don't really think Greed would help much in that level, as it's expense is as much if not more than the gold available, from what I recall.

BTW, just to let you know, reguarding cards, I did use a few in Enclave, Ruins, and Tower, but I kept track of the amount I spent on them, and deducted it from the total gold at the end.

If you are going to engage in such a challenge, this is the way I believe it should be done, as the cards you use are an aid in obtaining more gold. I was literally dodging attacks while gibbing when I did the total gold run. My fingers got so tired from rapid firing the PK, I had to switch back and forth between left mouse button and right to fire it.

I did not do any serious gaming for a few days after that run.

[MacheteLover]

For the absolute maximum gold, if you're willing to use anything short of cheating, you need to complete the five-star challenge. You can then use your cards an unlimited number of times. Some would count that as cheating, but it's provided by the game so it technically is not.

You can then use the cards to slow time down for almost the entire level. With Dexterity included, you can hit an enemy with the PK Alt fire, get the five jewels, then hit them with the PK blades to get the ring. At one point I had 5 guys airborne at once, bouncing them all, I got all 25 jewels and all 5 rings. Do that for an entire level, and you can hit 10,000 easily on a couple of levels. In Cathedral, the only guys you'll have trouble mugging are the ones in the hidden area who throw their axes and then die, you're unlikely to get them all juggled before they disappear. Train-Station is also good. And The Palace is great. City On Water is okay but, as mentioned above, there are too many guys on balconies and other places where it's hard to retrieve the bodies for mugging.

The best places for this kind of fun are narrow spaces, where only a few can reach you at a time. And be careful not to trip multiple spawn triggers too soon, you need to have time to finish mugging the current batch before the next ones arrive. Also know your enemies. Some enemies gib easier than others, and some take longer to fade away than others. The Skull-headed guys with the smoking staves tend to last longer than the Monks, so you can focus on a few monks before him.

Without the five-star reward, it naturally gets more difficult. Swarms of enemies will make it difficult to hit the airborne bodies, and possibly block you from retrieving the dropped items before they vanish. Do everything you can to isolate small groups.

Good luck...

[Frag Maniac]

For the absolute maximum gold, if you're willing to use anything short of cheating, you need to complete the five-star challenge. You can then use your cards an unlimited number of times. Some would count that as cheating, but it's provided by the game so it technically is not.I don't mean to label anyone's gameplay, after all, sp is a personal preference thing, but some of what you mentioned is why I don't like the 5 star challenge.

To be sure, the 5 star itself is indeed a challenge, if you go for it without cheating, but in getting the reward for it, pretty much all the challenge is taken out of the game.

Sure you can use that unrestricted and unlimited use of cards reward to get extra gold, but what's the point of doing so? Unlimited card use takes many elements out of the game, you basically no longer need any cards that deal with souls, health, gold, and even the gold itself has no value after that.

Besides, like I said, whether you obtained the unlimited use of the cards via succedding in 5 star or not, you are using it to aid in getting that gold easier.

Keeping track of each card used, how many times used, and the amount it would have cost you, would be ridiculous, yet it is an aid you would normally pay for.

What got some of the cheat accusations started towards me a while back, was my stating I was using PM just to get through the 5 star quickly and see what the reward was. The main reason I did so was that I knew there were a lot of bugs in the game anyway, and that PM was needed to help get the 5 star because of it, and that it took quite a while to do, with all the ridculous amount of ammo in the game.

Fine if they had not implied I NEEDED cheats for regular gameplay, something my videos tended to disprove later on, but strange how some of those with such a mindset love to cling to and talk about their 5 star reward of unrestricted card use, which is no different than God mode really.

When I got to the end of PMing through the 5 star, quite frankly I was disgusted and amused by the reward offered. It should have been another weapon unlocked, another level unlocked, etc.

[kalme]

There's a problem with that actually, as the Greed card only doubles the gold value of Destroyable Objects and Holy Items.
Well that's not true. Greed also affects the bonus gold you get from juggling and gibbing.

I think what MacheteLover says is reasonable. It's a feature of the game, not a cheat. So as long as Ratty doesn't exclude this option from his challenge I think anybody should be allowed to use unlimited card use, regardless of how dumb it is.

[kalme]

Ok, here's a small analysis of Painkiller's behavior regarding gold. I now see how people may believe the Greed card has no effect on the bonus gold you get from juggling. Look at this screenshot from cemetery after I picked up one of the golden blocks, using the Greed card:

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/530/gold12rd.jpg

What you see here is another of Painkiller's infamous bugs. Let's compare that to the same situation, but this time without the Greed card:

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/3103/gold23he.jpg

Do you see the mistake already? Here's my explanation after looking through the scripts: usually you have two parts, the gold you already picked up (out of the total amount) and the gold you received from bonus items like golden blocks and rings. Those two added is the total amount of gold you got in that level.

Painkiller handles these amounts in a totally different way internally. Instead of keeping track of the gold you picked up and the gold from bonus items, it counts the latter one and the total number of gold you received in a level (sum of picked up gold and that from bonus items). The display above then shows

([total number of gold including gold from bonus items] - [gold from bonus items]) "/" [total gold in level]

and

"+" [gold from bonus items]

The essential mistake in the Greed card handling now is that Painkiller doubles the amount of gold you receive from bonus items when it's added to the total number of gold. But it does NOT double the amount when it's added to the counter of the gold you received from bonus items. The display values above then are built the following way:

([total number of gold including twice the gold from bonus items] - [gold from bonus items]) "/" [total gold in level]

and

"+" [gold from bonus items]

Actually it should use [twice the gold from bonus items] in every place of course which would result in the correct display

000/776 + 30

Then it instantly would be clear for everybody that Greed also affects bonus items (which really is true :)).

[kalme]

Fixed in the next Powermad release:

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/41/gold36un.jpg

:P

[Ratty]

Wah, this is so complicated. The mysteries of Greed, the Five Star bonus. Maybe it's not such a great idea for a challenge after all. Here is my screenshot:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/~apollock/Shot0001.jpg

I ended up not using my golden cards at all because they weren't particularly suitable for maximizing gold. One of my silver cards was Replenish so that's really the only one I used. 10,000 is really possible for me. I wonder if I can break 11,000? THAT would be hard but with good cards, just doable.

[T'krau]

...the next Powermad release...
Sorta off-topic - when?

[kalme]

Like I said somewhere else, I always wanted to release it with the next patch... but since it doesn't seem to come soon, I'm thinking of releasing it next week (although I'm very busy atm, so don't expect it to show up before the following weekend 27th/28th).

[spyware]

Please tell me it's not gonna have that aimbot?
The few who are (ab)using (us)it are discouraging new player's from staying.
:(
sorry for the "hijackos"

[Avarius]

Simple - how about just no cards, no aimbot, no nothing except the Painkiller? That should level the playing field. :)

[Ratty]

You guys are right about the rings! I restarted CoW and I'm getting rings all over the place! I now retract what I said about it not being possible to get 10,000 in any other level than CoW. There's no way I could do it but I now think it's at least possible for some very few players. I'm going pretty slowly this time so it will take me awhile, but I'll post a new screenshot again sometime in the next few days.

If anyone's interested I say the contest should be to get 10,000 *EXTRA* gold, i.e., the + numbers in gray in from gibbing and PK juggling, in any level of your choice in Nightmare difficulty, PK or BooH both. No Greed allowed just because it's buggy and we don't know yet how kalme might fix it in the next powermad. Also no Five Star bonus because that would leave most players out (at least it would ME). We could also go with no cards at all--I kind of like cards because I'm interested in different card strategies people might employ, also I worked hard for those cards and I like to use them. But let's say it's your choice, just tell us what you did--no cards and we will be suitably impressed. If nobody else is interested, well, I'm still going to do it. I'll post a new screenshot in awhile.

It was interesting learning yet more new things about PK after all this time playing. And I was getting bored with it for awhile and was thinking of just giving it up. Looks like it still has a bit more life in it for me.

[Artas1984]

Hey, Ratty, you are talking my way!

And i also noticed, though i did it all the time - you can get rings not only from rocket blasts or granade blasts, but also when the enemy is landing on you from the sky and you greet him with blades.

But anyway, the gold collecting competition should be done without any cards or cheats like the 5 star challenge!

It is not some rule, though i guess everyone should support me, it is just the way i will do it, since i am playing 5 stars on nightmare now, next will be gold collecting through the all levels on nightmare.
So Ratty, those 7000+ additional pieces you show to us have been gibbed without any cards as i see.
That is a great challenge for me and everyone.

Of course i will try both - one single level gold collecting and the whole game.

[Ratty]

So Ratty, those 7000+ additional pieces you show to us have been gibbed without any cards as i see. No *gold* cards, but I had the Replenish silver card equipped (which is actually helpful for getting more gold, especially in the beginning). The other silver was Mercy which I didn't use of course. I wasn't trying to do it without cards, it's just this particular set had Fury and that gibs everything before you can shake any gold out so it made my gold cards worthless to use. That 7000+ was also done before I knew about how to get the rings. I'm going through again this time to get as many rings as possible and I'm sure it will be more than 10,000 this time. Easily.

[Artas1984]

Hey, does replenish doubles the amount of gold?
It would be stupid.
I thougt only ammo?
What are you saying?...Replenish?...

Next time you will try your gold gibing match, try to do it without any cards and cheats, i wonder how could you pick up?

[Ratty]

The Replenish silver card doubles the amount in ammo boxes. It doesn't affect gold at all. And yes, it is helpful.

http://www.kalme.de/painkiller/blacktarots-compact.html

[Artas1984]

So i do not understand, why do you need replenish??? :confused: :confused: :confused:
Don't you use painkiller fire to juggle the dudes?
So the other guns are not needed at all!
And you say you will try to gib the rings out of deeds, but you can get only 1 ring from your victim since after he drops the ring, he should have been blasted in pieces with rlauncher, or twisted in shraps with your pk-blades?
How are you going to get more than 1 ring out of the dude, you can get 5 boxes, no way 5 rings!


Personally I wouldn't use Greed because I think ultimately you'd end up with more gold using Soul Redeemer, but who knows? It would be interesting to find out.

Ok, if cards would be on, i would also choose "soul double health", but the other really would not be "replenish", i would choose "soul catcher".
SoulCatcher/Soulredeemer - good selection to keep high HP while the enemies are attacking while you are gibing.

[Ratty]

I like to use lots of stakes to get my gold. It's a lot easier than juggling and I always typically run out of stakes too soon near the beginning unless I have Replenish equipped. But now I may have to retract that. This last time playing CoW I found some stake ammo near the beginning I hadn't noticed before (in the square area with the easy secret in the dark alcove). So maybe it turns out Replenish doesn't help at all if you know where all the ammo is. We'll see. I don't have Replenish equipped this time.

I'm too far in now to do it without cards this time, but after I see how you do I'll probably play through CoW again without cards. I use the cards at the very beginning, jumping up to the first secret then down again using Iron Will to avoid damage, with enough time left over to stake and shake the mob of 5 bikers that come out to get you. +95 gold each biker, 5 golden monets plus 1 ring. Timing is important! You have to stake them against a wall, aiming a little up near the head to make sure their feet are off the ground else you won't get a ring when you end up by gibbing with the PK primary fire.

[SYS]

...a voice from the darkness.....


Fixed in the next Powermad release:

http://img385.imageshack.us/img385/41/gold36un.jpg

:P

But Kalme... This was so great fun: this (http://tombraider.central-game.net/sys/painkiller/PK_C01E05-Enclave-OverGolded.jpg), and this (http://tombraider.central-game.net/sys/painkiller/PK_C04E04-Forest-OverGolded.jpg), and even this (http://tombraider.central-game.net/sys/painkiller/PK_C05E04-H3ll-OverGolded.jpg)! :D

Congratulations for the nice Stats, Ratty! * thumbs up * :) I've NEVER tried such gold challenge anyway: we (Peti, Doomer and me) just tried to reach the "reachable maximum", what the Statistics show. But we used the 5-Star reward, and I even used the Greed fun. I took it totally fun... :) Only Frag did it seriously, and He indeed achieved amazing Statistics on many maps...

[Ratty]

Only Frag did it seriously, and He indeed achieved amazing Statistics on many maps... Really? I'd like to see some. Did he post screenshots of his final scores someplace?

And how on Earth did you get +300 in the Ηell level?

[kalme]

@SYS: I realized that this is possible as I discovered this bug. I wonder why no one wrote about this before now that I know you guys already came across this bug.

@Ratty: You can use the monsters in http://img105.imageshack.us/img105/2773/text5kg.png just like the ones in any other level to juggle gold out of them:

http://img387.imageshack.us/img387/1041/juggling1mz.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[MacheteLover]

...unrestricted card use, which is no different than God mode really.

I see it as very different from God Mode. If you just want to be invulnerable, use God Mode, it's easier. With the cards you have to reactivate them repeatedly, and there are some bugs involving cards and Demon mode. The cheats are easier.

The fun in unlimited card use is to use the fun cards for a whole level, such as Speed, Haste, Dexterity, and Fury. It also allows for new challenges, such as seeing how many enemies you can get airborne at the same time. I've played the game normally several times now, without cheating. Like many of the rest of you, I'm looking for new challenges. I don't like speed runs or things like that. I like using the cards in creative ways. If I could only use them three times, it wouldn't be much fun. I earned the five-star reward, and I'm using it to get more out of the game.

Obviously someone with unlimited card use has a huge advantage over those who do not in a challenge such as this. So either it is banned completely, or the scores for those players should be kept separate. I was providing an alternative challenge, getting the most gold through any and all non-cheating methods. That's all.

[Ratty]

I earned the five-star reward, and I'm using it to get more out of the game. Ha, that's exactly how I feel about the normal cards. Compared to some of the old-timers here, I didn't earn my cards until recently--I'm still having fun using them, discovering different and surprising ways to take advantage of them. In my opinion it would be very very difficult, perhaps impossible to get all possible gold in CoW even using the five star bonus. It would be really fun to see who could get the most. In some places the monsters get into fights and damage one another, making it impossible to use the PK on them without gibbing them outright. It's possible to shake gold out of crows! Did you know that? Though I don't know if you can get a ring out of them. Probably though, if your fast. I took a screenshot when I reached the second checkpoint in CoW:

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/~apollock/Shot0003.jpg

I used the cards once and this time I'm getting lots of rings, so I'm way ahead of where I was last time. I really wanted to be at 3000 by now but I screwed a few things up. By the time I reached the first checkpoint I had 925 gold. I don't remember how much I have right now, but the trickiest part of all this is just ahead of me, it takes a lot of luck and a LOT of patience.

[T'krau]

It's possible to shake gold out of crows! Did you know that? Though I don't know if you can get a ring out of them.
Sorta off-topic; In the pit (cave, whatever it is) in Hills, I put a rocket into a group of bats, and I THINK I saw a ring/jewel/trinket fall to the floor. I was halfway up the wall, and couldn't get back down in time to see what it actually was...

[SYS]

...a voice from the darkness.....

Yes T'krau, it works: You can juggle jewels even from the bats or crows, if You want... :)

I agree about cards from both sides: there are aspects from where they are "cheats", and there are aspects from where they are fun to use. Just like MacheteLover and Ratty, I also was using the 5-Star reward for a long time, just to try out many-many things... Why not? It just increased my knowledge... :) Even there was time when I activated my gold cards at least 20 times on a level, just for fun, LOL! However later I realized that it rather took away from the fun, so I started using it lesser and lesser and even lesser times... But I don't mind those times at all... :)

Ratty, nice Statistics! Anyway, if You use the 5-Star reward, then You maybe can grab gold from more enemies: some of them are on balconies, but if You activate a Triple Haste card, You can grab and pull them towards Daniel with the Killer. Also, don't forget what I show in my E1-video: that guy (a HellAngel) who throws Molotovs at Daniel in the last area - You can grab him too, without gibbing him to pieces (and that doesn't even need cards)... ;)

Kalme, You're right. I also don't know why noone ever has written about it so far. I remember, we (Peti, Doomer and me) talked about it on our HWSW.hu-Forums, but I've never mentioned it here. Maybe I was lazy, and earlier I wasn't that active either. Also, sometimes I mentioned problems with Statistics (225/237 killed enemies on "Babel" - since one of the newer patches) or the missing Fragenstein-music from the 1.61 patch, but I got just a very few answers or nothing, and I wasn't impressed. I still have one or two interesting things what would worth even a topic I think, but I'm not sure about I want to speak about them, because I think, they are already known things for many of us. OK, many of us are not all of us, so I should open it. You see, I have no acceptable explanations... :D