Hidden Walls - Tips

Discussion in 'Dungeons of Dredmor General' started by Loerwyn, Apr 2, 2012.

  1. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Veeeeeeery quick questions relating to hidden walls:

    1. Which skills detect/explodify hidden walls?
    1a. Aside from Iron Bombs and Arrows of Mass Destruction, which items do the same?
    2. Where might one know where the Hidden Walls are?
    2a. More importantly, are they generally worth looking out for?
    3. Why is that Diggle looking at me strangely?
     
  2. Glazed

    Glazed Member

    1. Almost every AOE spell does. Even low damaging ones like Unholy Warcry. Obvious Fireball should work, too, and perhaps even AOE bolts like Acid Bottle Bolts. Turn Demon works. The second Psionics spell, Psychokinetic Shove, works. Gust from Wind Magic works, but it's tricky because you can't target walls with it. You have to target the spot next to the wall. Luckily it hits the two squares in front of you. Unholy Warcry is especially good because it has a large radius, and is cheap to cast. Psychokinetic Shove is also great because it's so cheap to cast. Even Blinding Flash breaks these walls.
    2. Any grenade like item should work except Molotov Cocktails (and perhaps others like it), because they only hit one square. Spells are better suited for the task, though, because mana is easier to replenish than grenades.
    3. They are in fixed places. There are certain rooms that always have them. You mostly learn by accident or experimentation where they are, then you try to memorize them. Sometimes, they are in places in larger rooms where there is a little 4x4 section of the map in the middle of the room you can't get into. The walls on the south side can be broken. If you want to cheat, you can just read the roomDB.xml file. The breakable walls are indicated in the room layouts by an exclamation mark.
    4. They just contain random loot it seems. The Diggle God of Secrets is also always in a hidden room.
    5. Because your face is all bloody.
     
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  3. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Makeshift bombs can't do it, I think. I tried one out on a gate and nothing happened.

    Which skill in particular, then, would you suggest if one were to look into finding hidden rooms/walls? I'm guessing Viking Magic?
     
  4. SkyMuffin

    SkyMuffin Member

    It's not just spells-- AOE abilities like Unarmed's Gray Heron Takes Flight and Maces' Ragnar's Meteor do the job too. :)

    I've had trouble with makeshift bombs. Concussion bombs always work, that I am sure of. And Iron Bombs also.

    As for "are they worth looking for"...i'd say 60% of the time it's junk (flip floppies, a wooden sword, etc), and 40% of the time it's something decent (an artifact, ammo, etc). It depends on the cost to you for whatever abilities or items you're using.
     
  5. Michael88

    Michael88 Member

    Also Dwarf explosive traps you disarm and collect, on your way, are fit for the task too :) , but you must hurt yourself in the process if you don't have pets >_< . Animal abuse....
     
  6. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    So, in other words, unless my build factors in those skills and so on, they're not really worth worrying about?
     
  7. SkyMuffin

    SkyMuffin Member

    Nah, you won't miss out on much except for the satisfaction of having solved a mystery :p

    edit: well, sometimes those artifacts can be really useful early game. But otherwise, it's not that much of a loss.
     
  8. Loerwyn

    Loerwyn Member

    Well, I'm currently playing around with the mace skill, so I hurried to the Ragnar's Meteor skill... and now I can find hidden stuff! :D

    Thanks!
     
  9. Glazed

    Glazed Member

    One of the foundry rooms has a breakable wall behind the forge. You have to have a spell to break the wall and a teleport spell to get your character back there. (At least, I don't think there's a whole string of breakable walls to let you walk to it.) In my experience it's always a Royal Beatdown (the mace). Perhaps even an artifact version.
     
  10. Glazed

    Glazed Member

    Yeah, I guess I meant to say "skills" instead of "spells". All spells are skills, but not all skills are spells.
     
  11. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Gates and other terrain "objects" are very different from breakable walls. The makeshift bomb will clear breakable walls, but not gates and blockers.

    Breakable walls can be destroyed by nearly any area-effect. Bombs, all sorts of large-area spells, even the area-affect levels of the melee skills. The trick is that some items or skills won't let you target walls, and there are a few seemingly area-effects that don't technically do damage.

    Blockers such as bars and gates, vending machines, statues, etc, are typically immune to damage, but can be moved by knockback effects. Several melee skills and a few spells do this, such as psychokinetic shove and turn demon, plus a handful of items like the concussion bombs. Again, the trick is finding something that lets you target the blocking object's space, as some knockback effects (handy wands, for example) require a valid monster target and so can only be used if a diggle is kind enough to stand next to the gate. And, of course, being able to dig or teleport give you other options for getting past a blocker.

    In general, I make sure every character I make has either a teleport or an area-effect knockback somewhere in their skill trees, and sometimes I do both. IIRC, there's around a dozen different skills that could qualify for one or the other effect, so it's really not very limiting to work that into each build.
     
  12. banjo2E

    banjo2E Member

    Dragon Breath (the first Promethean skill) also breaks breakable walls. It's arguably the most useful of the wall-breaking skills because if you're positioned right you can break two walls in one cast, instead of just one. Since horizontal walls are always at least two units thick, this is valuable. Not to mention that it's very cheap relative to other spells.
     
  13. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Of course, due to the fact all breakable walls are glitched now, nothing can break them. Except for Bolts of Mass Destruction and digging attacks. :(
    I hope that gets fixed soon. It's fairly annoying.
     
  14. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Turn Demon, bitches. The most useful useless ability in the game.
     
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  15. Glazed

    Glazed Member

    They are only broken if you save and load. Keep in mind that levels you haven't been to yet have not been generated yet. Their walls will break until you save and load on that level.

    Also, this is fixed in fixed in 1.0.10, but not in RC9.
     
  16. DavidB1111

    DavidB1111 Member

    Oh, okay. I'm glad it's fixed in 1.10. I hope Steam updates for me soon.
     
  17. Loswaith

    Loswaith Member

    I've noticed often that the areas will show up as the darkness clouds (like most unexplored areas), as opposed to the solid darkness of areas that you cant normally get to.
    This typically shows up when walls are only 1 square thick, so there could be more secret locations that dont show up as clouds too because of it.
     
  18. PaladinGP

    PaladinGP Member

    Is this retrospectively fixed? I.e. if I'm playing on a 1.0.9 rev B save that updates to 1.0.10, will the walls now break again, and the uberchests open, or are levels already generated permanently broken?