I've been playing the game on nightmare but for some reason on level 8 (Advanced Research Complex) despite finding all items and clearing out the whole map I am finishing the level with less than 5 stars for combat rating. The game and most people on the net say it is purely kills which was my assumption. I heard glory kills give more rating so I retried the last room trying to glory kill the big foes and while I did end up closer to 5 it wasn't there either.

However I am unsure if glory kills do matter. I noticed that if you clear arena rooms very quickly (ie. By spamming the BFG) it will seem to end prematurely. Do foes like imps and possessed soldiers spawn indefinitely until you deal with the big guys?

Maybe going slower aiming for glory kills resulted in more of these enemies spawning hence the higher final rating.

Has anyone else experienced any of this? I wonder whether I'll have to do the level over to get the rating or if there is a method I can use in this final fight.

@hayt: Variation is rewarded aswell. Use different weapons in different ways, on the same enemy if you can.

I was under the impression that it's just the total number of kills, in fact I wanna say there is a loading screen tip that says something along the lines of "clear the whole map of demons to get the best combat rating". I tend to always get all 5 points for it which if it was tied to glory kills would make sense because I tend to do that as much as I can.

I know this doesn't really answer your question but if it's not just killing everything on the map, I really can't say what it is.

@gundogan: Are you certain about that? As in soften up with a shotgun and finish with the plasma would be worth more than just using the plasma? I mean ot makes sense but why wouldn't they say so.

@sackmanjones: yeah its definitely what the game says but here I am having finished the level with all secrets and rooms visited and being left with less than 5 points. I'm playing on Nightmare if that makes any difference although it shouldn't.

@hayt: I think they do. "Variation is key" kills x5 or something is usually one of the combat points. Could be quick kills in succession with different weapons though. I basicly always get it (same with max combat score) without paying any attention to it.

@gundogan: Now I'm confused. Where does it say variation is key? I don't recall that being part of the Combat Rating page in the tutorial. Same with 5x kills. What are you referring to there?

@hayt: Sometimes you should get a popup for it to mark the progress. Then again, could've been one of the challenges that you get with each level which also reward some progress in combat score, but don't think I've seen one like that.

Just killing everything is not going to give it for sure (since I know it got the max on some levels where I didn't kill everything). But even when you're not finding every secret and collectable, it might still give you a max combat score, so there must be some kind of style reward going on.

@gundogan: I don't think I've seen that and I wonder if it's because tutorials are disabled on Nightmare mode. I'll have to try this last encounter using as mant weapons as I can and see if it makes a difference.

Personally, I was under the impression that it was just the number of enemies you kill. I've been playing with that in mind and have gotten perfect combat rating through the whole game. But maybe I was just varying my weapons and kills naturally.

I've definitely just barely missed out on a full combat rating while scouring the level to find all of the secrets so I really doubt that it's based only on total enemies killed.

If so then they hid some enemies exceptionally well.

I believe it said somewhere that speed is factored in. On Nightmare I'd guess the speed it requires would be quite fast.

@cornbredx: would that be level completion speed or speed of ending a particular encounter? Sounds like either there's more going on here than I thought or everyone thinks there's more to it haha.

I've hit the goal naturally on all the other levels which is why it's confusing that this one is different.

@hayt: I really think it is entirely based on number of enemies. On the Foundry level early on, I missed a five-star rating because there's a lone Hell Knight who spawns in near a pathway that leads to optional stuff. There's also a few loading screen tips which say that combat rating is based on clearing out hordes, not doing so with variety. it's possible that your discovery radius is lighting up parts of the map without you actually having gone close enough to trigger spawns?

@the_nubster: That's possible but how then can I be getting different ratings on this final fight of the level

@hayt: I checked while playing just now. Sorry I must have misread it. It just says "...Find and kill as many demons as possible during a mission to maximize your combat rating...."

Sorry for some reason I thought it said something about speed, but it doesn't.

I worked it out! First things first my whole premise for making this thread was flawed. Level 8 gameplay spoilers: Turns out after the big final fight of that level when you hit the elevator which I assume would end the level (and force me have to restart the whole thing to get my 5 stars) it spawns two Barons of Hell and they'd give enough combat rating to finish with five. Top marks to me for making this way harder on myself.

I did discover there is no factor other than kills that matters, glory kills don't make a difference. However in a strange way speed is a factor. This might only apply to nightmare but the game spawns waves of foes based on the big guys. For example in this part of level 8 I was able to run away from a Hell Knight and imps would spawn in forever in sets of 4. Nothing else would come until I killed the Hell Knight. So I could kill 4 imps and another bunch would appear. This means that if you are very fast and efficient in taking out the big guys you'll force the "next phase" of that fight and you'll actually end up with slightly less combat rating due to having fewer small guys to murder. That said they give very little rating (at least in this level) so while I was able to "farm" them to cover the gap I knew I was going to have at the end of the fight I probably didn't really need to due to the spoiler above.

So if you come into an encounter and clear it up too fast ironically you might end up with a slightly lower combat rating which is why I was only off by a small chunk at the end.

Aside from OP's problem, it's actually possible to miss out on the 5 star rating because of enemies suiciding by jumping off the world and enemies killing each other. Those don't count for the player.

I'm 100% certain that it's based on enemy kills(the game says so), not variety, the OP probably just let too many enemies kill each other...

After multiple attempts to get a perfect combat rating on "Foundry" and "Advanced Research Complex", I learned that you have to do a lot of glory kills on the big demons, especially the Hell Knights. Foundry and Advanced Research Complex are the only levels where this applies. All the other levels you will easily get a perfect combat rating just by killing all the demons.

Another trick for Advanced Research Complex is to let the "Summoner" at the end of the level spawn more demons. The hardest level to get a perfect combat rating is definitely "Foundry". It took me four tries, and on the last try I got a perfect combat rating even before I killed the last few demons. *note* Make sure to kill the demons hiding in the "Hidden Classic Level" area. Youtube will show you where that is located.

Another good trick is to equip the "Dazed and Confused" & "Intimacy is Best" runes. Those two runes will make glory kills much easier.