Messages

1

General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: May 04, 2018, 06:49:50 am »

- Even if we assume high initiative was the only viable way to play (it isn't) that leaves a lot of viable builds, not just one.
- Dex only/agi only characters don't lose the initiative roll "most of the times", they win the majority. But to up the winrate to ~100%, you need dex, agi AND feats.
- Stealth is viable, if limited, with very little build focus (3 agi, skillpoints, armor set)
- Lockpicking is not required for anything except random lootboxes. It is a skill that can be skipped completely, but I don't recommend that to new players.
- Savescumming is not necessary. Although the game is not designed with permadeath in mind, skilled players often do hardcore runs as a challenge. I've even seen a streamer doing first-time hardcore run on the new DOMINATING difficulty.

- Honestly, CON does more on hard+. On easy/normal 3 CON gives enough HP buffer. Hard makes you think twice about dumping CON and HP gear is more valuable.
- Heavy armor and evasion/dodge are polar opposites and both are equally viable when taking into account the builds they can support. (Avoidance is weaker than heavy armor, but comes with higher mobility/stealth/initiative potential to lessen the need for tanking.)

I pointed out stealth because I thought you would like it better; all your troubles seemed to directly fixable with it. From that you went to thinking the player must always act first or die. That wasn't the intention and it's simply not true. I'm trying to empathise, to put myself in your position, but I just don't know where you're getting that whole "you die in 1 turn" thing from.

If you want help with your current build instead, you should share it in detail (character, equipment, what you are struggling with) because we don't really know why you're having such a hard time.

  I'm having a hard time not dying in 1 turn. That's all I'm complaining about. I have to hide all the time and spam CC stuff instead of actually fighting. My melee skill is wasted just because I have no AP left for it after I disable everyone who can attack me. Now to address your points:

-What are these viable builds? Care to mention a couple? And I hope I made it clear that by viable I don't mean completing the game through save scumming. I'd like to see this streamer you're talking about, even though there's no way he can prove he hasn't reloaded a single time.
-I actually had a dex only character so I'm pretty sure when I'm telling you you lose the initiative roll most of the times when entering new area/room.
-Have you actually tried that? I don't think you'll be able to get away with it when entering new area where the enemies are near the entrance.
-Lockpicking actually provides you with much more than random box loot. You'll be strapped for money througout first half of the game and you'll lose the strategic advantage it often offers.
-There's no way a first-time player can complete a game without save-scumming. I don't even think a veteran player can finish a hardcore run on hard+.
-3 CON may give enough HP buffer but not enough resolve. You still die in 1 turn vs psi enemies. The difference between 3 CON and 10 CON on hard+ is too negligible to actually matter. You still die in 2 sniper aimshots or something like that.
-If I kept statistics on how often I got hit when I maxed evasion/dodge I think it would've fallen somewhere in the ballpark of 70%. Considering what 1 hit does to such a squishy character, how can that be a viable build?

So you disagree that you die in 1 turn regardless of your build? Can you record a short video then of you surviving 1 turn on the second floor of Emporion?

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 29, 2018, 02:38:10 am »

Does being able to finish DOMINATING pass as being "viable"? Because if it does, than you are dead wrong.

Being able to finish? As I mentioned a couple of times I'm only talking about save-scumming-less playthroughs. Anything can be finished with enough reloads but that's not the point here. IMHO one should be able to finish the game without a single death if it was well balanced, hence the hardcore modes some similar crpgs offer.

Well, since you say so...

I mean, obviously it's not a problem with your skill, your knowledge of the game or your build, it's the game that it's at fault.

  What does skill have to do with what I'm talking about? You max a certain defensive stat/skill and it still doesn't let you survive one turn where you lost the initiative, how is that a problem with my skill or knowledge? No matter what your build is or how high your initiative is, there will be times when you don't initiate the battle. Then you automatically lose even if you had all the knowledge in the world.
 You've probably replayed the game too many times, anticipate all the enemies and take precautions but I'm talking from the position of a first-timer.

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 28, 2018, 06:03:31 pm »

I understand what you guys are saying but you don't seem to understand the underlying problem here.
 Sure, stealth and high initiative might be able to help to a degree but that leaves only one viable character build. I say one because dex only/agi only characters lose the initiative battle most of the times. So basically only 10 agi 10 dex characters have a decent chance of winning it. Stealth depends on AGI so you can't really make up for the lack of the latter with stealth. They're all tied together (especially when you add the fact that you can't go without lockpicking if you don't want to skip half of the game) and thus at the end of the day your choice is brought down to the last couple of stat points if you're like me and don't want to abuse save scumming. It just feels very limiting.

Good constitution, good armor, evasion and dodge do close to nothing on higher difficulties. You still die in 1 turn (if not in one shot) just like you would with any other character build. There's no such thing as tanks in this game (on normal and above, never tried easy).

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 27, 2018, 01:10:48 pm »

  I did git gud. It's actually become way too easy. I can kill most enemies in 1-2 fist weapon hits but I still die just because there's absolutely nothing you can do when you enter a new area or room and they get the initiative.

You seriously can't see the contradiction in this sentence?

I mean in general it's too easy, with the exception of the moments mentioned. I support the idea that enemies should be able to do as much damage as me, that's where most games fail, but it would be nice if I could actually survive 1 enemy turn with the heaviest armor. That would probably fix the initiative problem.

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 26, 2018, 10:10:46 pm »

If you are dying very often, it means you are over your head. Kinda obvious to me)

  That's exactly the problem. I dont' want F9 to be my best friend. We need more tools and more information so we don't need to reload every time we stumble into the wrong area. I know games have been relying on wikis lately but just some basic information would be nice. You never know what you're up against until it kills you a couple of times. Even then and even with the help of the wiki page some things are still uknown.

Level means almost nothing, it's not d:os2 or something like that. Every build have strength and weaknesses and every enemy plays to different weaknesses, for example, my crossbow character with Paranoia, high perception and high stealth can breeze though area infested with crawlers, since he can detect them way earlier than they detect him, can one hit them with snipe/aimed shot and his weapon is silent, meaning that when he shoots, he doesn't have to fear about every creature in the area rushing to see what was that noise. While a build with less detection, no stealth and loud weapon (many AR builds fall into that category) would have a lot more trouble in same situation. All the while, AR considered a better weapon than crossbow.

Learn the game, learn the enemy, learn your strengths and weaknesses. You know, improvise, adapt, overcome. Git gud, if you must.

Plenty of tools to counter everything. Sometimes most of them can be even in one character.

  I did git gud. It's actually become way too easy. I can kill most enemies in 1-2 fist weapon hits but I still die just because there's absolutely nothing you can do when you enter a new area or room and they get the initiative. Shield can only help so much. I got the the best metal armor and still get OHKO'ed by frag grenades (even though my equipment gives me 100+ hp). There's definitely some balance issues at hand. It's the same with evasion. I got it as high as possible on 12 AGi character and granades were still my biggest nightmare.

"Plenty of tools to counter everything" you say but couldn't mention even one?

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 26, 2018, 04:23:47 pm »

How about those machinegun auto-turrets at level 8-9?

You can avoid most of the Depot A turrets if you can't hack or kill them. The ones you really need to get rid of are close enough to cover to deal with them in pure melee fashion.

The ones that are hard to avoid are the 2 on the acid dogs map and the one in the corner of a corridor right beneath that area. I'm not sure what you mean by "pure melee fashion" but the hit-and-run strategy doesn't seem feasible with a 3 AGI character. If you came from the south side of the map like I did you'll need to deal with the dogs behind the turrets first too.

Someone suggested shooting a gun but that would take forever. Sniper rifles aren't exactly common, especially this early.
As for sneaking, don't see how that helps but that's not an option for my character either.

But where on hard difficulty do you need to beat 3 death stalkers + 1 crawler simultaneously at level 13? It's probably a side area or higher level quest you should return to later if you can't handle it yet. Or maybe it's easier to deal with them one by one than you think. The way I imagine your situation, it sounds like you were killing them with a silent weapon and relying on blind luck that nearby roaming crawlers don't come near enough to see what's happening. Were there any doors you could have closed? Other points of entry? Chokepoints for laying traps?

  It was near Rail Crossing and might have been an area for higher levels but how does one even tell that? That's one of the issues I have - I like the freedom but at the same time players have no way of telling they're in over their heads. At least a visible enemy level would be nice, if not their stats. After all there's a map near SGS that's teeming with death stalkers and crawlers too, and that's the starting area so people don't expect to be ripped to shreads the minute they start destroying rocks in that vicinity. There's also no gradation from one map to the next. One moment you're fighting fodder, the next you're facing 10 ironheads in a long tunnel. So what happens is, you see one enemy, attack from afar and you have no idea that you'll be swarmed. So you're forced to F9 all the time just because you have no way of telling what's around the corner and how strong it is. You open a random door, they get the initiative, stun and make a quick work of you. How do you counter that? We need some tools at our disposal.

The way their sting-and-climb-away move works is that they just retreat to a random nearby spot outside your line of sight to restealth.

I'm not sure that's how it works. They seem to disappear right after they hit you, not when you lose sight of them. In any case it's not that easy to find them, especially in big cave maps. I usally just try to bump into them when I don't want to waste resources. If you anticipate they might be lurking around, just show yourself for a second, then run back and forth again. That usually beats their plan to attack you by a millisecond and you get to start the fight. They're rarely alone, so you might as well try to reveal all of them on your first turn.

7

Bugs / Crippling strike cooldown not working correctly

« on: April 23, 2018, 06:18:56 pm »

According to description CS has 1 turn cooldown. That doesn't seem to be the case on this screenshot. I could probably hit as many CSs as I would like in a single turn.

https://imgur.com/UILrvuv

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Bugs / Re: [1.0.3.20] Zone transition failed (alternatively: failed to load the saved game)

« on: April 22, 2018, 02:28:19 pm »

Is there any way to get the saves to work? I happened to corrupt all my 4 saves in that area so I lost like 40 hours of playing... not too happy about that. Maybe with the next update they'll be usable again?

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General / Re: Crawlers / Death Stalkers

« on: April 21, 2018, 09:49:08 pm »

Alright. just to be clear, I registered just to whine about death stalkers.

 I don't know why people don't just flat-out say what they think. Afraid someone on the internet would call you noobs or what? Sure, the game is supposed to be hard. I get that, it's not your everyday ho-hum game where you just max one stat and kill everything with one click of the mouse. But is it supposed to be stupid hard, like in a stupid way? Be honest here, did any of you beat death stalkers the first time you met them in each area where they lurk? Like anyone, ever? I bet not. So the only way to beat them is basically "save scumming" after you know they're coming for you. There are no telltale signs for their presence(red dream mushrooms aren't always around), no hints about their weaknesses (if they actually had any), nothing. You're left with just some tips on the forums and a your best friend F9 to help you beat them eventually when they run out of luck under your blind bombardment.
  I'm playing on hard and the first time I met a stalker I got crit'ed right off the bat for 160 damage (before reductions), which is a-freaking-lot at level 13. Then when I found out I can't heal I said to myself "oh ok, antidote it is then"... nope not an option either. Then I used a molotov to try to reveal it while at the same time cutting it off. Of course it wasn't there because it has crazy stealth MP. So I thought I was safe for the stun duration, tried to wait it out but the damn thing actually appeared next to me again. Turned out they crawl on the ceiling pipes or something... Not sure how that goes together with you trying to detect it when it's nowhere in your 2D plane. Long story short, eventually I used the best way to deal with a death stalker, namely caltrops+flare(or any other aoe) the moment you see they stepped on it. Just when I said to myself "well, at least they're beatable when you know they're there", 2 more appeared +1 crawler, one of them critting me. End of story.
 So... I ask the devs, how do you beat 3 death stalkers+1crawler at level 13 without reloading till you meet them 1 by 1? Is this the "hard" you were aiming for? Hard to load into the right situation? And this is just one of the over the top enemies. How about those machinegun auto-turrets at level 8-9? Unless you hack them, I'd like to see you dispatching them with a melee character. 5 bullet bursts with 60% armor penetration and each bullet hits twice. Not to mention the increased mechanical threshold.

This way of making a game more difficult isn't challenging, it's frustrating and annoying because no matter how smart you are or well equipped your character is, you still depend on the right circumstances and anticipating your enemies.