Messages

406

General / Re: A bit of Player Data and Pure Opinion

« on: October 15, 2013, 11:15:26 am »

Indeed that part of the complex is a major peeve of mine.

Stealth doesn't really works, there are so many burrowers and the small ones that you cannot stealth all the way there and back, you'll just get seen after a while. Similarly, fighting with stealth helps nothing other than iniciating the combat. Every single time I tried to agro small parts it never happened, what happened is that all but 2 burrowers NE and a few smaller ones up north are left. Everything else just seams aware of my presence the moment I aggro and this is like, barelly a few yards from the entry... Indeed the dificulty in that place is insane for characters who just finished GMS and the rewards for doing that are virtually non-existent.

407

Suggestions / Re: Dense Blocks of HP

« on: October 15, 2013, 09:34:09 am »

I am not automaticly assuming you're bad or telling you to learn how to play, but I always say this to players. Builds aren't supposed to be too specific in oder to be viable good builds, but there are certain requirements (shall we put it that way?) in order to make the character good. Yes, enemies HP escalates rather fast. this might be for alpha test purposes or that might be the intended difficulty curve... Still the purpose of a grenade is hardly to just kill very tough opponents easly. One on one your sledgehammer should be more than enough to kill most things... Maybe not a mutant but most things. Grenades are supposed to be your area of effect weapon. No matter what situation, no matter what skill set you use, it's ovbious that you can't take on multiple opponents. Be it with guns, psi abillities or mellee. Single targeted attacks will not win against multiple opponents. So if you do mellee then you probably have to really have throwing in order to have some good control. I wouldn't say Psi abillities because quite frankly. Psi abillities are good, but they are good if you are fully investing into psi, otherwise you see enemies resist your stuns and have incredibly lower damage outputs which make the psi not worth it.

Mellee works well with throwing (crafting grenades too because you don't get high end grenades otherwise... not at the moment anyway, they will probably be available in the future) because of the AoE.

Guns work well throwing too, you can make it work with mellee on a lesser damage base since you have less str but your grenade throwing is gonna be as RNG as hell. You can also use crossbows instead of mellee.

Crossbows work well with throwing and especially well with psi if you heavly invest into will.

Psi works best with crossbows. Also works with mellee on a lower str base or guns.

Trying to go outside this sphere is possible, but it means the game becomes incredibly hard because your combat skill set is not prepared to deal with some situations. In your case it is not prepared to deal with multiple opponents from what I can understand... The problem does not lie in mellee itself nor does it lies in the opponents HP. In fact if you lower the opponents HP than the good combat skill sets are going to just blow through enemies like they didn't exist.

408

Suggestions / Re: Dense Blocks of HP

« on: October 15, 2013, 04:27:28 am »

I dunno which build you made for your mellee but one of the rule of the thumb is always have 2 fighting skills if you want to survive. Mellee is decent, especially since it doesn't wastes ammo although yes it means you take some damage. Primary mellee at first sight for me seams to be the bad choice however some people have managed to go full mellee with success so maybe it's your build that is wrong. I'd imagine a mellee would complement with throwing and grenade crafting because if your main spec is mellee that means low firearms skills and probably no feats either which makes your use of firearms limited.

One important thing to have in mind is that there are good builds and bad builds. Bad builds will have a hard time and the game design takes that into account. If you don't make your skills right then it isn't right that you're as good as someone who does. So this raises 2 points. You have to learn to do proper builds and if you want to make the game harder than it already is then you can make a worse skill set to increase the dificulty.

409

Suggestions / Re: Dense Blocks of HP

« on: October 15, 2013, 01:45:27 am »

I feel you on the GMS burrower part, especially since not only it's incredibly hard (nearly impossible to do at the proper time) it doesn't really gives you any rewards except the odd bit that flies from the dead critters and a corpse to loot at the far end of the cave. but other than that I don't feel there is a too big of a problem with the health of NPCs. Crafted grenades kill almost anything. a mark 5 will kill anything short of the mutant and even then it will leave the mutant nearly dead. Mark 3 grenades are enough to nearly kill and sometimes even kill the mutant dogs. Sniper rifles can one shot anything in the game and only mutant have chances to survive. Similarly a decent assault rifle with the feat to make it shot 1 or 2 extra rounds on a burst will kill anything short of a mutant unless of course RNG is screwing you over and you're missing a lot of the shots.

410

General / Re: A bit of Player Data and Pure Opinion

« on: October 14, 2013, 08:36:36 pm »

I'm not sure that would be so great Styg. Now most cases it won't really afect a lot of stuff but for example the burrowers in GMS. the only way to win at the level you complete the GMS is to go in and go out. There is a problem in the viabillity of doing that place early on and I see the impossibillity of doing a place the moment you go there for missions as being a problem. It's never a good thing to have to backtrack just to do something you were underleveled to do only to then go back to the main path you were on. Another problem there is what the place has to offer. Supposedly there was something valuable enough for the guys to be trying to get in there. But instead of having another lower or higher level of the GMS compound, instead there is a cave which is certainly not what should have been there (not accordingly to what is given to understand sine you're searching a military facillity for something valuable that would probably be down there but suddenly it's not a military facillity but a cave infested with burrowers) and it is nearly devoid of any loot at all, save from a dead guy at the end. My idea here would be to make the cave still difficult but more manageble for the character level. Also add somewhere another entrance which will lead into a another part of the GMS compound (a new part) where there is some valuable material which was what was being looked for in the first place... It is just an incredible furstation to do that and get nothing in return, even worse for non psiker who spend a lot of resources to clear it out.

As for a change to make shroomhead less tedious. That is great news!

If you want a simple change to make early game a lot better just give a better starting armor. If there is a 20/4 to start with then you can take a decent punishment from the rathounds with that amount of damage reduction. Mind you, it doesn't allows people to do it like idiots but the damage reduction is enough at that point to be able to take a couple hits here and there.

411

General / Re: My experience - Why I gave up in frustration after an hour

« on: October 14, 2013, 05:27:01 pm »

Angus, there is constructive criticism and there is destructive criticism. Quite frankly if this was my game and I got an answer like yours I'd probably tell you to piss off too. Because I am not the one who's spending his days/weeks/months doing it I don't really answer in such way, my only attachment to the game is as a player who likes it and thus I do try to make you see the good points and well, debate stuff in a civilised manner.

I've posted about the problems I found with the game and yes, the game has some balance issues but it's an Alpha so it is to be expected, the finished product will of course be a lot better. But I've never go any answer of the kind and the reason it happened was because I didn't put any destructive criticism. I went right about the point and in some cases offered ideas for possible solutions.

If you search posts around with first impressions and final thoughts on what the game has curently to offer you'll see most people do it like so. You'll see most people disagree with some things despite overall liking the game. I don't belive you'll find yes-mans here. We don't get paid for that.

412

General / Re: My experience - Why I gave up in frustration after an hour

« on: October 14, 2013, 03:55:16 am »

Again the game is not complete so yeah, there will be some blind choices offered and you will have to learn to make good builds. I belive (not that it was said to be planned I think) that once the final build comes out there would be some pre-made characters, kinda like fallout had. It's not optimal starting builds but they are decent enough to get you through.

I'll go as far as giving you an idea of how to build a character.

Primary statistic at 10! So str 10 if you want to mellee, Perception 10 if you want to use ranged weapons or will 10 if you want to use psi-powers.

You can chose one statistic to have at 3 in most cases. As you seen In my vid I opted for str since it wouldn't affect my abillity to use crossbows. As a gunner I put my will at 3 since i won't use psi-abillities.

Skills. Always have 2 combat skills. To focus on only means will mean you are not adaptable enough to any situation. Mellee then to take throwing with it. Guns also tend to take throwing but you can put crossbows instead or maybe mellee but your mellee damage will be lower than a mellee guy due to a lower str. Psi abillities can take anything but it is in my opinion better with crossbows.

You should always take lockpicking and hacking because you can get more loot (don't forget to buy a haxxor from ezra before heading out and a couple bateries, also get a few lockpicks, maybe 2 or 3.

Get stealth to initiate combat on your own terms rather than on enemy terms.

Not required at the beggining but if you want to get all quests possible then get persuasion. I think to get you everything you need 45 effective points, I go for 50 myself to make sure.

Feats vary. Mellee guys will want to start with sprint for sure. Anyone who uses a gun or a crossbow cannot live without aimed shot in my opinion. My advice is to do a little bit of research on the wiki, there aren't many so it is easy research, find the requirements and plan accordingly. Also don't forget that every 2 levels you gain a feat and every 4 levels you gain one abillity point.

It is not absurd that there are good builds and bad builds. It is good that there is the option to even have bad builds. Who knows I want to make it even harder on myself? But still it's bad mentallity when a game just gives you everything. You don't have to worry about nothing and go on being a one man army. Choices will influence gameplay and while I don't often like to compare vidio games to real life. If you eat roten cheese, you can't complain about the taste, you chose to eat it after all. Similarly if you don't try to make a good character in a vidio game, you can't complain that it sucks, it was you who made it that way.

I remember when I played fallout 2 for the first time (yeah, I played 2 before 1). Being killed left and right. Only after I started to learn how to make proper builds did I hhad chances at winning. This isn't a game done wrong, this is a game done right but hey, it's an opinion after all and we all know what opinions are like.

As for the being a lot of busy work. any good old time cRPG has that. It's the way you learn the game and indeed a lot of the beggining is talking to A and B getting quests and stuff. After that it smooths out. You don't need to go back for healing often. You have like 2 more of those so called busy work quests. one to catch hoppers after you do the first mission. It basicly teaches you how to catch critters to sell and you'll get one more later one which teaches you how to fish. all of these are done in order to show you how to have some profitable abillities if you find yourself lacking just a little bit of money for this or that... Again, any cRPG has a bit of busy work front loaded because you need to get quests and be introduced to NPCs of interest, then like all cRPGs, it evens out.

To be honest I think your main problem with this game is that you are a little too used to the new games which just make you jump right into the action as a killing machine with no worries of anything whatsoever. All I can really tell you is to give it a real chance, just say to yourself. I'm gonna beat this shit cause no fucking computer game is better than me. And just do it. You'll find yourself enjoying this more and more as you sail along, you can be sure of that. But again, do a proper build.

413

General / Re: Lunatic Gunners - not human?

« on: October 13, 2013, 05:39:33 pm »

I can assure you they are human since the bilocation which only works on human also works on them.

414

General / Re: My experience - Why I gave up in frustration after an hour

« on: October 13, 2013, 07:28:59 am »

While I do respect your opinion I think you do are being quite a bit unfair towards the game even if you have some valid points as well.

As for the dialoge. I can't say i explored all the dialoge in game, for the most part i avoid antagonising dialoge because I just don't roll that way so, yeah, don't know much about that. I go about it the nice way or the I kill you way. As for typos or the lack of giving you a way to express yourself. I liked the conversations for the most part, i don't find anything wrong with them, they are good enough to immerse me and I dare say more than 99% of the players. Your points over typos and by Typos I'massuming you meaning the use of wrong grammar. Quite frankly, it's the kind of things that nearly no one notices, it's really at the level of, someone who has an master degree on english language like say a teacher or something like that would notice. For everyone else they will see no typo, if you try to point that out they'll say, what they say makes sense to me... I don't mean with this that you're wrong, just that it's a classic example of grammar nazi which no one likes and which quite frankly, if that is enough to make you dislike the game. Well I guess you'd reach a point where you'd hate the world for not speaking or writing properly.Again you may have found the script to be bland. I'll respect that but to me the script was just fine. Now of course there is a lot of info missing. It's an Alpha, and as such it's an unfinished product not really up for evaluation. Buying into an alpha is meant as a help to the developer with money and of course to help with bugs and offer sugestions. At very least it could be said that dialogue is not what you might have expected, but the general consensus of the people who play it is that it is actually rather decent.

Now for other things which probably didn't needed to be explained but well. What do you learn by opening all containers in your room? Leave nothing untouched, if it can be opened and it's not a theft then open it... If it's a theft well, I suppose that depends on the situation right?

On the theft kills you matter. Now while you may not know a lot about the setting you do know this. pos appocaliptic world. This means nukes abouve, surface is unhabitable. this means lack of resources to go around. If you try to steal me, I'll put a bullet through your head and get your stuff. this makes a hole lot of sense to me. In a way this is not much different from the good old isometric RPGs like fallout.

Next you waste your ammo firing at 10 yards. Let's ignore the fact that gorsky tells you that if you are using a pistol then to at least try 7 yards, you should always make it easy however by doing 5 yards. You assume the ammo is expendable just cause you're supposed to train. In a place with scarse resources you get what you get, I usually do it in 11 to 13 shots.

Then there is the weapon hit chances with range. I agree that there should be better chances to hit over range but let's try to go at this in two parts. You are a level 1 character. This means that you are relativelly incompetent even in the stuff you trained best. Second. You are walking in caves with barely no light at all, even something at 7 yards is a blur in the darkness.

The pathing or indeed the AI of the enemies I like. Now, you can say i like it easy but no, i like predictabillity. the game is hard and the way the game forces you to play is by learning how the enemies will respond to you and plan ahead... I will agree on the enemies shouldn't know if another pah was open for them but if you are fully closed by fences it's good that the rathounds will stay at the fences. think of yourself running from a dog and you leaping over a fence. The dog will stop at the fence, he can do anything else than throw himself uselessly at the fence trying to get you and fail. Now if you were to have a gun and shot the dog at the fence. The results would be just as predictable in the game so it's not totaly off.

Also you know there are pack mentallity with the rathouds. Psi-beetles gain buffs near eachother, the more there are together the stronger psi-abillities they can use. it's not like, they have a super complex AI but they do have very good synergies.

Not having armor against any opponent will have you die in seconds, in fact your starting armor barely helps, i've actually defended that alongside a more reasonable weapon towards the combat stats you have, you should start with a better armor, a 20/4 would be decent enough but hey, it's not like it's undoable without it.

Speaking of armor and weapons. You should look at this game as you look at fallout or similar games (though even harder). If you don't have a proper build, you're itching for some pain. My first builds were atrocious, I couldn't do anything. You didn't even reached a bit further. You know, if you had just assed yourself with a few more minutes you'd get past those dogs and com to a house. Inside the house there is a guy with a crossbow and 2 dogs of his own. trying to make him leave so you can reclaim it will only result in combat and since he has aimed shot he can start by putting a guaranteed critical hit with a bolt and then shot again, then his dogs attack and they are close. Sufice to say, if you tell him to move out, you'll die instantly. I'm sure you'd rage at this but the answer is pretty simple. inniciate the combat, don't even talk to him, just kill the bastard. there are 3 ways of doing it. One is if you have aimed shot (and if you don't have it then you are going to hurt a lot because that skill is almost obligatory to start) you can kill him before he even does anything if you use a crossbow (and you get one for free, if you didn't then you've failed one of the basic rules of RPGs. talk to everybody!) and if you fight by the door only one dog can come at you at a time and if your problem is health, go back for free heals, you can survive 2 dogs easly if you are even slightly well built. You can throw a grenade, even without skills, just savescum as needed until it just hits him and idealisticly, the 2 dogs. it's a oneshot kill. The other way passes through fleeing, assuming you didn't blew up the barel earlier. You can do this in 2 ways. You use sprint which is the only way to be faster. take cover by the wall and explode the barrel as he and the dogs come close and in case you're wondering, the movement points and paths will move all 3 of them in the radius of the explosion. Another is use a psi-abillity to put up a wall blocking the door for 2 rounds giving you the time to run into position. But again it's a pitty you didn't reached there cause I'd love to see what you'd think of that part although I'm fairly sure I'd know the general way it'd go.

So to sum it up:

What information is missing will eventually be added, this is an alpha so have pacience. You knew you were buying a product that was very far from being finished so the lack of a specific content isn't smething valid to complain.

Dialogue isn't bad, it's quite decent. It may not be at the level you want it to be but this is one person alone making a game, you can't expect excelence in every point, you can expect the game to be good at it's main points which are the combat and survival aspect and tehn to be decent at all else.

The game is meant to be hard and no, that isn't something wrong, if ther is something wrong is games being too easy these days. Breasing through content like you are such a badass and nothing being able to kill albeit a level of incompetence that's hardly human is not fun. Beating something hard gives you a sense of archivement, nothing feel as good as something you had to sweat for.

AI is not badly done. AI is done to be predictable. The focus of the combat is not to be adapting every turn to the AI but rather planing and executing your engagement. Both forms are valid forms and none is better, they are just different but work well.

Starting items will probably still be adressed in the future. There is no guarantee but all the feedback points out that it's the best way so there is some likelihood of it happening, again it's an Alpha, testing what woks and what doesn't is part of it.

There is indeed some warnings that should be added like a theft warning for example but hey, you do it once, you learn and that's it. While you can grumble when it happens, it will only ever happen once and then you know. It's hardly that big of a problem and will probably be address too but incredibly low on the priority list for sure.

Last, proper builds. You may be of the type whis agains't proper builds and thing that every single build should be viable. No, this is wrong. This is the same as saying that your BB gun should be as viable weapon as an assault rifle. Just because you can it doesn't means you should.

PS: Don't take this as a personal attack, I'm just explaining a few points and well, by debating stuff people reach a greater understanding of things.

415

General / Re: Is it possible to beat Ezra?

« on: October 11, 2013, 03:32:55 am »

Yeah but I still doubt that you can take control. idealisticly you want to just break eye contact so you don't have to fight which wastes you ammo or psi... Still, that gives you the opportunity to snatch a mushroom and the XP of the kill.

416

Suggestions / Re: Beginning is too boring/hard

« on: October 11, 2013, 02:10:45 am »

That depends on where you fight them. if you go directly down from the stairs or elevator then yes, you'll probably face multip,e robos even if not seen by a cam, that is because of the patrol route. If a friendly nearby robot is engaging the nearby robots will help. If instead of going south you go right of the stair on the uppermost corridor you'll reach eventually a T shaped intersection. You comming from the left, on the right there will be a locked door and the passage down is patrolled by a robot. Ambush the robot at the T intersection when it moves into it. If you have stealth that is the better way to engage... Fight the robot there and you'll fight it alone. Only on the most extreme of cases does a second show up mid fight but savescumming will help you there. Now that lower passage opens into an O shaped room, the second robot patrols that room as well a the lower middle hallway. You can engage that robot nearly from the T shaped intersection and I advise you to do so, if needed provoke the robot and retreat there so it will come after you alone. Once you kill that one there is only one robot left patrolling the lower corridor.

417

Suggestions / Re: Beginning is too boring/hard

« on: October 10, 2013, 11:30:34 am »

Also you find the omni-tool on the first floor of the GMS but I prefer to kill the bots myself and you have several ways of doing so.

No weapon, at least the ones you start with will not do much against this bots since they have a good protection against attacks but here is the deal. Electric attacks do extremelly well so if you are a psiker, use electrokinesis on them, it even stuns them. Otherwise stun grenades and/or electro bolts for crossbows are your best friends.

The reason why I advise you to kill them is because hey, XP and loot... There are only 3 bots so it shouldn't be too hard if you are smart enough to fight them where there isn't security cameras and can kill them one by one.

418

Let's Plays / Let's Play by Elhazzared

« on: October 10, 2013, 12:01:55 am »

So I've started a let's play myself with what I consider to be an optimal psiker build. If you guys are interested then check it out here.

http://youtu.be/o2ji73vYy_0 - part 1

http://youtu.be/zLUtAQjwtvk - part 2

419

Suggestions / Re: Beginning is too boring/hard

« on: October 09, 2013, 11:03:05 pm »

first fight of the day, siphoners... I'm sure that would be amusing! However as entertaining of a thought that would be to see a total newb just go straight into those in the first play and be like, WHAT?! I'm sure every newb is as much of a cheapass as I am and the moment the guy asks you for money he'd go like. NOPE!

420

Suggestions / Re: Beginning is too boring/hard

« on: October 09, 2013, 10:32:13 pm »

Nope, these enemies on the lowest level of the subway are too hard to kill on level one. In fact they carry grenades and might just toss one at you in the first round for an insta kill.

Now yes, the beggining of the game is a little bit harsh because the starting armor is frankly bad and there is no passive way to heal like in fallout. That said a well made character can do it with just 2 or 3 go backs for heal at most and not using any item for healing. Past that inicial harshness the game smooths a little bit though there are still incredibly hard challenges like for example, the GMS burrower cave. It's incredibly hard and nothing but the most optimised characters can do it right away after finishing the GMS compound... Also as a warning the place has absolutly no reward for doing it other than congratulations, you managed to do it anda  decent amount of XP out of the kills.

I struggled a lot in the beggining but when I started to optimise my starting build (of course there is a learning there) and started to learn how to better take the inicial difficulty on, I was able to do it somewhat easly.