Messages

166

Suggestions / Re: Let's have a chat about the Deep Caverns. (wall of text, and OBVIOUS SPOILERS)

« on: January 07, 2016, 02:44:28 pm »

I am a lazy person, so this is a copy&paste from other forums, but:


LONG VERSION:
My major complaint is that the HP (and resistances) bloat takes away the fun from combat encounters. A good comparison is the tchort institute (my mage fought her way through it). The placement of the guards is done very well in certain areas: you have strong melee fighters with hammers standing at the entrance, psi users with thought control somewhere in the middle, and further back gunslingers, crossbowmen and snipers. And of course there are no convenient vents upstairs. Now depending on your build, the threat level is different; my mage could resist those metal spells reasonably well and a shield took care of guns, but a single shot from a crossbow usually took her out and so did a few hits from a hammer. Therefore, upon entering an area (and loosing the initiative roll most of the time) it was important to identify the biggest threat level and take them out first, while disabling the others. But that was possible because the enemies are no HP sponges. They can one-hit you, but so can you, resulting in interesting - and fun - combat encounters. And then you move forward from that - to shooting shrooms again and again.


SHORT VERSION: if I compare the deep caverns encounters to the tchort institute, the latter is an example of good encounter design, where the difficulty comes from enemy placement and variety. Deep caverns is the opposite; hit points bloat and over-the-top resistances result in combat that may be difficult, but ultimately is repetitive and a chore.

167

General / Re: Deep Caverns Are Poop: issues [minor spoilers]

« on: January 06, 2016, 07:38:36 pm »

Yup, that's the place. I'm not entirely sure, but I believe the master keycard was in the janitor closet, southwest corner of the first floor.


There are even bigger differences between character builds. Keep in mind that not all players have biology skill. But everyone should come prepared with the stuff that they need the most. If you use a lot of ampules to process organs and plants, you really ought to know by now to always carry few dozen with you. Especially when descending into unknown with no guaranteed way back.

The warehouses don't contain literally everything, they're mostly filled with electronic/mechanical parts, some equipment and common ammo (including batteries). But maybe I should poke Styg about the ampule thing once again. If anyone else feels like DC is lacking ampules, please post about it here.

You assume that the player got such a warning. Consider the following sequence of events: my character failed her interview, got attacked by the tchortist and had to fight her way through. Not that I mind, considering the find in the basement. But the cut scene at the elevator already made little sense: you have one tchortist running in to warn you (and where did he come from? my mage killed those in the west wing too), then the faceless come in, then you get down the elevator and that's it. You get no forewarning that you are about to "descend into unknown", because when the quest line begins you are on your way to infiltrate the institute, and once you fail the interview, there is no way out.

I actually like the area design in itself(I'm currently still playing around in the mushroom cave). I can see the idea behind the placement of mushroom turrets and obstacles; it would be a fun game playing against them; figuring out when to take cover, to shoot, to move. Would be, if not for the HP bloat of enemies, which makes fighting them a chore instead. "Especially when descending into unknown with no guaranteed way back." is not really an excuse for bad design.

168

Bugs / institute of tchort bug (spoilers)

« on: January 03, 2016, 08:18:54 pm »

My character has failed the interview and was attacked by the tchortist. Yet the quest still remains open and is not marked as failed:



Also, even though my character managed to persuade the old rejected to leave his cage, and all the tchortist in all accessible areas are dead (as well as the creatures in the West Wing, except for the faceless), there is not dialogue option to tell him that. Which makes little sense, as in another rescue scenario (Newton at SGS), the NPC acknowledges that the way out clear.

169

General / Re: Institute of tchort quest help (spoilers)

« on: January 03, 2016, 07:49:56 am »

EDIT: Turns out, until the "locked out of tchort's institute" problem gets fixed, it is not possible to save the rejected if you fail the interview. That because you need to both open the ventilator shaft and jump down the hole in West Wing, in order to be able to tell the rejected about it.

170

General / Institute of tchort quest help (spoilers)

« on: January 02, 2016, 11:45:57 pm »

Does anyone know how to convince the old rejected from the basement lab to leave? At this point all of the tchortist, including scientists and civilians, are dead and the cages are open. But when talking to the old rejected, my character can only promise to look for a solution. Even after succeeding with the persuade checvk they still refuse to leave.

Do you need to ask someone else to help them?

171

Bugs / Ola (JKK) dialogue bug

« on: January 01, 2016, 05:15:44 pm »

After finishing the JKK quest line and talking to Ola about the reward, one of the dialogue options leads back to all the conversations from the "rescue the hostages" quest.

172

Bugs / Re: Report spelling/grammar errors

« on: December 31, 2015, 10:14:44 am »

One dialogue with Lanista, after an arena match has the * symbol instead of the apostrophe:

"You're a gladiator now, the crowd loves you, and don*t you dare pull out now when you*ve got the heads rolling."

The dialogue with Gary before the arena fight has a double "that". Also, the second sentence is basically a repeat of the first and unnecessary:

"Well, I can't say much, other that that you're up against a difficult opponent. You're going up against one difficult opponent."

173

General / Re: Psychosis vs Tranquility

« on: December 30, 2015, 09:56:14 pm »

Yep, thanks.

174

Bugs / cryostasis and other disablers

« on: December 30, 2015, 09:53:28 pm »

I am not sure that it counts as a bug, but combat ending when enemies are still present, but disabled, is very annoying.

Here is an example: my mage was fighting the final match in the arena, and made the mistake of putting Carnifex into a cryostasis, in order to try to shatter him via cryogenic induction. Instead what happens is that combat ends and a few seconds later starts again, initiatives get re-rolled and Carnifex wins. I am a slow player - which is why I like turn-based combat - and I honestly don't have the reflexes to react in situations like this (assuming there even is something that can be done).

As it is, this feature makes certain strategies - like cryostasis shatter - not very viable. And that's not very fun; after all, what is the point of shattering enemies into hundreds of glittering pieces if not winning arena matches? 

175

General / Re: Psychosis vs Tranquility

« on: December 27, 2015, 10:00:28 pm »

Having tried both: psychosis, because it opens up psionic mania, which makes the next spell an automatic critical. Combined with neural overclocking (+30% critical damage) and multiple-hit spells like electrokinesis or cryokinetic orb (every hit is a critical) it can be brutal.

You can also spice it up with last stand, in case your psi user finds himself in a tight spot. The effect will kick in only when at low health, but the critical chance will be 50%.

176

Bugs / Geezer Ford minor bug (spoilers)

« on: December 23, 2015, 09:34:17 am »

This is a very minor bug, because it doesn't break the dialogue or the quest. After getting the "fish on the Southern tour" quest, and bringing Geezer one of the species he requested, his response contained a line of programming code (I am guessing instead of the name of the fish, it was a pentapus). Following dialogue lines were all okay.