Crawlers / Death Stalkers

[MirddinEmris]

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.

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

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.

How do you counter that? We need some tools at our disposal.

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

[Ronin]

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?

[MirddinEmris]

  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?

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

I could, but i won't.

[Ronin]

  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.

[Bruno]

  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.

Epeli did a great summary above, explaing about stealth and initiative.

As I see it, stealth is extremely useful. However, you are squishy in a stealth outfit, so you need to be able to prepare and ambush well.

If you have no stealth, you got basically two options if you want to live: very good initiative, or very hard skin.
If you have excellent initiative, you will go first, and do major damage and/or battlefield control.
If neither stealth or good initiative, you got to have great constitution, good HPs, good armor.  Else, you will die. A telekinetic punch or electro-zap, X-bow critical, stealth knife carving of intestines, you have got to be able to take it.

In any case you got to make good use of terrain, especially without stealth. Use ventilation ducts, doorways, corners. Throw a grenade even without any skill, to lure enemies by the noise. Listen to sounds, set traps as a precaution for fallback if you can, and not be afraid to burn through expensive items. You need them to survive.

[MEJ119]

Another way to deal with Death Crawlers is to use a Force Field (Psi power) to protect yourself during the stun. When I get hit by a Crawler, especially when it immediately disappears, I run to corner, wait one turn, and then surround myself with a force field. If I happen to have the feat that makes the force field last longer, this works even better. Either way, it protects me quite well while I'm stunned. Then I can heal and prepare to deal with the crawlers via traps, caltrops, fire, etc.

[Ronin]

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).

[MirddinEmris]

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.

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

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).

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.

[Ronin]

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.

[TheAverageGortsby]

Sure, stealth and high initiative might be able to help to a degree but that leaves only one viable character build.

Nah, there are plenty of builds that work fine on Dominating.  You could put a measly 15 points into Guns and pick up Gunslinger and walk around with a pistol equipped, switching to your main weapon once combat starts.  That's 7 effective Dex/Agi worth of initiative. You could get Paranoia for 5.  Or you could tank up properly. I had no trouble tanking Death Stalkers as a super heavy sledge character in triple-plated armor. Regen Vest will heal you up without triggering that poisoning effect; Sturdy Vest will get you to health numbers high enough that you can just take the hit and fight back. You don't have to use a sledge to use heavy armor, no reason you couldn't have gloves/knives as well.

And all that is just assuming you want a Dominating viable melee build, there are obviously a bunch of others, and many of them don't need initiative to get through the Death Stalkers.

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).

Evasion and dodge may not do much, but you're just wrong about tanking. I don't think you could tank everything in the game (offhand, I imagine Emporion/Harpocrates, IRIS/ARKE, any place with lots of psi goliaths, and of course Tchort would all be tough or impossible to just straight up tank) but you can tank most things on Dominating if you want to. Get that resist up to 90% or so, walk around with a nice low-frequency shield, and there's not really much that'll bother you short of psi enemies or special encounters.

[destroyor]

- 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.)

Evasion/dodge might be equally viable w/ Heavy armor on hard but this is simply not true on Dominating. I tested this extensively myself and I'm sorry to say the 30% global skill buff heavily penalizes Evasion/dodge build. When playing normally, your evasion/dodge will always lag behind npc weapon skills even if you max them every level. If you look at the return on investment of these 270 (135 for each) skill points they are simply not worth it.

[Ronin]

- 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?

[Fenix]

Dude, here is my melee, Domination.
I can't say it's easy, but I can deal with large groups too, like incapacitate-->stun-->run-->return.

[harperfan7]

Dude, here is my melee, Domination.

>bruce
>yellow/black jumpsuit

Nice.

[Fenix]

Dude, here is my melee, Domination.

>bruce
>yellow/black jumpsuit

Nice.