The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

I'm playing xcom enemy unknown for the first time and I'm constantly short on money, even when using the gray market. My mission is to build a hyperwave relay. Can I fart around at mission control and grind out some more money before I build the relay? I don't know if that's sustainable to do, or if I'll lose to attrition with the council panic levels.

# ¿ May 21, 2018 02:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:22

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Yeah, I've finally started pumping out satellites but it's a slow process. What causes enemy deployments to scale up? Is it caused by a certain amount of time passing, or does it happen when I advance the story? I'd like to just not make this hyperwave thing until I have some more upgrades and satellites, but I'm afraid I'd be screwing myself by putting it off.

# ¿ May 21, 2018 04:39

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Thanks guys, guess I'll focus all my money on satellites now while the aliens are still relatively easy to handle...

# ¿ May 21, 2018 12:41

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Some of the tips for xcom: enemy unknown leave a little to be desired...

"A powerful psychic is just as amazing in this game as it was in the first one."

Ok I mean I never played the first one but I think the gist is that they're good?

"Beelining for lasers is as good an idea now as it was in 1994."

Again, I never played the first one. Sounds like going for lasers is good?

"It's all but impossible to research everything in a normal game, so don't stress out about it, just research what you think you'll need."

Is this true? I'm at what I think is a point of no return I have a soldier that can use the gollop facility, but it seems like i can just keep scanning for activity and ignore advancing the plot.

I'm playing on normal difficulty, if that matters.

# ¿ May 26, 2018 18:00

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Count Uvula posted:

I don't have editing rights on the wiki but I'd pare it down to this personally:

Attempting to get rid of the "obvious enough it doesn't need to be stated" information and give a little more context to the vague tips.

This is a good improvement imo

# ¿ May 27, 2018 05:20

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

LuiCypher posted:

I'll also try to make sense of these for you.

What this player is talking about is - once you unlock Psi Training, get as many soldiers tested for psychic potential ASAP and hope that you get a few with potential. Once you ID one or two, take the time/money to train them up and send them into battle. They are indeed very powerful and some of their abilities (especially Mind Control) can break the game in your favor.

There's no surefire way to know if one of your soldiers has "The Gift", but unusually high Will scores can indicate that a particular soldier has a good chance of testing positive.

Lasers are the first major tier of weapons upgrades, and you can access to them early. They are guaranteed to one-shot almost every early-game enemy if they hit, whereas ballistic weapons usually take multiple shots to do so. In this sense, lasers allow you to be more efficient (fewer soldiers need to fire on the same target to kill it) and aggressive (the more enemies you can kill in a turn, the fewer enemies there will be to return fire) in the early game, which is when you are at your weakest. It will also help you when the aliens start rolling out bigger and badder threats so that way you're not terribly outclassed in terms of weapon power/health.

Even if the game tells you that research progress will be slow, it is usually worth taking the extra time to research lasers early because of how significant a step up it is.

This is not a very helpful tip, especially because there are things in the game that are simply not worth researching. Regardless, in a typical XCOM game, your general research priorities should be:

Weapons (enable you to be more efficient/aggressive) > Armor (enable you to take risks/make mistakes without losing high-ranking soldiers) > Items (can be extremely useful in the right situation, like hard-countering specific enemy types, capturing enemies) > Interrogations/Autopsies (very fast research time - only pick if you have nothing better to do or want to shorten research times on a higher-value item) > Base Facilities (certain ones might have priorities) > Interceptors (your base Interceptor with missiles is surprisingly effective for about 3/4 of the game on Normal) > SHIVs (nearly useless for the entire game - by the time you can make them competitive with your soldiers, your soldiers are still way better).

Generally, I only pick mandatory research (i.e., objectives) when I feel ready to take the next step or when I need to progress the game in order to unlock research to counter what the aliens are about to throw at me.

Taking South America is also surprisingly helpful if you want to research as much as possible - the time saved on all autopsies and interrogations (South America's bonus makes these occur instantly) can really boost your research, as autopsies/interrogations either unlock useful research or speed up existing/future ones.

Base facilities are tricky to place in the priority queue because there are ones that are really good (the upgraded Satellite facility comes to mind) and others that are not really necessary.

Also, uh, it sounds like you're at the end of the game! Congrats! For the final battle, Psi Soldiers are really helpful in giving you a boost to your combat capabilities through Mind Control, but also in negating some of what the aliens are going to throw at you - they have a lot of Ethereals in the final mission, and some of them have really high-level abilities like Void Rift that will wreck your squad if they're close together and others will try to Mind Control your troops, so watch out for that. I think Psi Soldiers have an ability that will negate all negative psychic effects within a certain radius (and it can even break things like an active Mind Control if they just get close enough), so I'd have at least one with that ability.

But yeah, at that point the only pressure the game can put on you is stepping up the number of alien ships that it sends out and putting a lot of really nasty poo poo in those ships. If you can handle what they can throw at you though, there's really nothing stopping you from getting all of the research.

Wowsers, thanks for the writeup. I actually did manage to blunder my way through the game, but I'm planning to do another play through on a harder setting. This info will be very helpful, thanks again!

# ¿ Jun 1, 2018 22:55

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

A few more notes on mutant year zero:

The fight that was being described earlier near the downed helicopter: the 3rd silenced weapon is in a chest after you clear the fight

Furthermore, you should be able to pick off the med bot silently before taking on the main group, but you will need to use boarmin's hog rush

You should also have access to Selma's tree hugger ability, which works well against the cluster of enemies in the fight. The dogs are melee only so it especially screws them

In general, dont be afraid of exploring a little. There are a few side missions and areas you can clear out that aren't part of the main plot, and you can get good gear from them. The game is pretty good about telling you when you're too low a level for an area.

Having said that, sometimes it pays even to explore areas that exceed your level. you can get a pretty useful helmet early on by skulking around the edges of a high level area, avoiding combat. The helmet protects against being mind controlled and electrical damage, pretty drat useful against a certain type of enemy, and you can acquire it before running into that enemy type if you explore a little

If you're picking off a single guy, I dont even bother to hide. You can usually charge in, kill him with silenced weapons, and be done with it. Only real reason to hide in those cases is if you're trying to get a bonus to your crit chance.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 08:10

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

The combat is similar to xcom, with an emphasis on stealth. There is a main home base type place where you can buy upgrades, but you dont do any base building stuff like in xcom.

Theres a main story with objective markers. You walk your guys around each map following the story progression, when you come across enemies you try to pick one off at a time silently until you've gotten all the stragglers, then you engage the main group. You have up to 3 characters in your squad at a time (5 characters total) and you can split them up, so you can like have the guy with the sniper rifle go up a ladder and hide there while the frontline dude circles around and gets close. Then you trigger combat and it plays similar to xcom.

Outside of combat, you're scrounging for loot (scrap metal is the main currency) and walking towards the objective, but like I mentioned above, you can go off and explore a bit too. There are a few areas on the map that you dont need to go to in order to finish the game, but have minor little side quests you can complete. The game has fast travel so you can pretty easily jump back to home base and upgrade your weapons or buy more first aid or whatever.

Heres some more stuff I wrote about the game in the strategy game thread:

WHY BONER NOW posted:

Welp Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden is on sale on the playstation store, so I went ahead and picked it up. It's one if those games where I have a list of complaints but it's all coming from a desire to see a good game be even better. I'm totally head over heels for the core gameplay.

It's a stealth xcom, basically. You skulk around a map, picking off lone enemies so when you have to fight a group of them it's more manageable. The sneaking mechanic is adequate, you basically need to stay out of an enemy's circle of perception until its time to kick their rear end. You play as a group of mutants like a pig man (named Boarmin) or a duck man (named Dux). Despite that, the game maintains a very good atmosphere of a post apocalyptic world where nature is reclaiming the planet. The soundtrack has a sort of 80s synth vibe, which goes a long way towards establishing the atmosphere.

As mutants, you gain access to skills you purchase through skill points. The skills are adequate, but I would've liked to see more variety in them. Several mutants share a few of the same skills which was a bit if a let down; for example two characters have the same run n gun move which I find a little boring, but whatever. I think the game would've benefitted from more diverse skills.

Managing the skills is a bit if a bother as well. Basically, your team of three often needs to take down a guy within one round of play or he'll yell for his buddies, and depending on the map, that can make things really ugly. Remember, you're trying to pick one enemy off at a time so you dont have to fight a whole mess of them at once. Often, however, your team doesn't have the firepower to kill a guy in one round, so you have to use a skill. That's certainly all fine and well, but then the skill goes on cooldown and you need a certain number of kills to get it back. For example, Boarmin has a skill where he charges an enemy and knocks him down for a round, giving you extra time to kill him. But that skill requires 3 kills to recharge. So now you've picked off one guy out if maybe 3 or 4, but your skill is down so you go into the menu and equip a different one. It gets tedious to manage this. Furthermore, depending on the skill, sometimes it misses, leaving you twisting in the wind.

Managing weapons and armor is similarly tedious, as when you want to swap out team members, you often have to trade guns or armor around. You only have 3-4 silent weapons, so swapping team members means you're probably going to have to swap guns as well.

The game is hard, which I welcome, but it's missing some QOL features that would really streamline the gameplay. You dont have a way to inspect enemies, so it can be hard to adequately plan your assault. Fortunately(?) there aren't a huge number of enemy types, so you can eventually learn. You dont, as far as I can tell, have a way of knowing if you're close enough to an enemy for your unsilenced weapon to alert them, so that can be trial and error.

Despite all the whining I've been doing, I assure you I think the game itself is fascinating and a lot of fun. Sneaking around, picking off straggler enemies is classic stealth game stuff, and mixing it with xcom styke combat is super compelling. I love having the ability to split up my guys; going through the options like "hmm if I put Dux up this ladder with his crossbow, I could then have Boarmin sneak around this way and be in position to flank" makes for some great strategy. Teammates have the option of joining in the ambushes each round or staying hidden until the time is right. You're planning ambushes for 99% of the fights.

Well that was way more than I intended to write about this game. TLDR is, the gameplay is great, I totally recommend if stealth xcom sounds interesting, but the game's missing some notable QOL. And yeah, the developers are swedish, not having the language option is pretty weird.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 15:55

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Yes, that is my understanding of the game. I never found a way to grind.

And yeah those shaman mother fuckers are the worst. Boarmin's hog rush is your best bet, and make sure all members have a silent weapon so they can help take out a single guy. Another thing to consider is, if you know you cant kill a guy in time to prevent him from calling out, well then theres no reason not to go loud from the get go with your more powerful weapons. In either case his buddies get alerted, but you might be able to at least take him down before they react.

Edit: and yeah I know the pain of needing just one more point of damage. Be sure to mod your weapons...you should have a mod that gives you a 50% chance to ignite an enemy. That would give you the one more damage you need. Another option is to try and maximize your chance to crit, through armor, skills, and attacking from hidden cover. Finally, upgrade your weapons using gun parts as soon a you can, especially your silenced weapons. Each upgrade gives you +1 damage.

Can I guess, is one of the fights you're struggling with at Hammon's cabin?

WHY BONER NOW fucked around with this message at 19:27 on Mar 10, 2019

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 19:22

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Ah, the cabin fight was a real fucker for me, glad you got through it without too much trouble.

In a pinch you can destroy unused weapons for some gun parts, which you can turn around and use to upgrade your good weapons. No way to respec, unfortunately.

I think you're on the cusp of the game opening up for you...if you can hold out for hog rush, you'll have some more options moving forward.

There is a finite amount of xp in the game, but sometimes you can wander off to a zone you're not meant to be at yet, or a straight up optional one, and get a few kills to eke out a level or two. So don't be afraid to explore a bit and see what you can find.

Somewhat on that note, your skill cooldown is set to a number of kills. Sometimes you need to plan that out so you have enough straggler kills to recharge an important skill in time for a big fight...I have gone to other zones and gotten a kill or two for that purpose. Also...I think a stalker needs to be in your party in order for a kill to go towards the cooldown. I'm not 100% sure on that one

The store at the ark gets new wares from time to time. I think its linked to your level, every 10 levels it seems to trigger new items in the store. Anyway, there is a type of armor that protects against fire damage. You can find it on a chest somewhere in the game (I forget where), but it also shows up in the shop at some point. Wearing it makes the firebomb guys completely harmless.

Another thing, you can interrupt a med bot by shooting it with a weapon that causes knockback, like the Gaper. Eventually you'll get some skills to deal with robots a little more reliably.

I hope you stick with it...like I said, I think you're close to it becoming a bit more manageable.

WHY BONER NOW fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Mar 10, 2019

# ¿ Mar 10, 2019 20:11

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

SiKboy posted:

Gungeon stuff

This is helpful, thanks! One thing I will add is another reason to be the hunter is that you can pet your dog.

# ¿ May 9, 2019 20:55

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Eat The Rich posted:

The Fire Emblem tips are great. Mutant Year Zero just released on the Switch. I'm really excited to play it and does anyone have any of those sweet, sweet tips?

Don't know if you're still looking for tips, but there was some conversation about this game on page 753. Also I heard the switch version runs kind of crappy.

# ¿ Aug 10, 2019 20:40

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

The Lone Badger posted:

Mutant Year Zero was just free on Epic. What do I need to know about it?

There was some discussion about it on page 753

# ¿ Aug 22, 2019 16:38

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

I vaguely remember something about in spider man 2018 you should stick to story missions and ignore side quests up to a point...is that correct?

# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 04:18

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Thanks guys, I'll stick to the spiderman story until act 3 or so

# ¿ Jan 4, 2020 17:40

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Ah, ok thanks for the clarification.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2020 00:33

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Anyone have advice for Othercide?

# ¿ Jan 5, 2021 21:35

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

I've been playing Othercide and loving it, but the game structure is a little different than what I'm used to and the terminology is confusing. So here's a quick reference to how the game works

It's a tactics roguelite in that you do runs, unlock stuff, then either die or willingly start over from the beginning, now with a few upgrades.

Terms:

Recollection: a run. So you start a recollection, get as far as you can, unlock stuff, then eventually eat poo poo. Start a new recollection.
Remembrance: a global modifier applied to a recollection (daughters have +15% health, do 15% more damage to enemy X, etc). You unlock them during play, then activate them during your next recollection. Cost shards to activate.
Memories: consider them item drops from enemies that you can equip to modify your daughters' attacks. Costs vitae to equip. Are one time use, you can override one but cannot unequip it to use later.
Shards: rewarded from missions. Used to purchase remembrances you've unlocked for your next recollection. So you go through a recollection, completing missions and gathering shards. Eventually you die or voluntarily end your recollection and start a new one. Now you have a bank of shards you can spend on remembrances
Vitae: rewarded from missions. Used to create new daughters and equip memories to their attacks

And here are a few general tips:

If you're going to burst, there's no additional penalty for using all your AP. So if you need to spend 51 AP, you might as well spend 100.

If you want to heal a daughter, you must sacrifice one of equal or higher level. If you have a resurrection token, an ideal situation would be to have two daughters of equal level and low health. Figure out which one you want to toss into the wood chipper to heal the other, then use your resurrection token to bring her back. Just be aware of the following:
The daughter that gets healed will also receive a positive trait from her sister. This trait is dependent on the class of the sacrificed daughter
When resurrected, the sacrificed daughter will lose any memories she had equipped

Enemies operate in a clearly defined, predictable pattern. Until they loving don't. Be prepared for them to occasionally attack immediately after spawning, or a scavenger to disagree with you on which daughter is farthest away from him, etc.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2021 23:01

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

SiKboy posted:

I've never heard of this game before, but it sounds like it may be very much my thing, in that I love turn based tactics, and roguelite mechanics, and a quick google tells me I dont dislike the art style... Other than "You are loving it", are there any other impressions you can share, is it similar to other games?

At this point I am at about halfway through the game.

It's difficult to describe...but in a broad sense, it reminds me of Sting games like Knights in the Nightmare or Gungnir, in that just about every decision you make needs to be weighed. You have a squad of "daughters" that get sent out on missions. Combat is heavily dependent on the timeline (like Gungnir!), which you have some control over (like Gungnir!). You can choose to move and attack (or attack and move, or attack and attack, etc) until half your AP are spent. At that point you have a choice: end your daughter's turn and she will wait another 50 time units to act again, or push her over the threshold (called "burst" in game). Now she has another equal amount of AP to use but she will spend 100 time units cooling down. You have to make this choice for every daughter on every turn. It leads to some really interesting theorycrafting. "Ah gently caress, Celeste hit that monster but didn't kill him and he's next on the timeline; she's gonna get a knuckle sandwich. Hmm, if I have her burst, she can get another attack and kill him, but she'll still be in cooldown while that other monster can get to her. I could probably have Divine intervene like this..." etc. Adding to the strategy is the fact that it's difficult to heal your daughters. The only way is to sacrifice another daughter, so you cringe every time someone gets hit. Additionally, there are moves that are pretty drat good but require a health sacrifice to use. So you're trying to decide if it's worth it.

There are only three classes of daughters, but in my opinion that's enough; I think it would get overcomplicated with too many more. As your daughters level up they occasionally get the choice of new skills to learn, but in my experience there's usually one very clearly superior skill to get.

The upgrades you unlock are pretty meaningful. Especially some traits the individual daughters can earn...some real surprising (for me) game changers in there. Add to that the ability to assign "memories" to their skills and there is a tremendous opportunity for team cohesion. "If I equip Celeste with the memory that reduces the target's armor by 50, it would be ideal to have Hope follow up with a backstab...". Note, I haven't delved too deeply into this level of tactics, mostly because unfortunately the game doesn't communicate what daughter has which memory/skill equipped during battle, so I guess you're expected to keep a spreadsheet or something.

The core tactics are fantastic in my opinion and I can easily recommend the game if it sounds interesting. Having said that, there is a fairly long list of things I would like to see improved. It's one of those situations where the criticisms I make are in the hope that they get fixed or are addressed in a sequel, fingers crossed. Not like a "gently caress this poo poo what were they thinking" kind of way. There is a fair bit of jank. I just got wiped by a boss partially because the AoE markers she laid didn't disappear after the move. Then she casted it again. I was like wtf which squares are safe oh jesus. Also, enemies don't always act consistently, which is frustrating, especially when one of your daughters gets beaten on because the enemy decided to do his own thing. The crux of the game is to be able to plan poo poo out, but unreliable enemy behavior can ruin that. And any damage your daughters take sucks.

Prior to getting wiped, I was chuckling a lot because my top Blademaster, Celeste, was tricked out really well. Seriously she was OUT OF CONTROL, just slaughtering everyone (with support from her sisters). It was super fun. Then the boss fed us all some poo poo! I can't wait to start over with my new abilities now!

I'm going to stop now or I'll continue to blab about this game; it is very thought provoking even when you're not playing. If you want me to expand on anything let me know

# ¿ Jan 24, 2021 06:01

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

1redflag posted:

Streets of Rage 4?

I forget the specifics but there are a couple variations with the special moves that are pretty important, like one is defensive and gives you iframes. I think it's detailed in the in-game pause screen or something but I'm sure someone here can clarify

# ¿ Mar 21, 2021 14:05

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

Someone confirm but I believe pogo-ing resets your double jump/dash

WHY BONER NOW fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Oct 30, 2022

# ¿ Oct 30, 2022 04:08

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

I'm going to start up no more heroes 3. I couldn't make it through Travis strikes back, is there anything I need to know plotwise? I know bad girl is back, and friends with Travis?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2023 16:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 25, 2024 22:22

WHY BONER NOW: Mar 6, 2016; Pillbug

SkeletonHero posted:

Important plot stuff from TSB:
Badman (Bad Girl’s dad) and Travis worked together to battle/unlock a magic wish-granting game console to bring Bad Girl back. All three are cool now. There was an evil games CEO named ~~John~~ Damon Riccitiello who drove the console creator to suicide so Travis beats the poo poo out of him for crimes against Gamerkind. He now owns Santa Destroy. The developer, Dr. Juvenile, is now a ghost in the machine and has somehow granted Travis his video game powers in real life. Travis and Sylvia had kids at some point and are currently estranged. Travis became friends with Kamui from The Silver Case. Jeane the cat talks now.

I think that’s everything.

Thanks! More plot than I had anticipated. I think the guy in NMH3 who befriends FU is named Damon, must be the same guy?

# ¿ Oct 9, 2023 14:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > The "What should I know before I play this game for the first time?" Q&A!