Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Cogmind's sci-fi font doesn't work for everyone, that's why it comes with 82 different fonts. See some of the newly added traditional options here.

Oh, and hi all. Been lurking on SA for years (I love this thread, and the one that preceded it), but only just signed up today =p. Now I don't have to wait until the paywall comes down and spend an entire day catching up on threads, yay!

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 02:41

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:04

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

the glow posted:

What up Kyzrati, I've followed your blog for a long time and I've been fascinated by (and learned a lot of stuff from) your dissections of Cogmind's inner workings. I've really appreciated how transparent you've been about the whole development process, glad to have you posting here.

it's customary for goon roguelike devs to hand out free keys to their game by the way

Yeah I'm familiar with Unormal and madjackmcmad's SOP

. I plan to do handouts in the future, goons included, but because it's still early in alpha and more importantly because of the whole "crowdfunding and exclusivity" type of launch it wouldn't be fair to start doing that just yet. I'm very grateful for everyone willing to throw in their support now, but to others who wait, whether you get a free key or not at some point later on, you'll be getting even more content anyway. It's only going to keep getting better as I pour my life into it :suicide:

I do want to run a tournament next month in which the prizes include free keys to gift to others, so maybe if we have some talented Cogmind goons they can spread the happiness that way =p

And thanks, I enjoy writing and there's a lot of fun topics to write about with Cogmind, so I just let the text flow... (too bad I'm so drat slow at writing)

lets hang out posted:

I bought Cogmind earlier this evening and oh no now it's 2 am what happened to all that time

VolticSurge posted:

Just got into Cogmind: loving the poo poo outta it. First run,stumbled onto a grenade launcher, fired it into a room full of bots,got buttfucked by a chain reaction outta nowhere,then oneshot by a low-level redshirt shortly after I narrowly escaped said explosion with my life. Excellent.

Well, looks like I decided to join just in time. I LOVE reading about ridiculous procedural deaths I've caused. Would hate to have to wait until the paywall came down to read these :allears:

John Lee posted:

In unrelated news, has anyone played a bit of Mage Guild? It's a bad game for somebody who likes things with good in-game documentation, but it's great for anyone who just likes fuckin' around with interactions; it's got a robust item-mixing system where you rub items against each other and see what happens.

I used to play that years ago (wasn't their site hacked and permanently taken over by spam?). Used to chat with the dev, too, until he disappeared and left the game in its unpolished state :/

It's awesome for just mixing stuff, and there's always something new to uncover. And... apparently nowhere to read about the combinations so you'll end up doing some downright strange but fun stuff. The cool thing is almost everything can be mixed to some result, unlike other games where you can guess forever and might not hit some useful combination.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 09:04

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

Does cogmind have a win condition yet? I'm between roguelikes but don't want to pick something up that can't be beaten .

There will eventually be five different endings of increasing difficulty, and right now the easiest route is already complete. "Easiest," but there are only 2 known wins on record, by players who've done nothing but play since release. There's a lot of content and lot to learn because you can't treat the gameplay like other roguelikes. Yesterday I met a veteran Nethack player who was telling me he couldn't get past the second floor of Cogmind :roflolmao:

But I suggest anyone not interested in contributing to the development costs in a more significant way (which will help tip the budget in favor of outsourcing a professional OST) just wait until it's cheaper and/or I start handing out keys. This weekend GOG asked me to put Cogmind on their platform, so it's likely to be both there and Steam when complete.

Cogmind's already been playtested by about 10,000 people over the years, and gotten a ton of feedback, so it's pretty polished and at this stage is mostly a case of adding the remaining branch maps and related plot points/endings. Other than that the early release versions are aimed at adding optional QoL features requested by supporters.

# ¿ Jun 29, 2015 03:41

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

lets hang out posted:

Can I request that the labels that show up when you hit the 1-4 keys stay on if you hold the button

Absolutely! That's in the list of near-term upcoming features, or at least something similar to it. The current two-second timeout was a temporary measure due to an engine limitation--Imma have to find a way to hack around that one so didn't get to it in time for Alpha 1.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2015 04:14

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

This actually convinced me to get in early. Thanks for the reply!

e: this game is insane (in the best way possible)

Good to hear, and thank you! I aim to bring a little insanity into your lives. (Where "a little" eventually becomes "a lot" once the story parts get added :P. So excited to do that, and so not able to say anything about it :ssh:

)

# ¿ Jul 1, 2015 07:12

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

StarkRavingMad posted:

I bought it, it seems very feature-complete with the main thing missing right now being certain side-branches to the ascent that aren't in yet. The UI is probably the most polished I've seen in a non-graphical roguelike. It's a lot of fun. It's REALLY hard, maybe a little unfairly so at time right now, but it's still in balancing and the side branches should help a little with the difficulty scaling, from what I understand.

With that said, $30 is a lot for a roguelike and if you do buy into it, it's certainly with the thought that you're funding development. It's clearly a passion project for this guy and he put a lot of work into it and it shows.

There's a pretty decent Youtube LP of it here if you want to see a bit about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMhPC_hVxk4

"This guy" here. Thanks and yes about this:

StarkRavingMad posted:

the side branches should help a little with the difficulty scaling, from what I understand.

The dynamics of the game will change significantly once the world is complete--you'll be able to take those mid/late-game exits to alternative routes, and there will be more choices for how you want to tackle the end-game.

That said, it's hard, but once you are familiar with all the mechanics, you can win a lot of runs, as I think it should be in any good roguelike. This is what I'll want to balance the final game for, once the branches are all in there to balance. The top player right now can win pretty much every run using the stealth+speed+hacking approach. :ninja:

To my knowledge no one has yet won going the blow everything away route (some have come close), but that is intended to be hard mode, and is probably too difficult as is for the last few floors, because it's more balanced against some of the later content you don't have access to yet (in the branches).

Lilli posted:

I was actually thinking this looked like the cover of a novel, has the right font and everything.

A Dune novel, no less!

# ¿ Jul 7, 2015 15:14

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

StarkRavingMad posted:

Oh I didn't know you posted here! Very cool game and it's quickly rising among my favorite roguelikes. And yes, the more I play of it the better I get, although I haven't won one yet. The attachment mechanic certainly leads to some fun stories. Like jettisoning nearly everything during a firefight that I was going to lose and zipping away as nearly core-only at double fast speed -- I was laughing at the thought of this massive combat bot suddenly crumbling to pieces and its brain flying away. Or the opposite: I managed to kill a pretty hefty mid-game jerk with me down to nothing but a chainsword. Rolling out the door after that armed with double Penetrators and high-end attachments from my enemies' scrap was a cool "WHATS UP NOW" moment.

I do need to get better at stealth running. I probably need to use fabricators a little more to be sure I have that gear in place before I get too high. But yeah, I'd agree with the contention that going heavy should be viable, even if it is hard mode - but as you say, I understand that branching should help.

A question (and feel free to answer this as specifically or as vaguely as you like, since I understand you may want to preserve some mystery on this mechanic): what raises alert level? I assume it's killing stuff, failing hacks, and wanton destruction, but I never feel quite clear on whether I'm making a big dumb mistake that is screwing me. For example, is blowing away a few green guys here and there for parts/matter okay, or am I doing the equivalent of murdering civilians and bringing the world down on me?

Ya, I been lurking SA for years, but only recently signed up to talk directly with goons now that the game is out.

Great to hear stories! A backup last-resort melee weapon can really tear 'em up. With the right parts you can put together some nasty dedicated melee builds. The one thing I was just again yesterday lamenting is the lack of dual/multi-wielding, but it wouldn't work with the mechanics that make melee weapons unique. Had to make the assumption you can only use one at a time in order to make them so powerful and give them special effects.

About your question, no secret, really. Theoretically you can hack terminals to follow the alert level and gradually figure out how much everything affects it. In general, anything you do that causes trouble will raise the level by a relative amount. So yeah, even killing the green dudes does it. However, they are much less valuable so there's little impact there unless you start mass-murdering. That's a different story.

The most successful confrontational strategies will involve hacking threat records out of the system when the opportunity presents itself.

Having allies multiplies the security increases, which is more likely to call down assault squads, or even better-equipped assaults squads, so that's dangerous. I do want to make it so that when as your allies are destroyed the alert level comes down a bit. That currently doesn't happen, so when they're gone you're left to deal with a floor on super high alert! I'll make this change for Alpha 2.

@Happylisk: Glad you're having fun with it, and yeah, it's all about the comebacks. Cogmind makes you feel really good again and again like that

. Not a game for every RL fan though, because that kind of gameplay is predicated on the fact that there's little permanence to your build. Many roguelikers thoroughly enjoy the idea of gradually growing a unique character, and it was a shame to have to give that up here. But hey, new things are new!

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 05:32

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

dis astranagant posted:

Why does the useless and suicidal ramming attack require no further input than simple movement? A serf enters a door I thought I was going through and now all my stuff is broken.

Not useless! But yeah you don't want to do that when you're in good shape.

The next release (Alpha 2) is going to require a double-click/double-press confirmation and warning light if you're going to ram a robot (i.e. move into it without an active melee weapon), because it's not so often that you want to do so.

Tremis posted:

Quick question: Are there any elements of permanence per run, like passives a-la-DoomRL planned or already in the game?

Not much. Of course there are your slot choices, which are important since they put a cap on how much functionality you can rely on in a given category. Aside from that there's only one thing, and it's pretty minor: System Familiarity. The more you hack a specific model of machine, the better you are at hacking all other such machines. It's not a huge factor, and something I want to adjust later to make it more meaningful.

Nothing major is planned in terms of stats/traits/perks/bonuses.

Later with the plot additions there will be certain factions you could piss off. That'll be pretty permanent...

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 11:07

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

The steps to run on a Mac are here, but I'd suggest if you don't want to fool around with that solution just wait until I have the time and capability to wrap it for you... or even wait until the game is done and there are even more cool things to do

Happylisk posted:

Does this mean Alert purges, or are you referring to something else?

Sorry, yeah, just an in-lore way of referring to the Alert(Purge) command. This afternoon I made some changes going into the next release that will affect security levels and make a few situations easier to deal with even without hacking. That said, if you are blowing up everything in sight, you can still expect heavy resistance.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 13:41

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

I've been manually using Alert(Purge) at every terminal I see on the assumption that the more I do the command, the better my cogmind will get at it. Is that assumption true, or do I need to rtfm again? Sorry for all the questions!

While you won't get better at it, no, repeating that command is great for continually driving down the alert level--you can see by checking the alert level that one hack is rarely enough. You'll want to RTFM eventually, but it's not really necessary until you want to take on the late game and make sure you have a strong understanding of the underlying mechanics and little tricks here and there. Most of it you can figure out through normal play, and one of the earliest new areas to be added will be a place where you'll get some help with more obscure (or even completely hidden) mechanics in a lore-relevant way.

The easiest way to win at hacking is attach as many Hacking Suites as you can find/build, since they stack. In Alpha 2 allied Operators will also report security level changes to you automatically by intercepting and decoding additional Complex 0b10 transmissions.

Early players filled out a large chunk of the wiki by becoming ultimate hackers and virtually owning low/mid-floors for as long as they wanted to, but that was before I fixed an unfortunate oversight that allowed them to manually hack any schematic they could learn the name of :eek:

. For a time they were digging through the lore finding references to components that aren't even supposed to be available yet and fabricating them, ha.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2015 15:07

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

StarkRavingMad posted:

Does terminal familiarity increase just by accessing them, or do you need a successful command sent? And if the latter, does each success increase it more?

Goes up on the first hack, only once per new machine. This and other hot tips in the manual :greatgift:

Benly posted:

I've had really spectacularly bad luck trying to make Wineskin wrappers in the past, but if you plan to offer it pre-set-up (so that there's someone I can complain at if it doesn't work) then excellent!

Ya that's what I'd like to do. Not a near-term thing, though :/

RoboCicero posted:

I've been trying to make a early melee build with Maces or Heavy Maces but I might need targeting computers to get my accuracy high enough to make it effective.

Early-game melee is not usually worth it in my opinion. At any point you can start getting mid-tier weapons and melee targeting computers, then you're in business.

dis astranagant posted:

I had an NPC hint that mining lasers might make it less likely to set off alarms, by making you look more like one of the various diggers that are everywhere.

Gonna have to spank that NPC. That's not true. The semi-cryptic hint you're referring to was a reminder that you'll ideally want to travel with one in the Mines. If you don't, you won't be able to dig yourself out of a cave-in before a squad comes to dig you out and beat the crap out of you.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 04:24

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

dis astranagant posted:

He was all "you don't want THEM to see you without one" and I guess the seeing part stuck out in memory.

Hm, I checked the quote to make sure...

quote:

"And why aren't you carrying a mining laser?! Certainly you don't want THEM to uncover you when the ceiling comes crashing down? Here, take my spare."

He was being pretty literal there

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 04:36

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Turtlicious posted:

I bought Cogmind, but man it's not really newbie friendly, I know roguelikes are notorious for that, and that the Manual is there for a reason, but I would love for their to be a set of "Challenge" missions that introduce concepts one at a time with increasing complication. A Tutorial that really goes all out.

First of all, thank you!

And interesting, that's actually the first time I've heard this. Most players, even those new to the genre, have had fairly smooth introductions via the existing tutorial. I wanted it to make the game purely immersive, and hate long tutorials myself, so settled for a quick introduction that only shows the basics.

I think (?) your reaction might be coming from your previous experience as a roguelike player who wants to know how everything works right from the start, to start making optimal decisions. Cogmind was designed to not require all the little details to jump in an play--only to read the essential messages in the short tutorial area, then use the highest rated parts you find and shoot stuff. That alone can get you through about half the game before you really need to know more and make highly informed decisions.

What did everyone else think when they first started? (And Turtilicious, do you think my guess about your experience is wrong?)

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 04:58

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Turtlicious posted:

I kind of ran around shooting everything, but after playing a bit more, I am seeing a little bit of Sil in there, where maybe sneaking is the best option...

There is a lot of Sil in there. Sneaking is the best way to survive, and while it's by no means a guaranteed win, it's still the easiest approach.

The underlying goal of the design has been to achieve a high level of immersion for players exploring a completely foreign world, though I can see how that rubs mechanics-focused RL enthusiasts the wrong way. I originally wanted to design the game without even a title screen or any tutorial at all! What you see are already concessions in light of that rather insane plan.

About descriptions, yeah the fact that there are currently more than 650 items in the game, with more to come, make that really unwieldy. Giving you those also wouldn't fit the immersion requirement. You can currently get descriptions for some items via hacking, especially subcategories of items and special items. I can add more that way.

Alpha 2 automatically closes the item context help when you move the cursor.

There's nothing particularly interesting about terrain, except perhaps its integrity

. There will eventually be clickable machine info.

e: Also, new feature for item comparisons on the way!

Kyzrati fucked around with this message at 05:46 on Jul 9, 2015

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 05:43

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

dis astranagant posted:

The matter cost on changing parts leads to degenerate situations where I've already lost but actually doing so will take some time.

The ramming attack should feel a lot less useless in that situation! Watch that resource--running out of matter in Cogmind will always be your own fault, but if you can't find any lying around just ram unarmed bots and scrap them.

omeg is a fortuneteller, I swear.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2015 13:35

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Fayez Butts posted:

You can right click for days to inspect items in your inventory but have to escape out of the window each time when you're inspecting items on the ground. This is kind of annoying, but that's about all I've got to complain about.

This will be fixed for the next release! These first two releases (1b/2) are mostly about catching up on little UI things I should've done during pre-alpha, then we get the really new stuff.

StarkRavingMad posted:

Cogmind has become my go-to loving around at work option. Plays great off a USB stick and looks just UI fancy and tech enough that I COULD have been doing something productive during the brief glimpse a co-worker gets before I switch to a real work window. And if I have to put it down for awhile, I can generally tell what I was up to just by looking at my current gear layout.

Before release my brother was watching the trailer at work and his boss walked in and thought for a moment he was using some kind of snazzy new terminal. We don't even need a boss key!

# ¿ Jul 10, 2015 04:25

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

RoboCicero posted:

Multiple times now I've barely managed to finish off a squad, then a scavenger sliiiiides in and takes the one component I need so I'm not a core held together by duct tape and wishes.

This captures the scavenger spirit so well. Easily the most talked about bot among new players... (one of the first forum posts after launch: "please nerf recyclers")

The Recycler, Ending #59.

# ¿ Jul 11, 2015 13:39

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

pumpinglemma posted:

Kyzrati, how should I send feedback about the alpha? I've got about a page of boring but potentially useful newbie UI/tutorial feedback that I'd rather not poo poo up the thread with.

The forums are the preferred place--the Ideas board naturally being one of the most popular over there...

Note that a number of important changes have already been planned for near-term versions and/or already implemented for Alpha 2 (coming soon!), many of which have been discussed over there. Examples being warning before ramming collisions, click anywhere to close a modal window, dozens of new fonts, stat comparisons between items, map labels stay open as long as you want, ESC working in more instances to exit modes, improved running, repair even attached parts, and more.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2015 02:34

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

StarkRavingMad posted:

did you ever know that you're my herooooooooooooooo

You and everyone else who's been bugging me since launch. I really should've stuck those in there before the first release, but they kept getting put off...

In other news, Qud's trailer is wonderfully Quddish. Looking forward to the reception tomorrow :allears:

# ¿ Jul 14, 2015 05:24

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Never say never... look at ADOM! :classiclol:

# ¿ Jul 15, 2015 05:15

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

RoboCicero posted:

VICTORY!

Congratulations! You're now among the handful (~6?) who've managed to do this. Several are getting close to 100% win rates with faster builds. The main alternative route--blowing everything up--is more difficult, but should be a little easier in Alpha 2, and the dynamics of that will continue to change as more branches are added.

RoboCicero posted:

I do wish higher rating weapons had more unique abilities though. We do get very high disruption / critical weapons, but most of the other ones were pretty hard to parse, even if they sounded as hell.

Most of the truly amazing late-game weapons are currently unavailable because you'll only find them in late branches which haven't been added yet. Some crazy stuff waiting on the sidelines, but I don't want to spoil the surprises... Naturally I save the best for last

That and if you do more runs you're sure to find new and interesting things that are available. I know people who've been playing since release and they still haven't come across "certain parts." Have you seen what a Centrium Greatsword does to a robot? :killdozer:

# ¿ Jul 22, 2015 05:01

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

I seem to recall the dev saying that the perk wheels have over legs or flight units is abundance. They're just easier to find generally.

Yup, wheels aren't really meant to be used except in an emergency where nothing else is available--easy to find because you can take them off almost any non-combat bot. Their advantage isn't in their stats. (Also, by design you can theoretically take pretty much anything from any robot, so there are a few parts that are inherently worse than all others.)

Happylisk posted:

Speaking of cogmind propulsion systems, I'm pleased with the buff to treads with regard to recoil. One day I'll get to the surface with a pure blaster build... one day.

You'd be the first. It hasn't been done yet because it falls on the very hard side for now, but it's getting increasingly possible with each release. Canceling recoil was one change aimed at making that approach more viable, and I'd like to buff treads even further since they're slow enough that you'll be forced to stand off against anything you encounter. Haven't come up with any other good ideas yet. Suggestions?

Unormal posted:

Since each character is a tile on an 80x25 grid, it would look very strange. It's not just rendering responsively on a blank canvas.

Funny, I have the exact opposite problem because I use a 80x60 grid, so one of the more frequent complaints is Bigger Font Please! All I can say is get a bigger screen to fit a bigger font :/ (I did just add a big batch of more readable terminal fonts which helped a number of players, but it's not a perfect solution for those with poor eyesight who might have trouble reading a small grid at all.)

Ah, traditional roguelike design meets modern gamers... I don't suppose Qud players would be satisfied running the game in a window rather than fullscreen? At least with Qud there's that solution (that's how I play any roguelikes with a smaller grid, but then :stare:

I also play Cogmind this way, too).

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 03:33

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Unormal posted:

I read all of the requests for "smaller font please" as "your message log sucks", which is a very valid complaint.

Qud's messages are already fairly short; I think the most serious issue is that the log is crammed into a narrow 24-cell strip on the right side that forces a lot of newlines, making it harder to follow than a wider topside log. Not something you're likely to redesign at this point, though :/

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 04:28

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Unormal posted:

No, I'm def. not redesigning the actual console UI... but I can probably start moving pieces of UI out into the unity shell and do some really cool stuff. For instance imagine a small font message log just sort of scrolling up from the very bottom of the screen and fading away.

I think that would go over really well and can see you doing some cool stuff once the engine setup you've got is ever so slightly less hackish.

Also, I was just browsing the Qud forums on Steam and... oh my I'm glad I'm not on Steam yet :suicide:

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 05:36

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

Generally speaking, in roguelikes slow speed is the kiss of death. There's a reason Ghoul's with 80% global speed in ToME are a challenge race.

This is why going gung-ho is the equivalent of hard mode--it's intentionally more challenging. You're further handicapping yourself though because treads are not nearly as good as legs for fighting, which is why I think they need a boost of some kind.

Happylisk posted:

My suggestion: All treads should have innate power/weapon/utility shielding. The percentage of the shielding depends on the quality of the tread. The strategic impact would be to decrease item attrition, making combat more viable. The flavor explanation is that you're literally becoming a tank.

I do like the idea of them affording even better protection than they already do, something that can possibly be given innately purely via stat tweaks--higher integrity, higher coverage and bam, you have big ol' shields.

One problem with that is that due to propulsion mechanics, treads can already be taken advantage of by fliers who carry them purely as high-integrity shields (in fact, even now as a ballistics-oriented flier you can carry a single spare tread and when you feel confident and want to engage, turn off your flight units and drop to the ground on your single tread to enjoy zero recoil).

Happylisk posted:

Here's what I think the main issue is. To have a fighting cogmind, you need a way to deal with heat, be it coolant or a heat sink; you need armor and shielding; a force field; targeting computers; a way to deal with EMP; at least 3 power sources to power all that; some Big Guns; and you're going to want to default to treads to carry all of that due to the weight. Really, all of the above is non-negotiable. Without heat systems, you'll fry. Without targeting utilities, you're basically an Imperial stormtrooper. Without armor/shielding you'll get blown to bits; etc.

The problem is, the more you fight, the more your poo poo gets blown off. You rarely come out of a fight ahead, and you've increased the Alert level and the chances of a kill team or an ARC being dropped on your head. Fast stealthy builds will take item damage, but they're in combat so infrequently they can make due with what they find. Combat builds on the other hand are long drawn out marches to death by attrition.

It takes experience, but I can do a full combat build and lose almost no parts (that I care about) through -4. After that the odds starts to stack against you due to the missing branches and special parts, so it becomes increasingly difficult to get away unscathed. So far other players who've been learning since the beginning have successfully been fighting up to around -2 with combat builds.

I believe most parts are still optional, the only non-negotiable utilities being armor and targeting computers, which leaves you with a lot of room for other gear depending on your strategy, which will generally have to evolve over time. You can get around heat by just using ballistic weapons and launchers to reduce the number of must-have utilities at a given time. (Or go hybrid and one really good heat sink will usually be enough.) I rarely bother with EM-resistance--if you can find exits fast enough it won't matter much--or you can get lucky and double up when you find the right armor.

In my opinion the optimal tank build propulsion is legs, not treads. I always go for legs, unless I'm low on legs and there'll be a big fight, in which case treads have higher integrity so I like to attach them as shields, then run away on legs when it's over. Legs can hold plenty (and are still fast when overweight), and you'll move at least as fast as everything except Programmers and Swarmers. Try using legs more than treads, which are also harder to come by.

I do believe that higher coverage and integrity for treads is probably the way to go, but I wonder if I'd have to add a new mechanic to keep fliers from abusing them... Maybe not, since fliers really need to max out on their own propulsion to be effective, and end up spending every spare slot they can on support utilities to not get caught or hit. I'll look at tweaking all tread stats and we'll see what you can do

# ¿ Jul 23, 2015 15:09

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

StarkRavingMad posted:

I've really had trouble trying to rely on ballistic weapons to any large extent. The return of matter versus use might need a little tweaking. It's real easy to drain yourself (even carrying around matter storage units) and you're in super desperate times once you do, very much more so than running low on energy. Any successful combat run I've had has been heavily beam centric with a lot of cooling. Although like I said earlier, my best heavy run has only been to -4.

I think the matter reward ratio is good since I can almost always get by unless I'm being reckless with too many cannons or missiles. There are some very good sources of matter you might be overlooking, and of course salvage targeting computers if you find you really need to get more out of confrontations using ballistics. A single salvage computer can make a huge difference if you're firing multi-gun volleys.

I do keep a couple energy weapons for backup just in case, but prefer ballistics over thermal mostly because enemy thermal weapons can raise your heat, too, compounding your problems if you suddenly lose your heat sinks. I've had some bad confrontations with Grunt squads overheating me while I tried to use energy weapons with too little dissipation.

Happylisk posted:

Hmm, I guess I overestimated the weight issues going legs would have. I'll switch back to legs for my combat builds and see if that improves my combat runs.

You can switch back and play with treads more in the next release, as I'm almost certain I'll be beefing them up. They kept most of their stats when migrating from the 7DRL--except that I further slowed them down, apparently without giving them sufficient benefits to offset that. Also remember that increased coverage for treads will also help hostile robots like Sentries, making it more difficult to shoot parts off them.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2015 05:03

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

dbzfandiego posted:

Dose any one have Gearhead 1/2 the website is 404ed and sourceforge is not letting me download them, same with Nethack too so if any one has that Id like to try it.

Both 1 and 2, along with many other old roguelikes, are available in the new roguelike bundle torrent: https://www.reddit.com/r/roguelikes/comments/3dg4p9/roguelike_mega_collection_2015_over_700_free/

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 09:58

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Ooh it's a rar? Ouch. I didn't look at anything but the text file indicating its contents and assumed he'd do the smart thing and *not* compress the download itself :/

# ¿ Jul 25, 2015 10:46

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

Cogmind bug, Alpha 2b: ramming certain enemies (pests for sure) is reliably causing crashes for me.

Thanks for reporting! There have been a lot of Alpha 2b runs but apparently no one else is out ramming Swarmers. Doesn't seem to happen with others, but I just repeated it and will investigate. Hotfix will be released as soon as I find it and can package everything up.

e: Caused by the flashing warning indicator--if you ram and immediately kill the target before the blink duration has ended, game crashes. Will get this fixed ASAP.

e2: Alpha 2c is live!

Kyzrati fucked around with this message at 15:14 on Jul 26, 2015

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 14:33

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

I really like strategic ramming, especially against high evasion low integrity swarmers, so that bug quickly showed itself during my run

"Strategic ramming," ha! If anyone was going to find that bug it would be you. Was very unsurprised when I saw what it was

Side note: We have someone who can reliably speed hack their way to end of the game pretty much every run. Of course, the same guy won his copy of Cogmind in a competition for beating previously unbeaten roguelikes...

# ¿ Jul 26, 2015 15:49

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Congratulations on the ongoing success with Qud, Unormal. Is there any chance that the Steam sales are good enough that you might consider full-time dev, or maybe switch to part-time work? I'm always amazed at how much you can get done while also holding down a job and having a family. Family is already my limit, there; full-time dev is the only way I can finish anything anymore :/

Awesome! posted:

45 minutes to find the bug, squash it and get an update posted. that's pretty impressive

I have a thing against bugs--won't rest until every one I know about is GONE, I tell you. That goes double for the wasp I trapped that night... sucks to discover your electric swatter is out of power when a wasp finds a way in and takes a liking to your monitor :P

Happylisk posted:

Quick note to people who've already purchased cogmind: we're doing weekly seed runs over at the cogmind forums. This week's seed just dropped, so if you have the game why not compete!

http://www.gridsagegames.com/forums/index.php?topic=208.0

These are a great way for new players to discuss what went wrong for you and learn how to consistently get past the early levels. I'm mostly out of commission with family this week, but I'll probably get to my run towards the weekend.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 08:14

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Wow, Guild of Dungeoneering did that well in such a short period? Amazing.

Once you get to content releases that stegosaurus tail could materialize for you, where it'll have more of an impact with help from Steam. Almost wish I had that now, but there's still so much to do and Steam EA is a scary place full of distractions I don't need.

In any case, no one makes a traditional roguelike for the money, that's for sure. It's :love:

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 15:15

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Unormal posted:

Managing a steam release is really super easy in the world of releases, their platform is awesome. When you get that far, I'd be happy to help, I've done a couple of them! As long as you don't mind taking advice from a commercial failure.

Thanks

. I imagine the technical/backend side should be fairly straightforward, it's more the community I'd be worried about dealing with. Once you step out of niche-land, all manner of crazies show up. I'm getting better at it over time, and I believe it'll be a nicer transition once there's a big enough established fan base to lean on, which you've been building for ages but I've only got like 4 years of =p

I have seen the Qud Supporters Team in action, and it is a beautiful thing.

# ¿ Jul 29, 2015 15:32

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Happylisk posted:

I stumbled upon a new roguelike that I really like - The Ground Gives Way. It reminds me of Brogue a lot. HP doesn't naturally regen, no race/class, no xp. Your character is defined by what you find and there's a lot to find. Very nice, clean interface too. Check it out!

http://www.thegroundgivesway.com/

TGGW is amazing. The author is also working on a minimalist tileset version with a well-known pixel artist, though it'll be slow in coming. As is the ASCII is really well-done, and the game has a simple control scheme despite its deep mechanics and wide variety of gameplay that come from its huge number of items. One of my all-time favorites.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2015 02:33

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Roluth posted:

To be honest, I don't really get The Ground Gives Way. Always felt like I was locked into fighting whatever charged at me (since the monsters are just as fast as you), the fairly low % on melee attacks (40-50%) made the game seem like luck was a massive part of whether you actually got past floor 1, and the game could decide to not give me a weapon until several floors in. The game feels really restricting in what I can do for strategy beyond "should I run away from this guy?". What am I missing?

Avoiding detection in the first place is a pretty important strategy. The only time I ever won was via a perfect stealth build that could walk past almost anything without being noticed (noise=0) (I wrote about the run here, back when I was playing alot, but this was with an older version). You can also increase your speed to be faster than monsters via certain items. But yeah you do need to just go with the flow depending on what you find. Since it's so quick and easy to restart, spamming restarts to get something nice in the first couple floors can help get you jump started if you need it. Often by about 4-5 floors in you'll already have an overflowing inventory and will have to start picking and choosing what to keep, and that's where the strategic options really start to open up. There is a lot of luck involved, and a run is not guaranteed to be winnable, but good players can pretty reliably make it through about two-thirds of the game on most runs.

In the early game, don't be afraid to rest as often as you need to to recover HP. You'll find more food later.

And there are a lot of little secrets to item interaction that you'll discover over time (like cooking food on a campfire to increase its benefits).

Around the mid-game you can use lots of potions and scrolls for great benefits that last until you next rest, so with the right combination and/or a little luck you can make yourself quite powerful. It's kinda like DCSS in that you'll want to try to pre-ID a number of potions/scrolls and get some bad ones out of the way before splurging.

Try not to engage anything that you're not assured of defeating easily (save that HP for when you absolutely must), and never fight more than monster at once.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2015 03:11

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Internet Friend posted:

I'll say this about Qud's UI, at least it's stream friendly. I've got it followed on Twitch and it's been fun to watch people learning the game. Can't say the same for Cogmind, unfortunately.

It's very unfortunate side-effect of Cogmind's dense UI, one that will undoubtedly have a serious negative impact on the game's ability to spread via the most common indie channels, e.g. YT and Twitch... it absolutely must be fullscreened, and must use one of the alternative fonts, but even then it's not great unless viewers fullscreen it, too :/. Oh well, the size is really baked into the mechanics and UX so there's no changing it now!

I envy Qud's small grid size, although it's funny it gets the opposite comments that Cogmind does, with some players complaining about how everything is too large =p. At least that's fixable...

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 02:10

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

ToxicFrog posted:

A small step, but a significant one: this is the first world interaction implemented.

I really like seeing these development snapshots. I never had any interest in Dredmor itself, but seeing it in ASCII makes it sooooo much more appealing to me.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2015 04:23

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

victrix posted:

I should probably find a newbie dev thread, but I'll ask here real quick: Any devs with libtcod experience? Specifically with python, but possibly in general.

I'm finding the console_is_key_pressed function is eating inputs if I try to move very rapidly (or occasionally producing a bug where two keys pressed very rapidly results in the first key being repeated twice - ie, down + downleft = down twice, upright + down left = upright twice).

If you don't mind Reddit, you'll find the highest concentration of roguelike devs on the net here. Lots of libtcod-Python users, too. I've used libtcod, but it was ages ago, and not with Python, so I can't offer any helpful advice other than... go there for advice :P

# ¿ Aug 17, 2015 02:22

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

Roluth posted:

Anyone have any opinions about Demon? The core concept seems pretty interesting, but the tiles seem low-fi and the potential for jank seems pretty high as well. Not being able to directly control the demons you summon makes it seem like the game leans on the RNG a good bit.

The dev has done a pretty nice job with the Demon AI. I've never seen such smart and helpful AI-controlled allies in a roguelike before. Unlike other games where friends often want to make you tear your hair out, last time I tried Demon their behavior tends towards "hell yeah, thanks!" The whole game does revolve around them, so the dev has put a lot of effort into the team AI, getting them to both make the best decisions in a given situation and even play off synergies.

Overall the game has a ways to go in terms of other content, but there are already a ton of unique demons and abilities, which is the core of the game and therefore what the dev is focusing on now.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2015 03:49

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 08:04

Kyzrati: Jun 27, 2015; MAIN.C

ToxicFrog posted:

ttymor

Hehe, hadn't heard you call it that before. Is that an "official" title for this cool project? Does it even have an official title yet?

netcat posted:

I should post about my roguelike at some point. But

No buts. Looking forward to seeing it.

Happylisk posted:

I'm looking forward to trying Cogmind's Alpha3 this week as well. There's also going to be the first cogmind tournament this month.

The tournament is going to own. Need to start working on achievements and setting up some test graphs today... I also want to make sure I didn't screw up the balance with Alpha 3 tweaks, so see you in the seed run this week! Combat builds should be more viable now... as you can see in the changelog I ended up *doubling* tread integrity. That change has Happylisk written all over it

# ¿ Sep 2, 2015 03:11

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Roguelikes: I never met@progression I didn't like

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