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Caves of Qud Qud is a really awesome setting with a surprisingly wide variety of builds. The game itself is still in a pre-release state, but it's in a very fun state. There's loads of little detail presented with a, if not immediately apparent, streamlined UI; space defaults to a context-sensitive Do-The-Right action button which will prompt you by direction when there's multiple choices. Ranged combat is handled surprisingly well, though you have to spec for it. There's a lot of various active-powers you can get from skills, mutations, and though I've never found it, apparently cybernetic modification. There's a STUPID amount of detail in the game, in a fun way, with an amazing setting for the story. I really cannot recommend this game enough, to the point that I have to share my most awesome recent Qud experience. I was trekking across the jungles of Qud when I saw some yellow fish; madpoles. These toothy bastards latch onto prey and tear limbs off. Figuring myself safe in my natural chitinous carapace--literally hardened enough to deflect bullets from chaingun turrets in the ruins of abandoned military complexes I frequent--I approached the poles. I emptied half my carbine into the closest madpoles. Feeling sporting, I drew my daggers and waded towards the sole remaining madpole. When I think "giant turtle shell man who has claws on the back of his hands that he digs through concrete with in between killing giant psychic horses and shamanistic goat men who can literally drain life with their eyes," I think this dude can handle a loving madpole in single combat. I was technically right. The madpole latched onto me as usual, and as it was a new experience for me, I panicked a little bit as it immediately tore off my left arm. Realizing that with one arm, it's quite impossible to wield a fully automatic rifle in melee combat while it's on the ground next to my other dagger (the one still clutched by my old left hand) I manage to forget I was carrying a revolver, which would have been useful at the moment. But I get ahead of myself. Somehow, and I say somehow because I kind of panicked and just did stuff, I broke free from the madpole and rolled out of the water. I took stock of myself and noticed that my awesome turtleshell was still intact. Both arms and feet, however, were literally in a pile next to me. The same pile that had my daggers and my rifle, next to a madpole. Long story short, and let's face it, needless to say in Qud: I regenned one arm off a shot of superdrugs, shot the madpole to death with my revolver, collected my now incredibly bloody gear, and ate my severed limbs to avoid starving to death while I waited for everything else to regenerate naturally from my mutant powers.
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Sep 4, 2013 07:34
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packetmantis posted:In CoQ, is there a guaranteed location for each of the glotrot cure items? I've gotten to that point a couple of times, but on all of them I've died hunting around in the rear end-end of nowhere for oil or something. Wait, that means you got through Golgotha, right? How the hell did you surive dropping down into the 3rd level of the chute-crab conveyor belt? That part confuses the hell out of me because three times now, each with increasingly stronger armor and more HP (last time I had 14 AV and 121 hp) I've broken through the chome walls on levels 1-2, stolen what I wanted, then without fail I jump down to level 3 and am told I've died. The message log just says I fell, and then an endless stream of "The chute crab hits but doesn't penetrate your armor! The chute crab hits you x3 for 2 damage! The chute crab hits but penetrate your armor!" until I'm dead. I can't tell if this is a bug, or if there's a longer drop to level 3 and I'm being stunned by the fall long enough to be poked to death. In fact now that I'm writing this I bet that's it, time to pop some rubbergum next time. Sigh. Since I like talking about Qud: The tinkering system is awesome. At first I thought it was really crappy and gimped, then I thought you needed Psychometry for it to work, but now I've found how I personally enjoy the hell out of it: Being a Watermerchant mutant. I tend to go Burrowing Claws/Carapace/Regen as a core, and then either no defects, or the Ravenous defect (Butchery solves your problems as long as you have the str to carry food) so that I can pick up either Night Vision/Sense Psychic/Telepathy or Mental Mirror. The claws and the water merchant part are core of the build, really; starting stats for me are 18 for all the physical stats, 20 int, and 16 Ego. Water merchant puts me at 18 ego, and comes with Snake Oiler which boosts ego by 4 for the purpose of bartering. By level 15, I have enough int (putting every point into int till then) to get Expert Disassemble, which means that all of the desert rifles and combat shotguns and chain pistols and such I've been accumulating in my Joppa chest can then be disassembled into their parts. The Water Merchant background means I've been flush with cash the whole time so I can stash excess loot in Joppa too. The claws means that when I get to Grit Gate, I can burrow through the walls from Mafeo's area into the other two shop keepers who have lots of Tinkering schematics and restock when Mafeo does. You don't need to do that, since it's clearly an exploit of how villagers don't care if you destroy their homes, only if you take their +1 bandage of asswiping (which by the way I only found out because if you have Claws, you auto-attack walls when you bump into them, which should be removed so that you have to ctrl-move into walls to kill them). But it triples the number of tinker-schematic vendors you have from just Argy in Joppa. Even if you play legit with just Argy, there doesn't seem to be any limit to what level of data disks he carries. Anyway, the point is that this is also making me think about being a True Man because Tinkers can get Night Vision Goggles and Force Bracelets, which give them the Night Vision and Force Bubble mutations. You have a near-infinite supply of money thanks to being a water merchant which translates into a near-infinite supply of bits, and checking back whenever they restock (I'm not totally sure on the timing, I think it's about a day) means you can eventually make your own chem cells or just buy them, and then recharge them with the bits you have. I stash my loot in Joppa in the chest that I don't own, just be careful to close the door before even opening the chest or the town will aggro you; it doesn't seem to reset, and assuming you're only traveling between places with recoilers, this means you can always teleport to Joppa and back if you need to pick up loot and it only costs you $10 to recharge the cells both times. By the way, you can recharge cells at the tinker shops by pressing 'C' on the item you want to charge, then they tell you how much and ask for confirmation. Super useful since it means you can use all those sweet chem-cell fueled items and just recoil back to Joppa if need be (and other places once you find them). I play this way as a melee and ranged fighter, using the named electric counterweighted longsword that the hunter in Goatman Town (I forget the name) always sells (and sadly he doesn't restock ever) with something in my offhand and a buckler on my offhand arm. Also, I've seen it exactly one time, but there's a bio-scanner bracelet that tells you the exact HP and AV/DV values of your target. I died early in that game (I spawned with it as a tinker mutant before I realized the money from Water Merchant is way better) but I want dat item. Basically, since I have no idea how to get past Golgotha, I've become a roving crazed tinker who butchers animals for food and (I only thought of it right before I died, ironically due to forgetting to turn on my force bracelet and shooting with my super-sweet carbine) building a stockpile of supplies to trek into the eastern ruins since I've never been there. I can reliably get to the mid 20s before I either try Golgotha and experience the spoiler above, or get killed doing something dumb. Also: Are there any merchants besides Joppa, Grit Gate, the Goat Man Village, and the wandering dromad merchants? Also also, if anyone plays Qud and wants the full detail of how I play this: 18 all physical stats/20 int/16 ego/rest in Willpower > Claws/Carapace/Regen > Water Merchant Background > Buy a carbide weapon from the Joppa merchant if he has one, or at least the best weapon he's got > Play as a melee fighter > Get the Joppa recoiler asap > use guns as you find them > imo take Rifles/Bows + Kickback and ideally Take Aim, this lets you kick people back if you use your 2-handed ranged weapon point blank (imo the shot-skills are worthless but Take Aim is nice if you have distance) > start picking up Tinker I-II, Disassemble, and Scavenger around level 9 > put points from levels 3/9/15 into Int so you're ready to take Expert Disassemble at 15. I get to Grit Gate once I have the recoiler and quest from Argy because there's lots of carbide loot on the way there. The carapace helps you with most everything as long as you run from dangerous things; regen + carapace means easy kiting. Once you're around level 6-9, maxing Carapace and Claws before regen (level 1 regen lasts you into the 20s, easy, whereas carapace and claws get WAY better at higher mutation levels) you can start hunting Equimaxes for 375 exp each, and then head east from Joppa into the jungle where you can find Goatman Village, the only village on the map there, which is surrounded by goat men (kind of hard to kill but also worth 375 exp each). I also recommend getting Tactics > Charge in there somewhere so you can charge Goatman Sowers before they through their explosive seeds at you, which do hurt this guy. This is by no means a super-optimal build since Claws, Carapace, and Regen are all sort of crutches for early game survival, but it makes it easy to live long enough and build up enough of a stash to start scumming the shops whenever you feel like it in preparation for hitting level 15 and breaking down all your gear into bits. Also: buy empty recoilers (or ones with cells if you need the cells) and stockpile them when you need to burn extra cash. They disassemble into a guaranteed pristine electronics + scrap. I'd also recommend turning on auto-disassemble scrap so you don't have to manually click it each time. There's no reason to not break down scrap doing this. Particularly useful schematics: Salve injector > requires a Dreadroot Tuber + the bits, cheap, and it's salve! Solar cell > SUPER cheap, it takes a tier-2 bit + 2 crystals, and the tier-2 bit it needs is plentiful, you can let these recharge in the daytime for extended treks, but more importantly it's a money maker on top of meaning that you can have all the cells you need if shops aren't carrying them Force bracelet > On-demand force bubble limited only by how many cells you have. Amazing. Bio-scanner bracelet > If you find this, you are a lucky bastard since I've never seen the schematic. I'd make this for sure though, just to learn more about the game such as specific HP of monsters. Grenades (HE and Freezing) > I guess they could all be useful, I prefer HE and freezing because you can get a goddamn grenade launcher so you can freeze > HE them and loot shouldn't be destroyed as it would with thermal or acid HE Missile > Because you can get a rocket launcher if grenade launchers aren't badass enough for you. Consumable of your choice > Beyond Salve injectors, if you like the injectors, pick up the data disks when you see them. Most require an additional non-bit component though; whatever the hell takes Young Ivory, for example, is hard as hell to make since Young Ivory is so rare (whereas the tubers for salves are easily harvested as long as you ctrl-attack every dreadroot you find). Oh man, if Harvestry helps getting tinker components for injectors, I know where I might spend some skillpoints next game... I'm going to try dual-chainpistols next game since I generally end up with thousands of rounds of unused ammunition, assuming I find the data disk for them again. I'm tempted to pass on Carapace but it's so useful, and there's so few other mutations to replace it with that I don't really see a point; I should ping unormal for that beta link. E2: Woot, that new beta makes Burrowing Claws cost 2 instead of 3. Hello free Nightvision! Claws + Carapace + Regen + Nightvision without defects is going to rock so hard. Can't wait to get home and play now, drat. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 18:44 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 17:46
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Unormal posted:Yes, there is at least one more guaranteed merchant. Thanks! Since you're posting, would you mind confirming if we plop down a chest (or even just leave items on the floor) in a settlement, will anyone steal them/will they ever despawn? It seems like they stay there forever based on my testing, but I'm not sure if I'm just being lucky.
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Sep 11, 2013 19:10
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packetmantis posted:Am I missing something? I found the goatfolk village, there's blood and bodies everywhere, I got the goatfolk parchment, but Mamon is nowhere to be found. I think the whole mission is a reference to Heart of Darkness. Keep following the river. The parchment also has a clue to this, sorta, if you [R]ead it. Hel posted:I'm having a lot of trouble with Caves of Qud, the Villagers in Joppa randomly get hostile. They start of friendly but if I get close they might turn hostile. I know I'm not hitting them by accident since I can stand 3 tiles away and it still happens. I can't even trade with the merchan because he always turns hostile when I open the door, Am I missing something? I've even tried using telepathy to get the quest put they still turned hostile before I had a chance to leave. At first I thought they might be anti mutant bigots put it happens with true human characters as well. Just to rule out the obvious: you aren't opening the chests before this, right? Because if you open the town chests with the doors open, the villagers aggro you immediately/when you see them. If you close the door and no one's inside, then it's fine. I ask because the first thing I do on every character is raid the three chests in huts that you can close the door on, the other chests are always in view of someone. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 21:29 on Sep 11, 2013 |
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Sep 11, 2013 21:26
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Ibram Gaunt posted:Ah, I see. Thanks. I've never had a character survive redrock yet so I don't know much about the mechanics admittedly. Some things I find helpful for starting out, regardless of your build, in no particlar order, including some midgame stuff for tinkers since that's my favorite build:
Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 21:01 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 20:49
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I really wish there were an adequate Caves of Qud wiki. I've never liked spoiler-based gameplay in roguelikes, I'd rather know exactly how the system works and focus on finding ways to break it than have to learn how it works by blind experimentation. The http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ wiki someone made is abysmally out of date, yeah. I didn't think about it till you mentioned it but even though the game is about as clear using in-game cues and clues as Crawl or ToME, both of those games have robust wikis that help you out a lot. For example, Water Merchant has a "bug" where if you talk to the Grit Gate intercom and use the Quest option first, instead of the Water Merchant option, the Water Merchant option disappears after you enter the city. I thought that meant the quest option limited my access to the city and that I'd have had more access to the city if I used the Water Merchant option first, so I remade and tested it out: nope, same exact thing, no bug. I had no knowledge around it and had to test it myself. If there was something like the Crawl/ToME wiki, that would have been absolutely clear to me on the Water Merchant page. Unormal, do you have any 'official' wiki or anything? Did you make http://cavesofqud.wikia.com/ or is that someone else? I want Qud to succeed, so I might as well start editing some wiki with all the stubs that it has right now to make it easier for new players to get into it since there likely won't be any huge changes for a while. E: goddamn I hate wikia, so many ads Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 22:49 on Sep 12, 2013 |
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Sep 12, 2013 22:45
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Qudtalk: I refuse to ever walk near madpoles now. gently caress those guys. I do go out of my way to shoot the hell out of them, though. I think they still give 270 xp a pop into the 20s. Some bullshit is when I find myself lost and spawned into the middle of a madpole river. Some more bullshit is when I'm lost, spawned into a madpole river, a madpole latches onto me, and my Kickback attack pushes the madpole... and I get dragged with it since it's attached  Pretty funny, really.I can't give up Burrowing Claws. I can get myself to play without a carapace, but holy poo poo, being able to dig through everything, even chrome walls (which afaik is the hardest wall type in the game, or at least the hardest I've encountered) is so amazing if you're playing an explorer. I should just try flaming hands, because it looks awesome as hell. Maybe torching people every ten turns will make me less enthralled by constantly digging everywhere. On the note of mutations, even though Double-Muscled makes you slow as hell, which is almost a death sentence, holy CRAP do you stun people a lot. Like almost every other hit, it seems. Also, if you take Butchery and aren't adverse to eating almost every corpse you find, I've found that Ravenous (+3 mutation points, +67% more food need, blocks ability to take "need less food" skills) is basically three free MP. Someone was talking about how it's almost a perk because it makes sure you don't weigh yourself down with food, and I agree; if I start to get low on food, I just recoil somewhere and go hunting for a while. That said, not playing with Ravenous is nice, because you don't have to eat every corpse and you don't have to take Butchery (though it's only 50 sp which is really cheap). This friggin game, drat. I should just play through 5 characters that don't use my default mutation picks and aren't Water Merchants. I've grown my knowledge of the game a lot since I fell into the Turtle-Merchant build, so I should probably be able to get a crazed axe fighter up and running again. I'm also starting to feel like I can still be a tinker without Snake Oiler, since exploration yields waaaayyy more bits than shops; it just hurts not being able to afford a lot of nice data disks. Time to try a double-muscled axe-wielding heavy gunner  Unormal, I read through ObjectBlueprints.xml, and I need to know: are HitDice factored into attacks for the to-hit roll? Because if so, those should really be displayed values. You can go from a Bronze Dagger with its 1d4 hit dice, to a Prayer Rod with 4d6 hit dice; even without skills, reading the .xml it makes it seem like a Prayer Rod practically can't miss its target, unless that's just a relic of some other plan. Not that people would go from a bronze dagger to a prayer rod, I just mean there's a huge variance in the values I was reading. And pleeeeease tell me you're going to implement some of those talents, perks, and mutation-abilities soon, because they look awesome! Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 01:28
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Wow, I've seen a desalinzation pellet exactly once, and I shopscum all the time. That sucks. I actually had no idea what it was, it showed up as an un-ID'd artifact on a vendor without ID skill so I bought it since it weighed 1 pound. That's... unfortunate. I've also only seen yuckwheat infrequently. The blueprints file also doesn't list it as a guaranteed drop off any creature, though there may at least be a guaranteed location for it somewhere. Or there should be, assuming the wiki is hopefully wrong and the ingredients to cure it aren't actually random every game, because that would be even more unfortunate.
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Sep 20, 2013 05:52
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One more reason regen is so good; I assume the timer resets each time your tongue grows back. New water merchant, still a tinker, but more punchy: Burrowing Claws Electrical Generation Night Vision Regeneration Horns (Tusks! They randomize at creation, first I had antlers then got myself killed and got tusks! The differences are only cosmetic, far as I can tell) Ravenous Horns are pretty good. It's a 0-weight +1(I assume up to 3 like Claws) AC helmet that has a 20% chance of doing a shitload of damage + a powerful bleed. I killed an equimax at level 3 or 4 because I gored it with a horn before I ran away. Electrical Generation is also a great "oh poo poo" button early. It's fried several salthoppers that would've otherwise killed me (and also arced onto the aforementioned gored equimax, which I normally would not engage at 3). Ravenous is still ravenous. I farmed the watermarshes south of Joppa for glowfish corpses to have early food before trekking north to kill, loot, and eat every snapjaw I come across. Butchering boars along the way for later food, trippin' and whackin' people with my axes.
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Sep 20, 2013 07:29
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:I don't think it's closed beta, it's downloadable from here: http://forums.freeholdentertainment.com/showthread.php?10-Welcome-to-the-Caves-of-Qud-beta I'm fairly sure Regen is a flat rate, or else the percentage is very small and set to a minimum threshold, because at clvl 1 it feels super powerful, and by late teens/early 20s, it's still giving health back during fights while it's still mutation level 1. I'm still able to kite guys and regen at that stage if need be, also. Also, I'm bummed that EG is weak. It has really inconsistent arc patterns, too. I was assuming it was a sphere around me, or that it would arc through literally every adjacent target to my target, but it seems to arc directionally. Either way, gonna play this one out to see what it's like and if EG is awesome at mutation level 10 or not (and if that's what you were referring to, then,  ).E: You know, playing right now at level 9 with level 1 regen still, I really can't tell. I think it does scale in some way; I wish I could see the mechanics themselves. Also, desalination pellets are 0-weight, and show up as 'tiny trinkets.' Found 6 in a locker going down to grit. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 15:17
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Incredulous Dylan posted:What would you folks recommend as a Roguelikelike for this specific usage scenario - I want to get high as hell and explore and fight stuff and maybe find some cool or overpowered stuff if I'm really lucky. Permadeath and all that preferred with no ASCII. I loved Binding of Isaac, FTL and once when I was pretty drunk Munchkin Quest Dungeons of Dredmor sounds right up your alley, though some parts of its UI are kind of... awful. But it's really fun, no ascii, lots of customization and exploration within the dungeon itself. Really though, get used to ascii. Your  will totally make the graphics come aliiiive maaaaaaaaan, inside your ~imagination~ and there's so many more games with ascii that fit your descripion (Crawl, Qud, ToME, ADOM all come to mind for me since the latter three have open-worlds to explore and all four of them have incredibly deep gameplay with lots of details in the environment that leave you feeling like you're exploring, especially Qud and ToME).There's also the uber-hard but totally-random and exploration-survival-real-time-shooter-roguelike Teleglitch. It's not ascii, but its graphics aren't everyone's cup of tea, so I'd say try the demo. Probably not a great game for what you're describing unless you're also good at real-time gaming while dopin' it up, in which case it's awesome. Also just play FTL some more, that's still a great game. But first, more Qud... Horns are awesome, Electrical Generation sure does seem pointless once you find a combat shotgun. On the flipside, it tears through early-game popcorn like almost nothing else; early-game popcorn is also easy as hell to kill, so, yeah. At least you have a massive burst attack against tough targets early, but I'm totally replacing it next character I play. I could even skip Ravenous and just take Sense Psychic instead, but I like the idea of messing around with those extra four MP. A double-muscled tinker who uses a grenade launcher while swinging two axes for stunning-dismemberment sounds awesome; I've yet to care enough to get a Psychometry tinker up to Expert Disassemble since I've been on my tinker binge, so maybe I'll just swap it out for that and see how a true ubertinker plays. But first, more fullerite-axe-swingin' horn-gorin' electrical-generatin' tinkerin' fun. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 17:59 on Sep 20, 2013 |
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Sep 20, 2013 17:45
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Klaus Kinski posted:Yeah, it could really use crawls amount of vaults/flavor vaults with a massive reduction in both number and size of levels. The character building is really fun and more than once I've wanted to start the exact same character to try another build after a win. That's true, I was thinking about that when I posted. Despite Crawl having no overworld, there's all kinds of neat little events that outshine the vaults of ToME. Like there are vaults in Crawl too, but there's also neat little altars, random events, thematic rooms, thematic rooms special to thematic floors, etc. Even though you're going through a relatively linear dungeon, it eventually starts to feel like the main D1-D27 is the overworld with all the branches being different locations.
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Sep 20, 2013 20:32
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andrew smash posted:As much fun as tome is, crawl does a much better job of keeping the player on their toes in my opinion. There's a more consistent sense of danger. Once you get a character rolling in tome you generally feel invincible until you smack into something that can kill you in two hits. Yeah, plus (at least for me) I always have way more "aw poo poo I was carrying X, that could have saved me," moments after a death in Crawl than I do in other roguelikes. It has excellent balance, and being able to play online and watch others/have others watch you and give feedback is icing on the cake. Such a good game. Dammit, this makes me want to fire up Putty and connect to the Crawl servers. I haven't played since .8 or .9, but I'm so hellbent on Qud at the moment that I can't bring myself to actually go play Crawl again right now. Sometimes I think the reason I have so many hours between Crawl and Qud is that they're the two roguelikes I've played with what feel like the best autoexplore, ha. Crawl was the first autoexplore roguelike I ever played and it's really hard for me to get into RLs without it now.
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Sep 20, 2013 20:44
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dis astranagant posted:You know something that would make Qud a million times better? If it didn't buffer input. When I stop hitting buttons the game needs to stop doing poo poo, not continue on for ages because I had my finger on a direction for a little too long or started hammering directions impatiently while that one plant that shoots in random directions makes every turn take ten times longer than it should. This just killed me as I dug through a wall into a turret nest. Knew it was there, but I held move down too long because it was taking forever to crack the fulcrete. Once the wall dropped, my guy happily ran through three chain turrets and started smacking the other wall as I watched him die
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Sep 21, 2013 15:18
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Well, this became a much more massive wall of text about Qud than I thought it would be. If only I put this much effort into improving myself, ha. I really need to take some time and just start throwing together a basic page that translates the ObjectBlueprint file for Caves of Qud because there's a lot of handy info in there. For instance, Master Butchery apparently acts as an auto-craft skill. It has (at least a chance) to turn successful butchers into an upgraded form; raw bear meat butchers may instead be bear jerky, albino ape pelts may instead be ape fur hats/cloaks, chitinous pumas have a chance to be butchered for a puma chitin vest (a 3 AV 0 DV 30-pound armor), etc. There's some points below where I talk about "the best item I found so far" which is funny to me, since the Blueprint tells you outright what the best is, and I just haven't checked for those items yet. I really hope there's a better shield, on that note. Anyway, onward to my rolling wall of text: new build! And learning experiences! Overall concept is a dual-wield melee fighter with AOE capability and decent ranged combat. Still playing a Water Merchant background just because I like shopscumming at this point; it gives me mini-milestones to cruise through an area collecting loot and food before checking the shops and then tackling a quest objective or preparing for another journey to the Tomb of the Eaters, which for all I know is involved in a quest later (for now it's one of the closest map-markers I haven't explored without dying to the shitload of monsters on its very-open surface). Knowing shop restock timers would be invaluable, since I can't really tell when or why they restock right now. If I've cleared about a dozen or two screens, the shops have probably restocked, so I check with a recoiler. Mutations: Burrowing Claws, Horns, Carapace, Night Vision, Regeneration, and Ravenous. The reasoning is that Carapace turns out to be an 8AV -2DV 40 cold resist/40 fire resist chestpiece once it mutates up to level 10. That's pretty awesome, and it's zero weight. Same general idea with Claws and Horns; they're 0-weight items in those slots with 1-3 AV (Claws give 3 AV maxed, haven't maxed Horns yet but they turn into 1AV at 3 and 2AV at 7ish). Claws give digging, horns give an awesome bleed. I haven't found any items for those slots that give me anything I really feel I'm missing out on compared to the advantages of the mutations. I level Carapace to 2 immediately for an extra AV, then Horns to 3 for an extra AV and a little extra bleed, then I max Claws for better digging. I alternate points where Claws are maxed for the level between Carapace and Horns as I feel I need whichever moreso. Regen will be maxed last as level 1 helps me plenty, and the last time I took additional levels was to speed up regenerating my severed limbs, which has not happened since. Regeneration is something I personally like a lot to kite mobs with while I heal if I get in over my head, but I think if I was going to eventually drop something, it would be Regeneration since it doesn't really contribute much besides convenience and insurance against avoidable mistakes. For now, while I'm still learning, I like it. Combined with Sprint, I can heal to full even if enemies sprint after me. My skills are still being sorted. Butcher - 50 sp - Gives me food, which I need since I'm ravenous. Even though a butchered piece of meat seems to offer far less nutrition than actual corpses, they're easy to carry and if I'm overburdened, I just eat a few pounds of meat. I view Butcher/Ravenous as paying 50sp for 3 mutation points, which is a steal (unless I mismanage it and starve to death in some ruins, which I doubt would happen thanks to the existence of recoilers). Long Blades - 50sp - I took the base skill for the +1 since the Joppa shop started with a Carbide blade. I figured I might pick up the Polluxus from Goattown, but even if I didn't, 50 sp isn't a huge loss to have a little more of an edge early. Not totally sure if it was actually a good call or not since every other weapon skill has +2 to hit for 50p (or at least Axes and Short Blades do). Bows and Rifles - 150 sp total (100sp for the skill, 50sp for Knock Back) - I picked this up asap because the shop had a Weird Artifact for ~130 drams (with an effective 22 ego for barter under this build) that weighed about 11 pounds, and I correctly guessed it was a Carbine. I was level 1 with a carbine, and by level 3 I had Bows and Rifles for +4 agi for the purposes of aiming. This was awesome. Usually I have a Desert Rifle for this purpose anyway, but a carbine was epic. I used what ammo I scraped together to kill a few Equimaxes. Knockback is fairly reliable in that even Slumberlings get knocked back more than half the time (it only works when adjacent, but that's when it's most needed imo). Bows and Rifles also govern Chain Guns if you were to use it, but a Carbine is better than a chain gun in every way (including total shots as a Carbine shoots 8 times before a reload while a chain gun shoots 7 times before a reload, with twice as many bullets per shot but less penetration per shot). Once my agility hits 25, I plan on taking the Draw a Bead skill from here; I'd take Take Aim, but I'm not clear still on whether its effects last until I move/take damage, or just for the next shot (the former being awesome, the latter being garbage imo). Later on, once I start finding/building laser rifles and other energy weapons, the skill becomes even more useful since they're all governed by this skill and not a separate energy-weapon skill (confirmed via Blueprint). Pistols - I tend to skip these because they take a *ton* of skillpoints and agility to make powerful, and they don't get knockback, but I think dual-wield pistols (which do not require the Dual-Wield skill, just the Akimbo pistol skill) might give the best burst damage in the game (if not the best penetrating damage) since they automatically shoot both guns 100% of the time, unlike Dual Wield skill for melee. Dual Wield - 300 sp for the skill - Base chance to attack with both melee weapons is 15%. Dual Wield makes it 35% for the first level of the skill, 55% for the second level, and 75% for the third level. I think the levels are 300/400/500 sp, so it's not cheap, but the damage is crazy good even early if you use a shortblade offhand, and later using two full-size weapons for 75% dual-wield. Short Blades - 150 sp total, 50sp for the skill and 100sp for Jab - This is ghetto dual-wield. Jab makes an offhand Short Blade attack twice as often. I'm not sure if it's a multiplicative stack turning my dual-wield into a 70% chance or an additional 15% (the base rate of offhand attacks) turning this into a 50% chance, but for drat sure it means I offhand attack often. I'm packing a folded carbide long sword (2d5 damage) and a folded carbide dagger in my offhand (1d10 damage) and I tear apart what I've been fighting (goatfolk are my toughest opponents so far and I've been killing their shaman reliably and quickly since level 13 or so). I tested this once before but I forgot: I think it's multiplicative because once I had the 55% dual wield skill, I believe I was offhand-striking 100% of the time with Jab using an offhand shortblade. Shields - 300 sp total for the skill (100sp) + Deft Blocking (200sp, 75% block chance instead of 50%) - I learned that shields are not actually necessary in this build. I wasted 300 skill points (which is a lot for a mutant, that's about 4 levels' worth of SP on this build) until I realized this. I say they're wasted because: 1) Using dual-wield restricts me to bucklers, the best I've ever seen being a Steel Buckler which is +2AV-1DV, and full-size shields (at least the best I've seen) is +3AV-2DV which can't be used while dual-wielding. 2) Fully upgraded, you have a 75% chance to block two attacks each round. 3) A block only adds 1-3 AV depending on your shield, and the shield will drop your DV by -1 to -3, meaning you eat slightly more hits anyway. 4) The biggest danger is being surrounded, and having Claws means I can make tunnels in a pinch to force monsters to fight 1v1. 5) Shields are strongest 1v1, but if I'm 1v1, the odds are good I'm killing whatever I'm fighting or shooting it anyway. I'm glad I realized it early because I usually sink 500-600 sp into shields (the last 300 sp is from 200sp for the 2-blocks-per-round and 100sp for chance-to-stun on block). I'm sure some builds can make good use of that, but getting higher ranks of Dual Wield are a bigger priority for me. Tinkering - a shitload of SP, but right now "only" 400sp of the 1000 or so I'll eventually have; 100 each for the skill, diassemble, scavenge, and Tinker I. With this, I have boatloads of tier 1 bits, I store anything that disassembles into multiple bits to eventually disassemble later when I have Expert Disassemble (25 int, 200sp, gives you 100% of the bits from an item meaning you can literally disassemble a carbine to make it zero-weight then reassemble it when you want to, though I would never do that since you can't tinker in combat, but more importantly you keep the elusive tier 2 and 3 bits from disassembling things like negative weight spheres, bigger guns, grenades, less-useful tonics, etc). Scavenge means more bits from trash and robots I kill, and Tinker I lets me use all those Tier 1 bits on the recipes I find for things like HE and freeze grenades and salve injectors. Heavy Guns - Probably not going to get this, but I keep a grenade launcher on hand to use the aforementioned HE and freezing grenades, which technically uses the Heavy Gun skill. There's no apparently skill bonus, and I don't keep the thing equipped, so I'm probably not going to get this unless there's something I'm missing about one of its abilities helping me out. Wayfaring - 100sp - Because getting lost sucks rear end. I might dump another 100-200sp here for various lores, but the base 100sp doubles your chance to stop being lost, which is pretty useful in and of itself. Axe/Cudgels - Cheaper than Long Blades overall, kind of, and with neater effects. I want to switch to using these once I max dual-wield, but it's a massive sp investment that comes much later. I haven't picked these up yet since I haven't found weapons better than my folded carbide blades, and I've also found folded carbide blades to be more common than the others; I've seen exactly one fullerite axe, which was still worse than a folded carbide blade (except in terms of penetration, and even 1 penetration point does seem to make a big difference versus armored foes). Total SP spent is about 1500sp, 1200sp if you count the fact I basically wasted 300sp on shield skills I now regret. Roughly level 12-18 depending on intelligence to get that many skill points. I'm going to take a bunch of what I wrote here and eventually throw it into a wiki or something; I just figured drat I LIKE WRITING  ABOUT QUD. I really need to make that blueprint translator before someone beats me to the punch though, because that would be a fun project to get myself doing some basic coding again.
Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 21:11
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dis astranagant posted:The best full size shield I've seen is eyeless crab shell, which is 4/-3. Horns cap at 2 AV so you can definitely find better hats unless you're just married to the 20% chance to headbutt things. I've seen steel helmets in joppa that are something like 2/-3. One of my guys found a wandering merchant selling a 6/-6 fullerite plate mail for maybe $300. I feel like if I'm melee, the 20% headbutt can't be beat for the slot since it's essentially a 20% chance to get in an extra weapon attack (the damage gets crazy, highest I've had is 2d6 without maxing it, and the bleed is great) without any penalty to DV. The biggest losses I'm aware of are resistances from plastifer/elastyne gear, or night vision/gas mask utility (which I have night vision and regeneration mutations to cover). I'm going to comb through Blueprints later tonight to see if there's anything better because I'm curious, and granted the game will eventually have more content added, but still, gots ta min/max dat single player game, y0 vvv Yeah, I think that build (double-muscled/multiple legs) is probably the best melee build, I just... really love Claws and Regen Double-Muscled for 4, Multiple Legs for 5, Night Vision for 1, and I could still get Regen if I go Ravenous; I just lose my precious claws, unless I bail on Regen. Being a hulking, fast-moving, heavy-hauling and frequent-stunning melee badass with a rocket launcher does sound appealing, I see your point, ha. If Long Blade swipes have a chance to proc stun on all hit targets (I assume they don't) then wow, that'd be crazy. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Sep 25, 2013 |
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Sep 25, 2013 21:25
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dis astranagant posted:If you find carbide or better armor early on you're going to have a bit of a wait before your carapace is better. I thought this for a long time, but after playing too many water merchants to count (about 8) I'm not really feeling like that. Level 2 carapace is 4 AV, with some thermal resist. Carbide plate is 5 AV iirc, and it also weighs *a lot* which hurts an early Water Merchant's take-almost-everything-not-nailed-down-and-sell-it playstyle. Even Fullerite Plate/Fullerite Flake armor weighs some crazy amount and offers (in total) less overall resist than Carapace (and is barely more AV than level 4-6 carapace, if it even is, I can't remember). Overall, I see why Carapace costs 4 mutation points. You can have it maxed by level 18 iirc, and even without maxing it, level 2 for 4AV at 0 weight (regardless of DV penalty) with a nice chunk of thermal resist is really hard to beat. If armor was rebalanced to not weigh so goddamn much, or if a skill was added to the Endurance skillpool that helped reduce the weight of worn armor by some massive amount, I would see Carapace being less awesome.
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Sep 26, 2013 01:05
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dis astranagant posted:Don't be suckered in by the fancy name of the Nullray Pistol. It devours cells and doesn't seem to actually do anything when you shoot people with it. The blueprint file says its projectile literally has a base damage of 0. Not sure if there's supposed to be some other effect, but yeah, the thing takes 5000 charge per shot. A chem cell holds 10000 charge. Guessing it's bugged/incomplete/plot related, which is a bummer since the recipe for it comes up so often.
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Sep 26, 2013 05:27
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That's pretty cool. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 05:41
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That's not quite co-op, though. Each person is in their own game. It's cooperative for the tournaments where everyone's scores are pooled for team scores, but not in the sense that you have more than one person in the same game.
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Sep 30, 2013 20:22
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I can't even fathom a turn-based co-op roguelike, in that I assume it wouldn't be like playing Arcanum multiplayer, which is all I can visualize for a co-op turn-based game (e.g. everything has an Action Point cost a la Fallout/Wasteland and your turn gives you X action points before going to the next entity in the combat, not like an actual roguelike where generally one action is one turn and everything updates/acts every turn). I would like even a turn-based multiplayer game like that, though. I'm actually waiting on Divinity: Original Sin for that, but it's totally not a roguelike, just a co-op RPG.
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Sep 30, 2013 22:15
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Jordan7hm posted:From the steam thread: http://se.gamersgate.com/DD-TELEGLITCH/teleglitch-die-more-edition Buy Teleglitch if you like roguelikes and shootemups/bullet hells/really crazy graphics. It's really fun. My sole gripe, which might be fixed by now, is that you can't save mid-floor, only between floors (or I may have overlooked that function since I saw no one else complain about it).
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Oct 7, 2013 17:32
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Skwee posted:e: actually found a food source. Was previously killing poo poo and hoping my butcher worked, now I am harvesting watervines. Harvesting water vines is a big pain in the rear end. IMO, the best early food source is killing the glowpads and glowfish south of Joppa or in any Watervine Marsh zone; it's both safe to get an early level or two, and carrying 20 of their corpses is 100 pounds, which seems heavy, except that corpses (at least these, not all corpses) give WAY more food per pound than a lot of others. Plus, if you're walking a lot on the overmap, you'll go through one corpse every ~1.5 moves or so, or every move with Ravenous. Not 100% on the numbers, I've just used them as my primary foodsource on both ravenous and non-ravenous characters throughout the game, especially early when my inventory isn't going to be filled with cashmoney loot. E: Plus you can harvest the watervine if you want, but I'm not a big fan of harvesting. Also, the corpses drop regardless of Butchery. Butchery basically adds a chance for a special loot pool to certain monsters, and that loot pool has mostly portable foods and (if you take Masterful) some interesting loot.
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Oct 30, 2013 16:40
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Bob NewSCART posted:Is there any way to mess with the amount of mutation points a mutant starts? I'd like to play around with some more interesting combinations without having to take crippling defects/use a debug mode. No, but Ravenous gives you 3 mutation points (for 15 total) and is at worst a minor annoyance, especially if you're high str. Just kill glowfish and glowpads till you get 20 of their corpses early, and that will last you a very long time; if you take Butchery and go to the Rusted Arch, there are OBSCENE numbers of boars there that will give you Boar Meat which is 1 pound and, while nowhere near as good as glow corpses, will let you travel easily for minimal weight. I usually end up keeping a stash of meat there just cause there's so much. Cold-Blooded is only 2 MP, but it's also pretty alright, especially if you go Carapace as well (and max the carapace quickly so you get its ridiculous +45/+45 heat/cold resist). You'll still get affected by temperatures, but you can also do things like coat an area with fire (from the source of your choice, be it fire hands or a thermal grenade) and walk through it for a quickness boost since you're cold blooded. On the downside, if you're not quick about killing groups of ice frogs, you're probably going to die if anything else comes around with the ice frogs (like goatman savages). The ice frogs themselves do very little non-cold damage though, so your carapace will soak virtually all of their damage.
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Nov 2, 2013 16:02
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One of things I like about Qud that a lot of other roguelikes lack is the ability to make multiple characters. Going to New Game doesn't wipe my old character, so I can mess around with multiple builds at once. Please never change that, Unormal!Bob NewSCART posted:I'm still having a lot of trouble getting past level 4/5. I usually take carapace, flaming or freezing hands, and try to mix in one other big mutation(I've been messing around with some of the 5 point mental ones) and then thick fur/night vision if I have the extra. I don't really know what Calling I should be picking so I'm basically just going random for that one, and my stat investment has been 18 in almost everything except Strength which I usually put at 16. Do you remember some of the things that have killed you? I usually go 18 in all physical attributes, 18 in Ego (specifically because I choose Water Merchant 90% of the time, so 18 is the most I can get without starting to spend 2 points per 1 Ego and then the 2 Ego from Water Merchant becomes even better) and I leave Willpower at 10. Granted, my highest level is only ~26, but I've never reached a mental mutation guy who killed me in a way that made me say "drat I wish I had higher Mental Armor" which is what Willpower does for you. Also, if you're playing an Esper (mental mutations only) or even just mostly mental mutations, Willpower's cooldown reduction is nowhere near as good as having a high Ego; if your Ego modifier if +4 or more, then it's actually more cost effective to spend 4 MP on a new power and hope it's mental (which it ALWAYS will be if you're an Esper) than to level an existing one, because you'll get a new power at level 5+ (1 + at least 4 from your 4+ ego modifier) which means you get an extra tool altogether, which is much better than a couple of turns shaved off your existing 30-100+ cooldown skills. However. Espers are really loving hard, at least for me, because I cannot resist the urge to punch things in the face, sometimes using my own face (horns). If you want to just live past 5 and kill the poo poo out of things on the way, this build is still good: 18 all physical attributes 16-18 Ego, your pick At least 16 int for skills Leave Willpower at 10 Dump remaining points in Str for extra overall melee power, Agi for melee accuracy + guns (Rifles are STUPID good and with just 150 skill points you get all you really need from rifle unless you wanna get crazy) or Toughness if you plan on being a lump of HP. Mutations: Several schools of thought here. I'll go over the melee builds I use. Carapace (4) + Horns (3) + Burrowing Claws (2) + Night Vision (1) + Regeneration (5) + Ravenous (+3) = Free armor build! Get level 2 carapace asap for +4 av, then level 3 Horns for +1 av, and level 5 claws for +2av. Leave regen at 1, max Carapace next, then Horns for extra melee damage, and lastly Claws to dig through EVERYTHING. Level 9 claws can be rushed if you like to explore and grind a lot, because level 7-ish lets you dig through Fulcrete decent, level 9 much faster, and level 10 will even let you dig through Chrome walls (afaik the toughest walls). Even bigger stuff that breaks armor doesn't matter, because this all heals. This build also helps pure fighters as well as tinker-fighters; you can still use all the weapons you find and have a back-slot open for things like mechanical wings or mechanical arms. Basically, the only armor you have to worry about is shoes, which is why I liked this build a lot. Good backgrounds for this build are Marauder, Gunslinger, Warden, and (kind of advanced/heavy on grinding/scumming the game) Water Merchant for a shot to buy a carbide weapon in Joppa if Tam is carrying one, as well as making HUGE amounts of money to fuel Tinkering. IMO, Water Merchant isn't worth it if you aren't an Esper or a Tinker, so I'd go low-int and pick Marauder, Gunslinger, Warden, or any fighter-class of your choice so you can explore and see more of the world. Carapace (4) + Night Vision (1) + Multiple Legs (5) + Regeneration (5) + Ravenous (+3) = Speedy, tanky, and regenerating. Leave Regen at level 1 pretty much forever, max Carapace first, alternating with Multiple Legs. You can be melee early, don't be afraid to run (you don't need to sprint and you'll outrun most things thanks to Multiple Legs) and your regen will let you heal a LOT while you run. Sprinting makes you zoom. This lets you get in hits in melee, run, and gun. Double-Muscled (4) + Night Vision (1) + Multiple Legs (5) + Regeneration (5) + Ravenous (+3) = What's a carry weight limitation? This build focuses on maxing Double-Muscled and Multiple Legs asap. Multiple Legs cancels out the speed penalty from Double-Muscled and still gives you a hefty +20-30 net speed gain, so you still go fast; Double-Muscled means you can take the high-str melee skills if you desire (I recommend Axes, personally) and it also makes EVERY melee hit have a chance to stun. Very drat nifty, and stuns very often. You have to get your own armor, but the biggest drawback of armor (the weight) is mitigated by Multiple Legs' carryweight bonus. On both of the above builds, you can technically skip Regeneration. It's not THAT good, and the speed bonus means you can kite to regen anyway. I like Regen because it cuts down on time spent healing, and sometimes I need to kite a monster while healing so that their mental abilities don't cool down (like anyone with Siphon Vim or whatever, where it has a 100 or 200 cooldown but it lasts for 20 turns and due to low Willpower, hits like a truck, so I have to run while he drains my life and I regen + salve). However, even without Regen, I've beaten those same fights. Regardless of build, get Tactics + Charge (200 sp total) asap if you're planning on playing melee, because you'll want to be able to close gaps against things like Spitting Vines and (much more important) Chain Turrets (note: chain turrets will gently caress you up pointblank too, and will probably kill you anyway until you get at least 7+ AV, at which point they will still probably kill you but you can probably kill them first with a charge + a few whacks). Get Butchery if you struggle for food, but as I keep spamming: just kill the glowpads and glowfish around Joppa. One benefit that I forgot about is that there's a random event in the watervine marshes which I've seen on like, 3/15 of my last games where 'You find some flattened remains.' This is a guaranteed set of broken mechanical wings that you can repair at Argyve's for 5 water, identify, and wear to use much less food while travelling on the overmap (as long as you remember to press a > fly before moving on the world map, and you can enter fly mode while already on the world map too). They don't work indoors or underground, but that's fine, you have the carryweight from multiple legs. Make it a priority to get some kind of ranged weapon that's better than a bow or musket. Check the Joppa shop often; when you see an ~11 pound weird artifact (you can check the weight by selecting it as if you'd buy it, your weight will update in the lower right of the trade screen) that's pretty expensive (I can't give you an estimate, I forget what it costs without water merchant; with water merchant and ~20 ego, it's like ~140 water, so probably 200-400 without it) that's almost certainly a Carbine, which is imo the best early/midgame ranged weapon (holds 24 rounds, shoots in 3 round bursts, gets the Kickback bonus which means if you use it pointblank you have a very high chance to kick them back) and will let you hunt Equimaxes like they aren't a danger at all. Grit Gate is imo a huge priority because it's a reliable shop that you can teleport to that carries 100-200+ bullets every time you go there; if you're melee, you'll probably stockpile bullets, but if you get a carbine (or even a desert rifle) and use it a lot (guns are very, very safe, limited only by ammo) then you'll definitely want to get here. The best way is: 1) Do all of Argyve's quests first till he gives you the Canticle of Barathrum quest, or whatever it's called, where he gives you the Droid Scrambler 2) Optionally, do Red Rock next if you really need the levels or feel you do 3) Go to Grit Gate and just let the Waydroids kill everything for you (you can only do this with a Droid Scrambler or the droids will wreck you) 4) On level 3 of the underground, when it says "Entrance Level," you can find the way into Grit at the middle-top of the map, talk to the intercom about the quest, and then talk to it again and ask to enter the city. Bam, you're in Grit Gate, home of Mafeo, one of the best (and only!) merchants in the game. Buy a Grit Gate recoiler, and from there, you can pretty much do what you want. I usually: + Explore the Grit Gate tunnels more thoroughly for loot, and dig through the walls into surrounding areas if I have Burrowing Claws or want to burn some Skulk injectors (they give you claws for ~1000 turns? I think) + Go to the Rusted Arch for tinkering bits if I'm a tinker + Go to the Jungle village south-east of Grit Gate (it's already marked on your map) + Explore the ruins around Grit Gate for loot, being careful of Chain Turrets (they WILL shoot 3+ times in a single turn if you enter their LOS, which sucks if there's 2-3, but the other turrets like Rifle Turrets aren't really a threat, just the Chain Turrets) + Follow the Grit Gate questline and die/hit a wall because I'm stupid and don't like rubbergum injectors. Edit: Until you feel comfortable exploring Joppa, Grit Gate, Goatman Village, and the areas surrounding them, game after game, I'd say skip Tinkering because it's only really amazing with 25 int for Expert Disassemble so that you can get every bit from every item you disassemble (otherwise you get minimum of 1 random bit + random amount of the other bits, which sucks). It's kind of a very boring way to play, I just like being a tinker. Because of the 25 int requirement, this means I usually start with attributes like above, except with 20 int and Water Merchant (to have money for parts and schematics) and then dump literally every attribute point into Int until level 15. You'll pick up +2 to all attributes along the way (every 6 levels give you +1 all, so levels 6 and 12 cover that) so you're really only spending 3 points in int (every 3 levels you get +1 attribute point to spend, so levels 3, 9, and 15) but it still sucks to basically be stockpiling everything that disassembles into more than 1 bit. Or maybe you're less compulsive than me and wouldn't do that, but I like hitting 15, buying cool schematics, and then making things like Force Bracelets and Laser Rifles. Because then I Am Become Death. If I remember to use the Force Bracelet, anyway. Which I usually don't, because I just need to punch this monster one more time... gently caress he critted me for 35+ damage E: BTW if you need a stash, just use the floor in Joppa or Grit Gate since you can teleport there (that's what Recoilers do, they take energy cells and teleport you to the place of the recoiler). I'd recommend stashing all but 32-64 drams of water if you aren't actively shopping, because that poo poo weighs a lot (64 drams weigh 16 + 1 for the container = 17 pounds) and there's no reason to carry while travelling (worst case you miss out on a wandering merchant, best case you carry more loot that you sell to that travelling merchant anyway, and you can always teleport back then walk back and try to find the merchant since they move slowly). E: Also, Starapples are stupid. Don't hold on to them thinking they'll help you avoid starvation. They're basically 1-pound watervines in terms of satiation. Eat em as you find em. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 18:39 on Nov 2, 2013 |
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Nov 2, 2013 18:20
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dis astranagant posted:Yeah, but why do that when being a water merchant not only buffs your mind lasers but also gives you practically inexhaustible amounts of money. On that note, I feel like the other classes need to be brought in line with Water Merchant in some way that isn't numbers-based. Right now, imo, there's no reason to pick a specialized class over water merchant unless you're ignoring the merchants, which while a valid playstyle, is needlessly gimpy. Water Merchants start out with the fewest skill points' worth of free skills (just 200 for Snake Oiler) but they also enhance all other playstyles (either directly for espers or indirectly for everyone else by making gear affordable) so I could pick a Warden, sure, or I could pick Water Merchant, buy gear better than a warden, and pick only the combat skills I want instead of being forced into long blades and shields. I can also wait to pick a specialization, and even if I'm a new player, I can just buy armor and weapons from Tam for a huge boost to starting survival. Conversely, even though other classes could just buy Snake Oiler, they'd have to first spend 100 skill points on Intimidate to get to the 200 point Snake Oiler, and since they're a mutant, that means eating up at least 4 levels' worth of skill points, if not more with low int. I wish the other classes came with more skills or each had a special effect (the way Water Merchant and Nomad do) or maybe just indirectly buff them all and indirectly nerf Water Merchant by making trading less punch-self-in-dick hard without 20+ ego (Snake Oiler is just +4 ego for the purposes of trading, so my usual start is effectively 24 ego). Even then, I'd probably still go Water Merchant because it's incredibly difficult to balance essentially starting with some kind of steel or carbide weapon from Tam along with the very real possibility of starting with a carbine, and if you have no carapace it means a good chance of starting with ring or chain mail, too. I think class specialties are the only way to work around that, like maybe Marauders have increased chance of dismember and butchery that no other class can get, Gunslingers can make 50-100 slugs from a single piece of scrap metal (instead of the normal FIVE bullets per scrap using tinkering which is totally worthless) so that they can use guns before Grit Gate which most others can't due to the scarcity of ammo (barring RNG/shop scumming, of course!) or just something that's actually sacrificed by not picking a specialized class, because right now Water Merchant essentially trumps the other classes' starting kits as well as providing a direct late-game benefit (the massive % adjustment to cost). Granted I've still never beaten Golgotha and still wander the overmap and explore Omon Porch and stuff, so, yeah. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 14:02
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dis astranagant posted:By the time you finish grinding out to level 10 you have enough money laying around to buy just about anything you might want, including several midrange tinkering recipes even without hoovering up every bronze piece of crap you find. You don't just have one good item you scrimped and saved for, you have everything that looked remotely interesting. Walk out of grit gate with a carbine AND a combat shotgun AND sometimes an eigenrifle AND Polluxus AND ulnar stimulators/the leg equivalent, AND all your mental mutations are near max level despite sinking all your points in carapace and another physical mutation you picked up for the hell of it. It enables you to afford being all the ludicrous mixed build you want to be. Yeah, this, and I don't think the answer is to nerf Water Merchant but to make the other classes each have something that's worth the trade off, even though nerfing water merchant via reducing starting water + making trading less super-awesome-epic-good would probably be the easiest thing to do. Apostle: No limit to proselytize. Have the town of Joppa follow you around, sure. Arconaut: Scavenger is guaranteed to proc. I'd say have it be a higher chance, but that would still suck, and even guaranteed scavenger is honestly trashy as hell, no pun intended. Greybeard: Active ability to go immortal for X number of turns on a huge cooldown. I dunno, it's supposed to be the tanky archetype. Gunslinger: Starts with the ability to make 50-100 slugs from a bit of scrap metal, both as a post-disassemble bit or using an item that has a scrap metal bit in it so it doesn't require tinker + disassemble necessarily. Marauder: Greatly increased chance of dismember and butchery. Pilgrim: I don't even know. Nomad: Maybe just give him Calloused. That would make him a SUPER tanky starting archetype sans weapon skills. Scholar: This is hard
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Nov 5, 2013 15:32
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hand of luke posted:Svenlainard isn't supposed to sell Polluxus, but apparently he occasionally judges his lead slug or crayon box to be more valuable. Sven also never restocks and for being such a pro hunter, tends to stock piddly garbage like an albino ape fur hat and cloak. I have never reached Goatsville without having something vastly better for each slot. Sven needs to carry something more... uh... hunterly? and restock. I also wish there was a rifle-soldier equivalent to Gunslinger that wasn't Warden. Also-also, Snake Oiler requires *400* skillpoints for non-water merchants; I forgot Persuasion costs 200, not 100. I really wish that the current price multiplier you got at 16 ego with no snake oiler was the minimum for buying/selling (or at least BUYING) regardless of if you had 16 or 10 Ego, since Ego below 16 still negatively impacts mental powers anyway, and at least limiting it to impacting selling below 16 means that non-water merchants can at least shop more reasonably. Or maybe Water Merchant really is just broken stupid-strong as a background and it does need to be nerfed, because it's honestly really hard to intentionally gimp my equipment choices by playing a non-water merchant. I'd rather have more incentive to play the other classes than Water Merchant's style be nerfed, though. Giving every fighter class a free level of ambidexterity would go a long way, imo, with some having level 2, because that's a huge boost to early game fighting and takes a while to save up skill points for. It would be a nice compliment to Water Merchant's early game mad-cash gear boost. I know stealth isn't implemented yet, but that's more what I think about when I think as an Arconaut speciality or even a Greybeard (yeah he's tanky now, but I could see an old guy hiding out in the shadows, waiting to crack some knees when the moment presents itself). Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Nov 5, 2013 |
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Nov 5, 2013 18:44
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andrew smash posted:you won't find it on the world map, iirc the way to find it is to go a screen or two north of apetown and follow the river east Yeah, if you go immediately north of Goatsville/Apetown/Kyauakakaka, follow that river east. It's a ways, and when you find the burned up village with corpses and nothing but the note, keep following the river.
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Nov 6, 2013 17:05
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I've played ADOM, Crawl, Qud, Dredmor, and ToME for anywhere from 2-4 years each, and beat none of them. I've only ever beaten Roguelike-likes; FTL, Rogue Legacy, and uh... I think that's it. They're hard, especially for me since I try to do stupid poo poo for no reason like, "This is my last health potion. Sure, I could use it and safely beat this monster, since I've spent 2-10+ hours on this character and I've never gotten this far. Eh, screw it, I'm sure I can get the final hit I need before I die." *whiff* *whiff* *whiff* "One more try, then I'll use that potion." *whiff* *dies* "gently caress." Sometimes I just do dumb poo poo, like I was fighting a Slumberling in Qud (bigass monsters worth a lot of exp but they literally fall asleep in combat) and I was kiting it around, but I forgot to stay within the sweetspot that lets me move away from them without getting far enough away to charge. Then I moved one square too far, it charged me, and also landed TWO hits instead of one, one of which was a crit. Sure, it was 'RNG' but it was really me making dumb decisions to get to that point (e.g. kiting a slumberling instead of shooting it dead or just walking away while it slept).
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Nov 6, 2013 18:41
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Bob NewSCART posted:What do I do about my right hand that I now have in my inventory? Is there any way to fix this other than the first aid skill? If you mean in Qud, you get to eat that hand, buddy! For real though, the severed hand is done, the only options are regeneration via mutation, or regeneration via Ubernostrum. If you got neither, that sucks, no two-handed weapons of any kind for you, nor any gloves.
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Nov 6, 2013 22:29
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_jink posted:not huge spoilers, but discovering the set pieces is one of the cooler aspects of coq drat, what level were you? And I assume you did Golgotha first to get there (in terms of it being required to unlock something, I know it shows up on the map by default)? Does Omon Porch have any way to unlock the force fields, or is that at all related to Bethesda Susa? Is there anything in the Deathlands yet? That is, besides crazyass level 48+ swarm-rocket-launcher wielding chrome pyramids lurking underground, so don't enter any tunnels over there holy shiiiiiiet instant death with 140 hp Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Nov 7, 2013 |
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Nov 7, 2013 15:47
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The biggest, "Oh, wow, so this is what people mean about X class," moment for me in Crawl was the first time I got a Naga Ice Elementalist worshipping... uh... the V god I think? Vehumet? Whoever gave you mana when you killed things with spells, to reliably cast Freezing Cloud (or whatever level 6 AoE spell they start with but can't cast till much later is, if they even still have it, the classes all changed a lot since 0.8). Making a room fill with deadly freezing vapors that dealt partially irrestible damage (iirc anyway) while regenning mana off of it was insane. But yeah, Crawl is a neat game where characters really came into their own and diverged in playstyles from one another (at least at the archetype level, not a huge difference between a gladiator and a fighter last I played) as the game progresses.
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Nov 7, 2013 21:24
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Qud: In an effort to play fewer water merchants, I rolled a double-muscled carapace regeneration mutant Arconaut. Figured I'd go Axes with Short Blade offhand, ended up finding a higher-level dromad merchant two squares north of Joppa with a Fullerite Two-Handed Maul at level 7 or 8, sold everything I could, bought it, sunk all my saved skills into Cudgels instead (I only had the base Short Blades and Axes at that point since I build non-specialized skills and Rifles early in the event of a find like this). I gotta admit, this character has been more fun than a Water Merchant melee build. While I'm boned if something faster than me finds me while Sprint is on cd (haven't actually had to sprint yet, level 14 and at Grit Gate, killing Equimaxen for fun and levels before I go through Goatsville) I've got a really high strength from Double-Muscled and started with extra Agi instead of Int; I got Jump and Juke, which I haven't *had* to use yet, but are definitely awesome for navigating fights while slow as hell. I'm really curious how the jungle is going to treat me since I won't be running very often. I also still only have a desert rifle, haven't seen a carbine or better yet. Crushing the gently caress out of things is awesome, though. I can sink all my points into Cudgels, and I should have 29 str by 18 so I can take the double-damage with Cudgels passive; the jungle should get me there, assuming I don't bite it after forgetting I'm super slow against a tribe of goatmen with a powerful shaman or something. I really wish I had Mental Mirror instead of Night Vision + Sense Psychic, but I wouldn't be able to use this maul without Night Vision since I have no reliable light that's hands-free anyway. I also have a mound of tinkering items should I somehow survive to 36 or whatever level will give me enough passive int gains to take Expert Disassemble.
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Nov 9, 2013 20:58
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MoonwalkInvincible posted:I've just started getting into Qud, and for the most part it's been fairly self-explanatory, especially for a roguelike, but there's a few things I still can't figure out: Regarding the girshling corpse, bring it to the elder. You have to keep it in your inv. If you already got the reward, you can just eat or toss the corpse; he doesn't take it from you. Regarding offhand attacks, no penalty to hit as far as I know, and offhand has a base 15% chance to hit per the in game help about combat. That's why you sometimes see attacks with the glowsphere. No idea on having two heads. what you describe is the same with two sets of feet.
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Nov 10, 2013 15:43
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Photosynaesthesias posted:NEO Scavenger isn't a traditional roguelike but it's more or less a hex-based post-apocalyptic survival roguelike where you actually have to fight against the environment as well as adversaries. It's also actively developed by a goon. If you're okay with something that won't run in a console window at all, it's worth checking out, the demo can be played for free in your browser: I do encourage people to play NEO Scav, but be aware that it's a very mouse-driven interface.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:38
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IronicDongz posted:I don't think they actually are. IIRC it's something like a 60-70% chance to gain one piety for praying over one corpse, no matter what corpse it is. Unless I've been very misled, that is. That's how it was last I played; as such you'd butcher bigger bodies while saccing smaller ones to maximize food via corpses with minimal piety loss since they're all the same piety.
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Nov 12, 2013 03:00
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Alright, I give up. I need a Qud spoiler. I need to know how to proceed through Golgotha in Qud. I'm at the point where I'm bored and I haven't died to anything stupid so rather than go explore the deathlands until I die, I might as well try again. I literally get instantly killed when I drop through the chutes with the crabs after the first or second level; like I drop down into the chutes, kill the crabs no problem, can even explore the level without issue, but when I drop down again, I just die. The message log says that like 1000 crabs ping me to death. Do I need to use rubbergum before I jump down? Is it weight related? The hell do I do? I have 131 hp, I'm level 20, I know I should be able to do this but I don't wnat to just instantly die to bullshit without even understanding it again, and I don't feel like just popping rubbergum and hoping, either. The only thing I really lack is reliable AOE, to the point where I'm thinking about farming up sower's seeds if I need them since I haven't done Raising Indrix yet. I also took Endurance this game, thinking maybe the passive chance to shake daze/stun will prevent the instant death. Am I just doing something wrong? Does it matter which entrance I choose into Golgotha?
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Nov 12, 2013 06:16
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Maelephant posted:Good luck! _jink posted:To expand on this a bit, there are 3 (iirc) different entrances to Golgatha and 3 different chute types: endless crabs, acid gas, and fire traps. The crab one is really obnoxious, acid gas impossible, and fire traps fairly easy. Just recoiler out till you get that one. Thanks guys. I have literally never *not* been killed on the second drop I've described (we're talking over a dozen times) so I'll try one of the different chutes since it's always been an endless crab chute for me. E: Welp that was pretty anticlimactic. Picked the acid chute, figured gently caress it, it's not endless crabs (I think? it still had chute crabs but I've never seen agolmaggots before) and every down chute was within like 20 feet of me. No instant death! Hello Cloaca! Lost all of 15 hp on my way down, heh. Also, wth, wow, I found the droid and I can just leave right now. Still exploring cause I'm stupid, and cause I want to kill Slog. I thought the droid was past the cloaca, weird. Also, is falling into the ooze and getting it into my mouth (ew) how I get glotrot? If so, gently caress, I'm stupid, at least I got regen. drat, in and out before Grit even had a chance to restock. Onward to Susa! Thank you both again! This was also the first attempt I've made after the last patch, so maybe the instadeath bug was fixed. Also, if you haven't played a Bonecrushing Cudgel user of any kind, it's pretty sweet (though admittedly I have seen exactly one two-handed fullerite maul in all my games, and it's the one in my hands right now). 45+ damage crits plus flurry erry day Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 13:46
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IronicDongz posted:RNG fuckery exists in all roguelikes, but I definitely feel like it's more of an issue in FTL than games like DCSS, or if you want a comparison with other roguelites, BoI, Risk of Rain, and Nuclear Throne. If you don't happen to run across enough weapons/shops selling weapons you can afford before getting to the end(or near end when everything gets 3-4 shields and decent dodge chance), you're just hosed. And it's worse with certain ships-with the stealth ship, you NEED to find shields really really fast, with the rock ship, you NEED to drop a lot of missiles over the course of the game or good non-missile weapons early on. More than any other game FTL makes me feel like I'm dependent on getting lucky with the RNG to win. Eh, you don't need shields on the stealth ships, really (it's also a challenge ship afaik). Shields make things easier, but with the same money, you can upgrade your stealth system to alpha-strike enemies before they can do any serious damage, or get better weapons, or get a pre-igniter, whatever. There's a lot of ways around a lot of the common problems in FTL; it's one of the two roguelikes I've beaten, amd it's one I can beat reliably because part of the strategy is getting as many nodes per system as you can. That means sometimes going to the exit, then going PAST the exit to get an extra node or two, then fighting the fleet on the exit node long enough to jump to the next sector. Squeezing out those extra nodes is basically an extra 1-2 sectors' worth of nodes by the last stand, which gets you the scrap you need. Also, the Engineer ship (which is unlocked on any difficulty as long as you make it to sector 5) is bar-none one of the best ships in the game because of that ion blast II. Alternatively, unlocking the Red Tail (the basic ship's variant) means you can blast through 3 shields off the bat to deal 1 damage (to a shield system!) if you can avoid missing and/or get a raiding party on their helm to remove their evasion chance. If you're struggling with FTL, try to hit more nodes per system before you jump. Every jump you make within a sector should put you juuuuuust outside of the fleet's range. You don't want to race through FTL because the nodes help so much. Also, save scrap for shops, imo. Upgrading is important, but I upgrade at shops so that if the shop has something awesome I can buy it, and if not I can upgrade there anyway. That's all without touching on weapon micro which is a huge deal. Finding even a lovely pike beam early can be a huge boon if you don't let it autoattack but use your other weapons to break shields then pike beam them to death while shields are recharging, then sell the pike beam once you find a shop with literally anything better. I've rarely found an unwinnable game compared to overextending or making errors (like blowing the airlocks and forgetting my med bay can only hold 3 crew, or just outright forgetting to close the air locks after the fight ).Also, crew teleporters with *any* two dedicated fighters (mantis are ideal but others can work) are available on nearly any ship and act as a great utility weapon. They can wipe enemy evasion, they can disable critical systems, they can kill crew for more scrap, whatever. Granted you can't ALWAYS do all of those things, and you may have to micro them too (like running them around to avoid death while your teleporter recharges) but the point is that there's usually many different items that can work to get you out of bad situations, some may just not be obvious. Tempora Mutantur fucked around with this message at 20:02 on Nov 12, 2013 |
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Nov 12, 2013 19:56
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