Returnal: Groundhog's Day but on Bath Salts in Space

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Returnal: Groundhog's Day but on Bath Salts in Space

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Oh no all my work's remote connection systems are down whatever will I do today

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 15:39

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 05:56

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Shooting the giant liquid metal sphere is cool as hell. The sound and haptics on this game are insane. I am so excited for this generation of games.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 16:21

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

MC is basically a carbon copy of Olivia from Lone Echo. Which is cool, I liked her, but wow literally the same character.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2021 16:41

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Three runs in a row and not a single non pistol weapon before the boss. gently caress off.

# ¿ May 1, 2021 15:31

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

I am loving terrible at this game wow.

# ¿ May 1, 2021 17:17

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

This game is really tilting me. Time to take a break. I have no idea how you're supposed to deal with some of these rooms when you're in tight quarters with the bats loving flying at you, the beam tentacles monsters shooting at you, a yellow shooty boy shooting his homing rockets at you and slowing you down, and oh yeah sure spawn in a red dog too that's awesome. Not even in an elite room - the game seems to be ramping up difficulty but I'm not getting any better.

# ¿ May 1, 2021 18:36

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Blind Rasputin posted:

I�ve been using 2.0 and didn�t have that bug.

For those struggling, I can�t imagine what your play style is but seriously, fighting in a more stand off approach, not rushing into the rooms, bugging the hell out when enemies surround you. When you enter a room you should do so slowly, use the scanner to get the red echoes of where all the enemies are, start thinning the herd from a distance. Make sure you are exploring everything. Don�t risk picking up malignant stuff at all really. It�s rarely worth it. Make sure your dash and melee are on the right buttons (L1 and R3, respectively) and do not aim down sights unless you are firing at something far off. Keep that left finger on L1 to dash.

I have not died hardly at all and find the combat challenging but perfectly fair. Sometimes I get swarmed by bigly enemies but I dash away and conserve my alt fire for their loving face and end them. A really important function is that melee attacking staggers an enemy. So the way I approach the tree guys or the big red dogs is once there�s an opportunity to get in their face I melee them, which staggers them, then alt fire and mag dump.

I think the most important currency hands down is ether. Save it all up since it transfers between runs and can be used at the weird device near your ship to unlock some very potent devices. Can be used to lock in one save point per biome for 6 ether at the machine with the imprint of a sentient in it. Don�t use ether to cure malignant objects. It�s just not worth it.

Good tips, thanks. I don't use the scanner nearly enough, I didn't even realize it showed enemies. My issue with melee so far is that I usually seem to get hit when I go in to use it since so many of the enemies, even the basic ones, have very quick and hard hitting melee attacks themselves and are usually in groups. As far as not aiming down sights, don't you find this really hurts your ability to focus down groups (of which most enemies in the game are found in)? I find if I don't ADS I end up with 8 bats flying around at 20% health.

I'm going to stick with this, though it will probably be a 'couple runs a day' kind of thing rather than big sessions, at least until I figure things out more. It really is a very interesting, unique and inventive game, so I do want to see what happens.

I will say though, I want the fuckin grapple upgrade. Seems like every other side path room at this point is that one that's just a broken bridge with the grapple point on the other side.

Also, I restart when I get that first room that's the stairs and the dropoff so you can't go back to the ship. That's just needlessly mean.

edit: also, for a game that is already making you feel bad at every moment, the adrenaline mechanic is just a step too far for me. It just is so deflating when you take one hit right before the boss and lose it.

The Walrus fucked around with this message at 21:06 on May 1, 2021

# ¿ May 1, 2021 21:02

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

melee attacks do not stun the red dogs as far as I can tell

# ¿ May 1, 2021 21:38

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Another five runs not even getting to the boss now. I'm actually getting worse I think, or the enemies are getting harder, I dunno. This is frustrating. Video below is the most recent death, but all my deaths are basically just like this. You can see I get swarmed and lose all my health in about five seconds, I try to create space but then just get flanked. And if I don't get flanked like this I get hit with the long distance rapid fire orbs from the small orange dogs, or the beam from the flying octopuses, or one of another hard hitting fast attacks from all sides. Aside from just sitting in the entryway of every room and picking dudes off one by one I'm just not getting this. I've never been good at shooters on consoles, though I've always been at least competent-ish. This might just not be for me

I love so much about the game, I just wish it loved me back

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78oKGLbALgQ

The Walrus fucked around with this message at 22:35 on May 1, 2021

# ¿ May 1, 2021 22:26

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Fix posted:

I should hold back on opening chests until I get that sweet sweet proficiency up,

fuuuuuck. good call.

# ¿ May 2, 2021 00:36

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

I do have always run on and I'm pretty sure I was just being stunlocked there so I couldn't dash. I hear you on not going into the middle of rooms though for sure lol, I just need to find that balance between being so cautious that it's boring and being reckless. I'll post some longer vids though if I can't progress tomorrow though, thanks.

# ¿ May 2, 2021 02:06

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Picked this up after a couple days away, still haven't beaten the first boss, but I have just gotten 6 new giant rooms in a row in the first biome. Did they add more rooms? Are more added per certain number of runs? This game is so cool.

# ¿ May 3, 2021 21:54

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Aaaaah I loving DID IT, first run of the day I got this first boss guy finally, after playing all day Saturday and dying to him 5+ times and then getting tilted and barely even making it to him. I finally get how the combat works, I started prioritizing trying to collect obols after shooting so I could afford the health pack/health increase and by doing that everything else kind of clicked, melee when in melee range, keep dashing, and don't get surrounded. Fairly amusing that the first time I EVER saw the astronaut in the shop I bought it but then didn't even need it for the boss lol.

PantsBandit posted:

Just in case anyone was dumb like me and thought you unlocked some ability to open those stone gates: you don't. There are switches nearby you can shoot to open them and get the stuff behind them.

I honestly don't know how I never noticed those things until now.

.... are you fuckin for real

# ¿ May 4, 2021 01:51

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Bust Rodd posted:

It kinda sucks that there aren�t any rewards for aggressive play. If this game had some kind of rally system or your lightsaber just had like 1% passive lifesteal or something then I feel like I could make progress. I guess I�m just struggling because the only apparently correct way to play is to just take potshots from as far as possible while using cover and abusing doors to avoid missile attacks� all of that sounds boring! I wanna rush in and run-and-gun and close the gap and jump into the air and slice up the dove-bats before they can slap me around!

Playing the game in such slow and potentially lame increments reduces it to something that no longer feels fun to me, and the irony of playing that slowly and methodically is that it leads me to just get bored and tired of the snail pace and that leads to the stupidest mistakes, like falling off a cliff or into water�but it t also seems to be the only way to actually make progress� oh well�

I really like Returnal conceptually and I enjoy playing it, but I have absolutely no hope of beating this game unless new artifacts and weapons in Biome 4-5-6 radically open up gameplay or diversify builds. As it stands now I feel extremely pigeonholed into one very specific style of play that doesn�t excite me

While the bats suck and yes, the optimal strategy with them is if you ever realize they are even close to starting to surround you, get across the arena asap: You're just not playing it right tbh I was right there with you and still am to an extent 'cause I'm bad, but there is a way to play in a fun and mobile way that also keeps you safe, it's just complicated and tough and requires practice playing in that specific way. It's kind of like DOOM Eternal in a way in that there really is a specific rhythm and movement needed but there's a lot less handholding to get you there. There is already a huge reward to using your melee - it does huge stagger and damage and has a ton of i-frames. And the game absolutely rewards you as well for being aggressive because you really can do a lot of damage quickly - but so do the enemies and they are very mobile, so you are at a huge benefit if you can take them out very quickly. Especially in biomes 1-3 (I'm still working out the best strat for Biome 4 where this doesnt work due to increased enemy stats lol), when you see a big guy portaling in you want to time it so when he pops you're actually right next to him, so you can give a quick melee and secondary fire and finish him off basically right there. Similarly, there are a lot of times with basic enemies where the best move is just to chain off like 7 melee moves in a row dashing all over the place one shotting them all.

For the enemies that do ranged damage, it's not about pigeonholing yourself in an entryway and abusing the door, you just really need to give special thought to the way your actions affect how the enemies are responding, because it is fairly consistent, and you need to give extra attention to making sure you have a full wall between you and the bad guys you are not currently shooting - 90 degrees is not going to do it usually on the homing attacks. Once you're running around just funneling guys where you want them is when the game kind of clicked in biome 3 for me. Literally you should nearly always be dodging as well, and jumping around, and if you see the grapple triangle on your screen in a fight, gently caress it just hit triangle. if you can stay mobile the enemies often are delayed in their attacks especially grapple really throws them off.

Biome 4 is hard though tbh, my usual aggressive melee until stagger + secondary everything strategy doesn't work any more as enemies have a lot more health. I'll figure it out though, probably have to just go more hit and run I guess.

The Walrus fucked around with this message at 14:00 on May 16, 2021

# ¿ May 16, 2021 13:54

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

It's funny how being aggressive and obol collection go hand in hand, and it works the other way too. If you focus on collecting as much fallen obol as you can you end up naturally playing the game in the 'right' way. Pretty good design.

# ¿ May 16, 2021 19:10

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

This game gets a lot better when you start taking malignant everything

# ¿ May 17, 2021 02:37

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Got through Biome 6! 70 deaths. It's a lot but it was a lot of quick deaths and I would always suicide rather than restart for some reason. Biome 1 was the hardest to get used to and adjust my playstyle, then biome 2 was a reasonable curve, biome 3 was a roadblock but not as much as 1. Biome 4 seemed tough initially until I realized some tips (lots of free obols in eggs/statues, take every malignant thing you can find in this act), ended up one-shotting the boss. I've literally played Biome 5 once as it once beating 4 5 was really really easy. Then 6 I was having a great run first go at it until I got some bad malfunctions. Got back to the final boss my next go-round and died to him in stage 3, but I'd purchased the regenerator! Went back and beat him easily with no health items or astronauts remaining. Heavy Carbine loving murders him.

Great game. Are people really thinking it's all in her head? that seems like a simplistic reduction, It seems more like a situation where the planet is using her trauma to gently caress with her. It's a true causal loop story, there's not ever going to be a beginning, there's no ending, Selene is just well and truly hosed. We know there's more than one iteration of her running around at the same time, I think there's at least 3.

# ¿ May 18, 2021 17:16

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Seymour Buttz posted:

Wait, do people restart runs if they get in trouble instead of just playing until they die or win? That feels wrong to me.

Yeah, like if I get hit a bunch in the first few rooms of 1/4, gently caress it, just let the tentacles take me. Or the time just starting out on Biome 4 I got the 'enemies counter hit' malfunction with the 'collect 300 obols' fix. No thanks!

Also especially early on had a lot of quick deaths that were effectively suicides by trying to jump into Biome 2 too early

# ¿ May 18, 2021 20:00

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

When you play through 1-6 again, does seriously nothing stick moving from 3-4? I could have sworn I kept my integrity upgrade the first time.

# ¿ May 20, 2021 00:40

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

The 'for the next X' kills are nice if you can find them in biome 3 or 6 cause you can leave picking them up until right before the boss and they're free.

# ¿ May 20, 2021 17:55

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

lmao they really change biome 1 a LOT after beating 6, a lot of effort there given there's literally no reason to play it again once you get the sunface fragment. new enemies, etc.

# ¿ May 20, 2021 19:48

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

shortspecialbus posted:

Ok, aside from meleeing the tree guys, that's basically what I've been trying to do. My issue is I tend to get blindside stomped by the huge enemies when I'm doing that, so maybe I just need to try to make more space for myself and take more time.

you can really focus down most enemies very quickly in biome 1. I recommend taking the big guys out first. A melee followed by an alt fire at their glowing weak spot/head usually gets them mostly there. You actually want to be right next to the warp bubble things when they pop and you can kill them before they get a chance to do much usually. This won't work later on when enemies have more HP but by then you'll know the patterns better and be able to dodge most stuff

The Walrus fucked around with this message at 00:09 on May 22, 2021

# ¿ May 22, 2021 00:07

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Thundarr posted:

The rng for room generation is definitely hosed up. There are at least three blue door rooms other than the revive room and archive that appear in 100% of my biome 1 runs and have no need to: the one with a luminous sphere that leads to a data cube, the big empty room with a xenoglyph and a random fabricator, and the small one with one locked chest. This dramatically limits what other blue door rooms have a chance to appear, especially connecting rooms like the one log 9 is in.

It's not hosed up it's just there's a limited number of blue door dead end paths and most of them appear every playthrough by default. You missed a couple including the small parasite pool, the regenerator room, etc. There's usually just one or two long branching blue paths per biome buy that's by design otherwise they would be to big and let you get too op.

# ¿ May 23, 2021 23:14

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

This game desperately needs a pact of punishment

# ¿ May 26, 2021 04:18

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

shortspecialbus posted:

Is the hollowseeker useful at high levels or something? So far every hollowseeker I've gotten (up to proficiency 4) is worse than the starting pistol and does next to zero damage per projectile and a magdump barely kills the easiest enemy. What is this gun good for?

Hollowaeeker is a bit weird you sometimes need to kind of lead your target if you are moving, even with autoaim

# ¿ May 28, 2021 23:05

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Again the hollowseekers aiming is weird, you kind of need to lead, and distance exacerbates it. It's kind of like a firehose more than a gun. Also retarget doesn't do anything on a single target like boss 3

# ¿ May 29, 2021 15:36

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

The lobber also gets a disproportionate benefit from proc on overload abilities.

# ¿ Jun 1, 2021 03:34

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

tensai posted:

I've been stuck on Biome3 forever. Granted, I took a break for Mass Effect and such, but 3 is the hardest wall I've hit. I have gotten to the point where I can usually get to the last room before the boss with a decent amount of health and maybe some perks, but the large dudes have been wrecking me before I can even make it to the boss to practice. Any hints to get past that top room of the tower?

You can just run past them really easily once you kill the lockdown tower. No need to fight anyone.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2021 23:08

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Fedule posted:

The whole run-time/suspend/playstyle tension that played out over the release of Returnal is fascinating to me.

It's clear from listening to the developers talk about it and from watching speedruns that have emerged that Returnal "intends", by some description of that term, for you to play boldly, aggressively, and quickly. This all comes to bear when you're directly engaging with the enemies, who all have fairly low numbers of fairly rigid attack patterns that are fairly punishable, who tend to be at their most dangerous when in high numbers and surrounding you, and who hit hard but can (mostly) be easily mitigated if you have any awareness of how they're going to act and if you can keep your cool.

The thing is, though, that Returnal is really bad at actually encouraging players to play in this way. In various ways and at small, medium and large scale, Returnal winds up encouraging players to play the opposite way; methodically, carefully, and above all slowly. In particular, I think this would have been predictable before the release of the game, although we can't know that now, unless years from now some Housemarque alumnus breaks silence (on the whole, for any given problem present in a game before its release, someone at the studio probably knew and cared, even if they couldn't ultimately convince management to act on it, for reasons which may be justifiable or not).

At the small scale, the power progression is extremely gradual and not particularly chaotic, by the standards of roguelikes generally. Returnal has a very good weapon selection (as demonstrated by vigorous debate over which weapon is the best), but ultimately not a lot of variety in how you actually play and what factors influence your perceived readiness for greater challenges. On top of this there is the health system, which has you collecting three pieces of a 5% boost at a time to max health - contrast games which start you on three hearts giving you a fourth. Compounding this is the way that health pickups become health boosters when you are at maximum health - this creates a feedback loop in which not taking damage is the best way to make number go up, amplified if you pick up Resinous Shield, which synergises flawlessly with itself. Returnal's most dramatic power boosts come from a handful of artifacts which provide extremely helpful effects without a downside, so the biggest determining factor of your fortunes is often simply how many of these you have, rather than their interplay (which they largely don't have). Because of Returnal's gradual power progression (and because finding more artifacts is impactful because each one has a chance to be one of the few good ones) and its caution-rewarding and even more gradual health progression, players are incentivised to play cautiously, increase and hoard their health, and explore thoroughly to find as many artifacts as possible, which also maximises their proficiency to incrementally increase power of found weapons (far beyond what they will gain from the Modular Calibrator at the start of each biome).

At the medium scale, because of the small scale, a run in Returnal frequently becomes, as it often does in many games, a time investment. Roguelikes love to play games with your time - hell, games generally have started to toy with this ever since Souls et al lit the fire, but roguelikes are the most straightforward bargain on offer. Failure in roguelikes is offset by any permanent progression you've managed and any learning you've picked up, and successes are typically the ultimate mark of progression towards some kind of actual end. Most roguelikes therefore benefit from being fast paced, and/or for gracefully integrating failure into progression (see: how much literally everybody loves Hades). Returnal notionally wants you to play quickly, but actually encourages you to play slowly, because cautious combat and methodical exploration yield the most rewards. Because of that, a deeper run tends to represent a gradually increasing time investment. Because of that, failure deeper into a run represents a greater loss. Because of that, the more cautiously and thoroughly you have played, the more cautiously and thoroughly you will want to play, because otherwise you might squander your hard earned run. This, fundamentally, is why runs in Returnal have been found to take so long - and, of course, why people tend to be so angry about losing runs. Roguelikes shine their brightest when they are able to convince players to treat runs as ephemeral, to fully embrace the meta-progression over the progression, and to take less interest in the ultimate success or failure of the current run, but Returnal more often than not does not manage this, leaving many players with a sense of much being staked on their present attempt, and, not unreasonably, becoming protective of their stake.

Finally, at the large scale, even when a player has pushed past these considerations and actively discarded what the game actually presents in favour of what the developers want, there still remains a counter-incentive at play - trophies. Returnal externally encourages you to collect all the scout logs and xenoglyphs in every biome. These spawn in set rooms, which may or may not be present, and if they are present, can be present anywhere. Because they can be present anywhere, the only way to go about looking for them is to search everywhere. Therefore, if you have any interest at all in the completion trophy for each biome, you quite literally have no choice but to explore thoroughly, even if you are an interested enough player to be developing a fast, bold playstyle otherwise. The most invested players are the most likely players to be chasing trophies - players will follow the lines of engagement a game lays out for them! - but because of this they are less likely to engage optimally with the game until they have spent many many runs - at the mercy of the RNG - playing suboptimally.

Quite apart from the small, medium and large scales are the things that aren't at any scale because the game doesn't do them. Most obviously, for a game that notionally wants you to come at it quickly, Returnal has absolutely no acknowledgement of player speed. Returnal badly needs to offer some kind of direct, in-run incentive for accomplishing certain things or reaching certain places quickly (like Isaac and Dead Cells do), or even just give some prominence to the clock and wait for the player to connect the psychological dots (like Hades does). More broadly, Returnal could do with a fairly deep rebalancing of some kind - particularly, one that gives you more health over fewer intervals, directly rewards avoiding all damage less, and actively rewards taking damage more, just so that players can have a hint to take that they should let go of caution and YOLO every run.

I should stress that just because I think there's this fundamental incoherence in the game doesn't mean I didn't like it - the actual act of playing the game is still a blast, even when you don't engage optimally, it's just that I find the disconnect between what the developers clearly want the game to communicate and what players actually take from the game to be fascinating.

early contender for Games Post Of The Year

# ¿ Jan 15, 2022 03:24

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

Fedule posted:

I mean, I can go on, if you want.

But seriously, does no one else find it fascinating that the developers seem so surprised at how the majority of players interpreted the game they made? Maybe I'm the only one interested in how well design intentions survive contact with a playerbase engaging with a game blind on its own offered terms.

No I agree - I have a whole masters thesis in my head about design intention vs playstyle as it relates to arkane games, doom eternal, and returnal, I'll write it some day. Constant references to Devil May Cry and Tony Hawk Pro Skater. TLDR they all need score systems.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2022 04:59

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

The ideal movement pattern for Levels 1 and 4 is constant aggression/trying to pick up every obol you can. Prioritize dashing to collect obols and take that as your new starting point for the next mini-engagement. Lots of jumping melee attacks as well.

This is both the ideal strategy and it gets you the most obols to get powered up.

20+ tries to beat phrike is not at all uncommon though - and 30+ to beat Dad in Hades is 100% normal. don't worry.

# ¿ Jan 24, 2022 18:20

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# ¿ Apr 26, 2024 05:56

The Walrus: Jul 9, 2002; by Fluffdaddy

one of the biggest mistakes I made was not picking up corrupted stuff. it makes runs more interesting trying to clear malfunctions and you are just swimming in obols if you're hitting all the corrupted ones.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2022 19:39

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