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Hey Klei,


 


In one of your "Rhymes with Play" devcasts on Twitch you guys mentioned how it was important to you that each character be unique enough from each other. You also talked about how Shalem's +1 Armor Piercing rifle combined with his +1 Armor Piercing augment made him a deadly killing machine right from the get go, hence his Neural Disruptor being nerfed to compensate. I agree that his starting loadout makes him a force to be reckoned with, but I can't say that makes him unique in any way like the other agents are. Let's take a look at all the agents released so far and see that:


 


100% unique starting augments that cannot be replicated by other augments or items:


Deckard: Permanent, always active +1 AP


Internationale: Hack from a distance and through walls


Banks: Instantly unlock security doors


Dr. Xu: Shutdown mainframe devices without hacking them


Nika: Two attacks allowed per turn


 


and then...


 


Shalem 11: Ranged +1 Armor Piercing...?


 


This essentially means that I could make any agent better than Shalem by simply installing a Piercing Scanner augment as well as purchasing any Armor Piercing gun. The "better" part comes in since their Neural Disruptor would already be the non-nerfed one and they would still have their own unique augment to boot!


 


What are people's thoughts on Shalem being unique like all other agents?


 


 


Edit:


One idea I just thought of right now, albeit kinda weak, might be that you could just make his augment have +2 Armor Piercing so he can use any gun with deadly proficiency. At least that way his default setup of +3 Armor Piercing could help take out those guards with firewall shields as armor at bit easier.


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I'm with on you on this, they've been having trouble tuning Shalem since he first turned up, some think he's a strong agent, but I've never really gotten on with him (I prefer his archive version). If I was to give him a fitting and unique ability, it would be that that augment of his also gave him the ability to shoot through walls and doors, the downsides being that it can only be done with his rifle, at a cost of one piercing per wall and provided you can see your target with another agent, camera, etc.

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Perhaps you are right that Shalem is the only agent which you can get a non-character specific augment in the game which does exactly what he does, and then again, we do need to consider the fact that you can only get Shalem's Rifle Desert Wind if you pick him as a starting agent, but you have to think about it a different way. Picking Shalem from the start gives him the ability to take out almost any threat from the start. Now you may consider that to be a problem when you're dealing with a game which stealth is the key and where combat is to be avoided, but Shalem's play style is meant to be different. Meant to give you a different way to handle a situation. Though when you're rescuing Shalem, yes, his augment is one of the weaker ones when it isn't paired with the rifle. But you also need to remember that Shalem's rifle is unique. I haven't found any gun that has two ammo and armor piercing to it. Maybe the dart guns, but not one of the plasma guns.

 

Shalem definitely isn't one of the best agents, that's for sure, but to completely discount him for those things in general is a bit too harsh on Shalem. I just find him useful to start with as I won't need to get a piercing scanner upgrade, having someone devoted to taking out armored targets for later missions.

 

Though I will say. Archived Shalem is definitely a lot more stronger starting in comparison to On-File Shalem.

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Shalem is a bit underwhelming, especially if you give Nika +piercing augment, she can shoot twice in a turn!

 

I'd suggest a combo of his +1 piercing augment with an additional 50% chance of triggering an Anatomy Analysis-like effect or something. Basically, 50% chance to reduce alarm tracker level increase on killing a guard by 1.

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I just completed a run last night where Shalem ended up with that handgun with 3/3 ammo. He also had the Anatomy Analysis (only 1 alarm from kills) and a Stim III (8 ap plus refreshed attack). I also had three mags and his rifle just in case.

 

Needless to say he was an abominable killing machine. This was not something I exploited often because of the monetary cost, but it rocked on Sankaku missions against droids and also the final mission where I don't care about the cost.

 

His ability to confer +1 AP to any gun makes him deadly to all but the most hardened soldiers and typically at tremendous economy.

 

That said I agree he could be tweaked, but he can be tremendously powerful.

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I just completed a run last night where Shalem ended up with that handgun with 3/3 ammo. He also had the Anatomy Analysis (only 1 alarm from kills) and a Stim III (8 ap plus refreshed attack). I also had three mags and his rifle just in case.

 

Needless to say he was an abominable killing machine. This was not something I exploited often because of the monetary cost, but it rocked on Sankaku missions against droids and also the final mission where I don't care about the cost.

 

His ability to confer +1 AP to any gun makes him deadly to all but the most hardened soldiers and typically at tremendous economy.

 

That said I agree he could be tweaked, but he can be tremendously powerful.

 

I think Shalem's problem is that he can be somewhat easily replaced. If you have Nika and get her a flurry gun, you can kill two drones or guards without an ammo cost. Kill count increases with every Stim III.

 

Shalem could have someting very special for his augment, but I'm just unable to pin down any smart ideas. Something that revolves around his elite sniper premise, without being too easily emulated... Something that's not just cookiecutter free stats like poor Deckard's? I'm afraid I'm not much of use with this subject.

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Firstly, I find the argument that Shalem is underwhelming compared to the other agents because you can just build an agent up to be like Shalem with armor piercing augments, an armor piercing gun, and start off with that better standard neural disruptor is bad for 2 reasons:

 

1. The argument works in reverse and is actually in Shalem's favor because all Shalem needs to be on par with the other agents is a better neural disruptor. Buy a standard one or an upgraded one from a nano-fab and he's good to go. That's just one purchase. To get any other agent on Shalem's level you need at least 2 purchases: an armor piercing augment and an armor piercing gun.

 

2. There's not a single agent on the roster that I don't want to swap their starting neural disruptor for a better one anyway. If I don't start with Shalem, then I just cash in the old disruptor. I do have Shalem? Nearly the same difference, I just give Shalem the better one, and cash in his old one. The formula doesn't really change in any significant way here. I mean even if you're inclined to keep the weaker disruptors for a bit to use on unarmored guards to save the cooldown of the armor piercing disruptor for armored guards... again, the formula isn't significantly impacted here.

 

 

Your other argument that Shalem's starting augment isn't unique has some merit to it... but the actual strength of Shalem isn't the fact that he has some cool and special augment... it's the fact he's the only agent on the roster that can consistently carry you through the beginning of the game. The fact of the matter is Shalem is overpowered. He starts out of the gate with the ability to wipe any enemy piece off the board outright with only a single exception that I can think of offhand, and even then those FtM force-field guards are little more than a speed bump for Shalem.

I mean you have to consider the random element of the game: there have been plenty of runs I've had where I've managed to get to heavily guarded missions and just haven't had the luck of finding anything with armor piercing on them. It's runs like those where Shalem becomes invaluable, especially if you're unfortunate enough to encounter an early Sankaku mission.

This isn't to say that Shalem shouldn't have a unique augment that can't be replicated... maybe he should have an augment like anatomy analysis that can be combined with anatomy analysis making him the only agent who can truly kill "silently," or something considering the AA nerf, but if I had to choose an agent off the roster with an underwhelming augment... it'd be Deckard. I can count on one hand the amount of times Deckard's extra action point really helped me out.

 

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I think this image here sums up Shalem best.

2IZRi30.png

 

He's meant to be target elimination. Threats you need gone, he can deal with them. Even the FTM Shielded guards don't need to be fully cracked to be dealt with when Shalem has his rifle and augment. And actually, looking at Shalem's Archived Version, it also helps out here too.

 

d8e1fc7f06bc492b9dac36043d05b483.png

 

Shalem is that character to get you out of bad situations, right at the start. With a rifle to deal with immediate threats, and his Archived Version with both a Handcannon and a De-Fib Lance, he gives you more room for error. But I guess still we're talking about Shalem 11 On-File version with his augment and purpose. I guess being a combat oriented Agent in a game where Stealth is key can be problematic at the start.

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I guess being a combat oriented Agent in a game where Stealth is key can be problematic at the start.

 

When I pick Shalem I look at the opportunity cost of another agent and what Shalem opens up to me as a player. I forego all weapon purchases to focus on upgrading skills, and getting nice items and programs. What this means for me as a player is that I can never take missions that are Sankaku, or I get destroyed during them. Shalem is perfect for me because of this. 2 armor piercing deals with every robot they can throw my way, and I don't have to drop money deviating from my greedy playstyle because Shalem gives me the answer I need from the get-go at the cost of (1 extra ap + cloak), or (anarchy 2 + lockpicking), I am okay with playing safe to where I don't need that cloak, and I am okay with knocking out guards during a level to swipe a passcard.

 

He is unarguably a weaker agent for missions where you don't need or want to kill, but the number of times i've held onto a huge credit load when making a nanofab mission run to get an answer to the drones and finding nothing are higher than I wish they were. For me Shalem is an investment into the later stages of the game. He can still do everything essential to an agent early game, just with less middle ground on his responses to errors. If you mess up early in the game with Shalem, you're pretty much forced to kill someone and that can spiral out of control as opposed to having the answer be a shock trap on the door, or cloaking.

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So what if Shalem's mod allowed him to function as a truly effective panic button when everything's gone south? What if instead of a simple +1 to armor penetration, it automatically spent 1 AP to reset his attack after he fired a gun if he had any AP left? I think it would take him from one of the worst agents to one of the best by allowing him to clear the room of guards if you drew a heavy alert.

 

It's a bit against the whole stealth aspect of the game, but if you have a character whose thing is that he shoots enemies at range with a gun and kills them, it's kind of hard for them to be good while trying to keep the thing they're good at on a leash.

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So what if Shalem's mod allowed him to function as a truly effective panic button when everything's gone south? What if instead of a simple +1 to armor penetration, it automatically spent 1 AP to reset his attack after he fired a gun if he had any AP left? I think it would take him from one of the worst agents to one of the best by allowing him to clear the room of guards if you drew a heavy alert.

Nika is supposed to be a character who can attack twice in a turn. Shalem is supposed to kill anything.

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Nika is supposed to be a character who can attack twice in a turn. Shalem is supposed to kill anything.

 

Well I don't think Nika's a very useful agent in her current form either, but if you switched her upgrade to the one I proposed for Shalem and started her off with a pistol (or simply made them a touch cheaper?) then I still think it would be good.

 

We'd still have Shalem not looking so great, but at least one of the lackluster agents would be improved.

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I need to ask this just because... is there any gun in the game that has Desert Wind's capability? Two shots, reloadable, one point of armor piercing. The Flurry Gun exists, but that can be only used for one turn per mission, which severely limits its capabilities, and the Cooker, which I recall is a gun that also has armor piercing, only carries one shot. The K&O Pistol and the Handcannon have 2 and 3 shots respectively but no armor piercing.

 

Is there anything that has the same stats as Shalem's Desert Wind?

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Okay then: Banks also don't have a 100% unique skill since a keycard or lock decoder can let you open red doors; Dr.Xu skill doesn't unique since every emp-pack can do this, etc)

 

True enough, but Banks' skill is still mostly unique because the lock decoder takes a whopping three turns to crack a single door and a keycard is luck-based/random to find during every level. You can't keep keycards either.

I need to ask this just because... is there any gun in the game that has Desert Wind's capability? Two shots, reloadable, one point of armor piercing. The Flurry Gun exists, but that can be only used for one turn per mission, which severely limits its capabilities, and the Cooker, which I recall is a gun that also has armor piercing, only carries one shot. The K&O Pistol and the Handcannon have 2 and 3 shots respectively but no armor piercing.

 

Is there anything that has the same stats as Shalem's Desert Wind?

 

True, no gun is identical to Desert Wind, but I'm more focused on talking about augments vs. items.

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True enough, but Banks' skill is still mostly unique because the lock decoder takes a whopping three turns to crack a single door and a keycard is luck-based/random to find during every level. You can't keep keycards either.

Okay) Then Nika skill is still mostly unique because the Stim III takes a whopping four turns to cooldown, before allowing crack another extra scull and it VERY luck-based/random to find any stim during any level. Not to mention stealth 4 requirement.

 

Of course, I 'm just kidding, because I like today's game balance and I feel scared that it can be corrupted (why? at fact I'm sure, all that will be implemented will be great)

absolutely don't like idea to give Shalem another extra armor piercing, I'd prefer suggestion (if there so necessity to buff) that was here long ago, about giving him extra move points when dragging body

only International's augment gives something that really can not be reproduced

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Right, the cooldown, that's something I forgot to think about. That makes it quite the difference between being able to attack twice every single turn vs. requiring four Stealth skill, four Torque Injector augments, AND a Stim III to equal what Nika can do with just her one unique augment.

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