A lil post-victory feedback

[Farrox]

(Tried to post this earlier but haven't seen it show so if it double posts - my bad, delete with great vengeance)

 

 So it took quite a few attempts to clear story mode without any killing and damn was it hard but so very satisfying. Scored 7158. Not sure what other victors have scored. Feel free to kick sand in my face. A few thoughts :

 

• The courier's imminent demise (15 turns was what I think it started at) was a bit unnecessary. Limiting him to 5 AP per turn was a sufficient hobble. I took him out through the most direct route possible and only had to hold back for two turns and still only got him out with four turns to spare. I don't think I would've been able to succeed if I had taken even a single side route to the elevator.

 

On most of my runs I'd focus on hitting Detention Centers and Vaults, at least on the first and perhaps the second day. The Nanofab Vestibules are pretty good to hit occasionally when you have some money to burn. The Security Dispatches and Server Farm locations seemed pretty underwhelming.

 

• The Security Dispatch trophies are a mixed bag : Stim III (once the attack reset bug is fixed these wouldn't be bad though Stim I is only 4 AP less), EMP pack III (these devices might be nice for Sankaku missions but with the inventory limits I just sold them most of the time), and Cloaking Rig III (awesome with its ability to cloak after being spotted). I seem to recall getting a Tranquilizer trophy once but I could be wrong. With fairly comparable items available in the Nanofab sites I find it hard to justify a trip to a Dispatch site in the hopes of getting a cloak (seemingly slim, only got it once while I got the others multiple times).

 

• The Server Farm sites didn't wow me the few times I hit those locations. On my successful run I started with Drip and Parasite and picked up Dagger from a Nanofab. As far as I'm aware there's only six other programs : Lockpick, Fusion, Ping, Oracle, Hammer and Daemon Sniffer. At least five of those can be purchased from any Nanofab (I don't recall ever seeing fusion for sale). So apart from finding a wider selection (with farms having four programs for sale while Nanofabs have just one), is there any reason to visit a Server Farm? I could see the argument for a run on endless but it seems a waste of your limited time on story. I'd suggest maybe giving players one program for free at random.

 

• Not arguing that the Detention Centers aren't worth going to, but I do think they could use tweaking. With how difficult it is to get the 5 AP prisoners out (especially on heavily and extremely guarded levels) a reward of $600 seems a bit low. Maybe raise it a bit or have the prisoners offer information (a random hidden item or unlocked high value safe in the next level perhaps?). It seems that finding a captured agent is somewhat rare (my experience has been roughly 1 Agent : 5 Prisoner Rescues). I'm okay with that being rare but I did like the system in the last build where you could hire an agent on at great expense, charged each floor they make it through. Perhaps I'm just a jerk but I enjoyed having a cannon fodder agent I had no attachment to that I could send off to grab that last safe while my real crew went off to the elevator before my greed killed them. And if they survived, great! Is it possible to bring that system back alongside the current rescue method to expand the team?

 

I enjoyed having the items, with the exception of ammunition, be reusable with a cooldown. Some argue it makes the game easier or more casual but I haven't felt the game, especially the final mission, has been any easier than it was working through floor seven and above of the previous build. I think with the cooldown on melee the devs have made it much harder to just KO/pin your way through the level and now it's quite necessary to hide and bait the guards out. In the previous build I would also prioritize spending all my money on upgrades (namely stealth/movement, perhaps hacking for one agent) before ever purchasing an item, save perhaps med gel. Now it feels like a much more viable option to buy items even at the start. Kudos on the balance work devs!

 

Still one of the best games in my library. Can't wait to see what the next build brings.

 

Now just bring back Nika. Nika is love, Banks is life. 

[FateINV]

Congrats, i took the other route and cleared final mission by killing everything (though not by choice but necessity).

I always choose fusion and lockpick as my starting programs. Then i prioritise getting parasite then dagger.

Banks and international as starting operatives. Always pumping stealth and sometimes anarchy if i found a paralyzer.

Gearwise, i always hope to see the stunner 3 in shops but sometimes a gun is a necessary evil.

[HolyDeath]

My comment:

 

• Courier's limited time is unnecessary, given how slow he his. I, too, found myself in a situation where taking a detour was almost crippling the mission altogether (as I wouldn't have enough time to get to the elevator, ended with 3 turns left). Alarm timer is enough of an incentive to hurry. I had to kill a lot of enemies, because guy was so slow it took a while to reach him and then to extract him. All in all I didn't like it.

 

• The Detention Center. I found that it's much better to go elsewhere for money and only hit the Detention Center for the chance of getting an agent (which is rare). I find 5 AP on prisoner not enough and won't really bother with them from this point on. There is no point and risk is too great.

 

• I like cooldowns on items instead of having limited uses. Otherwise items should be cheaper and have no stat requirements. Some would become useless (like the Cloaking Rig) with limitation of any kind.

 

• if you have the money it's a good idea to go to the Server Farm sites, because you can get upgrades that'll help you (like Hammer, Parasite or Dagger) with breaking firewalls later on. Overall I find it useful.

[Raaaahman]

Very well detailed feedback and I agree with most of the points, except on the courrier: I find that the time limit is needed for its slow pace to be penalizing. Yes I understand that the alarm is already limiting your time, but you have so much place to hide usually that you could place in a safe spot the courrier while your agents are clearing the way. I only made it once so I could have a luckily set plan. But from what I understand, you seem to have made it on the edge, which was the point of the mission I believe. It was a totally satisfying experience to me.

[BaneoverBane]

• I have actually gotten into a situation where I needed to take a detour or wait a few turns while trying to escort the courier on an Insomniac mission and he just missed the elevator. These two penalties (15 turns or 5AP) don't coincide to well. A longer turn timer, or increased movement (which would also help with the detention center prisoner issue) would help to alleviate this, because at the moment, it feels like nothing can go wrong while escorting or the missions a bust.

 

• I feel pretty much the same way with the missions I choose. Detention Centers take priority early in the hopes of a new agent (and if it is a prisoner, time hasn't passed much yet so things aren't to bad) and Vaults take priority a bit later, though early they are still the runner up. Server farms don't catch my interest because the programs I'm looking for are fairly common and I'll usually find them in a nanofab on a vault mission or something. I guess you would go there to look for the rare programs but of the two rares I've seen, the more common ones still appeal to me more. Just as you said the Security Dispatch is a gamble and what I need can be found on Nanofab sites and lately I've been having a lot of SD missions where the safe was bugged and wouldn't give me any gear. Logically that means nothing as this has happened to me with a nanofab one as well, it's just discouraging.

 

• As for the items, I agree that I like where they are except for the med gel. I rarely use it and when I do, because of the 10 turn timer it usually is only used once per mission (although I get one on every one of my agents because you never know when everything will go wrong at once). Being consumable wouldn't change how I play much (might end up buying it again once or twice per playthrough) and wouldn't cause to much of a penalty. But with such a small difference I don't mind either way. It could even be a little of both where when a guard shoots you once with pistol, it just has a cooldown; but when the elite guards or the huge drone sprays you with the assault rifles, revival would have to consume the med gel.

 

[Tarean]

I personally like the cooldown on the med gel by now. I rarely use it but having the cooldown allows for much more interesting rescue operations. If two agents are down you would be screwed. As it is now you can play hide and seek with the half a dozen guards that are on the level by now and feel awesome for pulling it of.

 

Server farms are usually not worth it. I would tend to visit them more often if the rare programs would be, you know, less rare. Things like wings could be very fun to experiment with but as it is the chance is so low that a nanofab vestibul can get you the programs you would get anyway and great equipment on top.

Security dispatch is  a mixed bag. It can be alright to get some gear but a vault plus nanofab will give you more choice and usually better gear. On my last run the shop had 3 cloaking III, which makes for some pretty easy runs considering that the cloak is an aoe.

 

I think a big part is that there are relatively few choices. Sure, there are a good number of items but much of that is just straight upgrades with a twist for the epic level equipment. (i.e. energy pistol, tranquilizer gun III and x-ray rifle) Adding more specialized stuff that might be only available from server farms, security dispatches or the special mission like the current final one might make these sort of things quite a bit more interesting.

 

Also, the last mission is going to be one mission type that will have time constraints and be especially hard. I wouldn't mind it having brutal constraints like it currently had if the reward would be worth it. The actual final mission that you have to beat should be somewhat less controlled by random chance, though.

[Shelf]

Stims is a godsend for prisoner or courier missions, as they can be applied to target you're escorting.

[Tarean]

Wait, I always figured that the stealth requirement meant that it wouldn't work. Does that mean that a high stealth agent can use it on a prisoner/other agents?

[Shelf]

I believe so, I'll try to find stims in a run i'll start here and report back.

[BaneoverBane]

Never thought it could be used on someone beside you (I did hand the courier the stim and it didn't work obviously), but I never really tried it. This would be very helpful as it would allow him to move twice essentially for a turn (refreshing AP would only restore his 5AP, not add 7).

[Shelf]

So it turns out you USED to be able to stim non-agents, no longer. It's a dark time for prisoners and couriers.

[the truthseeker]

So stupid question time but:

 

Is the scalability of vaults not worth the cost of completing versus the "increased reward" in later missions compared to doing it early?