Notes from Day 30

[jamesl]

Hey Endless folks! 

I'm in the office today and taking a break from working on endgame stuff oh dang is that a secret UHHH some Invisible Inc stuff and there's some really good stuff here that I'm going to start acting on. We talked about Endless mode recently and here's what we're thinking right now: 

-- A set of changes to the balance of Endless to make it more difficult and interesting to go "infinite" in Endless mode (maxed out agents, etc) and to make the game as interesting as we can if you do go infinite 

 

-- Figuring out whatever bug is making it so the Codename missions spawn constantly, or tweaking the spawnrates if it's just a number error. 

 

-- Giving the Codename missions better/different rewards so you have a reason to go to them. 

 

Feel free to drop your suggestions here, especially Keypusher / other people who have given Endless a lot of time and thought. I can't say anything in particular is going in, but I'll keep checking this thread and give all the input some serious thought, as always.

 

Great thread, btw! 

[keypusher]

Awesome, thanks for letting us know you are looking at this stuff james!

 

I like the ideas you have outlined above.  I'm sure you guys are busy with getting ready for release and I certainly don't expect to see all or even most of these implemented soon, but I can summarize my own suggestions:

 

• Make Torque Injectors never reduce item cooldown below 1.  This makes it so you can't have infinite access to Stims, Cloaks, etc.  Once per turn should be the max.  If you do this I don't think there is any need to change Net Downlink or limit augment stacking.  But this is the most important change as otherwise "going infinite" is just a matter of finding a bunch of Torque Injectors and then the game is trivialized.
• Some scaling factor on the level size as the days go on.  I realize you can't keep growing the map size forever due to memory constraints and generation time, but hopefully they can grow somewhat.
• As mentioned earlier I think the Tier 3 weapons/items and some of the Incognita programs might need to be a bit more expensive (25-50%) and a bit more rare.
• More augment choices, to further customize agents in the late-game.
• Some kind of money sink at the global map level.  A way to remove/replace augments, or a way to uncover more missions for cash, or pay for intel on a mission, or build up a base, or something.
• "Challenge" levels with special properties, such as a level where ALL drones have the "Null" property, or where all hacking costs are increased from the start, or where guards can't be KO'd, or where there are fewer consoles, etc.  This would make it so that no single strategy is an endgame winner, the player would have to keep a balanced team to account for different challenges.

[5thHorseman]

I'm gonna toss out my idea for minor versions of the major mission types. I suggested them earlier for all missions, but maybe just having them in the "codename" missions is a better idea.

Essentially, whenever you're busting out somebody, you have somewhere else in the mission a room from one of the other mission types, with a lesser reward. So a server farm with only half the items, or a nanofab that is somewhere between the current one and the full one. Or a security dispatch with a minor item. Or a low-level exec who ... I don't know about that one

[chieftainjoe]

Wow, this thread was already extremly awesome, and then james joins in and tops it off It's really good to hear, that endless mode will be a bit more than some "experience around and run through levels without any meaning and why don't you just play storymode as it was supposed to be anyway"-part of the game

 

I like keypushers suggestions, especially i think there should be "some" way of removing augments (as, especially for endless mode, augments  slots which were used once are locked forever right now) And I think there should be more codename missions and some which really require a team of four fully equiped agents to even stand a fair chance. (Although i imagine this to be difficult, at least for the game as it is. Having cloaks and neural darts and paralyzers and everything on all characters just makes it so you can play almost completely careless right now, as you have about 5 backup plans for every bad case which "might" happen)  But having your awesome highly trained crew with state of the art equipment and playing an extremly long and difficult mission which requires you to play every trumpcard you have would be really awesome i guess

[syrant]

Thought I would toss some ideas for endless mode, since I think going "infinite" in endless mode is currently a problem. The primary ones in my mind are: 1) it's too easy to go infinite 2) the game loses all resemblance of balance, i.e. wayyyyy too easy 3) missions don't have much replayability.

 

1) Too easy to get infinite: This is tied to leveling through purchasing skill. If you know how to clear levels fully, this can be done within the first few days. (I think I had something like 20K floating credit at the end of my story mode). Make this more RPG-like and only allow characters to increase one skill per mission completion. Will make players also specialize their agents (which is a good thing, I think) and slow down how quickly they go infinite.

 

2) Game not balanced at infinite: This is kind of like what happens in MMO such as World of Warcraft. You really do need to look at how your game plays when characters are maxed out in top end gear -- imagine level XX characters steam rolling a low level dungeon and that's how it currently feels at infinite. Some items can be tuned better (I think certain items should be nerfed hard, such as stim). But there needs to be elements in the game that pose a challenge to an agent who can cloak, EMP, stim, etc every 4th turn and also has infinite power (from the portable servers).

Which leads into...

 

3) Need more mission diversity. Bigger maps. Harder, by which I mean, IMPOSSIBLY HARD missions. End game missions - mission with requirements all agents need to be maxed skill. Some crazy ideas, that I would find fun/challenging:

No Incognita missions

Invulnerable guard missions

Missions with firewalls that multiples of 5

Mission starts at alarm level X (at least 3)

Solo missions

 

I think a lot of the suggestion in the other posts are great as well. Having money sinks for the infinite credit is a big one. The question is how you want players to feel like they're making progress/reaching goals while playing rewarding missions even after reaching infinite. (WoW has stuff like vanity items and achievements. Possibly leaderboards - I'm kind of ambivalent about that, though.)

[chieftainjoe]

Well, as awesome as "Deep Breath" is, but the augments have been made non-stackable by default. Which was a very harsh step. Frankly I don't know the details yet, but i am pretty sure, torque injectors wont stack anymore, and i fear, net downlink wont as well.

 

So keylocker, i guess, after you've gathered some more experiences, your guide will need quite some rework regarding the augments. But on the upside, endless mode should be a little bit more difficult and therefore a bit more enjoyable now

[keypusher]

Yeah, so I checked in on my save game with the new update today.  It looks like just took the easiest possible option and made Torque Injectors and Net Downlink unstackable.  I think I made it pretty clear in this thread, multiple times, that was not the right balancing decision for this game.  Considering that there is only what... 8 maybe 10 total different augments, it means all of your agents will basically end up with the same augments.  It also means there is severely limited customization options, for instance you cannot significantly lower the cooldown on something like a cloak, that has an 8 turn cooldown.  It means that the levels become a chore, because you cannot stack Net Downlink.  I played through a few levels on my old maxed-out save, and it still wasn't challenging but now it just takes a lot longer.  I can't challenge myself to Turn 0 solves, or any of that interesting stuff.  So, maybe I'll come back after they do something interesting with Endless, or reverse this bad decision, until then... no thanks.

[KidneyBeanBoy]

Well, if you have access to a LUA editor, you can probably change it back in about 10.5 seconds.

[HolyDeath]

How about making levels bigger on Endless Mode (especially when agents are on a very high level) to scale it with progress?

[Lioe]

This is such an interesting thread. I've continued reading it, though I hadn't been playing last week. Never got around to getting more than one net downlink or torque injector while it was still possible.

 

3) Need more mission diversity. [...]

Solo missions

 

This suggestion made me want to try endless with just 1 agent (on normal, but not ironman). I used Internationale and left the 2nd agent on the starting tile. Took me 7 attempts to survive past day 4. Usually fell at the first extremely guarded mission, if not sooner.

 

Now on my 8th attempt (at least I think it's the 8th) I'm on day 7. I no longer worry about being able to survive the missions, even extremely guarded missions, though I still leave sooner rather than later.

 

What really helped on this attempt was that I upgraded the stealth skill for extra movement as soon as I had the funds for it, and that I found an armour piercing weapon very quickly. Also that the new update made null drones much more manageable.

 

I'm finding the 8 augment slots are very necessary for a solo agent (I've got 6 augments at the moment). Inventory (maxed, but without the augment for +1) is completely filled with necessary items. I've only just started being brave enough to leave two of those items at the base, so that I can actually collect loot. Money is still always short, and Incognita is still missing programs.

 

I'm making much more use of camera drones than ever before to scout. Because of this "leash" (control drones an extra turn) has become a new favourite program.

 

[Wizard1200]

 

This suggestion made me want to try endless with just 1 agent (on normal, but not ironman). I used Internationale and left the 2nd agent on the starting tile. Took me 7 attempts to survive past day 4. Usually fell at the first extremely guarded mission, if not sooner.

 

I'm finding the 8 augment slots are very necessary for a solo agent (I've got 6 augments at the moment). Inventory (maxed, but without the augment for +1) is completely filled with necessary items. I've only just started being brave enough to leave two of those items at the base, so that I can actually collect loot. Money is still always short, and Incognita is still missing programs.

 

 

I have tried it, too, and it was much easier with the archived Internationale and the Econ chip of the archived Banks: Stealth, Hacking and Inventory were maxed out at the end of day 2.

[chieftainjoe]

 

This is such an interesting thread. I've continued reading it, though I hadn't been playing last week. Never got around to getting more than one net downlink or torque injector while it was still possible.

 

 

This suggestion made me want to try endless with just 1 agent (on normal, but not ironman). I used Internationale and left the 2nd agent on the starting tile. Took me 7 attempts to survive past day 4. Usually fell at the first extremely guarded mission, if not sooner.

 

Now on my 8th attempt (at least I think it's the 8th) I'm on day 7. I no longer worry about being able to survive the missions, even extremely guarded missions, though I still leave sooner rather than later.

 

What really helped on this attempt was that I upgraded the stealth skill for extra movement as soon as I had the funds for it, and that I found an armour piercing weapon very quickly. Also that the new update made null drones much more manageable.

 

I'm finding the 8 augment slots are very necessary for a solo agent (I've got 6 augments at the moment). Inventory (maxed, but without the augment for +1) is completely filled with necessary items. I've only just started being brave enough to leave two of those items at the base, so that I can actually collect loot. Money is still always short, and Incognita is still missing programs.

 

I'm making much more use of camera drones than ever before to scout. Because of this "leash" (control drones an extra turn) has become a new favourite program.

 

 

This sounds very interesting, especially since you did it with internationale, which is my favorite agent Can you give some more details?

- What augments did you use exactly? And what are your plans on filling the two remaining slots?

- What are the 8 items you currently use?

- Are you happy about internationales remote hacking ability, or would you rather use the archive version to have one additional augment slot?

 

What other 4 incognita programs are you planning to use, now that leash is probably a must have program?

 

Best regards,

Joe

[Lioe]

@ Wizard1200

 

I'd not tried archived Banks before, so I did now. You're right. That econ chip is powerful. Money was no longer an issue. But I didn't manage to max out Banks's skills until day 4. 

 

I found it quite challenging that archived Banks's starting weapon is the neural dart with 2/2 ammunition, thus requiring charge packs. Took me until end of day 2 to find a neural disruptor - but got lucky that is was 3rd tier. 

 

 

@ Chieftainjoe

 

Internationale is my favourite, too!

 

What augments did you use exactly? And what are your plans on filling the two remaining slots?

 

Augments I used: torque injector, net downlink, penetrative scanner x2 (ignores 1 point armour for melee weapon), anatomy analysis (kills only raise alarm +1).

 

Apart from torque injector and net downlink - I found them quickly, but would have saved slots for them - the rest was less planning and more making use of what I could find. So instead of the penetrative scanners, I might have used piercing scanners had I found those instead.

 

I'm hoping I'll find the carbon something... the augment that adds an inventory slot. And I wouldn't mind micro slam for more funds.

 

What are the 8 items you currently use?

 

Items: neural disruptor, wireless scanner, flurry gun, stim III, paralyzer III, cloaking rig, riot dart (3/3 ammo). Again not necessarily choice so much as using what I found/had funds for.

 

So far I've not used the stim or the cloaking rig, but had I had  those in my failed attempts I'd have survived. I've started leaving the cloaking rig and riot dart at the base.

 

Are you happy about internationales remote hacking ability, or would you rather use the archive version to have one additional augment slot?

 

I love Internationale's remote hacking ability. But that may be style over substance

 

What other 4 incognita programs are you planning to use, now that leash is probably a must have program?

 

At the moment it's still pwr generation, daemon avoiding and firewall breaking - fusion, lockpick 1, taurus. ... I wonder, would it be feasible to shift those tasks to items and augments, and use Incognita slots for other programs: ping, oracle, wisp, ...?

 

 

All that said, I'm amazed how different the experience is with archived Banks. I've only got two augments on her so far: torque injector and predictive brawling (+6 AP on melee KO). With that she can use the neural disruptor III on every turn and cover a large distance.

 

I haven't had access to a server farm yet. Thanks to the econ chip I get plenty funds from consoles, so am not as dependent on getting past daemons and firewalls. But here too, inventory slots are (still) filled with gear.

 

[keypusher]

This suggestion made me want to try endless with just 1 agent

 

I like this. I find some of the most interesting things about this game is the different possibilities and challenging yourself to try doing it a different way.

[syrant]

Solo endless (or story) sounds like a fun challenge -- I might just try it, since I'm sort of looking for ways to make this game more difficult. My main issue would be missing out on all the available loots, as the lack of inventory space would make me feel like I'm not doing full mission clears, which is always my primary goal. If only there was item that served as portable vendor - even if all it had was the ability to sell items, I would find that extremely useful (I really do hate it when I have to leave anything behind).

 

As an aside, I think the concept of solo-type missions, while good for diversity, wouldn't be a great fit for Invisible Inc due to the lack of character differentiation. Each agent has at most one augment-type ability that they do, which isn't like, say, picking different classes in an RPG to do some level. Characters power is primarily due to items and skill levels, both are which are common. Would be much more interesting if the skills were somehow choices (i.e. XCOM where classes had two choices of what skill to acquire per level), or even if characters have a max number of skill points to use, and could only level up, say, 10 times.