No more computers for sale in backrooms.

[grävling]

At least by the receptionist. Now just crammers, and medkits. Nice inexpensive 6 HP for 100Y ones -- but I liked the computers better. Some patrons of certain backrooms sell computers, of course, including at least one salesman for the 4job Firewatch we have come to love.

[fallen]

grävling - this was an intentional change. Cyber Knight computers are hard to come by and very expensive. The wait-staff at a backroom is very unlikely to have a pile of them. More options for purchase will be cropping up soon.

[grävling]

I thought it was intentional, and you did warn us. But I wanted to let people know that it had happened before they took their 10K to a VIP room and said -- huh?

[fallen]

grävling - thanks! You are the best. I will work on fast-tracking some of the updates that get the computers back into the hands of your Knights.

[grävling]

The computers still are available, through at least one VIP room patron.

Personally, I'd prefer that you fast track a ranged weapon that does double damage vs dogs. Call it the Postman's Friend, or something like that.

Right now if my Female 2 CK doesn't have a) a cybersword runner with her at all times or b) an insane amount of AP and athletics then her first encounter with a pack of 3 cyan and brown dogs will be her last. They will tear her apart before she has enough shots to kill them. I'm hanging out in BS and KH land these days rather than Streets, LV or Fennian -- because it is safer!

[absimiliard]

I don't, personally, mind if the comps are available from the room attendants. I'm almost never averse to things that make the game harder, and having to search more for a 4+ comp qualifies under that.

On the other hand, I am fascinated with the issues Gravling is seeing with regards to dogs and "Female II". I haven't had the problem myself, but that's probably just because I either run with a full slate of runners or escape almost everything I run across. It's got me thinking though, no doubts. (mostly about how to save AP so that after the dogs move I still have enough AP to back up a square and shoot the hell out of the dog I backed away from)

-abs

[grävling]

Jul 3, 2012 14:11:23 GMT -5 absimiliard said:

I don't, personally, mind if the comps are available from the room attendants. I'm almost never averse to things that make the game harder, and having to search more for a 4+ comp qualifies under that.

Me too.

On the other hand, I am fascinated with the issues Gravling is seeing with regards to dogs and "Female II". I haven't had the problem myself, but that's probably just because I either run with a full slate of runners or escape almost everything I run across. It's got me thinking though, no doubts. (mostly about how to save AP so that after the dogs move I still have enough AP to back up a square and shoot the hell out of the dog I backed away from)

-abs

That works with 1 dog. But the thing with the Vokked Hell Hounds and Friends -- the cyan and brown dogs -- is:

a) there are 3 of them.
b) they have athletics of 8 (or more) -- they move up to 8 squares when they run after you.
c) they have enough AP that they can run you down, twice, and still savage you.
d) they have 6 HP-- at least the alpha ones do -- so unless you are using a heavy shell weapon, you will have to nail them twice before they die. You often have to with the 5HP lesser dogs, in any case, because they have armour too.

As a result, my records show that of the last 51 Female 2 chars I have played, 3 are now immortal. 6 are dead from the usual sorts of greed and stupidity that gets you killed in this game. 1 is hiding in Washington Square right now. 1 I have somehow lost the records for, and all of the others - 40 of them -, have been killed by some sort of cyan and brown dog.

I have also made 2 non-female 2 characters in this time, and bought them a taser glove, stuck it in my backpack with the instructions -- only equip this if you see cyan and brown dogs. I wondered if I was losing my stuff, or if I was just bad at using ranged weapons. Nope, those 2 promptly became immortal.

My conclusions:

I run into these dogs before I have trained my firearms skill such that I can reliably kill them with my mk251 rifle before they get me. I cannot outrun them.

The mk251 will work if you can serialise the dogs and get them one at a time. So corridors are your friends. But if a second dog gets around behind you and you are sandwiched between them, you are toast.

Automatic weapons such as the UZI VII don't have enough Power -- you will shoot the dog 3 times and it is still coming at you. Tasers and Blaster guns are so wretchedly innacurate that they will not protect you. The Raptor 3 is nicely set up to have an optimal range of 'right beside you' -- but you only get one shot. Don't Miss. Pray the dog's armour doesn't stop too much.

The HPX 59 is just dandy. But it costs Y4500. It is difficult to raise that amount of money before the dogs start showing up, if you don't do the accelerated first day start. And even if you do -- shooter CKs need armour more than cybersword ones, because until your firearms skill is rather good, even with an accurate rifle you will still need to move to put it in your optimal range -- otherwise you will miss too often. This often means that you have to let yourself take a bullet or 3.

Hiring a martial artist and not going out without your bodyguard also works. But you will have to hire them so early that you cannot protect them from danger -- so I have found that it is better to hire 2 of them so they can protect each other -- which means the cost is getting to be the same as for the HPX 59, after you get them gear.

[fallen]

grävling - awesome, I love the way you play! Curious - did you ever try raising the Brawling skill of the Female II character (for defense?).

And finally -- Do you love or hate the dogs? I am starting to sketch out some new enemies and am wondering if you have suggestions about different types of enemies you would like to see that would increase the difficulty / fun (snipers, armored enemies, more drones, faster enemies, slower and tougher enemies). Certainly, some of the adds will be bosses and really nasty groups for your "immortal" characters and the 300+ XP category.

[grävling]

Nope, I did not know -- or had forgotten -- that brawling helps with defence. I will try that for my current coward, who has a brawling of 2 and should be easy to raise. Though this calls into question my 'pump athletics directly to 5, even paying 3X' -- if I need to raise brawling as well, then raising body first is probably optimal. I will try seeing if improved brawling is what I was missing in my quest for finding a CK Female 2 that is too anti-social and untrusting to hire runners. There is one in there, I am sure, but I haven't found the combination yet.

The dogs are a challenge. I like challenges. But I'm one of the people who did fan mods of the infinity engine (from bioware) to make the monsters fight more intelligently and make the game a lot harder -- and then did weapon mods to make them more interesting .... And I am already complaining that the new nano-ready armour makes the game too tame .... so I live out on the very far end of the curve when it comes to 'how difficult do you want your game?' . So I am having a blast but I suspect that new players might get discouraged after the hell hounds eat them the first time they encounter them 5 or 6 times in a row.

Then, heck, that is sort of the ST Alien experience. And the aliens suck! posts seems balanced by those who desparately want to find out how to have an alien encounter. So I suppose it comes down to it takes all kinds to make a world.

When it comes to new enemies, I would prefer that they were a lot smarter. Shooters who do not run up beside you, but instead make sure that you are in their gunsights at their optimal range. People who understand that following their buddies down this corridor is a perfectly fine idea and don't decide they need to go around the building to reach me.

Enemies with more than one weapon, and the smarts to know when to use one and when to use the other.

For other fun, well, I have always been a great fan of things that you can use to change the odds. So, when the problem is 'dogs with more athletics than I do' the solution is kaltrops, or a delayed blast grenade, or an oil slick -- or you get the idea. Something to neutralise this advantage.

How about a device that emits a high pitched noise outside of human (but in dog) range? 50% of the time the dog will stop what it is doing and spend one whole turn howling. Dogs that make their saving throw attack with more determination. Call that the 'mail carrier's assistant' or something.

I like things like that.

[Cory Trese]

Gravling in another thread you ask us for MORE dogs.

I really think you have Gravling to thank for the dogs.

She may have suggested them in the first place even.

You should chat with her about the issues with them

[grävling]

Before the enemies started wearing armour, the issue with the dogs for a taser-glove or cyberclaws wielding CyberKnight was that they were too easy to kill. Land one blow and they were toast. So I was suggesting 'more dogs' as a way to offset this, because I could see that the dogs would be a very nasty opponent -- even worse than drones -- if they managed to live long enough to bite me.

And with the armour improvement, yes, they sometimes do live long enough to savage a blue glove weilding CK, and they are much tougher. This is a very good thing.

However, one consequence of making the dogs more of a challenge for a CyberSword, or somebody who fights like one is that they also got very much harder for shooters to kill, hard enough that they tend to show up in the game before you are ready to take them on.
If you aren't using a glove for some reason, including the brand new 'because your character cannot wear them' reason for Female 2, then this can be a problem. If it were me, I would address this issue by not having the cyan and blue dogs show up in the game until the CK is slightly more experienced, measured in XP.

And then let 'how rapidly do the monsters get tougher on you' be one of the parameters that you can change with the custom settings. Because I don't really mind getting slaughtered by the dogs all the time playing female 2 on brutal. It is a challenge. But I think I would feel differently if this was happening to me on Easy.

[fallen]

@graving - I can take a look at the scales used to introduce the dogs. @cory - maybe an XP offset to the equation under different difficulties?

[grävling]

Remember that it is not all the dogs -- the kill hunds are fine as it stands, at least according to me. It is the Vokked Hell Hunds, Alpha Hell Hunds and do we have other ones that have the cyan and blue graphic? Well, plain Hell Hunds, but they don't have the problem. At any rate it is those two who are arriving a little too soon. If you begin your career working for Vinny the Rat and Tuck Jr delivering packages around Los V you can be up against cyan and brown hell hunds before you have bought your first set of armour or upgraded your gun to a rifle, because these missions are experience-rich but cash-poor.

[grävling]

Jul 3, 2012 16:03:06 GMT -5 fallen said:

I am starting to sketch out some new enemies and am wondering if you have suggestions about different types of enemies you would like to see that would increase the difficulty / fun (snipers, armored enemies, more drones, faster enemies, slower and tougher enemies). Certainly, some of the adds will be bosses and really nasty groups for your "immortal" characters and the 300+ XP category.

Something I would like is if, while shooting up enemies in, for instance Dorcester there was some small chance that the door to the Fennian HQ opened, and in the middle of your fight, or just as you thought you had finished off the last of them --- they get reinforcements.