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[zxc]

Note that my current build is highly optimised (and fortunate). For instance, no power slot evolutions, which makes life tough in the midgame. Core expander gave me a utility slot. I duped the +10 support AA (for a total of +20) and didn't evolve more than two propulsion slots, and no weapon slots. I also looped Access once for all the system mappers, and carefully dealt with combat programmers to build a supply of GRDs and other supplies. I called in zion haulers twice to get humpbacks. I think this is about as optimised as it gets... and there are still difficult situations (for instance: https://i.imgur.com/REar8oO.png ). Current build for reference: https://i.imgur.com/Ih0b7cX.png

[Kyzrati]

It's true that perfectly optimized builds are always going to be OP, simply because there are that many good tools spread around the world which if you get many of them, allow you to become pretty amazing. Really that was the intent, enabling you to better take on the extended end game without getting stomped. There just need to be additional challenges beyond what we have already (story's not finished!), in addition to more pressure at the high end of the alert spectrum.

[Reapa]

in my last run i managed to get stuck after the ceiling collapsed on and around me. i was under heavy fire and lost all my weapons and was almost dead when the ceiling collapsed on me and at least one enemy next to me killing him but leaving me alive and replacing the square in which the enemy was with a wall. waiting for like 5000 turns did not change the situation for better nor for worse. it's a fun kind of "death" but maybe not a very elegant one, especially if it happens to people who aren't nearly dead at all but just don't have the means to break free.

[Reapa]

there's a serious problem with balance in this game. coming from DCSS where your equipment doesn't deteriorate so easily (basically only in rare cases like with acid or something) and where most enemies can't shoot this is extremely frustrating. everything here shoots at you, everything hits better then you most of the time and your gear is made of fucking cardboard. i know running away is supposed to be the best strategy in this game but it's much too much focused on running. why can't the player take his time to explore a bit? why can't i build a robot that will last a little more in battle? deterioration is cool but it happen's much too fast with this game. weirdly enough the game has at the same time a problem with HP bloat. much too often do i have to shoot at other robots 5-6 times with 2-3 weapons and hit every time and still not kill them. first you have to hit the cell, then you have to hit the robot in the cell then you have to hit the core on the robot then the dmg type should be one that doesn't get resisted, then it's preferable that the robot doesn't use armor and/or shielding, then you have overheating and energy and matter to keep track of then your weapons should be still functional by the time you land the last hit on 1 fucking robot!!! when you're dealing with 2 or more it gets absurdly hard. it seems to me enemies maybe shouldn't have so many slots available. or just give the cogmind an inbuilt shield system so it doesn't loose its equip that easily. DCSS is hard enough without losing your equip all the time. why does cogmind have to be that much harder? also, you'd thing a cogmind could chose which weapon should hit which target since he can have more than one weapon and more than one enemy and is a robot... shooting 3 weapons at one swarmer is less smart than shooting 3 weapons at 3 swarmers since if one of them kills, the rest are wasted shots in the first case and not wasted in the second.

[Kyzrati]

Unless maybe it's a discussion about effective UI, there isn't really any room to compare Cogmind to DCSS on any familiar terms. At all.

They're completely different styles of game, each with their own internal logic, and if you approach one like the other, you are destined to perform very poorly in either one. There are plenty of players who can crush the game, including even winning every single run, you just need to understand the mechanics as they exist, but might be unwilling to do that.

That said, if you find it too difficult there is an easy mode coming in the newest version next week. If you're interested in buying the game for immediate access, that is

But if you want roguelikes in the vein of DCSS, there are many other options out there of a more traditional nature! I suggest you try Caves of Qud.

[DDarkray]

when you're dealing with 2 or more it gets absurdly hard.

The game is definitely hard if there are 5 bots shooting at you, but you can avoid this situation if you fight at choke points or at doorways. That way, you'll only be facing one at a time, making it much easier to handle.

A lot of people who also have similar problem found good tips like here.

[Reapa]

Unless maybe it's a discussion about effective UI, there isn't really any room to compare Cogmind to DCSS on any familiar terms. At all.

They're completely different styles of game, each with their own internal logic, and if you approach one like the other, you are destined to perform very poorly in either one. There are plenty of players who can crush the game, including even winning every single run, you just need to understand the mechanics as they exist, but might be unwilling to do that.

That said, if you find it too difficult there is an easy mode coming in the newest version next week. If you're interested in buying the game for immediate access, that is

But if you want roguelikes in the vein of DCSS, there are many other options out there of a more traditional nature! I suggest you try Caves of Qud.

do these people crush the game with fighter builds? because if not, then there is a problem since fighting should be a viable approach given that there's all sorts of weapons and "armors" in the game. if yes then maybe i need more time. and what do you mean by crush? finish it as soon as possible? if that's the case, then there's an even bigger problem. i don't think i'm the only one who likes to explore in roguelikes.

[Kyzrati]

"Crush" as in all these obstacles can be reliably overcome, yes, with sufficient experience--as I believe it should be in a roguelike.

And yes, combat is perfectly viable. I stream Cogmind on Twitch, I only use combat builds, and I often win (or at least get to the end--in fact, I've never not reached the late game). It usually takes about four hours. Some of the wins on the leaderboards are combat-heavy tactics, but there are lots of players who enjoy other sorts of strategies as well.

Regardless of strategy though, you have to play very differently than you would other roguelikes, otherwise you're going to die. Repeatedly. Forever. One day permanently even!

[Reapa]

"Crush" as in all these obstacles can be reliably overcome, yes, with sufficient experience--as I believe it should be in a roguelike.

And yes, combat is perfectly viable. I stream Cogmind on Twitch, I only use combat builds, and I often win (or at least get to the end--in fact, I've never not reached the late game). It usually takes about four hours. Some of the wins on the leaderboards are combat-heavy tactics, but there are lots of players who enjoy other sorts of strategies as well.

Regardless of strategy though, you have to play very differently than you would other roguelikes, otherwise you're going to die. Repeatedly. Forever. One day permanently even!

i don't mind the dieing, that's part of the fun of roguelikes. what grinds my gears is getting stuck or overwhelmed and stuck "as in not being able to fight back". take my first post here for instance. getting stuck after a collapsed ceiling. i believe space rangers had a way to rescue you like if you waited long enough after running out of fuel some ship would fly by and either share some fuel or loot you. cogmind's enemies could perhaps come after you and dig through to kill you especially since after you wait long enough messages keep showing up that say troops are being dispatched to your location. but they never show up, never find you if you are surrounded by walls. or a game over message could appear telling you, you died miserably to rust / lived forever thinking about how you let yourself get trapped like that.
then there's another way to get "stuck": it's very frustrating to have weapons in your inventory you can't equip because you've ran out of matter. and matter is not that easy to find if you can't kill anything because you have no equipped weapons. so maybe a kind of self sacrifice like an inbuilt option to melt something else that is equipped to get some matter, even parts of the core. heat will dissipate, energy get's restored if you disable stuff and wait a few turns, matter gets you stuck. and it's easy to think/hope one more shot will suffice to kill that last enemy and ignore the low matter warning or just be a little low and equip another weapon which gets blown off right away. even running away will only piss you off more if you find weapons but no matter. i believe even if you make it to the exit you won't get your matter bar filled.
btw i am getting better at building solid fighters and this is the first roguelike i play with ASCII since stuff is so small on my screen and yes i did read you post about the difficulty of changing the size of the tiles. i just wanna say the game is appealing enough for people to learn to play with ASCII in part due to the tooltips and mouse support. it's been a very smooth transition. being able to just mouse over or right click a symbol to know what it is instead of browsing some manual every time you forget is pure gold.
edit: while on the subject of tile size, would it be viable to just make a new alternative tile set with 4 tiles for each tile of the old ones? it would be a strict 4x zoom but since font size is adjustable it would not be necessarily too big. and i'm guessing it would not affect the UI since the UI doesn't consist of tiles. then again, the people that can't read the UI would still not be served. unless the letters would be replaced by 4 tiles each drawing the letter. just a thought, ignore if it was already a possible solution in the thread (not sure if i read it all) or if it's not possible.
edit2: while on the UI mouse over an enemy would be very cool to show how damaged it is in %. unless i'm missing something it does show for a split second but then disappears.

[Kyzrati]

i don't mind the dieing, that's part of the fun of roguelikes. what grinds my gears is getting stuck or overwhelmed and stuck "as in not being able to fight back".
take my first post here for instance. getting stuck after a collapsed ceiling.

This can only happen if you go into areas that you've excavated. So it's 100% avoidable in the first place. If you travel through areas like that without a way to dig yourself out, that's just asking for trouble! (There is one place in the game where you' can be buried by a true cave-in out in the open, but they will come to dig you out.)

then there's another way to get "stuck": it's very frustrating to have weapons in your inventory you can't equip because you've ran out of matter. and matter is not that easy to find if you can't kill anything because you have no equipped weapons.

Carry more matter... watch when it's getting low and change your tactics... basic roguelike resource management! There is always a way to get more matter if you've made poor decisions and are that desperate: simply ram another robot.

btw i am getting better at building solid fighters

Like any good roguelike it can take a little time to work everything out.

and i'm guessing it would not affect the UI since the UI doesn't consist of tiles.

Um, it does

edit2: while on the UI mouse over an enemy would be very cool to show how damaged it is in %. unless i'm missing something it does show for a split second but then disappears.

It already shows this, and it doesn't disappear. It's in the Scan window which shows basic info for whatever your cursor last hovered over. And when you call up robot labels via the '2' key (of scan window mouse button), they are colored by core integrity, e.g.

And the same colored label is shown when your cursor (or look mode marker) is over each robot.

[Shadowfury333]

i don't mind the dieing, that's part of the fun of roguelikes. what grinds my gears is getting stuck or overwhelmed and stuck "as in not being able to fight back".

This is a bit of an odd aspect of Cogmind, and one I've found mildly annoying myself. As far as I can tell, the design of Cogmind is meant to allow the player to recover from what seems like a game-ending situation, provided they realize when to cut and run. That is, it doesn't kill the player as soon as they are in a bad spot, which will give them the chance to escape, find new gear, and keep on going stronger than before. I've been able to do this several times, but I've also run into the flipside you've pointed out where because the game is designed to let you live for a while even after you've lost everything, it can feel like you are a dead robot walking the moment things go bad, since you might end up desperately running away for 20 turns and end up dead anyway.

I find a good contrast is DoomRL (aka DRL). It's similarly focused on ranged combat, but the main difference is that dying can happen within a couple turns if you get careless, but as with most games you can fight back as well at 1HP as at 100% HP. Because DoomRL has a powerful cover system and moderately powerful dodge system, if you are careful you can kill everything to get out of a bad situation without getting hit again.

If you are going to focus on combat in Cogmind, then get storages and stash a bunch of spare parts in them. Storages tend to stick around under fire, so you can keep yourself well equipped as the battle rages. You never want to be without replacements for weapons, propulsion, and power in Cogmind in general, but especially when playing a combat build. Also, right-click on enemies to know their weaknesses, swarmers in particular are really weak to explosives (doubly-so because explosives clear groups well), and that knowledge goes a long way to dealing with enemies efficiently.

[Kyzrati]

Certainly knowing when to cut and run is important, or prior to that really just ensure you're making the best tactical choices, and while for less skilled players death will probably just drag out and become inevitable, as you get better you'll start turning more and more of those instances into comebacks and even wins.

Because I like to play combat, which is a riskier way to play, on most of my winning runs I've been bashed to within an inch of my life on at least one or two occasions earlier in the same run. But it's also those comebacks that are part of the fun for me and others.

Some players are frustrated by that kind of experience, and prefer the more traditional "character continues improving, my equipment never breaks and I get to use the same gear forever (maybe upgrading sometimes)" style of play, as that's how most roguelikes (and games in general) have been done in the past. (That's the main thing I point out when people are on the fence about starting Cogmind.) But after creating this new type of experience and exploring what's possible with this fundamental difference in design, I've come to appreciate it in contrast to other roguelikes where you can die within a few turns, or even a single turn. This and the other mechanics change... everything--but it's clearly still a roguelike

[Kyzrati]

Because it's semi-related to the discussion, here's a gif I recorded recently where I was doing this just for fun, but it's also a pretty useful tactic, and one that you can't really do as effectively in other roguelikes where you can't take a much worse beating than everyone else in the world


(I actually use this strategy at least a bit in almost every run--take out the enemy with their own machinery, or nuke groups at point blank because it hurts them more than it does you! It's all about the trade-offs...)

[Reapa]

stuck in lower caves on the 6th level. there is no exit. at least none that i can find without digging, and yes i had a rocket/grenade launcher going in but lost it. there was some talk about being an intruder on the territory of some warlord if that narrows it down. also log says exit = found a bit later after the talk with the warlord so i must have found one but it's gone now. i looked at the whole map several times and walked around to make sure i searched every corner. if i'm not mistaking the exit should be visible once found even if not in view range.
edit: i also suffer from data loss due to corruption, so maybe my cogmind forgot where it was?
edit2: there was a great maul lying around and it seams one can dig with it, but nothing suggests any place to dig to. if there was an exit it's gone. digging outside the maze only causes caveins.
edit3: turn 12133 did i mention getting stuck isn't fun? you may want to implement some fail-safes for situations like these even if it's just a scanner that searches for the exit(is there an exit? if not, tell the player there's an error. where is the exit?) and for the player (is there a player? where is the player?) and looks if there's a clear line between the player and the exit and if not, is there any item that can cut through walls? where are these items? are they in the player inventory? if not, is there a clear line between the player and the item/s?

[Kyzrati]

Nah you just met a rare bug that was introduced in Alpha 13, already fixed for the upcoming release. In certain caves if you are unlucky enough to get a particular event, the Minesweeper, whose area of operation overlaps with an exit area, and the stairs happen to be trapped, they will actually remove the trap and destroy the exit in the process. So this is not something that existed before, or normally exists in the world--exits are always guaranteed.

[zxc]

That exit bug has to be the most damaging in all Cogmind's history IMO

You can 'crush' the game with 'fighter'/combat builds. It won't be as easy as melee in DCSS, and will probably take more learning to get to a reliable level. You won't really become almost invincible the way you can in DCSS though, which I view as a good thing.

[Kyzrati]

That exit bug has to be the most damaging in all Cogmind's history IMO

I believe it is! Really the only one that could stop a run dead in its tracks. Normally if it had been discovered within the first week of release I would've just patched it, but this wasn't found until relatively recently so I figured may as well wait. (I also thought it was rarer than it is, but it's apparently already hit several people.)

And before too long we'll be switching over to a somewhat more regular patch system rather than purely major releases.

You won't really become almost invincible the way you can in DCSS though, which I view as a good thing.

It's a fine line to walk, but I do certainly prefer it this way. Some people really want to be invincible, as that's more enjoyable for them, though I guess that can desire be satisfied with easier difficulty settings... A challenge balanced throughout is more important for the standard roguelike mode.