Topic: Alpha 8 Discussion/Feedback (spoiler-free) (Read 8788 times)

Kyzrati · « **on:** April 26, 2016, 08:50:26 PM »

Here's the place for general spoiler-free feedback and discussion about the most recent releases, if you want to talk about something that you don't feel warrants a dedicated thread.

Alpha 8 release notes and changelog.

If you want to freely talk about spoiler content without the annoyance of spoiler tags, there's a thread for that

. Note that it's fine to talk about spoilers here as well (if perhaps they're only a small part of what you have to say), just tag them appropriately.

Happylisk · « **Reply #1 on:** April 28, 2016, 06:35:51 AM »

Looking forward! I wanted to get a 7b win before 8, but I just couldn't hack it. My last seed run (I keep forgetting to post it) got real close but no cigar.

Would you say 8 is easier, harder, or no different than 7b?

Kyzrati · « **Reply #2 on:** April 28, 2016, 07:52:42 AM »

8 is definitely easier than 7b, though not by a huge margin unless you get lucky or make it deep into the caves. Almost all the new cave content is beneficial to you, and the few mechanics tweaks are also in your favor (unless you liked to crit your way through locked doors).

Hunters didn't get any easier, though, so they're still to look out for.

I'm going to try and get an 8 win myself. Already lost this week's seed in a pretty terrible run, but that's partially because I insisted on entering the caves when not in great shape, and then not leaving when I had the chance

. It's a good seed, though.

I'll be getting back into seed runs now that the caves are mostly complete. I was too busy working on them before and didn't see as much value in playing through them unfinished in 7b, as they were, since I wouldn't be able to experience their true balance.

According to the plan, 9 will continue the trend and be easier than 8, probably to a larger degree (although not for everyone, of course, just certain players depending on strategy and route).

Shobalk · « **Reply #3 on:** April 28, 2016, 01:15:10 PM »

I have an Alpha 8 play through going if you care to follow along.

Exploring Alpha 8!

Starting with episode 3, I'll begin exploring the Upper Caves, looking for exciting new content!

Draco18s · « **Reply #4 on:** May 04, 2016, 11:10:21 PM »

...I should probably download one of these versions and give it a go again. Last version I have is...

Oh my

Alpha 3c

Kyzrati · « **Reply #5 on:** May 05, 2016, 02:10:37 AM »

Heh, 3c is veritably ancient now. So much has been added since then, and a few major system tweaks means it plays much better overall

Draco18s · « **Reply #6 on:** May 14, 2016, 01:43:46 AM »

Quote from: Kyzrati on May 05, 2016, 02:10:37 AM

Heh, 3c is veritably ancient now. So much has been added since then, and a few major system tweaks means it plays much better overall

Oh I know. I've been following the development. I just haven't gotten around to getting and playing a newer version.

Adraius · « **Reply #7 on:** May 16, 2016, 08:38:54 PM »

Quote from: Draco18s on May 04, 2016, 11:10:21 PM

...I should probably download one of these versions and give it a go again. Last version I have is...

Oh my

Alpha 3c

Hehe, I just checked myself - Alpha 3c here too! I've been following the major developments, but I just haven't felt the urge to play in a long while. For all the conveniences Cogmind has compared to other roguelikes, it still involves mentally absorbing a huge library of system knowledge through experience/trial-and-error, and right now I'm not in the mood for that. But I figure I'll probably be playing Cogmind again at some point - either the mood for this sort of game will return, or once development finally starts wrapping up, I'll give in and read some player guides. =)

(since Alpha 3c, I've played through Invisible Inc, Life is Strange, and Alan Wake, and I'm playing and enjoying Helldivers, SUPERHOT, and Stellaris)

Aaaaaand now I've gone and taken a peek at the dev blog and I saw the fabrication entry, and I really want to play again. =D Maybe once my honeymoon with Stellaris is over.

Kyzrati · « **Reply #8 on:** May 16, 2016, 10:58:05 PM »

Hey Adraius, was recently wondering where you were as I was thinking of those who have helped out in the past. The Alpha Challenge last year was the height that tapped out a lot of the earliest players

. Lots of new stuff since, and once the new fabrication mechanics are released, the remainder is mostly content and late-game additions, though I should probably still fit in some early/mid-game improvements so that those who can't reach the late game continue to have new stuff to play with. But yeah as you say there is more and more stuff to learn for anyone just now jumping in (or again after a while).

Have fun with Stellaris! (Wait a minute, isn't Stellaris the same thing?!

)

Adraius · « **Reply #9 on:** May 16, 2016, 11:43:54 PM »

Quote from: Kyzrati on May 16, 2016, 10:58:05 PM

Have fun with Stellaris! (Wait a minute, isn't Stellaris the same thing?! )

As far as being a game that needs system knowledge? Funny thing, I was thinking about exactly that as I wrote my post. The key difference, I think, in Stellaris (and most games of the strategy/4x genre) is that while there are a fair number of interacting systems, they are (almost) all explicitly presented to the player, and they player is handed tools to manage/optimize them - and frankly, finding an efficient/optimal-ish course of action is not that difficult of a calculation, although it still feels like a triumph. In Cogmind, I have a host of unknowns that I don't know how to plan for, and won't without a ton of experience. At what point is a "slow" combat bot "too slow"? How can I best minimize threat? At what point is taking a branch worth it? Which branches should I look for in particular for a given type of run? When is staying on a floor after finding an exit a good risk? Is this repair station's wait time hurting me more than the repaired part will help?

I have a strong impulse to optimize in all games, and games with a high degree of uncertainty are much more work to approach with that mindset. Honestly, what sparked my interest in the fabrication post was not just the gameplay addition, but the gifs of Cogmind exploring, building, and shooting stuff; it reminded me of the simpler times when I first started playing Cogmind, when I resolved to just dive in and try things out, and I could be satisfied dying on level -6. With that mindset, Cogmind is great; with a optimizer's mindset, Cogmind is hell without a bunch of system knowledge. Unfortunately, I tend to the latter mindset by default.

Kyzrati · « **Reply #10 on:** May 16, 2016, 11:53:51 PM »

Yup, good analysis. While fabrication was the last big non-streamlined part of the game, there are still things I can think of that would be nice to address, like a need for a way to explicitly display composite defensive bonuses. But that is a localized issue, most of which Cogmind handles already.

Cogmind is about facing unknowns and dealing with unexpected situations, even more so than other roguelikes due to attrition and the part loss core mechanic, plus the presence of an overarching AI you aren't always sure about. So yeah that can be tough on players who have that urge to analyze and optimize.

My goal has been to ensure the mechanics and world are flexible enough that it's possible to do quite well even without optimal play, but players of course have their own style regardless!

Sherlockkat · « **Reply #11 on:** May 27, 2016, 10:33:56 PM »

I saw K's stream last night and read about Adraius's epic run and felt the urge to play Cogmind. The result = new personal record (A victory in 2210 turns/52 mins).

Spoiler: Score/17013
(click to show/hide)

This Cogmind was an absolute ninja. Out of the 79 parts that I attached, I only lost 20 and I don't think I even got spotted in access

(edit: Hmm.I must have been spotted coz the score-sheet says I exited with 99% of my core. Funny thing is that I don't remember getting shot at by anything.).

A suggestion : Cogmind runs can feel very impersonal as the build is always in flux. Allowing us to assign a name to our LRC-V3s separate from our player tags might be nice.

Some gameplay notes:

i) Light armor/Evasive/Shield type utilities are amazing. They weigh next to nothing and I would rather lose them than my hacking suite.
ii) Mini drone bays!! A single slot utility with a mass of 4 and can store up to 4 drones. I love this utility. Too bad K is nerfing it in the next release. @Kyzrati : I hope you rethink the decision to keep the drone bays attached in order for it to function. I think just reducing the drone count is sufficient. So much of their utility is derived from a well-timed drone launch. They don't carry you to victory.

I got my mini-drone bay in mid factory. I had 3 drone launches.

a) I wasted one of the drones in factory.
b) The second drone launch was in -2/Research. This little guy/gal was a champ. He distracted a behemoth and 2 grunt patrols that spotted me while I escaped abandoning it. Their utility as defense/distraction cannot be understated. Every enemy who sees a drone will stop and shoot at it. This little guy buys you two full turns just by getting spotted. It also has flight units and is tiny. So, hostiles have a really hard time hitting it. My speed was around 25. If that drone survives being fired at twice, it would have bought me 16 free movement actions.
c) The third was in access. In low security settings, these drones are map hacks. I spent no time in access because the drone revealed so many dead ends and empty rooms.
d) I kept the 4th one as a souvenir.

iii) Hacking is the most reliable way for a speed build to clear late game. Speed builds benefit a lot by establishing landmarks in the map and hacking is the best way to do it. It is not just enough to know the exit locations. You need a way to navigate the level safely. Index() hacks reveals machine locations and machines are usually inside rooms. This is how I figure out which walls to blow through. Coz hey there is a machine on the other side. The maintenance status hack shows the locations of the maintenance robots and lets you avoid thoroughfares and identify useful bottlenecks. Zone layout and sector layout are both easy and invaluable hacks. Trojan(disrupt) is a good damage mitigation tool. Combine this information with a decent sensor array and you can be a ninja. I had +60 to hacking in this run and hacked the exit location and the seal in no time.

iv) @Kyzrati : The new access shell behavior is a welcome change. It felt nice knowing that I don't have to worry about finding weapons that can bust through the shell.

biomatter · « **Reply #12 on:** May 28, 2016, 12:12:31 AM »

Oh man. I am so envious Sherlockkat. Congrats on an awesome run!

Very clever use of drones! I'll have to keep that in mind. Do you manually move them around, or do you just set them to explore? I've tried using 'explore', but they really don't seem to make intelligent choices... They double back into firefights all the time. I'd like to be more controlling of them, but it's a real pain ordering them around every step.

Where do you get all your hackware? Do you just spend time picking apart Operators on Materials, or what? I need to learn from you!

Oh, and this piques my curiosity - you referred to your cogmind as a 'LRC-V3'. This touches on my specialty, the lore. Why do you call it this? Very curious. I need to know if you know something I do not

Sherlockkat · « **Reply #13 on:** May 28, 2016, 12:31:49 AM »

Hey Biomatter, welcome back. I had so much fun reading about your stealth runs when I was trying to learn the game

.

Re drones: In this run, I just ordered the drone to fly past those behemoths and grunts. You can also use them like a fighter jet uses flares where you just turn the drone bay on for a turn when you are fleeing and just leave the drones behind you. My most fun use was during this one run where I was being chased by swarmers who keep up with you. I turned a corner, deployed the drone and ordered it go back to the corner I just turned. The swarmers would waste turns shooting at them thus delaying them from turning the corner. That bought me enough time to duck out of sight

.

Re Hackware: I usually try to kill operators down at materials. But, I don't go out of my way to do it as I hate farming. I got really lucky this run and found 2 advanced hacking suites. But, I have had runs where I got most of my hacking prowess from just stacked basic hackware. But, you have to sacrifice a lot of slots to do that. As of now, I can't think of any reliable way except murdering operators. Actually, there is this branch map called Archives inside the extension branch which is operator central. It is a really small map with almost no hostile presence and you can probably hoard hackware there. But, it is nigh impossible for stealth builds to get in there. The extension is very much a branch tailored for combat builds.

Re Lore: Aaah. A fellow lore nerd.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Kyzrati · « **Reply #14 on:** May 28, 2016, 01:02:33 AM »

Nice, Sherlockkat! Quite a high-scoring and impressive speed run.

Quote from: Sherlockkat on May 27, 2016, 10:33:56 PM

(edit: Hmm.I must have been spotted coz the score-sheet says I exited with 99% of my core. Funny thing is that I don't remember getting shot at by anything.).

Maybe you weren't hit--still haven't figured out what causes that percentage to sometimes spike over 100, and maybe if it can go over 100 it can also be off in other ways. That's a strange one, but I'll be overhauling the score sheet system eventually anyway, so I'll solve that one later.

Quote from: Sherlockkat on May 27, 2016, 10:33:56 PM

A suggestion : Cogmind runs can feel very impersonal as the build is always in flux. Allowing us to assign a name to our LRC-V3s separate from our player tags might be nice.

For what purpose are you thinking? Just to show up on your score sheet or what? And the leaderboards would use what name? The player name, no? (Side note: Your suggestion has given me an interesting idea that could tie into parts of the lore you haven't seen yet...)

Quote from: Sherlockkat on May 27, 2016, 10:33:56 PM

ii) Mini drone bays!! A single slot utility with a mass of 4 and can store up to 4 drones. I love this utility. Too bad K is nerfing it in the next release. @Kyzrati : I hope you rethink the decision to keep the drone bays attached in order for it to function. I think just reducing the drone count is sufficient. So much of their utility is derived from a well-timed drone launch. They don't carry you to victory.

Well, all I'm doing to it is dropping the Mini bay from 4 to 3 drones. That's the only drone-related change. I was only thinking about going further than that, but we'll first see what happens once players can build them more easily...

So you'll be out one souvenir

Quote from: Sherlockkat on May 27, 2016, 10:33:56 PM

iv) @Kyzrati : The new access shell behavior is a welcome change. It felt nice knowing that I don't have to worry about finding weapons that can bust through the shell.

(warning: on my own winning seed run last week I hacked through the door but for some reason the shell didn't automatically react for me... I have no idea why it didn't trigger, so apparently it's sometimes, um, "broken"

)

Quote from: biomatter on May 28, 2016, 12:12:31 AM

I've tried using 'explore', but they really don't seem to make intelligent choices... They double back into firefights all the time.

Their algorithm simply takes them to the absolute nearest unknown destination, which is defined at a single cell level, so if/once they hit dead end rooms or corridors they'll naturally double back to take another path to next nearest destination--basically the same way you yourself have to explore if you want to reveal everything, only they'll do it for you

Quote from: Sherlockkat on May 28, 2016, 12:31:49 AM

Re Lore: Aaah. A fellow lore nerd.

biomatter is the one entering all the lore into the wiki

. But he's only recently rejoined us after missing all the lore branch expansions, so there's a lot to learn that he hasn't seen before.

Sherlockkat · « **Reply #15 on:** May 28, 2016, 01:29:44 AM »

Re naming your cogmind: It's just that naming something helps you connect a bit better to it. It's also a very common thing in RPGS and some roguelikes. Sometimes, Cogmind runs tend to meld together inside your head due to highly varying nature of your build. Just something showing up on your scoresheet as a codename or something would be nice. But, this is probably very subjective *shrugs*.

Kyzrati · « **Reply #16 on:** May 28, 2016, 01:49:28 AM »

Yeah, I get the connection idea, it's something that Cogmind lacks to begin with, compared to a common RPG or roguelike. Most of the design revolves around the idea that you are playing a set character, even though it will evolve as you decide along the way.

There's a part of the lore where I think this idea of a name for your Cogmind could be very applicable, though, and if added it would probably be worked into that. Can't say more without serious spoilers

biomatter · « **Reply #17 on:** May 28, 2016, 03:10:03 AM »

Thanks for the tip about Archives, Sherlockkat! Last time I played the game there were, like, no branches, haha... I have no idea how to get around anymore. I have seen Extension once, though. I will endeavor to make it back there.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

And yeah, Kyzrati is right, I have been putting in major work on the Lore section of the wiki. Just a few minutes ago I finished uploading everything from

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Edit: Oops, just noticed this is specifically a 'spoiler-free' thread, and there is a more interesting spoilery one right next door. If I need to axe any of this post please let me know!

Sherlockkat · « **Reply #18 on:** May 28, 2016, 09:27:32 AM »

Re World map layout: I am going to spoiler tag it as this is the spoiler free thread. The spoiler thread is very spoilery and I don't want to post it over there as the world layout is not too spoilery. So, here is the general layout to the best of my knowledge.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Nice work on the wiki. I always go into a run determined to get some lore, but chicken out because of my stealth playstyle. I usually have all the hackware in the world when I hit research but I also need to put every terminal to good use in order to survive and completely forget about hacking records.

Kyzrati · « **Reply #19 on:** May 28, 2016, 09:35:58 AM »

Quote from: biomatter on May 28, 2016, 03:10:03 AM

Edit: Oops, just noticed this is specifically a 'spoiler-free' thread, and there is a more interesting spoilery one right next door. If I need to axe any of this post please let me know!

I was going to suggest you spoiler tag that entire post, actually

. Keep an eye on the thread title--this is the one where we can talk about mechanics, meta stuff, obvious/common things everyone knows about, etc.

We used to have only one thread, but at times every single post was getting tagged, so I started splitting them so the experts who've seen it all could talk about whatever without worrying about the tags. I know a number of people who like to read the forums but don't want to be spoiled, so it's good to respect that

Draco18s · « **Reply #20 on:** May 28, 2016, 11:39:42 AM »

Quote from: Adraius on May 16, 2016, 08:38:54 PM

(since Alpha 3c, I've played through Invisible Inc, Life is Strange, and Alan Wake, and I'm playing and enjoying Helldivers, SUPERHOT, and Stellaris)

I've...um....played SUPERHOT.

I spend most of my time developing, doing QA (for Dungeon Defenders 2), and procrastinating. So I haven't really had the time to pick up many new games.

I get some board game time in, too, of course. Sentinels of the Multiverse, Tokaido, Thunderbirds, couple others...

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Author Topic: Alpha 8 Discussion/Feedback (spoiler-free) (Read 8788 times)