The Misery Challenge

[Alex Heartnet]

Someone needs to do a run through of this with most of these things on (perhaps not the "one exo only" one) on Misery and record it.  Someone that isnt me, specifically.

All sorts of wacky hijinks could result from that.  The potential for hilarity gets higher and higher with each one.  This one would be a good addition to the loopiness that is there so far, so I say go for it.

Here you go!

Anyone else up for The Misery Challenge?

[keith.lamothe]

Congratulations, you have... wait, not died?



Good work, especially with the pistol and using BombBots to make up for a lack of ammo.


Not sure why that one bomb-bot apparently took both of your Assault's remaining lives.  I'll look into that.


Btw, you start the game with a few parts, and that might have made the first mission a bit easier.

Also, iirc, BombBots literally have no way to attack you except by dying, and they can't self-destruct themselves.  So if it's just a lone BombBot in a part of the map where you don't expect to fight again you can just lure it to a spot you don't need to path through again, pistol it, and go on about your mission.  You don't get its on-death credits or whatever, but at this stage a few credits is less important than the half-belt of machine gun ammo it takes to kill one of those things with an un-upgraded MG.


Anyway, was great fun to watch, thanks for charging headlong into insanity for our amusement!

[Hearteater]

That was amusing. Ninja is perfect vs BombBots also, since they can't hurt him. Man was that an amazing thing to learn for me. Oh, and Rey's ability is 2 deaths total, not 2 per bot. You can see the counter in the bottom of his portrait. Oh, and that Rocket that made no big explosion...it missed the BombBot by 1 space .

Meanwhile I did learn just now that apparently the ScienceExo's pistol is a permanent movement disable. I swear I've read "3 turn disable" but I think that I was just getting the movement disable and Pistol self-EMP merged. Incidentally, given how powerful that pistol is, it probably should be called something besides "Pistol". Pistol does not convey any of its special properties. Pulse Pistol would be okay, especially since at least then if you miss any references to "pistol" it can be assumed to mean the Pulse Pistol. Not that I like Pulse Pistol all that much for a non-energy weapon.

[Alex Heartnet]

Ninja is perfect vs BombBots also, since they can't hurt him. Man was that an amazing thing to learn for me.

Derp wish I would of thought of that while playing then I won't of had to lose my assault exo.  I'll have to keep that in mind!

[keith.lamothe]

Ninja is perfect vs BombBots also, since they can't hurt him. Man was that an amazing thing to learn for me.

Derp wish I would of thought of that while playing then I won't of had to lose my assault exo.  I'll have to keep that in mind!

To be honest I'd totally not known that either.

[Hearteater]

It mentions it on the tooltip, not customization. And I missed it even then until someone here mentioned it.

[Misery]

.....what.

I am seriously lacking a good response to this for a variety of reasons.


And you did indeed not die from this.

This suggests that perhaps it is not cruel enough.  Hmm, it is possible that some of the recent changes to balance may have lowered the difficulty a bit from what this mode was originally meant to have.  As I've been specifically testing Expert, this idea had not occurred to me at all.


Need I come up with more ideas on how to make this more akin to it's proper intended difficulty?  The original list of changes had seemed quite sufficient at the time, but....


Either way, kudos to you for that little performance there.  Very amusing and impressive indeed.

It's also good to see videos of any of the higher difficulty modes being played.  I've looked for good LPs of the game, but all of them that I've found are of Normal difficulty, never really any higher, which isnt very interesting, particularly considering how many skilled strategy gamers there are making videos of such games.  So that just makes the video that much better, it does.  More stuff like this needs to be made, I think.   Heck, even for AI War it's difficult to find good videos of it, which is kinda baffling to me, that game being what it is.  The same thing with Last Federation (either for combat or solar map difficulty, or both) which is another game that seems like it'd really lend itself well to videos of skilled play.  Not to mention that that game in particular could be all sorts of hilarious.

It does occur to me that it'd be bloody stupid for me to not attempt this challenge as well, so I'll see about having a go at this within the next few days, when I'm feeling patient enough to deal with (yell at) the bloody recording software and the headset.   Should be fun.  And probably loud.

I gotta say, all this stuff so far has really re-vitalized the game.  And I"d already spent a really damn silly amount of time with it to begin with, without it getting old, even despite some of the screwball balance problems it had up till now.  Now it's even MORE addictive.   Much thanks, Keith, for taking the time to do all of this.  Arcen as a whole has such great commitment to the games they produce, and that's an impressive and rare fact.

[Alex Heartnet]

.....what.

I am seriously lacking a good response to this for a variety of reasons.

trollface.jpg

And you did indeed not die from this.

Yes, I managed to impress myself.

This suggests that perhaps it is not cruel enough.  Hmm, it is possible that some of the recent changes to balance may have lowered the difficulty a bit from what this mode was originally meant to have.  As I've been specifically testing Expert, this idea had not occurred to me at all.

Expert and Misery are also unchanged, as it seems from feedback that they were accomplishing their goals.

Need I come up with more ideas on how to make this more akin to it's proper intended difficulty?  The original list of changes had seemed quite sufficient at the time, but...

More conduits?

Either way, kudos to you for that little performance there.  Very amusing and impressive indeed.

Thank you!   

It's also good to see videos of any of the higher difficulty modes being played.  I've looked for good LPs of the game, but all of them that I've found are of Normal difficulty, never really any higher, which isnt very interesting, particularly considering how many skilled strategy gamers there are making videos of such games.  So that just makes the video that much better, it does.  More stuff like this needs to be made, I think.   Heck, even for AI War it's difficult to find good videos of it, which is kinda baffling to me, that game being what it is.  The same thing with Last Federation (either for combat or solar map difficulty, or both) which is another game that seems like it'd really lend itself well to videos of skilled play.  Not to mention that that game in particular could be all sorts of hilarious.

+1

]I think most LPers are intimidated by Arcen's offerings.  Bunch of cowards, the whole lot of them.
When I started my AI War 7/7 vanilla AAR I knew that it was nothing compared to the current AAR standards, and poked fun at myself accordingly.  Now I'm confident enough to ratchet up the pain a notch - but I also want to actually complete a game for the sake of completing one.  If I ever do a second AAR i'll be sure to be creative in how I increase the fun factor.

It does occur to me that it'd be bloody stupid for me to not attempt this challenge as well, so I'll see about having a go at this within the next few days, when I'm feeling patient enough to deal with (yell at) the bloody recording software and the headset.   Should be fun.  And probably loud.

At least you won't have to do the hours of editing work that my style requires.

I gotta say, all this stuff so far has really re-vitalized the game.  And I"d already spent a really damn silly amount of time with it to begin with, without it getting old, even despite some of the screwball balance problems it had up till now.  Now it's even MORE addictive.   Much thanks, Keith, for taking the time to do all of this.  Arcen as a whole has such great commitment to the games they produce, and that's an impressive and rare fact.

+11

I must say, 'On Your Toes' was a stroke of genius and is the best thing to happen to the game so far.

-----------------------------------------------------

Seriously guys, try The Misery Challenge for yourselves.  It has been the most enjoyment I have gotten out of the game so far.  You can always bump it back down a notch or five.

[nas1m]

Seriously guys, try The Misery Challenge for yourselves.  It has been the most enjoyment I have gotten out of the game so far.  You can always bump it back down a notch or five.

Will do as soon as I (ever) find the time to do it .
Also I will have to wait for a quiet spot at home, so my wife doesn't think I have gone all nuts - talking to to myself and stuff.

What software did you use for recording/editing your LP?

[Misery]

This suggests that perhaps it is not cruel enough.  Hmm, it is possible that some of the recent changes to balance may have lowered the difficulty a bit from what this mode was originally meant to have.  As I've been specifically testing Expert, this idea had not occurred to me at all.

Expert and Misery are also unchanged, as it seems from feedback that they were accomplishing their goals.

Need I come up with more ideas on how to make this more akin to it's proper intended difficulty?  The original list of changes had seemed quite sufficient at the time, but...

More conduits?

Conduits?  Or do you mean Conducts (or am I just being spacey)?  I'll leave the conducts ideas to the others.  Anything I come up with is likely to be TOO nasty (such as one where you get one second to make a move instead of 5) since I tend to do that.

Which was really supposed to be the case with Misery difficulty originally, without just changing the bot stats (shields on them is high enough, really....).  Things like more tripwires & special bots per floor, item prices in shops increased by a certain percentage, and so on.   

Though it had seemed like possibly a bit too much, and it constantly seemed like I was the only one that actually played on that difficulty level.   The same seems to be the case with that difficulty level in Last Federation's combat, though not quite to the same extent as I've seen at least a few play it on that, just not many.

Still, it's supposed to be brutal, and might need a little boost currently. 

[Alex Heartnet]

shields on them is high enough, really...

Agreed, this is plunty high, up the !!fun!! factor in other areas instead

Things like more tripwires

Or stuff besides tripwires?  As in, trap variety?  Lower difficulties could benefit from this as well

item prices in shops increased by a certain percentage

It'll be a milestone if I'll actually be able to buy something from the shop on this playthrough.  Also don't forget about Emma and her shopping superpower gotta keep her relevant.  Nah, find some other area to add !!fun!!

Still, it's supposed to be brutal, and might need a little boost currently.

So you want AI War's 10/10 unwinnable doom? >D

[Alex Heartnet]

Will do as soon as I (ever) find the time to do it .

Don't procrastinate, just jump right into it!

Also I will have to wait for a quiet spot at home, so my wife doesn't think I have gone all nuts - talking to to myself and stuff.

See, you're having !!fun!! with it already

What software did you use for recording/editing your LP?

Bandicam.

Oh, and that Rocket that made no big explosion...it missed the BombBot by 1 space

Wait, there was a BombBot?

[keith.lamothe]

Surviving the first mission (with three exo deaths) doesn't indicate to me that Misery is too easy   Even in AIW on 10/10 you're supposed to be able to survive the early waves if you know what you're doing.  Also, I'm not aiming at a 10/10 thing with Misery because different games have different levels of "how fun is this to play without hope of winning?" and I suspect Bionic's is lower because you have a lot less margin for failure.  In AIW you can let half the galaxy burn during a major defense and still survive; here you don't get that many fallback positions.

That said, if folks want Misery, or at least Misery+Conducts to be a place where "the achievement isn't winning, the achievement is how long you survive" then I imagine that could be arranged

Agreed on not increasing shields on Misery; in fact if they're currently higher than Expert I'd like to bring them back down to Expert's level.  Winning by running the player out of ammo isn't the goal, though it's fine that the player is often driven to expend important ammo earlier than they'd like.

For similar reasons it's best to not increase the overall bot population of missions, since twice the bots has a similar impact as twice the shields on the amount of overall ammo soak.

But we could have it seed a higher-percentage of the higher-PITAR bot types selected for the mission.  And perhaps more special bots like Misery mentioned.  Same count of bots, more pain.  Granted, that does mean a higher total shields on average, but not as dramatically as the above options.

Other than that there are dirty tricks like "Bot In A Closet" with a bot behind an un-scannable door that doesn't open until you enter the room or something like that.  But I'm not sure if that just turns into an "RNG says gg, better luck next game!" situation.

[Hearteater]

Wait, there was a BombBot?

Heh, go to 8:50 and watch for the reddish guy with claws. He goes out of LOS on the turn when you launch the rocket. He is the middle of the three red wireframe bot. Actually both the back two are BombBots, so a rocket hitting the first would have set off the second and cleared the entire room .

[keith.lamothe]

Yea, I found it surprising and amusing how much ammo those BombBots saved you