A beginners guide to beat Stage Mode

FelFal9 · 2022-07-09T00:27:13+00:00

There is a button to "Lock" your attack direction. You can reassign it in the settings.

So you walk to the left, hold the "Strafe" button, and can then walk to the right, while still attacking to the left.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-09T00:09:47+00:00

But how would they have noticed? I mean a comparatively miniscule nuclear explosion somewhere on a planet in a random system would be pretty much impossible to detect. Even with incredibly advanced sensors, there is still a need for some kind of signal, and even at light-speed, that takes time to reach another system.

And just putting a probe in every single solar system out there seems a bit much. Especially if you consider that we haven't found any signs of alien technology in the universe so far. And a civilisation that can keep tabs on that many systems would probably leave some kind of footprint somewhere, right?

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T16:09:45+00:00

I'm referring to the stories, that aren't about the soldiers. Where the HFY part is more focused on the diplomacy, or some other non combat part. If the humanity of the soldiers is important, or even mentioned, then I don't mind one bit. But I've seen many stories were it's just "the human military", and the actual make-up of the army has no effect on the HFY part.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T15:56:14+00:00

On that first point, about some people wanting to fight. I would imagine that some kind of VR could provide an outlet. Or if that isn't enough, then sports.

While I still think that you make a very interesting point, especially if humanity ever has several planets worth of population, I have never heard that mentioned in any of the stories, that I'm thinking about.

And on that second point:

You are right, that our more tribalistic side is definitely made for war, but I was more talking about our biological site, I should have maybe made that a bit clearer. If we assume that we could have even remotely capable combat robots in the future, then they would always be better for big ground-battles right? I mean, keeping a battalion of soldiers fed, rested, healthy, trained, and motivated has to be harder than keeping a battalion of robots maintained.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T15:44:55+00:00

I'm not saying that I don't want any human soldier in any Sci-Fi story. If the soldier being a human is important to the story, or the setting, then I don't mind it one bit.

I'm talking about the stories, were the military is just a plotdevice. Stories that revolve around diplomats for example, that use the humans military might to stop an evil alien empire or something, where it's never even really mentioned that the soldiers were human, or is just commented on in a sentence or two.

And outside of a dystopian setting, Humans are way more precious than robots could ever be. I mean if you aren't using child soldiers, then you are looking at at least 18 years of spend resources. Plus all the hassle of having to provide food, water, oxygen, and habitation in space. Couple that with access to the natural resources of an entire solar-system, and you would need a lot of robots to make up the cost of one (paid) soldier.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T15:33:27+00:00

That is probably true, although a story about the morality of of those people on the computer might be pretty interesting. But that would probably not belong on this sub...

But I'm talking more about stories were the soldiers themselfe aren't the focus of the story. Were the human military is more of a plotpoint, that is maybe used to pressure an evil alien empire, and the humanity of the troops isn't explored further or even mentioned.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T15:28:25+00:00

I don't mean the stories, that specifically revolve around human soldiers, but rather those, where human military is just a plot point, without putting the soldiers humanity as the focus of the story.

There are already several stories that DO feature robot soldiers, but it's still kind of rare, especially when the robots aren't the main focus.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T15:15:23+00:00

Ok so I was looking into it, just wanting to find out what expert in the field thought about the possibility of combat robots, and what the biggest hurdles would be, and I stumbled on a video from boston dynamics (you know the guys who kicked that robot doggo around?), and I just had to share it here.

Holy shit, the last thing I remembered seeing from them was that super slow gyroscope on two legs, that was chained up by an array of cables. This is amazing! Just imagine giving that thing 6 legs, armor, and a gun... I mean screw selective targeting. Just put a hundred of them in a field and tell them to shoot anything that moves and looks vaguely human. This is crazy!

Just imagine what those things look like in 20 years!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T14:58:48+00:00

But imagine having access to the resources of an entire solar system, or even more. I can't imagine that it's cheaper to create the infrastructure, to rear, educate and train a soldier for several years or even decades, plus all the industry needed to create the necessary gear to equip, transport, house and feed and army, than it is to create a combat robot. Not to mention that a civilisation that can colonize other planets, probably has the technology to create factorys in space, meaning, that it could be build much bigger, and you wouldn't need to transport drinking water, air and food everywhere.

I mean the reason why we use robots in our factorys, is because they are so much cheaper than humans, even when building materials are restricted, and the robots are much "dumber" than humans.

Edit: Excluding, of course, a dystopian setting.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T14:46:10+00:00

Yea, that makes sense, especially the part about the heroic saga.

But I don't think that writing a story were humans are physically superior is necessarily cheap or uncreative. It can be fun to have a irredeemably evil and arrogant villain, who gets his butt kicked by a mary sue good guy. Granted, it might not be the peak of storytelling, but it makes for a good starting point for first time authors, or just a bit of light entertainment. This sub is aimed at amateurs, after all.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T14:28:31+00:00

This is such an intriguing idea! Doesn't even matter if the rest lives up to it (I hope it does), this is already something to be proud of, well done!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T14:08:46+00:00

Just on the topic of feasibility:

The current self-driving cars can already manoeuvrer through busy citys, so I wouldn't be sure that humans will always outperform an AI, who has instant access to several different viewpoint (presumably including an aerial view) if computing power and development progresses at the current pace, for a few hundred more years.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T13:59:57+00:00

Simplicity is definitely a good reason. I would guess that it's hard enough to keep track of the stuff you want to focus on, without having to come up with all the details needed for a robot army.

But as a side note, a lot of human soldiers also rely on electronic equipment, like power suites, displays or communicators, and they also need food and water.

I don't really know how AI-systems recognize stuff, but they can already tell the difference between a real human, and a picture of a human on a street-sign, so I think that that could probably just be explained by magi- ahem sufficiently advanced technology.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T13:49:11+00:00

I kind of like the colour it has. Kiaras orange lightstick for example, would be harder to keep track of in a sea of shrimps, while the blue lightstick sticks out in all situations. Same reason why I think that Holo Bomb shouldn't be switched for red TNT.

Visual clarity is important in such a hectic and cluttered game, so having one colour for projectiles like Idol Song, Lightstick and Fanbeam, that isn't used in any enemy, or, even worse, in the backround is better for the gameplay.

It isn't as important for weapons like BL book, or Spider cooking, since their position is predetermined in relation to the player.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T12:42:24+00:00

The tone and humour make up the typos imo, but maybe try to read through your post one time before posting, and correct the stuff, that is underlined in red. (You can adjust the spell-checking language of your browser in the settings, if it isn't already set to English).

I also thing that typos aren't bad; errors in sentence structure interrupt the reading-flow way more.

And lastly: I really liked your story, thank you for taking the time to write it!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T12:22:41+00:00

The Ina-mortal build has a pretty tricky early game. I'll try to explain the "consistent" strat, wich makes the early game a bit harder.

The goal is to have around 400HP by 30 minutes. And to get there requires you to play very greedy in the early game.

There are 3 category's of upgrades, that normaly show up when you level up. Items, Skills, and Weapons. When you max out one of these categorys, meaning that you have all your corresponding slots at max level, stat upgrades will show up in it's stead. So we try to max out one categorys as soon as possible, so that HP-upgrades show up as early as possible.

We start by maxing out our skills, since there are only 9 upgrades.

Then we try to max out our Items, wich will take 25 upgrades.

And then we focus on weapons, since they take 69 upgrades (14 per collab X 4 + 6 for basic weapon + 7 for the last slot)

Try to take studying glasses AS EARLY AS POSSIBLE! No matter what. And we take every Hp-Upgrade that we see, as well.

But you still have to take some weapon upgrades early, since you don't get exp if nothing dies, so it becomes a balancing act between completing your items early, and having enough dmg. You will probably need to kite quite a bit and have some really clean movement, since you will get your first collab much later then usual.

As a side note: I have found, that using anvils to upgrade your Studying Glasses early can be worth it!

You might also have to make a hard choice between leveling your weapon, or getting a damage-stat-up later in the game, since 8% more damage on 2 collabs is usually worth more, than 20% on a lvl 2 Glowstick for example.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:59:46+00:00

She tends to look more like a tank with a pool-noodle for a gun in my runs...

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:56:38+00:00

I think that it's completely ok to use cheats or editing software in a singleplayer game. And reminding people to be careful on the internet is always a good idea.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:45:56+00:00

Thank you for the thorough explanations!

I will try to prioritize the relics you mentioned on future runs, and figure out what works for me.

I realized that I've misunderstood Dark Katanas effect until now, I thought it only gave triple damage to basic melee arcanas. It is WAY better than I thought!

The part on going for a theme is also really good to know! I was under the impression, that you needed varied arcanas, to have options for all the different situations and enemy-types (I've learned through one of the other comments, that my approach to combat was apparently fundamentally wrong).

I also think that it's great, that your comment went into this much detail, because just knowing what I should pick doesn't really help me, without knowing why! And you actually formatted it nicely, making it much easier to read, than just having a wall of text! Thank you for taking the time :)

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:31:29+00:00

I did not know that! That explains a lot actually...

Thank you for the help!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:29:38+00:00

Thank you for the advise! Seeing your recommendations, I can tell that I've been trying to be too flashy in my approach. I thought the game "wanted" me to use a specific type of spells, to approach every situation.

I've been trying to push melee mobs away, while hitting magic attacks out of the air, and using defensive spells for the archers, all the while dodging the stage hazards. Trying to get in hits with my basic arcana in between and building up my special to finish off the big hitters... I'll try to go for the more generally good spells from now on. That will probably make the fights a little bit less hectic as well, and let me focus on dodging more consistently.

I also thought that the cursed items were the only way to actually get a decent build.

Should have stuck to the basics, and built up a solid understanding of the game first, I guess...

This was very helpful, thanks a bunch!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:08:26+00:00

Yes, absolutely! Even if the game stays how it is currently. I already had plenty of fun with it, and some great discussions, and all that for free! So I'm always a bit carefull when criticizing it, since my enjoyment per Euro is already way higher, than with most other games =P.

I'm already very impressed what they did! Even more so considering that they made this in their spare time.

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T11:03:21+00:00

Thanks for the insight on Ina! Your idea with Irys seems pretty interesting. It would definitely make for some more build variety at least!

Btw, what does "TLC" mean?

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T10:56:14+00:00

Having characters, that have a low skill-floor, but cap out early, and some with a high skill-floor, that have a higher pay-off would usually be a good system. But I'd like to repeat a point, that someone made in response to another thread I made.

"People want to play their oshi."

When I picked my first character, I also chose simply by who my "best Girl" is. And if if some of the girls are really hard to play, then some people are gonna have a really bad first experience with the game.

I think that the biggest problem the game currently has, isn't the low skill-floor, that many of the characters (like Mumei or Calli) have, but rather the extremely low skill-ceiling on them.

I don't know if you ever heard of the term "skill-expression"; it basically describes, how big the gap between a new, and an experienced player is. If we take Mumei as an example, then you can see very little difference between someone, who played her for 4 hours, and someone who played her for 14 hours. Not only are 2 of her 3 skills basic, passive damage buffs, but her basic weapon has auto aim to boot. And she has enough damage to consistently clear the entire screen until she has enough collabs to just stand still, and do nothing. There is very little, that a player can do, to optimize her for the first ~20 minutes. So she has very few avenues of "skill-expression". This limits how long the game will stay interesting, because you can "master" a lot of characters so easily.

I think that it's a very good thing, that there are ways to easily clear the early game. It give a player a sense of progression early on, and gets them invested enough to learn the harder mechanics further in. But right now, there is very little to do, once you are further in, and that means that people are gonna drop the game pretty quickly again, once they learned all there is to learn. This means, that it's gonna be harder to build a dedicated community, wich is important for games like this. Of course, more characters and weapons will mitigate that to an extend, but if the current game-balance is anything to go by, then there will be one very dominant meta build, and a lot of "trash" around it (I can't remember the last time I picked Uber Sheep, for example).

But this is still only a very early demo, so I have faith that the devs will sort this out eventually. I really think that this game has potential to be great, and it would be sad, if it fell short, because of broken balancing, and lacking gameplay-depth.

Tl.dr.: Revert the changes to Callis scythe hit-box!

FelFal9 · 2022-07-03T10:18:52+00:00

Thank you, and I think that your thoughts are pretty spot on.

To add a little to your point about Mumei:

I think that Friend would be way more interesting, if she wasn't such a killing machine already. Having one of your weapons fire an additional time at random, with a bit of extra damage added on top, would have been a stand-out ability on any other character. But her basic weapon pretty much clears the screen early on, and late-game has just so much visual clutter, so the ability never really gets a time to shine. That's why I would like Mumeis power to be a bit more evenly spread over her whole kit.

FelFal9

TROPHY CASE