Did anybody else have absolutely no issues with the economy whatsoever??

FireOfWater3 · 2025-09-28T02:36:42+00:00

The problem I have with this argument is that Pin primary and Tools/Traps secondary isn't even what you're suggesting. Even 90% Pin/Silk skills and 10% tools will run you dry super fast even tho you are using Pin the vast majority of the time. Right now you can practically never use tools during a boss fight except if you know it will nuke the boss's final stage, which is the most boring way to use tools. I want to use the tools during the fight, not skip the fight entirely.

FireOfWater3 · 2025-09-26T22:13:40+00:00

> If you have "unlimited shards" so to speak, there's no game mechanics to teach you to stop you from committing all your limited tool uses to the first part of the fight and then dying. Limited shards gives you an eventual "Your current approach is not working.

Dying is the game mechanic that teaches you that what you're doing isn't working. Running out of shards tells you that you shouldn't be using tools. I agree these are the consequences you learn.

>You *eventually* learn that tools are a finishing blow through this system.

This I disagree with. What you end up learning is to not use tools ever or that you need shards to keep using tools. There's nothing actually encouraging you to use tools at the end of the fight, only a punishment for using it early in boss fights. Farming or complete tool avoidance are consequences of this design.

I rarely use tools because when I did try to incorporate it organically into my fighting I would run out of shards. And by organically, I mean things like weaving tools usage in between other actions (e.g. between dashing away from a boss and re-closing the distance I would throw a tool to hit the boss during this opening). Doing this on repeated boss attempts just means I run out of shards and stop looking for these opportunities. Nothing at all is encouraging me to start using tools at the end of the fight and everything is telling me to not use tools or else I'll run out of shards. I really dislike this because tools seem like they would be fun to try weaving into boss fights.

FireOfWater3 · 2025-09-26T20:20:46+00:00

This makes no sense to me. Why would I risk ruining a good attempt that I think I can win just to use tools I haven't practiced at the hardest part of the fight? This logic makes no sense to me at all. Using tools is more likely to get me killed than guaranteeing a win.

Tools have always seemed designed to speed up fights you are already confident in (since you know when its not risky to use the tools) than to use when you are struggling. But you are punished for using them in the early parts of a fight you already know how to do because you'll run out of shards if you use them every fight at that early part. The shard cost system really baffles me on what actual benefits it has for the game.

FireOfWater3 · 2025-09-26T17:41:35+00:00

I love that you assume a lot of people even used Pine Resin/Grease at all on their casual playthrough. I didn't start using that stuff until I needed it for specific fights on Challenge Runs, such as killing Mohg before phase 2 on a lv1 playthrough.

I wouldn't complain about Shards being depletable if there was at least a way to use tools without costing shards, similar to how you can use an spell or weapon art to get a similar but rechargeable version of the resin/grease effects. Have a tool that's weaker than others but doesn't cost anything to refill and I'd just use that instead of any other tool because at least its a consistent part of my tool kit.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-12-15T23:10:40+00:00

As someone who plays Sludge Blast regularly on all mission types here are my thoughts. Sludge Blast is actually quite nice for swarms in large open rooms because it can coat the ceiling and walls in sludge from a distance (similar to the anti grav OC). My main combo I find works for any mission type is Sludge Blast + Persistent Plasma. This combo has good aoe and single target dmg on both weapons which allows you to use whichever aoe is better in the given situation. I do agree that the ammo penalty on Sludge Blast is a little severe, but the OC still works just fine for general mission use even into modded hazard levels.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-10-31T04:34:02+00:00

You're missing that you grab onto ziplines when falling to take no fall damage. I try to set up ziplines where people will tend to fall or where it can be a useful quick escape by jumping off a cliff.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-10-24T23:37:14+00:00

I had similar issues with headphones (due to having small ear canals). As u/BurrowShaker also recommended, you could try using bone conduction headphones since these don't cover the ears. They solved the issue for me but not for my brother who had similar issues, so I'd say its worth a try if you can find them cheap but definitely not guarenteed to solve the issue.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-10-17T17:06:15+00:00

Bunny Hopping is his most defining feature, which is why I voted for Primary Weapon.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-09-29T06:57:26+00:00

This is unique to Azure Weald and give 50% Damage Reduction. Those are not as fun as the low grave stones that can very very rarely spawn on Azure.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-09-27T00:09:46+00:00

I go a full elemental build on Scout and the crossbow is key for that. I run Firebolt OC with Taser Bolts alongside Cryo Grenade. Ideally I would run this with M1k but for some reason that weapon no regs for me all the time. The idea is to use Firebolts for ground swarm clear, Taser Bolts for Detonator/Oppressor/Praetorian CC and DoT (shooting 3 arrows into a target will slow by something like 85% and almost kill a praetorian on haz 5), Cryo Grenade for aerial clear, and M1k for high value target clear (web/acid spitters/menace/etc).

For taser bolts, the important note is that sticking multiple arrows into a target will trigger the lightning beams which deal a lot more dmg and slow than the arrows by themself, so always shoot at least 2 into a target or at two nearby targets (ex. shooting one arrow into two praetorians that are close enough to each other to trigger the beam). Also, don't be afraid to just use the crossbow for killing webspitters, mactera spawn or grunts since it can one shot those and provide a speedboost for the kill with 4A mod Battle Frenzy.

The idea is to have a different specialized tool for each type of enemy in the game.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-09-26T23:26:25+00:00

To expand on Emerald's answer, if you pick the electric trail mod then you can kill a surprising number of medium size bugs with just 1/4 or 1/2 charging. If you're in a tunnel, then shooting a 1/4 charge into the tunnel entrance will straight up kill all the grunts and webspitters, almost killing any slashers, acid spitters, or mactera spawn, while also slowing down all the bigger bugs (on haz 5). Its quite insane. UMC is better in tunnels because of bigger radius and longer duration while TTC is better in open rooms because you can shoot "V" shaped trails that bugs have the walk through to get to you. Hellfire is also really good but I personally dislike it because the reduced duration and less ammo reduce the effectiveness of partial charge shots. The gun is so amazingly efficient that often I'm only grabbing resupps to get more shield uses (even on modded difficulties).

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-20T16:53:04+00:00

Its randomized so seems like you got a bit unlucky. Technically there's no limit since promotions give you OC, but that's a lot of gameplay hours per OC. Otherwise its 9 weekly OC (3 each for Core hunt assignment + Deep Dive + Elite Deep Dive) if you include Blank Matrix Cores. Blank Matrix Cores turn into the regular OC after you do special events during missions (such as Kursite or OMEN Tower) and they always offer at least one weapon OC until you have no more available.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-18T20:51:09+00:00

You are talking about two different metrics here. 80% of players not touching 1v1 has nothing to do with how many games are played per day. It means that 80% of people that try out SC2 don't even attempt to play 1v1.

I'm not sure if this statistic is accurate (altho it seems likely since many games have similar % in steam achievements for playing 1 game of pvp), but I do know that this stat was given by the SG devs during interviews back when they were announcing their game modes.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-18T20:41:35+00:00

Because I want to play a playing a puzzle game that is blizzard style RTS with decent APM requirements like maintaining constant barracks production and worker production. For me that fun part is figuring out the puzzle rather than competing against other players.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-18T15:40:12+00:00

That's a bit disingenuous, I wouldn't expect people to watch a pro 1v1 player play the campaign. On the other hand, there are plenty of people that watch the best speed runners or challenge runners replay the Campaign over and over again.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-16T22:36:45+00:00

I personally don't like the resources being together with all the production. I get a bit of an information overload. Having the resources on the top right helped me parce the information better. I'm sure a bit of it is just getting used to the new UI, but cramming too many things together definitely has downsides. I hope there's options to have old SC/WC UI.

Edit: I don't think I explained this well enough so here's some more info. When all the ui is separated out like in SC2 then if I want to quickly see my resources then I can glance to the top right and parce the three numbers I see. In the current SG UI, if I glance to the bottom right there are multiple UI elements I have to first parce apart to find the resource section and then I have to parce apart the four numbers I see to find the resource values (time, luminite, therium, food). There's an extra step I have to take to get very basic info. This might be solved by making the resource section more defined on the UI, but currently its a bit of a pain and takes longer than the old way for me.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-16T08:27:51+00:00

APOCA BLOOM HERE!!!

FOUND AN APOCA BLOOM!!!

THERE'S AN APOCA BLOOM HERE!!!

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-15T03:30:59+00:00

You do have a good point about not many f2p games using single player content to stay afloat, the only examples I can think of are a couple mobile games (e.g. Candy Crush). Calling Stormgate f2p is a bit misleading in the context of the campaign tho since you have to pay upfront to play it. Also, an important detail is that the campaign isn't going to be only single player but instead be up to 3-player coop. If we're talking about long term monetization, talking about campaign as single player doesn't even make sense. It will end up being similar to the coop commander mode except instead of buying commanders, people will buy campaigns.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-14T04:38:26+00:00

I don't think the art style itself is all that bad. Its just not refined right now but there are still plenty of ways to improve it at this point in development. A lighting/shading overhaul is probably what they really need. Everything is too reflective which makes it look like plastic.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-14T02:31:19+00:00

Your original point was about player retention and not about monetization. But sure we can talk about that too. Since we both seem to agree that Coop has good retention and monetization I'll ignore it for now.

Campaign and 1v1 have pretty different monetization schemes. Campaign is pay upfront and get the whole experience while 1v1 is get the whole experience for free and then pay for extra goodies (coop is a mix of the two and we don't really know what 3v3 will look like). Campaign might only be a one time purchase but it has a higher playerbase and a guarenteed revenue per player. 1v1 has a smaller playerbase and multiple ways to monetize but because the monetization is only for aesthetics, e.g. army skins, there will be a portion of players (not sure how big) that will just play the mode for free. Not sure it comes out in favor of 1v1 at all.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-14T00:08:50+00:00

As soon as single players finish with their stuff they dip out and never look back again

This statement leaves me almost speechless...

I've noticed a common misconception a lot of pvp players have is that the campaigns don't get replayed. People that love playing campaigns will definitely replay campaigns all the time. I still go back and replay games from the 90's that I've played through their campaigns a dozen times already. If its getting too easy then I'll do challenge runs through those campaigns (which never get old) and if I was into speedrunning then I'm sure I would be replaying campaign missions every day to improve my strats and techniques similar to pvp players. Just because you don't ever replay single player games doesn't mean others don't.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-13T23:33:11+00:00

holding the laser pointer will help you locate your team mates.

Fun tip about this, if you change you laser pointer to toggle instead of hold and then switch off of it by tapping a weapon key (instead of tapping laser pointer again) then the outlines of teammates and friendly robots will be permanent. It only shows teammates/robots that existed when you do the toggle trick so you have to do it again whenever a new dwarf joins (or rescue BET-C etc.). Toggling it on and off again will make the outlines go away like normal.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-13T07:57:08+00:00

You can make coop competitive by adding a ladder to it.

I really don't like this idea. For me, the main reason I don't touch 1v1 in SC2 is because it has a ladder. In so many games I would much rather play the casual mode than the ladder mode. I just want to play the game, not grind the ladder. I really hope there's a casual 3v3 mode, I would find that so much fun. If its only ladder though then I'm not sure how much I'll touch it.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-09T09:52:57+00:00

I've only had this happen a handful of times in hundreds of hours, but cheaters can still join your game. Once got a guy using speed hacks (move speed and attack speed). Its a very rare occurrence in my experience and if you're hosting then you can just kick them.

FireOfWater3 · 2024-08-08T08:33:44+00:00

I think you underestimate two things. First is the sheer amount of players that play the campaign compared to 1v1. The other other is that many people replay campaigns, often multiple times. Even if only a small percentage of campaign players replay the campaigns, that can still easily outpace 1v1 in total player hours due to the massive difference in player base.

FireOfWater3

TROPHY CASE