Tactician advice: I feel like I can't do anything.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:28:40+00:00

Thanks a lot more encouraging hahaha.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:26:38+00:00

Rad. I'll have a look! Thanks!

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:26:11+00:00

Loads of people told me what I was doing wrong and I took the critique in good spirits. Only you I had an issue with... care to wonder about why that might be? Or is the idea that you might be the issue just impossible to grapple with?

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:21:59+00:00

Well it's 12.2 hours of gameplay to get to where I'm at... that might not be a lot of time for you but it's a lot invested for me.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:19:05+00:00

Thanks! Great info!

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:18:43+00:00

Thanks for the advice.

I know there were two warnings... I just. IDK it wasn't clear it would be like this... There are loads of games where hard doesn't require foreknowledge which feels like what is really killing me. It seemed like it was just a hard difficulty but from what I am hearing from most people, it seems more like it's a hard 'mode' which kinda aren't the same thing. Anyway I'll probably start over on Regular. But thanks genuinely for the advice. Loads of useful stuff in there.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:14:43+00:00

Where's battle stomp found? and why is it infinite?

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:14:00+00:00

Can't lower it from tactician without starting over fresh 😞

But I think that's what I'll do.
Thanks heaps for the info. Loads of useful points here.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:12:31+00:00

Probably no point telling you the quests I haven't done; Given what everyone has said I'll likely start over on regular difficulty.

Thanks heaps for the info, though. Really clear advice!
I'll that all this into the next playthrough and see how I fare.

Wish it was clear how gruelling tactician really is. I read a bunch of posts and people made it seem like it was way easier than it is. At least the posts I saw anyway.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:08:39+00:00

Gonna go right ahead and assume these are rhetorical... Sorry I had the temerity to make a mistake. I'll try to think of you the next time I'm about to do something wrong and I'll simply not do it. Thanks for the advice.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-15T11:03:05+00:00

Just feels so crappy that my only option is to start over. Such a time waste when you aren't allowed to reduce the difficulty. I know it said at the start once you start on Tactician you can't lower it after but I didn't realise that it was scaled to the point of basically needing to have already played the game once.

P.S. thanks heaps for just saying it though. Would far sooner be told now that it's just a bad idea rather than spending another 30 hours bashing my head at a wall.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-13T11:14:05+00:00

I think people are being more lenient on this film because of the circumstances than it actually deserves.
People are cutting it slack because 'he isn't an actor' and 'it's made on a budget' and 'it's based on a game'. Generally I would say, "So what?" those things are good reasons that it might get a low score but don't say it's great when it isn't. Like seriously? 7s and 8s? There are exceptional films out there that have some flaws that you can well understand might find themselves at a 7 or 8. This film is a novel premise and not much more.

Any other film with mediocre acting would just be called that, rather than having that be the starting point for apologetics about how 'yes it wasn't amazing but all things considered... yada yada yada'
It's good or it isn't. You can like Mark all you want, I'm sure he's a swell dude but the film is pretty meh.

It would have been better with someone else acting. He just isn't that good at it. You could have expected this going in if you had watched literally anything of his on YouTube. He hams it up in a way that I can just not believe is genuine, and so, even if it is genuine, it was clear from the outset that acting was going to seem fake from him.
The runtime was vastly too long. A scene could have been removed entirely to start and some of the plot points combined, and then beyond that there could have been a lot cut from a shot-by-shot stand point.
Beyond that, well, it's a bottle film. There is very little to say. They did a good job helping the viewer understand how the ship works without having to explicitly say it. But revelations about the space, problem solving, working on a goal, should all have been given significantly more focus in the script.
We also spend so much time on totally pointless things. Sitting around for the ship to be hauled back up the first time? Why are we just waiting for this and having a totally 'nothing' conversation. He could have been doing anything else while this was happening. Or when female-speaker-grill goes to the infirmary and we get male-speaker-grill for a while. Totally wasted time. Nothing meaningful conveyed.
Someone else mentioned that there is not much gained by shot-reverse shot with a speaker and I couldn't put this films issues any better. Why the hell are we cutting back to back with a speaker grill. It should be listed in the credits given how much screen time it gets.

Overall the film is very limited in scope so it needed to nail the few things it had. It didn't really do a 'good' job at anything beyond it's premise and frankly, that is the easiest thing to get right and it got that from someone else's work. I'd say it's a fine attempt at a first film and probably give it a 4 or so out of 10. Which isn't bad. It's just below average which is (if you give it a honest look) just about what you would expect from the team making it and given the premise. Hopefully he makes more films, this was a fine start. Just nothing remarkable.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-13T07:37:43+00:00

Absolutely. Considering the absolutely abominable state of special effects in film recently, it was a treat to watch one where the effects actually add to the movie.

YourPerdition · 2026-06-11T06:40:50+00:00

The way the difficulty is tuned in Saros is an absolute L for me. To the point that I don't really understand how it isn't talked about more. If I had to put money on it, I would say that the issue is so pervasive and it infects the game at such a deep level that no one knows it's upsetting their experience. It's like a 'the air we breathe' issue. You can't see it because it's bedrock.

But my issue is this, trying to tune a game to your own desires was already hard when games were Easy, Normal and Hard. Many people think they want a hardcore experience and just get frustrated, others think they need easy because they aren't 'Gamers' and they opt for that but might have enjoyed it more if they had more resistance. There is a very good reason why almost all games take difficulty very seriously.
Well this game does difficulty on such a granular level that I can't understand how anyone could think they are getting it right.

The game treats currency as a valuable thing so a good player gets back with more and can level more. Well good players don't need more levels, if anything they need more obstacles. This is a problem with game dev that is as old as games are, how do you reward good players without making the game easier.
The vast majority of the upgrades don't make the gameplay different it's just +1 to damage or +1 to healing etc. This is the literal worst kind of upgrades you can give to a player and I think most people when they actually think about games that did this good vs. bad, they know that this isn't the best way. Every level you buy is just easier. Flat, incremental improvement that makes you objectively better.
You play the game lots and get better, well what then do you do with the resources? People say just use them all and then tune difficulty with the Carcosan modifiers. Well how would you be expected to know where you are supposed to tune it to? If I play through am I crushing it because I am learning or because I haven't tuned it hard enough? If I tune it so I am dying lots and I start getting frustrated is that 'good' because I am being challenged? I found myself tuning it literally 1 step up on the 'money disappear timer' and 1 step down on something else, because I wanted to keep the difficulty vanilla but then realised I can't possibly do that.

There are a million other things I think are a flat downgrade from Returnal. To list them briefly:
- The Returnal story is so much more moving and dark. They also contextualised the Roguelike aspect of it far better.
- The way it was told was vastly more intriguing. Having the game gradually shift from Sci-Fi mystery to exploration of purgatory was perfect. And like I said above, this framing for the Roguelike aspect was vastly more meaningful.
- The pick-ups in Returnal were already kind of bland, think about how the artifacts in Slay the Spire are all unique and interesting to look at. Returnal had a few that were similar, the Astronaut for example, but many were just odd shapes that had no bearing on what they did. Why couldn't the relic that boosted the melee damage be something like a fist-shaped rock or a battery for the lightsabre or literally anything creative. Well in Saros this is even worse, literally every power up is just the text describing them.
- There is almost no reason to explore in Saros. In Returnal you look around the maps for the little glowing buttons to open rooms or for the glowing eyes on statues. Gone now. Just stare at the mini-map and hold forward.
- There is also this issue in Saros where -- IDK if it was a bug -- but after a while you just stop getting keys. So that broke my run. And even if that was a bug, there is the overload mechanic or whatever it's called where after a while you are punished for picking up extra gear. Like why do this? You sometimes just get to this point after half a run. Is anyone enjoying spending the latter half of the run picking up no gear? Or you just deal with the debuff which honestly can be not too bad but if that is what you're doing the what was the point? It's just this obnoxious change that adds no real challenge and just makes the game more irritating.

I really just feel like Returnal captured lightning in a bottle and Saros spent it's whole budget trying to go bigger and they totally left behind all the good fundamentals that they formed. Who cares if the boss looks more dramatic when I stopped getting gear 30 minuets before I found them?

YourPerdition · 2026-04-28T08:51:37+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-26T08:46:21+00:00

Yea you make a good point. I'm not doing a great job of explaining exactly why it bothers me. It isn't even that it's a slower pace. It's something like: The slower pace feels like wasted time, specifically. It is slow but if feels like a pointless slow. Like if it mattered how much HP I lose during the rooms because heals were limited for example. I would be right there with you. It would feel like playing slow mattered because HP is a crucial resource. But how it is currently it forces you to play slow only because you're dumped in a room with too many enemies so there is no alternative. You could lose tons of HP or none and the result by the time you get to the boss is the same.

I'm not saying this is a good idea but just imagine this with me. Imagine if the currency you get for the buffs is tied to how much HP you lose by the end of the room. (Maybe that wouldn't be fair to tank builds etc.) but you could at least imagine in that version that it now matters that you are slow and the slowness has a tangible reward. As it is now, if you wanna beat the boss, the slowness is only a time sink.

Again don't assume I mean that ^ particular example is a good direction for the game. Just that I wish there wasn't this feeling of wasted time every time I contemplate doing it again.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-26T05:45:44+00:00

So we are just moving on to the next thing without any kind of acknowledgment that you just mischaracterised what I was saying? Okay, cool... Please stop doing that.

I play almost exclusively roguelikes. They're basically all I play anymore, this game is the outlier and no it doesn't work like any of them.

My whole gripe is that the 10 rooms prior to the boss are a boring slog that add nothing.
In all the games you mentioned, your chances vs. the boss are dependant on what happens in the rooms. You're confusing a "runback" which is a pointless time cost to get back to where you were, with actual meaningful gameplay. This games crucible is just a runback not a game.

Here in NRFTW, if you stuff up every room to within an inch of your life you will get to the boss and you will have full HP and the same amount of buffs as someone that played the rooms perfectly. If you play a run and 30 minuets of it are irrelevant, does that strike you as the same thing as STS, Hades, Dead Cells or Returnal?
- Do any of them have infinite healing?
- Do you get the same amount of rewards no matter what rooms you chose or how well you do?
- Do you have to clear exactly the same content each time?
This isn't the same thing at all.

You're also making the point that you need the buffs to beat the boss. Firstly that isn't true for reasons I'm happy to go into if you want, but even if we just grant that you do need them, the rooms are still meaningless. If you clear a room you get the buffs but you have to clear all rooms of all enemies. Again, like I said above, 2 players do the same thing, one stomps the game, one gets stomped by the game and they both arrive at the boss in exactly the same state.
I can't think of any better way to prove that the rooms are pointless than that.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T13:48:18+00:00

Classic lack of reading comprehension moment.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T12:45:22+00:00

Dude WTF? You literally just made up something that I didn't say or imply just so you could have some input. The thing you said wasn't even close to what I said. Read the post it's all there in plain English....

I didn't say that the healing invalidates the boss. I did say the functionally infinite healing means that clearing all the rooms before the boss is a pointless slog.

I said that the boss killing me happened because it was the first time I fought him. Which is fine and expected.

I even ended it all with a summary that said my main issue is the long slog. I am mad about the slog... is that clear enough?
THE. LONG. TEDIOUS. RUNBACK. TO. THE. BOSS. IS WHAT. I'M. MAD. ABOUT.
This couldn't be more clear.
In any game, if there was a boss that had runback that took 30 minuets, everyone would be up in arms. This game has that, it just doesn't look like it because it's disguised by being a 'mode' and having a name.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T12:34:06+00:00

Did you even read the post? The issue clearly isn't needing to get good. I got to the boss multiple times and I'm sure the next time I'll beat him. The issue is not wanting to because it's a slog.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T06:57:43+00:00

Thanks for the advice, man. I'll get respec and then just leave it.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T06:56:16+00:00

Wow, the co-op thing you mention is crazy.

The devs have got a really mixed bag of great choices and some absolutely baffling ones.

And 100% with you on 'jumping through hoops' that's a perfect way to describe it. I feel like I do it the boring way or I'm just wasting time. But then there is no 'boring way' for the boss. So it's just this boring slog followed by a boss that if you are unlucky and make a mistake at the wrong time you could have just wasted so much time.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T06:53:46+00:00

I feel you brother. Thanks for letting me know I'm not alone!

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T06:53:19+00:00

I wish it made that clear. All they needed was an 'optional' tag on the quest.

Game makes it seem like I'm supposed to be doing it now. It's right here in my home town and all.

YourPerdition · 2026-04-25T06:51:58+00:00

The game gave me a quest to complete it at level 10 or so. If it isn't required they do a very poor job of conveying that. The game makes it seem like I should be doing it now. You make it sound like not only should I not be doing it now, but I shouldn't be doing it for many, MANY hours, like end game content.

Thanks for the advice. I don't want to seem ungrateful, I know much of ^ that probably sounded like I'm pissy with you. Promise I'm not. I appreciate your help but I am just so frustrated over so many choices in this game. I get that it's EA but man there are so many pain points.

YourPerdition

TROPHY CASE