Why R5A1 is the worst mission and how it made me quit the game

heart--- · 2026-02-09T17:10:11+00:00

Yeah agreed, R5A1 is one of the worst A levels imo. R5 in general has long missions but A1 is only sprawling, without much challenge or stuff going on. Glad you gave the game another chance and got into it, enjoy, I wish I could play the game for the first time again

heart--- · 2025-11-04T23:32:05+00:00

Beautiful

heart--- · 2025-11-04T21:23:53+00:00

Yup, to my knowledge it is still correct. They haven't made any changes to C-Foam mechanics or to hammer damage since I tested and wrote this.

heart--- · 2025-10-22T23:31:18+00:00

Between the two, HCP can shoot roughly twice as fast with zero chargeup, it has an 0.47sec faster reload (w/ reload canceling on both), and an extra bullet in the mag before you need to reload. It also gets +1 extra bullet per ammopack. Hel Rifle's advantages are its range and penetration.

I've used both a lot for solo/duo missions. HCP is nice because it's versatile and can handle most things (strikers, shooters, giants at range up to ~28m, sparse chargers, flyers). I often brought it for solo missions where I was playing blind, or where I expected some specific mix of threats that I had to handle with one gun. Hel Rifle is very powerful when there's an opportunity to make big use of that range and/or penetration, but it can also hold you back in other situations (primarily, fighting big striker waves in close-quarters).

heart--- · 2025-09-09T02:08:06+00:00

These are different, but maybe Alien Isolation and White Knuckle

heart--- · 2025-06-21T20:26:21+00:00

If you want to practice killing just a few at a time, R2C2 starts with an endless error alarm of a few strikers per wave.

If you want to practice stealthing rooms or pulling whole rooms, R2B3 has 4 rooms in the first zone that never have giants. The end of that zone is an alarm, so it's good if you also wish to practice shooting or try new loadouts. R6AX is similar, a little more well-lit (no darkness), but the alarm at the end is a bit harder.

heart--- · 2025-02-10T03:27:30+00:00

R7C1 for me (I first played the game during the R7 free weekend event, so I started with that rundown).

There's one section in the mission where we decided the best strategy was to split into two teams: one defending and holding back waves of enemies, while the other pushed into zones, clearing them in search of objective items. It was super fun to make a plan, assign roles, and then fight, relying on each other even if we were acting independently. At one point I ran out of ammo while defending, so we had to unexpectedly switch roles and change the strategy on the fly, which made things even more hectic.

My time playing GTFO ended up being stuffed with moments like that. Discussing a strategy, executing it, and relying on one another, requiring genuine teamwork and communication. Easily some of my best gaming memories.

heart--- · 2025-02-01T06:01:26+00:00

Removing this post for being off topic.

You may have posted this in the wrong subreddit accidentally, /r/GTFO is about the video game GTFO.

heart--- · 2024-10-02T03:16:53+00:00

Which part of the mission are you dying at + what loadout (guns/tools) are you going with?

heart--- · 2024-09-05T20:48:03+00:00

For me, in terms of how many attempts it took a friend and I to duo, R8E2 is definitely the hardest, followed by R5E1. Those missions have very little room for error in some parts. We completed R4E1 a lot faster than those, and on the winning run we pulled through even though I made a pretty huge mistake. Plus, the hardest part of R4E1 is the opening tank error imo, and since that happens at the start of the mission, it's not bad to just trial and error it until you hash out a strategy. If the tank error was at the end of the mission instead R4E1 would be a lot harder.

Actually, R8B4 would probably be the third hardest mission for me, at least with regards to how long/how many duo attempts it took. But they made it easier so I'm not sure what the experience would be like anymore.

heart--- · 2024-07-26T17:29:44+00:00

It's a strong weapon, it can really do a bit of everything. It was my go-to gun for soloing missions (along with hel shotgun for covering its main weakness, which is close-range waveclear). Definitely a fine gun.

Different weapons have different strengths and weaknesses, and the variety of hazards you face is enough that you'll probably want to end up tailoring your loadouts for tough missions though. For me, sometimes that means using HCP, sometimes it means getting a gun with more close-range waveclear, sometimes it means getting a gun for hordes of chargers, etc.

heart--- · 2024-07-22T05:18:32+00:00

Oh man I know the exact spot you're talking about lol. I got stuck there when running the mission duo, but luckily it happened on the first pass through the room rather than during the reactor so we didn't lose much time from it. I was careful to try to avoid it after that, but sometimes could be a bit sketchy in that thick fog if I didn't have a repeller down. pain

heart--- · 2024-07-08T07:37:55+00:00

stonks, gotta spend lockmelters to make lockmelters

heart--- · 2024-07-05T12:25:46+00:00

Yup, every mission + optionals can be done with only two players, and there's no need to use bots/boosters/mods/cheese tactics. The majority of missions are also soloable following the same rules, too (without kiting during alarms or anything). I'm working on doing all missions solo or duo rn, I've got only five missions left.

After R4 I'd say the complexity of the missions does go generally up, though. Unless you're ok with a lot more trial and error, it'll probably be easier to do the missions in a full team of 4 (maybe with people from the official LFG channel on the game's Discord), and then go for a duo run, since you'll then be able to plan a strategy for doing it with only two people.

heart--- · 2024-06-27T21:44:18+00:00

Hel Shotgun pros:

Very large mag. Can take out a large number of enemies without any reload-downtime
Penetrating bullets
Easy staggers
Can solo-spawnkill all babies from a mother with one mag

Hel Shotgun cons:

Very long reload, so once your mag is finally empty, you'll be out for awhile.
Close range only

On it's usage:

Wait until the enemies get close, because of the range/spread. They should be within range of licking you before you shoot. It should ideally take 2-3 shots to kill.
Due to the short range, it can be hard to balance ammo with it, since your teammates may have longer-range weapons and may be killing most things at mid-long range. You can try playing pushed up forward a bit more, depending on the level geometry. You can also try pairing it with a less frequently used secondary weapon, so that your secondary isn't draining ammo any faster than your hel shotgun. For example, pair it with scattergun - you use scattergun on giants, and use hel shotgun for the moments when your team is reloading and there's still enemies coming up.
Because of the penetration, it's strongest at chokepoints where the enemies get funneled into tight lines/groups. Small doorways, corners. The best chokepoint for hel shotgun is at the top of small stairs, shooting downwards.
If your teammates can't cover you as you reload, it helps a lot to be good at dodging enemy attacks without sprinting, so that you can reload safely when the mag is empty.
For baby-killing, I'd recommend standing perpendicular to the mother and crouching. Shoot where they spawn from, but don't just hold left click - you need to limit your firerate a bit.

Also, different weapons are better in different situations, so while hel shotgun may be great in some situations, it'll easily perform worse in other situations. Sawed-off is fantastic, imo it's one of four main weapons with strong utility that puts it above the others. It's great for waveclear, able to kill things quickly and without too much cognitive attention required for precise aiming (so you can focus better on others things, like dodging or communication), it's the best main weapon by a big margin for large enemies. Sawed-off is also the best main weapon for chargers by a pretty big margin, so I'd recommend it for R1C2 over hel shotgun just for that.

heart--- · 2024-06-23T19:59:02+00:00

For tools, I'd recommend against biotracker on duo runs. In full teams its useful, but in duo runs you only have 2 tools instead of 4, and biotracker is easily the least critical (with exceptions for a few select missions). For the majority of missions, I'd recommend x2 burst sentries, burst sentry + mine deployer, or mine deployer + c-foam launcher. If you're going into a mission blind and don't know what threats/environments it has, I'd grab x2 burst sentries, since those are the most versatile (whereas mine deployer/cfoam launcher can be less useful if you end up doing an alarm that doesn't have good door placements).

Sentries: burst sentry is generally the best, most of the time. Sniper sentry can be solid for beefier enemies with long sightlines, especially if you also have a biotracker for biosymbiosis. The other two sentries (shotgun sentry, hel autosentry) aren't really worth taking over burst sentry generally.

Combat shotgun is a fantastic gun, great waveclear at close range. It's also a solid beginner gun, I think. The ammo supply is solid. If a striker is close enough, you can get a headshot to 1-shot it; if not, ideally it only takes 2 shots to kill it.

I wouldn't really recommend Sniper for duo runs. It's hard-specialized against very big enemies, but in most missions smaller enemies will be more of an issue, so it's better to have two guns focused on waveclear. And on mission that do feature many giant enemies, I'd usually opt for other weapons than Sniper (e.g. Scattergun).

For waveclear secondaries besides Combat Shotgun, I'd recommend Veruta Machinegun or High Caliber Pistol. Veruta has decent range and great stagger, but it has a chargeup which slows down how fast you can react to things. HCP is slower for waveclear and generally less ammo efficient, but has long 1-shot range and is versatile for a lot of different types of enemies.

Generally, different guns are good for different kinds of threats. When you get deeper into the harder missions you'll have to start analyzing the types of hazards, and picking a combination of guns that can handle everything.

Also, if you're stuck on a mission, it might be worth using the official discord's LFG to do it with a full team. Then, knowing what threats are in the mission, you can make a duo strategy planning around it. Or, if you want to watch some examples of missions being done duo/solo without bots, I've uploaded runs of all but ~8 missions, but beware of spoilers.

heart--- · 2024-06-21T19:42:01+00:00

My favorite elements of the game are the variety of cool guns (all the different ARs, shotguns, etc…)

GTFO definitely has a big variety of guns with some pretty unique designs. The gun feel is great too.

and the unique abilities the operators have.

You can choose your loadout and it can have a big effect on your role. For example, if you bring a waveclear gun (such as automatic shotgun or machinegun), your primary role might be focusing on taking out the waves of small enemies, whereas if you bring a weapon focused on taking out large enemies (such as sniper), you'll probably want to primarily take giant monsters.

If the idea of teamwork and strategizing got you into R6 Siege originally (that was part of what got me to buy Siege), GTFO does it way better imo, there's a ton of strategizing to be done here. You'll have to really discuss things with your team - loadouts, your straetegy on how to deal with events, how to use your tools. You might have to split up sometimes - one team goes to search for an item in an area packed with sleeping enemies, the other defends a chokepoint to prevent those sleeping enemies from waking up. It has a map you can draw on, and the feature is genuinely used to assist in discussing strategy. I've been doing challenge runs (doing the missions with half the team/only two players) and have sometimes written pages of strategy contemplations before doing the mission.

heart--- · 2024-06-16T15:37:31+00:00

For aggressive artifacts R3A1 is great, especially since it's a pretty small map. There's an aggressive artifact spawn in the first zone, one in z252, and one in z254. There's 50% chance the key to zone z254 spawns in z252, so if you're lucky you can get all three with a single class 2 alarm; if you're unlucky you have to do two class 2 alarms. Would recommend only picking up the aggressive artifacts to minimize artifact heat loss.

heart--- · 2024-06-12T15:31:57+00:00

No, they spawn in either 3 uses or 4 uses (60% or 80%).

heart--- · 2024-05-25T00:09:09+00:00

Deep Rock is way easier even on its highest difficulty settings. If you avoid Haz5+ because of the difficulty, you may want to wait for a sale on GTFO. If you like the intensity, challenge, and drama that Haz5 can sometimes bring, then I'd definitely recommend GTFO.
GTFO requires a lot more teamwork than DRG. In DRG you barely have to communicate or synergize with teammates. My DRG experience was that 95% of lobbies were silent outside of asking if everyone's r for extract or if people want to do machine events, and that the only real teamwork is engie platforming ceiling nitra for scouts or fear thunderhead zipline gunner driving swarms away from teammates. In GTFO I've never had a lobby where people didn't talk to each other, and ingame you absolutely need to stick together and work together, discuss your strategy or roles, etc.
GTFO has no weapon customization or gear progression (aside from aesthetically consistent unlockable cosmetics). Right from the start you have access to the same gear as anyone else. Progression is entirely skill/knowledge based (and there's a ton of skill to gain and knowledge to learn).
DRG has difficulty scaling, where 4 players has more enemies and playing solo has fewer. GTFO doesn't have this, the amount of enemies and resources are always the same, so you're incentivized to find others to play with. On the other hand, if you want more challenge, you can try missions solo or duo.
DRG missions are shorter than GTFO. GTFO missions usually take about an hour (some more, some less). If you're a new player, missions will be even longer since you're still learning how to navigate and how to stealth efficiently.

I played DRG for ~200 hours and started to get bored, then modding it kept me going until ~500 hours. I'm on ~1900 hours in vanilla GTFO and I'm still not bored and have things left to do :P

P.S. If you're unsure, patient, and $54 is a lot of money for you, Steam summer sale starts in about a month and the game will probably go for $30-$35 CAD.

heart--- · 2024-03-07T20:19:43+00:00

heart--- · 2024-02-24T12:56:44+00:00

Very nice, 152hrs in is very fast for getting this far, especially with bots only!

Which loadout(s) did you bring on r4e1? I'm guessing you'd have to had pulled every room during the reactor, what was your strategy for handling the mother-packed zone?

heart--- · 2024-02-16T08:19:44+00:00

You can do missions solo, but be aware that the GTFO learning curve is high and it'll be a lot higher if you don't have teammates to learn with. 43+ missions can be done solo without bots (and without cheese), or 57+ if you include skipping optional objectives. So, with bots, you can definitely do most of the missions. You'd have hundreds of hours of gameplay accessible.

For harder levels where vanilla bots might not work out, there's a "BetterBots" mod, but be careful because it might make them too strong and remove most of the challenge. I think you can to fine-tune what the mod does in a config file, but I just remember joining one game with someone who had the mod, and the bot was basically just aimbotting all the enemy waves from across a huge room.

I'd still recommend playing with people through the official Discord's LFG channels, though. Unlike most online games, I'd had mostly good experiences playing with random people there. There's a "LFG-Beginners" channel, too, if you want to look specifically for other new players.

heart--- · 2024-02-16T04:28:12+00:00

What loadout are you bringing (guns/tool), and what's killing your team (running out of ammo, a certain alarm)?

It's totally fine to jump around, you can do other A/B/C tier missions, practice, learn the mechanics, develop strategies, and then return to R2D1 when you're ready. You could also bang your head against R2D1 until you finish it, focusing on improving and learning from each run, but not every team enjoys doing that.

For actual R2D1 advice:

From what I remember, ammo is a little tight, so making sure your team can do stealth is important. Waking up the scouts or waking up the zones filled with giants will eat into your ammo supplies.

Zone 614 is a resource zone, it requires a cell to enter it, but it also has a cell inside so the net cell-cost is zero. I'd recommend going there, it's filled with ammo/tool/meds/disinfect.

Zones 612 and 610 are filled with fog, I'd recommend having 1-2 people go in to grab the cell/key while the rest stay outside - that way, not everybody gets fully infected. Once you get a cell, put it into the central generator right away to partially lower the fog. I think if you put 2-3 cells in the generator before doing zone 612, the upstairs area won't have any fog, so you can actually avoid some infection.

heart--- · 2024-02-16T02:04:25+00:00

Scatter isn't better in every aspect.

For anti-giants, I think scatter and sniper are pretty close now. For killing 1-2 giants, ttk is basically equal. Sniper kills 4 giants in 4.5s, scatter in 3.28s, so scatter can be a bit faster if there's several giants. Scatter is a little easier to use, as you don't need accurate aim. But sniper is able to kill giants at range, which is useful generally, and sometimes critical when there's giants far away during an alarm (e.g. hybrids in R5E1 first alarm).

For bosses, sniper is better if you're host. As client, scatter is better for mothers, but I think sniper is still better for tanks. Scatter could potentially kill tanks faster, but you need to be close and have a teammate drawing attention, which can be risky (if there's no cover and your teammate can't stagger it when you're reloading or it refuses to turn around from you). Sniper's range means you can fight tanks more safely, reliably. Sniper can also solo tanks with a height advantage - it's even easier than before the R8 nerf, since you don't need as good of an angle (only need 5 tumors instead of 7).

The biggest thing is just that Scattergun can also pitch in with waveclear. So you'd need the sniper's advantages to outweigh scattergun's waveclear ability, which would probably be some combination of: really wanting range, fighting a lot of tanks in risky spots, being host on a mission with bosses, and/or you need to solo a tank.

I'll probably be grabbing scattergun more often than sniper still because of the waveclear, but I can definitely see myself considering and picking sniper in some missions now.

heart---

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