I feel like I'm missing something

[Crispy]

I want to enjoy this game, but something seems to not be clicking with me. I've paroused around Google to no avail. I just had a few questions/concerns

1. Every run just seems to be 100% based on luck. No decisions involved in anything other than tactics during combat. Is that what it is, or am I missing something?
2. I just go around the level, find no weapons, armor, or anything except my starting ones.
3. Where do I get crafting recipes? I can't find a single one, and everything I try to craft doesn't work. Are you supposed to just keep doing random combinations or what? My inventory is always full of ingredients that I have no idea what to do with.
4. Why do some skills cost 2 points when others cost 1? I fail to see a pattern

Thanks for taking the time to help me out.

[[TBoS]Grim_Fate56 | TPI]

#1 its based alot on luck (which i have little of) but you can skill your way through assuming you get ammo,

#2 that happens to me ALOT, keep going through i find it laughs at me for a bunch of floors before giving me a bounty floor full off loot, 1-3 guns and 1-2 armors in the same floor

#3 dont cheat and look them up or ill hate you, decipher messages from consoles, READ THEM somtimes you can work the recipes out before fully desiphering a message, otherwise hope to fully decipher and it adds the recipe automatically

#4 if you used the skill between leveling up (between level 1 and 2) it will cost 1 point to upgrade, otherwise 2

the exception beeing psy skills which will always cost 2

your welcome :3

[Berahlen]

Play Engineer on Easy for 2-3 runs, and spec yourself to decipher messages and get the recipes. Don't worry about dying. Once they're all done, never put points into decipher again. Most of your gear will come from the recipes in those messages, since ingredients drop considerably more reliably than whole weapons/armor.

Try to wait on deciphering until you have a good 95% or so. Maxing out Brain and picking up the translator thingy gives a bonus to it. If you're about to die, go into your menu and decipher everything in there before it happens. Deciphering rolls your chance for each word -- but your progress on each message carries over between playthroughs, so an incomplete decipher can be finished off on a future run.

As for the rest...well, yeah it's mostly luck. That's roguelikes for you. My first run had no food drop from floors 5-25 except moldy bread that gave me a disease that drained Might to 0 and killed me.

The most important thing you can do is carry weapons that use as many kinds of ammo as possible, because you won't be able to find enough to fuel one or two (the final floor in particular is a grueling ammo drain that you will not pass with only 1-2 kinds, even on Easy). Early on, use your knife and prolong its durability for as long as you can while you hoard ammo. Your first gun or two will potentially have to last you for half the game.

[pointedshrimp]

I agree with you Im finding it hard to enjoy this game when it keeps doing me dirty

[Kit-tay Pow-ah!]

Yeah I posted this over on gog.com
There is a lot to like about this game. It has nice visuals and a fun combat system. The crafting system is diverse and allows you to make a lot of useful items. Your inventory is just big enough (with upgrades) to hold the crafting ingredients, gear and supplies. The big problem is the drop system. You can max your loot finding skills and still never get enough of essential items. In most roguelikes the impact of randomness can be managed, and the further along you get in the game the more tools you have for managing that randomness. As you learn the ins and outs of a game you know what do to to prevent randomness from creating a disaster. In "The Pit" the randomness really kicks in hard in the last third after you have probably invested many hours into your game. Even if you have been conserving ammo all game you will probably run out. There are no spots to grind for any resource and no store system to even out the randomness. If their are crafting recipes for basic ammo, I haven't found them in 30+ hours. In an entire game you might never get a weapon that can use a particular type of ammo and you will end up stuck with 2000 rounds you cant fire. Lower floors are full of bullet sponge enemies and many of them will destroy your gear durability if you attempt to engage them in melee. Others can destroy your gear from range if you don't take them out quickly. These aren't rare enemies either, just after you deal with one, you will face two more in the next room. After reading the forums, its clear that this is an intentional design choice. If you get unlucky you just can't advance. Much like how certain games don't really need much player input to advance, this game can be lost over and over and there is little the player can do to change this. The player won't die and think "I know what I need to do differently next time." There is an expansion out now and I hope that it can fix the problems, since there is most of a great roguelike here, but I am skeptical since most my problems with the game are intentional development choices.

My description of the game's problems are based on 15+ normal games. I played on easy once and beat the game, but I don't recommend it. Easy is so easy it fails to engage and doesn't seem to include much of the higher level content.

For anyone who has the expansion, does it fix my problems with the game?