TIPS for picking up the Assessor

[Firrox]

I'll admit that I haven't gotten very high in prestige mode so take my advice with a grain of salt.

However, I was one of those people who didn't understand the Assessor and thought it was weak. After messing around enough, I've found this is definitely not the case. You just need a totally different mindset.

Playing the Engineer makes you think in lines and strip-mining. You need to forget about this style for the Assessor.

Here's the mindset:

1) Focus on finding single square holes and hitting your gravity ball between the small gap to make a long line on either side. You should hear a satisfying dudududududu as the ball bounces quickly from side to side. This is when the Assessor is most efficient.

2) Don't think in straight lines, think digging diagonally - one line horizontal, then go to the end, then make a vertical line, then go to the bottom, then make a horizontal one... etc.

3) Don't worry about being efficient with seeking out iron. What the Assessor lacks in precision it makes up for in being able to clear a LOT of blocks very quickly. Trust that the Assessor's chaos will allow you to find iron when you need it and that you will EVENTUALLY get around to the large areas you've left behind.

[VinylSole]

Sounds like you've got the start of a groove going. Question for you, after let's call it "breaking out" of the Engineer style to get the Assessor, how fun did you find that? Like, how fun is it - or is it? - to do that?

[Chris]

Originally posted by Raw Fury Garnett:

Sounds like you've got the start of a groove going. Question for you, after let's call it "breaking out" of the Engineer style to get the Assessor, how fun did you find that? Like, how fun is it - or is it? - to do that?

I'm enjoying it, the raw gameplay of the assessor is fun, it just has some frustration points that diminish it to just being average.
- The movement speed during rotational mining is frustratingly slow, that should be changed.
- The default throw ability is almost useless, because the items fly all over the place and then you spend more time collecting them than you saved from throwing them. The bundle upgrade should be on by default
- The reflect shield feels bad to use. The duration is too short and the cooldown between uses is too long. I get that it's for skill expression, but it just makes me not want to use it. Maybe add an upgrade path where it changes the reflect shield to have 5 seconds duration and 10 seconds cooldown

[Shaun the Pr0n]

Originally posted by Raw Fury Garnett:

Sounds like you've got the start of a groove going. Question for you, after let's call it "breaking out" of the Engineer style to get the Assessor, how fun did you find that? Like, how fun is it - or is it? - to do that?

Im not the OP but for me, the reflector is the big issue. It feels like a punishingly small window or activity in a game which isnt really about twitchy gameplay, and it seriously turns me off of the class.

[!?!]

Originally posted by Raw Fury Garnett:

Sounds like you've got the start of a groove going. Question for you, after let's call it "breaking out" of the Engineer style to get the Assessor, how fun did you find that? Like, how fun is it - or is it? - to do that?

There were some pitfalls like the reflect upgrade path that made learning the assessor unfun because the expectation of it being vital and the only way to play him since it's what you need to mine straight was there.
If that path was entirely gone or something else and people would be forced to just use normal orbs and figure out how to use that to mine effectively, learning the assessor would've probably been more fun.

Another point of frustration were the super complex new controls.
You kinda just move against walls as the engineer and that's it.
At some point the assessor was designed with twinstick controls or even mouse controls in mind and it shows.
I wish you'd have designed him with the same moving against walls simplicity of the engineer in mind because the new control scheme kind of clashes with existing features such as picking up artifacts which doesn't happen the same way you pick everything else up as the assessor plus you came up with all those new controls but moving against a wall does nothing now which seems a bit clunky and wasteful?
Like using a different button combo with motion controls and whatnot to bring up the pause menu but pressing start does nothing.

Overall for the next keeper, perhaps stay a bit more grounded with the engineer in mind?
I don't mean don't try anything too outrageous just please don't design things with completely new control means in mind.
Kingdom also didn't introduce a mount that had twinstick controls or required the mouse after all.

[Millawub]

Assessor is growing on me. I play on a keyboard and the most frustrating thing to me is trying to go in a straight line and drifting... bonk... now I'll be late back to the base. If his driftyness was a little less I'd prefer that.

I definitely like it better once I've got 3 shots, not exactly fun waiting around for them to regenerate but proper play prevents that, make sure you keep one so you can do rotational mining.

I agree with Chris above about the speed during rotational mining... its most efficient to "turn it off", move to the next block, turn it on again, which is a bit of a complicated move to pull off without firing a ball I don't want to, and even when I don't make that mistake... sometimes I just don't do it because its annoying, I know I'm wasting valuable seconds but... meh, in this case it's more fun to not play well, when it's not critical I just don't care enough to do it. If the Assessor moved just fast enough to get to the next block in the same time as if you had stopped rotational mining and restarted I think that would feel a lot better to play.

[VinylSole]

Sort of in a similar way to needing a new way of thinking to play the Assessor, we are learning the more subtle ins and outs to tuning it as well. Think we got it pretty good before rolling them out and still looking at adjustments to really get them dialed in. Thanks for the feedback!

[FlameHricane]

I pretty much only play assessor now. The reflect path is still clearly better I think, the other path requires too much investment for not much reward until late game. I think reflect also should probably be easier to execute, either with some kind of "auto" reflect, or make it a "global" ability that automatically reflects all orbs currently out regardless of your positioning.

[Wangled Teb]

I've been struggling with the Assessor so ty for these tips :P I keep trying because it SEEMS like it'd be fun once I get good at it (kinda how I felt about the sword dome, at first I thought it was way too hard, now it's by far my fave) but I never seem to make it very far. I wish there was more of an indication for when you have your orbs charged fully. Like if it flashed or played a specific sound effect or something instead of just going woobwoobwoob faster and faster lol

[I>U]

Originally posted by Firrox:

Playing the Engineer makes you think in lines and strip-mining. You need to forget about this style for the Assessor.

If I may, I would like to add to that:

A) Assessor isn't generalistic character. He has more speed than Engineer, but only in a straight line. He has more mining power, but only if you hit the spot. Each turnover makes you lose speed, each missed shot reduces your total damage to tiles. If you want to rely more on strategy and your choices in dome (upgrades) than your ability to find lucky spots and on-field thinking, Engineer is the best option available currently.

B) Assessor is all about his gimmicks.
If you stand in a gap near the wall and do a slight tilting to it's side right before releasing the sphere, you can make it bounce off 3 walls instead of going in a straight line, prolonging shere's life and inflicting more damage.
Likewise, bundle's lifetime stop ticking durring the waves, so if you can snipe it to your dome in one shot, you don't even need Tier 2 10 Iron upgrade.
Also, you can reflect more than a single sphere at once in the same direction.

C) Those gimmicks are conditioned.
If you are not sure you can launch your bundle precisely in one go, you may leave a platform to catch resourses from dissipating bundles (you may even go without bundles with such platforms for the time being) or some marker tiles to pinpooint the center.
2 tiles-wide gap and a tile behind your back will help managing your reflection stream.
And If you can't do the tilting trick, increasing the gap to 3 tiles and firing diagonally from it's end to end should yield more diagonal bounces (same shots within 2 tiles-wide gaps tends to straighten up).

D) You DON'T HAVE to learn all of his tricks, because they are supplied by different upgrades. If you can't control at least 2 spheres reflected in the same direction, don't bother with buying Reflection upgrade. Ideally, you should be able to control 3 in the same direction or two in different ones to get the most out of this upgrade.
If you are good with visualisation, you can leave platforms or tunnels to save on Bundle branch's upgrades for the time being.
Likewise, you can put mining strength upgrade after spheres count and lifetime, because of that 6% transcending damage they have from the begining. You can destroy any 2 tiles if there is a space between them. That will cripple your rotaional mining and ability to dig in striaght lines (you are only meant to shoot in cardinal directions and travel diagonally this way).

E) You HAVE TO master at least some of his gimmicks.
Spheres flying without hitting anything don't add to your success. Learn what's the most suitable for you and devise A FIXED upgrade order. Assessor is way more conditioned by your character mastery than environment. Get drilling upgrade when there are soft tiles avialiable as Engineer and you have endangered your run. Not with Assessor, though.
The real thing that adds options to Assessor's upgrade choices are gadgets. Lift and Drillbert are decisive ones.

------------

*) To make it short: learn gimmicks, forget about being flexible with upgrades, remember how to be flexible with them when you find a gadget, compile that into a strategy, improve your gimmicks, repeat.

[HenIchaer]

I've tried to play by this keeper a few times.
His ability to dig is incredible. Underground zone become a huge empty cave with a dozens of the resources somewhere at the bottom very soon.

But then... well, actually I have no idea what should I do next)))
My attempts to deliver these resources to the dome are pathetic.
When I grab 3 to 5 cubes - everything is ok. I'm fast enough.
But if I try to grab more - my Assessor become a snail.
I've tried to carry resources inside of the yellow sphere. He's too slow.
I've tried to do the same thing without the sphere - he's too slow again.

The only thing I can do is to throw resources upwards one by one. And it works fine when I'm not so deep and I can see the entrance.
But when I deep underground I just launch resources to somewhere, they stay in the air for some time and then fall down again. Often I return to the dome angry with empty pockets.

I believe, I've missed something significant about Assessor's way to deliver resources.
How do you, guys, do it?

[Iggy]

I think part of the problem is the only way I'm experimenting with the assessor is if I know i'm going to lose. Normal difficulty, smallest map, pick shield or gas to buy as much time as possible, win condition is to walk away with a gadget for your real run after.

I've got a ticking clock, I'm desperate to figure out where things are. I'm just looking for iron, I don't even know when the next wave is yet because I have no upgrades. And if you don't figure it out you're stuck with no upgrades and a sense you just wasted the round. Another 3 rounds like that and the game's over.

A sandbox mode that allows you to try things out would be nice.

I mean if you want to go really crazy make a new upgrade tree that triggers things: spawn a gadget cube(and all options are available not 2 and shred), spawn a wave(or specific enemies), turn off/on the timer, give the player X resources, switch weapons maybe?

My biggest worry with using the sword was I was really bad at handling ranged enemies. I only got better because I accepted I'd lose a lot. If you let me spawn a bunch of enemies to test and I don't have to worry about resources, I can work on intercepting ranged attacks or figuring out what upgrades oneshot which enemies. Sink or swim is not as approachable as a safe learning environment.

The long and short is if you want to encourage experimentation you need to provide an environment for one with as few or as many barriers as the player is comfortable with.

[!?!]

Originally posted by HenIchaer:

I believe, I've missed something significant about Assessor's way to deliver resources.
How do you, guys, do it?

Unlock the packets.
Shoot packet, move in front, catch it, repeat.

[Halfshell]

Originally posted by HenIchaer:

I believe, I've missed something significant about Assessor's way to deliver resources.
How do you, guys, do it?

Agree with above post but also make sure to have a vertical mineshaft. If you can set it up you can even 'fire and forget' if you know where the walls are so that the bundle will fall into the shaft for later pickup. Then just fire upwards. On larger maps or about halfway down the small map you'll want the bundle lifetime upgrade.

[HenIchaer]

Well, thanks for yours answers!
Mineshaft is nice, but quite expensive.

I've tried the Assessor one more time and, unfortunately, I've figured out, that only way I can enjoy it is to find the Lift or the Teleporter as a first upgrade.
I'm not skilled enough to control the Assessor)
The Engineer is much more preferable for me.

[Halfshell]

I mean to dig out your own mineshaft, not the lift (though the lift makes it crazy easy). The basic idea to digging out a mineshaft with the Assessor is to dig around it so you can set up a vertical shot with full bounces. So you might shoot horizontally, move to the side, shoot vertically, move down, shoot horizontally, align yourself and shoot vertically.

I know going off instructions is kinda hard so heres an example picture: https://imgur.com/a/Pr8I98A Also it helps to throw in rotational mining with the last orb.

Though if you play reflect its way easier, to dig out the mineshaft at the least anyway.