Reliable means of progression that isn't reliant on O'saa, spice forge, or abusing magic?

[Hoshi]

I'm hard stuck trying to get into the city. I can get in there, I've *gotten* in there, through the woods, through the sewers, through the main gate...

The problem is that I am yet to be able to take any fights once I get there. I'm incapable of getting party members, save for Levi, who is worthless due to his heroin addiction, and Black Kalev, who cannot be controlled or equipped and who will repeatedly leave the party unless I have carrots, which eventually run out.

Even should I manage to assemble this incredibly ragtag crew, I am completely at the mercy of getting good drops from RNG chests, good skin bibles from bookcases, enough small keys to open key doors, bear traps to handle the Dark Priest and Woodsman in the early game, and ultimately it's far too much of a strain on resources to accomplish anything meaningful before I'm completely out of healing and food. I've only managed to get a few screens into the city, see some events, run from every single encounter, and then die. Every. Single. Time.

I've been at this for 12 hours and I pretty much know all of my options at this point, the problem is being capable of taking any of them on without being at the mercy of coin flips and bad luck with drops. I have to be missing something here. My friends all went the spice forge route, I've seen them play, and it's like we're playing different games.

Please tell me there are other means of progression. Spice forge feels like an exploit, and doing the exact same build as everyone else seems boring.

[Hoshi]

That sounds promising. Also, who's keefer? The only merchants I've seen are the day 2+ merchant in the village and Pocketcat.

Also, where the hell is the Salmonsnake thing? I had a friend mention that it's guaranteed somewhere around the Church of Alll-Mer, but I scoured that place and didn't see it.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

Originally posted by Hoshi:

That sounds promising. Also, who's keefer? The only merchants I've seen are the day 2+ merchant and Pocketcat.

Next to the department store is a magic shop. It's on the map I think. You can't miss it. It has a sign called Dr. Keefers.

Never seen the department store. I always get own zoned just west of Levi or just east of the church, either by Needles, a Death Mask, or flubbing it when I try to juke a Bobby. When I tried to enter through the woods I got instagibbed by the mob.

[Duelviper25]

sounds like you re trying to fight enemies on the streets and that a lesson in futility bobbies are invincable and the mob has so much health they might as well be invincible ( though i might be able to take them out with lucky mischief of rats casts) SO RUN AWAY , other then that you can recruit the goat by finishing the woodsman circle, if you survive to day 2 morning you can get olivia if you dont let needles kill tanaka or if you side with thug, you can also find reporter day 2 morning far west of town just south of orphanage( you can also find her day 2 afternoon there being sniped but she wont join you BUT marina is with her and she WILL join you

[Stigran]

If you are having trouble what I would do is:
1) Go immediately west of the woodsman house, get Abella day 1 morning
2) If you have glass shards, Needles is easily killable right in the bunker right after
3) Do everything you can outside the city, with a two man team you wreck everything outside the city (except for Vile but he's got a gimmick, and the priest unless you manage to cut off his hands with a gun)
4) Once it's day 1 night go to mayor's house and get marina for third party member and you should be ready to face the early parts of the city
This assumes you're not either Abella or Marina

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by Stigran:

If you are having trouble what I would do is:
1) Go immediately west of the woodsman house, get Abella day 1 morning
2) If you have glass shards, Needles is easily killable right in the bunker right after
3) Do everything you can outside the city, with a two man team you wreck everything outside the city (except for Vile but he's got a gimmick, and the priest unless you manage to cut off his hands with a gun)
4) Once it's day 1 night go to mayor's house and get marina for third party member and you should be ready to face the early parts of the city
This assumes you're not either Abella or Marina

I've been clearing the village, bosses and all, with a single party member. Arm->arm->double/triple rev to attack torso kills just about every enemy in the village without their being able to fight back with the sole exception of the moonscorched who I come back for later. The woodsman and dark priest are easily killed by bear trapping them and smacking them once in the head, the limiting factor being finding the damn bear traps, in which case the dark priest is always the better choice to kill.

I prefer saving Henryk to Abella since Henryk provides something that no one else can (infinite food and the sewers key), while Abella's best trait is short circuit, which she can be killed for, and her route *still* has you fighting a difficult boss in Needles. Henryk has no skills worth killing the Mayor for, and the Mayor is a much harder fight since he can sever limbs every round, while the elephant can just be bear trapped and shot to death outside of combat.

Also, Marina only joins temporarily by way of the Mayor's house. She leaves several screens later. You can only permanently recruit her day two by meeting her in the bookstore and then at the church. I made it that far in my furthest run playing as Abella, but I burned through the last of my healing items every time I tried to do anything further and pretty much softlocked myself.

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

Anyways, this is why I love fear and hunger. It's a puzzle game about where to go first, what equipment to source first, how to handle each monster, etc. etc. etc.

This game is a planning game not a horror game XD

Yeah, that's what I've been having fun with, but like, I didn't know *any* of that. Not about the unique properties of the different guns (rifles taking arms, trench guns having hitstun), and not about the Fear and Hunger engraving (the skin bible says her engraving grants increased mind, not agility), nor did I know about any of the places I could be making a beeline for in the city because I always get hard stopped very early by something.

Usually it's something like a bobby catches me, I fail to run three turns in a row, and I have to reload my save. When it happens for two hours straight without ever getting to see anything new, it makes you put the game down, especially when you see a friend play it and nuke the Bobbies down effortlessly at a similar point in the game because they're playing as O'saa.

Thanks very much, this is all really useful information. I'm just kind of beat when it comes to trial and error right now.

[Lionel]

you should just leave those bob thingy with 3 arm and wobling head alone, even if you manage to kill it if you seach him he will revived again latter, if you try to cut his head he will immediately revive on spot. The safest option to deal with him if you have spare bear trap is just trap him and go away, or if you could kill him easily kill it and left it alone don't interact with it anymore

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by Lionel:

you should just leave those bob thingy with 3 arm and wobling head alone, even if you manage to kill it if you seach him he will revived again latter, if you try to cut his head he will immediately revive on spot. The safest option to deal with him if you have spare bear trap is just trap him and go away, or if you could kill him easily kill it and left it alone don't interact with it anymore

Bobbies are easily killed so long as you have the party members to kill the arms every time they grow back. My problem isn't killing them once I have the party members, it's consistently avoiding them until I have the party members to deal with them, since running isn't a guaranteed success and the streets of the city are incredibly narrow, making exploration very trial and error.

Once you kill them, "beat them" immediately to permanently kill them while they're down, then saw their head off once they've stopped moving.

[Lionel]

Originally posted by Hoshi:

Originally posted by Lionel:

you should just leave those bob thingy with 3 arm and wobling head alone, even if you manage to kill it if you seach him he will revived again latter, if you try to cut his head he will immediately revive on spot. The safest option to deal with him if you have spare bear trap is just trap him and go away, or if you could kill him easily kill it and left it alone don't interact with it anymore

Bobbies are easily killed so long as you have the party members to kill the arms every time they grow back. My problem isn't killing them once I have the party members, it's consistently avoiding them until I have the party members to deal with them, since running isn't a guaranteed success.

Once you kill them, "beat them" immediately to permanently kill them while they're down, then saw their head off once they've stopped moving.

ho you so you can kill them that way good time to get some revenge thanks haha

[Ludwig]

Originally posted by Lionel:

you should just leave those bob thingy with 3 arm and wobling head alone, even if you manage to kill it if you seach him he will revived again latter, if you try to cut his head he will immediately revive on spot. The safest option to deal with him if you have spare bear trap is just trap him and go away, or if you could kill him easily kill it and left it alone don't interact with it anymore

After defeating the Bob officer if you kick him, he dies permanently and you can search him or use the bonesaw for his head.

[Stigran]

Originally posted by Hoshi:

Originally posted by Stigran:

If you are having trouble what I would do is:
1) Go immediately west of the woodsman house, get Abella day 1 morning
2) If you have glass shards, Needles is easily killable right in the bunker right after
3) Do everything you can outside the city, with a two man team you wreck everything outside the city (except for Vile but he's got a gimmick, and the priest unless you manage to cut off his hands with a gun)
4) Once it's day 1 night go to mayor's house and get marina for third party member and you should be ready to face the early parts of the city
This assumes you're not either Abella or Marina

I've been clearing the village, bosses and all, with a single party member. Arm->arm->double/triple rev to attack torso kills just about every enemy in the village without their being able to fight back with the sole exception of the moonscorched who I come back for later. The woodsman and dark priest are easily killed by bear trapping them and smacking them once in the head, the limiting factor being finding the damn bear traps, in which case the dark priest is always the better choice to kill.

I prefer saving Henryk to Abella since Henryk provides something that no one else can (infinite food and the sewers key), while Abella's best trait is short circuit, which she can be killed for, and her route *still* has you fighting a difficult boss in Needles. Henryk has no skills worth killing the Mayor for, and the Mayor is a much harder fight since he can sever limbs every round, while the elephant can just be bear trapped and shot to death outside of combat.

Also, Marina only joins temporarily by way of the Mayor's house. She leaves several screens later. You can only permanently recruit her day two by meeting her in the bookstore and then at the church. I made it that far in my furthest run playing as Abella, but I burned through the last of my healing items every time I tried to do anything further and pretty much softlocked myself.

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

Anyways, this is why I love fear and hunger. It's a puzzle game about where to go first, what equipment to source first, how to handle each monster, etc. etc. etc.

This game is a planning game not a horror game XD

Yeah, that's what I've been having fun with, but like, I didn't know *any* of that. Not about the unique properties of the different guns (rifles taking arms, trench guns having hitstun), and not about the Fear and Hunger engraving (the skin bible says her engraving grants increased mind, not agility), nor did I know about any of the places I could be making a beeline for in the city because I always get hard stopped very early by something.

Usually it's something like a bobby catches me, I fail to run three turns in a row, and I have to reload my save. When it happens for two hours straight without ever getting to see anything new, it makes you put the game down, especially when you see a friend play it and nuke the Bobbies down effortlessly at a similar point in the game because they're playing as O'saa.

Thanks very much, this is all really useful information. I'm just kind of beat when it comes to trial and error right now.

Killing Mayor actually gives the chef skill, which lets you create food that gives buffs before the fights.
For example, if you eat mushroom soup+, you get extra evasion for 5 turns, meatpie+ extra attack, etc. They are quite powerful when you know a fight is coming.
I'd rather pick Abella because once you throw broken glass at neeedles' face he's pretty much useless, just go needlewhip-gun-torso and you're golden.
Also, maybe it's a bug but I recruited Marina day one and she never left the party.

[Hoshi]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

Don't kill the bobbies wtf. You can't heal from doors anymore so bobbies are your only source of healing. I know they're annoying as hell but doors don't heal you anymore.

Maybe keep 1 bobby alive on every map.

I like the series of increasingly aggressive "win more" strategies being suggested here. "Don't fight them," to "No, fight them, but kill them like this," to "No, keep one alive so you can abuse it to heal yourself."

[Lionel]

Originally posted by CuddilyWuddily:

Don't kill the bobbies wtf. You can't heal from doors anymore so bobbies are your only source of healing. I know they're annoying as hell but doors don't heal you anymore.

Maybe keep 1 bobby alive on every map.

well only need few for that reason, the other that blocking a way need to go away haha

[Mofh]

bear traps to handle dark priest and woodsman? wtf, both are easy af

[Lionel]

Originally posted by SturmChester:

bear traps to handle dark priest and woodsman? wtf, both are easy af

if you have it good but now dev seem has been blocking the way to get those free infinite bear trap hahaha
don't worry though woodman could be defeat quite easy and you can just ignore/run pass the priest on mayor house till you can kill it

[rock]

Any tips on Woodsman/Priest? I always killed priest with a trap, but now I can't find any. Woodsman, shot three times then hit torso for the win, but that doesn't seem to work anymore. This is all with one character. Any other fighting tips welcome, in case enemies changed.

Also, how do you save Tanaka? Can you recruit Abella, fight Needles in the town, then come back to the bunker to clear it?