Early farming

[Ice Dagger]

Are there any good places to farm for money and exp early in the game? I keep dying and using up health items.

[Gillsing]

Since none of the enemies respawn, I would say that farming isn't a feasible strategy. Though you could try to kill enemies and see if they drop something valuable, and reload from right before the fight if they don't drop anything. But that'd be save-scumming, not farming.

There's also a skill for reducing prices, so that might be worth the points if you have a lot of trouble getting enough money. The lockpicking skill might also help finding more cash without having to fight for it.

But how early is "early in the game"? The easiest play style is to spend 3 skill points to max AR and then hack the heads of your enemies to stun them. That way you won't have to catch them unaware in order to use Takedown on them. Super easy, and with the 50% faster hacking you'll be able to exit AR before the virus swarm can do too much damage. Just right-click to fire off a Wedge against the incoming Trojan, and install more Wedges to boost the power, up to five.

You should also learn how to deal with enemies without taking a lot of damage. Most accessible method is to move around and wait for an opportunity to sneak up from behind and do the Takedown manoeuvre.

Against the women with chains, go into blocking mode and walk towards them, and as soon as they stop spinning the chain, give them a one-two punch combo and go back into blocking mode. Against the guys who can do powerful block-breaking punches I would suggest going up a ladder until they give up and walk away, and then do Takedown as son as you catch up to them. Same thing for guys with crowbars, except more so, since none of their attacks can be blocked.

Guys with SMGs start using their guns as clubs up close, but those guns don't count as melee weapons, so they can be blocked. They'll swing twice, and then they're open for a one-two punch combo. Just stay in blocking mode by default whenever in melee combat. Big guys can be jump-kicked, or you can just run behind them and only punch them in the back as they're busy trying to punch you where you used to stand.

Once you've gotten the neuroweave installed, and found the sy-nterface, you can use Dr Niles reward for dealing with the TruBody gang to get 10% discount on the most expensive implant in the game: Nanite Blood Infusion for 3,500. Then you'll regenerate 10 HPs every few seconds and won't need to spend cash on healing supplies. Might be worth it? Though if you can beat the TruBody gang without implants I guess you might not really need that implant.

[Ice Dagger]

Well I am not a pro at platformers. I do ok but still. I really hope I do not have to start over. Even though it's early now I do not want to have to do it later. Things like that really kill my interest in a game. I am working on the Trubody quest now. Haven't done much else. In terms of the stat boosting outfits which ones can I get now without too much trouble? I read the guide but it doesn't tell me which one is the easiest to get. Unless I missed it.

[Gillsing]

The EuroForce BattleRig[dex-rpg.wikia.com] is the easiest one, as all you need is the code for the lock, which you can find by hacking a computer in the Docks area, or simply cheat and read it in the guide. The dangerous part would be to get to the Industrial zone and the machine that makes suits out of blueprints (farthest door on ground level). But if you don't stick around to fight and just jump over melee attackers I think you should be able to make it there without dying. And with that suit on you can block bullets with your melee blocking stance. Though that might not help much if you're having trouble with melee opponents. But it could help you get the Armagear InvisiSuit, because that one is guarded primarily by gun users.

The Armagear InvisiSuit would require you to hack the computer inside Echo Corporation, and that's a bit better guarded, and probably harder to hack. Though if you had AR 2 you could easily hack all their cameras and turrets, which would then shoot the guards and let you walk around as much as you please.

After hacking the computer and activating the right thing (sending a request for delivery) you have to defeat two armoured soldiers in a small room under the Capsules hotel in Downtown, which can be pretty tough if you can't block bullets and already opened the door in that little area. They're pretty easy if you get close to them though, as they'll resort to kicking, which you can block, and time your one-two punch combos to whittle them down. Just remember to take a few steps back every now and then to maintain your distance, or they might start to back away from the wall. Don't let them split up so one stays at the wall while the other backs off into the room and start shooting you in the back.

The Samio CyberWare requires that you get the Respirator implant so you can get to the power generator at the far end of the chemical factory down in the sewers, and with the power turned on, a door opens up in the upper part of the factory where you can find this blueprint. You should go up that ladder first though, because in the left-most room up there you'll find instructions for how to turn on the power generator.

For a platform game I consider this one quite easy. You won't see me play the 'real' platform games with double-jumps and wall-jumps and whatnot.

[Ice Dagger]

Originally posted by Gillsing:

For a platform game I consider this one quite easy. You won't see me play the 'real' platform games with double-jumps and wall-jumps and whatnot.

Easy? Well not for me. Mainly because it is missing things that normal RPGs have. Platformers all in all I do decently well at. I am thinking about giving up on this and moving on. I wish the casual difficulty was toned down. Maybe tone down all of them and add another difficulty option. Sucks too because I really want to love this game. Maybe I will try again later but this game goes out of it's way to frustrate and deliver cheap damage and death.

[Gillsing]

Well, it's clearly more difficult with all the action elements that you usually wouldn't have to deal with in an RPG. I'm not sure which specific problems you're having though. As long as none of the enemies with guns are alerted to your presence you can usually just run and jump around to avoid melee enemies until you figure out how to deal with them, or catch one of them alone.

And if you're still in the early game it should be easy to start over and save all skill points so you can spend three of them on AR 2 right after the Hacking tutorial, and then you've pretty much unlocked easy mode.

[Ice Dagger]

Originally posted by Gillsing:

Well, it's clearly more difficult with all the action elements that you usually wouldn't have to deal with in an RPG. I'm not sure which specific problems you're having though. As long as none of the enemies with guns are alerted to your presence you can usually just run and jump around to avoid melee enemies until you figure out how to deal with them, or catch one of them alone.

And if you're still in the early game it should be easy to start over and save all skill points so you can spend three of them on AR 2 right after the Hacking tutorial, and then you've pretty much unlocked easy mode.

Action RPGs I can handle. It's just the enemies not respawning is the real problem. In normal RPGs if enemies are too tough I can fight and get stronger. But I never have been good at games that limit EXP gaining and can get you stuck. If I start over now I still might have to do it again because I know I will screw something up. I keep at it a little longer. Also on the docks I hacked the turret computer but what turrets are they talking about? I still get attacked by them inside the buildings.

[Gillsing]

There should be some kind of 'Data Node' in the computer where you can turn off the security system, and that would shut down all the cameras and turrets in the security building and warehouses. Maybe it's a bit hard to find? Some of the computer systems can be intentionally confusing when it comes to the layouts. Security through obscurity! You can't hack data nodes that you can't find!

Personally I don't like shutting everything down though, because I want to hack the turrets in AR mode and have them shoot the guards for me. You can do that even without AR 2, but then the hack takes so long time that the virus swarm would do heavy damage to your Focus even when you exit AR as soon as the hack is completed. And then you'd better return to Tony's to replenish your Focus for free, but if you leave the area/screen after a turret has killed a guard, you won't get to pick up whatever that guard might have dropped. So it's a little bit tricky.