I feel like this game could really use more mid-game content and stronger gear

[Lolpingu]

Because creatures stop giving you full exp after you outlevel them enough, you have to progressively kill bigger and badder enemies to level up, to be able to kill biggerer and badderer enemies, because that's how RPGs work - you get gear and levels to fight stronger enemies to bet better gear and levels and so on, while simultaneously progressing through some main quest.
However, I found that this game has a certain point where the next 'tier' of enemies is too strong for you to take on, and the previous 'tier' of enemies no longer gives you enough exp to level up at a reasonable pace. What I mean is that around level 16, you'll be killing goatfolk, slumberlings and turrets to get exp, but then you reach the early 20s and they stop giving you enough exp to level you at a reasonable pace, so you have to aim for stronger enemies. The problem is, your options for stronger enemies are only enemies that are MUCH stronger than you, so much so that you can't reasonably face them without a significant risk of death. I'm talking about krakens, great saltbacks, leering stalkers and pyramids. The only two enemies I found to be reasonably killable at this point while gaining a reasonable amount of exp from doing so are the great magma crabs and agolzuvs (did I spell that correctly?). However, the problem is that the great magma crabs are few and they generally only dwell in the asphalt mines or sometimes deeper levels of jungle caves. The agolzuvs are numerous enough, but the problem is, they're generally only found in the deathlands which makes them a poor target as most screens of the deathlands are likely to have a leering stalker or a chrome pyramid. You can SORT OF pick away at them and then teleport away when leering stalkers or chrome pyramids appear, but it's an excruciatingly slow process.

Additionally, I found gear to have a similar problem in terms of progression. The amount of AV that you can attain (in the 20s at best if you have the gear with the highest AV, which is to my knowledge reinforced crysteel chainmail and fullerite boots/gloves/helmet and some reinforced bracers) is simply insufficient for dealing with high-level enemies, even if your character has a large health pool, and the weapons at your disposal generally lack the AV to penetrate the armor of said high-level enemies. Of course, you may use vibro weapons, but they don't dish out a lot of damage and using them requires you to close into melee range which is suicide with these types of enemies. From what I understand, the only way to effectively deal with these enemies is to tinker up dozens of grenades and then stunlock an enemy while throwing damaging grenades while they're stunned. While it's cool that this game provides you with the option to be a ridiculous grenade-tossing lunatic, it saddens me that this is the only viable way to take on late-game enemies. This strategy is also ineffective for low-agility/strength characters as you'll hit yourself with your grenades constantly and you'll miss most of your shots if you try to use a grenade launcher. This game should have more tiers of armor and weapons, and current tiers of armor and weapons should be pushed back to make them available earlier in the game (with adjusted rarity, of course. you should still have to work for your carbide/fullerite gear). Additionally, I think that the ultra-rare tinkering components (photonics, AI microcontrollers, metacrystals) are a bit too rare, as I've found none while scavenging in the deathlands and only a handful of photonics when going through bethesda susa and the asphalt mines. These components should be more available, while still being rare and requiring a lengthy and risky trek through a high-level dungeon to get. Moreover, I think the high-end tinkering recipes are underwhelming. Take the phase cannon for example - while 4d12 with 19 penetration is impressive and will atomize most enemies in the game, it is still pathetic versus higher-level enemies since even if it penetrates their armor, the damage it does is not very effective versus their health pools of several hundred.

Just to make sure that people don't misunderstand me, I don't want this game to be easy. I like the feeling of danger lurking around every corner, and the lingering thought that one wrong step could end what's been a great run up until this point, I just feel like this game's progression curve is seriously flawed.

[Bro Boss Bob Ross]

Information overload.

[wehttam449]

You've overlooked one end-game tactic- the geomagnetic disk. It's basically THE end game weapon. Ignores AV, deals damage multiple times a turn, no strength or agility required, and energy efficent enough to kill a great saltback without draining even the lowly chem cell. Just be careful not to let the cell run out of power when you're throwing it, or else you'll lose it.

[Ulrik]

I feel like leering stalkers and chrome pyramids are not there to be killed. I do wonder if their presence is a bit too game-defeating, since mid and high range characters can be completely powerless to stop them from killing them (EMP grenade equipped can save your life though).

What I think is unbalanced is the impact of AV. Rhinoxes and Great Magma Crabs hit very hard if you have too little AV and if you have just a bit more, you are barely scratched. GMC is a bit more "balanced" in that their penetration varies with their strength so there will be some more variation, but Rhinoxes will rip you (you basically can't go into their territory) until they don't.

[Lolpingu]

Originally posted by Ulrik:

I feel like leering stalkers and chrome pyramids are not there to be killed. I do wonder if their presence is a bit too game-defeating, since mid and high range characters can be completely powerless to stop them from killing them (EMP grenade equipped can save your life though).

The concept of an enemy that can't be defeated (except with pure cheese) kind of upsets me. I look at RPGs as power trips. Even more so with roguelikes - the fact that you start with so little makes it that much more satisfying when you can grow powerful enough to overcome those overwhelming threats. When there are threats that you can't eliminate regardless of what you do (unless you, once again, use one cheesy tactic), it kind of makes the whole thing feel a tad pointless, unless Caves of Qud is supposed to be a grimdark world.

Originally posted by wehttam449:

You've overlooked one end-game tactic- the geomagnetic disk. It's basically THE end game weapon. Ignores AV, deals damage multiple times a turn, no strength or agility required, and energy efficent enough to kill a great saltback without draining even the lowly chem cell. Just be careful not to let the cell run out of power when you're throwing it, or else you'll lose it.

Good point, though enemies that can return fire are still a problem as your defenses can be sorely inadequate against them even if you're packing the best armor.

[Laughing Fool]

Originally posted by Lolpingu:

The concept of an enemy that can't be defeated (except with pure cheese) kind of upsets me. I look at RPGs as power trips. Even more so with roguelikes - the fact that you start with so little makes it that much more satisfying when you can grow powerful enough to overcome those overwhelming threats. When there are threats that you can't eliminate regardless of what you do (unless you, once again, use one cheesy tactic), it kind of makes the whole thing feel a tad pointless, unless Caves of Qud is supposed to be a grimdark world.

There are multiple ways to kill a chrome pyramid.

[wehttam449]

Well, far as I know the only really reliable method is spamming EMP and high explosive grenades and the geomagnetic disk, which can technically be lumped together under "throwing stuff at it"

Edit: the wiki does mention a somewhat viable (but super cheesy) method for high-level and heavily specialized Espers, but I believe this discussion is primarily focused on non-Espers, or at least Espers that don't have a power-leveled force wall mutation.

[Laughing Fool]

Throwing stuff at it, hand-e-nuke bomb, esper force wall, high enough dodge value to dodge all missiles and vibro blade/dagger, probably more ways I can't think of right now.

[Lolpingu]

Originally posted by Laughing Fool:

Throwing stuff at it, hand-e-nuke bomb, esper force wall, high enough dodge value to dodge all missiles and vibro blade/dagger, probably more ways I can't think of right now.

Originally posted by Laughing Fool:

Throwing stuff at it, hand-e-nuke bomb, esper force wall, high enough dodge value to dodge all missiles and vibro blade/dagger, probably more ways I can't think of right now.

Thrown weapons in general (except for the disk) will not work if your agility is too low. You'll be more likely to throw grenades at your feet than hit your target, especially with rank 3 grenades which have bigger explosions and stronger effects. Shooting them with a grenade launcher isn't better as you'll just miss a lot. The force wall method is good, but only if you've sunk a good deal of points into willpower in order to have force wall cool down faster than it dissipates, and even then you need to get it to level 10 and you'll still struggle to hit your target and not yourself, unless you also sunk points into agility. At this point you'll be seriously skimming on something. Multiple, but not enough. I understand that the inherent freedom of roguelikes makes it a lot easier to have a crappy build than more mainstream RPGs, but this feels way too restrictive in terms of what works and what doesn't. I also feels like it's a very rapid shift from how most of the early-mid game works, where a lot of different builds can quite realistically pull you through, but again, I feel like there's not enough meat there.

[Danksama]

I'm sure more mid/late-game content will be added in future. The game is still in development, after all, and AlphaBeard is good at listening to the playerbase.

[NoTruePunk]

I've killed a leering stalker that I noticed was rusted out by pouring acid on it and thwaping it with fickle gill spores. I was level 11. I had already noticed that snapjaws and other little NPCs don't give xp so I was hopping for an inverse reaction against such a difficult oponent. This game is beautiful

Mid game magma crabs are good for XP. They're level 44 so they should give xp for a long time. After that your only option is books from trading. Books always give flat XP when you give them to the librarian, but this would probably take a very long time to actually provide enough xp to level.

To deal with enemy armor you need vibro blades or ceremonial vibrokhopesh. The ceremonial dagger I recomend since you can modify it to deal heat/cold damage and it doesn't eat as much power. Mental attacks are also good against high AV since most tough enemies have poor mental stats.

Beguile a salt craken to haul your equipment and muscle through crabs faster

Force wall leering stalkers you run into. Their projectiles won't pass through the forcefield. Run and come back when you've improved your robo-reputation or have a geomagnetic disk

Glowcrust (3 av) is good for armor, so find yourself some helping hands and mutate some extra arms if you can control mutations with precognition. The only body armor that compares to carapace is the willowy reinforced flexiweaved crysteel shardmail, and you're not going to find one of those. Carapace gives better resistances anyway

Always save at least one eaters nectar injector in case you run across metamorphic polygel. It's tempting to use it right away, but don't.

[Ulrik]

Originally posted by NoTruePunk:

willowy reinforced flexiweaved crysteel shardmail, and you're not going to find one of those.

If you can defeat magma crabs, you can probably find one of those armours too. Just need tinkering and finding bit-8 stuff so that you can mod it too.

[Lolpingu]

Originally posted by NoTruePunk:

I've killed a leering stalker that I noticed was rusted out by pouring acid on it and thwaping it with fickle gill spores. I was level 11. I had already noticed that snapjaws and other little NPCs don't give xp so I was hopping for an inverse reaction against such a difficult oponent. This game is beautiful

Mid game magma crabs are good for XP. They're level 44 so they should give xp for a long time. After that your only option is books from trading. Books always give flat XP when you give them to the librarian, but this would probably take a very long time to actually provide enough xp to level.

To deal with enemy armor you need vibro blades or ceremonial vibrokhopesh. The ceremonial dagger I recomend since you can modify it to deal heat/cold damage and it doesn't eat as much power. Mental attacks are also good against high AV since most tough enemies have poor mental stats.

Beguile a salt craken to haul your equipment and muscle through crabs faster

Force wall leering stalkers you run into. Their projectiles won't pass through the forcefield. Run and come back when you've improved your robo-reputation or have a geomagnetic disk

Glowcrust (3 av) is good for armor, so find yourself some helping hands and mutate some extra arms if you can control mutations with precognition. The only body armor that compares to carapace is the willowy reinforced flexiweaved crysteel shardmail, and you're not going to find one of those. Carapace gives better resistances anyway

Always save at least one eaters nectar injector in case you run across metamorphic polygel. It's tempting to use it right away, but don't.

They can rust? that's interesting, I never tried looking at each one I encounter. Will have to check that out.

Would spamming Burgeoning to drown robotic enemies in kuzus be an effective strategy of dealing with them?

I know magma crabs give good exp, and they're also not too difficult to deal with so long as your character is good at what they do and can avoid or soak the melee damage that they dish out. Unfortunately, they're not very numerous, at least not in any of my runs. I only found them in the lower levels of the asphalt mines (and occasionally red rock) and even there, there weren't that many of them. They're definitely not enough for stead leveling when they're the only thing on your menu.

Unfortunately, salt krakens are, like most beguile-able things, utterly ineffective against leering stalkers as they'll simply be constantly stunlocked and knocked back, preventing them from doing any damage. I should know, I was trying to sic a legendary salt kraken that was somehow wearing crysteel shardmail against them and it died. Slowly, but it died, and so did Ualraig and every other warden I could find, and that high priest from the stilt too. This means that controller-type characters are completely inadequate against them (and chrome pyramids). A geomagnetic disc seems to work, but it's pathetic damage output requires your inventory to consist out of almost nothing except chem/solar cells, unless you can find photonics or metacrystals to make nuclear/antimatter cells, and as I said before, those bits are way too rare, and I've probed the asphalt mines and bethesda susa for those bits, and only found one photonic (technically two, found a powered exoskeleton that I disassembled), which I used to make a disc and a nuclear cell for it. It still ate through the nuclear cell by the time it killed one stalker. By the way, apparently leering stalkers, AKA, hulking quadopedal robot, can flinch out of the way of a small homing projectile, further putting a drain on your disc. Regardless, it feels like this part of the game doesn't really accommodate many builds like the rest of the game does, though I understand that the game is still in development and this part of the game in particular is very underdevloped because the alphabeard only has so much time and he'd probably rather put more of it into areas that more people are likely to experience.

[Laughing Fool]

Deathlands doesn't accommodate because it's well, deathlands. I'm pretty sure in the future if we are required to go there during main quest, we will be provided with better ways to evade and/or destroy leering stalkers and chrome pyramids. As it stands right now, it's only realistically possible for a few very specialised builds the likes of high ego + willpower force field esper or a dodge specialist. I think we weren't supposed to defeat chrome pyramids in the current state of the game in the first place.

[Lolpingu]

Originally posted by Laughing Fool:

Deathlands doesn't accommodate because it's well, deathlands. I'm pretty sure in the future if we are required to go there during main quest, we will be provided with better ways to evade and/or destroy leering stalkers and chrome pyramids. As it stands right now, it's only realistically possible for a few very specialised builds the likes of high ego + willpower force field esper or a dodge specialist. I think we weren't supposed to defeat chrome pyramids in the current state of the game in the first place.

This makes sense. I do hope that the Deathlands become included in the main quest and/or side quests later on, perhaps with some attached lore. I imagine the Deathlands were some kind of military compounds during the golden age of whatever civilization left all the ruins and artifacts behind, hence explaining the murderous robots that far outmatch most things in Qud.

[NoTruePunk]

Originally posted by Lolpingu:

Originally posted by NoTruePunk:

They can rust? that's interesting, I never tried looking at each one I encounter. Will have to check that out.

Would spamming Burgeoning to drown robotic enemies in kuzus be an effective strategy of dealing with them?

Maybe. Kudzu are very low level. They might miss a lot and they only attack once every few rounds