Difficult/Impossible scenarios

[Amblypygid]

Does the game design encounters so that they're beatable? Or can it just design something such that you might just be screwed no matter what?

I've been trying to beat the game on hard for the achievement and got very close. However, I was running pretty scarce on power on the final fight so I wasn't feeling that great about my chances. Then, on the second half, it drops you into the cave portion with new enemies, pylons, and fully repaired mechs. However, it dropped me into a configuration with 4 Vek that, no matter which way I parsed it, the run was lost before I could even make my first move. I spent the better part of an hour staring at the screen and jotting down moves on paper before ultimately just praying to RNG for a good grid defense roll. Was I just blind and not considering EVERY possibility or can the game just decide you're done and not give you any chance?

Also, to heck with hard mode.

[inkus]

Just master your skill. And expect 1/10 success rate before you do.

[Amblypygid]

Originally posted by inkus:

Just master your skill. And expect 1/10 success rate before you do.

That's not what I was asking. I'm not trying to get Hard clears with every squad with every island permutation, I have like 40 other games queue'd up after I complete this one. I was asking if the game generates starting (move 1) scenarios in which it's impossible to not take damage.

[inkus]

Yes. Sometimes it does. But that happens really really rare.

Originally posted by Zee Master:

I have like 40 other games queue'd up after I complete this one.

LOL. I have about 400 but still play this one. Because it's really fun. And there are mods which rise difficulty even higher and make runs less and less repeatable.

[Brosef Iosif]

The game can generate impossible scenarii, but it's in the vast majority of cases because of bad earlier placement from the player. Remember that you can deploy in specific manners, look and plan what the veks can do, find what is the worst scenario and deploy accordingly. Be especially wary of hornets that have tremendous positioning ****ery. Same thing during a game, if you clear a turn by having a unit straying from the center, you might be unable to clear the next because you just can't get there. This isn't exactly the game giving you an impossible job, it's partly you putting yourself in an impossible position.
About your last turn, It's absolutely true that the last stand can screw you up because you don't choose the placement of the pylons and then of your team. It seems though that you were low on power and that your problem was largely this though. If you hadn't been, it might have been salvageable so likewise, it's previous mistakes piling up. It's perfectly possible to deal regularly with 4 veks with only 3 mechs considering all the teams have ways to deal with multiple veks in one attack, it's not always possible, but you can make it so.

I've beaten the game in hard, 4-islands, not taking any damage whatsoever with all the 11 teams (and I'm not the only one to have done so) so at least this is perfectly doable. You won't win all games that's for sure, but while this is boasting, I can still win most of the hard game with only a couple of building loss. There is so much alpha in hard that you need to forget about killing them all, displace and have them shoot each other, get rid of the most annoying ones (hornets, spiders), you also need to run a tight ship between the numbers of veks and your mechs, blocking is essential in that regard. Watch good players playing the game might help.
If you're trying to do the achievement, try easier teams like x3 Ice / Rocket Mechs, or very strong custom teams (Combat, Rocket, Swap for instance). There was a thread about this very subject some weeks ago, might want to check it.

Also it's totally true that sometimes, what seems impossible can be solved after minutes of thinking or just quitting and coming back to it with a fresh mind. When I did my no-damage runs, the absolute refusal to not find a solution is pushing you to find new stuff, you might want to damage your teams, fail objectives, let your pilot die, it's all about what you can be bothered to lose. But usually, whenever I find myself in a truly impossible scenario, it should never put me in game over, you should strive to be as clean as possible in every fight to not walk on the rope at every fight. Not having 7 grid power and a growing DEF is a recipe for failure in hard, you should never settle for losing buildings, never go too fast and always look for a solution with good later positioning as this is the key reason why you can't react in the next turns. And also kill hornets.

[Amblypygid]

Originally posted by Brosef Iosif:

The game can generate impossible scenarii, but it's in the vast majority of cases because of bad earlier placement from the player. Remember that you can deploy in specific manners, look and plan what the veks can do, find what is the worst scenario and deploy accordingly. Be especially wary of hornets that have tremendous positioning ****ery. Same thing during a game, if you clear a turn by having a unit straying from the center, you might be unable to clear the next because you just can't get there. This isn't exactly the game giving you an impossible job, it's partly you putting yourself in an impossible position.
About your last turn, It's absolutely true that the last stand can screw you up because you don't choose the placement of the pylons and then of your team. It seems though that you were low on power and that your problem was largely this though. If you hadn't been, it might have been salvageable so likewise, it's previous mistakes piling up. It's perfectly possible to deal regularly with 4 veks with only 3 mechs considering all the teams have ways to deal with multiple veks in one attack, it's not always possible, but you can make it so.

I've beaten the game in hard, 4-islands, not taking any damage whatsoever with all the 11 teams (and I'm not the only one to have done so) so at least this is perfectly doable. You won't win all games that's for sure, but while this is boasting, I can still win most of the hard game with only a couple of building loss. There is so much alpha in hard that you need to forget about killing them all, displace and have them shoot each other, get rid of the most annoying ones (hornets, spiders), you also need to run a tight ship between the numbers of veks and your mechs, blocking is essential in that regard. Watch good players playing the game might help.
If you're trying to do the achievement, try easier teams like x3 Ice / Rocket Mechs, or very strong custom teams (Combat, Rocket, Swap for instance). There was a thread about this very subject some weeks ago, might want to check it.

Also it's totally true that sometimes, what seems impossible can be solved after minutes of thinking or just quitting and coming back to it with a fresh mind. When I did my no-damage runs, the absolute refusal to not find a solution is pushing you to find new stuff, you might want to damage your teams, fail objectives, let your pilot die, it's all about what you can be bothered to lose. But usually, whenever I find myself in a truly impossible scenario, it should never put me in game over, you should strive to be as clean as possible in every fight to not walk on the rope at every fight. Not having 7 grid power and a growing DEF is a recipe for failure in hard, you should never settle for losing buildings, never go too fast and always look for a solution with good later positioning as this is the key reason why you can't react in the next turns. And also kill hornets.

That's why I specified scenarios given to you from the first move, especially with regards to the second half of the final fight where you don't have a choice of where to drop, you're essentially just handed a board position.

[HandyVac]

There isn't any hidden behind-the-scenes number-fudging to make sure every mission is winnable, no matter what choices you made prior to this mission, if that's what you're asking,

But in your example of loosing the final mission on turn 1, because you had hardly any grid power, that was avoidable by your earlier choices, so it's not unfair or arbitrary.

Every mission you did before this affected how much grid power you have at this point, so try and keep it as high as possible for the best chance of winning the finale.

[Brosef Iosif]

Originally posted by Zee Master:

That's why I specified scenarios given to you from the first move, especially with regards to the second half of the final fight where you don't have a choice of where to drop, you're essentially just handed a board position.

That only happens at the second part of the last stand and sometimes somehow if a time pod drops in a particularly not convenient spot. However, if you lose in a single turn on the first turn of a mission, it's because you messed up earlier, significantly. So no, in these specified scenarii the game doesn't "throw you an impossible scenario", you let it be impossible in the first place. If you can't recover from losing a couple of power GRID, that's terrible, especially in the last stand, especially considering you should be at 30%+ Defense.

It doesn't design every mission so that's it beatable, it would be a nightmare to program, it just puts the veks at the back at the beginning, show you the disposition beforehand and let you deploy accordingly. So you better deploy smart or you're making it impossible on yourself.

Also I think that GRID defense, like always, is fudged in your favor.

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Short: Yes, but super, super rarely. And virtually never on easy or normal difficulties iirc.

[Depili]

At first the hard difficulty will seem nearly impossible, but as your thinking and decisions improve you will probably end up winning most of the hard runs.

Movement is pretty much the key, no matter what weapons you might have if you can't get into the right position they don't matter at all. Thus usually the first cores go towards movement and pilots with extra movement options are preferred.

[Peterhobo1]

Zoidberg is very wrong, the game will do it very frequently, maybe 2x per run on the low end no matter your difficulty. You just have to get lucky for a perfect run, on top of playing very well

[Brosef Iosif]

Originally posted by Yooku:

Zoidberg is very wrong, the game will do it very frequently, maybe 2x per run on the low end no matter your difficulty. You just have to get lucky for a perfect run, on top of playing very well

I've had runs where I got 30000pts, no buildings being attacked at any time, no RESIST being necessary so I'll call serious nope on that assessment. Most of my runs on Hard, I only lose one or two buildings across all 4-islands as well. Perfect runs are certainly very complicated and sometimes needlessly tricky, but they are perfectly doable, it's not necessarily about luck though it doesn't hurt.
Besides, you don't need "perfect runs" to simply win. Sometimes, just like in FTL, you need to accept that you won't get the ball, accept the lose and keep going.

It's true that if you aren't able to make hard gambits like getting all of your mechs at 1hp, turn 1, just to get a good positionning advantage that'll last the whole battle, you might be out of your depth in certain cases. This isn't even necessary to win consistently on Hard anyway.

This is less punishing than FTL, but the devs certainly didn't bothered to get nice, sometimes, the RNG will just impose you losses, it's your task to accept no losses bar those scenarii that can seem impossible and to have your head way above water at all time to get passed those occasional losses. At least compared to FTL, it's turn-based and you can pick your fights most of the time.