Early game difficulty

[Useless]

I seem to be stuck in the area right after the cabin. I can't fight the enemies in the fallen angel. I can't fight the enemies in the other map. I don't do enough damage to knock one out with the two silent weapons I have.

I've bought the other rifle for the lady, am using the crossbow on the duck, and gave the gaper to the pig.

Am I just supposed to sneak past EVERYTHING then come back? It feels like I'm supposed to level grind somewhere.

[MannStooka]

I've having the same problem right now and it's why I'm reading this post. I barely managed to take out the mobs around The Angel, but now I'm stuck with the level 10 shaman guys - I'm not doing well in that fight.

[Proper Skux]

3rd silent weapon is in the crashed plane zone on the map.

Also you can use Bormin's tackle to incapacitate people so they can't raise the alarm.

[Useless]

Originally posted by MannStooka:

I've having the same problem right now and it's why I'm reading this post. I barely managed to take out the mobs around The Angel, but now I'm stuck with the level 10 shaman guys - I'm not doing well in that fight.

I got through the two fights by using grenades. Shamans will summon more enemies, they need to die first round. Med-bots will revive enemies, they need to die second. They also have armor so molotov grenades are 100% useless.

Also try to start the fights in stealth, you get bonuses.

If you have not, upgrade your ranged weapons, and slap on 'increases range' items like scopes or sights. The extra 1 damage for tier 2 and tier 3 is massive. You can dismantle weapons you won't use. Right now I'm using a silent weapon on each character, and then something that does more damage.

[jonnin]

sneak past the enemy and loot some better gear and come back to it.
there is a lot of good stuff you can just take without any serious fights before you tackle this first boss. And I don't mean just this zone; loot every zone you can get to and push as far as you can looking for stuff. You should be able to go to the tunnel full of cars and the ferry area and the underground bunker area and the demon area by now.
3 grenades will win the fight at the angle. the med bot can be killed without alerting if you can stun it (emp grenade), or if you have the stun robot skill

[Kynsar]

That sounds like a really odd way to have to play just to progress? Basically you have to skip a bunch of content and then come back later? Sounds like a flaw in the game design if thats the only way to progress.

[MannStooka]

Everything that people are saying makes sense, but I don't have the points for the tackle, I don't have the mods necessary to upgrade guns to the degree people are saying here, I haven't seen a single EMP grenade, etc. I was barely able to finish the helicopter area fight and it required me chewing through 4 med packs. I've cleaned up every inch of the early zones and I'm now at the fight at the top of some hills where you first encounter the shamans. I didn't kill the shaman the first time around and the fight didn't go well. The larger point is that you really shouldn't get your butt kicked this much this early in the game, IMO. Having to skip areas and come back seems kind of stupid when you're on a pretty linear track at the beginning.

I was a huge XCOM fan so I'm not new to this playstyle, but I'm having a lot of trouble with it that I never had with the XCOM games. I want to like it, but it's pretty frustrating early on.

[old.school]

Originally posted by MannStooka:

Everything that people are saying makes sense, but I don't have the points for the tackle, I don't have the mods necessary to upgrade guns to the degree people are saying here, I haven't seen a single EMP grenade, etc. I was barely able to finish the helicopter area fight and it required me chewing through 4 med packs. I've cleaned up every inch of the early zones and I'm now at the fight at the top of some hills where you first encounter the shamans. I didn't kill the shaman the first time around and the fight didn't go well. The larger point is that you really shouldn't get your butt kicked this much this early in the game, IMO. Having to skip areas and come back seems kind of stupid when you're on a pretty linear track at the beginning.

I was a huge XCOM fan so I'm not new to this playstyle, but I'm having a lot of trouble with it that I never had with the XCOM games. I want to like it, but it's pretty frustrating early on.

Have you been spending your mutant ability points in stat upgrades or in mutation upgrades? because if you've been spending them in stats then that might explain why you dont have Bormins Charge ability yet. His charge ability is really OP in that you can stealth kill a high hp single mob by charging, then doing 2 turns of silent weapon damage. So thats 2+4+4 and 4+4+4. The 2 damage is from the charge ability itself and 4+4 is from level 1 silent weapons from your other two stalkers. Then the next turn each of them does 4 damage each so thats a total of 22 damage by the end of your second turn. You can start doing that as early as level 9 which is when Bormin gets Hog Rush...

Also the Fallen Angel fight is easy assuming you had tried to get Bormins Hog Rush ASAP. You could have cleared all the patrols in the Fallen Angel area which would have left the medbot, pyro, butcher, 2 dogs and Chief. You can kill the medbot without alerting the others if you hog rush it. Which leaves the pyro, butcher, 2 dogs and Chief. If you've been looting everything then you should have 2 frag grenades by this point. Buy a third one at the Ark and give one to each stalker. The mobs in the Chiefs group have 10+4+10+10+20 something health. On your first turn if each stalker throws their frag grenade then thats 4+4+4 damage and you will severely damage the Chief and kill everybody else. So you start the ambush, use one AP to move each stalker to cover, throw the frag. I would leave Bormin out of cover so so that maybe the Chief will target him and Bormin can soak the damage.

[Jhones]

And the above post highlights a really big problem I have with the game.

It's all about not spending your lvl up points wrong, if you do, you're screwed. There's no resets.

So if the guy didn't realise how vital Hog Rush is (and it really is vital) and he spent the mutation points elsewhere he's really going to struggle.

I bounced off this particular encounter, the first Shamen up the the two ladders before the car tunnel, hard and it caused me to restart my game. Take a really good look at the mutations I could get and really plan how I'd spend my points.

Once I'd properly worked out which mutations are good, which are rubbish, decent wepon set ups, etc then the game becomes a bit of a cakewalk.

[Kynsar]

"Once I'd properly worked out which mutations are good, which are rubbish, decent wepon set ups, etc then the game becomes a bit of a cakewalk. [/quote]

It sounds like a good game but needs some balancing based on much of the feedback I'm seeing.

[Jhones]

It is a good game. Plays well, looks and sounds great. Lovely atmosphere.

But the limited number of enemies per playthrough and no way of correcting early mistakes will put a lot of people off.

[MannStooka]

old.school, I really appreciate your post. As you suspected I did spend some early points into health due to some close calls in fights early on. The emphasis on Hog Rush and certain skills being almost requirements for viable builds is pretty disappointing to hear. It sucks because I really don't want to come off like a crybaby here. I really want to like this game and I'm not sorry that they got my money - I just think there was a lot of room for variety and improvement here.

[jonnin]

its not just mutations. if it can be spent (money, rare item points, upgrades, mutations) it can be spent wrong, and if its spent wrong, the game can be anything from unplayable to extra hard.

I don't know that sneaking past stuff for loot and then going back is required or not. I just know there is a LOT of great stuff out there just waiting to be picked up, with little to no fighting to get it.

emp grenades are lying around somewhere you can get to without a fight. I don't recall where, seems like maybe the ferry area had one, or the undergound bunker. You may also have one on the ark vendor by now; depends on your level though.

[jep]

Originally posted by MannStooka:

old.school, I really appreciate your post. As you suspected I did spend some early points into health due to some close calls in fights early on. The emphasis on Hog Rush and certain skills being almost requirements for viable builds is pretty disappointing to hear. It sucks because I really don't want to come off like a crybaby here. I really want to like this game and I'm not sorry that they got my money - I just think there was a lot of room for variety and improvement here.

It would probably have been a good idea for them to have locked a certain portion of stat upgrades behind the "gateway" mutations (the ones where two mutations funnel into one mutation or vice versa). This would keep people from going too runaway into stats.

['Strict]

I've never understood why some games with "RPG-stats" don't allow for resets, it really sucks when you take one wrong turn/bad choice and you can't do anything about it.

Just like I remember what I believe is the second KoToR game, it had a boss-fight against the "big boss" early in the game before you know she's evil, if you went to that planet too early (and you're like me and don't use other saves then the autosave) you can't progress and will have to do several hours of the game all over again.

And replaying a game from the start all over again (unless it's to replay the game after beating it) really sucks.


So yeah, I wish games would have at least one reset so you can try out some different builds and such without having to restart.

[jep]

Hey, in the RPG this game is based on, you got mutations completely randomly. :D

And they usually came with drawbacks.