A theory as to why Othercide isn't even more popular

[Zeke45]

It steeps itself too much in the "embrace death to progress" mechanic. I realize this is also part of the "hook" they went for, but the fact that the game actively deters and discourages you from getting attached to your protagonists, is a letdown for me and many people.

Take XCom 2 -- it's practically a meme how people get attached to a particular Ranger or Sharpshooter or what-have-you, sometimes to be crestfallen when that unit falls during the course of the game.

With this game, you're barely given a chance to get attached. And the whole "sacrifice" deal leaves a bad taste.

It has some really excellent tactical elements, animations, and artwork. It should/could have been more popular if they'd let the gamers keep their inner child a bit more, rather than be cold and calculating, by necessity, about the avatars they control.

Just an opinion. Like body orifices, everyone has 'em.

[Drakon]

2 things I didn't like in the game:
- dream does not teach you how to play on nightmare, it's a completely different game. Health sacrifice skills are not that punishing on dream, while on nightmare there's no point in taking or using most of them.
- traits are level locked and you can't get some of them if you start with high level doughters

At the same time the game is winnable on nightmare on the first playthrough. So much mechanics you can (ab)use.
- 100% predictrable enemies
- blademaster's tanking with sidestep buffed with armor (best dps with best tanking and best mobility without any health sacrifice)
- focus on skills without health sacrifice (maybe except soulslinger shadow round).
- double armor from buffs (for you and the enemy)
- initiative buffs from soulslinger skills
- sacrifice of a doughter and resurect her immediately for double heal (just remember to keep those with memories that you can't replace)
- full soulslinger cheese
...

[Hormesis]

well i have a theory. i just fought the first mission and an enemy permanently killed my character in a single attack. seems fun. i only paid 5 bucks for it but i have no interest in trying to learn the mechanics when this is the result. it'll end up being one of those games where you just keep replaying the same mission over and over in hopes you'll get a positive result, and well i just don't have that amount of disposable time or patience to waste. cool artwork but music is garbo. all and all it's a thumbs down from me

[Zzyl_tsw]

Originally posted by Hormesis:

...
i just fought the first mission and an enemy permanently killed my character in a single attack.
......
it'll end up being one of those games where you just keep replaying the same mission over and over in hopes you'll get a positive result,......

Well, i won on dream and play a little bit on NM.
However, here are some comments :

1) no idea how an ennemy killed one of your daughter in one attack on the first mission.
I should not be the case and the RNG is quite low on damage from memory.
How did it happen ?
Was it the "tutorial" or the real first mission?
Perhaps if your soulslinger was very near from an ennemy.
One the main idea in the game is not to be touched at all (welll shieldbearer might tank a bit)


2) There is a little RNG in reality, so it is not a game where you "hope you will get a positive result'

So i would recommend to give a bit more try, as I am not sure you have a representative vision of the game at that point.

But if you do not like it after that, to each its own.

[Hazen]

It's a punishing game. That's the appeal. They don't have suffering as the final boss for nothing. You as a player must suffer xD

[Hormesis]

Originally posted by Zzyl_tsw:

Originally posted by Hormesis:

...
i just fought the first mission and an enemy permanently killed my character in a single attack.
......
it'll end up being one of those games where you just keep replaying the same mission over and over in hopes you'll get a positive result,......

Well, i won on dream and play a little bit on NM.
However, here are some comments :

1) no idea how an ennemy killed one of your daughter in one attack on the first mission.
I should not be the case and the RNG is quite low on damage from memory.
How did it happen ?
Was it the "tutorial" or the real first mission?
Perhaps if your soulslinger was very near from an ennemy.
One the main idea in the game is not to be touched at all (welll shieldbearer might tank a bit)


2) There is a little RNG in reality, so it is not a game where you "hope you will get a positive result'

So i would recommend to give a bit more try, as I am not sure you have a representative vision of the game at that point.

But if you do not like it after that, to each its own.

it was the first mission after tutorial and i was on nightmare. enemy flanked my blademaster, did an attack that had two slices and it killed her.

i even gave it a third attempt. on the second mission the guy with a hat did an attack and knocked her down to about 5% life. ok i survived yay, now i have to run into the area that extracts my daughters. i get there by some miracle and all my daughters are there, but the mission doesn't end, and the same dude 1 shots my gunsliger. then some small enemy finishes off my blademaster. no idea how to leave, all it says is that the mission will end once the area becomes available. likely i'd have to kill the enemies to make it a viable extraction zone but that was never explained and now i've party wiped on the second mission.

i guess at the end of the day these types of games are just not my style. waiting for 10 enemies to move about the zone and then take a turn with my 3 characters is just not fun. to each their own tho, and if this is your style of game then i'm sure it could be fun.

[Hazen]

Originally posted by Hormesis:

Originally posted by Zzyl_tsw:

Well, i won on dream and play a little bit on NM.
However, here are some comments :

1) no idea how an ennemy killed one of your daughter in one attack on the first mission.
I should not be the case and the RNG is quite low on damage from memory.
How did it happen ?
Was it the "tutorial" or the real first mission?
Perhaps if your soulslinger was very near from an ennemy.
One the main idea in the game is not to be touched at all (welll shieldbearer might tank a bit)


2) There is a little RNG in reality, so it is not a game where you "hope you will get a positive result'

So i would recommend to give a bit more try, as I am not sure you have a representative vision of the game at that point.

But if you do not like it after that, to each its own.

it was the first mission after tutorial and i was on nightmare. enemy flanked my blademaster, did an attack that had two slices and it killed her.

i even gave it a third attempt. on the second mission the guy with a hat did an attack and knocked her down to about 5% life. ok i survived yay, now i have to run into the area that extracts my daughters. i get there by some miracle and all my daughters are there, but the mission doesn't end, and the same dude 1 shots my gunsliger. then some small enemy finishes off my blademaster. no idea how to leave, all it says is that the mission will end once the area becomes available. likely i'd have to kill the enemies to make it a viable extraction zone but that was never explained and now i've party wiped on the second mission.

i guess at the end of the day these types of games are just not my style. waiting for 10 enemies to move about the zone and then take a turn with my 3 characters is just not fun. to each their own tho, and if this is your style of game then i'm sure it could be fun.

You leave by being in the area, and right clicking on the daughter to leave and select "Leave" it's like a normal command, only on selection when you are in the extraction zone.

[Zzyl_tsw]

Yes, to leave you need to select the action in the menu when you are in the target zone.
It does not cost any AP, and it just makes the currently selected daughter leave.

So you need to do that for the child and each of your daughter. The mission does not "end" untill everyone left (or died)

Therefore you must "plan" it a bit, and not always make a daughter exit as soon as she can. Because she might help the others exit.
Typically a soulslinger might be standing in the exit zone but still stay there to range attack/kill ennemies while your others daughter are still running for their life. However, you must also ensure, as best as you can, that she wont be attacked in the meanwhile.

This is a game about planning your actions, and the ennemies ones. Based on the AP bar and the "known" behaviour of the ennemies.
The escort mission type is one of the most "stressful" because you cannot linger (too much). You need to move while clearing the zone you move around. Otherwise you will be surrounded as ennemies continue to spawn.

Note : Once you meet an ennemy, you can read their description in the "lore" section. And it and does tell you which daughter each ennemy will prioritize. Hence you can know what each ennemy will do at its turn.

If your are not very good at this kind of game, or prefer a more forgiving option, i would recommend you to try again in dream mode. (that's what the mode i started. I do have some experience in tactical games, but i also often save/scum. And i did not want sth too hard at the time I started that game)
The ennemies, damage and pattern are exactly the same. However each daughter heals 50% HP each day, so you do not really need to sacrifice your daughters and can even use some HP skills each day. You can even play without using the HP skills as much as you possibly could, to "up the challenge"

[MerlinCross]

Game is tough
Hard to get attached to units when they can easily drop or be 100% fodder
Progression seems iffy in a game with rogue-like elements
Hard to plan when enemies move in ways they shouldn't or your understanding leads you to take what you think are better moves
Community tells you to get good

I wonder why this game never took off. Heck I'm only coming back when another game reminded me of the striking color choices that to this day still stick out in my head. But I remember the 3rd or 4th boss being a massive [insert your preferred insult here] that killed my run in a way that BY LORE/DESCRIPTION/RULES it shouldn't have, and my desire to try the game again just dies.

Shame though, I did want to see if they'd try again with a second game because while I do have my own issues with the game(or chip on my shoulder), I DID want to see more games try a style like this.

You don't get a lot of weird elderlitch xcom ish games. And no I'm not counting THAT one cause those are just weird mutated creatures.

[Hazen]

You should try it again, don't give up. Play it mercilessly. You also have to almost play optimally. You will fail, again and again, but what little progress you make carries through as you sacrifice to make other daughters stronger.

Tip for you - soulslinger's are the most powerful class.

[Raymond]

Originally posted by Hormesis:

well i have a theory. i just fought the first mission and an enemy permanently killed my character in a single attack. seems fun. i only paid 5 bucks for it but i have no interest in trying to learn the mechanics when this is the result. it'll end up being one of those games where you just keep replaying the same mission over and over in hopes you'll get a positive result, and well i just don't have that amount of disposable time or patience to waste. cool artwork but music is garbo. all and all it's a thumbs down from me

this game doesn't have RNG on attack damage so I don't see how replaying the same mission would help you getting better result without you yourself get better at the game.

[Kuma]

I disagree, if anything the death, sacrifice and rebirth system is the most polished thing in the game has. Since daughters are just pieces of mother you start seeing them all as part of the same entity.

However what I really feel that is missing is some sort of procedural generation to make battles feel less repetitive, you end up playing the same exact maps way too often.

[Hazen]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysUylMwFYrg&list=PLVE3XKvEivJVVEa52cowNToWyzjSnvTuh Here is a playlist of Othercide content I've produced.

There are lots of tips you can get from watching some of these videos.

I've produced one tutorial video on the Maid, as this imo is the first "hard" boss.

[TamTroll]

I DO wish the Graveyard was larger, or there was a second graveyard that let me see the names of all the daughters I've lost over the attempts.

i know "Memory" is kind of a big deal, and so "Forgetting" is also a big deal, but idk, it'd be nice.

[Turkusowy Sen]

I dunno, actually I feel quite well attached to my strongest girls and if one of them dies, everybody is sad and goes 1min afk silence, then the rest get angry and kill the boss lol

Also, I wonder if you could somehow resurrect...uh what?
Obviously unless you are very experienced it would be almost impossible to not die in game. Also, it is kinda point, world is sad and grey and everyone dies, I guess I would also like if daughters all had anime pink hair and danced after you finish level but not sure if that would not kill the mood huh. In my opinion there is already quite much of that type of mood in game, it is not some nihilistic experience where you always lose and bad guys win (it is sad but I think cute daughters with big swords smashing monsters is not some super bleak dark fantasy. Probably character editor contributes a lot because I can have happy daughters family with matching anime hairstyles instead of tryharding to be saddest person. Maybe lore and bosses feel sad and bad, daughters are cool and metal and you can save them, I dont think game forces you to lose someone at some point in game. Sacrifices - yup, but you could not take hits at all, hard but possible. Though personally I am okay with sacrificing weaker sisters for epic gamer sisters, anyway game even tells you that "part of someones soul still "feels" like it is with the other sister who lives or something. I liked it

On the one thing I can agree - the hard mode feels exactly that way, I think I also felt a bit sad and weird that I have absolutely no way to somehow heal sister after they get hit. So going absolutely no death run would be very very hard I think. But nobody is saying you have to do it like that, I have no problems at all having some deaths, it feels realistic that this world is so hardcore that daughters would probably get massacred every time and maybe 10% would get to high level. Especially on first run it is guranteed that even those high level often die like...in unfair way I guess? Who would expect that if you go to war you can get sniped randomly and nothing will save you, even magic armor or superpowers. Unless you could regenerate with insane speed I guess, then maybe but nothing else. Sure maybe supersoldier can nuke 100 people by superpunch but he still would get shot in the head by that one guy who was hiding somewhere. Life is kinda brutal and unfair even our world, not to mention othercide world where you can get eaten alive by monster doggies or get head chopped by the guy who is so big that he can just spin and still hit everyone. Not even Mother who is kinda unkillable spirit would help you with scouting or giving some advices cus she prefers to have fun watching and shouting random stuff like "u go bossgirl" or "please dont die or im gonna be sad and reset whole game cus this is too hard, maybe farm some memories

PS. Kinda funny Mother creates Daughters by some shady blood magic, then she gives them big swords and heavy armors and tells them to go kill the bad monsters, interestingly sisters do not complain at all so I guess Mother just tells them everything will be fine, these are nightmare monsters so if they bite just try to think pain is not real, even if one sister dies no big deal, we have spare innocent children to trade with Satan in exchange for bringing one strong sister back (cus she had 15lvl and cool traits). Literally everyone dreams of dying horrible death to make mum proud, then when you go to afterlife you suddenly get pulled back because mum decided you are so super strong that she really wants to see you go punch that evil demon child in face.

[Lord Helios]

Originally posted by Tyr:

The Persona and SMT games have you sacrifice your demons frequently and those games are hugely popular. Maybe its the art style (which I love) or the game just wasn't promoted enough?

The sacrifice of demons is kinda irrelevant, you still have your characters and demons are more like weapons rather than characters. Sure, you can keep certain demons and personas and never get rid of them, but you have a pretty good host size of demons/shadows you can keep. So just keep your favorites and keep a few of your weaker favorites and you can generally win the game.

Roguelikes are often unpopular and rarely do they ever reach mainstream, some games become more popular than others but they tend stick to niche categories. Take Xcom and Darkest Dungeons, both use roguelike mechanics and both are decently successful but they never sold as well as... say... dark souls which uses similar death is not the end concepts but death is not permanent in dark souls. its the permanence that often turns people away rather than death itself.