Mech clusters subvert the game

Started by LakeWobegon, March 04, 2020, 09:36:25 AM

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LakeWobegon

I have 5k hours on RimWorld so clearly I enjoy playing it (BTW >99% were played at merciless). I love rich strategy games where I have many valid options to tackle a perceived problem. RimWorld excels at this since there is no one way of playing it, there is little to no railroading so the player is free to chose. Although brutal at times (like Randy sending 4 raids in 24 hours) the events are not actually rigged to destroy you;  in the sense of the storyteller being programmed to, for example, consistently send a solar flare to disable the turret defence system and then swarm the player with raids. This makes turrets a valid option and increases re playability immensely. This design decision is everywhere.
Rimworld is also a base defence game which is something I enjoy a lot too since I always loved playing these types of games. I love beefing up my defences or coming up with strategies to try to win against overwhelming odds.
The extremely rich (from a strategy pov) survival base defence game was completely subverted with the introduction of mechanoid clusters. All of a sudden I am no longer defending a base but being forced to go on the offensive against overwhelming odds with little to no strategic options. This game went from having a LOT of valid options to tackle problems to an abysmal bias towards early WWI  tactics or human wave if you will. I go from I love the game to I cant stand playing it due to being so uninteresting, tedious, repetitive and even dumb.
These clusters are akin to having raiders show up at your base and use an ability that can instantly "melt" all the players walls, traps and turrets.
I hope that this gets addressed and more options are introduced to fight these things; removing their turrets immunity to fire, solar flare, mortar and bullets would be a start.
Thanks for reading.

easytarget

Dropped by the forum just to post this message.  This is just completely broken to the point it doesn't even vaguely feel play tested. 

It's tantamount to saying let's drop a game ending event in your lap that you can't counter and see how you feel about being trolled by it when the answer is blindingly obvious: Not OK man, not OK.
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fritzgryphon

Don't even have royalty yet but already loving the turtle tears.

It might need some balancing but I look forward to having a reason to maintain a sally force instead of just pulling mortar triggers while watching megascreen behind the killbox.

easytarget

Couple observations then for you:

1. You've yet to play it, interesting that you'd jump into a conversation about something you know nothing about.

2. Making a game hard isn't hard.  In fact it's the easiest thing in the world to do.  Presenting interesting choices, challenging circumstances and being entertaining is the hard part.  Killing off a colony with OP events is trivially easy to do.
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RicRider

My experience and from what I see from people playing Royalty on YouTube and twitch tells me that I agree that these events are hard and will make turtle strategies redundant and even dangerous. But to say that there's nothing you can do about it and that it's a colony killing event is a bit extreme. The only mech clusters you can't obliterate with mortars while watching megascreen behind the killbox are the ones with mortar shields. You must have got incredibly unlucky if all your mech clusters spawned with a mortar shield.

Speaking of YouTube, almost every single popular RimWorld Youtuber apart from that one guy who knows what he's doing is standing there attacking mechs with no cover from ranged. At least they learn quick because people tell them to use melee in the comments and then lo and behold, mechs are not a threat anymore when you ambush the ranged ones with armored melee characters. You can also use smoke screens, EMP grenades and pretty much everything else. Also the mech clusters drop random walls in most of the time stupid places so it's really easy to just cheese them with line of sight tricks.
##Coding Scrub##

Whifflepits

Don't see it like this myself, and mechanoids are my particular menace. I'm always losing appendages to them.

Here's some points I'd like to bring up which I'm starting to realize myself after playing Royalty for a while.

You call Rimworld a base defense game, but it isn't. That was just the most common form of combat because players weren't heavily encouraged to go out on raids. The raid quests are generally low reward and high risk, while being tedious and time consuming. They pull your colonists away from important tasks for extended periods of time and that's just not tenable at higher difficulty levels.

This new gameplay element is not new, it's old. Been there for years. It's just more accessible now.

Strategic options are abound. If you're just throwing your nublets into a meat grinder that's your problem. I'm using traps offensively, using the terrain, using mortars, flanking maneuvers, etc... I think I built a total of 4 IED's during the last.... 5 years?... I've played Rimworld. My current save I've got a stockpile of 40 or so that I use offensively.

I don't have 5k hours in the game. Maybe 1k. I just picked it back up for Royalty after a good 9 month hiatus. Coming back with a blurry memory into a game with so many new things to learn has been like playing a new game, and I'm learning every step of the way.

Sounds to me like you're stuck in a rut and blaming Tynan. Game isn't fun anymore? That's usually a sign that you should take a break, not blame the devs for your own self-inflicted misery.

Breadbox

I like caravaning and doing combat quests above all else yet those Mech clusters, from what I can observe, is simply too overbearing on all aspect of the game.

The difficulty spike of Mech clusters over pretty much every other threat in the game is completely unbalanced, it should be better balanced with respect to colony wealth.

LakeWobegon

#7
Quote from: Whifflepits on March 04, 2020, 11:35:49 AM
Don't see it like this myself, and mechanoids are my particular menace. I'm always losing appendages to them.

Here's some points I'd like to bring up which I'm starting to realize myself after playing Royalty for a while.

You call Rimworld a base defense game, but it isn't. That was just the most common form of combat because players weren't heavily encouraged to go out on raids. The raid quests are generally low reward and high risk, while being tedious and time consuming. They pull your colonists away from important tasks for extended periods of time and that's just not tenable at higher difficulty levels.

This new gameplay element is not new, it's old. Been there for years. It's just more accessible now.

Strategic options are abound. If you're just throwing your nublets into a meat grinder that's your problem. I'm using traps offensively, using the terrain, using mortars, flanking maneuvers, etc... I think I built a total of 4 IED's during the last.... 5 years?... I've played Rimworld. My current save I've got a stockpile of 40 or so that I use offensively.

I don't have 5k hours in the game. Maybe 1k. I just picked it back up for Royalty after a good 9 month hiatus. Coming back with a blurry memory into a game with so many new things to learn has been like playing a new game, and I'm learning every step of the way.

Sounds to me like you're stuck in a rut and blaming Tynan. Game isn't fun anymore? That's usually a sign that you should take a break, not blame the devs for your own self-inflicted misery.
Right, I had a mechanoid cluster literally pop in my front door catching one of my colonists outside while he was sowing. It was just a couple of years into the game when I had 2 techs researched on a naked brutality run on tundra very near the north pole. None of my 5 dudes had flak or helmets. The best gun was a normal assault rifle that I bought the rest had machine pistols captured from raiders.  That mech cluster had 6 sniper mechs (1 lancer and 5 pikeman) along with 5 turrets (2 blasters and 3 slug turrets IIRC). Luckily I also bought a shield belt from that same trader. That excellent shield broke at least 3 times whenever my one dude tried to franticly build 1 wall at a time wall (behind cover) to get to the stranded colonist. Luckily no one died because that dude succeeded in building the wall to rescue the stranded friend.
If this mech death squad had landed elsewhere with an EMI or a high psychic drone my only option would have been to charge into certain death or to tediously build that stupid wall to get to the stupid thing; either that or cower inside a mountain and accept living in the stone age and or having mental breaks every other day. I had 70k wealth btw. If it was not for that shield belt everyone would have died.
Raiding was never mandatory in this game, ppl that enjoyed it did it (Ive done it several times) ppl that don't enjoy it built a base, defended it to then build the ship and get out. The difference is that now raiding (which BTW I enjoyed for a fair bit) is now mandatory and it is absolutely rigged to down or kill colonists. When you raid a pirate base the pirates will only outrange/outgun you if you let them. Wrt to mech clusters we are always the one that has the least range and have to tackle them on the open field assumig that on top of the mortair shield they also dont have a bullet shiled. I dont want to suffer through building a stupid wall to take turrets of the equation to tackle something as stupid as these mech clusters are. They should be linked to research and reserch should provide a way to deal with those things without being either stupidly dangerous for colonists nor stupdly tedious. At higher levels of wealth just stepping out of your walls it is already stupidly dangerous but now we also have to march into machine guns ala WWI style due to the lack of any interesting, valid or fun options.I think not.

lugaruclone

Honestly I really like the clusters except except except for the 'mini hellfire' I think it is called... the double energy cannon that rapid fires half way across the screen. The only thing I can do against it is mortar it, although I have seen people report using smoke and other gadgets.

Usually I can ignore clusters on the edges of my maps but it is shocking how often they completely wipe out pirates or merchants without suffering any losses.

Whifflepits

#9
Quote from: LakeWobegon on March 04, 2020, 01:13:01 PM
Quote from: Whifflepits on March 04, 2020, 11:35:49 AM
Don't see it like this myself, and mechanoids are my particular menace. I'm always losing appendages to them.

Here's some points I'd like to bring up which I'm starting to realize myself after playing Royalty for a while.

You call Rimworld a base defense game, but it isn't. That was just the most common form of combat because players weren't heavily encouraged to go out on raids. The raid quests are generally low reward and high risk, while being tedious and time consuming. They pull your colonists away from important tasks for extended periods of time and that's just not tenable at higher difficulty levels.

This new gameplay element is not new, it's old. Been there for years. It's just more accessible now.

Strategic options are abound. If you're just throwing your nublets into a meat grinder that's your problem. I'm using traps offensively, using the terrain, using mortars, flanking maneuvers, etc... I think I built a total of 4 IED's during the last.... 5 years?... I've played Rimworld. My current save I've got a stockpile of 40 or so that I use offensively.

I don't have 5k hours in the game. Maybe 1k. I just picked it back up for Royalty after a good 9 month hiatus. Coming back with a blurry memory into a game with so many new things to learn has been like playing a new game, and I'm learning every step of the way.

Sounds to me like you're stuck in a rut and blaming Tynan. Game isn't fun anymore? That's usually a sign that you should take a break, not blame the devs for your own self-inflicted misery.
Right, I had a mechanoid cluster literally pop in my front door catching one of my colonists outside while he was sowing. It was just a couple of years into the game when I had 2 techs researched on a naked brutality run on tundra very near the north pole. None of my 5 dudes had flak or helmets. The best gun was a normal assault rifle that I bought the rest had machine pistols captured from raiders.  That mech cluster had 6 sniper mechs (1 lancer and 5 pikeman) along with 5 turrets (2 blasters and 3 slug turrets IIRC). Luckily I also bought a shield belt from that same trader. That excellent shield broke at least 3 times whenever my one dude tried to franticly build 1 wall at a time wall (behind cover) to get to the stranded colonist. Luckily no one died because that dude succeeded in building the wall to rescue the stranded friend.
If this mech death squad had landed elsewhere with an EMI or a high psychic drone my only option would have been to charge into certain death or to tediously build that stupid wall to get to the stupid thing; either that or cower inside a mountain and accept living in the stone age and or having mental breaks every other day. I had 70k wealth btw. If it was not for that shield belt everyone would have died.
Raiding was never mandatory in this game, ppl that enjoyed it did it (Ive done it several times) ppl that don't enjoy it built a base, defended it to then build the ship and get out. The difference is that now raiding (which BTW I enjoyed for a fair bit) is now mandatory and it is absolutely rigged to down or kill colonists. When you raid a pirate base the pirates will only outrange/outgun you if you let them. Wrt to mech clusters we are always the one that has the least range and have to tackle them on the open field assumig that on top of the mortair shield they also dont have a bullet shiled. I dont want to suffer through building a stupid wall to take turrets of the equation to tackle something as stupid as these mech clusters are. They should be linked to research and reserch should provide a way to deal with those things without being either stupidly dangerous for colonists nor stupdly tedious. At higher levels of wealth just stepping out of your walls it is already stupidly dangerous but now we also have to march into machine guns ala WWI style due to the lack of any interesting, valid or fun options.I think not.

So you chose a deliberately excruciatingly difficult scenario, and managed to survive by the skin of your teeth. That's exactly the way it should be I thought?

Keep in mind what you just described is exactly like the old-school hot-drops where they just bomb into the middle of your base without warning.

What I think you're complaining about is the difficulty spike that's now happening on the most difficult game settings. I'm pretty sure that was done because of all of the people who've been waltzing through the difficult scenarios like it was a sandbox mode.

It's jarring and a bit ego-bruising not to be able to keep that slider at the top of the bar, but I won't call you a sissy if you back it down for a notch for a year and see if that works for you. I think I'm about to have to change storytellers myself, Randy is getting on my nerves, but the masochists deserve to be entertained too.

Better ways to handle it? Absolutely, he could have added another difficulty setting instead of dropping us all in the hot-seat, but I'm also kind of enjoying it. I wouldn't have challenged myself by upping the setting on my own.

I also think some of the difficulty spike is being added in response to some of the broken-tier rewards you can get from the new quests. It's not that hard to get a couple linked monoswords by 2 years in the game if you aren't freezing your genitals off on the tundra and they *shred* mechs. It's just sickening how effective melee can be now. I haven't tried the zueshammers yet but I have a feeling they were purpose-built for mechanoid swarms. Soon.

I've got my complaints about them too posted in the ideas section. I just think you're being a bit dramatic by declaring the changes garbage, literally unplayable and calling for a complete rollback. They can be adapted to until there is a balance pass.

Some notes that may make your experience more bearable, when the mechanoids aren't landing in your lap (That's just always going to be a big FU, don't think anyone will argue that):

EMP mortars are OP. Hit the mortar shield first and the bases fall relatively easily. Instead of sending everyone in on a senseless charge keep 3 or 4 people on the mortars and only charge in after you get a direct hit on the moving units, which tend to cluster in the center. After that just pray that you get a couple more indirect hits to reduce the fire you take. 4 people on mortars is worth a dozen attacking on the field.

The walls they throw up also make them super-easy to flank once you've bombed the couple turrets that're usually peeking out. Go set some IED's and sandbags on one side and then poke a hole in the wall to get them chasing you, it's a reverse killbox.

Use a rabbit. Dope someone up on yayo and Go-juice as much as you dare, give them a shield belt and as much armor as you've got and send them running through the base screaming like a lunatic. They generally survive, and draw the majority of the fire. If you've got a jogger with bionic legs they can even outrun the scythers after taking some decent damage.

I won't argue that there's some rebalancing to be done, but the game isn't broken. Not yet.... The mechanoids are manageable as long as you aren't charging them head-on, and I think that's the point. Most of the "tactics" I see people using in Rimworld amounts to filling the gap with bodies and waiting to see who grinds who up first. There's a lot more that can be done and the new mechanoid bases encourage players to explore that.

Quote from: lugaruclone on March 04, 2020, 02:00:33 PM
Honestly I really like the clusters except except except for the 'mini hellfire' I think it is called... the double energy cannon that rapid fires half way across the screen. The only thing I can do against it is mortar it, although I have seen people report using smoke and other gadgets.

SMOKE! I didn't think about smoke. Gotta try this next.

Second edit: I just noticed there's an EMP launcher in the list for the machining bench. Starting to worry a lot less about the next cluster.

carbon

Quote from: LakeWobegon on March 04, 2020, 01:13:01 PM
Right, I had a mechanoid cluster literally pop in my front door catching one of my colonists outside while he was sowing.

Getting mech clusters right inside or next to your base has already been removed in the latest versions of the game on Steam. That at least shouldn't be an issue for you moving forward.

LakeWobegon

#11
FYI It has nothing to do with difficulty, do not confuse tediousness with difficulty. The mechanic is tedious, poorly implemented/balanced to the point of being broken. Then it is repetitive as F, as soon as I or someone else (usually someone else) defeats the thing it pops again and again and again to the point that the entire map is littered with their stuff. On top of it it does not bring anything relevant to the table wrt gameplay and story. The reason why I play Rimworld (on merciless) its becasue it is a very difficyult, interesting and engaging challenge. The only feeling I have when I see mech clusters is "oh here comes that effing stupid thing again, man so annoying". It tests my patience but not my brain.
A much better implementation and NOT tedious in terms of story and gameplay would be for a totally walled in cluster to try slowly terraform the map. Since mechs are immune to cold or heat they could very, very slowly for example reduce the temperature to a point that it would eventually be nigh on unberable. The usual mech raids (as seen in 1.0) could pop from that mech base that would also strenghten over time as the players wealth/population evolved (just like in 1.0). it should be totally impossible to takle in begining and a huge undertaking (like up to 10 times stronger mech raid) in the late game but the player would have time to prepare for it.  The player could even chose to not tackle at all and try to survive eventually at tempertures of -200 celsius or sopmething and only be raided by mechanoids. If the player managed to defeat the mech base they would be defeated just like what happens to human factions. The player could also try to race to space and avoid the fight. This would be interesting because it presents a challenge but the player also has interesting options. Being only raided by mechs (due to being too cold) or trying to adapt to survive at eventually -200 would also be "refreshing" form a gameplay/story pov. Instead what I have is a very obvious and very rigged attempt to turn RimWorld int a puzzle game that looks more like WWI in an expansion that brings all kinds of sci fi into the game. At least this is how I see it.

lugaruclone

#12
QuoteA much better implementation and NOT tedious in terms of story and gameplay would be for a totally walled in cluster to try slowly terraform the map.

For sure the infrastructure for that is there... I had them block out the sun on me (super effective, I was running a desert solar farm) once and also I think there was a 'poison ship' type building spewing toxins.

Having something that just brutally changes the temperature and slowly escalates would be pretty badass and likely doable within the new structure. Personally I would love to see one slowly transform tiles to something useless like sand so even if you take it out quickly there is a permanent 'scar' on your map.

Goldenpotatoes

Mech clusters in general are brutal but they are in no way invulnerable. Do I feel more forced to have colonists come in harms way dealing with them? Yeah, but I've also gotten a lot better about crafting armor and obtaining combat drugs for these hot drops. More often than not, these clusters are either on a decent delay or proxy activation, meaning you have time to stage a front that is advantageous to you. Don't like your odds due to the turrets (which I agree to an extent are kinda scuffed due to their zero warmup on shooting)? Mortar them so the foot soldiers come to you (mortar shields can be disabled for an in-game hour by hitting it with an EMP mortar, which you can follow up with a volley of regular shells with good timing).

Mech clusters force you out of your defensive comfort zone, something that really only outpost raids took the player out of. Adapt to something that isn't just a killbox design and you'll be fine against the clusters for the most part.

Ser Kitteh

Player turrets have a minimum range. Charge blasters don't. I'm surprised this got past beta.