Octopus Overlords

Finished the game. I drew it out far longer than I maybe should have, and my final base was impenetrable by any number of waves or enemies. Walls 2-deep, turrets of all kinds, and several Heavy Artillery dropping nukes all over.

I was astonished by the level of detail in all the different biomes. I think this could have easily been a $60 AAA title but might be a little short for that if you just plow down the objectives list as fast as possible.

What does familiarity do? I can scan things, and if I scan a bunch of them, my familiarity increases. I just ran around and scanned a crap-ton of plants, getting one to the third level of familiarity. It gives me +% resources (what resources? When?) and a 'reward' that is just an icon with a picture of the plant.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 2:40 pm What does familiarity do? I can scan things, and if I scan a bunch of them, my familiarity increases. I just ran around and scanned a crap-ton of plants, getting one to the third level of familiarity. It gives me +% resources (what resources? When?) and a 'reward' that is just an icon with a picture of the plant.

Unlocks on the alien tech tree, also unlocks little descriptive bits about whatever you are scanning and may include weaknesses/resistances.

On the resources, more meat and more plant material when harvesting them (used for power mostly)

That answer made no sense to me.

Also, I have researched a crap-ton of base upgrades.

Then, about five minutes ago, I noticed that the research screen has multiple tabs. Now the answer makes sense.

Just so you don't feel too bad, I missed the tabs for a good while too.

One thing this game does not do well is explain itself to the player, and the interface isn't intuitive enough for it to be clear.

The one thing you must know that I am not sure the game ever told me, other than in a loading screen tip, there is a button you hold (Alt maybe?) that lets you directly build the highest tier of whatever you are building instead of building the tier 1 version and upgrading multiple times.

Yeah, I just saw that loading screen tip last night. But thanks for the heads-up.

So does the fun of the game outshine the lack of intuitiveness and handholding?

Does the developer seem responsive? Just wondering if that feeling is universal, maybe they will patch in some tooltips, tutorials, etc. ?

It's absolutely a blast. Like I said, it's like mixing the base building from an old school RTS with a detailed tech tree and sci-fi Diablo combat.

Can’t go wrong for $1! (Game pass sub for 3 months) I’m in.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Tue Nov 02, 2021 7:17 pmThat answer made no sense to me.

I think you got it, but to clarify for anyone else:

Identified 0-5: Shows up with a name in your index.
Familiar 5-10: Adds descriptive text
Familiar 10-21: Shows resistances & weaknesses, lets you grow it if it's a plant
Every stage afterwards increases familiarity bonus to damage done and resources found when you destroy it.

Unless you're the destroyer of worlds, there's little benefit in scanning any plant species more than 10 times. Some species are very similar to others, though. They'll provide different resources when you grow & harvest them.

Ok, the poor communication is on my nerve now. I'm supposed to set up a research station near a yeast root. There are thousands of plants around me. Which one is the effing yeast root, and what the hell does 'near' mean?

Ok, that mission has me dialing back my recommendation. Hopefully it was only that one mission. Mission progress, not story, spoilers.
I still love the concept, but the acid biome hasn't been fun. Much more like that and I'll be leaving it behind.

Also: I know my carbonium storage is full, and that the resource queue is empty, but I'm dealing with an enemy swarm while trying to set up a brand new base without any defenses yet in the middle of a meteor shower, so why not STFU until things settle down?

Yep, I'm done. This wants to be a good game, and it is for a while, but its gameplay outstays its welcome.

I'm in the mid-game now, and it's grindy and tedious. Go gather 500 resources of (type.) You have to stroll around with scanner, hoping it will ping, while being attacked by huge numbers of enemies every few seconds. Finally your scanner pings - and you get 43 out of the 500. Spend 45 minutes to an hour like this, then go do it again for another resource. You'd think that the other biomes would make add variety, but they mostly just give you the same enemies with a different skin, while putting you in environments that are basically "if you stray from the path into the (radiation crystals/fire/acid yeast) you'll take damage."

Or if you don't need resources, it is "criss-cross the map looking for a vague something", or "There is a nest spawning enemies/large creature on the other side of the map, go kill it." Regardless, most of your time is spent trudging across the map, getting swarmed every few seconds. You either train them around and try to take the enemies out en masse, or you have to stop each time to kill them. The combat just isn't deep enough to make it interesting almost non-stop for hours on end. Meanwhile there is an earthquake/acid eruption/ion storm/meteor shower/giant swarm/nest every few minutes. It's unrelenting in a bad way.

And then there are the balance issues, where as soon as you get a few technologies researched, your base, and all the gameplay associated with it, becomes pointless because you're so powerful.

And then there is the issue of the horrible communication, where the tutorials, objectives, and interface design leave you with no idea of what's what, what needs done, the difference between stats, the difference between upgrades, and so on.

I really, really liked this game for the first few hours, but once I hit a certain point, it just went south.

Darn. Sounded like it was right up my alley.

Eh, my experience is just my experience. Someone else might not be bothered by the things I was, and I certainly had fun with it right up until I didn't.

Blackhawk wrote:Eh, my experience is just my experience. Someone else might not be bothered by the things I was, and I certainly had fun with it right up until I didn't.

I can echo your thoughts

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For the record, I loved it start to finish (playing on easy). I am not going to contradict anything Blackhawk stated, it's all true, it just didn't have the same kind of impact on me that it did on him.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 6:18 pm And then there are the balance issues, where as soon as you get a few technologies researched, your base, and all the gameplay associated with it, becomes pointless because you're so powerful.

Though I never unlocked any tech that trivialized anything or at least never discovered the use of it.

coopasonic wrote: ↑Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:26 am For the record, I loved it start to finish (playing on easy). I am not going to contradict anything Blackhawk stated, it's all true, it just didn't have the same kind of impact on me that it did on him.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 6:18 pm And then there are the balance issues, where as soon as you get a few technologies researched, your base, and all the gameplay associated with it, becomes pointless because you're so powerful.

Though I never unlocked any tech that trivialized anything or at least never discovered the use of it.

Once I got the first upgrade on my doubled walls, upgraded flamer towers up front flanked by upgraded sentinel and rocket towers, an upgraded artillery tower in the back with upgraded radar and repair towers, there were no threats. Nothing could touch me. I quit even acknowledging base attacks. And even during low-power events I had more than enough storage to keep everything running.

I guess I never went big enough on automated defenses.

It definitely intends to be played as a classic base builder-cum-tower defense game.

I picked this up during the steam sale and have been having a good time with it. I really wish the game made it more clear that you are going to be stuck with your original base for the long haul. Mine is hideous and consists of random buildings sprawling out in all directions. Do you ever get the ability to destroy large rocks? I unfortunately have a giant rock outcropping in the middle of my base that just serves to get in my way.

Also, I guess a spoiler question, but are flying enemies a thing I need to worry about? There is a cliff face on the right of my base and I am just curious if that will ever come back to bite me if I don't defend it.

Ok, so I have been progressing in this just fine, but I feel like I missed something. The wave that just hit my HQ is ridiculous. I can’t stop it, it kills everything. What triggered this? Every other wave I’ve encountered has been a non-issue. The last thing I did was complete the palladium harvesting mission, otherwise nothing has changed.

I managed to fight through it and just finished the campaign. Plasma is super finicky and soured me on the final objective a little bit. I had run plasma pipes all through my base and during the final wave if even one pipe was damaged it caused the objective to fail and start over. I finally had to create a work around of just severing the central building from the rest of the network.

Also, there is an alternate ending.
Overall a really solid experience with only a few little issues. Hopefully a patch or two can fix up the frustrating plasma issues and I wouldn't mind seeing some of the end game costs reduced as I felt like the last 5 hours or so of the game were largely padding waiting for huge amounts of resources to build up.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Sat Nov 06, 2021 4:16 pm Ok, that mission has me dialing back my recommendation. Hopefully it was only that one mission. Mission progress, not story, spoilers.

Spoiler:

I found the root. The problem was that they tell you, "There's the root!" when you are nowhere near it.

Problem #3. The thing you have to defend is in the middle of an field of exploding acid plants. When enemies attack, they attack through the field that kills you, even with the corrosive plating on your armor. And they attack with massive numbers of artillery type creatures, which means you have to run out into the field to stop them. Remember the part about not being able to build towers?

So something I noticed late is every time they mention an objective like this it will almost always show up on your map. You might be thinking...no it doesn't. Well it does actually, but I don't think it is ever explained. if you hit M you get a full map of the play area that is MUCH MUCH larger than what shows up on your minimap. Also, the yeast mission might be counter intuitive but I found you could just leave the tower in the area and it never gets attacked as long as you don't stay with it. Just put down your anti-corrosive floor tiles and walk away.