The Surge - Sci-Fi - Melee Combat RPG

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 23, 2017 12:53 pm

See above edited comment.

And holy crap, I just backstabbed a flamethrower who was in the middle of firing his weapon. I hate the flamethrowers since I can rarely get through one without taking damage, so that was sweet.

tip: If you have enough energy for your drone at the end of combat, activate it and your drone will store the energy. You can then use the drone in the next fight for free. That's something I wished I had known a lot earlier.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue May 23, 2017 1:08 pm

GreenGoo wrote:See above edited comment.

And holy crap, I just backstabbed a flamethrower who was in the middle of firing his weapon. I hate the flamethrowers since I can rarely get through one without taking damage, so that was sweet.

tip: If you have enough energy for your drone at the end of combat, activate it and your drone will store the energy. You can then use the drone in the next fight for free. That's something I wished I had known a lot earlier.

Tip on the flamethrower guys. I don't think you are in the right are yet, but after the next boss you will get to an area with a lot of display cases that appear to contain some kind of flammable gas. Two things: don't be near them when a flamethrower guy is around and if a flamethrower guy is coming, break the class and get back. He will blow his own ass up.

I haven't really found the drone to be useful at all so I haven't bothered to figure anything out. I have used them a few times to draw a guy out, but that's it.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 23, 2017 1:33 pm

coopasonic wrote:I haven't really found the drone to be useful at all so I haven't bothered to figure anything out. I have used them a few times to draw a guy out, but that's it.

Even after swapping most of my implants out for HP, I could barely take a single hit from the leaper v2.0. I used the knockdown drone to knock it on its ass as I started a combo. The drone was a godsend in that scenario.

If you don't use your drone, what do you do with all the excess energy you get? Obviously you heal when you need to, and finishing moves when you can, but there are lots of times when you're maxed with nothing to use it on, except the drone. And using the drone to pull has been essential for me for separating teams of baddies.

At the boss. Not sure what to do and I've got some work to do so I'm taking a break. I'll let you know how it goes tonight.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue May 23, 2017 1:47 pm

I use my energy to finisher or nothing... if I am fast enough it is used to finish the next guy earlier.

My implants:
health bars
3 x 160hp heal
2 x +HPs (which scarab makes even more HP)
+30% energy gain
... no recollection what the last one might be

I used the energy => heal one for a while but the heals were too small so I replaced it with something else.

Honestly I am not sure what you are referring to as the leaper 2.0. I don't recall seeing anything but RIGs between the lady at the end of area 3 and the next boss.

Cortilian · Post by **Cortilian** » Tue May 23, 2017 1:59 pm

Still really enjoying the game. The 2nd map area is pretty confusing though. Hard to find any of the shortcuts. Just lost 14k scrap and couldn't get back in time.

Sepiche · Post by **Sepiche** » Tue May 23, 2017 2:05 pm

Yeah, I've only been playing this a bit intermittently, but still enjoying it.

I'm still in the second area, but I'm starting to get to the point where I should be able to make a play for the boss... my only weakness is I still suck at fighting the welding bots, but I'm getting better at least. I can generally kill all the basic guys without taking any damage now, and I've been able to farm a full suit of Scarab armor that I'm working on upgrading.

Having tried out a little Dark Souls 3 now, I can also say the main thing that I dislike about The Surge's combat is the unabortable chain attacks. Once you figure out when they trigger it makes it much easier to hit and fade as needed, but it ends up making the combat feel very sluggish as when you get locked into a combo like that it feels like you're losing control until it's done.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue May 23, 2017 2:13 pm

Sepiche wrote:my only weakness is I still suck at fighting the welding bots, but I'm getting better at least.

The welding bots aren't worth bothering. They take too long to kill and are all avoidable.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue May 23, 2017 2:35 pm

Cortilian wrote:Hard to find any of the shortcuts. Just lost 14k scrap and couldn't get back in time.

The expiring scrap can be pretty annoying.

I've actually been pretty impressed with myself finding my way through. I played Bloodborne while simultaneously watching a let's play so had significant help. It helped teach me that you look everywhere, always.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Tue May 23, 2017 10:32 pm

3rd Boss down. R&D is a challenge so far.

Punching the flamethrowers in the canisters causes them to explode no matter how much health they have. Pro tip: Don't stand beside them when they blow up.

You guys probably already know this, but timing your button presses on your combos reduces the amount of stamina used for each attack. When done correctly you should notice your stamina bar light up. It also helps reduce the uncontrollable combo issue that Sepiche mentioned above. It's much easier to dodge if you haven't queued up attacks. I recommend using the heavy duty weapons to really slow down your attacks and give you lots of time to notice when pressing the next attack is appropriate. Once you've mastered the heavy duty weapons, you make much faster headway with the rest.

Q; Do I have to return to lower level guys to get mark I materials (and body part specific scrap)?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed May 24, 2017 12:31 am

I've opened up two shortcuts in R&D which is nice, but now the harzard guys are kicking my 1 handed ass. They have tons of armour, can't be staggered easily (with my 1h weapon), counter attack extremely quickly and hit for about 80% of my hp with a homing charge attack. A counter attack is only 50% of my hp. I actually prefer the flame guys over the gas guys now. The flame guys can be circle strafed but I can barely get 2 hits on a gas guy before he decides to melee me with his gun, and far more effectively than I can with my melee weapon. God help me if I miss a dodge and he decides to do a follow up attack. Insta-death.

So these fights have been slower and much more tactical. Which is fun. But my progress has dropped to near zero.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Wed May 24, 2017 8:53 am

GreenGoo wrote:Q; Do I have to return to lower level guys to get mark I materials (and body part specific scrap)?

Pretty sure that is a yes, and if you find a way back from your current area let me know... I couldn't find the way out.

You are working out of the ops center with the guy looking for his daughter now, right? I think you are caught up to me now, so I have nothing left to help you. Good luck out there.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed May 24, 2017 10:09 pm

Pro tip: Save up your consumable scrap until you have 50k worth. Use it all in OPS. Get "Nothing to Lose" achievement. Stash 50k scrap. Zero risk.
Pro tip: Don't have enough mark 1 material to craft your first piece of that shiny new armour? move the right stick to the right. Now you can craft directly into Mk II, III and IV without needing the earlier versions.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu May 25, 2017 5:59 pm

I recommend once you've opened up 2 shortcuts in R&D you run through the areas as much as you can. There is a ton of trash in the way but most of it stops chasing you after a short ways. You'll still need to fight to certain areas to open up doors and things, but once that's done you can run almost all the way to the end. The end being you go back to the previous area.

I've beaten the 4th boss but I admit that I cheated and looked online. It was very grindy and after fighting for 15 minutes (after taking over an hour to learn the fight) and only making the smallest amount of progress in the fight, it just felt like I was missing something, which I was. Once you know the "trick" it still takes a bit of clever positioning and fast reflexes but once the "trick" occurs, it's a pretty standard (and easy) fight to the finish.

I will say the reward at the end is easily the best thing you've gotten to this point.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri May 26, 2017 9:00 am

I finished R&D last night and am heading to security next if Sally is to be believed.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri May 26, 2017 12:15 pm

Have you found a rig upgrade yet (allows 4 more implants to be equipped, once you have the right level)?

Location spoiler:

Spoiler:

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri May 26, 2017 2:06 pm

So you have 12 slots? No, I missed that.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri May 26, 2017 2:09 pm

Yes, 12 slots. Well 10 now. 11 when I hit 65 and I don't remember if it was 70 or 75 for the 12th to unlock.

Black Cerberus is kicking my ass. I have gotten to stage 3 of the fight twice (out of a LOT of attempts), I got him down to like 20% once. I just keep jumping the gun, moving in when he has one swing left and take it right in the face.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri May 26, 2017 2:24 pm

coopasonic wrote:Yes, 12 slots. Well 10 now. 11 when I hit 65 and I don't remember if it was 70 or 75 for the 12th to unlock.

Black Cerberus is kicking my ass. I have gotten to stage 3 of the fight twice (out of a LOT of attempts), I got him down to like 20% once. I just keep jumping the gun, moving in when he has one swing left and take it right in the face.

Nice. Like I said, I looked up the fight to see what I was missing.

That's as far as I've gotten though. I've moved past the boss fight but have not unlocked the next shortcut yet, so basically I'm right after Cerberus.

Did you give the security armour to the engineer/security woman? The one that asked you for a staff earlier in the game? I did, now I'm wondering if I'm going to regret it. I mean, I already do in that the only chest piece I could craft was Mk III, so it was expensive. She better have a purpose later on.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri May 26, 2017 2:49 pm

Pro tip: You can backstab the security guys after they lunge and/or overhand strike. Just walk up to them and backstab as they recover. Done deal. If I had known that when I first saw them I would have had that staff as early as you did.

Pro tip: a little light shines above their right shoulder (right as you look at them. It's actually their left shoulder) when they are about to fire that little 15 damage stun.

Pro tip: You can damage opponents and build up energy on unarmoured body parts, then when you get the "finish him!" indicator, switch targets to the body part you want (including armoured parts) and cut that part off. Hit the unarmoured parts for damage, hit the armoured part for collection. edit: You just do the generic finisher, the one that occurs when you haven't targeted a body part. My bad.

Pro tip: The targeting brackets around your current locked on target change from light blue (I think) to a light brown/beige colour when you are close enough to backstab.

Pro tip: If your target is fully armoured, you do more damage by NOT targeting a body part. Just lock on without targeting a body part.

You may already know all these, but hopefully they are useful to someone.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri May 26, 2017 4:34 pm

I never noticed the change to indicate backstab-ability and I never noticed the shoulder shot tell.

I guess I told you about the EXO rig upgrade a little late. I see you get the next upgrade right after you kill Cerberus. Oh well.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri May 26, 2017 4:49 pm

coopasonic wrote:I never noticed the change to indicate backstab-ability and I never noticed the shoulder shot tell.

I guess I told you about the EXO rig upgrade a little late. I see you get the next upgrade right after you kill Cerberus. Oh well.

Congrats.

Yep, that was my first rig upgrade since I missed the previous one. I'm not even close to 75 power yet, so the last 4 slots are unusable atm.

The next guys are pretty rough, although I've managed to backstab and 1 combo finish them a few times using a heavy duty weapon.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri May 26, 2017 10:45 pm

My first couple of tries with the enhanced senses injectable didn't go well so I forgot about it. I'm now experimenting with it again and it seems to be pretty solid.

Will test more. Will also test if injectable + coolant drone stack.

edit: I only got them to overlap once and only for a few seconds, but my impression is that they do in fact stack.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 8:44 am

I don't like swapping around injectables in a fight so I don't even try any injectables other than health.

I made it to the board room yesterday. That was...

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 2:26 pm

I was extremely resistant to using more than 1 or 2 injectables too. But it has worked out really well with practice.

Honestly though, it seems like you don't have quite the same difficulty making progress that I do.

Have you met Don Hackett yet? The obnoxious guy in the videos?

That launch site seems incredibly close to the executive building.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 4:30 pm

Yeah I have met the video guy. He didn't have much to say though.

I think I am very close to the end. The nucleus is SUPER confusing. I left to get some nano cores to upgrade my suit. I'm still using the fire staff (forget the name) and scarab armor. All but the helmet is Mark V now and I am using 320 point heals. As soon as I get that last piece upgraded I will push for the last boss.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 5:45 pm

coopasonic wrote:Yeah I have met the video guy. He didn't have much to say though.

I think I am very close to the end. The nucleus is SUPER confusing. I left to get some nano cores to upgrade my suit. I'm still using the fire staff (forget the name) and scarab armor. All but the helmet is Mark V now and I am using 320 point heals. As soon as I get that last piece upgraded I will push for the last boss.

Let me know how it goes. I've gone the other way, and tried to build all the armours just to see what they look like and what their bonus is. Right now I'm using Black cerebus head, mg cerebus arms, liquidator chest and lynx (yep, the very first armour you get) legs. It sounds crappy but it's actually pretty awesome. I have high stability, ~100 armour, and seriously reduced stamina drainage. Most of it is mark III.

I did find an area in the nucleus that having a full suit of hazard was useful. Not sure if it's necessary or just convenient. You know where you have to jump down where the railing is broken to a red coloured platform with an implant on it? You need to keep going down to progress. I jumped back up and was lost for a long time until I went back there and went down.

OPS is still stuck on floor 2 while I've been running all over the place.

There is a new mob that I haven't figured out how to handle yet. It basically one shots me from range, so...not sure. I've seen two of them so far. One of them I avoided but chances are I need to kill it to activate something.

Have you noticed that there are a bunch of displays with 3 builders, 2 of which are online and 1 of which is offline, plus the utopia rocket? Yeah, that doesn't bode well I'm thinking.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 7:02 pm

I ended up consulting a walkthrough to figure out how to get to the final boss. I just couldn't figure out what I needed to do and having seen it I am not sure I ever would have figured it out.

32 hours. 105 core power (there is a scrap exploit that I abused instead of grinding - I will share the details if you want them). The boss is... dead? well, the credits rolled. I have NO IDEA what that ending was. The boos took me 6 or 7 tries. He was actually a lot less trouble (complicated) than some of the other bosses.

I know the mob you are talking about, it shoots me for like 240 damage, and that's with around 170 armor. You don't really have to kill any, but you will have to make some sacrificial runs if you don't fight them. They are actually less dangerous up close. They are kind of cool, when you kill them they shrink and then do it again and then finally you have to overcharge them.

As to the hazard suit, I found a toxin filter implant somewhere along the way and used that for the polluted areas.

I am not sure if I will play NG+ or not. I'll look at the achievements and see if a platinum is possible. I started out kid of wishy-washy on the game, but in the end I found it to be a lot of fun. I'm glad I picked it up.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 8:24 pm

Congrats!

I'll probably be double your time by the time I finish. Don't think my son played while I was at work. I do remember spending a LOT of unproductive time dying, although I did spend some time farming pieces and just fighting for fun.

The fighting has turned out to be even better than I hoped. I'm very impressed and enjoy fighting just for the pleasure.

I have 79 power core right now.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 9:18 pm

GreenGoo wrote: I do remember spending a LOT of unproductive time dying, although I did spend some time farming pieces and just fighting for fun.

I spent a good bit of time farming body parts for upgrades outside of the regular killing for progress. I stuck with the same gear through most of the game, but I still made a lot of armor sets just to try them out. I upgraded several weapons as well.

GreenGoo wrote:The fighting has turned out to be even better than I hoped. I'm very impressed and enjoy fighting just for the pleasure.

I never once jumped or ducked in combat. My only real complaint about the combat with the game at this point is that there are some LONG attack animations where you aren't really in control after triggering it. I play fast weapons so I can react to things and those long animations take that away from me.

I am looking at the trophies/achievements and I am not sure I want to go after them all. One of them is to get the other ending. I don't know that I want to do the whole thing again. I have never done NG+ in any game ever, maybe I should try it at least.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 9:39 pm

coopasonic wrote:
I never once jumped or ducked in combat.

Yeah, this is a missed opportunity and/or broken. It's simply too hard and the payoff too weak and the risk too huge to bother even trying. I'm sure the masters out there are loving it, but for me it's just a way to reduce the amount of time I have to react with failure resulting in pain. On the plus side if you do jump or duck, you can get some pretty sweet counter attacks in.

coopasonic wrote: My only real complaint about the combat with the game at this point is that there are some LONG attack animations where you aren't really in control after triggering it. I play fast weapons so I can react to things and those long animations take that away from me.

and I'm the opposite. I love the long animations and the need to know when it's ok to start one versus when it will get you whacked. Knowing what combo will start with which weapon when targeting which body part is a huge part of the game. It's not a necessary part of the game, but when I started to learn what the horizontal attack does after 2 vertical attacks while using a 1 hander and targeting the right leg, I was in heaven.

The twin rig is very fast and the first 2 buttons (either horizontal or vertical or both) are very fast and should give you plenty of time to do whatever you want. If you keep pressing them then you're going to continue the combo and yeah, the moves get move involved the deeper into a combo you go.

Personally, I liked that, but it's not for everyone I guess.

I'm not sure I'm going to do an NG+ either, but I'm almost certainly going to start a new game to see how the earlier levels go now that I have a greater understanding of the combat system. Not sure I'll finish the second game (haven't finished the first yet!) but I'd like to see how some of those areas that kicked my ass turn out with more experience.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 10:03 pm

People who are good at souls games will play them using a dull stick, no armor and never leveling up just to challenge themselves more.

I am not those people.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 10:39 pm

coopasonic wrote:People who are good at souls games will play them using a dull stick, no armor and never leveling up just to challenge themselves more.

I am not those people.

Yep, I'm already seeing people talking about doing no power core upgrade runs. That ain't me neither.

So I've got the gotterdammerung or whatever it's called. I'm STILL at a loss as to where to go next. I jumped off the precipice assuming it would start the boss fight, but...no.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sat May 27, 2017 11:18 pm

Where to go next:

Spoiler:

Where that way is:

Spoiler:

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sat May 27, 2017 11:55 pm

Just brought OPS to the 3rd floor. Hilariously, I fought my way to the elevator trigger and then turned left instead of right and promptly died. Turning right would have brought the OPS elevator to within 5 feet of me. So I had to do it all again. Fun. Actually it was fun, but it was also annoying.

edit: As I overcharged 10 pt doohickey, there is a large screen in front of me showing that first blocked area on the first floor where OPS used to be. The way is now clear on the screen. So there's at least a hint as to where to go even if it's not intuitive if you missed that screen.

Found a second Gotterram. Just gave me mark IV loot when I picked it up.

This game has taught me that I'm extremely stubborn. On occasion.

Ok, finished. Took me considerably more attempts than you. At least double. Possibly 20. I took a few attempts in the middle to evaluate the boss' behaviour, as I was just flailing wildly for a bit. Quite a few attempts ended with me dying in the first 5 seconds or so of the fight, so...yeah.

Did it with my setup I mentioned above, so mark III mixed and matched armour, although I took a mark IV single rig weapon as well. The shard thingie.

Received the "For the Good of Mankind" achievement. Not sure what the other ending is or whether it has a different achievement.

Haven't finished a game like this in awhile so that felt good.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sun May 28, 2017 9:19 am

Congrats. For the Good of Mankind means you uploaded the virus. You get A Brave New World if you don't.

Doing it with Mark III gear... man. I was in full Mark V, with 12 Mark V Vital Injections and was spamming the shield drone. The first stage of the boss was a spam-fest and I would end it with 5 injections left, then it was a bit more drawn out with stage two, baiting an attack, getting a couple hits in and backing out. Perhaps my play style is more suited to Goliath armor.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun May 28, 2017 2:09 pm

I took 2 of the Mark IV HoTs (versus the instant 320hp heals.) plus a really awesome 24 energy for 100 hp heal injector that I found very late in the game. I also spammed the shield drone. The black cerebus helmet gives you -30% energy requirement for drones, so that was a huge help. I think I had 83 power core. Pretty sure I didn't open up the 85 implant slot in any case.

The problem is that it was very difficult to build up energy on the boss for whatever reason. I assume they have some sort of energy dampener as I seem to remember the same problem on other bosses.

Spoiler:

Early on I didn't really care about the backstory, but I found as I played on, I was more and more curious. It's not an RPG in the sense that Dark Souls is very much an RPG, but the rpg elements kept things interesting. To me anyway.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sun May 28, 2017 4:00 pm

I started New Game+ to see about the trophies. I killed the first boss in one try (and got the Overconfident trophy). The final boss claws are NICE, fast weapon doing 117 damage at Mk VI. My twin rigged proficiency went from 5 to 11 in the first area without any grinding.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun May 28, 2017 4:26 pm

I didn't get the claws

I popped his head off instead.

I got the overconfident achievement when I died so many times to cerebus but kept picking up my dropped scrap that it was like 50k by the time I managed to kill him. So you're way is more legit

Do you know how defense works exactly? Is it just damage reduction (I assume)? If so, do you know the mechanics behind it? Is it as simple as 1 point of armour on that location reduces damage by 1 pt when hit on that location?

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Sun May 28, 2017 5:17 pm

I haven't seen anything on how defense works exactly. I just assume more is better. On your specs screen it shows different types of defense (thrust, elemental, slash, whatever) but I don't know the application of those numbers.

I stopped picking up my scrap on Cerberus because the amount I was collecting reminded me of how much I was dying (495 scrap per death).

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun May 28, 2017 9:14 pm

Well I didn't die 100 times on Cerberus so I must have fought someone(s) on the way that I guess I could have avoided?

Beats me.