Topic: Returnal

@Thrillho @render Yeah, I found that my first run through B6 was one of my best because I was fairy buffed from having run through B5. I have been totally skipping B5 and perhaps I’m just a little too weak when I arrive, but I don’t think so. It’s the tracking malfunction-causing projectiles that are a killer. And the globes that send out orbs and tons of perpendicular red rings. They seem to always be in groups of 2-3, along with the suicide bombers coming at you from all directions, then the terrain is tricky because a couple of my deaths have been while dodging all the incoming attacks and I dashed right off into the abyss. And those blasted eyeball columns shining spotlights everywhere. There’s not even any place to stand that you’re not exposed to something.

Overall the map and terrain is visually and thematically interesting but a nightmare to navigate. Each section is like a miniature maze of layered paths to even find the exit door, much less try to mop up all the pick-ups.

The furthest I made it is to what appeared to be a mini boss and it was really tough too. Wiped me out in nothing flat.

I’ll take any tips or advice anyone has, especially on how to deal with the malfunction torpedos and the enemies that vomit rings and orbs in every 3-dimentional position imaginable.

But B6 is a good place to level up weapons, (for the same reason @Thrillho that the ‘restore integrity per damage dealt and adrenaline level’ is a great item to have; I need to keep that in mind) — you can spam dozens of those suicide dive-bombers and unlock a new trait in just a few minutes if you can just park at one of their infinite spawning points.

I will say too that my favorite weapon is probably the Dreadbound but it’s completely useless in B6. If you don’t hit the target then it takes forever for your shard to come back and your stuck with no offense for what feels like an eternity. The Hollowseeker and Carbine have seemed to work best.

Speaking of weapons, I had a weird thing happen today where I unlocked the Coilspine Shredder randomly at the beginning of a run. I had thought the weapons were placed at certain key map points to unlock during progress (at least that’s what it seemed like with all the other weapons) but after I died I noticed a gun icon on my map in the corner of the beginning respawn area by the Helios, and it turned out being a Shredder just sitting there in the foliage. I had to scan it of course as a new item, but i thought it strange that the game just gave it to me at the respawn point without really ‘earning’ it at some point in Biome 6.

Which, by the way, the last two weapons are probably the worst ones in the game. The Shredder and the Pyroshell Caster - both are so slow. Slow to fire, slow to reload, and don’t seem to do as much damage as the other slow firing weapons like the Lobber and the Thermogenic Launcher. Or the Dreadbound, which is so satisfying to fire - it packs such a punch and if you can get in close to the enemy it both fires quickly with virtually no cool down necessary and each shard just tears the enemies up. It just sucks from a distance.

@NedStarksGhost Yeah, there is a lot of trial and error in the opening hours playing through Biome 1 and 2. I was doing like you and attaching every parasite and taking on all kinds of malignant items and malfunctions, and over time I learned my playstyle, and end up being much more conservative in general with the debuffs I take. The ones that prevent you from picking up silphium or give you damage when picking up an item - those are just killers. But some of the debuffs are really minor to me. For example the one that gives you damage when you use a key — I figure I only use about 2 or 3 keys max per run, if not less, so I’ll take that on if it’s paired with a decent perk.

And yeah, the melee comes later. You can’t melee at first. And I love the art design of the melee weapon. (Which you could have never guess based on my profile pic 😅)

@Th3solution For B6 I definitely found the best weapons to be the hollowseeker with portal beam, the lobber with explosive rot or the pylon gun with some good level 2 traits. The trick is to pop your head in a room and then try and launch some stuff in there while backing off. That way you’ve got a better view of what’s coming and can avoid the rings etc. I was looking at the mini map quite a bit and if I saw anything on it then I’d be making sure that it’s not some suicide squids first. If it was then again edging forward and trying to take some out and just backing off a bit to a point where you could see stuff.

If I was on some ledges then I’d definitely be avoiding using dash if possible. But I’d also avoid getting into the middle of wide open areas if there’s a lot of hostiles in there, unless it’s the challenge room and in which case you’ve got no choice. There are grapple points in there though so if you ever do that you can use those.

For that mini boss I found the trick was to not go into the room with it but try and do as much damage as I could from above, then when it made it up to me I’d just try and back up as much as I could to give myself some space. Hopefully by then you’ve got it down a good amount and can just finish it off.

Hope some of that helps.

@Th3solution Like the rest of the weapons, when you first unlock them do seem pretty useless, but the more traits you unlock the more useful they become. I quite liked the Pyroshell Caster in the end but not so much the Shredder. All the weapons have their different strengths and weaknesses which will suit different players with different play styles.

For Biome 6 my go to weapon was the Electopylon Driver for the actual level and Hollowseeker for the boss. I found the best way to avoid the Malignant seeking missiles is either have an substantial obstacle you can hide behind (the tracking will only curve so much), or run and (if possible) grapple back the way you came. If you have a door you can use as cover than great. The glitter balls either keep at a distance or just keep on the move always using your grapple. By that stage they were less problematic for me however, and they would go down quite easily in a few hits.

@render @JohnnyShoulder Those are good tips. Thanks
I do think I need to be more tactical and take it slow and easy through those heavily enemied areas. It’s the old issue of trying to hurry up and get back to where you were before since you’re just so ready to move on.

The enemies in B6 mostly go down fairly easily, it’s just the large numbers and the large amount of projectiles being spewed all at once in the narrow terrain.

It’s true about the weapons and it does take a while to get in the rhythm of each gun. The traits do make a very large difference too, so I try to use and unlock them, even though I’m not proficient. So maybe I’ll warm up the the Caster and Shredder. For now, using them is a quick way to get dead.

@Th3solution if you get the phase trait on the hollow seeker it saved me just hiding behind doors and shooting through

@Elodin Wha?! That sounds awesome. I haven’t got that trait yet, so I’ll definitely prioritize it when I see it!

That’s one of the problems — when I come upon a new trait needing to be unlocked on a weapon, it’s hard to know which traits are the really good ones. I mean, they’re all good (well, except for the charging trait on the pistol - I hate the delay before it fires. It completely throws off mg timing) but some traits are just much better than others. Sometimes I’ll look up what the traits do when I have a choice of two weapons, but usually I just pick one that sounds good. 😅. Sometimes the name of the trait isn’t what you think it is though. “Easy to Use” on the launcher doesn’t make the rounds easier to fire or easier to target — it just gives you more proficiency than normal. A fairly low worth trait in my book

@Th3solution I was always reading what the traits did in the menu if I wasn't sure what they did and comparing it to my current weapon. On their own traits may sound useless, but at the later stages you will have three or four on any weapon so you can kinda live with one duff one. Very rarely I would have a weapon when all the traits were awesome, sometimes you just need to go with the roll of the dice.

There were a couple of alt-fire modes I didn't like using like Proximity Mine I never worked out to use properly, but all the rest I've found really useful and had gotten me out of some tricky situations.

@Th3solution funny enough I also picked up a parasite that damaged me when I picked up items....

I just thought to myself "wtf am I doing". It's like I wanted to fail!

@Thrillho ah that's good to know. I have a habit of sticking with one weapon type in games and don't normally change from it so I'll do that.

@JohnnyShoulder @velio84 Did you guys use the pylon for the mini-boss? Typhonops I think it’s called. On my recent good run I had a nice carbine with leech rounds and I still die after about 2 hits from it. The swipe attacks are just so powerful. It feels like a full fledged boss. The game even gives you a large silphium vial right before the fight and I still get wiped out so fast I don’t even have time to use it.

@Th3solution I agree, those mini bosses are ridiculously overpowered. It doesn’t seem fair that they can pretty much one shot you even with a good level of proficiency. That one in that room is really annoying though as if you get stuck in there with him then you can’t get away from it quick enough.

I’m pretty sure when I did it as part of act 2 I used the hollowseeker with portal beam and it made it a load easier. I just stood at the door and kept firing until a portal spawned and then got back again. Doing that a few times took him down in health a fair way. The pylon gun will definitely work as well 👍

Had a good few hours on it today. Following your guy's advice I managed to do pretty well. I've just finished act 1, was very fortunate at times. Had some useful items, and I used that regenerator machine thing that gives you a respawn in biome 3. I didn't actually know what it did... Thought I'd see, glad my curiosity made me spend the ether!

Safe to say I'm hooked, very interesting story and didn't expect that to happen after biome 3!

@Th3solution Not entirely sure as I can't quite remember, but I've got a feeling it was the Hollowseeker with either portal beam or turret (always get those two mixed up). On higher levels, one of those traits gains a mini secondary portal. Which is all kinds of awesome. That is defo what I had when beat the main boss the first time round.

@NedStarksGhost Whoah! Nice work! Took me ages to even get past the first boss, not to mention the torture of Biome 3 😄
Looks like you’ve got a real knack for it since you’ve only been playing a couple days. Biome 4 is fairly easy, imo. I still die sometimes by being stupid, or in some of the lockdown rooms. But Biome 5 is pretty tough. That one took me a while to get past. And now Biome 6 appears to be almost the same, although I’d say maybe a little easier than 5, but it takes some tactical adjustments. At this rate you’ll finish the game in no time! What does the ship computer say your playtime is?
I’m at 2 days and 2 hours — so 50+ hours invested so far. Somewhere around 70 deaths.

@NedStarksGhost Well done! We either gave you too much help or you didn’t need it at all 🤣.

Great to hear you are enjoying it and sounds like you probably won’t have a problem getting through the rest of the game 👍

@NedStarksGhost As others have said, you’re certainly not messing around! Good work on getting through biome 3 already as that can be a real roadblock for people (I luckily made it through on my first go).

Biome 4 has one of my favourite bosses and then you’ve got the infamous biome 5 to come soon!

Well that confirms it, Demon’s Souls is definitely the harder game for me. Just checked out the stats and I died 322 times and have played for 58 hours. I think my Returnal count was something like 52 deaths and just over 48 hours.

Both great games though and a brilliant challenge.

@Th3solution @render @Thrillho thanks all for all the compliments! I feel I got quite lucky in a lot of ways but yeah happy to see it's an achievement!

May be nothing in it, but I've beaten Dark Souls so I'm kinda used to approaching hard to beat bosses, maybe?

It was an intense few hours, I wish you could at least switch the game off at the start of a new biome, but I also understand it's a design choice and can see why.

@NedStarksGhost Definitely the game is not for the faint of heart and really is targeted for the “hardcore” gamer (I know some people don’t like that term, but I don’t mean it in an elitist way, just that some games are more for the enthusiast group of gamers), like FromSoft’s games.
And yeah — I’m starting to think that a save feature isn’t coming any time soon. And although I’d like one, I do now see that the game doesn’t require one; as busy as I am and as limited as my game time can be, I’ve managed to make the most of the game. And on that note…

I’ve just finished Act 2!!! Definitely the worst part of Biome 6 is just getting to the boss, as I was able to beat Ophion on my first try. Granted I did take advantage of a reconstructor, so I guess it was technically my second attempt at the boss, but on the same run.

The advice of @render @JohnnyShoulder @Elodin @velio84 @Thrillho @Voltan and perhaps others has really helped.
I utilized the electro pylon pretty exclusively and was very conscientious to go into rooms slowly and just fire and back out if I could. And actually, what helped was at the point I kept dying at the Typhonops I realized I could just run past him and then hide around a corner and fire my pylons from some pseudocover past the room. Probably a cheese technique, but I was sick of dying at that spot over and over.

For the boss I first used a Hollowseeker with ‘turret’ and it was okay but I only made it to the boss’s second phase. I found my turret wasn’t spawning all that often. So after reconstructing I picked up a carbine I had left on the way which had ‘leech rounds’ as well as ‘hardened’ and ‘high caliber’ so that really did well. He went down pretty fast and I was able to keep my health decently filled with leech.

The ending of the Act was pretty awesome and although the story makes a little more sense and I enjoyed the reveals, it still leaves me with some questions.

And speaking of, I really didn’t get much explanation as to what to do for Act 3. You just wake up in the ship and it says to go into the cargo bay, which the machine there just transports you back to Biome 1? I just shut the game off at that point, assuming there’s a save point there and I need to go to bed. Do you get some explanation or direction eventually as to what to do? Just go through all the Biomes again? Fight the bosses again?

Anyways, just really love this game. My totals to get to the end of Act 2 are about 60 hrs and 79 deaths.