GH1 Spontaneous Missions

[xpace]

I was thinking about how the Smuggling Ring Quest (Data Catridge from Snake Lake Sewer) starts up automatically and, because of the 2 day time limit, many players miss. And that got me wondering:

How many other quests in GH1 start up automatically, without the player's actions initiating it directly, and also have a time limit?

[Daemonward]

The smuggling ring quest always bugged me. Most new players like to hang around the starting point, complete the local quests, and generally build up their characters a bit before taking on the rest of the world.

From a gameplay perspective, I think that the time limit for that quest should either start when the player first enters Snake Lake or be eliminated altogether.

[xpace]

I agree completely.

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In the Hiya! Newbie has questions thread in the Support area, Amneiger wrote:

Incidentally, the Mines keep respawning enemies, so if you want to reach the bottom your best bet would be to keep moving and looking for the stairs.

The goal of reaching the bottom of Hogye Mine and recovering the free Wolfram mining mech is a strong temptation for new players. However, I found that staying around in Hogye exploring this mine conflicts with the time limit for the Smuggling Ring Quest. That is, as soon as you get the message about this quest, you'd better quit what you're doing and huff it over to Snake Lake immediately. Otherwise, you'll miss that quest - as well as the opportunity to recruit one of the first two potential lancemates.

This might be easier said than done, however, because as soon as you reach Snake Lake for the first time you'll encounter some mechs just itching to fight you. Of course, it's possible to run away. But the temptation is to put together a decent starting mech before you get to Snake Lake. Because of that, the free mech (and earning fighting experience) from the arena starts to look more tempting than the Wolfram from Hogye Mine.

PS: I thought Mr. Hewitt was going release a new version of GH1 soon? Perhaps changing the time limit on the Smuggling Ring Quest is something he would consider?

[Phil Munoz]

If you know what you're doing, you can complete the tutorial, go down to the bottom of hogye mines, go to snake lake and complete the smuggling ring quest in less than a day.

With the tutorial, vikki's test, and the wolfram at the bottom of hogye, I can get three mecha at the start.

[xpace]

I suppose it could be possible to get the Wolfram at the bottom of Hogye and still have time to complete the Smuggling Ring Quest. But it seems like a tight schedule to me.

The baddies near the bottom can be pretty dangerous. I have to backtrack several times to the surface to heal and get supplies, making several trips down again. And that takes time. Though, I sometimes take Survival to cut down on the need for food. That is, until I decided that using it was much more trouble (turns being ganged up on and loss of moral) than it was worth.

And yes, it is possible to get three mecha at the start. Those can come in handy as I'd think you'd need to scavenge parts beyond what comes on one starting mecha in order to have a decent chance of defeating that group of enemies at Snake Lake. (Running is a good option, too, though.)

[Joseph Hewitt]

This seems to be a classic Catch-22 problem. For experienced players the time limit is no problem; as Phil mentioned, a well-rounded character can finish Hogye and the smuggling ring on the first day. The trouble is that experienced players don't really need the extra mecha, it's the beginning players who will suffer without it!

How about increasing the time limit to five days? Just how long are you guys staying in Hogye, anyhow?

[Phil Munoz]

Because I know about the smuggling ring quest in snake lake, I just do the tutorial(I like taking the Corsair, and I usually make Quentin rearrange his stock via dialog several times until I have a ceram armor set, plasma rifle, and gyro mace.), take vikki's test (i always savescum for this quest.  i want the puma for my first lancemate), then go down the mine (ignore the critters/rocks/items lying about... yeah, just run down dodging attacks), get the wolfram.  Fight the first arena battle at hogye, then head straight for snake lake.

The encounter at snake lake varies from game to game, I think.  But in my case it's usually a personal-scale battle inside the city, so I just try to make a stand there... usually some guardians will pop up and kill the enemy for me.

Same thing for the smuggling ring quest.  I usually side with the guardian lancemate... and during that brief fight against the guards outside, I don't even get to see half of what I'm fighting and it's already over.

After the smuggling ring quest, I go back to pick up some more quests over there, and if I have a decent science skill, I'll go down the mines once more...

EDIT:

Anyway, I started a game and did all what I said I'd do and finished the smuggling ring quest and ate a hotdog (because my character got hungry during the quest).  The time on the game clock is 12:52:21, day 0

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: Phil Munoz

then go down the mine (ignore the critters/rocks/items lying about... yeah, just run down dodging attacks), get the wolfram.

That's an important point. If you're exploring-in-force (i.e. killing every monster you come across), it's going to take a whole lot longer to get to the bottom than if you're racing straight for the prize.

[xpace]

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

That's an important point. If you're exploring-in-force (i.e. killing every monster you come across), it's going to take a whole lot longer to get to the bottom than if you're racing straight for the prize.

True enough.

However, since the stairs down could be practically anywhere, we really have to explore a sizable area to find it. And, meanwhile, the monsters try to gang up on you. Thing is, I find it almost impossible to outrun most of them. Once they start to gang up, you usually have to either fight or flee. And sometimes even fleeing is impossible.

Personally, I think the "just run down dodging attacks" strategy would be a lot easier to execute if the PC could move faster than the monsters. (Or if they lost the ability to sniff you out from clear across the maze-like dungeon.) Or am I missing an important stat or skill?

I have played other roguelikes before. And I do enjoy them. But, somehow, the dungeons in GearHead seem more dangerous than most. Starting out with a new character, that is.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

This seems to be a classic Catch-22 problem. For experienced players the time limit is no problem.

That, and for players who restart from a previous game (with their old money, equipment, stats, etc.) it's no sweat. Yes, it's new players who really need it.

Quoting: Joseph Hewitt

How about increasing the time limit to five days?

Sounds good to me.

[Joseph Hewitt]

Quoting: xpace

Or am I missing an important stat or skill?

I don't know for sure, but I'm guessing that a big part of it is using the wrong technique. For situations like this I usually go to turtle movement, use running and attacking judiciously, hide behind terrain as much as possible, and always try to keep an escape route open. I won't claim that it's easy but once you learn how it's far from impossible.

Quoting: xpace

for players who restart from a previous game

Characters restarted from a previous game are not relevant to discussions of game balance.

Edited to add: I just did a speed run with a new basic mode character. I tried to capture the entire thing as a video using CamStudio, but I messed up the framing. Instead I present you with this screencap, showing "Test Guy" in a Wolfram at 4:31:54 on Day 0. I was armed with a warhammer, wearing two armored sleeves, and carrying the free personal communicator; Dodge 6, Armed Combat 4.

[Joseph Hewitt]

I wasn't satisfied with the above, so I went back and tried to make a video again. This time it worked. Here it is on YouTube, with annotations.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnZYr8BQnWY

Different character from the above run; again, I used a completely random basic mode character.

[magic.coding.fairy.peridot]

I think the question is not "how fast do people leave Hogye?" but "how do new players deal with the time limit?" As a new player, I knew about the time limit from the wiki, but if I hadn't, my inclination would have been to stick around for a while getting the hang of things and improving my character. I would have totally missed out on the smuggling ring quest. Is there any reason not to, say, start the clock when you enter Snake Lake for the first time? Or when you leave Hogye? Or at least, the message that there's a quest starting could indicate that there's a time limit.

More generally, this kind of time limit it rather rare in cRPGs. I think this is mostly a break with realism so that if the player needs time to prepare their character, they can have it. But since people are used to having no time limit even when the quest text says "Please hurry to rescue the princess from the castle!", this kind of time limit will catch people by surprise. GearHead's randomly-generated quests have time limits too, at least some of them do, but since these are an infinite resource, that's not a problem.

[Phil Munoz]

If new players are not aware of the time limit of quests, then there should be something somewhere that speaks about that.  I guess it should be explicitly mentioned in the tutorial.

That said, I think it's part of the game to find out about that quest.  You should be able to hear about it in the news, or from chatting with people.  It's a side quest with a time limit with a big reward: potential lancemate.

You might say it's unfair that experienced players know about it, but newbies don't.  However, when I first played ADOM (my first rogue-like), I did not know that eating corpses indiscriminately will end up getting me killed.  It's just stuff you learn as you play.

[magic.coding.fairy.peridot]

Quoting: Phil Munoz

If new players are not aware of the time limit of quests, then there should be something somewhere that speaks about that. I guess it should be explicitly mentioned in the tutorial.

That said, I think it's part of the game to find out about that quest. You should be able to hear about it in the news, or from chatting with people. It's a side quest with a time limit with a big reward: potential lancemate.

Oh, I agree, I'm just saying that maybe it makes sense to give people a chance to improve their character first. Also I think it will need to be made really clear.

Quoting: Phil Munoz

You might say it's unfair that experienced players know about it, but newbies don't. However, when I first played ADOM (my first rogue-like), I did not know that eating corpses indiscriminately will end up getting me killed. It's just stuff you learn as you play.

Well, this is one place where the (approximate) lack of permadeath works against GearHead: in ADOM if you miss an early quest, well, you'll get killed soon and start over anyway. In my first play through GearHead to the end I never atually *died*, per se, but I did restart three times as I realized my characters weren't really gong to work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for more deaths in GearHead - I'd actually rather play it more like a classic cRPG. In fact it rather closely resembles, in play style, something like Ultima 6; even more so the old Crescent Hawks' Inception. Both are games I quite enjoyed.

[xpace]

Quoting: Phil Munoz

However, when I first played ADOM (my first rogue-like), I did not know that eating corpses indiscriminately will end up getting me killed.  It's just stuff you learn as you play.

Quoting: peridot

[snip]...in ADOM if you miss an early quest, well, you'll get killed soon and start over anyway. In my first play through GearHead to the end I never atually *died*, per se, but I did restart three times as I realized my characters weren't really gong to work.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not arguing for more deaths in GearHead - I'd actually rather play it more like a classic cRPG. In fact it rather closely resembles, in play style, something like Ultima 6; even more so the old Crescent Hawks' Inception. Both are games I quite enjoyed.

See, I'm of the opinion that if out-of-character knowledge is required to complete something or even survive, then something is not designed right. It breaks the suspension of disbelief, for one. I think all quests and tasks should be completable with readily available in-game knowledge and common sense (of the average person). If keys and clues are so obscure or hidden that it requires most players to read a walkthrough or have prior experience, then... that's wrong IMO.

But this kind of stuff boils down to personal taste and gaming preferences. Some gamers really enjoy a tough, challenging game - one so tough that one false step means death and either replaying the entire chapter/level or even restarting the game from the beginning. But some, like myself, despise that level of difficulty and realism.

I can not enjoy games that are pushovers. However, I also can't stand some games that are completely unforgiving. For example, after trying some classics, I found that I was not fond of platform games - at all. And modern 3D platformers are not appealing to me either. I just find it too repetitive to have to practice the same timed jump or ducking sequence over and over until I get it right. To me, that's boring and extremely frustrating. I like to play games to relax, not to cuss and get worked up.

Similarly, I find roguelikes such as ADOM to be frustratingly difficult - if played without any savescumming. (But with savescumming I can enjoy it.) I do not find the appeal of constantly restarting from the beginning with a new character until I finally have most of the traps, tricks and strategies memorized. For one thing, I'm not that good at memorization. And things like high scores and bragging rights don't mean much to me. That is, except to aim to best my old score.

Besides, after playing for a week or so, I feel like I've already got a lot of time and emotional attachment invested in my character. And the aspect of gaming most rewarding to me is completing a good game - actually reaching the ending. That said, with some games I can find almost as much satisfaction from the journey.