Returnal - on PC now - The Bear and Badger

hylian_elf

Seems stupid to give different room setups on a daily challenge.

hylian_elf

tin_robot wrote:

Erm, OK. So I’ve discovered something fun/annoying. If your PS5 crashes with Returnal still on the challenge screen, it loses your result. I’ve done it again, but I’m not going to post the new score here because, well, it’s quite a bit better, and it should clearly be the first one we run with. The other interesting thing I’ve learned from this escapade however is that the challenge runs aren’t the same for each of us. The gun, biome and rooms were identical, but the enemies weren’t. My second run had a load of Gyropods and a Proto-Titanops that weren’t there before. Turrets were in different places in different rooms, and the hardest stuff hit near the end, rather than the opener. As such it felt like a pretty different experience. So it seems like there’s a bit of luck at play, even with the challenge rooms...

tin_robot

hylian_elf wrote:

Seems stupid to give different room setups on a daily challenge.

I was... surprised. It explains why during the run last week that went well for me several of you referenced a fight with a Severed which I hadn’t encountered. I’d assumed it was in the room I missed, but now I’m thinking I simply didn’t get one at all (and presumably got something else unpleasant instead).

I see a little bit of sense in it, maybe - I guess it stops people from watching someone else do the run and simply copying them - but it does mean your ranking has at least a little bit to do with luck as much as with skill. Which is annoying.

Wariospeedwagon

Yes, really surprised by that.

Kinda good for the ego when you get a bad score though. I just had a way harder run than everyone else.

Nice investigative journalism BTW Tin.

hylian_elf

Yeah, looks like I’ve been getting the harder random setups all the time…

mistercrayon

I got past level five today.

Rotgland being the hero weapon of the day. Got quite far

Spoiler:

but got done in by the baddie that appears as you get some bombs weapon.

I thought it was a hilarious joke when the level directed you

Spoiler:

b0r1s

Just did a run to the final boss again. Really need to unlock the secret ending at some point. I’m half way to it.

Also just discovered a power up that I’ve gone the whole game without.

Spoiler:

b0r1s

Wariospeedwagon wrote:

Yes, really surprised by that.

Kinda good for the ego when you get a bad score though. I just had a way harder run than everyone else.

Nice investigative journalism BTW Tin.

I wish I could say it was because of an unfair run but I was just crap.

Minnesänger

So, ladies and gents. 2 good challenge runs this week and yet again we had quite a few people take part.

b0r1s set a hell of a hill to climb for everyone with a fantastic Monday run, so it was all going to come down to yesterday to see whether we could topple him. Unfortunately for us all, yesterday was a tricky run with multiple people (myself included) falling to room one. Well, I say us all, but there was one person who smashed it, and that was non other than JonB.

JonB wrote:

656,051 for today. 41/293. I only got hit once, and still miles off the top scores.

Will need to check final standings for yesterday after work but so long as he hasn't dropped 30 ranks down, I think we can say that Jon is likely to be this week's Pewmaster.

Congrats to Jon, and commiserations to b0r1s for just missing out.

tin_robot

b0r1s wrote:

Just did a run to the final boss again. Really need to unlock the secret ending at some point. I’m half way to it. Also just discovered a power up that I’ve gone the whole game without.

Spoiler:

The heat proof suit upgrade so you can walk on lava. So many rooms opened up now.

I need to unlock the secret ending too.

Spoiler:

Very few chances to play at the moment which isn’t helping.

JonB

Woo hoo, pew etc.

Interesting to read that runs can be different each time. In yesterday's I had one lockdown room, which was quite near the end. I can see how it could be a bummer to get one earlier.

hylian_elf

Time doesn’t seem to affect score then? Or have I got it wrong? Cos I have always thought that it did and have been going in all (one) gun blazing and getting a bit careless. If I had taken my time yesterday, I probably would’ve done better. Watched the scoring screen at the end carefully yesterday and nothing seems to be attached to time?

Minnesänger

Time does influence score. But it’s not the only thing.

Minnesänger

I think.

Minnesänger

Maybe.

JonB

There's a time bonus at the end. I don't know how big a difference it makes though.

JonB

And I guess that only matters if you finish anyway, so not a priority.

hylian_elf

Clearly I wasn't looking hard enough at the scoring screen...

Minnesänger

Won’t have time to run this this week, perhaps.

If someone wants to pick 2 days and bump the thread on the day, that’d be great. Otherwise I’ll bump the thread next week.

JonB

That's fine. I probably don't have time this week.

b0r1s

Yep not a problem this week.

AndCallMeCharlie

Just started this, the difficulty spikes are quite something

Minnesänger

AndCallMeCharlie wrote:

Just started this, the difficulty spikes are quite something

Yeah, it can be tough at first. Got a nice group of people here who’ve done it now though, so if you have any Qs, we got you.

Good luck and pew pew.

AndCallMeCharlie

I guess I just need to keep grinding?

mistercrayon

Grinding isn’t the right word there’s no stats to bump. You’ll play and accidently try something and it will feel intuitvely better and then you’ll keep doing those things until enough parts of your game are much better than before and you can last for ages.

Early on there are a lot of teases but you can’t do some until you’ve beaten later levels.

b0r1s

Enjoy the rhythm of the pew pew dash slash jump run and get good with the active reload. Also try to get your adrenaline level to five (by killing things without getting hit) and that makes the game slightly easier.

You can grind guns. In as much as guns will have additional benefits that you’ll activate by killing lots of stuff. Those benefits are kept across runs.

There’s loads more that could be discussed but if you have any specific questions just ask away.

AndCallMeCharlie

thanks

Minnesänger

This is back next week - Wednesday and Thursday. Dates in title.

b0r1s

Yes! Returnal returns.

hylian_elf

Pew pew

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