[SEASON 2] Stalkers RPG General Chat Thread (The Secret Clubhouse!)

[Neo Emolga]

Do we have a window of time to complete a rescue before the Dark Event 2 counter moves, or does a Rescue need to be done ASAP to prevent that?

Hey, sorry I've been busy and stuff. I had a job interview this morning that went really well in the beginning with the face to face interview conversation, and then came a brutal Microsoft Excel test that was a nightmare and I'm pretty sure I'm bombed it because my Excel knowledge is general, but they wanted something extremely technical and specific (which is weird because that's not what they said they wanted during the interview itself). That stupid mess is probably going to ruin whole darn interview. :\

I've been pretty bummed out all day about it because it was a really good position and now I'm doubtful it's going to happen... :\

Anyway, to answer your question...

The Dark Event 2 counter moves regardless of when the person gets rescued. It's a natural occurrence when someone hits the Downed or Berserk state. Although having it be time dependent is an interesting idea that wasn't thought of before. Allowing an earlier rescue to soften the blow for Dark Event 2 is an idea we might consider for future installments, but Xanthe and I would have to talk that out about how exactly it would work in that case and make official rules about it.

[The Nonexistent Tazz]

Hey, sorry I've been busy and stuff. I had a job interview this morning that went really well in the beginning with the face to face interview conversation, and then came a brutal Microsoft Excel test that was a nightmare and I'm pretty sure I'm bombed it because my Excel knowledge is general, but they wanted something extremely technical and specific (which is weird because that's not what they said they wanted during the interview itself). That stupid mess is probably going to ruin whole darn interview. :\

I've been pretty bummed out all day about it because it was a really good position and now I'm doubtful it's going to happen... :\

Anyway, to answer your question...

The Dark Event 2 counter moves regardless of when the person gets rescued. It's a natural occurrence when someone hits the Downed or Berserk state. Although having it be time dependent is an interesting idea that wasn't thought of before. Allowing an earlier rescue to soften the blow for Dark Event 2 is an idea we might consider for future installments, but Xanthe and I would have to talk that out about how exactly it would work in that case and make official rules about it.

I'll be honest, that is a real bummer. I really don't have much else to say on that.

In the future, I would have suggested that you had put down certain guaranteed ways Stalkers get their Dark Event continues-or, rather, specifically, that you put down that this is how they actually progress that Dark Event. 1 was obvious as daylight but 2 wasn't quite clear on this in any way other than 'don't spill every bean you have to everyone you meet.' Absolutely no mention of this was made anywhere, and while Dark Event 2 isn't a massive concern yet that is still kind of a mean move.

While I'm at it, that also really overemphasizes Security. To give you a rough idea of how strong that perk is in comparison to all others... In theory, a whole team of Security Pokemon could simply have the majority of their players (not even all of them) pick the Escort/Protect abilities, and then just Escort the Pokemon needed to unlock things while the Protectors shielded them. This sounds like crippling overspecialization, except the time potentially wasted needing to rescue other players or heal them from injuries is also negated, meaning that every night round can be spent searching while every day round can be spent escorting Pokemon point-to-point to deal with perk shenanigans, in other words mostly negating the time disadvantage, while simultaniously dealing a double-blow to both not being able to act and negating the primary method for Stalkers to gain information. It's not deliciously game-breaking but it will probably make you sad as there will be no Algome Oen/Erif Senucius for you. The final straw comes in when you realize that so many of the items are booby-trapped (and way too often with SAN, but that's different) that they also un-booby that on the spot, and if that isn't automatic, they will have a whole team to just un-booby it later when it becomes convenient for them, which means perked allies are also perfectly safe. The only thing keeping this from being perfectly viable is the potentially long time needed to even get at perked Pokemon in that case, but again, the time disadvantage from disarming all of that becomes irrelevant to the amount of time that could be spent safely searching. Even then, you could Diplomacy a few fellows with your non-Escorters to figure out who those are.

In other words, Security is so strong that there can be a strategy using only that perk to negate major elements of the game right out.

Even without a dedicated and unlikely cheese strategy, which would likely never surface in this format, I still say Security is overemphasized in its current state because the Stalkers really went all-out on booby-trapping everything that they've so much as stepped on, but can't say 'nerf it' because quite frankly the ability to search safely is so important right now it is not even funny. people are sincerely worried about just being unable to find anything out before the clock runs out, and with injuries/Berkserks to worry about, that's less people searching...

For future runs, may I suggest merely making Security nerf the trap's effects? Like, 2 damage traps become 1 damage instead, instead of outright nullified.

[Neo Emolga]

I'll be honest, that is a real bummer. I really don't have much else to say on that.

In the future, I would have suggested that you had put down certain guaranteed ways Stalkers get their Dark Event continues-or, rather, specifically, that you put down that this is how they actually progress that Dark Event. 1 was obvious as daylight but 2 wasn't quite clear on this in any way other than 'don't spill every bean you have to everyone you meet.' Absolutely no mention of this was made anywhere, and while Dark Event 2 isn't a massive concern yet that is still kind of a mean move.

While I'm at it, that also really overemphasizes Security. To give you a rough idea of how strong that perk is in comparison to all others... In theory, a whole team of Security Pokemon could simply have the majority of their players (not even all of them) pick the Escort/Protect abilities, and then just Escort the Pokemon needed to unlock things while the Protectors shielded them. This sounds like crippling overspecialization, except the time potentially wasted needing to rescue other players or heal them from injuries is also negated, meaning that every night round can be spent searching while every day round can be spent escorting Pokemon point-to-point to deal with perk shenanigans, in other words mostly negating the time disadvantage, while simultaniously dealing a double-blow to both not being able to act and negating the primary method for Stalkers to gain information. It's not deliciously game-breaking but it will probably make you sad as there will be no Algome Oen/Erif Senucius for you. The final straw comes in when you realize that so many of the items are booby-trapped (and way too often with SAN, but that's different) that they also un-booby that on the spot, and if that isn't automatic, they will have a whole team to just un-booby it later when it becomes convenient for them, which means perked allies are also perfectly safe. The only thing keeping this from being perfectly viable is the potentially long time needed to even get at perked Pokemon in that case, but again, the time disadvantage from disarming all of that becomes irrelevant to the amount of time that could be spent safely searching. Even then, you could Diplomacy a few fellows with your non-Escorters to figure out who those are.

In other words, Security is so strong that there can be a strategy using only that perk to negate major elements of the game right out.

Even without a dedicated and unlikely cheese strategy, which would likely never surface in this format, I still say Security is overemphasized in its current state because the Stalkers really went all-out on booby-trapping everything that they've so much as stepped on, but can't say 'nerf it' because quite frankly the ability to search safely is so important right now it is not even funny. people are sincerely worried about just being unable to find anything out before the clock runs out, and with injuries/Berkserks to worry about, that's less people searching...

For future runs, may I suggest merely making Security nerf the trap's effects? Like, 2 damage traps become 1 damage instead, instead of outright nullified.

Yeeep, all valid points. Security originally started off as one of the least effective perks and I think in trying to make it more effective, it was probably made too effective.

Security is, as you said, pretty overpowered and it's something we'd like to nerf in future installments. I don't want to do it now because that's not quite fair to people that picked it. Although instead of it doing less damage for traps, it will have a chance of failure to disarm on items and only adds to evasion for traps the player runs into while Searching in the field rather than allows the player to avoid everything.

One of the major things that we did notice is that Security players absolutely have their hands full. There's too much for them to do, so there is a bit of compromise there in having to choose. They also end up doing a lot more of the riskier stuff and are pretty much the Emissary guinea pigs. That's got it's own challenges as well, especially when instead of being able to pick and choose where they want to go on their own, they have to carry out the will of the team because of what only they can do with relative safety. So there is kind of a price to pay with it.

From what I've noticed, these are mainly minor tweaks that are needed. Thankfully, they're not game-breaking and things still run pretty well even when they're there, but there's definitely points to consider when making plans for Stalkers RPG in the future. We've already been keeping a working record of observations and things we'd like to change for Round 3 of Stalkers. One big point is definitely to make it a bit smaller. XD Round 3 will probably be more of a small town or suburbia. Larger than Round 1, but smaller than this, although I wouldn't mind running another Round 1-sized Stalkers again with this new system in place.


It's all stuff I think would be great for a post-game discussion when we get to that point. We did add quite a lot of new stuff and while the game does need a tiny tweak here and there, I'm pretty satisfied with the results and I think it'll continue to get better. :3