Earth Defense Force 2025: They killed the rookie! EDF! EDF!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Earth Defense Force 2025: They killed the rookie! EDF! EDF!

Motherfucker: Jul 16, 2011; I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.

Light mortar: Eh, I don't get it I mean ticket weapons just don't really seem to do much for a piddly little aoe

Mortar: THE WORLD GOES RED, THE SUN IS ECLIPSED, DEATH DESCENDS AND PLUNGES THE WORLD INTO TEN THOUSAND YEARS OF INFERNAL HELLFIRE

Can't wait to see that satellite weapon everyone keeps mentioning, also I wish the game would drop me a loving helicopter already, my legs are so small and I need an elevated position from which to KILL

Motherfucker fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 04:57

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# ? May 20, 2024 21:05

Shine: Feb 26, 2007; No Muscles For The Majority

Helicopters in EDF are somehow harder to fly than helicopters in turbonerd flight sims.

Spritefall lady is Rita Repulsa and I love her.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 05:30

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

Kylra posted:

105mm cannon can wreck drone swarms when you don't have spritefall up, which also seriously messes up regular drone swarms. Not seeing enough love for the 105mm which is basically spritefall but a bit less damage and time instead of tickets. Alternately, it's a bigger radius autocannon.

Chaining heavy/great plasma balls once you get bigger post-normal difficulty cores is pretty great. Even the level 15 heavy plasma will one shot a 30m radius of solo inferno red ants, and these both have good range. Heavy does 7k damage in 30m at 1k range, and great does 22k damage in 36m at 8.8k (why? lol) range. They really need cores above their level to make a main weapon unless you are trying to blow up mothership/base/final boss.

The big plasma line is also generally really good around the levels you get them. Between big heavy and great you usually have one usable I AM THE AIRSTRIKE plasma cannon that doubles as a structure sniper available after level 10, though late normal and a certain point in hard is a bit awkward. Using a dragoon lance or such would generally be better against single targets assuming you can get close and that travel won't take too long.

Stardust A and beyond can also be an effective mid range weapons once the accuracy is upgraded if you can manage to not kill yourself, but you won't see this until mid hard at least.

Mag past the first one for wing diver also really good for messing up drones or single insects. Especially red drones since they can't shoot you if you point a mag at them. You just need a bunch of upgrades so it doesn't cost all your energy to reload it in the first third of the clip. As a bonus if you're using a power hungry weapon mag can let you fire while taking advantage of emergency recharge rate much more easily as it is clip based not charge based.

You actually hit on the main reason why I don't like those weapons very much - they're not super great unless you've got an overleveled core, which doesn't really happen reliably until you're hitting up inferno. I generally prefer my weapons to be a very light burden on my core because otherwise it's really easy to get sucked into a permanent loop of spending energy on kiting and not being able to reliably thin your pursuers out without risking an overheat.

Actually, now that I see you mentioned *solo* inferno, I feel like I should add a caveat for all of my recommendations in this thread; I pretty much only play multiplayer, which might as well be an entirely different game from singleplayer since the enemies have enormously inflated HP. Weapons that reliably one shot in singleplayer frequently don't in multiplayer, which in turn changes usefulness calculations a lot.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 06:25

40 Proof Listerine: Jul 1, 2007; Baroness Kanan-Zelaya of the minor House of Carbon

Kanos posted:

You actually hit on the main reason why I don't like those weapons very much - they're not super great unless you've got an overleveled core, which doesn't really happen reliably until you're hitting up inferno. I generally prefer my weapons to be a very light burden on my core because otherwise it's really easy to get sucked into a permanent loop of spending energy on kiting and not being able to reliably thin your pursuers out without risking an overheat.

Actually, now that I see you mentioned *solo* inferno, I feel like I should add a caveat for all of my recommendations in this thread; I pretty much only play multiplayer, which might as well be an entirely different game from singleplayer since the enemies have enormously inflated HP. Weapons that reliably one shot in singleplayer frequently don't in multiplayer, which in turn changes usefulness calculations a lot.

How big of a multiplayer HP multiplier are we talking?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 06:40

Motherfucker: Jul 16, 2011; I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.

The airraider's lack of air power is lame. I kinda wish there was a target painter that shot a rocket from the sky like the cruise missile one but it was fire and forget, that'd really help.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 06:41

raverrn: Apr 5, 2005; Unidentified spacecraft inbound from delta line.

All Silpheed squadrons scramble now!

Motherfucker posted:

The airraider's lack of air power is lame. I kinda wish there was a target painter that shot a rocket from the sky like the cruise missile one but it was fire and forget, that'd really help.

If you stop lasing the missile will keep going straight. Once you get a little red square for a second or so, feel free to walk away.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 06:56

RoyalScion: May 16, 2009

40 Proof Listerine posted:

How big of a multiplayer HP multiplier are we talking?

The enemies get fairly significant buffs :

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# ? Jul 18, 2019 06:56

Koorisch: Mar 29, 2009

So I've only played EDF 4.1 but which games in the series are considered the "best" in terms of fun and crazy poo poo happening?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 07:37

Grondoth: Feb 18, 2011

Holy poo poo it's so goddamn fun to have a multi jump boost, a multi dash boost, and zip around using blastholes to take out HUMANOID ALIEN limbs

Getting the leg and then the right arm in the 1-2 punch thing feels amazing

# ? Jul 18, 2019 07:39

Sandepande: Aug 19, 2018

"I'll show you my techniques" says a Wing Diver while jumping in front of my collection of Thunder Crossbow 3 bolts.

It's a small wonder EDF actually had anyone left in the final battle.

Edit: also helpful tactical tips from the Sergeant: "Confirm the enemy's position with your eyes!"

Sandepande fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 07:50

Blattdorf: Aug 10, 2012; "This will be the best for both of us, Bradley."
"Meow."

I think there's a good explanation for why the final boss just arrives at your doorstep. Look at it from their perspective. They've been razing Earth to the ground everywhere, except for one place where somehow they are pushed back effortlessly every single time. So the leader decides to check it out himself and put a stop to it. The rest is immense hubris.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 07:56

Reallycoolname: Feb 26, 2008; Take a look! It's in a book!

Koorisch posted:

So I've only played EDF 4.1 but which games in the series are considered the "best" in terms of fun and crazy poo poo happening?

I feel like every new entry eclipse the previous so EDF5.

Really, at this point the only way they can shock us with scale is if they have the entire earth you're fighting on be an alien.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 09:49

dis astranagant: Dec 14, 2006

Idk, 3 was quite a few steps back from 2, which still has some cool ideas that haven't been done again. 2's still worth playing in general even with 4.1 existing as a sort of remake.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 10:16

Taintrunner: Apr 10, 2017; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

gimme the GOD drat candy posted:

i probably killed more edf soldiers than the aliens did. those dudes just really loving love running in front of you while you are shooting.

I like to use them as stopgaps for raining howitzer/ion cannon fire on the bugs. Thank you for your service!

# ? Jul 18, 2019 10:20

Motherfucker: Jul 16, 2011; I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.

bot those robots don't gently caress around.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 10:22

Bofast: Feb 21, 2011; Grimey Drawer

40 Proof Listerine posted:

Late to the party and finally playing through EDF 4.1 on Normal > Hard after getting stuck around mission ~40 trying to do hard/ hardest with way too little armor.

Beat it on Normal with Ranger and it seems like the second half of the game is really biased in favor of super long range options with all the dropships and Earth Eaters that need getting got; Ranger rockets own but I'm not sure how I'd do those sequences as Fencer (keep 2x cannons on switch? But that's not dash cancel friendly) or Wing Diver (fly up to dropships as Diver?)

Are there any secret tricks or damage methods I'm missing for dealing with those Earth Eater panels/ transforming dropships?

As Wing Diver on the city maps, I would usually just pick one of the taller skyscrapers and fly up to stand on it. That way you don't need extreme range weapons or be actively flying to attack earth eaters.

Mr Phillby posted:

There's some build up in 5, it's just a lot less memorable than 4.1 because Ohara the ravager expert was an amazing character, ofc you're going to remember him going out in a blaze of glory so you can find and defeat THE BRAIN.

5 has a lot of background chatter about EGGS THROUGHOUT HISTORY, and IIRC you're right that you're just sort of fighting a mothership and it turns out to be the important one? I did appreciate the token gesture they made towards explaining why Giant Ants were a thing though. Also the actual final boss in 5 is great, and I never really cared for actually fighting the Earth eaters, even though the concept was cool as heck.

If i had to rate the mothership fights in all the games I'd probably say 5, 2, 4.1, 3, 1, IR (IA doesn't even qualify) would be the order.

Yeah, I just wish they could have had us fight one normal mothership first, or something. It's such a leap at the end from mostly "regular" enemies to "whoops, here's the end boss" with almost nothing in between.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 13:23

Mr Phillby: Apr 8, 2009; ~TRAVIS~

The walking fortress in 5 is basically just a mothership with legs on, to the extent that it turns up in multiple returning missions in place of an actual mothership.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 14:31

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

RoyalScion posted:

The enemies get fairly significant buffs :

Huh, that's weird. So playing alone "online" is almost twice as hard as playing alone offline?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 14:59

VulgarandStupid: Aug 5, 2003; I AM, AND ALWAYS WILL BE, UNFUCKABLE AND A TOTAL DISAPPOINTMENT TO EVERYONE. DAE WANNA CUM PLAY WITH ME!?

WhiteHowler posted:

Huh, that's weird. So playing alone "online" is almost twice as hard as playing alone offline?

Enemy strength isn�t really additive, if you really want to qualify things.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 15:27

WhiteHowler: Apr 3, 2001; I'M HUGE!

VulgarandStupid posted:

Enemy strength isn’t really additive, if you really want to qualify things.

True, but them having over twice as much health sure does make things harder, especially at lower levels.

I noticed that my damage seemed to be really low starting out with Air Raider and Fencer, and I guess it's because I was playing "online" by myself. The weapon unlocks carry over from offline, right?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 15:40

Morter: Jul 1, 2006; Gift for the grind, criminal mind shifty

Swift with the 9 through a 59FIFTY

RoyalScion posted:

The enemies get fairly significant buffs :

I don't fully think I understand.

1) What is the difference between Normal and Hard mode on SP?

2) Why is there always a decrease in enemy HP/damage going from (Multiplayer with 1 player) to (Multiplayer with 2 players)?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 16:01

Snake Maze

Jul 13, 2016

3.85 Billion years ago

Having seen the explosion on the moon, the Devil comes to Venus

Morter posted:

I don't fully think I understand.

1) What is the difference between Normal and Hard mode on SP?

2) Why is there always a decrease in enemy HP/damage going from (Multiplayer with 1 player) to (Multiplayer with 2 players)?

1) These are just the changes from adjusting the number of players, not any other changes between difficulties. Single player enemies have the base level of health regardless of whether you're playing in splitscreen

2) Playing online with 1 player gives you the same enemy scaling as with 4 players. Why? Uh, I don't know, extra challenge mode?

# ? Jul 18, 2019 16:09

Mr Phillby: Apr 8, 2009; ~TRAVIS~

Does adding players have any effect on the number of enemies that spawn? I know single player online is harder than offline but it literally becoming easier with 2 players seems a little off.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 16:28

Motherfucker: Jul 16, 2011; I certainly dont have deep-seated issues involving birthdays.

Depth crawlers kinda loving rule as a air-raider, just hop in one and shimmy up a building real fast for ~verticality~ and also the fire one at least is pretty zippy.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 16:32

sigseven: May 8, 2003; That was heavy.

ahahaha, that D: face as I round the corner
https://gfycat.com/ediblebossylacewing

# ? Jul 18, 2019 16:36

LuiCypher: Apr 24, 2010; Today I'm... amped up!

Snake Maze posted:

2) Playing online with 1 player gives you the same enemy scaling as with 4 players. Why? Uh, I don't know, extra challenge mode?

Probably to encourage you to wait for people to join and then play instead of trying to play while you wait.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 17:51

Morter: Jul 1, 2006; Gift for the grind, criminal mind shifty

Swift with the 9 through a 59FIFTY

birds

https://streamable.com/c4pon

# ? Jul 18, 2019 18:12

Grondoth: Feb 18, 2011

Anyone know if there's any modding going on with EDF 5 yet? I wanna make healing items reload cause, 1: gently caress it and 2: I actually don't think it's that unbalanced in this game. I know people were adding whole new weapons in 4.1, but I don't know how well knowledge transfers over.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 18:43

gimme the GOD DAMN candy: Jul 1, 2007

i don't think any modding is going to happen that quickly for a game without open modding support.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 18:47

Bloodplay it again: Aug 25, 2003; Oh, Dee, you card. :-*

LuiCypher posted:

Probably to encourage you to wait for people to join and then play instead of trying to play while you wait.

Speaking of which, another major QoL improvement is that lobbies with games in progress show time elapsed so you can get an idea of how long you'll be waiting. If I'm hosting and someone joins within a minute or two of starting I just retreat but it's nice for joining in on groups.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 19:36

Captain Beans: Aug 5, 2004; Whar be the beans?; Hair Elf

making the final boss in EDF be space Goku was a great choice

# ? Jul 18, 2019 19:47

Kylra: Dec 1, 2006; Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Kanos posted:

You actually hit on the main reason why I don't like those weapons very much - they're not super great unless you've got an overleveled core, which doesn't really happen reliably until you're hitting up inferno. I generally prefer my weapons to be a very light burden on my core because otherwise it's really easy to get sucked into a permanent loop of spending energy on kiting and not being able to reliably thin your pursuers out without risking an overheat.

Actually, now that I see you mentioned *solo* inferno, I feel like I should add a caveat for all of my recommendations in this thread; I pretty much only play multiplayer, which might as well be an entirely different game from singleplayer since the enemies have enormously inflated HP. Weapons that reliably one shot in singleplayer frequently don't in multiplayer, which in turn changes usefulness calculations a lot.

Solo was just where I happened to try it for that post. Heavy 2-shots red ants in a 4 player difficulty room mission 9, and only just barely doesn't one shot as they have 8049 hp vs heavy plasma's 7700 damage in mission 9. They do 1 shot red ants in a 3 player room. In mid-late inferno you can also more easily use the Great cannon, which does 3x the damage. Also note that this is with you as one person in a team of 4, blowing up potentially a dozen red ants every 5-10 seconds, much less the things with less hp which is most swarmer types. And if they don't die, they are flying through the air unable to attack for 3-10 seconds because the blast is enormous. Which sounds pretty good to me!

Big plasmas take energy in proper amounts for the cores you get that level to be main weapons, and will still mess things up in a large radius though you'll have to charge multiple times and deal with them scattering into the air all over due to explosions. In either case though, Heavy and Great are more power to damage efficient for big targets unless you can just stand still pummeling, and you can charge Heavy (level 15) without going to emergency every time with cores around level 20-25.

If you're stuck in a kite loop against ants or other things that charge you instead of keep distance yeah dragoon lance is probably better since you'll be able to leverage the close range, punch through and somewhat better energy efficiency, but plasma can be fired really far away with no damage loss against frogs/cosmos/deroys/turrets/red circles or partial charged vs drones/bees.

E: Also worth noting since we're talking about energy hungry weapons the first big core is mid-hard at level 36.

Kylra fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:15

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

WhiteHowler posted:

Huh, that's weird. So playing alone "online" is almost twice as hard as playing alone offline?

Usually more than twice as hard, though it varies from mission to mission. The increased enemy power has a lot of knock-on effects.

It makes the NPC EDF soldiers who can frequently almost singlehandedly carry SP versions of missions almost entirely useless aside from momentary distractions; there's a stage in 4.1 which is notable because in Inferno on SP the NPCs can solo the entire mission without you and let you farm free loot, whereas on MP all of the NPCs will die without killing the first wave. This actually adds a lot to the narrative, since you and your friends really are something special that can do what no one else can.
It changes weapon balance substantially. A lot of weapons that are fine in SP are bad in MP due to stuff like not hitting hard enough to one shot anymore, or costing too much energy/having too much reload time to effectively cover yourself against enemies that aren't dying remotely as fast. The flip side of this is that a lot of weapons that are overlooked in SP due to being overkill suddenly become way more valuable in MP.
It encourages specialization on a mission to mission basis. With the limited weapon space in each class, it's generally better for classes to focus on their particular strengths and handle particular enemy types they're great against and leave the rest of the team to handle the stuff they're not great at on most missions. As an example, on the first Red Drone mission in MP as Air Raider I'll frequently not bring any offensive weapons and just bring healing posts/power posts/an ambulance to keep everyone else cooking because the first time you run into that level your best anti-aircraft weapons(autocannons, 150s) are worthless at best and actively counter-productive at worst(sending the red drones frisbeeing across the sky uselessly).
Certain enemy types go from "problematic/annoying" to "can end the run outright if not controlled properly". Red Drones are among the hardest to kill, most dangerous enemies in multiplayer and just one or two of them can end a mission if not dealt with as a priority.

Kylra posted:

E: Also worth noting since we're talking about energy hungry weapons the first big core is mid-hard at level 36.

I view the Big Cores as suicide equipment, but when I play Wing Diver I prioritize GOING FAST at all hazards. Maybe it's because I play Air Raider 95% of the time so when I'm playing a class that can actually move all I want to do is move.

Also I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a 2 or 3 player room despite there being different scaling values in the code. I'm fairly certain all MP lobbies are permanently locked to 4 player scaling - that's how it worked in 4.1 and I haven't seen anything to indicate it changed.

Kanos fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:19

Kylra: Dec 1, 2006; Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Kanos posted:

I view the Big Cores as suicide equipment, but when I play Wing Diver I prioritize GOING FAST at all hazards. Maybe it's because I play Air Raider 95% of the time so when I'm playing a class that can actually move all I want to do is move.

I wouldn't do it all the time, but I'd consider it for many of the cave missions or generally any other time you could potentially destroy most everything that could come at you before it can get to you. Haven't got a chance to try it much in multiplayer yet though. Heavy plasma into cave corridors is extremely sick if you can keep putting them out.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:27

Kylra: Dec 1, 2006; Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Kanos posted:

Also I'm pretty sure there's no such thing as a 2 or 3 player room despite there being different scaling values in the code. I'm fairly certain all MP lobbies are permanently locked to 4 player scaling - that's how it worked in 4.1 and I haven't seen anything to indicate it changed.

I'm using this. Not a huge difference noted, but just happens to make a difference here, and I've noticed some things generally take +/- a few shots sometimes that seems to depend on player count so I can believe the variances are real. Like I went from one shotting some enemy with a lance at some point to needing two when a couple extra people joined.

http://leafierlemon.com/edf5/calc.shtml

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:31

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

Lances are a pretty rough weapon to use for "feel" tests since their range is so short and their falloff is so severe that variable positioning wildly changes how much damage they do. A level 46 Dragoon Lance W ranges from ~5500 dropping to ~300 depending on where in its whopping 80 meter range you are relative to the target.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:34

Kylra: Dec 1, 2006; Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Kanos posted:

Lances are a pretty rough weapon to use for "feel" tests since their range is so short and their falloff is so severe that variable positioning wildly changes how much damage they do. A level 46 Dragoon Lance W ranges from ~5500 dropping to ~300 depending on where in its whopping 80 meter range you are relative to the target.

You get a lot of lance shots in when you try to use a non-piercing one vs swamers. Also there were some others with plasma where I was like "huh this seems to be taking extra shots now" and those don't have the range dropoff.

If you're in discord or whatever we can probably sort this out fairly quickly by just going into mission 9 as a pair with one of us using a heavy plasma cannon though.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:39

Kylra: Dec 1, 2006; Not a cute boy, just a boring girl.

Science complete. They die in 1 shot to a plasma heavy in a 2 player room but not a solo online.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:47

Kanos: Sep 6, 2006; was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

Kylra posted:

Science complete. They die in 1 shot to a plasma heavy in a 2 player room but not a solo online.

Wait, what? I'm parsing this as "they die in one shot with 2 players in the room but not while I'm solo". When you say "two player room", do you mean singleplayer split screen?

e: I'm willing to help out with science stuff in the future but I don't have inferno unlocked on PC yet since I've been low and slowing my way through the campaign with a friend or two who didn't buy console, so it'll be a few days.

Kanos fucked around with this message at 20:56 on Jul 18, 2019

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:54

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# ? May 20, 2024 21:05

gimme the GOD DAMN candy: Jul 1, 2007

i vaguely remember that playing solo online used to scale it to 4 players. not sure if that's still the case, but it would explain that particular result.

# ? Jul 18, 2019 20:56

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Earth Defense Force 2025: They killed the rookie! EDF! EDF!

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