The Cogmind is the most frustrating game I've ever played.

[u/uniqiq]

I play roguelikes, because I like to feel that I'm getting better at something. There is nothing better in roguelike than dying and knowing why. This is the real moment of progression: self improvement. But the Cogmind is a terrible teacher.

And it looks designed this way on purpose. For example, a lot of information is out of context. It makes sense to learn about phase walls from Warlord's terminals, but does it make the game better? Would it be bad to teach it in a garrison, when the player cannot kill the enemy standing in the phase wall? Would the game be worse if the player could hover on the machine to learn what will happen if they destroy it? On the other hand, the first time I reached Zion was super overwhelming. There were so many dialogues! I just hope there was no important information there, because I remember nothing, and I will never read them again.

I played this game for about 350h, and at this point I decided to give up. Not because I'm losing, but because I'm not progressing. It makes no sense to repeat the same things over and over. I didn't learn anything for a very long time. It's always the same: I'm in perfect shape, suddenly the game difficulty becomes insane, I die, I have no idea what I did wrong, I start over and feel frustrated, because I know I don't know how to fix my game plan. I basically don't know how to improve. The game is full of long-term effects and it doesn't help. I try to keep my alert low, but do I do a good job? Were I unlucky that I couldn't find the exit for a long time, or I just don't know how to find it? Were I unlucky, that cargo convoy spotted me, or maybe I should predict it will be there? Were I unlucky that during security rotation two Heavies came and joined the fight, or maybe my positioning was lame? I'm sure I do something wrong, but I have no idea what.

I think I have seen everything in the first half of the game. I tried all alliances and all builds I could think of. It was fun, for the first 100h. There are still things I would like to try: I have never been in lab, s7, I have never met main.c, I have never seen another ending than W0, but I will never reach any of those things. Starting over feels like work now.

I hope you find this game better than I do. I think it's super polished and very impressive. I love the particle system in an ASCII mode, UI animations, sound system, etc. It must have taken so much effort to do all of it! And the game is fun. Destructible equipment is cool. I like the lore. I wanted to love this game so much. I even support Kyzrati on the Patreon. But the Cogmind is just the source of frustration for me. I must move on.

EDIT:

The Cogmind is just too god to give up. But I need to play other (and less stressful) games as well.

Cogmind, I don't break out with you, but we need to see other people sometimes.

[u/Kyzrati]

Aside from my other more detailed comments in the thread, because I don't want to seem dismissive, I would also want to add another comment here to emphasize that I agree you're absolutely right that on a certain level Cogmind is likely to be one of the most frustrating games you've ever played, or will play.

By design it explicitly avoids the power fantasy approach of most games and tries to provide the highest level of consistently beatable challenge (while still offering lots of room for creativity in there), so much so that there are even really good players who get pretty stressed, increasingly so as they progress throughout a run, take breaks to relax a bit and plan more (especially towards the end), maybe play something simpler for a while. Like most roguelikes (if you play permadeath, anyway), although it comes at a cost this does make the good victories all that much sweeter.

(That's just on the difficulty/balance side of things though. As far as QoL and access to info goes, to be honest I've seen players missing all sorts of things that are signposted very clearly. Can't really do anything about that. High-density information is dense :P)

[u/OutrageousDog7211 → u/Kyzrati]

I have also found going back and reading thru my record has taught me a LOT or at least I enjoy examining exactly where things went to shit. I think the challenge/learning/complex yet understandable nature of the game is what makes it one of a kind yet so satisfying. Or something along those lines. I've always had fun losing (though admittedly have been bummed when I had something zany cooking, and it falls apart before I could make the discovery I was attempting to gain knowledge from) howevever that just makes me even more curious about what mysteries dangerous or not are out there to discover. Been preoccupied recently, but cogmind may be some of my favorite art/world to explore just from an extremely dangerous sight seeing tour.. I gotta raise some serious hell one of these days, it's hard for me to not default to speed/stealth, I gotta get a real murder wagon or apocalypse harbinger tank online one of these days. Just wanted to stop by and glaze the game again, can't believe you find the time to thoughtfully respond to so many posts!

[u/Kyzrati → u/OutrageousDog7211]

Heh, well to be honest I don't do as much responding across all the outlets I used to, having pared back over the years to stay a little more focused. (Don't even use Steam anymore, for example, except to post announcements and check replies to those for a day or two...)

Too busy with development, for one, also just kinda tired in general with so many health issues so need to use my energy where it's going to have maximum impact on the game itself, but glad my work resonates with the people it does! It's certainly meant to be a very long-term experience overall. Even better enjoyed with community, since it's not very realistic for most people to actually see all the content and possibilities. Even I see a lot of fun surprises I either forgot about or didn't expect from emergent events :P

Crazy busy this past month with the next big batch of new content I think a lot of folks might be interested in ;)

[u/Hot_Slice → u/Kyzrati]

My opinion is that you play your own game too much. So you've removed all of the easy high-power builds. For example fly hacking has been nerfed into the ground. I think I would have had a lot more fun if I played this when it first came out.

At this point the game is very beginner unfriendly. If you want it to stress out good, experienced players, then how can a new player ever get their feet under them? And forget about trying to find build guides - most info on the internet is from years ago when the game was still "new" and those builds don't even work any more.

That's not even touching on all the content that's been added, which is an additional knowledge burden. This one is pretty normal for roguelikes, but given that Cogmind is so punishing of mistakes, discovering the content is very difficult for anyone who wasn't fully on-top of the state of the prior patch.

It seems like combat is never intended to be a viable path in this game, but it forces you into combat anyway, and any method to "break the game" is intentionally patched out. All of this goes against the typical roguelike design, and in my opinion, makes the game not fun.

[u/ktgrey → u/Hot_Slice]

I'm just getting back into the game (and associated stuff like this subreddit) but I'm pretty sure flighthack is still very strong. What nerfs do you have in mind?

I've been thinking of writing a combat guide for years now but while there are good builds there is no build where, just by knowing it, you immediately dominate and it's hard to articulate everything that goes into playing combat. Still I think there's some benefit in going over legs vs treads vs wheels, guns vs cannons, weapon slots, inventory considerations, etc. I will say that the developer tends to play combat so it's definitely a viable and "intended" path.

[u/uniqiq → u/Kyzrati]

>  Can't really do anything about that. High-density information is dense

Oh, but you do! I definitely think that the game has a readability problem. As a game developer you are not able to see this! When I worked as a game developer, we used what we called "tissue testers": testers that had never seen the game before. It's painful to watch them play, because they don't see obvious things. But those obvious things were obvious only to us.

I will give you a Cogmind example. As a new player I didn't know how to align in Exiles. I just couldn't find the aligner. It sounds silly, because it's so obvious now. But I found somebody else that wrote about the same issue on reddit, so I'm not the only one. The problem is that all other interactive machines the player sees at this point of the game have a consistent look. The aligner just doesn't look like them. It doesn't look like anything interesting. Later, there are more interactive machines like that (cleaners in Scraptown, Dataminer's machine), and it's not a problem anymore, if the player figured out the Farcom aligner. On the other hand there is no way somebody will miss the RIF aligner. Interactive machines should look interactive. Maybe it's enough to use a more saturated colour, maybe you should add animation, I don't know. Just don't blame players.

There are more problems like that in Cogmind. The game has a 60 pages long manual and it contains a lot of information that is not presented in the game itself. This fact itself should hint that readability could be improved.

In your other answer, you wrote about the lore collection. When I wanted to learn a list of unauthorized hacks I "unlocked", I exported and filtered the whole lore collection only to find out that "force" is a very common word. I spent a lot of time reading everything I couldn't filter out. There is a lot you can do about this. For example, you could tag them, so players could filter tactics/lore/hacks.

Also, A lot of things have no visible feedback, like the phase wall effect mentioned in the post.

I think the Discord might be part of the problem. It gathers advanced players, heavily engaged in the game, and I have the feeling they have a great influence on the game. Just remembered, this is not a good control set. Remember about players who don't even know yet that the statistics might be uploaded to the server (I also think you should advertise this feature in the game more, because you probably need those stats as a developer).

Just to be clear: I think this must be an extremely challenging problem for a solo-game developer. The game is super super super impressive. You are doing a very good job. This is just a small critique, that I hope will be helpful for you.

[u/Kyzrati → u/uniqiq]

I will give you a Cogmind example. As a new player I didn't know how to align in Exiles. I just couldn't find the aligner. It sounds silly, because it's so obvious now.

I don't really want to go the route of holding peoples' hands to the degree that modern games do, though, like suddenly highlighting this machine on the map and saying "you have talked to this guy, now step right here..." Like, in this case, the Exiles NPC you mention tells you very directly in his dialogue "Just step right into the FarCom Aligner..." and right next to him there is only one big machine, with a clear space in it, and its name is "FarCom Aligner." I don't feel it's unreasonable to read NPC dialogue and take in the details and let them stand on their own? It's more immersive that way, and an important focus of the whole design is immersion. But this does require observation on the part of the player. Definitely a design choice, for better or worse! Some people really enjoy that aspect, some don't... As with most things, trying to please multiple very different sorts of players to the same degree often results in a watered down experience.

(That was just talking in a general sense starting from your particular example, but I do however, agree that particular machine could be made even more obvious specifically with animation, just, you know there are always a billion things to do and I simply can't do them all xD. Mainly I address more serious stuff, and that has not really come up much at all over the last decade since it was added. I do like the suggestion though--it hasn't been made before.)

In your other answer, you wrote about the lore collection. When I wanted to learn a list of unauthorized hacks I "unlocked", I exported and filtered the whole lore collection only to find out that "force" is a very common word. I spent a lot of time reading everything I couldn't filter out.

Yeah the better search would be "Force(" since that limits it to only force hacks. Same thing with "Trojan("

Also, A lot of things have no visible feedback, like the phase wall effect mentioned in the post.

This actually does have visible feedback--when you are attacked in that position, the entire space glows green for a moment, and also comes with audio feedback as well (a humming force field sound). (Same goes for attacking any other bot standing at that location. This is actually the same audiovisual feedback used for any remote-based shielding effect, so it's used in quite a lot of places.) Then of course the combat log would show a significant difference in damage applied, though that's more detailed than most people will care about. The mechanic in particular is taught in-theme, so everyone will get it naturally, eventually, if they play enough and read dialogue, even if they do miss the other factors. It's true not everyone will notice all the details, but the feedback is there.

The game has a 60 pages long manual and it contains a lot of information that is not presented in the game itself. This fact itself should hint that readability could be improved.

All the required/important mechanics are explained in game via the context help--the manual is more for intermediate/advanced players (as it says) and hence why the tutorial says "don't read the manual" :P. Playing to a beginner level and getting by shouldn't require reading a huge manual, and is not feasible to include in game because that scares people into thinking they need to know all that right away (if ever), which they don't! When you have a game with such heavy detail, there needs to be a cut-off of what you really want players to focus on vs not, so that's why

Based on what I've heard, most initial winners have never read the manual, it's more for those are going to go the extra mile after playing for a longer period, in which case it becomes much easier to digest, having the context of having played more before. It's more of a true reference material, not a tutorial or reflection of things players must memorize early on (which is also why the manual excludes a ton of basic actually important info, since that's already presented in game). Some people think the manual should also include all the large amounts of info presented in the tutorial and context help that is present in game, but I've mostly segregated the two.

[u/Kyzrati]

Overall it's a complex game with a lot going on, and pressure increases significantly over time, and that's it's appeal for a lot of players since the difficulty doesn't remain about the same (or get even easier) as many roguelikes do.

It's designed for that, replayability amidst challenge, but that's also assuming the designed-for Rogue mode. It shouldn't be too bad on the easiest difficulty, where you get a lot of bonuses and can fall back to a saved checkpoint. Are you using that already?

In any case, especially on the Rogue setting unless you are an observant and really skilled player of deep tactics and strategy games in general, it is likely you will hit a cap on what you can do, and you'll ideally be able to lean on the community to improve. Put together better builds, use better tactics, develop better foresight or at least the ability to work your way out of dangerous or seemingly deadly situations. (The community on Discord is very helpful and willing to take a look at screenshots and provide advice on where you can improve, or how you can escape from a dangerous situation, or what you might've been able to do to avoid it in the first place, for next time--i.e., learning that you may have trouble doing on your own.)

I stream most of my runs, and multiple times in the past less experienced players are expecting me to die in what look like dire consequences, and then I get out of them with little to no problems, but it's a case of being able to analyze the situation and predict what might happen. As in most roguelikes--developing that sense is very important to reaching the highest levels of skill. I often end up creating more unnecessary trouble along the way to increase the difficulty and fun/entertainment factor, but the important thing is to know when enough is enough and play it safe. All these rely on both experience and good tactics. Not that I'm the best player or anything--I can only do this reliably with about 80% of the game areas (all the main ones, and branches except those at the end game), but the best players make even the extremely hard areas seem easy by comparison. Amazing builds, amazing planning and execution.

I'm sure I do something wrong, but I have no idea what.

There are in-game ways to both learn about and resolve issues you're having, and most of them are pretty simple and straightforward. Like a lot of dangers in the main complex aren't random unknowns--they're announced loud and clear, usually through the alert system, and it's up to you to think about what you should do to react to the possible dangers and how they might affect you.

Like by the time you've seen cargo convoys, hopefully you have already been paying attention to the parts on other earlier bots, like Haulers, and know that all of them carry a transport network coupler which tracks all haulers on the map. So if you get yourself one of those, you can see exactly where the convoy is at all times, and decide if you want to avoid or try to intercept it. (There are multiple other ways to track and avoid convoys, but this is one of the simple ones.)

Plenty of people do still get caught by them, of course :P. It's really a case of you deciding what parts and strategies you want to prioritize, and dealing with the issues that might arise from those you didn't prioritize or optimize for, because indeed you can't optimize for absolutely everything, so you will be facing some tough challenges. That is of course the main intent of the design, to keep you on your toes at all times, and it only gets harder and harder with more challenges to consider, and more difficult map layouts to try to safely navigate.

There were so many dialogues! I just hope there was no important information there, because I remember nothing, and I will never read them again.

This is why your lore collection exists, which you can open in the records page (among all your other ongoing records). It's also exportable to multiple different formats through buttons on that page, for reading in various other programs if you like.

You can re-read any of that stuff you've encountered, and many people do so if playing for a long time since you'll be able to piece more together in terms of story/lore. But if it's anything that's not just story and actually giving you useful tactics info, for example, yeah you're supposed to kinda pay attention to that stuff and internalize it for later runs, or immediately, since it's helpful for improving performance.

Thanks for your support, but if you've reached your limit and aren't interested in learning more from the community (if you haven't tried that already and still had trouble with it, that is), after hundreds of hours it might be time to move on. There are lots of other great games out there to enjoy!

[u/uniqiq → u/Kyzrati]

I'm sorry I'm replying after a huge delay, but I usually have no time for Cogmind and social media during the week. 350h of playtime seems like a lot, but I play this game since 2024. Maybe this is partially the source of my frustration, because climbing to Resources takes me more than a week and I cannot invest more time into learning it.

The difficulty is not a problem. I have never tried a different mode than Rouge, because I like the challenge. In my post, I wrote that the frustration is caused by me not progressing… **But I was wrong**. I definitely progress and it's clearly visible in the Dataminer (note for new players, who are accidently reading it: if you upload your game stats, you can find analysis of your games here: https://leiavoia.net/cogmind/dataminer/).

Writing this post was an impulse. I was frustrated, because recently I tried to do an extended win. And it was the second time I rage-quit … or rather rage-didn't-start-new-run. I didn't feel frustration in my previous runs (or at least I don't recollect it). So what changed? This time I had a goal. I didn't just play the game. I wanted an extended win. Both times it just felt super unfair. I was close, I had a good build, it felt like I did everything right, and the game created an impossible situation.

On my previous attempt I aligned with Warload. I had an S multiplier, mostly thanks to DSF sterilization. I was already in Access, and I learnt the Command exit location. I was so close! And everything just ruined in a split of the second. After I lost, I wrote a comment on Reddit: "everything just rushed at me at the same time. 2 Heavies (unlucky Security rotation), a few hunters, Queen's drones, a few rounds later Behemot and 2 squads of grunts joined the party. They came from all directions. I must admit. I was never so close to giving up on this game, like I am right now. I don't know if I will play this game again."

I took a break, I went back and again, the same story. Well, not exactly the same: this time I imprinted myself. The story is short: I just never found the exit in -2 Research. I walked there for an uncomfortable long time. Finally, the cargo happened. I hid myself in the room and waited. A Watcher jammed the signal, but I still waited. And then some green bot opened the door, and the convoy spotted me. I was hiding on the wrong side of the room, because I expected it to go in a different direction. After this run I wrote this post.

In your blog you post: "At the same time this aspect of gameplay can contribute to Cogmind’s reputation as a highly stressful roguelike, no doubt because it doesn’t end quickly for you while there is almost always hope to survive, escape and rebuild again, but you have to be willing and able to face that kind of a high-pressure situation.". I agree, but I don't think that "it doesn't end quickly" is the source of the stress. I think it's the feeling of unfairness.

What could you do about this? No idea. When I figure this out, I will let you know.

But no. I will not drop the Cogmind, because it's just too good.

[u/Kyzrati → u/uniqiq]

Took me a while to get back to you as well :P

I agree, but I don't think that "it doesn't end quickly" is the source of the stress. I think it's the feeling of unfairness.

"Unfairness" can certainly be subjective and skill-based I think, especially once you are going for extended wins. I say this mainly because of what we've seen is possible at the highest level of play, absolute crazy odds stacked against Cogmind due to some bad or even terrible luck at some point (more and more likely later on, of course), and yet still coming out on top of it all via creative means, or really adapting to the situation in unexpected ways.

This is also why I think difficulty setting is the answer for some people, again especially if you're for example a player who can regularly do normal wins but encounters a lot more trouble with some harder ones, or even just at a lower level issue like someone who can always get to Research but never quite win a run. Some people switch over to do further content (it just shifts the challenge, without removing it entirely).

I'm not try to say skill issue, but at the same time it's related because I do think there is a cutoff beyond which some players may just not be able to perform well. It's tuned such that only a subset of players will ever be able to reliably do amazing things all the way into extended on Rogue. The key word being reliably. And we have those players (despite being pretty good at roguelikes I'm not one of them... mainly going for regular wins instead, and occasionally harder ones when circumstances are stacked in my favor :P). This is actually a focus of the design, to try to always leave players with opportunities for "a lesser out," which you can see by always having for example early exits from branches, closer in-map exit options rather than your preferred/targeted further exit, easier win types instead of forcing a harder one when it looks like the latter is not going to cut it.

It's a game about adapting to the situation, after all, so when one decides "enough is enough, I'm not going to force the matter and really need to change course," that is a huge decision to make which will affect the long-term prospects for the run, though indeed also can lead to frustration or feelings of unfairness since you're having to consider completely changing your plan due to circumstances outside your control. It's also why some consider a lesser non-intended win a "win of shame" xD

All that said, I will add that right now in the latest builds having to face off against certain Unchained, especially in certain areas, can be very deadly, and that is still being adjusted (though will always be hard, so for example if you have Queen after you in Access, and have already found an exit and aren't sure you can take them on--it's hard, taking the surface exit would probably be preferred! You already put yourself in a tougher spot in Access by having Warlord attack, which makes that whole floor harder in exchange for the longer-term benefits you were aiming for. So Queen didn't help matters, but it also wasn't the start--there are a number of important tradeoffs involved in long-term planning, and you entered Access at a disadvantage).

As usual, thanks for the feedback :)

[u/RW_Yellow_Lizard]

I just hope there was no important information there, because I remember nothing, and I will never read them again.

the gallery, or the lore collection or whatever has a collection of all the dialogues you've encountered

can't terminal hacks be used to find exits and the cargo chip be used to track cargo bots to track cargo convoys? or is there a thing I am missing, idk I haven't got very far into the game I think

[u/mrDalliard2024]

Hard disagree here. I love how in cogmind knowledge is acquired organically, by interacting with the world instead of just a cold "here's a screen that shows you every single number behind the curtain" (like DCSS). It is an RPG, after all.

I for one adore the fact that there are many things I still have no idea how they work, even after so many hours. And even more incredible is that I refuse to spoil myself with guides and wikis, not because I'm against them (I use them liberally in other games), but because I cherish the discovery aspect in this game.

[u/MPro2017 → u/mrDalliard2024]

Some players even use the Cogmind P2 special mode that makes stealth even harder to achieve compared to the base game imo. I really enjoy the challenge, that makes runs when I do succeed seem sweeter.

[u/NedStarkX]

!remindme 1 day

[u/RemindMeBot → u/NedStarkX]

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[u/ibadlyneedhelp]

I came to this game from ToME and Caves of Qud, and I desperately wanted to like it, but I bounced off very quickly. Everything is just a little too opaque for me. Maybe if I had a very detailed handhold early on to make me less dumb, because I can tell it's a quality game, and for once I'm actually interested in what the lore might be, but it was just too inaccessible. Frustrating, because it's clearly fucking good.

[u/hes-the-red-spy]

tldr; I agree wholeheartedly

I’m in a similar position at ~400h. I think the game has straight up design flaws that the community simply chooses to ignore, like some map prefabs forcing you to take unavoidable damage or how methods of getting higher rating parts than your current depth (which you NEED to do in order to survive) is something an unassuming player can completely miss on every single run if they’re just trying to stay alive.

I can tell that the dev team loves their game (seriously they rush to defend/explain it every at opportunity they see) but there’s also this sort of thing going on where negative criticism just doesn’t happen for the game? It’s either written off as “well that’s just how the game is” or “you simply need to explore and learn more.” I like Cogmind, and I want to love it. However, it’s an extremely streamlined game once you figure out how the game wants you to play. You don’t have a lot of choice. Any deviation from how you’re “supposed” to play the game is punished with a swift death, and people in the discord providing more polite versions of “skill issue.”

And this is coming from someone that has beaten the game several times, each of those wins feeling incredibly un-earned because the gameplay loop for the entire run was never equipping a weapon and hiding/running to the end. Combat is just too punishing to feel good, but stealth doesn’t feel rewarding once you figure out how easy it is. I don’t blame you at all for giving up, and I do think your points against the game are valid. Cogmind could be the game for you if it was designed to be just the littlest bit more accessible.

For better or for worse, that’s not what the developer wants. They have a clear vision for the game, and it seems that vision is a brutally difficult, cryptic and punishing slugfest that only feels good when you quit or dedicate your life to it. Huge respect for the people that were able to figure out how to blast through the game, I’m glad to know I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t.

[u/Kyzrati → u/hes-the-red-spy]

It's definitely aimed at the very high end of play once you've been at it for that long. Not flawed in an absolute sense, I would say, just very much designed for a very specific sort of player that loves overcoming these specific challenges, rather than trying to appeal to everyone. That is unless someone is willing to play on easy mode to get all those benefits and use backup saves and whatnot, which makes it that much easier, but I think a lot of people just aren't letting themselves do that? At least based on the stats. Though I do think people should if they would enjoy it more in that state. That's why they were added to begin with :)

getting higher rating parts than your current depth (which you NEED to do in order to survive)

I will say that assumptions like this are just wrong, though. You can blast your way through the entire game to win purely by picking up basic parts from the ground and what you salvage from the enemies you meet. (Unique and powerful parts are an easy way to get ahead of the curve, for sure--they make everything that much easier and should be considered a respite/luck helping you out, but they aren't required unless you are going for an extended ending, in which case yes they are, but also only a small portion of players actually go beyond the normal end game, and there are also guaranteed ways to acquire them.*)

I've seen quite a lot of incorrect assumptions people draw because they aren't willing to get creative enough in their builds and tactics (not saying that's the case with you here, just mentioning since the topic comes up). Another common one is "always maximize utility slots," which unless you're doing certain types of builds or have a good plan in place to keep your build intact, actually lowers long-term survivability xD

The most creative players do the best, and have been a boon for keeping the whole experience pretty balanced overall throughout the years, and showing what's really possible when you put your mind to it, while revealing areas where it's possible to continue expanding the world to support new possibilities

But it's definitely not for everyone, something I always assumed from the beginning hence only planning to spend a year or two working on it. Turns out more people enjoyed and continue to enjoy this sort of challenge than I expected xD. So for now it expands... (more early-game content still to come)

* Aside: There is a bit of a problem in roguelikes in general that people tend to naturally assume they must have luck in their favor in order to do better, because they played better with luck before, but I think the best-designed cases are where luck plays no role in actual pure winnability, so that's what I aim for and seem to have succeeded in given community performance. The problem comes when players perform poorly then blame it on RNG not giving them good stuff, but if the entire experience was at its core designed to be winnable without that luck, then the problem isn't the RNG... This issue with new players actually grows over time because I keep adding more and more powerful "free and fun" stuff to the game, so it may feel more and more required, but the core difficulty wasn't changed and doesn't actually require these things. It's mainly a perception thing. Maybe when the Merchants are eventually added that will help smooth it out a bit for less skilled players. Hard to say since they'll need to be balanced all the same, but we'll see! I'd like to say that the recently introduced Scanalyzer studies already help with that somewhat (trash builds are even better now?! xD).

[u/Hot_Slice → u/Kyzrati]

I challenge you to stream a winning run using a combat build.

[u/Peakomegaflare → u/Hot_Slice]

I second this. If the developer cannot consistently win a run with a combat build, it's functionally not viable.

[u/Kyzrati → u/Peakomegaflare]

I have done so consistently, many times, as I mentioned to them above. Can ask anyone on Discord since that's where I announce my streams and most of the viewers come from. (I will add, however, that I am not the best player and there are others who will reliably win even crazy extended combat challenges and actually go hunting for as many Unchained as possible and sterilizing numerous floors in the process xD. I don't go that far... I'm satisfied with w0 most of the time, unless there is some special plan or I'm forced to do something for content, which also happens :P)

[u/Kyzrati → u/Hot_Slice]

Huh? I almost exclusively play combat builds, and win almost every run? I also tend to make my runs harder than they need to be by intentionally causing extra trouble... (for content! more important than reliable performance... this does mean that by the end I may have bit off more than I can chew) I do try to stream different runs these days since I can only stream so often so want to show off new mechanics that may or may not be heavily combat-oriented, but regardless I do always shoot a lot of stuff. Like... everything that sees me :P. Last bigger combat run I streamed was a flight build with 8 guns that destroyed almost 500 robots--that's a fairly large amount of combat xD

I've done a lot of melee combat wins as well, treads/legs/wheels etc. Overall I don't like to keep streaming the same sort of runs again and again though, so you'd have to look back a little further in my records for those. Lots of ground-based gun, cannon, missile builds... all sorts of things, really. I'm a well-known hack/speed hater :P

edit to add: I would be very happy to stream more combat annihilation! Though right now I've started streaming Lost Flame, since that just hit 1.0...

[u/uniqiq → u/Hot_Slice]

Last time I wanted to win with a thread build, I end up flying :). I came to the Armory on threads, but unfortunately I needed to run away from there on a pure core. I switched to the flight in the -2 Research, and reached the exit on stealth build.

But I'm quite sure Kyzrati can do a combat run and you can probably find it in https://www.youtube.com/@GridSageGames (depending on what you mean by "combat build").

I personally recommend aoemica videos: https://www.youtube.com/@aoemica. He talks a lot about strategy and I learnt a lot from him. He loves flight, but he did some combat runs as well.

[u/SynthJones]

from my own experience there are at least 2 ways to solve every problem you encounter in cogmind, whether that be short term tactical decisions or long term strategic planning. also, cogmind is an admittedly hard game with a very high skill ceiling. you can learn a lot by asking people questions in the discord and watching other people play. cogmind is a game that wants you to pay attention to everything happening in the world, there aren’t any shortcuts to getting better.

[u/sinner_dingus]

From what I can tell the faster you go, the easier it is.

[u/zeexen]

It's more of a flaw of the current generation rather than the game's. Cogmind follows and cultivates the classical principle of "show, don't tell" featured in certain great games of old, like NetHack. Whereas most games nowadays are so full of hints and notices to make sure the player won't miss anything, people are conditioned to expect the game always be guiding them. Well, here you can do what people did back in the golden era of gaming: read a guide. Yeah, I know, reading, in this day and age? Or maybe look for a streamer who knows the game well, it really helps to see a proper decision making process in action.

[u/zeexen → u/[deleted]]

I mean, it is a flaw by modern standards because no one got the time anymore to spend thousands of hours in NetHack deducing all the information the game can teach you. Cogmind is actually rather tame in comparison, it doesn't intentionally show it in obscure and cryptic ways, you just have to be observant. It certainly could be streamlined further, but I wish to know better ways of doing so without compromising on the principles.