"Unintelligent Design, The Ultimate Skill Test"

[grizzled wind]

Disclaimer: This is just my opinion, yes, including the following intro.

Hey, my name is Thvrsis , current World Record holder for longest P20 run (might request a Champion Crab belt cosmetic), EIC demo certified Gilder (is that a word?) and today I want to talk about Unintelligent Design.

First and foremost, what is a challenge? In my opinion and own words: a test where you put a player under a given condition and let the player overcome the difficulties by using different “tools”; use of game mechanics, game knowledge, pure mechanical skill, theorycrafting, etc.

Let’s look at the current challenges, identify what’s the condition given and how the player can solve it:

• Dry Age/Ice Age: you will be affected by weather conditions, no heath/cold resistance, so the player has to learn how to play around trees, burrows, crabbybaras, stack regen, go Leech+ability stacking, etc.

• Oversized: Everything is giant. It’s a normal run with a fun twist, a bit more difficult on P4. The player can approach it as he wishes, as with any other pressure run.

• Odd Mutations: Odd-numbered evos are random, so the player have to keep this is mind, make a build around those odd-numered levels, still can focus on building what he chooses to, but to a lesser extend, P4, still manageable.

• Amnesia: You cannot see the evolutions offered. This is a game knowledge check, if the player understands and identifies affinities and icons (attacks, movement, ultimate), he can overcome this.

• Harmless: The player has to learn how to deal with no attacks, forced to dive into Prey and Gregarious builds, learn to build defensive, build friendly, dodge, less size, spines, poison spores etc. Clear win condition; survive, game knowledge required.

• ** Frenzy**: Faster paced version of the base game, reduced cooldowns, fun twist. Rewards mechanical skill and the same game knowledge as before, building freedom.

Continues!

• Chaos Theory: Another “fun twist” of the game, enemy damage, hp and speed are random but are easily identifiable by color coding. The player has all the tools available to overcome this as in the base pressure levels.

• Boss Rush: The game progresses faster, there are 7 bosses in total. Demands game knowledge and mechanical skill to a greater degree, but the player still has all the tools available to succeed, you can build how you see fit and play accordingly.

• ** Wild Wild World**: Considerable difficulty spike not so much from pressure levels alone, but because of roaming bosses in the wild. Same as with Boss Rush, the player is free to build and approach as he see’s fit.

• Wounded: You cannot heal. Massive difficulty spike, rewards game knowledge and mechanical skill. Still, the player is free to build what he chooses to.

And now, unto*** Unintelligent Design***…

The challenge: Pressure 8. All evolutions are random, you cannot reroll, you can only upgrade what you are given.

What can the player do? Pilot Darwin to the best of his skill. That’s it.

You could argue, “well, you can roam around the map and grab POIs for upgrades”. So now you have random evolutions and random POI’s (sure, are restricted to biomes, but you cannot tell which POI are you gonna find), if you find Frozen Specimen there’s random evolutions too, but is it really expected to “make” or scale a viable build by finding POI’s?

To draw a parallel, even with something like the genetic Simple you can see that despite the downside of having 1 evolution available, it was given +100 starting mutangen to compensate, on top of still being able to reroll. This challenge feels like a worse version of playing with that genetic.

So what’s the issue compared to all previous challenges? Lack of player agency, and most of the time, no build cohesiveness, “but that’s the theme of the challenge”, well, it feels terrible to play it. There´s no ability to make choices and have control of the outcome. The main appeal of the game is to make a build that works and this challenge removes that and makes it worse by, most of the time, giving you a build that is not coherent. At this point the player is only left with his mechanical skill and aptitude to pilot Darwin and navigate the map, but there’s only so much “player skill” can do in this challenge, because most of the time is not enough to make up for the bad builds you end up getting. I understand “the theme” of this challenge, but at what point you sacrifice “difficulty fairness” and player enjoyment for the sake of sticking to the theme of the challenge?

All of this is to say: It feels like there’s little to no skill involved in beating this challenge. It’s just “smash your head against the challenge, untill you get lucky with a reasonable build”.

I personally went 1 and 13 (8% win rate) and told myself:
“I’d very much gild Boss Rush, which I read it has upcoming nerfs, than to keep playing this challenge”. And I did gild Boss Rush .

Of couse, I wouldn’t write all that text with no suggestions in mind.

My idea to “fix” this challenge:

Heavily increase affinities weighting, so when Darwin picks an evolution for me, it will be more likely (than in the normal mode) that he will keep picking something from that said affinity. “Well, that would make a more viable build and the mode is called Unintelligent Design”. Yes, that’s why the next step to “fix” this is to rename the mode to “Not-so-Untintelligent Design” and in the picture of the mode, give Darwin glasses and a book, so now he looks not-so-unintelligent and the challenge transitions from “random stuff, go!” to force players to experience different viable builds instead of playing a mess of a build most of the time.

Maybe making straight up viable builds is too forgiving, make Darwin pick 2, maybe 3 affinities and put something together, instead of having the pool of evolutions as diluted as it is and getting “a little bit of everything” expecting the player to “get good” and clear the challenge with that. Something like that, I don’t know better, I’m just a guy.

That’s it from me, for now. Still enjoying the rest of the game, yes, I’ll keep playing it. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk. Drink water, take care.

[worldly cloud]

i think they should have maximized the chaos, giving you both genetics to randomize starting talents, skills and location. i feel this would make it more RNG but it would give a more cohesive feel of 'random evo' which i think is the dev intent with this particular challenge.

[grizzled wind]

But skills and location are already random, what do you mean by talents?... or was it irony

[patent hound]

Harmless seems fun, cuz most of the time with dash and a good attack skill you can beat the game

[river lion]

#general message

[unborn lantern]

This is a very thorough and well-thought-out dissection of the challenges, wow! Thanks for the insightful opinion piece!

[patent hound]

To be fair

The protecting egg mission is too damn hard

There's no way you can protect that flipping egg

[grizzled wind]

You acknowledge there is a problem with "not getting upgrades for attacks", you would improve "weight on level ups (for the attacks you already got)", similar to my suggestion on increasing to weight to affinities to get the same evolutions again. Then how can open your comment with "I think UD is fine as is"? You clearly found an issue and is related to the randomness of the challenge, because getting those level up for attacks is tied to affinities and out of the players control

[grizzled wind]

I agree, it's not worth picking that option. But this thread is only to discuss about the challenge Unintelligent Design or related to it let's stay on topic

[patent hound]

Alright

But I'll be honest harmless is my favorite one

[river lion]

Because I don't think the issue lies with the design of the challenge, I think that it's fine, but I see underlying game systems as problematic, and the challenge exacerbates these issues due to the inherent nature of it

[fiery grotto]

This post sums up the complaints I have about Pressures 12 and up, not just about UD. But with UD the problem is especially apparent. When you take everything away from the player but his own play, you encounter almost certain defeat unless you get a workable build.

So they can either redesign the challenge and give more control to the player, or they alter the overall difficulty curve of the game away from build-based to player skill-based.

I think the intent with UD was to provide a challenge similar to Wounded, but it doesn't work because you just need a cohesive build to win.

[grizzled wind]

I don't fully understand what distinction are you trying to make between "the challenge" and "the game systems" in this context. The "underlying systems" is what makes this challenge, that's why I suggest to "Heavily increase affinities weighting", as is, this challenge feels volatile and unrewarding because the game itself is random, more so when you only get 1 evolution per level.

[grizzled wind]

What do you find similar to P12 and up? You can reroll there, you can choose the evolutions given, you can stick to 1 or 2 affinities and force the evolutions you want. Bosses give you 3 evolutions to chose from, able to reroll as well. I don't really see the base game similar to UD.

[vale socket]

I feel like this challenge would have been better retaining the three choices you always have, and just removing the ability to reroll and upgrade.

[fiery grotto]

To answer that, what kind of builds do you typically win higher pressures with?

[vale socket]

Or keeping the 1 selection and allowing you to reroll and upgrade.

[grizzled wind]

By your wording, are you talking about build diversity and effectiveness on higher pressures?
To answer the question, I've won with

• Physical - Body Slam, HP scaling, +size, Sprint,
• Ability based - Beak, Spit or Leech, ability stack, HP, plating, poisonous saliva
• Dodge based builds - go small, get dodge, burrow, slither, Slide and just survive

[fiery grotto]

Build diversity and player skill are related, so yes. And I'll say that I'm not surprised at all at your build choices, because those are the most powerful builds in the game right now, for 1 reason. They allow you to bypass the game's difficulty instead of letting the player overcome them.

• Body Slam gives you damage and defense all in one. You can tank and defeat enemies simultaneously. You don't even need to dodge, because you can't anyway.
• Poisonous Saliva. Insane damage eliminates the threat rapidly so it can't do anything to you. Bonus points if ranged.
• Prey builds with burrow and Ruminant, no doubt. Don't engage with enemies at all. Run away, level up automatically, become invulnerable.

There is little room for skill expression in any of those builds. That's why they win. You don't need to be a particularly good player when you build that way because they do most of the heavy lifting. That is my concern in a nutshell.

[grizzled wind]

I understand your point, but fail to see how "strong builds are good on hard content" compares to "UD has too much randomness and no building at all"

You still get to chose which "strong build" you want to clear hard content with, you still have to pull off the picking every evolution in said build, and you can pick and chose what fits your playstyle. None of that is in UD.

[velvet latch]

Can I tweak the suggestion by offering my own? Maybe UD could be that Darwin picks 3 affinities as its pool to pick from rather than heavily-weighting it? It'd still be challenging but at least you can build within whatever archetype it gives you.

[fiery grotto]

Picking which OP build to bypass the game mechanics with isn't skill though. It's proving that your skill actually doesn't matter that much when it comes to winning the run. Otherwise, your builds would have huge variety.

That's why in UD, where you cannot pick your build, you lose. Unless you get lucky, and the build does most of the work.

[worldly cloud]

your talents are the things you gain when you choose evolutions such as predator/prey/etc

[grizzled wind]

What you said just further proves my point on why these are 2 different things.

While you said there are issues from P12 and above, UD is just P8.

Since the build is random, you will have the huge variety you ask for, but since the builds you end up with are so diluted across the different evos, you can't even consistently clear a P8 run, because the entire game revolves around knowing how to scale your build, regardless if you think something's OP or not.

That's the point of the game, to learn how to make a strong creature and clear the content with it.

If you argue clearing hard content or even gilding hard challenges, for sake of the argment; P20, Wounded or WWW, "is not skill if you use a OP build", then everyone with a template of the build could copy-paste what others do, and easily clear anything, but we know that's not the case, proving that even if you have access to the "OP build" that won't guarantee your success, because there is individual skill involved in playing.

Maybe you are too good at the game and can't see how hard it is for other people to win, despite them having access to all the builds, tips and tricks, the majority of the players struggle to clear P20 and the last challenges because, again, "OP builds" still require skill to play on higher difficulties.

Now ask that very same struggling people to clear content with no OP build involved, and that's what we get in Unintelligent Design. Get lucky or lose.

[grizzled wind]

Your suggestiong to the random evos challenge, is to put more randomness? I find the mode frustrating to play because you only win if you get favored by the rng, why would adding more rng elements would make it better?

"Spamming the challenge untill I get lucky and win" Is that someone's idea of a fair challenge or even a fun one? Gilding this is gonna be a chore

[worldly cloud]

because the randomness of talents is better numerically than a flat 0 in everything.

you will be able to see right away how your choices will be influenced, and can choose to abandon right away, or play through.

[grizzled wind]

Just realized, by talents you mean Affinity! That's similar to what I suggest, to tailor weight of the affinities. Sounds like a good alternative

[worldly cloud]

i have had good luck with both of the random genetics. sometimes you just start with 10 regen and 80 health ya know?

[velvet latch]

Having a built-in Envoy of Chaos and then being free to actually choose a genetic would be nice

EoC is really the only control you have over what you might get...sortof

[worldly cloud]

also keepin mind abandoning a challenge doesn't really punish other than your win rate, but that hardly matters while you're learning

[velvet latch]

Yeah, but the idea is to make it a challenge instead of a "numbers game" where you'll eventually get the right RNG and win

[worldly cloud]

its a crunchy kind of rng

that said....

while i haven't personally had problems winning, i do understand

[velvet latch]

Yeah, I got my one and done but I can appreciate why some people are like...80 runs deep

some people get vegan and scavenger together and nothing else

[worldly cloud]

these are my 3 runs so far

envoy of chaos, pacifist, grandiose

[worldly cloud]

also a point of note, the frozen biome POI iceberg things still offer a choice for evolutions

i just got hibernation..... i do not have burrow yet, but thankfully they do spawn naturally

i'm doing a stubborn run right now. because free mutagen.

[river lion]

Simple. Is what you consider problematic something that's a unique modifier to the challenge, or is it part of the wider game systems?
Affinities and weighting are game systems that are present in every run and not unique to the challenge.

[fleet bison]

I have not read much of the messages here, but I wanted do chime in: I despise this challenge. I spend more time on it then all other challenges combined, and so far I had no luck. Which apparently is the only thing that helps.
One time I didn't even get a single attack or movement option! It's just not fun at all.

[grizzled wind]

"Simple. Is what you consider problematic"
I don't consider Simple problematic, quite the opposite, that's why I started that paragraph by saying "To draw a parallel...", I'm comparing how Simple gives you only 1 evo available too, just like UD, but it gives you +100 mutagen to compensate for it and you still can reroll, to balance out.
UD gives you nothing to balance out and takes away the reroll.

"Affinities and weighting are game systems that are present in every run and not unique to the challenge"
And in every run the player is able to:

• Choose the evo they want
• Choose the affinity they want (and thus increasing the weighting for the next level up)
• Being able to reroll, in case you don't see an evo/affinity you want

UD doesn't have those options, that's why I suggest to increase the weighting of the affinities, I'm not complaining about the implementation of the system in the whole game, I'm saying why that implementation doesn't work the same on this particular challenge.

[dreamy plover]

I sort of think UD is a challenge that should have been in either tier 1 or tier 2, since the pure cobbled randomness of it is almost exactly the kind of build a beginner who didn't know anything about the game and its system would throw together. By p8, if you're not building with purpose yet, that's when your failure rate usually starts skyrocketing

[river lion]

I wasn't talking about the genetic.
I was using it meaning 'here's a simple distinction', which I then elaboratrd in the following sentence.

[grizzled wind]

I see. Well, disregard that, the answer is still in the second paragraph and on

[river lion]

I wholly agree with you on increasing the weighting

Even on regular runs, it sucks to pick an attack and build for it and not get an upgrade for it for the next 60 levels

But I think just fixing that 'in general' would also make UD much more workable without changing anything about it

[dreamy plover]

Now that I think more about it, I feel like swapping Amnesia and UD might be the simplest solution

P8 seems like a more appropriate "Knowledge Check" point

Without having to do a fundamental retooling of the game's system

[stuck mango]

Yeah I also really don't like this one, it's very hard but not due to anything other than random luck, you can get stuck with loads of useless attacks or other things that take up extraneous slots, and a lot of the "builds" (generous word lol) it gives you can't stand up to even like a T2 boss let alone the Krabken

I agree it'd be a lot better on a much lower tier of the challenge bracket

I think it's harder than Boss Rush most likely?

[alpine marten]

Yeah, sorry, this challenge is just annoying

like just quit out having made no progress and had no fun for 2 hours annoying

Making it to the last boss three times in a row and not able to do it because you were barely getting by with an absolutely gimped RNG build is rage-inducing