#Electricity Anomaly

230 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

limpid raft
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The electricity anomaly has way too much range, especially for how much damage it does.

pallid crescent
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It needs nerfed or just entirely removed from the game. It’s not fun. Honestly if it was removed it would make the parts of the game where you’re in a fight 100x more bearable.

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It sneaks up on you

toxic jetty
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I don't think it should be removed it should just be reworked and remodeled

pallid crescent
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It drains like half of your health in two hits

toxic jetty
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It's a good idea but it does too much damage and it scares me and embarrasses me in front of my friends

raw mica
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It's too strong

radiant laurel
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I agree, the electricity anomaly is way too strong - especially considering there can be four or five in a short area.

raw mica
radiant laurel
raw mica
vapid roost
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it needs to not go invisible

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its already enough of a threat with its damage and range

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it doesnt need to go invisible for 10 fucking seconds

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honestly i think it shouldnt even be electric, id rather have it be a distortion field like ITR1 where it has low damage but can vary in size (from huge to small)

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that would justify how much it moves and the fact that it goes invisible

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randomly distorts light to make the anomaly entirely invisible but you can see a small amount of light distortion

raw mica
vapid roost
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its invisibility isnt a gigantic issue but ontop of everything else, its the final straw

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a simple and very good change would be
1: no more invisibility, like at all
and 2: when activated, its damage range doesnt keep expanding as it shocks you

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the expanding range can make some missions almost impossible (like the maintenance mission)

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took me a solid 20 tries solely due to the electric anomalies

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outside of that mission, ive never died more than 3 times on a run

near dragon
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My problem with the electric anomaly is the movement.

My best suggestion is to give it a simple SMALL wander route, like the one that just teleports up and down, easy to observe quick and memorize. Visible only when changing direction

It also must not overlap any shacks or walls. I only get killed by it inside small buildings with nowhere to run. It is not fun to be randomly zapped by something that sneaks up on you while looting or fighting.

raw mica
karmic cloud
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when the difficulty settings get released you can just turn down the anomaly damage

raw mica
quick helm
molten idol
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Yeah, it has a habbit of just sneaking up on me while invisible, I feel like it needs to have a stronger audio cue tbh

hard peak
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Make sure to be using probes, and listen to the loud buzzing it makes. If you are making sure to listen, track it's routes and use probes to stun them then go around you should be fine.

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It is definitely an issue to get zapped through a wall though, because there is no way to avoid that really

vapid roost
hard peak
barren rune
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Tying it to a different discussion with probes, they could add 2 tiers of probes like in the first game.

Tier 1: Basically pebbles/bullet casings/any shit you have a lot of. Infinite number, but worse then tier 2

Tier 2: The ones we have now. Limited high tech, but doesn't trigger a full discharge of the shock anomaly

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I imagine tier 2 would have more advantages then that we talking about the shock anomaly right now

neon saffron
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Agreed with OP- the new electrical anomaly is worse than the old. It is a) not visible at all times. b) moves. c) expands faster you can run (I think) once activated, d) is harder to tell where it is just by audio (humans do better I believe comparing point sound location than constant noise), e) appears to track explorers if close enough f) does a large amount of damage. All these things together make it ust obnoxious/unfun and removes player agency (cannot chose to avoid as not static). While fighting mimics/spawns (that lest we forget now chase you and are harder to deal with) - having a moving, invisble, high damage, AoE anomaly is just plain unfun. I would (in order of preference - stop them moving, make them always visible, reduce size/expansion speed, make them slower, replace audio with the old 'tick tick tick' noise.

jovial parrot
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There should be more non-moving instances of it. It's wasted on just being a roving kill zone, whereas the fact that it's damage radius is significantly larger than it's activation radius would make for tense navigation.

hard peak
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You need to learn adapt your playstyles, please.

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I can agree maybe different audio would help?

jovial parrot
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Aye, for instance, it's in your interest to toss a probe at an electricity anomaly moving away from you if you're not just passing through. It WILL sneak up on you. Triggering it once will delay its patrol long enough to get whatever you need done.

limpid raft
karmic cloud
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brain dead easy

real steppe
raw mica
stone wasp
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I think at least part of the issue is that the radius increases as it continues to go off and the effect makes this not apparent so if you set it off and think you're safe, you aren't and it gets you anyway.

gaunt citrus
stone wasp
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that is exactly how i died in the one town with all the electricals in it

azure echo
radiant laurel
shut arrow
# azure echo that does exist already

the cooldown on the eletric ones is like 3 seconds if that ive triggered them with lures before and then watched it run into me and nearly kill me mere seconds later (i tought i was outside the range)

stone wasp
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they do have a short cooldown and the radius starts much smaller so you have extra time to run out of it, but not through it, you can skirt the edges of it pretty easily and ive had the moving ones trigger and not immediately damage me so I assume they trigger at the outside of where their blast radius expands to not where they immediately damage you
eg: if you pay attention and walk away from it you dont die

jovial parrot
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Okay, so... My whole defense of the electricap anomaly was that it patrols areas you PASS THROUGH.

It's beyond obnoxious when it goes STRAIGHT THROUGH any area you have to linger in, much less carefully navigate.

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If you want that kind of pressure from an anomaly, it should be a different anomaly altogether that is:

  1. Perpetually visible, to let the player observe it's full route and learn that it's going to be a RIGHT where you want to be, eventually.
  2. Deal a much smaller amount of damage over time (Survivable at max health for a long enough time that the player can reasonably flee even a cramped location without losing more than half their health if tyey hustle.
  3. Have an obvious area of influence. Full width from word one. None of this "You're safe! Jklol I'm still expanding"
azure echo
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the im still expanding part is so real

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WAIT NOT LIKE THAT

gaunt citrus
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Im a hard disagree on your points 1 and 2

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Its very easy to track on sound alone in my experience and the damage should be severe and significant

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But there does, in my opinion, need to be more clarity in its area of effect when triggered and a separate sound for when it is damaging you (vs just triggered)

jovial parrot
# gaunt citrus Im a hard disagree on your points 1 and 2

Like, look, I was in full agreement with you until this ONE anomaly cluster in the forest where I had to reconnect a sensor. The safe period of its patrol in that mission critical location is roughly 25 seconds. It might have been shorter, but I was continuously interrupting its patrol with probes.
Long story short, it required save scumming to get the job done.

Electrical anomalies in isolation are FINE. But it's possible to misuse them in a level design context.

If the point of the threat the level designer is making is "Woop, better move fast, you're running out of time and in a cramped location"
Points 1, 2, and 3 make for an experience that's more frustrating than thrilling.

Maybe that anomaly cluster is the only place where this happens. But the central failures of that electrical anomaly are

  1. An unprecedently short and brief patrol route, which cannot be readily observed by "Roadside Picnic" levels of caution and probing.
  2. Cramped quarters at an elevated position that prevent the usual warning signs from being useful (This might also be related to 3D sound in ITR2 not working well with verticality)
  3. Similar to failure #2, If you're at this particular Forest Anomaly Cluster at the top of the floating bits where the mission critical happens- If you hear the anomaly coming, it's too late. The shock orb covers your entire escape route. You have the option of leaping down and taking half health from fall damage + whatever anomalies you land in, but that's save-scum levels of galaxy brain risk calculation.
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By the time I save-scummed enough to plot the survivable route to get in, activate the sensor, and get out, the solution was "Get the stim and minor loot on a second pass-through, and take minor fall damage by leaping to narrow beam on a lower level."

It's fine having any given situation be solvable with trial and error. But the "Error" part has to be SURVIVABLE.
Super Meat Boy style trial and error is an awful fit for ITR.

I dunno, maybe everyone else goes easier on themselves for save scumming, but it feels like cheating in my brain. There's shame involved.

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Again, I think "Woop, better get in, get it done, and get out" is a perfectly fine scenario to set up.
But the problem cannot be ANY of the following:

  1. Mixing up the "Rules" without informing the player (Instant failure curveballs are frustrating without much value. There's an entire platformer built around the idea "I wanna be the guy")
  2. Opaque (Any mistake in the scenario must be comprehensible in some way to the player, to permit them to improve on their next attempt)

Electrical anomalies are nearly always okay. There's nothing inherently wrong with them. But unlike the other anomalies, it's very, very easy to deploy them poorly.
Long story short, if the threat posed by an electrical anomaly can't be mitigated by observation, probe delaying, and keeping an escape route open, a different anomaly should be created for that particular threat.

gaunt citrus
jovial parrot
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So far, at least. Lightning anomalies seem to have a pretty clear "Style guide" overall.

Roaming, teleporting. I give the devs enough credit that the "Short patrol" lightning anomaly had some proper thought involved. I'd bet you two whole burritos that it makes a reappearance elsewhere.

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And I think it's a solid scenario, it just needs a slightly different anomaly.

ivory aspen
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Someone may have said this already, but I think a way to disable it would be nice, similar to how you can disable the electricity anomalies in the first game by throwing grenades at them

hard peak
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I think the anomaly is fine as it is, but that one house covered in them does not use the anomaly well.

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The Electricity anomalies are not designed to be crammed in the same area

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They should be used to make the explorer watch their footing and listen to their surroundings. Not having the explorer go through a maze of these things. You can't even use sound cues to avoid them because there are a bunch sorrounding you at all times. That's what the chairs and other anomalies are for.

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I don't think they deserve as much hate as they have now though ❤️🕺🫃

topaz bear
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oh yeah that house 😖

jovial parrot
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(We need to name them something else)

topaz bear
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I think they are fairly placed most of the time, but yeah this one's brutal

median warren
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Death Cubes

real steppe
finite monolith
lament magnet
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Seems fine as is. I'm usually able to run away unscathed or with minor damage if taken by surprise.

A cluster just makes it an extra challenge.

If I get jumped by one in a firefight, it's still absolutely my fault for not observing, timing or positioning well. Even so, I've died way more times to overwhelming enemy force than these anomalies.

gaunt citrus
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I heard they fixed the one really nasty cluster with the house. Haven’t confirmed myself though

tired mesa
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I honestly think that it should have no charge once you trigger it and on it's route there's a electric wire or other stuff and it recharges the anomaly making it a threat again.

jovial anchor
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Think it would be nice if some of the anomalies had directional orientations or were more “predictable”

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Like the minutemen from Pacific Drive

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Or the crackling crawler

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Which are electric anomalies that travel in lines of electric arcs

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Like a fence

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Right now, all of the anomalies seem to have a “radius” of omnidirectional damage

jovial parrot
karmic cloud
jovial anchor
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Yeah

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That’s a thing

jovial parrot
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Does it disable it permanently, or just activate all the anomalies in a wide radius with the shrapnel?

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I mean either way, now I've gotta do another ITR run now that I actually have a use for grenades that feels worthwhile.

ivory aspen
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And gets rid of it until another tide rolls in

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It’s the whole reason I bring grenades on runs in itr

jovial parrot
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Beats the hell out of the Probe+dash manuever I pull when there's no sade corridor.

stone wasp
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I think electricals are fine but the mobile ones should probably trigger in such a manner that you have a very short time to move away before it expands into.

If grenades work then that's fine for a counter

I personally don't get the problem, now that day cycle is slowed down and you pay attention you should hear them coming and see the path long before you get zapped. It sounds like the same problem as the push anomaly complaints, are some headsets incapable of locating sounds very well?

strong crest
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I do think personally and I'm not sure that it has been mentioned, but I personally think when ur indoors it shouldn't be able to hit you through a wall, I personally think that it's lame.

jovial anchor
real steppe
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Here's something new: If the electric anomaly is nearby its passive crackling will easily mask the ringing of the reflector anomalies

tardy swift
# raw mica That makes it truly busted

My friend and I have died countless times because of this, or lost a majority of our health.

It's even worse for me because after running through the forest about 10 times, I still forget where some of them are hiding.

If they were 100% visible, I wouldn't have any other issues with it.

tardy swift
raw mica
tardy swift
raw mica
tardy swift
raw mica
tardy swift
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If you "activate" one, you'll end up activating another trying to get out of the GROWING AOE attack.

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It's really one of the worst locations in the game right now.

stone wasp
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I dont mean to be mean, but "I cant remember where they are so they should go away" is kind of a bad take, there's like two locations where they are a real problem

tardy swift
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They are a problem everywhere. They're INVISIBLE

azure echo
jovial anchor
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It would be cool if when they went invisible they still had a "distortion" to them

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so you could easily miss them

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but could still find them if you looked

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like the distortion "flame" at the core of the distortion anomalies in ITR1

tardy swift
jovial anchor
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(in ITR1)

tardy swift
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Wait yes there were

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those flame guyser things I think

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But you had a detector that beeped faster when you got close.

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Oh and they didn't move lol

jovial anchor
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New ITR2 patch footage leaked:

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🔥

stone wasp
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like this is the same issue that people were having with the push anomalies that use sort of the same mechanic, they show up visually a lot less often but make a noise constantly

tardy swift
stone wasp
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🤷

tardy swift
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And if I turn the SFX value up any higher my ears will bleed from every other sound. Nah.

stone wasp
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idk I can hear them from a while away, the only areas that it was an issue was the house on the hill and the house in the hole where there was like a bunch of them, but then i could still identify when the traveling one was coming near, maybe the index has good gain or something

but yeah when they go off, that sound is probably too loud

tardy swift
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Waay too loud. I actually thought I got shot irl when it first happened. Turned the SFX down to 50 and never went back.

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Maybe it would be easier to hear the subtle noises with closed cup headphones, instead of the index open headphones.

stone wasp
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so isnt the complaint more that you had to turn the sound down so you can't hear the electric anomalies ?

real steppe
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I have new findings on the electric anomaly that doesn't necessarily warrant a new thread:

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Remember that house on Forest that's coevered by them?

stone wasp
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there's two, one on the hill and one on the right side of the map thats in a big hole

jovial anchor
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the one on the hill

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the portal one

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other than that, they seem easy to avoid

stone wasp
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oh, i went around the outside, hopped a fence and ran right into the house, i took like one tick of damage

tardy swift
real steppe
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Please don't bury the following, I feel it's important:

stone wasp
tardy swift
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It's not covered in them, there's only 4 there.

stone wasp
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🤷

tardy swift
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as opposed to the 10+ at the other house on the hill that everyone gets ganked at.

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I found an easy route to the door though

toxic jetty
real steppe
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The one on the hill. It's covered by them only occasionally. Although I think it applies in other places as well: There's a logic engine that covers what anomalies spawn per tide. If you're unlucky, it will all be electric anomalies, making the place practically uninhabitable. But if you're lucky, it might have, like, only 1 or 2. I recently had that happen. Tide nr. 1 :All electrics, next tide Almost none. Here's a fix, set a limit to how many of them can appear in a certain place at a time per tide, or whatever governs the randomisation of anomalies.

tardy swift
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Or just... make them visible.

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I don't see how it's such a hot take.

stone wasp
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because being invisible is their whole thing, otherwise they're just pushers that last longer

tardy swift
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Pushers don't move

real steppe
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Not saying don't do other fixes to them. But this is something else to consider.

stone wasp
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most eletricals dont move either

tardy swift
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Yes they do lol

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every road in the forest has a moving electric death cube, every anomaly cluster has at least 2-3

stone wasp
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yeah thats not accurate

tardy swift
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It's no longer "take things slow to avoid running into anomalies" it's

"sprint into the anomaly cluster to avoid the anomaly running into YOU"

stone wasp
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you could chuck a probe at it and it stays stationary for ~20 seconds as well

tardy swift
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That's if you can find it.

stone wasp
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i just hear them

tardy swift
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If you can hear them then they're too close to probe.

stone wasp
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thats not true

tardy swift
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Alright man. Sure.

stone wasp
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I mean you just went through that you reduced your sound volume way down, and now you can't hear them as a result

tardy swift
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Long story short, make them visible, problem solved. Or add an anomaly proximity meter.

stone wasp
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or just add sound crushing so you can adjust how loud the loudest sound is without making quiet sounds too quiet

tardy swift
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It's not a good mechanic.

jovial anchor
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at the risk of making yet another Pacific Drive comparison:

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I do like the way that many of the anomlies don't go invisible

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but rather can suprise you by rupturing up from the earth

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so these electric poles will shoot up and form an electrified barrier

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which is neat because all of the anomalies in ITR2 currently seem to have anmidirectional damage

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which are these things:

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the same thing as these things:

jovial parrot
jovial parrot
jovial parrot
real steppe
stone wasp
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some of the pathing ones are fixed

barren current
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its loud af

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but yeah the times where they hit you inside buildings or force you to tank either them or an anomaly field sucks and should def get fixed

real steppe
jovial parrot
# barren current do yall not hear it

The issue is that in dense anomaly fields and elevated geometry, you don't really have a choice for escape.

And well, the 3d audio implementation just straight up sucks at conveying elevation at the moment, but one presumes that will change.

stone wasp
jovial parrot
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That's the ideal if you do it BEFORE you hear it.
But that's straight up suicide if it has you cornered and you're responding to audio.

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The electrical anomaly itself is fine. But there are a handful of spawns that are just pure frustration.
But again, that's map design, not anomaly design.

stone wasp
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I guess i'm the only person that can hear these things at a reasonable range

jovial parrot
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I will once again assert: Electrical anomalies aren't well suited to being the primary threat in navigating an anomaly field.
They should be the seasoning, not the main course.

Complicate traversal, yes.
Complicate looting/interacting with the environment? No, not if you can help it.

jovial parrot
stone wasp
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yeah there's some reason why I dont seem to have the same problems as you guys but IDK what i'm doing thats special, I can hear them from a good distance, sometimes you can see the light they give off after they go invisible

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the house at the portal was supposed to be rough but i found out you can just go around the perimeter a ways and you have a straight shot into the house, looting the surrounding area was suicide XD

jovial parrot
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The house at the portal... Still not sure if I've encountered it yet. My beef is the... Construction site, I guess?

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Which is just an overall frustrating cluster to harvest.

stone wasp
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i haven't gone over there since in my run there's probably 20 mimics in that area

jovial parrot
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Hahaha, yeah. I've since cleaned those guys out but it STILL sucks.

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I think it's the only location where electrical anomalies run close to or over artifact nests.
And that's not even counting the sheer density of other anomalies covering three quarters of the viable routes.

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Hard to talk about without the resident GitGud fetishists wanting to ignore the problem.

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The electrical anomaly is just the anomaly with the highest frustration potential on a per spawn basis.

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But for the most part, it's fine.

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But if the devs want to use it as a "Get in, grab the loot, get out" challenge, they should use a similar but different anomaly.

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Oh wait, there are two sites you could call "Construction site" in the forest.

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Lets call the early one "Water tower" to clarify.

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Water Tower only nails you with the wandering shock anomaly at a couple spots in the periphery, and like... Fair.

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You mentioned encountering 20 mimics at your particular construction site, so I suspect we're talking about the same place.

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The house is, in my opinion, a distant second place to how crappy the construction site is.

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Since the electrical anomaly covers the WHOLE of the top of the structure, and a good chunk of the path leading up to it.

stone wasp
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i started going through it and then got jumped by mimics so its a no go lol

jovial parrot
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If the player is working with both "Move slowly and carefully" AND "Do this quick before the anomaly comes"

  • The anomaly in question should always be visible.
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The mimic spawns are just an insult on top of the whole ordeal.

Though admittedly I haven't seen any mimics since the initial encounter.

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Even without mimics, the abdundance of chair anomalies and their random wide area bursts force enough waiting to force you to abort your approach and return to start.

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Because the electrical anomaly only leaves a safe 30 second window to search the upper story.

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And with only two artifacts, it's very easy for the electrical anomaly to delete your profit margin for the whole attempt.

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Likewise if you get popped by the chair anomalies.

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I've had to save scum every time I've plumbed that cluster, and it's not worth the time.

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But it demonstrates that the Electrical anomaly should never be the primary threat for an encounter. It should be the thing you forget about and get screwed by.

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IMHO, an electrical anomaly should never pose a threat to a player who is tracking its current location.

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Otherwise, you should use a wandering acid anomaly, like in ITR1, or something mechanically similar.