Pill Dragging
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 01:53
Not a terribly huge deal and more for solo play than in groups where pills are in higher demand but enough people seem to be surprised seeing me do this that I thought it would be worth making its own thread.
So, when you are approaching a party button gate and there are more pills in the previous area than the 3 you can carry on you, you can simply get up near the button and drag and drop pills from your action bar onto the ground, then run back and get all the extra pills before coming back and really hitting the button. Now the excess pills are here with you in the new area, and pills have no unspawn timer on the ground like hearts do so they'll sit there forever waiting for you to pick them up again, so you can repeat this process of dragging around pills 3 at a time throughout all three arena stages or into a danger room. Never again shall you curse the game for making you leave behind valuable restoratives in the easy first stage of an arena only to quickly beat the pills out of you in the third stage and make you waste precious energy reviving.
If you feel the need you can also do this with vials, remedies, or, for no good damned reason, vita pods.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 02:30
#2
I do this too, and always ask
I do this too, and always ask if everyone has three pills before picking one up. People seem to get the strategy, but every once in a while some idiot uses the pill, even if there are heart spawners, just to get rid of it.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 06:14
#3
dragging pills is especially
dragging pills is especially useful for the third part of arenas. Even vials that you normally wouldn't save are often worth dragging forward so that in the final wave of the 3023 gremlin bombers, you can just spam fire/shock/freeze/stun vials and when you run out of one kind, you will quickly pick up more that you have dragged forward.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 06:27
#4
makes you wonder why there's
makes you wonder why there's a limit on vials and pills when you can circumvent it with gruntwork
this is interesting because:
- if the intent is still to limit the number of pills a player has access to, then this is an exploit and needs to be fixed. i don't know how such a thing could be accomplished while still keeping the pill accumulation rate of a party fair
- if this is condoned then why force the player to do something tedious to accomplish it? walking back and forth across the level is not particularly fun but if it gives an advantage it will still be done -- this un-fun activity should be replaced somehow
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 06:43
#5
I was thinking that myself,
I was thinking that myself, but it's just probably due to the intent of preventing aggressive hoarding of items. Imagine if the person who is always after pills never stops and keeps them all for themselves. However, making sure pickup items never disappear practically forces you to share them instead of just hoarding them.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 07:04
#6
Pills, you say?
Pills, you say?
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Dawnstrike/screenshot/542902241382543165
I once had an annoying variation where poison vials kept dropping
http://steamcommunity.com/id/Dawnstrike/screenshot/541776230297227135
One guy complained about me wasting time to do this when it was a two-man group and we nearly wiped. Totally a viable strategy.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 07:29
#7
I wouldn't call this an
I wouldn't call this an exploit as you could say the same thing for clockworks rotation then. You're expected to just descend, but some people spend several minutes waiting for better stages (arenas). I don't see how carrying pills is more of an exploit than spending time waiting to pick your stages. This doesn't increase the number that naturally drop anyway.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:13
#8
This is wildly useful for
This is wildly useful for arena levels, and it often surprises people who've never thought of it to see me do it. Just remember to finish the job and carry the pills into the actual arena room after activating the "anteroom" party button. Usually I spread them out to the various corners for easier pickup.
I'll also do this for some regular clockworks levels as well, especially once I'm deep in T3.
And I agree with the idea of limiting the pills per player at once--I've known many a pill hoarder, and if there was no limit nobody else would get any.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:27
#9
A person that later friended
A person that later friended me, showed me that sweet tactic in the arena in front of the party button so the gate doesn't close on you and block access to extra pills if you need it. I use it when I solo mostly too, and it will be especially useful in tier 3 and the citadel. So it's no issue at all, and if there are actually any extra pills while playing with a party, then they should be a little happy to see extra pills to use in case something happens.
Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:30
#10
@NegimaSonic
No, this is an exploit - people use it to circumvent a system that prevents backtracking to pick up items and heal. We're only supposed to be able to take 3 of any given vial/pill with us, and using this method ignores that on a per floor basis. I use it myself, but I accept that it's an exploit. If they fix it, I won't complain.
Waiting for the clockworks to rotate isn't an exploit, it's a game feature. They certainly wouldn't bother making the gates rotate in realtime if the sole intention was to make players encounter different floors; they'd just make every floor completely random like the floors with graveyards. Heck, the fact that it's in realtime at all is a sign that part of the intention was to allow players to pick specific floors, seeing as they could just lock in a route the moment you enter the gate.
As party buttons usually prevent backtracking by raising gates behind the players, a solution to OOO to fix this if they want: Remove all dropped items from the stage whenever a party button is activated, excepting perhaps danger rooms. This would also clear a few resources for the players, as their computers won't have to store all of the drops on memory.
I'll remember this...may come in handy when I try to tank it out on my own again in tough areas...