EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair EDF Tips and mechanics

General

Hey,

As a long-time EDF player i thought i would give some general tips on the game and its mechanics.

Now these are a bit unsorted, if I have the time/people add in more good stuff I might structure it a bit more.

Reviving

When armor reaches 0 you’re knocked out. You can still be revived by another player (But not by NPCs). To revive someone walk up to them and press the prompted button to revive. It’s important to note that reviving someone will take HALF your current armor and give it to the other player and you NEED to have at least 25% of your armor left. It doesn’t matter if you have 1000 armor and the other player can max have 200 armor, you will lose 500, and he will gain 200. Think about this before you revive in a bad situation. Also when waiting to be revived, be patient, one call out is usually enough to notice you, however aside from the Wing diver, the classes can’t really break out from a bad situation whenever you happen to go down. Please be patient.

Also being knocked out when the mission ends has no detrimental effect. You get full loot anyway.

Looting

Any loot(Weapon and armor boxes) picked up is given to ALL players, doesn’t matter who runs over it, hence stop racing towards the distant weapon boxes when the Wingdiver is going for it.

This does NOT apply for health boxes! So think before you run over the big health box with 99% health and your friend has 15% left…

Friendly Fire

On the easy difficulties and normal Friendly fire isn’t really a big issue, but as soon as you move to hard be prepared to be blown up if you’re standing in the wrong place. It can be recommended to bring one explosive and one non-explosive weapon and switch when you get into close combat or trying to save another player. Also NPC soldiers seem to have a deathwish and you can’t call yourself an EDF player until you’ve failed a mission due to dying when an NPC stepping infront of your RPG as you pull the trigger.

Farming

I will come back to this once I’ve verified it still works properly in this version, but the game contains several spawners that will continue to spawn enemies as long as you don’t destroy it. With an overpowered weapon in singleplayer its pretty much possible to AFK farm armor on an easy difficulty. You can also use a second controller to have two characters in one splitscreen game and both will get the armor increase from drops even if one only Idles.

Dashing/rolling

The fastest way to get around with the Ranger and Air raider (outside vehicles) is to aim ~45 degrees away from the place you want to go to and roll diagonally. Looks a bit ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but works well.

For Fencer you can dash with certain weapons. With the right combo you can Dash-Cancel, which allows you to pretty much be constantly dashing by interrupting the dash animation, with another action then directly dash again.

Check this for more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2OL75Dud8I

Region lock

Unfortunately there seems to be a region lock in place on multiplayer, meaning you will only see lobbies in the same region you are in (Most likely Europe, NA, SA, Asia, Oceania or similar) however if you find that there aren’t many players in your region you can switch region by setting your download location in steam to another country. This will allow you to see that regions lobbies/players. Ping will be worse, but unless its extreeemely high, it doesn’t really matter for this game.

Command menu/Emotes/Chat

This is by default bound to your arrow keys, it has some good commands, most will be yelled out by your character. Remember to chant EDF EDF EDF! Whenever you get the chance, this is pretty much mandatory. Chat is bound to T, free text chat.

Create a private room

When creating a room, select Max players/Chat and change from "everyone is welcome" to "invite only". This will prevent others from joining, only those you invite can join.

DLC

The release DLC is not needed. Its fluff. They give you a small edge the 10 first missions, then youve found better weapons. More for having fun in easy.

There are 2 mission packs though, that the developer have confirmed they are working on getting them to PC, they are worth your time and money as they have some pretty great missions. They are "meant" to be played after the main missions, but will be unlocked directly when you get it. The cost on PS4 was 10 dollars per pack.

Difficulty in MP

If youve tried to run solo in MP games youve probably had a bit of a hard time with missions you can breeze through in SP. The reason for this is that the game has a health multiplyer for MP games.

For some reason, i guess to promote coop, jumping into an MP game solo gives you the same multiplyer as 4 people. This means about 3 times the health for all enemies.

Ive not made extensive tests but these multiplyers from EDF 2025 seems to hold true:

1 player 3.0x

2 players 1.875

3 players 2.5x

4 players 3.0x

Weapons And Armor

Armor

Armor is your health, its Max is increased by running over the red boxes dropped by enemies. However 1 box does not give you 1 armor, it differs from class to class:

- Ranger 0.48 per crate

- Wing Diver 0.23 per crate

- Air Raider 0.47 per crate

- Fencer 0.56 per crate

So ranger gets 1 “health” per ~2 boxes, wingdiver per 4.

Armor and weaponlvl restrictions

In MP each mission will have a set Armor and Weapon lvl restriction. It will increase in every few missions and with every difficulty. If you armor is too high, you man change it down to the allowed value. Any weapons above the max weapon lvl will not be equipable. In SP there are no restrictions

If you reach 70% Completion in MP mode you can open multiplayer lobbies that doesn’t have restriction. Just note that this will require A LOT of time, 5 difficulties, 4 characters and almost 100 missions, yes, progress is separate by character.

Progression

Your progress in SP is separate from MP when it comes to unlocked missions etc, BUT any weapon or armor gained in SP can be brought to MP and vice versa. Characters progress independently, any armor and weapon drops are only for the currently equipped character. There is a way to get around that, see armor grinding below.

Weapon lvls

What weapons can drop in any given mission is based on the current difficulty. Higher lvls is generally more powerful weapons, but can also be special weapons like assault rifles that fire in an V formation or other strange weapons.

Too see which weapon lvls can be dropped in what mission check this google sheet:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzMFU1jQ797wRzItUFZsLTlBSzQ/edit

It also contains all weapons details on the following tabs. Its made for EDF 2025 but is still more or less accurate.

Another supposedly up to date list for 4.1:

http://weapon.edf.jpn.com/4-1/?p=r

(Thanks Starblunter)

Vehicles

In most missions only the air raider can call in player controllable vehicles. Also these can only be controlled by Rangers or Air raiders. The transport type vehicles, like the healing APC can transport Fencers and Wingdivers but they cannot drive. In some missions there will be controllable vehicles, but again only for ranger or Air raider. And YES you will get to control the massive mech and pound Not-Godzilla into a pulp.

Characters

So we have 4 classes, all with some specialities, I will go over them shortly here:

Ranger: Your run of the mill Foot soldier, with some not so run of the mill weapons. Extremely versatile and overall great weapons. Almost all guns have a decent reload time (ammo is infinite). Don’t run that fast, but can roll for extra speed, which also allows you to dodge attacks. (While there seems to be invulnerability frames, you CAN get hit during large parts of your roll). A good starter choice, easy to make an impact and easy to solo. Also gains armor quite quickly.

Air Raider: Vehicle/Support specialist. earns "credits" for kills that can be used to call in support and vehicles. Some vehicles are ready when you start the missions, some needs to be "earned". More advanced class, needs to have a good selection of vehicles/supports and bring the right ones each mission, more unforgiving than a bad choice with the ranger for example as having the wrong things, like a railgun on a mission with mainly bees, wont do much good. VERY useful teamplayer if you know what youre doing, can run into problems solo:ing.

Wing diver: High mobility, high damage glass-canon. Uses a powerpack for both her jetpack and reloading weapons, meaning you have to constantly be watching your energy levels. If you empty your pack you wont be able to fire any weapon that hasn’t got a charge in it already and you won’t be able to fly. This can quickly spell disaster for unexperienced players as she can’t outrun a snail on the ground. Can also be frustrating before you got the hang of it, you may have to stand around for 10-15 seconds not firing to recharge. Can do insane amounts of burst damage though and great for collecting loot. Please think about positioning and range of your weaponry. A ranger with rocketlaunchers will be annoyed and/or accidently kill you if you as a wingdiver flying around your target like a gnat using short range weapons. Lowest armor gain of the pack.

Fencer: Heavy weapons platform. Think powerarmor and crazy weapons. Slowest of the bunch until you learn to Dash-cancel (see Dashing/rolling part). Got some great mass destruction weapons, just remember to have single target DPS (like battle canons) on stages that requires it. Can be frustrating to play before you get the mobility down. Earns armor more quickly than the others.

Q&A

Quick Q&A from things ive seen people ask about

Q: I get the same weapon drop several times, can i upgrade the weapons or something?

A: No, you can only get stronger weapons by drops, duplicates are discarded. See the Weapon lvls part for a list.

Q: I keep shooting enemy X and they just wont die!

A: Some enemies in the game can take a shiiiitload of damage, just keep firing. Make sure that you arent using lvl 0 weapons once higher lvl stuff starts to drop. If what youre firing at has some kind of hit indicator, it flinches, blood, dirt, fire spewing out, then youre hurting it. Things like ships usually have a weakpoint that opens and closes that needs to be shot.

Q:I see people with a blinking ! at their name, what do i do?

A: They have been picked up by Ants or dragon, kill the creature to release them. Preferably with non explosive weapons if you play on hard or above. They can also have been snared by the Retarius spiders thrown web. Find the spider that snared them and kick its ♥♥♥. It will drop its web after a certain amount of damage or death

Q: The air ships on mission 11 keep kicking my ♥♥♥, what should i do?

A: Get homing weapons, quick ones, not like the the turtle. Also any one shot one kill weapon works well like the rangers sniperrifle paired with a shotgun when they get close

Q: The lazer sniper for wingdiver takes ages to kill anything why?

A: The first lazer sniper you get is extremely crap. I think they moved the comma for the damage one step to far. Do not use. Stick with the lightning sniper untill you get something better.

Q: I never have time to pick up all the drops, what should i do?

A: Always leave a couple of enemies when youve almost cleaned up, run around and collect boxes, then finish them off. If you see someone saying "Lets collect armor" or something similar, he/she probably is indicating the mission is almost over, chill with the killing and get to looting.

Q: Can i play this game Solo?

A: Yes, its completely soloable, if very hard and unforgiving at the highest difficulties. But its somewhat offset by not having any weapon and armor limits (See the Armor and weaponlvl restrictions part).

Q: Do I have to pick up all boxes or are they automatically collected when finishing a mission?

A: You will only get those you pick up. See previous question about having time to pick boxes up

Q: Why cant I destroy any buildings on mission X?

A: On Retarius (Big black and yellow spiders) missions its common that the buildings are indestructible so you cant just lob two rockets into the building that holds the web up and have it collapse. Its not that many missions that has this.

Enemies

Retarius

A big webslinging spider. If its web hits you, it will start reeling you in, causing damage over time. Damage the spider enough and it will let go. It always is accompanied by its webs. You can also get stuck in these, shooting them will make them collapse and free you. The missions with Retarius spiders have unbreakable buildings. Also worth noting the retarius thrown web can sometime go through buildings.

Jumping spider

A jumping spider with webslinging abilities. Unlike the retarius this web doesnt reel you in, but will damage you more. Getting stuck in the middle of a few spiders is a good way to loose most of your health.

Hectors

Big bipedal robots with a variety of weapons. Can take a pounding and can be hard to hit from a distance if you dont have accurate and quick weapons. Some people say that the head that pops up is a weakspot, but i havent seen anything to corraborate that. If someone does some testing let me know what you find. The Hector flinches quite violently when hit with a high damage weapon, this can be used to your advantage, fire just before the hector fires and it shots will go wide. Very useful for the ones with long range plasma artillery, look for the glow in the weapons, fire once its full. All hectors are very dangerous if youre close to it (on the ground, it has a hard time to hit a flying ED). The Plasma artillery and smaller plasma cannons will ragdoll you and do massive damage. The Machineguns will slow you down so even if they dont do much damage they make it easier for other enemies to hit you. Deal with Hectors from a distance.

Red Ants

The normal ants big brothers. They can take a beating, having alot more health than the normal ants. To compensate they do not have any acid throwing attacks, they can only grab you in their pincers and shake you. If an ant starts to charge you it will pick you up if any part of you touches its front. You can see when the ant will charge as it rears up (can be seen in the picture) before charging. You can stop the charge with either massive damage or any explosives, that will launch the red ant into the air. If youre picked up try to aim towards the body as you will sometimes shoot through the head. If you see someone with a exclamation mark next to their name, they have been picked up by an ant (or a retarius spider), help them out, preferrably with some non explosive weapon.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=728847042

EDF Tips and mechanics

General

Weapons And Armor

Characters

Q&A

Enemies

More EARTH DEFENSE FORCE 4.1 The Shadow of New Despair guilds