Insatiable desire, a siege by Corruptors, and a dark prison cell: which one is real imprisonment? The world of DisCity is one completely different from the entire world, caused by the spread of a maligned, alien substance named Mania. The near-futuristic world that humanity lives in is now one forged by this odd phenomenon, starting with the Black Ring that haunted humanity’s waking moment.
In the end, Syndicate becomes a desolate wasteland of a district in DisCity, a region where vagabonds, usurpers, and gangs fight over nothing but a piece of a ruined land. History is written by the victors, they say. History is filled with liars. Not much to trust in the FAC, not much more of anyone. Even without the district, the city itself is a nightmare of itself.
But that is where you come in, chief.
As the newly appointed chief of the Minos Bureau of Crisis Control, your directive is to secure the deadly Sinners, control them with your unyielding Shackles, and protect DisCity from further mayhem. But with so many conspiracies and plots lying around the corner, with the promise of Inheritance corrupting any bastard’s mind, calling yourself a wildcard is an underestimate for the entire century.
With fugitives on the loose and the autonomy of the Westside in question, someone has to keep everything in check before everything goes down. After all, Mania corruption is the least of your concerns when there are more dangerous things prowling in the darkness. The schemes of manic men wanting to vie for control of an item they have no way of understanding at all.
Published by AISNO Games, Path to Nowhere is their first entry in the strategy RPG genre. In this game you control your ragtag band of Sinners to fight monsters ala tower defense style, using their powers to stand against waves of motley gangs and dangerous monsters, and using your own to assist and destroy anything that stands in your way. If you’ve played games like Girls Frontline or Arknights, you’ll feel right at home in DisCity.
As the newly appointed Chief of Minos Bureau of Crisis Control, codenamed SHEPHERD-13, your job is to make sure the City-State of DisCity is still in one piece one day after another. But you have to take your choices wisely as much as it is on the battlefield, as your decisions will affect the future of the city-state.
As a strategy RPG, Path to Nowhere does not hold back. You have many Sinners to choose from, ranging from the near-inhuman B-Class Sinners to the dangerous S-Class Sinners. Monsters will overwhelm your forces if you position them at the wrong moment, and a single misstep can cost you the entire mission.
Even so, no one gets their feet wet without dipping their toes right into the cold water. You’ve been out of your repair pod and you don’t know any of the functions, regardless. With the help of this Path to Nowhere beginner’s guide, you’ll be ready and ready after an hour. Plan your strategies well soon after, Chief. This city is relentless when it comes to authorities.
Without further ado, let’s start the rounds. We’ve got work to do, Chief.
1. Know Your Sinners and Monsters
Before you start wailing your Sinners, thinking that they’ll prevail over the next onslaught of death, wanting to salivate themselves on your Shackles because you have over-leveled them, it’s still a wise thing to do to know what you’re up against.
Sinners are classified into Six Roles: Endura, Fury, Umbra, Reticle, Arcane, and Catalyst. They have their own Basic and Advanced Attributes, from Attack to CRIT Damage. And delving more, they can be classified by either being able to break Cores (indicated by the red shade of their Role icon). They have their Normal Attacks, Ultimates, Two Passives, and many more that claim the uniqueness of each Sinner.
Endura Sinners are your wall, the first and last line of defense against the incoming hordes. Their high HP and defense, as well as their synergizing ultimates, allow them to tank otherwise deadly hits and shrug them off. They are the only Sinners capable of blocking two enemies instead of one, allowing you flexibility on the battlefield as well as a lifeline in strenuous situations. What does, however, limit them is their attack range, only being able to attack anything that is in their literal square.
K.K. stands as one of your first Endura Sinners, using her batons to strike out any that try to approach your location. Her ability to increase her defense as an Ultimate, as well as giving everyone defense when deployed, makes her a powerful option for those needing a lot more health to survive.
Fury Sinners are your berserkers, they get in headfirst, strike whatever is inside their cross-shaped radius, and call it a day. These Sinners deal high amounts of damage when needed and are semi-tanks with the right skills and passive abilities. They are the in-between of Sinners, yet their mediocrity stands with their specialization against the other roles.
Look no further to Zoya, Commander of the Legion. She attacks her opponents with her claws, and her Ultimate deals damage to anyone who dares threaten to come to her radius, as well as changing her Normal attacks into a deadlier version.
Umbra Sinners stand out as blitzing damage dealers, going out of their intended positions to strike enemies either close or far, or in all directions. Because of this, they are a good pick when trying to fight against forces surrounding you. Their downside is their mediocre health, and that their Ultimate requires the player to displace them to another grid, causing the waste of a Movement Point.
Sumire is a classic example, with her Ultimate displacing her 4 grids away just to make sure the enemy has no chance of volleying anyone with ranged strikes.
Then the Arcane Sinners. These magical-wielding nightmares wield all sorts of powers, physical, magical, or otherwise, and throw them at your opponents with deadly effect. They are your ranged nukes, able to attack anything within their range as long as you know where to point them. And of course, they are squishier than an Umbra Sinner.
The loyal Hecate is one of your first in this regard. Her ability to attack with Nightmare, being able to place said Nightmare unto the field (at higher levels) and her ability to crack cores (two at a higher level) make her a powerful mainstay in the group.
When it comes to continuous ranged assault, Reticle Sinners ensure whatever comes at your frontline Sinners are already peppered, simmered, and ready to be diced to pieces. Compared to the rest, they have Sinners with larger Normal Attack ranges, with an obvious downside of being as squishy as the next Umbra Sinner deployed to it.
The first you get is EMP, dishing out death with her long-range and being able to break cores in an instant with her Ultimate. Compared to the ones you’ll be getting early on in the game, she’ll be a constant mainstay until you find an S-Class Reticle.
And then Catalyst Sinners. They are your supporters, giving your other Sinners buffs and ensuring they don’t get pummeled by the Elite Mutant that decides you are its next course meal. Some attack monsters, some don’t, and some are outright ignored completely. If you can’t brute force your way through, Catalyst Sinners are your last line of defense. That’s not to say you have to babysit them, as a few hits are enough to put them down.
An example is Hamel, an S-Class Sinner, who uses illusions at her will. She is one of the Sinners that monsters cannot outright target (unless they attack someone else with Area-Of-Effect attacks). She can heal her allies, and she’s too good of a character to ignore due to her late-game usefulness when Phasing her up, as she can heal all allies on the battlefield given a period.
And that’s not to say the monsters are out to get your sorry butt of a Chief. Given that nearly every single being in Syndicate hates said butt, they’ll make sure to kamikaze right toward you with everything they got.
They have their stats, ranked from D to S, and can tell you how much SAN (Sanity) you will lose the moment they touch your porcelain skin. They are also Elite versions of these mooks, which have Cores that enhance their Defense up until you destroy said cores with your Core-breaking character.
Knowing what you are facing up against is one way to decide how to end a battle. While the early stages of the game can be breezed through with simple blocking tactics, the later stages of the game remind you that this is a strategy game, forcing you to think of positions out of the fly as well as unceremonious Sinners to pick.
Speaking of, we’re about to be deployed, Chief. Now it’s time to…
2. Pick the Right Sinners for the Job
A common pitfall for new Chiefs is that they tend to pick those that they care about instead of completing the mission. You can do that if your Sinners can overpower your opponent, but sadly you are not. And your Sinners aren’t, and your pockets aren’t so deep as well.
Another common pitfall is ignoring other Sinners. Synergy and compatibility are crucial for late-game fights, as micro-changes from a few Attribute differences and Ultimates can be the make-or-break of the battles. S-Class Sinners aren’t the only ones out on the roster, try to find ones that fit well with the situation.
But most of all, the biggest hole a new Chief can fall into is sticking with what they have. In the later stages of Path to Nowhere, Basic Attributes play a larger role to the point that it’s recommended to have two teams, one Physical-damaging, and one Magical-damaging, to dent whatever come’s next.
If you follow the meta, Endura Sinners are outright switched in favor of Sinners capable of dealing Burst Damage, or ones that allow you to continuously break cores for your team to not be damaged at all. One of the more explicit reasons is that there are enemies that invalidate Endura Sinners entirely, as some enemies can pass through Sinners entirely.
That doesn’t mean you can sell them short. Missions that send you to the literal meat grinder force you to pick ones that make sure they can hold the line. Ones where Elite Monsters fly about and can harass your frontline Sinners, Core Breakers are immediately deployed out into the field. Trying to overpower by over-leveling is a small thing in this game, especially when you are starting.
As Chief, you must plan your team before you even try to do anything else.
While this is a short tip, this one has a long-lasting effect, especially for a crucial tip that comes later on. But deployment’s waiting, Chief. The syndicate still has a few chinks left to repair.
3. Prioritize The Main Story First
If you’re not that manic enough to follow the story, its unique set of characters, or listening to Hella cuss about for the next 15 minutes of your life, that doesn’t excuse you from doing the Main Missions completely. The reason why this is the case is that how much of the content in the game is locked until you reach or beat a specific level in the game.
They don’t give much in terms of experience once you reach the honeymoon phase of the game (i.e. waiting out for farming items, and so on), but the ability to constantly automatically redo missions (in the form of Raids) allows you to farm necessary items to Rank Up your Sinners.
Not only that, finishing the Main Story is one of the few ways you can only get Evidence or Evidence Points, which allow you to access the Interrogations of a specific Sinner and gain exclusive rewards as well as Hypercubes, the rare currency of the game that allows you to recharge your Energy as well as a roll for new characters when they come out.
The Main Story’s missions can be divided into five categories: Regular Battles, Boss Battles, Side Battles, Recordings, and Mazes.
Regular Battles is your average beat-up-until-dead scenario, forced to defend against multiple waves of monsters. However, Path to Nowhere will try to spin and twist at every corner, from putting in trap tiles as well as dropping enemies from above. Or decidedly screw at you by sending unblockable monsters in one whole wave.
Boss Battles are self-explanatory. They are not pushovers and will require complete control from the player to succeed. Boss Battles have their gimmicks that the player has to be attentive to, as missing a crucial point can be a critical moment for the battle itself.
Side Battles are optional battles that you can skip, but have rewards that will greatly benefit you. Some even have missions where you get a free Sinner upon completion, so you should keep your eyes wide open.
Recordings are, in essence, just cutscenes. However, they still give you rewards if you either complete watching them or skip them entirely. The game doesn’t penalize you for skipping, but it’s best to immerse yourself in Path to Nowhere’s story, with how mystical and intriguing it gets.
And then the Mazes. These are your puzzle missions, and they represent the mind of the character the Chief is currently invading. There, you are treated to numerous text logs, as well as having to decide a few things. They are unique in the sense that you still have to consider SAN, with Movement Points acting as your currency to navigate the maze’s entirety.
Given that they have a lower Energy cost, you might as well do them immediately. After doing said Missions, you can check the Operation Summary in the Main Menu (shown as a checklist) to see how you have fared well. It shows you specific requirements in beating levels (using a Potestas that works against you in a way) as well as any events or upgrades that are needed to be accomplished. They are worthwhile as they give you Evidence Points as well as Crimebrands, among all the DisCoin and Mania Essence rewards.
And there you have it, Chief. A complete overview of what we have to do. We can completely decide what to do later as we have another thing to look out for. And that is…
4. Win Your Battles Completely
DisCity is brutal, absolutely and ruthlessly brutal. And to come out at the top in your battles, you have to decisively show to your opponents that the ability you have isn’t just to hide and cower among your shackled Sinners but to completely manipulate the course of the battle with said Shackles.
A thing to note when playing, when trying to rush through it, is that it only reduces energy whenever you have won the battle. That means you can do multiple retries at your full disclosure. Are you out of position with your character? Is your current composition of Sinners failing you? Did you forget to upgrade or use the right skill? Just restart or quit, the game will not reduce any of the energy you have.
All missions have Special requirements that give you more rewards. Some are fairly easy (not losing any SAN during the game) and some are downright brutal (not losing any characters… in a battle where you will be losing one). Meeting them means that you will be able to raid without any sort of fear of missing out on a few things.
But how can you win your battles so effectively? Let’s start with a few things.
Before a battle, you know the path where the monsters can come from, and what kind of monsters will come after you. You know how many of them will come and when they will come out. Tapping on the square where the enemies will pop out reveals such information, and during the game, you can directly see how many will spawn for the next wave.
This also counts for bosses. Tip 2 exists for this reason. If you can’t kill the boss, the boss will kill you first. There will be a time in the story when you will be faced with such a hard battle that you have no other choice but to completely change your Sinner composition, upgrade yet again, and pick the right skills. That, simply, is downright sad and a waste of your precious materials that could’ve been for another Sinner.
Always check the bosses and monsters for their Physical and Magical defenses. Your Sinners will do the rest for you, and so will their Ultimates. This also counts if they have the annoying Corruptors that can charge through your Sinners or those slugs that will crawl and ruin your back line once they’re damaged to their second phases. Have faith in them, for once.
And then comes the Core Breakers. Always have your Core Breakers on the ready, and do not waste them on anything else that does not have a core. Later on in the story, you will be fighting Elite opponents that will reflect your damage by activating their shield, but become completely vulnerable to Core Breaks that you can snipe with your Sinners. Don’t tap their Ultimates when it pops up. Wait for the right moment, and strike.
Last but not least: The Potestas. This is your power as the Chief with the Shackles, allowing you to directly interfere with either breaking cores or healing your Sinners. They can be only recharged when you break the Core of an opponent, making characters that allow multiple Core Breaks an essential part of the team.
But, if we go to the meta side of things, Sinners who can use burst damage to their arsenal can completely decimate battles. Anyone with an Area-of-Effect ultimate, as well as having the ability to destroy multiple Cores at once, is your very best friend. Alongside a fortunate friend with a Catalyst Sinner. Pray you to get Hamel as your first S-Class Sinner.
To continue, using the Empower skill allows you to constantly have a Core Breaker at your disposal. This is vital in a stage where the game will exclusively have more Elite monsters than average.
That’s not to say the map itself has no secrets of its own. There are maps where a tile is granted a mark, indicated by a light-blue engraving, that allows a currently positioned Sinner in it to gain the following power. They either give you more damage or get more Energy to allow you to use more ultimates.
And then the self-serving Traps. Another thing in the later stages of the game is the abundance of it, and the possibility of fighting an enemy that can trigger trips. Whatever you do, you cannot let one activate it. Out of all the Potestas you have, only Ignite allows you to activate these traps. But be wary, friend or foe can die to these tiles.
If you feel like the entire fight is a breeze, then double the speed of the fight via the multiplier number at the top-right corner of the screen during a fight. Always abuse the hell out of the pause system, the slowdown of your Sinner’s Ultimate, or your Potestas. Get every single advantage you have to win.
Always be attentive, always be alert. You never know if an enemy will drop on you from the back lines (indicated by a red circle on the tile) or if the game decides that a full wave is the best way to escalate things. Plan your battles, and you may live another day in DisCity.
Phew, now that we’ve got that battle settled out, it’s time to take account, make reports, and go back to the MBCC’s headquarters. However, the recent incidents have only made our enemies stronger, so its antecedent is to make our Sinners stronger. But keep in mind one thing…
5. Level Up Your Sinners And Farm Carefully
Leveling up your sinners is trivial, you have to Promote them. The resources required to do so are DisCoins and Mania Essence. They are in no short supply, but they drain out quickly, especially Mania Essence. The reason this tip exists is how unlimited these resources are every day; it’s your energy that is limited.
Overall, you only have, technically, 1240 energy per day, and that is spending Hypercubes on Energy (for a whopping total of ~1000 Hypercubes). The more you level up in the game, the more you have less energy expenditure for resources, as they will also cost you more. Given that refilling energy isn’t unlimited, it’s best to stick with a team that can give you a winning edge.
One of the easiest traps to fall into is the “S-Class” Trap. This is a common thing in Gacha games, as S-Class characters tend to have higher level-up requirements than anything below it. While S-Class characters have powerful synergies that fit well with the other, it’s essentially this trap that locks you in for a few days before you can make progress.
To visualize this trap, the total cost to upgrade a Sinner from Level 1 to Level 40, of each rarity type, is:
S-Class Sinner: 252k Mania, 285k DisCoins
A-Class Sinner: 209k Mania, 237k DisCoins
B-Class Sinner: 168k Mania, 189k DisCoins
It may not look like a lot, but a 20-Energy Raid to The Rust only gives you, at most, 3000 – 4000 Mania Essences. Let that sink in. That’s how easy it is to lock yourself in that situation, and that’s not to say the other materials you need to Rank up a Sinner to the next Phase (with their higher being Phase 3).
This also goes alongside Skills, Crimebrands, and Shackles. While Skills and Crimebrands are fairly obvious in their requirements difference, what matters most are the Shackles.
Shackles can only be unlocked by getting duplicates of Sinners, their shadows still lingering in the darkness of DisCity. As you may have guessed, you can only get duplicates when you have rolled them again. In short, it’s hard to get an S5 (Shackle 5) S-Class in the get-go, as opposed to an S5 B-Class.
This is also to say the rest of the items you have to farm. Because of the energy requirement, it’s best to plan what Sinner you will be bringing to the battlefield and what Sinner will stay rotten in Level 1. You can revisit them when you are able, but otherwise, you are stuck with your best just to shoulder on.
That also brings to light what you get to spend on. If you are a free-to-play gamer, stick to using Hypercubes for the sole purpose of energy use, or saving them for a Banner for an S-Class Sinner you wish to get. If you aren’t, you can essentially get a lot more in a single day. That is, of course, unrecommended. Don’t pull out your pockets for our sake, Chief.
And be mindful of when we will do it. While we can do Cleansing Operations and Nest of Pollution every single day of the week, we can’t do the same thing when it comes to other areas of the Rust. Stormy Memories and Parma Ruins interchange their missions every day, locking your progress in case we need to upgrade one of our Sinners.
This tip is short, but it’s a necessary one. We are only limited in our resources and we can afford much given that MBCC is still recovering from the riots caused by Suspect R. Of course, we still have our jobs to do. It’s not always giving out arrest warrants on Sinners, hunting down possible culprits, and whatnot. MBCC is still an agency, and you might have a few things to do.
3. Log In Daily And Do Your Job
Why are you surprised? You’re working in an office, and you’re the Chief of it. Of course, you have to participate all day. No one likes a slacker, boss.
Logging in daily has the benefit that you will be meeting your quotas, as well as being able to use the energy that you have accumulated from your downtime. There are events that, essentially, only require you to be online once in your day. That’s not to say the energy you’ll be getting from your Office if you click on the Bureau Icon.
And every day, Faye will be bringing you a Daily Supply, free of charge, whenever you go to the Supply Office. She’ll even give you a Promotion Award every time you level up to a specified amount, Chief. Oh, and a free Rename Card, if that’s your drift, every month.
There’s also the Automation Center, highlighted by the Factory icon in the menu. From there, you can check the resources created and stored there, as well as a few things. Clicking on the Management Center, the topmost section, will show us the current level and what we can do to upgrade it. We do need those A.I. Chips from time to time in your Main Missions.
That’s not to say that you also have to be here every day to keep the Sinners in check. The Supervision Terminal will show you who needs to be supervised after making a commotion. From here, we can see Hella… buying a gift from the Black Market section. Why don’t you check her out, Chief?
… She only gave you gifts? Alright then. Back to your Office (Bureau), you can send a Dispatch to either do a Daily Mission or go to the Syndicate to do a few tasks, like sorting out gangs or reconnaissance. It’ll take a while for them to come back, so you can take a break and check it out later.
And that’s that! Well, oh, right? One more thing…
It’s a no-brainer, but joining a Secret Society that doesn’t have half of its members offline is better than having none. Secret Societies are one of the few gateways you have to more resources. Donating to the Secret Society gives you bonuses, and the funds required for it to rank up to a higher level.
Once you’ve achieved a high enough level, try to join a Level 6 Secret Society. A low-leveled Secret Society doesn’t have much access to other resources, so bear that in mind. Not only that, the Secret Society allows you to have Sinners in the form of Assists. These Sinners can assist you in Combat for up to 3 battles per day (only for non-Raid attempts), as well as them being on standby for dispatches.
Check out Path to Nowhere’s Discord if you want to find like-minded Chiefs and Secret Societies. They are your safest bet in getting into a Secret Society.
But before we proceed further, we have to delve into the Oblivion Pits from time to time. Every day, you will receive an attempt to dive into DisSea and find any samples deep underwater. But be careful, you can only get one attempt per day, and any Sinners that die in combat will be immediately put out of commission! This place is tricky with its hazards, I’m not going to lie to you, Chief.
And gobsmacked in the middle of it all is the Broken Frontline. Every week, you get a chance to beat up the monsters for a chance of a higher reward, as well as getting into a higher-risk area. There are three bosses—Brand, Shackled Captive and Gray-Haired Maiden—that you will have to battle at a three-step rate of difficulty. They change every day, up until Sunday when you get the chance of redemption to put all of them down.
This is where your skills will be tested, as well as which Sinner you have leveled, as it ranks points by a certain criterion: by how much time you’ve spent on it, by the amount of damage taken, and a few things among others. You only have a few attempts every day, so make them count.
Now that we’ve talked about your tasks as a Chief, we could take a trip down memory lane.
7. Fill Up the Archives, Achievements, and Interrogations
You will see in the Archives, Chief, that it stores all that we’ve known so far, ranging from Operation Summary: Core Crisis as well as the Libram, the extensive list of all the Sinners we have known so far.
The only way to fill up the Libram is simple: get all the Sinners in that specific category, as well as obtain Soul Chimes. Soul Chimes can only be obtained when you have done something specific to the character, like raising their Compliance or finishing their Interrogation. You will get rewards such as Arrest Warrants and a Profile Picture Avatar whenever you have reached a specific level of Soul Chimes.
Speaking of Interrogations, as Chief, it is your responsibility to get to the bottom of the situation, finding out the reason why they have become Sinners in the first place, as well as the actions that have led to their arrest. As stated before, you need Evidence to interrogate these Sinners, which can be acquired through playing the Story or getting Evidence points.
Once you can do an Interrogation, you won’t have to do anything aside from sitting back, relaxing, and maybe empathizing with a few Sinners in their plight. You’ll get Hypercube rewards once finished, as well as having their compliance increased. And maybe a bit of anger for one of the unfortunate Sinners out there.
But last but not the least, we have Achievements.
You have nothing to do when doing the Achievements, as some of them are trivial (getting DisCoins, spending money) that you don’t need to keep track of them. Some, however, are not, like not letting any Sinners die during Oblivion Pit attempts, or getting specific points in the Broken Frontline. Some are ridiculous, like using The Last Stand on missions that have enemies that deal a lot more damage to your average mook.
Keep this in mind when doing missions and check out for any details that will give you more rewards in the progress.
8. Take Part in Events
Last but not the least, get your butt on events! They’re limited time only, and you won’t get them anytime sooner once. Surveillance Orders are the game’s equivalent of a Battle Pass, requiring you to do a specific set of tasks either daily or weekly to advance to a higher level. Again, you can buy the Surveillance Order, but it’s advised not to. The game is already free-to-play friendly as it is, and the Surveillance Order has a free version.
And since you are a beginner, heh, you will also have access to a limited, 14-day beginner-only event where you can obtain Nox, an S-Class Fury Sinner, while progressing through the game and its story. Don’t waste your opportunities when the game gives you one right in front of you.
And of course, checking the Events Page will show you the currently released event for the game. Keep track of your progress as they will only last for a limited time (usually a week or two), and you will never get the chance to obtain any exclusive items such as Outfits or a rare Character.
Don’t forget to also get Redeem Codes! They can be found in your Character profile, with the Hexagon Icon that is your settings. Follow the Path to Nowhere’s Discord for any news about any possible redeem codes, as they tend to give a ludicrous amount of Hypercubes for you to spend.
And this marks the end of our beginner’s guide for Path to Nowhere. This game is still relatively new, and it will have a lot more in store, in terms of function and story. We still have a lot more work to do, Chief. Suspect R is still on the prowl, and Syndicate has been getting restless as of late.
I hope that I, your Adjutant, have found these tips helpful to guide you along the wall. If you got any questions or may have learned a few tricks, then feel free to share them with me in the comment section below!
Alright, Chief, we got another dispatch alert, so let’s get to it!