Underrail Forum
Underrail => Development Log => Topic started by: Styg on April 17, 2013, 05:20:10 pm
-
Hey, guys, sorry for the delayed update. I was out of country for a while on a vacation of sort. I'm back in the development chair now and here's what I've been doing.
(http://www.underrail.com/images/DevLog/NewPickpocketing.jpg)
First of all I revamped the pickpocketing mechanics as I promised. The way it works now is that when you are stealing items from an NPC you are filling up their permanent "suspicion meter". If you fill up this meter to the max you will be detected and the combat will ensue. The game will indicate how much stealing a certain item will raise the suspicion meter.
The rate at which you fill this meter will depend on the ratio between your pickpocketing skill and the victim's detection. Since the detection scales off of character's level and perception, this basically means that you'll have to continue investing points in the pickpocketing skill (and ideally dexterity as well) in order to be able to steal (or steal more) from progressively higher level NPCs. Also, some items are harder to steal than others (e.g. heavy weapons and armors in comparison to smaller stuff like ammo and hypos).
The way this system is set up it means that, unlike lockpicking and hacking, the outcome is not binary. Depending on your skill-to-detection ration and the difficulty modifier of the item, you may be able to steal zero, one or more items from a given target. So investing more skill into pickpocketing will always be useful. Because there's no dice involved in the calculations, this will also eliminate the need for save scumming.
Pickpocketing does not require stealth, unless of course you're trying to steal from a hostile NPC.
* * * * *
The other major change I made is reducing the frequency of acquiring feats from one every level to one every two levels. The reason for this is that when I originally decided that you should get a feat every level I was planning on having the max character level set to 20, which would put you at 22 feats (+ some story extras), and since the total number of feats will be around a hundred having 22/100 feats seemed about right. It would mean you wouldn't be able to get every feat in the game you wanted/needed in one playthrough and the number of feats per character to the total number of feats ratio seemed like it would allow for a variety of different builds.
However, since I've increased the leveling rate a bit and decided to eventually change the max character level to 30, that would put the character at the max level up to 32+ feats. Now this is no longer a comfortable ratio, especially considering there might be expansion packs and the like that could raise the max character level. You'd be practically able to take every third feat in the game.
So now you get two feats at the start like before and one more feat each even level, which will put you at 17 leveling feats which is much closer to what I originally intended. I've also went back and buffed/reworked existing feats that were somewhat lackluster in order to make them a more desirable choice in this new feat economy:
- Burglar - Reduces the time it takes to pick and hack locks by 75%, but also add +10 bonus to stealth when in controlled areas
- Nimble - Reduces encumbrance by 15%, but also grants 15% bonus to dodge and evasion when on zero encumbrance
- Ninja Looter - Reduces pickpocketing time by 50% and also reduces suspicion raised when pickpocketing by 25% when hidden from the target
- Conditioning - Increased the damage reduction to 10% + 1% per constitution above 5, but also added requirement of having at least 5 points in constitution
- Opportunist - Upped the damage bonus agains slowed targets to 20% (up from 15%)
- Recklessness - Grants 10% increased critical chance with all weapons, but also increases the chance of you getting critically hit by 3% (up from 3%/2% I think)
- Yell - Reduces enemy offensive skills by 35% of your intimidation skill (up from 25% I think)
- Snipe - Increased the base damage bonus from 100% to 125%
* * * * *
And here are some other smaller, but not necessarily less significant changes I've made:
- Bugs
- Fixed the game crashing when loading 0.1.6.0 saves. It's still not recommended to play the old saves, but it shouldn't crash now hopefully.
- Fixed the problems with Cliff's quest when he would die at inopportune times
- Tweaks
- Reduced weapon degradation significantly. The starting pistol should now be good for over 100 shots
- Melee weapons no longer degrade on missed attacks
- Reduced the cost of energy pistols
- Dexterity now increases critical chance of melee attacks by 1% for each point above 5
- Added "Already known" label to blueprints you... already know
- Added more items to the SGS commoners to be stolen!
- Reduced the pickpocketing cooldown to 5 seconds (down from 10)
Let me know what changes you guys like and disliked and why.
-
I like the changes to the feat system. 1 feat per 2 levels is good for me which. Anyway good stuff.
Hope to see the new feats introduced in the game.
-
Welcome back. :)
About the feats:
I like what you did for Nimble, its an interesting boost for light armor characters.
About Conditioning, i already thought it was an appealing feat, specially for my Sledgehammer/Metal armor guy.
Now there is no way i am missing it.
I agree with getting one feat each even level, so we can be eager for new feats even after level 10.
For the length of the demo, one feat every level is fine as it allow us to explore more of the game in a single playthrough.
"Melee weapons no longer degrade on missed attacks" Nice.
"Dexterity now increases critical chance of melee attacks by 1% for each point above 5"
I know you wanted to Dexterity more than a feat requirement, and this might work.
1% doesn't sound like much i never experimented much on critical hits territory.
It keeps looking better and better, Styg! ;)
-
These ideas sound great. Keep them coming!
-
A few questions:
Will Conditioning be additive or multiplicative with Armor?
I suppose the latter?
Also, why not just make it 5% +1% per constitution? Easier to read and understand, and it just doesn't make too much sense with low const.
Does Force Projection or whatever the PSI Punches were called count as a melee attack for the Crits?
Or is that Psychosis?
And is there any way to raise the critical multiplier?
Will Nimble grant the 15% Bonus to Dodge and Evasion when your at 0% Encumbrance before or after the Nimble Feat?
I always thought this feat was a must have for every character that didn't go for heavy Metal Armor, and even for those it makes the first 5 levels easier.
I think it might end up really strong, not that that's a bad thing.
-
@Sakuragi: New feats are coming very soon.
@Lazy monk: While 1% per stat doesn't sound impressive, if you are stacking dexterity for knife/unarmed specialization it can add up to be a nice bonus. I'll probably add more stuff influenced by dexterity in the future.
@Unlimited:
- Conditioning applies to the damage you receive once it goes through your armor, so yeah you could say it's multiplicative. I prefer my format of description btw. :P
- Extra damage from force projection is on hit and it cannot crit (I think).
- You can increase crit multiplier through feats such as Sharpshooter. There will be more of those.
- Nimble will apply the dodge/evasion bonus after it applies the encumbrance reduction, so the the first bonus counts when determining whether you get the second bonus. I'm not sure I agree that every non-heavy armor character will want it, you haven't seen all the feats yet. ;)
-
Well, I can obviously only judge the existing feats.
I so far got it with every character.
Maybe we'll get an armor training feat sometime to reduce item encumbrance? ;D
(Or the effects to encumbrance, that would certainly make nimble less useful)
Can you pickpocket stores?
And one more question regarding conditioning:
Is it actually worth it for those that go with heavy armor?
I think with higher level metal armor, helmet, and boots, you should reach a comfortable 80% mechanical resistance (Or do these not stack, either? And why do boots not protect against Caltrops?^^).
Is it really worth the feat to reduce the 100 damage attack from 20 to 22, instead of any other of the awesome feats you tease us with?
Or is there a good reason to go with high Constitution, but no armor, short of trying to build a ridiculously defensive character?
-
That new pickpocketing sounds fantastic, some of the new feats seem a bit arbitrary but I guess that's bound to happen with so many of them, either way this game is going places.
-
Thank you for reducing the weapon degradation rates! That was my favorite part. Looking forward to experimenting with pickpocketing
-
When do you think this patch would hit the game? I was thinking about getting it (after trying the demo) but I don't want to start over if the patch will go live soon :)
-
Heh, I know that feeling. I even stopped playing a character I wanted to continue so I can start over soon. :D
Though that may have something to do with finally having the skills to create metal armor, but now no one sells metal.
-
Thanks for the update.
Perks:
It might be nice to have a few generic Perks that increase certain character stats.
The thing is, players aren't allowed to Level Up without picking a perk which means higher level characters might be forced to pick a perk they don't want. Tranquility and Reckless come to mind as perks I would never want, although I can see how some players might.
Tranquility:
To me, action points are more valuable than psi points. Could I have the opposite of Tranquility as a Perk?
-
Thank you for the ubdate on Desura. New feats and new spells. :P
-
Tranquility:
To me, action points are more valuable than psi points. Could I have the opposite of Tranquility as a Perk?
Psychosis?
Also, has it been updated? Totally slipped by me, which might be connected to me frying my harddrive.^^