Messages

1

General / Re: Item degrading gamebreaking

« on: March 27, 2013, 05:54:49 am »

I disagree.


At 135 durability and degration of 2/shot, you can still kill 33 rathounds with the starter pistol alone before needing to repair it. But by that point, you've likely already found more guns. (From the stalkers in the underpass north of SGS station platform for example, if you've had no luck with loot.)

You also get a free crossbow and some PSI abilities at the start, all of which can be useful regardless of your character's skllset. Don't be afraid to use all the tools you have at your disposal, they can be really helpful at the start!

With max gun skill, and 7 perception, it takes me 3-4 shots per rat to kill one... I managed about 8 before my gun to 35% durability, and then at that point the accuracy dropped significantly so I ended up breaking my gun trying to kill the final rat (and wasted a good amount of ammo)

I did eventually find a new gun, and I found the static leather armor blue print so I could make armor and buy a repair kit + ammo, but that took everything I had.

I like to play the first run how a "typical user" would play the game, so little to no psi abilities little stealth, and most likely guns over anything. Also the crossbow I found was at 35/205 durability and the knife he had was at 17/205.. with 0 crossbow skill it's virtually unusable.. you're better off using your fists (which I did just to make my 6th trip back to HQ to buy 10 more rounds of 5mm ammo so I could finish killing the rats.)

If the game is "meant" to be played with heavy psi use and multiple weapon skills then I guess it's the way it's supposed to be, but when your primary weapon has very little to no durability it gives you a bad impression of the game. I'm not even saying to remove it completely, just tone down the rate of degrading or buff the durability of the 5mm hawker.. (or alternatively give the player a few free repair kits) if the game has been balanced around 2dmg per shot

2

General / Item degrading gamebreaking

« on: March 27, 2013, 12:15:31 am »

Item degradation has made the early gamr ridiculously tedious, to the point of almost being broken.

Nerfs in drops means you cant craft items to sell for ammo early on, which is an issue when youre using the 5mm hawker. Items degrading at 2pts per shot means your 5mm hawker (135 durability) will be broken after the first few packs of rats youre forced to fight.

I was fine with item degrading in theory, but 2pts per shot is ridiculously high for the low durabikity the items have. 1 pt every 2 shots would be much more acceptable, but now its a lot harder to make money and essentials are stupidly expensive.

3

General / Stealth, Pickpocketing, and a few other things

« on: March 21, 2013, 12:34:04 am »

First of all, I'd like to say that this is a FANTASTIC game, and I've been recommending it to all of my friends, as well as promoting it where possible. Seriously, beautiful work and I can't wait for the final product.

That said, I've played the demo about 10 times, and finally updated to 1.6 to come up with a list of "useless" skills for the "min/maxer".

I haven't touched the psychic stuff yet, but a new character, I generally pump what I can into Perception, and Intelligence, and a min. of 6pts (can upgrade to 7 later) for assault rifles. Other skills are dropped to 3 or left at 5 because they serve no purpose for a general gunslinger.

Crossbows are a very nice sniper alternative with a lot of good utility bolts, but they feel very much like a "secondary" weapon to carry around, with your primary, due to the penalties to move and shoot and CQC, leaving guns at the top. Assault rifles are pretty much the best guns at the moment due to high range, high power, and low AP cost. There are of course setbacks (no knee shot, STR requirement, etc.) but if you're building your character based on assault rifles, then it's not that big of a loss.

I couldn't find a way to use stealth effectively in the game, because any action would bring me out of stealth, and there weren't any bonuses for attacking from stealth (that I could notice) so eventually it went on my "scrap" list. That meant pickpocketing was useless too.. (and you can't even use it in combat mode). The problem with stealth is that outside of combat (for thief/burglar characters) NPC's are constantly running stealth checks on you, where as in other games, once your stealth is high enough, you're damn near invisible unless you're in broad daylight and standing right infront of them. I know this is all due to balancing, but in the end, I just tossed stealth altogether.

Melee only runs proved to be nigh impossible, as my melee only character died repeatedly at the first 3 bandits from a certain quest. I reloaded and tried stealth, and every tactic I could possibly think of, but it all ended up with me getting my face shot off before I could land an attack. It was FANTASTIC in the early game with all the rats attacking me directly, and being able to run up to psi-beetles, but when fighting enemies who used guns, I get obliterated. There's a good chance I built my character wrong, but at that low of a level (3-4ish) I shouldn't be getting killed in 1 turn. It also makes melee seem like a "secondary" skill, to have along with your primary. It'd pair well with crossbows, actually, which is something I"m going to try on another char.

The crafting skills..
Mechanics and Tailoring are a MUST MAX because almost everything requires mechanics for weapons, and tailoring is incredibly useful for helping you scrape together cash in the early game, as well as providing useful armor in the later game. Mechanics was very situational... if I were running a crossbow build, I'd definitely take it, but for my current run, I've ignored it completely. Biology, I left it at 20 for the feat to use bandages to heal, and that's it. Crafting hypos takes a ton of ingredients, and it's just easier and more efficient to buy them in the early game. Biology, I'm slowly leveling it for specific armor, and to try out chemical weapons to see how they fair.. so it's iffy on that.

Persuasion, Intimidate, and Mercantile. They're all very optional, as the game isn't complete yet i'm sure there will be many occasions for them, I personally just max mercantile to help my character early in the game.

Oh, and traps. Trap skill, I constantly level it when I have points to spare, because detecting traps is too useful. It's made the difference between life and death, especially when killing a certain to finish a quest at the end of alpha.

Just my impressions so far, as someone who likes to find the absolute "best" and trim the fat for builds where each point matters, that's what I've come up with.

All in all though, this game is INCREDIBLY balanced from what I've seen, and compared to other games (where one option is flat out better than the other *coughfallout3cough*). It's also incredibly difficult, and I love it for that. I died 15 times against my first mutant, until I learned to set caltrops and use knee shots whenever possible. Still very difficult, but it was worth it.

Again, fantastic game, eagerly awaiting the next alpha release, and i've convinced about ~15 people to atleast try the demo, with one of my RL friends saying he's buying it next paycheck.