Messages

1

General / Re: Underrail has such a contradictory design

« on: February 02, 2022, 01:04:52 pm »

What kind of response do you expect ?

You're only lvl 16 on normal classic and you obviously know very little about the game,

If you don't like it that's fine, personnal preferences is a thing.

But you're not likely to convince any of us who have played this for hundred of hours about this "contradictory design"...

Grenades have cooldown, they can miss, they use a dedicated slot...

Stealth won't get you past all encounters, and won't help you once a fight is started except with some feats.

And you're wrong to assume this " "No skill/skill line is supposed to be able to tackle every content and enemy" design philosophy ".

Every thing in the game do have pros and cons, yes. But it doesn't mean one skill should automatically win X% of fights while being useless against Y% of other encounters, that would be boring pokemon design "use fire against ice monster".

We don't want that.

>You're only lvl 16 on normal classic and you obviously know very little about the game,

True, and yet I've played enough video games for more than 2 decades to immediately spot + scrutinize how broken stealth and throwing are in a game which artificially ensures that almost all other damage skills can't deal with every enemy on their own.


> But you're not likely to convince any of us who have played this for hundred of hours about this "contradictory design"...
> Grenades have cooldown, they can miss, they use a dedicated slot...

I had to chuckle: where e.g. TC or a gun without W2C ammo hits a brick wall with robots you see no issue with a skill whose only drawbacks are the usual skill limitations of CD, hit-chance and using a utility slot?
Good one.

But do humor me: why, even for non-dominating builds posted in this forum or Steam, is there almost always throwing selected, even when the build itself isn't using throwing as the main damage source?
It's almost as if the skill does counter every enemy type + group size while only having to adhere to the same design principles as all the other skills, right?

And your "you won't convince us" remark is quite telling considering it's only your 2nd comment, with the first one barely even bothering with the points I made.


> Every thing in the game do have pros and cons, yes. But it doesn't mean one skill should automatically win X% of fights while being useless against Y% of other encounters, that would be boring pokemon design "use fire against ice monster".

You're trolling now as you can't refute my arguments, right?
It's almost as if throwing is by default a "boring pokemon design" as it offers all the damage types + CC to counter every enemy, right?

2

General / Re: Underrail has such a contradictory design

« on: February 02, 2022, 12:04:31 pm »

All your points boil down to the genre. This would be unacceptable in, say, aRPG. But Underrail is classic cRPG. These are intentional game design choices. Let's take Grenades for example. They are power equalizer. No matter how bad your build is, you can always throw that Mark IV and solve the problem. But it's not free: you spent precious utility slots that could be used for nets, stun rod, caltrops or flashbangs. They are not mandatory: you can have similar effect with mines or metathermic. Or you can go all in into them, max throwing to make them crit 75% of time. But even then, they have cooldown for balance reason (and you can only craft/carry so many of them) so they won't solve all your problems.

All this allow for great freedom on how you choose to play (and not to play). Which is typical quality of good cRPGs.

Your build is meant to fail for some encounters, and this is fine. The game offers you plenty of options to figure out how to deal with seemingly undefeatable opponents. Invisible crawlers ruin your day? Make yourself immune to melee and/or poison, flashbang them, flare / yell them out of stealth etc. Or avoid them until you overlevel the area. Options and tactics can matter more than your build. Which again is cRPG style.

I can get behind the "No skill/skill line is supposed to be able to tackle every content and enemy" design philosophy if that's actually implemented, but it isn't:

• Throwing counters everything as an off-spec, and is itself only limited by carrying those grenades + the turn CD throwing one has, ergo it doesn't matter if your main damage skill has issues/can't deal with certain enemy types, because throwing grenades at them solves that
• The same in regards to stealth: if your main damage skill can't deal with certain enemies you just run past them and never have to worry about how to actually counter them in combat

I understand the intention of your argument, but for that to be true throwing and stealth just can't be such easy be-all and end-all skills that counter everything the game throws at you on their own while having little to no drawbacks/shortcomings themselves - which is why I refuse to play with throwing and stealth.

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General / Underrail has such a contradictory design

« on: February 02, 2022, 09:09:40 am »

I'm level 16 on normal classic with a MT TM build, after repeatedly failing at Depot A with various builds, but now it's smooth sailing exploring the different layers and questing.
What gets me is the glaring contradictory design.

What do we have:

• You have to be able to handle organic and non-organic enemies
• You have to be able to handle single targets and large groups of enemies
• You have to be able to deal with invisible enemies and traps
• Crafting for the best items
• Skill-based system which affects hit-chance, damage and requirements to even be able to use an item/weapon

With that in mind:

• How come Throwing is the de facto best off-spec as it offers grenades for every single enemy type + group size? -> effectively just completely breaks rules 1 and 2 as a single off-spec skill just counters everything
• How come Stealth is the other de facto best off-specc as you can completely avoid enemy types or groups you can't/don't want to fight, or get the drop on enemies? -> completely mitigates 1, 2 and 3 to some degree
• How come any ranged build inherently gets the PER benefits, something every other build has to fight for with items and buffs to counter invisible enemies/traps?
• Crafting obviously is a hard requirement as you can craft the best items, including ammo, grenades, traps, consumables + you can craft important items like e.g. a tactical vest/with psi beetle very early and thus have a far better/easier early game
• Who the hell thought a random vendor inventory is fun in a game that pushes crafting to such a degree, and then not even offering a means to manually reset the inventory outside of using Cheat Engine?
• Why the hell does Bear Trap have no skill requirements while offering big damage, instant and DoT, and a 3 turn root to carpet-trap whole areas before engaging combat? -> just breaks 1-3
• Why the hell do AoE PSI abilities have a hit chance? PSI inherently has to invest a lot of points into INT and WILL, low CON, low-ish PER, and has to juggle PSI points during combat, and then you're "rewarded" with missing your AoE spells?
• Depot A: after being forced to redo it a few times I understood that it's not that difficult, it's just that the level design completely breaks with the previous one up to that point of large areas with plenty of space to move around. Now you have to fight in small spaces and corridors with little room to retreat, where opening doors will immediately put you into combat with 4-5 enemies

As with similar games I play it despite it being a turn-based game, and not because of it, as the story and presentation keeps me going.