Messages

1

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #12: Grenade Changes and Item Durability

« on: January 29, 2013, 04:12:13 am »

Hadn't got the time to check this out yet, but how big a role do the cafting skills play for repairing equipment? Are there any NPCs able to repair the equipment of an unskilled player? Otherwise this change could widen the gap in wealth between crafters and non-crafters even more.
To elaborate: While found loot is no doubt very valuable, crafting-oriented characters in my experience have still a much easier time amassing wealth. They get all the valuable loot other characters would find and in addition can increase the value of some of it many times over by crafting items from otherwise unneeded components (an early example would be tailoring and rathound skins). So not only do crafters earn more by scavenging, but depending on how item durability is balanced, they will need to spend significantly less on equipment maintenance. Additionally, what applied to found components will also apply to damaged loot: The increase in value from reparing could easily outscale the cost of repair for a skilled crafter, even further exacerbating the problem. This could lead to a situation where non-crafters are barely able to keep their equipment in working condition, while crafters still don't really know what to do with all their cash.

Also, how fast do items degradate with use? For example I'd really hate having to fall back multiple times while clearing out the GMS compound just to keep from getting slaughtered because of broken equipment. Maybe restricting the degradation to being critically hit?

As I said, didn't have time to check the new build out yet, just the first things to come to mind. Not really bothered about the introduction of durability, but it's an easy to mess up aspect of game design in my opinion.

2

Suggestions / Feats

« on: January 17, 2013, 12:08:23 am »

So, a generic feat thread, for minor quibbles not worth their own thread.

Nimble
Not really a problem with the feat itself, though I don't think the name is really fitting its purpose. To me, it seems to imply a more agile or mobile character. This is actually achieved by lowering encumbrance. Because of the mechanics, two otherwise identical characters wearing no armour do not differ in performance, even though one would assume the one with the nimble feat to be more, well, nimble. But as soon as those same characters both wear some heavy armor, the difference begins to show, even though I would expect a heavy burden to limit or even negate the advantage of being nimble. So basically, the situation is flipped from what I would expect, based on the name.
Now, as I said in the beginning, I think the mechanics of the feat are fine, it's just that the name seems weird considering its effects. Perhaps something along the lines of Sturdy Build, Strong Back or something like that would be more fitting seeing as what the feat actually does is help a character to deal better with increasingly burdensome armour.

Recklessness
I haven't actually chosen this feat on any of my characters, so I can't really tell from practical experience wether my hunch is correct or not, however I think choosing this feat would actually weaken instead of improve your character. Perhaps someone who has played with this feat could chime in. In any case,  here's my reasoning:
As was stated in another thread, there won't be any kind of companions or followers. As such, all fights will be only the player character against oftentimes multiple enemies. So, for every attack the player dishes out with a 3% bonus to land a crit, they will receive several attacks with a 2% bonus to land a crit in return. Of course, clever positioning and such can limit this problem, but not nearly enough (enemies using guns, no narrow passages/corners) - also, I wouldn't expect a reckless character to utilize such tactics . So in the end, after taking the feat, it seems far more likely for the player to receive than to dish out a critical hit - and that's bad.
What I would suggest is either increasing the bonus for the player to be significantly higher than the enemy bonus or dropping the bonus for enemies altogether (perhaps renaming it Ferocity, as the name Recklessness indeed does imply some kind of defensive disadvantage for the player). After all, this feat is the only one, aside from Tranquility/Psychosis, to include a tangible disadvantage to the player. Those other two feats are better balanced between advantage/disadvantage as well and basically represent the focus a player wants for their psi abilities: high damage output, sustainability during extended dungeon crawls or middle of the road.
(As an aside, an early Teron demo of Age of Decadence basically had a similar problem with the balance between offensive and defensive skills for the same reason, where you were minced meat if you didn't invest heavily in Dodge or Block, but could easily get by with a middling value for the offensive skill of choice)

3

Bugs / Re: Bugs report

« on: August 29, 2012, 07:35:13 pm »

ad 2) Yes, I can confirm that. The problem also occurs, if one uses a normal save. Happened to me the first time I went to enter the caves and saved before trying to get to the three lockers between the two security gates. Totally forgot to mention it because I avoided saving in such instances afterwards.

ad 4) If you have both tasks completed, you are supposed to check back with Hadrian Tanner (on the SGS commons level), though he doesn't have further missions for you. Basically, apart from the burrower caves behind the vault gate, you completed the demo.
Or do you mean the Notes also don't update anymore for other quests?

4

Suggestions / Re: Pickpocketing

« on: August 26, 2012, 09:16:02 pm »

The need to choose abilities from the F-menu in real-time can be circumvented be pulling often-used abilities like stealth into a quickslot. I actually am so used to the Fallout configuration, that I always pull skills like stealth, pickpocketing or lockpicking to their corresponding hotkeys from Fallout 1/2 in any game where it's possible. Just feels the most natural to me

But that makes this imbalance with pickpocketing even more annoying. Essentially even with improved movement speed in stealth, halved pickpocketing time (both from feats) and effective stealth/pickpocket values around 85/60 or so, the awareness of other characters still raises so quickly that every attempt at pickpocketing is getting noticed before I get the chance to take anything. Even though I can choose the abilities almost instantly due to hotkeys.

5

Bugs / Re: Game exploits & bugs

« on: August 26, 2012, 09:10:05 pm »

Hm, guess I didn't inspect the guns to closely, as my first completed playthrough was with a melee build. I'll keep an I open then with my gunner, I hope the armory always stocks at least one (as seems to be the case with steel armor).

6

Suggestions / Re: Stealth Rework

« on: August 26, 2012, 08:57:12 pm »

Concerning 3, I'm pretty sure I saw awareness levels sink gradually without blocking the direct line of sight to an enemy.

Also, yeah, I concur with neonesis second point, the hostages stayed in captivity in my melee/subterfuge/crafter playthrough, because I was too weak for a direct confrontation and there was no proper stealthy way to terminate the raider leader (though I guess had I focused on crossbows instead of melee, Snipe would have made short work of him ). Perhaps add a flag to determine wether dialogue initiation with an object is possible during combat?
Alternatively, add a second, more difficult hack check, with which to exempt yourself from the turrets feasible targets.

7

Suggestions / Pickpocketing

« on: August 26, 2012, 06:27:39 pm »

So, yesterday I finished my first playthrough with my third character (Melee/Dodge/Subterfuge/Mechanics,Biology,Tailor) and sofar found the game to be really enjoyable (honestly can't wait for the full version). The few minor gripes I had have mostly been mentioned in other threads (like here), with one exception:

Pickpocketing right now is completely useless.

Even though my character has taken all feats relating to stealth and pickpocketing and sports decent agility ( 6 ) and fairly high dexterity ( 8 ), I was unable to picka single person's pockets.
In most cases, even with the halved duration/higher movement speed from the feats, maxed skills for level 7 and a hefty stealth bonus from items, in most cases NPCs switch to alert when I'm not even halfway done with initiating the steal attempt. From my sporadic tries (granted, I didn't try everyone, especially not nameless NPCs) most characters had nothing to steal anyway. But after I got the vault key card to Gorsky and couldn't convince him to fork it over, I tried stealing it. I could catch a glimpse of it in his inventory, indicating stealing the card is indeed intended as an alternative to persuading him, but no matter what direction I sneak up on him from, I can't get it back because he gets alert the moment the pickpocket interface opens up. Especially annoying since at character creation I literally had to choose between persuasion and pickpocketing as my final skill.

So tl;dr: Pickpocketing badly needs some finetuning. As it is, it's not worth the skill points, especially not over stuff like persuasion.

My suggestion would probably be to solve it like in Fallout, where being in stealth mode was not required to pickpocket someone. If one considers realworld pickpockets, not all of them succeed by not being seen, but instead appearing inconspicious.
Or, if that would be too much effort this far into the engine design, provide alternatives in dialogue utilizing the skill for things like key cards, quest-related objects or similar your character knows the mark carries on their person. As in
"[Pickpocket] Distract Gorsky with some questions about the training consoles while trying to filch the vault key card."


Other than that, I now started with a fourth character, whom I explicitly built to be able to get into the burrower caves, so, comments on those are pending

8

Bugs / Re: Game exploits & bugs

« on: August 26, 2012, 05:42:05 pm »

1) There should be a feat that lets you add bonus damage proportional to your stealth skill to gun shots fired out of hiding.

Ah yes, the 'Snipe' feat. Prereqs are Gun or Crossbow 35, Perception 8 and the 'Aimed Shot' feat. The bonus damage is applied to attacks with sniper rifles (none in the demo as far as I know) and crossbows. You must be in stealth mode to use it and the cooldown is 3 rounds.

9

Suggestions / Re: Transparency Bubble

« on: August 26, 2012, 05:33:04 pm »

You can simply press Tab to highlight all doors and containers, even those obscured by walls. That way, you can also collect obscured loot piles.

I'd imagine stuff like this or how to use special crossbow bolts will be explained in the manual of the completed game.

10

Discussions / Re: How did you find out about this game?

« on: August 26, 2012, 06:12:27 am »

I'm not sure, but probably www.nma-fallout.com, rampantgames.com/blog, indierpgs.com or www.rpgcodex.net, when it was still Timelapse Vertigo.

11

General / Re: First look :)

« on: August 24, 2012, 11:34:09 am »

Hey nockeer,

ad 2) It does not matter, I finished the quest with a distance of 8 yard. It is important to hit 10 times, not shoot 10 times. So it probably worked at a shorter distance for you because the targets were easier to hit and thus you never missed.

ad 1) If you are wielding a crossbow in your active hand and the PB is in one of your belt slots, just use the corresponding key (Q,W,...).
The ammo for the crossbow does not need to be changed. I guess because you don't really load a magazine into the crossbow, but 'load' each bolt individually, loading and shooting a bolt are treated as one single action. So standard bolts are used per default unless you choose a specialty bolt from your belt (which I like as a design decision by the way).

12

General / Re: First look :)

« on: August 24, 2012, 06:50:01 am »

Hey nockeer,

regarding your second question, did you end the session at the console? I forgot it the first time around as well, even though Gorsky explicitly tells one to do so

How to change ammunition for the crossbow is something I'd also like to know. So far nothing I tried let me use the putrefying bolts.

EDIT: Got it. To use the putrefying bolts, put them in a utility belt slot (the red ones to the left in the inventory). From there, you can access them in battle.