Messages

301

Suggestions / Re: Concerning skills and crafting

« on: February 03, 2014, 04:09:27 pm »

You know, a lot of people actually defend that second alternative, I'm not even the first one to sugest it but while I did put it out as a solution, I know that Styg will not apply it, he already expressed in the past that he was not going to do it. It would have been the best solution in my opinion though however yeah, we can do with just lowering the standard value of requirement to craft items and it would keep crafting interesting because it would would keep players ahead of the curve rather than behind just because it can have extra stuff which is nice, but ultimatly not worth losing a ton of armor or a ton of damage.

On a unrelated but similar topic. I belive the patch notes had said that now players started with better quallity armor. I actually tried a new game today thinking the shields and all that stuff was already implemented since it showed version 1.10.1 rather than 1.10.0 but it was still the same, maybe just some bug corrections. However I notice that in both games I started I don't have better armor at all! I have the usual 18/3 armor to start with. I had hoped to get at very least a 20/4 armor which would have made a difference but... I dunno, anyone else noticed this? Anyone actually getting better armor to start with?

302

Suggestions / Re: Concerning skills and crafting

« on: February 03, 2014, 12:34:28 pm »

This is the same problem I keep talking about crafting and hasn't been addressed yet. Rather Styg doesn't belives this is a problem and wants to keep it as it is. What you can craft is always inferior to what you can buy. This is a major problem because you are investing into something with little use.

Your first sugestion would actually screw the balance pretty badly since you could have players getting certain skills incredibly high and becoming incredibly powerful in combat. This would be especially bad in the case of Psi character becoming horribly OP.

Your second sugestion isn't also a solution because what does it matter if you can craft an item of worse quallity? it will only mean that you are making something even worse than before and certainly worse than what is available to buy.

The only 2 solutions that could work are either the components start requiring quite a bit less skill for the quallity they are so that you can craft better stuff than you can buy or components stop having a required crafting skill and your crafting skill dictates how good the equipment you craft turns out to be.

303

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #28: Energy Shields

« on: February 03, 2014, 12:25:17 pm »

How far is the update that is going to bring all these updates Styg? I'm not asking for a specific date but some sort of guess estimate. I'd really like to check if the rebalance to economy would make the game more playable to me.

304

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 03, 2014, 11:47:27 am »

It is possible that the traps may have been made a lot better. I know Styg planned to make the required mats for them lower cause it had no sense they were double the amoung of the stardard grenade version so at least that I expected but unless some changes were made to the works of traps I still don't find them very reliable. The ones that are really required for enemies to step on them like bear traps will be a pain. This is my previous experience so by all means it could have changed but 4 out of 5 times they would go around the trap on the ground as if they could see it, even when I had tested their pathing and knew exactly which squares they'd move through.

As for whether or not grenades are OP... I don't think so. I think they are just about right to allow you to survive the majority of the fights. I am absolutly sure that if I didn't had mk5 or at very least mk4 in the junkyard to deal with the dogs and mutants on my non psi character. My chances would have been nil... I am not so sure the changes to the grenade crafting skill requirements were a good thing... Maybe they needed to be upped a little, but I'm fairly confident that at very least mk4 is needed for depot A... And that is not enough to deal with the mutants but if at least it kills the dogs (which mk4 are not guaranteed too... Then maybe it's good enough.

Now theoricly, a trapper could be a good build, I say theoricly because I haven't had a decent trapper experience so far and I think that to do a propper trapper I'll need a very high stealth value and a high intelligence value so I'm not so sure I'm willing to make a character that rellies purelly on spending a lot of time setting up each and every fight... takes a bit too much time. Still I can see how it could be good, but I still consider grenades and caltrops to be a much superior alternative.

305

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 03, 2014, 01:54:21 am »

Yeah but I look at it from this angle. If I have say, a mk5 grenade, or maybe even an mk4. I throw it, everything in the blast radius dies. Why would it make sense to have to go to all the trouble of burrowing mines to set chains of explosions when there is little benefict to it and in some cases can be a major pain cause your stealth might just not be enough? Grenades and caltrops really solve issues as far as traps and explosives are concerned, they are of much more convinient and easier use... If anything caltrops has the problem oof maybe you needing to pass through the place where you threw them in but well, nothing is perfect and after combat a little bit of damage when there is no more enemies is hardly a problem.

I don't belive the oddity system rewards exploration and this is my reasoning... The GMS burrower hive is currently worth only a little bit of XP. Now if the classic system doing that is not worth just for the XP, why would it be in the oddity when at the end, you stand to gain the same? I do understand that using oddity that is the only way to gain XP but even then that isn't nearly enough to merit going in.

I do not say a game should be made according to what the vast majority thinks about everything, otherwise I'd agree this would end up as a pretty generic RPG. But even then there are certain aspects, especially when it comes to mechanics, that are incredibly important and that are popular simply because they are good and because they work well.
If you really think the economy was broken then I am sorry, but you should by your own words despise it now. The game economy is even more broken, before it was hard to have any money before a good deal into the junkyard. Now, you are leaving the first quest with a lot more money and cheaper stuff to buy, durabillities are higher and things degrade slightly slower... it is true I can't bring everything with me and sell everything, but even if I don't I still have it a lot easier. By all accounts the economy is a lot more broken than it used to be but you know what? The economy had only one problem before and that was that the beggining have way too expensive ammo... the reason why economy wasn't broken before in the first place was because it was just a simple matter of maintaining the balance that existed previously. You leave the SGS for the junkyard thinking. I have a lot of money. You get there and you see that no, you really don't have a lot of money, you won't even have enough to buy a new armor or a new gun. Now junkyard should set you to leave to a new area where the cost of the items on the new area will allow you to just buy one item despite it looking like it's a lot... it's only a log in the current area but not the next. Then the game should proceed like that, what seams like a lot is only a lot in your current area, when you leave it it's not really that much. Simple balance archieved in the economy without a need for gymmics like carry weights and merchant limits.

The time I would lose (I don't because I won't play only to lose my time, that would make me hate the game and never touch it again) may be of my own decision, but it comes from the only way i'll derive fun from the game. If I can't do it that way, if I have to leave stuff behind then I won't derive fun from the game, just as wasting days selling stuff. As I belive we can all agree that the reason to play a game is to have fun, I'd just not have a reason to play a game if I played it the way you are sugesting me to.

306

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #28: Energy Shields

« on: February 03, 2014, 12:44:18 am »

This seams a good update to come. Everything I see there seams good though while I love Psi I have to wonder if force user won't become OP by giving +100% damage to the telekinetic punch, it was already a high damamge skill with a stun associated with... Then again it has a cooldown so it might not be as OP as I think... I guess it will merit some testing... Also hope the new merchant system takes a large buff, at least enough to get me playing.

307

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 03, 2014, 12:28:45 am »

Don't worry, I also like to argue.

Crafting traps has no flaw, other than traps not being worth it. A proper grenade or caltrops well thrown are much more effective than a single bear trap or a mine. Not only are they more effective, they also don't have a hard setup requirement which needs you to have and incredibly high stealth value to be able to be next to enemies and lay down traps without them seeying you... Granted i'll grant you a point that the problem lays on the traps and not the crafting system itself, the crating system is flawed when it comes to weapons/armor mostly for reasons I explained before.

I also enjoy going everywhere, exploring everything, but if I am not rewarded for doing that then why am I bothering myself to do so? Why should I go explore that cave that has nothing of interest?... This in fact goes back to one of my original complaints about the GMS burrower hive. It was the hardest content possible (at least till the previous patch, I dunno if something more difficult appeared) and yet what was the reward for going there? Absolutly nothing, maybe a few part and a dead body at the end with nothing of value... Really? That encourages reward? Where is the factor of risk reward too? I did it once in my playthroughs... Never again did I bother to do it. Pretty simple, it was a waste of time that place... Exploring another cave or facillity just for the fun of exploring. Quite frankly, it's more scenary like I've seen previously and more enemies the like I've killed many times before, if I'm doing it, something must provide the fun for me to do it. That is get better stuff or at least get worse stuff that I'll be able to sell in order to buy better stuff... Also don't throw the word power gamer like if it was a bad thing. Some people like to play just to suffer through a game, heck you've got people who play those platformers that are so insanely hard they are only meant to drive you crazy. Similarly there are people who like to play games in a way that they get much more powerful and are able to do more. That is called character developement and it's very important in the enjoyment of the game.

And while you can say that this makes the game better I'm sure that if you were to ask to most people who liked old school RPGs they wouldn't like this. We are but a minory here in the foruns. A game doesn't has to be fun for everyone, but it shouldn't include mechanics that the majority doesn't likes. If you ask all RPGers if they like mechanics that will waste their time, what do you think the answer is?.. Yes sure you can say that you don't need the loot or whatever but that detracts from the experience since it removes the reward for doing something and as such makes not want to waste the time... Still it is quite possible to just make it so that you adjust whether or not you want these system by a simple checkbox in the start game asking whether or not you want weight limits or merchants. In fact it would be an educative experience if this had a way to just send back information of how did players chose to make their playthrough. It would then be similarly fun to see a detailed statistics of whether there was more plays with those mechanics or without as well as how many new games and in which system  each player played.

I didn't say crafting was useless, I said mostly useless. There are exceptions though they are so very few. Grenades are the true exception to the rule... There was a minimal exception before that was. You can make more money out of crafting cause you can use the components to just make stuff that you won't need and sell... point that is now moot. Thus I say, crafting is now even more useless... also I'm not going to talk about shadowrun, I haven't played but the only 2 problems I've heard about the game is that it's linear rather than open world as it should have been as well as your class and race matering not, all that matters is picking guns as the main combat skill cause it is completly overpowered when compared to everything else... Again I'm in no position to judge as I don't own the game.

In the real world you deal with supply and demand, but why would that need to sweep into a game? Why would a game have you bother to deal with it if that serves no practical purpose other than A) lose money for no good reason. B) lose so much time that completly kills the want to play the game in order to sell items?

Then you go on exagerating. Obviously I'm not a weapon smuggler though I agree my life would probably be a lot more fun and I'd probably have much more money too... But if I want to bother with such things as what people buy and sell, the fluctuations of market in supply and demand quite frankly the real world has a lot of that on many types of buisness (many of them legal too)... the point is that the game is not a live sim, it can perfectly deal without mechanics that will just make the game worse.

And no, I don't assume you rush through the game, that was merely a statement to drive the point across. You can be just running around, looking at everything and getting nothing in return. It's your time after all. There was all those guys mining that curiosity cube for god knows how long. It wasn't anything more than an absolute waste of time but hey, it was their time, if that keeps them entertained.

308

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 02, 2014, 10:16:13 pm »

The reason why making traps is not worth it is because most traps aren't worth it. A grenade you use when you want, you just toss it when needed and boom, expected result archieved. Traps are many times avoided by enemies, they just path away from them many times as if they knew they'd be there, rarely do they step on it, they also require setup time which can be quite problematic and I dunno whether or not the resource problem was already dealth but they used to take double as much as the grenades in resources which made no sense but I think that was supposed to change, not sure if it did... Also a grenade is tossed in the middle of a crowd and you hit multiple targets. A mine you put in the way and only the first guy which moves in is hit. Huge waste!.. the only way to make a mine effective is in the cases where you can always setup a field and make the enemy come into it. But that requires first save scumming, waiting to see the enemy's predictable path and movement allowance, then plant a mine somewhere where no enemy steps on it. Then you let the enemies move aroud it and doss a grenade to detonate the mine catching them in a double explosion... Gymmicky as hell and only worth a cent if the field allows that amount of setup and if you don't have a high level grenade.

Ok if you want me to put it like this. The previous version was awesome, needing more stuff and tweeks but it was pretty awesome. The new one is just plain horrible due to the merchant changes. Before picking up loot and exploring was encouraged because you gained XP and loot. Now it's not, quite frankly you could say that this system encourages you to do no more than the main quest line because really, who needs the extra junk? Why even bother to look for more cool stuff I could gain when it will just be worthless weight?.. The disussion is of course over the current version of underrail, what is wrong and right with it and how can it be made better. Obviously i'll push for anything that will make it better.

Last you go on exagerating things to prove a point which doesn't really helps. I still am right when I say that somethings must make a gammy sense because a real world sense hurt the game... Do you want the game to be a real life simulator? I belive that for that, I can just live my own life and quite frankly, I'd get the same experiences. A game is supposed to be fun, not have overly annoying and frustating mechanics that only waste everyone's time or just make the game overall, less enjoyable.

I don't have a problem with you liking the new economy. If you like being able to just go at it while not really having to search everything, exploring, really give much of a crap about anything and just get to the end in a blitz, that's your perrogative. Personally I prefer a game that will reward me for going out of the way to find more loot and doing more quest and explore every little bit of the map.

309

General / Re: Melee character vs Burrowers

« on: February 02, 2014, 07:41:11 pm »

I go for a much simpler approuch which results a lot better for me.

3str, 5dex, 5agi, 5con, 5int, 7per, 10wil.

I don't need access to most feats, I only need access to aimed shot, maybe marksman since shroomhead is useless now and snooping which makes sure I get 10 perception for finding all the screts rooms which means more loot.

I always up will and I always fully invest into my psi skills... The best headband I had gave me +8 to all skills and no crit damage bonus but even if I had +24% crit damage I wouldn't reach 200 damage on that skill... What you skill set helps with is having more crit chance which is alright, but I don't like the trade off because the crits aren't guaranteed anyway, just a little bit more likelly to happen. On the other hand I prefer to have more HP to be able to take a slap or two... This are just different playstyles though as both seam to be reliable... I just find mine more reliable in the sense that I don't depend on getting the crits because I have HP to take a hit or two if needed be.

310

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 02, 2014, 07:32:58 pm »

Grenades are one extreme. They are good things that you can hardly ever have enough enough if they are high level grenades so yeah it is useful for that purpose, it's one of the few real good uses. Crafting is still mostly useless in my experience although I'll admit most of it comes from the previous patch when the economy was in my opinion much better.

My experience tell me that all the necessary materials to craft anything that requires 2 or more components just won't all drop. When most of them drop at a much higher level than you are and what the merchants have usually is way higher level than what you can craft and by usually I mean at very least 3 or more levels away even on a high intelligence character. Again my experience comes from the previous patch.

And no, it doesn't varies on the quallity of the components I find. By the time I can craft something as good (tecnicly better because of possible upgrades such as scopes and whatnot but same damage levels) as what is on sale in that place, I've finished that place... Quite literally, by the time I had enough skill to make a gun as good as the ones on sale in the junkyard, I had already finished all the quests there. The problem wasn't finding the high quallity materials, the problem was having the skills to use them. So unless there was a serious tweek to the quallity required to make a certain item... Then it doesn't depends on what you can find or even your int score. this has always been my major problem with crafting. It should actually keep you ahead of the curve, not bellow just cause of minor upgrades.

And yes, this is only true accordingly to my specific scenario because I've given crafting a fair go and I've discovered the following. Doing health hyppos and psi boosters can be useful, but not really necessary. Making grenades is extremelly useful. Making traps is either bad or just not worth it. Everything else is just plain horrible. This played out during several tries, it wasn't a case of, I tried once, gave it up.

And yes it's a waste cause those guns would have been worth a lot of money, the merchant should just buy it. this is a game, some things must make a gammy sense, not a real world sense in order to make the game good.

Continuing from the previous point. You have many reapir kits why make more? Yes, less waste even more and just throw the guns away because no one will buy it and I don't want to be weighted down or have to go back and forth to sell them.

Here's my point (and take into consideration that it comes from someone who doesn't likes the oddity system and doesn't uses it). If I kill the bots I gain XP. If I search the whole area I will loot quite a bit of stuff. The only reason to fix the elevator, is so that you can just directly take it to the top floor from the 3 sub level and i find that not to be a good enough reason to invest skill points into it.

311

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #25: Game Economy Changes

« on: February 02, 2014, 06:57:34 pm »

It doesn't discourages me from picking up the loot, it discourages me from playing at all. Like me, there are many others. Looting is fun, but it stops being fun when it just isn't worth it to pick up everything and sell it.

I didn't played much fallout 1. I played once to get to know the game story but what I played a lot was fallout 2. The first one had a major flaw to it. It was incredibly small, getting to the end was so quick that it left a sour taste. The game was great, but the playtime just left me... Meh, is that it?.. Course this may be derived from having played fallout 2 a lot before I even played the first... Still fallout 2 didn't limited what merchants would buy, just how much money they had and even that was a bad mechanic. I would still be able to sell most of my stuf going through all merchants in a city and if there wasn't a way, a few more stimpacks were always handy for no weight and heals. Especially since I could use an infinite amount of them per turn... I don't know any RPGs that severely limit what you sell like this game and even if there are some (which I have no doubt there are). That doesn't makes it a good mechanic... I rmember in both fallout 1 and 2 I looted everything and I sold everything. Nothing was ever left behind under no circunstance.

Any and all RPGs will just have ways through power gamming to get stronger than the average player will and since dificulty is scaled for the average player you can always get much stronger than your enemies. You just don't have am effective way to prevent this.

And yes, I'm sure rathounds and such cannot do anything. But we have to put things in perpective. Your level and equipment is not for fighting the type of mobs you find early on. I'm quite sure that in the junkyard you are damaged and can die or wherever the appropriate level content is for you at the moment. That is what I meant.

These features don't add difficulty, they add the boredom of selling everything. Even if you don't pick everything up, you are now getting more money than before, if anything it's even less difficult than before, it's just more boring to sell stuff... Also in a supposed scavenging game, you don't pick what you scavange, that doesn't even makes sense. in such a game, anything and everything is important to help you survive. There shouldn't even be such a question as to whether you should take something but whether it's worth the risk to get something. That's how you play scanvenging well.
Also let's not forget here. This is a game. There are things that don't need to make sense in a real world perpective, they need to make gammy sense.

I cannot tell about the oddity, I couldn't care less to be honest as I don't like the oddity system myself. I would never play on that system. I can rspect that the option is there for those who would prefer it! But I wouldn't ever use it myself and here lies the difference. The vendor system is not an option, it's forced on us whether we like it or not.

Lastly, no I've never heard about it but I guess I can go and give it a look.

Edit: I just took a look at it and it appears to be baldur's gate like which means, no turn based combat. Not my cup of tea.

312

General / Re: Melee character vs Burrowers

« on: February 02, 2014, 03:53:59 pm »

You know you don't need to lower both Str and Con in order to have 13 will at level 13 right? The only reason I only lower my str is to get perception at 7, with snooping that's 10 to spot hidden stuff so it's always going to be a success. I only up my will cause it will do more damage. I still never managed a crit with 200 damage on overload, not even close. 100 something at best.

313

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #25: Game Economy Changes

« on: February 02, 2014, 03:49:11 pm »

And yet I think we are all forgeting the one thing Joejoefine is pointing out which is actually the same I've kept saying time and time again.

All the things that are done to the game economy doesn't changes any of the difficulty or creates survival elements. It creates a a huge amount of time waste to be able to sell everything. More to the point it also renders stuff like crafting for selling to make extra money useless. Even catching hoppers or maybe even fishing (something I hadn't really thought off before) to gain some extra coins if you really needed, useless.

Like I said. In my experience which was just, clear 2 areas of rathounts and loot whatever is to loot. I can't sell everything. I only started getting some loot and already I can't sell everything. What of when I get to GMS? What when I go to depot A? It will be a nightmare just to sell everything not to mention check every single merchant between home and junkyard... If survival wants to be made, limit the loot, not the sales. That is what survival games do, they limit what you can get, not what you can sell.

Oh and as for games being badly designed because you after a while can kick everyone's ass... Not a single game I've played has made this impossible. Underrail is actually harder than most, but not because you don't get the money or the equipment or whatever. Several enemies with lots of HP and weapons that deal a good amount of damage. You can make whatever you want, this will still be true and you can always go down in a fight no matter how well equiped you are. Yet most of the times you just kick ass with minimal planning. Stealth over there, engange the priority target and either immediatly kill or stun it, proceed with AoEs to clear weaker enemies. Should be good enough... Rare is the ocasion you have to plan further than this. The game is making you have less money, everyone says that even on this new system you should actually gain more than before, it just forces you to leave loot behind or waste too much time trying to sell it. Thisonly acomplishes wasting time and frustating all the players who love to collect all the loot, it doesn't makes the game any harder in any way, shape or form.

314

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #27: Version 0.1.10.0 released

« on: February 02, 2014, 03:27:21 pm »

Crafting is cheaper? Yes, especially useful for grenades really. Crafting metal armor before the gms compound? I dunno, I've never seen it being possible because the materials are never readly available and usually when they are, they are WAY over your crafting skill. If you are EXTREMELY lucky then yes, it might be nice to have a very underpowered metal armor to do the GMS cause it's still a metal armor compared to what you'd have otherwise. But again you will still spend quite a lot and need to be lucky beyond reasoning.

Second. It isn't quite like that. By the time you leave the home base you will be able to craft better stuff than what is there, but not better stuff than is on the junkyard. When you leave the junkyard you can craft better stuff than there is on the junkyard but not better than wherever you're going next.

Third. Variety is not a factor when we are thinking that to craft something that has that special bonus like a scope on a crossbow, you are losing 1/3 of damage in comparison to what is available on the new town. This not to say that vendors while not always having what you are looking for in exact match, sometimes they do. It's better to do without but not lose damage or total armor and when it becomes available, trade for the good version.

Forth, yes it's a waste because of the merchants! Yes you recicle items to turn them into repair kits, soon you'll be carrying god knows how many of them without a use for so much repair kit and the amount you might be able to sell to a merchant is minimal... This not to mention that it would be worth more money to simply sell the heavy item.
The money you'd spend on kits would be minimal, you need at best to have 2 or 3 kits of each type just in case you find an item better than what you're using. If you need a kit to repair something to sell, you can do that when you get to the store and you only do that if it's worth doing that.
It is a waste to use resources to make items so that you then recicle those items for scraps to make kits. The waste is just beyond words. Before one of the big things was. crafting can be used to make money, all those leather pieces and stuff. just make armors and sell them. Now you've got the crafting for sale system completly ruined, you cannot refute this and in this, crafting lost more value.
If no one is willing to buy a piece of leather armor then it's not that the piece of armor is worth 0. It's a game design flaw. On the other hand if you have 100 repair kits, do tell me what the heck do you need so many for. And don't forget, the numbers just keep on growing because you'll always get more than you will spend and sell.

Fifth, I actually never knew that the GMS elevator could be repaired, but then again what is the point? I can get down there anyway. I also have a feeling that you can get mostly everywhere without crafting skills. Maybe at game completation there will be a few optional areas that need a certain amount of skill in this or that to get there, but you know what? It will not make much of a difference, just some area with a bit of loot you were forced to skip for not having the skills. I'm pretty sure that similarly there will be areas that you need Psi to go, or certain skills or atributes. That is to say no character will ever be able to get in all areas!

315

General / Re: Melee character vs Burrowers

« on: February 02, 2014, 12:34:30 am »

My advice, use str3 instead of cons 3. Health pool is always useful... As for the traps... I really don't think them to be that useful but that's my opinion. You'll be better by setting up a wall of caltrops which will hurt them and reduce the movement, then try stunlocking moves.

Only problem with caltrops is that they take a huge time to disapear so you either hurt yourself to walk over them afterwards or you have to give it a good time out after you end up all combats in the immediate vicinity of the entry point.