Messages

46

Suggestions / returning to the Alpha after several months away

« on: August 14, 2013, 12:09:09 pm »

Two things, Styg:
Your barter system is the worst I've seen since the invention of the Graphical User Interface.     I liked Fallout's system fine, and I realized what makes yours so painful: 

you need a number counter for breaking up big stacks, especially credits.  I mean I should be able to type in '256' instead of grabbing a slider. 

An auto-complete in the barter menu to round out items on your side or the merchant's side with the correct amount of credits would be a fantastic feature as well.

After playing the alpha many many times, I hope you'll provide an option (maybe only for alpha backers?) to skip the introductory missions.  Maybe the player could start with those missions resolved and an arbitrary number of character points to distribute, and better starting equipment and some credits?

47

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #14: Taking from the Rich

« on: March 01, 2013, 05:34:42 pm »

I like challenging combat, so I'm glad it's going to be tough.  I said before I don't like the degrading armor/weapons thing, but since it's going to be in, I'm hoping that you don't go the Elder Scrolls route with reduced functionality (weapon damage for instance) for partially degraded equipment.

If you use a sword or whatever until it's broken or at 50%, and then it does less damage, that's fine.  But in Oblivion, if your weapon was at 90%, it would only do 90% of its potential damage, which is just bloody awful.

I have to say again, if you want to fix the economy one sensible way is to cut down on merchants buying ingredients and other crafting stuff.  A metal spring might be useful to a mechanic.  Doesn't mean a merchant is going to buy it.  To him, it's just junk.

Increased deterioration rate of melee weapons by 50% to somewhat balance out them not requiring ammo

This sounds terrible.  IMO, melee weapons are already balanced against ranged in that your enemy is standing right on top of you when you use them.  When you have to chase down five different guys with machine guns with your sledgehammer, you're not going to be patting yourself on the back for conserving ammo.

48

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

« on: February 02, 2013, 04:43:03 pm »

So, I started Making armour suits out of the Mutant Dog leather, Rathound and the such ...

That reminds me of something else!  Crafting aside, the value of rathound hides is outrageous.  With no talent at all I was scoring big time, every time, just from killing dogs.  In the new version with respawning enemies (which sounds like a good idea!), that also means respawning credits.  Hard to balance this stuff when components are worth so damn much money.

49

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

« on: February 01, 2013, 01:23:13 pm »

You make a good point.  I personally don't think crafting for profit is a good mechanic.  I like crafted items to (a) be better than anything available to buy or loot (weapons and armor), and/or (b) free to make instead of buy (PSI boosters, healing).  If you take those two advantages, then throw in selling them for a lot of money too, it's overpowered.

I actually like inventory management, but you've got to draw a line someplace.  This game already has extensive crafting, alchemy, electronics, dozens of different ingredients, and salvaged junk.  Add in disposable lockpicks, batteries, incrementally different (same model, tiny difference in stats) armors and weapons, and now, finally, degrading armors and weapons, and what you have is a warehouse management simulator, not an RPG.

50

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

« on: January 30, 2013, 05:39:17 pm »

I'm going to toss my $0.02 in here (not just to be contradictory), but IMO there are better ways to balance the economy than having degradable stuff.  I agree that the players gets WAY too much money for armor, crafting ingredients, and just about everything else, but I don't get any pleasure out of micromanaging frayed armor and decaying weapons.  It's a chore, just like having four different inventory slots dedicated to four different stacks of disposable lockpicks.

I think if you slashed selling value to 20% of what it is, across the board, you would be a lot closer to a viable economy.  Why not distinguish between "new" and "used" items, where items salvaged from enemies are worth 20% of what they are now, with minor stat penalties, while items purchased new from a merchant still cost the same.  Or have the merchant items have the max stat for the class, while enemy items are comparatively valuable to the player (because you didn't have to buy them), but worth much less to sell.

A more sophisticated approach would be to have purchase prices scale downward if the merchant (or all merchants) already has several like items in his inventory.  So if the dude has five armors of whatever kind already, he's not going to pay top dollar for your leather.

I'm concerned that just about every update you're piling on more inventory management.  I know that this is a part of great RPGs, and I like it fine, but it seems like I'm going to spend more time sorting through piles of stuff than I am capping guys.

But hey, the grenade improvements make good sense!

51

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #9: Importing Characters and More Crafting

« on: January 03, 2013, 04:16:44 pm »

The main reason for this change is to turn both lockpicks and haxxors into resources. There might be something like a "skeleton key" further down the road.

I think it's clear why you want to change lock picks, but not to put too fine a point on it:  you're wrong.

When you have a disposable resource like a healing potion, you know in advance how much healing you'll want so you can make a decision about which level of potion to use.  When you pick a lock you don't know how difficult it will be.  Also, there's just no reason to add one more fiddly item to keep track of, in addition to all the crafting components.  The player's investment in the pick locks skill, in addition to the different qualities of lock picks, is enough variables already for one activity.

Laien spells it out even more plainly.  I hope you'll rethink this.

52

Development Log / Re: Dev Log #9: Importing Characters and More Crafting

« on: December 19, 2012, 05:43:58 pm »

Disposable lockpicks, especially with the current system of different levels of effectiveness, is a pointless and tedious change.  I don't want to manage a stack of differently abled lockpicks in my inventory and have to choose one whenever I want to pick a lock.  Don't add inventory management routines that only serve as a chore.  What real world analogy is there to a mechanical lockpick disappearing every time you use it?  Having haxxors use batteries is fine.

53

General / How much gameplay is left after you hit the burrowers?

« on: October 05, 2012, 05:58:40 pm »

The message body was left empty.

54

General / Re: how do you re gen PSI

« on: September 25, 2012, 05:14:52 pm »

I don't think you should offer free PSI regeneration at all.  It's very cheap to use as is, with psy boosters acting as all purpose "ammo".  Player can also generate plenty of psy boosters from Mind Shrooms with very low investment.

55

Suggestions / Re: Character system

« on: September 14, 2012, 03:27:10 pm »

I don't mind the skill cap.

56

Suggestions / Longtime pet peeve of mine: too many steps to do a named save

« on: September 14, 2012, 03:25:08 pm »

There are only two or three RPGs in the history of computers that get this right, Under Rail could be next!

When I click an existing save slot and choose 'Save' that means that yes, I do want to overwrite it.  That's why I chose it.  Don't make me confirm that I want to overwrite AND click Save again.  Process should go like this:

1. choose slot
2. option to change name of save file
3. click Overwrite button to confirm

57

Suggestions / hope you're going to do some balancing with the economy...

« on: September 14, 2012, 03:22:13 pm »

The markup on craftable items is grotesque.  The wildest example I've come across:  I kill a rathound and get a hide worth 300 credits.  With a bit of common cloth and a minimal investment in tailoring, I get a suit of armor worth 2000 credits.  As you know, both rathounds and cloth are common as dirt.

What I'd like to see is crafting typically producing superior, tweaked (NV goggles with no downside) or un-buyable items.  Right now something like tailoring is too easy of a cash cow.  Moo.

58

General / Re: First impressions, suggestions.

« on: September 06, 2012, 12:18:27 pm »

- the in-game log should not prevent you from scrolling the map. Right now, if you move your mouse to the egde of the screen where the log is, the map will not scroll. I think the best solution is to block scrolling while log is open, and unblock it when the log is closed.

Uh, no way, thanks.  I'm also irritated by the map not scrolling on the bottom left, but I play with the log open all the time.  The first part of your point works fine.

59

General / Re: just generally stuck: where are the ventilation shafts?

« on: September 06, 2012, 12:12:37 pm »

Thanks much!  I thought Gorsky's quest was to take 10 shots, not to get 10 hits...

60

General / Re: just generally stuck: where are the ventilation shafts?

« on: September 05, 2012, 10:00:20 pm »

Tried to do the shooting gallery, but Gorsky doesn't acknowledge that I've done it (glitch).  I started on the deliver-the-package quest, killed the bandits, then couldn't find the GMS warehouse..?

Thanks for the tips!