Underrail character builder - new one provided by Stygiansoftware?

[destroyor]

The latest DLC comes with new skills and feats. The previously pinned thread for underrail.info no longer exists and it seems like its creator, epeli, is no longer active in this forum.

Question to Stygiansoftware: Is there any plan to release an official version of Underrail character builder, which btw greatly enhance the underrail game experience? If yes, great - any estimated timeline? If no, in my honest opinion I think it would be worthwhile for Stygiansoftware to develop and release one.

P.S: Something similar should be part of Underrail: Infusion as well.

[PaposikG6]

Epeli decided to leave the community but there have been some changes to underrail.info relatively recently (including contact method), so he presumably will still update the builder with the new dlc content somewhere in the future.

[destroyor]

I think it's very unlikely Epeli will update his builder.
Although I do find it strange Styg is not releasing his builder to ensure everything are under his control. I mean, majority of build shared online (here, steam, reddit, etc) are shared using Epeli's builder so one can argue a builder is pretty damn important to the game.

[Styg]

No, we will not be providing official character builder.

I am not a fan of it, it promotes this stupid idea that you have to use a super specific completely mapped out optimized build or the game cannot be beaten.

I get that veterans use it to create their powerful and/or exotic builds, and I don't mind it, but overall I think its prominence has really skewed the perception of the game.

[Turbodevil]

it promotes this stupid idea that you have to use a super specific completely mapped out optimized build or the game cannot be beaten.

also

Hey hey people, have you tried this new DOMINATING difficulty yet?

[Amannamedsquid]

Guess it's back to the ol' pen and paper then.

[haze1103]

No, we will not be providing official character builder.

I am not a fan of it, it promotes this stupid idea that you have to use a super specific completely mapped out optimized build or the game cannot be beaten.

I get that veterans use it to create their powerful and/or exotic builds, and I don't mind it, but overall I think its prominence has really skewed the perception of the game.

I agree with you there on the perception thing, and how the first three difficulty modes do not need a build. Maybe the builder could be unlocked only after reaching the ending slides once?

[Fins]

This is highly subjective, however. In this very forum, back in 2020, a topic was made titled "Normal is too hard, easy is too easy", where the OP did a solid argumentation for such being the case for him personally. There are other topics aplenty with different viewpoints as well - some state that Normal is easy, Hard is normal and Dominating is hard, for example. There are also some experienced - can name 'em "old-school" - players doing the genre for some 3 decades by now (starting with things like Fallout 1), for whom even Dominating is not hard, requiring no builder whatsoever for any difficulty mode.

I do not see how any single opinion of the sort can be ruled to be the "proper" one - they all reflect real, existing differences in playstyles, amount of time devoted to the game, experience and knowledge of the game and whole genre accumulated by any particular player, and even sheer luck (some types of characters are more prone to occasional high trouble than others).

P.S. Personally, i dislike any kind of "character builder" for Underrail - as well as any other game with a levelling system - for one entirely different reason than ones named above. Character builders inevitably allow players who did not yet accumulate knowledge about _why_ certain combinations work well while certain others do not - to use others' experience of the sort (without having it) and develop a character which is overall much more powerful, in a game, than anything they'd be able to shape up themselves, at the time. This only looks a good thing - but in the long run, playing such "builds", they are not doing all the mistakes and not playing through the consequences of such mistakes, themselves, and thus still remain unaware about many mechanics and subtleties which explain why certain things work well - and others fail miserably, and this, in turn, results in indefinite inability of such players to develop builds best suited to their personal playstyle. They often end up never playing anything close to "my own _perfect_" build, as a result - and, on top of that, they never end up getting all the satisfaction of seeing a build they themselves invented, outta all the previous mistakes and experiences, to "finally shine". In other words, to me, character builders is like body building via using steroids: faster, bigger, but ultimately inferiour. I know, though, that majority of players will not agree with this paragraph and will bring good arguments in defense of character builders - and it's OK, and often true; "modern man's time is limited", etc. Still, i also know that i am far not alone in this - quite many older players share this opinion, in this or other manner.

[apollounderrail]

also

Hey hey people, have you tried this new DOMINATING difficulty yet?

[/quote]

The game isn't intended for DOMINATING to be the goal. I think it was provided to give veteran players something to try their OP builds against. I love it, personally - but I admit that I frequently rely on inspiration from builds provided by other players in order to handle it.

[Vagabond]

Understandable, even if it's sad there won't be an official builder, but the reasoning, in my opinion, is subjective.

Personally to me, after 800+ hours, I never felt that it ruined the perception of the game. Although I might be in the minority, after all, in those 800+ hours I've yet to use a psi build, prefer Trap Expert over Quick Tinkerer, and I love Cut-Throat for it's niche use. In Char Builder I've made 12 builds out of which only 2 are psi users (one TC and one MT). None of these 12 builds are super optimized aside from crafting skills, hacking, lockpicking, persuasion and mercantile, basically exploration skills to open up as much content as possible. For these reasons, character builder is very useful to me, min/maxing exploration skills without wasting any points. As for Feats, the progression map is also useful, as it takes your mind off the core feats you need for your build at certain level ups and allows you to chose what I call auxiliary feats, such as the aforementioned Trap Expert or Sprint. Even though Underrail has minor roleplay elements (i.e. be a good guy/bad guy), it shines in it's huge combat build diversity, allowing to recreate different characters from a variety of media and/or based solely on items existing in the game, hence why I prefer to call them thematic builds.

Case in point, long ago I, using Character Builder, managed to finish my first and only DOM run on a female Sam Fisher build (Psi-less, Gun-Fu, Unique Pistols Only, Cut-Throat and Ambush). It was right after the Unique buff update, the build was sub optimal and even though I struggled with a lot of reloads, I did manage to beat the game. But I still used Character Builder throughout the whole playthrough, truth be told, I made several per level up builds with exact skill point distribution at specific levels. This is probably where the crux of the problem comes from. Because DOM is so unforgiving (hell, it's in the description), but also has juicy extra content, it forces players to make optimized builds (can't blame them, it says you aren't guaranteed to win), otherwise you need a super detailed build map for sub optimal builds, else you risk having a bad time. And not the "oops I made a mistake here, lets restart and fix that", more like "I ran into a wall headfirst and it fought back".

Even though I managed through excessive trial and error kill big T, by using Hawk+W2C+Ambush+Hoddurform+Flares and finding a specific spot, and getting lucky with the tentacles, I still had this nagging feeling I was way too weak. So while finding the solution during the fight was fun, it wasn't strong enough, and abusing the most powerful TM skill of F5+F9 is interesting to a certain point, hence after that I decided to remake it. It was before I figured out how Export/Import Character works.

Now I speedrun builds on Easy before Exporting them for DOM runs. Still to this day I use Char Builder and my female Sam Fisher build is way more polished from previous experience and knowledge. But lo and behold, it's not super optimized, and it shouldn't be, because in the end it's thematically fun, because in the end Character Builder is just a quality of life tool.

[Pipeworker]

It would be nice if there was an up to date builder, but I can see how it takes some of the magic out of the game.
Lately I've found that just scouting out prerequisite stats for character creation suffices.

The ease of proliferating builds online always skews a community. Take how Netdecking has drastically changed card games, and how the majority of them are played.

[Fins]

Good short way to put it, Pipeworker.

Regarding scouting prereq stats: say, now that we have no character builder for the latest DLC - perhaps a few extra quality of life improvements could be added while Styg still does a few more minor patches?

One i have in mind - is this: when creating a character and having "show all feats" checkbox enabled - feats which are possible to take based on currently set basic statistics would be a bit highlighted, even while their skill / level requirements are not met yet (as it's level 1 character at the time). This won't allow full power to plan stats for a build, as some feats require more than 10 in a stat - but vast majority of build-defining feats do not require more than 10, and so, such a simple tool could allow to see "in advance" the most of any given feat configuration any given starting stats set could be good for. And this one is hopefully very easy and quick to implement, too.

[Fins]

... For these reasons, character builder is very useful to me, min/maxing exploration skills without wasting any points. ... in the end Character Builder is just a quality of life tool.

Ah, and about this. This is very true for a "more recent" / "new generation" turn-based player, yet in the same time it's very wrong for the old-school way of playing. And it's not just a history thing - fact is, there are great reasons for _both_ ways (with and without using a builder).

- if one uses a builder, then:
-- he saves time whenever many sufficiently different combos of various things are to be "tried", especially if the user is not very agile about juggling numbers inside their mind (ariphmetics, short-term memory for multiple stats' values, etc), and thus a builder can be very helpful for them. But,
-- he risks, at all times, to miss some important detail or even get something wrong merely because the builder is incompletely and/or even incorrectly models how the game handles all the numbers and systems, which, depending on both builder and specific build, can be anything from insignificant to very bad.

- if one does not use a builder, then:
-- he often spends more time to try various things, needs to make specific permanent saves at specific points to later load for experiments of all sorts, etc. However, if the user has a habit of doing this, he also saves time needed to alt-tab and duplicate any particular partially-built character in a builder, and overall is not bothered much 'cause he's just used to do it this way (lots of old-shool players are), so this may range from not inconvinient at all to pretty inconvinient, depending on user;
-- there is no risk of something working "not exactly how it does in game", because it _is_ in-game.

I.e., builders are quality of life tools, yes - but only for some players, not all. And again, i think there ain't no "proper" way here: both kinds of players have proper reasons to prefer this or that way. In ideal world, both kinds of players should have all the quality of life tools avialable to them, and each uses whichever they prefer however much they prefer: above, it's "either-or" merely for simplicity, in practice many players use builders not as much as they could, but still use 'em somewhat. But again, there are reasons not to have builders available, per above great discussion.

Sigh. Guess Styg will just do whatever is his thing and it'll be it. No easy way out, eh. %)