Concrete ideas, offerings and ways to improve Underrail

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

Hello. First of all, just for the info, there can be mistakes and misprints, my english isn't perfect, it's not my native. Now let's go closer to the point. I'm enjoying Underrail right from official release. Was streaming it online for more than 80 pure hours, on oddity, discussing it with viewers and other streamers and players of it. I thought to create account on Underrail main site time ago, but due to my dislike of forums I put it aside. But finally there are a lots of offers and things, so I created it and want to share my thoughts.

Unfortunately I forgot many of things and flaws, about which I was talking about. However this is better than nothing, I will edit or add notes and offers, if I will remember it or find some new ideas.

Here are some for now:

1] Give possibility to use Telecinetic Proxy from places we don't see. In your mind you remember where you placed it, so you just can move it where you want to. Also to have possibility to use it through force field. Seems logical.

[Crafting improving]
2] As we see in v.1.0.1.8 patch we have filter in feats. I suggest to make filter in crafting window. It's bad just to find and click on needed item when you have lot things in the crafting window.

3] Or give us possibility to click the first letter to jump to it. Like when you open crafting window, other hotkeys are blocking and you can click "p" on keyboard to jump to blueprints starting from "p".

4] At the moment we can craft only 1 item per click. This is pretty boring and disrespectfully to mouse when it comes to extracting humours or processing plants. I suggest to create possibility to shift+click and control+click to create 5 and 10 (or all we have) items per click.
[End of Crafting improving]

5] Highlight objects which we can sell when trading in a different way. At the moment highlight is pretty shitty, sometimes it's actually pretty hard to see this "highlight". So I offer to make green outline in highlighting objects. We just need more conspicuous highlight. I was talking with other people streaming Underrail and they were saying pretty same thing. Someone wasn't even getting what they can sell.

6] Journal. Journal needs improvement for sure. One similiar to Arcanum would be great. Can leave the simplicity tho.

7] Map? Of course I'm sure a lot of people were talking about it. Would be nice to implement map which is empty in the beginning, but filling when you exploring it, like our character is really making map himself. It is flaw of Underrail, even with a good memory it's damn hard to memorize all these passages and crossings.

8] Fix problems when someone can attack you from the corner or throught force field, and you can't (even with range ones, while someone can attack you with melee weapons). It's not even only about force field. I know in real life there can be circumstances when you can attack from the corner, while opponent nearly can't shoot you. But it's not the same here.

9] Autosave on transitions. Damn. Need I say at the moment they suck? If you are going to a place where fight will occur and you have no chance to do anything, then "You and your friends are dead. The End." Autosave really must be made in previous location from which you are moving, not in one you entering. At the moment autosaves are pretty useless. You actually need to quicksave everytime before you change location.

10]  Minor stuff like oddities and experiense. 3-5xp for things which is easy to do and only 1xp for one of the long quests like investigation the murder of a brother. Seems not logical. So I guess there is need to rethink xp givings. Like with allusion on System Shock 2, cyber modules oddity, which were 5 xp and now 3 xp.

11] Make a cache files to remember locations and stuff. It gets annoying to wait everytime ~10 secs when changing locations. If you played 24 hours it's like you actually "played" on black screen for almost 1 hour.

[Bugs]
0] Eternal psi points bug. You can cast psi abilities even when your psi level is 0. No need for psi boosters, boyz. That was one of the reasons I finally wanted to create account to write about it. I hope you will fix it soon. Bug came with v.1.0.1.8 patch. Fixed.
12] http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2229.0 - Traps + skills like Electrokinetic Imprint bug. If you use skills like Electrokinetic Imprint on traps like bear trap or acib blob trap you will be trapped like if you stepped on them. Bug or feature? Bug, I guess.
[End of Bugs].

13] Your House (in Core City). Considering this topic - http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2238.0, and also this one - http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2175.0, in which Ninjaxenomorph made very nice suggestions and ideas. So I/we suggest to add some quests combined with your house and your progress of cleaning and buying defence and stuff, because simple buying all the stuff just for cosmetic appearence is not interesting at all (imo at least). But I guess Styg has far-reaching ideas for it. So quests with your house would be really great. Then there will be sence in buying stuff and defence. Quest like organized zoners are trying to rob you or some other groups. At the moment it's quite senceless and even stupid to just buy stuff for nothing, except Workbenches which are giving +crafting skills. Read Ninjaxenomorph's topic for more ideas.

14] Bullet count of your equipped gun when shift is pressed topic by reinhark seems like a good idea - http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2234.0

15] Friendly fire problems. If you use certain skills on enemies and it jump or splash allies they turn hostile. Seems not very right. Also consider this 'Allies becoming hostile because of incendiary grenades ' topic as well - http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2194.0


As I said already there are only few offers at the moment, I need to recollect my memory to write other ones. Probably will write more later. Maybe I will find new ideas as well. That's it for now.
Till next time. Feel free to join discussions online, I'm trying to stream it more on free time last weeks. Really want to help to improve Underrail, one of the few games I really enjoy a lot amidst of newer ones, of last decade. So thanks for your attention and till next time.

 
P.S. You have my respect for your huge work, Dan Radishich. Excellent programming of quite unique engine. Keep going on the same spirit.

[eLPuSHeR]

Bug #0 is fixed in latest 1.0.1.10

As for #11, I don't have much trouble loading locations. Are you on SSD? I think your Operating System already caches things, but I am no programmer, so maybe loading times can be reduced somehow.

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

Refreshed (modified first message).

eLPuSHeR, it's not about OS. OS doesn't cache game files.

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

epeli, 9] Yes, but it's not the same, still it's autosaving in the new location when you change it. This was the main idea. To save in previous location before changing it. Sorry, maybe I explained it poorly. I hope now you understand what I mean.

11] Hm... Cache would only make things slower? I don't think so. Let's remember Baldur's Gate cache system, for example.


Added 13] Your House (in Core City). Based on http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2238.0 and http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2175.0 thoughts and ideas.

[X41823T]

Greetings

10] Personally I don't think that there's a 'real need' for 'tweaking' the XP values with the oddity system, I've managed to reach level 25 on several playthroughs before I even hit the elevator button going to the DP, yes that means I've more or less explored all of southern underrail but that's to be expected really, southern underrail is a large 'world' in itself even without the DP, then again the DP serves as one big 'last stage' which did surprise me how big the DP actually was my first trip there.
Besides you can get over 3 levels, almost 4 picking up oddities in the DP alone.

If there's one thing I think that should be tweaked then that would be the things like how assault rifles are FAR FAR superior to everything else in the game, doesn't matter if the target is far away or right up your face, you can spray 'n pray with burst/full-auto and just murder everything and everybody in the general direction you're firing.
But that's another 'topic' I suppose as in one could argue if it's that easy, then perhaps someone like myself shouldn't play a rifle build then.
Just saying that if you want 210% chance of completing the game without too much of a 'hassle' when it comes to combat, then assault rifles is the way to do it.

Lastly I'll say yes there are certain things that could be improved upon, but frankly at this point I rather see new content like new items or new areas expanding on the southern underrail in which I'm certain one could manage to do with all the 'caved off' passages and what-not.
Although I would much prefer a sequel to underrail rather see resources that could've gone towards a sequel being used on essentially 'upgrading' the current game, hell make what improvements that is deemed necessary/highly requested in the sequel like developers back in the olden days did.

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

+ 14] Bullet count of your equipped gun when shift is pressed topic by reinhark seems like a good idea - http://underrail.com/forums/index.php?topic=2234.0

[Taggart]

But I digress. 10s transition time seems very slow. I'm seeing about half of that even on a box with a slow dual-core CPU and no SSD, while a faster PC with SSD has about 2-3s transitions with autosave on. You could try disabling autosave on transition if you don't mind losing autosaves, slow saving might be the culprit.

Just wanted to chime in to say that, yes, turning off Autosave (and thus relying only on your own manual saves) allows for much quicker transitions.

I have found that, while I started playing with Autosaves on (and keepig the previous one) - after I got used to the game it seemed better to just go with manual saves (because I don't really need to save at every zone transition).

As far as Autosaves being, basically, one step too far; I'm used to that from plenty of other games.

As one example, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. series works that same way - and so it's better there as well to rely on manual saves instead of the autosave.  I tend to think of these things as a game-engine limitation (the save being "triggered" by an event; after which the "one step too far" save is the only option). That said, it would be nice if the save occurred one step earlier. But it's just something I've learned to live with, over the course of my "gaming life".

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

Indeed, tested different locations, overall for me without autosaving it takes ~3-4 seconds less.
I'm good with manual saving and quicksaving as well, but I guess it's not a right solution anyway.

P.S. Nice that you made example of Stalker. Was in Prypyat, made some videos with just environment and ambient music. And want to make documantal film about it. Never played game tho. Need to someday.

[TrueNeutralEvGenius]

+ 15]

See main post.

[Delta07]

I know it was mentioned in it's own thread over a year ago, but one thing I think would be nice is to either give more Charrons for higher quality Super Steel Plates, or maybe have it based off of our effective Mechanics skill (the number on the right in the Skills screen) because let's face it, whenever we see 3k Charrons go down the drain for a mere Q71 Super Steel Plates, we're just gonna reload the save we all made before giving the Charrons away. Considering how vital is it to have Q160 (slightly less with the appropriate feats) for making top-tier armor for going into DC, I think we should be able to influence the outcome of Super Steel Plates quality. There's simply far too much RNG involved. I know it's not what Styg intended, but I doubt Styg intended for people to get fed up with the RNG and just save scum for better results and coupling the wait with speed-hacks to speed up the passage of time either.