Look. I like the game, in fact its hard to say I like it, more so its captivating. Possibly in a bad way, similar to those stupid clicker games that addict some people.
I have around 50+ hours on this game so far. Here is the thing. AT LEAST 10 of those hours has just been me traveling between my loot stashes and checking merchants trying to deal with the stupid amount of loot I have stashed in random barrels and such.
[...]
People also don't want to hate/feel like they are wasting time with a game. Maybe masochistic whackjobs do, but not most people.
1. This coming from someone who likened Underrail to a "clicker game" and yet played for 50+ hours and claims to have spent 20% of that time just running between merchants. I think you're more of a "masochistic whackjob" than you're giving yourself credit for.
The fact we have to have loot stashes at every merchant hub, dropped either on the ground or in a bin, is just silly. Firstly its immersion breaking which is flavor, true. HOWEVER it can't NOT be noticed when you drop literal cash on the ground in front of a group of zoners who just say "mmm you look tasty, im so hungry", with literal cash on the ground AT THEIR FEET.
2. Game mechanics are always artificial, and they always require suspension of disbelief. Get over it. Also, how is a "shopping list" that gets automagically updated irrespective of the player's location in the game world less immersion-breaking? Is the player character remotely reading the minds of all the merchants at regular 90-minute intervals?
Also you clearly don't bother with the house, the house is a gold sink, which is fine, but man is it stupid how it falls into the trap of being practically useless outside one gimmick. Getting a couple lockers, the crafting benches, and lights turned on almost drained me. I had 10k coins before house, I had 2k at the end. I should clarify that what I listed was ALL I bought, lockers, benches, lights, and renovated all floors, no furniture or any decor, thank god I looked at the wiki learning the defense system is apparently just cosmetic (FUCKING WHY?) if I bought that crap I would not have been able to even afford it. So the game does kind of force the "richest guy in underrail" onto players.
3. The crafting benches aren't a gimmick, they're incredibly useful, because crafting is tremendously good for basically all builds. If you spent half as much time learning about the game as you do writing inane rants, you'd understand that. Also, for utility, you just need the basement and the workbenches. You don't need lockers, or the top floor, or literally anything else. When you drop something on the ground, guess what happens? You create a permanent container for free. Wrap your head around this: it's like a locker that you don't have to pay for. Crazy, I know.
You and I do the exact same thing; leaving multiple stashes of mixed things at merchants. I just don't think it bothers you, which is fine, but im telling you if you add up the time you have been spending setting up those stashes and traveling to all those merchants you will notice it adds up. Again, whether that bothers you or not is up to you, but most people don't like being "gated" mainly time gated or grind gated such as MMO progression, some people love it, at least in the case of MMO's eastern MMO's specifically and those people are a VAST minority who IMO have simply been conditioned to enjoy a bad feature and defend it since they are accustomed to it.
4. Genuinely laughing at "setting up those stashes." Thanks for that. Yes, what an arduous and time-consuming chore it is to spend 5 seconds to Alt+Left Click a few items into a container window. Also, you seem to be laboring under the misapprehension that most players slavishly visit every merchant at every reset. This is not the case. It's enough to simply drop by whenever you happen to be in the area; you don't need to deliberately go out of your way to perform a full circuit of every merchant in the game at every reset. It's just not necessary. The economy isn't that punishing outside of DOMINATING, and there's no way you're playing on that difficulty. You're deliberately making the game tedious for yourself and then complaining about the level of tedium.
Also, pro tip: if you actually care about your "suggestions" getting traction, don't couch them in snide language and don't constantly deride the developers and the player base. That tends to put people off. Moreover, show some humility. Somebody who knows as little about the game as you clearly do is in no position to be offering strong criticism. You may be under the delusion that you're dispensing pearls of game design wisdom, but you're not. Honestly, the mix of arrogance and ignorance you're exhibiting is almost impressive.
5. Finally, all of this bitching of yours is just flogging a dead horse. Cheat Engine already exists. There's already speed hack and an infinite carry weight hack and many other things besides. Lots of people use them and you, too, can use them. I believe in you.
1. I didn't realize I was spending so much time doing merchant runs until I noticed how many hours I had in the game. Thinking back on previous RPG experiences no other RPG even small niche indie ones have had such an obnoxious gameplay loop in recent memory.
2. Automagically...cute, however you do realize one of the literal first things you are introduced to is the fact the game has in universe communication tools yes? Email, tv broadcasting later on, and even mentions of straight up phones and phone calls. So uh, ya, its not magical, its autotechnological AKA technology.
3. Yes, it is, it is crazy that you can buy containers for your items when, like you said; you can just drop stuff anywhere and create infinite magic containers wherever you like. So uh, why the fuck have containers? Or at least why the hell have containers you can buy for your house? You can't label them, you can't subdivide them or improve inventory sorting with them, they act identical to stuff on ground, so why? Oh, aesthetics...pointless drivel essentially. Most games do this, Skyrim for example. The reason I called the benches a "gimmick" is because it straight up follows the trope of player housing, where most of the player housing feature is pointless aside from one practical caveat; crafting usually. Seems underrail streamlines more than most here realize.
4. "Setting up stashes" was a bit vague, and yes it is personal choice trying to organize loot, however. That is entirely normal behavior especially in games that have explicit player housing. Bethesda games are perfect examples of this.
I feel the game has an identity crisis, or perhaps its better to say peoples views of what the game IS seem to conflict.
One person will call this an open world/open ended RPG, another will call it a strategic turnbased action game. Clearly perspectives aren't universal which is fine. HOWEVER, whenever one of these perspectives bring about anything critical or negative it is some how objectively false. Why is that? It appears the biggest controversy this game has is the lack of respeccing. People who want it have all the sanity and logic that exists in all of gaming backing them, yet so many people stand by the lack of it. Mind you this is on an objectively preferred feature at least to the average gamer; I know you people probably don't like those, but hey its almost like the average person likes sane logical things and aren't blinded by FANaticism.
Oh right, the humility thing. Monkey see monkey do, honestly read what you yourself type:
"You create a permanent container for free. Wrap your head around this: it's like a locker that you don't have to pay for. Crazy, I know."
"The economy isn't that punishing outside of DOMINATING, and there's no way you're playing on that difficulty"
"You may be under the delusion that you're dispensing pearls of game design wisdom, but you're not. Honestly, the mix of arrogance and ignorance you're exhibiting is almost impressive."
This is how people converse online for the most part, always full of snarky sarcasm and such, especially when each thinks themselves objectively correct. Difference here is, I don't think I am right. I am simply stating that during my time playing the game I have come across some things, obnoxious things, outdated things, things that are artificial for he sake of being artificial, nor for world building, not for anything other than someone didn't want it this way so it isn't regardless of practicality, internal logic or whatever.
Look, you are right, it would go more smoothly if I perhaps took all emotion out of my suggesting and complaining, but where does that go? Usually nowhere. Why? Because for the most part stuff like that tend to be benign, forgotten, made irrelevant.
What do you think will get heard/remembered?
Putting a sign up passively aggressively mentioning how people need to clean up their pets poop in the park?
Or
Someone straight up confronting the non poop scooping narduels and shaming them in their face. Just getting right up in there saying
"OI! BRUV! PICK YA DOGS SHITE UP RIGHT THE HELL NOW!
In essence it takes hundreds of people saying/complaining/suggesting/requesting things in a benign non confrontational tone to ever even be recognized.
Only takes one flame fueled rant to get noticed, perhaps only briefly. Either way, better to be a quick flame then a drop in an ocean.
5. "The game is perfectly designed. If you want QoL changes literally download a cheat engine and cheat".
I play games how they are meant to be played. I then form opinions on those games as I play them, the way they were meant to be played.
If I wanted to cheat, I would do it my second play through (ha) if I bother to do a second one. The sheer fact you are suggesting this really does tell me the game has its issues. Suggesting literal cheats instead of any other alternative is almost like a Freudian Slip in my book.
