Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update

[Styg]

Hi guys,

We're rolling out a new content update. It's going to land on experimental branch first in order to thoroughly test it out.

To play experimental branch on Steam, you right click the game in your library and go to "Betas" tab. To do so on GOG Galaxy, you go to Manage Installation -> Configure. Make sure you don't override all your live version saves just in case something goes horribly wrong.

The first major theme of this update is the change to psi mechanics. The full changes are listed below. They are not primarily meant to kick the full psi builds down a notch (though they will do that), but to address the following issues with psi that I find the most problematic and detrimental to the game as a whole, not just in terms of difficulty:

• Psi gives you too many utilities. Due to how the psi functions now (prior to this update) it's almost impossible to add new stuff to psi without extending the already bloated spectrum of combat utilities of any given psi generalist (which most psi builds are) even further, since, unlike with combat utilities, there are no limits to what a psi invoker can access during combat.
• Psi is cheap to spec into. Even though every psi school is a separate skill, they are all based on a single base ability, which is the only one required to be maxed out in order for your character to be powerful. If you invest heavily enough into it, the psi abilities themselves will make up for many deficiencies in other areas. No other robust build works like this, they usually require at least moderately strong investment into a secondary base ability.
• Psi does not require any expendable resource. Pretty much every other build does so I introduced a resource for psi as well. Now it has a dual (or hybrid if you will) resource management aspect. Also I used this opportunity to put a sort of a limit to how much psionic output you can dish out in a single fight, so we'll see how this works out.
• This is the least important point, but it's still worth addressing. Some abilities are a bit too cheesey and easy to exploit so I changed them up a bit. This does not make them perfectly balanced or un-cheeseable and I know there is other stuff out there that's cheese as well. These are just the ones that bothered me the most and were long overdue to change.

Anyway, the detailed changes are in the list below. What I hope to do in the future with psi now that I've dealt with psi generalist question is to facilitate more hybrid builds, which I think the new system will support well.

* * * * *

The other major theme of the update is a lot of new content for the waterways - one big new dungeon, a couple of smaller locations, many new random encounters and other stuff. I'll leave it to you guys to find out for yourselves.

On a related note I halved the price of all the fancy jet skis and all the parts, so they will be easier to acquire now. We do not need such ridiculous prices anymore since we added the economic component to the difficulty settings.

* * * * *

Here's the full change log:

General

• Improved the start up time for the game
• Initimidation now scales off either Strength or Will (whichever is higher)
• [Expedition] Halved the cost of most jet ski frames, engines, batteries and suspensions
  
• [Expedition] Increased the damage of all jet ski weapon attacks
  

Psi

• You now have to "innervate" psi abilities that you plan to use and you're limited in the number of innervated psi slots (1 + 1 per 3 intelligence, up to maximum of 6). Existing psi characters can use Will stat instead for the number of slots with some downsides, or they can opt to switch to Int by consuming a pill that's been subtly slipped into their pockets.
• Innervating psi abilities from multiple psi schools will now incur global 15% psi cost penalty per additional school
• Introduced psi reserves, which is the long term psi resource that does not regenerate naturally, but through the usage of psi inhalant which can not be done in combat. Psi reserves are depleted when you regenerate psi naturally or through psi boosters. Maximum amount of psi reserves is equal to 5 times the maximum psi points.
• Psi inhalant is craftable with some skill in biology and chemistry.
• All existing player characters will get generous amount of psi inhalants first time you load the game in new version
• Upon loading the game for the first time in the new version, a random set of psi abilities will be pre-innervated for you. If you don't like the random selection, just reload the same save.

Psi Abilities

• Force Field psi cost changed to 40 (up from 25)
• Force Field is now destructable and has its health points scale with invoker's skill. Each segment of the force field has separate health, but destroying one will destroy all of them.
• Thermodynamic Destabilization base damage percentage changed to 30% (down from 50%) and it now scales by 0.5% (down from 1%) per skill point and is capped at 100%.
• Thermodynamic Destabilization action point cost changed to 10 (down from 20)
• Enrage maximum duration changed to 2 (down from 4)
• Increased the amount of damage of Neural Overload and Psi-cognitive Interruption blocked by resolve
• Added psi mentors for all psionic abilities in the game (except one) to the random loot table
• [Expedition] Psycho-temporal dilation and Limited temporal increment learning requirements swapped to their correct positions
  
• [Expedition] Psycho-temporal contraction now has a high chance of causing its opposite (with randomized power) when it expires
  

Items

• Biohazard suit now provides full protection from a certain very, very bad gas
• Spearhead sniper rifles will now have base action points of 32 (up from 30)
• Rapid Reloader firearm enhancement will now also have a 25% chance of restoring a random amount of action points ranging from 50% to 100% of the base action point cost of the weapon (but capped at 20ap); this can only trigger once per turn
• Dragunov now costs 30 ap to fire (up from 25) and has 60% chance to restore 10-20 ap once per turn; also has slightly increased damage
• Added shiv blueprint
• [Expedition] Psionic Accelerator now increases psi regeneration by 50% (up from 20%)
  
• [Expedition] Added Kzozel Yantar, a stronger version of Kzozel
  

Creatures

• Reduced the throwing precision of hunchback mutants
• Mutant dog's acid blob attack will now deal some of its damage directly

Quests / Areas

• Added a mercantile check when paying to use the Wormhole
• Silas' death will no longer fail the attack on Scrapper base quest; the player can now speak with Colton to get the reward instead
• Added shiv components to certain encounters in which the player loses his inventory
• Added new graphics for a few secret cave doors
• [Expedition] Added more content for the waterways - one big new dungeon, a couple of smaller locations, many new random encounters and other stuff
  
• [Expedition] Added some new ways to escape from a jail guarded by a hefty knife thrower
  
• [Expedition] Added a vending machine to the Gray Army base; it accepts zlatortiyas only
  
• [Expedition] In the same base, it is now possible to translate messages on one of the computers with sufficient intelligence
  
• [Expedition] Added a tool with which the player can repair/configure a certain camp defense asset; found in multiple locations in the Black Sea
  

Visual

• You can now zoom the game in by holding shift while scrolling the mouse button, but the feature needs to be enabled in the options first
• High explosive and frag greandes and mines now have new visual effects

UI

• Made a new death screen that will allow you to scroll through the combat log to see exactly what killed you if you didn't catch it during combat
• Fixed the scroll bars so they can be mouse scrolled when moused over

Feats

• Locus Of Control - Change AoE radius to 2 (down from 3)
• Force User - now also increases health of force field by 50% (plus 5% per spec, max 5 spec points)
• Critical Power - Base bonus changed to 1% (down from 1.5%) and spec bonus changed to 0.1% (down from 0.15%); I'm not happy with this feat in general. Straight unconditional passive damage boost feats is something I'm going to avoid in the future for sure

Tweaks

• Acid pistols (and other acid attacks) will now spill acid on the ground regardless of whether they hit the primary target or not
• Certain random encounters will no longer appear in low-level zones (Arsonist in early under-passages, rabid dogs in Crossroad Caves, etc.)
• Balor now has Sprint, and gets an adrenaline shot on higher difficulties
• Cliff can now be given a coagulation shot to stop him from bleeding to death
• Kareem now needs his "memory refreshed" when asked about certain things
• The Black Eels questline can now be started after you've found the drill rotor circuit board
• Halved the amount of money Mykola needs to repair one big machine from 2000 to 1000 charons
• Some dialogs tweaked to reflect the new psi changes

Bugs

• Fixed the bug that cause the energy shield to dissipate at 2% instead of the nominal 10% rate every turn, but I set it to 5% base now instead because 10% just seems a bit too severe to me now; also changed the minimal dissipation rate to 1.5% (down from 2%)
• Explosive barrels and various misc. explosions should now properly trigger volatile entities such as mines
• Throwable barrels and rocks will now behave properly when throw in water (they will not detonate on impact)
• You can no longer double-click while holding a modifier key (shift, alt, or ctrl). This is to prevent situations such as rapdily alt-left clicking to transfer items from a container from also triggering the double-click event and transfering extra items. Let me know if this
• causes any anomalous behavior.
• Sledgehammer and machete handle now also count as metal components like knife one
• Fixed the bug that would cause the caster tentacles to crash the game after the player dies or disengages
• Ranged weapon innate precision modifier will now always be applied if it's negative
• Fixed Gorsky's base not being renovated on easy difficulty
• Fixed sometimes not getting a quest note (and subsequent xp once it's completed) from Kohlmeier when starting his quest
• Fixed traps not despawning after Foundry mines have been cleared, which resulted in hostile miners
• Fixed spears and nets not appearing in the loot locker in the Arena
• Fixed Saban not properly receiving his spare W2C ammo
• [Expedition] Fixed JSHQ bioscan not detecting mutagens
  
• [Expedition] Fixed an entrance to a cave near a certain homestead being impassable, even if discovered
  
• [Expedition] Fixed an important flag not being set when going through some branches during a discussion about a truly deathly topic with the Ferryman
  
• [Expedition] Fixed electrified floor destroying auto-turrets in Water Treatment Facility in one of the variations; also added a sound effect during discharge as to give the player a warning
  
• [Expedition] Fixed a bug where sleeping in the camp (and under very specific circumstances) triggering a certain crucial event even if the player, paradoxically, already prevented its occurence
  
• [Expedition] Fixed the final quest note prematurely being marked as completed
  
• [Expedition] Fixed a crash that may occur if the player obtains some floaty things for the camp too early
  
• [Expedition] Fixed certain native weapons being non-equippable
  
• [Expedition] Fixed Captain Grim sometimes ending dialog when telling him about some facilities
  
• [Expedition] Fixed being able to sleep in the camp even after you got fired
  
• [Expedition] Fixed the bug that caused players to get stuck on some hives after destroying them.
  
• Minor dialog/map/scripting tweaks

That's it for now guys. Let us know how you like the changes.

Cheers.

[Azura_04]

Sweeeet!

[Quidam Craft]

Great job, I'll test everything I can ASAP.

So ... The dissipation rate of energy shield was a bug ... How intresting !

"Rapid Reloader firearm enhancement will now also have a 25% chance of restoring a random amount of action points ranging from 50% to 100% of the base action point cost of the weapon (but capped at 20ap); this can only trigger once per turn"
It was already a very strong item, why the buff ?

[Elite]

Improved the start up time for the game

Dang, I was using that time to go grab a snack.

Seems like a great update, can't wait to see the new content.

[blakjak]

Some big changes for Psi, that's for sure. Some of the pure psi builds I saw were crazy. Hopefully it doesn't unfairly punish more support-focused uses of psi with this new resource to manage.

[destroyor]

Holy shit psi sniper got nerf hard by quadruple whammy: psi innervate/reserves, thermoD, critical power, sniper AP cost increase (not even counting the possible negative after effect from Psycho-temporal contraction). I suspect the rapid reloader buff won't make up for this, seems like it drop at least one class tier for sure.

Anyway glad to see Underrail is still undergoing healthy amount of of development. Would love to test these right away but can't at least for two more weeks. Damn.

P.S: thinking a bit more about this and reading some Steam comments I have to say - not a fan of the innervate part of this patch. All this will do is make lot of one trick pony builds, make gameplay boring and super unfun - weaker psi abilities will just never gets use. Having an overpower class isn't a bad thing in a single player game so I don't get the obsession about "balancing" - the important thing is to make gameplay fun and increase re-playability and innervate kills that. At the very minimum you should be able to cast non-innervated psi ability with some sort of penalty.

[Fenix]

Bugfixing and tweaking is Superb.

Balance changes took interesting approach, I don't see - for now - anything bad.

Also I won't be able to test it RIGHT NOW cause I'm busy with translation of ToME4 into Russian lol, so it will take a bit longer.

[Stavrophore]

The zoom changes would be good with more environmental clues missions like the one of dude missions. I dislike the limit of psi abilities, good thing you can atleast change it with consumable. And RIP to builds that base on criticals.

[Qiox]

Build variety for PSI usage is going to take a huge nose-dive.   So many of the abilities will just never get used now.

[Stavrophore]

You can switch set of spells but you need to eat consumable. Thats not bad, the truly bad thing is PSI cost increase with each added spell. I had temporal manipulation taking 90 psi point as fifth spell with psychosis build!!!

[TheAverageGortsby]

Ho-ho, Vancian cave wizards, here we go!

edit: early impressions: You need 8 slots to be the reasonably attainable max, not 6.  You've got 8 skills per psi school, and it isn't even thematically consistent to restrict beyond that.  I get the mechanics for how you're limiting psi generalists - and who knows, maybe it'll end up being a fun new way to go instead of the mistake it looks like right now - but you aren't just controlling psi options with 6 innervated slots, you're limiting beyond mere single-school specialization.

I think 2 slots + 2 per 4 Int would be a better number without ever feeling like there's no sacrifices that need to be made.  Still would require 12 Int to unlock all the slots so you couldn't have 18 Will *and* all the spells, but it would allow pure psi to roll out the gate with 6 slots and pick up their eighth by Depot A, which is when you really want newer players to have as many options available as possible.

I do like the psi points and psi reserve.  That feels like a pretty good resource management tool.  Not sure I like wiping out both the psi pool and the reserve when switching innervated slots, though.  Seems like the pool should empty then refill from the reserves.  But if those inhalers are more common than they first appear to be, it won't really be a problem either way.

As a general statement, though, I hate it.  The real joy of psi wasn't the power, it was the ability to try out nifty things and expand replay potential.  Congrats, you've gimped psi into a one-trick pony and ensured that we'll all just be cheesing the same techniques again and again.  If this is now the next game handles psi, I definitely won't buy or play it.

second edit: You need to do something for poor Psychosis.  This psi change isn't bothering Tranquility builds nearly as much.  Maybe keep the increased psi cost for Psychosis but give it a psi reserve leeching effect so that the long-term costs come closer to balancing out?  When there was no global accruing resource management metagame Psychosis only had to worry the immediate psi pool considerations, but with crit chance being non-deterministic Psychosis again gets the shaft with increased total costs, thus increased global costs, and a benefit gated by RNG.

I do like the new resource management and how it forces non-psi use regularly; but, man, poor Psychosis builds.

[Bruno]

This is a glorious day.

Must try a psi hybrid character immediately.

[DerivativeZero]

I love how the game evolves. I really played a lot in the past year and enjoyed how so many different builds are possible, none of them boring.

I've never been a big fan of pure PSI builds, though, so I don't know how to feel about the general PSI nerf, but the Temporal Manipulation school was great for any non-PSI build and I wish it would be possible to use this in exactly the way it functions right now. For 'real PSI' builds, allowing two schools of PSI and then adding AP/PSI cost for learning/using more might be a simpler and less restrictive choice. I agree with people saying that the limit on few PSI abilities will just reinforce well-known patterns of extremely useful abilities and lots of other abilities won't be cast, a pity. If you allow people two schools, they can at least experiment with "their" specialty.

Having played thematic builds like Snow White and Nova (you can guess what they did focus on) it seems to me, PSI should encourage a player to focus and get better with one set of abilities, but for instance, just being focussed on Ice PSI never felt massively overpowered with the rule set at hand and now introducing different sets of resources for this feels a bit convoluted.

As regards the nerf to spearhead and crit power, I don't know, is this an area where huge imbalances existed? For single player, I don't get why the existing rules needed adaption, my reading of the builds section was: you can build cool glass cannons, or many other different builds and they worked well. If anything, why not focus on builds like sword that get no love as the flurry thing seems a bit underwhelming instead of removing well-working builds? Why tinker with them?

Disclaimer: I'm not on beta, so maybe the nerf to crit power will make no big difference, but for instance the nerf to spearhead seems to make sniper rifles pretty unattractive, as two attacks per round at most seem not that useful... is there any weapon that does less now?

[Tayon]

I do like the psi points and psi reserve.

I don't like the current psi reserve mechanic. The fact that when the psi-reserve is expired, the psi-boosters are weakened by half leads to an extreme weakening of the Psionics in protracted battles.
Natural replenishment limits are reasonable, I admit. But the hefty penalties for Psi Boosters make "waves of enemies" a death sentence for the Psi Wizard and a very, very big problem for anyone who relies on Psi.
Why don't we then introduce overheating of the barrels so that gun lovers suffer as much as we do? I know that weapons have wear, but even if you can't repair them in battle, you can change them. Psi reserve is something that we cannot do anything about in any preparation. If we are caught in a protracted battle, which will cost us more than 600 psi, we are dead bodies. With no exceptions.
So much talk about Psi having to gobble up resources just to give us a problem that can't be solved by resources ... Styg, are you serious?

[BiocorpShill]

Having an overpower class isn't a bad thing in a single player game so I don't get the obsession about "balancing" - the important thing is to make gameplay fun and increase re-playability and innervate kills that.

I agree. While I haven't had much time with the beta judging from the comments so far it seems to be an unreasonable "fix" to a non-issue. Balance is a legitimate concern in MP games where you want to encourage a variety of play styles and ensure an even playing field for all players but no one's forcing people to play certain builds in Underrail. All this will do is discourage people from playing psi at all because the cost of doing so is much higher. The alterations to individual powers, like making force field destructible, are enough to ensure they aren't spammed so often but the major changes need to be rolled back because limiting options in a single player game for the sake of "balance" is just silly.