Author Topic: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update  (Read 25638 times)

DerivativeZero

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Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update
« Reply #60 on: August 15, 2020, 10:10:08 am »
On the topic of fun, I do have more comment on this as it had been bugging me for a while now:

There's a very thin line between having challenging mechanics and annoying, extra tedious "work".
The increased weight of repair kits means you need to return to base for repair far more often, breaking game flow making it annoying. Seriously have you try playing a pure AR tin can and watch your gun's durability take a sky dive after every fight? Or play a 3 STR SMG char trying to use trap? Locus? I know they were reduced after much outcry. A certain powerplant not letting you power everything in one go? I know you are trying to drain player resources by making them backtrack to confer a sense of hopelessness and dread - but all these changes and the design philosophy behind them, imho, had crossed this line and ventured firmly into annoying, tedious territory making the game feels like work sometimes and do not, again imho, increase the fun and challenge of the game. This trend is indeed worrying especially with Infusion currently under development and I suspect Styg is using Underrail as a test bed for future system.

Getting a bit off-topic, but I have to concur. Styg has slowly been losing sight of the fun factor over the years. It's the little things that are starting to add up. You bring up some good examples of things that slowly add up during a long playthrough and may not come up in the devs' internal testing. Some annoyances also arise as side effects of well-intended changes, for example preventing armor changing in stealth. It stops the exploiters just fine, but now everyone else has to deal with yet another cooldown, and a rather pointless one at that. Things of that nature.

There is some built-in tedium in the overarching design principles and core gameplay as well and I believe the dev team acknowledges that, but that a different thing altogether. I suspect some things are too big to change even in Infusion which builds on Underrail rather than reinvents it, as I understand it.

Now that destroyor and epeli have posted this, upon reflection, I do also agree a bit with this increasing tedium issue. I've played SMG builds recently and the constant repairing/heavy weight of repair kits leads to some cycle of fighting, and then having long down-time picking up all stuff, recycling it, making kits, repairing own stuff ... ten minutes later the journey continues. But SMGs already suffer from needing so much ammo, why also have the degradation? Other examples have been mentioned by destroyor and epeli. So, yeah, it feels like the game gets more complicated and more tedious in some ways, and maybe Styg and the devs could really look a bit into this from the player perspective for a future update. This is not about power, but much of the nerfs could probably be also achieved differently as in less tedious, for instance with PSI, instead of adding another layer of complexity with PSI reserves, why not just make normal PSI not regenerate automatically. I'm sure this requires balancing but the balancing for new PSI right now seems extensive, too. Same about the nerfs that increase tedium. I love playing the game, but I don't think it should become ever more complex, tedious and focussed on every build doing the same amount of damage at each level.

One quick suggestion on reducing "recycling" tedium: Add a button "recycle all" to the loot window, and if clicking it, the protagonist tries to recycle every item in the loot window they can recycle automatically and then just adds the resources. If the skill isn't high enough, the item just remains intact. That way, when looting, you first pick what you want to keep, then recycle the rest in one click and leave what you can't turn into resources. Might really take the edge off a bit.

Edit to add: or have some sort of repair mode, where you just drag a similar item on the one to be repaired and the dragged item will be scrapped and added to the durability. So if I want to repair my AR, I can use any AR I find and just drag it over it to repair (probably needs some tweaking on the exact way this happens, but this would also speed up a bit the tedium of repairing your stuff)
« Last Edit: August 15, 2020, 11:15:59 am by DerivativeZero »

Furion26

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Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update
« Reply #61 on: August 15, 2020, 12:13:19 pm »
In my opinion, the game as it is its in a perfect spot, it has the perfect amount of tedious work needed and its pretty well balanced.
Maybe the repair kits could drop in weight something like 0.5 but that's about it.
Only slight problem that I see is the wide range of randomness in the stuff available at vendors but them having a more consistent stock would make for an easier time to "break the game" (what I mean having a vendor guarantee to have napalm C or high quality stuff etc.) so in that regard its perfect how it is. It makes you do more travel between them so it ads to tidiness but its good tidiness if you ask me.

The game is intended to be this way, its not for many people that's for sure, but the ones that stick around really love it and it shows, those complains come from dedicated people who like the game and want to contribute to its improvement but I stick with Styg's side of doing things, in my books he's done a perfect job. I can't even imagine how he managed to create this work of art.

Wrath of Dagon

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Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update
« Reply #62 on: August 16, 2020, 08:18:43 pm »
Totally agree on the tedium issue. Repairs, weight limit, constantly having to run between vendors to see if they got something you need and to sell your stuff mars what's otherwise a fantastic experience.

Fenix

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Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update
« Reply #63 on: August 27, 2020, 10:56:53 am »
I don't mind repairs - probably because I almost never play with gun builds lol - but what gets me is recharging.
Dunno, what if descrease deterioration speed twice and like, make rapair kits cost twice more money, and requaring twice more scraps? Same for batteries.
This is obvious decision, so I don't belive nobody thought about it, that mean there is some problems with it.

UnLimiTeD

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Re: Dev Log #67: Version 1.1.2.0 - Waterways and Psi Update
« Reply #64 on: August 29, 2020, 02:32:13 pm »
Isn't that equivalent to just giving everything more max durability and making kits a bit lighter?
I do like the idea of a "scrap everything" button for a selection of items, though.
I think Infusion could certainly do with that. 

So what are everyone's experiences with the patches, now? I believe I might still have a PSI character lying around (or not - I think it was from the Alpha) who was pure psi; But tranquillity, not psychosis. Never played psychosis. I do wonder: Is this essentially a buff of psi-beetle carpace over psi-crab shell?
First person to give Styg Karma.

I hereby declare that I love the oddity system and am in favour of shop and carry limits.