Balancing access, survival, and compensating rewards for specialization

[Volgair]

In the light of new content, I decided to do another round of play through with two starting builds I found encompassed most of what the game offers, taking into consideration what I learned the last time I played.

The builds following, were my starting stats for later reference as well as an abridged synopsis of how they weathered the games challenges.

"Psi Tank v.2"
Base
S- 8
D- 3
A- 3
C- 6
P- 3
W- 10
I- 7

Skill
Melee, Hacking, Mechanics, Electronics, Tailoring, Thought Control, Psychokinesis, Mercantile

Synopsis
-Awful in the early game, even with the reliable lvl 1 access to a hammer when purchased from the armory, I don't know if I would have stuck with it if I didn't have fore knowledge there was a Metal Armor shaped light at the end of a long tunnel. Really had to stretch my options to get through the GMS compound. Solid Single Target, and AoE damage. Some CC. Predictable health loss once the stars align to to see fit to actually give you at level components to craft the gear this build demands. Have to leave a lot of lockers and doors and vents shut, will step on every mine, will never find a hidden... anything. Will rarely have the option to start a fight manually unless you know it's coming before hand.

"Commando v.2"
Base
S- 6
D- 5
A- 7
C- 5
P- 10
W- 3
I- 4

Skill
Guns, Melee, Dodge, Evasion, Stealth, Hacking, Lock picking, Mercantile

Synopsis
I kind of feel a similar build to this is almost forced on you (I'll get into that in more detail below.) Easy in the early game, absurd single target damage in the late game. Hard to keep in ammo, No real AoE or CC. That makes some fights harder then they should be, mitigated of course by stealth and smart positioning. Relegated to the gear that you find or pops up at vendors, but that is less of a hindrance then with the psi tank. No door, lock or obstruction will do more then slow you down. (You may have to come back later)



With that out of the way, on to the meat an potato's of why I'm posting. There seems to be something... well from where I sit it could be two things, or a list of many things on the not yet implemented... I'm not a Dev or even a regular part of the community. Also I feel I should clarify, that I am not trolling for behind the scenes stuff (always welcome if volunteered) just making my opinion on known on what feels like gaping wounds in game play.

Anyway. I said before, two things. First, party system that would allow you to optimize a set of player characters with synergy to mitigate the individuals short comings. this would require a rework of almost all game elements... So I don't think its coming, especially not soon. Second, which I believe to be the more reasonable. The ability to circumvent optimized specialization through the use of tools or psi abilities. An example of the latter already exists with the crowbar on vents.

I have some Ideas I will list in bullet format take them, leave them, or ignore me for being so presumptuous.

EX: Example Game Element (Guiding Skill- Base Stat)
- Eame Element - Base Stat or Guiding Skill - Tool - Drawback

Locks Doors and Chests, Vents (Lockpick- Dex)
- Doors- STR- Hammer- The stronger the door the longer it takes the louder it is and the more it decays your hammer. The door cant be shut again
- Doors- Mechanics- Tool box- Tool boxes are heavy and make a lot of noise. (Perhaps carrying one should drop your sneak?)
- Doors- Chemistry- Demolitions Charge- Rare, Loud.
- Doors- Metathermics - "New Psi ability" - Psi intensive, time consuming. (push ice in the lock, heat the lock to swell the metal, cool it off again to create a gap. Open door)
- Chests- STR- Crowbar- Chance to break Crowbar. Injure self. loud.
- Chests- STR- Hammer- Time consuming, decays Hammer. chance to break or damage whats inside. Loud
- Chests- Mechanics- Tool box-  Tool boxes are heavy and make a lot of noise.
- Chests- Chemistry- Demolitions Charge- Rare, Loud.
- Chests- Biology- Concentrated Burrower Acid- Doesn't work on all locks, have to make it yourself.
- Chests- Metathermics - "New Psi ability" - Psi intensive, time consuming. (push ice in the lock, heat the lock to swell the metal, cool it off to create a gap. Open door)


Hacking Doors, Chests, Special Circumstance (Hacking- Int)
- For the purpose of saving room refer above for doors and locks, they can pretty much carry over on a case to case basis. I just put it here to show it wasn't forgotten,
- Special Circumstance- Thought Control- Mind Machine remote interface - Psi intensive alternative


Hidden object (Perception/ trap)
- Doors - Thought Control - "new psi skill" - +5 perception lasts x amount of turns based on skill.
- Traps - Psychokinesis - "new psi skill" - Duration and area of effect based on skill. (You could also allow us to use ranged attacks to disarm them.)

Obstruction - Vaulting Over (Agi)
- Obstruction- Psychokinesis- Force Jump- perhaps give this a limit to weight based on skill.

Obstruction - Clearing out of the way (Str)
- Obstruction- Mechanics/ int - Leverage/ block and tackle- Weight in inventory
- Obstruction- Psychokinesis- Force Push- ... Bison is doing it.


Merchants (Int)
- I'm going to leave bullet format now, and just say that the mercantile almost seems to be working against you if your goal is clearing your inventory. So much for selling ice to Eskimo's I cant even sell surplus guns to an arms dealer.

I ended up scraping a LOT of of valuable gear and throwing away a lot of organs and crowbars that could have other wise been used to fund crafting or inflate my stockpiles, because I was over encumbered. I feel there should almost be a whole sale/ general goods vendor that has a lot of credits and gives very little of the items value for those not skilled in mercantile. As an example if the armorer would give you 60% of the items value the whole sale vendor would give 30% and not have any thing to trade except coins or credits. The advantage being he will always buy every item type in exchange for a reduced amount in raw currency.

Crafting Bonus (Int)
- If you are going out of your way for crafting every point you are spending on being better at your craft is another point that is not being spent on utility or situation based combat applicability. If you look at the Elder scrolls they take this into account with Smiting, Enchanting and Alchemy. As in they give you bonuses that you other wise would have to forgo with out the expertise to apply it to your self.

As an example you could make Metal armor "well fit" giving it slightly more DT or resistance. You could use electronics to add servo's that allow the suit to be powered granting movement AP and bonus melee damage or stabilization for improved ranged accuracy... Chemistry to deconstruct grenades to their base components and put them back together representative of your skill. A stronger adrenaline with less drawback, precision optimized gun's granting an extra shot with a burst or more accuracy... The list can go on for a while but I think my point is made. Crafting as it currently exists does not give you any thing you could not other wise find in the world. Each of them requiring a consumable to balance the bonus, and a reduction in resale value to vendors.

The points invested are effectively being carried... If not holding back combat, subterfuge, and psi skills instead of synergizing with them. Again I'm not abreast to what your development plans are but this is my take on the game and it's content as it currently is.





That's pretty much all I'm willing to write-right now, I'm interested to see if you guys see where I'm coming from or fill me in on something I'm missing. I don't think I've said it yet but Styg keep up the great work on the alpha. This is already better then Shadow Run returns and competes with FO1/2 for mechanics... Were yet to see much of a story, cant wait for that. Keep it coming and I'll keep dropping my two cents.

[Elhazzared]

Well, you do are right about a couple things that are not working well (at least in my opinion). Merchant system and crafting system.

The merchant system used to buy everything and you used not to even have weight limits. Currently I'm playing Avadon 2 and they actually went that route, no carry weights nor item carry limit and merchants buy everything. Does that breaks the game? No! If anything it makes the game more immersive as I don't have to go out of my way to stop middle quest to unload my loot somewhere nor do I have to go to great deals of pain and mental anguish to try to sell everything as I should. I disagree with a merchant type that buys everything for less, I just cannot accept a loss of profit and I would never do so. I'd rather not play the game. I can only hope that eventually Styg will implement a way to get rid of merchant buying limits and weight limits as he talked about some time ago.

Crafting works exactly as that, whatever you can craft (with a few exceptions like grenades for example), you can find better versions on the shops and because of the merchant system, crafting can't even be used as a suplementary form of increasing your money gain.Still Styg seams unwilling to change this but as for me, while I'd love to see this system becoming more fleshed out and in general better. Especially making this system fit for purpose which would be keep you ahead of the curve by allowing better items than you would normally get them. I can live without crafting, but it would be sad to have it in game and really not have much purpose, it becomes a waste of development time in my opinion.

As for your other sugestions. No, party system is bad, I hate having to control a party, if there is one thing I hate with a passion n Avadon 2 is having a party! I want to be that lone guy going through everything, killing everything, a party is just more boring. That is of course personal opinion.

The option to give a character too many ways to deal with a situation is similarly bad. When you make a character you have to take proper builds into mind and you have to prepare for every future situation. Having a character which can just deal with everything that gets thrown his way in one way or the other is just going to make the game way too easy and not fun. The idea is that you develope a character which has strong points and weakness. Having to deal with the parts where your weakness comes into play is not only part of the fun, it's also what defines your character.

[Volgair]

I would argue the need for resource management. Be it carry weight, Psi, Health, calories, water.... What have you, make the world feel intrinsic, where decisions (and negligence) have consequence. This is a good thing. There are far to few games that force you to think, manage and optimize for a greater margin of success. This is a niche product, I say let that niche be hardcore if that is the dev's vision for the game.

I would then like to state that in a game where experience lies in exploration with the oddities system, there needs to be non-optimal alternatives for characters that are not built around an ideal subset. Specifically Hacking, Lockpicking, and Perception. To a lesser extent Agility.



If you choose to play a bad ass bruiser with a mental deficiency and lust for credits, who is raiding a compound on orders from the SGS. Do you think a decrepit door or lock is going to stop him from getting what he wants?

Perhaps you self identify as more master of Psi who also is a incredibly skilled craftsman, do you think him incapable of finding an alternative solution?


This is what I'm getting at, there are a few skills that you need in order to not miss a fair bit of content, and ultimately experience in this game. I have played through with no subterfuge skills mind you, it is possible. Just less then ideal. On that note I have played all this games content to completion 5 times now, over 2 builds. Each time I get this nagging impression that there are gaps in the way the game plays. I don't like the feeling of being forced down a specific path to explore the game fully. Again in this case specifically a subterfuge based character.




On a side note Avadon: The Black Fortress while good does not have as diverse a skill set as Underrail even as it is now. Especially If they flesh out their content, this has the potential to be the far superior representation of the genera, challenging Baulders Gate or Fallout. (Yes those game's are 15+ years old) That is also with Wasteland 2 on the horizon, which I see as this games primary competition.

[Elhazzared]

You are not forced down a narrow path to get everything, in fact you are not supposed to be able to get everything no matter what path you take. This creates replayabillity which lenghtens the duration of the game. That said in the previous build I could explore everything and get every quest with any build I did really, though i kinda tend to really power the hell up my builds so that helps. I'm sure with the full release this won't be the case, in fact this build it might already not be possible but given the fact that I cannot stand the current merchant system I'll wait for alternatives or just major changes to come.

All of my character are built using both hacking and lockpicking as well as steath for optimal engagements. They all have a high perception even if it's just to spot all hidden stuff and then even better perception if it's gun play or willpower if it's psi. I don't go mellee or tanking, it doesn't means it isn't good, it just means I don't particularly enjoy it in this game.

If the game presents you with lots of alternatives to do everything then I would just feel it would lose a lot. Really just making a character that can do everything one way or another would be just meh for me, it would actually lose identity. I would say, yeah sure, if it's a major questline it's nice to have alternative ways to complete it but that's where it ends for me.

On a side note, I said Avadon 2: The corruption. I'm not sure how things may or may not have changed from one to anotehr but it is better than baldurs gate... Why? Because it actually has proper turn based combat... Course that's just me who hates real time combat for this kind of games... Fallout 2... Yeah you just can't go wrong there about awesome mechanics but then again you can't compare a system that is based for the control of a single character and one that is made for the control of a whole party.

[Volgair]

Your kind of aiding my case here, you like subterfuge. that's cool that you like subterfuge. I like subterfuge characters. 3 of my play through have been a subterfuge build. Two were to see how the other half lived, plus check out the crafting and psi... Cause' you kind of have to forgo those if you want to access all the games content/loot.

Now if you don't like playing subterfuge, or you are trying to play out side the box expect a much harder time with this game with a lot of loot and experience simply unobtainable/ unavailable because you didn't want to play with an almost mandatory core of stats and skills.

If this is how it is, so be it. I'll build my toon to fit the game as needed. However it would be nice to have non-optimal alternatives to the quick and quiet subterfuge route. That's what I'm getting at.

[Volgair]

I'll even go a step further to elaborate.

If it were truly about access to content not being available in one go you would have frequent skill and stat checks that no one player could hope to do. for example a Agility check a Metathermics check with a Mechanics check in line all to get in the same room. Only a very specific build could pass all 3 checks. Then across the hall you would have another room with specifically a Strength check a Dexterity check and a Chemistry check.

If your build had managed to meet the requirements of one its very unlikely, mind you not impossible to have done both.

 Where as if you had a series of rooms that all had stat checks that worked well together i.e. the standard subterfuge build. (Dex, Agi, Per, Hacking, Lockpicking, Stealth) To get into the same series of rooms a lot more commonly builds could pass it. I think that argument is kind of crap, and shows a bit of a hole in the mentality of the level design and the way skills interact with the world.




I feel I should clarify, I don't want absurd checks, Just non-optimal alternatives to the subterfuge core. Again assuming you are one man versus the world and that team members will at no point be a factor.


Edit: Thought I should add that Fallout can get away with two skill that specifically serve this function. All skills are capped at 100 and you can max them out even with a non optimal starting Special configuration, due to special only dictating starting stats. Instead of the escalating system that Underrail has where stats dictate skill max potential for the points invested. I actually like the UR system better, but it needs to be addressed early before a very small subset of skills and associated stats become unavoidable if you don't want to leave a good portion of the game unlooted/unexplored.

[Elhazzared]

Hacking and lockpicking isn't about subterfuge like characters. Stealth is and really the idea is not for sneaking around, it is about having optimal engagement arcs, taking the first turn from the right position to increase chances of winning but this often means your have lighter armor so the draw back is you're a glass cannon.

Hacking and lockpicking isn't about getting to that special room or that special area or getting that item for that quest. They quite literally a more loot kinda thing. When you don't take them you know that you are making a build that gets less loot, but on the other hand has more skills to invest elsewhere... My main build uses psi and it has 10 will, 3 str and 7 per. All rest is at 5. I don't get more agillity or dex for my supposed subterfuge, I don't need it, it's just means to start combat in optimal ways. As for skills usually I take the 3 psi disciplines, crossbows, hacking, lockpicking and stealth and the one left usually goes into persuasion to open up more dialoge options especially since they tend to give more quests.

[Volgair]

That't true El, in a normal game without the oddities system. With the oddities system expect to potentially miss experience in locked chests (replay it, there are at lest 4 instances where exp is hidden behind a locked door or chest.)

Also that's a fair build. One of my play through was pretty much that with out Metathermics. But its still at least mostly the subterfuge core.

When I say "Subterfuge core" I don't even include the stealth skill, it synergies well mind you but it's the core skills of-

Dex (+5) -Minimum level to get bonus per level for LP (Crit chance, AP reduction, used in a lot of feats)
Agi  (+7) -Minimum for most agi checks I have come across. (Stealth, Dodge, Evade)
Per  (+7) -Minimum for most hidden object checks and mines. This stat I would venture a guess is usually higher. (Guns, Crossbows)
Int (+5) -Minimum level to get bonus per level for Hacking
With the skills Lockpicking and Hacking


That's what I mean by the subterfuge core. There is no place to get this data but I would venture a guess that most people playing this game have invested in most if not all of this core, because lets face it if you don't have most of it, if not all of it. the game is much harder. Harder because you are leaving a fair bit of loot and EXP behind that should be used to restock your character, for the next set of challenges or get him to the next level reducing the threat of enemies by way reducing the average cost per kill. Harder because with out this core you will step on every mine and have to face every enemy on their terms, or simply take the long way around. (In the case of the junk yard.) You have to see where I'm coming from on this, or at a minimum acknowledge that you have a bias in favor for the core of stats as it exists.

Again I would rather see non-optimal alternatives to these same checks so were not forced to play a certain way, as it makes for a much more boring world.

[Elhazzared]

but you are not forced to play that way, neither hacking nor lockpicking give you access to oddities you wouldn't get otherwise I belive. More to the point (and understand this is a very personal opinion, not all have to share it), the oddity system is just bad, I dislike it, the true way for me to play is proper XP by killing and little bits here and there for persuading or hacking or lockpicking but these are so low they don't even matter... The reason I like lockpicking and hacking isn't even because I really need that extra loot, I can go by without it and still get all I need. I however cannot accept leaving anything behind, but that is how I play it and how I derive fun from the game, other people have no problems with it.

[Volgair]

I to share that distaste for leaving things behind. I will do it, if I must... and I must all to often if I don't have investments in the "subterfuge core." (There is also the issue with mines)

Again going back to the fallout comparison. You can gain access to hacking and lock picking off speced. To go a step further if you start with 9 int and take the educated perk at level 4 you can be perfect in most skills before lvl 22. With Underrail's stat system its not possible. With Fallout, base stats represent starting scores, with Underrail they represent max potential for skill points invested there is no ideal cap to shoot for if all you want is access to extra loot.

That's not to say it's a bad thing in fact quite the contrary, but its certainly a less forgiving.


As for the oddity system, I like it. It allows for re-spawning mobs and enemies, in a more meaningful way with the added bonus of keeping people from grinding to lower the challenge of the games content. It also serves as a great incentive for exploration. That said I wish information via word of mouth was also an oddity. It would serve as a great incentive for both persuasion and intimidation.

[Volgair]

I'm a little sad that no one else wants to have a conversation about this.