Ideas and Suggestions - Latest Alpha

[Karak]

Hi there!

Been playing latest alpha a lot for a couple of weeks, and it is really great, especially considering the game is in an early state.Some feedback in no particular order(some things might have already been brought up):

-Game is a bit on the easy side especially for experienced players,psionics and high will are too destructive now imo.Better balacing would be giving player less psi points imo.Now that we have easy mode perhaps hard mode is in order?Depot A was right difficulty for level 8-10 characters, before and after that a bit too easy.Without psi powers, well that's another story

-Oddity system is cool, way more interesting than traditional, rewards exploration better, still some oddities(mutant claws come to mind) could be studied more times as these enemies are tough

-Economy is broken now imo.Mercantile is useless, i think, because of too large quest rewards(eg. milton's quest - 50 charons for a key two locations from him,really now? or the amount of money you can make in the lucky knife quest in the junkyard, combined with the money you receive from Tanner you can buy almost anything there) and high player weight limit, most of the time you can take everything from enemies.Limiting what and how much merchants buy is a step in the right direction but some more balancing is in order.

-Flashlights.Game has low-tech flares(which burn out too quickly i think) and high-tech night vision, but no middle ground.Make player only able to use one-handed weapons while using one perhaps?And/or wearable flashlights like on miner's helmet.

-More grenade types.More stuff to craft for mechanics+chemistry character.Incendiary (just heat damage, fire stays for 2-3 turns), smoke (these would be a boon to melee characters to make closing in less painful), poison gas.

-Any reason we can't attach things like extended mags etc. to existing weapons or take them off?Also underslung grenade launchers (no new animations i guess? less damage, more range than existing grenades)

-Throwing is rather weak, perhaps make it influence critical chance with grenades?

-Enviromental hazards such as smoke, radiation, gas, cold.We have different damage resistances that are rarely used.Such a dimension would enchance gameplay i guess.Many in the game talk of breathing masks but we have no places they are needed now.Also areas with total darkness would be cool.

-More TNT to merchants for characters with no chemistry.Also consider adding it to random loot.

-AOE burst for automatic weapons feat, eg. 3x3 square low chance to hit for half a clip for balance.Spray and pray

-Implants and/or mutagens with pros and cons(as feats or craftable,i'd pferer craftable.)Again much talk of that in game.

-More cool textual descriptions like the pillars where you gain bilocation.Superb stuff.Also characters with an interesting back story like Wyatt, what a dialogue, pity it ends quickly.

-More synergies eg. shouldn't thought control have synergies with persuade and intimidation.You are reading minds after all

-Also for that matter can't thought control be sometimes used in dialogue instead of persuade and intimidate if you know the abilities.Some sort of charm power would be nice.

-UI.Liked it a lot except for 2 things - can't drag windows and it would've been nice if it was possible to manually enter the amount of things you wish to take from a pile like in fallout, the slider for splitting is not very good imo.

-Caltrops.Too powerful right now.Less movement penalty and make high agility characters npcs and critters ignore them.

-Using stims in combat costs too little acton points imo.

-Defensive missions.These can be very good if made properly.For example, defending SGS against the Faceless(or burrowers ).First the platform exit then the docks then the cave exit with no ability to restock in-between.Makes planning use of resorces a challenge.

That does it i guess.All in all, one of the greatest games i've had a pleasure of playing.The atmosphere is superb.Great job guys.Keep on it and it might just rival the classics and be talked about for years to come.

[Styg]

Thanks for the feedback. It's not often people complain the game is too easy.

[Meta]

I agree. The game seems easy to me as well, and I'm not a psi character. My character is mostly perception with nearly all points in guns, throwing, stealth, pickpocketing, hacking, lockpicking, dodge, evasion, electronics, biology and chemistry and I've always (except for depot A, that required either sneaking past them or higher grade grenades) been able to kill everything easily. The combinations I have with all the different weapons, skills and grenades easily obliterates everything and if not, I still have more than enough morphine shots, adrenaline shots, advanced hypos and always a high level energy shield. I'm also insanely rich (11k charions + pretty much the best items in the game currently, including plasma pistols, energy pistols, chemical pistols, sniper rifles, and multiple instances of everything else capable of being carried after eating the different foods) because of stealth/pickpocketing/hacking/lockpicking + cloaking device because of which I have huge stockpiles of stuff around the world. This is, however, probably partly due to the the fact I started playing before the economy was balanced a bit.

I particularly feel the character must be contained in the current area during battles. Despite the fact I don't abuse this, being able to shoot enemies, only to run away to an adjacent area seems broken to me.

As for caltrops, they are indeed somewhat strong, but they are extremely heavy as well, so perhaps it's an idea to make them both weaker and lighter.

I'm all for more grenade types. The HE grenades seem a bit useless to me.

I also feel like the crafting system should become richer. More options with biology and chemistry. Perhaps it's an idea to introduce more (unique) items that can only be crafted, exotic items that require points in multiple different technology skills. I like the idea of trading explicit offensive abilities for stronger weapons like chemical pistols with a scope that does different kinds of damage and perhaps has an extra, unique skill, or totally new, bizarre kinds of damage.

Based on my character, I feel like the dragunov sniper rifle is a bit too much. I'd say make it require 4 strength. My character only has 3 strength; it shouldn't be able to wear sniper rifles without a cost, if at all.

Maybe something else to consider: better AI so it uses smarter strategies. e.g. make them avoid chokes so 5 strong enemies don't stand and sigh behind 1 weak dog. Perhaps at least implement an algorithm to decide whether these strong enemies should kill the dog in that example.

Consider adding enemies that are extremely difficult to kill for characters that focus a bit on non-offensive/defensive skills that are easy to sneak past, so strength, blunt and boorish, type characters are rewarded where the others are not. This would serve the same function for these characters as hard to pick footlockers do for sneaky characters. It could also serve as a fun challenge for non-strength characters. Maybe radiation damage that is stopped by metal armors only? Or other types of damage that are particularly weak against metal armors.

As for inventory, I'd love more sort options and/or inventory hotkeys. It's sometimes a pain looking for the right items. Consider adding an extra category of items to which players can add any items, so they can quickly find the important items. Also, the category 'all minus plot' would be nice because I have a ton of plot items that are only in the way.

Hotkeys for instantly loading the last used weapon of any type, haxxors, shields, cloaking devices would be great because it can get quite repetitive. Aside from that the hotkey system is pretty good.

Health hypos seem a bit difficult to craft compared to how easy they are to find.

I feel like high pickpocketing and hacking skill should be rewarded more handsomely. Maybe place more high level boxes/footlockers etc. that contain things like high level item components not easily found elsewhere.

That is all I can think of at this moment.

[Fenix]

I'm mostly agree with Karak. Exellent ideas (but some may be hard to implement).

-More synergies eg. shouldn't thought control have synergies with persuade and intimidation.You are reading minds after all

-Also for that matter can't thought control be sometimes used in dialogue instead of persuade and intimidate if you know the abilities.Some sort of charm power would be nice.

AND sometime used thought control AND persuade both, to get minor (or major) bonuses like more background story or text about some events.
If it will be some material unique bonuses, I think it woud be a little penalizing for players who didn't use PSI-build.

Also about crafting system, to be more precise about quality system of items.
What if instead 0-100 you'll use 0-10?
This leads to a reduction in the number of digits in the game, that's always good for a game.
Guys from Age of Decadence changed their role system in that way.