Underrail [PRE-RELEASE THREAD, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Monocause]

Hate it when games want the player to pick skills before they are at least somewhat familiar with the game. What is the ratio of locked doors/containers to hackable computers?, How do the rewards and hidden content behind them compare?, How good is melee versus ranged?, etc.. This pretty much guarantees your character customization will be uninformed in the first playthrough, and the story will be spoiled for potential future playthroughs.

I know what you're saying, but that's just the minmaxer in you that needs to be reined in.

Years of playing RPGs and strategy games are directly responsible for the yearning to optimise and the annoyance of playing blind. There was a period in my gaming 'career' where I wouldn't start a fresh new RPG/strategy without reading up on it a lot or watching decisions pro players make on YT. Where's the dump skills? Which items seem like junk but become useful later? Many RPGs have some weapon classes that are simply inferior to other options, should I go with swords instead of axes? It kinda fuelled a hate for arbitrariness some of the video game design systems have. Invest in the wrong skills, you're gimped. Sold that item? Too bad cause 3 hrs later there's an NPC asking for it. Picked the 3rd choice at a branching moment? Too bad, cause the two others offer rewards that would've been much nicer to have considering your playstyle, etc etc.

At the same time, there's something really off with games that offer ways out (like RPGs with respecs), or are designed around each choice being equally good. There's something very fun and exciting about choices being final, and even about having to make the most out of a poor skillset/item selection/unit roster. Respecs just cheapen the experience and make your choices seem irrelevant since you can do a U-turn at any moment and just completely switch your build around. The 'balanced' approach can be even worse.

In principle, I agree with PoE's design. In practice, I found that I much preferred the BG series' approach of "here's your character, make the most of his skills and deal with his limitations" as opposed to the game being fine with you doing most things with most classes. It rendered most of the choices regarding building characters and decking them out totally void of flavor and excitement.

Seems like you might be on the same path so my suggestion is - leave the optimal build for your 2nd playthrough and enjoy the game blind, and try to make the most out of the resources you limited yourself to with your poor choices. Lots of fun to be had that way! And if you do want to keep on optimising, have you tried playing roguelikes? Cause that's a genre that openly welcomes pursuit of the games' systems best (ab)use.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Learn-by-doing systems suck and i'd be happy if I never experience one again.

I'd fight you on that. That's a hill I'd die on actually. But not here.

You would die on that hill, unless you've fought on hundreds of hills before to raise your skills.

Perhaps by fighting the Cliff Racers on those hills you acquired a deep knowledge of black magic. Dont ask me how exactly.

 

[roshan]

For the record—and I hesitate to say this, because J.E. Sawyer has tainted the word "balance"—Underrail's skills and feats are relatively balanced, in the sense that few if any are clearly superior, outright bad, or rarely used (unlike some skills, feats, and perks in Fallout and Fallout 2, for example). All are useful, although I wouldn't say they're equally useful, and many of them are useful in different circumstances.

What Sawyer really does though is "banalce" which means to make everything equally useless, boring, uninteresting and pointless.

 

[Blaine]

"banalce"

My face when "I'm waiting for release" Codexers play for the first time this week and find out that Underrail is proper hard:

 

[Grotesque]

True, character animations are costly in many ways when you use 2D sprites.

the character still walks upright when in an air vent?

 

[Blaine]

the character still walks upright when in an air vent?

Strictly speaking, the "tunnel" portions of a ventilation system are ventilation shafts or ventilation ducts. The actual vent itself is only the opening in the wall, while the covering is called a vent cover, grille, or register.

Yeah, you walk upright while in the ventilation shafts, although they appear quite large, so it's not an eyesore.

 

[Invictus]

Feel like a virgin since I have never played this nor watched any lp checking on gog for the release constantly

 

[Tigranes]

Underrail isn't very difficult, people will be fine.

I enjoyed my half-romp a few months ago and I'll fire it up tomorrow. Last I saw, the initial setting/feel was amazing, the way the plot built up after that was meh, the battles / crafting / skill use was excellent. Works for me.

 

[Cortex_Reaver]

I haven't been following the development. But who came up with the combat system? Did the collective codex conscious invent it? Styg did it on his own? Is it based on something?

 

[Sykar]

Underrail isn't very difficult, people will be fine.

I enjoyed my half-romp a few months ago and I'll fire it up tomorrow. Last I saw, the initial setting/feel was amazing, the way the plot built up after that was meh, the battles / crafting / skill use was excellent. Works for me.

Do not be too confident in that. Could be that hard mode will be a really hard challenge after all.

 

[Tigranes]

Oh yeah. Looking forward ot that.

 

[Blaine]

Hey, I didn't say you had to be a chess master to win. Keep in mind that many of us are a lot better at RPGs than the average bear. My notion of "proper hard" is a level of difficulty where I'm consistently punished for making mistakes, occasionally frustrated, and don't ever feel that the game's too easy; yet don't feel that there's a massive amount of behind-the-scenes "cheating" or, if you prefer, "fake difficulty" going on.

Also, there's a difference between simply muddling through with your skin intact and excelling.

Besides which, there's one particular fight in a certain city that contains enough difficulty to share with the entire rest of the game. That one's "welcome to the fuckin' show" x10.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Underrail isn't very difficult, people will be fine.

From some steam negative "previews".

"No map no sense of direction, Game is way harder then it needs to be."

"Combat difficulty borders on unfair to impossible. I'm unable to get past the first few encounters and I can't be bothered to exploit the export/import like most people recommend."

"I know this is a thinking persons game but I just find it too difficult. Nearly every encounter I feel overwhelmed."

 

[Sykar]

Underrail isn't very difficult, people will be fine.

From some steam negative "previews".

"No map no sense of direction, Game is way harder then it needs to be."

"Combat difficulty borders on unfair to impossible. I'm unable to get past the first few encounters and I can't be bothered to exploit the export/import like most people recommend."

"I know this is a thinking persons game but I just find it too difficult. Nearly every encounter I feel overwhelmed."

Sad to see that the retards even found their way to a hidden gem like Underrail.

 

[Blaine]

Remember, a bunch of folks were complaining about Pillars of Eternity's Normal difficulty setting on the Obsidian forums.

Standard Underrail is at least as challenging as PoE on Hard, although it's difficult to truly compare the two because PoE is party-based.

 

[Smashing Axe]

When leveling up with bonus stat points, do you guys ever find it advantageous to go over 10 with an attribute? I'm not sure whether it would be better to focus on upping a character's weak stats or just keep pumping their main combat attribute. Reading over the attribute requirements of feats in the EA version, it would seem to be better to up weaker stats.

 

[Stompa]

I think it's worth it for abilities related to your main combat skill, with Dexterity as a big maybe for pistol\SMG users. For the rest? Nah, just hit the threshold necessary for perks you need.

 

[Tigranes]

I meant people who aren't terrible and just want to mash buttons. There're people who complain KOTOR is too hard, or POE Easy is too hard.

But then, even AOD isn't super difficult, so yeah, in the broader scheme Underrail is a good challenge.

 

[Sykar]

When leveling up with bonus stat points, do you guys ever find it advantageous to go over 10 with an attribute? I'm not sure whether it would be better to focus on upping a character's weak stats or just keep pumping their main combat attribute. Reading over the attribute requirements of feats in the EA version, it would seem to be better to up weaker stats.

Since I am a LARP faggot I decide this by how specialized my character is. A pure gun nut I'd probably max out Perception. Pure Psi I'd go well above 10 Willpower as well. Hybrids I tend to spread a bit more. That being said if you have a good concept and follow it thoroughly you should be safe in at least normal mode. As to hard mode, we shall see how it will turn out.

Remember, a bunch of folks were complaining about Pillars of Eternity's Normal difficulty setting on the Obsidian forums.

Standard Underrail is at least as challenging as PoE on Hard, although it's difficult to truly compare the two because PoE is party-based.

 

[Blaine]

When leveling up with bonus stat points, do you guys ever find it advantageous to go over 10 with an attribute? I'm not sure whether it would be better to focus on upping a character's weak stats or just keep pumping their main combat attribute. Reading over the attribute requirements of feats in the EA version, it would seem to be better to up weaker stats.

Well, a few other Underrail experts chided me for not dumping absolutely every bonus stat into Perception back when I complained that crossbows still had mediocre accuracy even when fired from their ideal range—which, incidentally, was close enough to reach out and give the enemy in question a handy-j (the latter was the main thrust of my complaints, which Styg acknowledged as being fairly valid).

I merely had a Perception of 10 and maxed Crossbows skill, you see, was using only a shitty old ultra-high-quality crafted crossbow, and only had almost all Crossbow-relevant feats, rather than all of them. Clearly, what I should have done was pump Perception to 20... funnily enough though, I had no issues with sledgehammers in my armor 'n' hammer playthrough, and it was my easiest playthrough. Needless to say, I was nostalgic for the ol' hammer during the crossbows playthrough.

Snarkiness aside, there is a definite benefit to pushing a stat past 10, though having your primary combat stat at 10 won't make the game impossible or even "too hard," but it'll be a bit more challenging.

 

[Daedalos]

How are you using smart scaling?

From my BenQ XL2430T Manual:

Using Smart Scaling
You can resize your display by Smart Scaling .
1. Go to Display and Smart Scaling .
2. Adjust the value.

And what exact 720p res are you using?

aka 1280×720

720p = 1280x720 at 16:9

What they said.

MEhhhhhhhh.. only faggy BenQ shit has that scaling shit apparently.. there must be some other way to get a good scaling without it being a monitor "feature"

 

[Blaine]

I own a Philips 144hz 1ms G-Sync monitor, assemble my own computers from parts (though I forget everything about a year after I've assembled my latest rig), and know a lot about tweaking system settings, GPU settings, and driver settings after fifteen years of cajoling popamole with AWESUM GRAPHIX into running smoothly. I'll look into what can be done for "perfect" font resolution and post results later.

 

[Excidium II]

Just play on your native res and use a magnifier.

 

[Goromorg]

I've made a sketch of the build that, IMO, thematically fit for lurking through dark tunnels and hunting the 4- and 2-legged beasts.
Is it viable or it's better to shoot my foot instead of playing it?
http://underrail.info.tm/?build=AwG...0TVKjIZ1EQFYWVlj6wwQ4COLjyhcCXMlw02yCCMRQMEIA
I haven't played beta, just browsed wiki.

 

[Blaine]

I really don't understand the resolution complaints unless people are using 11" screens and playing at 1440p without the large font in-game options enabled, yet several people have complained about it.

I've always suspected that the Codex might be populated mostly by troglodytes with the visual acuity of cave salamanders, and I consider this strong evidence in favor.