Incline Colony Ship RELEASE THREAD

[BosanskiSeljak]

The midwits really exposing themselves talking about impossible scenarios considering how noob friendly Colony Ship is. It was too easy and predictable compared to AoD.

 

[Vault Dweller]

The demo area starts by pitting you against a series of encounters you’re almost guaranteed to fail, one after another.

There are situations where you don’t have enough skill points to proceed or you face most often outright impossible combat scenarios...

The first thing I did was talk to Evans. My character is a captain-type, so it worked out that I could talk my way through it. Trying to fight, however, is a guaranteed failure.

:you can't be serious:

 

[Mortmal]

The demo area starts by pitting you against a series of encounters you’re almost guaranteed to fail, one after another.

There are situations where you don’t have enough skill points to proceed or you face most often outright impossible combat scenarios...

The first thing I did was talk to Evans. My character is a captain-type, so it worked out that I could talk my way through it. Trying to fight, however, is a guaranteed failure.

:you can't be serious:

I’m giving you my first impressions going blind into the game without reading spoilers. My character is charisma-based with tech skills, and combat is better avoided completely. Even for the things my character is specced for, it’s not enough. I find some implants on corpses, but they require a biotech skill of 4 or higher. I finish exploring and end up in front of a door that requires a computer skill of 6. Maybe the game is designed for players to return much later, but from a player’s point of view, that’s a lot of obstacles and failures with very little success. Maybe it’s a lack of dungeon-mastering experience, but I know players don’t like constant failures. I can deal with it, but I don’t know anyone outside the Codex who would.

I’ll get into more detail if needed. The scav encounter is either fight or retreat. The first option throws you into the middle of an ambush like a sitting duck, where you’re shredded quickly. The other option is to retreat empty-handed. Why can’t I send a character to scout with sneak? Why can’t I initiate the fight by throwing a grenade and taking cover before entering the room? There’s zero player agency.

Now at Hydroponics, I’m facing some critter. It’s visually impressive, with nice attack animations, but it shreds the party quickly and regenerates faster than it’s being damaged. Perhaps it’s something to tackle later, but it’s save-and-reload galore right now.

I know many have a deep emotional connection with the game and Iron Tower, and it hurts to tell the truth. But since you seem resistant to feedback, those sycophants have obviously done a lot of harm.

 

[Ol' Willy]

I did, I think, all of the side content in the Pit, leaving the main quest of Jonas/Braxton for later - per tradition.

Some fights are piss easy, some are more challenging. On the challenging side I would say the most difficult is the last fight of church questline (the guy with shoker and rifle guy can rape you); the fight to get squad leader implant is good too. In arena I am currently cockblocked by Solomon fight, I assume I am underleveled for it?

Flashbangs are the new bolas. Bolas being the most overpowered consumable in AoD, and rightly so: completely nullify all defenses for two turns and make the target to skip the next turn. Which was solved by careful rationing of bolas through the game - I don't think you can get more than 10. While flashbangs are worse individually, they have area effect and remain the thing that could change the odds in a given battle. At least for now

 

[jaekl]

The demo area starts by pitting you against a series of encounters you’re almost guaranteed to fail, one after another.

There are situations where you don’t have enough skill points to proceed or you face most often outright impossible combat scenarios...

The first thing I did was talk to Evans. My character is a captain-type, so it worked out that I could talk my way through it. Trying to fight, however, is a guaranteed failure.

:you can't be serious:

I’m giving you my first impressions going blind into the game without reading spoilers. My character is charisma-based with tech skills, and combat is better avoided completely. Even for the things my character is specced for, it’s not enough. I find some implants on corpses, but they require a biotech skill of 4 or higher. I finish exploring and end up in front of a door that requires a computer skill of 6. Maybe the game is designed for players to return much later, but from a player’s point of view, that’s a lot of obstacles and failures with very little success. Maybe it’s a lack of dungeon-mastering experience, but I know players don’t like constant failures. I can deal with it, but I don’t know anyone outside the Codex who would.

I’ll get into more detail if needed. The scav encounter is either fight or retreat. The first option throws you into the middle of an ambush like a sitting duck, where you’re shredded quickly. The other option is to retreat empty-handed. Why can’t I send a character to scout with sneak? Why can’t I initiate the fight by throwing a grenade and taking cover before entering the room? There’s zero player agency.

Now at Hydroponics, I’m facing some critter. It’s visually impressive, with nice attack animations, but it shreds the party quickly and regenerates faster than it’s being damaged. Perhaps it’s something to tackle later, but it’s save-and-reload galore right now.

I know many have a deep emotional connection with the game and Iron Tower, and it hurts to tell the truth. But since you seem resistant to feedback, those sycophants have obviously done a lot of harm.

I hope you're ready for a 10,000 word essay from pink eye about how this is not a niche game at all actually and it would've been bigger than mario if it only had the magic of marketing. I'd run if I was you.

 

[Desman]

When someone give us his honest opinion and make a polite well-thought post he gets called a noob or a retard.
When The Wall yells about Jews ruining the game he gets brofists.
That's the codex for you

 

[lukaszek]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

 

[Mortmal]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Eh, dunno. Vince being resistant to feedback, yeah, i can see that. Imo the game went out of its way to cater to normies and ended up pleasing, well, not noone, but still. Staying in the gigachad AoD niche maybe would have been better, who knows.
For me the game was good, had a lot of fun with it since ye olde days of EA.

 

[thesecret1]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

The game had a lot of flaws. What you describe ain't it, however. If the combat is too hard for you, play the game on easy – the option is there for exactly such cases.

 

[Mortmal]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

The game had a lot of flaws. What you describe ain't it, however. If the combat is too hard for you, play the game on easy – the option is there for exactly such cases.

Everything I say can be found echoed by many Steam forum users; I just checked, and it’s nothing new at all. Then there are the comments saying that easy mode is insultingly easy. But let’s not break the illusion that everything is awesome.

 

[thesecret1]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

The game had a lot of flaws. What you describe ain't it, however. If the combat is too hard for you, play the game on easy – the option is there for exactly such cases.

Everything I say can be found echoed by many Steam forum users; I just checked, and it’s nothing new at all. Then there are the comments saying that easy mode is insultingly easy. But let’s not break the illusion that everything is awesome.

So you haven't played on easy difficulty, despite complaining that the tutorial fight is too difficult for you


And I never said everything is awesome, in fact, I've written several walls of text earlier in the thread listing out things that were bad and why, and how the game is unquestionably worse than its predecessor. But what you're saying is, well, retarded. A tutorial fight that really isn't difficult no matter how you look at it is too hard for you, but playing the game on easy is somehow below you? You'd turn the game into brainless, casualized slop just so you can boost your ego thinking "I beat the game on hard!"

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

"Look at the other midwits crying about ez game being too hard!!!"

Just fucking lol

 

[Mortmal]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

The game had a lot of flaws. What you describe ain't it, however. If the combat is too hard for you, play the game on easy – the option is there for exactly such cases.

Everything I say can be found echoed by many Steam forum users; I just checked, and it’s nothing new at all. Then there are the comments saying that easy mode is insultingly easy. But let’s not break the illusion that everything is awesome.

So you haven't played on easy difficulty, despite complaining that the tutorial fight is too difficult for you


And I never said everything is awesome, in fact, I've written several walls of text earlier in the thread listing out things that were bad and why, and how the game is unquestionably worse than its predecessor. But what you're saying is, well, retarded. A tutorial fight that really isn't difficult no matter how you look at it is too hard for you, but playing the game on easy is somehow below you? You'd turn the game into brainless, casualized slop just so you can boost your ego thinking "I beat the game on hard!"

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

 

[thesecret1]

VD is twitching because evans can clear that encounter alone, with your character contributing nothing

Then it depends on the roll. I should have recorded it; he wasn’t doing too well. Anyway, it’s not worth discussing. They won’t make games anymore, and the cult following here certainly bears part of the responsibility.

The game had a lot of flaws. What you describe ain't it, however. If the combat is too hard for you, play the game on easy – the option is there for exactly such cases.

Everything I say can be found echoed by many Steam forum users; I just checked, and it’s nothing new at all. Then there are the comments saying that easy mode is insultingly easy. But let’s not break the illusion that everything is awesome.

So you haven't played on easy difficulty, despite complaining that the tutorial fight is too difficult for you


And I never said everything is awesome, in fact, I've written several walls of text earlier in the thread listing out things that were bad and why, and how the game is unquestionably worse than its predecessor. But what you're saying is, well, retarded. A tutorial fight that really isn't difficult no matter how you look at it is too hard for you, but playing the game on easy is somehow below you? You'd turn the game into brainless, casualized slop just so you can boost your ego thinking "I beat the game on hard!"

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

The exploration is free, though – you can tackle the areas in whatever order you want and explore them as much as you want. I played them in very different order on each run, so not sure what your point here is. As for reloading encounters, that's pretty much the game's appeal – that the encounters aren't piss easy. It's not like it's the only one that does it either – Underrail, for example, is also extremely heavy on reloading combat encounters because you got killed. That not everyone will be happy with it? Obviously. But such people aren't the target audience. IT never makerted themselves to casuals and never aimed for them, so their complaints on steam forums are akin to crying that the RPG they just played isn't an RTS, and that they along with lots of other people love RTS, and that had the devs made an RTS instead of an RPG they'd be more successful and so on and so on – it's a stupid line of argument.

The game is intended to be difficult. You are intended to reload each fight after losing until you figure out how to tackle it (and once you do figure it out, you won't even need to reload that often in future encounters). If you don't like this, then you shouldn't play the game "as it is intended" (because you dislike said intent) and should just play it on easy. That's what the game mode is for.

 

[Ol' Willy]

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

Is Colony Ship your first RPG?

What do you do when the build you have rolled doesn't work? Roll another build. What stops you from rolling a pure combat build?

Yes, you will miss a lot of non-combat content (although not as much as in AoD), but this is how it goes. First you learn the combat with pure slaying power, then proceed to roll hybrids - which are naturally harder to play

 

[Beans00]

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

The game only gets shittier the further you go, so you aren't missing much if you quit during the first act.

As for difficulty I found combat pretty easy, except fights against robots which were always super annoying.

 

[BosanskiSeljak]

How hard do you have to try to make a build that requires so many restarts in the first fights?

I made a busted pistol/tech hybrid without even taking a heroic feat cause I was drunk and retarded but the Pit was way too easy even on Underdog

 

[agris]

I finally started playing since it’s Christmas, the game is heavily discounted, and it’s most likely bug-free now. I can understand why it hasn’t achieved much success. The demo area starts by pitting you against a series of encounters you’re almost guaranteed to fail, one after another. There are situations where you don’t have enough skill points to proceed or you face most often outright impossible combat scenarios, on the "Underdog" setting, which is what the game was originally designed around.

The first thing I did was talk to Evans. My character is a captain-type, so it worked out that I could talk my way through it. Trying to fight, however, is a guaranteed failure. It’s probably a complete shitshow even with a combat-focused character. I’m fine with that, but this is supposed to be the first fight and pretty much a tutorial.

Then the game opens up into multiple areas, but the freedom feels fake. It lets you access places where you have no chance of success. For example, there’s an encounter with some guys asking for help to move a crate. You’re given the option to fight or retreat, but I had no idea what I was retreating from. This happens repeatedly throughout the game. You have no way to estimate threats. As a result, I ended up save-scumming, trying things, and reloading at every step. They might as well have made it fully linear.

Still, this won’t stop me from playing. I’m enjoying exploring, gaining new companions, and improving my skills and equipment. However, I’m pretty sure any casual player who tries the demo will smash their face against the wall so many times they won’t even bother with the full game.

Otherwise, the game looks amazing. The sci-fi setting, which is rarely used, is incredibly atmospheric. It’s good for me, I guess, but it’s super niche.

BG3 isn’t sending its best

 

[Mortmal]

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

Is Colony Ship your first RPG?

What do you do when the build you have rolled doesn't work? Roll another build. What stops you from rolling a pure combat build?

Yes, you will miss a lot of non-combat content (although not as much as in AoD), but this is how it goes. First you learn the combat with pure slaying power, then proceed to roll hybrids - which are naturally harder to play

The build? The preset for a diplomatic character, one of the three. Coming from Age of Decadence, I already knew there wasn’t much leeway allowed, and indeed, I wasn’t wrong. Not much has been learned or changed since that game, except it’s more aesthetically pleasing. Once again, we see forced replayability by blocking content like this. Either you go with a fully min-maxed combat character and miss all the interactions and lore, or you choose a diplomatic build and have to skip most combat. That doesn’t sound like good fun that build.

 

[Mortmal]

I finally started playing since it’s Christmas, the game is heavily discounted, and it’s most likely bug-free now. I can understand why it hasn’t achieved much success. The demo area starts by pitting you against a series of encounters you’re almost guaranteed to fail, one after another. There are situations where you don’t have enough skill points to proceed or you face most often outright impossible combat scenarios, on the "Underdog" setting, which is what the game was originally designed around.

The first thing I did was talk to Evans. My character is a captain-type, so it worked out that I could talk my way through it. Trying to fight, however, is a guaranteed failure. It’s probably a complete shitshow even with a combat-focused character. I’m fine with that, but this is supposed to be the first fight and pretty much a tutorial.

Then the game opens up into multiple areas, but the freedom feels fake. It lets you access places where you have no chance of success. For example, there’s an encounter with some guys asking for help to move a crate. You’re given the option to fight or retreat, but I had no idea what I was retreating from. This happens repeatedly throughout the game. You have no way to estimate threats. As a result, I ended up save-scumming, trying things, and reloading at every step. They might as well have made it fully linear.

Still, this won’t stop me from playing. I’m enjoying exploring, gaining new companions, and improving my skills and equipment. However, I’m pretty sure any casual player who tries the demo will smash their face against the wall so many times they won’t even bother with the full game.

Otherwise, the game looks amazing. The sci-fi setting, which is rarely used, is incredibly atmospheric. It’s good for me, I guess, but it’s super niche.

BG3 isn’t sending its best

Allegedly second rpg of year:

Third rpg of the year:

Do not bring BG3 into the discussion; it’s not doing any favors to the poor Colony Ship. I think there are hints that BG3 is clearly doing something better design-wise.
I also read some of you say it wasn’t meant for the mainstream. Well, the Steam forum users raising the same concerns as me don’t look like mainstream gamers at all. And really, what kind of mainstream gamers would even take a look at it? At least be honest for the duration of a single post.

 

[agris]

I finish exploring and end up in front of a door that requires a computer skill of 6. Maybe the game is designed for players to return much later, but from a player’s point of view, that’s a lot of obstacles and failures with very little success.

Is this what kids call brain rot?

The notion that at the “end” of a series of challenges you are met with anything other than ego-massaging and gratification is experienced by the player as a failure is about as alien a concept to me as using popularity as a proxy for quality.

i guess there’s multiple generations of players who know nothing but quest compasses and theme parks; where you punch your ticket and get the shiny at the end of the ride.

 

[Mortmal]

I finish exploring and end up in front of a door that requires a computer skill of 6. Maybe the game is designed for players to return much later, but from a player’s point of view, that’s a lot of obstacles and failures with very little success.

Is this what kids call brain rot?

The notion that at the “end” of a series of challenges you are met with anything other than ego-massaging and gratification is experienced by the player as a failure is about as alien a concept to me as using popularity as a proxy for quality.

i guess there’s multiple generations of players who know nothing but quest compasses and theme parks; where you punch your ticket and get the shiny at the end of the ride.

I get the design philosophy really and how they must be handling things at home...

Dungeon Master Vince: The Colonoscopy Ship groans as you enter the chamber, its walls dripping with fungal growth where the mindworms once clung. The air reeks of decay. Before you stands a heavy steel door, cold and featureless, except for the blinking console mounted beside it. The display reads:
"ACCESS REQUIRES COMPUTER SKILL LEVEL 6. OVERRIDE IMPOSSIBLE."

Player 1: Okay, I’ve got a 3 in Computers. Can I—

Dungeon Master Vince (cutting in): Nope. Not enough. It says you need a 6.

Player 2: I scrape some fungus off the wall. Maybe I can short-circuit the console with it?

Dungeon Master Vince: No. The fungus doesn’t do anything.

Player 3: Fine. I’ll just punch the console.

Dungeon Master Vince (irritated): No! You cannot punch it. It’s a console. You need Computer 6.

Player 1: What if I try using a multitool to pry open the casing?

Dungeon Master Vince: No. It’s designed to require a 6. That’s the whole point.

Player 2: Seriously? There’s nothing else we can do?

Dungeon Master Vince (grinning): Suddenly, the console turns red. Two panels in the ceiling slide open, and turrets descend.

Player 3: Are you serious? Can we—

Dungeon Master Vince: The turrets lock onto you and fire instantly. You all take critical damage and die.

Player 1: What kind of nonsense is this?!

Dungeon Master Vince (slamming the table): IT’S GREAT DESIGN!

 

[Ol' Willy]

Of course, not only is it beneath me, but I want to experience the game as it was truly designed and intended, as mentioned in the starting choice. As far as the design goes, I can see why it’s not having much success. I also never said it was impossible for me, just that it’s too luck-dependent and not especially fun to constantly reload and figure out in which order its possible to tackle the encounters and skill checkpoints , within the illusion of free exploration.

Is Colony Ship your first RPG?

What do you do when the build you have rolled doesn't work? Roll another build. What stops you from rolling a pure combat build?

Yes, you will miss a lot of non-combat content (although not as much as in AoD), but this is how it goes. First you learn the combat with pure slaying power, then proceed to roll hybrids - which are naturally harder to play

The build? The preset for a diplomatic character, one of the three. Coming from Age of Decadence, I already knew there wasn’t much leeway allowed, and indeed, I wasn’t wrong. Not much has been learned or changed since that game, except it’s more aesthetically pleasing. Once again, we see forced replayability by blocking content like this. Either you go with a fully min-maxed combat character and miss all the interactions and lore, or you choose a diplomatic build and have to skip most combat. That doesn’t sound like good fun that build.

Going into combat with a diplomatic character requires a hybrid build and those are obviously harder to play than pure combat or non-combat builds. It's not a Fallout 2 where you could simply dump some points into "Speech" and be casually passing speech skillchecks even with pure combat character with dumped CHA. This obvious, since the the persuasion system is much more detailed than in Fallout 2 and many other newer RPGs, and thus requires a bigger SP investment. If you played AoD you should realize that and not roll such builds for a first run.

And this is applies mostly to AoD because it's solo only, even in Dungeon Rats you may invest only in non-combat skills and defense and have the party do the fighting for you while ignoring offensive skills and dealing almost no damage by yourself. I just did a run like that just recently. I see no issue why this couldn't be done in Colony Ship, obviously you shouldn't go into combat before assembling the full party. Although I would say the party companions in CS are generally weaker and make fights harder, it's not like in DR where you can have Marcus for the entire game as he is good then get Roxana fairly early. But still, you can have a four man party after three sets of speech skillchecks right from the start and work with it.

AI got smarter, now they would actually concentrate attacks on a single character - what any even semi-literate human RPG player would be doing instead of attacking randomly and likewise to apply debuffs on you at any opportunity. But didn't everyone complained about bad AI in RPGs, what happened?

 

[Ol' Willy]

Player 1: Okay, I’ve got a 3 in Computers. Can I—

Dungeon Master Vince (cutting in): Nope. Not enough. It says you need a 6.

Player 2: I scrape some fungus off the wall. Maybe I can short-circuit the console with it?

Dungeon Master Vince: No. The fungus doesn’t do anything.

Player 3: Fine. I’ll just punch the console.

Dungeon Master Vince (irritated): No! You cannot punch it. It’s a console. You need Computer 6.

Player 1: What if I try using a multitool to pry open the casing?

Dungeon Master Vince: No. It’s designed to require a 6. That’s the whole point.

Player 2: Seriously? There’s nothing else we can do?

Dungeon Master Vince (grinning): Suddenly, the console turns red. Two panels in the ceiling slide open, and turrets descend.

Player 3: Are you serious? Can we—

Dungeon Master Vince: The turrets lock onto you and fire instantly. You all take critical damage and die.

Player 1: What kind of nonsense is this?!

Dungeon Master Vince (slamming the table): IT’S GREAT DESIGN!

I know this place. The solution is to reload. Right now I can kill the turrets, but don't really see the point in wasting a lot of resources, especially as if you do so then you also have high lockpick skillcheck. It is available only to characters who invested heavily in those skills as a - gasp - an actual reward for investment in those skills