Might be just me.. (underrail impressions)

[Jimmious]

Aenra Έλα ρε μαν and don't get me wrong I agree more or less. I just think the initial post was a bit strong "on purpose" by mentioning Oblivion and Skyrim and so on. They trigger alarms in here :kwanzania:

 

[Aenra]

Jimmious then maybe you take games a bit too seriously? No offense, but ..games..? We're meant to have fun with them. Also, lol, reading comprehension.
I said "they are the two games i have played the least, like ever". A tad different a statement i'd think ^^

oneself no need to use an extreme opposite of an example. They're never the solution, be they leaning towards one spectrum or the other. If you cannot even conceive of a semblance of measure between random fucking RNG on the one hand and nazi Sawyerisms on the other..i mean come on

 

[Jimmious]

Of course I'm taking games seriously otherwise why are we even in this forum? To talk about politics or sth?

 

[ArchAngel]

I see more retards came to post one-liners, edgy or shallow replies, even a mere emoticon. How better to symbolise their capacity for deep, productive thinking after all. Codex Hive 101
..now as to those that bothered to showcase a functioning brain by posting proper replies:

IF this is how you feel what are you doing here? On RPGWatch there are plenty of people that will be closer to your views. Or you can go even further and go to Obsidian boards or to far reaches of popamole space and even reach Bioware boards..

For me it is opposite, Undertail topic has show me that Codex is not nearly as hardcore as it likes to promote itself.

 

[oneself]

oneself no need to use an extreme opposite of an example. They're never the solution, be they leaning towards one spectrum or the other. If you cannot even conceive of a semblance of measure between random fucking RNG on the one hand and nazi Sawyerisms on the other..i mean come on

But the spectrum exists, and having more of one will mean having less of the other.

You cannot do without bloat or suboptimal choices. If everything is significant then nothing is. Just like if you highlight every word on a page then nothing is highlighted.

 

[Angthoron]

Angthoron nothing. I actually, honestly, think you're a great guy. Really. Said fact however does not/need not nullify your enjoying DIII, WoW, etc. It takes a special type of person to enjoy these games, be they as a whole or in case of the latter, in their current 'incarnation'. I feel obliged to point that out, with all it entails. If said person additionally happens to have become an RPGCodex staff member, hardly my fault for the connotations it allows if you get my point. Just the way i'm wired. Again, one does not nullify the other, so yes, i still think you're a great guy. That can happen; the good and the bad.

'k. However, there's also things like genre divisions, and what can work and be tolerated (or even be a focus feature/staple) in one genre does not mean that it will work in another. Respawns have to happen in MMOs, else you end up with a depopulated world. There are some MMOs (Saga of Ryzom etc) that have tried to create a proper simulation of a world, but they usually relied on eventually having to reset the world once the locust swarm would deplete it of all resources yet again. However, when you have respawns happening in a single-player RPG, that's a different story, and that story can range from "Wait, didn't I wipe out Bracada's population already?" to "Fuck! More trash fights in turn-based mode while I'm backtracking for the 5th time, who thought this was a good idea?" or, better yet, Arnika Road. I can be okay with respawns, waves, etc in, say, D3 because enemies are punching bags with loot, or WoW because you have to tolerate them, but seeing them in Underrail was a little off-putting, shall we say. Similarly, seeing a wave-based event in Dragon Age Origins was one of the final nails in the coffin of that wreck.

Similar things can be said about many other features of Underrail - they should technically work, and they should technically be good, but in reality they do often end up being detrimental to the overall experience. Case in point - lack of "run" option. Fallout had run option! Why can't I have run option here? Why do I have to use Cheat Engine for faster movement? Augh.

In other words - the fact that I can enjoy/tolerate other genres doesn't mean that I like to eat shit in core RPGs. So pls to not assume.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

It is just even more highlighted in a game of this genre, as you are basically accepting the ultimate paradox, that of 'role playing' the consequences of your choices..when said choices are being left to chance?

Unless you intend to play as Laplace's demon in a fully deterministic universe, there is no paradox. Our universe isn't even deterministic, and what sane RPG designer would allow a player character to be omniscient?

 

[Eyestabber]

Eyestabber half your arguments revolve around crafting being good (i know it is..) or around the notion of components being essential for crafting (i know they are..). Am fucking aware of that you idiot; do you have it in you to become fucking aware of how OP crafting is, how shit loot is without crafting taken into consideration, or how a heavy-handed RNG really goes against some core RPG principles? How economy is imbalanced as fuck precisely due to RNG, respawns and crafting being as it is? Or in other words, are you even fucking capable of reading comprehension, or do you just flick the switch and go on your monologue?
As for the rest..i do not propose any whatsoever 'popamole' travel system, and i definitely do not propose what you appear to think i do. Again, read first, think afterwards, reply last. The sum of your arguments portrays a retard rushing to defend a game he does not need to defend, with illogical reasoning and a lack of reading comprehension. My fault for having had a different opinion of you. Up to now. Take a couple of decades, see when you can find yourself capable of distinguishing between opinions, facts, personal preference and outside factors (like them or not).

You really need to see a doctor about that butthurt, son. Could be something serious.

The "craftung O-Peeeee" argument has been discussed at length in the UR thread. My take is that nerfing it would only make things worse. Merchants need to be given a fighting chance instead of just selling crap, but that's about it. If you want a gun/armor to be exactly the sum of X, Y and Z components, craft it yourself. I didn't fail to comprehend your argument, I just brushed it aside as idiocy. What you WANT is for Styg to ensure that your build is just as awesome as every other build. "muh bad feats, muh OP craftung!!!". Eat a dick. Go play League of Legends. There you will find a company that simply LOVES to listen to your whining.

NOTE for other ppl reading this post: I'm perfectly willing to discuss game balance and I do believe that "X weapon is simply a bad version of Y weapon" is bad design. However, it only makes sense to complain about it when we're talking about mutually exclusive choices. Crossbow users are a glaring example of "balance problem" in UR, since they get the middle finger when confronted with high mech DR enemies. Their special bolts don't really save the day, forcing the xbow user to resort to grenades and other tools, which makes their choice of offensive skill inferior to guns in every way. The same can be said about Riot Gear and the Guard feat. Shield builds are total crap. None of these arguments were used by Aenra when criticizing UR. He feels shafted because he chose to skip crafting, but NO build decisions in UR block you from crafting. "but I wanna LARP a guy that really hates dah craftung!". Again, eat a dick. -.-"

TL;DR: Yeah, UR has problems, but not the ones this retard mentions in the OP.

 

[Shadenuat]

How many times do you actually run into respawned enemies?

All the time if you explore caves a lot. Game also likes to send you to locations you probably already explored at level 10 when you're level 20 "hey wanna visit those caves again where you can find 1 location of cool new content but have to search for it through 5 with pigsratscrawlerslarperslurkers?"

 

[ArchAngel]

Eyestabber If you skip crafting I think it can still work OK. You get extra points and can invest into Intimidate and Yell. You can dump Int and just raise Hacking by skill points (or keep it at 5 for Expose Weakness feat). You get more feats for other stuff. My character did no crafting except for DC but even for DC for a stealth guy I would have done OK without it especially if I had Intimidate and Yell (Yell would cover the difference in dodge and evasion I lost by not having crafted Tabi boots instead of best I could find normally).

Probably biggest problem for a crossbow build without crafting is not being able to make custom crossbows so not being able to combine crit damage scope with a crossbow of choice which is a problem when trying to create crit builds for crossbow users which is one way to make a good first strike crossbow/stealth guy.

 

[Jools]

Angthoron nothing. I actually, honestly, think you're a great guy. Really. Said fact however does not/need not nullify your enjoying DIII, WoW, etc. It takes a special type of person to enjoy these games, be they as a whole or in case of the latter, in their current 'incarnation'. I feel obliged to point that out, with all it entails. If said person additionally happens to have become an RPGCodex staff member, hardly my fault for the connotations it allows if you get my point. Just the way i'm wired. Again, one does not nullify the other, so yes, i still think you're a great guy. That can happen; the good and the bad.

You forgot #nohomo. Was it some deliberate Freudian slip?

Anyway, TBH this thread is quite entertaining. I haven't even played UR, nor was I that interested in the game, but from an "external" and "uninformed" point of view, Aenra a 's points can seem legit. That said, he did put those forward in the most edgy-tryhard and asshole-y way possible, which never helps. Furthermore, some of his criticism gets undermined by some of the inconsistencies you guys pointed out. Oh yes and the "personal" attacks were fairly gratuitous (or mandatory, this being the Codex and all).

What's really entertaining is the amount of hatred/butthurt (they do go hand in hand, after all) that edgy criticism by a newfag (nothing personal there, Aenra) can cause.

Aenra, can you please write a PoE review? I need some Monday-grade entertainment and the butthurt it would probably spawn could totally save me.

 

[Roqua]

Roqua If you liked Underrail, good for you. I read what you said, apples and oranges, anyday, anytime. Am neither surprised nor offended someone could like it. Self-evident. Am not discounting its good elements and i'm definitely not here to convert anyone. I saw a lot of praise, a lot of fanboysim and a lot of glossing over issues i ---personally--- found more than annoying, hence my post. That's all. Someone speaking their own mind. Thanks for replying, glad we agree to disagree

Okay, taking in your reply and instead of having a knee-jerk "you are a console fan" reaction I can admit there are a lot of crpgs I dislike that most others seem to love. For me, if I think the combat is bad, or the character development is bad, or if the game forces me to be a character they invented and I dislike, chances are I am not going to like it no matter how good the rest of the game may be. I honesty do have a hard time understanding how anyone could not like Underrail, even though I have a list as long as yours of things I thought were annoying or not good with the game. But, I also have a hard time understanding how people not just tolerate the IE game's combat, but actually love it. My brain cannot accept certain things. A really good friend of mine at work, who I have a huge amount of respect for and trust implicitly, told me she doesn't like tomatoes or tomato products like pasta sauce or catsup. Ever since she told me this my opinion of her shifted. How can I respect and trust someone who doesn't like tomatoes? What kind of degenerate monster with ridiculous taste buds would it take to make tomatoes unlikeable? I try and be open-minded about it, but it just hurts my head and I can't get past it.

Lastly, sometimes a slight change in a game can have a huge difference. For instance, I bought FO:NV and was severely unimpressed by it. It just didn't have any real hook or appeal for me, and the UI and UI functions are so bad it just fills me with rage. How can you spend 8 gazzillion dollars on making a game and not have a decent workable UI and normal hotkeys like inventory being I, etc? But, about a year ago I replayed FO 1 and 2, and decided to give it another try. No mod can fix the awful UI issues, but there was a mod called After War Nevada. It made character creation matter significantly more, and character building great. Not only did it make specing extremely important, it made it a huge hook for me. I wanted to level to get my skill points and build up to the feats that really made a big difference. It also made the game significantly harder. For instance, the quest were you fight the jail guys they added a ton more bad guys and it was extremely difficult and required me to try a million different tactics to win the battle and keep the guy they were trying to kill alive. Weight is important, dying is a lot easier, the weapons have a bunch of mods and tier levels, and tier levels for the mods too. Every 25 points in a skill also unlocked a perk too, and skill points are much less abundant than regular (I know I got less than 10, it was a low number), making every point allocation matter. I have to start over and take explosives and set up mines and use grenades to win big fights, etc.

The game went from a big piece of shit to a game worth playing. I honestly did not think I would ever consider a console game a good rpg, and I do not consider the base FO:NV a good game by any means. But that mod made it not just good for a console game, but also a decent rpg worth playing to boot.

 

[hell bovine]

Angthoron nothing. I actually, honestly, think you're a great guy. Really. Said fact however does not/need not nullify your enjoying DIII, WoW, etc. It takes a special type of person to enjoy these games, be they as a whole or in case of the latter, in their current 'incarnation'. I feel obliged to point that out, with all it entails. If said person additionally happens to have become an RPGCodex staff member, hardly my fault for the connotations it allows if you get my point. Just the way i'm wired. Again, one does not nullify the other, so yes, i still think you're a great guy. That can happen; the good and the bad.

So, what types of games do you enjoy? Elder scrolls online perhaps?

 

[Efe]

can't believe codex is hating on this game

 

[ArchAngel]

can't believe codex is hating on this game

Where did you get that? The polls show they love it as much as AoD.

 

[toro]

can't believe codex is hating on this game

wtf. codex doesn't hate this game.

 

[Maxwell's Demon]

There's even an Underrail sub-forum now.

 

[toro]

-- I never liked playing the RNG. Which is why i never liked hate backgammon, casino and luck related games, etc. Not an RPG-centric issue. It is just even more highlighted in a game of this genre, as you are basically accepting the ultimate paradox, that of 'role playing' the consequences of your choices..when said choices are being left to chance? Apparently everyone's fine with that, you can even discern the slightly large percentage of people enjoying this aspect if you read through the lines?

RNG in UR is real but it's not so bad overall and it certainly doesn't nullify the consequences of your choices. I think this is simply an exaggeration.

-- I cannot appreciate how RNG gets to determine when, where and how long after i am first capable of utilising it i get to find 'x' or 'y' crafting component. I sure as hell cannot appreciate, or even comprehend how you folks do, the fact that in one playthrough i get a 55 quality component at level 1, whereas in another (same exact build) i can have 30 hours clocked in and never having encountered it at all. At all. Why the fuck am i leveling then? Why the fuck are my skill points limited and i am (rightly) encouraged to have a build in my head? It's just ..luck.. in the end isn't it?

I somewhat agree. High level crafting components should be available from the start. The current system might seem interesting on the 1st playthrough however most players will prefer to have access to the components as soon as possible. There is no fun in rotating through all merchants in all the locations.

-- I could never tolerate respawns in a single player RPG, and i cannot here either. I am not a 12yr old fucktard needing constant ceasless pew pew to feel like my dick grew longer, i am definitely not an akshun type of play3r (moar killzz! wow!!11) and above all, i am very very not appreciating the fact that with certain builds it can often amount to my needing to hit base and re-re-stock prior to re-re-initiating my trip to wherever it was i originally wanted to go. Fun!
On a different level, i always found respawns detracting from the sense of accomplishment clearing an area up gives you. Sense this time as in literally, forget XP and levels. Am talking 'clearing' something up, your reward being (in the long run) that of having unrestricted/unchallenged access to and fro a location. Nice, logical, believable, satisfactory. Apparently not for most of you.

This is a 50-50. The thing is, except a few special and retarded situations, the game can be played in a backtracking free way which means that the respawning problem is rendered irrelevant. I understand that this might be an serious issue on 1st playthrough but not anymore in following playthroughs.

On the other hand, it would not kill the developer to add an option to disable respawns.

-- I find it rather moronic that on top of this, said respawns also get to affect the totally broken, moronic sense of the game's economy (sense as in how Styg thinks he's balanced it out) by being an indirectly ..direct.. source of components. It's not even grind exactly, it's worse. You even gotta wait for it. Or encounter it when you don't want or need it.

The economy in UR is broken with or without the respawns.

-- I thought dump stats were bad (not sure if i still do, game depending) and apparently so did Styg; except he went on a 180 and introduced the exact opposite issue. Crafting is an absolute must, except it's passed on as 'optional'. Why bother? And if you want to keep it a must, besides re-considering how your skill allocation should work???, how about re-considering the respawns? Because in this case, we have both the respawns, and the RNG to contest with. See merchants and stock.

Crafting is really optional. However we all want the good stuff therefore it somewhat becomes mandatory for a good build.

-- Tied to the above, but worthy of its own section; How about loot by the way? Useless unless you are a crafter. Don't see anyone minding that either for some reason. Even the dumbest, most superficial excuse one could offer, ie money, is gone out the window. You get so much money, even housing upgrade won't deplete it. Loot is an utter fucking catastrophe. Components, components, components, occasionally a shit gun your local merchant will laugh at, even he has better for sale. RNG notwithstanding.

No comment. It seems I've played a different game. Consider this, what would you rather have in loot?

-- Again tied to Styg's solution of 'anti-dump stats'. Certain feats are an absolute must, 100% best choice for a build, while others are so fucking useless, no one would use them. Ever. Not even for dump stat, as unlike those, they only detract. Again why bother. Lacking dump skills is one thing, adding useless ones is.. quite another.
. This is not the 'try your build and experiment' case, where yes, theoretically you could fail and need start over. This is a case of bloating the feats page after having added the ones he knew we'd all pick up. Except, be it due to haste or inexperience, we get the extras we have.
. This is not Fallout 1/2, where a semi-intelligent mixing of dump stats and feats could pull you through. Min-maxing is encouraged in Underrail.

I don't understand this complain. Perhaps Sawyer could help balancing the feats out of existence.

-- Area transition. Insta-travel from anywhere to any a place is bad, but that doesn't mean we cannot exercice good measure. Select locations/waypoints where some form of fast/map travel was possible would have greatly helped. Not because it would make the game 'easier', but because it would have made it less boring. Simple as that. It's boring to walk through an area you cleared for the upteenth time, whether it has or has not respawns.

A location map as in Fallout would have helped a lot.

-- Certain choices in enemy placement are very, very obviously the result of how should i put it? Think of a milennial edgelord (yes, they do exist) making his game.
. Mobs mobs mobs, even where it makes no sense. Just so there are mobs. Hardzorz. Like rathounds inside vents, or mobs right outside an exit-only passage (ie purposefuly placed so that you stumble upon them). Except they did not make my passage any 'harder'. Just more annoying. There where it makes no sense, harmless or almost harmless just so time is wasted on encounters so safe for me to undertake there is absolutely no chance i'd lose them, ie no stress, ie no point in having them. No gratification..just:
. Trash. Now we get to the reasoning. Trash. There for the clearing, before the 'meat' of the combat. So many 'trash' mobs in this game. Ring a bell? Does to me. So do respawns. Seen both in a different genre. Yes, that one. There at least, mechanics and concepts like these are directed to the likes of Scrooge and Angthoron. Ok. But here? Fuck me Freddy.

Somewhat true.

I think several complains are founded however the final negative verdict seems to be emotional. Boring topic.

 

[Aenra]

I think several complains are founded however the final negative verdict seems to be emotional. Boring topic

Am not an analyst (thank the fucking almighty) and i'm definitely not a random uneducated dumbass thinking himself a journalist blogger/newsposter. I play games for emotional reasons, so to have fun?, so you can expect any comment i make to have a healthy, prominent dosage of sentimentality in it; and as you've mentioned a founded one at that. You can expect it to be even more prominent in a game i had very high hopes in. Double that when it turns out it employs so very many elements i associate with 'shit' and 'shit' alone. Just me.

As for the boring part.. thanks for being honest nothing. Boring because you don't agree? Boring because no randoms should post their own opinions [assimilate or gtfo], or boring because i got better things to than respond to those in the Codex only here so as to start flame wars? My purpose was not to entertain you, my purpose was to state my own opinion. Pointless? As pointless as typing any a post, in any a topic, in any a forum. No tangible benefit. Ever. So you might wish to reconsider

 

[toro]

LoL.

Boring in like your criticism doesn't add anything new to the table. In one form or another, almost all your points were already discussed in the UR mega-thread. I was expecting something more elaborate but as an example, you complain about RNG but RNG is definitely not a big offender in this game. Mix-maxing as well.

Boring in like I didn't understand what is your big problem with the game. What is the definite flaw that pisses you off?

As for your final verdict, I just see an exaggeration. Underrail is a flawed game but it's the first game in 15+ years that manages to recreate something so similar to Fallout. Of course I wish the game would be better than Fallout but that's almost impossible considering that it's the first game from an inexperienced designer. There are things that basically you cannot learn unless you develop and release games. And what Styg did is simply outstanding. Yeah, game is flawed but is as good as we're gonna get. Now, you can move on, take a break and play the game or you can remain stuck in whining about your disappointment.

Also, the good thing about posting on the codex is that you are free to post any shit you want and most people are free to call you on your bullshit. Assimilate of gtfo is just bullshit. Stop being defensive. Go with the flow. You don't have this freedom in many places ...