This game would really benefit from

[epeli]

But anti-wiki?! Why?!

Dunno. He has grown to hate wikis and proudly labels himself "anti-wiki". His words, not mine.
I have the impression that he wants his game to be this obscure and mysterious special snowflake. As if a janky Slavout needs to be even more unapproachable.
Occasionally he tries to enforce this ideology in game design, to the detriment of the game's quality. Even against his own original design intent and to the disappointment of his co-devs. Just to keep some pointless mechanic obscure to players.

Did Styg outright state that he will not allow a wiki for Underrail: Infusion?

Yes, explicitly. I would say he is generally against all third party resources but that's inferred not explicit.

Him not hosting the wiki might work out for the best in the end.
(He isn't the most competent webadmin, yet he always wanted to do everything himself with his limited time. That's nothing special though, I've seen and dealt with other indie game programmers going through the same mistakes as they grow from a single-man operation into a small company, thinking they're experts at everything and trying to manage everything personally. Maybe that's just where most start-ups fail.)

That is, unless he goes on a crusade to dissuade the community from doing anything, the way he has treated potential modders. Hard to say how everything will play out. He's a bit unpredictable when it comes to these things. If you try to respectfully cooperate with him on modding at his terms, he will threaten you with legal action. If you steal his source code and monetize a mod based on it, he turns a blind eye.

I did some digging, and found what we were looking for.

Spoiler

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Big oof to be honest. I think a large reason why the game has such a reputation for being so difficult is due to all the YouTube reviews of the game which basically say that, along with what people have said on Underrail'S Reddit. It's possible that Styg has more information than us, and that Underrail.info actually has an impact on how people perceive the game, but I have no clue how this would even work. Seriously though, here are two of the most viewed reviews of Underrail on YouTube that highlight the difficulty of the game and how you should follow a recommended build for a first time play through. Each link is timestamped to where in the video the reviewer says as much.

Sszeth
Strat-Edgy Productions

Not just that, but here is a Reddit post (gross I know) relevant to this topic. The poster flat out says that the source of why he assumed the game would require extreme optimization is due to all the reviews he read.

https://www.reddit.com/r/underrail/comments/riwm52/why_was_everyone_presenting_this_game_to_me_as/

There are many other posts like this, and I think a big part of why the game has garnered such a reputation is because the game's audience actually fosters said reputation because it's something that we consider to be cool and refreshing. It is still super early in the games development cycle and it's possible Styg will change his mind. We will see in the future.

Regarding the whole build optimization autism meta situation and underrail.info's role: It's not that big of a deal.
If anything, the shift in meta/public perception was caused by adding all the build forums/channels/whatnot that steered the community towards build-centric meta. I never asked for that.
Naturally underrail.info/build/ is the face of the build meta, but Styg understands its value and importance to the community.

 

[Tygrende]

Did Styg outright state that he will not allow a wiki for Underrail: Infusion?

Yes, explicitly. I would say he is generally against all third party resources but that's inferred not explicit.

What do you mean he won't "allow" a wiki lmao. Last time I checked you don't need the creator's permission to discuss and document information about things on the internet. He may not host it himself but that never stopped any game from having a wiki.

 

[Trashos]

Right, I am taking a deep breath.

First of all, let's all appreciate that if Styg weren't eccentric and stubborn, we wouldn't have had this awesome game.

I won't talk about the modding issue, because I see his point there, and I am kinda sorta on his side on that.

My problem is that I do not understand the anti-wiki issue. Does he want players to not be scared (as he says in the conversation posted on the previous page) or does he want the mechanics to be obscure? Because he cannot have both.

 

[Scrounger]

The issue is not about mechanics but on the quest and locations info, like how many people has been stunted by expecting something to happen (but here wiki says...etc) and it doesn't due to lack of info on wiki itself and/or due to new additions, ways to solve certain situations, tweaks, new changes, etc.

I wager that knowing about some things beforehand like Faceless faction "system" can be detrimental to one's experience instead of going by the feeling or rolling with the consequences.

I'm certain that it helped a lot when the game was in a much rougher state tho...

 

[Trashos]

The issue is not about mechanics but on the quest and locations info, like how many people has been stunted by expecting something to happen (but here wiki says...etc) and it doesn't due to lack of info on wiki itself and/or due to new additions, ways to solve certain situations, tweaks, new changes, etc.

The people who are impatient enough to read the wiki too early... what do you think they are going to do if there is no wiki? They will read the online guides instead! So what is anyone gaining by all this?!

The wiki could have a warning up top that all info is not necessarily up to date. That solves that.

All this anti-wiki attitude is going to accomplish is piss off those of us who enjoy the wiki.

 

[Scrounger]

Well true enough I guess.
But either way (and despite what styg said on discord, these are half-jokingly made suggestions that they don't really have much time for) I don't think that anyone will forbid the forming or expanding of the already existing wiki.

What I do believe is that there are some possibilities for adding an internal wiki in Infusion

 

[cherry blossom]

I think Styg is caught up in a vicious circle of "improving" the game. It came out 8 years ago and he is still not one step closer to making an actual sequel, fiddling with expanding the original game.

It won't even be the same game once Infusion is released. So, that's just making me sort of indifferent about it.

And eventually, somebody will reverse engineer the game to make new environments, characters and dialogue.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

My expectations for Infusion suddenly declined.