UnderRail review at RPS - and it's negative!

[Ol' Willy]

Minmax until game has no challenge whatsoever. That's the way to go. And avoid guides: learn all the exploits by yourself. Broken builds are fun too: they show you where you fucked up and it's an actual challenge to go as far as possible with such build. If someone is whining about "game is too hard, I want everything at my first playthrough" then this someone should play some interactive novels instead

 

[Parabalus]

We've seen the former in Pillars of Eternity, and it was boring. Most other RPGs nowadays go the latter route, and they're even more boring.

I found my fist build boring because it punched everything up with no effort. It takes the join out of character building when something is ridiculously overtuned.

There's a huge, huge amount of room between sawyerism and 2AP fist attacks oneshotting stuff. Styg has rightfully been nerfbatting and buffhammering since release.

"game is too hard, I want everything at my first playthrough" then this someone should play some interactive novels instead

You can do that if you decide to pick PSI.

 

[Sweeper]

I found my fist build boring because it punched everything up with no effort

Without following a build guide? Welp anyway

It takes the join out of character building when something is ridiculously overtuned.

I disagree. I think players should be rewarded when they build their characters well.

There's a huge, huge amount of room between sawyerism and 2AP fist attacks oneshotting stuff.

That's fair, but now we're discussing builds in relation to enemy balance instead of other builds.
I'm not opposed to S tier builds so long as the player is forced to put the work in, with the build feeling weaker early on or up until mid game. Which is when most builds in Underrail come together.

What I'm getting at is I'm fine with a game being unbalanced so long as the theorycrafting and character building feel satisfying. The bad or subpar builds have to be there to make the powerful builds feel powerful.

 

[Parabalus]

The bad or subpar builds

When you say bad, do you mean built incompetently or being bad because Styg didn't tune the numbers right?

You could have e.g. minmaxxed xbow all you want and still had a harder time than a monkey building/playing fist/PSI.

When the divide is too big it cheapens the experience, hence you have most people in the UR thread cheering when PSI gets nerfed.

 

[Sweeper]

When you say bad, do you mean built incompetently or being bad because Styg didn't tune the numbers right?

You could have e.g. minmaxxed xbow all you want and still had a harder time than a monkey building/playing fist/PSI.

Either/or tbh. Crossbows suck in comparison to most builds, but they're still viable. Just like pistol, even on dominating.
I honestly don't see that as a problem.
You can consider them as challenge builds.

 

[Parabalus]

When you say bad, do you mean built incompetently or being bad because Styg didn't tune the numbers right?

You could have e.g. minmaxxed xbow all you want and still had a harder time than a monkey building/playing fist/PSI.

Either/or tbh. Crossbows suck in comparison to most builds, but they're still viable. Just like pistol, even on dominating.
I honestly don't see that as a problem.
You can consider them as challenge builds.

I agree with you, but that's because of the meta knowledge we have. When you start the game up those builds aren't labeled [Challange].

I'd wager the guy on the previous page would have had a different experience had he rolled the dice differently.

 

[hell bovine]

when PSI gets nerfed.

If it gets nerfed. We'll see if the devs manage to knock down the cave wizard from the throne they've placed him on.

 

[Sweeper]

I agree with you, but that's because of the meta knowledge we have. When you start the game up those builds aren't labeled [Challange].

I'd wager the guy on the previous page would have had a different experience had he rolled the dice differently.

Improvise, adapt, overcome. If the shit you're doing ain't working, change your approach.
If you're unwilling to put in the time for trial and error, which is understandable, follow a guide or at least read some tips.
Throwing nets/flares/molotovs are life safers.
Invest 15 points into persuasion and you get a .44 right off the bat.
Cheese the game by using fenced doors. Shooting explosive barrels.
The game gives you plenty of tools to overcome the early game hurdle, people not experimenting with all the tools they're given is their problem tbh.

Spoiler

I mean, fuck are we doing here? Arguing for more handholding in a market where 99% of games squeeze your hand?
Nah m8, I ain't having none of that.

 

[Trashos]

I respect the fact that some people have no brain power left to devote to games, but I cannot respect the fact that they demand that all games be dumbed down to their level.

Also, JGEDYD.

 

[Drowed]

What I mean when I say "Underrail is easy" is that even without any previous knowledge, it is very simple to make a perfectly functional character, even if it is not "incredibly optimized". Granted, it's a bit more complicated if you're playing in oddity mode and with high difficulty, but it's still something perfectly possible. First of all, you have only four attack skills. There are literally 4 options, so if you were to randomly choose only here you would have a 25% chance of picking a good/useful skill. But one of them is throwing... So, c'mom, there's two ranged attack options left, and melee. And 2 defense skills. You have the feats, but they have the literal description of what they do, just read it. And it's not as if you have access to all the feats from start, at each level you'll only have a few options.

Again, I'm not saying you'll be making the best character possible right away, at least without reading the wiki or checking the forums, is very unlikely. But I think it's practically impossible for you not to create a character that's minimally competent to advance in the game by just using a minimum of reasoning and strategy in combat - unless you go out distributing your points randomly. Kill things. Earn XP. Sell stuff. Buy new weapons/armor. Kill more stuff. Repeat. Yes, you'll probably be caught by surprise and die in 1 or 2 turns here or there, but that's part of every good game. If you don't save often in any CRPG, you are committing suicide for no reason.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

it is very simple to make a perfectly functional character,

The first time I played underrail I had no idea assault rifles required strength and made a character that was essentially non-functional and had to restart a few hours in

 

[Curratum]

I can't believe the amount of pent-up, autistic, impotent and irrelevant rage this forum harbors.

 

[Drowed]

The first time I played underrail I had no idea assault rifles required strength and made a character that was essentially non-functional and had to restart a few hours in

But why? I mean, I didn't use assault rifles on some of my playthroughs. It's not an absolute necessity. Pistols (Energy/Chemical) + SMGs + melee are still viable. Yes, if you have a very low strength you lose access to both rifles, and maybe even shotguns. But it's not literally a death sentence, if you haven't invested in strength, then obviously you've invested in other things, haven't you?

 

[Fenix]

Like I said I don't have time to restart a game 3 times because the dev can't give me info about which skills are useless and which are essential.

It's not that bad as you describing it - one offensive weapon skill, or 2-3 psionics, crafting - a bit, some persuasion.Maybe some defensive skill.
Everything is simple, this is what I did for the first time, and that worked for next 10 times.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

The first time I played underrail I had no idea assault rifles required strength and made a character that was essentially non-functional and had to restart a few hours in

But why? I mean, I didn't use assault rifles on some of my playthroughs. It's not an absolute necessity. Pistols (Energy/Chemical) + SMGs + melee are still viable. Yes, if you have a very low strength you lose access to both rifles, and maybe even shotguns. But it's not literally a death sentence, if you haven't invested in strength, then obviously you've invested in other things, haven't you?

I didn't have to restart, but I felt like my character was gimped and I wanted to use rifles because rifles are cool

 

[Thac0]

I played a horrible mess of a crossbow wielding scienticist with psi powers in everything and high persuasion in that game. My skills were stretched incredibly thin. Still worked for the most part, grenades can get you really far even if you have an abysmal throwing skill. The only thing that is truly bullshit and can be a run ending roadblock are those hidden poison scorpions. Other games are way more punishing when it comes to builds being unwinnable.

 

[xuerebx]

Psi build focusing on all schools was very fun at the final stages, destroying everything in your path after getting your ass kicked for half the game whenever I encountered large mobs.

 

[Sheepherder]

I'm surprised.
When you get to be as old as the average Codexer, I'd have imagined that games that are pointlessly wasting your (little remaining) time with filler would be frowned upon.

lol git gud scrub

 

[Metronome]

Granted, it's a bit more complicated if you're playing in oddity mode and with high difficulty, but it's still something perfectly possible.

There is another example. Oddity isn't comparable to experience points. It's one of those things the developers put in without thinking it through all the way. There is a lot of stuff in the game that is unbalanced. It's the kind of stuff which you can not predict the outcome of without meta-gaming. It's usually not an issue of optimizing your character, but of knowing what the developer values.

I was lucky enough not to make a pistol build, but that's just because it wasn't something I wanted to do. If that was, then I would be hosed. I keep hearing about people hitting a hard plateau after several hours of playing with those. It's a good game over all, but there is a difference between gatekeeping and pulling your punches.

 

[Thac0]

Fuck that noise, oddity xp is an amazing system and fits the game wonderfully. It encourages you to avoid trash fights if possible and change the area type you are exploring every few hours, since you got all the oddity drops from the enemy types there. Also it encourages you to seek out as much of the quality unique content as possible, as that has the most unique oddities. At the point where oddity xp plateus your build should be strong enough to beat the game anyway (not that you want to, game falls off pretty hard in the end)

 

[Metronome]

It encourages you to avoid trash fights if possible and change the area type you are exploring every few hours

In theory it should reduce the importance of combat, but in practice what that means is that the rewards you would have gotten from combat are lost. You instead get rewarded (less) for looking in a trashcan, which would be great if you were not going to engage in combat to begin with. However, Underrail does not have a pacifist option and every build is going to be fairly combat heavy. So you're probably going to be fighting anyway, while being rewarded (less) for collecting oddities.

In addition the rewards for missions are heavily reduced too. Once you start doing missions for the institute of Tchort, it's a real "What were they thinking?" moment when you compare your gains in oddity points with experience points. There are also those classic Underrail fights that take a long time to set up and win. The reward for those fights with experience is comparable to the amount of time preparing for them. The reward for doing the fight with oddities is a lousy spoon or something else that gives you 1 point, and chances are you already maxed out that oddity so you might just get nothing for the fight.

In fact, if I remember right, it doesn't really encourage exploration as it should due to these limits. I once went out of my way to explore a hard to reach area, only to find a "three eyed skull", which I already collected the maximum of by exploring another area. That was a real kick in the pants, and what convinced me to play my next run with experience. The difference was day and night.

Basically oddity could be a good system... if this was Undertale and not Underrail.

 

[Trashos]

The distribution of oddities indeed is not absolutely perfect. Some places are not rewarded enough (eg, the Lower Caves with the animals), while other parts are maybe a bit too generous (eg, that secret vault in the Foundry). I do not think that the problems are that big as you make them out to be though, and the advantages of the oddity system (eg, using sneak instead of combat without much penalty, and having control of the pace of progression in an open-world game) are overwhelming. The game is also balanced around Oddity. Don't you level up too fast with XP? I haven't tried XP, but I have heard that you do (and how could you not, since enemies respawn).

Anyway, I have never really seen an XP system that makes sense in open world RPGs, and I wish all open world games were magically redesigned with Oddities. If I were still in modding mood, I 'd probably sit down and mod the oddity system in New Vegas for my own use. Those days are gone for me, though.

 

[Parabalus]

I agree with you, but that's because of the meta knowledge we have. When you start the game up those builds aren't labeled [Challange].

I'd wager the guy on the previous page would have had a different experience had he rolled the dice differently.

Improvise, adapt, overcome. If the shit you're doing ain't working, change your approach.
If you're unwilling to put in the time for trial and error, which is understandable, follow a guide or at least read some tips.
Throwing nets/flares/molotovs are life safers.
Invest 15 points into persuasion and you get a .44 right off the bat.
Cheese the game by using fenced doors. Shooting explosive barrels.
The game gives you plenty of tools to overcome the early game hurdle, people not experimenting with all the tools they're given is their problem tbh.

Spoiler

I mean, fuck are we doing here? Arguing for more handholding in a market where 99% of games squeeze your hand?
Nah m8, I ain't having none of that.

That's my point, you only need to bother with that stuff if you're unlucky and pick one of the weaker builds.

Fuck that noise, oddity xp is an amazing system and fits the game wonderfully. It encourages you to avoid trash fights if possible and change the area type you are exploring every few hours, since you got all the oddity drops from the enemy types there. Also it encourages you to seek out as much of the quality unique content as possible, as that has the most unique oddities. At the point where oddity xp plateus your build should be strong enough to beat the game anyway (not that you want to, game falls off pretty hard in the end)

Classic makes you avoid trash fights much more since XP is more abundant, with oddity you still need to kill some spiders for spider asses etc.

 

[Trashos]

Classic makes you avoid trash fights much more since XP is more abundant, with oddity you still need to kill some spiders for spider asses etc.

I mean, it could have different effects on different people. But, fundamentally, every time you do not kill something you are missing XP. It both requires self-restraint (yeah, right...) and makes the world nonsensical from a role-playing perspective (because the optimal choice is always to kill everyone who can be killed).

*Fundamentally*, Oddity is the superior system. You do not have to worry that bigger companies will bite, though. I expect that the XP system is considered more addictive to players.

 

[Fenix]

Don't you level up too fast with XP?

On Domination you are overleveled and that starts I guess right after Deport A.

Classic makes you avoid trash fights much more since XP is more abundant, with oddity you still need to kill some spiders for spider asses etc.

Classic makes all the fights a joke as you are overleveled by MUCH on Domination. The rest doesn't matter.