Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[hell bovine]

Look, I understand that some people love explosions and "revolutionary spirit", but I don't think people who sides with terrorist fanatics and extortionary murderers, rapists and robbers (Underrail pirates definitely not about high moral values) have any moral ground to call Protectorate as absolute evil.

The irony is that the protectorate is fine with siding with a gang themselves (black eels) as long as it gets them what they want (more power in the junkyard). They are not going to disband the CAU; the CAU represents what the protectorate is at its very core: anything goes in the quest for more power. Once you start viewing the safety of the average joe (in this case the inhabitants in UR they put at risk by being irresponsible with dangerous biological weaponry) as unimportant, what does it matter that your goals are noble?
edit: And I highly doubt their goals are all that noble in the first place. I recall that in their junkyard facility (when doing Abram's quest) there were mutant bodies on the table in the surgery room. It wouldn't surprise me if the main reason why they opened up a base in the junkyard is because they are interested in studying the effects of the mutagen, trying to pick up where biocorp left off.

I've said it before: the only unproblematic faction in UR are the muties.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I don't think its possible to play more RPGs than I have and I definitely think Underrail is too hard. Or maybe, the combat is hard in a way that I don't find super fun, even if I'm enjoying the game as a whole. Maybe I'm just less willing to put up with bullshit at this point.

My first complaint about Underrail's difficutly was the result of me trying to take the route to Junktown after the tutorial quests when I was supposed to be going to GMS from level 1 instead. My fault for not paying attention (I didn't even know there was a top level exit from SGS) but in my defense the game had no map then and the directions were awful.

Now that I've gotten farther (playing a pure PSI character, but also with a second Assault Rifle guy I've played up to Junktown) I see more about the game's combat paradigm. The player is always alone, so they give you a decent AP budget and many decisive skills to make sure you have sufficient options on your turn and can manage the groups it throws at you.

But then because "fair is fair," all the enemies have the same AP and access to the same items, powers, stats, and consumables as the player. So the player is supposed to use tactics and skill to win. Except is that really the case?

Pick an edition of D&D, any one, doesn't matter. Take two level 5 fighters with the same stats and equipment and have them fight. Who wins? It's 50/50, so in practice, whoever wins initiative. Tactics aren't going to matter, it's just a matter of dice rolls. Pure luck.

That's how Underrail plays for me. Since every single enemy (more or less) is capable of burning me down from full health to dead in a single turn, I have to win initiative in every fight and make sure every enemy is dead or otherwise unable to attack me every round. Okay. It's certainly doable, but I wouldn't call that "easy" by any definition of difficulty.

It's worse because even when you're playing Underrail "correctly" you still get screwed. I used a high-frequency shield and a sniper still one-shotted me at full health. Another time I blasted three sentry bots with electrokinesis and followed up with an EMP grenade. Two of them survived, and in the next round they stun-locked and killed me. How could I have possibly approached that encounter any more appropriately? When I first got to the junkyard I could not detect any mines, even with motion goggles, even after putting a level's worth of points into Traps. Sometimes you walk into a room and get ganked by three invisible dudes, even with motion goggles, even throwing flares into the room. If the game's own systems fail as a counter, what that teaches me is I'm screwed no matter what I do. The most potent weapon is the F9 key.

Look at grenades and miss chances. If you throw a grenade with zero skill, there is around a 3 in 10 chance that it will veer off course, often hitting a wall and blowing yourself up. That's a suitable penalty for gambling with dangerous weapons for the unskilled. But even with sufficient skill points in throwing the miss chance never goes away, it gets reduced to 1 in 10 or so. Thats.... pretty harsh. I don't know even a minor league pitcher who drops 1 out of 10 balls, or even 1 out of 100. It sucks because hitting yourself with a grenade is a non-recoverable error. Not only have I severely damaged myself, I've failed to harm the enemies, who will almost certainly kill me on their turn. So the grenade miss chance is actually a reload your quicksave chance.

Even worse, my psion character suffers from this. I could not have a higher level of skill in metathermics, yet when I toss a fireball, a small percent of the time I blow myself up. Hilarious! *smash the F9 key* Sure, the player can reach a point with specific builds where they can shrug off their own grenades, but not at level 1 or even at level 10-15, at least not from my own experience so far. The defensive options available up to the Foundry have been hilariously insufficient for avoiding death, even with crafting. I can make a set of armor that is pretty resistant to gunfire, but the enemies usually have a mix of damage types. There's always one melee guy, one gun guy, one psi guy, one stealth guy, etc. I can't be immune to all their attacks.

Varied party composition to cover multiple strengths and weaknesses across the team? Who would ever dream of such a luxury for the player! I really think the game would be more fun if you could have multiple characters and build a squad. Something to make the encounters truly tactical. But that would not be the type of game Underrail wants to be, it wants you to be the lone agent going up against impossible odds. I would have worked quicksaves into the game as an actual world mechanic, something like a "quantum reality relocation device," just to explain how frequently you are expected to die and try again.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I'm doing reasonably fine on Hard and it's my first full playthrough (restarted after junkyard the first time), though I did read a fair amount of forum posts and ask some questions about character builds.
I disagree with you on some points but I think I just prefer a game where I have to reload a lot to one where I don't have to, because the latter is too easy, and because I find high damage and RNG fun.

That's how Underrail plays for me. Since every single enemy (more or less) is capable of burning me down from full health to dead in a single turn, I have to win initiative in every fight and make sure every enemy is dead or otherwise unable to attack me every round. Okay. It's certainly doable, but I wouldn't call that "easy" by any definition of difficulty.
It's worse because even when you're playing Underrail "correctly" you still get screwed. I used a high-frequency shield and a sniper still one-shotted me at full health.

I has 3 Agi/Dex so I always fail initiative. I've never died in one round except when I've handled the entry to combat badly, like not having my shield turned on or not starting combat before opening a door I should really have assumed had enemies behind it. The only exception were the lunatic snipers guarding the Tchortist statue, but I unironically enjoyed reloading that fight 10 times, because it was really fun.
I generally dislike turnbased but the fast-paced brutality of Underrail makes up for it.

Another time I blasted three sentry bots with electrokinesis and followed up with an EMP grenade. Two of them survived, and in the next round they stun-locked and killed me. How could I have possibly approached that encounter any more appropriately?

You should have run away in time for their stun to wear off, then turned and fought again when their Safe Mode wears off. That's what I did and it seemed kinda obvious to me.

When I first got to the junkyard I could not detect any mines, even with motion goggles, even after putting a level's worth of points into Traps. Sometimes you walk into a room and get ganked by three invisible dudes, even with motion goggles, even throwing flares into the room. If the game's own systems fail as a counter, what that teaches me is I'm screwed no matter what I do. The most potent weapon is the F9 key.

I see almost all traps, even lategame, with 39 effective skill and 3 perception. The only gear I use in that regard is a jackknife.
But during Junkyard I didn't have any traps skill yet, so I had to throw fireballs every 3 steps to trigger the mines. And with stealthed enemies I like to throw cryokinesis. Against Death Stalkers I like to cast Flame Aura and run around in circles until I can see them.
I guess it'd be a pain in the ass without Metathermics - but you could still use molotovs right? Aren't they cheap and craftable?

Look at grenades and miss chances. If you throw a grenade with zero skill, there is around a 3 in 10 chance that it will veer off course, often hitting a wall and blowing yourself up. That's a suitable penalty for gambling with dangerous weapons for the unskilled. But even with sufficient skill points in throwing the miss chance never goes away, it gets reduced to 1 in 10 or so. Thats.... pretty harsh. I don't know even a minor league pitcher who drops 1 out of 10 balls, or even 1 out of 100. It sucks because hitting yourself with a grenade is a non-recoverable error. Not only have I severely damaged myself, I've failed to harm the enemies, who will almost certainly kill me on their turn. So the grenade miss chance is actually a reload your quicksave chance.

Even worse, my psion character suffers from this. I could not have a higher level of skill in metathermics, yet when I toss a fireball, a small percent of the time I blow myself up. Hilarious! *smash the F9 key* Sure, the player can reach a point with specific builds where they can shrug off their own grenades, but not at level 1 or even at level 10-15, at least not from my own experience so far. The defensive options available up to the Foundry have been hilariously insufficient for avoiding death, even with crafting. I can make a set of armor that is pretty resistant to gunfire, but the enemies usually have a mix of damage types. There's always one melee guy, one gun guy, one psi guy, one stealth guy, etc. I can't be immune to all their attacks.

BIG AGREE
Occasionally I instagib myself with Cryokinesis despite having 273 effective skill in Metathermics. This is stupid and the aiming chance should definitely scale to 100.

 

[Parabalus]

RNG fun.

That's how Underrail plays for me. Since every single enemy (more or less) is capable of burning me down from full health to dead in a single turn, I have to win initiative in every fight and make sure every enemy is dead or otherwise unable to attack me every round. Okay. It's certainly doable, but I wouldn't call that "easy" by any definition of difficulty.
It's worse because even when you're playing Underrail "correctly" you still get screwed. I used a high-frequency shield and a sniper still one-shotted me at full health.

I has 3 Agi/Dex so I always fail initiative. I've never died in one round except when I've handled the entry to combat badly, like not having my shield turned on or not starting combat before opening a door I should really have assumed had enemies behind it. The only exception were the lunatic snipers guarding the Tchortist statue, but I unironically enjoyed reloading that fight 10 times, because it was really fun.
I generally dislike turnbased but the fast-paced brutality of Underrail makes up for it.

That's why you can manually engage combat with ENTER. You don't even need stealth for it, except for the rare case when you get jumped after an area transition.

 

[toro]

RNG fun.

That's how Underrail plays for me. Since every single enemy (more or less) is capable of burning me down from full health to dead in a single turn, I have to win initiative in every fight and make sure every enemy is dead or otherwise unable to attack me every round. Okay. It's certainly doable, but I wouldn't call that "easy" by any definition of difficulty.
It's worse because even when you're playing Underrail "correctly" you still get screwed. I used a high-frequency shield and a sniper still one-shotted me at full health.

I has 3 Agi/Dex so I always fail initiative. I've never died in one round except when I've handled the entry to combat badly, like not having my shield turned on or not starting combat before opening a door I should really have assumed had enemies behind it. The only exception were the lunatic snipers guarding the Tchortist statue, but I unironically enjoyed reloading that fight 10 times, because it was really fun.
I generally dislike turnbased but the fast-paced brutality of Underrail makes up for it.

That's why you can manually engage combat with ENTER. You don't even need stealth for it, except for the rare case when you get jumped after an area transition.

Exception: when the player initiates combat manually Enter or by simply attacking. In this case the player will always act first, but the AP cost of the opening attack/action will be deducted from the player's first turn. Additionally, this also applies to some other non-combat action performed just before entering combat, such as opening doors.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I guess it'd be a pain in the ass without Metathermics

No I had metathermics, I also used the "carpet bomb with fireballs" method, it just felt unsatisfying especially after spending points in Traps. I think in the end I was just severely underleveled for that area.

That's why you can manually engage combat with ENTER. You don't even need stealth for it, except for the rare case when you get jumped after an area transition.

Except that costs you some AP for your turn, and there's a cooldown (because of course there is) so you can't just walk around mashing Enter everywhere. Still pretty much requires save/reload to know when to manually start combat.

 

[Parabalus]

I guess it'd be a pain in the ass without Metathermics

No I had metathermics, I also used the "carpet bomb with fireballs" method, it just felt unsatisfying especially after spending points in Traps. I think in the end I was just severely underleveled for that area.

That's why you can manually engage combat with ENTER. You don't even need stealth for it, except for the rare case when you get jumped after an area transition.

Except that costs you some AP for your turn, and there's a cooldown (because of course there is) so you can't just walk around mashing Enter everywhere. Still pretty much requires save/reload to know when to manually start combat.

It doesn't cost you any AP, the above means that if you attack to enter combat you pay the AP cost, or that you can't open a door THEN enter combat to evade the 25 AP cost.

The cooldown on entering combat is a part of the autistic "exploit prevention" prevalent in UR.

 

[BING XI LAO]

I also used the "carpet bomb with fireballs" method, it just felt unsatisfying

You must be suffering a deep spiritual malaise.

 

[Blaine]

I JUST WANTED TO SHOOT THINGS AND TAKE THEIR STUFF TODAY

Puzzle Spoiler

Don't even know whether or not this is gonna work properly yet, as I haven't started to decode it. If it doesn't, then I suppose the puzzle has beaten me, and that's okay. Better that than lining up three pictures of birds, dragons, and whales as explicitly instructed by an infographic like a Bethestard.

 

[Blaine]

I also used the "carpet bomb with fireballs" method, it just felt unsatisfying

You must be suffering a deep spiritual malaise.

Some people like to do their wetwork up close where they can feel their blades parting flesh, scraping bone, and tearing ligaments.

It takes all sorts to purge the unclean. Don't discriminate!

 

[Alphard]

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

 

[Goromorg]

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Underrail has beautiful pixel art and stylish interface, if you can't recognize that - you are retarded.

 

[Tigranes]

I can't speak about Normal anymore, since I must have played it once in 2015 and that was it. I love Underrail, but I certainly think there's a certain janky logic that you need to get in the rhythm of to succeed & to enjoy it. You're going to reload all the time trying to figure out what is the magic combination for your particular build that will allow you to take on preposterous odds against enemies that will fuck you up if they get 1 turn without interruption. I find that incredibly fun because Underrail gives a variety of fun abilities. But it also means that you've gotta be in that spirit of scouting, calculating, reloading, until you've got your "recipe" figured out.

Complaints about sell value seems weird to me, given Underrail has a broken economy like every other RPG where you have a gazillion dollars after the first few hours. We know Blaine is obsessed with spending hours filling out his pretty home with every pointless money sink in the game, and that's perfectly fine, but doesn't mean the game should throw more $ at the player.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

 

[Blaine]

I JUST WANTED TO SHOOT THINGS AND TAKE THEIR STUFF TODAY

Puzzle Spoiler

View attachment 11224

Don't even know whether or not this is gonna work properly yet, as I haven't started to decode it. If it doesn't, then I suppose the puzzle has beaten me, and that's okay. Better that than lining up three pictures of birds, dragons, and whales as explicitly instructed by an infographic like a Bethestard.

I did it.

Holy fuck, decoding takes forever with this hobo Notepad method.

Puzzle Spoilers

 

[Alphard]

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Hollow knight is an indie and has awesome art and graphic. I'm not saying they should spend most of the budget in graphic, but at least make something more polished

 

[Sykar]

I can't speak about Normal anymore, since I must have played it once in 2015 and that was it. I love Underrail, but I certainly think there's a certain janky logic that you need to get in the rhythm of to succeed & to enjoy it. You're going to reload all the time trying to figure out what is the magic combination for your particular build that will allow you to take on preposterous odds against enemies that will fuck you up if they get 1 turn without interruption. I find that incredibly fun because Underrail gives a variety of fun abilities. But it also means that you've gotta be in that spirit of scouting, calculating, reloading, until you've got your "recipe" figured out.

Complaints about sell value seems weird to me, given Underrail has a broken economy like every other RPG where you have a gazillion dollars after the first few hours. We know Blaine is obsessed with spending hours filling out his pretty home with every pointless money sink in the game, and that's perfectly fine, but doesn't mean the game should throw more $ at the player.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

All you need is a well designed cellar.

 

[Blaine]

Underrail is and always has been eye candy to me. Call it nostalgia if you must.

 

[Parabalus]

Complaints about sell value seems weird to me, given Underrail has a broken economy like every other RPG where you have a gazillion dollars after the first few hours. We know Blaine is obsessed with spending hours filling out his pretty home with every pointless money sink in the game, and that's perfectly fine, but doesn't mean the game should throw more $ at the player.

On DOMINATING I've found cash to be a major limiting factor. The new jet skis and house (which are POWER, very needed if not playing a T0 build) are extremely expensive.

I JUST WANTED TO SHOOT THINGS AND TAKE THEIR STUFF TODAY

Puzzle Spoiler

View attachment 11224

Don't even know whether or not this is gonna work properly yet, as I haven't started to decode it. If it doesn't, then I suppose the puzzle has beaten me, and that's okay. Better that than lining up three pictures of birds, dragons, and whales as explicitly instructed by an infographic like a Bethestard.

I did it.

Holy fuck, decoding takes forever with this hobo Notepad method.

Puzzle Spoilers

View attachment 11225

I used a pen and paper, seems much faster, unless you OCR'd the image and pasted to notepad.

 

[Tigranes]

Oh, sure. What I say applies to Hard, not Dominating.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Hollow knight is an indie and has awesome art and graphic. I'm not saying they should spend most of the budget in graphic, but at least make something more polished

I personally find Underrail neither particularly offensive or pleasing to the eye. It could certainly look better, and I think at the end of the day when you have a few people making their passion game on a string budget, you're rarely able to find a very talented artist & provide excellent art direction. Hollow Knight, after all, stands out from its own competition in metroidvanias.

UR began as a single person project I believe, and at the end of the day it's far better that Styg had a fantastic sense for RPG design even if he may not be world class at creating a beautiful, stylish looking game.

Also you should look at Beautiful Desolation though it's more adventure-y

 

[ItsChon]

Oh, sure. What I say applies to Hard, not Dominating.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Hollow knight is an indie and has awesome art and graphic. I'm not saying they should spend most of the budget in graphic, but at least make something more polished

I personally find Underrail neither particularly offensive or pleasing to the eye. It could certainly look better, and I think at the end of the day when you have a few people making their passion game on a string budget, you're rarely able to find a very talented artist & provide excellent art direction. Hollow Knight, after all, stands out from its own competition in metroidvanias.

UR began as a single person project I believe, and at the end of the day it's far better that Styg had a fantastic sense for RPG design even if he may not be world class at creating a beautiful, stylish looking game.

Also you should look at Beautiful Desolation though it's more adventure-y

Underrail's graphics are much more pleasing to me than what you linked. But then again, I also loved the artwork of BG, IWD, and PS:T. I'd have every single isometric RPG designed in this 2D way if it was up to me.

 

[Parabalus]

I find the expansion to be somehow worse looking than the base game. There was obviously more effort in the expansion art, but something just doesn't fit as well.

Blaine mentioned that it's because the expansion is much more busy visually, but more than that seems off.

 

[BING XI LAO]

Underrail starts off ugly, but places like the Tchort Institute and Lemuria are top notch,

 

[Tigranes]

Oh, sure. What I say applies to Hard, not Dominating.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Hollow knight is an indie and has awesome art and graphic. I'm not saying they should spend most of the budget in graphic, but at least make something more polished

I personally find Underrail neither particularly offensive or pleasing to the eye. It could certainly look better, and I think at the end of the day when you have a few people making their passion game on a string budget, you're rarely able to find a very talented artist & provide excellent art direction. Hollow Knight, after all, stands out from its own competition in metroidvanias.

UR began as a single person project I believe, and at the end of the day it's far better that Styg had a fantastic sense for RPG design even if he may not be world class at creating a beautiful, stylish looking game.

Also you should look at Beautiful Desolation though it's more adventure-y

Underrail's graphics are much more pleasing to me than what you linked. But then again, I also loved the artwork of BG, IWD, and PS:T. I'd have every single isometric RPG designed in this 2D way if it was up to me.

I would mandate every game to look like the IE games if I could, but I find Underrail a paler shadow of it. Most of the early levels start out as a Fallout asset dump. I don't think it's really UR's fault as is my preference for more fantasy-grounded environments. There were some genuinely nice looking and original bits and pieces in Expedition - though the sum of all its parts does indeed become a bit busy and messy.

 

[Alphard]

I can't speak about Normal anymore, since I must have played it once in 2015 and that was it. I love Underrail, but I certainly think there's a certain janky logic that you need to get in the rhythm of to succeed & to enjoy it. You're going to reload all the time trying to figure out what is the magic combination for your particular build that will allow you to take on preposterous odds against enemies that will fuck you up if they get 1 turn without interruption. I find that incredibly fun because Underrail gives a variety of fun abilities. But it also means that you've gotta be in that spirit of scouting, calculating, reloading, until you've got your "recipe" figured out.

Complaints about sell value seems weird to me, given Underrail has a broken economy like every other RPG where you have a gazillion dollars after the first few hours. We know Blaine is obsessed with spending hours filling out his pretty home with every pointless money sink in the game, and that's perfectly fine, but doesn't mean the game should throw more $ at the player.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Oh, sure. What I say applies to Hard, not Dominating.

Can someone tell me why the "best" rpgs all share the same primitive graphic and ugly interfaces and menus? it's a matter of nostalgia or what?

Because making super epic graphics requires you to hire 300 people and raise millions of dollars off dumbfucks in suits who have no idea what a good RPG is and then sell a million copies to dumbfucks who have no idea what a good RPG is, duh

Hollow knight is an indie and has awesome art and graphic. I'm not saying they should spend most of the budget in graphic, but at least make something more polished

I personally find Underrail neither particularly offensive or pleasing to the eye. It could certainly look better, and I think at the end of the day when you have a few people making their passion game on a string budget, you're rarely able to find a very talented artist & provide excellent art direction. Hollow Knight, after all, stands out from its own competition in metroidvanias.

UR began as a single person project I believe, and at the end of the day it's far better that Styg had a fantastic sense for RPG design even if he may not be world class at creating a beautiful, stylish looking game.

Also you should look at Beautiful Desolation though it's more adventure-y

UR Definitely is not the ugliest game i have ever seen, and i made the example of HK to demonstrate it is possible to make eye pleasing games with indie budget.
I think they should consider this more, because many people are turned away by the poor graphics alone, even if they would appreciate the deep gameplay the game offers. By investing more in graphic they could lure more people to this genre and make the niche larger, and so making more similar games being created

 

[hell bovine]

That's how Underrail plays for me. Since every single enemy (more or less) is capable of burning me down from full health to dead in a single turn, I have to win initiative in every fight and make sure every enemy is dead or otherwise unable to attack me every round. Okay. It's certainly doable, but I wouldn't call that "easy" by any definition of difficulty.

That's why with squishy characters like psions people tend to go the sneaky route: if you initiate combat from stealth, you go first. The other two solutions are: high con tin can (doesn't matter if you go last) and high initiative (when testing guns with Patsy I gave her gunslinger, paranoia and trigger happy - she had 40+ to initiative and that was on a low level character).