Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[lukaszek]

You defimitely could built your build the way ypu will always wim imitiative with Carmifex.
Like, there are feats tat add imitiative.

from my memory max dex+agi and paranoia makes you about even. Would need to be over 15 to always win. Trigger happy is 7 points. Root soda 5. If you are into guns then gunslinger for another 7. 15 from spec points

Technically yes...

 

[Fenix]

Armor my friemd, hopper leather, JKK tactvest... there is some leather im Expeditiom that add imitiative, rigth?
You dom't evem meed to spemd specializatiom poimts.

 

[Tygrende]

There's so many ways to stack initiative in Expedition, it's not too hard to always win vs. Carnifex if you build for it. It's also not too hard to survive his 1st turn with proper armor and some HP to spare, don't even need to be an actual tin can. Reloading a million times is a problem exclusive to builds that entirely ignore any and all forms of defense, which so many people insist on playing for some reason.

 

[Cryomancer]

So far, the game has :

• Highest difficulty on a TB game that I've played.
• Amazing quest design
• Amazing faction system
• Amazing atmosphere
• Multiple ways to solve multiple quests
• A lot of possible builds
• High replayability
• Depth on ammo for weapons, there are 4 types of rounds only for a .44 magnum revolver
• Amazing craft system
• Amazing writing
• Amazing combat
• Amazing crafting system
• The expansion has a amazing "naval" combat and customization with your "ships"
• (...)

And as negative

• Cooldowns
• Psions aren't used outside of battle.

Think on for eg, electrokinesis. How many uses that ability would have... For eg, recharging batteries, areas with "no power", will now have power, animals that has this ability would be "domesticated" and so on. The mind psionics also has 1001 applications and would be cool if the game explored more of it on gameplay and quests.

 

[ItsChon]

There's so many ways to stack initiative in Expedition, it's not too hard to always win vs. Carnifex if you build for it. It's also not too hard to survive his 1st turn with proper armor and some HP to spare, don't even need to be an actual tin can. Reloading a million times is a problem exclusive to builds that entirely ignore any and all forms of defense, which so many people insist on playing for some reason.

Well yeah, if you're playing a normal build you'll be fine, but I only sub-optimal ones now because I've done all the "good" ones already.

That sounds pretty boring.

It's only the case if you're doing something sub-optimal on the highest difficulty just because you're bored. And even then, you can wear different kinds of gear and take drugs to help your initiative which helps stack up your chances of winning so you don't have to reload too much.

So far, the game has :

• Highest difficulty on a TB game that I've played.
• Amazing quest design
• Amazing faction system
• Amazing atmosphere
• Multiple ways to solve multiple quests
• A lot of possible builds
• High replayability
• Depth on ammo for weapons, there are 4 types of rounds only for a .44 magnum revolver
• Amazing craft system
• Amazing writing
• Amazing combat
• Amazing crafting system
• The expansion has a amazing "naval" combat and customization with your "ships"
• (...)

And as negative

• Cooldowns
• Psions aren't used outside of battle.

Easily better then Fallout amirite?

 

[Flying Dutchman]

So far, the game has :

• Highest difficulty on a TB game that I've played.
• Amazing quest design
• Amazing faction system
• Amazing atmosphere
• Multiple ways to solve multiple quests
• A lot of possible builds
• High replayability
• Depth on ammo for weapons, there are 4 types of rounds only for a .44 magnum revolver
• Amazing craft system
• Amazing writing
• Amazing combat
• Amazing crafting system
• The expansion has a amazing "naval" combat and customization with your "ships"
• (...)

And as negative

• Cooldowns
• Psions aren't used outside of battle.

Think on for eg, electrokinesis. How many uses that ability would have... For eg, recharging batteries, areas with "no power", will now have power, animals that has this ability would be "domesticated" and so on. The mind psionics also has 1001 applications and would be cool if the game explored more of it on gameplay and quests.

Long list of positives! Very encouraging, thanks for the info.

 

[ciox]

So far, the game has

Nice rundown.

There is some very limited use for psionics out of battle I guess, you can use Forcefield to block NPCs or not-yet-hostile haters from walking, create a light source with either Forcefield or Telekinetic Proxy, destroy traps with Pyrokinesis, maybe more.

Cooldowns can be a drag at times, too, while they're here to stay with Underrail, my point still stands on how you could try to design a similar game without cooldowns.

It's not that hard, just make it more resource-based.
I wouldn't try to redesign Underrail but if I was making such a game from scratch:
- combat consumables would be quite limited instead of having cooldowns, restoratives, grenades, etc (non-combat healing is still easy enough to acquire in emergencies)
- there would be a single resource that all the special abilities of all kinds feed from, with an associated stat
- equipment focused abilities that drain item durability or even break the items
- the "uber" character abilities with 10 turn cooldowns would just exhaust or debuff the character in some way (they experimented with this in Underrail itself with Empowered Invocation, but unfortunately couldn't resist slapping a 10 turn cooldown on the ability as well)
- abilities with 1 turn cooldowns that are balanced around being used only once per turn because otherwise they'd be very strong (Point Shot) would be marked as "turn ender" actions to avoid the cooldown, meaning they can only be used as the final action that ends a turn

 

[Ol' Willy]

Cooldowns can be a drag at times, too, while they're here to stay with Underrail, my point still stands on how you could try to design a similar game without cooldowns.

There's multiple problems with what you've just said:

combat consumables would be quite limited instead of having cooldowns, restoratives, grenades, etc (non-combat healing is still easy enough to acquire in emergencies)

That's how it works in AoD. But AoD is a much smaller game and easier to balance; Underrail is huge and not only that, but a lot of content is randomized as well. It would be nightmare to properly balance the economy that way.

there would be a single resource that all the special abilities of all kinds feed from, with an associated stat

That's no better than a cooldown system

equipment focused abilities that drain item durability or even break the items

Don't know about you, but I hate durability concept in games even more than cooldowns

the "uber" character abilities with 10 turn cooldowns would just exhaust or debuff the character in some way

And you will lose all incentive to use them. Imagine LoC with debuffs

abilities with 1 turn cooldowns that are balanced around being used only once per turn because otherwise they'd be very strong (Point Shot) would be marked as "turn ender" actions to avoid the cooldown, meaning they can only be used as the final action that ends a turn

Ironically, this makes system more rigid instead and limits your choices more than cooldowns - while being exactly as much an arbitrary limitation

Also, S0rcererV1ct0r, your idea is to replace cooldowns with critical failures. There are some problems with that as well. You see, cooldowns are deterministic. As you use the CD-ed ability and wait for cooldown to pass, it still allows you to plan - you know when the cooldown will end and can plan accordingly in the meantime. Critical failures are pure RNG, you can't plan around them, you can only have the back-up or retreat plan. Even in Fallout, Critical Failures were used just to spice up the combat, not to limit the player.

 

[Tigranes]

For eg, casting Electrokinesis to recharge your vehicle battery

Why I can't recharge a battery with my electrokinesis?

Think on for eg, electrokinesis. How many uses that ability would have.. For eg, recharging batteries

I don't know about you, but I respect a man for his hustle

 

[Ol' Willy]

You can't recharge batteries with raw electrical bolts. Try, for example, to charge telephone battery from straight 220V output without transformer, see what happens

 

[lukaszek]

You can't recharge batteries with raw electrical bolts. Try, for example, to charge telephone battery from straight 220V output without transformer, see what happens

 

[ciox]

Cooldowns can be a drag at times, too, while they're here to stay with Underrail, my point still stands on how you could try to design a similar game without cooldowns.

There's multiple problems with what you've just said:

combat consumables would be quite limited instead of having cooldowns, restoratives, grenades, etc (non-combat healing is still easy enough to acquire in emergencies)

That's how it works in AoD. But AoD is a much smaller game and easier to balance; Underrail is huge and not only that, but a lot of content is randomized as well. It would be nightmare to properly balance the economy that way.

there would be a single resource that all the special abilities of all kinds feed from, with an associated stat

That's no better than a cooldown system

equipment focused abilities that drain item durability or even break the items

Don't know about you, but I hate durability concept in games even more than cooldowns

the "uber" character abilities with 10 turn cooldowns would just exhaust or debuff the character in some way

And you will lose all incentive to use them. Imagine LoC with debuffs

abilities with 1 turn cooldowns that are balanced around being used only once per turn because otherwise they'd be very strong (Point Shot) would be marked as "turn ender" actions to avoid the cooldown, meaning they can only be used as the final action that ends a turn

Ironically, this makes system more rigid instead and limits your choices more than cooldowns - while being exactly as much an arbitrary limitation

Also, S0rcererV1ct0r, your idea is to replace cooldowns with critical failures. There are some problems with that as well. You see, cooldowns are deterministic. As you use the CD-ed ability and wait for cooldown to pass, it still allows you to plan - you know when the cooldown will end and can plan accordingly in the meantime. Critical failures are pure RNG, you can't plan around them, you can only have the back-up or retreat plan. Even in Fallout, Critical Failures were used just to spice up the combat, not to limit the player.

That's why I said it's for a different game and not Underrail, you design the mechanics and the game. I don't see your point anyway, you never run out of healing in Underrail unless you refuse to loot and buy healing, crafting them is not necessary either, it's exclusively balanced through cooldowns long enough to prevent you from healing more than once per fight. Basically like a Diablo 2 model which is not the only way to design a balanced game.

Of course it's better in the sense that you can use 2 strong abilities in a row if that's what you want, it'll just cost you. It can be a balance issue if your game has an 'alpha strike' problem of course, that's why it's a good thing you're making a new game.

The idea is durability is kind of pointless if it's not used for anything. In Underrail durability is a factor almost exclusively with weapons and nothing else, it goes down by 2-3 when you attack in any way, and by 4-6 if you attack with a melee weapon against an enemy that absorbs all your damage. There's nothing else and repair kits are extremely plentiful (and heavy) so it's just a time waster. The idea is to have some clever abilities that drain item durability or counteract durability drain, so it's not just a time waster.

Nice random example. LoC as designed was, is and forever will be a must have. If you're having trouble with this one, just think about Adrenaline and whether it's used or not. Also realize I'm not advocating for an Underrail balance mod.

No it doesn't. Like I said turn enders are the extreme exception, you ONLY need turn enders for the extreme edge cases, like Underrail's Point Shot, which has no resource costs but would allow you to shoot at 50% AP cost for entire turns with no disadvantage provided your enemies are close to you. Turn enders are just covering the edge cases and I can't even think of another case like that right now.

 

[Cryomancer]

You can't recharge batteries with raw electrical bolts. Try, for example, to charge telephone battery from straight 220V output without transformer, see what happens

Not casting directly into the battery, but considering that "bran waves" can produce lightning, I an pretty sure that someone will try to harvest this type of energy. Hell, you can craft a psi energy headgear which enhances your brain psion power.

-=-=-=-=-=-=

As for cooldowns, I would remove and make psions more risk to be used. Not only with the risk of losing control over your pyrokinesis but also stunning you from pain if you use too much too quickly and etc. Potions, I would make then instead of 10 AP and insta heal, to heal slowly like 20 hp per round and costing the same AP of firing a .44 magnum and the effect not stacking. Grenades, I will make then like the explosive ammo for .44 magnum. Rare but powerful and not on CDs.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Agreed. I'd like maybe some more options to use Psionics outside of combat. The occasional use of Thought Control was cool.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

You can't recharge batteries with raw electrical bolts. Try, for example, to charge telephone battery from straight 220V output without transformer, see what happens

Not casting directly into the battery, but considering that "bran waves" can produce lightning, I an pretty sure that someone will try to harvest this type of energy. Hell, you can craft a psi energy headgear which enhances your brain psion power.

-=-=-=-=-=-=

As for cooldowns, I would remove and make psions more risk to be used. Not only with the risk of losing control over your pyrokinesis but also stunning you from pain if you use too much too quickly and etc. Potions, I would make then instead of 10 AP and insta heal, to heal slowly like 20 hp per round and costing the same AP of firing a .44 magnum and the effect not stacking. Grenades, I will make then like the explosive ammo for .44 magnum. Rare but powerful and not on CDs.

Also, explosive ammo for shotguns, slugs too dammit!!!

 

[Cryomancer]

Also, explosive ammo for shotguns, slugs too dammit!!!

And Dragon's Breath.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKxmKFld5DA

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Clearing out the Ironheads en route to Core City was more challenging than Carnifex.

nice

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Whats that?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Whats that?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure_and_Interpretation_of_Computer_Programs

 

[Twiglard]

Read PAIP next.

 

[ItsChon]

Listening to Codexer's suggestions about getting rid of cooldowns makes me glad they have no say in game development. Almost all of these suggestions wouldn't work when it comes to playing the Underrail that we love, and would involve drastic changes to how the game is balanced and played.

 

[Cryomancer]

Listening to Codexer's suggestions about getting rid of cooldowns makes me glad they have no say in game development. Almost all of these suggestions wouldn't work when it comes to playing the Underrail that we love, and would involve drastic changes to how the game is balanced and played.

IF it comes, should be optional. Like we have classic and oddity system. Even if a cooldownless system end up being less balanced. I will prefer a cooldownless system. Because for me, freedom and immersion >>>>>>> balance. And is not the codex who hate cooldown. Is a specific segment of codex. There are people here who said that stopped hatting it when played UR.

Because lets be honest, cooldowns in 99,9% of games just makes the game into a "rotation managing", UR is different. A strategy that can work against a enemy can fail spectacularly against other.

 

[ciox]

makes me glad they have no say in game development.

Edgy and wrong.

Almost all of these suggestions wouldn't work when it comes to playing the Underrail that we love, and would involve drastic changes to how the game is balanced and played.

Nice reading comprehension, it was never about changing Underrail for me. That said something tells me Underrail simply having mod tools released would be something you would never recover from.

 

[ItsChon]

Even if a cooldownless system end up being less balanced. I will prefer a cooldownless system. Because for me, freedom and immersion >>>>>>> balance. And is not the codex who hate cooldown. Is a specific segment of codex. There are people here who said that stopped hatting it when played UR.

It's not just about being less balanced. The game will literally be not fun with certain builds if you remove cool downs due to how easy the game would be, or will have to be changed/redone on a deep level to deal with your anti-cooldown suggestions. If you'd enjoy rolling everything even on dominating for the sake of "freedom and immersion", you do you. I'm just commenting on the fact that these suggestions are bad.

Nice reading comprehension, it was never about changing Underrail for me

My reading comprehension is fine, I know you clarified your stance.

That's why I said it's for a different game and not Underrail

The part about changing Underrail was directed at Victor. The part about the suggestions being shitty was mostly directed at the stuff you mentioned.

I don't mean to be edgy (okay maybe just a little), or start beef, was just trying to express the fact that I thought both of the suggestions you two had for removing cooldowns would cause more problems then they'd fix.

 

[Ol' Willy]

To be honest, I can't say that I vehemently hate cooldowns - it's just that I can't remember playing any other game besides Underrail that has cooldowns, lol.