Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Sweeper]

Classic babies need not apply, of course.

Fuck off trash collector.

 

[Fenix]

Ostensibly, though there's a distinct lack of opportunity for battle XP needed once you turn.

Oddity dude! Oddity!

 

[Tygrende]

Classic babies need not apply, of course.

Fuck off trash collector.

Fuck off placeholder enjoyer.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Oh yeah, and for everyone who doesn't want to go the chore that is cutting a bloody swathe through Core City for all the new written content; here's a Greatest Hits Collection of the Mutie questline.

Spoiler

 

[Blaine]

Classic babies need not apply, of course.

Fuck off trash collector.

Fuck off placeholder enjoyer.

Indeed, but Styg's decisions aren't above criticism, and the Oddity system has its downsides—all systems have downsides. Styg can claim credit for fantastic shit like Oculus, The Dude, and Gray Army Base, but he's also responsible for locusts and the psi nerf.

Oddity is quite evidently easier for the designer to control, but Classic could be brought roughly in line with Oddity by doing a bit more playtesting and then adjusting the required amount of XP/level accordingly. That way, Classic players could be kept to 10 or below before Depot A, and generally knocked down a level or two after having done nearly all pre-DC content.

Grinders aren't a concern, any more than save-scummers are a concern. If people want to grind and save-scum, let them. That doesn't affect me.

I can deal with not reaching level 30 until one room before Tchort, but I really wouldn't want to play Oddity with a non-stealth, non-subterfuge character, because we both know that in that case one is compelled to slaughter factions whose questlines are done in order scrape up more XP. There are simply too many oddities behind red cursors. That's not the only downside of the Oddity system, but it's one of them.

 

[Twiglard]

but he's also responsible for locusts

Nothing wrong with an annoying enemy leading to attrition. Aren't people complaining about the locusts the same people whining about DC being too hard?

 

[Mortmal]

Give blaine a few more hundreds hours of playtime and he will come back to tell us all its shit

 

[Tygrende]

I can deal with not reaching level 30 until one room before Tchort

But that's not the case at all unless you didn't explore a whole lot of the game. With full exploration, you should enter DC at 29, either very far or very close to 30 depending on how thorough you were. In that case you will hit 30 either very early or mid DC. If you are VERY thorough, it's possible to hit 30 before DC on oddity as well, if barely.

but I really wouldn't want to play Oddity with a non-stealth, non-subterfuge character, because we both know that in that case one is compelled to slaughter factions whose questlines are done in order scrape up more XP. There are simply too many oddities behind red cursors.

That is not true and I have no idea where this popular myth came from. There's barely any oddities that cannot be maxed without lockpick/hacking. There are a few that can be maxed earlier with those skills, but you get spare copies eventually. There is a lot more that you can't get without pickpocket, but even those are rare and more of a nice bonus than a necessity. Without stealth you are only really missing stuff like the tri-monitor blueprint and the sword handle and the JKK/Praetorian HQs.

For comparsion, the only way to get ALL oddities is to join JKK and Free Drones, yet I don't see anyone arguing that oddity compells the player to go that route because of it.

 

[Blaine]

Nothing wrong with an annoying enemy leading to attrition. Aren't people complaining about the locusts the same people whining about DC being too hard?

Yes, there is something wrong with it—and it's not just annoying, it's tedious and stupid. Stealth-based players have the option to demolish the nests, whereas non-stealth players will have little choice but to crank the combat speed up to 900% and still sit through a shitload of movement and attack animations every turn. Even if you napalm the locusts and their nest into oblivion fairly quickly, it's still obnoxious and an undesirable departure from the tight, tactical combat of the base game.

Stealth is already a heavily rewarded approach in this game. Going a step further and heavily punishing non-stealth approaches with tedious annoyance tactics is setting a foot into the territory of bad game design.

And no, I've never complained about DC. I had a good time with it, as my posts from years ago will prove (and I loved the mutagen puzzle and worm maze), but at the same time I could readily see the reasons why it annoyed some people.

Furthermore, I was against the implementation of a map (haven't changed my mind) and the implementation of a speed hack-type function (I've changed my mind, it's a good feature), and generally speaking have always opposed anything that makes the game easier, friendlier, or even less time-consuming.

Give blaine a few more hundreds hours of playtime and he will come back to tell us all its shit

I started this thread, played the game during beta, wrote a preview that was published by the Codex, and have played the game for over 1100 hours. Styg sent me an Underrail t-shirt.

Over that entire period spanning nearly a decade and hundreds upon hundreds of hours, I've always been consistent about both the praiseworthy aspects of this game and its shortcomings and flaws.

Anyone who worships every aspect of this game and refuses to acknowledge the possibility of any flaw is indescribably deep into obsessed fanboy territory, because I love this game and place it on a pedestal. The only other game I've ever played so consistently, for so long, and over so long a period is Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri.

 

[Blaine]

Tygrende Granted, it's been years since my last Oddity run, so I may be suffering from misconceptions. However, I rummage through every shelf and trash can I see. Black, unexplored portions of any map are anathema to me. I'm even using the spying endoscope just to get a look at hacking-only rooms, since I didn't take Hacking this playthrough.

If your primary reason for thinking that Oddity is superior because it ensures you can't (barring superhuman planning) get past level 10 before Depot A or past 29 before DC—as it seems to be, because ridiculing Classic players for wanting to level too quickly has been your approach—then fine and dandy. There are rocks blocking the way to anything other than a narrow few corridors prior to completing Depot A, so I'd fully support just fucking tweaking the XP necessary to reach level 10.

If someone wants to farm rathounds for 15 hours to get to 12+, then let them suffer!

 

[rusty_shackleford]

oddity system is pure incline

 

[Fedora Master]

WHY ARE BANDAGES SO HEAVY DAAAAAMN

 

[Blaine]

oddity system is pure incline

It's certainly not decline, but then again, neither is the classical system of awarding numerical XP employed in countless other inclined cRPGs.

As I've said, Oddity isn't a perfect system. No system ever is, from galactic clusters right on down to miniature biospheres in a small colony of moss—and all that's in-between, including everything ever designed or conceived by human beings.

In a larger sense, in my opinion, non-level-based, point-buy character design and progression systems in the vein of GURPS are markedly superior to level-based systems overall—incidentally, GURPS was the rules system that was originally planned to be used in Fallout. But such systems are harder to implement properly in cRPGs and they don't provide a constant flow of treats as the pigeon pecks the battleship.

 

[Fedora Master]

The problem I've found is that Oddity is supposed to reward non-combat/stealth but to get every oddity you still have to sift through every nook and cranny AND often have to kill the local wildlife.

 

[Ol' Willy]

As siphoner inventory is generated only after he has spawned out of the water, you can farm all siphoner oddities right in the pools near Junkyard, in one go.

 

[CHEMS]

Aside from Oddity being a bit slow for my taste, it's also very meta-gamey. Rummaging through every trash can and pocket, farming some enemy until you max out its oddities, even euthanizing a faction if you lack a way to obtain a major oddity—or scrounging up every single one you can find to prepare for Depot A, for example—none of these are desirable. The two major upsides of Oddity are that it compels you to take risks in order to obtain them and rewards exploration and searching nooks and crannies, but I'd be doing that anyway.

Not to mention that after lvl 25, you need 62 oddities to get to the next level.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Aside from Oddity being a bit slow for my taste, it's also very meta-gamey. Rummaging through every trash can and pocket, farming some enemy until you max out its oddities, even euthanizing a faction if you lack a way to obtain a major oddity—or scrounging up every single one you can find to prepare for Depot A, for example—none of these are desirable. The two major upsides of Oddity are that it compels you to take risks in order to obtain them and rewards exploration and searching nooks and crannies, but I'd be doing that anyway.

Not to mention that after lvl 25, you need 62 oddities to get to the next level.

agreed, that is far too low. It should be much higher.

 

[Whisper]

How much content is added for mutant questline?
Also it fully takes place in Core city sewers or in mutant town?

 

[Twiglard]

WHY ARE BANDAGES SO HEAVY DAAAAAMN

More importantly, why do they look like toiler paper?

oddity is the perfect system

Sure, except for environmental oddities being limited. There shouldn't be a mechanism penalizing exploration.

 

[jackofshadows]

View attachment 18837

WHY ARE BANDAGES SO HEAVY DAAAAAMN

I take it you didn't check repair kits weight yet.

 

[Twiglard]

what's the penalty?

The game shouldn't communicate to the player -- there's nothing anymore for you in this area, go away. This is especially visible in Lower Underrail in early-mid game where there are only few types of oddities available. All pre-placed oddities should be unlimited, unlike the enemy drops.

 

[lukaszek]

in lower passages there are no oddities afaik

 

[Twiglard]

in lower passages there are no oddities afaik

I'm talking about areas around Rail Crossing, GMS and SGS.

 

[CHEMS]

in lower passages there are no oddities afaik

Human scalp and teeth necklace.

 

[lukaszek]

in lower passages there are no oddities afaik

Human scalp and teeth necklace.

hmmm... not what i meant. What was the area called, vast caves at the bottom with nothing but crawlers, psy bugs and few bunkers? It was actually my dominating run that i explored them fully for first time and was quite disappointed