Underrail: The Incline Awakens

[Parabalus]

I don't play Dominating. It requires a level of hyper-optimization, maximum cheesiness, and meta knowledge (though it's inherent to the difficulty that you know the game very well) that simply doesn't interest me.

The most impressive thing I've ever seen was Sheepherder's Dominating Carnifex battle, which he played on maximum speed because it required approximately 120 lbs. of flashbangs, throwing nets, and throwing knives; he spent the entire battle ducking in and out from behind a pillar multiple times per turn to calculate everything just so, and the whole thing must have taken ten to fifteen minutes (or more) real-time. There was more cornerfagging in that one battle than in an entire combined Fallout and Fallout 2 marathon.

Impressive, amazing, a real achievement, and something that I love to watch other people who aren't me accomplish.

That's not really representative, Sheepherder has a lot of extra restrictions.
Most builds still kill him in a turn or two, my current run was simple Mental Breakdown - > Cutthroat.

Dominating is really cool because DC creatures are everywhere, makes it much more fun to play. And the boss buff makes them interesting.

The hardest part is usually saving Newton, and Depot A you can always stealth through.

 

[thesecret1]

The hardest part is usually saving Newton

Can confirm. Warehouse full of azuridae packed together at a time when you have fuck all in terms of skills or equipment. I usually resort to cheesing the doors.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

 

[Tigranes]

Yeah, every build has access to traps and molotovs at that point, so you can use that initial gate to get rid of all of them - couple traps, make noise, use the door, use the corner with the switch as a last resort.

I thought I was really done after the plasma beam boy, but I am now considering stealth SI/Crit SMG boy, since I've almost never played SMGs. What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C? Expose weakness? Switch to energy pistol?

 

[Parabalus]

Yeah, every build has access to traps and molotovs at that point, so you can use that initial gate to get rid of all of them - couple traps, make noise, use the door, use the corner with the switch as a last resort.

I thought I was really done after the plasma beam boy, but I am now considering stealth SI/Crit SMG boy, since I've almost never played SMGs. What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C? Expose weakness? Switch to energy pistol?

Chem pistols too, especially if the target is rootable. Pistols are especially good if you go the Versatility/DEX route, can also melee with energy.

 

[Tigranes]

Well that's the thing, I've played a ton of pistol / energy pistol / chem pistol builds. I consider energy the strongest / most smooth build. But I guess I want to try SMGs.

 

[Parabalus]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

Which non-J RPG's combat do you actually like / find engaging?

Think I asked you once already and answer was select BG2 dragons, mostly for nostalgia reasons.

 

[Jason Liang]

It's not bad. I just stealthed past the first room, got into the room inside, and picked off the psi-beetles one by one as they passed by. This was also on DOMINATING.

More tedious than challenging, like most of the rest of the game.

Which non-J RPG's combat do you actually like / find engaging?

Think I asked you once already and answer was select BG2 dragons, mostly for nostalgia reasons.

I like consistent encounter design quality. Underrail had exactly one area where the gameplay clicked for me, which was Lunatic Mall. The shop that you first enter became an abattoir as waves of Lunatics come to end you, and the fight on the 2nd floor was pure mayhem.

Bringing a knife to a psi-fight.

I'll treasure this moment forever.

Same with Age of Decadence, the sheer grind and scale of Harran's Pass got my heart racing, and I suppose the Monastery fight was pretty intense too. As you know, I found the game fun when I gimped myself, but playing the rest of the game normally with normal character and gear progression and all the cheesey tactics you have access to becomes a bore. The issue with AoD wasn't encounter design, which was superb. It was just the broken cheese that ITS kept in the game.

I've been playing Battletech on and off for the past year, right now I'm about a month into a BEX career run, and it's still engaging. The game occasionally drops me into extremely challenging set ups where even if I survive I'm going to take a real pounding, and it forces me to keep learning how to play smarter. For example, just yesterday, I was dropped into a 2.5 skull mission where I had to take a base on top of a mountain pass, with mechs and turrets guarding the base and no real way to get to the turrets on the far side of the base. So I'm taking a pounding every turn. And once I get past the guards and the front turrets, the game drops a reinforcement lance right behind me. At this point, if I don't want to lose anything irreplacable, I've got to withdraw, I can't even make it to the evacuation point since one of my mechs lost both of its hips and can't move more than 2 clicks per turn. Which sucks since it took a lot of effort just to get to the base in the first place. The balance between the weapon systems available in BEX, plus the pacing derived from the classic Battletech armor system, really holds up. The better your equipment, the more irreplaceable it is - losing even a double heat sink is devastating and probably an instant mission restart. And you have the flexibility to play the game the way you find fun, whether it's iron man mode or slow, grindy progression or whatever.

This fight was also a real 18 turn grinder.

My mechs don't carry enough ammo for 18 turns.

Elsewise, it's mostly Alicesoft games on my docket.

 

[Blaine]

Jason Liang is essentially confirming what I already knew: Dominating combat is almost guaranteed to be tedious. Hard is about as hard as I need the game to be.

When it comes to difficulty in RPGs, it's enough for me that my build has to be fairly thoughtful, that I have to pay attention to my surroundings and plan my engagements, and that I feel an ever-present sense of threat. I don't need Dominating for that. Dominating is a challenge mode along the same mental/emotional vein as speedrunning (in my opinion), and that's never interested me.

What do you do for mech threshold? Mass produce W2C?

Just invest in Mercantile and buy them in large quantities from certain vendors, such as Kevin in Foundry. I was able to purchase enough during my Expertise SMG playthrough that I never had to craft a single one.

Everyone ignores Expertise and always goes for crits, but you see, Expertise just straight-up adds flat damage to every single bullet, including W2C rounds. This is particularly significant when using silenced SMGs with 5mm W2C. Getting the picture?

Meanwhile, if you go the Expertise route, you don't have to spend three thousand feats and fifteen medications per combat on crit chance and bonus. Expertise was designed for SMGs and ARs and almost nothing else.

Of course, W2C has been nerfed now—probably because of that video of someone using TM/Bullet Time and a pistol loaded with W2C, because Styg gonna Styg, and TM is a good boy who was on his way to church and didn't do nothing wrong—but it should still be fine.

 

[Tigranes]

Why not Expertise + crit path? I am one of the most tedium-averse players on here, given I leave most of the loot, but SI+Chips+Focus is 50% crit chance at almost zero makework.

 

[Spark Mandriller]

Dominating is really cool because DC creatures are everywhere, makes it much more fun to play.

Using noise to make enemies take on cuttlesnails or industrial bots and get murdered is the most fun I have in this game.

 

[Sykar]

I don't play Dominating. It requires a level of hyper-optimization, maximum cheesiness, and meta knowledge (though it's inherent to the difficulty that you know the game very well) that simply doesn't interest me.

The most impressive thing I've ever seen was Sheepherder's Dominating Carnifex battle, which he played on maximum speed because it required approximately 120 lbs. of flashbangs, throwing nets, and throwing knives; he spent the entire battle ducking in and out from behind a pillar multiple times per turn to calculate everything just so, and the whole thing must have taken ten to fifteen minutes (or more) real-time. There was more cornerfagging in that one battle than in an entire combined Fallout and Fallout 2 marathon.

Impressive, amazing, a real achievement, and something that I love to watch other people who aren't me accomplish.

That's not really representative, Sheepherder has a lot of extra restrictions.
Most builds still kill him in a turn or two, my current run was simple Mental Breakdown - > Cutthroat.

Dominating is really cool because DC creatures are everywhere, makes it much more fun to play. And the boss buff makes them interesting.

The hardest part is usually saving Newton, and Depot A you can always stealth through.

Dominating is retarded numbers bloat and requires you to meta game the shit out of it.

 

[Sykar]

Why not Expertise + crit path? I am one of the most tedium-averse players on here, given I leave most of the loot, but SI+Chips+Focus is 50% crit chance at almost zero makework.

The more crit you have the less valuable Expertise becomes since it is ignored by crit and becomes pretty weak later on when you can get to over 80% crit without too much trouble. If you get to close to 100% it is a wasted feat.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

How come core city doesn't have toilets?

 

[Sykar]

Schluchtenscheisser.

 

[Fluent]

hey all! can someone please check my build (again) and let me know if i'm viable? it starts around 44:10 in this video - https://youtu.be/SJOvdGMBQxg . thanks in advance!

 

[Tigranes]

Trying out Versatility, Expertise, silenced SMGs, Expose Weakness, Spec Ops, max DEX / 6 PER. Bit of a funky mix maybe, we'll see.

 

[Parabalus]

I don't play Dominating. It requires a level of hyper-optimization, maximum cheesiness, and meta knowledge (though it's inherent to the difficulty that you know the game very well) that simply doesn't interest me.

The most impressive thing I've ever seen was Sheepherder's Dominating Carnifex battle, which he played on maximum speed because it required approximately 120 lbs. of flashbangs, throwing nets, and throwing knives; he spent the entire battle ducking in and out from behind a pillar multiple times per turn to calculate everything just so, and the whole thing must have taken ten to fifteen minutes (or more) real-time. There was more cornerfagging in that one battle than in an entire combined Fallout and Fallout 2 marathon.

Impressive, amazing, a real achievement, and something that I love to watch other people who aren't me accomplish.

That's not really representative, Sheepherder has a lot of extra restrictions.
Most builds still kill him in a turn or two, my current run was simple Mental Breakdown - > Cutthroat.

Dominating is really cool because DC creatures are everywhere, makes it much more fun to play. And the boss buff makes them interesting.

The hardest part is usually saving Newton, and Depot A you can always stealth through.

Dominating is retarded numbers bloat and requires you to meta game the shit out of it.

In what way?

The only thing slightly meta-gamey is going to Junkyard before Newton.

And not getting jumped by death stalkers I guess? But tbh regular crawlers end STR/CONlets too if properly ambushed.

 

[Sykar]

All boss types get a 400% health increase. There are hugely more enemies, so much that pure stealth in some areas is near impossible. I am sick and tired of the Conlet garbage myth. I literally had my level 18 psionic with 9 con at full health in top notch riot gear with low freq. energy shield murderized in one round by Death Stalker and it was only one. Death Stalkers are horribly overtuned and that early variants of Shadow Stalkers were replaced with them is fucking retarded.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Styg does it just to read posts like that.

 

[agris]

All boss types get a 400% health increase. There are hugely more enemies, so much that pure stealth in some areas is near impossible. I am sick and tired of the Conlet garbage myth. I literally had my level 18 psionic with 9 con at full health in top notch riot gear with low freq. energy shield murderized in one round by Death Stalker and it was only one. Death Stalkers are horribly overtuned and that early variants of Shadow Stalkers were replaced with them is fucking retarded.

So would you say that you were... dominated?

 

[Tigranes]

Dominating is an extra challenge mode added later on at fan requests to provide a no-guarantees overtuned minmaxer paradise.

You were saying....?

 

[jackofshadows]

Yeah, ultimately the game has changed so much since its release version. I'm clearing the abandoned waterway facility on 17 lvl now, swimming in money, will have a decent jet and pre-end gear all around soon thanks to Constantine and I didn't even start the new alter-Oligarch quest or enter the Arena yet. Not to mention the expedition, didn't even talk to them or been to Black Sea. Basically in a few levels I could descent to DC if I wanted to after following the quest branch. The game's world has become just insanely huge.

 

[Sykar]

All boss types get a 400% health increase. There are hugely more enemies, so much that pure stealth in some areas is near impossible. I am sick and tired of the Conlet garbage myth. I literally had my level 18 psionic with 9 con at full health in top notch riot gear with low freq. energy shield murderized in one round by Death Stalker and it was only one. Death Stalkers are horribly overtuned and that early variants of Shadow Stalkers were replaced with them is fucking retarded.

So would you say that you were... dominated?

Considering that I played through it and adapted? Not really. Just confirmed my suspicion that it is tediously boring.

 

[Parabalus]

Destroying the Black Rock Totem permanently enrages all priests? Is this new?

Looks like it's just the outside area.

All boss types get a 400% health increase. There are hugely more enemies, so much that pure stealth in some areas is near impossible. I am sick and tired of the Conlet garbage myth. I literally had my level 18 psionic with 9 con at full health in top notch riot gear with low freq. energy shield murderized in one round by Death Stalker and it was only one. Death Stalkers are horribly overtuned and that early variants of Shadow Stalkers were replaced with them is fucking retarded.

So would you say that you were... dominated?

Considering that I played through it and adapted? Not really. Just confirmed my suspicion that it is tediously boring.

You could have just cast Mirror Images, it destroys them.