Underrail Forum
Underrail => General => Topic started by: Marcus on December 30, 2014, 08:24:56 pm
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What follows isn't meant to bash the game, it's only feedback:
I'm running my second character, a gunslinger with crafting abilities. This character has 3 willpower and no points invested in bartering. I just hit level 16 and the first four rows in my inventory are full of money. At level ten it was some 2 or 2 rows and a half.
Personally I'd get ridd of the present bartering system, get back to merchants buying everything but for much less money.
Also: money hoarding is possible because it's mostly required for consumables only. It's hard to find a good weapon for sale at a given moment in the plot. It seems to me that the situation is better with armours. Personally I'm not particularly fond of money sinks in RPGs, but they have a purpouse.
Crafting: my present character has 6 points in intelligence (probably 7 at level 20), and save for a bunch of leather armours crafting has proven to be wasted for now. No matter what, I always can loot or buy better stuff than that I can make. I feel this is only partly due to skill requirements: it's also about components quality consistence and availability. I see that vendors in the different towns have "scaled" inventories, I mean Junkyard better than SGS and the Core better than Junkyard and so on.. High end vendors should be more biased towards a fixed high end stock imho. It would make intelligence score and skillpoints investment more interesting.
For now each time I want to craft something and I need, let's say a bolt of cloth of quality 90+, I have to run across all the towns to find a vendor who has the component and possibly that quality level. After finding a dozen of bolts of 40/60 quality the only option is to wait another 90 minutes for the vendors to restock. If I'm lucky it's not "rinse and repeat". I enjoyed Underrail so far, but the constant buy and sell vendor hunt is a killer.
Any opinions?
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Pretty much sums up the problems I find with the game. Crafting keeps you behind the curve, not ahead. You are always finding something better than you can craft, either as a drop or merchants selling it. the only use I see for craft now (since grenades were put at too high levels) is shields. Other than that crafting is nothing but a waste of points in my opinion.
The current merchant system is equally bad. Not because it gives you too much money but ratehr because it doesn't buys everything. I much prefered the old where I had a lot less money but I could at least sell everything. It definitly made me a lot happier. That and no carry limits because doing 2 levels of the GMS already gives me more things than I can carry. I breaks game immersion to stop in the middle just to go sell/drop loot. Leaving loot behind for me is just not an option.
I'll tell you right now however that there is no plan to change this, some people like it as it is, some people dislike it as it is. The developers firmly belive this is the better way and Styg stated it would not change, neither the crafting nor the economy system. We'll have to wait for a full release to see if at least some options are included to change this and if not, wait for mods to bring the game more in line with what we like.
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The crafting skills are incredibly useful; even as an average intelligence character, you can max them and craft much better items than anything you could find or buy.
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Only in shields because you can't buy shields. Anything you can craft you'll find better for sale. You only advantage is adding thing like laser sights and whatnot. Most weapons you can only find with one modification where crafting allows you to get 2, but the weapons will still be much weaker than what the shops have to offer you in terms of raw damage.
I crafted leathers and guns very close to my skill limit at an average intelligence value but maxed crafting skills and I can tell you that whatever I crafted even with no extras was vastly inferior to what shops had to offer. To give you a better understanding. If I crafted an assault rifle right before going into the junkyard it would be worse or at best very close to what I had by then. However it would be vastly inferior (and I do not say vastly in any light terms) to anything on sale in junkyard.
This is why I've always said crafting was not worth it and to some degree people agreeded with me. Of course grenades were good to craft some patches back when they asked for lower crafting skills, now it's probably better to just buy them as you need to invest too much and are likely to find better tiers before you can actually craft them.
Now with the shields which can only be crafted, sure there is a reason to invest into a crafting skill. Electronics and really that's the only reason to invest into it right now (and maybe 20 in biology for doctor feat, not actual crafting).
I don't see how you can say that you can craft much better items than you can find on average skills. The crafting skill requirements have never been dropped after all. I know my knowledge of this is a bit old but I know this wasn't changed and I'm pretty sure the merchants weren't nerfed in the quallity of weapons they have because if they were people would be having problems to fight monsters with guns that would be so weak that even crafting could make better.
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I have been playing a sledgehammer-focused character with maxed crafting and average intelligence. By level 20, I could craft shock tungsten sledgehammers that were noticeably better than anything I found in loot or in shops. I have found that it is quite easy to find high quality components but stores rarely sell the equivalent weapon. I think the game size has improved this, as I remember all the concomitant worries of looking for a specific item.
To be fair, I never bothered with crafting much before I hit 20 and maxed out my skill and item quality thresholds, though. I could see it being a little sub-optimum without really high INT.
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Well, if crafting is only useful for end game content and early to mid game isn't really that useful becuae you can find better stuff then i will still look at it and say it's not worth it. I don't want to be investing into skills for a quarter of the game, maybe less?
This not to mention that crafting has a problem. While the idea is good it ends up being a problem in the same token. Crafting has synergies. I tend to look at crafting and think. I want tailoring for armor, but I'll laso need mechanics because some parts will need it, then I'll need electronics because shields and well, weapons can use it too. That's already 3 skills and if I want to make bombs add one extra skill... It is too much to ask when any character I make will need at least 2 weapon related skills hacking and lockpicking, probably stealth unless going for heavy armor. possible dodging and evasion, possible 3 psi abillities.
So huge problems, too much investment needed right from level 1 to only be really useful at end game for a small part of the content.
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1 - I belive everyone was saying before that shields were only craftable and never showed for sale or as loot drops. Everyone was actually saying that this fact was a very good reason to pick crafting alone. I was merely going along with it but if it's not true, even more of a reason not to craft.
2 - Well if you can't buy mk5 grenades I guess they just haven't been implemented for sale yet or they might never be. But it takes 112 I think just to get to them. So an average intelligence character gets that when, level 20? Right........................
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A - You shouldn't be crafting appropriate level gear. Again that is ridiciculous. What you find as soon as you arive in junkyard for example is gear that is higher level than you, this is why it's not worth it to craft. You should be able to craft even better gear at this point. Again, crafting should always keep you ahead of the curve, never behind at any point during the game. I'll keep saying this till he end of times.
B - Are you really going to tell me that you don't have the required money to buy all the expendable craftables throughout the game?.. Sure you might not be able to buy the very best, example being the MK5 grenade but you do buy most things.
C - Not it doesn't and you know it doesn't. I've already told you that transforming thousands of charrons into repair kits which you still wouldn't be able to sell all but those you would only turn to a few hundred is not a solution, it's as good a solution as leaving stuff behind for all purposes and effects... Loot is never junk, loot is money!
D - I saw your post and yeah, if you're lucky and get some appropriate low level stuff that you can craft then sure, you can make something hard a little bit easier. But just as syphoner skin is something new, can't you just buy stuff from the stores made out of it? Even if you can't all you're saying is. Sure, use crafting to get through a single quest easier. Still not worth the investment.
4 - I will not say I know exactly how much skills I need in crafting, but I know that 100 is not something light, it's something at very least level 17. Not like you max one skill in 5 levels and then max the next in another 5 levels so you can tier it up slowly. The investment is rather heavy because you almost always need multiple crafting types... Chemistry is a bad example there, for mk5 grenades they need a very high skill, borderline insane if you are to ask me. Besides you do say you don't need more than 100 for most things. I don't know, the higher quallity the stuff is, the more skill it asks, if you put attachements, each one is going to increase the total skill by 10%. While I haven't been there because crafting has mostly been a waste of time, I can see things escalating easily above 100 unless components that require more than 80 points do not exist.
5 - My earlier problem with the crafting was never the lack of materials, it was the absurdly high requirements of it! That problem is still not addressed and Styg pretty much said he is not going to change it. It is his game however so it's his right to say how things are made. I feel however that when the game is released that nearly no one will go crafting route as it is.
Last and never least. While you could be right that at some point players look more into equipment than levels for power (quite frankly I always look into both for power at any point) there is a limit to how much stuff you can do. Many builds completly make crafting unviable. I crafting is supposed to ever become a requirement to late game then a lot is lost because of it which means, poor balance. Crafting should keep you ahead of the curve because characters who craft can't do a lot of other stuff thus they power their way with better equipment. Characters without crafting are more powerful in other areas so they don't need the extra power from equipment, simple balance... I think that despite combat mechanics being clear it won't change much. The vast majority will not like the crafting system and not use it. Just as many people will not like the carry weight which is unbearably low even for a 10 str character. They will also not like the economic system. Whether some of these things will have an option to be turned off or made better I do not know, but if not I'm sure people will start modding the game to solve these problems. Right now that do is my only hope. That the game gets released and someone mods it to deal with the carry weights, merchants and crafting.
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Loot is never junk, loot is money!
That brings up a pretty interesting point actually. Generally "loot" is refering to stuff you pick up to sell, basically it's a never ending but slow source of currency. But is that all it is and can be? it really gets down to what you expect from loot in games and you're no stranger to sharing your view on it Elhazzared and it's that loot is either to sell or to use, to a greater or lesser extent and often if not always without compromise. Leaving it behind is not an option for you because loot is never a waste from your perspective and that's fine. The thing is, this clashes with how loot is portrayed in Underrail: not always useful and if it is, you often have to compromise if you want to acquire said piece of loot, either by dropping one or more things or going back and sell your existing loot. Loot is not a source of income in Underrail more than it is a possible resource for crafting or exchange of equipment. This is strongly reinforced through having carry weight and the way traders work, you're not supposed to pick everything up, you're supposed to make the decision on the spot whether the thing that dropped is worth investing in, because that's how things work here. You're scavenging for the most useful, you're not hoarding.
More to the point, Underrail (in it's current stage) doesn't exactly shy away from the way its itemization works either. The first time you get back from the caves (with the power stations) you can't sell all the stuff you carry. This signifies that not only do you have to be picky about what kind of stuff you get, but it also reflects how merchants operate in Underrail, why would they purchase things that they won't have any use for or will be able to forward to other traders (based on what kinds of goods they trade with)? after all, merchants in Underrail don't have unlimited amounts of currency either. You are all in this boat together, following the same basic core principle: scavenge, don't hoard. And this is talking from a strictly thematic perspective. In the game's previous iterations, this was not present, but that can easily be attributed to the fact that it was in early alpha stages and the idea wasn't fully developed at the time, but what do I know really, I'm just guessing? :P
Even in Diablo 3, most of the loot drop was intentionally worthless simply just so that the monsters would explode with loot, you were not supposed to the pick it up. And that game was an ARPG, a genre built entirely around loot. In Divinity, a lot of the loot is decoration, only there to enhance the world building, the same goes for the Elder Scrolls. In the Souls series, loot items literally told you the lore of the game through its description. This goes to show that loot is not strictly one thing or the other. It can be used for a lot of different things depending on context, and the ways loot have been treated in games throughout the years effectively demonstrates that. And just as all things it comes down to preference whether you like it or not. I for one thinks the loot system and implications it has is very interesting, not only from a designer perspective but from a gameplay one as well, it encourages me to follow the rules of the world and that immerses me. For you, not so much.
Maybe this was all just a bunch of mumbo jumbo for you guys but I'm not really that much into the technicalities and numbers, just wanted to share my view on this whole loot thing. :)
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No mater how much you want to try and shy away from common practice, loot is at the end of the day exactly that. Either something you use or money. You want it as a part of a gun, it has a use. It's an armor better than yours? It has a use. When it doesn't has a use then it has a monetary value so that if useful stuff doesn't drops, you buy it.
Everything in underrail is useful! can you tell me of something that you pickup that has no use? Even if you can I'm sure it's something incredibly rare. Everything has a use. Society has collapsed, the few survivors life in the metro and bunker dug and fortified inside the earth. Resources are scarse, do you think people who scavnge for stuff wouldn't horde and sell everything? If they found a place with stuff they'd pick it clean! Eveything has a value!
Obviously people can't carry a train on their back nor do the merchants really have unlimited amounts of money. But this is where gammy sense has to overcome real sense and if needed you can justify it very very easily. You can have some sort of backapack that can magicly (or tecnologicaly) store whatever you put inside and with no weight associated to it. Merchants will never buy you anything at all, each town has a storage which buy anything and everything, they have quite literally tons of money. Merchants only buy things from storage to sell so the storage just has lots of money because merchants need to aquire stuff from them. Easy to justify things if you really want but above all, it stands to reason that gammy sense has to prevail over real sense in some parts to make things work.
Also it's wrong to compare this to ARPGs (or hack and slash games as I call it). In ARPGs you are put in a situation that it's neither profitable nor timely to get every piece of loot. White loot won't even pay for a scroll and the time lost in going to town every 10 seconds would make playing the game pointless... Even then there are ARPGs that do that right. Look at Sacred 2 and you have a perfect example. You have a huge inventory and you can instantly sell from the inventory at a smaller margin but the value of white items are not high so the loss is insignificant, meanwhile you keep getting every piece of loot and selling and not stop playing thus not breaking game immersion. Do they bother explaining how you can do that? No, why would they? It's a thing meant to keep you playing and have fun, it only has to make gammy sense, not real sense... But going back to proper RPGs which use a turn based system you are supposed to pick up everything. Take fallout 2 as an example. Did you leave any loot behind? I know I didn't. I know I sold everything I got my hands on! If there was too much loot I'd store everything I couldn't carry in a closet near the exit and make trips back and forth. this is where the game could have used a little bit of a hand. No carry limits would make those parts less boring and keep you constantly engaged on the fun. Similarly there was no unlimited amount of money on merchants but in any given place they could always buy all I had and if not I'd just start getting stimpacks as money replacements since you use a lot of them anyway. There was no limit or this type only of items that they bought from you and again, if they had unlimited money, it would only have made it better because again, it would have less of boring trading time and more time engaged in playing the actual game.
I understand that Styg has different views for his game and I do respect that he wants to do some things differently. But in these areas I feel it's an exercice in futility. People don't like these things. People don't like to have their time wasted or feel like they are being cheated out of their money. He could have dealt with it the same way he dealt with the oddity system. Make it an option, not an obligation... At any rate it's very likely people will mod these exact things I'm talking about. It might take a long time or it might come up quickly. But it's sure to be expected to happen either way because most people won't like it as it is. The same will go for the crafting, I'm sure someone will mod it to make crafting useful from the very start but that's a whole new can of worms.
What I mean is. If it's already well known that mechanics which make people feel cheated of their stuff or make people feel like it's wasting their time is pretty much widely disliked. Why go so hard on making sure the game has it? Why give the moders the credit for making a game good instead of the developers taking the credit for having made a good game? Again, so long as there is options and you can chose whether or you want those mechanics or not, then there is no problem.
Of course you can say those can be added last and you'd be right, but then how much testing is the game going to have with those options? Sure the early access is mostly a way to gain revenue to help funding the game but still, if you can use feedback to improve the game then it should be used in all aspects of the game.
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No mater how much you want to try and shy away from common practice, loot is at the end of the day exactly that. Either something you use or money. You want it as a part of a gun, it has a use. It's an armor better than yours? It has a use. When it doesn't has a use then it has a monetary value so that if useful stuff doesn't drops, you buy it.
That's your perspective yes and it may be common practice in some games but far from all. I listed numerous examples of how loot is used differently, to different ends.
Everything in underrail is useful! can you tell me of something that you pickup that has no use? Even if you can I'm sure it's something incredibly rare. Everything has a use. Society has collapsed, the few survivors life in the metro and bunker dug and fortified inside the earth. Resources are scarse, do you think people who scavnge for stuff wouldn't horde and sell everything? If they found a place with stuff they'd pick it clean! Eveything has a value!
But does it have value to you? This is where the itemization becomes interesting to me. The carry weight is not in the game for the fun of it. It's to encourage you to think long about what kind of stuff you want to fill your inventory with. If you use and craft crossbows and grenades, you will pick up crossbow parts and chemicals above anything else, because it's the skill that keeps you alive. If you find a random piece of loot that doesn't have actual value to your character, what item will you compromise to pick it up? Should you pick it up or hold on to your more valuable items instead?
Obviously people can't carry a train on their back nor do the merchants really have unlimited amounts of money. But this is where gammy sense has to overcome real sense and if needed you can justify it very very easily. You can have some sort of backapack that can magicly (or tecnologicaly) store whatever you put inside and with no weight associated to it. Merchants will never buy you anything at all, each town has a storage which buy anything and everything, they have quite literally tons of money. Merchants only buy things from storage to sell so the storage just has lots of money because merchants need to aquire stuff from them. Easy to justify things if you really want but above all, it stands to reason that gammy sense has to prevail over real sense in some parts to make things work.
It's not like the itemization and trading doesn't work. It does, it's just not tailored to your style of play.
Also it's wrong to compare this to ARPGs (or hack and slash games as I call it). In ARPGs you are put in a situation that it's neither profitable nor timely to get every piece of loot. White loot won't even pay for a scroll and the time lost in going to town every 10 seconds would make playing the game pointless... Even then there are ARPGs that do that right. Look at Sacred 2 and you have a perfect example. You have a huge inventory and you can instantly sell from the inventory at a smaller margin but the value of white items are not high so the loss is insignificant, meanwhile you keep getting every piece of loot and selling and not stop playing thus not breaking game immersion. Do they bother explaining how you can do that? No, why would they? It's a thing meant to keep you playing and have fun, it only has to make gammy sense, not real sense... But going back to proper RPGs which use a turn based system you are supposed to pick up everything. Take fallout 2 as an example. Did you leave any loot behind? I know I didn't. I know I sold everything I got my hands on! If there was too much loot I'd store everything I couldn't carry in a closet near the exit and make trips back and forth. this is where the game could have used a little bit of a hand. No carry limits would make those parts less boring and keep you constantly engaged on the fun. Similarly there was no unlimited amount of money on merchants but in any given place they could always buy all I had and if not I'd just start getting stimpacks as money replacements since you use a lot of them anyway. There was no limit or this type only of items that they bought from you and again, if they had unlimited money, it would only have made it better because again, it would have less of boring trading time and more time engaged in playing the actual game.
I wasn't comparing the games per se but their respective view on what loot is and its value. Loot in Underrail is clearly not meant to picked up at all times, if you want to do that, you need to make sacrifices, just like you mentioned you did in Fallout 2. Like most of the loot in The Elder Scrolls is just decoration and world building and how items give you lore in Dark souls, they have different reasons to exist and Underrail excercise its itemization to encourage scavenging and if you embrace that, it's a damn fine itemization system. If you don't, or if you can't for some reason, then it's probably not the very best system, but that goes for everything.
I understand that Styg has different views for his game and I do respect that he wants to do some things differently. But in these areas I feel it's an exercice in futility. People don't like these things. People don't like to have their time wasted or feel like they are being cheated out of their money. He could have dealt with it the same way he dealt with the oddity system. Make it an option, not an obligation... At any rate it's very likely people will mod these exact things I'm talking about. It might take a long time or it might come up quickly. But it's sure to be expected to happen either way because most people won't like it as it is. The same will go for the crafting, I'm sure someone will mod it to make crafting useful from the very start but that's a whole new can of worms.
I agree that making it an option would be cool but I think I've answered this very exact thing a few months back. Can't seem to find it right now though.
What I mean is. If it's already well known that mechanics which make people feel cheated of their stuff or make people feel like it's wasting their time is pretty much widely disliked. Why go so hard on making sure the game has it? Why give the moders the credit for making a game good instead of the developers taking the credit for having made a good game? Again, so long as there is options and you can chose whether or you want those mechanics or not, then there is no problem.
I haven't actually seen a lot of dislike for the itemization. I can count on my fingers the amount of times someone have complained about it, most people actually like how the itemization works otherwise it would be a hot topic frequently but it really isn't. And I'm pretty sure Stygian won't expect their audience to "fix" their game for them, and even if they do it's to satisfy a relatively small portion of their audience, given the low amounts of complaints on the area.
Of course you can say those can be added last and you'd be right, but then how much testing is the game going to have with those options? Sure the early access is mostly a way to gain revenue to help funding the game but still, if you can use feedback to improve the game then it should be used in all aspects of the game.
You have given your feedback, time and time again. And people have listened, and replied. Styg have listened, and replied. Though not in your favour because he have other plans but he have indeed listened. I've given my rather less favourable opinion on the leveling system but I don't expect him to change it if he have better plans, I've given my feedback and that's enough. It's fine to throw your opinion out there, if it sticks, cool! if it doesn't then I don't see the point in nagging.
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I feel you are severely underestimating what people like and dislike in games. Underrail has a small community behind it right now because it is an indie game and because it is in early access. Once the game gets fully released and a much larger mass of people buy it. How do you think they will see this bearing in mind most people don't like having carry limits, they just want to keep moving on and that they can't sell even a third of what they find. Add the time waste to travel between all known cities to try and sell everything plus possible money wasted doing so.
What you see here in the foruns is going to be a very small minority once the game is fully released, this not to mention that even when this current majority becomes the minority, that won't even be the full scale of the problem, We all know the vast majority of people that don't like a game won't complain in the foruns, that's too much work to register an account in a forum just to say why they didn't liked the game. It's a lot easier to just uninstal and try to forget they ever spent money on the game.
Don't forget one thing, this isn't a rogue-like where resoruce management is important. Something like sword of the stars: the pit where you do are limited by inventory space and there is no vendors or anything. You are supposed to chose what to keep and what to leave. This is an RPG where an economy is part of it.
As someone once said about what makes a great RPG. Remove all busy work from it! Have no such things as fetch quests. Have no carry limits. Have no limits to the amount of things you can sell.
Make your game stand by the solidity of it's good mechanics, don't add mechanics that waste people's time.
I think I couldn't really put it better myself.
Some people do not mind time wasting mechanics or mechanics that cheat them out of their stuff. That is ok but those people are a minority.
You do are right that I keep saying the same thing over and over again, but this is something that needs to either be changed or at least have an option implemented as soon as possible. The reason is that when the game is released it's working well with a proper trade system.
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You keep saying that but there's no way of knowing for sure whether that's the case or not. The majority of RPG do have carry limits and if it was such a huge problem that you make it out to be then it wouldn't be part of the modern formula. Even Skyrim has carry limit and that game is widely praised as one of the best RPGs ever made, give or take. I have a hard time believing the carry weight is going to be the downfall of Underrail because that have never happened before with any other game. If the current audience is anything to go by (because it's the only thing we can surely examine right now) the worst case scenario is that some people will stop playing it entirely (which is already the case) but most people will play it despite the carry weight.
As someone once said about what makes a great RPG. Remove all busy work from it! Have no such things as fetch quests. Have no carry limits. Have no limits to the amount of things you can sell.
That someone is..?
Make your game stand by the solidity of it's good mechanics, don't add mechanics that waste people's time.
The same could just as easily be said about anything if you're not ready to play by the rules of the game. If you try to game the system you will get punished for it.
Some people do not mind time wasting mechanics or mechanics that cheat them out of their stuff. That is ok but those people are a minority.
How did you arrive at that conclusion? Is there a statistic on this?
You do are right that I keep saying the same thing over and over again, but this is something that needs to either be changed or at least have an option implemented as soon as possible. The reason is that when the game is released it's working well with a proper trade system.
"Proper" is a strong word. Some people like it, some people don't. Only time will tell if the current system is going to be well received or not. Fiddle with mechanics and system because a few people said they don't like it isn't a great idea by any stretch in any field, and this comes from a developer myself.
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Well most RPGs don't have such carry weight limits so absurd that even doing something on the level of GMS is going to very easily put you over. It takes a lot more advanced content to put you over weight... If carry weights were so bad as in underrail (and i do belive the problem is less of the values but some items which are overly heavy like sledgehammers), they'd probably go from a small annoyance to enough annoyance to quit the game entirely.
The wost case scenario is the vast majority of people who buy the game will drop it early on. Granted with mods later on some will pick it up again but again, that will be the credit of the modders to make the game good which is something that could be completly avoided... Don't take me wrong, I greatly respect the mod scene, they make many games great but really, I don't think it's a developer's dream to have their game recognised as good because of a mod someone else made.
As for who said it. I am not 100% sure at the moment, it was a youtube well known person, probably TB but I cannot be sure of that right now. Might have been force or someone else I used to watch regularly.
Don't tell me about the rules of the game. if the rules are bad then it's the game/developer's fault, not the player. If you make a game which consists of people clicking in the screen to make the screen change colour and someone says its bad, you cannot come out and say. Hey, you're just not ready to play by the rules. There are good mechanics and there are bad mechanics. Mechanics that waste people time are just plain bad. Just because a few like it, it doesn't makes it good. Similarly if a game makes you feel cheated out of your hard earnings then the game is doing it wrong. The game should always make you feel like you are acomplishing something, that every scrap you collect is a step closer to your goals. Even if the game is ripping you off, so long as you don't feel it, then it's done right. The moment you feel you are being cheated the game ceases to be fun.
How did I arrive at these numbers. Do i really need to have numbers to understand that people don't like playing games that aren't fun for them? And that games that have bad mechanics suck out the fun of the game? I'm trying not to be sarcastic here but come on...
Proper may be a strong word but if you want to analize the facts we can. Fact is that a large amount of the current playerbase (which is still very small at the moment) doesn't minds mechanics that waste their time and cheat them of their hard earn stuff. However let's compare it to pre carry weights and old economic system.
Old problems of the carry weight limits... Heard no complains whatsoever... currently there are already some complains and again, i'm sure that the current majority will be a minority in the future with the game being release but we'll leave that out of the picture as those are not yet facts.
Old problems of the economic system... There is too much money available! that's the only thing that was ever said... Or to be more specific, there is too little in the begining and too much from midgame... What did the new economic system do? You get even more money! So this problem aggravated itself and now you also have some complains of the buying limits being bad by some people. Again i do belive that the majority who likes it now will be a minority after release but not a fact yet.
Thus we can at very least conclude one thing. Comparing player feedback between back then and now, it only got worse. This is a fact!
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I'm not entirely sure where this supposed large subset of player that dislike the system are. I've gone through this forum, the steam forum and Desura reviews and I can't see a significant number of them. On Desura I couldn't find any, on here it's just you and a few other people, on the Steam forums I haven't seen any and on the Steam reviews there's a couple of people. I honestly don't know where you're finding them because I don't.
How did I arrive at these numbers. Do i really need to have numbers to understand that people don't like playing games that aren't fun for them? And that games that have bad mechanics suck out the fun of the game? I'm trying not to be sarcastic here but come on...
Well, I assumed you had a good basis for what you're saying that's why I asked. See above
I think we've just gotten into a "I'm right you're wrong" argument so I'm going to blow this off now. We've strayed away from discussing my original point enough that I don't really see a point in continuing, as it's getting pretty heated.
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Because it's pointless to look for such things right now. there are few people that have the game, even fewer who played at several points in the development and then again, even fewer who bother to write a review or come to any foruns saying anything... I did present some fact pointing that before the game had less complaints with the old system than with the new one. Even if you really want to blow it off by saying it's only a few people, it went from no complainins, everyone loved it to some people don't like the new mechanics. So in the eyes of the public it's a less liked system. I'm sure you would at least agree with me here.
As for how can I be sure that people don't like it. Let's take an example out of a different genre just to debate the main issue here. Look at MMORPGs and tell me. How many people like fetch quest? I fact I belive that the last final fantasy MMO receibed two black marks on not having a proper tutorial and the very first hour of the game being nothing but fetch quest which everyone hated.
Now why does everyone dislikes fetch quests in MMORPGs? Because they waste their time. People want to runaround exploring the land, killing monsters and that sorta stuff. Not being told, waste 2 minutes walking over there, click on that and then waste 2 minutes walking back here.
Now this is not a MMORPG so you don't expect much in terms of that nature but doesn't carry limits do the same? Hit carry limit, stop quest in the middle, go sell or store it somehwere safe where monsters don't respawn and it won't disapear. Return to continue with the quest. I've only went as far as GMS compound but if you can't even do 2 floors of it without being overloaded (ok so maybe a high str character can but he'll probably be close to the limit), then just imagine depot A, then try to imagine other type of places with even more and more loot. We get to a point where I even start thinking. Can I even complete that place with all the trips I'll have to make back and forth? Because respawns set in and I have to start from the begining and becomes a never ending cicle (maybe I'm exagerating but it drives the point across). It's a huge waste of time and it's a major loss in game immersion.
Now if this wasn't bad then there is the trade system which gives me two options. One is to waste several hours to try and sell everything because merchant's don't just buy everything or just throw away all of my hard earnings so I don't waste even more time... You could say if I pick only some stuff and never bring more than I can carry then it solves the problem of wasting time but it's still a huge loss of money. As a player I feel cheated out of my earnings. To compare it to a ARPG, it's the same as killing diablo and just doesn't dros anything or maybe drops only a couple white items. It is on the same level... If I worked to kill those guys, If I explored that place, then it's to make money out of everything I find in there, I'm not doing it for charity. charity I may practice when during the dialogue with a character I decide that's what I want to do, but that is as far as it goes.
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Strange thing that Elhazzared was so heavily criticized here oO There is some grains of trurth in his words xD
The crafting skills are incredibly useful; even as an average intelligence character, you can max them and craft much better items than anything you could find or buy.
Well, ahem! How about i don't know... crafting requirements?!!?!
On crafting:
As usual, the problem isn't crafting itself. Like Zephyros already pointed out, you can craft much better stuff (literally over 3 times better in some cases) than shops or quest rewards will ever give you. Not to mention all the crafting-only stuff from weapon models to meds and all the good armor.
No. You can't craft better item cuz of it's requirements (You need 40 tailoring? But you have only 25, how sad! just wait 15 = 3 another levels! 5 INT char)
The effect isn't as huge in early game, but even early on crafting can turn the game completely around: The otherwise very difficult Old Junkyard becomes a piece of cake if you manage to craft a nice suit of siphoner or mutated dog leather armor.
That's the good example but this is exception. =)
So huge problems, too much investment needed right from level 1 to only be really useful at end game for a small part of the content.
That's the point!
2. Mk4-5 grenades can't be bought afaik, so that's also a moot point. On top of that, the new grenades have fairly low crafting requirements and are fun to play with, especially with grenadier feat.
You can buy some MK4, hehe =P
Crafting is NOT useless but has two major problems for now(in my vision):
1. Too much skill points investment. And do not argue! This is real problem. We have 5 main routes and to take all fives you need 25/40 level points what is total nonsense => you'll have to pick only 2(you can even take 3). Chemistry+Biology can be easily merge into one for greater usefulness of it =)
2. Very high(sometimes absurd high!) skill requirements. How shall I craft 160 electronic Amplified Plasma pistol even with high INT!? Without using cheats/bugs you will fall into a very funny situation - every new trader will have higher crafting components than you can use. Every fckng time(if you are not a 10+ INT guy of course).
Usefulness of disciples -
[Rank "A"]. Mechanics: most of Weapons and improvements; Metal Armor, Helmet, Boots(usefulness of this set still questionable but...); Night Googles;
[Rank "A"]. Electronics: Night Googles; Energy ranged weapons; Psionic Headbands; Energy Shields; some weapon improvements(Pneumatic, Electroshock, Laser Sight).
[Rank "B"]. Tailoring: Tabi boots; Leather Combat Gloves; Most Light Armors - Leathers, Vests; most armor improvements(Overcoat fabrics, Paddings, Carrier Vests).
[Rank "C"]. Biology: Psi Beetle Carapace and Psi Booster - need low skill; Psionic Headbands - medium skill; high lvl consumables - luxury).
[Rank "D"]. Chemistry: Mutated Dog Leather - need low skill; Chem Pistol + Chem Ammo - really great luxury (you need heavy investment in nearly useless discipline fpr this).
Grenades, Bolts, Mines - easier to buy. (I'm grenade user and craft 0 grens in all my runs)
Some examples on Builds and their crafting schools requirements:
Any Ranged Light armored build: From zero to big investment into Mechanics; from zero-small(Laser Sight) to big(Night Googles, Galvanic Vest, Energy Shield) investment into Electronics; from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 0 discipline, max - 3.
Pure Psi-Caster: From zero to big investment into Electronics(Psionic Headbands); medium investment into Biology(almost all psionic gadgets need this!); from zero to medium investment into Mechanics(Tactical Vest), from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 1 discipline, max - 4(!!!).
P.S. To tell the truth I highly doubt that something will change because that's the Styg's true vision of crafting system. In many other games you have other ways to craft items or to improve your skills.
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I don't see how you can not sacrifice anything with the 5 crafting skills.
If you use a heavy armor build along with high intelligence then you can forgo the stealth. nut with lockpicking + hacking that leaves you only one skill left for whatever attack type you chose and being restricted to one attack type is never a good thing anyway... I cannot see a 5 crafting skills without sacrificing anythin ever being possible in anyway. Then again, the problem still lies with invest from the begining to only be useful at end game and with any luck for a mission or two in the early game.
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You can get 166 crafting skills with 10 int. ;) But in all seriousness, that does sound really damn high. I've never seen crafting requirements much above 140.
150 crafting with 10 INT, and +1 can be achieved with Junkyard Surp. I'v seen 160+ =P
In any case, keep in mind the raw stats of crafted items exceed all shop items much earlier than that. Usually by the time the crafting requirements reach 100.
It's common items that can be looted/finded(no big point in crafting them). Good crafting examples, that can't be looted - Energy Shield(capacity+second modulator), any energy weapon(amplifier 100-160% crit dmg), Siphoner Leather(but... quality of leather is kinda low - max ~65), Metal Armor with many plates, MKV Grenades, Psionic headband + Power Management perk for this for moar profit!
Overall, I would say crafting is worth both the int and skillpoint investment. Well, at least the int investment. The skillpoint investment hurts a lot, especially if you want to craft everything.
You sacrifice something else, you gain the ability to make ridiculously powerful items. I can think of one build that can pick both high int and all 5 crafting skills without sacrificing anything else, but that's not really related to crafting.
INT Investment = weaker battle abilities(this point cab go into the DEX, STR or even CON!)
I don't see how you can not sacrifice anything with the 5 crafting skills.
The Truth is you don't need to take all 5.
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Playstyles.
I personally very rarely have a char that has both lockpicking and hacking.
Sure, that means sometimes I have to fight when otherwise I would not, but that's a price I'm willing to pay; Few of those chars actually use stealth.
I don't really need all the items in the crates anyways, the same way I don't need all the belongings of everyone unfortunate enough to die around me.
I also don't see how you need multiple Combat skills; Sure, it can help, but *guns* normally does the job.
Have a heavy Pistol and an Energy Pistol and your set, or go Assault/SMG + Sniper.
Heavy Armour? No need for throwing skill, if it hits you if will still not hurt that much.
In the end, really only PSI and some melee builds are starved for points.
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True that you can do it that way, but it's far from not sacrificing anything!
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Well, I never said that. :P
However, if you talk about sacrificing those skills to grab crafting, you're also sacrificing crafting to do something else. ;)
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Of course. But I feel it's more worth to sacrifice something that is only good for end game in order to get something that is good for the entire game.
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About merchants.
I have idea how to do that the wolves were fed and the sheep were safe.
Lets they buy all stuff (beyond their specification) but at greatly lowered price - first item for 75%, second for 50%, last for 25%. To prevent player's cheating, when the first item will be most valued one, let it be set of a tree, sold at (75%+50%+25%)=150%/3.
Lets this option will be allowed after you make some business with merchant, maybe some minor (or not) quest, or if you have decent Mercantile skill, or Persuasion x1.5 from Mercantile skill.
Maybe not all merchants can make a deal like this - this nice young lady gladly buy from you all scrap/crap you found besides electronics and energo wepon she usualy trade, but THIS old goat will NEVER accept it.
About money. I still think there are too much money in game.
We need cut off at least 1\3 of selling price, and add a sinkhole for money.
Like for to get information - it's most valuable and therefore expensive resource.
Such information does not have to give serious advantages, maybe only minor, but can get more flavour to a game -something about Underrail past, or about past of some NPC characters.
Money to buy unique things (wepon, utility, antique trinkets), money to bribe, money to buy safety, or new hidden pathway.
Maybe someone, the really shady pro watches over us, and carefully calculate all money we accumulated?
And he is going to rob us just a little? Just little script scene with various consequences - robbering, fight, partnership?
About crafting
I can agree with what Mindless said.
Except Pure Psi-Caster: From zero to big investment into Electronics(Psionic Headbands); medium investment into Biology(almost all psionic gadgets need this!); from zero to medium investment into Mechanics(Tactical Vest), from zero to big investment into Tailoring. Min - 1 discipline, max - 4(!!!).
for pure Psi you'll need only leather - to hide and sneak, and to fight and (can not choose the right rhyme :P) and
150 crafting with 10 INT, and +1 can be achieved with Junkyard Surp.
JS can roll +2 stat, so bonus is even bigger.
Btw about JS - I consider it like test item.
I feel like we have strong buff for nothing.
I hope it wiil be deleted from game, and Chemistry+Biology will do the things.
Or at least set new price - min 100 charons, not 10 or 30 like now.
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Merchants lowering the price with more stuff they buy won't make the problem go away, it will only agravate it because then people will feel that it's only worth selling one item rather than a few or all.
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for pure Psi you'll need only leather - to hide and sneak, and to fight and (can not choose the right rhyme :P) and
For the _best_ you need not leather but Psionic Headband (with Proximal Neuroscopic Filter and Stable Neural Amplifier that you can't find/buy iirc!) and Tactical Vest with Psi Beetle Carapace(-10% psi costs, +x psi skills). And one of the interesting bonuses - Antithermic tactical vest+tabi boots ~ 40-90 fire res.
JS can roll +2 stat, so bonus is even bigger.
Btw about JS - I consider it like test item.
I feel like we have strong buff for nothing.
I hope it wiil be deleted from game, and Chemistry+Biology will do the things.
Or at least set new price - min 100 charons, not 10 or 30 like now.
Oops, forgot about +2. But it's only one good buff(mb even abuse, hehe) for crafting.
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Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.
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Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.
But you can put skill points into other skills as you level up. You don't need to max every starter skill every level, especially if you're in a position where that's not required to progress or in need of those skill points. I usually never pick biology when I start out, but I put 20 points into it when I first level up just so that I can get the doctor feat, but that leaves me with not having maxed one or two of my starter skill, but I make sure I sacrifice the skills I don't need to have a high level at the moment, relative to my character level of course.
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That isn't exactly right. Combat skills have to alwys be maxed, they are your damage dealers, you need them to work as best as possible. Crafting has lots of requirement, while you can conceivably stop at a certain value, that value is very high so you need to keep it up really high until you hit that sweet spot, then you can start putting it somewhere else. Even then crafting requires skills so absurdly high that by the time you have them on over 150 you're probably close to max level anyway.
And yes you can say you only put 20 points into biology, yes, biology is quite a bit useless in my opinion too. But it's a purely theorical conversation about having 5 crafting skills and not losing anything.
There is always loss in the example given by epeli. Not only you don't have enough for hacking and lockpick as he said, there is also no etra for the social skill as he said. More however if you have a high intelligence and a high will you will not have many points more to allocate elsewhere. If you want to go heavy armor you will not have strenght for it. If you want to go lighter armors you will then need an extra skill which is stealth in order to be able to start the combat in your terms (this is so your CCs will work properly).
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Taking into account that you can chose a max of 8 skills (divide starting points by 15) and you stick 5 crafting skills and 3 psionic skills, I don't see where you get enough for lockpicking, hacking and a social skill of your liking. That would requir you to have 45 extra starting skill points and 15 extra skill points per level.
But you can put skill points into other skills as you level up. You don't need to max every starter skill every level, especially if you're in a position where that's not required to progress or in need of those skill points. I usually never pick biology when I start out, but I put 20 points into it when I first level up just so that I can get the doctor feat, but that leaves me with not having maxed one or two of my starter skill, but I make sure I sacrifice the skills I don't need to have a high level at the moment, relative to my character level of course.
I was about to reply with something like this.
Underrail even supports this kind of character progression. You can't do this at the beginning of the game but on higher levels you'll be able to pick more skills. The reason is attribute scores add % to your skills. For example:
With 10 points invested in a skill and +50% attribute bonus your effective skill is 15. Bonus is worth one more character level.
With 100 points invested in a skill and +50% attribute bonus your effective skill is 150. Bonus is worth 10 more character levels.
Your attribute scores will also rise so you're gonna get even more skill point bonus.
Int governs all crafting skills + hacking + mercantile. If you are taking many of those skills Int can be a great skill point saver.
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Assuming you get a 50% bonus, you start with 15 points, gain 5 per level that's level 18 when you get 100 base points to get 150 total from bonus. Too much investment.
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150? No, you get 166 skill with 10 supporting base ability. 110 base skill at level 20 and 8.5% bonus per base ability point above 5. So if we're counting +2 Junkyard Surprise, you can get up to 166 crafting (or any other) skill with 8 int (or other base ability).
Oh F*ck! Wiki "Every point in base ability above 4 increases the effective value of dependent skills by 10%, while every point below 4 decreases it by 8.5%." is Wrong!
True formula(calculated with help of my chars): 8.5(not 10)% bonus per base ability point above 4(not 5!).
But you can put skill points into other skills as you level up. You don't need to max every starter skill every level, especially if you're in a position where that's not required to progress or in need of those skill points. I usually never pick biology when I start out, but I put 20 points into it when I first level up just so that I can get the doctor feat, but that leaves me with not having maxed one or two of my starter skill, but I make sure I sacrifice the skills I don't need to have a high level at the moment, relative to my character level of course.
It's semi right)
You need only "full investment" in battle or psi skills(guns+throwning, melee+throwning, 2-3 psi skill). Let it be 2 skillpoints.
You can do "almost full investment"(Up to 85!!!) in hacking+lockpicking skills(You are not masochist, nor some crazy powergammer right? And don't tell me "i don't need any of these cuz i'm super-pro!" or"Lockpicking and Hacking for Loosers!"). 2 skillpoints.
Dodge+Evasion - comes in combo variant imho! Good one if you are not planning to go in full metal panic unit(95% encumbrance metal helm, boots, armor) or full stealth run(well, good luck here!). + get Tabi Boots and Siphoner Leather for moar slippery! "full investment" in this one for me, but its depends on your play style.
Stealth - you don't really need this if you are don't plant to be super ninja or go for pure sniper. Yep, sneak mechanics is not the best here and all quests can be done with +stealth items and brain(main component!).
Traps - you don't really need this, but it can be rewarding in exp equivalent(if you are playing classic variant) but without perk it can be veryyy long way to take all mines(Rathound King Lair, hehe).
Pickpocketing - nice one! Some items can be only pickpocketed from npc's + alternative way for moneymaking. But not really necessary one.
Crafting skills - see above( I prefer Mechanincs+Electronics combo for guns user; Tailoring, Mechanics, Electronics, Biology hard combo with very specific points allocation for psi user)
Social skills - money not a problem(i want but really can't spent skillpoints into Mercantile) , intimidation < persuasion, that's all.
All i can tell that 40(120) skillpoints is very small amount that you must allocate(in comparison with the Fallout, you can train some skills from NPC/items and it's cool!).
Yep, some skills needed for quests...
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150? No, you get 166 skill with 10 supporting base ability. 110 base skill at level 20 and 8.5% bonus per base ability point above 5. So if we're counting +2 Junkyard Surprise, you can get up to 166 crafting (or any other) skill with 8 int (or other base ability).
Oh F*ck! Wiki "Every point in base ability above 4 increases the effective value of dependent skills by 10%, while every point below 4 decreases it by 8.5%." is Wrong!
True formula(calculated with help of my chars): 8.5(not 10)% bonus per base ability point above 4(not 5!).
I can confirm it's less than 10%. 10 in an attribute gives 50% increase, not 60%.
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In reply to the start of the thread, I have to say again that making people run around to different merchants to sell your junk always was a bad idea, still is a bad idea, and always will be a bad idea. There are a dozen different smart ways to manage an RPG economy, throwing in pointless chores for players to contend with is not one of them. It stands out especially in a game so thoughtfully planned out and executed as Underrail. Ferchrissakes, change it back!
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Happened to be reading a blog post (http://www.gridsagegames.com/blog/2014/12/importance-roguelike-food-clocks/) by a talented indie developer (this guy's explanations of good game and level design should be read by game developers of any genre), and saw this quote, which perfectly matches my own opinion about "chores" in games:
Herein lies a golden rule of game design: If the optimal way to play a game is to do something boring, players will still do it even if it makes their experience less enjoyable. Thus a well-designed game should strive to avoid rewarding this kind of behavior.
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I don't see how trading can be a big part of the game. To put things into perspective. Trading means aquire goods in one place and sell them at higher prices on another place. That is what trading really is and if Styg did that, people would get even richer with trading... An RPG is not a trading simulator, there are many games out there doing that already with varying degrees of success.
If we were to implement real trading into the game then merchants would buy everything at normal prices but they would have a specific item or two that they would buy at a much higher price, encouraging players to sell those items there instead of any other place which would mean the player would still be going between towns selling things where he would be paid more and buying things from merchants to sell to anothers for a profit.
To a degree this wouldn't be as bad of a system as the current one because at least you could get the normal price for the items you have anyway, but it would still create a pointless chore to get more more money, whether or not needed... I suppose I can say (and I say I because it's my point of view and not everyone else) that underrail currently is suffering from a maledy that many games suffer. It's trying to be more than what it is. And what It is is an isometric RPG. Pulling mechanics that fit into other games just to make this one seem more realistic or simply to try and give it more depth is not the right way to go about it.
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I respectfully disagree.
Trying and failing is far better than not trying, and producing the next Call of Duty.
Herein lies a golden rule of game design: If the optimal way to play a game is to do something boring, players will still do it even if it makes their experience less enjoyable. Thus a well-designed game should strive to avoid rewarding this kind of behavior.
As such, games should not encourage to go back to shops at all. Now, that either means no loot sides the occasional thing the player will likely need, or... what?
I for one am content with loot I know I won't be able to sell, so I can just leave it to rot.
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I respect trying and failing. But one thing is to try and fail, another thing is to try, fail and just leave it as it is just because you wanted to be different.
You are content to loot only what you know you'll be able to sell. That is a point of view.
Mine is that if you are just going to look at the loot and then go "meh, don't need it cause I can't sell it anyway" and as such ignore it, then you remove the reasons for exploration and sidequests.
Why would I go and explore or do sidequests if I cannot sell the loot? Because make no mistake. The rewards of exploring and doing sidequests is the loot. You search the place, indiscrimatedly kill whatever crosses your path and what is your reward for all aof that? Loot.
If you suddenly say that what your reward is nothing but a waste of time because you can't sell it, then really all there is to it is follow the main storyline and don't bother with anything else. it's just pointless.
If you want to force players into chosing what they take and what they leave behnd you make a game that has no merchants at all and no monetary system. You then limit the inventory size either by space or weight and force the player to chose what he wants to keep and what he has to live without... Unfortunatly such systems do not work for RPGs. they are mostly meant for roguelikes.
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Trading means aquire goods in one place and sell them at higher prices on another place. That is what trading really is
No, it isn't. You forgot about "found something, scavenge something, marauding someone" and then sell at some place what you loot.
If we were to implement real trading into the game then merchants would buy everything at normal prices but they would have a specific item or two that they would buy at a much higher price
No! Go sell something in your local supermarket. )
There is specialization, and if someone buy something that he didn't specialized in, he buy it at low cost.
And buy at much higher price only if it's really rare and valuable.
You then limit the inventory size either by space or weight and force the player to chose what he wants to keep and what he has to live without... Unfortunatly such systems do not work for RPGs. they are mostly meant for roguelikes.
Well, it worked well in Fallout, System Shock, well, Arcanum, BG series?
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Stealing or findng something and selling is just that, selling, not trading. By definition trading you go around, buying cheap selling high.
If we were to implement a real trade market like what you see in trading games then all merchants would buy everything at normal prices and expensive for items that they really need though I suppose it would be fair to say some items they'd have in surplus and buy at low prices too. At any rate this wouldn't fit an RPG.
I will not talk about BD series nor System shock since I didn't play them.
Fallout buys everything at the same price, the only modifier is your barter skill, not whether they need it or any such non-sense. Arcanum similarly buys everything at the same price. What changes the price is how much people like you which is affected by your beauty and possible quests made (race too depending on the place)... As a matter of fact did you ever had a problem in fallout selling loot? No, you might have had some problems carrying it, but there is no respawns so you store all loot of the area in one container and just go back and forth until all is sold (this only creates unnecessary busywork that beneficted the game in no way). As for Arcanum it's a non-issue because with all the party memebers you have you'll just be able to carry everything no matter what area you clear and in arcanum merchants don't even have money limits which makes it even better than fallout in that aspect but given how much longer after fallout it came it's only natural that they improved the formula. The carry weight is there only cause since it makes no real diference.
So as you can see, neither does underrail has a true trading system nor would it benefict the game in any way. What we are left with is a subpar economic system that still gives us too much money, doesn't encourages us to go out of the beaten path and frustates the players for not allowing them to sell their hard earned loot.
Not everything is bad of course. The early game as far as economy is concerned has improved. Even with the little I managed to tolerate of this economic system to play I could reasonably say that you get a lot more necessary starting money. But past that things are much worse than when I started playing.
Therein lies the problem. Not only does the current economic system aggravates players (yes not all of them but some right now and I imagine a vast majority when the game goes live), but it doesn't encourages you to go off the beaten path. What does that makes of the game? Well if players are not encouraged to go out of the beaten path then only a small part of the gamers will actually bother to see everything the game has to offer, that kinda makes a void where the developers spent time creating all those areas for nothing... It's exactly the same as I've always said about the GMS vault. It's a waste of time to go there! Why even design an area whose only purpose is to waste people's time? Most players are either going to go there once and never again touch it in any following playthroughs or they will read the wiki, see that tehre is nothing to be had there but a huge waste of time and they will not even go there once. This basicly means that developers wasted time doing something no one will care about.
A good game design will have players be rewarded by risk and time investment. If it's not worth it, players will ignore it and that nullifies the whole point of the developers having spent time and thus money in creating those areas.
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Stealing or findng something and selling is just that, selling, not trading. By definition trading you go around, buying cheap selling high.
So there is NO trading in game, so your appeal to "trading" do nothing.
There is looting and selling, not trading. Problem solved.
Fallout, Arcanum, SS, BG - all have inventory and\or weight restriction.
Restrictions mean choice.
No restrictions mean no choice.
RPG is game of choices by definition, so even bad choice better then no choices at all.
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It's not my appeal to trading. People are saying that the reason for this bad economy system is because it encourages trading and trading is a part of the game. I was merely telling it was not true, the game has no trading component to it whatsoever. Glad you agree on that.
Fallout and arcanum (will only talk about the games I know) have only a small limitation, not a huge limitation that severely hampers the enjoyment of the game and make exploration and sidequests useless.
In Fallout you don't chose what you keep and what you leave behind. You just waste some time going back and forth but you don't chose.
In arcanum you don't chose too, you can carry everything with you, the weight limitation is there just cause, there are no instances that you cannot do without carrying all the loot.
Similarly, in underrail you don't need to chose to leave everything behind, nor do you have to chose to only sell a few things. You can carry everything by taking huge loads of time, this is aggravated by repawns. You can sell everything, you just have to sit around doing nothing for 45 minutes for the merchants to reload. However this is highly contrived.
The game will always have restrictions. But those shouldn't be related to inventory space or merchants buying stuff. Why? Because it completly nullifies the point of side questing and exploring. You do that for extra loot and extra money (both being directly tied together). If you say that people can barely transport anything at all because some items are absurdly heavy and can't sell everything within a reasonable timeframe. People are just going to ignore the game. Now I ask you, how much of the game is sidequests and explorable area? I'd bet over 50% So players are encouraged to ignore most of the content because of a bad decision? Is that right?
Decisions come from, what skill set are you going to use? What options you take to solve quests and side quests. What equipment do you use.
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Underrail incentivise you to not do what you do El, by making that stuff aggrevating and boring. The game outright discourage you to pick up everything, that's what I meant a few pages back when I said that the point of the looting in Underrail is not to hoard, it's to scavenge. You are supposed to leave stuff behind. And it is - no matter how much you disagree with that or how annoying it is - your choice whether you want to participate in that system or not. Just like how I don't like the way stealth characters progress in the game (I have already aired my opinion on it so I won't repeat myself) you just have to readjust your expectations and simply deal with it, just like everyone else. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh but it's the reality of it.
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Again, If I do that then I am discouraged of doing any sidequests and exploring. Really all I need to do is the main story line as I'll already get more loot than I can sell. What incentive do I have to go on exploring or doing sidequests when I will not gain anything from it?
That is the whole point. The current system doesn't just discourages you from picking everything up. It discourages you from playing more than half the game.
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You get materials that can be used for crafting, you get better guns, ammo. You also get oddities if that's the xp system you play with. There's lots of reasons to go off the beaten path.
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I don't use the oddity system, never liked it but hey, it's optional so no harm there!
As for finding material for crafting, still not enough reason, you don't really need crafting and if you absolutly must then merchants have enough stuff from what I hear so again, not reason to get off the beaten path. You are encouraged not to do anything of the sort because you get no tangible rewards... Maybe if you are really needing a level or two but I doubt you'll need it anyway.
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You also discover quests, you get new equipment, you gain exp and you meet interesting characters. That's well enough reason to explore and then some.
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Well, so to sum it up:
You get crafting Materials, but you don't craft.
You get Oddities, but you don't play with Oddities.
You get more chances at dropping something useful, but you don't expect that to ever happen no matter what.
Uhm... well, whatever works for you. ;)
Sides, what would we get if we got more items we could sell?
Even less than crafting, because we'd get money, and unlike crafting materials, that's guaranteed to be useless.
Yes, there's a gameplay problem in that sentence.
At least it's better than current AAA games where they hide flags somewhere in the hopes mindless zombies will grind for 5 hours to complete an achievement. :)
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You get crafting materials which you can buy anyway and money isn't a problem.
You get oddities but yeah I don't use the oddity system and I feel that many will not after the game release. It's a good system if you want passive play, it's bad system if you want lots of combat.
You get more chances of droping something useful, which I can get by going to town and just buying something a lot better. Grinding for hours and hours for marginal upgrades is hardly worth a player's time... At least in an RPG.
Indeed you'd get money which you consider useless. You can use money to buy whatever. We've already gone through the game giving the player way to much money. The problems of lack of resources in the early game has been addressed, now it's a question of making the mid and late game not give you as much money.
So then you'd go do sidequests and exploring because you would get stuff to craft and if it didn't drop, you can just buy it with the money from selling stuff. Going into exploration means finding more items, you can either get marginal upgrades or just sell stuff to buy what you need. And just doing the main quest line wouldn't likely give you enough money, that's why you have sidequests and exploration, to suplement what you lack. You don't need to do everything, but you'll at least have to do a good deal.
However one thing is true. This economic system will never allow for a proper solution to the too much money problem. Why? Because you limit what the merchants buy and in doing so then you must make sure that they pay more than enough to get you going... Let's face it, this economic system will never work properly. I can understand that Styg spent a lot of time creating this system, but it's better to scratch something that doesn't works than keep trying to adjust something that is just never going to work.
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Well, if traders paying too much for the items they buy is a problem, he can just reduce how much they pay.
No need for them to accept all the junk that random adventurer found out there because no one ever bothered to pick it up in the last 20 years.
And they offer too much; Just buying what you need should not happen.
If players can get perfect gear by just buying it, you might as well replace half the game with a slot machine.
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Perhaps you don't realise the full scope of this so let me explain.
Option one, merchant pays too much, too much money floating around.
Option two, merchant pays just about enough for you to always have enough equipment. Not too much money floating around but still no reason to go exploring and doing sidequests.
Option three, merchant doesn't pays enough, it still doesn't matters if you go do sidequests and explore because you are still limited to the quantity that the merchant buys and as such you still won't have enough money.
There isn't a way around this because the problem lies with the limits of merchant buying.
When you have no limits in how much they buy, it's only a matter of adjusting prices, but when you limit how much stuff they buy, you create a whole new problem with the economic system.
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Perhaps you don't realise the full scope of this so let me explain.
Option one, merchant pays too much, too much money floating around.
Option two, merchant pays just about enough for you to always have enough equipment. Not too much money floating around but still no reason to go exploring and doing sidequests.
Option three, merchant doesn't pays enough, it still doesn't matters if you go do sidequests and explore because you are still limited to the quantity that the merchant buys and as such you still won't have enough money.
There isn't a way around this because the problem lies with the limits of merchant buying.
When you have no limits in how much they buy, it's only a matter of adjusting prices, but when you limit how much stuff they buy, you create a whole new problem with the economic system.
My idea was to reduce amount of charons merchants pay and at the same time increase amount of items they buy. Oh, and increase carry capacity as well.
For example: merchants would pay 3 times less than they do now (which would be 1/6 of item's value), buy 3 times as much items and player's carry cap would be 3 times larger.
We would be able to get same amount of charons from merchants as before but it would require 3 times as much loot (that's why carry capacity was boosted).
It could make players not have enough $ just for following main quest, exploration and side quests would become necessary.
You get more chances of droping something useful, which I can get by going to town and just buying something a lot better.
That's not really true. Here's an example:
In version 0.1.12, that was limited to Core City, weapon shop in Core City could sell items with up to 1410 durability. If you joined one of the oligarch families you could by items with up to 1500 durability (from Preatorian Security at least). By killing lvl 20 enemies you could loot stuff with as much as 1860 durability.
As we can see looted equipment is better than from store.
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Or you can just raise the chances of items being found out there that the merchants will buy, or preferable, that are useful.
Suddenly there's just enough money, or maybe a bit more, but only if you go exploring to find the rare stuff people actually want.
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Hilf, you method, while not whole solving the problem would certainly lessen it. The question still becomes. Why rely on contrived mechanics that ultimatly do not benefict the game in any way when there is a better way? Again I don't have a problem with a system being tested and if it works then fine, but if doesn't then either change it or use the formula that everyone else uses them. There is a very good reason that they use the formula everyone else does. Because it's good and it works, not to mention that no one came with a better one. Something new for the sake of being different isn't enough of a reason. Above all it should be good.
As for your example I cannot speak for your experience. Mine is, get to junkyard, get stuff much better than whatever you'll find on any quest around or exploring. With luck you can find something on the same level as what is available there... Also durabillity is not really much of a sign of superiority although better durabillity usually means better stats. But waht matters is the stats, durabillity, meh you can repair it anyway.
I cannot imagine what level enemies should normally be around core city but the equipment sold should match it or actually be slightly superior in the majority of cases.
Either way your earlier example would at least leasen the problem, not solve it but leasen it. I would still rather see no buying limits, lower prices and slightly higher carrying capacity (as well as the heavier items taking a huge hit to their weight).
Unlimited. Your proposition does not helps in any way. the problem is that you get to the gun merchant. Here I have 10 guns to sell. Sorry I only buy 3. What does it matter if the loot tends to be what merchant buys, the problem lies with them not buying enough to start with... Of course removing the limit of which type of item would also be good but it's just that there is no way to offload what you get from the main storyline alone becuase you sell what you can and you are left with tons of excess that the merchants should buy, but they just filled their quota.
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Have you gotten past the drill part El? Because that's when the game opens up and really reward player behaviour that is not exploitative (not that it ever does); such as scavenging, exploring, crafting etc. I tend to think about the part before that as an introduction, sort of like how New Vegas funneled you around the map before hitting new Vegas were the game truly opens up. I've found that I only go to traders if I need healing items or if there's something I really, really need for crafting or repair kits. Because most useful items you get, you get from exploring the game, not exploiting its systems. I'm still not sure if this is a real game design problem or if it's the systems not lining up with your preferences.
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Of course not, the moment new areas were added past the junkyard so was introduced this new economy system which I cannot even understand how someone can tolareta playing it through.
But either way it does not changes anything does it? You still loot more than you can sell. Selling things becomes a chore with no end and the game pretty much seems to make you go on rails (no pun intended) by not making you deviate from the main storyline as you have no reason to do anything else except the bare minimum.
At least I know that if when I am doing only the storyline I cannot sell everything, then I wouldn't go and do anything else which would reward me in no way whatsoever and would in fact only waste my time.
I won't talk about new vegas or fallout 3. That thing is a heresy and bethesda should burn for ever having turned a great game into that atrocity.
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But you do get rewarded for straying from the main path, you get equipment, material, quests, experience, interesting story-lines etc. It's not all about the loot you know.
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Equipment... Don't need, can buy it. In fact I'll just end up leaving it behind because of carry weights and vendor limits anyway.
Materials... Again, can just buy them and the more you stock the harder it is to have inventory space for more stuff.
Quests... Whose rewards are? Nothing because you cannot get any profit from the loot as the merchants are already spent from the main storyline.
Experience... Yes, I'll give you a point here if you do are feeling the difficulty and need a level or two to get back on track but I doubt it is really needed.
Interesting storylines... Again you do have a point here, but if I get nothing from it, even if I did it only once to know them, that's all there would be to it, no replay value with them as you already did it once and from there, given that there is no reward for doing it you won't need to do it again ever. Much like the GMS vault. You go there once, get nothing worth your trouble, speditures and time and you don't touch it again. Waste of time for both players and developers.
It is not all about the loot, but it's mostly about the loot. It's an RPG and as such it revolves around loot a lot. People play games because they enjoy playing games. Everytime they beat something tough or get rewarded for their work they get a dopamine release which gives them the pleasure. In these games the loot is what gives us the enjoyment, it's our reward, our dopamine release. Basicly the game is denying you that.
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Equipment... Don't need, can buy it. In fact I'll just end up leaving it behind because of carry weights and vendor limits anyway.
Materials... Again, can just buy them and the more you stock the harder it is to have inventory space for more stuff.
This makes little sense to me, if you go out and explore and adventure, you will get better equipment. in fact, most equipment you found on your adventures are better than the stuff you can buy. The same goes for material.
Quests... Whose rewards are? Nothing because you cannot get any profit from the loot as the merchants are already spent from the main storyline.
The rewards are more interesting world information, unique items, money, experience.
Experience... Yes, I'll give you a point here if you do are feeling the difficulty and need a level or two to get back on track but I doubt it is really needed.
But you haven't gotten past the drill part, levels and skill increase is very much needed throughout the game.
Interesting storylines... Again you do have a point here, but if I get nothing from it, even if I did it only once to know them, that's all there would be to it, no replay value with them as you already did it once and from there, given that there is no reward for doing it you won't need to do it again ever. Much like the GMS vault. You go there once, get nothing worth your trouble, speditures and time and you don't touch it again. Waste of time for both players and developers.
That's depending on how you go about it, some of the stuff you do branch and can only be experience one way per playthrough.
It is not all about the loot, but it's mostly about the loot. It's an RPG and as such it revolves around loot a lot. People play games because they enjoy playing games. Everytime they beat something tough or get rewarded for their work they get a dopamine release which gives them the pleasure. In these games the loot is what gives us the enjoyment, it's our reward, our dopamine release. Basicly the game is denying you that.
That is actually not true. There are sub-genres of RPG that centre its gameplay around loot, most notably action RPGs. Traditional CRPGs* are less common to revolve around the stuff you get, it's mostly about world building, unraveling storylines and most importantly player choice in relation to the story and the world at large. Some RPG games have very little emphasis on loot such as The Witcher, Mass Effect, Planescape Torment amongst others. There are many different ways to make RPGs but that's a whole other discussion not really related to the topic at hand. Just wanted to clear things up a bit.
*With Traditional CRPGs I mean RPGs like Baldurs Gate, Fallout, Arcanum, Planescape Torment etc.
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While my experience is only up to junkyard, it is how it goes. Nothing I'll find in the junkyard or around it, even in Depot A is better than what is for sale in the junkyard. At best it will be of equal value but usually lower... Materials may actually differ but for equipment it is true. Still what use is there to find much higher materials which you just don't have the skill to use? By the time you have more than likely the vendors will have material at that quallity... Then again I may be talking out of my ass relative to what the vendors may have but my experience with material, usually when you find high waullity you just don't have the skills anyway, nor will have for many, many levels.
Interesting wourld informantion... Only need to do it once. Unique items. Well I'm sure the number of those are extremely limited and you'll only ever do those that will affect your class. One or two are hardly a measure of the vastness of the amount of quests and explorarion... Money, which is what compared to the loot left behind? Not to mention that we have more than enough money (again don't forget that my proposal isn't just to go back to the old system but to lower the value of items to also address this issue)... Experience. As far as I can tell and again I do know my experience is somewhat limited in comparison to the current content, you don't need to go out of the way to get XP. Even if you do you'll probably only do one or another which you know gives you a lot for as little trouble (time wasted) as possible.
I belive you that level and skill increasses are necessary, it was through the whole game till there, it shouldn't change as it goes forward. What I am saying is that you probably don't need to get off the beaten path to get enough skills and levels to go on.
Some of the stuff you do may branch, but odds are you do it the way it feels right to you and always do it that way. If you really get curious you can savescum to see different results and/or use wikia just to get to know. One playthrough is more than enough given that the players will not feel rewarded for doing it.
Lore is very important the first time around and only the first time around. Just like you play fallout 2 for the first time and get to explore all that cool story, after you beat it once, replayabillity does not comes from story but gameplay mechanics as you try different types of characters. How much replayabillity does Underrail begs? some possibly, but definitly without going into sidequests or exploring because it's just a huge waste of time. As for things like mass effect. This might be just me but I do not consider those things an RPG. There just isn't enough freedom and enough choice for it to ever quallify as an RPG. Anything that is not on a close level of things like fallout or arcanum do not quallify as true RPGs. At least not in my book... As such, all RPGs are loot driven.
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I'm sorry El, you just don't know what you're talking about. Go play through the game then come back and talk. It's getting very annoying that you are making things up without the actual experience to back it up.
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I cannot play the game. It's unbearable to play a game with such a horrible economic system and I've tried, several times and every time I just couldn't deal with the inabillity to carry items and sell items. The game just frustates me. Pleasure given 0.
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Well then too bad but don't pretend like you know how things work because you don't. No matter how many assumptions you make about how the game works throughout it's only just that: assumptions.
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I base what I say with my experience of the game. As far as I've been made known, these things have not been changed in anyway way through the development. I haven't seen any loot rebalancing in notes for mid game. Just the early game.
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Just like preference in general, either you like it or you don't. I actually think it's a matter of readjusting expectations and a wee bit of change in habit and outlook. If you try to embrace how the system works I think you'll have much more fun with it. Forcing your standards unto something even though the don't match up never work out. Especially when it comes to niche stuff like Underrail that have a different perspective and actively encourage the player to view things the same way. How I understand it is that you don't like to leave loot behind, but that's exactly what you have to do to effectively play Underrail, if you get rid of that gnawling feeling to pick everything up and to sell every little piece of loot you can grab, you will most likely enjoy the game much more. But if you can't, then you're out of luck.
EDIT: Uncommon characters still cut posts off.
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I can't. The game brings me no enjoyment if I am leaving good stuff behind, stuff that actually has a lot of value. It's not just how I think the game should be. It gets completly unplayable for me. Even thinking. I'll leave loot behind, there is gonna be more than enough money. The moment that I hit GMS and couldn't even loot 2 levels of it without getting overweight I just ragequited the game... The level of frustation is just through the roof, it saps all possible enjoyment that could be derived from the game when before I felt the game was amazing and that Styg was amasing for dealing away with carry weights and such non-sense. Pure enjoyment with no immersion break.
Right now I'm doomed to either get a game I'll never play again. Or wait for styg to actually include an option that allows the game to be enjoyed when we reach the final version cause if he does that, I'm sure he won't do it before then cause I've been waiting forever for it so I got no illusions. Or in a last case scenario, wait for someone to mod the game into making it an actually good game.
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I'm sorry Elhazzared, but I'm of almost the opposite opinion to you. I'm a significant way through my second "full" playthrough (the first was an earlier build), and while I feel the crafting definitely needs some tweaking, I absolutely have to disagree with your views on the economy and carrying capacity.
Part of the joy for me is being forced to make difficult decisions about loot - what do I keep and what do I leave? What is more likely to sell? To me, this is the ESSENCE of RPGs - role-playing. Not looting, but instead trying to make decisions for my character. Loot is good, but there are plenty of other reasons for exploring a game world.
Completely removing the vendor restrictions or carrying capacity would destroy this aspect of the game. Anyway, all this excess stuff requires storage - it provides an incentive for me to use my Player Home. (Incidentally, more Player Homes, possibly upgradable or with unique attributes, would provide an excellent gold sink...)
That's not to say I don't feel the system needs tweaking. I just also think removing the carrying and vendor restrictions is a case of "throwing the baby out blah blah".
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No it wouldn't. You see, when there was no vendor restrictions nor carry weights the only complaint was too much money floating. Not a single soul complained about vendors buying everything nor you being able to carry everything.
Now you got the complaints of too much money and of those restrictions. Clearly the old system was better than the new one and in no way destroyed the game, it merely made everyone happy.
Also with this new system there will never be a problem to how much money float. You'll either always have too much or not enough.
You wanna force decisions? Simple, remove all the silly restrictions and put less money on the game, then people are forced to decide what they buy and even what they sell in case some weapon breaks down and you just can't repair it.
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I've only seen two people complaining about the new system, hardly enough reason to make a change.
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I've seen more than that, but the people who usually complained about it did so when the changes hit... All in all it weren't still many, but considering that there isn't many people actually posting in the foruns I'd say it still is a decent number of people... Still, you got no complaints vs some complaints. It denotes which system was better.
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That's no good way of developing anything. Every change you make will have someone who dislike it in one way or the other. If you don't like it then air your opinion, but never expect things to change let alone bringing it up time and time again at any given chance to complain about it. It doesn't help anyone. Styg have listened but he haven't changed things because he's the developer, it's his game. He didn't change things the first time you complained and he won't change things after the 10th time either.
If every change that turns off a few vocal people will be addressed like they want it then the game will never leave the gates ever. I'm a developer and I know what it's like to make decisions that some people don't like but I do it anyway because it benefits the game overall, whether you personally agree with that or not. It's about artistic cohesiveness and not personal preference. Styg knows what is his vision is and it's ultimately his decision what compromises needs to go through to reach it.
Again I'm not against complaining and giving feedback, what I'm against is obnoxious nagging.
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Yeah but this is the one thing i'll never really shut up about because this makes the game bad. Plain and simple.
It is not simply a case of personal preference. I have pointed out why it makes the game bad, I have pointed out why the economy system will never be able to be fixed because of this.
If this was a case of. Should the game use a square base movement system or a hex based movement system. I'd say i prefer square based even if hex based is better. But that would just be a preference, not an objective problem with the game. This economic and weight system is plain bad and hurts the game. So I will be very vocal about it as it is a real issue that needs to be addressed.
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But it is not an objective problem because evidently equally as many people like the system and its implications (based on the vocal portion of the audience, which doesn't really say much either way but let's assume for the sake of argument that they are representative). I personally, am fine with it. What does that make of those who like it if it's an objectively bad system?
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There is no problem with some people liking an objectively bad system. That is not what I am saying.
The problem is for all the people who don't like it because it is just bad... That means it hurts game sales and basicly becomes a black review for a developer who is quite obviously putting his passion into the project. It's also true that having a bad record in games makes people less willing to buy games you develop in the future... There is also the issue of making a game which many people just reguard as bad and then have all the credit attributed for a good game being given to a modder who actually solved the issues that a game had.
It's as I said. If Styg really wanted to put this system in no matter what when it is objectively bad. Fine, but make it optional as he made it with the XP system.
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You've already said that and there's no basis behind it so what you predict means nothing because you can't back it up beyond what you personally think it good or bad. I'm sorry but that's how it is. I'm going to stop listening to you from now just like everyone else because you're just repeating yourself now. I don't even know why I bother.
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There is basis in my argument. Most people don't like objectively bad systems. Some people do, but they are a minority. That is the reason why you see many bad games out there but with a very small number of people who actually think the game is good as it is.
Ask people if the liked weight limits in fallout 2 and they will tell you no, it made them go back and forth. Ask people if the liked limit of money in fallout 2 and thwy would say no because they had to go between a couple towns to sell loot and probably still take a few stimpacks as payment.
Ask people if they liked that there was no money limit in stores for arcanum and they will say they do. As people if they minded the weight limit in arcanum and they will tell you no because between you and the companions you could always carry everything, though they will also say if you could just carry everything yourself for the sake of easier inventory management it would be better.
People will always prefer mechanics that do not make them waste their time. Bear in mind that leaving stuff behind because you can't sell it is wasting your time. Wasting time killing things because you are at the end of the day not getting anything out of it, in fact you are only wasting both your time and your resources.
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Sorry but can't prove that unless you can link reources to where those questions were asked and answered. Making changes to a product require stone cold facts as a basis for the change, not baseless assumptions from one guy on one forum.
Sorry but that's the reality, deal with it. Good Bye.
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Right, because you have never played any kind of game, be it multiplayer or single player that had mechanics that made you waste loads of your time and you never discussed it with people you know how bad it was.
Because you don't really need to do a survey or any study to know that. You are just chosing to ignore this because you like this bad mechanic and I get it. You like it. It doesn't changes the fact that it is a bad mechanic however.
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I'm not ignoring anything, I have already discussed the ins and outs of the system with you before. I'm just sick and tired of you nagging about things you can't possibly change and it's really, really annoying. You just don't seem to understand that things will not change just because you say so. Get over it.
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Yes I am fairly aware that the developers may chose to just ignore what I am saying or simply not belive it as I put it. But when the game comes out a full reviews come out saying, this game could have been good if it wasn't for this, this and this and as a result people don't buy their game. Then they can't say they weren't warned during the development phase that this was a very real and game breaking issue for the majority of people.
Because trust me, I can already see the reviews saying exactly that the game will make you waste your time. In fact if TB were to look at the game right now I'm absolutly sure this is what he'd say, it is one of the things he most hates in games, when they waste his time.
EDIT: And the reason I keep vocal about it is because aside this and the crafting not being very good at the moment, the game is great and it could be one of the most awesome CRPGs since fallout 2 and I'd loath to see it ruined by a bad decision in it's game mechanics. If it was just another gam where I might or might not care about that much I'd just have given up the game a very long time ago, but this is exactly one of the very few games I wouldn't like to see ruined.
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As for your example I cannot speak for your experience. Mine is, get to junkyard, get stuff much better than whatever you'll find on any quest around or exploring. With luck you can find something on the same level as what is available there... Also durabillity is not really much of a sign of superiority although better durabillity usually means better stats. But waht matters is the stats, durabillity, meh you can repair it anyway.
I mentioned durability because it's actually very good indicator of generated item's quality. Items with higher durability have higher stats, and not just 'usually' but pretty much always.
That's because quality of components in generated (as opposed to crafted) items seem to differ very little.
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Elhazzared, I don't think "objectively" means what you think it means. The very fact that we are able to argue over the economic system suggests it isn't objectively bad at all. It is self-evidently a subjective issue. Personally I think the current system is workable - I've had virtually none of the problems you've had,or at least not to the extent you've had them. Furthermore it is a point of distinction with other RPGs. I think one of the points of contention you seem to hold - that it is different from your favourite RPGs - is actually a selling point of the system. The "wasting time" issue is an artifact of how YOU are playing the game. I've not had this problem myself, and I've progressed much further in the game than you.
Debate is useful, but you'll need to do better than claiming the system is "objectively" bad based on your subjective opinion.
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Whether you like a system or not is subjective. Whether a system is bad or not is objective.
For a system to be good it must not create any kind of problems. The current system breaks game immersion, makes the economy system utherly impossible to balance and wastes either player time to pick up and sell everything, or wastes developer time in all the areas that are created and are not going to be used most of the time because there is no point to it.
All of these problems are not subjective, they are very objective. Even if you want to call some of them subjective which they really aren't there is one you cannot say ever to be subjective, and that is not being able to balance the economy because of the limitation of merchants buying stuff. You can adjust prices all you want, it's not gonna make a diffence because you'll always have enough, too much or too little money no matter if you do sidequests or explore. In a good balanced economic system just going through the main storyline is not going to earn you enough to fully equip yourself. You need at least a decent amount of sidequests to suplement that lack of money and if you do all or nearly all of them then you'll have a bit of a surplus. But the fact is that you cannot make something that balanced and good with the current economic system. It just doesn't works no matter how you try to spin it.
Thus I say it again. The current system is objectively bad and if not removed then it should at best be optional just like the XP system.
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I agree with your distinction between subjective and objective. Your points are still, largely, subjective, because you are saying the system is BAD FOR YOU. For example:
The current system breaks game immersion
This is PURELY subjective. Evidence? I find this system, SUBJECTIVELY FOR ME, increases immersion, or at least balances practicalities of game mechanics with immersion. If it OBJECTIVELY broke immersion, then it would mean it breaks game immersion for EVERYONE. It doesn't.
That is, without recourse, a subjective argument on your behalf. That is fine, but be aware that it is a subjective argument no matter how much you say otherwise.
makes the economy system utherly impossible to balance
I do not agree with this statement.
I can see some areas for improvement with the economy, and certainly after a certain point I have accumulated a large amount of money. I can also see plenty of solutions that do not involve discarding the current system. I think part of the issue here is how we define "balanced"; you want the game balanced towards one style of play, whereas I find the game, as it stands, appeals to my personal style of play. In this sense, I will argue that there is a degree of subjectivity here in your claim as well.
A traditional "vendors purchase anything and have unlimited cash" approach would be much EASIER to balance, but I'd (subjectively) find this boring, because I enjoy the current system and the (slight) strategy involved. Also, again this is an immersion issue - for me, the concept of a merchant who will buy or barter ANYTHING is unrealistic enough to break immersion FOR ME.
wastes either player time to pick up and sell everything, or wastes developer time in all the areas that are created and are not going to be used most of the time because there is no point to it.
This is not Diablo. There are reasons for entering areas other than just collecting loot. This is something of a conflict between HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME and HOW THE GAME IS DESIGNED. For one, I DON'T PICK UP AND SELL EVERYTHING, and the greatest pleasure I have found in the game has been exploration. I loot tactically and selectively. I role play a bit. I'd actually like the system made even more strict, so that greater emphasis on strategy needs to be employed while looting. (I'm probably in a minority here though.)
I break down a lot of stuff I can't carry so that it isn't an entire waste (although I really would like more breakdown options...) I use my Player Home to store components between looting runs, and typically target specific types of components (this definitely could require expansion and balancing, true, but that is not a function of the economy per se) and I have gained immense satisfaction from the game. While the crafting and economic system are far from perfect, I absolutely disagree that it is broken or immersion-destroying, and I whole-heartedly disagree that it means there is no point to visiting areas.
On the contrary, I visit those areas because they're THERE to be discovered, and this for me is truly the charm of the game.
not being able to balance the economy because of the limitation of merchants buying stuff. You can adjust prices all you want, it's not gonna make a diffence because you'll always have enough, too much or too little money no matter if you do sidequests or explore.
EVERY game economy can be gamed. As it is, I only started gaining too much cash near the end of the new content.
For most of the game, I've had more or less just enough cash for important things, have crafted some things to fill in the gaps, and when I've really wanted a big ticket item, I've gone out, explored a lot of the out-of-the-way content and looted and traded intelligently until I could afford it. (For example, there was one particular quest where I required a very substantial amount of cash. There are various ways of getting that cash. I looted abandoned places and robbed bandits for it, and rather enjoyed the experience.) This sounds to me very close to the ideal balanced economic system you described. It isn't perfect, but it is not unbalanced to any degree that can't be fixed with tweaks. I think it is absolutely workable.
It seems to me that your problem is that the current system DISINCENTIVISES loot grinding, and you want loot grinding. I loathe loot grinding (and level grinding). Subjectively speaking, I think the current system WORKS because it discourages loot grinding, without outright preventing the player from doing it if they wish (or need) to.
The very fact that I have not had the same problems as you, and in fact have almost entirely had THE OPPOSITE EXPERIENCE from you, suggests that:
1) We have very different styles of playing, and
2) The game is balanced more towards one style than another, which means
3) All of your arguments are based around YOUR STYLE OF PLAY (including your unsupported argument that the system is impossible to balance),
4) Which makes your arguments subjective.
I am sorry, but that is what subjective means. If you say "This OBJECTIVELY DOESN'T WORK AND IS IMMERSION BREAKING" and I say "But it works for me and I find it immersive" and then your statement is subjective, not objective.
Feel free to make your arguments based on how you feel the game should play, but don't try saying it is OBJECTIVELY anything when it is in fact based precisely on how you feel a game should play.
It is my personal opinion that the current system
i) is workable (and does in fact work for me rather well)
ii) is potentially enjoyable (because I actually enjoy it), and
iii) should remain in the game, although I accept
iv) it still needs tweaking.
Like your opinion, this is purely subjective, for what it is worth.
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I agree with your distinction between subjective and objective. Your points are still, largely, subjective, because you are saying the system is BAD FOR YOU. For example:
The current system breaks game immersion
This is PURELY subjective. Evidence? I find this system, SUBJECTIVELY FOR ME, increases immersion, or at least balances practicalities of game mechanics with immersion. If it OBJECTIVELY broke immersion, then it would mean it breaks game immersion for EVERYONE. It doesn't.
That is, without recourse, a subjective argument on your behalf. That is fine, but be aware that it is a subjective argument no matter how much you say otherwise.
makes the economy system utherly impossible to balance
I do not agree with this statement.
I can see some areas for improvement with the economy, and certainly after a certain point I have accumulated a large amount of money. I can also see plenty of solutions that do not involve discarding the current system. I think part of the issue here is how we define "balanced"; you want the game balanced towards one style of play, whereas I find the game, as it stands, appeals to my personal style of play. In this sense, I will argue that there is a degree of subjectivity here in your claim as well.
A traditional "vendors purchase anything and have unlimited cash" approach would be much EASIER to balance, but I'd (subjectively) find this boring, because I enjoy the current system and the (slight) strategy involved. Also, again this is an immersion issue - for me, the concept of a merchant who will buy or barter ANYTHING is unrealistic enough to break immersion FOR ME.
wastes either player time to pick up and sell everything, or wastes developer time in all the areas that are created and are not going to be used most of the time because there is no point to it.
This is not Diablo. There are reasons for entering areas other than just collecting loot. This is something of a conflict between HOW YOU PLAY THE GAME and HOW THE GAME IS DESIGNED. For one, I DON'T PICK UP AND SELL EVERYTHING, and the greatest pleasure I have found in the game has been exploration. I loot tactically and selectively. I role play a bit. I'd actually like the system made even more strict, so that greater emphasis on strategy needs to be employed while looting. (I'm probably in a minority here though.)
I break down a lot of stuff I can't carry so that it isn't an entire waste (although I really would like more breakdown options...) I use my Player Home to store components between looting runs, and typically target specific types of components (this definitely could require expansion and balancing, true, but that is not a function of the economy per se) and I have gained immense satisfaction from the game. While the crafting and economic system are far from perfect, I absolutely disagree that it is broken or immersion-destroying, and I whole-heartedly disagree that it means there is no point to visiting areas.
On the contrary, I visit those areas because they're THERE to be discovered, and this for me is truly the charm of the game.
not being able to balance the economy because of the limitation of merchants buying stuff. You can adjust prices all you want, it's not gonna make a diffence because you'll always have enough, too much or too little money no matter if you do sidequests or explore.
EVERY game economy can be gamed. As it is, I only started gaining too much cash near the end of the new content.
For most of the game, I've had more or less just enough cash for important things, have crafted some things to fill in the gaps, and when I've really wanted a big ticket item, I've gone out, explored a lot of the out-of-the-way content and looted and traded intelligently until I could afford it. (For example, there was one particular quest where I required a very substantial amount of cash. There are various ways of getting that cash. I looted abandoned places and robbed bandits for it, and rather enjoyed the experience.) This sounds to me very close to the ideal balanced economic system you described. It isn't perfect, but it is not unbalanced to any degree that can't be fixed with tweaks. I think it is absolutely workable.
It seems to me that your problem is that the current system DISINCENTIVISES loot grinding, and you want loot grinding. I loathe loot grinding (and level grinding). Subjectively speaking, I think the current system WORKS because it discourages loot grinding, without outright preventing the player from doing it if they wish (or need) to.
The very fact that I have not had the same problems as you, and in fact have almost entirely had THE OPPOSITE EXPERIENCE from you, suggests that:
1) We have very different styles of playing, and
2) The game is balanced more towards one style than another, which means
3) All of your arguments are based around YOUR STYLE OF PLAY (including your unsupported argument that the system is impossible to balance),
4) Which makes your arguments subjective.
I am sorry, but that is what subjective means. If you say "This OBJECTIVELY DOESN'T WORK AND IS IMMERSION BREAKING" and I say "But it works for me and I find it immersive" and then your statement is subjective, not objective.
Feel free to make your arguments based on how you feel the game should play, but don't try saying it is OBJECTIVELY anything when it is in fact based precisely on how you feel a game should play.
It is my personal opinion that the current system
i) is workable (and does in fact work for me rather well)
ii) is potentially enjoyable (because I actually enjoy it), and
iii) should remain in the game, although I accept
iv) it still needs tweaking.
Like your opinion, this is purely subjective, for what it is worth.
Evidence that the current system is immersion breaking. It encourages players to stop doing what they are doing to go sell/drop loot and then return to the mission they were doing... Now you don't have to do it! But the system encourages you to do it with carry limits that are ridiculous and some items which just weights far too much for what they should. Players tend to do whatever makes them most money, I belive you agree with me there. So if the game says, you don't have space to carry more but you want to make as much money as possible, then you are encouraged to stop what you are doing (thus breaking game immersion) drops stuff at your house or safe point and then continue the mission... This is not subjective, the game objectively encourages this behavior in players thus the game objectively breaks game immersion. Whether you can find a way around it byt not picking up everything in order to not break the game immersion that is a way you find to do it, not what the game encourages you to do.
If you disagree that the economy cannot be balanced, that is merely a point that you disagree. I can say that hitting with your head in the wall is not a bad thing with no negative consequences to you but that is just a disagreement, not a matter of it being subjective or not because it will hurt you and possible cause brain injury.
A balanced economy doesn't lets a player just have too much money and buy whatever he wants. But the fact is that you get to the GMS with whatever equipment you want. By this point you barely started the game, you shouldn't have a fully decked out character and still left over money but it is what it happens. Too much money floating. You say you only have too much money floating by the end game. Then you are doing something wrong. By the time you finish the junkyard in the previous economy system you already had everything as good as possible and several stacks of money. As far as I've seen and also other players imput, this even worse now.
A balanced system does not gives a player that much money just from doing the main quest. The main quest should allow you get some new equipment but not all. Why? Because you are supposed to be immersed in the game finding more about it instead of just doing the main story line. So you make the economy system reflect your need to get out of the beaten path in order to get all you need.
Sadly this is not possible at all with the merchant limits. It doesn't maters whether you go off the beaten path or not because you don't need more loot, you already have more than you can sell anyway so going off the beaten path will wield no more money. You can lower the money but you'll end up with a you never have enough no matter what you do or it will give you always about enough. Basicly the system has no way to have a variable for accounting what you do. This is very objective and this objectively makes the system bad. When a game tells you that it doesn't matters what you, you always get the same results, that's bad design.
However if you do say that this is not true, then please prove me wrong and show me how can this system possibly be balanced. What changes does it needs to become balanced while still maintaining the core principles of weight limits and buying limits.
Yes this is not diablo but similarly, players should be rewarded for what they do. If you want to even put it from a game immersion perpsective. So you find this guy who says his girlfriend is trapped in a place with burrowers. Now this things put the fear in the heart of everyone in the underrail and he's asking you do dive into a nest to save his girlfriend. So from a realistic point of view, would you do it? You know the odds are you're not coming back alive nor saving his girlfriend. Who just goes on a suicide quest like that especially after you've seen what happened to him who nearly died and not trying to save his girlfriend, he nearly died just trying to get out alive leaving her to rot in that place... but wait? Didn't he said he found a place intact that they were scavenging. Suddenly this suicide quest can make you a very rich person if you can pull it off, all at the same looking like the hero of underrail.
This is a real perspective from a game immersion point. But the reality is that you are not going to be rewarded to go down there and save the girl. Why? Because the merchants already bought all that you could sell.
Exploration. Ok sure, the game doesn't gives you a reward for exploring but if you want to say that exploring is reward enough then I'd say once! You do it once, then you know everything that is there. Replay value of exploration with the current system equals to none. You don't need to go and see what's there, you already know what's there and besides, there is nothing to gain in doing so.
thus it can safely be said that the game does not encourage exploration nor side quests. It encourages to stay in the rails because aside perhaps the first time just to see how it is, you don't have anything to gain from it. It just wastes your time going there and as such it also wastes the devs time put into making these areas which will not be used or will rarely be used.
Now I will agree that we have different styles of playing but I will not agree that all of this is subjective. What you have presented so far is opinions that something objectively bad can be enjoyed by some people. And I get it that you like these bad systems, but they are bad systems none the less and the majority of people tend not to like bad systems.
Really I cannot wait for the game to be realeased and see if either the developers will make a beter economy system or if they will leave it as so. I don't belive they will at this point because as Styg said. He won't be adding more stuff to the game because it takes time and costs money. But if this is so I do sincerely hope modders pick up this game and make it good.
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While I understand at least where you are coming from, I still disagree totally with you. The game is NOT encouraging you to stop what you are doing to try to make money. The vendor purchase restrictions actively DISCOURAGE this. You are, of course, entitled to game the system by farming vendor inventory respawns, but I'd like you to show me a system that can't be gamed. As it is, like I said I've found this system reasonably (not perfectly) balanced - by making intelligent decisions on what to carry, I've had always enough cash for what I need, but (until near the end of the game) never too much. You say that I am playing the game wrong, but I think equally it could be said I am playing the game as intended?
I don't necessarily agree that players will always do whatever earns them the most money - this is an artifact of playing games (like Diablo and Borderlands) that encourage loot and gold grinding. Personally I loathe that gameplay model, and the fact that Underrail discourages it (but doesn't outright prevent it) is a point of charm for me.
Unlike you, it is my experience that the loot you find or craft is better than the loot you purchase, with the occasional exception. This encourages looting and exploring. When I have needed money, I have gone on exploration and looting runs. I found they were quite adequate to get me the cash I needed, when I needed it. I understand where you come from when you say that discourages replayability, but I don't agree whatsoever. I STILL play the four Fallouts just for the joy of exploration, despite literally having discovered all the content in the games. I enjoy this. I think a lot of other people do as well. Maybe Underrail would be more replayable if it had some degree of randomness in the site contents
As for how it can be balanced with the current system, we'd disagree entirely on that because I think we have different ideas on what sort of gameplay to encourage. I'd definitely have vendors carry less cash, thus encouraging more goods bartering. I feel that some vendors should also accept more unlimited classes of goods but at a massive discount, particularly components - this would encourage trading off some of those excess useless components in exchange for that one component you really want. (Or maybe a system of component transmutation. The current breakdown options aren't useful enough.)
I'd like certain types of high-value or unique loot to be found in some of the exploration sites, if only because it's nice to have that sort of reward. But I've found exploration to be both reasonably profitable and enjoyable, despite what you claim.
This however would be antithesis to you, since it further ENCOURAGES the sort of play style I've been enjoying and which you don't like. And this is the problem - when you say it is "objectively unbalanced" you mean it is OBJECTIVELY UNBALANCED FOR YOUR PLAYSTYLE. You also say that most people will play in a way that will gain them the most money. In fact, I have been playing in a way that maximises my profitability, but this comes from identifying what is and isn't a profitable activity. If you consider ferrying every bit of loot out of a dungeon a profitable activity, then by all means do it, but the game discourages it. I think MOST (obviously not all) players will identify this as having a low time cost/profit ratio, and will prioritise their behaviour accordingly.
As far as modding is concerned, I've been a extremely enthusiastic modder over the years. When Styg gets around to releasing modding tools (or maybe even the source? One can hope) I'd be more than happy then to get together with you and we can try to redesign the economy, if only to see how different the game plays.
*EDIT I repeat myself too often
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I guess you just don't agree with me and that isn't bad, but the thing is I'm not really wrong. It's not really a matter of opinion.
To give you an example. A balanced economy system is one that will allow a player to have everything he wants if he works really hard for it. If he skips most stuff he's not going to have much stuff either. If he does something on the side, thus works more then he'd have everything he needs (not everything he wants, just everything he needs). It is a simple correlation of time investment = profit. Although there should also be a risk factor added to the equasion but we'll keep it simple for the sake of the example... You call this grinding but you are wrong or at least you might just be getting me wrong. What i mean by this is that if you do all side quests (or nearly all as some might be mutually exclusive or you might just not have the required skills to get some) and explore the whole map or almost all of the map you should get money to get everything you want. Why is this not grinding? Well grinding is going over and over the same area each time it respawns for more loot and that is not what I am saying to do at all.
You say you go exploring and it is profitable for you. How is it possible? Well actually I can see how it is but I'll get there in a moment. You do the main storyline quest for that area, loot and sell. Then you go and do the side quests and explore the area around that place. Loot and come back to sell, only that there is nothing to sell anymore, the merchants already bought everything they would have bought from you! How can you be making any money at all except for a few scraps (which are not really worth it just by themselves) that they might pay you directly from completing the quest? The answer is you don't make any money, not unless you take so long that the merchants already respawned the inventory and even then you only sell some of the stuff, most of the stuff you just still won't sell even with smart looting... Now why is it that sidequests and exploring are giving you money? Because you are very likely doing them before the main quest. Which is normal, I do it too, leave the main quest for the end. But what this means is that you do a side quest or two, merchants won't buy more from you, then when you finally go do the main quest you cannot sell anything you got because the merchants just won't buy more! You could have just done the main story line and get the items and sell them and that was how much you'd get from the merchants anyway.
You do are right that players will always find ways to game the game. There is no such thing as a fool proof system and if someone could make one, they'd look for cheats or mods to get around it. That doesn't means you shouldn't strive for a more balanced system.
And I understand that you will most likely still play several times and explore everything with every single character, do as many quests as possible. This is alright, but tell me how many people do you realisticly think will do it as you do when the game discourages them from dong anything aside the main storyline? Because really, they will not be rewarded and I know quite a few people who play CRPGs and you know how it goes. If there is something they could do but it's not worth it, they won't. To them it is a waste of time, they did it once and that was all it took to know what is there. People like to be rewarded for their time. Think of it like in real life. Would you keep doing everyone favors for nothing? Cause if you would basicly you'd have no life of your own. To the same degree, players in games don't like to see their time wasted. Most don't at least. I know some don't mind but most of them? They are just going to ignore anything that doesn't really rewards them.
The replayabillity of CRPGs is trying different builds. The first time is about discovering all there is to discover yes, but after that it's all about trying different builds and seeying what is really fun to play with. You may like to go and explore but exploring is about discovering new things about the game. If you already know them, you are not really exploring anymore, you are merely going there for the sake of going there. If this was a proceduraly generated game, sure, i could understand that, but it's not and in fact it's probably not possible or at least I don't see it being viable to build a CRPG that is proceduraly generated anyway.
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Agree with all you said in two huge posts. Completely.
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I have to say Elhazzared really has spelled it all out, at length and in great detail, and I agree 1000%. His side is plainly observable facts, the detractors' side is a bunch of opinions. Those opinions matter, of course, that's why we're all here putting them down in zeroes and ones, *BUT* the difference is that if that system were "fixed", ie. you could sell all your crap at the merchants, the detractors could still play the exact same game they want to play, roleplaying along, picking up this and leaving that, and all the compulsive hoarders on the other side (who I think you'll find make up the vast majority of players) could *ALSO* play the game they want to play. It's win-win.
Leave it as it is and on release there's going to be a lot of griping from new players. If it were good design they were complaining about, I'd say screw 'em, but it's not. It was a stab at some innovative design that in this one case failed and should be abandoned.
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The econ as it is has shop's buying a limited number of item x resetting after x time has passed. How about after they get the ammount of x they are looking for they still buy more of x at a ever reducing price? Selling after they have what they want will reduce the price by "10%" per item sold this lets you make cash but keeps you from getting rich quick.
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Wouldn't solve the problem as it would incentivise you to wait till reset to sell.
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After reading Elhazzareds last detailed recent post I must also agree with screeg that he brings up a lot of good points. I like the idea of a more scarce and survival oriented atmosphere but I really think this needs to be a little more lenient and open to people with different playstyles. Maybe this could even tie into the difficulty level somehow. For easy have it where every vendor buys everything and for normal have it to where it's about like it is now, and in hard maybe make it to where its even more strict for the die hard people. Or go the other route and just try to balance the whole aspect between all difficulty levels, or just have it an option at game start. Just a couple ideas but I do think Elhazzared is on to something. I wouldn't say it's a deal breaker the way it is but I can see how it would turn off at least a few people and that few people later on can turn into hundreds or more.
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The problem with doing it that way is that you really are tying difficulty of combat into merchant and carry mechanics and the two are not related.
I like the fights to be hard, in fact most games I play I go for max difficulty except where I see I cannot handle it which rarely happens. Games just tend to be too easy these days.
But I also like some convinience in my games. Walking around to try and sell everything, making trips back and forth. Waiting for merchants to respawn. Those things are just time wastes to me. It's better to just make it convinient where you can grab everything and sell everything. More time spent immersed on the quests and the story, less time wasted on chores.
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You're probably right, I was just thinking aloud. But I do believe having it be some sort of option at game start or tweak it to where it can more satisfy both types of players is the best way to do it. More people happy with the game = more fans = more exposure = better reviews = better sales = more $$$$$
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Wouldn't solve the problem as it would incentivise you to wait till reset to sell.
In that case it would be only your choice to wait, so do not complain.
You can sell all, or you can wait to get "fair price". For me it's "fair deal".
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If by fair deal you mean the exact same system as now which to sell everything you can forces you to wait 45 minutes doing nothing. Then sell loot, then wait more 45 minutes, rinse and repeat ad nauseum. Very fun gameplay mechanic, 10/10.
You want to give me choice. At the start of the game add two check boxes. One says carry weight limit, the other says vendors limit. If you want to play with them, by all means. Don't force other players to play with bad mechanics just because you like them.
Granted this is a simplified solution to the problem. it wouldn't make the game balanced because if as it is there is too much money, this will make it worse but it would at least make the game playable.
Idealisticly you'd have only an option. Classic economy system (no carry weight and no vendor limit, though prices would also be different to reflect the fact that you pick up everything and sell everything) and survival system which is the current. Heck you could even add necessity to eat, drink and sleep if you really want to make it even more realistic... It won't make it any better, only add more micromanagement, not really add any depth, but you could and I'm sure some people would love it.
What is idealistic you can leave for a final release due to the time it takes to implement and the simple solution could be implemented at any time. I'm pretty sure adding an option that will make carry weight disapear and vendors buy everything is not only easy, but any modder could do in probably less than a couple hours, let alone the developers who know the code very well by comparison.
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Too many choices isn't good.
The game look in that case like a shapeless piece of protoplasm - there is no strong sense of integral concept, it is not clear where the mitochondria, and where the nucleus.
Add this, add that, add no limit, add infinit HP in the end (and thats besides testing and balancing).
The problem is you don't need choice (just like I see it) - you need to sell stuff at full price.
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Is that so? Because no one reported a problem with that system when it was in place. Clearly your vision is a bit warped there. Not having carry limits and merchant limits on what they buy would only remove a chore from the game, it would not impact the concept of the game in any way.
And yes, I want to sell stuff at full price. As i should. Like many others I don't like to feel like I'm being robbed blind by the game. Perhaps you enjoy the sensation of bad mechanics. Like I said, I got nothing against you liking bad mechanics. But don't try and drag people who don't like them into your playing field because a game is about having fun and most people will not have fun playing a game with bad mechanics.
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If there is some choice (and it is) - there is no chore.
You can reassemble excess stuff in repair kits, and if movingtarget's proposal will be implemented (in any form) it would be additional choice.
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Breaking stuff into repair kits = losing lots of money. Not an option, it feels being robbed blind by a bad game decision.
Merchants paying less for items past the amount they want = losing money. Same thing as above.
So you call these options, I don't. They are not options to me, they are nothing more than encouragement to spend whatever time it takes doing nothing until I can sell. Of course I'd be long bored by then and stoped playing rather than dealing with a game breaking chore.
Again it was already proven that no carry limits and no merchant buying limits is good. It worked very well in previously and was well receive by EVERYONE. There was not a single voice saying this was bad and the reason is because it wasn't. It was by far the best decision for the game.
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Maybe with some extremely cheap items or extremely damaged items. but with how much you'll be forced to turn into repair kits and how many you can sell. You'll still have a huge surplus weighting you down none the less.
Underrail 2013 was by far the best Underrail. It's not simply about clinging to past, it's simply that the current Underrail is so intolerable that I just cannot bear to play it. It literally becomes a painful experience. To give you an example. There is nothing I hate more than being bored and since I am currently unemployed, free time is what I have in spades and literally nothing to play right now... Being bored the whole day still beats having to play Underrail in it's current state. That is how bad the carry limits and merchant limits affect me. It's completly and utherly unbearable.
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I don't know why this is so hard for developers and players to grasp: do not introduce mechanics that act as chores in game. It's not a matter of "Maybe most of my players like chores!" or maybe they don't. There's plenty of unambiguously great content and mechanics in the game. Drop the chores.
I like managing my inventory, resources and crafting, but I don't want to spend 80% of game time doing those things. What is the game supposed to be first and foremost, a warehouse management simulator? If not, you don't include five different limitations on carrying and disposing of superfluous inventory.
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Hey, so I'd like to start off by saying I love the game. I have to intentionally stop myself from playing every single update, I've played multiple times with a bunch of character builds (even finished all through core city with a pacifist despite people not saying it's possible). And I like most of the unique systems like oddities.
So gratz to the developer for a well made game :)
But I'm sorry to say I completely agree with elhazzard and screeg. Crafting and inventory management... sucks. :(
A) inventory management. I get the idea. The new system is supposed to encourage a playstyle where you don't just loot everything and carefully ponder what is valuable and not.
This is not what it does. At all. What actually happens is you loot everything, dump crap you don't like all over the place until it can be sold readily, then think aloud "okay do I make the game horridly easy by just selling all this crap to very merchant I've found or what?" And if you don't play it like this, it's still a matter of just picking up only the valuable firearms, and going merchant to merchant selling the crap.
The problem is this system hands down does not work when you have multiple merchants all refreshing what they buy all over. Maybe it'd work if you added even more realism: melting loot on the ground (people steal your stuff), costly transportation costs, etc. But as is, the inventory system tries to be unique at the cost of just adding busy work. Busy work != fun. Infinite money != fun.
B)Crafting. Is terrible. For multiple reasons. Believe me, I've tried with multiple characters
Most importantly, is the attribute cost. To make int effective, you need 7+ of it. What bizarre build allows for this to be effective?
Heavy armor build? Nope, you need the con, strength, and one attribute for killing stuff, or fabbling in dex for things like grenadier.
Psi (non-heavy) build? Nope, you the will, agility, staying alive, and rest for feats
Any other build? Nope, you need the atts for feats and killing stuff.
Hell, I tried making a glass cannon 3 con purely stealth build with tons of int, just to see how high I could get stealth through crafting. Result? all that int amounted to like one agility, because I could buy everything from tabi boots to padded pig leather. It felt weird knowing an entire 6 stat points just turned out to be crap.
I tried making a heavy once with high int to see if I can make some killer gear. It was pretty amusing making a tungsten steel armor fully loaded on plating to see how high I could get DR. It was a while ago, but I think I got it up to 69 on just the main armor. Then, literally, an hour later in the game, I find that exact armor on a corpse after raiding the protectorate in core city. SO basically all that attribute amounted to being able to make better grenades... that I eventually could buy anyways. Again, just wasted a huge investment of attribute points for literally nothing.
Just about the only build I made which utilized int somewhat effectively was a pure trapper crossbower that ended up being about as fun playing as watching paint dry. Just about the only other int build idea I can think of is if you wanted to try a "no selling" challenge or something.
And yes, there is that mutant leather armor exception epeli mentioned earlier. But one exception does not make a system great.
And yes you can make absurdly better shields than you can buy... if you like dying in one hit from an emp grenade.
This isn't fallout: you can't just get all the best ability scores or "good enough". Since the game is combat heavy, and atts have no upper limit, you have to invest in only a few. A point in int is a point lower that might cause your psi spell to fail a stun or your pistol to leave an enemy at 1 hp, or to not have enough attributes for that feat you need.
Secondly is skill cost. To be effective (well "as effective as you can be which is not much") you really have to max your crafting stats. There are exceptions, e.g., biology or chemistry sometimes, or occasionally mechanics for those not using it for armor. But otherwise it should be maxed. There is quite simply no way to do this and make a decent character. And if you're making a character with high int just to max two crafting skills.. that's beyond silly. Not to mention, paradoxically the game makes some items like the (pathetic heh) health regen armor require like 3 skills.
And when you think about it, this is bizarre... in the game this was inspired from, int gave you more skill points so int heavy builds just drowned you in skill points. In this game? Int heavy builds are the ONLY builds where you are lacking in skill points. Quite the head scratcher.
Here's the irony about all this: The game is less strategic using these two systems in an attempt to add strategy. By making crafting crappy, you remove it as an option to consider. By adding infinite wealth and busy work through the inventory system refreshing, you lose strategy in considering what items to keep and what to sell.
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The problem is this system hands down does not work when you have multiple merchants all refreshing what they buy all over. Maybe it'd work if you added even more realism: melting loot on the ground (people steal your stuff), costly transportation costs, etc. But as is, the inventory system tries to be unique at the cost of just adding busy work. Busy work != fun. Infinite money != fun.
This is actually a very good point. If the mercantile skill had a lot more impact on the amount of money you could make, it wouldn't be possible for every build to be swimming in charons just by selling what you find. I think back when styg reduced the merchant price modifier it was a bit too much, or could even have done with being slightly increased. The melting loot would also stop people being pigeonholed into a 'back and forth' play style, because there'd be nothing to go back to!
This isn't fallout: you can't just get all the best ability scores or "good enough". Since the game is combat heavy, and atts have no upper limit, you have to invest in only a few. A point in int is a point lower that might cause your psi spell to fail a stun or your pistol to leave an enemy at 1 hp, or to not have enough attributes for that feat you need.
Styg has actually talked about this before. He doesn't want the game to be like fallout, he doesn't want people to get 'all the best ability scores' or all the best items. He wants build diversity, so some items and feats should be off limits to different builds. although I agree that high INT builds are pretty lacking right now - even in terms of feats, 5 is the max INT you'll need and both of the feats that require it are for melee builds. So some skill bonuses (not much though) for investing in it would be nice. That said, you also shouldn't be going for a pure crafting build. Just 1 or 2 crafting disciplines to augment your existing skills.
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I think the main problem has more to do with int than crafting in particular. Medium/high int is weird for a number of reasons:
A)Like, no good feats. Bizarrely the only crafting feat so far, which is quite good, requires no int.
B)Can generally only be used on low con characters, and only very specific glass cannons. The only builds I've seen that use it well like I've said are pure perception light armor builds. That's it really.
C)Insufficient skill points. Here's the weird part: Only "glass cannons" can afford the high int, but glass cannons can't afford the skill points! It's one very bizarre dilemma. See here's the thing, glass cannons basically "need"
-stealth (duh)
-lockpicking (to deal with bots)
-hacking (to deal with bots)
-evasion (although probably not dodge)
-whatever they're killing things with
-potentially a second killing skill
-some throwing or psi for cc and backup, preferably both
-whatever other nice to haves you want, like traps for a certain quest or two that fragile characters have problems with,
or communication skills to deal with hard stuff
...
which leaves what.. 0 to 2 skills for crafting? Tanks can afford the skills by skipping stealth, lockpicking, hacking, and evasion, but then they can't afford the int because they need the 10 con, 8-9 strength, and 10 whatever. I guess pure hammer builds can use a decent int, but then you have the problem of finding better stuff lying around, as mentioned earlier with the armor I just found on a corpse in core city.
I think it'd be nice if int gave more skill points as in fallout, although perhaps in a more underrailish way: 5 extra skill points for every point of int above 5, like how dex favors the very high dexterity. It wouldn't even be a big buff, since skills are capped anyways, and some builds don't even do much better with more than 8-10 skills you get normally.
Edit: Incidentally, while crafting is still very meh, you can do some fun stuff with it ;) just made a 3 piece metal suit with 91% mechanical resistance. There's currently no dr limit, so it's fun when you see "Ghost takes 31 damage (resists 307)" I've got thicker skin than a dreadnaught :D Not the best suit of armor since it's a one trick pony, but it makes some battles a joke.