Junior Adventurer's Guild - October: UnderRail

[Sweeper]

Aw **** man, you caught some friendly fire, I meant to tell @Vergil to go **** himself.
See, I even forgot who my forum arch nemesis was.

[The_Mask]

[Oyster Sauce]

Thought about making a Merry Christmas Detected Steam group. Then I didn't.

[rusty_shackleford]

commie christmas

[MrTwinkls]

commie christmas

Communism is long dead. Nowadays It is closer to Warhammer Christmas.

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[J1M]

I wish UnderRail was better. It does some things I wish more games would try:

• a constrained setting that is different
• a unique XP system

Context: I used this assault rifle build but didn't follow the walkthrough advice: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ATe ... jqv6cx06l3

I don't understand the mental model for the combat at all. It has a gritty veneer and you only get to control one character, and any sort of action economy improvements require careful character building. But the enemies feel like they can soak so much damage that grenades are a joke, and my character can fix stepping on a land mine with a bandage. It also appears that the most common ability for enemies is to either completely stun your character (sometimes for multiple turns...) or to drain your already limited action points.

I liked the start of the game. The missions were good motivation and combined with the XP system there was a nice incentive to explore while completing tasks. I was less motivated by joining the various factions. Spending any serious time working for them felt like a betrayal of the community I joined at the start of the game.

There are numerous points in the game where one is expected to do an action offered to the player ("you found a secret passage"), most likely die, and then avoid doing the offered action. Is this a call back to Quest for Glory? Content for streamers? Is the designer training everyone to save scum?

I thought this would be "we have Fallout at home", but I'm left with the impression that someone had a high quality kernel of a game that was expanded over time until it collapsed under its own weight. Perhaps it would have been fun to play the pieces of it as it was released with the low stakes and system mastery that would entail. But as someone approaching it as a finished product instead of a collaborative effort, my opinion is that a strong editing pass is needed.

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@Oyster Sauce

[Tadeusz]

There are numerous points in the game where one is expected to do an action offered to the player ("you found a secret passage"), most likely die, and then avoid doing the offered action.

Can you give an example? Not sure what you mean by this.

[J1M]

There are numerous points in the game where one is expected to do an action offered to the player ("you found a secret passage"), most likely die, and then avoid doing the offered action.

Can you give an example? Not sure what you mean by this.

There's a point near the start where you can go down a hole and inside it you are ambushed by 3(?) enemies.

There's another point where you can pass an agility check to jump down. After doing so I was stun locked and killed before I could even really look around down there.

The game makes it seem like you've discovered something that will contain a reward by implementing a skill check, but instead it makes it clear that it was a bad idea. One that in my case, could only be remedied by loading a save.

[wndrbr]

There are numerous points in the game where one is expected to do an action offered to the player ("you found a secret passage"), most likely die, and then avoid doing the offered action.

Can you give an example? Not sure what you mean by this.

There's a point near the start where you can go down a hole and inside it you are ambushed by 3(?) enemies.

There's another point where you can pass an agility check to jump down. After doing so I was stun locked and killed before I could even really look around down there.

The game makes it seem like you've discovered something that will contain a reward by implementing a skill check, but instead it makes it clear that it was a bad idea. One that in my case, could only be remedied by loading a save.

most of these gated areas are alternative ways to get somewhere so you could either avoid combat, or avoid some other type of check (like hacking/lockpicking). Like, sometimes you can either fight a large group of enemies, or you can [agility 8] jump over a fence and fight a smaller group of enemies.

[Tadeusz]

The game makes it seem like you've discovered something that will contain a reward by implementing a skill check, but instead it makes it clear that it was a bad idea.

I see now. I guess it wasn't much of a problem for me because these checks usually require pretty high stats. These checks in the game world often open a shortcut or an alternative path but it may be too early to take them in the moment.

[rusty_shackleford]

Why does underrail have dodge and evasion skills?

[Tadeusz]

Why does underrail have dodge and evasion skills?

It's for stealth/light armor builds I suppose. These are weird as they are basically armor skills.

[rusty_shackleford]

Why does underrail have dodge and evasion skills?

It's for stealth/light armor builds I suppose. These are weird as they are basically armor skills.

Yea but there isn't even anything like armor or shield usage skills, right?

[Tadeusz]

Yea but there isn't even anything like armor or shield usage skills, right?

Yes though crafting skills are a possible substitute as they can get the armor numbers go up.
Well, dodge and evasion are not exactly armor skills as they are not responsible for damage reduction, just for the chance of being hit.

[Norfleet]

There's a point near the start where you can go down a hole and inside it you are ambushed by 3(?) enemies.

There's another point where you can pass an agility check to jump down. After doing so I was stun locked and killed before I could even really look around down there.

You weren't allowed to send someone else in first? I would have sent Mr. Grenade first.

[Rand]

Styg finally broke down and allowed custom difficulty:

See post in original main thread:
viewtopic.php?p=344226-underrail#p344226

[pol_345polex]

Started my first playthrough.