Yes and no. You do need to pay some attention to skill and feat descriptions, but a surprising amount of skills are viable in combat. As for wiggle room - on Normal I’d say it’s a lot like Fallout 2, maybe a little harder. It’s not as extreme as Lords of Xulima for example though.
And you can finish a lot of encounters before they even start, thanks to traps, mines, grenades, etc.
Good. That was another brick wall for me, which was annoying, as I was just starting to like it.
LoX is extreme. I’m not sure if I deviated from the pre-planned path by even one encounter, that’s how tight the difficulty tuning was. Needless to say, I didn’t enjoy it very much.
UnderRail’s difficulty is all over the place on the other hand - and since there’s no stat suppression versus higher level enemies you can take them on way before you’re supposed to, provided you got the tools for it. It makes for very exciting exploration, and thanks to the new map system you can easily mark places where you hit a wall to return later. None of the quests ever expire either, to my knowledge, so you’re free to do whatever you want.
I’d rather just not play, or try to build my own successful character. That’s the whole point for me.
That is good.
I gave up in my first play through last year and I never went back to try it after they patched in a map. Now this thread bump reminds me that I should.
I decided to finally fire this up after owning it for years. I only have 2 hours on record, I don’t know why this continues to not click with me, as Fallout 1 and 2 were (for many, many years) my favorite games. I rolled up a character with a few extra points in Strength, Dex, Will, and Int and put points into Melee, Crossbows, lock picking and hacking, as well as Biology because the Doctor perk looked super useful. I maxed out Stealth as well and grabbed the Burgler perk, as I always like to hack and pick locks in games like this. We’ll see how it goes.
I also just decided to play on Easy and with the normal XP system. I think I may have bounced off this before due to difficulty (even on normal) and I don’t really want to have to look up guides on how to “build” the very best character to succeed. That shit annoys me on every level. It’s why I stopped playing MMO’s. And while the oddity system seems cool, I know for a fact all I will do is use online guides to ensure I never miss any of them, so this will keep me from obsessing over not finding every possible Oddity.
I’m off to work, but we’ll see how it goes tonight!
Yeah, that’s not gonna work so well, for the same reason that a character in Pillars of Eternity with half of the feats in melee and the other half in ranged would be considered subpar. Primary combat skills are crossbows, guns and melee, and it’s not advisable that you pick two. Traps and Throwing are secondary combat skills, traps pair extremely well with crossbows and throwing goes with everything.
On the other hand, you might get away with it on easy.
But I wanted to be a crossbow guy that can still fight effectively with melee in the early game and when enemies rush me. You really can’t have two ways to fight in the game on Normal?
It’s fine at the start of the game when you’re not sure what you’re going to like. It’s what I did. I still have 10 points in melee that I’ve never used. And I put a few points into guns because I like to use laser pistols on sentries.
You can, you just won’t be as effective because stats don’t overlap, and you won’t be able to get all the feats you want. You also won’t have enough points to heavily invest into crafting.
I wonder if this game is just too hardcore for me to really enjoy. Sigh.
It’s just the philosophy of the game. Some games want you to gradually upgrade everything and be the uber warrior that can do it all. Others really demand specialization in each game and playing different ways is done by replaying with different characters.
Like you I’m traditionally into characters that can do lots of different things; I don’t like being able to hack a door code but then have to leave a chest in the room untouched because I didn’t have the strength to bash it or the lock picking skill to pick it (OCD, want to clear everything syndrome). But I stuck with Underrail using some tips from @Bateau and I ended up having a good time with it (minus some grindy parts near the end). It is a good game that challenges you to have some creativity in combat because just throwing bullets isn’t always enough.
Sure, I get it and I respect it. I just wonder if that level of player knowledge required to succeed in the late game is just a little bit of bad game design though. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have to specialize, but starting the game with 15 points in both melee and crossbows and I’ve already made a bad choice? That’s crazy to me. Let me play the game and naturally gravitate towards the skills I want and start pointing more and more points into those skills. It’s not like I’d play Fallout 2 and try to spread my skills around, but in that game if you have 20 points in a skill or two you never really used you aren’t messing your character up for the end game, and @Bateau makes it seems like that may be the case.
I’m going to give it a try, it’s just a first play through, I can’t imagine on Easy the game would be unwinnable just because I wanted to try out a few different things at character creation. I’m hoping some of you guys are just too hardcore to remember what it was like to start a game and have no idea what to expect.
Agreed on that part, it does seem that without more clues it’s kinda rough on players early.
That’s fine, I did it too.
And you can shoot people in melee range. Crossbows suffer a 10% hit penalty in melee range, but your chance to hit is based on range so if someone runs up to you, you probably have a pretty good chance of hitting them. Plus, you can always use your MP to move a few steps away and then shoot them. MP is separate from AP. Get used to kiting. You’re alone, and sometimes you’ll be fighting four or five enemies. Doorways make for great choke-points.
Underrail is pretty cool but I’m getting annoyed with all the missteps I keep making because I cannot read the developers minds. Early on I decided to walk around in the starting area and talk to folks and I met a guy that seemed kind of shady but wanted me to deliver a package. I couldn’t even find the package, the description in the notes is super vague and I was in what I can only assume was the right area, the barracks? I never found a package. I left the city (the first way I tried to leave, under the barracks (?), the game seemed to be warning me was too tough so I turned around and found another way to leave, as the main story has me trying to secure and clear out these little outposts near the starting city, but hell if I can figure out where to go to start doing that) and was approached by 3 bandits demanding a package.
My options were “I no longer have it” or “Fuck you! (fight)” or “I don’t know what you are talking about”. All options led to a fight. They completely kicked my ass, and I looked up later the package quest to try and find it and couldn’t find anything on the quest other than “it’s recommended new players turn this quest down for now, as you will be attacked by bandits looking for the package that you won’t be able to deal with”. WTF? How am I supposed to know that? Am I fucked, because these bandits are between me and the first mission now? I quit out and haven’t played it since, so we’ll see how it goes. There is a lot about the game’s presentation and visuals and UI I really like and I think I might be able to get really into it, but the early game is the fucking pits so far.
It’s been a while since I played but I think I got by them initially with a combination of stealth and running away. I came back later when I was a bit stronger and killed them. If you’re lucky enough to have a grenade, I think you can kill them right away though. I think I remember I did that on at least one play-through.
Edit: To get the grenades and other stuff, steal anything and everything you can get your hands on and trade it with the stores in the starting area to get useful stuff.
Do I have to get past them in order to get to the outposts I’m supposed to be restoring (the first mission you get)? Just want to see if that’s even where I’m supposed to go…
Otherwise, I do have a maxed out (for a level 1 character) stealth score, so I suppose I could start looting everything in the base…
No, you don’t. The first mission with the outposts is in the underground tunnels where the old man/trader is.
Wait, is this the old man that you startle when you approach him and he won’t open the doors because of how dangerous everything is? Or is there like a third way to leave the base? Because he scared me off making me think I had to come back when I was higher level before trying to tackle that exit.