The level design is mostly complete for the new areas, but there's still some scripting and lots of dialog to be done, so it'll be a couple more weeks. Alongside working on the new content, I'm also doing major re-balancing of some game mechanics in order to improve the game economy, both in monetary sense and in other aspects. I'm going to talk about the former now and we'll leave the latter for another dev log.
The first big change I made is I limited the type and amount of goods merchants are willing to buy from you. Merchants will now only buy certain type of goods depending on what their store deals in and they will require only a certain amount of each, with exception of certain goods they will always be looking to buy (such as bullets for example). The type and amount of goods they require at the moment is randomly selected from that merchant's "market demand table" so to speak and it's reset every time the merchant restocks their inventory (typically every 90 minutes). So you will no longed be able to sell all the junk you hauled from your latest raid to the first merchant you see.
And speaking of hauling junk, I've also implemented item weight system. You'll get the progressively higher movement speed and movement point penalties the more you carry above your capacity and if you carry way too much you will actually get rooted into place. This is something I've put off implementing for quite some time because I wasn't sure it'll actually add any value to the game. I dislike these mechanics in most RPGs, especially the party-based ones because more often than not they only result in more inventory management chores without having (or needing to have) much impact on the game economy. But in certain games where exploring and scavenging are the main concepts of the game and where economy actually matters, and I believe Underrail to be such a game, I feel that liming the player inventory in some way (either through weight or space) is beneficial to the overall gameplay experience.
And finally, to go along with these changes, I've reduced the price multiplier when purchasing items. I'ts currently at 175% (down from 350%), but might change further by the time the update is ready depending on how it works out when I get the time to do a real playthrough. I've also reduced the item durability penalty to its cost and have increased the durability range of items looted from corpses (they won't be near broken all the time now).
So why all these changes? Well here's my take on it.
The way the economy works in the live version of the game is like this: loot everything, get every piece of junk. No matter if you need it for crafting or not, no matter the price, just as long as it can be sold - pick it up (basically always hit "loot all" on every container). The more people you kill, more loot you get which directly translates into more wealth so you're always encouraged to handle every situation by killing as many as possible. And if you do not play like this you will get way less loot, and because the merchant prices and item durability penalties are balanced more towards this "optimal playstyle", you can easily run into money problems.
In the new system, you'll only want to hold onto the valuable stuff and the stuff you actually need (for crafting or consumption) because you can carry a limited amount and because can only sell so much in a given time frame. You might wonder won't the weight system just encourage power gamers to make multiple trips to a dungeon to get all the stuff out and store it somewhere to be sold later when the market demand resets? Well, they can do that, yes, and it will work to a degree, but in the time it takes to make multiple trips to the same (possibly remote) place you can do more fun stuff such as exploring new areas, doing new quests, gaining XP and by doing this, you will also get new loot to sell for when the merchants reset.
There will still be more efficient and less efficient ways to make money - it is not my intention to try to prevent that. Accumulating wealth is one form of power gaming and for a lot of people power gaming is one of the major motivations for playing RPGs. I believe this new system will be more fun to play with for everyone. People who want to get as much money as possible will now try to find the most expensive stuff to sell as opposed to as much stuff, while those who take the more casual approach to the economy won't be left hopelessly behind either just as long as they scavenge intelligently.
In any case, let me know how you guys feel about these changes.
Dev Log #24: Combat Initiative
Hey, guys. We're still hard at work at producing new content for the next version. And while I'm not ready to show the new areas yet (except the attached teaser screenshot), there are a couple of smaller changes I wanted to talk about.
The most significant change to the combat mechanics is the addition of initiative. Character's base initiative is determined like this: 5 + agility + dexterity. At the start of the combat, each combat participant randomly adds 1-15 points to the base initiative and the modified value is used when sorting the turn order. The only exception is when the player initiates combat manually (by pressing ENTER) or by simply attacking. In this case the player will always act first, but because of this, the AP cost of the opening attack/action will be deducted from his first turn. Additionally, this also applies to some other non-combat action performed just before entering combat, such as opening doors.
Also, player will no longer be able to quickly initiated combat manually when exiting a dialog to get a jump on their enemies, but I will be going through all situations that involve dialog initiated combat to make sure the player receives appropriate initiative bonus depending on the situation. That is, if you are having a dialog with someone who is already wary of you (such as GMS hostage situation) you do not get any initiative bonus (though you still "roll" standard initiative and may in fact play first), while in situation in which you surprise attack someone through a dialog you will get a substantial initiative bonus, effectively granting you first strike.
I think it's pretty clear what the purpose of this change is - I want to remove the ability (and the need) to "cheese" your way into attacking first, while providing a game mechanic that will allow you to do this in a more meaningful way instead using your reflexes. I think these changes will particularly benefit non-stealth characters who are often hard pressed to survive when ambushed by multiple attackers. For now the initiative is only dependent on the start mentioned above, but later on I plan to add feats/abilities/psi that will allow you to increase this base value. I'm also considering adding initiative modifiers to weapons.
In other news:
UI
Added a confirmation box when changing video settings
Added an option to scroll with mouse while holding the right button
Added an option to lock the mouse to screen in fullscreen mode (doesn't work perfectly though, sorry)
You can double click on your (non-existing) portrait to center back to your character
Game window will no longer process input while inactive
Tweaks
Shroomhead feat now restores 15 psi points each time you pick a mindshroom
Reduced base trap arming time to 7 seconds
Reduced the range at which the traps trigger when you step into their tile (should be more consistent with visual collision now)
Items
Added electrical knives (same crafting mechanics like with sledgehammers and gloves)
Added more belts (belts have fixed stats and are not craftable)
Added bear trap - a cheap early game trap that deals mechanical damage, roots the target and inflicts a bleeding wound; like caltrops, it can be envenomed
Added serrated crossbow bolt that deals additional 100% of original damage dealt through a bleeding wound over 3 turns, but incurs even greater damage threshold penalty than a regular bolt
Weapons can now have varying base critical damage bonuses (for now only depending on the weapon base type, but in the future modifiable through enhancements)
Let me know what you think about the balance changes and the new mechanics. Sorry that I can't give you guys a date of the next update, but what I can say is that development speed is picking up again and we're planning to release a new town in the next update as well as bunch of new enemy types.
Dev Log #23: Expanding the Business; Balance Changes
Hey guys, here's an update on what's been happening since the Steam release.
It will be a while longer before a new version is ready, sorry. The reason for that is that I've been somewhat busy with trying to expand the business. The game did well enough on its Steam (pre-)release that I can now afford to hire some people now that will assist with content creation. Unfortunately, this means interviewing, office space hunting, taxes, logistics, and other stuff that's cutting into my development time. So while development is a bit slow until all this settles down, it will pick up pace and go even faster afterwards.
However, I did manage to add some more Lower Underrail areas and I also made a number of balance tweaks, bug fixes and the like:
Changes
Players will receive better armor at the start
Added more meds, ammo and such to the starting areas
Reduced explosive barrel health to 1
AP cost of using light weapons (knives, pistols, SMGs or fist weapons) or unarmed attacks is reduced by 4% for every dexterity point above 5. This is very much subject to change depending on how it works out. I want to make high dexterity builds feel more rewarding and this is just the first step.
Dogs now have 50% chance to apply Tackle effect on hit (down from 100%)
Skill requirements for recycling items reduced
Item durability increased, particularly for higher level items. This will make it less profitable (hopefully not profitable in most cases) to repair them for sole purpose of selling them. Also, crafters will be able to recycle them for more scraps them previously since the amount of scraps gained is based on current and max durability of an item. Rate of item degradation should remain about the same
Mark 2 repair kits now fix 500 durability points (up from 400). Cost increased accordingly; repair kit crafting requirements and components remain the same
Durability span of items looted from slain enemies increased to 5%-50% (up from 5%-20%)
Bandits in the "package delivery quest" nerfed
Minimal stealth requirements (below which player is automatically spotted) reduced
Increased the amount of special ammo that can be found as loot
Reduced the cost of amuples and syringes
Reduced the amount of explosive required to craft traps (it's now same as grenade recipe)
Increased chemistry requirements of Hexogen explosive to 50 (up from 22). Secondary explosives difficulty modifier in grenade and mine blueprint increased to 125% (up from 100%). Mark 3 grenades/mines are now crafted from 1 hexogen and mark 2 are crafted from 2 x TNT instead of vice versa. Reasoning behind these changes is that crafting high level explosives was way too easy and allowed you to obtain grenades that were meant to be used against level 20 enemies as soon as level 7 if not earlier.
Player character will no longer obscure targets behind them when issuing offensive commands (such as attacking or invoking offensive abilities)
Bug fixes
Exporting a character while trading window is open will no longer crash the game
Save/load window will no longer lose focus after deletion confirmation pop-up
Fixed the bug that would cause optional components to give different crafting requirements depending on order they are placed in
Galvanic vest added to random loot table (and hence the stores too)
Fixed the bug that would cause the old man in GMS level 3 to repeatedly initiate dialog with you
Fixed the bug in Abram's questline where you could give Garren information you didn't actually receive
AP should now correctly be deducted when stacking up utility items during combat
Other
Added transition error log; it will be generated in Documents\My Games\Underrail every time there's a transition error. This should help us pinpoint any remaining transition problems
Removed Media Player requirement by popular demand
Introductions and how to redeem your Steam key if you purchased elsewhere
Hi guys and welcome to Underrail, an old school turn-based RPG.
The game is still in development and if you want to track the progress, I post dev logs regularly on the offical forums and I'll also be posting them here from now on. You'll find most of the previous dev logs there, but there are some older ones that are missing. This page contains the full history, if you're interested.
Dev logs do not always coincide with gate updates. There's usually a couple of dev logs between each version. If a new version is available I'll say it explicitly in that dev log.
If you purchased the game in the past through Desura, GamersGate or Groupees here is how you redeem it:
DESURA: The Steam-keys are now avaible on Desura:
0. Make sure you purchased the game from Desura. The Desura key you got from Groupees will not provide you with a Steam key.
1. After your Login into Desura, go to your collection 2. Search for Underrail and click Keys (or follow this link)
3. Copy the provided key and add the game via Steam-client itself (at the lower left corner).
GROUPEES: 1. Log in.
2. Locate Underrail.
3. Click on it.
4. Get the key.
GAMERSGATE: 1. Log in
2. Find Underrail in your library
3. Click "Show Serial Key" button on the right
