Underrail: Infusion pre-release megathread

[ItsChon]

Great thread Agris, you will get full credit for its creation when Infusion releases and takes its place as one of the greatest cRPGs of all time next to Underrail.

I have noted some people adding their voices/opinions to the new graphical style, so allow me to repost this, as I had much the same concerns that everyone else did.

The backgrounds are artistically the same as the ones in Underrail, just at a higher resolution with improved lighting/particle effects. As for the character models, I definitely had some trepidation about changing them up, especially with how they would look on the 2D backgrounds, but the recent update has really quelled my doubts. They do not look out of place with the background, and while they are a bit floaty and not as sharp as they should be at times, all of the screenshots we've seen are literally in the very early alpha stages of the game. Whatever anyone wants to say about Styg, it is undeniable that he has a clear vision for the game and is willing to put in massive amounts of work to realize said vision. Underrail had years of free updates and it got a cheap DLC added to the game which added as much content as some RPGs have in their entirety. I am very confident that Styg will do a good job of fixing these minor issues and making sure that the characters mesh well with the backgrounds and the UI while still maintaining the amazing art style of Underrail.

As for the UI, Styg has outright stated that the images shown are just placeholders, and the actual UI in the game will be designed to work with the new art style. Getting worked up over them as they are now is not only retarded, but it is also ignorant, as I think the team at Stygian Software has done more than enough to garner some credibility.

 

[Grunker]

they changed it now it sucks

 

[BING XI LAO]

tbf i don't give a fuck about how underrail looks, i just want him to tap into whatever the hell mood he was in when he wrote expedition and then give me basically the same gameplay as underrail

more reactivity would be nice, but is by no means required

Interesting, for me Junkyard and Core City were the high points so super-urban area Hexagon that got mentioned at the end of the game sounded perfect for me, but no idea if we are getting anything like that.

Hexagon: https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hexagon

Don't get me wrong, I heckin' loved Core City. But I think Expedition has some of the best exploration and without question the best writing/atmosphere.

forced 20x loading screens mostly into near-blank water maps and 30x copy-pasted combats of statues-locusts-serpents-savages? I'm a massive fan of Underrail, but as of my third 200-hour playthrough, I really really hate the pacing of Deep Caverns and Expedition. Base game's exploration mechanics are arguably just as good as expedition too, because it's opened up based on some many things, like fixing the drill, TNT/jackhammer debris clearance, being able to kill stalkers to open up underpassage shortcut from Core to SGS, NVGs to see certain areas and the Phreak path, jetski access elsewhere, the Juice...

I agree on the excellent writing though, it's both the Fallout sequel and the Planescape sequel. I especially love the implicit joke of spending all that effort persuading Todd the door is safe, only to find arguably the most horrifying location in the whole game world.

 

[Grunker]

tbf i don't give a fuck about how underrail looks, i just want him to tap into whatever the hell mood he was in when he wrote expedition and then give me basically the same gameplay as underrail

more reactivity would be nice, but is by no means required

Interesting, for me Junkyard and Core City were the high points so super-urban area Hexagon that got mentioned at the end of the game sounded perfect for me, but no idea if we are getting anything like that.

Hexagon: https://www.stygiansoftware.com/wiki/index.php?title=Hexagon

Don't get me wrong, I heckin' loved Core City. But I think Expedition has some of the best exploration and without question the best writing/atmosphere.

forced 20x loading screens mostly into near-blank water maps and 30x copy-pasted combats of statues-locusts-serpents-savages? I'm a massive fan of Underrail, but as of my third 200-hour playthrough, I really really hate the pacing of Deep Caverns and Expedition. Base game's exploration mechanics are arguably just as good as expedition too, because it's opened up based on some many things, like fixing the drill, TNT/jackhammer debris clearance, being able to kill stalkers to open up underpassage shortcut from Core to SGS, NVGs to see certain areas and the Phreak path, jetski access elsewhere, the Juice...

I agree on the excellent writing though, it's both the Fallout sequel and the Planescape sequel. I especially love the implicit joke of spending all that effort persuading Todd the door is safe, only to find arguably the most horrifying location in the whole game world.

I just ignored the empty areas

 

[ItsChon]

they changed it now it sucks

What are you talking about?

orced 20x loading screens mostly into near-blank water maps and 30x copy-pasted combats of statues-locusts-serpents-savages?

Loading screens are quick as fuck, at least on my computer, and it's something that I think was necessary to actually make the gameworld make sense. Loading screens are not just loading screens, but also function as an abstraction of distance. If they removed a 3x3 area of water with their respective loading screens and just made it a map the exact same size without loading screens, would seem pretty silly that some locations are literally just one water tile away from each other, and would harm the overall immersion of the game world.

Also, there are a ton of different combat encounters in expedition. Each area that you explore introduces new enemies as well as new mixtures of enemies. You go from facing Strongmen and crabs in the dungeon underneath the Mutie Refugee Camp, to Spiders, Locusts, and Strongmen in the Horticultural center, to the Nexus of Technology which is admittedly the weakest dungeon in Expedition imo though the Sonocaster Puzzle is cool, to the Medical Center which introduces the Handmaidens and has some great encounter design as well as some great environmental interactivity, not to mention the awesome writing. Than you go the JHSQ which has the Nagas & Turrets, as well as the spiders, cool introduction, and the great Native fight outside of it. This then leads to the dungeon in the Native Territory where you get to see the Natives fighting Strongmen and fauna in a great fucking encounter, along with being super thematic, and finally you end up in Abyssal Station Zero. NoT is definitely the weakpoint, but each of the other areas are fantastic and have unique fights/enemy compositions.

I can understand liking the base game more, but claiming that Expedition is a bunch of copy-pasted encounters is just flat out untrue, and I haven't even mentioned either the Pirate/Native/Aegis encounters.

As for the Deep Caverns, I recommend going through them after the most recent set of changes. Makes the whole place a lot more accessible and fun if you can meet the skill requirements.

 

[Grunker]

they changed it now it sucks

What are you talking about?

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks

 

[ItsChon]

Another thing you're forgetting is that the loading screens function as a mechanic to enhance the sense of exploration. You never know what you're going to find as you explore the map, and going through several loading screens and areas with functionally nothing really in them increases your excitement when you do run into an area that is interesting. You need the mundane to act as a contrast to the exotic/interesting. I played through Expedition when it first came out and there was no wiki. It was awesome traveling the Black Seas and discovering new things, and you really felt like you could never predict what you might run into next. It also added to the awe of Lemuria, as you see just how much of the Black Sea they controlled/inhabited. Imagining what it must have looked like during its heyday when they had ships traveling back and forth all over the Sea facilitating trade and transport is just another example of Underrail's amazing world building.

 

[Lord_Potato]

That's one short negathread...

 

[Jrpgfan]

That's one short negathread...

People are not willing to discuss a game they have almost no information on and that will be released in 10 years at best.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Yep, the wait is going to be painful, and we don't really have shit to talk about. Another one of those "I hope we don't die before it comes out" type situations. In fact we've already been waiting a long time as it is.

 

[ItsChon]

It won't be ten years. I'm estimating late 2026 tentatively.

 

[Abu Antar]

P. cool feature.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

Backgrounds are pre-rendered, camera position is fixed

PRAISE THE LORD FOR ALL THAT IS GOOD

 

[luj1]

Another thing you're forgetting is that the loading screens function as a mechanic to enhance the sense of exploration.

It worked that way in very few games and only when the art is gorgeous like Guild Wars 1

Games like Pillars I wanted to kill myself

 

[luj1]

P. cool feature.

cool idea

i also like the thing where adding more CON makes ur character bulky

and if Im correct is Styg borrowing some stuff from Neo Scaveger? e.g. how containers work. That is awesome

 

[ItsChon]

Another thing you're forgetting is that the loading screens function as a mechanic to enhance the sense of exploration.

It worked that way in very few games and only when the art is gorgeous like Guild Wars 1

Games like Pillars I wanted to kill myself

I mean, are Underrail loading screens that intrusive? They literally take 1-2 seconds, so you wouldn't even have a chance to admire art, and when you're playing through the game you spend a lot of time in an area so the loading screens are unnoticeable. It's only when you're going on merchant runs or exploring the black sea that someone could argue they are a bit excessive, but they've never bothered me.

 

[Gromoer]

I miss the times when there was no fast forward option in Underrail. Some very outistic part of me enjoyed the slowpaced traversing the upper caves a lot.

 

[notpl]

I miss the times when there was no fast forward option in Underrail. Some very outistic part of me enjoyed the slowpaced traversing the upper caves a lot.

Good news! You can just not speed the game up.

 

[Gromoer]

I miss the times when there was no fast forward option in Underrail. Some very outistic part of me enjoyed the slowpaced traversing the upper caves a lot.

Good news! You can just not speed the game up.

That just doesn’t work like that really. Limitations a game introduces should be real for them to be viable and working.

 

[CHEMS]

Is it ready?

Give it to me now

 

[Cryomancer]

I hope that this game becomes more moddable than the first UR. That is imo the unique problem of the game.

 

[Cohesion]

I hope that this game becomes more moddable than the first UR. That is imo the unique problem of the game.

What mods do you want for Underrail?

 

[Cryomancer]

I hope that this game becomes more moddable than the first UR. That is imo the unique problem of the game.

What mods do you want for Underrail?

More UR. More psy powers, more guns, more enemies, more locations to explore, more types of jetskis, more ammo types, like Dragon's Breath rounds for shotguns and so on.

 

[MerchantKing]

I'm getting hyped for Infusion. When does it come out?

 

[ciox]

Without modding there is a pretty big missed opportunity for making some gear more viable, since some options have kinda fallen through the cracks. No one crafts many gun variants, or most crossbow types, or steel gloves, expands a gun's magazine, etc. I had some ideas for tweaking the underused options but it ain't happening.