Encased (gameplay talk and stuff)

Instead of spamming the 10 threads from news section, if you wanna talk about the game…

No spoilers ahead, im around 35h in it and dont think i finished half of it. I explored just a quarter of the map, level 18 now, i went with the silver wing max charisma and light weapons at the beginning but switched to tech shortly after. Using the many skills in dialogues has a nice feeling but sadly more than half of the abilities from the trees are completely uselless.

So far, the game is a very good surprise, i would say the worst thing about it is the poor AI of your companions, they are just complete dumbasses when not in fights.

They're not looking where they put their feet, it's always been like that

It was worse before when we couldn't give them orders to stay still or move to a spot. Or when they would just block the way and we couldn't swap place.

In fight, I'll have to see, one guy at Picnic used to throw grenades without paying attention to the damage radius, hurting more friendlies than foes.

I hope they can make progress on AI. It's not a big problem though.

Here is an example of the brilliant AI, happened yesterday to me…

I was in the emulator building at the locked room where is that obsesed guard with the clean floor. I looted that room in a prior day and now the door is just closed but still have trouble if you go in. So i just ran around the guard in the main hall but the 2 moron companions moved as well to catch up with me but went for a few seconds in that room as well, so in just a minute i got called 6 times from the guard about companions tresspasing and went to jail since i already used charm/intimidate/bribe/etc in my previous talks with him.

Thank god you can separate from them like in divinity original sin, otherwise it would have been impossible to play stealth.

I started playing yesterday, instead of just looking around with a fake character.

I'm silver wing with charisma, brains, deftness and psyche, mostly. Continuing what I was playing in EA to see where it leads, with a guy who hacks his way in and talks his way out (and probably sucks in combat).

I really enjoyed the discussion with the fellow silver in the elevator down to Concord Station, both Charisma (Influence) and Silver open a lot of dialogue options. One has to like this type of humour of course, maybe it's a bit cheesy sometimes (as it should!). There's a clear tendency to caricature jobs too. I'm enjoying it a lot!

Listening to the voice acting takes more time than reading, but I have no problem reading ahead and skipping some sequences I've already heard / read in the past. I like the voices (I know that it's subjective, especially for the narrator).

What I don't like too much is the loot they've put in every single container. Finding money in flower pots or trashcans doesn't seem right. It's a little bit like the loot frenzy Bethesda is used to put in their games. But it's easy to ignore it, so not a serious issue.

The character creation must be somewhat overwhelming the first time because there are many secondary stats that are computed from one or several base attributes. Then there are abilities with a starting value that also depends on the stats, but they can be increased later with skill points so it's less critical. Then perks add to the stats and attributes, but don't count for secondary stats, it's all a bit messy. Probably not more than any other game, though.

BTW, make sure to read the effect or formula with the tooltip, because a couple of descriptions are deceiving.

Probably will pick this one up after I'm done with Eastward. I'm very interested on knowing how the combat is in general, the level of challenge and the linearity of the game in general.

One of the things I loved most in WotR is how you find often optional strong encounters that you can just ignore, but you are rewarded for tackling, and if that kind of thing is in Encased too I'd love to know. If anyone wants to share their insight it's appreciated!

Nereida said:

Probably will pick this one up after I'm done with Eastward. I'm very interested on knowing how the combat is in general, the level of challenge and the linearity of the game in general.

One of the things I loved most in WotR is how you find often optional strong encounters that you can just ignore, but you are rewarded for tackling, and if that kind of thing is in Encased too I'd love to know. If anyone wants to share their insight it's appreciated!

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I love this game, but to be honest the combat is not as mature as WotR. It's fine and fun, and it's possible to use tactical elements as a group (or alone) to get an advantage, but it feels as if they still have to tune some encounters or the stat system a little more.

And you can only have 2 companions (maybe 3 with some builds), with sometimes an extra temporary one. So it's not as rich as a party of 6.

Yes, there are often alternative ways with combat, and the consequences are different. Sometimes you can choose to talk and solve an issue without combat, or decide to attack if you prefer. Sometimes you can avoid the situation entirely, for example with stealth. If you fight, you may get extra experience or not, depending, and loot. It can affect your reputation either way with factions too.

The game didn't feel linear in EA, but we couldn't see the later chapters and the C&C. I need to go further to comment on that. The main quest typically opens sub-quest branches which can be tackled in any order. It's not the same scale as WotR, as you may expect.

I already expected it wouldn't be as deep and rich as WotR, but it sounds a bit like Dungeon Rats/Age of Decadence, which is a good thing I'd say.

Another achievement worth dying for...



Nope, you can't get out of the dome.

It needs some balance with the xp, for instance i met a camp with aggro servoshells or whatever they are called, 9k xp per kill so i made 3 levels in a couple of minutes

I am going Neanderthal focused on strength (11), Guts (10), Perception (7 or 8 I think), and brain (5). I usually go very high charisma and stealth (if an option) in most games so I can avoid combat but thanks to Lobo I find myself liking the more direct approach. He is Black Wing. Skills are unarmed, survival, and can't remember what I picked for the third. I tried to pick ones that matched him being a hard core melee combat and survivalist. Maybe traps.

My second character is my more traditional and closer to what seems to be a favorite here - Silver Wing. Max Psyche and Charisma focus as I wanted to do Psyche combat.

I already see myself agonizing over character creation in this one. I only know that I'm probably not going with Black Wing. The brute force approach seems like it would be less interesting in this game.

Sorry, I haven't looked into the skills of this game at all yet. Anyone mind summarising all these wings?

Pladio said:

Sorry, I haven't looked into the skills of this game at all yet. Anyone mind summarising all these wings?

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Here's a general description of the different wings and their attribute & skill bonuses.

https://steamlists.com/encased-character-creation-tips-skills-abilities-overview/

It also describes all the skills and secondary stats.

Thanks

Your Companions have the survival instinct of an emo, depressed lemming. They will walk over mines, into anomalies and even run away when you sprint up to heal them.

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so true
i use the robot in my party and it was semi bugged to fix it, i had to be exactly near it to do it but many times it ran away when i came near it lol, guess they fixed it in patch2

Silver wing is the sort of thing I usually do. I haven't played much yet (WotR is eating all my gaming time), but I started a White wing character.

JFarrell71 said:

Silver wing is the sort of thing I usually do. I haven't played much yet (WotR is eating all my gaming time), but I started a White wing character.

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White is very nice to play too, that's what I had in my first run in EA.

Wings mainly open specific options in the conversation, they also give a boost in the abilities along with the base attributes. But once you start earning skill points, you can progress however you want so it's not too restrictive (don't try to make a jack-of-all-trades though). Some perks and attributes give more skill points and experience, that's helpful too.

Just finished this, steam shows 63.4h
If you do just the main quest, probably takes under 20h. I explored all the map, reached level 40 in the end.
Now on to ATOM games

porcozaur said:

Just finished this, steam shows 63.4h
If you do just the main quest, probably takes under 20h. I explored all the map, reached level 40 in the end.
Now on to ATOM games

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I'm interested in hearing how Encased and ATOM compare to one another. I'm also going to be playing both games soon, but I'll be doing ATOM first.

JDR13 said:

I'm interested in hearing how Encased and ATOM compare to one another. I'm also going to be playing both games soon, but I'll be doing ATOM first.

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ATOM didn't click for me. I love dialogue in games. Can't have enough. Loved Tides of Numenara, loved Disco Elysium, etc, etc.

The dialogue in ATOM was too much. Everyone goes on and on, and the input from the player is minimal. You're just working your way through a checklist, often the same checklist, over and over. It's like if you when you played Morrowind you asked every NPC about every keyword. There's also a uniformity to how everyone talks that I'm not a fan of. Some of it is funny, and it's certainly colorful and vivid writing, so it's not all bad. But my eyes glazed over within minutes each time I tried to play it.