PC Gamer reports that Underworld Ascendant is getting some enhancements:
More information.
Thanks henriquejr!
More information.
Underworld Ascendant - New Save System
- Thread starter HiddenX
- Start date
This sounds promising. They might actually be able to salvage a decent game out of this yet.
Here are the full notes for those who are interested.
Here are the full notes for those who are interested.
UPDATE 1 - Next week (Pending QA Review)
Save system
We’ve completely overhauled Underworld Ascendant’s save game system based on player feedback. The goal is to ensure your efforts as you adventure through the Abyss, particularly during quests, are saved.
Under this new system, you will be able to save your progress anywhere in the game (with a couple exceptions) from the Pause Menu.
When you save a game, you will retain your location in a level, whatever steps you’ve completed toward a quest and all items and equipment you’ve collected in your inventory. Enemy positions, health and more will also be saved.
A full description can be found in the Save Game Details section at the end of this post.
Combat
We have refined Combat to make it more dynamic and responsive and to add more variety to attacks.
First, we are changing the way directional attacks are being handled. Now, every player will be provided with these attacks at the beginning of the game. Instead of using skill points to unlock these attacks, skill points will now make these attacks more powerful.
A balance pass on weapon damage and enemy health has been made with an aim to making combat more engaging, particularly in early levels.
Some initial improvements to AI have been implemented and we have plans for bigger updates in the new year.
Quests and Levels
Many immersion-breaking holes and seams have been removed and levels have more refined and more varied enemy populations.. Pluto’s Gate and Upper Eberus have received a number of enhancements to improve playability and make them feel more “lived in”.
Items
You’ll also see some weapon and loot changes in this update. An item’s wear will now be more apparent, with weapons showing damage wear over time as well as appearing broken when they have reached that state. We improved loot drops in the world as well as weapon availability in Aelita’s shop.
Player Movement
In update 1.03 we made changes to improve player movement. This included the addition of swimming, reduced keyboard and mouse input lag and better transitions into and out of water. Those fixes along with Update 1’s increased base player speed has helped make player movement more responsive and more fluid.
Other Improvements
We’ll give more details in the update Build Notes next week, but some highlights include saved key binding preferences, better visualization of which skills have been learned, the ability to learn skills sooner and more.
UPDATE 2
February 2019
Our overall goal for Update 2 next year is to continue to make the game more interesting, more fun, easier to understand, and more polished. We will continue to improve things like combat, AI and levels. We will also focus efforts on player progression, adding variety to the gameplay and improving the overall player journey through the course of the game.
Most importantly, we will continue to gather feedback from our fans and players after Update 1 to see other areas where we can continue to improve the game.
Here are highlights of what we are planning for Update 2:
Combat and AI
We will continue to make improvements to combat to make it more fun and engaging—please continue to give us detailed feedback as you play! On the AI front, we’re planning to improve behavior, responsiveness, communication to players and navigation. Our goal is to make enemy behavior more interesting and more natural to players.
Meta Game
We are evaluating ways to improve the overall player experience during a full play-through to better communicate requirements to complete the game and also reduce the complexity around what players are supposed to be doing to stop Typhon.
Levels
We will continue to look at improvements to levels, including adding more enemies, environmental storytelling and potentially streamlining the layout of Marcaul.
Quests
Our goal is to make quests more interesting and less repetitive. We are also scoping out improvements to player experience in the beginning of the game through enhancements to Pluto’s Gate and Saurian’s Challenge to expose players to fun gameplay elements more quickly.
Other
We’re looking to continue to make the game easier to understand (aka better tooltip text), improve performance, improve load times, and continue to fix bugs
Save system
We’ve completely overhauled Underworld Ascendant’s save game system based on player feedback. The goal is to ensure your efforts as you adventure through the Abyss, particularly during quests, are saved.
Under this new system, you will be able to save your progress anywhere in the game (with a couple exceptions) from the Pause Menu.
When you save a game, you will retain your location in a level, whatever steps you’ve completed toward a quest and all items and equipment you’ve collected in your inventory. Enemy positions, health and more will also be saved.
A full description can be found in the Save Game Details section at the end of this post.
Combat
We have refined Combat to make it more dynamic and responsive and to add more variety to attacks.
First, we are changing the way directional attacks are being handled. Now, every player will be provided with these attacks at the beginning of the game. Instead of using skill points to unlock these attacks, skill points will now make these attacks more powerful.
A balance pass on weapon damage and enemy health has been made with an aim to making combat more engaging, particularly in early levels.
Some initial improvements to AI have been implemented and we have plans for bigger updates in the new year.
Quests and Levels
Many immersion-breaking holes and seams have been removed and levels have more refined and more varied enemy populations.. Pluto’s Gate and Upper Eberus have received a number of enhancements to improve playability and make them feel more “lived in”.
Items
You’ll also see some weapon and loot changes in this update. An item’s wear will now be more apparent, with weapons showing damage wear over time as well as appearing broken when they have reached that state. We improved loot drops in the world as well as weapon availability in Aelita’s shop.
Player Movement
In update 1.03 we made changes to improve player movement. This included the addition of swimming, reduced keyboard and mouse input lag and better transitions into and out of water. Those fixes along with Update 1’s increased base player speed has helped make player movement more responsive and more fluid.
Other Improvements
We’ll give more details in the update Build Notes next week, but some highlights include saved key binding preferences, better visualization of which skills have been learned, the ability to learn skills sooner and more.
UPDATE 2
February 2019
Our overall goal for Update 2 next year is to continue to make the game more interesting, more fun, easier to understand, and more polished. We will continue to improve things like combat, AI and levels. We will also focus efforts on player progression, adding variety to the gameplay and improving the overall player journey through the course of the game.
Most importantly, we will continue to gather feedback from our fans and players after Update 1 to see other areas where we can continue to improve the game.
Here are highlights of what we are planning for Update 2:
Combat and AI
We will continue to make improvements to combat to make it more fun and engaging—please continue to give us detailed feedback as you play! On the AI front, we’re planning to improve behavior, responsiveness, communication to players and navigation. Our goal is to make enemy behavior more interesting and more natural to players.
Meta Game
We are evaluating ways to improve the overall player experience during a full play-through to better communicate requirements to complete the game and also reduce the complexity around what players are supposed to be doing to stop Typhon.
Levels
We will continue to look at improvements to levels, including adding more enemies, environmental storytelling and potentially streamlining the layout of Marcaul.
Quests
Our goal is to make quests more interesting and less repetitive. We are also scoping out improvements to player experience in the beginning of the game through enhancements to Pluto’s Gate and Saurian’s Challenge to expose players to fun gameplay elements more quickly.
Other
We’re looking to continue to make the game easier to understand (aka better tooltip text), improve performance, improve load times, and continue to fix bugs
Carnifex
SasqWatch
Looks like they are on the right path, a little bit of salvation is better than none at all. Maybe in a few months time I'll get up the nerve to actually fire up this game and take a look for myself.....but not yet.
Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
Headed in the right direction but it's a long way up the mountain. I hope they've got enough cash to keep going!
I don't know why they didn't put this on Early Access. It clearly needs a lot more time baking in the oven, and those reviews aren't going to go away now if they make improvements. I guess they're hoping for a better launch on consoles with the improved version next year.
Anyway, definitely good news about them addimg in a save system. I hope they manage to salvage something decent from it.
Anyway, definitely good news about them addimg in a save system. I hope they manage to salvage something decent from it.
Vindicator
Primordial Dragon
Still waiting for my $200 boxed collector's edition so I can strike a match, or cast a fireball.
Hum. Yea I said before they would be better off having gone the early access route. Then again they are old timers so maybe they just didn't understand EA.
Carnifex
SasqWatch
There is also a certain stigma to early access, perhaps they were trying to avoid that label, but this is one project that looks like it really needs a tad more baking time in the oven, so to say. I just hope they keep up the work, that most recent patch was pretty meaty so I'm hopeful that, in the end, this will turn out to be worth playing.
Probably hopeful of an infusion of cash with day one purchases. However, doing this sort of thing with the game in this state is just asking to kill both the game and ip. Patching it up for 6 months and making a 1/2 decent game might be a happy event for owners but it probably won't do much for future revenue. With EA they can at least hope for some cash infusion and still have a legit available event.
Maybe i'll fire this up again in march or so...
Let's make it a few more 'years'.
I'm in the middle of playing the original Ultima Underworld using the unity mod. I put in maybe 10 hours into Underworld Ascendant. They can patch that game until the pigs fly UA does not play like the original UU. The original UU is a real place, a world underground and it changes as you progress. There are NPCs with interesting things to say along with factions that have their own interests. The two games feel nothing alike.
BoboTheMighty
SasqWatch
So they ran out of money?
With every day bombardment of entertainment, you ( usually ) only have one chance to build a sales momentum and on the release.
I'd expect CDPR and Larian would be in much worse position today if not for delaying their games, until fit for release.
With every day bombardment of entertainment, you ( usually ) only have one chance to build a sales momentum and on the release.
I'd expect CDPR and Larian would be in much worse position today if not for delaying their games, until fit for release.
How is UU for you with that mod? I tried it a few weeks back, but it didn't seem like it was quite finished yet. There were placeholder graphics for some items and not all of the sound effects were implemented. Having mouse look was great though.
It's not finished but I'm enjoying it anyway, if for no other reason than the controls have been modernized (mouse look + WASD) making the world much easier to navigate and explore. So far, nothing has happened to prevent me from continuing forward.