Underrail - New Content Update

A new content update for Underrail adds new areas if you have the Expedition DLC.

Dev Log #69: Crossing the Styx (1.1.3.0)

Hi guys,

We're rolling out a new content update. It's going to be a somewhat weird update because the main bulk of the content is centered around something that is not part of a mainstream playthrough. We added an interesting adventure and resolution to players who get... genetically compromised during their time in Underrail. Where and how is for you guys to find out (it does require the Expedition DLC though).

Also we've added more than a dozen new areas to the game, some of which will appear randomly in different playthroughs.

Mechanics-wise I've taken a look at firearm pistols, throwing, and super steel weapons and made some improvements and/or tweaks there.

Anyway, here's the full list of changes, minus the secret stuff:

Items

• You can now throw acid vials
• Obscure weapon improved in an obscure way [Lemurian Spear works with High-Technicalities]
• Infused Bison leather will now provide more fortitude when crafting boots (not applied retroactively)
• Vigorous Belt now also grants 15 fortitude
• AI Scrambler and Hypno Goggle value will now scale with their effective level

UI

• Reduced the max spec points that can be invested in Wrestling spec to 5, since more would just take you over 100% chance to apply. If you invested more than that: lol noob! (j/k You'll get those back on the next level up (unless you're max level in which case: lol noob!))

Metal Weapon Changes

• Increased critical hit chance of all firearm pistols by 3% (new base is 10% now)
• Firearm pistols damage increased by about 25%
• Firearm pistols now ignore up to 40% of target's evasion at close range
• Sharpshooter now grants the critical damage bonus to firearm pistols at all times regardless of focus
• Added Gun-Fu feat - When attacking with firearm pistols in melee range, your effective attack skill is increased by 40% (up to 60% through specialization) of your unmodified melee skill for all purposes, including the damage done
• Added Bullet Time feat - When activated, reduces action point cost of firing firearm pistols by 30% (up to 50% through specialization) until the end of the turn.

Throwing Knives

• Certain plasma sentries will now deploy their plasma cannons in real-time and wait for the player

Mechanical Tweaks

• Added Napalm Barrels, a stronger version of regular explosive barrel that also spawns fire; these can be thrown by the usual suspects
• A certain very, very bad gas that's been released into an under-passage hideout now dissipates after some time
• Added the Lost Vault dungeon in Upper Caves
• Added new Core City sewers random fragments
• Added new GMS vault cave which are randomly selected when starting a new game. Ongoing playthroughs will still have the default map
• Added a new source of very bad gas inside a certain bunker in Upper Caves
• [Expedition] Added the ability to climb up the cliff at the entrance to the Black Sea (requires some high agility)
• [Expedition] Added a rift to Fort Apogee
• [Expedition] Added a certain mentioned wild boar to the Hathorian hunting grounds. Snort!

Content Tweaks

• Pyrokinetic stream will now properly apply Thermodynamicity when the invocation ends
• Pyromaniac's extra damage from specialization will now properly be applied
• Thermodynamic Destabilization can now trigger Pyromaniac
• Psi window will now be hidden while the character sheet is open like other windows are
• Invoking Psycho-temporal Contraction while already under effects of one will not grant you more action and movement points in that turn
• Fixed the value rounding bug when displaying character damage resistances
• Fixed the bug that caused doppelgangers to not despawn in real-time combat
• Fixed a long standing animation glitch that caused the animation to abruptly end after the psi ability is invoked
• Fixed the bug that would sometimes cause the game to crash when an acid barrel is thrown
• Fixed the bug that would sometimes cause the death screen to be uninteractble when you die during a cutscene
• Fixed being able to avoid confronting Jookhela through the power of turn-based mode exploits
• Fixed Tobias in Tithonus Lab turning on the power during turn-based combat instead of trying to make sure it's off
• Fixed Aran not getting a health buff on Dominating
• Fixed GMS level 3 doors not working with automatic door opening option checked
• Fixed sometimes not getting xp when completing a certain assassination quest for Edgar
• [Expedition] Fixed not being able to talk to Katya after visiting "the cave", as well as a certain dialog option not showing up regarding something you see at the entrance to the Black Sea
• Various minor dialog and map fixes and tweaks

That's all for now. Let us know how you like the new content.

Cheers.

Click to expand...

More information.

I guess most players must love constant updates to released games. I'm not sure I do. I finished this game in a humongous playthrough last year. it's a bit of a bummer that I will never see this new content, but at the same time there's no way I'm replaying this gigantic game, even though it was great.

I haven't even started star traders frontiers because of this updating reason.

A similar issue is when developers release updates to Nerf certain builds in single-player games. I finished dungeons of Dredmor on the hardest difficulty when it was first released using the wizard class - I believe that got nerfed within a few weeks after I beat it. Similarly, in underrail the psi build I was using got nerfed when I was already 200 hours into the game but thankfully the developer offered the option to proceed with the previous build.

Anyway, for those of us who have been gaming for basically as long as PC games have existed, it's just kind of a weird phenomenon for a single player game to be altered while you are still playing it, or after you have beaten it even though no dlc was released.

I would be curious what others think. In my case, it provides a big disincentive to buy a game until the developer is done updating, which could be many years after release.

I totally understand how this can be annoying so my reply is my own mental outlook on it.

For me it doesn't bother me (with only a couple exceptions which I will mention briefly at the end). If I had fun playing the game that is all that really matters. If they add/change things later it really doesn't even come into my mental awareness. Maybe something really cool, like adding a wolf companion, I would go, ah bummer, that would have been cool! But it doesn't really bother me. If they add enough stuff I might replay but as mentioned some games are so long that might not really be an option. I can love a game but still be "once is enough". In which case added content won't bother me as I still enjoyed the game and had fun.

The exceptions I can think of is if a late patch fixed some big bugs or made something more playable that I found annoying. But even then not a big issue for me personally.

New content that might have made a favorite follower romance-able, added a new race or class, might make me go, dang wish they had done that sooner. But if the game isn't the type I would replay then I will shrug it off. If the change was good enough, and I liked the game enough, and was tempted to replay - then I would probably welcome the change as an excuse to replay.

All in all I prefer it when they add content to a SRPG over time. Because someday I might want to replay it and then I have something to look forward to (assuming the change was positive and if it wasn't then it would be a non-issue about being upset over it). If I don't ever replay it then meh I had fun the first time and good enough. So adding more content tends to be mostly a positive for me.

I back that up as being one of those people who almost never waits on a game. If a game comes out I know I will like and I want to play I get it. I am getting too old to skip a good game as I never know when health, an accident, or job loss might get in the way of playing in the future. I also hate waiting

That being said I am a picky game player. Unlike most of my friends, and many here, I have a very small game library. With few exceptions I only buy games I am very confident over. Now and then I take a risk ... usually that ends up as a refund or I trash it. Vast majority of games I get I play and finish. Often play more than once unless it was a "movie style" game with a very set protagonist and linear flow where you basically play it as an interactive movie - those games I tend to play once, enjoy, then never touch again.

Rambling. TL;DR - New content, DLC's, etc. doesn't bother me and tend to see it as a good thing versus a negative.

Count me as another who hates constant updates to released games. I prefer that a developer release a few large updates instead of multiple small hot-fixes for years.

DLC or new content doesn't bother but I prefer the old way of expansions.

Given a choice I agree with Couch in the idea that a few large updates, or better yet expansions, is the way to go.

That being said it doesn't bother me if it doesn't work out that way.

I prefer as well to get huge, finite updates and be done with it at some point myself. I do love this game, so I'll certainly be exploring this new content at some point, but it won't be happening anytime soon. And yeah, as someone else noted above, Star Traders: Frontiers has been sitting in my library unplayed for quite some time, just because of all the constant updates/patches. It all gets rather tiresome, and that's when I pick up a classic game instead, or just replay something.

Having not got round to playing Expedition yet, this can only be good news.
Adding content/patches anytime has to be a positive to me, proves the Dev's are still active and haven't abandoned the game unlike many others.

As often it's not that simple.

I think no-one likes it when things are nerfed during a playthrough.
And I think everyone likes extensions that can be will played after the main game.

But smaller content updates that change or add smaller parts are difficult. As I generally don't replay games they don't have a direct use for me so I'd rather like them to work on a sequel.
However when new content draws players to games I like increasing revenue for the devs, it could have an actual positive impact on the scope or quality of their next game. So the positive impact for me would be positive.

We also have to consider that it's not always possible for the whole team to work on the next game. In different phases of the dev cycle different specialists are needed. So the dev can either lay the currently unneeded guys off, or keep them to polish a previously released game.
It's only the bigger devs with multiple games in parallel development in different stages to manage this properly.

So all in all I don't have strong feelings abbot this. We as consumers don't know the details for a lot of the decisions.

In theory, I believe it's incorrect to release a product in an unfinished state, even if it's fixed later. But that's just idealism and I also understand how the economy pushes this trend. I've been there and it's just unavoidable, few or no-one can afford that anymore.

So it doesn't bother me, I became flexible about it. When a game seems to get stable enough, on release or later, I play it, otherwise I wait, there's plenty of other things to do in life and I don't feel the social pressure to play it at the same time as everyone else. In some cases, I even admire the effort they do to improve the quality of a game or add new features for so long ("labour of love").

It's a trade-off between how early you can enjoy it, and how much you can enjoy it.

I'm not much into AAA titles anymore, but when I was, I also used to wait until crappy DRMs were removed, when it was a particular bad one like Denuvo - or before, others from Sony like Securom. That's more a matter of principle, and to avoid the downsides and to keep my system healthy.

So mostly, I believe that waiting is only beneficial. But now and then, I really want to see a game and I'm taking the risk to play it early (even EA versions, or even before). Updates are welcome, but I won't replay the game to see what they bring once I've completed it.

I heard they are trying different things before Underrail 2. Sort of beta testing new ideas.

I kind of agree it would be nice that a game is complete then go and play it, ... but since I also play older games due being late to pick them up it's nice to see fixes and tweaks too. In the case of Underrail I suspect that as they create new content in their current project it gets ported to Underrail too. As i haven't started a new playthrough of the DLC yet I'm cool with this.

This game has a good story and an acceptable pickpocketing and thieving system. I liked to catch the little pig-rat creatures. There should be way more tame-able critters in this game, like the amazingly adorable ones were in Dungeon Siege 1-2. I want to take care of and feed baby animals!
Combat realization is a trainwreck though. For comparison, Champions of Krynn on Amiga or C-64 has very good combat!