Underworld Ascendant - New Save System
- Thread starter HiddenX
- Start date
I couldn't have said better man
- Joined
- Aug 18, 2011
- Messages
- 112
I'm waiting for all the patches before I play my backer copy of this game. My hope is this will be a great game once all patched up like No Mans Sky did. Ultima was my favorite dungeon rpg back in the day 
Carnifex
SasqWatch
That's my plan, exactly. I usually wait quite a bit these days before exploring a newly released game, but this one I might give an entire year or so. I think that they've made some good updates and I'll be waiting to see what they do next to improve things. It can never be as good as the classics were to me, but perhaps it can be somewhere in the ball park.
But will we know when the very last patch has arrived ?
I'm waiting for all the patches before I play my backer copy of this game. My hope is this will be a great game once all patched up like No Mans Sky did. Ultima was my favorite dungeon rpg back in the day
D
Darth Tagnan
Guest
I still can't decide if this is a case of ultra incompetence or deception - but you kinda have to laugh a little when a developer is making a feature list out of a standard set of save game features - like it hasn't been the standard for decades.
My impression is they got really bogged down with the physics based game play and every other aspect of the game suffered, including basic stuff like saving. It's a real disappointment. I am a huge fan of UU1 and 2 and was looking forward to an interesting world to explore. This is the first crowdfunded game I backed that really bit me, I contributed $300 and that stings a bit.
Carnifex
SasqWatch
I'm in similar straits, I truly had high hopes for the project, and I thought it would be a glorious way to revisit two older games. Right now though, on top of knowing that the game isn't truly finished, I'm more concerned about the utter disappointment that might hit me when I first attempt to play the thing. When I pledged to the project, it may have been the quickest pledge agreement I've ever done, based on hope alone.
I haven't touched it since it was released and won't try it again until after Update 2 in February. That said, the fix list for the first update released a few days ago is quite expansive.
Update 1 is here! It includes the new save system and more.
Save Game System
We’ve completely overhauled Underworld Ascendant’s save game system based on player feedback.
This new system saves the following:
World State
* Enemies, chests, doors, levers, chandeliers, torches, sconces, braziers, and water level will save their states and location
* All spawned items (e.g., weapons, food, etc.) including location and position
* Silver Sapling location and status
* Enemy Health
* Enemy status effect with durations
* Door damage
* Combustibles will remain lit
* Gate / Portcullis state (up / down / in transit)
Quest State
The new system will save and restore the current state of the quest, including the required items and enemies as necessary. If a player saves after finishing objectives, this objective will be saved.
Player State
* Position, rotation, crouching
* Current health/damage
* Current Mana
* Status effects
* Inventory
* Hotbar
* Stash
* Known spells
* Faction Favor
* Influence
* Completed quests
* Skills
* Held items
* Player session stats associated with level progress (e.g., enemies killed)
* Existing player stats associated with prior level progress
A few things are not saved:
* Arrows that are not at rest
* Spells in the middle of being cast
Important Note: Saving is disabled when the player is off the ground or within 15 meters of enemies
Combat
We made many updates to Combat in Underworld Ascendant as further outlined below. We have also made a few improvements to AI and have plans for more AI enhancements in the next update.
* Directional attacks are available at level zero without their status effects and they do the same amount of damage as a heavy attack. We’ve revised the previous skills granting directional attacks as follows (Swords / Axes and Maces / Unarmed):
* Blade Master / Mighty Blows / Fists of Iron – heavy left and right attacks now stagger enemies (LMB + Left and LMB + Right)
* Fighter’s Fury / Bloody Barrage / Fists of Fury – heavy forward attacks now stun, and heavy back attacks knock enemies down (LMB + W and LMB + S)
* Deft Maneuvers / Savage Maneuvers / Shielded Strike – holding heavy attacks longer charges up the attack and does a bleeding over time extra damage (hold LMB longer)
* Light attacks do a bit more damage (20% more)
* Light attacks if spammed have a reminder tooltip every 10 swings explaining the difference between light swings (tapping LMB) and heavy swings (holding and releasing LMB)
* Unskilled Heavy attacks no longer stagger opponents
* Pluto’s Gate received a combat tuning update: Spectral Knights (skeletons in chainmail) have been replaced by Spectral Warriors (skeletons with sickles and bows, who are now slightly weaker and do less damage) and some Spectral Warriors have been replaced by Spectral Thugs (headless skeletons, who are now weaker and unable to block).
* Combat VFX are now more visible: VFX Blood is brighter and VFX Collision FX are bigger – this goes for Stone, Wood and Bone impacts.
* Short swords have a bit larger attack colliders so they will connect hits more reliably
* We made tweaks to enemy stagger behavior during combat so they don’t get stuck on the defensive all the time
* Physics damage has been increased, making throwing objects at enemies a good strategy.
* Enemies now react better when they are hit with a thrown object
* Arrows should now working correctly in The Underswamp
* Outcasts teleport less often in and out in combat and have better flee point checking.
* Spectral Warriors no longer attack inanimate objects (like torches and doors) when damaged by them.
Quests and Levels
We made updates and improvements to the levels and quests in the game as follows:
* Removed many immersion-breaking holes and seams in the world
* AI population pass on all levels to better balance encounters and provide more and more varied creatures to fight.
* Later levels are now accessible earlier in the game due to changes we made to the doom counter.
* More to do and see on the first two main quests
* LODs adjusted to reduce graphical popping on higher end machines
* Gather quest items now have a map region highlighted
* Many enhancements to Upper Eberus
* Moved hub lever to a more interesting spot
* Made an easier connection to the top floor in the Ruins of Gwern
* Fix spike room trap
* More interesting way into transitional 2 façade
* Fix traps on path toward Necrotic Graveyard
* Call out first pungie trap
* See into first cell from entry
* More prison theming in murgo’s prison
* Bring cohesion and purpose to set dressing in murgos
* No way out of first drop down room
* Trap left path to gibbet cages
* Guard station up the guard station-stealth
* Clear death at the bottom of the incessant pit
* Puzzle to enter the tomb
* Traps in the tomb
* Wooden verticality in necrotic graveyard
* Clearer lead to tomb side entry
* Fix hole above typhon chest in tomb
Items
Weapon wear overhaul:
* Weapon wear is visible on the weapon model, and weapons at their lowest condition appear broken
* Added sound for weapon breakage
* Weapons degrade more slowly
Loot drop update:
* Better selection of weapons available in the shop
* Weapons are now easier to find in the world
* Updated some weapon models
* Brighter handheld light gem
* New health potion added to the game as a clear, available option for healing
Player Movement
Player movement is now more responsive and fluid
For Hotfix 1.03 (released 11/29) included improvements to player movement in and out of water, added swimming, and reduced keyboard and mouse input lag.
Player Growth
We’ve made some changes to player growth and to improve communication of skill availability
* When a spell fails for lack of an eligible target, it no longer costs mana. This should help you experiment more freely with new rune formulas.
* Resherak can now be found in Pluto’s Gate; visit him to train new skills earlier than ever before.
* New Feats are available in Pluto’s Gate to give players more Memora for their first encounter with Resherak.
* The Skills panel now grays out skills that are not yet unlocked, so you can tell the difference between them and skills whose precursors in the tree you just haven’t got yet. (Remember: you’ll be notified when returning to Marcaul if new Skills have been unlocked.)
Other
* The game now remembers your key binding preferences (one of the top requested fixes from the community)
* Hint text now stays longer on the screen
* Players can now brighten the overall game more using the slider found during new game creation and in the options menu
* Players can now read and listen to the Memora that they find as quest goals
* New option to disable mouse smoothing
* Disabled WASD movement key while in the character naming box. It’s now easier to have a name with an “s” in it, for example.
* Edits to English VO for length
* Full German VO now in game
* General audio balance tweaks
* Somewhat better performance
Understanding Weapon Wear
To help you understand how weapon wear works in the game, and how the different states of wear compare to each other, please see the below chart. Note: Magical items do not wear down.
Weapon durability is as follows:
* Pristine 80% and above
* Excellent 60-80%
* Serviceable 40-60%
* Worn 20-40%
* Broken 0-20%
Damage degrades from weapon. At 50%, “Serviceable,” a weapon will do 75% of its damage. For example a sword that had a base damage of 33, would now do 24.75 points of damage per heavy swing. At the absolute lowest, a “Broken” weapon with 0 points of durability will do half of its damage.
Weapon and Armor Types
To help you make decisions about what weapons and armor to chose, here is some more information about how those items work in game.
There is a baseline ‘par’ damage number per weapon type as follows:
* One handed sword – 33 points.
* One handed Axes and maces and bones – 35 points
* One handed dagger – 15 points
* Unarmed – 10 points
Armor from worst to best is as follows:
* Cloth/Robes
* Leather
* Chain
* Heavy (Plate/Splint)
Known Issues
* There are still some holes in levels — we will continue to fix them.
* A small handful of memora logs have no proper title text or text for the audio. These will be found in some Intrigue faction quests. The quests are still completable and will count towards your memora log count.
* “You have learned a spell!” text appears with no context when you head toward The Moat of Khnum in Upper Erebus.
* Some DLC items do not appear in the Midnight Forum stash unless the player starts a new game.
* After reloading a save, some items, like water bottles, may not return to exactly where they were when you last saved.
* Sometimes jumping into physics objects like tables, crates, or chests, can sometimes hurt you and sometimes gravely hurt you!
* The Dash skill isn’t as reliable over rough terrain as we’d like it to be.
* Climbing a chain while swimming can result in getting stuck on the chain.
* Steam cloud saves are not yet working correctly.
* You cannot scroll through the backpack with scrollbar when in trade UI
* You can occasionally lose a stack of items when you move it in a container (backpack or stash)
* Aelita can run out of money
Save Game System
We’ve completely overhauled Underworld Ascendant’s save game system based on player feedback.
This new system saves the following:
World State
* Enemies, chests, doors, levers, chandeliers, torches, sconces, braziers, and water level will save their states and location
* All spawned items (e.g., weapons, food, etc.) including location and position
* Silver Sapling location and status
* Enemy Health
* Enemy status effect with durations
* Door damage
* Combustibles will remain lit
* Gate / Portcullis state (up / down / in transit)
Quest State
The new system will save and restore the current state of the quest, including the required items and enemies as necessary. If a player saves after finishing objectives, this objective will be saved.
Player State
* Position, rotation, crouching
* Current health/damage
* Current Mana
* Status effects
* Inventory
* Hotbar
* Stash
* Known spells
* Faction Favor
* Influence
* Completed quests
* Skills
* Held items
* Player session stats associated with level progress (e.g., enemies killed)
* Existing player stats associated with prior level progress
A few things are not saved:
* Arrows that are not at rest
* Spells in the middle of being cast
Important Note: Saving is disabled when the player is off the ground or within 15 meters of enemies
Combat
We made many updates to Combat in Underworld Ascendant as further outlined below. We have also made a few improvements to AI and have plans for more AI enhancements in the next update.
* Directional attacks are available at level zero without their status effects and they do the same amount of damage as a heavy attack. We’ve revised the previous skills granting directional attacks as follows (Swords / Axes and Maces / Unarmed):
* Blade Master / Mighty Blows / Fists of Iron – heavy left and right attacks now stagger enemies (LMB + Left and LMB + Right)
* Fighter’s Fury / Bloody Barrage / Fists of Fury – heavy forward attacks now stun, and heavy back attacks knock enemies down (LMB + W and LMB + S)
* Deft Maneuvers / Savage Maneuvers / Shielded Strike – holding heavy attacks longer charges up the attack and does a bleeding over time extra damage (hold LMB longer)
* Light attacks do a bit more damage (20% more)
* Light attacks if spammed have a reminder tooltip every 10 swings explaining the difference between light swings (tapping LMB) and heavy swings (holding and releasing LMB)
* Unskilled Heavy attacks no longer stagger opponents
* Pluto’s Gate received a combat tuning update: Spectral Knights (skeletons in chainmail) have been replaced by Spectral Warriors (skeletons with sickles and bows, who are now slightly weaker and do less damage) and some Spectral Warriors have been replaced by Spectral Thugs (headless skeletons, who are now weaker and unable to block).
* Combat VFX are now more visible: VFX Blood is brighter and VFX Collision FX are bigger – this goes for Stone, Wood and Bone impacts.
* Short swords have a bit larger attack colliders so they will connect hits more reliably
* We made tweaks to enemy stagger behavior during combat so they don’t get stuck on the defensive all the time
* Physics damage has been increased, making throwing objects at enemies a good strategy.
* Enemies now react better when they are hit with a thrown object
* Arrows should now working correctly in The Underswamp
* Outcasts teleport less often in and out in combat and have better flee point checking.
* Spectral Warriors no longer attack inanimate objects (like torches and doors) when damaged by them.
Quests and Levels
We made updates and improvements to the levels and quests in the game as follows:
* Removed many immersion-breaking holes and seams in the world
* AI population pass on all levels to better balance encounters and provide more and more varied creatures to fight.
* Later levels are now accessible earlier in the game due to changes we made to the doom counter.
* More to do and see on the first two main quests
* LODs adjusted to reduce graphical popping on higher end machines
* Gather quest items now have a map region highlighted
* Many enhancements to Upper Eberus
* Moved hub lever to a more interesting spot
* Made an easier connection to the top floor in the Ruins of Gwern
* Fix spike room trap
* More interesting way into transitional 2 façade
* Fix traps on path toward Necrotic Graveyard
* Call out first pungie trap
* See into first cell from entry
* More prison theming in murgo’s prison
* Bring cohesion and purpose to set dressing in murgos
* No way out of first drop down room
* Trap left path to gibbet cages
* Guard station up the guard station-stealth
* Clear death at the bottom of the incessant pit
* Puzzle to enter the tomb
* Traps in the tomb
* Wooden verticality in necrotic graveyard
* Clearer lead to tomb side entry
* Fix hole above typhon chest in tomb
Items
Weapon wear overhaul:
* Weapon wear is visible on the weapon model, and weapons at their lowest condition appear broken
* Added sound for weapon breakage
* Weapons degrade more slowly
Loot drop update:
* Better selection of weapons available in the shop
* Weapons are now easier to find in the world
* Updated some weapon models
* Brighter handheld light gem
* New health potion added to the game as a clear, available option for healing
Player Movement
Player movement is now more responsive and fluid
For Hotfix 1.03 (released 11/29) included improvements to player movement in and out of water, added swimming, and reduced keyboard and mouse input lag.
Player Growth
We’ve made some changes to player growth and to improve communication of skill availability
* When a spell fails for lack of an eligible target, it no longer costs mana. This should help you experiment more freely with new rune formulas.
* Resherak can now be found in Pluto’s Gate; visit him to train new skills earlier than ever before.
* New Feats are available in Pluto’s Gate to give players more Memora for their first encounter with Resherak.
* The Skills panel now grays out skills that are not yet unlocked, so you can tell the difference between them and skills whose precursors in the tree you just haven’t got yet. (Remember: you’ll be notified when returning to Marcaul if new Skills have been unlocked.)
Other
* The game now remembers your key binding preferences (one of the top requested fixes from the community)
* Hint text now stays longer on the screen
* Players can now brighten the overall game more using the slider found during new game creation and in the options menu
* Players can now read and listen to the Memora that they find as quest goals
* New option to disable mouse smoothing
* Disabled WASD movement key while in the character naming box. It’s now easier to have a name with an “s” in it, for example.
* Edits to English VO for length
* Full German VO now in game
* General audio balance tweaks
* Somewhat better performance
Understanding Weapon Wear
To help you understand how weapon wear works in the game, and how the different states of wear compare to each other, please see the below chart. Note: Magical items do not wear down.
Weapon durability is as follows:
* Pristine 80% and above
* Excellent 60-80%
* Serviceable 40-60%
* Worn 20-40%
* Broken 0-20%
Damage degrades from weapon. At 50%, “Serviceable,” a weapon will do 75% of its damage. For example a sword that had a base damage of 33, would now do 24.75 points of damage per heavy swing. At the absolute lowest, a “Broken” weapon with 0 points of durability will do half of its damage.
Weapon and Armor Types
To help you make decisions about what weapons and armor to chose, here is some more information about how those items work in game.
There is a baseline ‘par’ damage number per weapon type as follows:
* One handed sword – 33 points.
* One handed Axes and maces and bones – 35 points
* One handed dagger – 15 points
* Unarmed – 10 points
Armor from worst to best is as follows:
* Cloth/Robes
* Leather
* Chain
* Heavy (Plate/Splint)
Known Issues
* There are still some holes in levels — we will continue to fix them.
* A small handful of memora logs have no proper title text or text for the audio. These will be found in some Intrigue faction quests. The quests are still completable and will count towards your memora log count.
* “You have learned a spell!” text appears with no context when you head toward The Moat of Khnum in Upper Erebus.
* Some DLC items do not appear in the Midnight Forum stash unless the player starts a new game.
* After reloading a save, some items, like water bottles, may not return to exactly where they were when you last saved.
* Sometimes jumping into physics objects like tables, crates, or chests, can sometimes hurt you and sometimes gravely hurt you!
* The Dash skill isn’t as reliable over rough terrain as we’d like it to be.
* Climbing a chain while swimming can result in getting stuck on the chain.
* Steam cloud saves are not yet working correctly.
* You cannot scroll through the backpack with scrollbar when in trade UI
* You can occasionally lose a stack of items when you move it in a container (backpack or stash)
* Aelita can run out of money
Carnifex
SasqWatch
I totally agree JDR, and it's seeing a huge patch/fix full of real impacting changes that gives me hope for the future. I'll gladly wait another six months, heck, take a whole bloody year if you like, if they continue to improve the game I will hold off playing with a smile on my face, and keep hoping for the best.
D
Darth Tagnan
Guest
A lot of the physics can be handled relatively easily by Unity - so I'd be surprised if that was the problem. Even if they wanted more sophistication, they should have been able to implement it without too much work.
But I don't want to speculate too hard on this.
I don't really dwell on failures - and it's, by far, not the only game I've backed that turned out less than expected.
My "success" ratio in terms of backing games is still pretty decent, and this is just another lesson learned about not trusting "old veterans" blindly - which I probably did, in this case.
What I mean by "focusing on the physics" is they put a great deal of emphasis on players being able to solve problems in a variety of ways which in this game means using the various physics the game employs.
It's not a bad idea. However, my impression is that this bogged them down a great deal and retarded efforts with other aspects of game play.
I loaded up the original UU and I'm currently playing it using the Unity mod. The atmosphere of the original UU is what you want to capture in a remake. The sense of danger, a persistent world, exploration and discovery, and the various factions of the inhabitants.
I've put about 10 hours into UA and my view at this point is that they can patch this game until cows fly, it's not going to capture the atmosphere. Revisiting the same levels again and again with everything resetting... bleh... it's just awful.
I hope I'm wrong... but with $300 worth of "horse in the race" it's a bit of a letdown at this point.
D
Darth Tagnan
Guest
Yeah, I think I got that. But, as I said, it shouldn't have been that hard to accomplish.
We're talking pretty seasoned developers with 3 years and an engine that's very well suited for the job - given their low target for fidelity and performance.
Well, you might be right - it's not like I actually know. But I use Unity myself - and you can implement relatively sophisticated physics surprisingly easily - for the most part. I mean, you can't magically make things burn with a button click - but you do get a lot of help in terms of basic physical forces.
Agreed.
I very much agree with this.
I have enough experience with games to recognise a "totally broken turd" when I see one. With this, I more or less had to give up all hope upon seeing the beta for the first time.
Of course, I've learned that games really CAN change from beta to release - even if it's exceedingly rare.
However, playing the release version - I'm 99.9% sure this game will never - ever - capture ANYTHING like the original UU.
Forget the fact that it doesn't evolve anything in any way - it doesn't even partially meet a game that's 26 years old!
As I said, I don't like to dwell on failures. But my "gut" and my experience tells me something went wrong here in a way that's beyond the usual over-reaching and mild incompetence.
I can't say whether it was deceitful and intentional - or if Neurath really is a completely inept dunce who never really contributed anything of value to the old Looking Glass games in terms of game development.
I don't see much in the way of alternate explanations, though.
That's what I meant by blind trust on my part. I made the mistake of assuming Neurath was "Looking Glass" level material, even though I never actually followed his work - unlike how I followed Levine and, say, Doug Church.
Which is why I will be extra careful backing games from "veterans" in the future, except when I have significant insight into their motivation and skill-set.
That's what got me with both UA and SotA... went ahead with the blind trust in "seasoned developers" thinking remakes would be a slam dunk and to the tune of $600 I've had to learn that isn't the case. Anyway, from now on, at least for me, contributing to a crowd funder that markets itself with "seasoned professional X is involved" will have zero value to me from here on out.
Lately I find I agree with you TheMadGamer.
Can't add much that you haven't said already except it's shameful when an unknown small developer with a third of their project earnings makes a better game.
D
Darth Tagnan
Guest
Yeah, I know what you mean. 300$ is also a very large amount - so I can certainly see how it might hurt even more.
The only game I've backed at that level and beyond is Star Citizen - but, in that case, it's very much a case of knowing the skill-set of the key people involved and agreeing with the leads in terms of what they're doing every step of the way (at least, so far). Certainly, I'm very confident it will be worth my money - and then some.
I didn't back Star Citizen for more than a year, because I was so sceptical they could pull it off. After hundreds of interviews and videos involving the people in charge - I became convinced it was worth a great deal of support. Here's hoping I'm not wrong
For UA and SotA - I just backed them and didn't pay much attention until they were nearly finished. I prefer to not spoil myself following development too closely - even if I can't always help myself.
I can't even remember how much I backed them for. I think SotA was around 100$ and UA probably the same.
I will say, though, that SotA has improved lately - and it's not what I would consider a spectacular failure on the same level as UA. It's more like a really, really underwhelming and mediocre result - based on the Garriott pedigree.
But it's not really about the money for me. I'm fully aware that I'm taking a chance - and even if Star Citizen ends up being a failure against my expectations, the money won't be a factor in my disappointment.
I have this rule for myself that I never back something unless I'm already ok with it being a failure.
I think that's what you have to do - to keep this funding model alive.
That's because I very much want to keep crowd-funding around. I still see it as the only potential escape from the way capitalism has all but strangled creativity and daring in modern gaming.
I mean, when I see the kind of mainstream no-challenge and ancient game design games being declared best of all time these days, I almost shed a tear. If RDR2 and W3 is the best we can do in terms of gameplay, then it's a sad world indeed.
Don't get me wrong, I really like both games - and consider them good to great. But 10/10 - best of the best? Not even close to being in the vicinity of being close to that.