RPGWatch Feature - Encased Review

Great review @Redglyph;, thanks a lot!
Will definitly give it a shot after WotR.
 
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The thing is just that you get partial info. Partial info which is useless.
It's like if you asked me about the speed of 2 Cars. And I tell you Car 1 is 50km and Car 2 is 100km.
Now it's your job to sit in the car and see that Car 1 does these 50km in 30 minutes and Car 2 does the 100km in 2 hours. And if you assumed these would be per hour, you'd be wrong. Now…how much did I help with answering 50km and 100km?
In encased you have to have the skill and you have to have the weapon to have the skill in your action bar. Only then you are able to tell "ok, this skill is worthless, and so is the weapon".
I see what you mean.

IMO it's part of the discovery and the experience you get, but we all have our own approach. The AP cost and the available AP changes with other parameters anyway, so you would still only have partial information if they showed the AP cost in the ability. And since an increase in AP is tied to an increase in damage, it has little chance of being worthless.

It wouldn't hurt though, they could do it if the value was constant, or even show the base cost if it wasn't constant. That would at least give a good idea.

I did a quick search on Discord and found this in the suggestions (link):
Sky Cry — 16/10/2021
Please improve the descriptions of active abilities for weapons in the Abilities tab in Character screen:
1) It should display AP cost modifier (e.g., the fact that Blind Shot costs +4AP compared to normal shot)
2) It should display Fatigue cost (e.g., the fact that Blind Shot costs 150 fatigue)
3) It should display cooldown and all other additional properties (e.g., the fact that Blind Shot is +1000 precision is just mentioned as "maximum precision" in description without clarifying what it actually means.)
There were a few others, in Q&A and general channels.

I upvoted it, you never know, they may do it. They've already improved many user-friendliness issues in the UI (and elsewhere, like the companions) since the EA, a good part of that came from the feedback.
 
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The 3rd patch should be out next week. Let's hope it balances the content and populates the emptier areas.

Employees, the release of the third content patch is delayed until next week. We will try to polish the new content as much as possible, so that nothing will interfere with your enjoyment of the game.

Thank you for continuing to support us and we'll see you under the Dome!
 
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Glad I decided to wait on this for some patches. Also have a new PC coming in another 1-2 weeks unless it gets delayed in shipping. So bit of gaming limbo knowing I will have a new PC to setup with all my games and whether to start fresh or try to copy over saves. Not a big deal for umodded games but the modded ones require more work to move.

So decided to put Encased on hold and start fresh on the new PC.

Guess I will also get a chance to see how games will run on win11 since it comes with that.

Nice to see that are providing good support for this game and thanks for the updates and detective work @Redglyph;
 
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Nice to see that are providing good support for this game and thanks for the updates and detective work @Redglyph;

I am a bit split there.

Of course its nice that the devs keep working on it. And it's also not like the game is a broken mess.

But if anyone said, it was an early access version where half of the zones aren't finished yet, that would fit as well.
Same goes for all the balancing. It's not like anything doesn't work.
But after the first hours you also got to say that the combat balance is completely broken (I basically have one character shooting everything and my main character is just watching) and the skill system is somewhat pointless (after half the game you have more points than you could spend for anything useful.

The most obvious element where you can clearly see that the game isn't "finished" is when looking at the translation. The main quest entries in my German version are all often in English. And even worse, the translations of some content which had been added in later I guess (I got a big transporter car), they are a horrible mess. They are so bad, that google would have done a much better job. Like if they translated English first to Chinese and then to German. This is not throughout the game, but just with specific content shining through here and there and clearly identifyable as it's so terribly bad, it's always standing out.

The patch already had been scheduled for December. It was then rescheduled to last week, which had then been rescheduled for next week.
So let's see if it really gets released next week.
 
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Ah aye thanks for the added information. I only played through like the first act (when you wake up from the end of the act) and a little afterwards. I also play on easy so combat balance wouldn't stand out to me. Or translation issues.

Well hopefully they fix all those things then.

I do give most indie developers some leeway, especially due to COVID over the last two years as it made a real mess of things, so expect some delays.

Still seems like things are not all that polished at this point.
 
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I am a bit split there.

From all the previous discussions, I don't think you're on the fence, you just don't seem to enjoy much about Encased, if anything at all. You should let it rest at least until the two next patches are finished and stable.

Languages are often an issue with indie games, I always choose English. For non-English games it's not a guarantee either, but in the case of Encased it's been well done, including the voice acting. Not like ATOM RPG, which is average/OK and has many little mistakes.
 
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Yeah, another one that I'm quite glad that I've held off on, and will continue to do so for a while, yet. This year might be more filled for me with replaying classics and waiting on more modern games to get fully updated to playable states.
 
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From all the previous discussions, I don't think you're on the fence, you just don't seem to enjoy much about Encased, if anything at all. You should let it rest at least until the two next patches are finished and stable.

Languages are often an issue with indie games, I always choose English. For non-English games it's not a guarantee either, but in the case of Encased it's been well done, including the voice acting. Not like ATOM RPG, which is average/OK and has many little mistakes.

My "being split" was more regarding the "it's great that the developers care about stuff", because I think that that's what they are supposed to do.

I just mentioned the stuff which is working badly, but as mentioned, nothing is unusably broken. The writing (even the german translation) is actually quite good, and I think I mentioned before that I think the narrator (english voice) is superb.

And as I mentioned in another thread, I still voted this as my game of the year. Not that there was much competition I played :p
 
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My "being split" was more regarding the "it's great that the developers care about stuff", because I think that that's what they are supposed to do.

I just mentioned the stuff which is working badly, but as mentioned, nothing is unusably broken. The writing (even the german translation) is actually quite good, and I think I mentioned before that I think the narrator (english voice) is superb.

And as I mentioned in another thread, I still voted this as my game of the year. Not that there was much competition I played :p

Sure, just saying they still need to address the combat later and if you are more sensitive to all those issues, you'd get a better experience with a more polished game. :) Have you reported all those observations to them?

They do care in the sense they are really listening to the feedback and adapting the game when they can, instead of ignoring it. Not all devs are like that.

As @wolfgrimdark;, I tend to be more forgiving to small indie teams with their first game, and while I'm usually fussy about details (I reported a lot of issues) I'm probably easily satisfied when the base is good. But I agree that those steps should be done before release, in theory... in reality, I don't see many such games.

It's surprising that it takes so much time for those adjustments though.
 
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Thanks for the review!

I already have it installed but since they seem to be adding content with patches I'll hold off for a while.
 
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Thanks for the review!

I already have it installed but since they seem to be adding content with patches I'll hold off for a while.

Hey there, stranger ;)
 
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Same goes for all the balancing. It's not like anything doesn't work.
But after the first hours you also got to say that the combat balance is completely broken (I basically have one character shooting everything and my main character is just watching) and the skill system is somewhat pointless (after half the game you have more points than you could spend for anything useful.

Disappointed to hear about the balance issues, and it makes me glad I waited to play it.

For me, that's a much bigger concern than some empty areas. My enjoyment is significantly diminished if I reach a point in the game where there's little or no challenge. I really hope they get that sorted out.
 
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