Encased released!

I've seen more negativity on rpgcodex as time goes on that makes me uncertain about certain things.

There seems to be a lot of people that agree that it gets worse the longer it goes on, specifically that they find it obvious that the developers must have run out of funding and rush-jobbed it.

I've also seem a comment on HP bloat as the game goes on and that you need to upgrade your gear with crafting materials to remain parity, is that true?

You also get exp for looting things, is the game designed around exp balance for that, meaning that if you do not loot everything that isn't nailed down then you will suffer exp loss because of it?

Lots of reports of the game being real buggy too.

You gotten far enough in to comment on these things?
 
I've only played 11 hours or so. But I have also read the thread on the codex and they are probably right. If the game sells well enough I hope they can overhaul it in an enhanced edition. Otherwise it's an intersting game that could have been better executed.

The prolog is really good though. With that level of quality throughout it would have been great.

I have upgraded some of my weapons actually which is a feature I don't like since it reminds me of grindy games.
 
Finished it without killing anyone (had to restart at one point because the training dummies at Concord count as killing people for some reason).
Finished majority of side quests (Poisoned Well bugged out, tranq darts couldn't penetrate the Junktown Arena champion, skipped the Fops' arena and didn't bother collecting all 18 dog tags).

It feels unfinished (though not the Stygian level). Prologue and first chapter were good- loads of skill checks and side quests.
Then chapter two rolls out and you gain access to the City. I was expecting another Magellan, but it felt more like a prop town built on a nuclear test site.
Around 20 NPCs going in circles around the streets, empty houses, pharmacy without a vendor, two main quest buildings and a sewer corridor with 2 roaches and a corpse.

Fops base, Phalanx and Carmine Heights at least had some vendors, but there is no side content after you turn on the Emulator (aside from some main quest chores if you can't convince someone to help you and small locations with a single quest).

Near the end you meet leaders of every faction and they unlock extra ending options if you have enough reputation with their faction or pass skill checks. I didn't have enough reputation with anyone, because factions don't have any quests, aside from mentioned before MQ chores.

I liked the skill system- focuses on synergies with your main stats and other skills- for example Influence is the Speech and Barter fused together, but to use it to Threaten someone you have to pass the Strength requirement (similar with Charisma for Charm and Brains for Reasoning).
Or if you have high enough Guts (END) and Science, you can add your Guts to your Strength for the purpose of forcing a lock.
You also have special interactions and perks for dumping main stats to 1- my character had 1% to score a critical, but they were 10x more powerful.


TL;DR First half good (with great prologue), second half feels like exploring unfinished maps after launching them through console. They'd need pull off a Dead City (free ATOM expansion that fleshed out the final map with new quests, locations and characters) for it to be servicable.
 
I was skeptical if they could really make a huge game with only a 100,000 dollars. It may sound like a lot but it's really not, for the kind of game they're going for. I'm reading the thread for Atom: Trudograd on rpgcodex and it seems like everyone is enjoying that game way more then encased right now. I know which game I'm going to play at least.
 
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ironmask said:
I was skeptical if they could really make a huge game with only a 100,000 dollars. It may sound like a lot but it's really not, for the kind of game they're going for. I'm reading the thread for Atom: Trudograd on rpgcodex and it seems like everyone is enjoying that game way more then encased right now. I know which game I'm going to play at least.
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Been hearing the same honestly and not from the codex. So ATOM is apparently pretty good despite being oddly balanced? I'm interested in both. Will probably play ATOM first since the complete package will be cheaper than Encased when it gets a discount during a sale. Will probably pick it up in December.

Kinda out of cRPGs to play until I buy more. I mean I have some, just not the interest in them to play at the moment.
 
SquidWard said:
Been hearing the same honestly and not from the codex. So ATOM is apparently pretty good despite being oddly balanced? I'm interested in both. Will probably play ATOM first since the complete package will be cheaper than Encased when it gets a discount during a sale. Will probably pick it up in December.
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Even Atom has it's problems. There are times when you can tell that it's definitely a game made with 30,000 dollars. The combat is mediocre and doesn't do much to innovate. The dialogue can weird and cringey sometimes. Also the balance that you mentioned. And it also has a lot of filler fetch quest. Still I found it to be a very fun game. I don't know how much trudograd is an improvement.
 
Found something absolutely hilarious!

Encased gives you some experience for finding loot. It's not much, but if you loot every crate it adds up.

It also has random encounters with caravans- trader and 2 guards with some dialogue.

Someone on Steam forums posted that he started murdering them and was surprised how much experience he got- over 10 levels from a single merchant.

Why? He had his entire stock on his corpse! And you get experience for every item! So if you hit a weapons trader better prepare to spend those level ups.

Decided to experiment a bit. Trade system is similar to classic Fallout- you don't automatically get money for stuff you offer and if you "donate" some stuff to merchant you get some reputation with his faction.

So I reloaded my pacifist save before the final quest, found a merchant, killed him and got 7 levels. Reloaded before killing him, "donated" everything not essential (left some medkits for a fight, ammo for my laser gun) and then killed him. Everything I sold him was on his corpse and gave me 6 extra levels (for a total of 13).

You can really snowball it- you can "sell" stuff you looted from your previous victim to the next trader, kill him and get experience from you previous murder + whatever the next guy has on him!
 
@Proletären
You played any more of it yet? Seems like on RPGcodex that the general consensus is that it drops the ball halfway through the game and a lot of them have issues with the game at that point on.
 
That's probably true. I quit playing in Junktown and now I'm playing Vagrus.

The game is still alright at that point. I was probably just a bit overwhelmed by coming to a bigger settlement and having to talk to everybody so I haven't touched it for some weeks.

I'm aware of the Codex criticism and it's probably true. I will probably come back to Encased when I'm done with Vagrus. As I wrote above the prologue was really good and I'm excited to see where they go with the story.
 
Vagrus is very atmospheric and I find the setting intriguing. There's a lot of text in the prologue campaign but it's well written and keeps you interested. The game is also difficult without handholding and you can die by making the wrong decisions and then you have to replay from the last save.

The combat can be a challenge especially when you have one combat encounter after the other.

There are some missing features still but the game is worth checking out I think.
 
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