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[ChairmanPoo]

URTUK: THE DESOLATION.



https://urtuk.gamepedia.com/Urtuk:_The_Desolation_Wiki

http://www.urtuk.com/

https://www.gog.com/news/in_development_urtuk_the_desolation

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1181830/Urtuk_The_Desolation/

At it's core this is a tactical RPG, with procedural campaigns, in which you command a ragtag mercenary company, in a very grim, very dark world.  Your main character was afflicted by a mutation during an experimental procedure by an alchemist, and you travel the world looking for a solution to your ills. This is... as much as I've figured out of the main plot so far, but more unveils as the game goes on.
Graphics: very good, hand drawn. Vaguely reminiscent of Darkest Dungeon.

The gameplay itself:
- It's hex based strategy. Pretty much traditional hex-based strategy. Terrain is very important. If you have the high ground for instance you have an offensive advantage and a defensive penalty over those who dont. If the height difference is high enough and you use a ranged character, the damage you can deal is dangerous, and noone can strike back at you.... but if you get knocked off your perch, it might be game over.

- In the overmap you roam around gathering resources and finding places to explore. Map is proceduraly generated as well, clues you in as to how difficult a prospective encounter will be. After encounters you get loot, mutators (kind of... equippable special abilities), and resources which can be used in various ways.


- Tactics impression: I think the stat-to-rule-them-all is agility to act first and more often, followed by vitality (HP), strenght (plusdamage), focus (this one is the least by far.... once you build up enough focus you trigger party-wide special abilities.... but I get the feeling it's too situational and they're not that much better than the default ones?)

- More tactics-impressions: I think battlefield control abilities trump raw damage, in general.


- Integrated graphics support: Runs perfect, at least on 2017+ systems.

All in all, it seems a very entertaining game. Strategy/wargame lovers will probably enjoy it.

[EuchreJack]

You probably should mention how the player can recruit from their defeated enemies. That feature interested me from the pics.
Nevermind, it was just a quest to free some prisoners.
"you’re able to recruit from enemy factions" <- from press release.

Hm, it also appears to have conquest for income mechanics, and the maps change. Nevermind, the villagers are instead freed from thugs.

So, are they going for a hero type main character, or an ironic "everyone treat me like a hero because I'm the protaganist dammit" angle?  Or the realistic, "hey, you interpret what you interpret"?

The level of similarity between Darkest Dungeon and Urtuk: The Desolation has me thinking that at least one artist is shared between them.  It's almost the exact same style, yet the items are different.  Or maybe just a really, really good imitation of the style.

Ok, now I'm going to have to play this sometime to check it out.

I'm a little thrown off by the contradiction that the player will never die from their mutation yet "Unless he can find a way to counter his evolving mutation, Urtuk must eventually die."

It's like: "EuchreJack must find a cure for his horrible, horrible condition of being a human being, or he must eventually die."  Well, duh.  I'd sure hate to live for a measly 100 years, give or take a decade.

[ChairmanPoo]

You get told early on that the mutation wont actually kill you directly. Bad shit can happen as well as good shit though. Sometimes the mutation gives or takes wounds which can be a lifesaver or get you killed. 

[Folly]

What is the broad gameplay loop? Is this a sandbox, where you keep going as long as you want, or at least until you're strong enough to dominate anything on the map? Or more of a campaign, where you're driven to confront one bigbad and get the You Win gameover screen? Or more of a roguelike, where you survive as long as you can against increasing difficulty with no chance of ever reaching a real ending?

[ChairmanPoo]

Haven´t played it long enough yet, but I think that the campaign loop is better described as a roguelite. Think something vaguely akin to FTL´s, with interest points in which you  can intervene. ALthough unlike in FTL, I´ve not found any threats on the overmap. Yet, at least. They could happen later, or it could be that they haven´t been implemented yet (Early access game).

I have to say I like the combat a lot though. I wish Darkest Dungeon had this kind of combat system.

[Aoi]

I've pumped maybe 30 hours into this so far (and left preliminary thoughts in the Blurbs thread0, and while I've yet to reach any kind of a narrative conclusion yet, here's a combination of my own observations and what I've gleaned from other sources:

You'll never be strong enough to truly dominate, though I'm not sure if it's global or localized scaling-- and, unless it was fixed, you can easily be thrown into ridiculously bad situations. We're talking like 20+ ranged units on a siege map, and a literal one-tile wide path. You either need long range movement or absolutely dominating range combatants to stand a chance. Or just run away. And on the subject of running away... I've noticed that, for at least some combat types, you can kill half of them, take the retreat penalty, and reengage with a fresh team and half the enemies still dead.

You're not really treated like a hero. You're more of a named NPC, and since you play as that NPC, you're screwed if he dies.

You can definitely pick up units from differing factions. Some have different methods.

I disagree with Agility being the main stat-- you basically just need enough to eventually take your turn and avoid being stunlocked. If you're playing a high-mobility team, you're relying on terrain... shoving/throwing people into deathpits are, well, instant death, but there's a lot of guys who are immune to movement. Shoving them into walls or into deep pits will do damage and stun them... and since they're stunned, you have a speed advantage of them now so you can stunlock them. Instead, the ability to take hits is more important-- getting injured is costly to fix, and you're going to take damage eventually.

[ChairmanPoo]

Dont you get extra turns from extra agility? tooltip seemed to suggest you did.

Anyhow, I find that you can run out of stamina fairly quickly so it´s not a waste either case... but TBH the stamina increases are nothing to write home about either.

[EuchreJack]

Haven´t played it long enough yet, but I think that the campaign loop is better described as a roguelite. Think something vaguely akin to FTL´s, with interest points in which you  can intervene. ALthough unlike in FTL, I´ve not found any threats on the overmap. Yet, at least. They could happen later, or it could be that they haven´t been implemented yet (Early access game).

I have to say I like the combat a lot though. I wish Darkest Dungeon had this kind of combat system.

The wiki discusses a Cultist faction that is suppose to chase the player around.  Dunno if they plan to implement them as the equivalent to FTL's "Rebel Fleet".

[Aoi]

Dont you get extra turns from extra agility? tooltip seemed to suggest you did.

Anyhow, I find that you can run out of stamina fairly quickly so it´s not a waste either case... but TBH the stamina increases are nothing to write home about either.

(Everything here is based on an older version on medium difficulty, and the current version on easy... and based on my reading of the patch notes, Medium was made mostly easier too.)

You can, but it's pretty slim. From my understanding of it, which I totally do not guarantee accuracy, AGI regenerates Speed, it costs 100 Speed for a turn, and turns are taken in the order of most to least remaining speed, so somebody at 119 speed that generates 20 speed per tick would move before somebody generating 40 speed per tick but is only at 110... but the guy generating 40 speed per tick would get the next turn first. (Assuming I didn't botch my numbers... didn't bother checking validity.) The difference is so small that getting like one extra turn out of 15 is practically invisible... it's more important to just make sure that you have just enough that you won't have a key unit repeatedly bashed against a wall until they die.

The stamina gain is actually a bigger deal, I'd say, but it's kind of breakpoint-y. I don't remember off-hand, but something like 25 points is enough max stamina for an extra ranged assist from a crossbow or javelin. 10 points or so is enough for an extra hit if you use that trinket that prevents people from moving past you.

Starting the 30th day (I think it was increased to 50 in a recent update), there's a squad that chases you around the map that's aligned with the group that mutated you to begin with. I'm not sure what happens if you fight it off as I'm away from my desktop and I haven't had to deal with it on my laptop save yet. You CAN fight it though, and it's not an overpowered impossible battle. Edit: It's pretty easy on easy. You get generic battle rewards, which considering most battles have some kind of extra reward, means it kind of sucks.

I find the VIT and STR balance is mostly dependent on how many trinkets you use and how effectively you utilize a priest, if you use one. In a big battle, you'll basically be able to cast 1.5aegis a turn, or maybe 1aegis+2lifedrain, which cuts down on VIT requirements. And non-frontline priests are good place to pump CON... the starting trinket, Last Stand, is really useful and you can combo it with a priests high rate of special generation to begin with, lack of other necessary stats (STR is lousy on it to begin with and Lead doesn't depend on its own stats, it doesn't have much that synergizes with AGI like the rest, and VIT never hurts, but you can just keep it a few steps back from the frontline to begin with), on top of that trinket that lets you start off with your special precharged 2x. Unless you get some really good mods for your specials though, CON is a dump stat too. So enough AGI to keep at parity with your enemies (or a tiny bit more), CON if you use your specials, VIT/STR as necessary.

[ChairmanPoo]

I´m trying a new start with my improved knowledge of the mechanics after the previous post and a more careful reading of the rules. Now I´m investing in agi in my low agi characters mostly. My priest is getting mostly vit improvements and odd-man con points, and plan to use him mostly as a spellslinger support guy. My rangeds are fairly wimpy so are getting mostly vit boosts, with odd agi and str boosts to keep up.
All in all my party feels more solid, and I feel I´m getting more mileage by being able to risk shoving my characters into more dangerous situations with them surviving.

Could be that I just know the mechanics better, so I am doing better because of that. Still early days...

[Aoi]

I like my team of 3 ranged, a priest, a guardian, and a warmonk: The guardian has natural tankiness and knockback, the warmonk brings a great amount of mobility (survivability is kind of low though, since mobility usually means they're one of the first into battle... I compensate with more VIT and some cool defensive trinkets) and the ability to suplex somebody off a cliff, and the priest is purely there for defensive purposes... pure CON with Last Stand, Fast Thinker, and Improviser. They basically have to pop LS and Aegis on themselves at the start of the battle, but that allows them to take three+ hits off the bat without dying... and if they take more than that in a single turn, something went horribly wrong with my battlefield already. (And freakin' hell... I killed my priest for the fourth time popping a skill without checking his remaining HP... an 'are you sure?' box may be in order. -_-) The ranged units get to benefit from being at range and crossbowmen get traps for immob and the javelineers get to build chokepoints.

Another way to get units chasing you across the map is to get lucky and loot a good trinket after invading a town-- I picked one up that basically gives me 30%DR on everything after the first hit I take... and ended up with a small army trying to get it back.

Edit: There's blinky text in the tooltip box if it's fatal damage.

[ChairmanPoo]

I like to replace the berserker with the warmonk, regarding the three starting characters, but I try to avoid having him tank
In my book, he´s there to facilitate backstabs and occasionally flip characters into dead zones. Since he starts with a lot of agi already, I boost his vit so that he can survive better. I´m actually forced to use him this way for the next few missions because he got a wound after I got him surrounded two missions ago.

I´m kind of finding that the priest is the one who´s getting the least utility? I mean, the life leech ability is nice, but it hurts the priest. Granted you get HP back with killed enemies, still...

[Aoi]

I like to replace the berserker with the warmonk, regarding the three starting characters, but I try to avoid having him tank
In my book, he´s there to facilitate backstabs and occasionally flip characters into dead zones. Since he starts with a lot of agi already, I boost his vit so that he can survive better. I´m actually forced to use him this way for the next few missions because he got a wound after I got him surrounded two missions ago.

I´m kind of finding that the priest is the one who´s getting the least utility? I mean, the life leech ability is nice, but it hurts the priest. Granted you get HP back with killed enemies, still...

I'd say that's a pretty solid use of the warmonk-- and remember his default attack: The -Speed effect from getting hit in the face with a hammer means that they lose about a third of a turn.

Some units get new active skills at around L10; crossbowmen get +5range guaranteed crits, and priests get a healing skill... I don't actually use it much because of how it hurts the priest, and how I find Aegis generally more valuable, but it's a good way to recover if you screwed up and got somebody beaten up pretty badly. If you pump the priest's VIT enough to use him has a second-line (as opposed to waaaay off in the back), his options open up dramatically. Lifedrain, life-on-kill, heal-adjacent-allies-when-hit, heal-when-special's-maxed, Lead, Cover, are some of the ways to keep him standing and able to constantly keep support coming.

...I just backline him, myself. Though, I'm playing on Easy right now because it's so easy to derp mouseclicks when on a touchpad.

Edit: 5range, not +5range.

[ChairmanPoo]

I love that it works with integrated graphics and am playing it mostly on my small Dell XPS 13 from ´17. In part I´m using it to get used to my new logiteck trackman marble (I bought two trackballs, one is thumb driven and I have it on my main pc, and then I have this one, finger based, in my travel laptop.)

I kind of think that monk is a specially solid fit for assasin, which is otherwise lacklustre given that it´s main perk is double hit on crit. With a monk it becomes more doable.

[ChairmanPoo]

Yes, I´m realizing priests can do more things than I thought at first. The "painful healing" thing is really neat, specially if you use them as a frontliner... which I do, because even if they dont do much damage, they can assist in flaking for criticals, which is really nice.

I still find assasins to be really weak though. They are utterly dependent on getting crits to do their special thing.... but the thing is that ALL classes are better when dealing crits, and those with battlefield control abilities (that is, the war monk, the guardian, and the footman) have an easier time achieving that.

I´m finding that´s what your goal should be, in general. I mean, if you can throw someone into a deathpit without too much trouble so much for the better, but I find that the AI is generally able to avoid suiciding its own characters that way, so you can´t really expect them to fall into that kind of trap. Flanks, and assists, however, are far more viable. And that means that you can exploit your critical-only mutagens much more easily as well.

I stumbled upon an extra war monk, and I have one set up with bleed-on-crit and heal-on-hit-bleeder. We´ll see how that works out.