[Spoilers]Deep Caverns Faceless

[nbilling]

I enjoyed this game for about 115 hours, no spikes in difficulty, no unfair setups or broken quests or anything. Not even any particularly hard fights, just a nice gentle difficulty curve. Then I got to Deep Caverns and it totally soured me on the game.

The first thing I tried to do after I spoke with Six was to contact the Faceless at their checkpoint East-North-East of where you meet Six, but they turned me away and won't talk to me. Then I found another of their checkpoints to the North of that, and those guys wouldn't even talk to me a first time. Is there any way I can get them to let me in? Do I have to kill all the Faceless so I can scour those sectors for hydraulic fluid etc.?

The next thing I did was to head west to try and find the Tchortist base, but they wouldn't believe I was a Tchortist and beat themselves to death on my Ripper Glove. Didn't find any way to get deeper into their base.

I'm quite sure I have explored every inch of every sector I can access without angering the Faceless at this point and I am missing so many parts for the Tchort door. After having gone over each sector 2-3 times, searching for 120 seconds and then hiding idle in an interior for 50 seconds so EoT expires, and so on, I'm not enjoying the game anymore but I just feel like I have to finish it one way or another so that all the time I spent wasn't wasted D:

[Human Bean]

Publicado originalmente por Zetor:

DC IS a silly place :montypython:. That said, you just need to tell them what happened to the artifact (that it was taken by the acid hunters at core city), and they'll leave Foundry alone. You can either learn this info from Buzzer, or from a certain Foundry resident.

[Arch]

This is really crappy design. Really crappy.

How are you supposed to know that YOU MUST NOT HARM ANY FACELESS while they automatically shoot you on sight and are everyone's enemy?

[Big Boom Boom]

They don't automatically shoot you on sight...

[nbilling]

The Faceless in Buzzers shop shoot you on sight, except for the psionic on the top floor. So I think it's pretty reasonable for people to assume that the Faceless are just plain hostile like Lurkers or Azuridae, or any of the other generic hostile NPCs. For a first playthrough I think realizing the Faceless aren't inherently hostile depends on whether you use the burrower cave to get into Buzzer's shop or you use the front door.

[srg01]

Publicado originalmente por sixtyone:

The Faceless in Buzzers shop shoot you on sight, except for the psionic on the top floor. So I think it's pretty reasonable for people to assume that the Faceless are just plain hostile like Lurkers or Azuridae, or any of the other generic hostile NPCs. For a first playthrough I think realizing the Faceless aren't inherently hostile depends on whether you use the burrower cave to get into Buzzer's shop or you use the front door.

I think that's the brilliance of the game. Consequences actually matter.

I mean, even Old Man Jonas remarks on how they're not really good or bad...

[nbilling]

The reason people are complaining about it isn't that there are consequences, it's that you even having a choice is non-obvious. In fact, if I were to put myself in the shoes of someone just starting the Rail Crossing story arc, and I wanted to try and resolve it peacefully, I would definitely NOT try to sneak in past the guard as that is logically much more aggressive than just walking up to the front door and trying to talk with them. Once you approached the front door and were attacked the vast majority of people are just going to figure that the Faceless are inherently hostile and cannot be dealt with peacefully. Every other initially hostile NPC in the game cannot be made peaceful-- you can't make Lurkers friendly, or Lunatics, or Ironheads, etc.

[brassi77]

Publicado originalmente por sixtyone:

The reason people are complaining about it isn't that there are consequences, it's that you even having a choice is non-obvious. In fact, if I were to put myself in the shoes of someone just starting the Rail Crossing story arc, and I wanted to try and resolve it peacefully, I would definitely NOT try to sneak in past the guard as that is logically much more aggressive than just walking up to the front door and trying to talk with them. Once you approached the front door and were attacked the vast majority of people are just going to figure that the Faceless are inherently hostile and cannot be dealt with peacefully. Every other initially hostile NPC in the game cannot be made peaceful-- you can't make Lurkers friendly, or Lunatics, or Ironheads, etc.

I kind of agree and disagree. I am on my second play through without reading up on how to do it specifically to be allied with the faceless to open their shop. Last game they would not even be nuetral to me and let me into their territory.

I agree in the sence that if you don't do it perfect you can't be their ally, making becoming their ally more a special Easter Egg for people who are super peacefull or understood the hints the game gave better than I (and most others it seems).

I disagree in the sense that it really isn't a significant choice and does not really hurt you. Its just a nice little special something. And it also gives people motivation for more play throughs.

I think it would be nice if it had a few other checks, like if you killed Edein, things like that, and you just needed like 3 out of 6, or 3 out of 5 or something to become allies.

[nbilling]

Well I never said it was significant, but if I was going to speak for those who do think it's significant-- I think the big sticking point is that if the Faceless aren't friendly in DC then you have to wipe them (and their infinitely respawning patrols) out in order to find the items to open the door to Tchort.

I don't know if I'd say the main issue is the number of checks, but the communication to the player leading up to them. I'd bet that a large proportion of players don't bother doing the quests in Foundry and never even find out there are Faceless there. I, for instance, didn't event notice the mayor's office on my first playthrough and only found it on my second from reading the wiki. The interaction in Core City is handled much better, where the guy is right next to an objective from a mission you get via the SGS story arc. The Rail Crossing one is a pretty bad failure to communicate to the player what their options are, and they are totally unintuitive so you could never expect the player to discover them on their own without dumb luck.

The interaction in the institute of Tchort is a cool idea, but again the communication with the player is botched when they warn you to flee and if you really do flee then the story just gets stuck until you go back and talk to Eiden anyway. Then to top it all off, when you get to DC, Six tells you that the Faceless will help you if you are friendly to them except, nope, it's too late for that and your reaction from the Faceless is set in stone already.

[srg01]

In reality, it's pretty hard to screw up and get the Faceless to become hostile to you. I only got one out of three checks done (helped the Faceless near Rail Crossing, attacked the Faceless at Buzzer's shop, and forgot about the Faceless prisoner) and they were neutral to me in DC.

[nbilling]

But 'neutral' Faceless in DC is no different from hostile since in order to get the hydraulic parts you have to either wipe them out or stealth past them. Entering their sectors and passing the checkpoints when 'neutral' makes them hostile.

[Leventhan]

Regarding the Rail Crossing Faceless quest, when you talk to the mayor a second time he will mention a pair of trap doors you can use to enter Buzzer's shop without going through the front doors. He even gives you the keys. You can also lockpick it. Do this and you can skip the guards.

[nbilling]

Correct, and I think everyone in this thread is aware of that given we are discussing what happens when you do that. The issue is whether or not there is any indication to the player that going through the burrower tunnel is less hostile to the faceless than going through the front door, since intuitively sneaking up on someone is much more hostile than just approaching them face to face.

[Big Boom Boom]

Publicado originalmente por sixtyone:

But 'neutral' Faceless in DC is no different from hostile since in order to get the hydraulic parts you have to either wipe them out or stealth past them. Entering their sectors and passing the checkpoints when 'neutral' makes them hostile.

That is not neutral. Neutral ALLOWS you to pass the check points and even help you kill wildlife if you pull wildlife to them. I pulled a bunch of Ancient Rathound and let them picked those off. They even invited you to their base to speak to the Commander. The only difference is they won't allow you to trade/help you against Tchort. You can't free prisioner. You can not enter their red cursor door. You are free to loot the Warehouse sector.

What you described is HOSTILE. Not NEUTRAL.

In order to be true NEUTRAL, you need to pass 2 out of 3 encounters with them. I killed a hella lot of Faceless during Institute invasion before hightail to elevator when Edein dropped from infinite Faceless respawns. Still NEUTRAL.

[Altos]

Publicado originalmente por Big Boom Boom:

I killed a hella lot of Faceless during Institute invasion before hightail to elevator when Edein dropped from infinite Faceless respawns. Still NEUTRAL.

I don't think (although I could definitely be wrong) that killing Faceless in that Institute battle affects your relationship with them. There is a thread on the underrail.com forums that list how the relationship status (i.e. enemy, neutral, ally) is calculated within the game files, titled "Events at Rail Crossing and how they affect the Endgame" or something like that. Can't remember exactly what I titled it.

[nbilling]

Publicado originalmente por Big Boom Boom:

Publicado originalmente por sixtyone:

But 'neutral' Faceless in DC is no different from hostile since in order to get the hydraulic parts you have to either wipe them out or stealth past them. Entering their sectors and passing the checkpoints when 'neutral' makes them hostile.

That is not neutral. Neutral ALLOWS you to pass the check points and even help you kill wildlife if you pull wildlife to them. I pulled a bunch of Ancient Rathound and let them picked those off. They even invited you to their base to speak to the Commander. The only difference is they won't allow you to trade/help you against Tchort. You can't free prisioner. You can not enter their red cursor door. You are free to loot the Warehouse sector.

What you described is HOSTILE. Not NEUTRAL.

In order to be true NEUTRAL, you need to pass 2 out of 3 encounters with them. I killed a hella lot of Faceless during Institute invasion before hightail to elevator when Edein dropped from infinite Faceless respawns. Still NEUTRAL.

If you rescue Buzzer and the Core city Faceless and skip Foundry then you are hostile. That is a really natural progression for someone who's not deliberately grinding, or even trying to save some content for future playthroughs.

E: not to mention, that given how unexpected the point of no return is, it's very likely that people could get to DC while putting off Foundry and then be unable to go back.