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 Mission accomplished   What a load of crap that stunlock is though. Apple2o fucked around with this message at 07:10 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 07:02
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Apple2o posted:
*squeals*
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Feb 5, 2015 07:21
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Internet Kraken posted:I just tried to do an intermediate warrens mission with my A team and it was a complete failure. Third battle everyone misses, every attack crits, my Graverobber succumbs to blight. I run away screaming. Everything is terrible Armor has to bought individually for each hero. The quality of armor you can buy for them depends on their resolve level. Levels 1-4 each allow you to buy weapons, skills, and armor 1 step better. Level 4 characters are as strong as you can get, passive stress resist (that might not actually exist) aside. Keep in mind, that the core of this mechanic is that a level 3 character who hasn't had any upgrades purchased is no more powerful than someone fresh off the wagon. You NEED armory and guild upgrades to break into Veteran level dungeons. Rashomon posted:This game is cool but the balance is pretty bad. Like, getting to the early boss Cannibalistic Hag and then wiping my four strongest characters because I had no way of hitting the back row except one really weak attack. Thanks, game! That sucks. Sounds like you should have retreated because you picked a bad party for that fight. I know it really stings and feels cheap the first time you get into a fight that you lost all the way back at the embark screen, but that's something that happens in this game. Lesson learned I hope. If you get into another boss fight that will wreck you, retreat and try to recoup the cost of supplies by looting the rest of the dungeon.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:22
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Waffle! posted:I hate it when I'm two rooms into a mission, barely scratched, and I get hit with hunger and have to waste 4 food. Know what sucks worse? Burning all your food on heals because your on the last square before the last room and getting hit with hunger. That mechanic is so stupid.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:27
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I had a similar experience with the Hag but felt it was my fault. The forest is full of those witches that gently caress with your positioning all the time so I was starting to think I needed to build a group that could fight well despite position fuckery. Shame I didn't actually follow through on that feeling before fighting the Hag though. I actually restarted the game though because I felt I was stuck in a cycle of barely making it through easy dungeons due to a lack of supplies. I know losing guys isn't the end, but I feel that you manage gold poorly you can get stuck in a cycle where you can't properly supply for missions so they go terribly and this just repeats itself over and over.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:28
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Ohman, Highwayman followed by Grave Robber and Hellion. Point Blank shot, alternating with stuns and repositions from the Grave Robber (with a +stun trinket!)... The Hellion doesn't care where she ends up, and will start devouring souls if she ever gets pushed to the front lines (with double stun and back-line nuke). Then there's the +20% damage Battle Trance camp skill to gently caress up bosses.  Edit: Ugh, Swine Prince one shot Dismas to death's door, and then piglet hit for 1 right after.  His DD attack looked like it may only hit front 2 rows, so try and move back if you get marked I guess. RubberBands Hurt fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 07:30
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Are there any plans to add more enemy diversity to the game? It's a little maddening having skeleton courtiers/swine wretches show up in every encounter.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:39
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paranoid randroid posted:Are there any plans to add more enemy diversity to the game? It's a little maddening having skeleton courtiers/swine wretches show up in every encounter. There's a bunch of new enemies when you hit the 3 and 5 dungeon levels. And of course the two areas that are not implemented.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:45
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Is there a trick to getting a decent healer? The occultist's heal is decent, but the Vestal's is pretty terrible. I get that heroes are disposable, but if I'm constantly replacing dead heroes, I'm not really improving my old ones. Does the Vestal's heal get better with levels or are there hidden heal mechanics or what? Sorry if this sounds bitchy. I'm really digging this game, but I can force only doing 2-5 healing per shot being next to useless once I get past the beginner level dungeons.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:52
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Hellburger99 posted:Is there a trick to getting a decent healer? The occultist's heal is decent, but the Vestal's is pretty terrible. I get that heroes are disposable, but if I'm constantly replacing dead heroes, I'm not really improving my old ones. Does the Vestal's heal get better with levels or are there hidden heal mechanics or what? It isn't really useless at all, I'm not sure what you're expecting. The group heal and single target heal are both good and get better as you upgrade them. Healing is not a given in this game. Focus on using stuns to help recovery health and/or stress early on in fights as well as to reduce the damage you take in the first place.
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Feb 5, 2015 07:54
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The vestal's heals get better with levels, but you're also getting better ways to deal with incoming damage, so the 2-5 healing remains relevant. I've never had any healing problems with either an Occultist or Vestal past level 0/1, either one should be able to keep your party at full health if you're upgrading skills and armor/weapons. If you're having healing problems, stop trying to use status effects like stuns and just kill things faster. You can end fights in 1-3 turns and prolonging them any longer by using skills that don't do high damage is going to bite you in the rear end. If you're not ending fights in 1-3 turns it's time to hop on the Grave Robber/Highwayman bandwagon. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 07:59 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 07:55
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Funnypost Collabo posted:The vestal's heals get better with levels, but you're also getting better ways to deal with incoming damage, so the 2-5 healing remains relevant. I've never had any healing problems with either an Occultist or Vestal past level 0/1, either one should be able to keep your party at full health if you're upgrading skills and armor/weapons. Been using an Occultist at the start in a party similar to your movement based one, but getting into higher levels is making me really prefer the vestal instead. Her heals are healing for a fair amount more at once now, but really like that I don't have to worry about rng messing up her heals. I get wasted turns of Bleed hitting but no health from the Occultist way too often for my tastes.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:06
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Yeah, I started to lean toward the Vestal as I got in to later dungeons, too. Her heal scales so much better than the Occultist's... his should gain some minimum heal as well. There have been a few situations where it screwed me and I had to retreat after like four turns in a row of healing 0-2 damage. He's generally fine but that unreliability has prevented me from using him in Level 5s.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:10
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I'll try to stunlock when I can just so my vestal can heal up the party before I win a fight. Lots of stance-dancing. e: \/ One of the vestal's attack spells also heals her a little bit, her stun spell doesn't. I have a bounty hunter with flashbangs and decent speed to usually go first. Waffle! fucked around with this message at 08:22 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 08:11
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I guess I'll put a few more hours into it then. Healing is mostly frustrating because 1) you can't heal outside of combat and 2) you can't heal even close to the amount of damage that monsters inflict per turn. And did I read that right that stunning monsters heals you? I haven't noticed that at all.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:17
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I feel really bad for my Vestal, who has resolved never to drink but has developed an unnatural thirst for the stuff Hellburger99 posted:I guess I'll put a few more hours into it then. Healing is mostly frustrating because 1) you can't heal outside of combat and 2) you can't heal even close to the amount of damage that monsters inflict per turn. And did I read that right that stunning monsters heals you? I haven't noticed that at all. Nah, you just keep one enemy alive but stunned and have the vestal heal up. Cheesy but effective I suppose.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:20
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Hellburger99 posted:I guess I'll put a few more hours into it then. Healing is mostly frustrating because 1) you can't heal outside of combat and 2) you can't heal even close to the amount of damage that monsters inflict per turn. And did I read that right that stunning monsters heals you? I haven't noticed that at all. it doesn't heal per se, but it gives you a turn free of incoming damage to heal up a bit more
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Feb 5, 2015 08:21
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Funnypost Collabo posted:Yeah, I started to lean toward the Vestal as I got in to later dungeons, too. Her heal scales so much better than the Occultist's... his should gain some minimum heal as well. There have been a few situations where it screwed me and I had to retreat after like four turns in a row of healing 0-2 damage. He's generally fine but that unreliability has prevented me from using him in Level 5s. The party heal is what makes the difference for me. Once it starts healing for 3 consistently it's pretty nice at topping multiple people off who got into traps, or weren't fully healed from the big heals, or took some bleed/blight damage, etc. Haven't done any level 5 dungeons yet though, are stuns even still worth having then, or is stun resist just too much to really get any mileage out of the stun move? Thinking about using Judgment/Illumination instead along with both heals so she can hit any enemy from any position for finishing things off. Her stun only hits the first 2 spots anyway, and usually grave robber is stunning that a lot anyway while repositioning.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:34
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Hellburger99 posted:I guess I'll put a few more hours into it then. Healing is mostly frustrating because 1) you can't heal outside of combat and 2) you can't heal even close to the amount of damage that monsters inflict per turn. And did I read that right that stunning monsters heals you? I haven't noticed that at all. You can stunlock monsters to squeeze out extra safe turns to heal. Healers are about controlling the damage you take, making sure that character's don't get death's doored, and squeezing out extra hitpoints when you can. Also you can use food to heal outside of combat. It's very gold-costly, but there are ways to get surpluses of food, and if you're at the last fight in a quest, there's no reason not to devour all your food as heals before you start the fight. It's also good if you've got a character who's taken a really bad beating and is near death's door, if you want to minimize risk and get a few more buffer hp. Rashomon posted:This game is cool but the balance is pretty bad. Like, getting to the early boss Cannibalistic Hag and then wiping my four strongest characters because I had no way of hitting the back row except one really weak attack. Thanks, game! Run away. Periodiko fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 08:35
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I really think this game would be better if it was rebalanced so that every encounter is intended the be potentially lethal but you always heal to full afterwards. Status buffs could have permanent malices for their duration rather than just doing trivial damage. I think games are a lot better when every fight has the chance to be deadly rather than having you simply be worn down due to attrition.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:41
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I think they're thematically going for the sort of tension you get with attrition and managing health as a long-term resource, though.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:45
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Internet Kraken posted:I really think this game would be better if it was rebalanced so that every encounter is intended the be potentially lethal but you always heal to full afterwards. Status buffs could have permanent malices for their duration rather than just doing trivial damage. I think games are a lot better when every fight has the chance to be deadly rather than having you simply be worn down due to attrition. This would ruin any idea of making the length of a dungeon matter. Whats the difference between a short or long dungeon when after every fight you heal back to full. I envision that design decision leading two outcomes in player behavior; If you heal to full after every fight, you could go forever, so long as you felt you could handle each battle individually. Or, each fight could potentially kill me, get the gently caress out of the dungeon ASAP. That sounds pretty lovely to me, every mission being all or nothing. Not the right style for this at all. e: and like Freekill says, kills the atmosphere, resource management, health/stress, etc.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:47
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Knowing that to play optimally I need to stun an enemy indefinitely so my party doesn't get murdered next fight is pretty poo poo though. There needs to be a better way to heal outside of combat at the very least. Because as fun as this game is, this part of it is really lovely.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:50
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 But, but, I've been playing this game for days! And my graphics card tops out at 2.1...
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Feb 5, 2015 08:55
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Internet Kraken posted:There needs to be a better way to heal outside of combat at the very least. There is camping.
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Feb 5, 2015 08:56
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Internet Kraken posted:Knowing that to play optimally I need to stun an enemy indefinitely so my party doesn't get murdered next fight is pretty poo poo though. There needs to be a better way to heal outside of combat at the very least. Because as fun as this game is, this part of it is really lovely. Well, first off you can not stun an enemy indefinitely. They have resists, so there's always risk it won't work, and any ability that lands deals at least 1 damage, so it will die eventually. Mostly though, if you feel you need to do this, you are doing something wrong. If you are getting your rear end kicked that much, maybe the dungeon is too hard for you. Maybe if you've hit the point where you feel the need to stun cycle healing it's time to retreat, you've gone as far as you can go. The game doesn't incentivize this behavior, you're unwillingness to know your limits or desire to grind out treasure beyond your reach or means causes this behavior. e: And gently caress it. 'Playing optimally'? What do you even mean by that? The loving load screen before the main menu spells out 'poo poo WILL GO WRONG, PEOPLE WILL DIE, THAT IS THE KIND OF GAME THIS IS. DON'T BE A HUGE PUSSY'. Play the drat game, have fun. Don't get your panties twisted because you don't 100% wreck every dungeon every time and can't keep everyone at full HP all the time. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 08:56
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The game incentives it so far that it is an effective strategy with no drawbacks aside from being tedious. On the other hand, aborting a dungeon is also not fun.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:00
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Jade Star posted:e: And gently caress it. 'Playing optimally'? What do you even mean by that? The loving load screen before the main menu spells out 'poo poo WILL GO WRONG, PEOPLE WILL DIE, THAT IS THE KIND OF GAME THIS IS. DON'T BE A HUGE PUSSY'. Play the drat game, have fun. Don't get your panties twisted because you don't 100% wreck every dungeon every time and can't keep everyone at full HP all the time. This is a turn-based rogue-like tactical game, "playing optimally" is a large part of the point. Saying that the proper way to play a strategy game is to intentionally use bad strategies is asinine.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:06
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Another effective strategy is to just run high-dodge characters because they're virtually invincible and wreck every dungeon without worrying about health  The combat in this game is never unmanageable. There will be times when you go in to a fight with low HP but I've found that a single healer character has been enough to keep me alive and I can consistently expect to come out of that fight with more HP than I entered with unless I get a terrible string of not-dodges. I'm 48 weeks in and my graveyard has 8 characters in it, four of them died in a single party wipe in the first few weeks. It really just comes down to "Pick high damage skills and movement attacks, ignore skills that apply status effects, focus down the weakest enemies first." Couple this with a healer casting a heal skill every turn and enough food/torches to get you through the dungeon and you will be completing the vast majority of your quests without losing anyone. If you carry ~12 food and a couple medicinal herbs (which let you get tons of food off of a lot of environment objects), you can save the 12 food for feeding your party and use any food you find for healing. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 09:21 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 09:10
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Jade Star posted:Well, first off you can not stun an enemy indefinitely. They have resists, so there's always risk it won't work, and any ability that lands deals at least 1 damage, so it will die eventually. You're getting really mad about an early access game that obviously has a bunch of balance and gameplay issues still. Chill out. Periodiko posted:This is a turn-based rogue-like tactical game, "playing optimally" is a large part of the point. Saying that the proper way to play a strategy game is to intentionally use bad strategies is asinine. This. I don't like using cheesy bullshit strategies but I also don't like one guy being put into death's door by a crit and then having no way to deal with it other than stalling for turns so I can heal him. Shoving food down his throat is expensive, inefficient, and can screw you over if the dungeon goes to long. Waiting til the next fight to heal might work out, but then all it takes is a bit more bad RNG for that guy to die. And since you can be surprised even with a fully lit torch, you don't have much way to mitigate that RNG. You can back out of dungeons, but if you're on a tight budget that can screw you since you spent a bunch of gold with no return depending on how far you got. So basically, I could take a bunch of risks that can cause catastrophic failure. Or I can just stunlock this dog and heal my guy up, resolving all those problems before they can happen. Its bad design that I'm making that choice in the first place. Internet Kraken fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 09:15
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Periodiko posted:This is a turn-based rogue-like tactical game, "playing optimally" is a large part of the point. Saying that the proper way to play a strategy game is to intentionally use bad strategies is asinine. You're missing what he's trying to say. His point is that this is a game where there isn't really always a perfect, no casualties, optimal way through. It's not intentionally playing badly, it's accepting that sometimes everything will go to poo poo, and a major part of becoming good at the game is to figure out how to recover from those situations. ...At least, that's what I'd figure his point is. Anyways, loving the game. It's utterly covered in style, which is a surefire way to get me interested. Definitely looking forward to the full release.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:17
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SomeIdiot posted:You're missing what he's trying to say. His point is that this is a game where there isn't really always a perfect, no casualties, optimal way through. It's not intentionally playing badly, it's accepting that sometimes everything will go to poo poo, and a major part of becoming good at the game is to figure out how to recover from those situations. No, Periodiko is right, you missed the point. If anything the problem is that there IS "perfect" strategies but they're boring. mycot fucked around with this message at 09:25 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 09:19
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The game doesn't encourage the stun/heal strategy because the only way to find yourself in that position is by making mistakes with combat or party composition. I'm sure it's true that you fail after a string of bad luck, but that bad luck caused you to fail because your party wasn't configured to handle it or you didn't prioritize the right targets. What the game encourages is trying a different approach until you no longer need to stunlock someone to heal your party. The Woad, Warrens, and Crypt are all a little different and require different strategies. You're going to want to make changes to your party's skills or composition or relics depending on which one you're in. As you become familiar with each dungeon you know which rows the biggest threats spawn in and can build a team that eliminates them quickly (the advantage of the movement team is that it eliminates everything quickly no matter where it is). Don't write off any characters except the Plague Doctor because the rest of them are all really good in their own right. If you find any other classes useless, it's because you're not using them correctly in the environment you're bringing them in to. Don't feel like you need a 'tanky' character because there's nothing to make enemies prioritize them. This makes characters that dodge well extremely good because they have higher mitigation (through dodging a lot of attacks) but lower health. Less damage is being done and the amount of damage being done is easier to heal before the character takes more damage. It has been said a hundred or more times in this thread but the key to success in this game is eliminating enemies as fast as you possibly can. This means that using a turn to cast a stun or a debuff is almost always a bad idea. These skills have uses against specific enemy types that have low resistance and high HP pools, or when they're tied to other effects (the dodge buff on the Grave Robber's stun). Avoid using these skills in a Level 1 dungeon because there are no enemies that are threatening and don't die fast; everything that does a scary amount of damage to you in level 1 dungeons is extremely squishy and will die in 1 or 2 hits. The absolute hardest part of this game is when your characters don't have their skills upgraded to rank 3+ and don't have their weapons/armor upgraded to rank 2+. Your skills become more consistent with every level, gaining accuracy and crit and allowing you to consistently kill things in an expectable number of turns. This is kind of the point - anyone below Rank 2 is a new addition and you shouldn't be attached to them. If you play well you can expect them to not die, but you can never entirely prevent it. There will always be a minor RNG element because that is the essence of the game; the entire theme of the game is that no matter how well you prepare, things can and will always go wrong. There will always be times, because of Confirmation Bias, that you're convinced that the RNG is screwing you. But once you understand the combat mechanics a little better and realize that you need to be rushing to turn your enemies in to corpses instead of trying to prevent them from turning you in to corpses, the RNG deciding to vomit all over you is more of a thorn in your side than something that ruins your quest. Besides, no matter what happens or how many heroes die, you never lose more than the current dungeon's progress. edit: I'm sorry for writing this many words about a video game.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:37
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efbInternet Kraken posted:This. I don't like using cheesy bullshit strategies but I also don't like one guy being put into death's door by a crit and then having no way to deal with it other than stalling for turns so I can heal him. Shoving food down his throat is expensive, inefficient, and can screw you over if the dungeon goes to long. Waiting til the next fight to heal might work out, but then all it takes is a bit more bad RNG for that guy to die. And since you can be surprised even with a fully lit torch, you don't have much way to mitigate that RNG. You can back out of dungeons, but if you're on a tight budget that can screw you since you spent a bunch of gold with no way return depending on how far you got. A few caveats to what you say: Getting one shotted by an enemy is rare, even after being surprised. I've run about 20 dungeons and I'm yet to go from "I'm fine" to "I'm boned" without any imput on my part. If you decide on a party that is slow as molasses, has no mobility whatsoever, and press on with half health and stress, it's your decision, and yeah, the game can gently caress you up. Most of the heals are big enough or spread enough to keep your party fit. You should NOT need to stall 4 turns in order to bring someone out of deaths door. If you're healing with a Occultist instead of a Vestal, again, you're putting your fate on the hands of the RNG, and it can and WILL bone you. Stuns aren't a sure thing. You cannot stack 2 turns of stun on an enemy, so by missing one stun you can eat a critical or undo all the healing work you've done the last turns. In your example, that dog is probably going to go first because they are fast as gently caress and it's going to make someone squishy in the back rows bleed. So the decision isn't as "should I grind heals for 20+ turns and be good as new or die horribly to the next enemy" as you are making it look like. You have WAY more agency and control about battles than you think. The only times I've found myself stalling for more than a couple of turns was when trying to heal Stress below the level I entered the dungeon with.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:41
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Funnypost Collabo posted:everything that does a scary amount of damage to you in level 1 dungeons is extremely squishy and will die in 1 or 2 hits. bone arbalist will gently caress up your day and has more hp than every other level 1 skeleton save the big one
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Feb 5, 2015 09:44
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Funnypost Collabo posted:
I was with you until here. Are we even playing the same game? Unless I'm using a knight guy against undead and he gets high damage rolls each time, most enemies take at least three hits if not more to kill and that's not including dodges.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:44
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this game has bent me over and hosed me sideways repeatedly It's awesome.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:48
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mycot posted:If anything the problem is that there IS "perfect" strategies but they're boring. I'd say that's a fair point, but there's plenty of things that keep those strategies from being feasible. Like stun resists, the way health restoration works in the game, etc. And even if the game did facilitate that sort of play, it's a little silly to point at things that the developers obviously didn't intend for you to try and do, then complain that playing in that way is boring.
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Feb 5, 2015 09:49
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Tollymain posted:bone arbalist will gently caress up your day and has more hp than every other level 1 skeleton save the big one He only has 16HP which is 1-2 attacks worth. You should always be able to focus them down pretty quickly. Nuebot posted:I was with you until here. Are we even playing the same game? Unless I'm using a knight guy against undead and he gets high damage rolls each time, most enemies take at least three hits if not more to kill and that's not including dodges. What level are you? At rank 0 and 1 it's a little iffy, but by the time I was hitting rank 2 my guys were hitting for 10-30+ damage a turn with ~80+% accuracy unless debuffed. It only takes two or three short dungeons to get someone to rank 2 and you can do a lot of the Short quests with only 2 or 3 combats. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 09:53 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 09:51
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Actually, for you guys having trouble with healing and stuff - are you trying to clear the entire dungeon or just rushing the quest objectives? I try to get a Highwayman campfire scouting buff up whenever possible and avoid any hallway/room I don't need to visit. On the "Complete 100% of room battle" quests, you can avoid all hallway fights and any room that isn't red/yellow(/blue? Blue means Quest Objective and I can't remember if they appear blue or red [indicating a fight room] on those quests) on the map when revealed. Try to avoid the ones where you have to find 3 of an item because they're annoying, the quest items can be in unmarked hallways forcing you in to extra fights and they take up inventory space. If you're trying to clear every fight they probably will grind you down. Experience comes from completing the quest, not from combat, so there's no penalty to avoiding fights. deep dish peat moss fucked around with this message at 09:59 on Feb 5, 2015 |
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Feb 5, 2015 09:56
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