Blood and Tears

[WhyNotZoidberg]

1.) I see what you did there!

2.) Serious talk: I find it odd that blood is rewarded immediately when scoring hits (realised my mistake here), but tears only when you successfully drive opponents away. Given that morale based attacks deal far less dmg when compared to other attacks, may I make a few suggestions?

Edit: realised my mistake, see above, still, I think it's comparably easier to kill than to demoralise.

a.) Please add "morale resistance" to heroes, because morale is the only stats that is not influenced by anything than another status condition. The only way we can abuse it as a weakness is simply by looking at the gauge of each individual hero. HOWEVER, they have comparably more morale (most of them) than they have HPs when compared to other attacks, PLUS, we can choose to deal more dmg by abusing weaknesses and resists. That is not the case for morale. We have "despair" and "terrify". Although I understand that terrify essentially means -100% resistance, it is a quite rare status effect, and often useless, depending on the exact layout of the dungeon, given that there are only few creatures who can use it.

b.) Tears are ultra-rare currency and extremely hard to come by. May I suggest a % based approach to gaining tears , depending on the gauge of the hero? E.g. 25% morale loss on a hero sheds 1 Tear, giving 4 max tears per hero. Party wipe only due to morale loss COULD earn you extra.

Although my second suggestion is really not necessary to win the game, I must confess, later on removing heroes by morale loss seems unrewarding, because the "morale boost" ability is way too OP here, again, mainly given due to the fact that heroes have way more morale when compared to HP and compared to the ways the player has to deal with both. Blood gets the job done fine enough and I gain up to 6 per hit with my strong hitters.

Tears, I noticed, are however reasonably more powerful and can e.g. increase initiative and resist stats on your dungeon master. Also, the sanctuary has a lot of stronger abilities, often, when you can afford tears instead of blood.

I just think tears are reasonably hard to earn, especially later on in the game, because the ways to reduce morale seem so weak when compared to the ways to just deal dmg to heroes.

Just bouncing a few ideas around, don't hate me. Or DO hate me, aren't we all monsters here?

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Okay, never heckin' mind, I found some new combos. Ingore this.

Upgrade Gargoyles to lvl 2 if you wanna go full morale dmg

[Candle Light]

I won the game 4 times and moral-win was the easiest one.
And to be honest it's kinda boring compared to going into vs HP mode.

Although I did have moral talents taken for that run on my Master and maybe I highrolled in that run, cause I was just running with 2 moral-catapults + 2 lvl 4 gargoyles among other things and only final champion -- anti-debuff lady made it to my Master.

But as far as game experience goes I find morale scare tactic unsatisfying.
And since you can't really go for both Blood and Tears there is a problem of rolling into upgrades that require resource you can't realistically collect.

I feel like morale should be in a different, more complementary relationship with winning.
For example like in Battle Brothers --> you do damage, you kill heroes --> ones that are still alive start wavering in morale and lose accuracy, perhaps in Legend of Keepers heroes can lose speed (initiative), strength (damage), resistances or get some other debuffs as their morale drops.

There also seems to be no reason for having Blood and Tears separate from Gold or from each other as resources. Both blood and tears are earned and spent in the same places on similar things, and more importantly -- how much blood/tears you earn is very strictly limited by elements of the game player has no control over. Player can't earn more or less blood/tears based on how well he performs. You can calculate how much blood+tears a player will have at any week. These currencies essentially can be replaced with checkpoints at certain weeks where a player is given a choice among 3 stat improvements for his Master or among 3 global curses/buffs and game will remain largely unchanged, yet less confusing.

[WhyNotZoidberg]

You brought up a good point.

Let's sacrifice creatures for blood in events, or lock them away for 12 weeks for tears!

More blood! More tears!

Also: slight disagreement, both blood and tears are used for different things, you can't e.g. spend blood for improving speed on your hero. Focusing on what resource you wanna farm is up to the player.

[Robin]

I like the mechanic as it is now. Gives some specific resource depending on how you win your way. Also relevant because each enemy comp has easier and harder ways to deal with them. Also you get different possible rewards depending on if you're high on blood or tears, so it works as a kind of 2nd tier/specialization currency.

Imo works fine as it is

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Originally posted by Robin:

I like the mechanic as it is now. Gives some specific resource depending on how you win your way. Also relevant because each enemy comp has easier and harder ways to deal with them. Also you get different possible rewards depending on if you're high on blood or tears, so it works as a kind of 2nd tier/specialization currency.

Imo works fine as it is

I can accept that, after all, I said I kinda screwed up and told everybody to ignore me :P

[Candle Light]

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

You brought up a good point.

Let's sacrifice creatures for blood in events, or lock them away for 12 weeks for tears!

More blood! More tears!

Also: slight disagreement, both blood and tears are used for different things, you can't e.g. spend blood for improving speed on your hero. Focusing on what resource you wanna farm is up to the player.

I didn't say they are used for the same things, I said similar things. Blood and Tear costs are attached to different curses, buffs and improvements, but none of them are worth the costs associated with pursuing mixed farming of both Blood and Tears and only a select few are actually complementary to going for morale/hp damage while majority of things you buy with Blood and Tears are useful regardless of whether you are beating heroes via morale or hp -- such as upgrades to Master's speed, power, hp, armor, resistances, enraged monster buff works for both as well etc.

The cost and risk of running a bigger flexible roster which requires more upgrades and more luck to properly function far outweighs the benefits of farming both currencies.The amount of Blood or Tears earned not being tied to player skill or anything except "what week it is" is also still an issue. Since going for both is wasteful&counter-productive, you end up farming only Blood or only Tears.

And this is the root of the problem. Being forced to make a choice at the beginning of the game to either go for Morale damage or for HP damage. Regardless of which one you choose a number of monsters, traps, spells, artifacts, talents etc. become dead weight. If you are going for HP damage you ignore all morale talents, you bench all morale-focused traps&monsters, morale Master spell is worthless for you, you ignore morale-related artifact&curse, morale-related options during drops/rewards are pointless for you and you can't buy anything that costs tears. Reversed problems arise with HP-focused versions of everything I listed above if you are going for Morale damage.

Lastly, Blood and Tears are fundamentally excessive currencies. If you were to merge Blood and Tears into one currency = nothing is lost, game only becomes slightly cleaner. You still aren't gonna buy upgrades that do Morale damage if you are going for HP damage and vice versa. However, you can acquire any master stat upgrade, curse or buff you think most beneficial instead of one that fits currency collected. How is that not an improvement?

[WhyNotZoidberg]

I think you're not seeing the obvious here.

If you want CERTAIN upgrades, you will have to play for both, not just one resource.

I honestly don't think it's as convoluted or complicated as you make it out. What's this "you have to decide when you start the game", that's just plain wrong. I managed fine to end up with lots of both resources, so it might be you. Doesn't seem all that complicated if you figure certain things out.

And it's not an "improvement" it's a change of a mechanic in order to make choices less impactful, because now you don't need to pay attention to that part of the game. Essentially it's a dumbing down, and I never was nor will I ever be a fan of that. So again, I disagree with your sentiment that "nothing would be lost". Yes, it would. Going for either/or/both IS a strategic decision you will have to make at the beginning of each fight.

You seem to have a very strong opinion on the matter, but that's all it is, none of your arguments has any fact to it, nor are they very convincing. I don't find all that "dead weight" you are talking. You need to pay attention what's happening and you gotta experiment with monsters. Kill artifacts that do nothing for you, stick with the rest.

You are wrong on so many level, e.g. a large roster pays totally off, because you can plunder or business trip more often and that is also a convenient way to turn useless monsters (meaning for the style of play you want) into hard currency. Sending a monster on a business trip twice immediately pays off IF you bought it. Given the game throws monsters at you for literally almost anything, I even find the trader the most useless scenario. Also, it's a lot more impactful to have very few high upgrade monsters and let the rest be lvl 1. Cannon fodder to soak attacks, powerhouses to get you where you want.

All you points seem really mute to me, you seem to be doing something very wrong, if that's really what you think about how things are.

[Deathwing]

Hello

i agree to a lot of ideas you stated here.
however i like the fact that blood and tears exists in two separat resources. and that you can kind of choose if you want to specialize your master/monsters grid by choosing to farm one or the other.
This makes not much sense by being able to play only one year (up to now this is pretty easy either way). but if i imagine you have multiple years you can play, with stronger and stronger enemies.
And that the later enemies can maybe get OP resistance agains hp loss or moral loss, so that you actually need to take care of a more or less balanced monster roaster.
Taking the random character of the game into account, i think this additional resources (blood and tears) increase the replayability of the game by forcing the player to find the perfect balance for these resources to be able to go further and further.

[Deathwing]

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

e.g. a large roster pays totally off, because you can plunder or business trip more often and that is also a convenient way to turn useless monsters (meaning for the style of play you want) into hard currency

it also increases the risk that non of your strong monsters show of in a fight ;)

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Originally posted by Deathwing:

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

e.g. a large roster pays totally off, because you can plunder or business trip more often and that is also a convenient way to turn useless monsters (meaning for the style of play you want) into hard currency

it also increases the risk that non of your strong monsters show of in a fight ;)

Not if you manage it correctly, as said above. Use your dummies for moneys. :P

By "large" I mean full, btw. Never had the problem my powerhouses not showing to a fight.

[Deathwing]

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

Originally posted by Deathwing:

it also increases the risk that non of your strong monsters show of in a fight ;)

Not if you manage it correctly, as said above. Use your dummies for moneys. :P

By "large" I mean full, btw. Never had the problem my powerhouses not showing to a fight.

yeah, there are mostly a lot of possibilites to send your monsters on a trip :)

now that you mentioned it, i noticed too, that it can be full.^^ Did not came across this limit yet :)

[WhyNotZoidberg]

I did once, but realised it and sent trashies on a raid so I get my lvl 4 gargoyle out of the stock.

[Candle Light]

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

What's this "you have to decide when you start the game", that's just plain wrong. I managed fine to end up with lots of both resources, so it might be you. Doesn't seem all that complicated if you figure certain things out.

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

And it's not an "improvement" it's a change of a mechanic in order to make choices less impactful, because now you don't need to pay attention to that part of the game. Essentially it's a dumbing down, and I never was nor will I ever be a fan of that. So again, I disagree with your sentiment that "nothing would be lost". Yes, it would. Going for either/or/both IS a strategic decision you will have to make at the beginning of each fight.

Well currently game is super easy to beat regardless of how you play it. I was talking about most effective way of playing which will be selected for with higher difficulties & longer runs.

Every game chooses which mechanics to keep and which to remove. Adding more mechanics just to have more mechanics doesn't necessarily make for a better game. The decision of doing HP or Morale damage starts with Talent selection of your Master. You may spec talents into Morale dps and then go into HP dps monsters and traps and still end up winning. You can farm both tears and blood instead of one and still win. You can place monsters into positions where they'll get hit on their weakest resistances and still win. You can make a lot of other sub optimal decisions in your game and still win. All of that doesn't really counter my points, because my statements address most effective ways of beating the game that game design and process is selecting for. Not just any way of clicking buttons.

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

You are wrong on so many level, e.g. a large roster pays totally off, because you can plunder or business trip more often and that is also a convenient way to turn useless monsters (meaning for the style of play you want) into hard currency. Sending a monster on a business trip twice immediately pays off IF you bought it. Given the game throws monsters at you for literally almost anything, I even find the trader the most useless scenario. Also, it's a lot more impactful to have very few high upgrade monsters and let the rest be lvl 1. Cannon fodder to soak attacks, powerhouses to get you where you want.

Perhaps I didn't phrase my roster argument clear enough for you. It is better to have an active roster of 6/2 (monsters/traps) and the rest of your roster on the bench than larger active roster because of how RNG and game economy works. It is also better to focus on leveling only one damage-type focused group of monsters instead of leveling both HP and Morale damage monsters and fielding both in dungeon defense missions. This is factually, strategically and statistically correct. But if you don't understand why by now I'm not sure that even 20 page explanation on how logic, strategy and probability leveraging works will convince you.

[WhyNotZoidberg]

Originally posted by Candle Light:

This is factually, strategically and statistically correct. But if you don't understand why by now I'm not sure that even 20 page explanation on how logic, strategy and probability leveraging works will convince you.

Mhmmm... sure. Except that's what you claim without any proof. Funny that all the little fast boiling teepots such as yourself alway claim that something is factually correct without any proof whatsoever, but then again you don't need to show proof because that is "how this works, duh!".

I love kids when they claim factual correctness just to support their opinion.

You are wrong, because you claimed "only one is possible" and that is a huge pile of garbage, as it is very easy in this game to do both.

Bringing a general argument about something if it is clearly not applicable... yeah, seems like it's not anyone but you having trouble with logic. Man, I love projection when they run out of arguments.

Also: you apparently know nothing on strategy, having a big variety allows to tackle different setups. But hey, I guess you have a PhD in military leadership too.

Be a nice keyboardwarrior and take your ranty walls of text somewhere else, ok?

Edit: One look on your profile actually shows that you really suck at games. Strategically, stastistically and factually you seem to be really either bad or not able to play anything with strategy to it for more than 8 hours. Lol. Try to convince people that you know what you are talking about elsewhere, ok?

[Candle Light]

Originally posted by WhyNotZoidberg:

Mhmmm... sure. Except that's what you claim without any proof. Funny that all the little fast boiling teepots such as yourself alway claim that something is factually correct without any proof whatsoever, but then again you don't need to show proof because that is "how this works, duh!".

I love kids when they claim factual correctness just to support their opinion.

You are wrong, because you claimed "only one is possible" and that is a huge pile of garbage, as it is very easy in this game to do both.

Bringing a general argument about something if it is clearly not applicable... yeah, seems like it's not anyone but you having trouble with logic. Man, I love projection when they run out of arguments.

What kind of proof do you even need? There is a mountain of arguments and logical explanations in paragraphs i wrote across several messages I made here. Compared to everything you wrote so far (which is mostly personal insults and dismissive statements) -- I did supply my statements with arguments and logic.