Ranged Pages (Thoughts and hopes)

[Doctor Irrational]

So I just fought the ranged units and I think that ranged attacks are the new hotness. The character abilities might be inflating the strength of the attacks but a 6-20 attack is busted, even accounting for the removal of the card and it being a 3 cost card. I like the introduction of ranged attacks and hope for things like casting fire or blood at the enemy at the cost of hp or something, but just these three units alone felt overtuned.

What are everyone elses thoughts?

[Amano Jack]

Well, ranged pages have a weakness of being consumable and being mostly pierce (with sometimes blunt), so even if you see 6-20 attack, in damage it could be effectively translated to 3-10 which is laughable for 3 cost card. And the fact that you can use either attack or dodge dices to parry/dodge most of the damage further makes it plain to see why in universe guns suck.

I do like how they're consistent in gameplay and storywise though. You can make good ranged-melee hybrid since it thins out your deck, making it easier to get the cards you really want or using those dices with Brawl.

[CarThief]

I kind of like the ranged fight so far, also, haven't tried what happens in a ranged vs ranged clash, but interesting things happen when melee clashes vs ranged.

If melee dice win a clash vs ranged dice, the melee dice is not used up, and the attack of the enemy is nullified. The melee dice is then used again, much akin to a succesful evasion roll vs an melee or ranged dice. So one melee attack would potentially deflect the entire ranged salvo of an enemy, if my eyes haven't decieved me thus far anyway.

It is quite a difficulty spike though, the high-damage ranged cards, and i'm not even using any major cheese strategies, my team was comprised of 2-speed-slot units using stuff like Struggle/Flaming Bat, Retaliate/that golden brawl-esque card, Gamble, Sharp Slash, some 0-cost recover-light cards, and the odd Rapid Steps (1-8 evasion, 1-8 ATK) cards.
It got pretty close at times, almost losing 1-2 team members.

I'd imagine though, if i start using ranged cards now, it'll practically obliterate most enemies due to how high they roll on average. I wasn't winning many clashes against them to begin with, the AI won't win clashes any better at this rate.

Though the restriction of ranged units being able to only pick ranged cards might be worth something, as gun cards don't seem to have many good defensive options, which could lead to interesting builds such as melee units intercepting attacks on ranged units, and ranged acting as the main DPS.
(I know one hybrid page exists that allows both, but the other two don't allow melee pages.)

Ah well, lots to experiment with for now! On that note... It seems defence still works as intended and even (somehow) staggers ranged units. Not sure how a defended bullet is all that staggering. Evasion works as it normally does, too.
Now to see what ranged vs ranged does...

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Edit:
Still no idea what happens on a ranged vs ranged clash tie (do both units hit eachother? do the bullets hit eachother mid-air? do they both miss?), but the loser of a ranged vs ranged clash takes the hit and their ranged-attack dice is cancelled, much like melee clashes. One could see it as a game of "who can draw and shoot first", essentially.

I've tried the battle again with some slightly lesser teams and good lord, is the difficulty quite insane. Part of me likes the challange, but i fear you may have almost overdone it a bit.
Last two victories where by virtue of the enemies simply running out of cards to play. I dread to think how insane a enemy team with ranged AND melee in their deck would be.

If it's gonna be nerfed, only a small nerf should do it, as the challange is refreshing, but if you're not well equipped with late-game pages, you'll lose badly.
Also not sure if a hard fight like that needs the Book of Distortion on the line, at risk of being lost, only to have to refight the Zwei for it. A difficult fight like that should ideally not put any hard to (re)attain books at risk.

Atleast ranged doesn't look like it'll be stupidly powerful simply by nature of being one-use. Enemies will undoubtedly be even more enduring/tanky in the future, rendering ranged-reliant decks nearly useless. Amazingly strong short-term burst damage in return though.

(Oh, and that reminds me. It would be highly prudent to show the Book of Lobotomy Corporation and Book of the Distortion as drops from their respective battles you can re-accuire them in. Otherwise you will undoubtedly get questions on the forums on where to re-obtain those books after the user loses them in combat. Or make them impossible to lose, perhaps.)

[Doctor Irrational]

I agree with all of your sentiments so far. My initial impressions of range came with the enemies handedly taking down my best melee team in a one v one and this was with accounting for pierce weaknesses on pages. I love the idea of ranged pages because the design space is there (again, making ranged blood attacks that aren't removed from the deck but cost HP to use is up there in the resource management department the game seems to be pushing) but as CarThief mentioned, the difficulty spiked with this episode in a way I hadn't experienced since one of the abnormalities.

I don't think they need to be nerfed outright, maybe toned back in values? Like a 5-18 for the big shot (which still benefits from a plus 3 bonus when used on the first round)? I think the most interesting page to mess around with is the hybrid page, because they essentially get access to both types of damage and can thin their deck out to a core loop. Its only downside is that it only has one die instead of two. I'm excited to see what the rest of June has in store.

[ingi]

I agree with most of what has been said before.

My first impression of the guns is, that I like them. The guns attack need to be powerful, because if the are not, then it will be really easy for the player to see, where the enemy is targeting, and putting 3 light cards on the enemy shooter and punished him hard. If I had to changes something then some of the gun’s cards could have a little higher low ceiling, and little lower high ceiling for consistency. But still we have too few guns cards too see if they are really overpowered

I fought the enemy team with Olga key pages, and the were not that hard, but then again Olga pages is really busted, like most of the 2 dices key pages. But the guns cards and the 2 dices key pages other then Olga, seem to serve similar purposes. Lot of damages in the beginning but eventually your damages will fall of because of a lack of card. If the guns card they might replace some of my double dicers.

Originally posted by Doctor Irrational:

hybrid page, because they essentially get access to both types of damage and can thin their deck out to a core loop. Its only downside is that it only has one die instead of two. I'm excited to see what the rest of June has in store.

it will be fun to experiment with the hybrid page, when we get more cards, it will properly be really good against tanker enemy that do little damages

Originally posted by Doctor Irrational:

the difficulty spiked with this episode in a way I hadn't experienced since one of the abnormalities.

I fund the difficulty spiked problem to be more so that everything before Zwei is ridiculous easy right now. Players usually don’t need to build deck until the reach the Zwei, and the tactic that the game pushed you in the beginning, too be hyper aggressive, is not a good strategy against more tanker and damage dealing enemy. So, it comes as shocked when we finally play against enemies that is some sort of challenges.

then we need to make decent deck that works, unless the player are like me and use Olga key page.

[Leyaliz]

I think the fight might be a bit to hard. I had to go grind for Olga's page which I had not yet gotten and still had a rough time using Walter, Olga and Carnival page.

It feels like how the Molar office fight felt before daring decision got nerfed. their 3 dice cards like indiscriminate shooting are very strong for their costs, maybe just lowering the dice by 1 or 2 max damage might make it easier for the people who dont have Olga or other amazing setups yet.

[ingi]

I have now beat them couple of times, I found the defender strategy to worked well with them, but I feel like the defender dices should not be used up after one attack from ranges weapon, similar to how attack dices does not get used up. for consisted sake.

Originally posted by Leyaliz:

I think the fight might be a bit to hard. I had to go grind for Olga's page which I had not yet gotten and still had a rough time using Walter, Olga and Carnival page.

It feels like how the Molar office fight felt before daring decision got nerfed. their 3 dice cards like indiscriminate shooting are very strong for their costs, maybe just lowering the dice by 1 or 2 max damage might make it easier for the people who dont have Olga or other amazing setups yet.

I think the problem is the game is easy before we reach the full stop-office and players are not used to be challenges. if you do not want to chess theme with Olga hyper aggressive strategy, then defender pages are also work well on them.

You do not need Olga or other amazing setups yet, to beat them, but you cannot use the same deck you use to win Zwei (unless you are using Olga key pages).Zwei are very defense with lot of strong counter attacks and doges. The full stop office are more of a damages dealing opponent. You need to see what the strength and weakness are. The have couple of weakness, one is the usually have lot of small attacks, where you use you most powerful attack and pushed through them hammer them hard or one powerful attack where the defender dice is really good against. The also run out of bullets, which can be strategy on its own.


I am wondering should players be able to win every fight without ever needing to grind? When to we need to update our decks? or Changes decks?

[CarThief]

Hm, i did fight them with defensive cards at the ready almost all the time (mainly Flaming Bat and Struggle), i'd imagine Fabric would be even more useful vs some of their level 3's.
Ranged remains a powerful attack type with almost no drawbacks except that it's exhausted on use, which would probably be troublesome if enemies use a combo of ranged and melee... Hm...

Do like the idea of defence not expiring and being rolled again if it wins against ranged. Though that'd mean ALL dice types (except ranged attacks) would roll again if they win against ranged dice in a clash, as right now a melee unit winning a clash vs a ranged attack retains their melee dice (no attack occurs, but it nullifies the ranged attack as the bullet gets deflected).

Though i guess that could be a useful counter to ranged, that everything (except other ranged dice) doesn't expire and rolls again if it wins the clash.
That or perhaps defence should have increased effeciency vs ranged attacks, further decreasing their damage? (Then again, defence is already mighty good, if it did THAT too, hm...)

Or perhaps defence should deflect the bullets back at em, either in full damage or in roll difference, much like how melee enemies stagger on defence?
Might also be fun if instead a succesful melee attack roll deflects the bullet back at the ranged unit.

Hard to say for sure what would work well on that regard. Though the incredibly high damage numbers from even level 1 and 2 ranged cards means they'll be difficult to deal with in almost any situation.

[ingi]

I try using silk, it worked rather well on them, after fighting them couple of times with it, I can say in most fight I could stall out the fight until the ruin out of bullets with most of my librarian still having good health . I found it be incredibly fun battle.

Originally posted by CarThief:

Do like the idea of defence not expiring and being rolled again if it wins against ranged. Though that'd mean ALL dice types (except ranged attacks) would roll again if they win against ranged dice in a clash, as right now a melee unit winning a clash vs a ranged attack retains their melee dice (no attack occurs, but it nullifies the ranged attack as the bullet gets deflected).

I did not think of it like that, maybe all the affect should not be the same. Perhaps they could switch it so the defence dices would be kept but combat dice would be used up during blog. But I am not sure if that would work. Or if it would be fun.

Originally posted by CarThief:

perhaps defence should deflect the bullets back at em, either in full damage or in roll difference, much like how melee enemies stagger on defence?
Might also be fun if instead a succesful melee attack roll deflects the bullet back at the ranged unit.

I do agree, I feel like defence should to something special against guns.

Originally posted by CarThief:

as right now a melee unit winning a clash vs a ranged attack retains their melee dice (no attack occurs, but it nullifies the ranged attack as the bullet gets deflected).

Maybe I am miss reding this, but attack does occur after the shoot if a class happen, it just does not happen immediately but later.

[CarThief]

Well yeah, kind of. Melee units need to "close the gap", and use their melee rolls to deflect incoming bullets. So i guess one could see it as the attack happening afterwards.

Does make me wonder how it works with ranged>defence>ranged vs melee>melee>melee. Assuming melee wins all clashes, would the clashes go like... clash:deflect > skip_defence > clash:deflect > clash:melee_strike vs retained_defence, melee, melee?

Hm, i suspect it works this way. Guess it's a set of pros and cons. Ranged pages strike earlier then melee pages, but risk being deflected repeatedly by high melee attack rolls (one 6-12 melee dice can deflect all three ranged(1-5) dice, essentially), in addition to evasion/defence rolls also providing defensive means.

Still pretty hard to deal with ranged no matter what due to the incredibly high numbers, though. If you clash against them, you're likely to lose, if you don't clash, you've got no defences (since every ranged unit attacks first as melee closes the gap, and you only initiate your defence/evasion rolls once you melee a target, or if YOUR target initiates an attack upon you and you've got a card lined up to clash with it, or if you intercept with higher speed - but both those result in clashes you cannot win).

Well, unless the recent patch changed most of it. Didn't get to checking what that patch did, yet.
Edit: Oh. So they took out deflecting. That changes a lot. Hm... I honestly kind of liked the idea that units could go all anime and deflect bullets with melee attacks. It may have been impractical but it was awesome to look at. Well, still a lot to experiment with, i guess.

[Mizuki-MixOre]

Eh, in my opinion they are not that broken. Yeah, literally walking in blind will scare the hell out of you thanks to Going for Bullseye. But like we pointed out, by now you should have a Lv20 Olga in some floor and she only takes .5 Pierce damage only (And guns mainly deal Pierce with some Blunt splash on the bad cards. Do note that during combat prep where you choose the room to greet the guest, you can check their combat decks. And if you are not sure what the hell you want to use, make a floor with Grade 7 Fixer Page 3, Olga, Axe Gang Page 2 because they all have Normal being their weakest levels of resistance) Once you figure out the thing PM did not mention (Ranged v Melee means your Melee attack dice are temporary Evasion Dice, minus the stagger heal) then literally cramming logical cards with high attacks~~ (Looks at Stray Dogs pages...) works.

Edit: Well since Deflection is no longer a thing, you can use Art of Rapid Steps instead, works the same. Or Retaliate if you are feeling generous with your Light usage

Though yeah, even though guns are kinda bad and gets instantly nullified when you realize what you can counter them with, they EXCEL at picking off staggered individuals. So you have to draw fire to another librarian if it means someone won't get executed with a 40 damage hit from Tamaki.

The moment you get the Ranged cards? Only Liwei's key page make a real addition to your teams because of him being a hybrid keypages (I might make a guide about builds when I get the time with the current stuff, so far there are plenty of good build I discovered that can play and win you games constantly, even when you are stalling the game to Emotion II just to farm pages)

And as for prove they are not OP. I managed to beat Full-Stop Office using only basic pages (Pages where you have infinite copies of). Yeah, took me 5 tries to make that insanity of an ordeal works, but that is to show even the stuff from the beginning of the game can kill Full-Stop Office (That being said, it was more or less me gang up on Liwei then just live though 18 shots from Stephan and Tamaki)

Just to confirm, Ranged v Ranged is now literally the same to Melee v Melee
As for special stuffs. Evasion Dice alone can handle them no problem. Though I might wanna see Block dices doubles their value against Ranged attacks. Not that I need it because utility-wise Evasion would still be better, but it is a good thing to have to run Block Dice

[ingi]

Maybe I am missing something but the attack dice to still deflect the bullets. You keep the attack dices if you win the encounters and can use it again for the next shot. Unless deflect is mean something else and I am miss interpreting what deflect is.

I found the guns are maybe not that special when the Ai have it, the do require build deck that has strong piercing resistance and defence dices if you want to win the constantly.
but Don’t sell the range key pages short. In players hand the are so powerful. I just crate team with all 3 guns pages, and I can clear all the fights easily. It just sad when you are fighting the dogs with guns, the die so easily.

You must play them little differently than melee. because the always go first it is usually easy after round or 2, to see witch enemy is almost stagger, then you want use one of your Libran, that would not clash with that person, to shoot him and stagger him. Then you can almost just juggle stagger the enemy after that. Also because the guns go first the get to keep their defence dices after their attack meaning that you might not want to clash with a opponent and risk of having your attack negated, rather target some else and get you defence dices ready.

If there is argument to nerf range cards, I feel like it would rather be, that the are too powerful in players hand.

[Mizuki-MixOre]

Whoops, I didn't read the changes properly. They removed the Defense dice Stagger deflect in Ranged combat (Because logically you can't really deflect that stagger from that far away) and not the actual bullet deflecting stuffs in Ranged v Melee

But eh, you yourself just said teams like Stray Dogs eat gun teams for breakfast. So there's that. It's a given that anything given to the player will be a lot more powerful. Take stuffs like Mass Bleed (Melting people with 24 bleed stack in Hod's floor and everyone going in for the 24 Cruelty heal), Zwei being made into a floor buff deck (Protection 3+Endurance 3 almost every scene means you are unbreakable in terms of defense and getting damaged), Molar team being made to get Olga quick discard (This one is pretty straightforward), Stray Dog to get Gyoung Mi's 3+ cost decks (Yeah, I have to hand it to PM they made the guest uses this deck and brought hell onto us the first time we meet Stray Dogs). Basically everything when given to a player it gets kinda broken.

I do agree you play Ranged differently than Melee, and seeing how you use your Ranged librarians, it's the same as I use them, minus the fact I use them solely as support. Two librarians go in and do the stagger work, and then the Scene after that my gunner (Usually Liwei or Tamaki) goes in for the Bullseye execution. It's effective at clearing the act, but this severely cuts down your farming potential because you're just going to kill them instantly, before they even get to Emotion I (let alone II)

Nerfing Ranged cards? Sure. But like you said, not because of the guests, because of the players. Then again literally everything is broken when you give it to the player.

[ingi]

Originally posted by MirageINPULZ3:

But eh, you yourself just said teams like Stray Dogs eat gun teams for breakfast. So there's that.

When did I say that? I am going over the thread and I cannot find single mention when I said that the dog team would be strong against player made guns team? only thing I think that I can think of that could be misinterpreted is when I said that high power cards are good against the Full-time office. But if missed something that I said before fell free to correct me.

Originally posted by MirageINPULZ3:

It's a given that anything given to the player will be a lot more powerful. Take stuffs like Mass Bleed (Melting people with 24 bleed stack in Hod's floor and everyone going in for the 24 Cruelty heal),

What deck did you use to do that? I try using bleed for little while but I never manging to get it so high.

Originally posted by MirageINPULZ3:

It's effective at clearing the act, but this severely cuts down your farming potential because you're just going to kill them instantly, before they even get to Emotion I (let alone II)

I have never seen the need for increasing the Emotion, if I want certain book, and I am not getting it then I usually just kill the person that drops it book last, and in worse case scenery I just keep one of them alive until he reach emotional state then I kill them

Originally posted by MirageINPULZ3:

Nerfing Ranged cards? Sure. But like you said, not because of the guests, because of the players. Then again literally everything is broken when you give it to the player.

Maybe the could to the reverse for what the did with the rats. Where when they use cutting harvesting it is weaker when the rats use them then the players.
They could maybe have the same affect for the players for some of the stronger cards


But there also seems people that some people like were the difficulty is right now and want it to be easier. maybe they could add on easy and hard mode in the future. Because I really do enjoy the game mechanic and the story of the game, but it is just too easy for me.
But I am used to play a lot of cards game, and I understand players that or not it might find it to be more difficulty.

But that should be another topic.

[Mizuki-MixOre]

Originally posted by ingi:

What deck did you use to do that? I try using bleed for little while but I never manage to get it so high.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2121466132
I recently posted that. You can use it for reference. I didn't mention in the guide that you can in theory go up to 48 bleed stacks, though in doing so there is a high chance of the guest being staggered, if not outright dead. If you know what you are doing, you should be able to easily pop in 30 bleed stacks and not stagger the guest.

Originally posted by ingi:

I have never seen the need for increasing the Emotion, if I want certain book, and I am not getting it then I usually just kill the person that drops it book last, and in worse case scenery I just keep one of them alive until he reach emotional state then I kill them

I do, because I farm stuffs in bulk. It's a personal preference, but in the end I am happy with my stacks of 99 pages on all of them. It's just a more convenient way of farming books, not that you need it or anything

Originally posted by ingi:

When did I say that?

You did, it's- Oh, whoops, I interpreted it incorrectly

Originally posted by ingi:

I found the guns are maybe not that special when the Ai have it, the do require build deck that has strong piercing resistance and defence dices if you want to win the constantly.
but Don’t sell the range key pages short. In players hand the are so powerful. I just crate team with all 3 guns pages, and I can clear all the fights easily. It just sad when you are fighting the dogs with guns, the die so easily.

Yeah, I misunderstood that part. Though I actually used Stray Dogs' pages to counter Full Stop Office. And yeah, literally everything gets broken when you get your hands in them.

I agree on the fact it's easy for me. But I'm here for the lore so I can give it a pass. However I wouldn't mind a spike in difficulties. Like making things easier? That's not going to cut it for me since I eh... Played the game a bit too much for the average player's liking

Overall, Ranged cards are not broken when used by the AI, though they definitely are when players get their hands on them. The real difficulty of the fight was to figure out the Ranged versus Melee combat mechanic PM added in on your own

[CarThief]

Welp, gave em more tries. I find the problem is that in they hit REALLY hard, with really high numbers. You simply HAVE to defend them and counter-attack, as a counter-offensive is rather hard to pull off.

To be honest i don't mind ranged being hard-hitters as long as there's a way to deal with them. Perhaps if defence and evasion had a increased power vs ranged pages, or their roll would be doubled vs ranged pages, up to whatever the maximum roll can be?

After all, ranged opponents really put emphasis on taking cover and attacking at strategic moments (when "reloading"), if this was reflected by mainly focusing on defence and attacking when it's "clear", it could make gameplay against them a lot better.

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Even then though, giving players ranged cards with THAT much power is insane. I do like that one idea that has the player's ranged cards be less powerful then an opponents (much like how Rats' cards are severely debuffed when used by them), but then, why would players pick ranged, unless as a trade off for less power, it becomes re-usable in most cases? (Some powerful ones like Bullseye seem best to be one-use.)

Hm... I like the strategy/challange ranged provides, if they meant you had to include defence/evasion or you would have a really tough time with their high rolls, that would be fine. But how would ranged work for the player, then...? Why would they use it, if it's nerfed...?

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Well, how about this? If i had to sum up my idea for it, then...
-Give ranged enemies some kind of "buff", that allows for effects such as...
1) Their rolls during ranged attacks are increased to match the current high rolls.
2) All their ranged cards will be exhausted on use.
3) All their ranged cards grant the enemy (you, the player) a power boost of some kind to evasion and defence rolls, to encourage well-timed defences. Or alternatively, try the idea below:

-Defence dice are used again vs all ranged attacks, even if they lose the clash (much like succesful evasion). Evasion dice should ideally get a power boost still (as they rarely roll high enough to win a clash vs ranged).
Edit: Or allow failed evasion rolls vs ranged attacks to "graze" the loser of a clash, dealing a reduced amount of damage, perhaps based on the roll difference? (So, like defence, kinda, but only vs the powerful, high-rolling ranged.)

-Ranged cards become a lot weaker (to the player), but remain as they are right now for the enemy (due to their "buff"), making ranged another tool for the player, but when used by the enemy it is a tactic to counter, typically with defence dice, much like how in a real gunfight, seeking cover (defence) and evasion are key moves, and striking at the right time (when they're out of ranged rolls - AKA ammo).

-Ranged cards in general are not exhausted on use (except maybe some powerful ones - like Bullseye), when used by the player.
(Though speaking of Bullseye, 3 light for THAT!? Why not make it 4-light, with a "on hit/clash win: recover 1 light" effect just so it doesn't instant-wipe a enemy or you at the start?)

Or something like this, anyway... Though it kind of invalidates the concept of ranged-only key pages. Perhaps everyone should have the ability to use ranged weaponry, no matter the key page? Though that'd involve adding more sprites. (Throwing knifes/etc, pistols, maybe a "hadouken" fireball/energy projection thing for the Dogs... :P)