The Problem With Axe Gang

[Flygoniaks]

Introduction

If you would, please read the whole thing, or at least take time to skim the last section!

This is gonna be my last "critique" post until the game's full release, but I might make more afterwards (I've got plenty of things to talk about still). But before the full release, I need to get this off my chest, since I find this to be really weird oversight. I'm talking about the Axe Gang. My issue with the Axe Gang isn't about their Key Pages, game balance, or anything like that, but rather about the way you invite them.

For those who don't know, Axe Gang is a hidden General Invitation you can access by using the books of Rain, Mika, and Olga. It offers unique Key Pages with useful passives and stats that are actually pretty useful. However, I think I need to emphasize this: you can ONLY access it by using the books of Rain, Mika, AND Olga at the same time. This is a specific combination of books for a GENERAL Invitation, which is definitely strange, I think you'll agree.

For the record, there are actually two of these "secret General Invitations" in Urban Legend. Everything I say here also applies to the "Urban Legend-class Syndicate" General Invitation (which you can access with the books of Dino, Zulu and Gyeong-mi). It features Axe Gang Grunts mixed with Stray Dogs, but since the aforementioned "Axe Gang" General Invitation has a higher quantity of unique enemies, I'll be focusing on it for the majority of this post.

Why is this a problem?

The reason I'm making such a big deal out of this is because the vast majority of players will not discover this General Invitation without a guide or other external information, and many of them will miss out on useful Key Pages because of that. Meanwhile, the actual General Invitation for 3 Urban Legend books is "Urban Legend-class Office," which is literally just "Grade 8 Fixers" and "Grade 7 Fixers" mixed together with no unique rewards. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

Additionally, nothing in the game tells you that some General Invitations would require specific combinations of books. In fact, the manual tells you the opposite, saying that only the quality of the books matters in what guests will appear. Usually, having relevant content hidden like this without any hints is bad design on its own, but here, it's even worse as the secret General Invitation actually contradicts what the game tells the player otherwise. This is why I'm questioning this so much.

In short, this is a problem because nothing tells the player that this reception even exists! Now, if Project Moon is planning to add more "hidden" General Invitations (that require specific book combinations) throughout the game, and they update the manual to explain this, then that's also fine. But so far, that doesn't seem to be their plan, which is why I think the current state of the Axe Gang should be changed. Now, let's move onto what those changes are (even if they are really small).

A very easy solution

Thankfully, the solution to this problem is extremely simple, and it's to just swap the book "recipes" for Axe Gang and Urban Legend-class Office. This means that Axe Gang can be accessed using any other combination of 3 Urban Legend books, allowing players to find its Key Pages without any sort of guide! Again, to make it clear, this is a good thing because the Axe Gang provides unique Key Pages, unlike the current Urban Legend-class Office.

For the devs, this would take only about a minute; it's as simple as copying and pasting the code! The recipes for both receptions are even in the same file.

As for Urban Legend-class Office and Urban Legend-class Syndicate, these two receptions can be left in the game (with their secret recipes) or removed, either will work. To be frank, I don't care about these two receptions, since they are literally just filler, and I don't think anyone else really cares about them either. There isn't really a need to delete them, but it's not like anything of value will be lost if they are removed.

Anyone else think this change should be made?

I don't expect this post to take off, since the forums haven't seemed to be too active lately, and I think people probably won't think this is a big enough issue to warrant changing. But if you see this post and understand what I'm saying, could you maybe show your support to help make sure this gets fixed? I want this game to be the best it can be, so even small improvements like this one are important to me. So please, help out even if you think this is silly!

As usual, please be polite to myself and others in the replies to this post.

[pentanion]

tldr but yes axe gang is too obscure to access and should be made accessible like how PM designs general receptions now, they'll probably do that in the future or they'll just ignore them entirely as they're pretty forgettable

Hidden fights that require specific book combos that would work off hints in the lore bits could be cool yeah

[Dima green]

"Oh no, there's a reception with a 3-6 or smth speed key page of the game that people won't find"(meanwhile literally more than half of the playerbase will forget about general receptionions as a whole because of how pointless in early game/till SotC they are)

Axe gang's key page is absolutely nothing special and just as every pre nightmare general invitation can(and will) be skipped without the player missing out on absolutely anything gameplay wise(and don't even get me started on the useless exposition in them). The game only starts at the beginning of plague anyway unless you managed to make a worse version of the default deck and lose to Molar(and even then you are much better off farming Walter). Axes have pretty much as much value as the urban class syndicate

In short, when the only thing telling you about general receptions what so ever is a small plank after canard(in which you find enemies whose key/combat pages already drop from pierre/hook) even if axes were jusr another general invite it wouldn't change the overall irrelevancy of general invitation in this game as a whole for someone who didn't start to randomly put books in the invitations menu for some reason

[Flygoniaks]

Originally posted by Dima green:

Axe gang's key page is absolutely nothing special and just as every pre nightmare general invitation can(and will) be skipped without the player missing out on absolutely anything gameplay wise(and don't even get me started on the useless exposition in them). The game only starts at the beginning of plague anyway unless you managed to make a worse version of the default deck and lose to Molar(and even then you are much better off farming Walter). Axes have pretty much as much value as the urban class syndicate

I'm sorry, but I must disagree here. There ARE General Invitations in Urban Legend and Urban Plague that can be pretty useful. "An Axe Gang Member, Page 2" has a 4-5 speed roll, which is comparable to endgame Key Pages (obviously, it's not usable all the way to endgame due to its other stats, but it's definitely worth using through Urban Plague at the very least). There's also "A Grade 7 Fixer, Page 3," which has "normal" resistances to every damage type. In Urban Plague, there's also useful stuff - Jikan is interesting in concept and has good resistances, and the Workshop Fixer's "Solidarity" passive has been very handy.

Saying "but it's not THAT good" doesn't really refute my argument, either. If it's good enough to be usable, then it shouldn't be hidden from the player for absolutely no reason.

[Araders]

I also want to say that with this invitation there is no problems. Since the Urban Legend level is too short, and Urban Plague, in turn, begins to provide pages of violet color with two speed cubes. I never felt the strong need from this invitation and found out about it only from your post. This is just my opinion, but I think that nothing bad will not be if they won't want to touch him because of his innocence, you can simply forget to forget well or to melt the Pages of the ax over all invitations of Urban Legend.

[Ratohou]

no problem here, its a idea that can be used in the future too. i would like to have a great number of general receptions that have the necessity specific pages to be summoned, like using 3 different sweeper books to summon their mother or something like that.

[Armstrong Houston]

Originally posted by Dima green:

In short, when the only thing telling you about general receptions what so ever is a small plank after canard(in which you find enemies whose key/combat pages already drop from pierre/hook) even if axes were jusr another general invite it wouldn't change the overall irrelevancy of general invitation in this game as a whole for someone who didn't start to randomly put books in the invitations menu for some reason

I’m surprised the game didn’t make a bigger deal out of general invitations. You’d think there’d be a different tab or something for general invites to let you know which ones you haven’t done yet and how to obtain them like how the story invites are done.

[Flygoniaks]

Originally posted by Ratohou:

no problem here, its a idea that can be used in the future too. i would like to have a great number of general receptions that have the necessity specific pages to be summoned, like using 3 different sweeper books to summon their mother or something like that.

Like I said at one point in the original post, if Project Moon wants to add more General Invitations like that after the release, then I'm totally fine with it. It's just that I don't see anything that indicates this plan, meaning that Urban Legend-class Office/Syndicate seem to be leftovers, which is why I think Axe Gang should be made the "real" General Invitation.

Originally posted by Armstrong Houston:

I’m surprised the game didn’t make a bigger deal out of general invitations. You’d think there’d be a different tab or something for general invites to let you know which ones you haven’t done yet and how to obtain them like how the story invites are done.

If they do add more "secret" General Invitations, this would be a very useful feature to help us keep track of them all! Though if they don't, this feature won't really be necessary (since there will be only 6 General Invites for SoTC, and 3 for every other chapter that has them).

[RavenHeresy]

Came here looking for "where do i fing that damn 'axe gang' passive that every one pads blunt builds with". It's a very basic 1 pts passive that should really be on the main path. So I agree with OP. I have had access to the slash and pierce equivalents forever, but somehow blunt is hidden like this. About time i looked it up, i'm almost done with the game!

i've done, intuitively, all the general receptions immediately as they became available to me. There's a tutorial screen for them and I wasnt going to miss out on anything. I've also farmed all the invites to unlock all the copies of all the pages i can get... I have no idea how I was supposed to magically know about these 2 hidden invites...