Retreating is way too inconsequential

[Plinto]

Looks like the most you lose is some resources, but you can just click a button and escape instantly from any battle???

C'mon folks. If you want to make a tough, tactical game, then fleeing from battle should not be as simple as pressing a button and then the battle ends. This might just be me being spoiled by Battle Brothers tactical retreats where sometimes a man gets left behind, fighting valiantly on a hill, so the others can escape, but retreating feels really...hand-holdey(?) in Wartales.

It's like if the DM of your campaign puts players in a fight for their lives and the the players decide they want to try to run away, and the DM just says, "Okay you make it. No rolls necessary. Nothing. You're just out and free."

[Flavalicious]

I found retreating to the edge of the board in BB to be super annoying and a complete waste of time lol. Cant click auto retreat because the pathing gets people killed, so instead your running backwards for 3-4 turns with basically no chance of getting caught unless you were already in combat.

And if you were already engaged, you arent getting away anyways, so people generally just save scum. And if its on ironman they just alt f4 to crash the game. Not many people are actually down to accept the loss of 2-5 of your elite brothers, takes a particular type of gamer to eat that ♥♥♥♥ cake. lol.

I think a better system is just to have a difficulty configuration screen when you start a new run in war tales where you adjust some sliders to change the punishments for running. Configure the capture % rate, configure the material loss, maybe a slider for an injury %, etc. That way everyone can tune it to their preference and we aren't making a tedious system to appease a few people who would probably savescum a bad situation to begin with.

[Power Button]

Messaggio originale di Flavalicious:

I found retreating to the edge of the board in BB to be super annoying and a complete waste of time lol. Cant click auto retreat because the pathing gets people killed, so instead your running backwards for 3-4 turns with basically no chance of getting caught unless you were already in combat.

And if you were already engaged, you arent getting away anyways, so people generally just save scum. And if its on ironman they just alt f4 to crash the game. Not many people are actually down to accept the loss of 2-5 of your elite brothers, takes a particular type of gamer to eat that ♥♥♥♥ cake. lol.

I think a better system is just to have a difficulty configuration screen when you start a new run in war tales where you adjust some sliders to change the punishments for running. Configure the capture % rate, configure the material loss, maybe a slider for an injury %, etc. That way everyone can tune it to their preference and we aren't making a tedious system to appease a few people who would probably savescum a bad situation to begin with.

Then I cannot brag to others about escaping difficult battles that I'm very good at, and got an achievement with it :'( booo hooo .... you guys are so mean. You don't understand that I need to brag myself to society to make myself sane :'(

[Groggy]

Messaggio originale di Groggy:

Messaggio originale di JayTwoPointOh Shiro:

Appreciate the feedback, I'll get this in front of the devs and we'll see what we can do!

Any suggestions on your end?

James

See Battle Brothers.

Originally they had something similar (injury applied to each retreater) but then eventually they made it the way it is currently. Retreating is dangerous IF the units are already engaged in melee.

Currently all you have to do to stop anybody dying is to just hit the retreat button as soon as somebody is 'about' to die and magically everybody is safe. Injury -> 1 click of medicine button and no consequences.

It's been a year since this was reported and currently this is almost a game-breaker for me... might have to give the game up unless a proper game mechanic is implemented.

In Battle Brothers, if you decide to retreat at the start of the battle, you can play the first few turns to put them on the right path, then hit auto-retreat.

If you decide to retreat when the battle is being lost (which is the scenario we are talking about) then it's very costly and there will likely be deaths.

In Wartales you hit retreat and none of the characters die.

There seems to be no way to lose a battle on morale -- i.e. your guys never try to retreat.
The enemy never retreats either even when you've 'won' the battle by the morale bar.
When you 'win' on morale, you the player are given the option of whether the enemy retreats or not. It doesn't make a lot of sense and it is pandering to the player.
It's heads I win, tails you lose.
Player gets to retreat for free (no losses just pay some medicine & materials) but the enemy never gets that option (either all die or just mostly all die).

Unfortunately, I have to stop playing this game now because I've realised this is too dumbed-down. Back to Battle Brothers until they improve this game.

What I'm looking for is some type of symmetry: you can win on morale but also the enemy can win on morale. (Then the enemy gets to decide whether you retreat or not?)
Basically this game simply sucks because the retreat button just means I will never ever lose another soldier.

Clearly the developers are not giving priority to this type of game design, because this was brought up to the developers 1 year ago and there's no improvement.
So it's unlikely to be improved any time soon.

[Groggy]

As far as I can see, it was more than 1 year since the Devs have spoken about this (the comment from Devs in this thread is December 2021).

Is anybody aware of any other message from the Devs saying what they are going to do about this?

[[Heretic]Rivga]

Retreat results in baggage being raided or stuff abandoned with hasty retreat. Missing food if fighting animals, missing money if fighting Bandits.

[Groggy]

Messaggio originale di HereticRivga:

Retreat results in baggage being raided or stuff abandoned with hasty retreat. Missing food if fighting animals, missing money if fighting Bandits.

If you are engaged with the enemy then they are supposed to get free hits, then you have to make it to the edge of the map, while the enemy still has their turn to play.

The enemy doesn't have that choice to magically insta-retreat with no fatal losses.
It's asymmetric.

[funkmonster7]

I've never retreated, never needed to. But I guess that is because I play in Free mode... Region-locked, I probably gotta retreat. Thanks for letting me know what it actually does. :)

[Tanyon]

Messaggio originale di funkmonster7:

I've never retreated, never needed to. But I guess that is because I play in Free mode... Region-locked, I probably gotta retreat. Thanks for letting me know what it actually does. :)

Same I've never retreated from a battle.. didn't ever try because I assumed I would just die anyways.. maybe now I'll try.. LOL.

[Groggy]

Messaggio originale di DarthTanyon:

Same I've never retreated from a battle.. didn't ever try because I assumed I would just die anyways.. maybe now I'll try.. LOL.

As far as I can tell, it just gives your men each an injury which is easily fixed with 1 medicine each.

It's a very minor consequence so basically you need never need to fear losing somebody because you can always hit the retreat button. (Get out of danger for almost free).

Retreat DEFINITELY needs a rework.

[Groggy]

I'm hoping the retreat mechanic is addressed for 1.0.

Does anybody know whether the retreat issues (too easy) has been addressed?

[mutant]

don't retreat, face your own destruction. problem solved.

[Nalwreath]

Personally if you are going to propose an idea or punishment here for retreating, I would say the loss of at least a party member is sufficient. Along of course with your armour being wrecked and your party suffering wounds or injury.

I mean, most of these battles have archers or men with throwing weapons, if you as a warrior suddenly just went " i'm out of here " that present danger doesn't just " leave "... He will take advantage of you retreating and chuck his throwing weapon into your back and possibly nick a vital area or cause sufficient damage as you are no longer " engaged " in combat.
Same be it for the archer, he wouldn't just put his arrow back in his quiver and be like " whelp, they got away... " No... He would knock that arrow and start raining hell upon you. They also wouldn't just give up chasing you or pursuing you, whether you started the conflict or they did you're not just going to get away from them.

Anyway just my 2 cents and opinions on it.

[Korpah the Dutch Gamer]

Messaggio originale di Plinto:

Messaggio originale di JayTwoPointOh Shiro:

Appreciate the feedback, I'll get this in front of the devs and we'll see what we can do!

Any suggestions on your end?

James

Calling a retreat initiates a nearby escape point that each party member must reach in order to successfully escape?

agreed!

Leave that guy on a hill with a shield so the rest can run.
He will be the talk around the campfire for weeks

[Ninth Hour]

This seems like a tricky request. If you're retreating to minimize losses in the first place, the consequences can't be too punitive, otherwise there is no point to having that option.

What does it matter if you are successful in retreating, only to be so crippled that continuing is practically impossible?

The request for more punitive consequences would seem to conflict with the fact that, if you have to retreat, you're already in poor shape to begin with and cannot tolerate much more damage to your party. So finding the right balance is challenging.

[Jǫrmungandr]

Messaggio originale di Plinto:

Looks like the most you lose is some resources, but you can just click a button and escape instantly from any battle???

C'mon folks. If you want to make a tough, tactical game, then fleeing from battle should not be as simple as pressing a button and then the battle ends. This might just be me being spoiled by Battle Brothers tactical retreats where sometimes a man gets left behind, fighting valiantly on a hill, so the others can escape, but retreating feels really...hand-holdey(?) in Wartales.

It's like if the DM of your campaign puts players in a fight for their lives and the the players decide they want to try to run away, and the DM just says, "Okay you make it. No rolls necessary. Nothing. You're just out and free."

Retreats could be handled better, but the combat is not punishing enough to begin with, on max difficulty, that retreat is ever a necessity anyway. As opposed to BB, casuatlies of your mercs close to never happpen in this game. This is the major weakness of Wartales that I've been hoping the devs will fix before full release.

Battles should be deadly for us too, not just the enemy, and the cost of new recruits should be lowered to compensate for that, so that we can replace the fallen reasonably well. When the enemy doesn't hurt (kill) you, then the combat is by definition too easy. BB handled the cycle of losses vs recruiting new mercs very well. The game was very deadly, with very high casualty rate (at least on max difficutly, which is all I ever play), and the cost of new recruits was perfectly balanced and affordable, to regain some form of balance after setbacks or costly battles.

If they fixed that first, then fixing retreat would become more relevant. I've literally never had a need to retreat in Wartales. I may have had 1 or 2 cases of "almost", because I've overreached, but not quite.