Is merciful still fun and a challenge?

[FantasyFreak_UK]

After reading a few comments about balancing, especially with the new DLC.
I am thinking that might be the way to go.

[Mosta]

If you're new to TBS, yes.

[Tragic]

The game is ballenced around normal... You can play much more casually with little fear of failing completely. You also have more resilience so it is not critical if knights get injured. You heal fast and they have many lives. This allows you to just play in a more intuitive way.

Once you're in Lengendary much of the experimental stuff is gone.. Small ♥♥♥♥ ups are costly, mainly due to the lower heal rate. Also you have less resilience. So critical injuries are brutal if you don't have replacement troops. Also servators are harder to come by so there is a more tlrestricted mission choice and ship upgrade path. It should be noted unless you click the option on you can still save scum in legendary to get favourable deeds and mission spawn locations on the world map as well as saving back ups in the combat parts.

In short.. Play normal for your first play through.

[lich0]

If you don't know what you're doing (you probably don't on your first playthrough) then yes, marciful can be challenging. There's a specific way to build your squads and play the game, so if you go through some guides and read the advice here on Steam forums, it might turn out to be too easy,

[Tragic]

There is no specific way to build anything. Total bs.

[Salinga]

You may have already read this post in the other thread. If not now that's why I copied it here. About the Question about Challenge. Mostly no but once in a while some things can make Situations more or less interesting.


I'll give my opinion on whether playing on Easy is a good idea if you plan to play on higher difficulty levels later.

First of all, I play on Easy, so at least I know something about it.

Easy:

In a nutshell. It becomes a power trip very quickly. One of the reasons why I play this way.
This in turn means that I don't have to constantly concentrate.

In my eyes Chaos Gate is a fantastic game. Only on the higher levels it becomes too exhausting for me. This is due to the fact that this game requires a high level of concentration and knowledge about all the abilities of all units over a long period of time (mission). Furthermore, you should have all the synergies of the squad you are using at hand.
That's exactly what I love about the game and because on Easy, for example, there are far fewer enemies and units on the map, it's easier for me to keep track of everything.

What is also an important factor for me, this game throws a lot of negative events at the player. Some people like this or can handle it well, others it can quickly get on their nerves. On Easy I simply stay relaxed because I know that these events can be handled easily.

I think there is a risk that you get used to things that don't work on higher difficulty levels. But I can't judge that so well because my last run on higher difficulty levels was a long time ago. I know that the enemies are much easier to stun. Less HPs and so on. The good thing is that everything also happens on Easy and the mechanics exist as such.

BUT. I think that CG on Easy is a pleasant way to learn. If you then think you know enough you can just stop and start a new run. CG is a time eater either way.

Ultimately, it depends on what you want to achieve with the game for you. I just want to have fun with CG and I do. I can absolutely understand if other people play to challenge themselves or otherwise set other goals. That's where the fun is for them.

One thing I think I may still say, so to speak as a warning.
Even the hardest players despair now and then on legendary runs in CG, at least in some missions.

I wish you at least as much fun in CG as I have.

[Herodotus]

Short answer, Hell Yeah, baby. I love strategy games but don't profess to be a savant even after playing them for 35+ years. Jeez, these days I even suck at Chess, when in my twenties I was State Champion.
If you don't think the challenge is high enough, and I think you'll find it will (I'm on Day 360) even after enabling all DLC, you can always start again, but honestly I think you'll find it challenging enough.

[snuggleform]

I have to second what Salinga is saying. He said it very well and I cannot say it better, but I will use my own words: if you're looking for good, mostly mindless fun, merciful is great. I've been fairly addicted to the "power trip" as Salinga says as you accumulate levels and gear, and because it's merciful I rarely have to savescum. I'm not even bored, I just enjoy the smooth and fun power trip it feels like. Playing on higher difficulties will probably make you want to savescum a lot or at least concentrate a heck of a lot, and that could wear you out particularly with that new stupid guardsmen mission.

[Herodotus]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

I have to second what Salinga is saying. He said it very well and I cannot say it better, but I will use my own words: if you're looking for good, mostly mindless fun, merciful is great. I've been fairly addicted to the "power trip" as Salinga says as you accumulate levels and gear, and because it's merciful I rarely have to savescum. I'm not even bored, I just enjoy the smooth and fun power trip it feels like. Playing on higher difficulties will probably make you want to savescum a lot or at least concentrate a heck of a lot, and that could wear you out particularly with that new stupid guardsmen mission.

I watched a guy on Youtube on day 28,000 or something, and he had maxed out all his Knights and Assassins (Level 9), their ability trees, all Stategems, everything researched and upgraded. In short nothing left to do, and in-game there just simply was no challenge as he steam-rollered through each map.
At that point, there's no point to the game, so in short it's best to have a challenge than none at all.
Merciful is good for me, but might not be for the twenty somethings, the age I played "Command & Conquer" when it first hit the shelves, making the hardest difficulty on "Dune 2" look simple.

Too easy the player moves on. Too hard, the player moves on. Best to find out for yourself just by doing a few missions.

[snuggleform]

Yea it depends on your tolerance for repetition. I don't know why but I honestly am not bored of the repetition and I'm day 1100 on merciful. I think part of it is that there's still gear for me to find so that keeps the dopamine circuit active, the other is that I honestly find that most missions are nicely fast paced and there's just enough different kinds of missions that I don't feel like I'm actually grinding, I just have good fun and the hours pass.

[Herodotus]

Originally posted by snuggleform:

Yea it depends on your tolerance for repetition. I don't know why but I honestly am not bored of the repetition and I'm day 1100 on merciful. I think part of it is that there's still gear for me to find so that keeps the dopamine circuit active, the other is that I honestly find that most missions are nicely fast paced and there's just enough different kinds of missions that I don't feel like I'm actually grinding, I just have good fun and the hours pass.

Yeah, it's all up to individual taste, and if you ask the question on the Forum you'll get as many different answers as there are players, and one or none might suit you.

P.S. I'd be a lot further than Day 360 if so many missions hadn't stalled on the AI's turn 3/4 or even 4/5 of the way into the mission so many times, including reloading in-combat saves.
You could probably add another 100 days if it wasn't for this persistent issue.

[FantasyFreak_UK]

Well first are impressions is it is still a challenge. If you don't focus on the main objective or go for extreme techno phages without a Dread, you are going to lose. My main criticism thus far, is my Knights are pretty much immortal once you extend the barracks to 12. They will get taken out in missions though. As although I have the health advantage, they normally have the numbers and better armour weirdly. Also their basic plebs seem to have better range. So merciful actually balances out some of their weird advantages.

[Gorwe]

Originally posted by Tragic:

There is no specific way to build anything. Total bs.

Well, there ARE better and worse choices, but to make a completely useless character? Very hard to do, if even possible.