Servitor Missions Need Balancing

[Haon the Great]

I picked CG back up after a year or so, and was excited to see a new mission type: protect the servitors! Great, we could use a good defend mission.

After playing two, I will now actively avoid these missions. These missions are insanely unfun at the moment. Within five turns, the AI has to churn through roughly 50 units. That’s nuts! It was taking up to five minutes to get through the AI turns, on fast.

Then, after I successfully defended one of the seed carriers, killing over 20 units, the other 30 come bearing down on me. On action economy alone, this is near impossible to overcome.

Now, maybe I could have been more effective. Maybe I could have played better. Fine.

But these are tagged as a Medium difficulty. Bull. Hardest missions I’ve played in this game.

To sum: a castle defense mode where you’re tasked to kill every invader is a slog and isn’t fun.

These need a fix, badly. Put a timer on them, evac after you’re down to one, make them a Morbius alternative, SOMETHING. They aren’t balanced well at all relative to the game’s mechanics.

[Bubs]

I thought they were fine once you know the tricks (other topics go over this). Despite that, I see its flaws from a design perspective. If the guardsmen weren't crap, and shooting just to reduce armor and have it restore as soon as the enemy turn starts, it would be different. Or put in turrets that fire automatically, but in that case, whats the difference?

So I understand what you're saying, but when you know how to do it its just as hard as other missions. I think the idea of the enemy having a timer that they are required to win by, (maybe 8 turns?), would still be long, but at least not as tedious.

Giving control of the guardsmen could fix it too.... maybe?

[JPLRocket]

The problems with these missions are:

1) We're not told that AP no longer regenerates when the enemy patrols are revealed.
2) The enemies come to us rather than us to them, so we can't concentrate forces.
3) Allied positions are so far apart a huge amount of AP must be spent on moving, and the enemy reinforcement portals do not come from one location but rather a constantly changing one that is extremely far apart.
4) Constantly shifting portal locations renders establishment of a consistent defense line impossible; despite this being a defense mission, overwatch is still not helpful!
5) The missions are balanced around our allies being helpful but they are not helpful even against the most basic enemy units.
6) The defense mission goal is "kill every invading unit" and not "survive to extraction."

What would make them fun:
1) Warn the player that this mission operates in 'chaos gate mode' with the warp gates preventing AP refresh.
2) Concentrate the servitor bases into layers in a single area and envelop them, providing the enemy waves just one path into the base for the knights to defend together--and turn this on its head at the end of the fight with a last wave coming into the back of the fortress.
3) Double the enemy wave size and initial force count. Despite the greater quantity, having them all come at the same place means you're not wasting AP on movement.
4) Increase the damage of imperial guardsmen to be equivalent to Cultist Heavy Stubbers. Use their AI. This is a 4x increase in the individual guardsmen damage capability.
5) Use the 'turns to extraction/failure' turn counter from seed missions, boarding missions, and bloomspawn missions--literally half the missions have timers, there's absolutely no reason for this one not to.

[Bubs]

i disagree with "fun #4". Lasguns are where they should be, which is the same as autoguns. Or so I thought. What isn't right is how armor works in this game, and that chaos goes right after their armor gets reduced (on guardsmen turn).

Otherwise, I basically agree.

[Megaforce]

They're pretty damn tedious and boring. I can beat them just fine, but I don't enjoy doing it in the least bit. I avoid them as much as possible and only cave in when I have no choice. Slightly stronger guardsman would at least make it interesting.

[Zer0 X]

I just did one without any losses then one with two downs...I'd say its pretty normal considering the second one was later into the game and plague bearers had started appearing for the first time.

[Sergio Bigshot]

After the debacle of going into my first ever servitor defense mission blind, I adopted a strategy that I would just use the most ranged focused units I have an whittle down the incoming horde from 2 sides while wholesale eliminating the danger to one servitor.

[Bursacio]

I hope they do not change the mission is a lot of fun. I can understand is difficult for some people, maybe lower your difficulty.

[Halcyon]

I have to agree it's not fun, 3-5x as many enemies as a comparable missions, spread between disconnected combat fronts that can't be easily cycled between, supported by braindead worthless ai units, with an NPC that has to be defended in each theater? Even focusing on defending only one is harder than it should be for the mission level. Difficulty notwithstanding, a standard mission other than a defense mission generally takes about 10 minutes, while a servitor mission takes 30+ for the same or worse rewards. Enemy turns take 2-5 minutes on fast as 40 or more units navigate around the map doing their business, unless you split forces to try to whittle them down as they spawn (which is suicide).

At this point, I doubt the devs are going to bother sinking more coding hours into changing this, but it's a crying shame and I feel it deserves to be mentioned in case they intend to make a sequel.

[HozzMidnight]

If you think Servitor missions suck try a Technophage Servitor mission. lol what in the actual ♥♥♥♥? Did they not have a single play tester or did they just ignore all their feedback? I have to think the % of players that would enjoy this mission combo as it exists in the framework of the base game + the two DLCs would be low single digits.

[dgresevfan]

Agreed. These missions are horrible.

[Pieshaman]

i just did the first time this mission.
I decided to split my squad in 2-2 and just deal with it.
It felt overwhelming but only 1 of the 3 servitors died (I just thought 1 will be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cause I can only go to 2 places with 4 units squad)
only 1 of my squad got wounded (critical he went on his knees) but I did it, while I had the thought I would probably die seeing all the enemies coming at me.
but I think split the squad in 2 was the right strategy.
(I play normal ironman)
edit: for if you want to know what setup
I split up my team with 1 justicar with bolter and dual swords + 1 purgator with bolter and sword
the other team was 1 justicar with bolter and sword and a techmarine (I just got him and wanted to try him out lol)

[Zer0 X]

Originally posted by Pieshaman:

i just did the first time this mission.
I decided to split my squid in 2-2 and just deal with it.
It felt overwhelming but only 1 of the 3 servitors died (I just thought 1 will be ♥♥♥♥♥♥ cause I can only go to 2 places with 4 units squad)
only 1 of my squad got wounded (critical he went on his knees) but I did it, while I had the thought I would probably die seeing all the enemies coming at me.
but I think split the squad in 2 was the right strategy.
(I play normal ironman)

This is indeed what you should do, in a best case scenario you can fully clear a side and then rotate to another before the enemies overwhelm it, clear them, then rotate back but thats only in very specific circumstances where it can work.

[JPLRocket]

There are two ways to play the servitor missions efficiently:

Split an AoE squad (Psycannon purgator + Purifier + AoE melee Justicar + 1) in two directions, or use a stun squad with a mass teleport librarian who will rush each new portal with all the stacked bonus AP from executions.

Because you never refresh AP and new portals are always a long distance away, it takes such a long time.

[HozzMidnight]

I run 1 Culexus and 3 Knights, ideally Librarian, Interceptor, Justicar. Culexus handles 1 platform, the 3 Knights handle the other 2. This works well on any non Technophage Servitor mission I have encountered. I will occasionally lose a servitor but its rare.

[JPLRocket]

Another class very good at these is the tech marine; the heavy bolter servitor overwatch has unlimited shots and can be boosted to 9 damage (awaken the machine + sacrificial discharge on another/omnisiahs vengeance) Easily able to handle an area solo.

Callidus assassins are also great at camping portals- with a seeker skull, they can use immobilizing agony to lock an entire spawn in place and wipe it out on their own. And because AP don't refresh here, they actually can benefit from shattering mask.

I think in the later game it's not at all hard to camp all portal locations with one knight and solo them, but the real challenge is doing these in the early game. Since these add only 1 corruption and completion reduces 0, my advice early on remains "just skip it"