End of Run feedback

[Pure_Poetry]

[TL;DR : too long post, thanks Greenguy, humble balance, exploit fix and improvement suggestions below]

Hi Greenguy,

First of all, once again, thank you for that hidden gem you keep polishing. It is an absolute pleasure to play your game. I wished AAA studio would be as caring and bettering as you are.
Having recently completed my new run, I collected along the way some various comments. I've those for the players in my guide I'll keep humbly updating, but I thought I'd post those more for you here in case some would create either consensus or disagreement or just debate to upgrade it further.
The idea is mostly to further fix minor exploits, minor re-balance (especially in the lategame), etc… I believe that even though this is from a min-max perspective, ultimately, fixing these will benefit everyone, even the most casual player.
TBF, the game has sooo many layers, so having a game already so well ironed and balanced is astonishing imho, so kudos once again.

I. Core mechanics update suggestions :
1. Introducing a Doomclock system or enemies improving over time (as a toggable option at least) : to prevent excessive farming or re-rolling the tavern for 1000 days to get rare combos before starting. +1% [HP/Dmg/point for enemies] every week after day 30 or so ? It would also reward taking risks (instead of doing -2* stars maps vs suggested rank just because it rewards you with positive cashflows overall without any downside or any risk). It would actually totally make sense lorewise (ie : "Big boss" getting close to ressurection and granting more and more power to his subordinates)
2. On the same level, once you know what you're doing and how to level up your guys, game gets far easier starting 5-6* maps. Might be worth slightly increasing difficulty at that point (I did it manually, but fixed difficuly settings would have been an issue). The above suggestion might partially solves this, or you could add something like an extra +2% HP/dmg/point per reputation rank. Only applies to players for their 2nd+ playthrough imho.
3. Skillchecks. I never had to use a chest key or a shovel FROM THE WHOLE GAME, and even had 95% to succeed any rolls past day 50 or so (modifiers were always above base check). You recently nerfed the bard passive (was one of my suggestions already) but I think the core issue is that balancing Skillcheck table is impossible for you to achieve when it works with a d20 while your adv can get >+80 modifiers lategame. The standard deviation is too high ==> The modifiers should be halved, and the skillcheck table updated accordingly. This would make balancing easier and skillcheck progression more controled/relevant
Add a difficulty slider as well. I humbly think skillchecks would need to be at +20% overall.
4. Improve blessings for 200g. Make them non-random, or upgrade them a little. Just my 2 cents on that 1.
5. New game+ mechanics : Allow to "export" adv at endgame, and have them scouted at an extra cost at lvl 1 without gear class upgrade or attributes additions but with their previous traits apart from instructor or T3-classes related (Wildermyth-like) for an extra fee (like scouting for experimented/already famous adventurers). Make their starting attributes 3/5/7 depending on starting class. Cost 10k ?
6. Boss killing stopping the fight : Most "smaller bosses" fight end by the end of Turn 1 if you wait then focus fire while putting all your party at risk if there was a turn 2. Especially true on "First love" story quest were killing the ranger solves all your problems at once and do not make much sens storywise. This can make sense sometimes, but otherwise I'd feel like the mobs would still want to fight. Might want to remove it for most fights (and so clarify by a battle modifier if killing the boss will end the fight or not)


II. Items
1.Item variety is excellent on rare and epic tiers imho, with great balance, great ideas, but here is my inventory by lategame for legendaries : https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3250205435
That is unfortunate as legendary tier could offer some wild possibilities (though still minding balance). So endgame felt uselessly grindy and tedious in terms of item rewards. Few humble suggestions here :
- 40 Dex (gloves of Agility), 40 WIS (Monocle of perception), 40 WP (Gemini Mask of Determination), just like the other 3 already available. Btw, they should not count for class requirements
- Herald of Elements ring : +25% all elemental power, +25 all elem penetration, -10 HP
- Mask of Yin and Yang : +50% holy and dark power
- Flash symbol : +1AP, +10 dodge +10 ini +1 mov, +10 lightning potency, immunity to AoO.
- Pendant of sustainability : +8% HP/SP and +4%BP regen very turn
- Globe of repulsion :100 HP barrier, Fly,+20 All resistances. Free spell to simply repel enemies 1 tile away every turn with no damage for 1AP (but collision).
- Rooting boots : -10 Ini, -10 dodge, +2 range (for range only), +50 earth resist, immovable
- Herald of Element Amulet +40 all elem resistance : 4 attached summons to it. 0AP to summon. 1 summonable per rest. Stats close to the basilisk, casts T1/weaker T2 mage attack for all but earth being melee tank
Subject to rebalance ofc. I bet you'll have way more ideas considering what you already created in this game.
2. Basilisk falls behind in the lategame. Should be able to slightly upgrade him like Ferdinand, to Epic then Legendary rarity. I'd suggest an event at an adequate rank, when you carry him where he can meet a female and where you can "leave him there" because he wants to, to then have him walk back to the guild as "Epic" 2 days later, and maybe an other event where you have him as epic in a later rank, he sees his former lovemate and his children fighting and he comes to defend them after which he becomes legendary/adult.

III. Small balance suggestions
1. In order to have bards more versatile, make their own songs work on them too so that they can also benefit from SP/BP regen, empower stacks, and do something else that just scratch the guitar twice per turn staying immobile in a corner lategame.
+ Add an accuracy+crit song to the bard's repertoire.
+ As a consequence, keep nerfing bard songs a little (-15% and +2 cooldown ?)
2. Angel summon is nice but I'd suggest a passive to take control of him (and the basilisk ?) (like the Beastmaster's ability)
3. This one is debatable : Talented is way too OP, too rare, and the tavern RNG makes that you just desperatly wait for 1 with adequate attributed talents and complementary traits. Without doomclock, one can simply re-roll 1000 days to create a perfect lvl 1 A-Team ==> Nerf at +10 growth per attribute ?
4. Mid/end-game bosses balance:
- More with True Sight (otherwise invisibility is OP). Apart from Vorathax, the emperor and vampires, I could have used invis way too often to kill the game. Smart and/or powerful monsters shoud be able to hit invis enemies imho (+see fix exploits below).
- Introduce taunt immunity passive for S-Tier enemies
- A little bit more of rooting immunity (lorewise would make sens for the physically strong ones). otherwise vines and pinning arrows are OP
- (minor) Clearly display any enemy that has more than 1 action per turn (and how many). For the Obsidian golem boss for instance, all icons on the left are obsidian golems. Couldn't know how many were him, and in general, that would prevent nasty surprises (like a counter above their head, just like the "elite tooltip")

IV. Exploits to fix (and suggestions on how to fix them) :
1. Permastealth abuse ==> Create a "revealed" debuff that prevents you from going hidden again for 2 turns after 4 turns (like a count of how many turns/times you've gone hidden and the debuff "revealed" triggers at T4 for 2 turns, then you can re-hide)
2. Taunt surround or invis : to prevent cases where the taunt source is surrounded/inaccessible/hidden : introduce taunt immunity for >26 lvl enemies and a temporary passive "clearminded" for 2 turns that works the same way as revealed after being 2 times or 2 turns under "taunt").
3. Camping while an enemy has "spotted" you on the questmap is … kinda weird. In that scenario, grant a flat +50% ambush penalty ? Or depending on distance ?
4. Infinite regen : you can regenerate indefinitely during a single fight with a bard by delaying a fight with multiple debuffs (stuns, pin, etc...). As a consequence : Limit each song use to 2 per fight ?
5. Also, have manacore work only for the 1st 5 turns (same idea, prevent full regen)
6. Consumable spam : limit the number of consumables (not stacks) one can bring to a quest by 10 per adventurer.
Note : the concept of exploits is the more you fix them, the more workarounds will be found. But at least the most basic ones will be fixed ;-).

V. Misc :
1. Some characters have no face/portrait (Andrey, Majika's son, some enemies as well …)
2. Some extra warning pop-up needed (when fail roll so that you just don’t jam the chest's lock, when misclick on hourglass in hub, etc…)
3. Casting an AOE spell while a ranged ally has all tiles in range can trigger multiple chain attacks from the ranger. That is OK when these are multiple small monsters but not when the said ally chain attacks 4 times in a row the big 2x2 enemy who had his 4 squares targeted by the AOE spell !
4. Economy : on -50%, I still had 200k in the bank by day 100, with many unsold yet sellable items… Total assets near 400k probably. I still think the game is too rewarding by default (might allow the slider to go lower than -50%, or probably by default reduce it by something like -20% and that would still not harm casual players imho). Also, assignements rewards should be reduced as well with difficulty slider !
5. Add a bestiary of all killed monster (cross-playthroughs)
6. Same for all items collected
7. Add a 3rd and maybe even 4th optional event in "Long" questmaps
8. Show who's the Elite in the enemy list on the quest map (or have the moving enemy on the quest map being the elite type). I'm still afraid the Elite will be an alpha wolf…

That is it, i know you'd wished it would be longer but... that will have to wait my next playthrough :-D !... [/sarcasm]

Thanks again,

Cheers

[Guedez]

Adding to the Legendary item suggestions:
Moon metal Filigree - When this accessory is replaced by another, upgrade the replacing accessory to legendary.
I get that it would be considerable work to implement a legendary version of all other accessories, but some of them like the 5sp regen blue or the returning knife (upgrade just +3 hit +1 crit since it is already pretty good as a purple) would be nice to have a Legendary version without filling the loot tables with 40 new accessories. Either of the teleporting accessories could upgrade to the same one that is just both combined, as another example.

[Guedez]

highjacking this again, a blessing to mark on the map all the events would be also very very appreciated

[Pure_Poetry]

Originally posted by Guedez:

highjacking this again, a blessing to mark on the map all the events would be also very very appreciated

Plz do feel free to hijack. That was the point of posting this here.

Also, just realized one line disappeared in my C/Paste : Some story bosses are also really squishy. Early ones feel fine/balanced, and should stay so to appeal for new players. However after the bandit king, story bosses really die too quickly. Despite being on absolute max difficulty, my Vorathax did not even get a 2nd turn :-(. I'd just suggest granting the following HP bonuses : Icefang 6* : +50% HP, Witch 7* +100% HP, Champion 8* +200% HP, Vorathax 10* +300% HP, Emperor 9* +400%HP. While nerfing any %-based regen ability to keep them at flat value. Toggable option if needed, but even on my 1st run they didn't feel as difficult/threatening as they should have felt imho. They all died in less than 1 turn (per "form") once I got close.

[Cutlass Jack]

Since we're piling in requests, let me toss in one of mine:

I'd love to see upgrade recipes for the 'Crimson' weapons. They look too nifty not to get the full treatment other weapons get. Obviously for story reasons you can't get multiple of the original component, but maybe some other option could be used instead.

[Blinkicide]

#1 - I strongly second the world scaling. The ability to use all the time in the world to roll char traits, do low lvl quests to farm passives and points, even to fail quests just to farm unique passives for the entire squad, or avoid leveling up to get gear that improves the rolls, basically says that no matter what difficulty I choose, I can trivialize it by making simple logical although dreadfully dull decisions. Obviously this should be separate mode so as not to incense the casual crowd you've already won over.

#2 - Endgame. World scaling would naturally lead to a possible end game. A way to see how far you can take your guild before something breaks. Maybe your adventurers lag behind in combat ability, maybe the guild goes bankrupt from salaries and costs.

[TheGreenGuy]

Thanks for the feedbacks!

Regarding world scaling: I do have already implemented a system to increase enemy level for every x days that have passed. It just isn't active yet. It might be enough to help with the difficulty of later enemies.

I need to test it a bit first and then in one of the future updates I'll add it to the custom difficulty settings.

[FAT WANZER]

Originally posted by Cutlass Jack:

Since we're piling in requests, let me toss in one of mine:

I'd love to see upgrade recipes for the 'Crimson' weapons. They look too nifty not to get the full treatment other weapons get. Obviously for story reasons you can't get multiple of the original component, but maybe some other option could be used instead.

this;also need to be able to upgrade em to legendary too.
buff guardian(maybe an aoe of missile mitigation since enemy can just shoot past you,also the 1 we have is 1 target cover only the other aoe redirect damage to you never tried it cause at that point it's better to just buff up all and kill enemy fast); a lot of the time i would prefer dps over tanking or even paladin cause either i can take enemy out faster or paladin get better cc(aoe blind) + also have aoe taunt,can heal self

[Pure_Poetry]

Originally posted by TheGreenGuy:

Thanks for the feedbacks!

Regarding world scaling: I do have already implemented a system to increase enemy level for every x days that have passed. It just isn't active yet. It might be enough to help with the difficulty of later enemies.

I need to test it a bit first and then in one of the future updates I'll add it to the custom difficulty settings.

Glad to read this !

[joej17]

First off let say that this will be a long post as I'm just giving my opinion to everything in one post to cover everything at once. With that said, I agree with with all 5 core mechanic changes or improvements as they will definitely flush out quite a few things and make some aspects feel better overall when using them. While the item sections I also agree with but some of the suggestions seem very very strong and I would like to just see more legendary items in general that kinda flesh out things that we lack.

Some quick examples would be things like the elemental ring you posted as a mage who actually uses all 4 elements they are just innately gimped compared to a mage who heavily specializes 1 element. Another would be some type of lifesteal to give to units who would want one and another would be % bonuses to hp and resist. Some game altering ones in the sense of breaking the hit cap so you dont need to use the difficulty option and only certain units would use it or want too i.e dodge champions.

Something that could be tied in with post game content that's connected to items. Special events that give legendary items like readjusting the ifrit event to where it gives a legendary fire staff but you have a really hard fight that you have to win for it. Same thing could be applied to other maps like tundra for ice, cave for earth, forest for lightning, and Old fortress for dark/holy. Then maybe after gathering all of the elements a final event or even quest that pops up to get the all elemental staff. This type of event/quest could be continued for almost all master classes and even titles that could have a special item associated with them.

Originally posted by Pure_Poetry:

III. Small balance suggestions
1. In order to have bards more versatile, make their own songs work on them too so that they can also benefit from SP/BP regen, empower stacks, and do something else that just scratch the guitar twice per turn staying immobile in a corner lategame.
+ Add an accuracy+crit song to the bard's repertoire.
+ As a consequence, keep nerfing bard songs a little (-15% and +2 cooldown ?)
2. Angel summon is nice but I'd suggest a passive to take control of him (and the basilisk ?) (like the Beastmaster's ability)
3. This one is debatable : Talented is way too OP, too rare, and the tavern RNG makes that you just desperatly wait for 1 with adequate attributed talents and complementary traits. Without doomclock, one can simply re-roll 1000 days to create a perfect lvl 1 A-Team ==> Nerf at +10 growth per attribute ?

I'll first start off with saying that point 4 is on point and would definitely be really good to see. Now with that being said I do disagree with bard changes as they are already very strong and letting their songs effect them would just be overkill as they are already a perfect candidate for free item usage to drink mp pots as needed or bp pots if needed for self sustain. If I remember correctly you stated they are also respectable support dps with magic even if its not as good as just being a song bot. If there was one issue bards have that would be their early game but its perfectly reasonable to have a slow early for such a strong support in the mid game +.

2. Not much to add for the angel summon outside of it should honestly already be controllable as its the saint ultimate that cost 40 BP to use. They don't have great bp generation so to spam it without a bard party member is very unrealistic and its the saint ultimate so why not be able to control it.

3. Is another I disagree with personally because scouted units are a thing and they by far cover like 90% if not more of the power of a lottery talented unit. For non scouted runs they are also not necessary but I would argue though the more your reputation goes up the more talented units should appear for the guild. This can also be a very good add on to what you suggested above as if you do find a perfect talented unit then the carry over feature for NG+ would feel even more impactful. You then can start building legendary adventurers for future playthroughs. To have a similar example if anyone has ever played Wildermyth. They have a feature where you can after beating a scenario take 1 of the adventurers and make them a legend. Then you can bring them for future scenarios and they keep all of their traits and feature changes they gained over the course of the journey.

Originally posted by Pure_Poetry:

IV. Exploits to fix (and suggestions on how to fix them) :
1. Permastealth abuse ==> Create a "revealed" debuff that prevents you from going hidden again for 2 turns after 4 turns (like a count of how many turns/times you've gone hidden and the debuff "revealed" triggers at T4 for 2 turns, then you can re-hide)
2. Taunt surround or invis : to prevent cases where the taunt source is surrounded/inaccessible/hidden : introduce taunt immunity for >26 lvl enemies and a temporary passive "clearminded" for 2 turns that works the same way as revealed after being 2 times or 2 turns under "taunt").
3. Camping while an enemy has "spotted" you on the questmap is … kinda weird. In that scenario, grant a flat +50% ambush penalty ? Or depending on distance ?
4. Infinite regen : you can regenerate indefinitely during a single fight with a bard by delaying a fight with multiple debuffs (stuns, pin, etc...). As a consequence : Limit each song use to 2 per fight ?
5. Also, have manacore work only for the 1st 5 turns (same idea, prevent full regen)
6. Consumable spam : limit the number of consumables (not stacks) one can bring to a quest by 10 per adventurer.
Note : the concept of exploits is the more you fix them, the more workarounds will be found. But at least the most basic ones will be fixed ;-).

1. I'm not opposed to it but at the same time once you add if greenguy adds more true sight mobs in the game whether through modifiers for a doomclock or just in general then it's an issue that will get solved on its own. As personally if your doing solo challenge runs on max difficulty then rogue lvl 1 stealth cheese is the go to to get everything set up and farming your traits before switching classes and promoting then leveling up.

2. Im not sure if I understand this exactly as you do have an AoE taunt already but I'm not sure if it hits hidden enemies or not but it should still hit the other 2 if its in range and they end up wasting their turn if they can't make it to you or attack you.

3. I do agree but it would definitely make solo challenge runs more annoying but meh it still makes sense and would give more importance to rogue camp skills to reduce ambush early.

4. It's the perk of a bard and tbh if your going to spend the time and effort to min/max then that's the players choice imo.

5. Mana core imo shouldn't be touched its perfect the way it is as most units don't even want it outside of a select few units. I'll break it down a bit as if you use a bard in a party its completely not needed for starters. A bishop/saint healing gives the SP needed for most front line units anyway and they can use HP to cast skills. Mages just meditate on turns that can fit it in, Arcane Knights just use more physical skills or basic slash for free SP. Grabbing the free item skill lets you chug mana pots if you really need too without it. Now for the cases imo where you would use it: any stance base user who uses multiple stances, spamming skills, solo challenges, and bards. Might be missing a few but that's what comes to the top of my mind.

6. I'm not sure about this as I've barely used any consumables in my party playthroughs as they are just not needed mostly. Solo playthroughs though well my reaper didnt need any outside of Vorathaxx fight for fire resist but my solo mage playthrough has been a consumable hog to try and squeeze everything I can out of the free consumable a turn.

This might be a good time to mention my solo playthroughs are all max difficulty so when im speaking on these challenges its coming from a 100% boost to dmg and health, +50 ACC, -30 ACC to adventurers, -50% on all rewards and +100% on enemy encounters from day 1. With lower settings things will be even easier so min/maxing might not be as needed. While some other people have different opinions I'm just talking from personal experience here and would love to hear from others on how they handle things.

For the final section for me the biggest things would be the bestiary and item log as it would be nice too see everything and their stats for information and knowing I didn't miss anything as some of the blue items are really rare like the scout armor from the merchant. The other points would be bonuses and nice little additions though. A misc suggestion from me though would also include more diverse gems to socket on the gear as sometimes they dont really add too much depending on the unit.

[Guedez]

Originally posted by joej17:

my reaper didnt need any outside of Vorathaxx fight for fire resist

How did you do it? My reaper just gets bitten murderized. I figured out there are quite a few spots where he would refuse to move, so I could move in, poison bomb and teleport out every turn until he had 2000 poison stacks on him, then I just ate the 3x3 fire bombs since I didn't want to risk finding more safe spots

[joej17]

Originally posted by Guedez:

How did you do it? My reaper just gets bitten murderized. I figured out there are quite a few spots where he would refuse to move, so I could move in, poison bomb and teleport out every turn until he had 2000 poison stacks on him, then I just ate the 3x3 fire bombs since I didn't want to risk finding more safe spots

Heroic Dodge is the real MVP pretty much I generated more BP then I used and shadow step out of the fire then it was pretty much dodge and spank in 1 spot. The legendary daggers with bleed/poison procs whenever its not resisted. Last thing would be vial of acids to counter the regen but I didnt have it so it took longer to do it but when he couldnt even touch me it was just a matter of time.

[Pure_Poetry]

Originally posted by joej17:

First off let say that this will be a long post as I'm just giving my opinion to everything in one post to cover everything at once.

Thanks for your detailed input. I personally appreciate.
Despite you disagreeing on some items, it seems we converge a lot, and even the ones you seem to disagree with like Scouting, well, we ultimately both mention Wildermyth system as a possible solution ;-).
To reply to some of your comments :
- Taunt surround you did not seem to understand : in a fight vs melee phoenixes or any mass melee, summon the decoy, surround it, enjoy.
- Regarding bards, I also do believe they are too strong lategame, hence the "buff to themselves" I suggested had to come with the nerfed song effects (I suggested something like -15% effects and +2 CD).

[FAT WANZER]

Originally posted by joej17:

Originally posted by Guedez:

How did you do it? My reaper just gets bitten murderized. I figured out there are quite a few spots where he would refuse to move, so I could move in, poison bomb and teleport out every turn until he had 2000 poison stacks on him, then I just ate the 3x3 fire bombs since I didn't want to risk finding more safe spots

Heroic Dodge is the real MVP pretty much I generated more BP then I used and shadow step out of the fire then it was pretty much dodge and spank in 1 spot. The legendary daggers with bleed/poison procs whenever its not resisted. Last thing would be vial of acids to counter the regen but I didnt have it so it took longer to do it but when he couldnt even touch me it was just a matter of time.

this,plus weapon specialist swordmaster with the lifesteal sword so dodged all his counter and my dps can dps safely

[joej17]

Originally posted by Pure_Poetry:

Thanks for your detailed input. I personally appreciate.
Despite you disagreeing on some items, it seems we converge a lot, and even the ones you seem to disagree with like Scouting, well, we ultimately both mention Wildermyth system as a possible solution ;-).
To reply to some of your comments :
- Taunt surround you did not seem to understand : in a fight vs melee phoenixes or any mass melee, summon the decoy, surround it, enjoy.
- Regarding bards, I also do believe they are too strong lategame, hence the "buff to themselves" I suggested had to come with the nerfed song effects (I suggested something like -15% effects and +2 CD).

Yep yep I've played the living hell out of this game and honestly loved every single second of it outside of maybe the prep phases for solo challenges but that had its own charm I guess lol. The more in-depth feedback we can get the better it is for greenguy so I'm down for more discussion if needed or to just bounce some ideas back and forth.

Hmm so its the decoy in a melee pack and they can only have 4 hit it and the rest just stands there then. I could see how that could be abused and honestly my solution for that is just to remove the decoy as it doesn't really make sense on the title anyway. The stats it gives is perfect for a dodge character but the passive makes it to where its not good for dodge counter units. The decoy seems to be game breaking in certain encounters so maybe a overhaul for the title to be fitted on dodge/counter units or potentially something assassins would want to use outside of shadow maybe more blind synergy for the reaper stances and the blind/dodge scoundral skill tree gets.

I didn't really clarify for bards but I think they are perfect the way they are. No changes needed if anything slight nerfs like what he has done already. They have a really weak early game and then lvl 12 gives them the full 6 songs so they start hitting their stride then 16 gives map wide songs and maybe the nerf is to not make them map wide but only increase the range by like 2 or something.

[Pure_Poetry]

Originally posted by joej17:

the nerf is to not make them map wide but only increase the range by like 2 or something.

Good idea