Scouting Adventurers, a Fair Point Value

[Hans]

I recently turned on the scouting adventurer option and was slightly disappointed that you only had 100 points. After probably hours of theory crafting, I only ever managed to make one character within that point range that I considered good. I dubbed him the Zealot because I was able to give him stars in strength and endurance, but was able to counteract the points by selecting dumb, sadist, and loves pain with plenty of points left over for attributes.

I then read there was an easy way to edit the points value and was curious what everyone used in their games or what they thought a fair value was, assuming they increased it?

[Pure_Poetry]

TBH I think 100 is fair. Aside from very lucky and rare rolls at the tavern, any scouted adventurer will already far exceed 98% of the random adventurers you get at the tavern. Just don't give them talents, give them traits and attributes. In my current playthrough 3 of my A-team members are scouted (with 100 points), including 1 from a viewer's request. More here if you want to take a peak :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmtB2cGeFBs&list=PLwtXBJSNRgmKMF4h6T45ORzA1i3iqja6-&index=51

I talk about scouting near 23 min mark and scroll through my adventurers a lot.

My Sadist / Soldier Training / Quick scouted Dragon knight has done more than 100k damage by day 115 or so.

[asdf]

I think more than anything the traits are just.. not very balanced when compared to each other. There are some traits that are just overwhelmingly better than others for the point cost. For instance, there's a trait like "Strong" which gives +1 strength, +30% strength growth for 30 points, and then there's "QuicK" which gives +1 movement, +20% initiative and +30% dex growth for only 20 points - 1 movement is clearly way more valuable than +1 strength, they both give +30% to a stat growth, and it costs less than strong to pick up.. plus you get +20% initiative for free on top of it. Quick seems so strong that there's just no reason to ever not pick it (dexterity is useful for everyone, movement is useful for everyone, and initiative is always nice to have - when you have high initiative it means you can wait and then take 2 back to back turns more consistently against most enemies, and it does it all for only 20 points).

What I personally like using is something like Mana Core + quick + rational (I guess if you don't use intelligence then you might want something else instead of rational, but it's great value for only 20 points), and increasing the starting value of 3 stats to 8. This way you get +90% to your growths in total, +1 movement, automatic mana regen, +20% initiative, +10 brave and also start with 3 stats at 8 already which makes it easy to promote to higher tier classes quickly. I don't think the downside of rational is that big of a deal when you consider that you're getting +60% in growths and +10 brave for only 20 points.

[buchecker]

asdf a écrit :

I think more than anything the traits are just.. not very balanced when compared to each other. There are some traits that are just overwhelmingly better than others for the point cost. For instance, there's a trait like "Strong" which gives +1 strength, +30% strength growth for 30 points, and then there's "QuicK" which gives +1 movement, +20% initiative and +30% dex growth for only 20 points - 1 movement is clearly way more valuable than +1 strength, they both give +30% to a stat growth, and it costs less than strong to pick up.. plus you get +20% initiative for free on top of it. Quick seems so strong that there's just no reason to ever not pick it (dexterity is useful for everyone, movement is useful for everyone, and initiative is always nice to have - when you have high initiative it means you can wait and then take 2 back to back turns more consistently against most enemies, and it does it all for only 20 points).

What I personally like using is something like Mana Core + quick + rational (I guess if you don't use intelligence then you might want something else instead of rational, but it's great value for only 20 points), and increasing the starting value of 3 stats to 8. This way you get +90% to your growths in total, +1 movement, automatic mana regen, +20% initiative, +10 brave and also start with 3 stats at 8 already which makes it easy to promote to higher tier classes quickly. I don't think the downside of rational is that big of a deal when you consider that you're getting +60% in growths and +10 brave for only 20 points.

I would argue, that Strong is better than Quick. While that one move is hard to come by in the beginning, i had my people zoom around the battlefield later on without the need for that one point. Also dex is worse than str as an attribute because it does not contribute to damage later on in a meaningful way. Extra initiative can also be a bad thing, wenn you want a certain turn order of your people to buff up for an alpha strike.

Mana Core is also something i only care about on my bard and even there only because Bards dont need much of anything else to excel. I much rather use Quick Hands and chuck the occasional Mana Potion.

@OP i think 100 points is more than fair. Sure you cant build something like that

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237434200

but you can still find those anyway in the tavern. So scouting is there to combat bad RNG for recruits and not necessarily give you OP characters.

In the end in my current playthrough on very hard just before the final battle i am still using my three starting characters plus two decent recruits and Alissa. Never cared enough to build up Elan or any of the other talented recruits.

[Akameka]

It's true that what you need at early level of a character is often less relevant at level 20.

For exemple, mana core definitelly helped a lot with sustainability on my AK, yet now that she has overdrive and regen 5 BP per kill, she's just perma Overdrive so mana regen is now irrelevant. Same thing with +1 walking range. Nice at start, but now she can dive in with her armor's skill, she can teleport, she refresh teleport when she kill someone...(which is kinda easy to get when you spam 200 dmg AOE all around you) so There is no need for extra walk range anymore.

In the same way, once you start drowning in BP (bard in the team), you can spam refresh movement point, so again, walking range is less relevant

And actually sadist isn't a bad trait in fact, considering the +30% STR growth and that they are the only one who can get the title with a whooping 40% life leech on all attacks.

Still, such traits helps a lot during the early mid game, so I wouldn't consider them useless either.

Mana Core is also something i only care about on my bard and even there only because Bards dont need much of anything else to excel. I much rather use Quick Hands and chuck the occasional Mana Potion.

It's also very good on a healer. Unlimited health and mana (with the skill that gives a part of the amount healed as mana) for everyone is always nice to have.

Never cared enough to build up Elan or any of the other talented recruits.

Welp, Elan doesn't really need to be cared for. Just slap on him his growth perks and he will go brrrrr! by himself by endgame haha.

[Kil0]

100 is plenty. You can increase it for a special leader but in general 100. Try Talented- Dumb- lazy and get 3 20% boosted stars/talents to spread (Str,End,Wil). Talented-Rational- (Fast Learner(all around), Soldier Training (Physical), Magic Boost (Mage, wrong name same sorry)). Any of these will make great adventurers

[buchecker]

Akameka a écrit :

Mana Core is also something i only care about on my bard and even there only because Bards dont need much of anything else to excel. I much rather use Quick Hands and chuck the occasional Mana Potion.

It's also very good on a healer. Unlimited health and mana (with the skill that gives a part of the amount healed as mana) for everyone is always nice to have.

My healer actually only acts as a buff bot. The only fight since early game where i actually took noticable damage because it took longer than 1st round alpha strike (on very hard) as against Vorathax.

Akameka a écrit :

Never cared enough to build up Elan or any of the other talented recruits.

Welp, Elan doesn't really need to be cared for. Just slap on him his growth perks and he will go brrrrr! by himself by endgame haha.

One of my starting characters was talented and got most of the trainer perks before i got Elan so she has better growth now and i ended up never taking him on missions and hes still lev 8 :D

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3237562027

(with book +30 int growth)

[Asahida]

I think 100 scouting points are enough as well. After all, the points value is relative to the traits and attributes you can gain with your points pool.

What might need a bit more balancing are the point values of some traits. There are some 30 cost traits which completely overshadow others for the same value for example.

Either way, for an optional mechanic I believe it's fine as it is or you can adjust the rules overall if something feels out of touch since it's a single player game and your experience matters most.

[Hans]

I agree with the overall point that many of the traits feel imbalanced in terms of point cost. Quick is a great example, and it doesn't make sense that quick is -20, but lazy gives you +20. Meanwhile, arrogant and humble are both -10 or -20 and even tiny is -20 even though it's not nearly as good as Quick. Talents are objectively the worst allocation of any points since they're always -30 and don't give a secondary buff or increase to a stat.

Asahida a écrit :

Either way, for an optional mechanic I believe it's fine as it is or you can adjust the rules overall if something feels out of touch since it's a single player game and your experience matters most.

No better words have ever been spoken/typed in regards to a single player game.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

Hans a écrit :

Talents are objectively the worst allocation of any points since they're always -30 and don't give a secondary buff or increase to a stat.

Except they don't require a slot. You can only have 3 traits, but as many talents as you have points.

So if you spend your points on cheaper traits or even ones that give you points (i.e. Drunk for your bard) you might have points left for talents.

I think it's fine that talents are a bit inefficient because of that. Balance between traits is a bigger issue.

[Zivich]

as a personal take i would like a no point limit option, sometimes i just wanna make wacky fun builds and a limit goes against that.

[asdf]

Iguana-on-a-stick a écrit :

Hans a écrit :

Talents are objectively the worst allocation of any points since they're always -30 and don't give a secondary buff or increase to a stat.

Except they don't require a slot. You can only have 3 traits, but as many talents as you have points.

So if you spend your points on cheaper traits or even ones that give you points (i.e. Drunk for your bard) you might have points left for talents.

I think it's fine that talents are a bit inefficient because of that. Balance between traits is a bigger issue.

Talents aren't even good compared to just buffing the stat directly though. You can get +5 to 3 stats with 30 points (so +15 stats). Even if you're expecting a character to get all the way to level 31, a talent will only be +9 stats on average.. so even in the endgame, the flat stat boost is still more valuable than the growth rate of a talent (and that's before you even consider that you're promoting to higher tier classes earlier which gives a much bigger increase in growth rates than a talent too).. and needless to say, it's way better in the early game to have flat stats.

[Iguana-on-a-stick]

asdf a écrit :

Talents aren't even good compared to just buffing the stat directly though. You can get +5 to 3 stats with 30 points (so +15 stats). Even if you're expecting a character to get all the way to level 31, a talent will only be +9 stats on average.. so even in the endgame, the flat stat boost is still more valuable than the growth rate of a talent (and that's before you even consider that you're promoting to higher tier classes earlier which gives a much bigger increase in growth rates than a talent too).. and needless to say, it's way better in the early game to have flat stats.

It depends.

If you're making i.e. a bard, for whom willpower is the only thing that really matters, it can still be worth it.

There's also the re-roll button to consider. If you get your willpower growth from say 120% to 150%, it becomes much more worthwhile to re-roll when you only get 1 point.

And of course, if you have the Talented trait you get +50 growth instead of +30. (Even then probably only worth it for your primary damage stat, but still.)

But yeah, in general just buying 15 stats seems like a much better investment, particularly because the early game is usually harder and getting an advanced class not only makes your growth better but gives you important skills earlier.

[Zeks]

Scouting is a crutch and increasing the point values will make gems from the tavern less valuable, imo

[Carambar]

I feel 100 points is fair. Just enough while not enough at the same time, kind of hits that sweat spot imo. I tried with 200 for the lulz and found it to be way too much for instance and preferred to be more limited.

There is discussion and argument to be had about the value of certain traits and talents as a whole, but in regards to the amount of points we are given, it seems balanced as is. The fact that we can change this amount at our own discretion is pretty awesome!

[Hans]

Zeks a écrit :

Scouting is a crutch and increasing the point values will make gems from the tavern less valuable, imo

Well, that's a hot take! I personally am a big fan of scouting even at 100 points as the tavern generally throws hot garbage at you week after week. Scrutinizing the tavern refresh constantly is not enjoyable. If you're willing to wait, there is no penalty for taking weeks to accomplish anything, so you can just progress time and pray to RNGesus that you get a good character.

My Chad Squad (A-team) is filled with broken characters while my Beta Team has a few as well because I was willing to sit around for about ~80 days in game at the start once I had cleared the bandits blocking the road. I progressed the time, quickly scanned if anyone had two talents/stars, and then moved on if they didn't. I only knocked out one star quests when I needed money.

That said, I personally like the recruitment system in Battle Brothers where every recruit costs gold, but your chance of getting a good character is better the higher tier they are. The scouting system in OAG is a solid system though.