My one gripe

[Red Mantis]

First off I have only played this game for a few hours so things may change later into the game so keep that in mind. Also i'm playing on the default difficulty it may be different in other difficulties.

The issue is that the rewards each combat gives is much too low, in terms of gold, exp and/or items. Fighting introduces a penalty in that if your characters take damage, even if it's healed they will be weaker in subsequent runs unless you have them sit out of activities for some time, take a vacation or pay to have them healed at the healer. If you go around and do quests without engaging in combat unless you fail to notice a trap you aren't going to have to deal with this penalty. Of course fighting also has the risk of having a hero die too,

Additionally fights themselves don't take too long maybe about 2 or 3 minutes that being said it also only takes 2 or 3 minutes to complete a quest and leave if you don't fight any enemies. Just pick up 3 mushrooms or explore 75% of the map, interact with any gatherables and events, then just leave. From a time to reward ratio it's much more efficient even when you factor in that each fight increases gold reward by 10%.

Considering all the risks and the little reward to be gained I don't see any reason to engage in fighting, you will earn more exp, gold, items etc. by not fighting and doing everything else. I think this is unfortunate since I think the combat is fun and should be incentivised more heavily. Gamer's have a tendency to optimise the fun out of everything. Would be nice to see the rewards on fighting bumped up a little or maybe some other benefit like combat exp being used to unlock certain traits or something.

Let me know if i'm missing anything about the value of combat that I may have overlooked, thanks everyone.

[Murphy's Ghost]

Even late game, where exploration/item gathering takes longer, I kite encounters or run away to avoid fights when possible. Elite random fights (little yellow icon) at least give nice equipment, so are worth doing.

But it is as you say: normal fights sometimes give a couple hundred EXP/gold and take a few minutes, when the quest itself takes just as long and could give ten thousand EXP and gold.

You do get a small amount of misc items/crafting materials like leather and vampire dust though, that's something at least.

It would be amazing if you unlocked some kind of permanent buffs from say, killing 25/50/100 undead on that specific character.

[Red Mantis]

Originally posted by M-Werdna:

Even late game, where exploration/item gathering takes longer, I kite encounters or run away to avoid fights when possible. Elite random fights (little yellow icon) at least give nice equipment, so are worth doing.

But it is as you say: normal fights sometimes give a couple hundred EXP/gold and take a few minutes, when the quest itself takes just as long and could give ten thousand EXP and gold.

You do get a small amount of misc items/crafting materials like leather and vampire dust though, that's something at least.

It would be amazing if you unlocked some kind of permanent buffs from say, killing 25/50/100 undead on that specific character.

I like that idea, there are already achievements for each character e.g. kill a troll for +1 strength so the system is already in place. Also thanks for letting me know the issue continues until end-game.

[Tuidjy]

Whether you avoid trash mobs, or whether you farm them for a bit of loot, gold and a multiplicative bonus on the total quest award is up to you. You make more, per player time, by avoiding not-elite mobs like the plague.

But!

If you play with the doom clock enabled, and on high difficulty, leveling your S-Team to keep pace with the enemies in the hard story fights becomes very important, especially with the downtime introduced by switching classes, getting personal training or participating in team exercises. So you may want to double those quest rewards by hunting down every single trash mob. This only gets more pronounced when you play on harder-than-hard, with seriously lowered quest rewards, when any penny counts.

[Red Mantis]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

Whether you avoid trash mobs, or whether you farm them for a bit of loot, gold and a multiplicative bonus on the total quest award is up to you. You make more, per player time, by avoiding not-elite mobs like the plague.

But!

If you play with the doom clock enabled, and on high difficulty, leveling your S-Team to keep pace with the enemies in the hard story fights becomes very important, especially with the downtime introduced by switching classes, getting personal training or participating in team exercises. So you may want to double those quest rewards by hunting down every single trash mob. This only gets more pronounced when you play on harder-than-hard, with seriously lowered quest rewards, when any penny counts.

Interesting so fights are more important in harder difficulties, i'll have to try that out at some point once i'm done with my current run :)

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Red Mantis:

Interesting so fights are more important in harder difficulties, i'll have to try that out at some point once i'm done with my current run :)

It's more that squeezing the last ounce of experience per game day becomes more important when the doom clock adds enemy levels as game time goes by.

[Red Mantis]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

Originally posted by Red Mantis:

Interesting so fights are more important in harder difficulties, i'll have to try that out at some point once i'm done with my current run :)

It's more that squeezing the last ounce of experience per game day becomes more important when the doom clock adds enemy levels as game time goes by.

So im guessing exp increasing accessories are pretty much mandatory then?

[Tuidjy]

Originally posted by Red Mantis:

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

It's more that squeezing the last ounce of experience per game day becomes more important when the doom clock adds enemy levels as game time goes by.

So im guessing exp increasing accessories are pretty much mandatory then?

I use them on the carries, but I cannot really afford them on the characters who actually do most of the killing.

Speaking for my current run: the ranger gets a boost from all the traps, debris and chests challenges (it does add up) The knight and the Quack(saint) are using their slots for better things, the bard needs no experience, and the paladin and assassin are trying to catch up by using the 50% experience boosters.

For story missions, the paladin and assassin wear more useful items. The reason that they are trailing behind is that I held them at low levels for way too long, so that I could get the best stat growth for them.

This[i.imgur.com] is my paladin before his first level up. The level up results have been pasted in the center top.

[Murphy's Ghost]

I've beaten great games like FFT, Tactics Ogre and the like, and I still seriously prefer Our Adventurer Guild, I think the character building is just that good. But one thing those classics did better regarding random battles is that there is a lot to do there.

In those games you can recruit the enemies, steal gear from them, your characters train job points or get tiny permanent stat changes and can even find hidden treasure on certain tiles in the battle map. The rewards are pretty hefty.

[Red Mantis]

Originally posted by Tuidjy:

Originally posted by Red Mantis:

So im guessing exp increasing accessories are pretty much mandatory then?

I use them on the carries, but I cannot really afford them on the characters who actually do most of the killing.

Speaking for my current run: the ranger gets a boost from all the traps, debris and chests challenges (it does add up) The knight and the Quack(saint) are using their slots for better things, the bard needs no experience, and the paladin and assassin are trying to catch up by using the 50% experience boosters.

For story missions, the paladin and assassin wear more useful items. The reason that they are trailing behind is that I held them at low levels for way too long, so that I could get the best stat growth for them.

This[i.imgur.com] is my paladin before his first level up. The level up results have been pasted in the center top.

Damn he is stacked haha, I've got one i've been raising but nowhere near as good yet

[Red Mantis]

Originally posted by M-Werdna:

I've beaten great games like FFT, Tactics Ogre and the like, and I still seriously prefer Our Adventurer Guild, I think the character building is just that good. But one thing those classics did better regarding random battles is that there is a lot to do there.

In those games you can recruit the enemies, steal gear from them, your characters train job points or get tiny permanent stat changes and can even find hidden treasure on certain tiles in the battle map. The rewards are pretty hefty.

Yeah the gameplay loop for this game is extremely satisfying but I do think it would be nice to see more depth put into what can be obtained in or from combat. You bring up a really good point, something that is definitely missing is more in-combat objectives like:

-Treasure chests/loot of some kind like corpse piles you can rummage through
-Merchants with unique shops
-Hostage/rescue situations such as liberating a captive from bandits or cutting someone out of spider webs etc.
-Event squares with unique storylines e.g. you find an egg at some-point and need to place it on a lava square during combat to hatch it.
-Could even move some map events into in-combat ones like Ferdinand the sword in the stone, having a tile you need to approach and then initiate the removal might be better placed?

Just a few examples, I do think this sort of addition is more elegant then my initial thought process of just pumping up combat rewards and would ultimately make combats more enticing to enter, rewarding and add a bit more spice, reducing a bit of the samey-ness that many encounters have by adding side objectives.