RNG in runs

[DragofLord]

So I thought I'd offer a few thoughts, since this is in early access, although I am well aware that much of what I'm about to say is a matter of taste.
So principally, I don't like the level of rng in runs. I'm actually fine with the rng on the blessings. While it can certainly screw you, there is a lot of flexibility in the ways you can combine different blessings, and your ability to guarantee certain blessings helps a lot.

What I don't like is the base level of rng for evasion and crits. I'll spare you the full player whining about enemies critting/dodging way more than their percentage chance while I crit/dodge way less (although it does feel that way).
The actual issue is the baseline level of evasion and crit that *every* enemy has, which makes extreme outcomes fairly likely, and your general level of success in an encounter very up to chance. I've multiple times seen enemies evading 4 times in a row with 10% chances, and when they have 20% it is even more extreme. And this is exacerbated by the gift/buff system incentivizing you to stockpile resources to do a bunch of damage in one turn. But an enemy with a 10% evasion can short circuit an entire combo. And of course when an enemy goes past evasion (especially the 35% when using the special ability of robes) to crit you, it can rapidly turn an easy fight into one where you get obliterated.

While this does add a certain level of excitement when you don't know how well or poorly any given fight will go, you don't have enough agency for dropping resources to swing a conflict back in your favor, and the penalties for turning back in the middle of an adventure are too punitive. Which disincentivizes risk taking, since it's just not worth. Which in turn means that the rng creates the exact wrong effect of causing players to seek out unchallenging fights because they have to plan around the 5% chance that an encounter will be *way* harder than it should be, and the other 95% of encounters just become incredibly boring.


As far as fixing it, to my mind there are two ways to go.
1. Reduce the RNG. Enemies that have serious % should be something unique to specific enemy types/coming from buffs. Get rid of the flat 10% crit and evasion that everyone has (I'd even be alright removing it from the main character, although I'm sure that would be controversial), and in general focus more on guaranteed crits and evasion/really high % chances for them, rather than on low chances that strategies cannot be formed around.
2. Increase chances. Raise the amount of hp that resting can restore, and either make resting guaranteed or give some other option to burn cult resources/your loot score to restore hp.
3. Give some kind of weird mechanic using sanity that allows someone to sacrifice sanity to undo (or possibly even force) a crit or evasion that came at a catastrophic time.

Enjoying the game, and I wish you luck in balancing all of your feedback :).

[Venris]

Hello, today we're rolling out an update that will reduce the critical hit chance and evasion of all enemies, as we've seen this as a long-term problem. Mania status effect was created to counter these types of enemies, but it was too much of a disadvantage not to use it.

This update will also reduce the damage of all enemies, so players will have more time to make tactical decisions and won't have to deal more damage than the enemy all the time to win. Some of the enemies health was increased but less than damage decrease. These changes will also reward using more utility actions as enemies wont punish player so much anymore each turn.

Additionally, the overall power level of the enemies has been lowered with changes that make you encounter a mini-boss at the end of each level that's a bit stronger (before update power level).

We dont want players to die as often along the way in Tales. We want to focus on these mini-boss encounters more than the less important ones that pop up along the way.

Overall: more fair and rewarding :)