Stress and escaping from battle

[Destricus]

I like the stress mechanic, but...

Escaping from battle should not be able to kill your characters from stress. Once you hit 160-170, you're basically committed to the battle and can't run because if you do your party is going to chain heart attacks and all die, which is dumb.

Retreating should always be an option considering how poor RNG can be and that a retreat can and will fail. Basically, retreating should bring your stress to a max of 199.

[LaserGuy]

If your stress is getting up in the 180s, you're waiting way too late to retreat and abandon your quest. Like two full battles too late.

My rules of thumb are that you should abandon a quest (retreating from battle if necessary) if any of the following happen:
-Three characters hit 100 stress and become afflicted (two and a virtue is tolerable for a short while, but if you have a long way to go, it's still probably best to get out).
-One character hits 140 stress or more.
-Multiple characters are at death's door or single-digit HP and you can't get them back into shape
-You're outside of battle and a character needs to survive one or more death's door checks from a lingering DoT you can't treat.
-A character dies

There may be some edge cases (if you're otherwise in good shape or and/or close to the end, it might be worth trying to push on for a bit with a three-man party), but usually if you stick to these guidelines, you'll never be in a situation where you need to worry about heart attack chains or party wipes more generally.

[Destricus]

Just because there is a way to prevent it by running early, doesn't mean it's a good mechanic. It's not fun to be completely risk aversive. I'm okay with retreating doing stress damage, just not killing your party off because there is no purpose in attempting to save yourself. You know 100% that when you run your party is going to croak.

[Nightryderace]

Originally posted by Doctective:

Just because there is a way to prevent it by running early, doesn't mean it's a good mechanic. It's not fun to be completely risk aversive. I'm okay with retreating doing stress damage, just not killing your party off because there is no purpose in attempting to save yourself. You know 100% that when you run your party is going to croak.

It's your own fault if you get into that situation though. You took a risk and the punishment is death. "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." Like Jelly slayer said, the point at which you should have retreated was two battles ago. You were confident you could keep going and yet you were unable to. Just be more cautious in the future. And Jelly's guidelines are pretty good and you should follow them until you figure out what exactly you and your team are capable of.

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure heart attacks will first bring your characters to Death's Door. Then another one will kill them.

[Curious Fox]

Either you bring stress relieving heros (jester / Crusader), or you kill everything before they stress you, or you just take case of your champions and torch levels through camping

Plan your attacks, who to attack, who is the threat.

The game reminds you every single time you turn it on that it is a game about risk and reward. If you forget it, it's your fault.

The RNG is very tolerable on this game unless you get 3+ crits to a single character in a row, /that/ is bad for you.

[Destricus]

Originally posted by Nightryderace:

EDIT: Also, I'm pretty sure heart attacks will first bring your characters to Death's Door. Then another one will kill them.

They chain together.

Giving day 1 tips saying you can do X and Y better doesn't address the fact that escaping from a battle and then dying as a result of escaping is a bad mechanic.How long you stayed in the dungeon before that or what series of events brought you to high stress is irrelevant.

[h0b0king]

Heart Attacks? How does one let that even happen? I mean - you have an afflicted hero it's time to go home, or baby the poor fellow through a last couple of rooms. If one is pushing ones heroes to the edge of maddness and they die, that's sort of what one gets. Learn to deal with stress causing enemies, and learn when to cancel a mission that's what heart attacks are there to teach, and really they are terribly easy to avoid - you get two of them before dying after all.

It's only a bad mechanic if the goal of the game is to coddle bad play.

[Destricus]

Originally posted by h0b0king:

Heart Attacks? How does one let that even happen? I mean - you have an afflicted hero it's time to go home, or baby the poor fellow through a last couple of rooms. If one is pushing ones heroes to the edge of maddness and they die, that's sort of what one gets. Learn to deal with stress causing enemies, and learn when to cancel a mission that's what heart attacks are there to teach, and really they are terribly easy to avoid - you get two of them before dying after all.

It's only a bad mechanic if the goal of the game is to coddle bad play.

Except it's a bad mechanic. Coddling bad play would be saying saying time to leave because a single hero becomes afflicted. That would make for the most boring game ever. I still haven't heard a good argument on why retreating shouldn't be an option.

[h0b0king]

Originally posted by Doctective:

I still haven't heard a good argument on why retreating shouldn't be an option.

Retreating is an option. Retreating after having heroes at 170 stress is an option as well, assuming you are trying not to lose them all. It's simply that waiting until things are horrible and you're deep into the afficition/stress/death's door spiral is very risky and has negative consequences. You will lose a hero - it's like retreating in the Darkest Dungeon. This is sometimes the best bad option, do you try to push forward with two heroes left (or with afflicted heroes, one that's already reached 200 stress?) or do you save your trinkets and one hero knowing you already screwed up. Loss conditions don't mean you get away clean. When you push your heroes to the edge you pay a price.

[Destricus]

Originally posted by h0b0king:

Originally posted by Doctective:

I still haven't heard a good argument on why retreating shouldn't be an option.

Retreating is an option. Retreating after having heroes at 170 stress is an option as well, assuming you are trying not to lose them all. It's simply that waiting until things are horrible and you're deep into the afficition/stress/death's door spiral is very risky and has negative consequences. You will lose a hero - it's like retreating in the Darkest Dungeon. This is sometimes the best bad option, do you try to push forward with two heroes left (or with afflicted heroes, one that's already reached 200 stress?) or do you save your trinkets and one hero knowing you already screwed up. Loss conditions don't mean you get away clean. When you push your heroes to the edge you pay a price.

The risk should be dying in battle (characters forfeitting turns, missing, crits, etc.), not after. That is the problem I have. If you die in the process of retreating, I agree, tough cookies... but if you successfully retreat and then wipe, that's pretty stupid.