Is the game really balanced?

[GreenOne]

Played it with a friend for quite a bit yesterday/today, from my expeirence I can tell the following.

Stress:
The stress meter is probably even more important than HP, and the abilites that can reduce it are pitiful, that Jester with lute is probably the best way to reduce stress, Banner Knight kind of does it too, but that's 3-4 points. And then some pig vomits at you and you get like 20, and any critical hit can make it 20 per character, so is it even worth spending turn reducing stress instead killing the pigs. Eventually stress gets out of control to the point where characters go mad and do things that harm themselves, screw your tactic or make other characters even more stressed, which can chain-react.
Not to mention lights going out in no time and traps that also add to stress.

Characters:
By the end of a dungeon you have a bunch of freaks, to recover them you have to pay quite a good coin, but that's only stress and not these negative quirks they get a lot too. At that point I don't get it wether it's worth recovering the characters paying insane amounts of gold and waiting or hiring newbies. So characters don't get to develop much due to quirks negating a lot of the level up benefits. Is there point in level up system? And it seems that now you kind of have slowly grind sending the veterans occasionally while hiring newbies for a single run to either mostly die or go insane but bring goods for your main party and city, after that you dismiss the poor guys and grab another bunch. Seems kind of wrong.

Interactive props:
It seems that only some, very few, can give you good stuf. Is there really no point touching stuff like rotting corpses, blades stuck into boards, headstones and such? It looks like they only add different diseases and other bad effects and never reward, don't think it's fun if there is no point touching them.

GUI:
Could be better, some more important information like damage for weapons could be shown near the icons. Ability parameter descriptions could be overhauled too, maybe replace some letters (ACC) with icons & add description to them. And overall descriptions look like a mess, such things as damage modifiers add confuse, it's easier just to hover attack over an enemy to see possible outcome, but doing so manually for each enemy & ability is not right. On the other hand, just firing random spells and clicking random attacks isn't fun either, I wish it was addressed somehow.


Conclusion:
Apologies for the wall of text, but can anyone confirm or correct the statements above? At first I thought I'd buy the game when I get back home, but after we played for a bit I have strong doubts now. Like the concept, but mechanics seem to flawed, not too good GUI, a bit too much Randomness, Stress is impossible to handle, Character leveling doesn't seem profitable, too much grinding overall. For now will wait and see if I really want to buy the game. Thanks for reading!

[i'm sorry]

Stress:
It's all about management. As your heroes level up, the less stress damage they take. The Jester's de-stressing skill is mostly for midigation. Use it when stress levels are too high or too low. You can save someone from going insane or keep everyone sane throughout the run. If the stress levels are in the middle, you're better off using him for buffing or bleeding out the enemy.

Characters:
Only invest in characters that have good quirks. For exmple, I have a Bounty Hunter with the skills Hatred of Mankind, Unholy, and Eldritch. That allows him to to bonus damage to 3 of the 4 enemy types. If you don't think a hero is worth investing in, then don't. Just dump them and get a replacement.

Interactive Props:
They do give you loot/buffs, you just need to use the right provisions on them. Here's a list of what works with what: http://steamcommunity.com/app/262060/discussions/0/611696927930332424/

The whole game is balanced against you and it's all about dealing with a bad situation. It says so right before you load up your game. Don't let your pride get in the way of retreating from a bad battle or abandoning a mission. Run to live another day. You still keep the loot you find. Learn as much as you can about the mechanics, your heroes' skills, and the enemies you encoutner. The most annoying enemies are always at the back, so take heroes that can hit the back. Plauge Doctors can stun the back row. Hellion with If it Bleeds can hit the back row. Bounty Hunters can mark tougher enemies to inflict more damage, etc.

[GreenOne]

Thanks for the information!

Didn't notice lowered stress intake, though didn't see hero above level 2. They get so many bad quirks that they seem to be equal to level 1 heroes. It takes plenty of gold to recover, training newbie anyway results in same quirk situation. I still think that stress is way too easy to get and way to hard to deal with, probably that spoils most of the game for me. Will see how it goes later on. Thanks again! =)

[Hippopotamus]

Leper in front with crusader second, ,possibly third (gives possibility for lancing 2 times)

Then plague(or bounty) then vestal, or occultist. You can also run vestal and occultist together, if so have crusader in front and bounty second.

Haven't really bothered with jester, graverobber much ,but i'm sure they could be useful perhaps at higher resolve lvl. Kinda given up on highwayman as he doesn't really bring any decent support and is a bit squishy.

Haven't played hellion much, haven't looked that much at her skills.

P.S i have only had one afflicted hero so far and he turned virtuous. Even did one dungeon without food and one withour torches. If you get medium weald mission it's better to harvest food from carcasses with med, don't bring so much food. 2nd EDIT : 8 ( or maybe it was 9) at lvl 3 resolve.

Edit: Also your campfire skills play a big role in the medium (firewood) missions so you may or may not want to invest at survivalist shop.

Kinda random info, i realise after typing it maybe it's not so related to what you were talking about.

[i'm sorry]

@ Green

No problem!

@ Relarious

Highwayman are amazing for aoe damage. Invest in his skill Grapeshot. It hits three enemies and helps whittle them down or just wipe out a bunch of low hp enemies at once.

Jesters are a bit of a mix bag. Some people use him as more of a general purpose class or just don't like him very much. I happen to love the Jester for his buff and de-stressing skills. Dirk stab is also great for taking out that one last enemy with low hp and Harvestor is great for inflicting bleed if he get's shuffled around.

Hellions are amazing. Their best skills are Iron Sawn for hitting the fourth enemy and If It Bleeds for bleeding out tougher enemies and hitting the middle enemies.

[Donnicton]

I think right now that Weald bandits are way overtuned. One pack being able to just do so much damage compared to other enemies in the game of similar level doesn't seem right. I've had to stop more runs because of a single bandit pack than I've had to clearing half a dozen other packs of the same level and similar follower team comp.

Ghouls are a bit broken as well, I think, but I don't see them as often. Mainly the issue being their significant HP/dodge rate combined with the ridiculousness of their Skull Throw(11 HP + stress damage at level 1? Really?)

[Aedwynn]

I found Tempting Goblet\Stressful Incantation enemies too annoying to deal with, especially at low level (Although I've never even gotten a character to level 2. I'm not very good at this game.) I always seem to encounter two Stressful\Tempting enemies in every single enemy mob and go insane very quickly into my adventures.

[Hippopotamus]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Aedwynn:

I found Tempting Goblet\Stressful Incantation enemies too annoying to deal with, especially at low level (Although I've never even gotten a character to level 2. I'm not very good at this game.) I always seem to encounter two Stressful\Tempting enemies in every single enemy mob and go insane very quickly into my adventures.

crusader's lance can oneshot the midget undead. Also there's plague doctor's 2 man stun. You could also pull them forward to deal with them.

[Aedwynn]

Yeah, I'm slowly learning this, thanks! This thread has been a great read to learn some tactics, actually.

However, I can never seem to drop all the tempting or stressful bastards quickly enough due to some quirk of the RNG. I swear, this game is my penance for being too brutal as a GM in tabletop games...

[Hippopotamus]

Don't worry you'll overcome it.

Also yeah, simply the RNG could potentially drive YOU insane along with your heroes. So be careful, dim the lights.. and keep a torch lit..

[Star Paladin]

I have to agree with the Stress concern. Stress is the main sink for gold, not just the cure of it, but the prevention (torches). I know this is an EA game, so I'm glad we are all talking about our findings so far, and mine are that there is so much stress accumilating, so fast, that I've just thrown up my hands for the time being.

I've even tried buying 12 torches (which while were on it, seem to run out so fast) to alway keep it light; a Jester and Crusader to help lower stress, and most my team is insane before half the dungeon is done. Add in all the negative side effects stress add to boot, and I feel that some tweaking and balancing is really needed. Which is great, because that's what EA games are for, tweaking/balancing before release.

Oh, and as a "P.S.", I've heard quite a few people say "This game is so easy", but they seem to use the tactic (exploit?) to suicide run level 0 parties through dungeons to make money. I am now doing the same thing (since I can't find any other way to make money, to heal all the stress), but am finding that tactic really awful and untheamatic.

[Hippopotamus]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Star Paladin:

I have to agree with the Stress concern. Stress is the main sink for gold, not just the cure of it, but the prevention (torches). I know this is an EA game, so I'm glad we are all talking about our findings so far, and mine are that there is so much stress accumilating, so fast, that I've just thrown up my hands for the time being.

I've even tried buying 12 torches (which while were on it, seem to run out so fast) to alway keep it light; a Jester and Crusader to help lower stress, and most my team is insane before half the dungeon is done. Add in all the negative side effects stress add to boot, and I feel that some tweaking and balancing is really needed. Which is great, because that's what EA games are for, tweaking/balancing before release.

Oh, and as a "P.S.", I've heard quite a few people say "This game is so easy", but they seem to use the tactic (exploit) to suicide run level 0 parties through dungeons to make money. I am now doing the same thing (since I can't find any other way to make money, to heal all the stress), but am finding that tactic reall awful and untheamatic.

Pretty sure that's not an exploit, it may be "cheesy" but it's singleplayer.

I think what you need to do is get a list ready on your computer desk with curious and needed objects to open them, that's the way i've managed to get good gold gain ( written it all down on paper, kinda like a manual)

[IHaveLigma]

For me this game seems undertuned and easy for being "hardcore roguelike".

(and no i dont run suicide runs,), got 2 char deaths to hilarious accidents when testing the game)

rule of thumb: 8 torches 12 food with no camp. Per camp 8 torches and 8 food extra, sometimes extra food (since some lvls can be really long if you go wrong)

Then you wont run out of vital stuff,



The only thing that is realatively correct is the grinding. I say relative because it does not always feel like grinding, because the gameplay is fun for many.

Stress is hard to handle if you try turtle it out during the big combat.

There are 3 ways to handle stress effectively in my opinion.

1. Rape everything, run triple hellions + vestal or if you want a balanced party then vestal+highway+robber+hellion

You wont get stress that fast because you will annihilate everything, no matter how many or few enemies.

2. Keep one enemy left, stunlock him. Then spam stress reduction (i did this to start with, but the strat got too time consuming imo.)

3. Camp at a good time, have stress reduction camp skills. I cannot stress enough how insane leeper is at stress reduction with a highwayman using gallows humor. Add a 8 food feast to that, and you got all stress wiped. Combine this with point #1, and you plow most.

[Fyre]

Game is too easy, not balanced at all.
Scource: Just beat the last tier of bosses without trying very hard.

[Star Paladin]

Looking forward to all the Watch It Played videos to show all us clueless noobs how "easy it was". . .

[GreenOne]

Most of all it must be fun. Easy or not. Though I prefer this(and any other) game have challenge, that's what differs game from a toy.

Running lelvel 0 doomed parties doesn't sound like a fun mechanic and more like grinding, limiting that isn't a solution either, probably it needs some stress mechanic tweaking so that one doesn't have to send poor newbies over and over to recover main party. Not sure what was meant by easy, but it again implies that game mechanics is flawed. So, waiting for some rebalance announcement maybe? =)