About solo builds (Barbarian, 0 AT, immortal witch)

[MayamSP]

I just want to have a convo with @mooo about immortal witch (while not making off topic posts on dandylion's thread) but others are free to join too.
So, I got this witch build, it has call of earth to prevent cooldown increase from rangers, it also has stone hammer to inflict armor break (mainly for destrons and tanky machines). Natural recovery gives her some HP back every turn, she will get hit and then instantly trigger overcharge from argonaut. Sincerity to offset the cost of natural recovery. Maybe veteran to prevent continuous stuns from enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2649888591

I fail to see how this build can ever fail with an immortal potion. From what I can see this is clearly way more busted than 0 AT or barbarian as there is just no counter to it enemy wise with how the mechanics work (Unless maybe if she is perma stunned or perma frozen constantly).

I am not trying to justify that barbarian or 0 AT do not need nerfs but if there's just no way to deal with such a build just by introducing a specific enemy then that thing might need a nerf more is all I am saying. Thoughts?

[x_equals_speed]

I think removing Trance from the pool makes loads of sense, since being in trance while not being in overcharge is really weird. I'd happily see Hero back in, that was an interesting choice.

I enjoy it when there's more variety between runs so I gravitate towards things that'll make that happen. At the moment some of the "random buff" stuff is good for creating moments where things go differently to how they otherwise might have. My team's using five necromancer bangles just to see what sort of things can happen (Incidentally: I'm seeing so many cool debuffs I'd not seen before. Some of the enemies you usually kill in a hit or two before they act must've had some really neat powers). I'd like the buff pool to be as unbland as possible, small statistic bonuses are functionally good and most buffs need to be that, but I find it more interesting when a roll of the dice can occasionally turn up something fantastic (and I'd roll with it if they were occasionally troublesome).

As you say, most of the buffs that accomplish that aren't possible or aren't in the pool. I can see why Trance isn't there, it doesn't make much sense if you're not in overcharge. I think Hero could stand to be there, it feels like its removal was also of the "It's bad for witch to extend this indefinitely" rather than the "It's bad for characters to occasionally get this for a few turns" variety.

I think I'd agree that starlight shield is the only halfway interesting thing left if immortality goes. Often it's gone before you can intentionally use it on a hit you'd happily have tanked, but getting to run through one reactive shot or to ping something that'd otherwise do you with its counterattack can be a neat moment.

[TheGrouch]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย x_equals_speed:

I think removing Trance from the pool makes loads of sense, since being in trance while not being in overcharge is really weird. I'd happily see Hero back in, that was an interesting choice.

I enjoy it when there's more variety between runs so I gravitate towards things that'll make that happen. At the moment some of the "random buff" stuff is good for creating moments where things go differently to how they otherwise might have. My team's using five necromancer bangles just to see what sort of things can happen (Incidentally: I'm seeing so many cool debuffs I'd not seen before. Some of the enemies you usually kill in a hit or two before they act must've had some really neat powers). I'd like the buff pool to be as unbland as possible, small statistic bonuses are functionally good and most buffs need to be that, but I find it more interesting when a roll of the dice can occasionally turn up something fantastic (and I'd roll with it if they were occasionally troublesome).

As you say, most of the buffs that accomplish that aren't possible or aren't in the pool. I can see why Trance isn't there, it doesn't make much sense if you're not in overcharge. I think Hero could stand to be there, it feels like its removal was also of the "It's bad for witch to extend this indefinitely" rather than the "It's bad for characters to occasionally get this for a few turns" variety.

I think I'd agree that starlight shield is the only halfway interesting thing left if immortality goes. Often it's gone before you can intentionally use it on a hit you'd happily have tanked, but getting to run through one reactive shot or to ping something that'd otherwise do you with its counterattack can be a neat moment.

Well that's what I meant with player preferences. I for one absolutely hate RNG in my strategy games. At least if I'm tryharding. But obviously it can also spice up the gameplay if you don't really care what happens and just go with the flow.

[Mochan]

By the way I have to ask. How does Call of Earth stop Cooldown?

[MayamSP]

Call of earth can change her earth attack abilities to blunt physical abilities so that they are unaffected by "You can't do anything" mastery set of enemy rangers. The only downside is that they won't be as strong as ESP attacks since ESP damage boost stops working and she would target the higher enemy armor instead of resistance. Doesn't really matter too much though since she can get enough damage boosts from a million buffs and other means anyway.

[Mochan]

Ah I get it, so you turn your attack from an ESP attack to a physical attack.

But yeah that screws with the damage of the build, but can be adjusted to work in a different way.

[x_equals_speed]

I think that's at the core of a lot of why these builds are degenerate: It doesn't matter what you do with your damage (or anything else) because you will get infinite turns before the enemy can kill you (one way or another) and doing a little damage infinity times will always let you win (but is really boring!)

On the subject of randomness I have inconsistent feelings about it. I'd welcome a random level generator as a way to have more variety in the game, but I'd be against making every attack have a 1% chance to kill the target no matter what. I don't think randomness is good or bad, but what matters is the kind of randomness and how it applies. The random buffs appeal to me because they often achieve what "input randomness" is for, that is to say they set up a random situation that you then need to figure out how to make the best of. In a strategy game I'm generally against "output randomness", that is situations where your tactics are sound but you lose anyway because a dice roll says you do - though those are generalisations, the full truth of how I think about randomness here would probably need a lot more words to unpack.

[Mochan]

Randomness is important, otherwise we'd all be playing a boring Eurogame. Ameritrash is where it's at. (These are boardgame terms in case you don't get it).

A Eurogame is one where they remove dice from the equation, so everything you do is just decided by your tactics. I find this pretty boring, it's not exciting because you always know what will happen. Eurogamers prefer it because it lets them win based entirely on their skills without any kind of luck, sort of like chess.

Ameritrash games are based on Dungeons and Dragons and are basically tactical minis wargames which rely on both skill, tactics and a fair amount of luck to determine the outcome. All video game RPGs draw their lineage from D&D, that is why luck and randomness are important as it's part of the heritage. It also makes games more exciting as the outcomes are less predetermined, so you need a fallback and contingency plans for your tactics in case something goes awry.

Another thing to note is that, in a singleplayer game, you are only fighting against the computer AI. The computer AI has zero skill. In a boardgame where you are fighting other players I can kind of buy the argument Eurogamers use, but in a computer RPG where you are fighting an AI? Removing randomness just makes it totally and completely boring.

And yes, random level generator please!

[TheGrouch]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย Mochan:

Randomness is important, otherwise we'd all be playing a boring Eurogame. Ameritrash is where it's at. (These are boardgame terms in case you don't get it).

A Eurogame is one where they remove dice from the equation, so everything you do is just decided by your tactics. I find this pretty boring, it's not exciting because you always know what will happen. Eurogamers prefer it because it lets them win based entirely on their skills without any kind of luck, sort of like chess.

Ameritrash games are based on Dungeons and Dragons and are basically tactical minis wargames which rely on both skill, tactics and a fair amount of luck to determine the outcome. All video game RPGs draw their lineage from D&D, that is why luck and randomness are important as it's part of the heritage. It also makes games more exciting as the outcomes are less predetermined, so you need a fallback and contingency plans for your tactics in case something goes awry.

Another thing to note is that, in a singleplayer game, you are only fighting against the computer AI. The computer AI has zero skill. In a boardgame where you are fighting other players I can kind of buy the argument Eurogamers use, but in a computer RPG where you are fighting an AI? Removing randomness just makes it totally and completely boring.

And yes, random level generator please!

There is good and there is bad randomness. I'd argue that getting a buff that renders 99% of any decision you make meaningless is not a good kind of randomness.

[Mochan]

I won't deny that. Having randomness in a game doesn't excuse bad game design.

[x_equals_speed]

It's a good thing that that doesn't happen in this game.

[AT]

Interesting, is immortality fixable if add rule "each deathblow reduce immortality duration by 1 turn but not less than 1 turn"? So you can live until your turn but then do something to survive or die.

[x_equals_speed]

That'd be an interesting change.

I'm not sure regular immortality needs it. Like in Grouch's example of running Albus into the open to draw shots from things that'd usually kill him it produces situations in which a player will make different decisions to get meaningfully different outcomes. Which in turn proliferates to other characters, since the presence of an immortal who can draw fire changes what their optimal move is. The new decisions are plenty complex since you can often get a better shot by adopting positions that were unthinkable before but viable in the new situation and that's non-trivial since you're accounting for the enemy AI and mostly things that might modify hit chance or attack ranges but also speeds and AT reductions for the possibility that the immortal will move and leave them out of position. Of course you could just fail to see any interesting choices and play your other characters as if it hadn't happened, accepting that you're going to fail to optimise for what has just happend. But then it's always possible to make your game less interesting voluntarily so immortal's not special in that regard.

The proposed change wouldn't ruin any of that, it'd just change the mental arthimatic concerning it so I see no loss there.

Where the existing system breaks down is endless immortal witch since then the decisions with the other characters don't matter because if you over-exploit the advantage and they all die the witch will clear the level alone and if you under-exploit it and don't manage to achieve much the witch will still eventually clear the level.

There the proposed change does a lot of good since it gives a way for the witch to lose their buff even if they've noticeably extended it. I think it'd also work around the "immunity to reduction in buff duration" since the established pattern is buff duration can still be reduced by things intrinsic to the buff itself.

However I slice the idea that fix sounds like it makes things the same or better. I'd support that.

[TheGrouch]

โพสต์ดั้งเดิมโดย x_equals_speed:

That'd be an interesting change.

I'm not sure regular immortality needs it. Like in Grouch's example of running Albus into the open to draw shots from things that'd usually kill him it produces situations in which a player will make different decisions to get meaningfully different outcomes. Which in turn proliferates to other characters, since the presence of an immortal who can draw fire changes what their optimal move is. The new decisions are plenty complex since you can often get a better shot by adopting positions that were unthinkable before but viable in the new situation and that's non-trivial since you're accounting for the enemy AI and mostly things that might modify hit chance or attack ranges but also speeds and AT reductions for the possibility that the immortal will move and leave them out of position. Of course you could just fail to see any interesting choices and play your other characters as if it hadn't happened, accepting that you're going to fail to optimise for what has just happend. But then it's always possible to make your game less interesting voluntarily so immortal's not special in that regard.

The proposed change wouldn't ruin any of that, it'd just change the mental arthimatic concerning it so I see no loss there.

Where the existing system breaks down is endless immortal witch since then the decisions with the other characters don't matter because if you over-exploit the advantage and they all die the witch will clear the level alone and if you under-exploit it and don't manage to achieve much the witch will still eventually clear the level.

There the proposed change does a lot of good since it gives a way for the witch to lose their buff even if they've noticeably extended it. I think it'd also work around the "immunity to reduction in buff duration" since the established pattern is buff duration can still be reduced by things intrinsic to the buff itself.

However I slice the idea that fix sounds like it makes things the same or better. I'd support that.

The AI attacks what the AI wants. There is no good way of aggroing more enemies in this game. Sometimes enemy's attacks are borderline random even. If I have an "Iron Wall" equivalent user out in the field or a pet or anyone who is permanently exposed I can guarantee that they will be the main focus of the enemy's anger no matter how crazy you act with your immortal Albus. But then that one random enemy starts running all over the map to attack the most random target. The only change that happens is that I can now run in with Albus like an absolute monkey not caring for anything and do the thing that I wanted to do anyway but now in the most reckless manner.

It's an overpowered buff that should only be reserved for a very few story bosses like John because there's a story reason he has it or mastery sets and even there only sparingly. It should not be obtainable randomly let alone via potions. I don't understand how anyone can find being immune to literally all damage is an interesting experience except maybe the first time it happens. I suggest you use one of those immortal builds and run around the map without a care in the world and tell me how exciting and engaging it is, knowing that no enemy could ever stop you.

Troubleshooter is not a roguelike. It has hand-crafted missions with very little RNG involved. Most things you accomplish through meaningful decisions and not through some random buff that is jut an auto-win button.

[x_equals_speed]

Hmm, I'm not sure how to make you understand if you don't already.

I can see that you do not perceive a difference between one character being immortal for a tiny portion of the round and playing through a map with one character who's immortal for the full play. Those things are different, but I'm not sure I have any more ways to communicate why they're different.

The important thing is that your actions still have meaningful consequences. If one character is immortal for a short time your actions still matter because it's important how much damage you do to enemies during that period, whether any other characters die during that period and what position you're in when the time runs out. If you play with one immortal character for the duration your actions don't matter because the damage dealt is irrelevant, there is nobody else to die and the period isn't going to run out.

If you can't see that those things are different there's not much I can do to help you.

[Blazing]

I think immortality should not exist. At most, it should last one turn without being able to increase the duration. In contrast to any other buffs, it is way too strong. The moment I realised I could get it from mutant, I've been crossing my fingers ever since. In one of my attempts on the new mission, I randomly got it on my beast, and I just put it in the middle of the enemies (destrons) and it tanked basically every hit while I cleared everything. I can't say it took much tactics to devise that strategy.

Now the real issue is when you have immortality on a squishy counter attack frontliner - it just keeps extending its immortality and could literally last until the mission ends. And this would be easily achievable with the immortality potion.

So yeah, a build that revolves around extending the duration of a buff that I think is broken is obviously broken, but any build that uses it is, tbh.