Strategy: cannon fodder slimes, zombies, and skeletons to protect your casters

[Nameless3W]

I've been thinking about a recent frustration a player expressed, about how all of his casters kept getting killed by rogues. I don't want to nerf rogues and wolf skirmishers, who attack the lowest-hp target. Instead I started thinking more about counter strategies.

One strategy that I thought of was packing the lances with cannon fodder, easily replaced crafted troops like slimes, zombies, and skeletons. And I was wondering what you thought about that, and how I should balance the units.

Today I reduced zombie starting hitpoints and hitpoint growth to make sure that they stay at lower hp than any caster at the same level. That would let them fill their role as cannon fodder and helping to protect the squishy students and other casters. But maybe now the zombies are too weak and they'll never live long enough to pick up their unique reaction abilities.

Also, I thought that it's relatively late in the game when you first get access to necromancy. It's not actually late in the game, but you would still have to get through the first few hours of the game without any zombies or skeletons on your team. Maybe I need to take another look at slimes too, and adjust their stats to make sure that they get targeted instead of your casters. And maybe since you don't get access to necromancy until a few hours in, most of your characters should have plenty of hp by then, and I can make starting zombies more powerful.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Let me know how you feel the zombies and slimes are working out for you, and how you think they should be adjusted.

[Xicsess]

Hi, I think the issue comes into play more when you have enemy lance compositions that are 'mostly' rogues. Most back line can't take 3-5 hits. This is a bigger issue since it seems like I come up against berserker/rogue type lances regularly and when you have the majority of the lance hitting one person (outside of having a super beefed up over-leveled person), it's pretty crappy.

It would be nice if it was more that rogue types had a chance to hit the back row (and lets be honest, they're in the back so that the front line warriors can actually protect) and not just going after the weakest. Alternatively, if you changed the enemy lances so that there weren't more than 1 or 2 rogues in enemy lances you could work around it as a player.

If you want lance members to be disposable, you should (in my opinion) address training time or exp gain. Training new lance members after the first area is risky at best since they can typically be one shot if they have extremely low defenses. If I had the option of how I wanted to distribute exp as part of say a pre-battle or post-battle dialogue, it would be extremely helpful. Right now, it's essentially based on contribution. The easiest way to level new characters is to get them into a healing role (since every heal grants exp regardless of monster level), or put them in a strong lance where your front line is literally weaponless. Personally, I think that really hamstrings training and makes me extremely adverse to losing lance members. If for instance, I could pick 'spread exp evenly among lances or army,' or 'all exp to single member (random or targeted), or 'experience to lowest levels first.'

Additionally, it would be nice to get some additional gear choices for lower tier classes. It's great that 'the best' equipment is reserved for knights/paladins - but it kind of devalues other classes, even if they have a valid reason to be in a lance (Acolytes buff to defense, Grifter single target debuffs). If the starting defense of my level 1 adventurer weren't 28 and later in the campaign I had some additional clothing options to make him not get one shot, I wouldn't worry so much about losing new members or save scumming. It would be especially cool if higher level adventurers got some special abilities or something since they're like playing hard mode.

Another thought, crafting should really just be a given - since having characters train into blacksmithing/necromancy actually hurts their character's progression while not really giving you that large of a benefit (blacksmithing in particular).

Have you considered allowing lances to support each other if they're say 1-2 hexes away? It would be nice if I could put some druids in a lance behind my warriors and they would actually heal lances around them on their turn / with their reactions (as another way to get around getting absolutely wrecked by rogues/berserker types). It would also open up other buff/debuff options if there was range for reactions. It would be awesome if the ranger behind my knight squad opened fire in response to a wizards salvo on a nearby lance. Right now lances are so self contained that they feel less like an army and more like a couple parties of adventurers fighting side by side.

Also, in reference to necromancy and slimes - I made the transition from act 1 to the gate fight scene, first house of life.. and didn't realize slime components were an essential part of this which was kind of frustrating since I'd sold mine in the last act. I'm also not crazy about sacrificial units so that my healers don't get gibbed.

[FakeDoctor]

This probably won't be all that helpful in terms of game balance, but I'm not really fond of "cannon fodder" in general, and if we have to lean too heavily on that to make the game playable I'll be a little disappointed. I think more options are great, and I'm not saying I hate that it's in the game, but I wasn't planning on building any slime/undead lances.

One of the draws of this game (and other tactical games with individual unit progression) for me is taking a bunch of characters from a really low level to something more powerful and specialized, then combining them with other characters to make strong armies. Having a bunch of cheap units whose purpose is to die and replaced kind of flies in the face of that. I would only build them if I had to (if there were literally no other way to deal with an enemy unit), and being railroaded into a very specific strategy always feels kind of crappy, especially when it's a strategy that isn't very appealing on its own.

I can't really think of any suggestions here, though. Rogues are kind of a problem, but nerfing them here would make them somewhat useless since they don't have a lot of other power.

[Nameless3W]

Originally posted by Xicsess:

It would be nice if it was more that rogue types had a chance to hit the back row

Detecting which row a character is in isn't too hard. But the AI doesn't always place casters in the back row, so that approach would leave the player's rogues less useful. Maybe I could give them a chance to attack the weakest or second-weakest in the party. I'm pretty sure there's already a random element in rogues' targeting, but I can make it more random to spread the hits around the weaker targets.

Originally posted by Xicsess:

Alternatively, if you changed the enemy lances so that there weren't more than 1 or 2 rogues in enemy lances you could work around it as a player.

Maybe I can try to reduce the ratio of rogues in an army. It'll take me a little while, but that's something I could do.

Originally posted by Xicsess:

If you want lance members to be disposable, you should (in my opinion) address training time or exp gain. Training new lance members after the first area is risky at best since they can typically be one shot if they have extremely low defenses. If I had the option of how I wanted to distribute exp as part of say a pre-battle or post-battle dialogue, it would be extremely helpful. Right now, it's essentially based on contribution. The easiest way to level new characters is to get them into a healing role (since every heal grants exp regardless of monster level), or put them in a strong lance where your front line is literally weaponless. Personally, I think that really hamstrings training and makes me extremely adverse to losing lance members. If for instance, I could pick 'spread exp evenly among lances or army,' or 'all exp to single member (random or targeted), or 'experience to lowest levels first.'

I want lance members to be mortal, but not disposable. I want there to be a certain expectation that characters will die in a tough fight, but I still want that loss to hurt.

I remember discussing this before and I thought I had implemented an XP award that goes to everyone at the end of the battle. The way I designed it was so that lower-level characters would get more XP. I'll go make sure that's working as intended. But yes, the characters will still get more XP if they actually participate in the battle.

Originally posted by Xicsess:

Additionally, it would be nice to get some additional gear choices for lower tier classes.

I think that adventurers and students have access to about three tiers of weapons and armor. I'll double-check that.

Originally posted by Xicsess:

Have you considered allowing lances to support each other if they're say 1-2 hexes away? It would be nice if I could put some druids in a lance behind my warriors and they would actually heal lances around them on their turn / with their reactions (as another way to get around getting absolutely wrecked by rogues/berserker types). It would also open up other buff/debuff options if there was range for reactions. It would be awesome if the ranger behind my knight squad opened fire in response to a wizards salvo on a nearby lance. Right now lances are so self contained that they feel less like an army and more like a couple parties of adventurers fighting side by side.

I've thought about it, and I think I'd like to keep things the way they are for now. I can see why you would want the lances to be able to heal and support each other. But allowing the lances to heal each other would change the metagame and the AI behavior too much. Sometimes it's fun to find the optimum solution given a set of (possibly arbitrary or irksome) limitations, and it's the limitations that make the metagame fun.

Still, this is something that I should experiment with more after I finish the main campaign. Maybe interactions among lances really would be an improvement and I should make a mod in the future to see whether it really is more fun that way.

Originally posted by afjsadfjklsadfjlk:

This probably won't be all that helpful in terms of game balance, but I'm not really fond of "cannon fodder" in general, and if we have to lean too heavily on that to make the game playable I'll be a little disappointed. I think more options are great, and I'm not saying I hate that it's in the game, but I wasn't planning on building any slime/undead lances.

One of the draws of this game (and other tactical games with individual unit progression) for me is taking a bunch of characters from a really low level to something more powerful and specialized, then combining them with other characters to make strong armies. Having a bunch of cheap units whose purpose is to die and replaced kind of flies in the face of that. I would only build them if I had to (if there were literally no other way to deal with an enemy unit), and being railroaded into a very specific strategy always feels kind of crappy, especially when it's a strategy that isn't very appealing on its own.

I can't really think of any suggestions here, though. Rogues are kind of a problem, but nerfing them here would make them somewhat useless since they don't have a lot of other power.

Hey, that's just fine. I think that Himeko Sutori should offer plenty of viable tactics for dealing with troublesome enemies (in this case, rogues). If you don't like the idea of cannon fodder, and tossing lots of cheap slimes and undead at enemy rogues, then there are other options. I had just been wanting to add zombies to the game for a while, and I was wondering what role they could fill that hadn't already been filled. And I realized that I didn't have any suicide troops in the game that are at their best when they're getting destroyed.

So you might just not make any undead, and that's just fine. You might decide that the best way to deal with rogues is to overwhelm them with ranged units, or to make a tank-only lance of paladins with healing reaction abilities, or to grind new soldiers in slime caves until they can deal with the area's rogues.

So please don't feel railroaded into playing an expendable undead army that you have no interest in playing. If you come up with another strategy that you like more, please come back here and tell us about it.

And I'll see if there's a way I can tweak rogues a little bit to make them less annoying without making them too much weaker.

[Nameless3W]

OK, rogues and similar classes now have a 40% chance to attack the second-weakest target. I've tested it a little, and I think I like it more this way. It still makes me worry that a low-hp character is taking hits, and it actually makes me worry more. I see the caster take a hit, is at critical hp, and the attacks keep coming, but the character survives and gets healed on my turn, but then it happens again. I realize now that I just manipulated myself, teasing myself with the threat of losing a character, and I know that the character is actually less likely to die. But even knowing what I did, and knowing how the manipulation works, I still can't help feeling that momentary worry every time the enemy attacks.

Also, before, when facing a lance with a few rogues in it, I would see a weak character take a hit, and I would just know that death was inevitable. I think part of the trepidation now is knowing that there's (only) a chance the character could die.

[Xicsess]

Seems fair, I mentioned xp before - and lower xp characters do get more experience at the end of a battle. But a lot of the leveling is done during (I think), and if I'm correct it comes from how much they're contributing to the attack, their level compared to the enemy they're attacking (mostly on if they're too high, minimal exp). Which still means, if I stick a newbie lance in the back and tell them to stretch while I fight the battle in front of them - they're going to get exponentially less exp than the rest of the units that I'm not trying to train.

I'm not asking for a completely risk free way to train new units but it does seem like sticking new adventurers in a lance that's in active combat (not curated, like against slimes) stands a good chance of dying. However, you can cheese victories by putting unarmed paladins in the front row to absorb damage and a healer while sitting with a back row of adventurers/students and be relatively safe by picking out targets that are going to focus on the front row.

Either route is encouraging risk aversion (unless someone else is leveling in a completely unique way), It would be nice if there were ways to tweak this. Like, going into combat with only 80, or 50% of your available lances generated extra experience. Or lances that took 0 damage get extra battle xp (steering your new-adventurers out of danger while fighting with the rest of your lances).

[Miah]

The issue with cannon fodder is availability. In my current run, I set up Aya to be a Slimologist, and now have no access to slimes. I'm now training her and a new student to be Necromancer Clerics. If you don't know ahead of time when you need to transition, you'll end up in these weird situations where you might be screwed out of the cannon fodder lances, and have difficulty progressing.

[Pwylle]

Originally posted by Xicsess:

Seems fair, I mentioned xp before - and lower xp characters do get more experience at the end of a battle. But a lot of the leveling is done during (I think), and if I'm correct it comes from how much they're contributing to the attack, their level compared to the enemy they're attacking (mostly on if they're too high, minimal exp). Which still means, if I stick a newbie lance in the back and tell them to stretch while I fight the battle in front of them - they're going to get exponentially less exp than the rest of the units that I'm not trying to train.

I'm not asking for a completely risk free way to train new units but it does seem like sticking new adventurers in a lance that's in active combat (not curated, like against slimes) stands a good chance of dying. However, you can cheese victories by putting unarmed paladins in the front row to absorb damage and a healer while sitting with a back row of adventurers/students and be relatively safe by picking out targets that are going to focus on the front row.

Either route is encouraging risk aversion (unless someone else is leveling in a completely unique way), It would be nice if there were ways to tweak this. Like, going into combat with only 80, or 50% of your available lances generated extra experience. Or lances that took 0 damage get extra battle xp (steering your new-adventurers out of danger while fighting with the rest of your lances).

Get an opposing lance weakened with a few ranged hit (down to 3 or so). attack said lance with unarmed units with a few healers and everyone will reap huge exp, not kill the target for a while and yeah, just grind it out easily.

This is a particularly easy way to master Students, Acolytes, Druids and Clerics. Just stick them in a lance together with a couple ranged units that don't have tactical shots, and just soak up/heal damage till master in basically any encounter right from the start.

Is it taking advantage of the mechanics? sure. But after playing a while and just wanting to generate healers for new lances that you actually want to experiment with, it saves a whole lot of dying/time.

[Dragoncar]

I think some characters should be able to gain abilities allowing them to protect against the target weakest abilities (at least some or most of the time). This might be for example, a knight with a protector ability who will take the damage or at least reduce it for weaker characters or a slime with a sacrifice for magic ability that will take the death blow in place of a magic user.

Things like getting flanked reduce or stop these abilities from occur. It then gives you more choices for how to complete a lance.

[Nameless3W]

Originally posted by Dragoncar:

I think some characters should be able to gain abilities allowing them to protect against the target weakest abilities (at least some or most of the time). This might be for example, a knight with a protector ability who will take the damage or at least reduce it for weaker characters or a slime with a sacrifice for magic ability that will take the death blow in place of a magic user.

Things like getting flanked reduce or stop these abilities from occur. It then gives you more choices for how to complete a lance.

I've been thinking about that. My biggest concern was that an ability like that should be toggleable, so that if you learn that skill as a knight, but then become an illusionist, you wouldn't still want to be the damage sponge.

I think the best way to implement that would be with equipment. Maybe shields could increase a character's likelihood to be attacked.

[Dragoncar]

Originally posted by Nameless3W:

Originally posted by Dragoncar:

I think some characters should be able to gain abilities allowing them to protect against the target weakest abilities (at least some or most of the time). This might be for example, a knight with a protector ability who will take the damage or at least reduce it for weaker characters or a slime with a sacrifice for magic ability that will take the death blow in place of a magic user.

Things like getting flanked reduce or stop these abilities from occur. It then gives you more choices for how to complete a lance.

I've been thinking about that. My biggest concern was that an ability like that should be toggleable, so that if you learn that skill as a knight, but then become an illusionist, you wouldn't still want to be the damage sponge.

I think the best way to implement that would be with equipment. Maybe shields could increase a character's likelihood to be attacked.

I agree that you would want it to be toggleable. There might be other skills you want to be able to toggle as well.The only other scenario I can think off at the moment is being able to trun of reaction skills healing or damaging to give lower level characters more chance to gain experience.

[Pwylle]

As the game progresses and your characters become ever more valuable given how much you have leveled them, these fodder characters become much more important. Since the game design favours the use of ranged lances over melee, making multiple cannon fodder lances of slimes, block skeletons and exploding master puppets seems to be the only way to consistently tackle larger armies at around the 3rd Shadowland stage and onward, with an exception to Icy Reach where no sacrifices are required with very careful planning.

By the Lava Caves however, enemies are simply too powerful and their focus fire of 20-30 warlocks/rangers/demons followed by melee which will kill off members of your lances no matter how hard you try.

I've some lances full of paladins and healers builds with 25+ reaction heals and force fields which still get shredded by the encounters.

[Isilith]

Make it so if a zombie does live their growth is huge. Or perhaps more abilties like a taunt that can trigger

[Pwylle]

Attacks are on a condition basis in this game. Rogues will attack the weakest HP characters. Beserkers attack the highest. Rangers hit the lowest defence, Gunners the highest HP and so forth. Taunt abilities don't work in the turn combat design.

Wolves have very high HP growth if you want to bait certain enemy types. Giving your weaker classes things like Smoke bomb and Force Field is essential later on. Lance placement and design becomes key to making sure you lose few/little characters.

I think Zombies actually have low HP growth, same as slime where the idea is that they are overall more likely targets. Beserkers and the likes target strong characters which are usually your heavy armored units that can actually take a few hits.

[Nameless3W]

It probably wouldn't be too hard for me to add an ability that would increase or decrease the likelihood of being attacked. I just haven't implemented it because players would probably want the ability to turn that ability on while in a tank class, or turn it off after switching to a squishy class. And turning abilities on or off would just be another layer of complication for both programming and playing.

I would have to check to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that I set zombie and slime HP growth so that they are the preferred targets of rogues and wolf skirmishers.

Maybe I could create a different undead class that has the purpose of being a damage sponge. I could base it off of the ogre sprite, and give it huge HP growth but below-average offensive power.

[Pwylle]

Originally posted by Nameless3W:

It probably wouldn't be too hard for me to add an ability that would increase or decrease the likelihood of being attacked. I just haven't implemented it because players would probably want the ability to turn that ability on while in a tank class, or turn it off after switching to a squishy class. And turning abilities on or off would just be another layer of complication for both programming and playing.

I would have to check to be sure, but I'm pretty sure that I set zombie and slime HP growth so that they are the preferred targets of rogues and wolf skirmishers.

Maybe I could create a different undead class that has the purpose of being a damage sponge. I could base it off of the ogre sprite, and give it huge HP growth but below-average offensive power.

Your solution, if you want taunt related skills, is just to subclass some of these fodder characters into something that has such an ability. Like a secondary type of slime or puppet. That way you don't need to create yet another layer to turn on/off, but also could make Puppet/Slimes more interesting.These types of units are already dead ends, pun intended.