madmansam

[madmansam]

Perhaps Nimble should split the 100% defense bonus between a smaller passive bonus and an acive skill that that costs fatigue?

[madmansam]

So that’s what that means. I’d wondered but had no idea what it was for.

[madmansam]

While I wish there was an optional combat log with far more detailed information, like the exact calculation of an attack including the chance to hit factors, the random roll itself and the result, in the meanwhile I repeat the gambler’s fallacy to myself like a mantra.

[madmansam]

Dang, I was really excited for the flail’s special attack to be useful. That they ignore shields is still very nice though. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen fast adaptation apply to the greatsword’s AOE attack. I suspect it only counts for the first hit.

It does make me wonder if you use an AOE attack and it misses the first target, does that trigger for Fast Adaptation?

[madmansam]

Whaaaaaaaaaat? The tool tip for the flail’s AOE attack specifically says it will hit one of the three targets, and the strike stops at the first one it hits!

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[madmansam]

Thanks for confirming that! That’s great to know.

[madmansam]

The utility tree is weird. It has really nice perks, a few of which would be more at home in the offense or defense trees.

Tier 1
Bags and Belts – An ok perk. It’s not a must have on its own but it’s nice. It becomes incredible when combined with Quick Hands.

Taunt – Still waiting for this perk to be useful. Most of the time it’s far easier to shieldbash the enemy away from a vulnerable target. It would be great if there was some feedback on if you have to be in contact with the target, or if it’s ranged, what’s in range, and if a taunt was successful or failed.

Quick Hands – A very good perk. Being able to swap to a spare weapon or shield for free is great. It makes spear walls far more viable when you can put the spear away after they get into contact with you. It really shines with Bags and Belts. Being able to carry a small arsenal of weapons and switching to whichever is most needed is incredible. It’s absurdly, brokenly, good to be able to switch to a billhook once their immediate threats are dead, take a step and then make an attack.

Student – Useless perk. You’re going to level up anyway eventually, it’s not worth sacrificing a more useful perk point. If the perk was a Teacher and the brother gave other a small XP boost to other brothers I might consider it.

Shieldbash – A very lackluster perk. The damage is so poor it may as well be nonexistent. The fatigue damage is kind of nice but only in extreme cases.

Pathfinder – A very useful perk.

Tier 2
Brawny – A great perk if you want to have a chance of wearing the heaviest armour and moving. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the defense tree, the concept of the perk is defense, not utility.

Battleflow – Another great perk. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the offense tree, especially as it triggers when you kill an enemy.

Footwork – Yet another great perk. An archer with this can escape from anything that traps them, it also lets them dance past enemies caught on your front line and shoot them in the back. It’s also great for running straight past melee enemies to get to their archers/necromancers. Also good for a guy with a greatsword/great axe to get into a good position to use the AOE attacks. I don’t understand why this isn’t in the defense tree.

Captain – A good perk, it really helps shore up resolve in your mercenary band, which really helps with getting your guys to confident fast and avoiding wavering/breaking.

Weaponmaster – An ok perk, but again the concept fits better in the offense tree. It’s also made almost obsolete by Quick Hands. I think this perk should be a tier 1 offense perk.

Fearsome – A good perk, it’s very good for orcs with their tough armour but low resolve. Again though this feels like an offense perk.

Tier 3
Rally the Troops – Literally the reason to go deep into the utility tree. It’s an amazing skill that can turn a battle around and save lives.

Inspiring presence – Very overrated for a tier 3 perk. Confident is a very nice bonus, but your guys will get to confident very quickly anyhow when they have a decent Captain around. Originally I took this to work with Hold Out but I’m very underwhelmed by it, especially when it’s competing with Rally the Troops.

[madmansam]

Ah, thanks for the write up Soar.

[madmansam]

It turns out Perfect Focus is garbage for crossbowmen. The +40 fatigue when you use Perfect Focus just doesn’t allow for much shooting and reloading.

edit:

As an aside, I don’t think I’ve ever had a situation where I’ve thought using the flail’s AOE attack would be a good idea. I like to focus on enemies, so the idea of randomly hitting one of three is just weird.

[madmansam]

Malthus wrote:

madmansam wrote:

You realise that without constant automatic saving inside of combat, if something bad were to happen I could just hit alt+f4 and reload the ironman save from before combat started and play it again? And if you’re going to implement constant automatic saving inside of combat for the sake of ironman mode, you may as well implement manual saving. You may as well also include periodic autosaving in non-ironman mode so you don’t have to replay a whole battle for because of a crash. Save on exit is ok but it doesn’t really satisfy either ironman mode as you could manually terminate the program and doesn’t account for crashes in non-ironman mode.

Good point, but autodeleting that save after you have loaded the game would solve this problem. You realize it is not a big issue Atleast inside the combat. And in a normal game, as I said I support saving and reloading out of combat if you do want to. You would still have to fight the whole battle again, so doing this is not without drawback.
As there is no real IRONMAN at the moment. I would say no save but when you exit the game. If it crashes, you are screwed, but you would have known before Thats something for when the game itself is stable.
+ I do not get where you might have read about automatic saving. I spoke about 1 save that is made when you exit the game midst battle.

I was pointing out that save on exit only is a wishy-washy compromise that is much better than nothing, but won’t stop save-scumming in ironman mode and also has flaws for the people that want saves in combat to avoid losing progress.

As a side note, I’m honestly shocked they don’t have saving in combat to help with chasing down and reproducing bugs at the moment.

[madmansam]

arcweldx wrote:

Jago wrote:

No, it won’t be implemented. At the moment the game creates an autosave before every battle, so you can reload and try the battle again. But this might be only for the EA version (because of bugs) and not the final release.

I hope this isn’t the official stance of the devs, and if it is, I seriously hope they rethink something that misguided.
Some of us don’t have unlimited time on our hands and nothing else to do in the world. If the family needs attention, or I need to go to work, or something else important comes up in life, or *I just want to stop playing,” or the game crashes, or my PC crashes, and I’m 20-minutes into a battle, then I’ve wasted 20 minutes of my time. That’s tedious and annoying, and also pretty disrespectful of what my time is worth.
If some people are so weak they can’t help but constantly hit the reload button, give them a “no saves” option! For the rest of us, please don’t waste our time. This isn’t my job, it’s a game: I should decide when to play and when to stop and not be punished for it.

I really strongly second this. You should be able to pick up and put down a game at any second without losing any progress. Life happens and it happens constantly and unexpectedly.

Malthus wrote:

If there is a save mechanic inside of combat it will end like every not-ironman xcom game. It ends in uncounted reloads until every strike you do hits and your guys don´t get hurt. This is neither intended nor should it ever be possible in my opinion.
Though the save on exit seems like a very good idea and would deal with the no-time-issue.

You realise that without constant automatic saving inside of combat, if something bad were to happen I could just hit alt+f4 and reload the ironman save from before combat started and play it again? And if you’re going to implement constant automatic saving inside of combat for the sake of ironman mode, you may as well implement manual saving. You may as well also include periodic autosaving in non-ironman mode so you don’t have to replay a whole battle for because of a crash. Save on exit is ok but it doesn’t really satisfy either ironman mode as you could manually terminate the program and doesn’t account for crashes in non-ironman mode.

[madmansam]

I guess I’ll jump in with my take on the offense tree as my play style has just solidified.

I like my party to have a line of sturdy tanks that use shieldwalls and high melee defense to tie up enemies, while they break enemy shields. They’re supported by a couple of crossbow using archers, whose job is to try to get a kill on weak enemies to get killing frenzy up ASAP, then their job is to shoot the most heavily armoured enemies to strip away their armour. A couple dudes with bill hooks also support the front line, trying to finish what the crossbowmen have started or stripping armour from enemies for the front line soldiers to get an opportunistic kill. Also a couple of guys with great swords to help thin out herds with area of effect attacks.

Tier 1
Sundering Strikes – A good perk for the heavy hitters. It doesn’t add much extra damage to one handed weapons, but it starts to add up for billhooks, greatswords, etc especially when combined with other damage increases. I think when I first started I vastly overvalued this perk and got it on all the brothers. I still will take it on almost every one because there’s not much competition at tier 1 for perks and it’s always helpful.

Crusher – I started out disliking this perk, but I’ve come to appreciate it much more for my front line troops, especially once I got fighting axes all around. Shieldwalls, especially undead shieldwalls that don’t suffer from fatigue, are a massive pain in the ass and Crusher helps break the stalemate quickly while staying safe. You can strip a shield and then shieldwall yourself, and let a fellow brother attack. I don’t like breaking shields with the two hand axes as anything that needs an axe that big to break can and will hit you back very hard.

Crusher benefits hatchets by letting you break a young orc’s feral shield (6 hp) in two blows instead of three, or a wooden shield (8 hp) in three blows instead of four, a heater shield (12 hp) in 4 blows instead of 6. That’s terrible, don’t bother with hatchets. A hand axe with Crusher can break a feral shield in a single blow, great for dealing with young orcs, still takes two for wooden shields, but does help with heaters which only take 2 instead of 3. A fighting axe without Crusher can break a Feral shield in one blow, a wooden in two, a heater in two, a kite shield in 3, an orc warrior’s metal shield (25 hp) in six(!) blows. With Crusher a fighting axe can break feral and wooden shields in one hit, heater and kite shields in two, and metal shields in 3 hits.

It’s easy to get three brothers with fighting axes and Crusher together to strip an orc warrior of his shield in one turn, while staying in shieldwall, and let your billhooks or archers deal with him, or kill them next turn. It also lets you break most bandits and skeletons shields in one hit, saving a lot of time and precious fatigue.

Bloody Harvest – a must have for anyone planning on picking up a great sword or great axe.

Executioner – Not great. I tend to pick it on the front line guys, as they use one handed weapons with relatively little damage and it helps them finish off wounded enemies.

Push the Advantage – I started out really liking this perk and using winged maces on everyone, but then I noticed I was running out of fatigue incredibly often going for stuns. Using a winged mace, you have anywhere between 40-70% to hit in the first place, and then another 75% chance to get a stun, and then you have to have a follow up attack ready from someone with Push the Advantage before the enemy’s next turn to benefit from it. It’s a lot of fatigue to risk, and enemies can be immune to stuns, but the reward is huge. I can’t see myself picking this ever again.

Fast adaptation – This isn’t even a choice, it’s mandatory.

Tier 2
Beserk – A must have perk. This is so useful for being able to reposition after getting a kill, especially with two handed weapons where you can only take a single step if you want to attack in a turn. You get a kill and can shift to where you’re needed for next turn. It’s also great for extra attacks, especially for two handed users. I haven’t been taking this on archers but now I’m sorely tempted.

Head Hunter – I hate this perk so much. You either want to be hitting the head every time or hitting the body every time, you don’t want to alternate. Nothing is worse than breaking someone’s body armour, taking them down to a few hp, and then the final attack hits their head armour and doesn’t penetrate. If it was just a flat increase on the chance to get a headshot, I might take it, especially for archers, but right now I avoid Head Hunter.

Full Force – A nice perk for great sword users who should be in the heaviest armour, or for billhook dudes because why not. I tend to take this because there’s not much else going on for them at tier 2.

Debilitate – A solid perk that I’m sad I ignored for so long. I want to have this on a couple of front line guys to make taking down heavily armoured enemies easier.

Bullseye – Amazing for archers. An absolute must have for the dedicated archer.

Close Combat Archer – This perk is amazing, especially if you take Killing Frenzy, Sundering Strikes and use a crossbow. If the range was 3 tiles it’d be over powered as all hell but 2 tiles is still risky against orcs. If you can get a kill with the crossbowman, and then get within 2 tiles of an orc warrior or warboss, they can kiss their armour goodbye.

Tier 3
Killing Frenzy – Amazing perk, I love having it on my support guys for sustained heavy damage.

Perfect Focus – I haven’t used this yet but there have been plenty of times when I wished I’ve had it. I can see this being very useful for 2 handers, archers and crossbowmen.

Wooooooow that took a long time.

[madmansam]

Soar wrote:

Nimble can work out:

My level-11 one-character-challenge Battle Brother there has 62 Melee Defense with Nimble, 82 once Confident thanks to Hold Out – in comparison, it would be 51 and 61 if using a heater shield, or 56 and 66 with Shield Expert. This is before accounting for Dodge. You’re looking at 14 dead Bandit Raiders and one dead Marksman. I ambushed the Marksman but there were a couple of Raiders nearby that engaged my character in melee – I figured I’d quickly kill them to get rid of their zone of control so I could retreat, but my character kept whiffing until the enemy’s main force arrived and I ended up completely surrounded. Preventable, and I wasn’t really expecting him to live through that, but thanks to high Melee Defense and Melee Skill, Riposte, and a blessing from the dice gods, that’s what happened.

Wow that’s seriously impressive. How did you stay alive long enough to reach level 2 let alone level 11?

[madmansam]

GOD wrote:

Shield Bash I’m having trouble picturing as gaining a niche. The slight damage increase is simple not worth a perk point. The damage would only matter if the enemy is close to dying, in which case you might as well just hit them. Stun is still the most fitting thematically, but as noted before that might make it too powerful and infringe on other means of stunning. It would probably make it a must-have for shield users.
Some ideas:

– Give it stun. Make it a defence tier 2 perk that replaces of Nine Lives. Make Nine Lives an utility tier 1 perk. Important to note that I’ve personally never had Nine Lives make a difference when it actually triggered, so I’m not sure if it’s too powerful for tier 1.
– Give it an accuracy bonus so that you can use shield bash more reliably. Have it do a bit more damage.
– Replace it with another perk

Shield bashing has a built in accuracy bonus of +25 over standard attacks. If you take the perk, shield bash becomes a high accuracy attack good for finishing off enemies already gravely wounded .

I’d suggest rather than stunning the target, the target gets a -10 reduction to their melee offense and defense for a turn to represent being off balance.

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