"Some Necrosavants"

[Sekata]

So here I am roaming the world map on day 39 and i find myself getting chased by a group of undead.

“Oh, there are only 5. That’s not so bad. Free exp”

The thought comes to my head pretty easily and I pause the game and hover my mouse over the enemy army.

“Some Necrosavants…”

I try and get away from the quickly closing group, only for them to overtake me on the road and force a combat encounter.

I would very seriously like to believe that the game is at least decently balanced, but this happened in the same playthrough where I went through 5 randomly generated army ambushes / recovery period licking my wounds before I could even get to the 1st post-hogarth mission. The 1st… Mission.

I don’t want things to be easy. I like tough games, I’ve got more hours in BB than just about any other game in my steam library, but the game has some serious problems on the design front. It tries way too hard to artificially raise the stakes and make itself a punishing experience. Most early level encounters I can run away from. I understand that the retreat button is an option in this fight. But I’m being punished for what exactly? I have to pay x amount of coin fixing injuries, and spending time healing for failing to evade an enemy that was faster than me in the worldmap? I sure as hell can’t outrun them on the combat screen.

It’s not just encounters like this. During caravan runs and other fights, NPC allies barely make a token attempt at helping the player in combat, but somehow during the undead invasion sieges they just can’t help but throw themselves at the enemy so they can come back as wiedergangers, and I can get a UI blurb telling me that I failed to protect them. What accounts for the passive behavior of the AI in the one occasion and the near giddy suicidal fervor in the other, other than generating more enemies under the guise of “defense”?

Difficulty is great, but when a campaign ends, I want to feel like I earned that loss for some failure or another. Most of the deaths on the roster have been earned, but there are far too many instances of the player being punished for nothing. Like caravan runs that turn out to be stolen goods. Do you disappoint your allied city, or piss off the noble house that owns half the map? Or courier missions that randomly generate an enemy mercenary encounter. Most other enemies I can see and avoid on the worldmap, but I again have to choose between engaging an enemy that will guarantee significant losses, or disappoint an ally with no potential to have avoided the situation with proper play. Or caravan ambushes where enemy raiders are generated right on top of the donkey. Not two tiles away. Not on the other side of a tree. Right next to and in attack range for first turn.

After retreating from the fight featuring “Some Necrosavants” and just taking the injuries, the group was unstunned and almost caught up to me again and would have if not for a roaming NPC patrol group. What was my counter play? Sure, I could stay and fight, but how did I as the player earn the guaranteed loss of 1-2 brothers? The fight won’t pay, but I’ll sure as hell have to pay to fix gear and get temple treatment and medicine. Losing is fun when it’s a loss well earned against a capable enemy. I’m a challenge junky. I play this game and will continue to play this game because it’s hard and I love a challenge. Figuring out what I could do differently for better results in terms of build, use of gold and equipment configuration are the main reasons I play. My issue is that the rules change far too often arbitrarily in the name of giving a “Challenge experience”. Give me a challenge, but within consistent game rules that apply everywhere, otherwise losing isn’t fun.

Yea, I know I’m ranting. Maybe my fellow community members can tell me what I’m missing here.

[Namespace]

Hey. I agree there is some weird difficulty issue in the first few days. I had some runs end because I got ambushed by some raiders after the hoggart fight too. Missions are fine but world map enemies are sometimes too hard. Luckily I hardly ever see roaming Necros.

Sekata wrote:

It’s not just encounters like this. During caravan runs and other fights, NPC allies barely make a token attempt at helping the player in combat, but somehow during the undead invasion sieges they just can’t help but throw themselves at the enemy so they can come back as wiedergangers, and I can get a UI blurb telling me that I failed to protect them. What accounts for the passive behavior of the AI in the one occasion and the near giddy suicidal fervor in the other, other than generating more enemies under the guise of “defense”?

This is entirely because of how the new AI handles ranged combat. If the enemy thinks they have the ranged advantage, they will just stand there an shoot at you while your own, much better archers take out anything they want. Likewise caravan guards stand behind our own guys to avoid enemy arrows. Then, when all their archers are dead and you want to dagger the last fleeing raider they suddenly become brave and go in for the kill-steal.

Also I agree the event where mercenaries come to take your cargo is truly frustrating. Happened to me twice in a row, first time I gave it up. Second time I killed them where I almost lost some guys. And that for a 300 crowns contract?! I understand it happens when we find an enemy leader for double crown reward but not on delivery contracts.
Those events can be kinda fun late game but in the early game where probably just 2-3 of the mercs could take on your whole crew it really feels unfair.

As for your initial question what you could do – the only thing that comes to mind is to be extra careful and avoid necrosavants at all cost. I also get 2 guys with mace mastery to stun Necrosavants and big Nachzehrers.

Caravan quests can be deadly, especially if you get ambushed. I also noticed it spawning enemy parties directly in front of the city. Exit and instantly in a fight against raiders. On other occasions I don’t get attacked at all. Yesterday I got attacked by 5 different groups in one escort. Three of them on the exact same spot. My caravan didn’t even move an inch.
Maybe reduce the time a caravan stands still after getting attacked?

[laViper]

Sekata, it is “Open World” and Game doesn’t have any borders – sometimes you can jump into hole :)
This problem is lack of information, you didn’t know how Necrosavants strong are. You should explore game on beginner difficulty level, and after that game gives you interesting part of playing – estimation power of your and emenys troop.

Now I play Expert-Ironman, I had a lot trys ended before 10th day came, but it’s very unbelieveable when you have to run from strong enemy for allies, escape from battle and think twice before attack.

[Sekata]

laViper wrote:

Sekata, it is “Open World” and Game doesn’t have any borders – sometimes you can jump into hole :)
This problem is lack of information, you didn’t know how Necrosavants strong are. You should explore game on beginner difficulty level, and after that game gives you interesting part of playing – estimation power of your and emenys troop.

Now I play Expert-Ironman, I had a lot trys ended before 10th day came, but it’s very unbelieveable when you have to run from strong enemy for allies, escape from battle and think twice before attack.

@laViper Thank you for that. I guess I just don’t understand anything. I only have 500+ hours in the game at this point.

I’ve played through several setbacks like this one, but it’s only so many times I can pretend like it’s a perfectly fine feature of the game.

This critique does not come from the place of a new player being frustrated that they don’t understand the mechanics. I’ve done veteran Iron Man play-throughs that went up to day 400 (end game crisis off admittedly). I’ve done non-iron man play-throuhgs and gone through the end-game crisis events repeatedly. I’ve tried just about every conceivable build combination with the perk system, and experimented with different aspects of the game. I’m playing through now to figure out the most effective starting game strategy to be ready to handle the end-game crisis consistently.

I did not attack the necrosavants. I knew that it was a fight I wanted to avoid, and they caught me on the worldmap as I ran in the opposite direction. Almost twice. I mention that in the original post.

I want to be able to defend this game for some design choices, and I’ve done just that on different threads. The difficulty scaling is far from perfect, or at the very least, information on difficulty calculation is lacking. The game needs an official guide. I appreciate your reply, but I could do without the condescension.

[hruza]

As for caravan guards not helping, they do help, but they seems to be programed to stay close to cart and protect it. If you place your brothers to their sides, they will fight. They will even form in to battle line with your brothers. You can preset your brothers in a formation screen at the flanks during escort mission so you don’t need to waste AP during combat.

As for beginning of the game being difficult – I love that game doesn’t hold you by the hand. You have band of low level brothers with crappy equipment, most everything out there is supposed to be dangerous and to be avoided. You have to pick your fights. You also have to know when to run or retreat. Btw.: if you retreat from battle, brothers which are at the edge of the map, on the tiles with white flag will not get hurt. In most cases it is possible to retreat your brothers to the edge. There are very few enemies which can outrun you.

Of course sometimes you will run out of the luck. Well that’s part of the game and what makes it so fun. Losses are inevitable fact in this game. Early game when you struggle to establish your party is one of the best part of the game.

[Sekata]

@hruza Not entirely sure how to get the point across that I’m aware of all of this.

I’m familiar with formation, it’s one of the most basic aspects of the game. Being ambushed (engaged by a bandit/hostile party) in the swamp or forest completely overrides any pre-configured formation you have. Instead the map generates brothers and attackers in a random scatter around the donkey carts.

I love the fact that the game does not hold you by the hand. Yes, you have to choose your battles. I’ve pointed out as much in other threads. Retreating is an option and i’m fully aware of how to do it properly. So tell me, when necrosavants are faster than my party on the worldmap, and they have the highest mobility in-combat of any mob in the game, how exactly do I retreat without taking some form of loss? I saw the party and did not choose to engage. I immediately moved in the opposite direction and was overtaken. My question is why is a party of necrosavants with such high world map speed randomly generated at all in the mid-game? There are very few enemies that can outrun you sure. But there’s not a damn thing that can outrun a necrosavant, let alone 5.

Losses are inevitable. I can live with that. I’m just not convinced that certain aspects of the game are fine tuned well enough that all loses are adequately earned. There have been plenty of times where I haven’t paid attention and forgot to replace a broken shield, or made a bad positioning move on the map. High level brothers died and I earned them. That’s not my issue. My issue is the aspects of the game that punish you for nothing in the name of challenging experience. Combat is difficult enough without the extra help in the way of events and insufficient information from quest givers.

[Namespace]

Idk why people are so dismissive of this.
I do think that necrosavants spawn too early on the worldmap. This is around Day 30 I believe. It’s only possible to take them on that early if you had a “perfect” early game and by now your brothers are geared and skilled. I don’t see any way to beat them if you took some early losses and miss funds.
Honestly though I don’t think there has ever been an occasion where a worldmap party was moving faster than me. I only sometimes get caught if I ente difficult terrain that slows me down but usually I can outrun any enemy.
If you enter woods, they will lose sight of you and you can do a U turn and circle back.

Again, I think necrosavants should spawn as early as maybe day 50+.

[Sekata]

I would be fine if comments showed that the posts being responded to were actually read. It should be somewhat obvious that I’m not new to the game or the forum. I’ve been playing since before armor was more than just a second health bar, and haunting the forums for just as long. Pretty sure you’ve been here for about the same time Namespace.

Understanding that I comprehend the basic aspects of the game are as easy as reading the complaints or even clicking my name and checking forum history if there is any doubt. The game is great. That doesn’t mean that it’s perfect and couldn’t stand for some further tweaking. Maybe I’m mis-remembering, but i’m about 80% sure that I was escaping over plains when caught the first time, and the second time they were chasing was on forested road. Again though, it’s not even just the necrosavants that have rustled my jimmies so thoroughly.

[Sekata]

Though if I’m being fair, for every thing driving me nuts in this game there are 3 others I absolutely love.

IF I had been told several patches ago that ghoul type enemies could actually be made threatening, I would have laughed. Great mechanic/visual redesign.

[hruza]

Sekata wrote:

@hruzaI’m familiar with formation, it’s one of the most basic aspects of the game. Being ambushed (engaged by a bandit/hostile party) in the swamp or forest completely overrides any pre-configured formation you have. Instead the map generates brothers and attackers in a random scatter around the donkey carts.

Didn’t have caravan ambush under such conditions yet, so I won’t comment on that. However In normal attacks on caravan, when you start formed with guard and cart behind you, they will form in to line with you if you give them room. At first I thought that they do nothing but cover behind my back. But then on one occasion I have moved my brothers to the side and back in order to duel it with enemy archers first. To my surprise caravan guards steeped forward and formed center of the battle line where my brothers originally stood -roughly where my second line originally was. AI in this game is one of the best I saw. Kudos to those who codded it.

Sekata wrote:

@hruzaMy question is why is a party of necrosavants with such high world map speed randomly generated at all in the mid-game? There are very few enemies that can outrun you sure. But there’s not a damn thing that can outrun a necrosavant, let alone 5.

As I said, sometimes you run out of luck.

Sekata wrote:

@hruzaLosses are inevitable. I can live with that. I’m just not convinced that certain aspects of the game are fine tuned well enough that all loses are adequately earned.

Sometimes it’s not you who did mistake, you have simply rolled relay bad RNG score. So far my impression is that game scales well with player. Fact that you sometimes can run in to something well about your level is good design in my opinion (for this game), because it keep tension and that means fun. And is realistic. How many times did you run in to 5 roaming necrosavants so far? As long as they are exception, I wouldn’t consider it broken. After all, it’s not the game end even if you loose all 12 of your brothers.

Besides, there is “fail safe button” in every battle. It just comes with penalty. But compared to loosing all you brothers, I consider it light. I fell it to be almost cheating therefore so far I refrained from using it (making it sort of houserule), even if it meant loosing some brothers.

I am not trying to dismiss your valid opinion, just giving you my point of view.

[Sekata]

@hruza

Fair enough. I think a lot of it boils down to opinions of game design. The “Sometimes you’re just screwed” philosophy is definitely true to life, but I don’t particularly like it in my video games. If I want to gamble, I’ll play the slots or back an early access title from a less capable developer. If I’m feeling really adventurous, I’ll eat a sandwich from a truck stop vending machine. I’m all for games heavily punishing the player for making bad mistakes or not understanding the mechanics. I’ve got more of an issue with a many hours investment in a title turning sour because of fickle RNG gods. To your point, no. It was a one time only occurrence.

[hruza]

Btw.: where did it happen, in what part of the map? Further you venture away from roads and settlements, the more dangerous “wildlife” you can meet.

[Sekata]

hruza wrote:

Btw.: where did it happen, in what part of the map? Further you venture away from roads and settlements, the more dangerous “wildlife” you can meet.

Map generated a few settlements on the coast in a heavily wooded northern area, just shy of snow. It was on the road in between settlements.

[hruza]

Forests are bad, always makes me twitchy when traveling through one :) Which bye the way reflects well on the historical accuracy of the game because back in the time, people feared deep forests.

[mrbunnyban]

hruza wrote:

Forests are bad, always makes me twitchy when traveling through one :) Which bye the way reflects well on the historical accuracy of the game because back in the time, people feared deep forests.

It’s a game, not a simulation. ;)

I’ve been playing with a save slot just for those special occasions when the completely random factor screws my playthrough over haha. The early necrosavant group is one of them. They’re pretty ridiculous to be spawned early on.

[Author]

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