I mean, yeah, the game is extremely easy, but solving the difficulty with less or inaccurate information is not the way to go IMO. Less easy access to rerolling fights so you can't abuse that aspect is much better than just greatly limiting information given.
I also think those suggestions greatly underestimate how much information is conveyed to the player extremely quickly by the pre-fight info being perfect and how much harder it becomes to learn the systems when you can't see the outcome of 10 different units fighting somebody in 5 seconds, even without the detailed fightog.
milski on
I ate an engineer
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
I went to Drake hold. I got to the big city.
I met Amalia. Y'all weren't kidding when you said tall.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Making the game harder just means you have to build specific power teams in order to succeed instead of being able to mix and match parties around and make kinda whatever work in order to build Rapport organically, and also leads to more Tavern gaming at the end of the game which does not feel like it should be the recommended way to play.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Yeah, strategy games require some RNG to make them work but in general one of the big things about the genre is you are usually given a decent amount of information upfront so you can plan ahead.
Too much dice rolling can quickly degrade the experience.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
Of the 5 countries, how often and at the end of which ones do you scrap all your teams and rebuild?
Of the 5 countries, how often and at the end of which ones do you scrap all your teams and rebuild?
I did a total reconfigure after rescuing Scarlet, which was fine for the sweep up north, but not so much when the horses and cover tanks evaporated and were replaced with the desert's truestrike and archer spam.
The next time was a soft recon about a third into elfville once nearly everybody was promoted and had their level 20 skills, though probably about half were fairly untouched and still largely based on rapport. I knew at that point what the elf BS schtick would be as well. Mostly though, that was a long overdue distribution of equipment I'd been gathering and rethinking where all the lapis/carnelian pendants would go.
Also, speaking of rapport
It's funny that Gammel and Mandrin have some of the better of those scenes so far.
I hate RNG in tactics games, and loved Unicorn Overlord's approach to make them relevant but predictable. All this talk about changing the battle prediction screen... no, please don't, that's one of my favourite things in this game.
Huh. It's weird that you apparently never run into a generic cleric with the plague mask on and need to hire one to fill in that entry in the class library. Or maybe I somehow missed the like... one on Tatiana's mission?
I did a bit of team rejiggering before Drakenhold and after the elf lands and, besides a couple team recomps after I added a 5th member, didn't do much beyond add and reitemize after that
Of the 5 countries, how often and at the end of which ones do you scrap all your teams and rebuild?
I'm most of the way through Angel land (i think, 95% explored global map) and have yet to do it. I keep telling myself i will but then i dont and abuse consumables instead.
I did add people that seemed to fit as i gained slots 4 and 5, and i did a few times kick/ replace someone for being a deadweight (more likely i was using them wrong, i.e. the two elf fencers seem completely worthless).
Also when i got near the end of the ice some i made 4 animal + redhead archer team for which i cleared out my weakest team at that point.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Of the 5 countries, how often and at the end of which ones do you scrap all your teams and rebuild?
I only rotate on Rapport, so at early rapport levels I was doing a rebuild every 4-5 battles because Rapport 1 goes fast. By Rapport 3 you can leave them for 10+ battles and they still won't be done without choking down Tavern meals.
Assuming you do Promotions over Squad Size, by around near the end of Elheim you'll fall behind in being able to have everyone in a team always (even if most small battles you don't need or want to field all your teams), so rebuild 3-4 teams at once also gives an excuse to rotate people in back off the bench.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited April 7
I have 8 teams that have been more or less the same since I got to the third country and 2 I kind if mess around with. I like my teams to have a general theme so it's like
Alain and Scarlet
Archers
Anti-Archers
Mage + dodge tank swordmasters
Aerial
Debuff
The Rose Knights
Calvary
The other two are just whatever I'm feeling at the moment.
Only having 10 teams is fine but I kind of wish you could save setups.
Of the 5 countries, how often and at the end of which ones do you scrap all your teams and rebuild?
I'm most of the way through Angel land (i think, 95% explored global map) and have yet to do it. I keep telling myself i will but then i dont and abuse consumables instead.
I did add people that seemed to fit as i gained slots 4 and 5, and i did a few times kick/ replace someone for being a deadweight (more likely i was using them wrong, i.e. the two elf fencers seem completely worthless).
Also when i got near the end of the ice some i made 4 animal + redhead archer team for which i cleared out my weakest team at that point.
Those two are weird, above and beyond the lady being dressed in S&M bondage gear. I think they're designed to hard counter arbalists basically, but come after the area with arbalist spam. I think their real problem is that stun is kind of a shit status effect unless you're pairing it with a burn or poison that very often screws you more than helps by delaying the enemy actions to let them take a bunch of turns in a row if you don't have your tactics set to reserve PP to deal with that.
There is one trick you can do with them though. They can use that one accessory that gives a unit +50% Mag and gives self -50% Mag (or the one that gives +AP for debuffing atk), and have an innate cleanse which also gives them a blink, which makes them a pretty significant magic support and helps them be frontline dodge tanks even when the enemy's not using debuffs.
E:
Also, as tanky as some of these fucks in the were-snow region have been, another thing the sequel needs to do is not have units cut corners and push each other off paths into stage hazards. Those thorn areas at the end of elf-ville were fucking obnoxious for that shit. Please just stay on the road and take the extra .01 seconds and not take 15 damage to the entire party, guys.
Elven Fencers are a weird generalist class. They have AoE, which is rare for sword units, dual type utility, they can use conferral tomes, and they can dodge tank OK (with utility from the Familiar's Choker + self cleanse strategy). But their bulk is low and their damage is underwhelming (if usually never zero due to hybrid), so they sort of just exist as space filler to do something OK in a comp if you arent running mercenaries.
I ate an engineer
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited April 7
I find them useful for Frontline support and they're better in the back row.
They give free evasion to magic and arrows which is good for flyers or armored units, they are also good against armor themselves and can stun.
Also, having column attacks is always nice. And they can remove debuffs.
Not general use but paired with a general(or legionairre as this game calls them) is pretty good in my experience.
I think the only real downside is they are best with a sword that gives you a good magic modifier and there are very few of those in the game.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
Only having 10 teams is fine but I kind of wish you could save setups.
This annoys me the most when doing my daily Coliseum fights. I have a specific tryhard party that gets wins and it's really annoying having to reconstitute it every time, then go back to my Rapport squad after the fact. Enough so that on weekdays I wasn't playing as much so I could just leave them in the Coliseum comp and play something else and come back on the weekends when I can get a long session in.
Man I'm glad I've sold none of my old gear now that i ran into this blacksmith fella. Now to figure out which of my old 13 damage with amazing ability weapons to burn the scarce currency on.
there's some weird boob continuity problems in Unicorn Overlord. Like when you meet the character Celeste, her boob size is initially that of the initial Griffon class in cut scenes, but in the mission, because she's the upgraded Griffon class, has the boob growth upgrade. Oh and the overworld character icons are also off. For example, Yahra's upgraded Witch class, her overworld character actually has bigger boobs than the Griffon Knights. Speaking of Griffons, the upgraded ones getting enlarged boobs, their outfit makes even less sense than before. I mean if you look at it, how the hell did they even put that vest or corset or whatever it is, on? I think Vanillaware got lazy and just used a simple image enlarge and called it a day. I also like how because boob sizes keep getting upgraded, it makes the initial classes (like the Griffons) seem to have a more normal size, it's all relative. But, come on Vanillaware, if you're gonna put all this effort into boobage and boob physics, get your continuity in shape.
So I jumped into the Coloseum. This is going to require very specific setups to get all the way from 30 to 1st, huh?
Should I think about online play before max level?
I haven't done any online stuff, but I'm up around rank 13 of the offline mode and haven't used any lineups that I don't already have in my regular lineups. Its mostly been gated by my patience, and by levels/size of group. Just for reference but I'm currently in the beast lands, around level 28, and have 1 group at 5 members.
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
So I jumped into the Coloseum. This is going to require very specific setups to get all the way from 30 to 1st, huh?
Should I think about online play before max level?
You can probably push pretty far just with your regular teams. I think I was able to get to around 15ish when it unlocked, and am at 4 or 5 after finishing up the elf-lands. I could definitely go higher, but the fight's like 2 cover tanks and 3 truestrike archers all with high initiative, and I can't be assed to reconfigure my teams just for that.
You just need to win the round, so any kind of setup based on survivability, especially with blink tanks, will punch way above its weight class. Charge attacks where you go all in on buffing the shit out of one unit that hits AoE also do great since that bypasses a lot of the cover defensive type skills and healing. eg Hilda. You can't effectively savescum though. The RNG is hard set, but moving formations around does affect it.
So I jumped into the Coloseum. This is going to require very specific setups to get all the way from 30 to 1st, huh?
Should I think about online play before max level?
Yes, but you feel huge brain when you succeed. It's entirely possible to beat this stage of the Coliseum right now at level 16 (or 15 if you're slightly lower) without progressing any further.
Yes, because you get 200 coins no matter what just for doing 10 fights a day. It helps if you win because you need an asston of coins to get everything good (nevermind the infinite buys) but thankfully there are also people with random teams set or who otherwise have no idea what they're doing that you can pick on for awhile.
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
I put Drakehold on hold to poke at elf land.
The very first side quest inside the zone
Defending a fort against so many enemies! Everyone is level 17/18 by the end and has stopped gaining XP.
Defending a fort against so many enemies! Everyone is level 17/18 by the end and has stopped gaining XP.
Yeah, I was mixing elf and Drakenhold by the end of the latter, and it was where things ended up being no exp. It's a bit weird since that's where promoted units start showing up, and everything getting an extra AP and PP is like a 50% increase in damage and defense, so it really is a jump, which to me it seems like they tried to 'smooth' by giving you a runway to make sure everybody was at exactly level 18-20.
I know the story is kinda weak, but holy cow a couple of swings in characters...
Gammel, who was stealing from villagers, escapes from prison, and then starts kidnapping elves to sell into slavery...gets the elf to give him a medicine for his sister(? could be wife, I forget)
Heavy armor soldier guy (forget his name), goes from hunting/killing witches in the swamp, to heading up north to *sell orphans into slavery*, after getting beaten, his punishment is to ... help run the orphanage?!
I'm usually all for second (third?) chances, but holy moly, those are some light sentences!
The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it. ~ Terry Pratchett
I know the story is kinda weak, but holy cow a couple of swings in characters...
Gammel, who was stealing from villagers, escapes from prison, and then starts kidnapping elves to sell into slavery...gets the elf to give him a medicine for his sister(? could be wife, I forget)
Heavy armor soldier guy (forget his name), goes from hunting/killing witches in the swamp, to heading up north to *sell orphans into slavery*, after getting beaten, his punishment is to ... help run the orphanage?!
I'm usually all for second (third?) chances, but holy moly, those are some light sentences!
I agree Gammel and Mandrin are definitely the evilest and most eyebrow raising of the spare/recruit them choices, but if you let him go at the start, he's already teamed up with Celeste by the time you get there, there's a new antagonist doing the slaving, and the post-mission scene is Gammel giving him the same second chance you gave him because he thought he too was unredeemable until he wasn't. It's a nice bit of putting a good deed forward, even if they overshot it quite a bit with the killing and slaving.
He and Mandrin also have some of the better rapport scenes as well that I've seen. A lot of the early Cornia "gotta do my best for my land" people really start blending together since they're all so interchangeable. Those two and I guess maybe Tatiana are the only characters who actually grew and changed even a little. Not that Melisandre and Rosalinde's unending thirst isn't also amusing.
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SpectrumArcher of InfernoChaldea Rec RoomRegistered Userregular
edited April 8
In happy news, only took 95 hours, but finally got far enough to recruit Ramona. That means I can finally beat Yahna/Lips/Magia teams in Coliseum!
Actual number of werefoxes? Two. In a single unit.
I legitimately think there are probably more of every single other class that shows up here than them.
Also, there is really nothing stupider than these multi-wereowl units. Oh, someone used a PP? Time to start a chain through every single unit restoring each other's PP in turn.
E:
Also, why is the BOW Beastslayer skill not ranged? Are we running up to them and smacking them in the face? Seems like it could also be used to bypass anti-ranged units. (I know it's likely a bug)
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
edited April 9
Whew lawd, promoted Yahna is so classy, does she replace Melisandre as best girl? Look, I'm just asking questions!
edit: The Pritzlasse mission screwed up my unit formations hard and now I guess I need to retinker everyone and upgrade their loadouts.
TexiKen on
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silence1186Character shields down!As a wingmanRegistered Userregular
I now have more than 40 named units, so I need to seriously reconsider rejiggering all my teams.
For synergy or rapport, or maybe a bit of both.
I've been bouncing back between Drakehold and Elfheim freeing towns, but have had to hire mercenaries to guard them.
Okay, apparently the sigils are heavily randomized. I went back to that werefox one to just quickly speedrun it because I wanted a chunk of honor to add a slot (and doing delivery sprees annoys me), and the second time I did it, it was fucking full of werefoxes, that all 5 seconds into the map, did their teleport across the map to suicide on the gryphon that was racing to the boss.
...Which actually worked out for them because it drained her stamina and I had to send out the cavalry instead.
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
I don't think they're randomized I think they just have multiple unit layouts. Usually two from what I've seen.
Finished this last night. Really enjoyed it. The post game is kind of weird but i eventually figured out what was going on. It's a little too easy i think, even on Expert, but it is so fun i don't really care that much. I really enjoyed the credits' scenes. It apparently sold pretty well so hopefully we get a sequel. Or at least some DLC.
Gamertag: KL Retribution
PSN:Furlion
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited April 9
Vanillaware doesn't really seem to do sequels.
They do however release new super special advanced versions of their games that come with so many additions they might as well be a new title.
I could use a Shadowrun-like version of the game that lets them just kinda reuse all current races, assets, items, etc. and reskin them for the fantasy cyberpunk future.
Posts
I also think those suggestions greatly underestimate how much information is conveyed to the player extremely quickly by the pre-fight info being perfect and how much harder it becomes to learn the systems when you can't see the outcome of 10 different units fighting somebody in 5 seconds, even without the detailed fightog.
Too much dice rolling can quickly degrade the experience.
Humans are bad at accepting probability or thinking its fun.
I want the game to feel challenging, but 80% win rate means I always win is hard to design for
I did a total reconfigure after rescuing Scarlet, which was fine for the sweep up north, but not so much when the horses and cover tanks evaporated and were replaced with the desert's truestrike and archer spam.
The next time was a soft recon about a third into elfville once nearly everybody was promoted and had their level 20 skills, though probably about half were fairly untouched and still largely based on rapport. I knew at that point what the elf BS schtick would be as well. Mostly though, that was a long overdue distribution of equipment I'd been gathering and rethinking where all the lapis/carnelian pendants would go.
Also, speaking of rapport
I'm most of the way through Angel land (i think, 95% explored global map) and have yet to do it. I keep telling myself i will but then i dont and abuse consumables instead.
I did add people that seemed to fit as i gained slots 4 and 5, and i did a few times kick/ replace someone for being a deadweight (more likely i was using them wrong, i.e. the two elf fencers seem completely worthless).
Also when i got near the end of the ice some i made 4 animal + redhead archer team for which i cleared out my weakest team at that point.
Assuming you do Promotions over Squad Size, by around near the end of Elheim you'll fall behind in being able to have everyone in a team always (even if most small battles you don't need or want to field all your teams), so rebuild 3-4 teams at once also gives an excuse to rotate people in back off the bench.
Alain and Scarlet
Archers
Anti-Archers
Mage + dodge tank swordmasters
Aerial
Debuff
The Rose Knights
Calvary
The other two are just whatever I'm feeling at the moment.
Only having 10 teams is fine but I kind of wish you could save setups.
Those two are weird, above and beyond the lady being dressed in S&M bondage gear. I think they're designed to hard counter arbalists basically, but come after the area with arbalist spam. I think their real problem is that stun is kind of a shit status effect unless you're pairing it with a burn or poison that very often screws you more than helps by delaying the enemy actions to let them take a bunch of turns in a row if you don't have your tactics set to reserve PP to deal with that.
There is one trick you can do with them though. They can use that one accessory that gives a unit +50% Mag and gives self -50% Mag (or the one that gives +AP for debuffing atk), and have an innate cleanse which also gives them a blink, which makes them a pretty significant magic support and helps them be frontline dodge tanks even when the enemy's not using debuffs.
E:
Also, as tanky as some of these fucks in the were-snow region have been, another thing the sequel needs to do is not have units cut corners and push each other off paths into stage hazards. Those thorn areas at the end of elf-ville were fucking obnoxious for that shit. Please just stay on the road and take the extra .01 seconds and not take 15 damage to the entire party, guys.
They give free evasion to magic and arrows which is good for flyers or armored units, they are also good against armor themselves and can stun.
Also, having column attacks is always nice. And they can remove debuffs.
Not general use but paired with a general(or legionairre as this game calls them) is pretty good in my experience.
I think the only real downside is they are best with a sword that gives you a good magic modifier and there are very few of those in the game.
Should I think about online play before max level?
I haven't done any online stuff, but I'm up around rank 13 of the offline mode and haven't used any lineups that I don't already have in my regular lineups. Its mostly been gated by my patience, and by levels/size of group. Just for reference but I'm currently in the beast lands, around level 28, and have 1 group at 5 members.
You can probably push pretty far just with your regular teams. I think I was able to get to around 15ish when it unlocked, and am at 4 or 5 after finishing up the elf-lands. I could definitely go higher, but the fight's like 2 cover tanks and 3 truestrike archers all with high initiative, and I can't be assed to reconfigure my teams just for that.
You just need to win the round, so any kind of setup based on survivability, especially with blink tanks, will punch way above its weight class. Charge attacks where you go all in on buffing the shit out of one unit that hits AoE also do great since that bypasses a lot of the cover defensive type skills and healing. eg Hilda. You can't effectively savescum though. The RNG is hard set, but moving formations around does affect it.
You can clear the coliseum with a party of 4 below level 20 thanks to the power of druids and dodge tanks.
Yes, because you get 200 coins no matter what just for doing 10 fights a day. It helps if you win because you need an asston of coins to get everything good (nevermind the infinite buys) but thankfully there are also people with random teams set or who otherwise have no idea what they're doing that you can pick on for awhile.
The very first side quest inside the zone
Yeah, I was mixing elf and Drakenhold by the end of the latter, and it was where things ended up being no exp. It's a bit weird since that's where promoted units start showing up, and everything getting an extra AP and PP is like a 50% increase in damage and defense, so it really is a jump, which to me it seems like they tried to 'smooth' by giving you a runway to make sure everybody was at exactly level 18-20.
Heavy armor soldier guy (forget his name), goes from hunting/killing witches in the swamp, to heading up north to *sell orphans into slavery*, after getting beaten, his punishment is to ... help run the orphanage?!
I'm usually all for second (third?) chances, but holy moly, those are some light sentences!
He and Mandrin also have some of the better rapport scenes as well that I've seen. A lot of the early Cornia "gotta do my best for my land" people really start blending together since they're all so interchangeable. Those two and I guess maybe Tatiana are the only characters who actually grew and changed even a little. Not that Melisandre and Rosalinde's unending thirst isn't also amusing.
Actual number of werefoxes? Two. In a single unit.
I legitimately think there are probably more of every single other class that shows up here than them.
Also, there is really nothing stupider than these multi-wereowl units. Oh, someone used a PP? Time to start a chain through every single unit restoring each other's PP in turn.
E:
Also, why is the BOW Beastslayer skill not ranged? Are we running up to them and smacking them in the face? Seems like it could also be used to bypass anti-ranged units. (I know it's likely a bug)
edit: The Pritzlasse mission screwed up my unit formations hard and now I guess I need to retinker everyone and upgrade their loadouts.
For synergy or rapport, or maybe a bit of both.
I've been bouncing back between Drakehold and Elfheim freeing towns, but have had to hire mercenaries to guard them.
...Which actually worked out for them because it drained her stamina and I had to send out the cavalry instead.
PSN:Furlion
They do however release new super special advanced versions of their games that come with so many additions they might as well be a new title.
I don't need a sequel, exactly, just something in the same genre.