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[nenjin]

I got gifted this for Christmas, and I declare it....

Good, and promising!

Despite the video game reworks, I'd call this a highly faithful adaptation of the table top that manages to add to gameplay in significant ways. If you like tabletop and the XCOM-esqe glam cam doesn't put you off, this will be a must get if it's developed well from here on out.

It has the barest of features right now, just very basic (read as out swapping weapons and armor) warband management, and a no-persistence skirmish mode.

But there is so much on the UI marked as coming soon, it implies the game that it will become, and that game will be awesome.

What's great:

First off, it's very Warhammer Fantasy. Perhaps a little bit too brown/grey, but everything has the right look. Models are almost without exception ugly in a good way, and they're quite detailed. The Skaven look almost just right IMO.

The maps are HUGE, detailed both in terms of geometry and flavor and ambiance. They really nailed the playground atmosphere of a table table layout.

The whole "real-time yadda yadda", at least for now, is meaningless. You move your guys around to execute turn actions and can finalize and confirm everything, go back on movement, ect... When there's a round timer in, maybe it will make more of a difference, but right now you can safely call this a turn-based game.

Mechanically, it has translated the table top game in a satisfying way. Guys have HP now instead of wounds, when they hit 0 they are out of action and will, like the table top, make a wound roll after the game is over, affected by various debuffs and buffs they picked up during the game. There are Strategy Points for movement (including climbing and jumping down, I don't know about across yet. You can fail and hurt yourself and it happens fairly often due to armor weight and a lot of calculated factors.) and Action Points for melee and ranged attacks and skills. There's various stances for dodging, parrying, overwatch for ranged, counter-attack overwatch for melee (the way they adapted the charge interruption from the table top), delaying that fighter's turn. You can switch weapons, cast spells, use skills or inventory items, scan your surroundings for hidden traps and enemies, search a point of interest for loot, charge into combat from a long distance for a to-hit penalty but a bonus to damage, disengaging from combat, fleeing from combat....there is sort of a dizzying array of actions available for each turn based on where you and are how many SP/AP you have, because they incorporated most if not all aspects of the table top.

When you're controlling a guy on your turn, you're move him around with a 3rd person perspective using the wasd and arrow keys, and the mouse. There's no grid. Instead it's all done through AP/SP, interaction points for climbing and stuff, and "zones of control". Your guys project a zone of control that you can't be standing in to end your turn or take action in. The model also physically blocks movement. Enemies project a zone which automatically puts you in combat wit them if you cross into it, and you can't move through it. It pretty accurately models table top movement and as such...can get a little messy. It allows you to attack 6 to 8 guys on a target though, if you've got the space to manuever.

All confirmation and canceling is done with LMB/RMB, with other short cuts being on the left of the keyboard. (Your information overlay toggles, your overhead map view, ect... )The overhead map view goes a long way toward explaining the battle field (which can be hard to wrap your head around just from the perspectives of your warband, and there's a ton of things you can't see from their perspective.) The overhead map will also show you markers for your team and visible enemies and known points of interest like the warband cart and lootables. The last known point of a now unseen opponent also shows. When enemy fighters are taking their turn, you typically are left staring over the shoulder of your last active guy UNTIL the enemy can be seen by one of your own. Then the camera follows their movement. You can browse the overhead map while your enemy is moving. It can sometimes be confusing whether you're waiting on an enemy turn or not.

Warband members have many stats, some from the table top, some new. Agility, Strength, Toughness, Initiative, Intelligence, Awareness, 4 resist stats, and some other things too. They're broken up into some of the classes from the table top. (So for Skaven, Assassin Adept for your leader, Eshin Sorcerer, Night Runners, Black Skaven, Verminkin, Warp Guard, Rat Ogre for your heavy.) Some of them I recognize, some I don't, but there seems to be more variety than in the table top. They can learn passive and active abilities but so far I see a lot of ones made just for the video game. You can equip fighters with two sets of weapons, and there's a reasonable number to choose from to start with, some capturing the spirit of the table top rules, and many with effects yet to be implemented. You can equip a couple different kinds of armor with some obvious penalties but the explanation on the benefits is a little murky. There's tons of slots for other stuff, none of which are available right now.

Teams have a morale pool that every fighter contributes to. It is chipped away by critical hits, failed fear and terror tests and fighters who go out of action. At what point bottle tests are forced is unclear but eventually it happens and your still active team withdraws with what they have immediately.

The game really needs tool tips but their explanation for the mechanics and ability and actions is there, it's just nested a few menus deep and is a little clunky to get to. The mouse cursor rarely comes into play, almost everything is done through the keyboard and, based on how the UI acts, I don't think that will change. More on this below.

What's not so great:

Level load times on a non-SSD hard drive are noticeably long.

Performance at "Good" is fairly stuttery on my aging mid-spec machine. At a couple points I thought it might crash but it hasn't yet. It's probably got a memory leak.

The whole control schema screams console game, yet I don't see mention of it being developed for consoles. My guess is they plan to make it easily portable to them at some point, and it really shows in how the game handles.

The fixed camera angles are often quite poor. Combined with the visuals and the fact the game cues on visible enemy movement, it often becomes hard to see what's going on or notice important details like damage numbers, effects, what you're actually looking at, ect... The overhead map is the best way to get information because the view from your fighters is limited. But it can't be zoomed or rotated or tilted. Only scrolled. So even then you can struggle to figure out what you're looking at. While I like the visuals for their aesthetic goals, it does make for a very busy and hard to read game.

The UI, while it's got a lot of the information you need, is poorly layed out, and game does not do a good job of communicating what's happening. Two text boxes show up near the top of the screen on either side, one for the action being taken, one for the outcome. (Damage numbers appear over the head of the actor taking them.) Whether it's the camera screwing up the angle, lag and stuttering messing up the transitions between the action, or just visual overkill, knowing what just happened is sometimes difficult. Text information is kinda crammed into sections of the screen. At first during the tutorials the UI seems minimal and lacking. By the time you show everything it has, it seems cramped and in a very template state. The transitions between unknown enemy movement and viewed enemy movement don't feel right, or smooth. The game just kind of awkwardly throws the camera around so you're like "Where the fuck is this?" So while mechanically the action is good, visually it's pretty messy.

The sound effects are not that great, and the visuals for things like spell effects, stances, buffs, debuffs, are kinda weak.

What's coming:

There'll be neutral AI daemons and looters on the map (that will attack under different circumstances.) You'll be able to loot randomly spawned wyrdstone from the map and carry it back to your "team wagon" to drop off. You can raid the other team's wagon if you reach it to steal what they've accumulated. You'll be able to loot "out of action" opponents if you can manage it before they drag themselves off the map. (Although they'll leave behind all their loot and stuff anyways....?) There'll be traps on the map, both warband-placed and environmental.

There'll be shrines for each faction in the map they can pray to for buffs, and that can be stolen by the enemy.

There'll be all sorts of perks to the winner of a skirmish, and even better rewards if the victory is decisive. There'll be an exploration roll, although whether that's a possible minievent like the old game or just more loot is unclear.

There'll be a market to buy gear from with what looks like gold, an enchanter to enchant that gear, a way to request "shipments" from your faction home base I guess? Or maybe that's what you do with wyrdstone. There's also a "smuggler's den" which looks like you spend wyrdstone at. There'll be a singleplayer campaign coming as well. It's unclear whether we'll be able to rename our warband and its members. Right now my Skaven warband is the "Murderous Murderers of the Murderlord."

There'll be scenarios and objectives to complete that award experience on top of combat and everything else.

Finally, player progression and all the gear and skills and spells and such, along with the other warbands.

So, all in all, it handles very much like an early access game but it's doing many things right, and feels like it's really doing the table top justice. It has a lot of work to do though, a lot. So I'm excited to see what its future shapes up like. It's not worth getting yet unless you're obsessed with Mordheim but it definitely will be eventually.

[Delta Foxtrot]

Sounds like so far so good.

Re: Console port
They're certainly leaving the door open for a port, as per this dev post from November:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/276810/discussions/1/617319461072495011/#c617319461073535684

Right now the game has been announced for PC only, but we are definitely looking into potential release for consoles (no Android or Ipad).

[Cthulhu]

It definitely has a console feel to it, especially the QE action cycling which is really cumbersome and weird on a game like this.

[nenjin]

Yeah, that was probably my least favorite part of the control scheme. Maybe if you're a WASD gamer it's not so bad, but for me it's a huge pain. Your mouse wheel would have been PERFECT for scrolling through choices. I also don't like that LMB/RMB dominate all the confirm/deny actions.

There is absolutely no setting menu other than volume controls right now, so hopefully remapping inputs to some degree is planned.

Also, I didn't mention this earlier but, your "Heavies" are fucking terrifying. They hit for up to 50% of your average starting dude's life. They're immune to most psychology. Never tire from their attacks. They can attack three times a turn. They come with a possible counterattack by default. They're enough to kill most line fighters in two hits and move on to someone else.

That and crits. OMG crits. They are the great equalizer in this game. Not ONLY do they do extra damage, not ONLY do they reduce your warband's morale, not ONLY do they increase the chances of a negative effect on the after action wound roll, which each crit modifier STACKS with the last.......but the coup de grace is, each crit you take both reduces your chances to hit and dodge/parry for the rest of the game.

Sure, most heavies has some sort of downside like stupidity, but they seem far and away more powerful than both Mordheim or other table top games that feature them (like Bloodbowl.) They seem to be fulcrum on which a lot of fights will hinge, because they can easily tear apart defensive lines and groups of fighters.

In the tutorial, you get a Sister of Sigmar champion that is an absolute brick shithouse. More HP than a Rat Ogre, hits as hard as one. My first round against a Rat Ogre, I do massive damage and avoid their counter attack.

The Rat Ogre's first round against me? Two crits back to back, and another one next turn. My awesome hero character was effectively crippled from there on out at -60% hit/dodge chance, and the Rat Ogre squished her. So, maybe crits are their plan for preventing super characters from just having run of the battlefield. But they're the kiss of death for everyone from what I've seen.

[Delta Foxtrot]

The game's 33% off until Friday in case some of you feel like paying for the privilege.

[nenjin]

The Cult of the Possessed is also now a playable warband, there's objectives in Skirmish mode to work toward instead of total annihilation and there's "extended warband management" which sounds like the meat of the game but apparently is just deciding who is going to go on the mission?

IMO, this game is worth buying when guys can gain experience, level up and learn new skills. Basically, when persistence is in. Which seems like it's a ways out yet.

Noodled around in it a bit. There's warpstone to collect now as part of the game objectives, which by extension means, searchable objectives and the searching there of is now in. Skills are there in that you can see which one a character has, but that's it. No progression screen unlocked.

Hopefully now that the Possessed are in, they can get to the meat of the game in the next few updates.

[Cthulhu]

My main issue remains the ridiculous third-person camera that makes it impossible to tell what's going on.

[nenjin]

My main issue remains the ridiculous third-person camera that makes it impossible to tell what's going on.

That's the point. They kinda want you to only know what you can see from a guy's perspective, emphasizing the gnarly level design's impact on your awareness. (Unfortunately, despite how nice it looks, it has a "samey" problem with most of the textures and stuff.)

There's an overhead strategic map that shows your positions, last known enemy positions, wagon positions, objectives and stuff. Goes a long way toward making sense of the sprawl.

[nenjin]

Update 3 for Phase 3 is here. You can now play max rank warbands and play around and customize most of the potential skills they can use.

Patch Notes:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Our third content update is 0.17.4.2 and it provides the following new features:

- Max ranked Warbands: All Warbands are available at rank 10 allowing you to try and test many skills and spells combinations on all available Units.

- Skills and Spells: A new menu is now available in the hideout allowing you to customize the skills and spells your units can learn.

- 3 New maps: One new procedural map and two more unique locations (The middle bridge and the Great Library) are available for Skirmish.

- New musics for Hideout: Each Warband has now its own hideout music.

- Backtracking: Users can now choose how many backtracking circles they have.

- Unity 5: That’s Right! We are now running the latest version of Unity. It brings a little bit of optimizations to realtime and loading, and 32/64bits versions depending on your Operating System. However it can also bring a few weirdo bugs! Generally we feel the game is much more stable than it was. If you had odd graphic bugs or bugs we never figured out, now is the right time to try the game again. There are certain issues which are very hard for us to fix as they are internal to the engine.

As we already stated, we value the input of our players and we've done some adjustment according to the feedback we gathered:

General Changes
Fixed climb to remove an extra unwanted -6% and -12% penalty on climb of 6 and 9 meters
The base chances to hit with range weapons have been reduced back to 75%. It was at 90% by mistake
Falling damage should now bypass armor properly
Armor absorption has been transferred in percentage of absorption rather than hard numbers
Armor Absorption bypass has been transferred in percentage of bypass rather than hard numbers
Increase the cost of Switch Weapon to 2SP and 1 OP
Warlock lost access to Bows and Long Bows
Captain and Youngblood lost access to Handgun
All item’s damage and bonus have been revised
All units should have proper default items in their Second Weapon set if they can have a second weapon set.
Modified Trap generation numbers to hopefully prevent having traps that are too close to each others
Increased minimum shooting range to be 5 meters instead of 4 (must be at least 5 meters away from the victim in order to be able to shoot)
Changed several animations, and added intermediary “engaged” idle animations.
Skaven Claws can now parry
Stances have been fixed: their enchantment will now be removed as soon as they trigger (this includes Dodge, Parry, Ambush and Overwatch)
Bonus to AI’s wounds has been reduced to 20% instead of 30%
Reduced the Wyrdstone Rush % to gather to be either: 45%, 50%, 55% or 60% of all the Wyrdstones
Reduced the Bounty targets to vary between 20% and 30% of the enemies’ Warband
Blunderbuss now properly affects multiple targets in a cone area
Blunderbuss blocks some offensive skills that are meant to be only single targeted

Combat Changes
1 Handed with an empty hand:
+10% to Dodge
+ 10 to Initiative
Dual Wielding
Reduce damage dealt with all attacks by 33%
increase cost of attack by 1 OP after the first one
Not stackable
Two Handed
increase cost of attack by 1 OP after the first one
Reduce damage of all attacks by 20% after the first one
Stackable
Firearms
increase cost of all attack by 1 OP

Fixes
Desynchronisations
Flee: We corrected a desynchronisation when a unit attacked an enemy which had fled on it’s turn.
Traps: When a user triggered a trap, their position might not have been the same on both machines.
Engaged: Some engaged units didn’t update their stats properly at turn start
Copyright: We’ve fixed the copyright screen which was not positioned properly.
Death by curse: curses now behave accordingly and the unit dies correctly if killed as a result of the curse.

Known Issues
Because the game is still in development, some issues remain and could not be fixed in this version or have been discovered since its release. This is a list of the known issues we are aware of so far:

- Mutations: The Possessed warband doesn't have their mutations yet. We are working hard to bring this feature in, yet the Chaos Gods are not willing to let us do so yet (go figure! They really are the chaos gods after all).

- Skills related issues: Some skills are still missing, they will come further down the road. Some skills don't have their FX yet. Feel free to point them out. Not all animations are set properly for the skills, we are still working on this

- Highlighting: Our highlighting system currently affects the fog, making it seem it is clipping through the environment. It is very visible in the Hideout, but doesn’t detract from gameplay.

- Invisible walls: There might be some invisible walls between two buildings or a building and the street, but the unit should always have another way to go about it.

- Loading might still be long: We've been working on optimizing the loading time in the previous patch and manage to get good results but there's still room for improvement. We've added a tiny animation at the bottom right corner of the screen to show you the loading is still happening and the game's not freeze.

- Potential graphical bug and xray: We still have work to do on our camera and we are evaluating the best option to do so right now, we used to have an xray system which would cut through the walls, but it seems it created a weird graphical bug (objects would render black/white, much like Sin City). We removed the xray for now and we will be working on a better solution for this issue.

- Attacking AI through a wall: It's possible to engage another unit through a wall, even if it's not visible to your current unit. If you do so against the AI, it won't be able to compute the action and the game will freeze leaving you no other choice but closing the game.

- Using the mouse in GUI with higher screen resolution: We would recommend not to play the game with a screen resolution higher than 1920x1080 as some GUI asset might become difficult to click.

- Information in the Lobby: There are some issues with the information displayed when refreshing the list in the lobby. You might see, for example, a lobby joined by a Steam Friend that is not available to you and that you won't be able to join.

- Switching to another program while playing: If you use Alt-Tab or minimize/maximize the game window while playing or loading, you might end up with a game crash or misbehaving game.

- Desynchronisation during online skirmish: You might encounter some random desynchronization while playing a skirmish online. We are investigating everything that might cause such problem and all the feedback we can get from you will be very helpful.

- Tutorials: Tutorials are outdated, but we can't spend time bringing them up to date at each push since every balance tweak affects units positioning and actions available.

- Artificial Intelligence: AI Rating at Rank 10 is not big enough. So Units will be weak.

- Windows 32bits based version: In order to prevent the game from crashing, player on 32bits operating systems should play using the "fastest" settings.

Lots of "Known Issues." I've been shying away from the game as it's clearly in the "throw shit in there and balance/fix it it as we go" phase of development, which doesn't make for very entertaining 1-off battles against the AI. But the game still appears to be chugging away in development, and I eagerly await leveling and customizing a warband, and the campaign. That's basically all I need to start going all in on playing the game.

----

Some observations from the game itself, some ranting:

I'm....not entirely thrilled by the way skills look to be shaping up for two reasons. First off, generally speaking, the developers seem to have gone to the school of "make all skills increase % chance of success or damage or damage absorption or crit damage or crit chance....while doing every day normal stuff." The other variety of abilities seem to play off the Strategic/Offense point system, where some abilities give you points back or steal them from your enemy. So the passives on display right now are pretty boring, and predictable. And sadly, the active skills are of the exact same variety. Either they're the same as other standard attacks just with higher % chances, or they're trade off abilities, where you do something (completely common) at a better % but take a trade off penalty somewhere. There are a couple active skills that are just plain advantageous, which to my eye seems like a poor decision. I remember a lot of Mordheim skills from the table top let you either ignore some rules altogether, give you re-rolls or let you do something unique within the ruleset. They were advantages you craved in the context of the game. Here, they just fiddle with the numbers (10% here, 5% there. BORING.) That's my first issue, which plays directly into my second....

You will pick and choose which skills to buy. Unlike other persistent table top GWS games like Mordheim and Bloodbowl and Necromunda, where you get skills at random based on the type of skills your race gravitates toward, here you get skill points to spend seemingly where you want. Which immediately puts me into "find which abilities are clearly winners and which ones are not" mode. At least in the table top games, you rolled with what you got, that's how you ended up with unique characters in your warband/team/gang. That's GWS idea of fairness. Having a real bruiser in your warband was a matter of luck and keeping them alive, not simply building the best guy you could with a points-spread system. And I think it worked because it kept even leveling your warband unpredictable, always tempting you with that next skill or stat gain that potentially was exactly what you wanted. Here, you can make a clone army of guys with identical stats, skills and gear if you want, or it that's what turns out to be most effective.

The way it works in City of the Damned is you have three attribute groups, Physical/Mental/Martial. Each attribute group has 3 stats under them, which also correspond to the skill groups (so there's Strength Skill Group, Agility Skill Group, Intelligence Skill Group, etc...each with different Passive and Active Skills.) As you level you get points to spend in each attribute group among the stats (boosting stuff like your regular melee damage, accuracy, HP, dodge and parry chance, etc..), up to your racial maximums. Each skill in each skill group has an attribute requirement (Strength skills have strength requirements, etc..) Skills take time to learn (or will when that functionality is in) and it seems like if you have learned a skill and have a high enough attribute for it, you attain "Mastery", which bumps the bonus the active or passive skill provides by a large margin. Mastery has a higher stat requirement than just the introductory skill.

Note, there is a skill group for purely racial skills, which seem to be the only interesting skills in the game. Sadly, these are the smallest skill groups of them all.

So in place of randomness, they seem to have substituted experience grind and point spending. As I scrolled through the 60 some odd abilities available to choose from, I was struck by how the number is bloated because they have a skill for each aspect of the game. You have the passive skills that makes your charges/ambushes/parry/dodge/climb/shoot actions better, so that necessitates 1 to 2 skills each to cover the range of moves, actions and stances you can do. You have a couple skills that feel out screwing with Strategic and Offense Points, melee and ranged damage...And then you have the active skills which by and large seemed to just be improved versions of the actions everyone can take already.  Skills, active or passive, seem all about customizing your dudes around the core gameplay mechanics (melee vs. ranged/the various stances and attack moves.)

They REALLY want you to specialize your warband into different roles (I base this on a) how high the attribute score thresholds are to get mastery and b) how much better the mastered skills are vs. the introductory ones, it's like 2x to 3x higher bonus. This is seemingly not a game that will favor generalists.) Skills don't seem to let you to do unique or unusual things, it's all playing with percentages, which I find terminally boring. Just screwing around I have made my Skaven Assassin have like a 70 or 80 dodge rate before attack modifiers and enemies doing things came into play.

I always thought table top Mordheim's biggest problem was the complexity of the rule set at the table, with all these specific abilities that did specific things, and how it would be nice if a computer was keeping track of all that shit. It worked very well in Bloodbowl. What the developers of City of the Damned seemed to have come away with, is the idea that "wouldn't it be cool if we throw 100,000 modifiers at each action in game, and let the computer sort out all the math? Won't that make for some fun customization?!" I suppose after you've climbed the mountain of building your warband, it might be nice to look down from the top at weaker warbands and squash them. But it doesn't seem like an especially interesting trip to the top. There will be few surprises, and a great deal of min/maxing.

I guess it depends on what kind of gamer you are. Maybe a streamlined game where most of the thinking goes into building up the best averages for a guy to do a very specific thing works for some people long-term. Personally, that's not the kind of game play that keeps me hooked. If gameplay doesn't really evolve, just specializes, I tend to get bored when I've seen enough. I'm not compelled to keep playing so my one dude has a 100% chance to hit another dude when ambushing. Chasing a % chance of success is a pretty weak motivator for me. For comparison, look at X-COM. Skills you get from leveling your dudes in that game ADD to gameplay, they don't just tweak it. The explosive rockets, the smoke grenades, the ganja grenade, all that jazz. That's stuff to pine for. +10% melee damage at a -5% ranged resistance penalty isn't exactly something to salivate over.

I don't browse their forums much right now, but I expect they're going to take some flak for how they've envisioned skills. Like I said, for a game that lets you pick and choose skills, throwing 98 skills at someone that either have trade offs or play to specialized rolls, and 2 skills that are just flat out better than a normal attack, makes for a very lopsided game. I hope they're open to change on this, or the progression game is gonna kinda suck IMO. I was really excited to see this part of the game fleshed out, but honestly the skill list has just left me feeling bored. I haven't actually played a match and built my own team, and perhaps the way you level or the pacing or the effectiveness of your characters with these skills, or doing it in a campaign setting is fun...but it certainly doesn't present that way. I don't really need to play to get a feel for these skills, because there's zero imagination in them. I don't even need to close my eyes to imagine what 10% more damage looks like.

Don't get me wrong. The game mechanically is actually really complex, there's a lot of shit going on, and perhaps I'm a little more butthurt over this than is warranted. But for what is supposed to be the core draw of Mordheim, i.e. your warband and how they grow, it seems very by the numbers and I mean that both figuratively and literally. For a game that's shaping up to be this complex and detailed, I expected better of their skill list. I think the game is really ambitious and it's kind of starting to show in some of the design. Someone wanted an enormous amount of skills but didn't take the time to make sure they were cool. Which given the material the game is drawn from, is kind of ridiculous. I've been on board with how they've translated Mordheim up to this point, but I think they swung and missed on skills and progression.

On the plus side, I will say this: the custom battle options are fairly extensive. Turn timer yes/no, controlling how many "action spheres" you can reneg on (basically, you want the maximum when playing SP. In Multiplayer this controls how much people can run around and scope things out, or whether every move and action is permanent. These toggles are what governs the game feeling "real-time" vs. turn-based.), various choices for time of day, how troops are deployed, what objectives people might have. So I give props there. And the maps continue to be impressive not only in their depth but also in the amount of shit going on. Multi-level, gnarly design, lootables, neutral-yet-hostile NPCs, hidden (and not so hidden) environmental hazards galore, teleporters, all sorts of stuff. It makes X-COM's maps look down right basic in almost every aspect, including geometry and how precise things are (X-COM is a grid, essentially. This game is almost a FPS when it comes to the geometry.) Also loading times are way, way down so they've done some good optimizations there, for high end machines at any rate. So the game is really sweet in some places, sort of disappointing in others. But given this is EA, lots can still change.

[nenjin]

Quite a few updates since I last posted.

The long and short of it is, the game is more or less where it was a few updates ago. This isn't to say they haven't been doing anything; on the contrary, this is an enormously complex game so there's a lot of "back fill" work to be done on it.

Spoiler: Patch notes for v7 (click to show/hide)

Postby Epy » 07 July 2015, 14:10
Hello Everyone,

Rogue Factor and Focus Home Interactive are proud to provide you with this sixth update of the Early Access. Like we did before, we want to present you a list of all the updates that come with this version, but also the known issues and limitations of this Early Access version.

Updates

Our sixth content update is 0.20.4.2 and it provides the following new features:

- Units colour presets: 12 colour presets for all Units and all their armor variations, but also skin variations for the Skaven, the Rat Ogre and the Chaos Spawn.

- New camera system: Get a better view of the action with more dynamic cameras during close attacks, range attacks, spells, etc...

- New combat circles: the system has been completely revamped to prevent attacks through walls and allow units to engage themselves while on stairs.

- 2 New Maps: 2 new procedural maps located in the Noble Quarters.

As we already stated, we value the input of our players and we've done some adjustment according to the feedback we gathered:

General Changes

    The mutation Wyrdstone Horns has been removed from the Chaos Spawn
    Updated Barrack Doors with proper GX and action names
    Completed the re-write of the descriptions for Runes-Marks, Skills, Spells and Items
    Strength now increases Carrying Capacity for every 3 points (2 initial + S3, S6, S9, S12) up to a maximum of 6 slots
    Impressive units (Rat Ogre, Ogre Mercenary, Chaos Spawn, Maiden of Sigmar) got their base wounds increased by 50
    Stats of all Heroes have been adjusted to be on the same budget. This means their initial stats along with their maximum stats have been modified. The following units have been changed: Warlock, Champion, Youngblood, Black Skaven, Eshin Sorcerer, Night Runner, Purifier, Sister Superior, Augur, Possessed, Marauder, Mutant.
    Barricades of procedural maps have been reviewed to almost never completely block streets and serve as cover instead
    All units will start with a Dodge stance activated automatically. If not used, this stance is removed at the beginning of their turn.
    Improved texture sharpness and details on all Units
    Updated the pathfinding
    Polished unit camera so it can work in all screens (inventory, skills, spells and customization)
    Polished item/skills/spells description colors
    Optimized combat log display to only recalculate hidden items when the scrolling changes
    Fixed bug where end game window would not be displayed due to another state overriding it
    Teleport sequence is now faster/better
    Activate is now in a single sequence
    Fixed Rune name colors
    Add checks to avoid connections with people that are not members of the current lobby
    Fixed bug where user was unable to confirm stats changed with action key
    Fixed Descync when casting spells
    Overview cam will no longer target enemy units giving away their position
    Overview cam will now use zoom button as a toggle instead of zooming in or out using 2 buttons


Skill & Spells Changes

    Order: The mastery now properly remains at 4OP base cost and provides the target with a +15% chances to hit.
    Enshrouding Mist: targeted has been modified to snap to ground to prevent units out of the zone
    Poisonous Mist: targeted has been modified to snap to ground to prevent units out of the zone
    Chains of Chaos: the normal version now increases the cost of Attack, Counter-Attack, Charge, Shoot, Aim, and the Overwatch or Ambush stances by 2 OP instead of blocking them. The Mastery version will do so as well and lock any trained Offensive Skills.
    Exhaustion: The wound cost has been reduced to 30 wounds instead of 35
    Born Leader: the regular version now increases maximum Intelligence and Alertness by 3. The Mastery version now provides 3 Physical and Martial stat points and 4 Mental stat points
    Lad’s Got Talent: The mastery version now provides 3 Physical, Mental and Martial stat points instead of 2


New Skills and Spells

    Scavenger’s Curse: spell for the Mercenaries. Cost 2 OP. Single target enemy
        Regular: curse the target. When it searches or gather Wyrdstones, it suffers from a debuff of -5% to Melee, Range and Wyrdstone Resistance. Stackable.
        Mastery: the penalty increases to -10%
    Dread of Aramar: spell for the Mercenaries. Cost 4 OP. Area of 5 meters around the caster
        Regular: reduces melee hit chances by 5% for 1 turn. Remove up to 2 current OP. Has 25% chances to break the stances of all victims.
        Mastery: the penalty increases to -10%, -4 OP and 50% chances to break stances
    Veil of Corruption: spell for the Possessed. Cost 2 OP. Zone placed within 15 meters
        Regular: place a zone of effect on the ground. Anyone entering suffers a 2 turn debuff which reduces Wyrdstone Resistance by 25%. Not Stackable. Anyone gathering a wyrdstone inside the area of effect will gain a stackable debuff that will deal 6-12 damage on the next turn start of the victim.
        Mastery: the Wyrdstone Resistance penalty increases to 50% and damage to 12-22
    Visions of Torment: spell for the Possessed. Cost 4 OP. Affect everyone around the caster
        Regular: the victims will either all be Stunned if they fail at their Stun Resistance or they will suffer from penalties of 5% to their Melee and Range resistance and 5% to their Dodge and Parry attempts
        Mastery: the penalties increases to 10%
    Attracting Lure: Skill for the Possessed warband
        Regular: Confuse an engaged opponent and lure him away if he fails a Leadership test. Failing will make the victim Flee after the lure, provoking free attacks for engaged enemies.
        Mastery: the test is performed with a -15% penalty


Items

    All consumables except a few can now be used on allies within 3 meters (extremely close). All of those consumables got their cost increased by 1 OP (except Poultice).
        Consumable exception: Oil Bomb, Sticky Sludge, Aethyric Focus, Rosary, Mordheim Map, Lucky Charm, Talisman
    Sigmarite Hammer: Lowered the chance to reduce enemies’ chances to dodge to -3/6/9%
    Sigmarite Hammer: Added a chance to reduce chances to trigger a Divine Wrath while Casting by 2/4/6%
    Sticky Sludge: While in the zone, movement is reduced by 2 meters. Entering the zone adds a debuff that reduces maximum SP by 1 and Dodge by 5%.
        Good: Dodge penalty increases to -10%
        Best: Dodge penalty increases to -15%
    NEW Smelling Salts: Costs 2 SP to use. Can only be used on an ally. Has 35% chances to remove the stun condition afflicting the target.
        Good: chances increases to 65%
        Best: chances increases to 100%
    All Warbands will have 3 of the following new items for testing:
        Tome of Abilities: Grants 2 Skill Points. This item can only be used ONCE per warrior.
        Tome of Magic: Grants 2 Spell Points. This item can only be used ONCE per warrior.
        Physical Grimoire: Grants 3 Physical Attribute points. Only ONE Grimoire can be used per warrior
        Mental Grimoire: Grants 3 Mental Attribute points. Only ONE Grimoire can be used per warrior
        Martial Grimoire: Grants 3 Martial Attribute points. Only ONE Grimoire can be used per warrior
        Training: Accuracy = Permanently increases maximum Accuracy by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Agility = Permanently increases maximum Agility by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Alertness = Permanently increases maximum Alertness by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Ballistic Skill = Permanently increases maximum Ballistic Skill by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Intelligence = Permanently increases maximum Intelligence by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Leadership = Permanently increases maximum Leadership by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Strength = Permanently increases maximum Strength by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Toughness = Permanently increases maximum Toughness by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.
        Training: Weapon Skill = Permanently increases maximum Weapon Skill by 3 points, up to a maximum of 20. Only ONE of the nine Training items can be used per warrior.


Runes & Marks

    Carnage: the bonus increases to 10%/20% for 1 handers and 15%/30% to 2 handers and range



Known Issues

Because the game is still in development, some issues remain and could not be fixed in this version or have been discovered since its release. This is a list of the known issues we are aware of so far:

- 32Bit version: We’re seeing more and more instability for the 32bit version of the game, but remain committed to it. This version is only available for players with a 32bit OS. This is a very small minority of players at this point, and with V18s new character meshes, RAM becomes an issue. We apologize for this, and we are working on this again during the optimization pass coming in soon.

- Skills related issues: Some skills are still missing, they will come further down the road. Some skills don't have their FX yet. Feel free to point them out. Not all animations are set properly for the skills, we are still working on this.

- Invisible walls: There might be some invisible walls between two buildings or a building and the street, but the unit should always have another way to go about it.

- Loading might still be long: We've been working on optimizing the loading time in the previous patch and manage to get good results but there's still room for improvement. We've added a tiny animation at the bottom right corner of the screen to show you the loading is still happening and the game's not freeze.

- Using the mouse in GUI with higher screen resolution: We would recommend not to play the game with a screen resolution higher than 1920x1080 as some GUI asset might become difficult to click.

- Information in the Lobby: There are some issues with the information displayed when refreshing the list in the lobby. You might see, for example, a lobby joined by a Steam Friend that is not available to you and that you won't be able to join.

- Switching to another program while playing: If you use Alt-Tab or minimize/maximize the game window while playing or loading, you might end up with a game crash or misbehaving game.

- Desynchronisation during online skirmish: You might encounter some random desynchronization while playing a skirmish online. We are investigating everything that might cause such problem and all the feedback we can get from you will be very helpful.

- Tutorials: Tutorials are outdated, but we can't spend time bringing them up to date at each push since every balance tweak affects units positioning and actions available. As the balancing comes to an end, we will redo them to give them their proper order again.

- Windowed Mode: Even if you’ve selected “Windowed Mode” in the graphic settings, the game will start in “Fullscreen”. Just press [Alt]+[Enter] to change to “Windowed Mode”.

- Artificial Intelligence: AI Rating at Rank 10 is not big enough. So Units will be weak.

If you find any bugs or need some technical help, please refer to the appropriate forum for bugs reporting and technical issues, and do no post in general discussions. The general discussion forum is very hard for us to navigate as there is a lot of movement, so we only look at it briefly.

If you get a game breaking bug, such as a crash to desktop, please make a post in the bug report section, and also send your output log and a copy of your combat log, found in your steam install directory:
- Steam\SteamApps\common\mordheim\mordheim_Data\output_log.txt
- Steam\SteamApps\common\mordheim\combat.log

Email this log to logs at rogue-factor.com and we'll take a look at it. Please link your post/thread in your email so we can return to it. A DxDiag can also be helpful, and if you managed to take a screenshot that will also help quite a bit.

Previous Updates

- All 4 Tutorials of the game: The player will get comfortable with all the combat mechanics of the game.

- Play Skirmish games against AI or friends online: The AI is a little bit easy to beat, but playing against a friend is great fun.

- 6 Campaign Maps with 3 different deployment each: These are the same maps which will be used in our campaign, but with slight differences.

- 6 Procedural Maps with 10 different deployment types: These maps, being generated procedurally will give the player much variety as path, previously open will be closed, and even in the same deployment type, units will find themselves in different buildings etc. This is the great value, We have too many different types of building for me to count, plus props and bridges which are created procedurally to change the map.

- 4 playable Warbands: Skaven from the Eshin Clan, Mercenaries Reiklanders, the Sisters of Sigmar, and the Cult of the Possessed

- Hideout section, with weapon and armour selection: You're now provided with a chest full of weapons and armours which you'll be able to distribute among your units. Note that at the moment, only weapons and helmets will have a visual impact. The armour will not visually change on the character whether you choose cloth, light or heavy armour (but your changes will affect the stats though).

- Reserves in Warband management: Warbands now have "reserves" you can choose from, to organize your Units before going to combat, based on their type and cost.

- Extra objectives: With the search action now available, various extra objectives have been added to the Skirmish games (Marked for Death, Crush their Will, Wyrdstone Rush).

- Turn timer is now available in Skirmish: As requested by our community of Players, you can now set a time limit for a Unit turn.

- Backtracking is now available in Skirmish: As requested by our community of Players, you can now set a backtracking limit for a Unit.

- Windows 32bits based version: In order to prevent the game from crashing, player on 32bits operating systems should play using the "fastest" settings.

- Possessed Mutations: Possessed units, when playing with Rank 10, now have random mutations.

- Representative Armours: Changing armours and other equipment is now properly represented on the unit. This completely changes the look of the characters.

- Item Enchanting: Rank 10 Warbands now have weapons which can be enchanted, There is an Enchanting Tab next to the inventory where you can choose the Rune or Mark to put on the item. This is for testing and balancing.

- Chat!: You can now chat when in the lobby as well as in game

- Action Log: An action log has been added representing unit actions, and RNG rolls it performs.

- Key Mapping: In the options menu, players now have the option to remap the controls of the game. This is also available for gamepads. We’ve internally tested with Xbox, PS4, and a generic Logitech controller. Camera Inversion are now also available.

- New Deployment type: Code named Umbrella. This new deployment is available for all procedural maps and has both Warbands as far away from each other as possible, This is to give a far away option for Players who would prefer this.

- New Cloth: Warhammer is known for skirts, pangs, and other clothy material. We’ve completely changed the clothing in the game. It still needs to be tweaked, but now looks and feels better. It is also much more optimized.

- Respec Button: In the Unit management, you can reset your Warband skills, spells and attributes to their original state. This will also reset the units’ mutations to new random ones, for the Possessed Warband. This feature will only be available during the Early Access.

- Unit Rotation: With all those cloth variations and mutations, you can now admire your Unit under different angles in the Hideout’s Unit Management, using the mouse or the right-stick.

- Save on the cloud: The save games are now copied on Steam's cloud

- Consumables: You can now buy and equip your units with items usable during a Skirmish game. From Anti-Toxin to Elven Wine, with a couple of Oil Bombs, make sure you get the right equipment for the mission objective, from the Shop menu.

- Hiring System and new Warband Management UI: Get ready to be a real leader now that you can fully customize your Warband by hiring and firing Units from the new Warband Management User Interface

- Improved Overview Map: No excuse to get lost in Mordheim anymore, the overview map comes with a compass and more information about the current state of the mission


We hope you will enjoy this update and get even more fun out of Mordheim: City of the Damned. We appreciate all the feedback and help we got from you so far, and want to thank all of you.

Rogue Factor & Focus Home Interactive.


Re: MORDHEIM: CITY OF THE DAMNED - EARLY ACCES PHASE 7-

Postby Morjax » 07 July 2015, 15:08

    Epy wrote:Skill & Spells Changes

        Order: The mastery now properly remains at 4OP base cost and provides the target with a +15% chances to hit.
        Enshrouding Mist: targeted has been modified to snap to ground to prevent units out of the zone
        Poisonous Mist: targeted has been modified to snap to ground to prevent units out of the zone
        Chains of Chaos: the normal version now increases the cost of Attack, Counter-Attack, Charge, Shoot, Aim, and the Overwatch or Ambush stances by 2 OP instead of blocking them. The Mastery version will do so as well and lock any trained Offensive Skills.
        Exhaustion: The wound cost has been reduced to 30 wounds instead of 35
        Born Leader: the regular version now increases maximum Intelligence and Alertness by 3. The Mastery version now provides 3 Physical and Martial stat points and 4 Mental stat points
        Lad’s Got Talent: The mastery version now provides 3 Physical, Mental and Martial stat points instead of 2


    New Skills and Spells

        Scavenger’s Curse: spell for the Mercenaries. Cost 2 OP. Single target enemy
            Regular: curse the target. When it searches or gather Wyrdstones, it suffers from a debuff of -5% to Melee, Range and Wyrdstone Resistance. Stackable.
            Mastery: the penalty increases to -10%
        Dread of Aramar: spell for the Mercenaries. Cost 4 OP. Area of 5 meters around the caster
            Regular: reduces melee hit chances by 5% for 1 turn. Remove up to 2 current OP. Has 25% chances to break the stances of all victims.
            Mastery: the penalty increases to -10%, -4 OP and 50% chances to break stances
        Veil of Corruption: spell for the Possessed. Cost 2 OP. Zone placed within 15 meters
            Regular: place a zone of effect on the ground. Anyone entering suffers a 2 turn debuff which reduces Wyrdstone Resistance by 25%. Not Stackable. Anyone gathering a wyrdstone inside the area of effect will gain a stackable debuff that will deal 6-12 damage on the next turn start of the victim.
            Mastery: the Wyrdstone Resistance penalty increases to 50% and damage to 12-22
        Visions of Torment: spell for the Possessed. Cost 4 OP. Affect everyone around the caster
            Regular: the victims will either all be Stunned if they fail at their Stun Resistance or they will suffer from penalties of 5% to their Melee and Range resistance and 5% to their Dodge and Parry attempts
            Mastery: the penalties increases to 10%
        Attracting Lure: Skill for the Possessed warband
            Regular: Confuse an engaged opponent and lure him away if he fails a Leadership test. Failing will make the victim Flee after the lure, provoking free attacks for engaged enemies.
            Mastery: the test is performed with a -15% penalty
 [/i][/b]

Thanks to the team for the continued progress! It's a long shot, but has there been any word on when XP and injuries will be implemented? Are those features to be released as we exit early access, potentially sooner, or TBD?

Best regards!
~Morjax

But there aren't many keynote differences from several versions ago. There is still only non-persistent skirmish mode and warband management. You can build your own warband from the ground up now, and make your guys max level (and only max level) so you can raise their stats and load them up with skills and passives. I must have spent two hours just configuring a warband and reading all the stats and skills. There is just a ton of *stuff* to the game mechanically, it's easily one of the crunchiest I've seen in a while. There's also a decent number of model skins and color options to pick from now.

The biggest difference that struck me was that itemization is really coming to the fore. There is a full selection of gear to choose from, including magical and special gear that is handed out at random to guys you hire. It promises the very familiar blue --> purple --> orange rarity system of Diablo/Wow, meaning there will be no shortage of special gear to find and equip. Some of it seems like obvious escalation because magical or epic versions of normal gear are just "better." Gear can have a higher quality level (blue/purple) which makes the item stats just better. Then it can also have a slot for a rune or mark, allowing you to add additional bonuses. It seems a bit grindy to me, but it remains to be seen how rare it all is and how it plays out in the campaign and online (for testing purposes you get x99 of all items in their basic, epic state.)

In addition to that there's now a pretty big list of consumables to equip to your guys. Poultices and potions for healing, brew for courage, bombs, and an assortment of concoctions that grant buffs as well as side effects. There's also "tomes" you can let warband members read that increase stats, grant skill points, increase their maximum stat thresholds and so forth. Looting in game now seems to work as expected too, so you can take stuff from your fallen opponents to fill your empty inventory slots (the number of which is derived from the fighter's stats.)

There's a few more tweaks to the camera and UI to make it more user-friendly. (It's still not super friendly ) They freed up the camera during the "action-taking" segment of a character's turn and during the animation. So you can rotate the camera side-to-side or pitch it if it's in a wall. Even that simple change has done a good deal to make the game feel more flexible and gives you a better sense of where you are. The overhead map has better icons and highlighting now too, so it's easier to see the bigger picture. There's actually some cool things being done with the camera. One Skaven spell I used shoots as a beam effect. And when I chose it, the camera went to over the caster's shoulder and then let me rotate it to target stuff. The game is making use of camera perspective in ways I've rarely seen done but have interesting repercussions for targeting and atmosphere. I dunno, something about aiming that spell while trying to avoid my own guy, from the model's perspective, gave me an instant flashback to playing table top.

The flow of how you're notified about stuff still feels off. It's easy to miss success/failure messages because you're paying attention to the animation instead of looking at the corners of the screen. The event log doesn't capture a lot of what happens either. And occasionally something dramatic will happen and you still don't know why. Like at the start of one of my rat's turns he up and fled combat. I assume he failed an all-alone test, or someone used an ability on him, or something. It just wasn't clear what had just happened.

Levels continue to be amazing, like a table top set piece. There's at least 10 or so, some of which are variations on the same theme (like a district) while others are completely unique. It's hard to say what's procedural or not about them other than Wyrd Stone and trap placement, because there's just so much of the map and you rarely play on more than a fraction of it. In my last game the enemy split in two as I did around a large noble's house with its own courtyard. 4 turns later my ambushing (and the AI's ineptitude) lost them enough fighters to fail their bottle test and rout. I barely used 50% of the map, if that, because the enemy bailed so soon. Then again, there are various deployment methods per map, and this was the classic "two teams start at their wagon." There are many other deployment scenarios (which doubtlessly will be used in the campaign) that will result in more map coverage.

Speaking of the AI, it's not too hot. There's two sides to this. One, even when you rank up your warband to max, the AI doesn't seem to fully build its out, resulting in a weaker opponent. (My WB was ranked 2,700 while their's was 1700.) For two, it makes both tactical and strategic blunders with some regularity. Tactically, it will do dumb things like waste a turn climbing a wall to get to one of your guys...then jump back down. Then maybe climb again. Or it will run its guys through a patch of hazards (like a patch of burning oil you threw on the ground) like it doesn't even see it. I basically killed three Sisters of Sigmar with a patch of sticky goo and a patch of burning oil, because I threw it in front of them and they'd charge and retreat right through it. Strategically it's not really up to snuff either. Sometimes it feels like its units don't support each other. It will happily charge one into combat with 3 of your guys, while the other two, who were seeming to support it, spend their time climbing walls or some shit. I can forgive the AI because it's a challenging environment to navigate...but part of me worries that the SP will suffer due to the AI because this game is definitely geared toward MP.

In terms of how well I think everything is gelling mechanically, I think it's starting to come together. There is still a bewildering amount of skills and passives and values to look at. But leveling up your dudes sort of forces you to confront all of it and I'm starting to get the hang of it. Specialization seems to be the name of the game here. There's a lot of active skills you can give a guy, but they're all competing for a limited number of Offensive and Strategic Points per turn. So it doesn't necessarily make sense to load a guy up with a lot of situational skills, and instead of focus on active and passive skills that funnel to one or two kinds of actions. Because almost every kind of action (moving, jumping, climbing, jumping down, attacking, counterattacking, shooting, spellcasting, searching, perceiving, getting hit, avoiding getting hit, morale tests, resistance tests, five or more kinds of stances) has an associated skill or ability to improve it, it's easy to be overwhelmed. That said, flexibility can help because there will be scenarios where a fighter can only rely on themselves and/or may be outnumbered. A slow moving tank may be great in a pitched battle between two halves of different warbands. But surrounded and outnumbered by archers their toughness may not save them where fleetness of foot might. All THAT said, I think there's a lot of potential to create some varied fighters for your warband (and not just simply "ranged guy, melee guy, tank guy, spell caster.") With the right set of skills and equipment, you can make a character designed to scout, or scoop up wyrdstone ASAP, a support buffer/debuffer type, a fast moving melee assassin with ranged backup, a slow moving wrecking ball of a tank that can switch to strong two-handed weapon damage and has a devastating attack ability, and so on.

A note on skills: they've seemed to have gotten a rework. There still a somewhat flavorless "increase chance of blah", but many of them are now straight advantages, instead of trade offs. Which makes it a little easier to envision a fun way to build a guy. Skills had my attention enough this time, I actually took the time to read them all, set up my warband and play a game. Which is more than I could make myself do last time. The game is still complex, it just feels like less pointlessly complex than before.

And when I say complex, I don't mean like, DF complex. There are just a lot of inputs from everything: skills, equipment, buffs, debuffs, all stacked on top of the normal stat calculations, lots of stuff is situational and you have 9+ members of your warband to pay attention to. This doesn't mean you're perfectly informed though. And the lack of keyboard cheat sheet during the match can and will leave you going "how do I see the break down of X or Y" or "how do I see all the stuff affecting my character right now?" that leads to a lot of fumbling on keys to bring up the appropriate overlays. It continues to leave the game feeling kind of cludgy, although it's improved since the last few updates. The method of input still feels like's made for a controller, and between that, not being able to rebind keys and not having the keyboard control scheme accessible, it's still kind of an awkward game to play.

---

All in all the devs are making progress, constantly refining this behemoth of a game. Sometimes I step back and am still surprised how much they're pulling together, from the full 3d rendered environments, to the camera work and logic, to the reams of abilities and skills and equipment (that still need some balance done) to the gnarly maps, to the side stuff like traps and neutral monsters and the whole procedural generation thing. It's got the normal TBS challenges with several FPS considerations and complexities added in. This is the kind of project that I think could crush a dev house, and while the game does have its glaring issues, it's coming along. Part of me wishes I hadn't seen it in early access because it's diminished newer features to me somewhat. EA can make a game look creakier because you've seen it weaker points in its development. But I think once everything is said and done, it will be something to behold. One telling part I think will be the single player campaign. If it delivers with a polished, professional-looking campaign to draw people in, I think it will do very well. (Assuming it doesn't have the EA curse of no one giving a shit when it finally is released.) Part of me suspects and worries though that the SP campaign is going to be bare bones by today's standards (i.e. it's just a framework of AI skirmishes tied together with some screens and there's no cutscenes or voice work or what have you to flesh it out.)

[nenjin]

Double (or triple I guess...) post. But I thought I'd add some images to explain what I've been rambling about for so long.

Spoiler: Click for full size (click to show/hide)

Initial battle setup against the Cult of the Possessed. This is the overhead map of the battle space. The random map was Merchant Quarters 4, the deployment type "A Line In The Fog" or something where your warband is spread out in a line from your wagon. The gold highlighted icon is the last guy on my team to move. Love dat Rat Movement. My goal was to shrink the distance between my units for a quick defensive collapse. For a straight fight match, keeping your warband together is an advantage. The red arrow indicates where the main battle ends up happening. If the image looks a little hazy, it's because there are fog banks rolling across the whole map.



Pic of one of my Warpguard. All things aside, the game really does look fantastic (this is with the default Unity engine's default graphics settings at "Beautiful")



Just another random scene from the City of the Damned. Every square inch of the maps are covered in this kind of detail, the visuals they create so like your fantasy table top battle you never had. Although glowing maggots stuck to ceilings were never part of any of my table top fantasy battlescapes, I'll take 'em.



Rat Ogre and some of the Gang. Rat Ogres absolutely demolish in close combat, with few to no exceptions.



Obscured view of creepy tower #1



Creepy tower shot #2



Creepy tower in all its glory #3



My leader, sorcerer and a verminkin overlook an intersection, waiting on overwatch with their Warplock Pistols. The battle would later happen just down the street from my leader's vantage point. Mordheim City of the Damned has the same kind of tense dread in hunting for and playing hide and seek with your opponent that XCOM does. The difference is, XCOM battles take place on much smaller and more open maps. You can spend several turns in Mordheim without seeing a hint of your opponent's warband, until one of them pops out of an alley or doorway and starts shanking you in the kidney with a rusty knife. If you click through to the fullsize image, you'll notice patches of warped flesh on the ground. One of those is actually an environmental trap that puts a debuff on you. So far the buffs are unpleasant but short lived. If you were to trip one of shortly before getting ambushed, or trying to flee an opponent though....



My Clan Eshin Sorcerer casts a spell to conceal my archers in Enshrouding Mist for a few turns. While providing ranged protection, normally the mist also gives you a penalty to melee accuracy. Luckily for Skaven, they get to ignore this effect, making it an ideal ranged defense/melee defense spell. The currently selected character is my leader, and yes, you read that name right. Facechewer Dieclaw is perhaps the nastiest name of all my fighters.



A Verminkin draws a bead on a Cult of the Possessed Fighter. Shooting at targets in melee combat comes with a substantial to-hit penalty. I don't think you can hit your own troops.



This is what the UI looks like with all its junk and info panes turned on. The red text is mine. It's a lot of information to have on the screen, at which point the game starts looking more like an MMO...or a jet fighter cockpit HUD. It's a complete distraction from the levels (which are great) and the action (which is soso), so I only toggle it on when I need it. I can't even imagine what it might look like on smaller resolutions (I play at 1920x1080.) All that shit could be half the size it is now IMO. Incidentally, Scess Dieclaw? His relation to Facechewer Dieclaw is probable. They're Skaven, after all.



Mid-battle overview with my notations. Their archers and my archers traded shots across the lower courtyard while both our melee units charged in. Those archers were no joke either, as you'll see in a later pic. Unfortunately the only quick way to get to them is a climbable interaction point next to the bridge that a Cult of the Possessed fighter is blocking.



A Warpguard and Black Skaven hero bring that Cult of the Possessed fighter blocking my access to their archers to his knees, literally, through Critical Hits. Only now looking at it do I even notice the dead horse strapped to the top of the wagon on its back. The game is littered with quirky visuals like that.



A Black Skaven hero winds up an attack to finish off the Cult of the Possessed fighter. The Black Skaven would proceed to kill him, climb the wall, run up to another wounded archer, slay him, then run to yet ANOTHER archer and engage him in close combat.



My Rat Ogre gets into the mix, taking on the Possessed that charged my other fighter's flanks. He'd come from a level up and from between some buildings, so I wasn't expecting him. But I was prepared for him. The fire is from an Oil Fire grenade I threw. Not only does it last several turns, I was impressed both with the visual effects and dynamic lighting it gave off.



One of my poor Verminkin that the enemy archers turned into a pin cushion. The arrows stay stuck in your fighter the whole game! It's a nice touch. He went on to survive, but took like 4 crits in a row. Despite not going down, were this a persistent game, I think he would have earned injuries still. A lot of them. The biggest reason for all those arrows was the enemy leader was one of those archers, and was taking a whopping four shots a turn. That's like 8 offensive points, plus probably 8 strategic points to reload. By comparison, my Warplock pistols cost more to fire and reload, but do more damage.

By the end of battle, 4 of 9 enemies including their leader were OOA, and just my one Verminkin in bad shape.

I'm starting to warm up to the game.  It's not exceptionally difficult right now, but it is fun. It will be a lot more fun when persistence is in, and things like looting enemies and map treasures, wyrdstone hunting, experience and MVP rewards are a thing. Combat when you've got your whole warband there tends to be short and brutal but pretty straightforward. I think the game will shine when the other tactical considerations have meaning because of persistence. That's now the only thing I'm waiting on to get into this for real.

[Yoink]

Oh man, this looks awesome enough as-is.
Should be great once it's more fleshed out.

[Anvilfolk]

Yeah, I'm a sucker for meta-games and levelling up your teams. Like in Blood Bowl. It seems like the general gameplay for this is turning out to be fairly solid, so now I'm gonna sit and wait for the meta-game and warband building to come

Thanks for taking time to write these up, nenjin!

[nenjin]

You're welcome!

I decided to do one more before I set this aside until another update comes through.

Incidentally, the game does have rebindable keys now (not sure when that went in) in the options menu. There's not a lot of them, but there's minimal controls for mouse speed and such too. Between that and the camera changes, input is way less obnoxious than it used to be.

So the match.

The Noxious Tails (Skaven Master Race) (9 fighters) vs. The Hammerkeepers (Sisters of Sigmar) (7 fighters)
Map: Noble District 2
Time of Day: Day
Deployment: Horrors of Mordheim (Your warband is scattered after a terrible apparation appears, and before you can regroup a rival warband sends out patrols to hunt you down.)

The first bit will be told mostly through overhead shots.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The match starts with the Noxious Tails holded up in some sort of fortified compound. It's ring of multi-level buildings, some ruined and impassable, others not, around a large open commons. This played to my advantages from the outset, as most of my ranged units started up on higher floors.



However, the scenario has its obvious downside. Lurksin Slynker was the rat unfortunate enough to be the odd rat out, well to the south of the rest of the Noxious Tails and their makeshift defenses. My experiences in Mordheim with having lone guys apart from the warband is that they are quickly picked off, so I make it a point to move him toward the secure embrace of the compound as quickly as possible. A brief scout of its southern edge doesn't turn up any obvious points of access though. Incidentally, you can define your own level of "scoutiness" by setting up a turn timer or limiting the number of "take back" moves you're allowed to use. Personally I think it balances out. If you turn a corner and walk into a hostile unit's zone of influence (which happens more often than you'd think), you're in combat and can't take shit back. Getting hit by some traps will also lock in your choices up to that point. So even with maximum allowances for scouting and such, it's not fool proof.



I started moving my Verminkin shooters and Assassin leader into position to snipe the interloping Sisters of Sigmar, because as I shifted them around I saw a few of them across the street, atop a parapet. At the time of the pic, I'd already clipped one and a second had dropped down and gotten shot by my Leader.



In this pic, my Rat Ogre failed his Stupidity test as the first actor of the turn, so I had to run up my Eshin Sorcerer to use "Guidance" on him, which restores the unit's actions lost from Stupidity. As I'm doing so, I notice two additional Sisters of Sigmar flanking from the west.



Here, the other Sister of Sigmar on the north of the complex moves in, getting a keister full of Warp Shot for her efforts. In preparation for their assault, I move my Black Skaven hero and a Warp Guard into position to cover the entrances to the compound with Ambushes. I'm satisfied I've got the measure of my enemies on the north side, but I'm wondering where the other three are....



Freed of his stupor, Thanquee Skitter-shank takes a look at the south side of the compound....



And then I decide I want him punching a Sister of Sigmar while she's outside the compound, rather than in it. It looks like she was going to climb up and go for my Verminkin shooters. She blows her Fear test which reduces her accuracy against Thanquee, and he misses more than his fair share of attacks against her in the first round. At this time my Assassin leader changes direction, and drops down on the other SoS on the north side from above. (Not pictured)



With the north more or less dealt with I turn my attention to securing the west from attack. I use Khak Creep my Eshin Sorcerer to throw a blob of Sticky Goo in her path. Then I take a shot at her with Warplock Pistols, then retreat him, reload, and set up Overwatch on the passage. I use a skill called Meditation which lets him covert some Offensive Points into Strategic Points, which lets him get a lot of stuff done in a round. You tend to spend SP moving and doing non combat things, and OP doing most combat related things. So you tend to have a lot of either left over at the end of a turn depending on what you're doing, and converting them to what is needed helps you get more actions per turn in.



This shows my defensive setup after a couple more moves. There's three shooters on overwatch: my Sorcerer on the ground level by the barrel, one Vermkin up high on the third floor on the right, and another on the second floor of the building to the left of my Sorcerer (he's hard to see in the mist.) With no one to shoot on the north side, I turned their guns on the interior. Positioned next to Sticky Goo and the SoS's path of approach is my Black Skaven hero, Scess Dieclaw, waiting in Ambush.



Skratchit Scuttle himself goes north to join my Assassin leader and gang up on the other attacker. Not that Facechewer needs any help.



The view from Sliad Sharpwhisker's perch.



Overhead map of the midbattle, with firing arcs drawn.



While things are going swimmingly in the north and west, in the south, Lurksin Slynker's day takes a turn for the "Oh shit" when this SoS appears out of nowhere. Pictured is his Ambush attack. I'm not actually worried until.....



I get a chance to view her stats and realize she's the leader of their warband. Note the assload of (spent) Offensive and Strategic points she has versus mine. While matched in health and overall vitals more or less, she has the advantage of more actions and nastier skills.



I decide that discretion is the better part of rat valor, and disengage from combat, hoping to use my (nerfed because of heavy armor and focus on strength and toughness) speed to put some distance between us. There's no relief for Lurksin though, as I spot not one but two other SoS (so THAT's where they were) heading for his position. I try every trick I know to get the most out of my movement points, but the answer remains that the shortest way into the compound is through 3 SoS. So I resign Lurksin to sprinting around the western edge of the compound to find the first entrance he can, and hoping he's faster than the SoS. He's not.



On the western front though, things are going off.....



Without a hitch. (Not pictured, Khak Creep the Eshin Sorcerer shooting and hitting)



Unfortunately, my positioning for my ambush wasn't as careful as my overwatch (apparently the ambusher needs to be able to charge, so camping right at a corner screws you) and the SoS walks into combat with Scess Dieclaw the Black Skaven hero, and launches the first attack.



He pays her back though.



At the top of the round, Thanquee Skitter-Shank the Rat Ogre derps his Stupidity test (again), requiring Khak Creep the Eshin Beast Whisperer to head over there, again, to use Guidance on him. (pictured, poorly)



He still has plenty of AP and OP though, using Meditation, so I have him cast Bless With Filth on a Warp Guard, which gives their weapons a poison attack for a few rounds. Then he retreats behind a wrecked wagon. (I don't think I've seen the SoS use ranged weapons yet, but I'm paranoid like that.)



Overhead view of the late-battle. It's much the same as it was before. The two SoS in the north are half dead between the Rat Ogre, Assassin and Warp Guard. The Black Skaven hero has back up from the two Verminkin Shooters, the Eshin Sorcerer and a Warp Guard, and their target is already 2/3rds dead. But what's this? The second western attacker has moved in through the building rather than attacking from the ground level! Odds are they were going for my Verminkin.



The situation in the south with Lurksin is not pretty. One SoS (thankfully not their leader) caught up to him and did some damage. More importantly, she re-engaged him in combat, costing me an extra SP and two OP for the privilege of withdrawing. All it would take is a stun though, to delay him long enough all three could gang up on him.



On the north side, Facechewer Dieclaw my Assassin Leader poisons up his weapons with Warp Poison, and proceeds to do what he does best....



Kill folks.



On the west side, Scess Dieclaw tries to go in for the kill....



But comes up a little short. He whiffed that Strong Blow (5%! It's kind of silly how many misses I seem to get with a 95% chance to hit. Maybe I'm not understanding something about how Dodge works) and couldn't deal enough damage to take her Out of Action with his remaining OP.



That honor will go to Kalbaz Squealer and his Aimed Shot instead.



Likewise Skratchit Scuttle tries to seal the deal in the north, but SoS are too heavily armored to die so easily.



About that time, Sliad Sharpwhisker gets an itching sensation on the back of his neck (that isn't lice) and discovers he's about to get bushwhacked!



Like a boss, he jumps down to the commons below....



And repositions with Overwatch.



Frikneth Pestclaw, who has not gotten to bloody his blades yet this battle, moves up to provide an interdicting ambush for when the SoS gives chase. He's got his weapons Warp Poisoned, he's ready to go! I was tempted to just rush him into melee but caution made me hold him back. Having fights in places where my shooters have to move to shoot into reduces their overall coverage and number of shots they can take. LoS is really important in this, it'd seem. So trying to keep everyone in LoS of each other, and letting the enemy walk into my ambushes and overwatch, is my general strategy.



Lurksin Slynker on the southside disengages from his tenacious pursuers to make another run for it.



Once he's free of combat, I try to have him use his Complete Mordheim's Map, for extra movement points. I'm not sure if it succeeded or not, but all I saw was a wasted movement point. I continue with my (increasingly unlikely of succeeding) plan of outrunning her while Lurksin works up the Western side looking for an entrance, so he can link up with the other Noxious Tails.



Back on the north side, the SoS makes a break for it and is duly plugged by Sliad's overwatch. I share Frikneth's anticipation of her walking into a second trap in another moment....



But to both our surprise and dismay, she continues across the second floor of the building and jumps out on to the north streets. My dismay turns to laughter as she biffs the jump....



Which turns to annoyance as I watched her attack Skratchit Scuttle in the back. The AI is attempting to save its (nearly dead) companion. It's a futile gesture, and it'll pay for it soon.



Lurksin Slynker had finally managed to find an entrance to the inner courtyard, but without enough movement to reach it, he instead set up an ambush for his pursuer, who did not disappoint.



Nor did she fail to tax him....



For making her run.



On the north side, it's been a long, stupid battle between Thanquee Skitter-shank and Erma Joshuasohn. She's been stunned, beat up and so scared she can barely land a hit, and he's gone durr on me and whiffed more times than his 95% hit chance says he should.



All dumb things come to an end though and she squishes in a satisfactory way.



Thanqee Frenzies (because why not) and heads south back into the commons, to engage one of Lurksin's pursuers who changed direction.



Khak Creep gets in on the act, but fails to hit Serihilde Von Kaas with his Warplock pistols. So he casts Wither on her, which succeeds, but also triggers a Tzeentch Curse, and leaves him Dazzled and blinded.



It was not the Weeping Blades of Facechewer Dieclaws that dealt the fatal blow to Maurinia Kolb, but the poison on them. He decides to keep her Holy Tome as a souvenir...



Before getting back to work.



And that work.....



Is.



Murder. (She's goes down on one knee because she was dealt a stun. I'm not sure how stuns work in this. I thought they happened on crits, but I've seen crits without stuns and stuns without crits. Whatever the reason, remember kids, never leave your helmet at home.



On the west side Scess Dieclaw, free of opponents, goes in to support Lurksin Slynker...



And dishes out the pain.



Skratchit Scuttle goes in for some payback on the now defenseless Leoma Jaeger.



Sliad Sharpwhisker moves up and takes a shot at Serihilde Von Kaas approaching through the southern commons, joining the growing number of rats who are her doom.



Frikneth Pestclaw, the Habitually Late, moves to the front of the rat ranks, hoping to be the first to intercept the SoS and draw blood.



Alas for him, the Sisters of Sigmar, outnumbered, out ranked and attacking one at a time, finally realizd how far up shit creek they were without a paddle and routed. Thanquee earned MVP because he had the most consistent attacking of the game, despite a lot of it consisting of impossibru misses.[/i]

All Glory To The Horned Rat.

An easy match, but they were outnumbered, outleveled and the AI played them like as individuals. The deployment type does underscore the point though that you will get unfavorable deployments all the time. It could have just as easily been my Rat Ogre, going Stupid half the time with no back up, caught out there and left to the tender mercies of 1 vs. 3 Sisters of Sigmar. I doubt even he could have withstood the pounding they'd deal out, especially with their leader there.

What was always clear to me in Mordheim table top and is made clear to me here....two people fighting against one is a lot more dependable than 1v1. I'm a broken record on this by now, but, having the bulk of your rewards come from things other than combat is really going to shake up the equation, and put it more in the AIs favor (that of individuals running around like morons and getting ambushed by some other moron running around alone.)

[sambojin]

While I know that this is nothing like TT, do Skaven still have similar balance problems that you've noticed? More heroes for weirdstone find rolls, super cheap missile weapons and troops to go with them, reasonable initiative for jumps and spotting, and still with the chance of uber heroes/big guys, with no real downsides?

Skaven used to be powerhouses in TT. Does it feel like they're overly competitive in computer game format too?

It might be hard to tell with the current "maxxed warband" testing setup, as everyone will be pretty good, but it may also be even more noticeable.