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[Stuebi]

This is the first iteration of the campaign; if you find it hard, give feedback on Steam forums or the like so the designers have a chance to actually see and read it. I agree that AI cheating is...unimpressive. It would be nicer to have the enemies just more experienced or the like if they need the boost instead of having bonus HP etc. Plus those random happenings I mentioned in my previous post.

However, regarding difficulty, I have a stupid question - have you checked the description on the campaign map? You know, when selecting mission, it says "normal", "hard", "brutal", "deadly". Basically anything over hard is usually unwinnable and in the beginning you should always choose normal. Sometimes the game only offers you brutal missions, but that is when you use scouts to find something easier for yourself.

Ironically, a Brutal mission was the first I actually won. But yes, I went for normal missions if possible, but got the same results. And to be honest I couldnt tell what exactly was different from difficulty to difficulty.

According to some of my mates who play the game too, I might just gotten really really unlucky with scenarios avaiable and the power boost to enemies. Either way, I'm gonna post about this in the steam forums and hope they will balance the game a little.

[nenjin]

I feel your pain Stubei.

So far out of maybe 10 missions I've straight up lost two. It's true some deployments will just absolutely fuck you. (Basically any mission where you or they are attacking "the defensive position" turns into a clusterfuck within two turns regardless of which side you are on.)

Majestic7 has the right of it though, only Normal and Hard missions are easily beatable, but even those take a good deal of planning, good execution and a bit of luck. Overwhelming numbers in fights is the only way to routinely beat the AI fighters, and so luring them to the best place for your warband to fight is the surest way toward victory without casualties. Doing this I've had maybe 6 OOA fighters in 10+ battles.

But it can get very dicey too. Like I said in my write up, I often have to pull my Warpguard out of fights because my supposed tanks are at half life after one full round of combat. Same story with my leader and all my heroes. They hit pretty hard but they can't take a lot of hits. Maybe the reason I'm doing ok is playing Skaven, I have plenty of dodge and that helps mitigate the damage quite a bit versus a warband like SoS.

And if things really aren't going your way....you can always cntrl + alt + delete and crash the game, going back to the start of the day. It's cheesy sure but I've only had to use it twice now: once when the deployment was a total joke (half their team in range during the first turn) and when a battle I'd kept on a knife's edge the whole game catastrophically turned against me in the last few rounds.

The game is most certainly winnable but you really have to exploit both the terrain and AI for a seamless victory. Like I said, I've managed to rack up like 7 Tactical Victories (that's no people OOA during the match) and almost as many decisive victories, so I feel like it's very doable. It's kind of ironic for me, I'm usually the first to complain about difficulty being unfair and unfun. (Like I can't get Darkest Dungeons to easy-mode while others have no issues doing it.)

But compared to earlier stages of EA for this game, which were way too damn easy, the fact I can actually lose guys now has kept me interested.

With SOS I'd recommend stacking as many hero characters with flails and great hammers as possible. Heroes have enough AP to use them more than once, and the obscene damage can mitigate some of the higher HP counts. You also really cannot discount the value of All Alone Checks. Regardless of how badass AI fighters are, they seem to blow their all alone checks constantly, which causes them to flee combat, giving you free attacks or, if they're surrounded/backed into a wall, they just lose their whole turn.

As for bonus objectives...they're just not worth the risk it takes to win them most of them. That was my mistake in my last game I played. I had everything on lockdown, I'd even completed the wyrdstone rush optional objective....but I got greedy, tried to fill up everyone's inventory with wyrdstone AND raid the enemy wagon. And splitting my team in three for the purpose directly led to losing tons of guys. Had I just waited out the AI and let them come to me, I could have skated through that mission and made absolute bank. The rewards for completing the bonus objectives ALSO aren't worth the risk. Usually it's two rare items and maybe some extra wyrdstone or money. I still haven't quite figured out how post-game rewards work. But I've completed maybe three or four bonus objectives so far and I've got a good hoard of money and wyrdstone without them.

Maybe that's why I'm liking this game so much right now. By the numbers, this game should have had me rage quitting two hours in. It's gone out of its way to stack the deck. Yet somehow I've found a lot of success due entirely to how I choose to play it....which is rolling like a slavering swarm of viscous, cowardly, opportunistic rat murders. Surrounding someone and knifing them to death until they stop moving? Works for me!

But I'm a little terrified of what a fixed AI can be like though. Right now it doesn't efficiently send its entire team to the first real fight in most deployment scenarios, like a player might. And it's the only thing that makes fights beatable for me right now. If the AI weren't faffing around so much half the time, the game might be nigh-on unbeatable.

[Stuebi]

Nope, it's not for me. At least until they balance it a little.

I've managed to get to Warband Level 2, almost 3. All my Fighters are Rank 2 or 3. I've bought upgrades, learned skills and spells. Got better gear. But it's jsut not enough.

After the first story mission (Which went fine, but only because it stays at a 700 rating and I waited until I was well above) I cant win. It just doesnt work. I can comfortably get a Warband past the first Story mission now, did it with Skaven and Possessed. But afterwards it's just moronic. I've seen weddings in Game of Thrones that went better than this.

Get this. I've played 3 missions, 1 with Possessed and 2 with Skaven, after the first Story mission. Just to compare general stats and the like. And I swear, Sisters, Possessed and Humans all have almost double the health I have. The sisters leader hat 210 hp! Mine sits at 135. How am I supposed to do ANYTHING against this? Even the lowest rag tag Henchman almost kills my heroes. They only win because they get 2 attacks. And even then a unlucky dodge can turn the tide right away. You remember those scenes from Dynasty Warriors, where all the regular Soldiers are just screamy globs for the main cast to smash? I honestly feel I'm playing as them, while trying to sneak past Lu Bu, who is only momentarily stopped by this chest high chair, before he absolutely tears you apart.

And it just ends in a roadblock. I start loosing once the enemy Warbands retardedly go almost 100 rating points above mine, which leads to deaths and wounds. Which eventually leads to reserves not being able to keep up, or having to take Rank 0 scrubs to the battle. And then I might as well just concede right away. There's no sense of victory or achievement either. If you win, it's due to abusing the dumb AI.

Upgrading also seems pointless at the moment. The only things worth upgrading are your chance to hit and damage. Initiative is worthless, since the enemy soldiers will ALLWAYS just be faster than your equivalent. More wounds is also moot, since you get a whooping 2 PERCENT. Oh yes, those two extra wounds will help tremendously when my gutter runner meets his forgotten brother, who magically has almost two times the life he has. (Et tu, Skritt?) The same goes for dodge and parry. I cant check the enemy numbers on that, obviously. But once I've reached that point after Story mission 1, suddenly my guys couldnt hit, dodge or parry for the life of them. How can it be, that one enemy hero goes up against two of yours, and frequently downs 1 of them before OOA himself?

The AI actually goes for Wyrdstones and looting. I would normally give credit for that. But this also means they will strip your dudes naked the moment they hit the floor (Compliments to Sister Saskia, who had a confident smile on her face, as she looted my hero, who she gutted moments before) and the shop restocks so infrequently. I just dont know. I want to like it. The basic gameplay is cool. Progression is fun. But the game seems HELLBENT on denying you all of it.

There are many ways to make a game challenging. But imagine playing Call of Duty with a slingshot. That's what it feels like. The moment they balance this out a little, I'm gonna be all over this again. But until then, I need some tea.

[nenjin]

Fair enough. I don't know if it's as bad as all that, but like I said, I take pains to maneuver them into a disadvantage. Sometimes I've used hit and run tactics just to delay some adds from joining a fight that is otherwise going ok. Enough people are complaining about the difficulty though, I don't doubt it will get addressed in some way in the next patch.

[Majestic7]

I feel your pain, but the detailed rant with grinning nuns made me chuckle. I think AI only loots your dudes when they have wyrdstone on them, though. How they know that, I don't know, maybe they smell it. Like I said, I somehow hit the passable difficulty level by playing Chaos. When I tried human mercs I got my ass handed to me, I don't honestly know what I did so different when starting as the cult. I guess always being in melee 3-1 at least matters, but you can't always count on that. Luck, perhaps and my sacrifices of small children to Tzeentch.

Still, I think the game has great potential, but the AI boosts are annoying. If they can be fixed and you'll instead start losing your guys to more...dunno...honest fuckups, I think it will be fine.

[Stuebi]

Fair enough. I don't know if it's as bad as all that, but like I said, I take pains to maneuver them into a disadvantage. Sometimes I've used hit and run tactics just to delay some adds from joining a fight that is otherwise going ok. Enough people are complaining about the difficulty though, I don't doubt it will get addressed in some way in the next patch.

After watching a buddy play fora bout an hour, I get what you mean. You can absolutely maneuver the AI into suicide attacks. My friend does the same thing everytime. He loots as much as he can near his starting location, and then he holes up in one of the buildings and kills the AI one by one until they retreat. He reached the current Max level with almost all Warbands (Not humans, he says they seem to be very weak at the moment) and completed most avaiable story missions. I'm fairly certain I could do that too, but it's just not very interesting. Not only do you have to ignore most of the Wyrdstone and loot on each map, your gameplay is also limited to watching an enemy go trough a door and then die. He says it also heavily feels like an exploit, since the AI is just too dumb to do anything against it. On the other hand, he feels like it's the only way to win reliably.

I'm fairly confident we're gonna see some balancing soon. As you say, enough people are voicing their complains. Appearantly they're gonna balance the regular missions to be 5% rating above your own max. If they also tweak the hp buffs a little, that's gonna be more than fine. I mean the basics are there, and they work fine. All that is missing is some fine tuning.

[Majestic7]

I didn't really abuse bugs as such for my success. Mainly I used unarmored, disposable cultists with bows as baits. Shoot an arrow at an enemy and then run like hell where the armored heavy hitters are coming from. Usually the enemy chases them right into the waiting axes.

Sometimes the deployment screws it up by leaving the cultists stranded away from support, sometimes they get caught and murdered by rats, but hey, they wouldn't be cultists if they didn't die a lot. Anyway, the all alone checks were my best friend, since when forcing them on the enemy, they usually break, scoring free hits and/or removing some foes from the immediate combat.

[ZebioLizard2]

How's the multi since the patch dropped?

[nenjin]

Have never actually tried multiplayer.

I don't typically hole up in buildings because it creates its own problems with your unit's zones of control. Usually I can find a spot on the streets, like an intersection or something, to hold with a couple of my guys. Bonus points if I can get my archers up on high. I still have a guy go down occasionally when the AI correctly goes for the weakest link in my lines, but otherwise I think I can make a fight work just about anywhere, as long as the AI doesn't throw more than 3 guys into the mix at a time.

[Majestic7]

Yeah, I avoid houses as well, since my tactic is outnumbering enemies in melee and pounding one victim at the time with at least three attackers. That can be difficult to arrange indoors.

[Stuebi]

We got a new Patch yesterday.

http://steamcommunity.com/games/MordheimCotD/announcements/detail/83672061974759223

Many bugfixes and the usual stuff. What interested me was the balancing:

The Rating difference for missions has been reduced and adjusted to:

    Normal Missions: between 0 to 5% of your Warband Rating
    Hard Missions: between 6 to 20% of your Warband Rating
    Brutal Missions: between 21 to 40% of your Warband Rating
    Deadly Missions: between 41 to 75% of your Warband Rating

The base chances of Perception has been increased from 20 to 40%. Each points of Alertness still provides an extra 3% chances
The base chances of All Alone, Fear and Terror has been increased from 0 to 20%. Each points of Leadership still provides an extra 4% chances
Increased all trap Durations by 1 turn
Reduced Shipment Requests amount of Wyrdstone weight for Rank 1 and up
Slightly increased the amount of items generated by the Market rotation (should help at Rank 0)
Reduced the extra wyrdstones requested after failing a shipment to 25% for the first time, 50% for the second time and 100% for the third time
Reduce Skills Requirements of Normal Skills (not mastery) from 6 to 3, 9 to 6, 12 to 9 for all Skills linked to Attributes (racial skills remains unchanged)

Early game is now noticeably easier, as long as yous tick to normal missions. 0-5% means that there is little to no strength advantage in terms of items or stats. That's good.

Then they increased the chance to pass All alone Tests by a whopping 20% right away, and another 4% for each point in Leadership. Since the best way to stomp the AI is still ganging up on them, this bad. And before anyone points it out, yes I'm aware this also buffs your chances to pass AAT's considerably. But then of course, we  still have the fact that the HP-Buff is still in place.

This means that, even IF your guys pass their All Alone Test, their still gonna get wrecked by the HP difference. It's still a case of meeting henchmen who have almost double the hp of your hero, which is just ludicrous. The way to go is still abusing the AI. It isnt helped by a small group of people in the steam forums repelling the complains about the HP-Cheat by saying that everyone that complains just sucks at the game (And I do hope the Dev doesnt listen to these guys).

Just so this doesnt come over as a "This game SUCKS, GEOFFREY!". The Fixes are great and many of my nitpicks have been removed. Specifically some of the magic doors and invisible obstacles (The AI sometimes abused these hard, and made me loose quite a few fights.). But it does need another Balance Patch.

[nenjin]

I'm mixed on the All Alone Tests. When you're outnumbered at least 2:1, the enemy only has about 3 to 4 turns to survive assuming you get all your hits. All Alone tests really help when enemies are fresh and your guys are not, because you can make that hero avoid combat for a round or two to buy you some time. That situation is avoidable at least. I've yet to play the patch but so far i'm not super disturbed by that buff.

It's true though that the buff to All Alone helps the AI more than it helps a player. Players typically don't have to make All Alone tests that often because a unit that is getting ganged up on enough to roll it is probably already screwed anyways.

[Majestic7]

Early game is now easier, but the insane HP buff AI receives makes the game unplayable around rank 4. I mean sure, you can kill enemies by luring them into murderhouses where you pound them 4-to-1, but it isn't fun. It is grinding. If I want to grind, I'll play MMORPG or something.

The good news is that the devs have stated AI buffs will go in the future, so I guess I'll just shelf the game till then.

[nenjin]

(Versioning is a confusing thing.)

I played a bunch last night. Scum Lords are now Level 5 and several of my guys are at the cap. Finally got a Sorcerer.

I think they made the AI more aggressive in this patch. Seems like every non-story mission I took, it was a full blown team fight by Turn 4. A couple missions I basically collected no wyrdstone because they were in my face in numbers so quickly.

I don't disagree Majestic7 that the game is a bit grindy right now. I can still get a tactical victory on Hard missions but it is increasingly balanced on the terrain. The last mission I tried to play last night I got surrounded by the whole enemy team by Turn 4 in the streets and it did not go well for me. Fighting on 3+ fronts against all their engaged units is too much to win against. I was tired though so I picked a bad spot, and honestly didn't think I'd have 10 freaking SoS engaged by turn 4.

I'm still having fun but I've also started Alt-F4ing when I don't like how things have gone. I tend to only use it when I've drastically miscalculated, like last night where I thought holding up in an open street with gaps on either side was a smart idea.

They're saying they'll be doing a patch a week up until release, so, the game will be changing faster than it has been.

[Majestic7]

Skaven have the advantage currently due to their high initiative, though. If you go against AI Skaven, on a bad deployment they swarma and murder a couple of your guys on the first turn. When you play Skaven yourself, the high movement and initiative lets you control the engagements better than any other team.

Too bad the AI HP buff removes the disadvantage Skaven have - they are squishy.