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[nenjin]

I can live with it. But it still seems like a crutch for their AI. Then again, as I've said elsewhere, Mordheim and table top GWS games like it can't be easy to program effective AI for.

[Stuebi]

The Dev's outright stated that the flat % Buffs will never go away. While I'm personally not a Fan of AI Crutches such as this, I get it to a degree in this case. Like Nenjin said, programming a decent AI for something like this is hard. Heck, bigger Series like Total War with a lot of dough behind them still have relatively "dumb" AI.

I've played for another 4-6 hours now. And I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with the changes. The game is still hard, mind you. Well, depending on your Luck with Deployment of course. But Normal Missions at least, now feel like you're going up against something that is roughly your strength. Or rather, the AI stupidity now more or less matches the 10 percent buff they get. I also played a couple Hard missions, and they are doable to the point that I flat out recommend going for them instead of normals, because of the better loot and extra XP. Havent tried Brutal or Deadly yet, but I'm reasonably sure they are adequatly named. Had some tough fight on hard, so I'm not keen on testing out Deadly.

There's one gripe I have tough. And that's the fact that progression still feels unsatisfying. And since we wont see those crutches for the AI go away, this might not change, even in the far future. Basically, when a game has Character progression like this, a big part of my enjoyment comes from seeing my guys grow. To compare it to Darkest Dungeon, I love the feeling when your heavily upgraded highwayman deploys deadly crits, or your high level Crusader tanks hits like crazy, thanks to Trinkets, gear and abilities.

In Mordheim, I dont get that a whole lot. Like we established, most Skills are very low impact. I took Acid Breath on my Sorcerer, because I felt like it would be the first big Upgrade on the guy. But it deals 12-19 Damage a piece, and the Hit Chance is low enough that you will probably miss 3 out of 5 guys with it. The same goes with everything else. It's allways this little percent increases. 5 to Dodge, 4 to crit etc. And the impact is so low, that you barely notice it ingame. Exception maybe being Range increases, you definetly notice those right away.

This is a purely personal gripe, might just be me, but I would've much preffered if they increased the numbers a little. More hp, damage etc. And in turn gave the Skills, Spells etc. some more Oomph. Most of them are way too situational, others flat out do to little for their price and time investment. I think that one Goblin Comic describes it perfectly:

http://www.goblinscomic.org/12152005/

I remember that one battle after I just reached Warband Level 3. Suddenly a lot of enemies had skills. And I remember that they used them in every engagement. But it either missed, didnt do anything of note, or was barely noticeable. Again, this is just me being petty, probably. And they'll work on it in the future, I'm sure. But it's one of the things I noticed more strongly, the longer I played.

[nenjin]

I've commented on that before. Most of my enjoyment has come from the stat and performance gains, not so much skills. That said, there are effective combos you can build guys for, like parry, dodge builds. Some ranged builds are good too, although they only truly shine on heroes. (Henchmen become effective but can't reach the potential of heroes of the same level.) I don't know if they can punch up the skills any more, the game is supposed to release in a few months and there's honestly too much left to do, to go in and rework the skills. All I can really say is that the basic tactical gameplay of hitting dudes with your normal attacks is what drives the game. The skills tweak and adjust that gameplay, but they don't take take over it.

Which, when you think about it, is kinda like table top Mordheim. Sure, their skills were more fun and desirable but it wasn't a video game trying to deal with video game expectations of long plays, gradual growth, yadda yadda. In the end the skills there were all passives, effectively, and the bulk of gameplay was still just hitting dudes. I wish the skills were sexier, but I think they're adequate, if just barely.

[Majestic7]

Yeah the real progression in the game comes from rising percentiles in dodge, parry and attack... but even they are offset by the counter-percentiles rising for the enemy. That is why I wish there was the occasional easy mission against a lower ranked warband to give you a feeling of superiority with minimal rewards.

The thing is that the mods are adamant about keeping the single-player campaign balanced for online gaming. You can use the same warband you use in the campaign to fight other players online, so having easy modes to farm exp and equipment would be imbalancing. Unfortunately they refuse to add "single player warband"-mode that would disable multiplayer for the said posse, which I think would be the optimal solution. Personally I have little interest in MP in a game like this, matches just take too long etc etc.

Compared to tabletop, in TT your heroes would gain special abilities and skills while henchmen would only get stat increases. These skills and abilities would allow them to do new, interesting and cool stuff. In the computer version this is ironically the opposite. Skills are really boring and stat increases matter more.

So while I like this game a lot, I feel there is a lot of missed potential, a feeling that it could have been so much more with some design tweaks.

[Stuebi]

Yeah, that was one of my complaints as well. I dont care about the MP at all. A mode where they lock your Warband for SP with adjusted settings would be cool.

[thegoatgod_pan]

I like the game, but damn does that interface need work.  The percentile to hit seems to ignore dodge chance, making it completely useless as a combat heuristic. "90% to hit" will not hit 90% of the time. As a result, the only reasonable strategy is "surround and keep clicking"

There are about twenty different statistics, but the only relevant ones, as always are: health, to hit, to dodge, damage, critical chance, range, morale and action points.

Instead of a character sheet emphasizing these crucial derived statistics I get to scroll over trying to remember which dozen random secondary and primary statistics are impacted by which agility and which by leadership and which by moxie or whatever. Instead I just give everyone strength, weapon skill and leadership, because as far as I can tell, those do more for me than the others.

Some other issues of design seem like they would make sense if someone explained what I am missing: e.g. in the Skaven crews: you can hire two types of henchman for the same cost, but the ones able to wear armor (warp guards) seem objectively better than the ones that can't. So why would you ever hire the other kind?  The game doesn't spell this out at all.

[nenjin]

All pretty valid complaints, but I'll say some things here.

-Alertness gives you initiative, which, while not the most important stat by far, keeps your fighters acting instead of reacting to what's going on in combat.

-Intelligence does seem damn near useless for anyone but casters. But, traps are still undergoing changes and the enemy AI isn't casting spells yet, so there's little call currently for resisting mental and magic effects, yadda yadda.

-Agility doesn't seem that good for anything but dodge and a wee bit of melee resistance. You don't need absurd levels of climbing from what I've seen except in some story missions. That said, heavy armor does fuck your climbing percentages pretty badly, so you start needing agility for some guys because being unable to climb is a serious disadvantage in this game.

-Accuracy is actually pretty important because it penetrates dodge/parry chances.

And also all stats have their associated skill requirements they hook up to, so, there's that depending on what you're trying to build.

-Agreed that the to-hit chance not displaying their dodge or parry chance makes the whole display kind of futile. I guess they expect you to see a dodge or parry stance and know that your first attack probably won't connect and you're supposed to guess at what their chance is. It doesn't make a lot of sense, it's true, if they refuse to show you that number.

e.g. in the Skaven crews: you can hire two types of henchman for the same cost, but the ones able to wear armor (warp guards) seem objectively better than the ones that can't. So why would you ever hire the other kind?  The game doesn't spell this out at all.

I get what you mean here, but, and I'd have to fire up my game to check for sure, it's all about stat caps. Verminkin IIRC cap out higher for agility, BS and accuracy than Warp Guard. They're meant as ranged fighters (although they make pretty decent no-armor dodge fighters too.) I've gotten my ranged veriminkin up to the point where they can do 60 damage a turn to light or no armored opponents with shurikens, more if they crit. They have a place, although I agree, all the stats and symbols and shit you need to remember means there's a big learning curve and a lot of required reading and reviewing and comparing of options, and they give you little help along the way. It's not anything a proficient game player can't handle, there's just a lot of it and you have to take the time to read it all. In their defense though, most of that information is there and most, but not all of it, has tool tips.

[Majestic7]

Actually, as of last patch, the enemy are casting spells and they are doing it a lot. That gives intelligence some use. Plus it gives Stun resistance which can be useful. So I don't actually put all mental advancements to Leadership anymore, since sometimes it is even beneficial to fail the all alone check and run for it.

[Stuebi]

Yes they do cast spells and use Skills. However, it's very appearant that the system still needs some work.

Enemy Casters will sometimes cast 3 Spells in their turn, even if there are low hp targets or overwhelmed allies nearby. Combine that with the fact that every Spell has a chance to trigger a Curse, I've seen some hillarious stuff from Possessed Warbands.

I had downed both enemy heroes, my two Meele Henchman on the nick of death. My Heroe were busy handling the other henchmen on the other side of the map, and my Sorcerer was off somewhere looting Wyrdstone. Cue enemy Caster arriving, dude is carrying a Greatsword. So I'm like "Well, there go my two henchdudes." Instead, he cast Boon of Chaos twice, the second one put him into Aethershock.
Next turn, after getting hit twice, he casts Weapons of Destruction and another Boon. He gets the Stupidity Curse. At this point, he's at half health, and there are two henchmen standing next to him that he could kill with one hit.
Round 3, he succeeds both the Stupidity check AND All alone. What does he do? Another two boons and Weapons of Destruction. No curse this time, but he wasted all of his Offense points on casting spells.

I just imagined Tzeentch sitting somewhere in his maze, a little bubble floating 3 feet inf ront of him, with the Sorcerer's Face in it.

"TZEENTCH, GRANT ME THE STRENGTH TO KILL THESE FOOLS."
"Florence, we talked about this. There is no point in buffing your stats if you dont actually hit anything with it."
"I'M THE VESSEL OF MY DARK GODS."
"Fine, have another Stupidity check then."

I also agree on the UI thing. The Stats screen is a mess.

[thegoatgod_pan]

Nenjin: I learned a lot from your response, but one thing you said is particularly intriguing: I thought dodge and parrying stances extended past the first attack. Not because that made sense to me, but because it explained how the RNG played out.

My Assassin adept typically has an above 90% chance to hit, but hits about half the time, even against low dodge opponents like the Possessed and Nuns, so I assumed their dodge stances were figuring into each attack.  Maybe the AI just gets a flat invisible bonus to dodge then.

I really need to train up some ranged vermin kin, apparently. It seemed like mine didn't come with shrunken from the start.

And yeah, mine have been casting a whole lot. So far the Sisters are the scariest casters: one just kept spamming comets for about 20-30 damage a pop, three times a turn.

The possessed casters have mostly discouraged me from casting spells with my possessed leader. So many times watching them explode while buffing themselves mildly. The trade off doesn't seem worth the benefit at all.

[Stuebi]

The possessed casters have mostly discouraged me from casting spells with my possessed leader. So many times watching them explode while buffing themselves mildly. The trade off doesn't seem worth the benefit at all.

It heavily depends on Skills and Weapons used. The Staff reduces the chance for a Tzeentch curse, for example. The AI on the other hand often wears Greatswords and the like. So depending on their skills, they are casting with a 20-40 % Chance for a curse, even more with armor. If you equip your guy right, or invest in one of the passive Curse Skills, you can comfortably cast your spells with a less than 5% chance to get a Curse.

But even then, some of the Spells are outright not worth it. Boon of Chaos is luck-based, for example. The best Spells for early on in a Possessed Warband are Weapons of Destruction and Acid Breath. The first mainly because you can cast it for 1 Offense Point after hitting an attack, and the latter for fairly decent damage with an added DoT. Chains of Chaos is fantastic for enemy Leaders, Heroes and especially Impressives. Depending on the weapon used, it can limit them to one offensive Action per Turn.

All in all, don't write it off completely. But be careful nonetheless.

[Majestic7]

Honestly, I wish they would boost magic and make it more dangerous or otherwise costly. It is just silly seeing something flashy like a fireball go off and do damage equal to a slap on the face. It takes what, ten fireballs to kill a henchman? That is just silly for the superflashy effect it has. Sorcery should be scary, not equal to throwing fireworks at someones face and hoping it hits the eye.

Re: verminkind, I remember seeing patch notes saying they now all come with shuriken by default? I haven't really played Skaven yet, though.

[Neonivek]

I hate to bring this up given it is a bad game... but I am reminded of Diablo 3

It had 4 difficulty settings and one of the major differences is that elites basically got a special ability plus another every single difficulty setting.

One POSSIBLE way to handle it is that each difficulty setting adds another layer of complexity/abilities onto the enemies.

[Majestic7]

So the game has updated again. The last update made it so that if the game crashed (or you Alt+F4 like many people did when screwed by shitty deployment), the game considers that you lost the battle. The next time you continue the campaign, your guys get dealt permanent injuries etc as such. They might even die. This made people complain about crashes and sudden needs to leave the computer screwing up their games.

The next update - coming out this weekend - adds autosave feature that saves the battle when you exit, so you can continue later. This obviously fixes the crashing problem regarding it ruining your campaign. So it is a good update.

However... when I pointed out on the forum that some players might enjoy a casual single-player only campaign where you can save and reload, the developer told me that was like requesting Super Mario without holes to fall into. My comment and some similar comments were then hounded by posters in the spirit of "stoopid n00bs", "this is not the game for you" and "git gud". (Not verbatim comments but the spirit of the things.)

While people being annoying online is nothing new and does nothing to me personally, I'm a bit worried about the toxic echo chamber developing around Mordheim for the sake of the game itself.

It seems to me it has attracted a noisy small fanbase of grognards who want the game to be extra hard. For example, when the AI boosts were at their most ridicilous, they thought it was just fine that the only way to win was to abuse AI. I mean, I got told that 40+ hours in the game is not enough to know how to play. There is nothing wrong with enjoying extra hard games - I just think games with artificial difficulty are simply usually not good design. Likewise not allowing people to play it in easier ways as single-player only (balance matters don't apply to single player) limits the potential player base even further.

Now the grognard gang seems to chase every opinion other than that hallowed by them out of the discussions. This further reinforces the echo chamber. It certainly makes me consider my input unwanted further on, considering the dev comments. I think the game will only move further towards artificial difficulty and, as a result, bomb at launch since most players aren't into that.

It is a shame as I'd really want the game to succeed, but meh... Can't help but think the grognards actually want to keep the game as niche as possible, so it can be "their" thing versus being played by the filthy masses.

In a way this is quite interesting experience, as it shows another risky side to EA I hadn't thought of before. In some enviroments it might actually allow a small core of early adapters guide a game towards a direction that is not good for it and its success. Before I had mainly thought the risks of EA to be directed towards the consumers buying a partially-ready product, but it is actually a social risk for the developers as well. 

[Anvilfolk]

Well, that sucks.

I mean, it's important to cater to that niche and to offer that experience. In my opinion, XCOM only shone when things well and truly mattered, namely when you were playing Classic Ironman. Otherwise it's fun, but I wouldn't feel attached to the characters. But there needs to be a gentler introduction to the game...

This has me worried.