Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Locked thread
John Charity Spring
Nov 4, 2009

SCREEEEE
I really enjoy the combat, but it does seem to be one of those marmite games in that respect. I like how the game punishes you for leaving strong enemies alive at the end of the fight, or for focusing on the chaff at the exclusion of the most dangerous threats (since that approach often works in other games).

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Endorph
Jul 22, 2009
The problem with punishing players for alternate strategies is that you create only one strategy that anyone with any sense would employ, and it's the same strategy across every fight. There's no real tactical choices, and the combat isn't immediate or flashy enough to distract from that - in fact, it's a little dull and drawn out. Combat quickly becomes a chore that you just go through the motions to get through, I can't think of a single map or battle that sticks out in my mind as an interesting tactical challenge.

John Charity Spring
Nov 4, 2009

SCREEEEE
I would agree that more maps should have environmental stuff in them. Weirdly the Banner Saga: Factions MP element has a bit more of that in it.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Endorph posted:

The writing is really good, though it has problems (typos and awkward writing that make me think maybe it wasn't written by a native english speaker.)

90% of the gameplay is really fun and gets across the setting really well.

The art is gorgeous.

The actual combat is loving horrendous.

Banner Saga was almost a perfect game. :negative:

The combat looks pretty fun to me.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
A lot of people dislike the combat because it is anti-logical in a lot of ways when compared to a lot of other SRPGS.

If you have two enemies, one strong and one weak, in something like Final Fantasy Tactics, it behooves you to kill the one that is weak quickly so you can focus on the one that is strong.

This is not the case in Banner Saga. Unless the enemy is the last one on the field, killing a weak enemy will allow stronger enemies to move more often. There is no speed mechanic or anything like that - one side moves, then the other. Doesn't matter if it is 4v2, turn ratios will still be 1:1, the outnumbered side will effectively move twice as often.

The actual ideal move is, when presented with a weak enemy and a strong enemy, is to bash the strong enemy until his Strength is as low as the weak enemy. Then, they are both useless and the danger to you drops to nothing. The critical observation here is that if your Armor is higher than the enemy Strength, he is a non-issue and is essentially wasting turns for your enemy. Generally. There are some enemies with dangerous abilities that they can use while hurt, like the summoner Dredge we saw last mission. You do want to make those priority kill targets.

The realistic application for most people is that they will lose a guy or two while outnumbering the enemy, which leaves a really bad taste in your mouth sometimes. This is particularly punishing on Hard, where someone with very high Strength (and therefore, very high utility) can be underpowered for a week or more. You simply do not have time to screw around for a week, waiting for your badasses to sleep off their wounds.

Somewhat understandably, the reaction to this was pretty strongly negative for a lot of people. But it's only somewhat understandably. After you understand these simple facts and put them into practice, the game's combat is easily on a par with other SRPGs, the small maps and lack of environmental effects excepted.

e: The implication that there is only one strategy to accomplish this goal is bogus, however. The game itself will demonstrate this relatively shortly.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 01:45 on Apr 26, 2014

Xander77
Apr 6, 2009

Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.



I've been told that the issue is more that there is a lot of combat, with very little variation. You loathe the thought of the next combat encounter, because you know it's going to be functionally identical to the one before and the one after and the one after and the one after and the one after and the one after.

And the one after.

Glimpse
Jun 5, 2011


When The Banner Saga came out the two video game sites I pay attention to were split. Rock, Paper Shotgun really liked the non combat parts but didn't care for the fighting, and Idle Thumbs (surprisingly, considering they all work on adventure games) LOVED the combat but felt the story portion was getting in the way, they just wanted to rush to the next battle. They both more or less said the part they liked was good enough to make up for the part they didn't, or at least that's how I read it. Turns out I'm somewhere in the middle and this game is close to perfect.

Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances
Oh God, please stop killing people halfway through the fight. An enemy with 1 strength 1 armour is worth more to you alive than dead, he forces them to waste a turn moving his sorry rear end around.

Scribbleykins
Apr 29, 2010

Any scientist with the right background can brew his own booze.

...

What do you mean electrolytes aren't used for brewing booze? That's silly!

...

Well when all you have are chunks of TNE and an overly large water ration, all the world looks like a still!
Grimey Drawer

Enchanted Hat posted:

Oh God, please stop killing people halfway through the fight. An enemy with 1 strength 1 armour is worth more to you alive than dead, he forces them to waste a turn moving his sorry rear end around.

Indeed. When I understood this simple fact, the game really started opening up to me.

And the combat got fun. In the chess kind of 'I should make this move so the enemy can be prevented from making that move' way. The Banner Saga is a game of checks and balances and, often, not killing dudes until you've gotten enough of them sufficiently weakened is a dang good check from getting your rear end owned by the inverse viking law (the side with the least amount of people is going to be the most badass).

Of course, you can't let the enemies stay alive forever, either, because the drat tykes can and will gang up on -your- weakened dudes and will generally apply armor break if they can't find a chink, but that's still preferable to letting a high-strength dude go twice. It's why I love armor in this game oh so very much, because while it prevents damage, it can also allow you to predict or control enemy movements (they tend move towards guys with lower armor than their strength) AND, since they'll just try to chip at armor if their strength is below it, you get to use it as ablative shielding, avoiding the need to kill your enemies... multiple times over, if you can keep reducing the enemy's strength below your own reduced armor threshold. Many a battle has been won by my high-armor dudes being able to tough it out keeping steadily weakening key enemies busy for a few turns while the rest of my crew goes around finishing off the others.

For that reason, upgrade-wise, I tend to go for a combo of STR and ARM for the first two levels before diversifying, 2 STR 2 ARM/3 STR 1 ARM for dudes I don't want to give the enemy much of a chance to hit (like Gunnulf) and 3 ARM 1 STR/4 ARM for dudes I do (like Mogr). It makes battles so much more survivable when your guys can both, or respectively, take a hit and dish one out. Exertion is dead useful, it's not that, but I prefer it when enemy heavy hitters can only make a slight dent instead of a massive crater, so you have the option of tanking the blows before gradually tearing them a new one (or give the high-strength guy you've set up for the follow-up move a shot at a crippling blow).

And that's not even mentioning that there are advantages to most special abilities that can be easy to overlook, hard to set up and so very, very rewarding when get them right (like, 'wow, that's won/winning me the battle'). Really! Simple battles I had serious problems with the first time around got crushed in my third attempt when I started to really get into the spirit of positioning my guys to take advantage of each others' stats (in particular, armor) and abilities and stopped killing dudes as soon as I could. Even difficult battles got so that it was theoretically possible to ace them if you were clever and thought ahead for several moves. And when you win battles, you get renown, and when you get renown you can use it to level your heroes. It's a vicious cycle of victory and death. The death of my enemies. :black101:

I love The Banner Saga. The combat had a rough start on me, like many, but it gets pretty satisfying when you take on a hard battle and manage to keep all your heroes standing.

Chewbot
Dec 2, 2005

My Revenge Meat!
The biggest problem people had with combat was that we didn't explain it. I don't mean tutorials, I mean we didn't tell the player anything about strategy: turn advantage, maiming vs killing, positioning, smart ability use, etc. We just kind of expected people to figure it out because that's the fun part (or so I thought). We'll be rectifying a lot of complaints we got for the second game, especially lack of diversity, but I'll admit the combat is different on purpose and that's always risky.

Btw, thanks for LPing the game, ProfessorProf!

Chewbot fucked around with this message at 05:12 on Apr 27, 2014

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Chewbot posted:

The biggest problem people had with combat was that we didn't explain it. I don't mean tutorials, I mean we didn't tell the player anything about strategy: turn advantage, maiming vs killing, positioning, smart ability use, etc. We just kind of expected people to figure it out because that's the fun part (or so I thought). We'll be rectifying a lot of complaints we got for the second game, especially lack of diversity, but I'll admit the combat is different on purpose and that's always risky.

Btw, thanks for LPing the game, ProfessorProf!

Are you one of the devs? Thanks so much for making a great game, and please do continue to drop by and offer your inside insights if you can!

Chewbot
Dec 2, 2005

My Revenge Meat!

ProfessorProf posted:

Are you one of the devs? Thanks so much for making a great game, and please do continue to drop by and offer your inside insights if you can!

Thanks and you're welcome! Stoic only has three developers, I did all the writing and design. Anyone wondering why I haven't written any LPs for the last three years can blame The Banner Saga.

Enchanted Hat
Aug 18, 2013

Defeated in Diplomacy under suspicious circumstances

Scribbleykins posted:

I love The Banner Saga. The combat had a rough start on me, like many, but it gets pretty satisfying when you take on a hard battle and manage to keep all your heroes standing.

I liked the combat a lot, but it helped that I'd been playing quite a bit of Banner Saga: Factions, the free multiplayer client, beforehand. It's a lot of fun, actually, and I'd recommend it to anyone considering buying Banner Saga. It does a good job of preparing you, because many of the people playing it were as bad with tactics as the dredge.

ProfessorProf, are you planning to show off Factions at all?

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Enchanted Hat posted:

ProfessorProf, are you planning to show off Factions at all?

Not at present. I haven't looked at Factions at all, though, so if I give it a try and am taken with it then maybe it'll warrant a bonus post.

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012

Chewbot posted:

The biggest problem people had with combat was that we didn't explain it. I don't mean tutorials, I mean we didn't tell the player anything about strategy: turn advantage, maiming vs killing, positioning, smart ability use, etc. We just kind of expected people to figure it out because that's the fun part (or so I thought). We'll be rectifying a lot of complaints we got for the second game, especially lack of diversity, but I'll admit the combat is different on purpose and that's always risky.

Btw, thanks for LPing the game, ProfessorProf!

:swoon:

I hope you can keep providing your own commentary of the LP, because it'll be really neat to see both a player's and developer's perspective of the game at the same time.

Oh, and congrats on being successful enough to make a second game.

Z the IVth
Jan 28, 2009

The trouble with your "expendable machines"
Fun Shoe

Xander77 posted:

I've been told that the issue is more that there is a lot of combat, with very little variation. You loathe the thought of the next combat encounter, because you know it's going to be functionally identical to the one before and the one after and the one after and the one after and the one after and the one after.

And the one after.

I played this game and loved the art and story, but this quote is very true of the combat.

I found the combat to be quite intriguing at first, but after a couple of battles, you quickly realise that there is a 'best' way to approach combat, and the game doesn't really throw any curveballs at you. There are no environmental effects, no truly unique enemies, and once you've figured out how to beat each enemy, each battle boils down to a dreary routine. Every time you see enemy 'X' you will engage them in the same way for best effect, and the game does absolutely nothing to either encourage creativity or at least punish repetition.

Also on your first time through gently caress bullshit character loss. Oh you just spent a godawful amount of your renown upgrading a character? Well gently caress you, he/she/it will be killed in a completely arbitary cutscene. The CYOA bits of the story are fun and engaging on their own, but I really dislike how they can impact on the actual tactical component as you really have no idea how the decisions will play out.

For example

1. You encounter refugees. Do you

a. Help them? - They reward you with shinies.
b. Leave them? - They go apeshit and kill your best fighter.

2. You encounter refugees. Do you

a. Help them? - They turn out to be bandits and kill your best fighter.
b. Leave them? - Nothing happens

Now the random character deaths wouldn't be an issue if resources in the game weren't so stretched. You can conceivably obtain enough kills to level up two teams of characters, but having the actual Renown to do it is another issue.

ninjaiguana
Aug 1, 2009

Holy shit! I have a tail?!

Z the IVth posted:

Now the random character deaths wouldn't be an issue if resources in the game weren't so stretched. You can conceivably obtain enough kills to level up two teams of characters, but having the actual Renown to do it is another issue.

Word. For people who've not played the game, Renown is your ONLY currency. You use it for more than just levelling your dudes. This can lead to some hard choices.

ninjaiguana fucked around with this message at 19:55 on Apr 27, 2014

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
I didn't really have any problems with random character deaths at all, aside from one dude who has about as much luck as Shaggy from Scooby Doo and is roughly as important. Literally every other big character death people complained about, I felt like there was AMPLE warning that bad poo poo was going down.

Captain Bravo
Feb 16, 2011

An Emergency Shitpost
has been deployed...

...but experts warn it is
just a drop in the ocean.

Enchanted Hat posted:

I liked the combat a lot, but it helped that I'd been playing quite a bit of Banner Saga: Factions, the free multiplayer client, beforehand.

Wellllll, poo poo. This is what I have, I thought I had Banner Saga but turns out it's just multiplayer, no story mode. Saw this post, went to test it, and after the tutorial fight it kicks me into multiplayer mode with no option to continue the storyline. Looks like I won't get to play along after all. :v:

Z the IVth
Jan 28, 2009

The trouble with your "expendable machines"
Fun Shoe

Coolguye posted:

I didn't really have any problems with random character deaths at all, aside from one dude who has about as much luck as Shaggy from Scooby Doo and is roughly as important. Literally every other big character death people complained about, I felt like there was AMPLE warning that bad poo poo was going down.

It's not the big ones that are the problem. It's the random minor characters that you've gotten attached to due to whatever special ability they brought to your team, and suddenly *arbitary choice* to determine if they die.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?




In the wake of the death of the varl prince, it is time to say farewell to Ubin and his caravan.



We cast our eye far to the east, to the distant edge of the Setterlund. To...



...I think this transition was programmed with the assumption that I was in widescreen mode.



Shh. Stay close.
I think it saw us!



More tutorials for things I already talked about! I can move these two anywhere I want within the blue area before I start.

The tactical usefulness of this is somewhat hampered from not being able to look at anyone's move ranges before starting the battle.



Having abandoned the deer it was carrying off, the starving drudge turns to face us.

This is Rook, our new protagonist! With axe and bow, he can attack up close and at range. He shares Eirik's passive ability to move through allies, and his active ability, Mark Prey, does 1 Armor damage, then lets all allies adjacent to the target make free attacks on it. Only works in melee, though.



Both of these two can attack from up to 5 spaces away. The dredge advances and feebly bats at Rook for 1 Strength damage.



Unlike Rook, Alette is a pure archer - she can't attack in melee range. Her passive, Puncture, gives her bonus damage if she doesn't move before attacking and targets an enemy who has taken Armor damage since her last turn (I'm not sure offhand exactly how much, but it's significant). Her active, Thread the Needle, lets her hit multiple people with one arrow as long as they're along a straight line.

The dredge has 8 Strength and Rook has 8 Armor, so as long as it's wasting time with 1-point Strength attacks, I can take my time wearing down its armor.



I guess this is why Rook told her to not get too close! Fighting with only archers isn't easy.



We're in no real danger here, since this is another tutorial fight.

Unfortunately, the "no melee for archers" rule counts even if the enemy takes up multiple spaces, so Alette can't take advantage of Puncture.



A bit of attrition later, the battle ends with no casualties.



Like so. Only 3 Renown, though.



Alette looks calm, but you can tell her heart is about to beat right out of her chest.

It was. Let me see... are you hurt?
No, I'm... I'll be fine.

When the dredge attacked your cart and the yox bolted, it spilled most of your supplies. You can see more dark figures moving through trees when you glance that direction.

All that food. That's the last we're going to get before winter. Do we... what do we do?



We're about to be in serious need of supplies, so let's take what we can get.

I can see them, in the trees... are you sure about this?
No. We have to try, be quick!



+15 Supplies

(Supplies are measured in some sort of generic units - that doesn't mean 15 days. The more people you have in the caravan, the more supplies you need to get through one day.)



Our "caravan", at present, is just Rook and Alette, hurrying back to Skogr.



Already we see more between the trees as we approach our home, and Alette grips my hand tight. We must find Iver.



The enormous varl in question towers over the men in the training field. He squints as you approach.



Dredge. Everywhere!
Dredge? How did they get through Greyhorn?
Must have broken through the fort.

The fighters nearby have stopped sparring. They gather around you.

Dammit! They'll be here soon, if they're not already.

You hear screams. From the outskirts, people are running toward the great hall. Iver turns to one of the older boys in his group of fighters.

Egil, take Alette to the great hall, tell the chieftain what's happening. The rest of you gather up as many people as you can!





I'm gonna need as many fighters as I can get for this one.

Why not invite some goats to join us, too? You're asking for dead kids.
I won't let anything happen to her.
They'll have to deal with it sooner or later, Iver. What now?
Fuh. Egil, keep your shield up. We just hold them off until everyone's inside, then we figure out what to do next.

More shouts draw your attention to some houses atop a nearby hill!



Skogr isn't much of a town, but the people living here have always managed to scratch out a living from the forest's bounty. Until now.



"Behind you, Tryggvi!" shouts Iver, who shoots you a dour look. If Tryggvi is known for being a madman, at least he's the sort who can hold a spear in the right direction. He smiles a mile wide when he realizes you're going to have to fight your way out of this.



From here on, every battle will be preceded by this screen. Here, we can pick which heroes to send (max 6, so since we only have five right now, it's a moot point) and their turn order.

The game suggests fighters before archers, but I like to stagger the two, so that I can send in a head-knocker and then send in someone to support them from the back line.



I think this'll do for a starting formation - the important thing is keeping the enemy away from Rook and Alette.

I'm going to make some stupid mistakes in this battle, so brace yourself.



In addition to the grunts, we have a new dredge type - a Stoneguard. Armed with an enormous shield, they can slam all adjacent enemies away from them while inflicting Armor damage.



Iver is another Shieldmaster like Mogr, but instead of Bring the Pain, he has the active ability Battering Ram, which does 1 Armor damage and knocks the target back four tiles. If the target runs into other enemy units, it passes through them and takes additional damage.

The Stoneguard advances, but isn't close enough to do anything.



Dredge Grunts are weak enough that Armor attacks are seldom necessary - a couple heroes with high Strength can beat them down without worrying about it.



Already reduced to 4 Strength, the Grunt makes a feeble attempt to break Iver's armor. It takes 1 Armor damage in exchange.



Egil has the same skill loadout as Valgard from the previous chapter. He's actually going to stay put this turn. If he moved, he could attack the Grunt or the Stoneguard, but I'm not liking either option. The Grunt is already weak enough for Iver to kill in one blow, and I don't want to get any closer to the Stoneguard. As it stands, it'll take a point of will for it to reach me, and in doing so, it'll come into range of the archers. For now, Egil will just use Stonewall in case the Stoneguard decides to attack him.



This looks like a good opportunity for Alette to use Thread the Needle, but it's a bit risky, because the attack hits allies as well as enemies. If this was a more serious battle, I'd skip it, but it should still leave Iver with enough Armor to block anything these Dredge can do to him, and I want to show off every skill at least once.



Oops. Apparently Thread the Needle does Strength and Armor damage. Sorry, Iver!



Tryggvi is an enthusiastic fellow who shares Ludin's active ability, but has a different passive - Embloden grants him and any adjacent allies +1 will whenever he gets a kill. Yet another wrench to throw into the problem of when to maim and when to kill.

If you bought the game after launch, you may be surprised to see him here - Tryg was a preorder-only bonus character.

He's also carrying a piece of equipment! Tryggvi's Necklace, unlike the name suggests, can be worn by anyone, and it gives every Strength attack a 10% chance to randomly inflict double damage.



...like so!

This is actually a problem. It speeds up the clock on the enemy turn order and leaves Tryg exposed to, say, an incoming Stoneguard.



There are times where that necklace is amazing, but this is not among them.



Next up is Iver, who faces a decision. That Grunt is up next. Two immediate choices present themselves: Kill the Grunt, or attack the Stoneguard.

If I attack the Stoneguard, then the Grunt will be free to walk past and start harassing my archers, which would be annoying. If I kill the Grunt, then the enemy will have two units left, meaning the Stoneguard starts taking 2.5 moves for each move any of my heroes takes.

I choose option three!



By using Battering Ram, I accomplish two things - first, I tear the Grunt's armor down so that anyone on the team can finish it off in one attack. Second, knowing that it's the next enemy to act, I push it out of range of most of my army.

This works even better than I had hoped - in some bizarre glitch of AI, the Grunt doesn't do anything on its turn beyond resting to recover its one point of will.



The downside of this is that when I start focusing down the Stoneguard, I have to use Rook, who only has 1 Break and 1 Exertion. Getting through that Armor is gonna take a long time.





As we tear down the wall, I realize I overlooked another important fact about Alette's skillset:



Splinter only affects Strength attacks. So, even though the Stoneguard has taken Armor damage, and Alette hasn't moved, I can't bring any bonus damage to bear against it because it's too well-defended.



Tryggvi is down to 2 Strength. If I was playing on Hard, I'd probably have him fall back, but I have a plan.

The turn order is perfectly set up here - Tryg, then the Grunt that can't reach him, then Iver, then the Stoneguard. Time for some ability synergy.



Step 1: Tryg Impales the Stoneguard, doing 1 point of Strength damage and making it bleed 1 Strength for every tile it moves until the end of its next turn. Stoneguard Strength remaining: 10.

The Grunt, unable to reach Tryg, hits Egil for 1 Strength damage.



Step 2: Make him move.



Impale's damage doesn't care whether they move on purpose or because I make them. In addition to one Armor damage inflicted by Battering Ram, each tile he moves does 1 Strength damage. Stoneguard Strength remaining: 6.



Even better, if he wants to do anything to us, he has to trudge all the way back, still taking 1 damage for each step.

And that's how I bring the Stoneguard down to 2 Strength without cracking his Armor.



Determined to do something, the crippled Stoneguard uses Kindle, knocking everyone back and doing boatloads of Armor damage. That includes both of his allies.

I'll get a gif of that move another time. This was already a busy turn, so I almost missed it completely.



Another stupid mistake as I begin the mop-up phase - Rook's move was 1 space short of picking off the Grunt harassing the critically-injured Tryg, and once you finish moving, you can't add more to it, even if you didn't move your full distance. Instead, he's got to pick off a little more of the Stoneguard's Armor so we can get that finishing blow in.



Hang in there, Tryggvi!



There! Now there aren't any enemies with serious Strength left.



And there's the Puncture bonus at work.

I might as well start getting kills at this point. If I leave it alive, it can go and try to finish off Tryggvi. If I kill it, the Grunt will act next instead, and it'll definitely try to kill Tryggvi. Whether he survives or not comes down to the random Deflect chance from his remaining Armor.



So, we pray.



Oops! I forgot, the gods are dead, so it doesn't matter if I pray or not. Tryggvi goes down.



The enemy is starting to get a lot of turns, so we'd better hurry this up.



Pillage start.



Pillage end.



+6 Renown, Rook Promotes.





We're already pushing our luck being out here.



Uh oh.



You let go. A second passes like an eternity.

The arrow bounces off the dredge's face, inches away from what you think is an eye. It recoils, then turns upon Alette again. Egil rushes to her side. Iver throws himself between them, catching the mace on his shield and returns the favor, crushing the dredge's head with his shield point. When the dust settles, you can see see that everyone is all right.

"Let's get out of here," says Iver, as he goes back to check the last few houses nearby. "Rook, see if you can find any more survivors and meet me in front of the hall."

Quinn2win fucked around with this message at 23:55 on Apr 28, 2014

Alopex
May 31, 2012

This is the sleeve I have chosen.
So, was that last sequence one of the aforementioned parts where you can arbitrarily get your characters killed for good? What were the potential outcomes there?

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
As far as I'm aware, you can't get anyone killed in that scene, but I could be wrong.

e: I forgot to mention: Expect a small bonus update tomorrow.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

ProfessorProf posted:

As far as I'm aware, you can't get anyone killed in that scene, but I could be wrong.

You could not be more wrong.

Almost any path except the one you took will result in Egil jumping in to save Alette and getting his skull crushed for his trouble. As in, I replayed this part about 4 times because I was suspicious it was impossible NOT to get anyone killed here. For the record, Egil is the guy I was referring to earlier who has terrible luck. There is actually an achievement for him surviving the game, because there are LOTS of events which will kill him.

However, this really doesn't matter because Egil sucks quite a bit and is completely obsoleted by a few characters you meet later in this chapter.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
To empathize the point, it's not almost any path, it's every other set of options in that last sequence that gets Egil killed. The path shown in the LP is the only way for Egil to survive this particular event.

I did a lot of repeats here on my 2nd game to figure out whether the kid could actually survive, and I was tempted at one point to leave him and Alette out of the previous fight before finally finding the right options.

ZenVulgarity
Oct 9, 2012

I made the hat by transforming my zen

ProfessorProf posted:

As far as I'm aware, you can't get anyone killed in that scene, but I could be wrong.

e: I forgot to mention: Expect a small bonus update tomorrow.

You're doing a wonderful job of presenting the game, by the way. But there are many paths that can get characters killed.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
Also, I feel like I should mention that hero deployment is not at all a 'moot point' if you have fewer than 6 heroes. It didn't matter much here since you had roughly equal numbers to the dredge and it's the first couple of battles, but shoehorning someone who doesn't fit into a particular engagement is a great way to get one of your core group hurt, especially if he gives you a numerical advantage. Turn advantage is a big deal in the most ideal of times - bringing someone who isn't useful into the fray is conceding the turn advantage for no benefit. I've frequently run with only 4 soldiers against 6 dredge playing on hard, just to make sure that I wouldn't get my best characters' poo poo pushed in.

That said, the Impale/Battering Ram tactic was brilliantly funny and a classic. Spot on, there.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?

Coolguye posted:

Also, I feel like I should mention that hero deployment is not at all a 'moot point' if you have fewer than 6 heroes. It didn't matter much here since you had roughly equal numbers to the dredge and it's the first couple of battles, but shoehorning someone who doesn't fit into a particular engagement is a great way to get one of your core group hurt, especially if he gives you a numerical advantage. Turn advantage is a big deal in the most ideal of times - bringing someone who isn't useful into the fray is conceding the turn advantage for no benefit. I've frequently run with only 4 soldiers against 6 dredge playing on hard, just to make sure that I wouldn't get my best characters' poo poo pushed in.

A good point, which I had not considered! It may affect my strategy down the road.

Chewbot
Dec 2, 2005

My Revenge Meat!
A couple things about this battle! At one point it was the hardest fight in the entire game due to a weird way the difficulty increased. We fixed that. I did a short video Let's Play for PAX a looong time ago, in which I did this exact fight, but without Tryggvi. You can see a lot of the strategies Professor was talking about, but I also point out stuff that (it turns out) are pretty hard to master. This fight could have been done a lot more efficiently but I wanted to show us some of the major concepts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-E0rhoN1Eog. Positioning is so important in combat. We keep saying it's like chess but nobody believes us :(

The point about Gil dying is also one that I feel wasn't as arbitrary as some of the complaints I've heard. I think it comes down to players just assuming that, like other games, what the characters say doesn't matter. We constantly drop contextual clues that you can act on if you're paying attention. For example, you could have sent Alette and Gil to the great hall instead of bringing them to the fight: Iver tells you it's too dangerous for inexperienced kids. This would have prevented Gil from dying.

Also, Egil distinctly says he won't let anything happen to Alette- he's watching out for her, he's got a bit of a crush. He proves his point when he takes the killing blow in her place.

Lastly, about knowing what Rook is supposed to do from the available options, it's mentioned that he's the huntmaster of Skogr, his daughter and others look up to his skills. If the player trusts him to take the shot, they get the job done. I can see how some people think that it's still too random. I can respect that, but we always set out to make a game where you can't control everything around you, just roll with the punches. One thing we plan to change in the sequel, however, is that if you lose a character you get your renown refunded. Losing a character plus all their renown investment definitely stings, probably to the point of rage-quitting for some players.

What I like about the character classes is that if you know what you're doing, they can ALL seem overpowered, even Alette. She's special because whittling down damage (instead of dumping it all on one enemy) is a key strategy, and she's one of the few who can hit multiple units per turn. In the above video I show a bit about setting her up to be effective. My favorite character is Oddleif because even though her skill is "risky" you can learn how to make it happen every time, and then she's locking down enemies left and right. And believe it or not, Egil is one of the best combat characters in the entire game, in my opinion.

And yeah, Egil was our redshirt. It was kind of a running joke that he can die in so many ways, but people ended up getting really attached to him. He throws himself under the bus at every chance because he's so desperate to be helpful.

Chewbot fucked around with this message at 06:08 on Apr 29, 2014

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Chewbot posted:

And believe it or not, Egil is one of the best combat characters in the entire game, in my opinion.
He's a MONSTER if you can get him up to level 4 or 5, due to the holy triumverate of high Armor, high Exertion, and high Armor Break. No items, you can see him roll up and knock off 6 armor from some punk in one turn and basically dare them to hit him back. His role also synergizes pretty well with a lot of common items, so that's also a point in his favor. He's completely overshadowed by the Thrasher brothers until that point though, which realistically makes it really painful to feed him kills and get him past the awkward teenager phase that he's in, both mechanically and narratively. :v:

My largest problem with him - and Raidmasters as a whole, really - is that their special ability is hard to synergize with others. Ideally, your team should have its skills in a reasonable order so you can create more options. Impale/Battering Ram is a good synergy, but there are others. Of the skills we've seen so far, Battering Ram and Tempest also synergize pretty well since you can bash someone into position to get styled on by a Warhawk. Raidmasters can harden up and absorb damage if the enemy decides to attack them, but that's if the enemy decides to attack them. If Malice allowed you to choose a target for the taunted target that would be a great synergy, but it doesn't work like that.

I personally never felt that Egil getting put on the chopping block was arbitrary here. I picked up on the crush right away and found it completely unsurprising when he got smacked down for it. However, I think the specific way it unfolds is one of those things that makes a lot of sense after you've played a bit longer and you've gotten to know Rook a little better. At this point in time you've heard Iver call him Huntsman once, and the tutorial battle made him look pretty flexible. After you get to know Rook a little more, you realize that while yes, he's balanced, he's best with his bow. My initial response here was to attack the dredge with my axe out, which is how I had been using Rook (for Mark Prey and sneaking in through allies), and that wasn't the right answer. At this point in time I think the insight required to keep Egil alive was a little beyond what the players could reasonably know.

That said, just sending them back also does work, yeah, and that's fairly simple. I imagine it gets pretty hairy without Tryggvi, though. Iver's the only guy who can take a hit, and there are a lot of hits to take. On my Hard mode run I ended up shunting a lot of the damage to Tryggvi, which obviously wouldn't be an option if I hadn't backed the project the year prior.

I will say, overall, I got into a LOT of fights with my friends over how fair or unfair a number of the character deaths were. There was one I remember you ending up saying people were being massive whiners about, and when I saw that post I laughed for almost two minutes straight because I'd just finished telling a buddy of mine that he was acting a fool for bitching about it. I definitely never felt like I was being played unfairly, but I'm used to the whimsy and reading comprehension required from King of Dragon Pass, so perhaps I'm skewed.

Coolguye fucked around with this message at 07:47 on Apr 29, 2014

Robindaybird
Aug 21, 2007

Neat. Sweet. Petite.

I wonder if there's any way to get Tryggvi now, but I suspect the answer is likely no.

This is one of those games I really need to get back to.

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
I don't think you're missing too much. I might be misremembering but I'm pretty sure the only narrative impact he has is what we just saw, and one other short conversation in this leg of Rook's journey that doesn't affect anything. Beyond that he's just a Spearmaster for Rook's party, which is handy under certain circumstances but nothing game-changing - the only time his mechanical input is super important is this battle, since Rook's party is still relatively small and the dredge party is pretty large.

Keldulas
Mar 18, 2009
The talk about saving Egil in that first event is kind of funny, because I did the same thing the first time too and tried to use my axe since I've been using him to melee (basically used him as a bodyguard for his daughter).

At that point though I did feel that was punishment for not sending them back to safety though.

Tryggvi is actually helpful in the beginning too because he comes with an item when you're pretty short on items overall.

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
I'll just say now that I'm no tactical genius, so I wouldn't expect me to be anywhere as good at the fighting as Chewbot's demonstration. If I was, I'd be playing on Hard. The bar I'm aiming for is "Occasionally does something clever, and makes it through the end of the game".

Anyway:

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?


A couple orders of business before we meet up at the Great Hall! First, let's check out our new Heroes.



In addition to the turn order and hero selection, we can also equip items here! The number next to an item is the item's rank - a hero must be at least that advanced in order to use it.

Alette's Bracelet is a simple item that benefits anyone, so I'll go with what seems to make sense and give it to Alette.



Rook is a Hunter descended from a long line of Skor woodsmen. As huntmaster of Skogr, he wrestles between trying to raise his daughter Alette to be strong and self-sufficient and trying to protect her from harm - something he wasn't able to do with his late wife.

Since he promoted last battle, I'll go ahead and spend the Renown to increase his Rank, rounding out his Exertion and Break.



Egil is a Raidmaster who specializes in defense of himself and his allies. An orphan who has trained since childhood to use his shield, he almost definitely has a thing for Alette.



Alette is Rook's daughter, who has shown great interest in becoming a hunter ilke her father since her mother died wen she was a child. As an Eagle Eye, she specializes in piercing through enemy defenses.



Triggvi is a Spearmaster who doesn't have many friends. He's more or less the spear equivalent of that guy you knew in high school who spent way too much time talking about his knife collection.



Iver is the only varl living in Skogr, having wandered in to help the build the town without ever giving his reason for leaving varl lands. He's Rook's best friend.



Next, the Market! Here, you can trade Renown for supplies or equipment. For sale here:

Lightning Runestone: 10% critical chance, enemies are more likely to attack you over your allies.
Worldhook: +2 Break.
Statue of a Sightless Man: 20% chance to dodge Strength attacks, +2 Strength.

The items are tempting, but I'll have access to better down the road, and I want to stock up on Supplies. I spend 9 Renown to get 27 Supplies, and leave the equipment alone.



Next, let's take a look at the surrounding area!

Skogr's located approximately at the rear end end of nowhere. East is the Vetur Sea, which few bother traveling - there are no ports of note along the east cost, the northern waters freeze over every winter, and nobody knows of anything beyond the sea you could sail to. South of Skogr is the Baa Harbour, a mess of ice and rock that made mankind finally give up trying to settle any further to the east. Nothing beyond that but the bleak and uninhabited Ravenhead.

North of Skogr is Blotsbalkr, eastmost of the varl settlements. Throstr, fourth of the varl kings, built it to be his seat of power, then died almost immediately. Only the most tenacious or foolish varl remain there now.

The road southwest from Skogr leads through a number of small towns - Bitra, Rike, Haukstorp - and continues past all of them at great length before ending at the distant and dubious city of Boersgard. The western road hits Frostvellr, a dying down next to a dried-up lake that doesn't welcome outsiders. Past Frostvellr is the Setterlund, a desolate arctic wasteland, followed by a network of roads connecting most of the varl territories.



And finally, a chat with Iver.



A few, sent them inside. Gods, this is bad. I'm out of practice, Rook.
Look. As long as I've known you, you've always wormed your way out of talking about dredge. This would e the time to start talking.
I can tell you they rarely stop for rest. The sooner we leave, the better. They'll follow us until we're tripping over tired women and children. Then they'll attack. Even after we're wiped out they'll keep coming, trampling corpses in their wake. There's no end to them.
...How did anyone survive the great wars?
Ask the menders. I wasn't there.
But I know you've fought your fair share.
Yeah. I've killed enough slag for one lifetime.
That's why you're going to save us now.
Don't lay that on me. Come on, let's get inside.



Time to figure out what to do about this.



The great hall is an utter din, filled as it is with dozens of terrified families.

Don't stop worrying yet.
I haven't. What in the depths is going on? Dredge milling around, ransacking houses?

The chieftain's wife finds you, pushing through the crowd.



Don't know. I wouldn't expect it to last.
I've made some decisions. But tell me straight, what would you both do in my place?
I'd have left by now. They're already outside the doors.



The chieftain sighs a deep and heavy breath, slumping. He looks years older.

I imagined us fighting back and "saving the town", but... nonsense. Iver's right, of course. We can't just wait to be slaughtered.
Where do we go? If dredge are coming down from the north...
Frostvellr, to the west. It's close and it has walls. I intend to be free of Skogr in one push, nobody left behind.
I wouldn't. If they follow us we're done.
What do you suggest?



And now it's time to make our first major decision! How shall we handle the evacuation of Skogr?

Should we evacuate immediately? This will get us to Frostvellr quickly, but we run the risk of the dredge biting at our heels the whole way there.
Should we create a distraction? This will help the villagers escape safely, but combat will be brutal and fighters may be lost.
Should we seize the warehouse? This will help us survive in the long run, but lives will almost certainly be lost on the way.

An additional question for people who vote to create a distraction: Should Alette come and fight with us, or stay to keep an eye on the chieftain?

Voting will last for 24 hours.

Alopex
May 31, 2012

This is the sleeve I have chosen.
Let's go with the warehouse. Plenty of supplies, less people to feed once we've got 'em.

Onean
Feb 11, 2010

Maiden in white...
You are not one of us.
Edit: It's been long enough that I don't remember the consequences, but all the same I'll void my vote. :v:

Onean fucked around with this message at 14:35 on Apr 29, 2014

Quinn2win
Nov 9, 2011

Foolish child of man...
After reading all this,
do you still not understand?
Oh, before we get into full swing, a rule I forgot to put in the OP: :siren:Don't vote if you already know the outcomes of the decision.:siren: If you've played the game before or looked the scene up in a guide or whatever, do not vote.

And to clarify, the Alette decision is only if we create a distraction.

sznurowadlo
Aug 20, 2007
We should create a distraction but Alette should stay behind.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

ViggyNash
Oct 9, 2012
I'll bandwagon on the warehouse. I'm guessing there's a fight either way, and maybe going to the warehouse will be a distraction in itself.

  • Locked thread