Wards mostly useless on Brutal?

[Cyrus]

I've finally gained the honor to upgrade armors for my Brutal difficulty squad, including some with Wards. Just now, they activated for the first time, sparing my templar from death...

...but leaving him at 1 HP, meaning a certain death at the end of the mission, since my captain isn't a chaplain.

I guess my Exo Scout captain will only need Wards on his own armor (since he'll somehow pull through even at 1 HP) and I can forget abouut the rest.

Do they ever activate and leave the templar with 2+ HP?

[johndramey]

To be honest, I'm not sure. However, this just illustrates my personal belief that a Chaplain is necessary on brutal. Every single one of my brutal squads has a chaplain as a commander.

[fallen]

In the far back of the Trese Brother's workshop, from where all the sparks and hammering sounds have been originating, someone shouts, "Yes! Yes! Exactly!"

[johndramey]

I know you and Cory live far apart fallen, but I can't help but laugh at that image. Not saying anything personal, but the idea of you guys crowding into a little hovel over gleaming monitors while clickity-clacking away while laughing maniacally makes me giggle.

[Deleted]

Its weird. My captain IS a chaplain but can't heal himself.

[Cyrus]

From what I've read in older posts, that is a conscious design choice, to prevent solo captains from being all-powerful. You're supposed to empower your squad, not make them obsolete.

[fallen]

Aug 8, 2013 17:33:42 GMT -5 johndramey said:

I know you and Cory live far apart fallen, but I can't help but laugh at that image. Not saying anything personal, but the idea of you guys crowding into a little hovel over gleaming monitors while clickity-clacking away while laughing maniacally makes me giggle.

Lol, same here.

I would not say that Wards are useless. They keep your Templar alive, so have a chance at beating the level. They, however, cannot prevent fatal wounds on Brutal difficulty from claiming your brave Knight's lives.

[Cyrus]

I restart a mission immediately if I stand to lose a templar. The honor cost to replace one geared templar amounts to several complete campaigns and the xp loss is even more. That's waaaayyyy too steep for me. I'd rather replay one mission 5 times than 5 campaigns one more time (every time I lose a templar)

And don't get me wrong: I'm not asking for Wards to be changed. Brutal is Brutal and anything that makes it weaker just takes away from the experience. I justed wanted to know if they had any other benefits I didn't know about.

[fallen]

Cyrus - at this time, no. However, we are evaluating changing Brutal to prevent you from quitting a level once you have started it, regardless of Templar death.

[slayernz]

Cyrus, I agree with you in that's the way I play it ... restart on death. With the Wards though, most of the armor I buy ends up not having wards included. I definitely like the Atreus attribute because seeing the enemy is so very critical in keeping them away from my Neptunes and Scouts. Most of the armor that has both Atreus and Wards tends to be -2AP for heavy armor, and -AP for scouts. I can't afford my scouts to lose any AP, and with all other units, AP is gold.

fallen ... looking forward to having a Slayernz level of difficulty above Brutal <grin>

[Cyrus]

fallen: To be honest, that would just make me suicide the captain, adding 2-3 turns to the mission before I can restart and adding absolutely no challenge. If the captain's death is the end of the entire game, that would mean no more Brutal for me. He'd need like 10 HP or more to prevent unlucky deaths that you can do nothing about in the early game.

In general, the early game is mostly a lottery. If your soldier misses twice in a row, he's dead. If two 5 HP xenos spawn together, you're dead. If a xeno with high move and AP spawns, you're dead. Acdepting soldier deaths means you're always stuck playing the early game and the "easy" campaigns. No thanks, I'll pass.

[fallen]

Cyrus - agreed, if added it would be a new difficulty option that you'd have to enable, or another higher level of difficulty. Sorry, I misspoke when I said that it would be a modification to the existing Brutal setting.

slayernz - wouldn't be the first thing we named after you!

[Cyrus]

First off, it's your game, you can change Brutal difficulty if you want to! "Slayer" difficulty does have a nice ring to it, even though "Masochist" would be more appropriate. I don't mind that much whichever way it goes.

My point was more that it's either trivial to work around (if you can restart the level by getting the captain killed) or it will be pretty much unplayable as you never get past the early missions because you can't replace your losses.

Basically, you're looking at hours upon hours of replaying the same few "survivable" missions hoping nothing goes wrong this time around. Even on the first mission of "Moons", a bad spawn can mean you lose a templar, and it gets you like 250-300 honor only if you win.

If you make a Hardcore/permadeath option, at least rebalance the early game so there's more of a chance to get anywhere (and reduce recruiting costs!)

[fallen]

Cyrus - in the suggested difficulty, captain death = permanent game over. Yes, perhaps masochist is a better title

We have some recruiting, honor, and other types of balancing coming soon.