Heroes of Steel RPG v2.1.33 Update

[John Robinson]

Apr 28, 2014 1:57:13 GMT -5 Cory Trese said:

I suggest we up it to 1000

Get out the paddles I'm going into cardiac arrest!

[johndramey]

contributor Yup, just off Nordhall. Actually you get teleported there, ala the passage after killing the shaman.

fallen I also think the troll was a little underwhelming. I'd say take a little of the deathkin's scaryness and give it to the Troll Maybe consider giving it a little more soak as well, I was nailing that bastard for 50+ damage. Could just be all the debuffs I smacked him with. Level 5 piercing shot, level 3 punishing blades, and level 1 flash freeze

[nails]

Give him all the hp you want. Just give me more X for my time!

[contributor]

Apr 28, 2014 2:47:08 GMT -5 johndramey said:

contributor Yup, just off Nordhall. Actually you get teleported there, ala the passage after killing the shaman.

fallen I also think the troll was a little underwhelming. I'd say take a little of the deathkin's scaryness and give it to the Troll Maybe consider giving it a little more soak as well, I was nailing that bastard for 50+ damage. Could just be all the debuffs I smacked him with. Level 5 piercing shot, level 3 punishing blades, and level 1 flash freeze

I updated the map, but what's "ala the passage after killing the shaman." I've never been teleported anywhere after killing him. I just walk back to Oska via the stairs in Ratkin Warren.

[Outsider]

Apr 28, 2014 5:36:32 GMT -5 contributor said:

Apr 28, 2014 2:47:08 GMT -5 johndramey said:

contributor Yup, just off Nordhall. Actually you get teleported there, ala the passage after killing the shaman.

fallen I also think the troll was a little underwhelming. I'd say take a little of the deathkin's scaryness and give it to the Troll Maybe consider giving it a little more soak as well, I was nailing that bastard for 50+ damage. Could just be all the debuffs I smacked him with. Level 5 piercing shot, level 3 punishing blades, and level 1 flash freeze

I updated the map, but what's "ala the passage after killing the shaman." I've never been teleported anywhere after killing him. I just walk back to Oska via the stairs in Ratkin Warren.

Just to be clear, if your group has already moved on to Episode 2 can you no longer do this quest?

[nails]

Not a fan of smart ratkin.

[fallen]

Outsider - the opportunity has passed. I doubt it will be there when you come back through Oskahold in E3.

nails - no? We're trying to port some of the AI smarts deployed in E2 back, but not make E1 overwhelming for new players. Any additional feedback on that point?

[contributor]

Don't know why I forgot that I could still go back for Torrent Watershed to Oska. The Troll is still there after the Temple of the 13. That reward would have been nice for rest of the ratkin shaman quest.

[fallen]

contributor - agreed. It is a nice reward, but the shiny only lasts so long.

[nails]

Apr 28, 2014 9:37:58 GMT -5 fallen said:

Outsider - the opportunity has passed. I doubt it will be there when you come back through Oskahold in E3.

nails - no? We're trying to port some of the AI smarts deployed in E2 back, but not make E1 overwhelming for new players. Any additional feedback on that point?

No, I actually appreciate what was done.
But the skirmishers were smart enough to hold back behind traps where in the past, ratkin would have advanced without thought.
I even skipped through 2 turns and the wouldn't attack me.

It wasn't that I was actually upset. But I actually said out loud "you dirty rats" and that may have been directed at you.

[khearn]

So, I got another group into the troll level last night (I have the game on a phone, a tablet, and a laptop, so I've got 3 groups going at any given time). This group is built with better defense, so the fight went a little differently.

This group is Vraes, Kjartan, Fyona & Selen, all at level 10 on normal difficulty. They came back from halfway through the Vermin Warrens to do it, so they had a couple of extra levels under their belts. Vraes has Crushing Blow 3, Stone Skin 2, and Phalanx Shield 3. Kjartan has Choking Ash 5 and Pureflame Shield 2. Fyona has Zealous Strikes 2, Hammer Blow 2, Blessed Aura 2, and Shield of Cortias 3. Selen has Frenzied Blows 4 & Pinning Shot 2. So when everything is in place, Vraes has 24+13 armor, 6+8 parry, 4+2 dodge, and +6 elemental resistances (gear+buffs). He's kinda hard to hurt.

To start with, they started much farther from the troll than my other group. My first group started out close to the troll, maybe 4 or 5 spaces away, so they could hit it hard on the first turn. This group started out far enough away that only ranged attacks could hit it, and that only after movement. I didn't check it's HP until Kjartan had ashed it and Selen got a pinning shot at it, but at that point it was "at least 260". After another shot it was 240+ and the turn ended. The troll rushed forward and swung at Vraes 3 times, missing each time (Vraes: "Is that all you got?"). After the troll's turn he was now up to 250+ HP. Everyone then proceeded to pound on him and killed him in the second round.

So even with a less offensively designed group, the battle was still completely one-sided. This troll lasted one round longer, but still did no damage. The combination of all the buffs on Vraes to keep the troll from hitting, plus pretty solid Choking Ash (-5 parry, -4 dodge, -12 armor) and Pinning Shot (-3 parry, -3 dodge) to strip away the troll's defenses were devastating.

So at least on normal difficulty, the troll definitely needs to be stronger. Maybe some extra accuracy in addition to more HP. Admittedly, this Vraes is pretty hard to hit, but I'd expect the troll to at least land one blow. Or maybe I just got lucky, 3 tries is a pretty darn small sample size. Maybe he would have hit the next 3 swings if he'd survived that long.

Anyways, that's my input for now. The group on my tablet is only partway through the Krellin Deeps, so it'll be a while until they face the troll. Maybe I should sacrifice them and restart on a higher difficulty level.

I'd be interested in hearing what people are seeing on higher difficulty levels. Is it just at Normal that the troll is such a pushover?

[fallen]

khearn - thanks for the extra feedback! As stated above, he's been given a big boost.

[johndramey]

contributor I meant the transition from Oskahold to the Torrent Watershed, sorry for being confusing.

What kind of boost did you guys give the troll? Curious to how scary he might be now..

[fallen]

... HP, armor ... MP ... strong dice accuracy ... base damage ... damage ... % chance of using healing ... more HP ... weak dice accuracy ... a few more HP ...

More seriously, he should be a solid tank that takes a few turns to bring down at least, if he isn't healing himself and running back in to your back line and smacking people.

[johndramey]

fallen - I was thinking about this last night and came up with a small idea. Now, the troll undoubtedly needs to be buffed up. Instead of buffing him into a crazy killing machine, why not buff him up maybe... oh... say 30-50% better (armor/HP/attack damage), make him weak to fire (troll are supposed to only truly die if you burn them with fire or acid!), and change the quest slightly. Maybe instead of there being a single troll, make it a pack of trolls. Nothing crazy, but maybe 2-4 trolls instead of the one. How HoS is designed, a 4-on-1 encounter will almost always be either a total cakewalk or a terrible slog. We can -AP enemies a whole bunch, but if you buff up the single troll too much then you run the risk of having an encounter where neither side can kill the other, making the player sit and heal his team over and over again while slowly whittling away the troll 10 hp at a time because of soak.

Just an idea