Game economy and other thoughts

[AK Dave]

I have had this game for about 2 weeks now and am hooked. I get the idea that Craig is looking for ways to tweak/improve the game; as well as general feedback. Here are a couple of things that maybe could be improved. Some are bugs, and others are just suggestions. Thanks again for making this cool game!

-Option to sell items. I lost Harriet (the bandit) early in the game on a normal playthrough and I keep finding axes that I can't use. Would be nice if I could sell them. You could pro-rate the value based on number of attacks remaining. I also have a growing collection of wood shields and leather armor that no one is using.

-Economy. I feel as if I am constantly cash-starved and unable to keep up with the demands of my melee fighter's needs. By the time I buy weapons (which are essential), I have nothing left for armor, let alone fun stuff like orbs or supplies. Maybe the "sell items" idea above would help. I am a pretty diligent player and I like to get all the chests and kill all enemies whenever possible. I cleared all enemies in the "save the spriggat" mission and got lots of stuff early on (2-3 grapples, 2 suits of leather armor, some shields and other stuff). Nevertheless, I'm always broke and my characters are wearing weak armor.

-Items disappearing at mission end. All items on the ground at mission end could be auto-recovered and sent to the reserve supplies. I recall at least a couple missions where I defeat the boss, who drops a goodie-bag, and then the mission ends before I can grab it. On the mission where you kill the Ebon-whateverhisnameis guy, I actually grabbed his halberd and half-plate armor with the guy who appears to help (thinking he would stay with the party), but then that guy never appeared again and the stuff was lost. (Note: I am still on my first playthrough.) Stuff shouldn't get lost like that. I snagged it fair and square! I was excited about having a lance and a halberd (plus armor!) for one of my cavalry. Oh well.

-Reincarnation of boss. I forget his name, but I killed the boss on the "save the spriggat" mission who calls people "noodle" (awesome insult, btw). Then, he appeared again in the mission where you escape from the castle with the golem, thief, and spearwoman. If my guys stay dead when they die, it seems fair that enemy bosses should stay dead too.  :)

-Mid-battle saves? Is this possible? some of the battles can take a long time (especially with slowdowns). Would be nice to have an option to save mid-battle.

[TheBouncingBunny]

Most of the campaign maps will auto loot. The temporary helper will definitely run off with whatever he's carrying, though

[Thaecrasis]

In my playthrough I find I'm able to buy almost as much as needed. Whenever I'm at a shop I'm always able to afford a fair number of bandages/focus pills, and even an adrenaline pill every now and then, coupled with weapon re-supply and a tiny bit of armor improvement, and the special deals every now and then.

This playthrough has been economy-perfect however. I've only bought exactly what was needed and no more, and always got every piece of loot on every map. In the first shop scene I didn't buy any grapples simply because they have few situations where they're more useful than an extra 5-9 health from shields (wood/steel), and you can eventually find a grappling hook in a chest later on if you want one but don't want to buy one too. (Outside the Vibra Mines mission). One thing I could see helping a bit economy-wise would simply be decreasing prices slightly, or like you said, be able to sell gear.

Like TheBouncingBunny said, the main campaign maps will auto-loot all item bags (but chests don't count), so you don't have to worry about not getting the last bag from the victory-causing kill. You can actually get two sets of Ebon Raban's armor/weapons; the first from the Coria Bridge battle (If you bridge over with the engineer and use long range attacks, or you use flying hit and run tactics, or simply bridging over and tanking with Emma/Sabrina), then the second from the city battle. Like TheBouncingBunny said too, the Stormhunter guy you get as a helper doesn't join your team afterwards, so all his gear is lost (so it's recommended not to give him anything extra). One thing to note; the halberd can only be used by a Mantis Knight, so you'd have to get one of your cavaliers to lv 20 first to use it regardless.

The boss you're talking about, Gulch, like any important bosses that show up in later missions, cannot die; they will always 'run' even though it would be nice to take them out prematurely through advanced tactics (e.g. dealing with Fera early on, while escaping from Igor's castle I think is possible), but such events would be game-breaking story wise, unless Craig takes a lot of time and effort to make multiple alternate story-lines based on which NPC bosses you kill, which I sadly don't think will happen, unless he suddenly has no bugs to fix, and no more simple suggestions to implement :P

As for mid-battle saves- Whether or not it would be possible to add in, only Craig could answer that. Whether or not they should be added in, is a different story. Without mid-battle saves, it makes the game a lot more focused on strategy rather than, "oh look I didn't expect that.." *reload*.. "Ha, take that!" , where every decision you make (other than single moves), is permanent, making you think a lot harder on all your decisions.

[SmartyPants]

-Items disappearing at mission end. All items on the ground at mission end could be auto-recovered and sent to the reserve supplies. I recall at least a couple missions where I defeat the boss, who drops a goodie-bag, and then the mission ends before I can grab it. On the mission where you kill the Ebon-whateverhisnameis guy, I actually grabbed his halberd and half-plate armor with the guy who appears to help (thinking he would stay with the party), but then that guy never appeared again and the stuff was lost. (Note: I am still on my first playthrough.) Stuff shouldn't get lost like that. I snagged it fair and square! I was excited about having a lance and a halberd (plus armor!) for one of my cavalry. Oh well.

I never got why I can only pick up items in the middle of a battle. Its seems like my team should be able to pick up dropped bags of gold when all the enemies are dead.

[AK Dave]

"Gulch" - that's the name. Thanks. I thought he was an ordinary bandit and came at him with just two characters. He killed Harriet with a backstab that did a LOT of damage. AFter that, I took the time to see the enemy's stats. Sometimes I surrender if a key player gets killed. But after spending 2+ hours clearing that map (and game slowing down), I was OK with moving on with the loss.

It is refreshing to play a game that is this challenging. I usually end up surrendering at least once per mission before clearing it. I have 3 casualties (the golem, the axe-bandit lady, and the crossbowwoman) that I will try to avoid next time.

Maybe the ultra-tight economy is a good thing in disguise. I suspect it factors into replay value. For example, when I play through next time, there is no way I'm buying a grapple chain (a suit of chain mail would be way better).

[Thaecrasis]

It's actually more cost-efficient to buy leather armor and an iron helm; it provides more defence at less cost, and you can always upgrade to better torso armor later on if you have extra funds. I read that from someone else's post on these forums somewhere, and that helped save me a bit of money.

If you want some tactical advice, I'd be willing to lend some thoughts as well.
I've also got this mission recorded of Rescuing Meridian by killing every enemy with no casualties. I've got a few tactical tricks I use in there which could help out if you want to watch it (it doesn't have commentary though) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g30UsQA8bTE

[AK Dave]

RE: leather armor+helm > chain mail

Interesting. That may be more efficient in the short term/ early game; but in the long term, maybe it's not the best idea? Some enemies drop leather armor (for free), but if you buy it, you cannot sell it. So, buying chain mail early means that you won't have spent money on leather armor early AND chain mail later.

Anecdotally, I have about 4 extra sets of leather armor that are collecting dust; at least 3 of which were purchased. I could have saved $360 [aura] by not buying any leather armor.

The "fixed income" aspect of the game definitely adds to the challenge.

[Kletian999]

I was the one that posted the leather+helm comment.  I'm only up to the apple picking mission so I've only had 1 chance to buy things.  I still have more people that could wear leather than I have it, but if it's true the game gluts you with armor just buy more helms for the time you eventually have people to wear them.

[eyhung]

General feedback after playing up to the first merchant:

1) Pathfinding should be smarter and avoid snare traps when possible when there is an alternative trap-free path that is equal in cost. Example: a character sets a trap one square north, and then tries to move NE, that the path goes north then east through the trap, instead of east then north.  I can manually override this by specifying move one square east, then one square north, but it's annoying.

2) In the campaign, there appears to be an autosave at the start of each battle, but I learned to my dismay that it's not a specialized slot.  IMO, any auto-save should never overwrite a manual save, just a dedicated auto-save. 

3) How about adding save points at a merchant as well?  It would be nice to experiment with different purchasing choices without having to refight an entire battle. 

4) There should be some visual indication of auto-looting occurring at end of battle (a screen that pops up at battle end indicating the loot acquired from bags.)  Also, since some scenarios don't allow auto-loot, players should be able to know this without having to finish the scenario first -- show the value to the player in the scenario settings.

5) It seems odd that the economy doesn't support selling or even trade-ins.  I understand this may be for game balance reasons but it doesn't feel realistic.

[ifulmen]

In my early stages I also said I have no money to buy weapons less for armor and stuff. However, that was caused by not picking up just three chests in the first two missions. My problem was that I did not know when the battle ends and I have overseen the chests in the village. But even with that deficit, which is quite a lot (I was missing 2 swords, gold and I think one more item), I was able to gear up step by step.

For the last mission I have chain mail, steel shields and weapons and iron helms on all melee units, I got wings and some book on the spriggat; wooden mail and some off hand equipment on all magi. In addition to that I have still 2-3 shields, some armor and other stuff in the tent. And I cannot even take all equipped units into the battle. So  its more than enough out there after all. You just don't get it from the start, but you don't need it in the very beginning, because opponent is not so strong any way.

I suppose the resource management is a part of the challenge. Missing chests means wasting your resources. Lacking equipment is the logical consequence.

However, there should be some "easy" mode for casual players. Either the weapons should not break, if the wearer has no replacement, or "easy" players should pay less in the shop.

I did not even use apples, bandages or pills (except for the tutorial mission). Because I am used to save for the case it gets harder. So the "normal" mode is pretty much okay as it is right now. I definitely do not want it any easier. But I admit it is a bit too hard for casual players.

[bugfartboy]

Either the weapons should not break, if the wearer has no replacement, or "easy" players should pay less in the shop.

Pssst.  Shameless plug.

[ifulmen]

You don't understand. The ones who managed to come across this forum, will know about the item file and even more, and will be able to edit themselves what ever they want. I was speaking about the ones, who buy the game on steam to check it out and see if it's fun or not. They will not even follow the link to this forum, not to speak about manually installing some special mods. They buy the game and expect it to be complete! I suppose this is the majority of buyers.

[SmartyPants]

While unbreakable weapons may turn into a gamebreaker, it would be nice if the majority of weapons got an increase in the amount of uses before they break.  Right now, the weapons break sooner than they reasonable should, and I have to waste money buying more of the same weapons.

[Kletian999]

Maybe Bugboy could make another mod where the durability is just tripled and no increase on Consumables?

[bugfartboy]

I could add that to the queue. It'll have to wait a few days until I'm less busy though, so if someone else wants to do that feel free!