A swing and a.....miss, and a miss, and a miss.

from Stardock Forums

Hey Stardock team, this is completely constructive. I love this game and have played the heck out of it in Beta and now. Now on to what I am encountering.

My attacks miss a lot. I mean, 1 might hit out of 10-20 swing across a variety of units and champions.  My sov will drop spells on a unit and miss over and over. Archers seem to rarely hit even when I make em vets and have squads, etc.

In one large battle I finally got down to a couple of enemy units against my large army of all vets in groups with two channelers, a Fire Elemental, and Fire Giant, etc. I chased the units around the board for ever with everyone missing over and over until I finally gave up and auto resolved the fight.

What do you think? Is there some tweaking that needs to be done there?

elemental
12,018 views 16 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Zero damage shows up as "misses", so youre probably not missing so much as failing to do sufficient damage against powerful/high defense/high magic resistance units.   The battle descriptors need to be more transparent.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Yes that's true it's not really misses....but if i'm hitting for zero damage over and over it might as well be, either way it's still just not very fun. IMO there is a ton of tweaking that needs to be done in this area to avoid this kind of stuff, watching two high defense units fight it out hitting each other for zero for 3 minutes then one of them finally breaking through and one shotting the other is kinda boring and doesn't seem like what should be happening. Though I could be wrong maybe that's what they want, but I hope not.

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

The zero damage representing as a miss thing is extremely irritating, to me at least.  But it should be easy enough to fix. 

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

It should probably just say -0 or absorbed instead of miss. Then its less confusing to people who don't understand the system.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Storm, reply 5
Yeah, I would rather see 0 damage vs a 'miss' so I know to utilize a different spell or save mana.  It is extremely frustrating to watch my Champions swing and miss 10-20 times in a row only to realize that while over powering the foe in Combat Rating, I have no shot at winning the battle.
Well you can compare your attack numbers vs their defence numbers that gives you a rough estimate of how you are gonna do.

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

The combat attack/defense ratings in this game contain no information as to how they actually work.  This is the main issue I've had in tactical battles as it can be very frustrating watching your units miss (or apparently, do 0 damage) over and over again.  If the attack and defense system was explained in-game, it would be much easier to implement a sound attack strategy.  I was quite frustrated in the campaign when none of my units could hit the drake except for my sovereign.  It took out several of my champions and troops before I realized something odd was going on with all the misses. 

The combat is my biggest gripe with the game right now, and a lot of my complaints stem from these unexplained details.  The rest primarily reside in too few special combat mechanics to make each units seem "special" or strategically valuable.  Most units right now are a hodgepodge of different, unexplained, stats only right now.

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

The way attack vs. defense works is my #1 gripe about the game right now. The fact that damage and defense rolls go all the way from 0-value makes combat extremely random. I'm sure given a large enough sample size it all works out to be fair and balanced but isolating it to a single battle it boils down to combat being extremely random and unfun once defense values start to rise.

 

Looking forward to the ability to mod some of the gameplay aspects as Frogboy mentioned, and first on my list is the way damage is calculated.

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

The combats not that hard to figure out. Take light plate armor for instance. Its armor bonus will roll an 8 vs any slashing weapon (swords, axes, etc) But against a piercing weapon or blunt weapon it will roll a 1-8 for defence. Its just like the Gal Civ 2 defenses system really.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kardiophylax, reply 7
The combat attack/defense ratings in this game contain no information as to how they actually work. 

What's even more irritating is there's a spell which adds 50% to your dodge chance. So fingers on buzzers, does this add 50% to defence, is there a 'dodge' component we can't see, or does it add a 50% chance for any attack to automatically miss?

I've cast it twice, and I still couldn't tell you.

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Windchill33, reply 2
Yes that's true it's not really misses....but if i'm hitting for zero damage over and over it might as well be, either way it's still just not very fun. IMO there is a ton of tweaking that needs to be done in this area to avoid this kind of stuff, watching two high defense units fight it out hitting each other for zero for 3 minutes then one of them finally breaking through and one shotting the other is kinda boring and doesn't seem like what should be happening. Though I could be wrong maybe that's what they want, but I hope not.

 

What kind of units are you attacking these guys with? Have you researched squad tech and magic equipment, or are you relying on single units?  High defense units can usually be easily killed with magic, unless they also happen to have high magic resist.  Unfortunately, the lack of transparency in the battle mechanics leaves that largely up to trial and error.

Reply #11 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Archonsod, reply 10

Quoting Kardiophylax, reply 7The combat attack/defense ratings in this game contain no information as to how they actually work. 


What's even more irritating is there's a spell which adds 50% to your dodge chance. So fingers on buzzers, does this add 50% to defence, is there a 'dodge' component we can't see, or does it add a 50% chance for any attack to automatically miss?

I've cast it twice, and I still couldn't tell you.

 

There is a hidden dodge value as some items also add +dodge.

Reply #12 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting dragoaskani, reply 9
The combats not that hard to figure out. Take light plate armor for instance. Its armor bonus will roll an 8 vs any slashing weapon (swords, axes, etc) But against a piercing weapon or blunt weapon it will roll a 1-8 for defence. Its just like the Gal Civ 2 defenses system really.

It is very hard to figure out when this information does not appear to presented anywhere.  Unless it's buried in the in-game manual somewhere.  I assume it has been revealed somewhere on the forums, but I haven't had the time to hunt it down. 

Where are you getting this information from?  I had no idea light plate worked better against slashing than piercing or blunt.  How do I know what type of armor an enemy monster is wearing and what type of weapon is best to use?  Does this only apply to humanoid AI players wearing actual armor?  Some of us have not played Gal Civ 2.  The last 4x space game I played was Space Empires IV Gold and before that MOO, so I have no idea how Stardock's defensive systems work.  I shouldn't have to either, as it should be clearly indicated within the game so the player can make an informed decision.

Reply #13 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kardiophylax, reply 13

Unless it's buried in the in-game manual somewhere. 

e: It's in the PDF manual that comes with the game.

Reply #14 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Kardiophylax, reply 13

Quoting dragoaskani, reply 9The combats not that hard to figure out. Take light plate armor for instance. Its armor bonus will roll an 8 vs any slashing weapon (swords, axes, etc) But against a piercing weapon or blunt weapon it will roll a 1-8 for defence. Its just like the Gal Civ 2 defenses system really.
It is very hard to figure out when this information does not appear to presented anywhere.  Unless it's buried in the in-game manual somewhere.  I assume it has been revealed somewhere on the forums, but I haven't had the time to hunt it down. 

Where are you getting this information from?  I had no idea light plate worked better against slashing than piercing or blunt.  How do I know what type of armor an enemy monster is wearing and what type of weapon is best to use?  Does this only apply to humanoid AI players wearing actual armor?  Some of us have not played Gal Civ 2.  The last 4x space game I played was Space Empires IV Gold and before that MOO, so I have no idea how Stardock's defensive systems work.  I shouldn't have to either, as it should be clearly indicated within the game so the player can make an informed decision.
Its in the manual, its been explained once on the forums by frog. I leave it to you to find it. If you had read your manual you would be a bit more informed. But that being said, you still can't tell what kinda of armor they are wearing. Then take things like Trolls with 7 armor, what are they wearing? what is its primary resist? so far my 4 man squads of Archers with Longbows say its probably piercing...

Reply #15 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Lavitage, reply 14

Quoting Kardiophylax, reply 13
Unless it's buried in the in-game manual somewhere. 
e: It's in the PDF manual that comes with the game.

Fair enough, I went back and see the approximately one paragraph on the subject now.

 

@dragoaskani

I did read my manual during the beta, but I supposed I missed or dismissed that section, my apologies.  I would still prefer that the information be listed in game.