I know some people didn't like the big, long fight between two AIs seen in Wayward Flight, so I am not planning on doing another battle like that anytime soon.

I am really eager for feedback on the "boss fight" in Crucible. I'd like to do more boss fights like this, but I want to see what people think of this kind of fight. Were the mechanics interesting?

I also want to know how people feel about the Shaman class. Any thoughts are appreciated.

Hi! Really enjoying Chapter 1 so far, despite having to reload the first battle a bunch of times. I found the mechanics of the Crucible boss fight super neat. Are the reticles supposed to show where the boss is aiming their next attacks?

As for the Oasis fight, I'm actually having a hard time with it. I can see what the shaman is supposed to do, but maneuvering all the characters to fend off enemies from all sides is tricky. Do you have any tips? All I can think of is that the party needs to head off foes near where they enter the map one by one.

Glad to hear! You may have already figured this out, but here's a couple tips for the first battle. If you are taking a lot of damage, you can rely on the NPC guards to tank more hits. For another, note that the enemies are slow, only moving 3 tiles per turn. Focus fire the targets that are closer to you, and avoid "diving into the horde".

Originally posted by Wannabe Skater:

Are the reticles supposed to show where the boss is aiming their next attacks?

Yep! The reticles indicate what squares will get hit by some "environmental" damage on the next turn. Ending your turn on a reticle will hurt you.

Originally posted by Wannabe Skater:

As for the Oasis fight, I'm actually having a hard time with it. I can see what the shaman is supposed to do, but maneuvering all the characters to fend off enemies from all sides is tricky. Do you have any tips? All I can think of is that the party needs to head off foes near where they enter the map one by one.

The Oasis fight is probably one of the trickiest fights in Chapter 1. I like to frost breath the two closest enemies on the first turn, and hopefully get some freezes, and then stick around that area. Another thing you could do to open up your options is to frost breath the water, and create an ice bridge to the center island, though be wary of archers, who will still be able to get in range from the edges of the water. Once the enemies are whittled down, I may kite the rest until they move into favorable positions. Also, slapping the Awareness Charm on Kowaal can make him a decent frontliner, giving him +2 Reflexes and a Counterattack, in addition to some extra Psy for more potent heals.

Thanks for the tips! I'll have to go back later and see what you did in the campaign editor, not that I'd use the target reticles anytime soon!

Originally posted by Tacitus:

The Oasis fight is probably one of the trickiest fights in Chapter 1. I like to frost breath the two closest enemies on the first turn, and hopefully get some freezes, and then stick around that area. Another thing you could do to open up your options is to frost breath the water, and create an ice bridge to the center island, though be wary of archers, who will still be able to get in range from the edges of the water. Once the enemies are whittled down, I may kite the rest until they move into favorable positions. Also, slapping the Awareness Charm on Kowaal can make him a decent frontliner, giving him +2 Reflexes and a Counterattack, in addition to some extra Psy for more potent heals.

Really appreciate that advice. I used your first strategy and barely made it out alive. I will say, as a hint to anyone reading this, that the canyon walls are super useful.

I LOVE what you did with the 4th battle; about to start it. The map is so expansive and evokes a windswept desert. If this were a movie, I could imagine sweeping camera shots of the canyon walls and rocks. Really well done.

Good luck deciphering the scripts in Crucible! It took some thinking and trial and error to figure that out. But to orient you a little when you look at it later: the Boom scripts and Cycle values are important there. The important scripts are grouped into one of two sets (or "cycles") that fire off on alternating player turns. Each cycle sets up the next set of "boom" locations while triggering the booms that were set up on the previous cycle.

Glad you like Watershed's design! Have fun with the golem.

Just finished Chapter 1. I bet more skilled tacticians would have the time of their lives trying to get to the bandit cabin in Watershed. As for me, I made a run for it and it wasn't as bad as I was assuming. The golem wasn't too hard.

I'm really happy you made that design choice in Unfinished Business; if it was as I thought it would be, gathering all the sacks I would have screamed lol.

I can confirm it is possible to loot all of the chests and get out, but don't stress, you don't miss anything incredible from any of the chests.

For that last battle, I liked the idea of there being RNG in the sack placement, but I didn't want it to feel too punishing if you got bad luck and they landed in trees or in corners of the map.

Anyways, congrats on clearing Chapter 1!

Doing the no-Brellians route for the Prologue gives the more interesting unique battle IMO. The battle of blowing up the armory struck me as pretty simple and gives a lot of time before reinforcements start to matter. The ship-to-ship battle has a lot more immediate pressure and has no time-wasting AI infighting.

I suggest removing the Aim and Defensive Stance skills from the Brellians and raising their base stats to compensate, the AI will spam these skills even when it does nothing, which is a waste of time.

The zombies in Chapter 1 have some RNG with how often you get poisoned. I was hoping winning the first battle without any guards dying would give a special bonus, but it didn't. Fighting with a large group of low-speed enemies for once is a nice change of pace otherwise.

The Necromancer boss went down in 1 turn for me when she did aggro. She never summoned any ghosts, either.

The oasis fight was pretty tricky, it took me 2 attempts. There was a lot of RNG involved in getting lucky with Freezes, sometimes I'd get two enemies to -23% and still not freeze either of them.

The battle after has the Golem as the main threat, its grapple chain can decimate anyone standing next to a wall and the UI won't actually show its attack range for that skill either. I didn't go for the chests this time, though the time limit in the editor of 30 turns seems pretty doable.

The final battle was over really quickly, only took me 3 turns.

I do like how varied you make the maps, and how slowly everybody is teaming up.

Thanks for the thorough feedback! I'll have to think on a couple of these, but I do see your point about the Brellian buff spamming, and I'll have to think if there is a way I can get the UI to warn of the golem's chain range.

I was thinking of giving some little bonus if both NPC guards survive on that mission, but ultimately I couldn't settle on an idea I liked. I'm taking suggestions if you have an idea of some small reward for that!

I wasn't sure how people were going to feel about the Necromancer fight; would it feel too gimmicky? So I didn't want it to be a terribly hard or long encounter. As I have found out, as well, the AI won't normally use abilities that Create things; that's why scripts spawn in the Thralls. I may remove that ghost-summoning ability from her list of skills to reduce confusion though.

It sounds like you got really good spawns on the Figurines on the last battle, because I don't think I ever managed to do it in 3 turns!



It sounds like the Oasis fight is the trickiest fight in Chapter 1, as I expected. I am wondering if anyone feels like it is too hard or too reliant on Frozen RNG, or if it's okay as is?

Hi Tacitus! On Chapter 2, just wondering how many waves of enemies are supposed to come in the On Thin Ice battle. Will I win if I defeat everyone before another wave arrives?

Hey! I may be wrong, but I think if you manage to clear all enemies before new enemies spawn the battle would end in victory. The "intended" way to win is clearing all of the enemies that spawn though. The last enemies should spawn on Turn 16, I think.

There is also technically an alternate win condition on that map; it's not necessarily easier or quicker though. See the Secrets and Hidden Content thread if curious.