Flanking is +20% damage, instead of a flat bonus. Heavy units like vehicles will not rotate, but infantry will.
Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Dev Diary #7: Combat Units 2
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Flanking is +20% damage, instead of a flat bonus. Heavy units like vehicles will not rotate, but infantry will.
On the other hand, Neandertal isn't so smart and will waste a lot of AP to reach the marvels of dvarven engineers while under a continuous stream of fire from bearded bots. Think of 6 bots against 6 neandertals, several neandertals probably won't even get a chance to do anything before being shot down. One should be more confident in the skills of dvarvs.
According to the Dev Diary:
"Typically a unit in Overwatch will fire a number of shots at a target equal to the number of action points it had when it entered Overwatch. So, a unit might move, and then enter Overwatch with 2 AP remaining, giving it two shots at the first thing to enter it’s overwatch zone. The Bulwark’s Unlimited Overwatch means that the unit always fires 3 shots (the maximum) regardless of action points, it also means the unit can fire on more than one unit during overwatch (normally a unit will leave overwatch after attacking). Putting out this volume of fire does apply a penalty to the weapons accuracy, but this is small price to pay for the volume of damage the unit is capable of."
The way that reads to me is that the Bulwark can shoot each unit that moves into the cone of fire, three times per turn. It will shoot three times against a given unit(likely internally tagging it as 'shot at,' so it won't attack it if it moves again), then 'reload' and prepare to shoot something else three times.
In comparison a normal unit would, depending on how many actions it had remaining prior to entering overwatch, shoot the first unit it sees in its cone of fire up to three times, then end the overwatch state.
It's true, though, that due to the nature of overwatch, these shots will likely be made at the maximum range in many cases, as the enemy comes into your firing range from outside of it, thus diminishing their accuracy compared to a closer shot.
Also, there may be a general accuracy penalty to overwatch fire by default, as in XCOM, which appears to be an inspiration of sorts for the mechanic. We have already heard of units which have accuracy bonuses during overwatch, so modular accuracy changes are certainly a thing, and also leads into Picard's point about enhanced versions of existing abilities thematic to a unit's purpose.
It seems that overwatch is only going to cost the target actions if the attack you're using has a stagger or stun effect. The bulwark does not have any of that stock, though mods exist. Or you could just get a superior weapon, like a spear.
I feel a little disappointed that the female-led faction gets a few too many stereotypical fantasy-female elements for my tastes, such as impractical armor (why is she barefoot?), and a description that comes from a romance novelist and vaguely eroticizes them (and subordinates them to their mounts) instead of being straightforward tech specs (like the Dvar), historical reports (the Vanguard), or other-faction reactions (like the Kir'Ko). I do like other elements of her design (the helmet in particular is pretty cool), and this isn't going to bug everyone as much as it bugs me, but it plays into some things that have been on my mind lately.
If they put more armor on her body i feel like they'd have to reduce her armor stat to compensate; that seems to be how it works. Impractical weapon too if you wanna go that road.
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I don't quite get it. You seem to cherish the Dvar, Kir'ko etc. all being pretty heavy on the fantasy tropes? Why is it a problem with the amazons?
As for all the "The bulwark has too little armor" you might be right there, but relax the game is not even in beta yet so maybe things will change or maybe the bulwark is already strong enough, the unlimited overwatch seems so strong it might even get nerfed.
I'm dreaming things up here but just imagine the Dvar T1 unit would be quite sturdy (you remember those Dvar units that basically vanished behind their shields - https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/foru...anetfall-dev-diary-5-tactical-combat.1110293/ ) and some long range artillery unit. You could have the 3 T1 as blockers on front of 2 Bulwarks and 1 long range artillery. The artillery would shell everything from great distance and as soon as anything dares to approach it comes under the heavy and relentless fire of the Bulwarks. Anything that survives will run into the tanky T1 while still being heavily under fire of the Bulwarks of course. Now that sounds pretty much like a dwarven thing and I can imagine it being pretty overpowered if the bulwarks themselves are tanky as fuck (even though I agree from the looks of the Bulwark it'd make sense).
And regarding the amazons being too tanky and too strong: Well they've bioengineered themselves and their raptors to be harder, faster, better stronger and remember how a laser sword was THE strongest weapon in star wars? So laser melee weapons being superstrong is quite a common trope I can't see why that shouldn't count for a laser spear/glaive? Also it's called Science Fiction it doesn't need to be 100% plausible anyway.
I guess it depends on how people feel about tropes; i dont really see anything Tropey about the Dvar so far; while the Amazon i do see as tropey. Heavy armor on Dwarf troops i dont see as a trope since its actually practical; i see tropes as detrimental design choices to fill a theme like the amazons lack of real armor and silly pet and awful weapon. Cant really fault someone for using a tried and true design!
What you describe is basically how i, and most dwarf fans, would imagine the Dwarfs/Dvar to play. Slow, strong; and instead of speed they have powerful ranged firepower to draw enemies to them. Even without Dvar/Dwarves its a playstyle/role that would need to eventually be filled by someone and it just makes sense/serves the fans that they fit.
Guns shred flesh and bone; if you bioenhance your flesh and bone i'll technohance my gun
. Its always silly to me to take something incredibly weak and put so much effort into making it strong; i'd rather take something incredibly strong... and make it stronger!
Some believe science fiction and fantasy are better when they're more tied to realism, they're more immersive and believable but this is hardly a game that needs immersion.
What you describe is basically how i, and most dwarf fans, would imagine the Dwarfs/Dvar to play. Slow, strong; and instead of speed they have powerful ranged firepower to draw enemies to them. Even without Dvar/Dwarves its a playstyle/role that would need to eventually be filled by someone and it just makes sense/serves the fans that they fit.
Guns shred flesh and bone; if you bioenhance your flesh and bone i'll technohance my gun
. Its always silly to me to take something incredibly weak and put so much effort into making it strong; i'd rather take something incredibly strong... and make it stronger!Some believe science fiction and fantasy are better when they're more tied to realism, they're more immersive and believable but this is hardly a game that needs immersion.
Unlimited overwatch will only trigger once for each unit that enters the area of effect, otherwise it would be utterly broken!
Whether the bulwark is underpowered compared to the other units is very hard to say because:
1) It has a totally different role to the other 3 units
2) You need to look at the unit in the context of the race as a whole (which you can't do, since you don't know what the other units are)
For the first one, it is without doubt the most powerful ranged attacker in the list. It does far more ranged damage per turn than any other unit we've talked about. It's also relatively tough, and cannot be staggered without using artillery and super heavy weapons, meaning you can't just chuck a grenade to knock it out of overwatch, like you can with the Hidden or a vanguard marine. It is definitely less maneuverable than the others, and not as good at close range.
For the second, the Dvar tend to have short/medium range attacks which don't repeat, and lots of explosives. The Bulwark is one of only effective single target ranged units they have. It's designed to stay at a distance and provide ranged support while the other Dvar get in close (the Dvar do have artillery as well, which also fulfills that roll, but it comes later in the tech tree).
At the end of the day though, we haven't really balanced any of these units very much yet. It's quite posisble that we'll give the Bulwark more hit points and armor, I really can't say right now!
This is an issue with all overwatch attacks, we actually give a hidden bonus to allow overwatch attacks to ignore some of the accuracy penalties form long range and cover to compensate for it. The main advantage of the Bulwark though is that doing that doesn't prevent it from using overwatch on other units. Like, with a Hidden you can trick it into shooting at a tank, and then run up to it with a marine and blast it to bits.
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Being hit by overwatch doesn't interrupt your action, unless you're staggered and run out of action points.
Also, I ran a test to see what would happen, and the Lancer beats the Bulwark easily one on one. The bulwark isn't really designed for one on one battles against melee units, especially not melee units who are explicitly designed for head on charges into ranged fire like the Lancer is. The lancer's main weakness is that, once it has charged, it's in the middle of a group of enemies who could easily flank it and kill it, which isn't an issue in one on one battles.
Thing is, there are going to be lots of balance problems like this in the game right now, and we'll probably wait until the beta before we really start looking at them. It wouldn't surprise me if the Lancer lost some HP or a point of shields, or if the bulwark got another point of armor or more damage on its auto-cannons.
Also, the Concussive Volley of the bulwark has a 97% chance to sun the Lancer right now (which might also need to be balanced!). So if the bulwark had a friend to help it, then the Lancer wouldn't stand much of a chance.
Honestly, with a rough estimate of numbers and circumstances(no cover and a straight fight), I came up with the following:
Assault Bike:
Bulwark - both defeat each other in three rounds, but the Assault Bike has less health after being shot at twice(almost loses in two rounds, actually), and is almost definitely going to be the first one struck, due to overwatch.
Lancer - probably in the Lancer's favor. Neither have ranged overwatch, and both have the same ranged damage and frontal defenses, but once the Lancer reaches melee(probably possible, despite losing an action and being pushed back, but not definite), it can deal more per round in melee, and the Assault Bike may need to disengage in order to perform it's focused laser again. Disengaging forcing it to take both Exposed Flanks and the Lancer's empowered flanking attack for a heavy hit. Presuming the cone aoe has a cooldown, and would only be able to be used on the first round it is engaged in melee.
Hidden - Assault Bike wins, almost no question, due to better defenses via psionic resistance and better damage rating. Also the stagger would prevent the stronger shot of the Hidden even being usable once it gets hit. Of course, it could miss due to the shrouded step ability, but eh.
Bulwark:
Assault Bike - already discussed
Hidden - a bit trickier, since despite having psionic resistance, they are also slow against a longer range unit. Still, if they can land a concussive volley successfully by moving closer, they may be able to get a multi-attack off. Alternatively, they could just run up and enter overwatch, followed by making a full-attack the following round. It would take 3-4 shots of the primary fire for the Hidden to win, and only two rounds of 3-attacks for the Bulwark to win.
Lancer - likely in the Lancer's favor if it doesn't get stunned, as it can run in to hit, taking a little less than half from overwatch, hit again when disengaged from, lose most of its health from the full-attack, then multi-attack the next round to finish off the Bulwark. If the Bulwark gets a stun off, though, it can deal almost 36 damage in a single round as a full attack to the Lancer, since it would likely count as flanked during a stun, both suffering the bonus damage of flanking and losing its shield value.
Hidden:
Lancer - Lancer wins, for similar reasons as the Assault Bike. High mobility enough to reach a long range target, and a staggering strike, except even worse, since the stagger effect accompanies being in melee, applying further staggers and a savage flanking attack if disengaged from(shrouded step likely ignores such an attack, and would allow a single flanking hit from the Hidden, but at a base strength of 10 only). Hidden will get the first attack(against defense mode), but then it should be in range to be run at by the Lancer, then a shrouded step flank attack, run at by the Lancer again, at which point it might be too low to disengage safely, and even if it wasn't it would need another four rounds of attacking(with the snap shot, due to stagger) to defeat the Lancer, which it wouldn't get.
Assault Bike:
Bulwark - both defeat each other in three rounds, but the Assault Bike has less health after being shot at twice(almost loses in two rounds, actually), and is almost definitely going to be the first one struck, due to overwatch.
Lancer - probably in the Lancer's favor. Neither have ranged overwatch, and both have the same ranged damage and frontal defenses, but once the Lancer reaches melee(probably possible, despite losing an action and being pushed back, but not definite), it can deal more per round in melee, and the Assault Bike may need to disengage in order to perform it's focused laser again. Disengaging forcing it to take both Exposed Flanks and the Lancer's empowered flanking attack for a heavy hit. Presuming the cone aoe has a cooldown, and would only be able to be used on the first round it is engaged in melee.
Hidden - Assault Bike wins, almost no question, due to better defenses via psionic resistance and better damage rating. Also the stagger would prevent the stronger shot of the Hidden even being usable once it gets hit. Of course, it could miss due to the shrouded step ability, but eh.
Bulwark:
Assault Bike - already discussed
Hidden - a bit trickier, since despite having psionic resistance, they are also slow against a longer range unit. Still, if they can land a concussive volley successfully by moving closer, they may be able to get a multi-attack off. Alternatively, they could just run up and enter overwatch, followed by making a full-attack the following round. It would take 3-4 shots of the primary fire for the Hidden to win, and only two rounds of 3-attacks for the Bulwark to win.
Lancer - likely in the Lancer's favor if it doesn't get stunned, as it can run in to hit, taking a little less than half from overwatch, hit again when disengaged from, lose most of its health from the full-attack, then multi-attack the next round to finish off the Bulwark. If the Bulwark gets a stun off, though, it can deal almost 36 damage in a single round as a full attack to the Lancer, since it would likely count as flanked during a stun, both suffering the bonus damage of flanking and losing its shield value.
Hidden:
Lancer - Lancer wins, for similar reasons as the Assault Bike. High mobility enough to reach a long range target, and a staggering strike, except even worse, since the stagger effect accompanies being in melee, applying further staggers and a savage flanking attack if disengaged from(shrouded step likely ignores such an attack, and would allow a single flanking hit from the Hidden, but at a base strength of 10 only). Hidden will get the first attack(against defense mode), but then it should be in range to be run at by the Lancer, then a shrouded step flank attack, run at by the Lancer again, at which point it might be too low to disengage safely, and even if it wasn't it would need another four rounds of attacking(with the snap shot, due to stagger) to defeat the Lancer, which it wouldn't get.
Tombles, am I reading it right that the stun only lasts one round, then? I was figuring it would be more like stunning touch and other similar abilities, in which they lasted one round beyond the activating round. Otherwise, the Bulwark doesn't beat the Lancer 1v1 I suppose, since concussive volley would simply be a round in which neither of them do anything. Still potentially useful against a Hidden, though, since they could run up, volley, then next turn run even closer and enter overwatch, or simply multi-fire.
Did you use the stun in your test? Does the stun take all 3 action points and deal no damage so the Bulwark essentially uses his whole turn to end the Lancers turn ?The lancer seems to be both a swift skirmishing cavalry AND a heavy shock cavalry combined into a tier 2; and how powerful it is on the overworld map too, to have units with that kind of speed so you can just monostack them into hitsquads! Wonder if any units will have different world map speed vs their combat speed; i can imagine some mechanical units possibly transforming from "mobile" modes to "combat" modes for this.
I would kind of love if Overwatch would let them return fire to enemy ranged attackers..
Oh don't you worry, I'm fairly certain that most, if not all, of us here are looking forward to more context (and content).
Does attacking trigger Overwatch? I mean, if a Bulwark is surrounded by 3 enemy Hidden at close range, would it make sense to set the Bullie on Overwatch to take a shot every time the Hidden try to shoot (not move)? If not, would I be correct in assuming there is a Return Fire ability on someone or on some mods?
The problem is that the stun only lasts one round (it's a range 7 attack with a very high chance to proc) the idea is that the bulwark can lock down a target while its friends tear it to bits. At the end of the day, you have:
Bulwark - Ranged support unit, specializing in locking down areas with overwatch against lots of targets while relying on other units to screen it from damage,
Lancer - High speed unit, specializing in doing a lot of damage to a single target.
In a one of one fight, the lancer is just holding all the cards. Even if I were to give the bulwark +5hp and +1 armor, while the lancer gets -1 shields and -10hp, the Lancer would probably still win just because of how it's designed. Letting the stun on concussive shot last 2 turns would certainly fix it, but that would be extremely powerful, so it might just cause balance issues elsewhere.
The lancer beats everything because, in the end, single target damage is all it has. The other units have all sorts of tactical gimmicks and options. Lancers pretty much just kill things.
With the bulwark, you have a slowly advancing line of Dvar with shields, shotguns, and grenade launchers. The bulwark stands behind giving them cover. In a Dvar vs Amazon battle, a clever Dvar player would spam explosives to stagger the lancers to hold them in place, while the bulwark shoots them to death from a distance.
True! It's quite possible we'll need to nerf one (or both) of those roles depending on how balance goes. Right now, the skirmisher aspect is irrelevent here though, the Lacner wins by just charging forwards and using melee. No subtlety required!
Attacking does trigger overwatch, but teleporting triggers overwatch at the destination you teleport to (i.e. if you teleport into overwatch you will get shot at, but you can safely teleport out of it) So the hidden could teleport to safety. I don't think a hidden can take a bulwark on its own though, unless it gets some very lucky rolls.
I tried it. It's close, but the lancer has the edge due to melee overwatch. It can charge the bike, then strike it when the bike tries to move away. I thought the bike might be able to win by kiting and using focused blasts to keep pushing the lancer away, but the lancer always ends up just close enough to do a melee charge.
Bulwark - Ranged support unit, specializing in locking down areas with overwatch against lots of targets while relying on other units to screen it from damage,
Lancer - High speed unit, specializing in doing a lot of damage to a single target.
In a one of one fight, the lancer is just holding all the cards. Even if I were to give the bulwark +5hp and +1 armor, while the lancer gets -1 shields and -10hp, the Lancer would probably still win just because of how it's designed. Letting the stun on concussive shot last 2 turns would certainly fix it, but that would be extremely powerful, so it might just cause balance issues elsewhere.
The lancer beats everything because, in the end, single target damage is all it has. The other units have all sorts of tactical gimmicks and options. Lancers pretty much just kill things.
With the bulwark, you have a slowly advancing line of Dvar with shields, shotguns, and grenade launchers. The bulwark stands behind giving them cover. In a Dvar vs Amazon battle, a clever Dvar player would spam explosives to stagger the lancers to hold them in place, while the bulwark shoots them to death from a distance.
True! It's quite possible we'll need to nerf one (or both) of those roles depending on how balance goes. Right now, the skirmisher aspect is irrelevent here though, the Lacner wins by just charging forwards and using melee. No subtlety required!
Attacking does trigger overwatch, but teleporting triggers overwatch at the destination you teleport to (i.e. if you teleport into overwatch you will get shot at, but you can safely teleport out of it) So the hidden could teleport to safety. I don't think a hidden can take a bulwark on its own though, unless it gets some very lucky rolls.
I tried it. It's close, but the lancer has the edge due to melee overwatch. It can charge the bike, then strike it when the bike tries to move away. I thought the bike might be able to win by kiting and using focused blasts to keep pushing the lancer away, but the lancer always ends up just close enough to do a melee charge.
You could save yourself the trouble of asking my future questions by letting me play the Dvar They are my people! Also, is the Bulwarks... Appearance final ? It looks kind of like a mech that any number of sci fi races could have; no Dwarven stylization on it at all, wheres the beard? You could have the ammo belts come from the chin area and lead into the guns, giving it the mechanical appearance of facial air made out of bulletbelts. *pats self on the back*
They are my people! Also, is the Bulwarks... Appearance final ? It looks kind of like a mech that any number of sci fi races could have; no Dwarven stylization on it at all, wheres the beard? You could have the ammo belts come from the chin area and lead into the guns, giving it the mechanical appearance of facial air made out of bulletbelts. *pats self on the back*
I spoke to the artists yesterday, and more beards have been requested! Though whether they add something like that to walker I'm not sure. Also, I chatted with the other designers, and the general feeling right now is the Dvar are definitely high up in terms of power. From what i can tell, you definitely don't need to worry about them being too weak!
I agree with Dwarfurious's design idea. A very subtle (yet inexpensive - no hairs to emulate) way of giving a Dvar unit some fancy Belgian 'stache.
Now I'm curious about other abilities (healing/repairing, throwing stuff, calling in airdrop etc.) - do they trigger overwatch?
Do Dvar or other species have a ranged Taunt-like ability that could draw units closer (ie like Taunt, but would distract even ranged units to move). This would have a synergy with the Bulwarks, but if it is not a Dvar harlet that has this ability, it would create synergy for interspecies parties. (more difficult to makea party like that, but might be more useful than no diversity at all)
Now I'm curious about other abilities (healing/repairing, throwing stuff, calling in airdrop etc.) - do they trigger overwatch?
Do Dvar or other species have a ranged Taunt-like ability that could draw units closer (ie like Taunt, but would distract even ranged units to move). This would have a synergy with the Bulwarks, but if it is not a Dvar harlet that has this ability, it would create synergy for interspecies parties. (more difficult to makea party like that, but might be more useful than no diversity at all)
Yeah, I figured it would work out that way overall, albeit the Lancer is going to be heavily wounded at the end.
Bike attacking first comes out to something like: (presuming no attacks miss!)
Round 1: bike attacks, staggers and knocks back, lancer charges in and hits once
(both have similar health now, since bike has lower base health)
Round 2: bike cone attacks, then lancer triple attacks for half the bike's health
(bike is now at about 14 hp, whereas the lancer is at about 27)
Round 3: bike disengages, going down to about 3 hp, and fires, bringing the lancer down to about 15, then the lancer hits it once and kills it.
If the lancer was the one to hit first with ranged to soften it up, then round 3 basically doesn't happen, since the bike can't disengage safely.
This all being said, a 2v2 would be quite a bit different, due to the bikes having aoe and potentially being able to do things like focus fire a single lancer to double impact stagger/knockback. Both groups would benefit from flanking, so it's pretty fair in that regard.
That is fairly common when looking at science fiction versus fantasy settings. Consider, for instance, the distinction between Master of Magic and Master of Orion 2: the former has much more RPG aspects because the nature of the setting encourages it, while the latter has more unit customisation. Planetfall's setting does allow for more ruins to explore than you might typically expect in science fiction, but at the bottom line, ruin exploration and questing are a bigger part of fantasy than sci-fi as a general rule.
Might I recommend that it's better for the beards to hang down? Even a relatively short beard would likely end up tickling your nostrils if it goes up, and longer ones could be a vision obstruction.
Looking at it from the other perspective, though, the Bulwark has some clear weak points. The primary guns and their mounts are in a vulnerable position, and as a two-legged walker, it might be able to be disabled by cutting out the legs or tipping it over. We also don't know just how thick the metal coating is, and the inside might be full of (relatively) delicate circuits, servos, and large ammunition stocks (in order to maintain that high rate of fire) meaning that it is actually relatively fragile once the outer shell is penetrated. Which could be a compromise the Dvar made in order to have a high-ROF defensive unit that isn't so heavy as to lack much mobility or so expensive that it's impractical to be used for its intended purpose.
It is, after all, being placed on the same tier as a thin-shelled assault bike and a unit of snipers. If we were actually looking at a walking tank here, it could probably be expected to be tier 3 instead. What we're actually seeing is possibly more akin to an armoured Humvee, with legs and multiple miniguns.