Monday 19 January 2015

Massive Chalice EP21 - Massive Noir


Little bit of weirdness after the battle here, no idea what happened there, definitely going to report it as a bug.

For me one of the major differences between XCOM and Massive Chalice's tactical combat is the emphasis on line of sight. In XCOM I spend a lot of time managing cover and overwatch. Trying to lure enemies out into the open and ensure that mine are never either caught out of position or flanked.

In Massive Chalice there is no cover or overwatch, the goal is to ensure that my heroes are never spotted by an enemy they can't kill. In an ideal game I should never end a turn with a hero visible to an enemy who is not stunned or dead. Once I got veil armour and flarrow I have historically been very good at this. My heavy hunter usage has allowed me to ensure that my enemies have never really been able to see me, either through stealth or being blinded. In general I have had at least half a dozen of those shots available to me every fight, enough to almost never be worried about being caught too out of position.

As a result, the removal of flarrow's blinding ability has resulted in some actual tension in my battles, this game doesn't let me repick, so I haven't had a chance to actually use blinding shot. Instead I have had to fall back on pure positioning and damage to try to sort out these problems and that simply has not always been enough. My heroes have been hit and damaged, enough that I have actually had to deploy healing. I think today's fight is the first one that I have actually had the chance to lose a character in for several in game generations. One more advanced bulwark hit and Roderick could have died before first aid arrived.

It will be interesting to see next week how I go having blinding shot available once more, between that, stealth and veil armour however I really do not see myself ever investing in flarrow again. Especially with level 10 heroes, genetics, dead eye and veil armour means that I have a ridiculously large sight radius and I can invisibly scout ahead.

Next time we get to play around with a couple of trickshots and a shadowjack. Looking forward to seeing how they play.

No comments:

Post a Comment