Into the Breach |OT| FTL: Fighting Tactical Leviathans

[molnizzle]

So is this like a roguelike where I'm going to get more powerful? Because right now I feel like it's impossible to beat more than 2 maps without losing all energy.

When I say maps I mean, like, the levels. Impossible to beat more than one with this starting loadout. How do I get upgrades?

 

[Interested Observer]

So is this like a roguelike where I'm going to get more powerful? Because right now I feel like it's impossible to beat more than 2 maps without losing all energy.

When I say maps I mean, like, the levels. Impossible to beat more than one with this starting loadout. How do I get upgrades?

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I'm a new player too so someone else will be able to help more but are you getting power cores and upgrading your mechs?

Like the punchy mech, you can upgrade his punch to be able to attack from any number of squares away in a straight line, which is an enormous upgrade. You have to get power cores (find them in pods, get them as level rewards, buy them with rep at the end of an island) and upgrade the mechs. Other upgrades just increase damage etc.

The upgrades don't carry over to your next play through though, that isn't how it works. You get to bring one pilot with you to your next play through, so you're starting off with a pilot at max experience.

It's definitely not impossible. Concentrate on moving the Vek about the map instead of just damaging them. Having them miss a building or block a spawn can be much more valuable than just doing a bit of damage. You can get them to attack each other as well. You have full knowledge of what they will attack when your turn comes so use that to your advantage. And put it down to easy while you figure it out.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yeah I did unlock the second squad, but went back using the first squad to get some of the achievements on Easy. To be honest Easy is a little too easy I'm finding, I'm just blasting through every level.

Going to have a real dilemma as to which pilot to save after this game. You only take one each time right? I found one that can act twice if they don't move which seems incredibly powerful.

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Hahah, I guess it's to be expected that you'd find the game too easy on Easy after finishing Normal. It's fascinating how some people take to the game's mechanics almost immediately while others bang their heads against a wall for hours.

The pilot who can act twice, IIRC, needs a whopping 2 power assigned to its ability. Personally, that and the inability to move seem like too much of a drawback. I mean, how many situations do you find yourself in that you can benefit from attacking twice without first moving to an optimal position, or moving between attacks?

 

[Weltall Zero]

So is this like a roguelike where I'm going to get more powerful? Because right now I feel like it's impossible to beat more than 2 maps without losing all energy.

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You get more powerful during a single run, but not between runs.

When I say maps I mean, like, the levels.

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So, like, each individual area in an island? You can't even complete one island? Hmmm, I feel there must be some core mechanic you've missed. Here's a complete Hard run with the starting squad, watch it and see if you're doing anything fundamentally different than the player:

 

[Deleted member 1659]

Hahah, I guess it's to be expected that you'd find the game too easy on Easy after finishing Normal. It's fascinating how some people take to the game's mechanics almost immediately while others bang their heads against a wall for hours.

The pilot who can act twice, IIRC, needs a whopping 2 power assigned to its ability. Personally, that and the inability to move seem like too much of a drawback. I mean, how many situations do you find yourself in that you can benefit from attacking twice without first moving to an optimal position, or moving between attacks?

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That pilot synergizes well with a lot of different meches. Artillery mechs that aren't limited by range and/or that have weapons that effect multiple squares benefit from firing twice.

The fire mech also benefits from him - one attack to set the enemy on fire and the second attack does direct damage of 2 to an enemy.

But the most OP combo is the double attack combined with the electric whip mech that can daisy chain using buildings. You can deal as much as 6 damage to an indefinite amount of enemies in one turn as long as they are adjacent to each other.

 

[Weltall Zero]

That pilot synergizes well with a lot of different meches. Artillery mechs that aren't limited by range and/or that have weapons that effect multiple squares benefit from firing twice.

The fire mech also benefits from him - one attack to set the enemy on fire and the second attack does direct damage of 2 to an enemy.

But the most OP combo is the double attack combined with the electric whip mech that can daisy chain using buildings. You can deal as much as 6 damage to an indefinite amount of enemies in one turn as long as they are adjacent to each other.

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Yeah, I was precisely thinking that this seems the most useful with the electric chain whip, since you often don't need to move. But frankly, that's kind of a side effect of that mech being overpowered in itself, if you know how to use it. :D

The other examples you give seemed very gimped in theory to me from not being able to reposition. The fire mech for example would only useful if the enemy just happens to be within the range of the flamethrower AND doesn't have a building or objective behind it (since the flame jet pushes them). That said, I haven't tried any of these combinations myself, so I'll take your word and give it a try.

 

[molnizzle]

You get more powerful during a single run, but not between runs.

So, like, each individual area in an island? You can't even complete one island? Hmmm, I feel there must be some core mechanic you've missed. Here's a complete Hard run with the starting squad, watch it and see if you're doing anything fundamentally different than the player:

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Nope. I can do one little map, but then I only have 1 or 2 energies left when I start the second. Not enough to last.

I browsed through that video and I'm pretty much doing the same? But there are always too many enemies to manage with just my 3 mechs, and half the time the mechs are rooted anyway so they can't move around.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Nope. I can do one map, but then I only have 1 or 2 energies left when I start the second. Not enough to win.

I browsed through that video and I'm pretty much doing the same? But there are always too many enemies to manage with just my 3 mechs, and half the time the mechs are rooted anyway so they can't move around.

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Well, you can't be doing "pretty much the same" if you're getting killed in two maps on Normal and they complete the game on Hard with energy to spare. :) Look closely at how they're controlling the number of enemies that are alive at any one time.

Again, I'm assuming by "map" you mean "individual stage". If you mean you're at least completing the first island, then that's a different matter, and you just need to hone your skills. In either case, I would recommend playing on Easy at first, until you get the hang of mechanics.

 

[molnizzle]

Well, you can't be doing "pretty much the same" if you're getting killed in two maps on Normal and they complete the game on Hard with energy to spare. :) Look closely at how they're controlling the number of enemies that are alive at any one time.

Again, I'm assuming by "map" you mean "individual stage". If you mean you're at least completing the first island, then that's a different matter, and you just need to hone your skills. In either case, I would recommend playing on Easy at first, until you get the hang of mechanics.

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Yeah, I mean the individual stages.

To be honest I don't really have a spare hour to sit and meticulously watch another person play a video game, but when I skipped around the guy was doing the same stuff I do. He just seemed to be luckier with not having nearly as many enemies and not getting rooted. I feel like half of my games have my mechs rooted in place.

 

[Lcs]

Yeah, I mean the individual stages.

To be honest I don't really have a spare hour to sit and meticulously watch another person play a video game, but when I skipped around the guy was doing the same stuff I do. He just seemed to be luckier with not having nearly as many enemies and not getting rooted. I feel like half of my games have my mechs rooted in place.

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You do realize that the root comes from a bug and that you can free your mech by pushing that bug with another mech right?

Also, not having many enemies to fight is not "being lucky", you need to strategize for that and block the spawns as needed.

 

[molnizzle]

You do realize that the root comes from a bug and that you can free your mech by pushing that bug with another mech right?

Also, not having many enemies to fight is not "being lucky", you need to strategize for that and block the spawns as needed.

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I can't physically move them there if the spawns are too far away though. Or blocked by other units or my own mechs.

And yeah I can free the mech by pushing, but I usually have to sacrifice buildings getting hit to do that. Same with blocking spawn.

 

[Nali]

I can't physically move them there if the spawns are too far away though. Or blocked by other units or my own mechs.

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Positioning is everything. The game is balanced on a knife's edge. You have enough actions every turn to stay in control of the situation, but just barely, and I didn't turn the corner on keeping ahead of things until I got a decent grip on initial placement and how to move my mechs around such that they could always do something productive. I'm not sure how to give specific advice on how to do that, but that kind of efficiency is what it takes to succeed.

 

[molnizzle]

Positioning is everything. The game is balanced on a knife's edge. You have enough actions every turn to stay in control of the situation, but just barely, and I didn't turn the corner on keeping ahead of things until I got a decent grip on initial placement and how to move my mechs around such that they could always do something productive. I'm not sure how to give specific advice on how to do that, but that kind of efficiency is what it takes to succeed.

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There really needs to be a "suicide" option then, because you can straight up lose the entire battle before you even make the first move. God, I hate that. The "reset" doesn't let you choose new spawn locations either.

Hell, this battle I just started has two spawn locations on the very edge. Literally no possible drop locations I could've picked that would put me close enough to block them. Not that I would've been able to with the enemies anyway.

There really aren't any upgrades that persist from run to run?

 

[Sixfortyfive]

There really needs to be a "suicide" option then, because you can straight up lose the entire battle before you even make the first move. God, I hate that. The "reset" doesn't let you choose new spawn locations either.

Hell, this battle I just started has two spawn locations on the very edge. Literally no possible drop locations I could've picked that would let me block them.

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The player is given roughly one half of the map for the initial drop location while the AI gets the other half.

It's generally a good idea to put most of your mechs on the border area as close to the AI as possible, with the artillery mech in a location elsewhere with as few obstructions as possible (e.g. the intersection of a row and column that are both entirely empty, allowing for a wider range of movement and attack).

I do agree that the initial drop can carry the most severe consequences if you're unable to account for the wide range of possible enemy actions, but this shouldn't really be crippling unless you're playing on a high difficulty or are in the late game.

 

[molnizzle]

The player is given roughly one half of the map for the initial drop location while the AI gets the other half.

It's generally a good idea to put most of your mechs on the border area as close to the AI as possible, with the artillery mech in a location elsewhere with as few obstructions as possible (e.g. the intersection of a row and column that are both entirely empty, allowing for a wider range of movement and attack).

I do agree that the initial drop can carry the most severe consequences if you're unable to account for the wide range of possible enemy actions, but this shouldn't really be crippling unless you're playing on a high difficulty or are in the late game.

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Well it definitely crippled that game. I dropped as far to the south as I could, but enemy had the two spawns along the south wall, completely out of reach. Literaly no way to block them.

 

[Weltall Zero]

There really needs to be a "suicide" option then, because you can straight up lose the entire battle before you even make the first move. God, I hate that.

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The person you quoted meant positioning during the game (moving), not the first deploy, which is pretty irrelevant. Give me a stage where you've chosen the "worst" possible deployment positions and I guarantee I'll still win without issue. And even then, you're given literally all the information you need before you deploy, including where enemies will spawn.

 

[molnizzle]

The person you quoted meant positioning during the game (moving), not the first deploy, which is pretty irrelevant. Give me a stage where you've chosen the "worst" possible deployment positions and I guarantee I'll still win without issue. And even then, you're given literally all the information you need before you deploy, including where enemies will spawn.

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Wait, how do I see where the reinforcement holes will be?

 

[Nali]

The person you quoted meant positioning during the game (moving), not the first deploy, which is pretty irrelevant. Give me a stage where you've chosen the "worst" possible deployment positions and I guarantee I'll still win without issue.

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Eh, you're savvier than I am if you can pull that off. I've always found subpar deployment to be the difference between a perfect run and being forced to soak grid damage because a mech winds up being just out of range.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Wait, how do I see where the reinforcement holes will be?

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The first turn's enemies come pre-spawned, so you already know what they are. Further enemies you can either block, or wait until they spawn and then kill. I mean, you have a turn for reacting to them after they spawn. You should be able to reach them with someone unless you're bunching all your units in a corner of the map or something. Artillery units alone can pretty much cover the whole map by moving laterally then shooting.

You don't need to watch a whole 1 hour walkthrough, but if you're losing in two stages, then the first two stages of the video will already play drastically different. A good exercise is, watch the turn layout, pause the video, think about what you would do (and whether or not it would protect all the buildings), then unpause and see what he actually does. You should plan the entire turn in your head before you make the first attack.

Eh, you're savvier than I am if you can pull that off. I've always found subpar deployment to be the difference between a perfect run and being forced to soak grid damage.

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Soak one or two building damage (with a really bad deployment), sure. Lose the entire stage? Not really.

Deployment is pretty simple, really. Put your melee units on the front, brutes in the middle, artillery in the back (ideally in the middle of an unobstructed row). Try not to bunch your units together if there's spiders and such. There's really not much more that you need to be mindful of.

 

[molnizzle]

wtf, pilots lose all xp and upgrade when they die?

Why do these devs hate their players so much...

 

[Weltall Zero]

wtf, pilots lose all xp and upgrade when they die?

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Because the game is a roguelite?

Why do these devs hate their players so much...

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... you know, I'm starting to think this may not be the game for you. :D Time to request a refund?

 

[molnizzle]

Because the game is a roguelite?

... you know, I'm starting to think this may not be the game for you. :D Time to request a refund?

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Can't, bought on Switch. Video made it look like Advance Wars. That's what I was hoping for.

Like I even put it down to Easy, which I absolutely hate doing (if Normal too hard for normal players, then the balancing is wrong), and it's still just nonstop shoving shit in my face. Finally best an island, get some decent upgrade to my pilot (+move square) and then he dies. After losing the run I expected to not have my upgrades, but not even my pilot skills? Does anything persist to make the beginning less miserable?

 

[Deleted member 33571]

Does anything persist to make the beginning less miserable?

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Yeah, if you lose (or win, even) without the pilot you like having died, then you can choose them to keep into the next run, with their skills and experience intact. You can only pick one of your three though, and their mech can't have died at any point in the run.

That being said, I think the game is designed to be fairly doable even if you're starting with all three pilots fresh, since you'll get all three reasonably leveled up over the course of a run anyway.

Also, I'm not sure if anyone explicitly answered your question about how to see where the enemies will spawn, but it's the tiles that have up-pointing arrows and cracks on them during the turn. Enemies will come out of those spots on the following turn, and you can block them from spawning by putting a unit (your own or an enemy) on top of it. Hope that helps a little bit if you didn't already know!

 

[Weltall Zero]

Like I even put it down to Easy, which I absolutely hate doing (if Normal too hard for normal players, then the balancing is wrong)

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Easy is the correct setting for you, because you're new to the game and don't know how to play it yet. Normal is the setting for more experienced players that have grasped the core mechanics, and Hard is the setting for players that want to challenge themselves (though I didn't find it that much harder than Normal and I finished it in my first run).

I mean, you wouldn't learn to swim by diving headfirst into the deep end (and if you do, and survive, hopefully you wouldn't complain that the swimming pool is "badly balanced").

 

[molnizzle]

Easy is the correct setting for you, because you're new to the game and don't know how to play it yet. Normal is the setting for more experienced players that have grasped the core mechanics, and Hard is the setting for players that want to challenge themselves (though I didn't find it that much harder than Normal and I finished it in my first run).

I mean, you wouldn't learn to swim by diving headfirst into the deep end (and if you do, and survive, hopefully you wouldn't complain that the swimming pool is "badly balanced").

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Easy is for kids or people new to video games in general. Normal is what most players are supposed to play. A game that makes you play on Easy to learn the mechanics is badly balanced, yes. Normal is "normal" for a reason.

Normal shouldn't be analogous to "diving headfirst into the deep end." Because that's not how someone normally learns how to swim.

If they wanted players to start on Easy they should have given it a different name. Whenever I choose "Easy" I feel like I'm not getting the intended experience. That's just how I've been conditioned by like every other video game ever. If that is what they intend for new players, they fucked up the naming.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Easy is for kids or people new to video games in general.

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This game isn't for kids or people new to games in general, and you are new to this game, which doesn't play like pretty much any other game.

Normal is what most players are supposed to play. A game that makes you play on Easy to learn the mechanics is badly balanced, yes. Normal is "normal" for a reason.

Normal shouldn't be analogous to "diving headfirst into the deep end." Because that's not how someone normally learns how to swim.

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Exactly, it's not how you "normally learn to swim": it's "how you normally swim"; exactly the same as "normal" is how you normally play Into the Breach. Why in the fuck would "normal" be "how you normally learn?" :D

If they wanted players to start on Easy they should have given it a different name. Whenever I choose "Easy" I feel like I'm not getting the intended experience. That's just how I've been conditioned by like every other video game ever.

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And therein lies the problem. If you get your ass kicked in a game and don't turn down the difficulty, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you started playing a fighting game and the computer kicked your ass, I assume you'd turn it down?

Man is this a lot of salt for being too proud to turn the difficulty down... gamer pride sure is something else.

 

[Nali]

I learned the game on Normal, fwiw. Easy tones things down to the point that the game's finely tuned balance is completely shot, and it's prone to encourage bad habits. It's a game of "aha!" moments and pulling victory from seemingly certain defeat, not the one-sided curbstomp it devolves into when you can just dps everything down on sight.

 

[Weltall Zero]

I learned the game on Normal, fwiw. Easy tones things down to the point that the game's finely tuned balance is completely shot, and it's prone to encourage bad habits.

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I transitioned from Easy to Normal and Hard without a hitch. I can't think of any "bad habits" the game would condition you to by playing Easy.

My specific experience was playing on Normal for the first few games, where I would either lose or barely win; then I turned it down to Easy and had a much more fun, relaxing time; and finally after a while, I turning it back to Normal, and was still winning pretty much every time after that. The game is a masterclass in difficulty curve design and how knowledge of the game increases your skill enormously.

 

[molnizzle]

And therein lies the problem. If you get your ass kicked in a game and don't turn down the difficulty, you have nobody to blame but yourself. If you started playing a fighting game and the computer kicked your ass, I assume you'd turn it down?

Man is this a lot of salt for being too proud to turn the difficulty down... gamer pride sure is something else.

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You can fucking cool it with the belittling, thanks.

You're being disingenuous as hell right now. This is how difficulties have worked for well over a decade. Normal is what you start with unless you're literaly just discovering video game's in general, or you want to just casually get through a game's story. That's how we've been conditioned for the past few generations. So yeah, I can't mentally get past the idea of moving down to "Easy." I've been conditioned that way after thousands and thousands of hours playing other games.

If the devs meant "Begininer, Advanced, Expert" then those are the names they should have used. Period.

 

[Weltall Zero]

So yeah, I can't mentally get past the idea of moving down to "Easy." I've been conditioned that way after thousands and thousands of hours playing other games.

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That's a really freaking disturbing sentence.

I don't know what else to tell you, frankly. If I tell you plenty of people have managed to learn the game by playing on Normal and I had never heard of anyone being killed in one-two stages every time, I'm belittling you. If I tell you to swallow your pride and turn down the game to Easy, I'm belittling you. What's left? Agreeing with you that the fault is somehow the game and not yours so that your ego doesn't get bruised?

 

[molnizzle]

That's a really freaking disturbing sentence.

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There you go again with the belittling.

No, it's not a disturbing sentence. That's how human psychology fucking works. Even in your own superior brain. If you can't quit being an asshole then just stop posting.

I don't know what else to tell you, frankly. If I tell you plenty of people have managed to learn the game by playing on Normal and I had never heard of anyone being killed in one-two stages every time, I'm belittling you. If I tell you to swallow your pride and turn down the game to Easy, I'm belittling you. What's left? Agreeing with you that the fault is somehow the game and not yours so that your ego doesn't get bruised?

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It's not a matter of opinion that the difficulties are improperly names if "Easy" really is the intended starting point. "Normal" means a certain thing these days and has for many years. If you missed that memo throughout the entire last two generations then I don't know what to tell you. Devs should know better though.

Obviously I'm bad at the game, you don't need to be a fucking jerk about it.

 

[Weltall Zero]

There you go again with the belittling.

No, it's not a disturbing sentence. That's how human psychology fucking works. Even in you're own superior brain. If you can't quit being an asshole then just stop posting.


It's not a matter of opinion that the difficulties are improperly names of "Easy" really is the intended starting point. "Normal" means a certain thing these days and has for many years. If you missed that memo throughout the entire last two generations the I don't know what to tell you. Devs should know better though.

Obviously I'm bad at the game, you don't need to be a fucking jerk about it.

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Yeah, I'm done with your insults. Ignore and report it is.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

Man I'm like an ultra-tryhard gamer type but don't see why someone would have hang-ups about playing a video game on Easy mode.

I did it for this and FTL until I had enough experience with different weapons and scenarios to be comfortable. And then I went for 100% achievements on Hard mode later.

It's not that serious.

 

[Interested Observer]

It's not a matter of opinion that the difficulties are improperly names if "Easy" really is the intended starting point etc...

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This is one of the weirdest gripes I've seen with a game. Anyway normal is a perfectly viable starting point. You're the problem here, not the game. I'm sure you'll flip out and complain and whatever like you have above but that's just the truth.

 

[molnizzle]

This is one of the weirdest gripes I've seen with a game. Anyway normal is a perfectly viable starting point. You're the problem here, not the game. I'm sure you'll flip out and complain and whatever like you have above but that's just the truth.

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It was an offhand comment that homeboy above couldn't let go and had to drag out through a bunch of replies. It's a valid gripe, but not my main one.

 

[lacer]

getting flashbacks of that weird "the Wolfenstein difficulty names are too mean" topic from a while back

 

[Weltall Zero]

Man I'm like an ultra-tryhard gamer type but don't see why someone would have hang-ups about playing a video game on Easy mode.

I did it for this and FTL until I had enough experience with different weapons and scenarios to be comfortable. And then I went for 100% achievements on Hard mode later.

It's not that serious.

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Same, I played FTL on Easy for quite a while until I got better at it. These guys' games just play very differently to any other, and are pretty tightly balanced to allow a relatively low amount of mistakes, which is what I love about them.

This is one of the weirdest gripes I've seen with a game. Anyway normal is a perfectly viable starting point. You're the problem here, not the game. I'm sure you'll flip out and complain and whatever like you have above but that's just the truth.

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It's FTL all over again. Back at the old place there was this dude that was utterly convinced the game was pure RNG and no amount of skill could prevent you from dying if you got unlucky, which according to him was well over 50% of the time. The fact that there's people who have completed the game fifty and even eighty times in a row did exactly zero to dissuade him, which probably accounts for his grasp on statistics (even with an 80% victory chance, the chance of an 80 win streak is 0.0000017%; at 50% victory chance, the number has like 20 zeros). And ITB is far more forgiving and less RNG-reliant than FTL, so...

It's Dunning-Kruger at its best: it's always someone else's fault, in this case the devs.

 

[Deleted member 1190]

Obviously I'm bad at the game, you don't need to be a fucking jerk about it.

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Blaming the game for being balanced poorly when you know you're just bad at it is a bit silly.

If you're having trouble surviving past just a couple of missions, then you clearly are doing something very wrong, are just randomly clicking around, or simply not paying attention (you didn't even know how to tell where the next wave was going to pop up), and that is no fault of the game.

 

[molnizzle]

Blaming the game for being balanced poorly when you know you're just bad at it is a bit silly.

If you're having trouble surviving past just a couple of missions, then you clearly are doing something very wrong, are just randomly clicking around, or simply not paying attention (you didn't even know how to tell where the next wave was going to pop up), and that is no fault of the game.

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It's become apartment that perhaps Normal is not where these devs think the average player should start, so it's not a balance issue so much as a naming issue. I feel like this should be pretty obvious if you followed the conversation.

In any case, criticizing a game's balance is a pretty logical thing to do if you're struggling. This game plays unlike just about any other, it should do a better job of explaining and drilling in its mechanics instead of just dropping you in with a couple of tooltip pop-ups.

I also quite obviously knew where the next wave was going to spawn once the tiles started breaking. My question was how to see that before the initial drop placement, since that is what the other poster implied was possible. Turns out that's not possible, so the "advice" was useless. Most of the time you can't block the first wave of re-inforcements because they're too far away from your closest drop point.

 

[chuckddd]

I watched an interview with one of the devs, probably from earlier in this thread, and he said there was a pretty even split on the negative reviews of the game. Half said it was too hard and the other half said it was too easy.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

Dumb question, but does the game just autosave? Where and when? I don't see any save option. I've had the game running for days (via sleep mode) on my Switch and I realise this is the first time I want to close it and play something else since I started playing.

 

[Deleted member 33571]

Dumb question, but does the game just autosave? Where and when? I don't see any save option. I've had the game running for days (via sleep mode) on my Switch and I realise this is the first time I want to close it and play something else since I started playing.

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If you pause and hit 'main menu' it'll save your place without issue, pretty much from anywhere as far as I know, including mid-turn. It's actually really nice how snappy it is.

 

[Jaded Alyx]

If you pause and hit 'main menu' it'll save your place without issue, pretty much from anywhere as far as I know, including mid-turn. It's actually really nice how snappy it is.

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Yeh I ended up doing this, thankfully, rather than just exiting the game

 

[Weltall Zero]

Yeh I ended up doing this, thankfully, rather than just exiting the game

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Unless I'm wrong, I think it autosaves every turn anyway, so you wouldn't have lost anything.

 

[Interested Observer]

The grapple mech (from the squad with the whip mech)... How exactly do you level up its pilot? You can kill stuff by pulling it into environmental hazards but I'm finding that extremely situational. It doesn't do any damage by itself, and I mostly just use it to pull enemies into range or allies out. Am I missing something here?

 

[Deleted member 1659]

The grapple mech (from the squad with the whip mech)... How exactly do you level up its pilot? You can kill stuff by pulling it into environmental hazards but I'm finding that extremely situational. It doesn't do any damage by itself, and I mostly just use it to pull enemies into range or allies out. Am I missing something here?

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There are a few mechs that have very little direct damage ability and as a result, don't level up very fast. Aside from the two methods you listed, the only way for the grapple mech to gain XP when the enemy dies in between turns on environmental hazards. When that happens the XP is distributed equally between the entire squad.

 

[Sixfortyfive]

There are a few mechs that have very little direct damage ability and as a result, don't level up very fast. Aside from the two methods you listed, the only way for the grapple mech to gain XP when the enemy dies in between turns on environmental hazards. When that happens the XP is distributed equally between the entire squad.

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You can also just level up a pilot in a different mech and swap him into that one afterward.

 

[Deleted member 42758]

It's become apartment that perhaps Normal is not where these devs think the average player should start, so it's not a balance issue so much as a naming issue. I feel like this should be pretty obvious if you followed the conversation.

In any case, criticizing a game's balance is a pretty logical thing to do if you're struggling. This game plays unlike just about any other, it should do a better job of explaining and drilling in its mechanics instead of just dropping you in with a couple of tooltip pop-ups.

I also quite obviously knew where the next wave was going to spawn once the tiles started breaking. My question was how to see that before the initial drop placement, since that is what the other poster implied was possible. Turns out that's not possible, so the "advice" was useless. Most of the time you can't block the first wave of re-inforcements because they're too far away from your closest drop point.

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I think Normal is definitely the intended starting point since that is the default difficulty.

Knowing how many spaces each mech and enemy can move is vital to your overall strategy. The game provides you with this information for every unit. It's true that the first round of spawns may be unlikely to be blocked but it doesn't make it an impossible situation to overcome. Just because you can't block a spawn doesn't mean you can't manage the surrounding tiles in a manner that prepares you for the incoming wave. Being a game of strategy, it seems strange to me to complain about a challenge that calls on observation, foresight, and experience. What were you expecting?

 

[molnizzle]

What were you expecting?

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I was expecting Advance Wars, as I've already stated.

Once it became clear that the game wasn't that, I expected a smoother learning curve. Better in-game instruction. A sense of progression from run to run.

 

[Deleted member 42758]

I was expecting Advance Wars, as I've already stated.

Once it became clear that the game wasn't that, I expected a smoother learning curve. Better in-game instruction. A sense of progression from run to run.

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This is where I disagree. The user interface explains everything you need to know on one screen whether in combat or upgrading your equipment without the need to bombard you with pop ups and tutorials. This is something few games do so well. The sense of progression comes from the experience and a better understanding of the games mechanics from run to run. In terms of actual game progression you can keep one pilot from each failed or successful run that will retain their XP and abilities gained. Also you will eventually start unlocking pilots which have set special abilities. Of course, you would already know this if you kept playing. Have you considered that maybe your misguided expectations have clouded your ability to objectively criticize the developer's intent and quality of the game's design?