Lunatic+ changes

[Slinky]

I love a good challenge but i always thought Lunatic+ was poorly designed... A lot of the time you loose before the battle has even started because of how all the abilities are randomized and you end up having to reset because all of the mages have vantage+ and all the archers have counter...

What do you guys think Lunatic+ should have been? Or are you happy with how Lunatic+ turned out?

[Shengar]

I guess they need to make adjustment on which skills should appear on certain enemy type. Like, I'm fine with barbarian have Counter or Knight with Aegis+ but Archer with Counter or Luna+ and Hawkeye combination is pure cheating. The extra skills addition is good, but with hax skills being randomly appear on any unit, that is badly designed.

[Airship Canon]

I think that it's poorly designed for Classic mode, but works great with Casual,as with Cas, you can play it like it's a pile of trial maps, not a brutal masochistic beatdown. It's really quite fun honestly, and I do enjoy the random combos.

However, I'd have preferred it, if instead of the skills being randomly assigned on site, each map had a multitude of layouts (There's at least 25 different beatable layouts for the prologue alone), that when you make your first attempt is selected, and resetting doesn't change which layout you got (so that way, it's you try until you succeed with what you got, not "Oh hey, Hawkeye Hammertime, Reset".)

I also think that there should be a "Hard+" and "Normal+" mode, where the L+ skills are present, but you're not getting the Lunatic stat slam on top of it.

I guess they need to make adjustment on which skills should appear on certain enemy type. Like, I'm fine with barbarian have Counter or Knight with Aegis+ but Archer with Counter or Luna+ and Hawkeye combination is pure cheating. The extra skills addition is good, but with hax skills being randomly appear on any unit, that is badly designed.

I fear more the Silver Axe Barbarian with Hawkeye/Counter than the Silver Bow Hawkeye/Counter Archer. Really. Archers with Counter aren't much of an issue. (I've no problem, 9/10, facetanking Counter damage (facetanking counter is always done at the start of a turn, so I can heal after) but getting counterpunched (attacked at range 1 by a counter user)? Now that's deadly.)

Hawkeye/Luna+ hurts no matter who has it.

Edited July 31, 2013 by Airship Canon

[Shengar]

Yeah, dying just because you retaliate an enemy attack pretty pisses me off. I think Counter itself need some rework, or at least Counter+ where the skill only activate on opponent phase, not both.

[1% critted]

Airship_Canon nailed it for me. Just make it less random so that the early chapters are more accessible, it's what prevents me from replaying the mode often.

[Tomichael]

I never met an enemy with Counter before, in Lunatic+. I just saw Hawkeye, Luna+ & Vantage+, and alone, those were just too tough.

[Tables]

The first three chapters only have Pass, Luna+, Hawkeye and Vantage+

[Interceptor]

What do you guys think Lunatic+ should have been? Or are you happy with how Lunatic+ turned out?

I generally enjoy Lunatic+. I like where they were going with it (unravel vanilla strategies that work in other modes, make every chapter newly different), I just think that there are some issues with it.

The early chapters are too punishing because of Luna+ density. I would have liked to see them introduce Aegis+ and Pavise+ earlier than Chapter 3, to smooth out the curve a bit. Also acceptable would be to limit the early enemies to a single Lunatic+ skill rather than two of them. For Chapter 2 especially.

The other problem is Counter, which serves its purpose in small doses (preventing a super-unit from man-moding the entire map), but it's a meatcleaver (as KTT once put it) that quickly makes chapters effectively impossible when you have a map with high Counter density. I'd like to see Lunatic+ where there was some sort of limiter on the percentage of enemies that could spawn with that skill, or a reduced-effect version. If we assume that all skills have an equal chance of showing up, this implies that there is almost a 30% chance that a particular unit will have Counter. This is too high, in my opinion.

[Shengar]

I generally enjoy Lunatic+. I like where they were going with it (unravel vanilla strategies that work in other modes, make every chapter newly different), I just think that there are some issues with it.

The early chapters are too punishing because of Luna+ density. I would have liked to see them introduce Aegis+ and Pavise+ earlier than Chapter 3, to smooth out the curve a bit. Also acceptable would be to limit the early enemies to a single Lunatic+ skill rather than two of them. For Chapter 2 especially.

The other problem is Counter, which serves its purpose in small doses (preventing a super-unit from man-moding the entire map), but it's a meatcleaver (as KTT once put it) that quickly makes chapters effectively impossible when you have a map with high Counter density. I'd like to see Lunatic+ where there was some sort of limiter on the percentage of enemies that could spawn with that skill, or a reduced-effect version. If we assume that all skills have an equal chance of showing up, this implies that there is almost a 30% chance that a particular unit will have Counter. This is too high, in my opinion.

That's really interesting point. It forces you play smartly but in kinda wrong way since you will pretty much screwed up if there is no bow user in your team. I guess this "super-unit-prevention" is necessary and a good idea. It just need some tweaking to make feels less "cheap" measure.

[Saethori]

I always felt the issue wasn't with Lunatic+... but with Counter. Dealing bonus damage because the unit attacked and was counter-attacked runs antithetical to the flavor of Counter, and contributes to the biggest issue with Luna+; dying on enemy phases merely because your unit was too strong.

...It could also have stood to be a little closer to its RD incarnation; Skill% based and/or only half damage reflected.

Counter is literally the only difficulty I have with Lunatic+. Aegis, Pavise, whatever, throw them at me, I'm fine with that. But every map, I need to stop and mark every enemy with Counter so it doesn't outright slaughter me.

[Airship Canon]

Counter... really isn't a defensive skill, else it'd be able to kill on the defense, which it can't. (If your HP is Higher Than or Equal to the Counter User's, Counter can never kill you. (No, Lethality -> Miracle Counter does not kill. It deals Enemy's Current HP - 1 to you.)) (Counter in PoR/RD was a -complete- joke, and Aurora was far too weak (only enemies with Aurora couldn't attack, it dealt Half Damage...))

It's a lethal offensive skill (when on units with no Range 2, if they have Range 2, you can use lures to bait them into Range 2)- and the biggest trick I found to dealing with high counter density? Trade out unit weapons: Have the unit(s) that will be facing counter(s) unable to attack. This does not imply use of Archers either. I can easily rob a unit of their weapons via trade, regardless of their class, and frequently used Kellam and Fred as counter-tanks due to their innate beefiness that allowed them to survive enemy attacks, while not being equipped allowed them to not face Counter.

...

I would've liked to see some type of purely Defensive Counter: "Always reflects Melee Damage when attacked, even if the User is Killed." (In short, it only works on Player Phase (sorta like Vantage(+)) but if you Melee it, you can't facetank it- it'll kill you outright in return. Now that on a Hawkeye Archer would be interesting.)

[Slinky]

I never really thought of redesigning counter... I always hated how it still activates when you counter attack a physical unit with a Tome at range 1.

[Airship Canon]

I never really thought of redesigning counter... I always hated how it still activates when you counter attack a physical unit with a Tome at range 1.

The point of Counter is to weaken the effectiveness of Enemy Phase killing, while at the same time, providing it's user a massive offensive boost. It's one of the best ahem, counters, to EPH, which is a huge problem in terms of difficulty balance.

Strategically, you'd want counterpunchers to attack units that cannot fight back at Range 1 so they don't activate counter and kill you.

This creates the idea of taking a beefy unit like Kellam or Fred and and putting them in the way of Counter users, and and taking their weapons off them. Tome users shouldn't be exposed to counter users.

[Zerker]

not a brutal masochistic beatdown

And because it's not, I'm not a huge fan of Lunatic+.

Also, Lunatic+ enemies still don't have all of the skills they're supposed to according to their levels and classes, and that pisses me off for some reason.

[FishyFried]

I thought Lunatic chapter 1-4 was hard. Lunatic+ is like slamming yourself with a sledgehammer. Kudos to anybody with the patience to beat it~

[PKL]

It's the worst work IS has done in a game thus far. Lazily designed, random skills and stupidity everywhere you look. Chapter 2 is the most mindless thing I've ever seen.