Hopeful suggestions for the betterment of the game.

Let me preface this by saying this game is already amazing and I can't wait to see where you guys are taking it. The amount of depth in the game already is incredible and I have no doubt that with every step further the game will evolve into something so complex that it will be absolutely beautiful. That said, there are a few issues.

First off, let's get something quite silly out of the way. Valkyrie's Exalted talent at level 3. It gives her a +4 WIL bonus while calling miracles... However none of her miracles have a high enough difficulty when compared to her WIL to ever need this. The only time her cast chance will go below 100% (Barring critical failures) is if she's under 10 HP and stunned. This is the only possible scenario. I'm not sure if there needs to be a new talent there, or if her miracles need a higher difficulty, I don't know. But this is a really silly anomaly.

Now, a hot topic. Predator of blood. Every single one of the elite units is simply too strong for it's AP. Some more than others. Right now pred is like a mini Worg with 75% less cost. And though I don't see pred as "Overpowered", he definitely needs to be pushed up in his AP, or a stat nerf. I would suggest moving all of the elites up a notch. Moving skull warrior up to Knight of Lion's AP, 89. Moving knight of lion up to Grave Guardian's AP, 99. Moving Grave guardian up to pred's AP, 109, and moving pred up to somewhere around 120 or 125. Right now all of the units seem simply too good for their AP. (And concerning predator specifically, if you were to not change APs, I think he at least needs to move slightly slower or have lower accuracy, as he not only takes the least damage of all the wolf units, but he also has the highest accuracy which I think is kind of too impressive.)

As a secondary note about elites, I honestly believe they should not be allowed in 200 AP matches. Overall, what you're trading for an elite is strategic options. And at 200 AP you don't have levels, which means you really don't have as many strategic options. In 200 AP the likelihood of a company without an elite unit beating a company with an elite unit is extremely low. Because of this the starter armies would also need to be changed, as at least one of them for each of the factions has an elite unit in it.

Furthermore, the leaderboards really need to be divided up into the different AP caps. Even beyond concerns of 200 AP not being that balanced, we simply need ranking for each AP bracket specifically.

I also believe the option to temporarily disable levels you've taken with a unit should be available to allow people to squeeze their units back into a certain bracket. This is not a respec, so to speak. You would be simply temporarily unleveling your unit, in order of course (You wouldn't be able to remove your level 2 talent while keeping level 3). However I believe respeccing should be available for cyans (I would be fine if it was for cyans only).

Finally, there are a few small things that should be added to aid newbies. Damage calculation should be stated somewhere (Nowhere ingame does it say that damage is 9+DAM-TOU). It should be mentioned on the missions page that missions refresh once a day. You should be able to select and deselect units for skirmishes on your company management screen. And finally, I think the turn limit should be increased to 15 to prevent so many draws.

Thank you for taking the time to read through this, even if you're not associated with the company and just want to see someone's ideas of what's going wrong or what-have-you. I appreciate any and all CIVIL discussion and/or criticism regarding my suggestions.

Cheers,
Insanity

i agree on most points. I thinkthat the issue with PoB is that he can access hard boiled right away. Remove it (with the ability to take it later on) and it is suddenly balanced for 200 AP. Nobody complains about skull warrior at 200 ap because generally nobody has it with hardboiled and is quite easy to handle if surrounded (it is fine that an elite can kill two of your basic units).

about the valkyrie talent, you can add to the equation also lonewolf recovery skill that allows him to generate 4 mana when the most expensive spell is at 3 (and he can cast only 1 spell per turn). As it was mentioned by the devs these talent that are on paper useless might prove to be useful in further update...my wild guess is that we will have global spells that every mage/faithful can take or some kind of equipments in the future

From what I understand no one bothered using pred before he had hard boiled, which is why I was avoiding suggesting that. It probably would be the most ideal change, but I don't know how the unit was before then.

Regarding valk and exalted, thank you for that information.

From what I understand no one bothered using pred before he had hard boiled, which is why I was avoiding suggesting that.

I don't know about before, but yes, that's what I'd do too. Hard boiled as standard skill simply makes it too resilient when it's more or less supposed to be a glass canon with that much damage/Accuracy with average parry.

From what I understand no one bothered using pred before he had hard boiled, which is why I was avoiding suggesting that. It probably would be the most ideal change, but I don't know how the unit was before then.

Regarding valk and exalted, thank you for that information.

before it had access to hardboiled as well but it was not included in its price. Pre-open every wolf player used the grave guardian instead of the PoB as it was better defense-wise (still is) and came with a pseudo-hardboiled (TOU +3 compared to PoB). The GG damage was lower but it was still preferred AP wise.

The most pitiful thing at 200 ap is however the match PoB + hunter vs PoB + hunter. It turns into a dice roll festival and it shows NOTHING of the game other than luck is important.

I feel elites are quite balanced for their ap.

There just aren't enough options for dealing dmg to them in the 200 ap bracket without using an elite of their own, forcing players to either use elites or lose to those who do.

Ram doesn't have this problem, as they can just take ferocious skeletons to deal with elites and leave the Skull at home. However, Lion and Wolf would have to bring an archer, magician of alahan, or a wolven xbow respectively to efficiently dmg an elite and all 3 of them need more protection than you can give them in a 200ap battle.

The simplest fix would be to ban elites from 200 ap battles, to agree with op.