I'm a little skeptical of those scores. Some posters on other forums are reporting that the combat is very simplistic and too easy. Supposedly it's even simpler than Halfway. I'm going to hold off buying until I see some more impressions.
That is comment from incompetent players that either grind to cancel any difficulty, either didn't tried anything else than default difficulty, or tried higher difficulty only when already when equipped with a significant amount of Legendary items.
As an exempla for now Vigilentes combats are lame in comparison, I hope it improves later. Expeditions games have lame combats in comparison. Halfway has quite less good and less diversified combats. I won't say Pathway combats match best tactical combats that few games achieved, but they are better than many and much better than those of Halfway. This is hidden because the dev didn't worked enough on difficulty aspects. But then start a profile, and play all adventures at max difficulty since the start and skip lame easy grinding.
One point is a quick list of mechanisms used by the games:
- Cover/Half Cover/Full obstacle/Side step shoot/Range/Hit chance/Line of sight/Fog of war/HP/Armour/Evade/AOE/Critical/Double shots/Grenade/Heal kit/Armour repair kit/Overwatch for Sniper/Sprint/Crouch/Trench/Bleeding/Sticky/Armour piercing/Barrels exploding.
- Two phase movements move and action in any order, or two actions but not two shoots nor two moves.
- Damages types with different efficiencies against HP and armour.
- Pistols/Shotguns/Assault Rifles/Sniper Rifles/Energy Weapons/Blade Weapons.
- Weapons varying from classic parameters range/clip size/precision/special attack/damages type/for some an attribute penalty.
- No timers which is in fact more a rarity.
- Sneaky progression, it's only possible in some combats or contexts, and it is based on not be seen by any enemy.
To highlight some aspects most players that did only a quick run of all adventures didn't noticed:
Sneaky progression.
The game has sneaking aspect, not stealth. It works through not be seen by any enemy. Then enemies Ai have different behaviors, some like dogs just don't move at all, some will make a slow cautious progression to last position seen, some will do a sort of random small patrolling, some will rush once to last position seen but will stop is there's still no party detected.
Agro
There are some aggro management but I haven't yet decipher yet the rules or if some random variations are involved. The most clear example are the dogs, but I don't have a constant clear rule. It's like if most often, they target in priority only characters they have seen attack an ally, and they'll ignore other characters.
But there are other cases I noticed because I played quite a lot Shani which is a close range only character i tend use as a gambit, and still noticed weird case where she just be ignored despite a close target.
Event choice and combat start setup consequence
I can't say choices in events is the strong point of the game, but many events will involve a three choice possibilities:
- Ignore and continue.
- Take a random risk, if succeed get reward and no combat, if failed get a combat start more surrounded.
- Attack and get a combat start less surrounded.
Enemies with different AI
It's not about playing like against humans, no game achieve it anyway. it's about noticing some specific enemies behaviors to exploit the through small tactical choices, some examples:
- Some units will flee if too much damaged.
- Some units will be much more cautious from player characters position threaten. That is position of you characters will tend block many more positions to those units.
- Some units will lost their attack to heal them in priority.
- Some units cannot jump above walls, for example some maps allow ignore dogs during multiple turns.
- Some units will be more cautious and stay in background, waiting a better opportunity, when some units will rush in priority to attack.
- Some units exploit covers in priority, some units don't.
- Some units will never move if they are threatened by an overwatch, some will always more, and for some it depends.
- Some more.
Difficulties change the game
It not just more or less difficult it's gameplay aspects are changed from Normal difficulty to Max combats difficulty (for ammo/fuel setup the influence is more minor). At max difficulty ammo management makes sense very often, at Normal difficulty it's very rare. At max difficulty, many combats are deeply changed because units you can one shot kill are more rare or involve some/more gambling. I discovered the sneaky aspects at max difficulty, and this becomes important only at max difficulty.
No it's not just HP, Armor and damages
I haven't read that many wrong comments on a tactical game. I would admit the dev are involved in the problem by not offering clear difficulty levels, and even a max difficulty higher, and by having a default difficulty a bit too low for a tactical game.
It seems have push many players to superficial conclusions, and particularly that only HP/Armor and Damages count. It's total non sense, mobility, precision, bravery, range and tactical possibilities linked to weapons types are very important. The only two aspects I wonder about are critical chance and damages, Endurance for KO duration before death, and Energy weapons real utility.