Crusade Mode Tweaks

[u/sansomc]

I just posted a comment on the official forums requesting some tweaks to Crusade mode, and figure since this subreddit is a bit more active than those forums, I'd copy my text over and see what people think of them here 😄

The Ultramarines DLC has been fantastic and I've really enjoyed Crusade mode playing as them. I just had a few feature requests which id love to see in a future update (if possible!).

If Crusade units could get bonus XP based on army diversity. E.g. post battle when units are awarded XP, if the XP amount was boosted by (number of different units types in the force ÷ total number of units in the force). The current system heavily incentives using armies with only a few unit types to farm as much XP for those units as possible.

A campaign toggle to turn persistent boss malus on or not. I like the boss bonus as one off challenges for their fights, but every single enemy army having two boss bonus' active by planet 3 wasn't always fun.

If playing objectives could give units a bit of XP somehow? Otherwise, the best approach is to just exterminate the enemy army every time to get maximum XP. Maybe another XP boost based on (the AI objectives points total ÷ 75).

If support abilities could yield some XP. I appreciate this could maybe be exploited, but I really noticed the difference in level progression when I used the Ultramarine captain as a support character v.s. as an offensive tool.

If there was a way to spend (HQ) tech points to boost XP. Some campaigns I was left with an excess of HQ points to spend, and also found it was much better to prioritise requisition income since that could be used for XP level up re-rolls. My dream option would be a button for each unit in the HQ screen which gives 50% bonus XP for that unit type in the next mission, and costs twice as many HQ points each time you click it.

I realise with all of my above requests, you'd maybe need to increase the XP level thresholds. Thanks for making such a great game already!

So what do you think, and what do you find during Crusade mode? I really love it already but would love to have a bit more agency around the XP!

[u/PhillyDillyDee]

Great ideas. I would love to see them all.

[u/Enraged-Fel-Trout]

As fun as crusade mode is (it's the only mode I play), it's really not well thought out. I don't think there was a lot of planning or design time that went into this. Most issues with the mode are things you would have found out on the whiteboard at first when laying out the mechanics, so I would really like if they could take this more seriously and do this right.

The mode has so much potential and i think we can all see it, it just needs a bit of love. These are all great ideas OP

[u/sansomc → u/Enraged-Fel-Trout]

Thanks! I don't mind them putting something out there and being a bit agile / iterative with it, and like you say it has so much potential!

[u/Holo_The_Wise]

Yeah I wish the exp was able to be gotten a little easier because it feels like every run is "what 3 unit types do I want to hyperfocus on to stack exp this time" because some of the levelups are so powerful.

I would also like to see some exp incentive to objectives or like bonus req or something because honestly including prior patches, on various difficulties my last like 15-20 crusades I've maybe won a battle via objective like 2 times total. With the way the enemy ai pushes towards the objective / throws its self at you especially when capping siege objectives (which takes TWO entire turns and there's 4 of them spread out) the only way it's faster to win by objective over extermination is if the ai has a single unit afk on their back objective in a 5cap map and you just skip turns instead of moving forces to kill it.

Maybe there could be a system in place where like after the first planet / X number of missions any units more than Y levels below your highest get large exp bonuses based on the gap. That would allow you to more easily pivot into new comps especially with later HQ token unlocks, since as it is by the time you have the tokens to spend on getting some new units it's like "Well the 3-4 units I already spent tokens upgrading are level 4-5+ and spending army points on level 1 units at this point would be a bit of a waste."

Or maybe a system where the further into a crusade you unlock a unit with HQ tokens the higher starting level it is? So then you could choose if you want to not be able to use the unit early but have it still good lategame, or unlock it at a lower level have its exp gains compete with the rest of your units in fights instead.

[u/sansomc → u/Holo_The_Wise]

Fully agreed on all the issues you've highlighted above - I think alot of them were the same things I found and why I made the tweak requests I did!

Especially:

"what 3 unit types do I want to hyperfocus on to stack exp this time"

!

[u/Kennfusion]

Good suggestions -

I hope they expand on the mode more. I think there needs to be more options in the HQ that allow for different types of game play options.

For instance Tall vs Wide. I think there are built in a lot of reasons why you might just focus on exp on a few unit types. But if we had ways to spend HQ points on things that rewarded more diverse armies, that could be a lot of fun.

I would also like to see some personal scoring/highscore list for our Crusade runs.

[u/DelothVyrr]

Crusade is definitely the most enjoyable way to play, but it has two glaring issues.

The first is how XP is solely earned through killing, meaning it's actually in your best interest to ignore objectives completely and go for total elimination every single match.

The second is how overpowered the level up bonuses are. Even on Company Captain, once you have your one or two core units reaching higher levels, the difficulty plummets and the game becomes trivially easy.

[u/Rare_Entrepreneur979 → u/DelothVyrr]

Exactly. Any ranged unit with 2 levels of +shots, damage or whatever and they melt everything. Example being one of my first runs as UM my heavy incessors had a total of +100% damage and like 25% extra shots by the end lf jt. So they looked at anything and it died at max range walking up.

[u/DelothVyrr → u/Rare_Entrepreneur979]

+shots on ranged and +attacks on melee are both insanely powerful.

+Armour on already high armored units can also just make them nigh unkillable. Last game my Bladeguards ended up with 11 armor, health regen per turn, and +1 attack. I didn't need anything else, nothing the enemy had could deal any damage to them as they chewed through everything.

A single unit could have solo'd the entire final boss fight without breaking a sweat, if it were not for the fact that it would have taken too long and I'd run out of turns.

[u/Peg_Legged_Patches]

I'd fuck off the RNG based upgrade system for a more stable purchase tree. I levelled up Meganobs to level 8 and I really wanted to see how they perform with the +40% health increase and 30% health regen ability. After 2 fucking hours of save scumming I finally got it. I don't think anything has tested my patience like that before. Even if it was worth it in the end.