0030096: Morale Damage Ideas - Arcen Idea Tracker (Bugs and Features)

ID	Project	Category		Date Submitted	Last Update

0030096	Heart Of The Machine	Gameplay Idea		Dec 11, 2024 10:02 pm	Dec 21, 2024 7:23 pm

Reporter	Mason Jar	Assigned To	Chris_McElligottPark
Status	acknowledged	Resolution	open
Product Version	0.600.6 Localization Fixes

Summary	0030096: Morale Damage Ideas
Description	Was suggested I bring these here. Just a few thoughts on how to make morale damage a little more interesting and different from the standard kill style; you may have already thought of these, but at the least I didn't see any other posts mentioning them. Morale damage should be AoE by default: Higher damage to the primary target, lesser damage to everyone else around. One person being directly intimidated/reasoned with is going to be a bit more terrified/convinced, but everyone else around witnessing it shouldn't necessarily be excluded (unless via some sort of specific effect? Might be too punishing on morale builds, though. Perhaps a malus for elite forces or provided by "officer-type" units keeping the rest in line, but never a full immunity). The dropoff would also create the feel of a "chain rout" wherein once you've broken the will of one or two people, it's significantly easier to get the rest to run. Human psychology is weird like that; you have to be extremely disciplined to not be affected by seeing someone running away screaming or walking away from the fight you were all pretty sure you were going to commit to. The last addition to this train of thought was a "brutalize" type skill that lethally takes down someone in such a way as to provoke direct morale damage on everyone else around. Make an example of one to frighten the many. The Grand Mugwump — Today at 6:43 PM "[...] I personally think the morale system would be great if it worked like the "break" system in other games. When a unit's morale breaks, they stop acting against the player for a turn or two and take bonus damage. Or something like that. I do like the mental image of a squad's cohesion going to heck when three super human androids team up on them at the same time." The above came up while I was writing this ticket, so, sorry for the somewhat hacky inclusion. But I figure it's an idea as good as any, with the caveat that this would obviously make non-lethal morale damage approaches impossible. There is, of course, the remedy of simply making it a "lesser break" before a full rout, and then this idea would make mixed morale-HP damage builds viable at no cost to other builds and a decent buff to morale-centric builds. There is another caveat to keep in mind with the mixed approach though: Quickdraw6 — "Would depend heavily on the numbers, I imagine. Denying everything a turn gives you space to deal that much more damage, but if you could've just killed them all directly in the turn before, then there wasn't much point to it." Whether or not that kind of number crunching is worth the effort, I can't say.
Tags	No tags attached.

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
Dec 11, 2024 10:02 pm	Mason Jar	New Issue
Dec 11, 2024 10:09 pm	Mason Jar	Description Updated
Dec 21, 2024 7:23 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Assigned To	=> Chris_McElligottPark
Dec 21, 2024 7:23 pm	Chris_McElligottPark	Status	new => acknowledged