The game is too biased towards Negotiations

[SoM]

I think I have a battle "oriented" run (go for all the battle grafts early on and train my pet asap) where I ever only fought 8 battles and 24 negotiations, because currently there's very little advantage to solve some encounters with battle instead of negotiation. And most battle quests/encounters can have 2 or 3 chances for negotiation before 1 combat.

Now, in many RPG games, diplomacy/negotiation options might be viable, or give additional benefits either on the rewards or the following combats, but in Griftlands Negotiation itself is a form of combat, so it could feel tiring pretty quickly. Don't get me wrong - it's fun to do negotiations and experiment with the violent reputation cards, but when presented with better rewards and less severe ramifications (usually relationship changes and thus difficulties later on), there's little incentive to do more battle than negotiations.

I can see how Resolve loss/gain might affect the balance in higher difficulties, but in the first few runs it definitely feels there's more emphasis on the Negotiation part. Thoughts?

[flaminghito]

Well, there's always going to be the boss battles that require you to have a minimum strength. So I think it's fine if there are more negotiations by number than battles; the higher stakes means you neglect your battle deck or anything like that.What I DO think is probably an issue is that negotiations are so easy at present - and the resolve recovery after battles so forgiving - that a big amount of game time is spent in this relatively risk-free place.

It would probably be a good balance point if it was something like "It's dangerous to take every fight possible, so negotiation is vital; but it's important to be smart about what negotiations you DO take, because you can't survive all of them." And that would be fine whether or not you ended up doing more negotiations than battles. But since currently, it's easy to reach a place where you take negligible resolve damage from a majority of negotiations, I agree that it's probably a little over-tuned.

[rivercityransom]

Yes, I always find myself negotiating far more than doing battle in any given run. The main problem with battles is that they're very dependent on whether you have some allies or not. If not, there's a decent chance you'll die in combat encounters that pit you against multiple opponents with 100+ HP. By comparison, negotiations are always relatively fair and don't punish you very much for losing them, so there's no real reason not to go for them at every opportunity. Plus, negotiations decks come together far more easily than battle decks for me, though that may be a result of focusing on negotiations every time.

I think one thing that would help make negotiations harder is not having damage "spill over" after destroying arguments. For example, playing a 6-damage card on an opposing 4-resolve argument shouldn't result in the remaining 2 damage being dealt to the opponent's main resolve stack. As it is, there's very little reason not to go for the opposing arguments at every opportunity, short of having lethal already.

[SoM]

11 hours ago, flaminghito said:

Well, there's always going to be the boss battles that require you to have a minimum strength. So I think it's fine if there are more negotiations by number than battles; the higher stakes means you neglect your battle deck or anything like that.What I DO think is probably an issue is that negotiations are so easy at present - and the resolve recovery after battles so forgiving - that a big amount of game time is spent in this relatively risk-free place.

It would probably be a good balance point if it was something like "It's dangerous to take every fight possible, so negotiation is vital; but it's important to be smart about what negotiations you DO take, because you can't survive all of them." And that would be fine whether or not you ended up doing more negotiations than battles. But since currently, it's easy to reach a place where you take negligible resolve damage from a majority of negotiations, I agree that it's probably a little over-tuned.

That may be what's closer to the game right now, but the game itself definitely tries to present them as equal. 

I guess I just don't like how frequently there is Negotiation and how it's usually the best option available, while battles are hard to come by. I'm okay with the "building up for a final high-stake battle encounter" thing if there are more chances for low-stake battles as well. (Also ironically some main story high-stake battles like the Assassin and the ship fight are fixed with no option to mitigate its difficulty)

[TimeCookie]

I think the other way around. I tried to focus on upgrading my combat deck after I couldn't stand a chance twice against Shroog and went quite succesful by killing everyone as well as sparing them on different runs. 

You can still use resolve to get some perks here and there and restore it with combat. While if you only use your negotiating deck you might run out of resources.

[jasconine]

I prefer combat and end up with 30+ combat cards at current end-game. My negotiations deck is closer to 20. The variance is probably due to the prodcedural nature of the quests and also which options you choose during the quests that allow for combat/alternatives. I only had 1 game out of 100 that seemed to be biased towards negotiations.

I am playing the experimental build where resolve loss and health is at a premium, so a good combat deck reduces the need to pander to anyone you come across =D

[Alerter]

In my recent playthroughs I did almost 0 negotiations. Only a few in the beginning. And then I gave up on negotiations, even for the extra payment. All bosses are killed in solo, can even take 4 enemies at the time. Simply put, the discard mechanic is op. I had 13+ people who hated me in the end (not to mention all of those who were killed) and 0 friends. Having 4+ whispered rumors is kinda fun if you ask me

[SoM]

3 hours ago, Alerter said:

In my recent playthroughs I did almost 0 negotiations. Only a few in the beginning. And then I gave up on negotiations, even for the extra payment. All bosses are killed in solo, can even take 4 enemies at the time. Simply put, the discard mechanic is op. I had 13+ people who hated me in the end (not to mention all of those who were killed) and 0 friends. Having 4+ whispered rumors is kinda fun if you ask me

Interesting, I'll try to have one run like this, though it will feel a bit bad to purposely choose unoptimal actions. Plus I think you only get extra unlock experience with people who Love you, and not people who hate you? I think that (or people killed) should count towards experience too.

4 hours ago, jasconine said:

I prefer combat and end up with 30+ combat cards at current end-game. My negotiations deck is closer to 20. The variance is probably due to the prodcedural nature of the quests and also which options you choose during the quests that allow for combat/alternatives. I only had 1 game out of 100 that seemed to be biased towards negotiations.

I am playing the experimental build where resolve loss and health is at a premium, so a good combat deck reduces the need to pander to anyone you come across =D

I feel tweaking Resolve loss/gain numbers will affect the situation a bit. Experiment build has reduced Resolve gain with battle victories right? Seem to remember getting 8~12 Resolve before while it's now often 3~5 Resolve.

[pacovf]

I think the resolve gain after combat depends on how much resolve you are missing. I consistently get more resolve back when I am out or almost out.