An incredibly long, thorough, and introspective set of patch notes

So, there's a lot about the state of Glory of Combat that's been bugging me for a while. It's been hard to really articulate for me, because game design is always more nuanced than simple fixes, and finding the real problem can be harder than it seems. I spent a lot of time this past month reflecting on my various other interests, like competitive Pokemon and fighting games, wondering what I was really missing about myself in my own work.

As fun as it is to use, Hyperfox (abusing Fight or Flight to have Fox make multiple moves on the attacking turn, ideally combined with an Archer to deal significant damage by turn 2) presents a real design problem. Fox and Hyper-Longshot are special because their purpose is to hit you without needing to work much for it. There's a commitment there, yes, but the high reward comes at basically minimal cost. Hyperfox is a uniquely dangerous blend of easy to set up, hard to counter, and highly effective, that has made it synonymous with Glory of Combat's identity in a way that no longer feels fun. The best way to deal with Fox is usually just to have another Fox on your team! While a unit that can literally teleport will always be strong, having one class be necessary to build your entire team around using and countering it destroys the health of the entire game.

But then, maybe "health" is an overrated concept. It's probably better that the meta favors high movement right now, because a high-movement game with a lot of space to cover is one that gives you a lot of options. If defensive playstyles were just as viable as rushdown, would that make a better game, or would stalling ruin the experience for a lot of people? People often treat "balance" as the true goal of a game, but should higher risk not be granted higher reward? If a hard-to-use character dominates the higher levels of play, is that not the skill curve working as intended?

But, these questions serve to obfuscate something about this game that I needed time to really see. A lot of this game's design doesn't work, at least half the cast has some glaring problem that needs fixing, and the fact that some characters are either unused or unusable isn't a fun quirk of game design. Even the most offense-oriented game should have defensive options that work, imagine a fighting game where you can't block! Medic sucks, no one uses Barbarian, Greatshield is barely anything meaningful. This next patch can't just be a nerf to Hyperfox, it has to be a substantial change to nearly every class in the game. I have to find Glory of Combat's identity and make it as loud and clear as I can.

Now then, with that out of the way... Let's get going.

Archer

Broadly, this is one of the more uncontroversial classes in GoC. It's generally not thought to be over or underpowered, but it feels clunky to use. It's gonna be important to say up front that many of the changes I'll be making in this patch will be for reasons other than balance. Rider's getting a buff, and I already think Rider is a top-tier unit. The point of changes like these are quality of life, to make the game feel better and to better define the character. I largely hope to address all of the complaints I've seen about Archer, and I can't wait to spawn some new ones with these changes.

MOV is reduced from 6 to 4, and Archer can now use all of their MOV before Attacking.

This is a straightforward buff to Archer's range, it can now catch up to a PegaKnight that used all of its movement, and extends a bit past the range that a Longshot would reach. Sometimes an Archer will be presented with the choice to either lose their position to damage someone from afar or use one of the Longshots to deal damage from closer range. This choice was actually in an earlier version before I buffed Longshot's max range to 6. You might be wondering something about this change, so let me clear up your concerns now.

Archer now has a Jump skill that lets them gain +2 movement and ignore terrain penalties.

If you miss that extra 2 MOV from before, you can get it back at the cost of your action for that turn. This does mean that you have to choose between drawing your bow and getting that extra movement, which means that going for an early Hyper-Longshot might cost you some positional advantage down the line. It is a nerf to Draw Bow, but one that adds a new dimension to the way they play. Also, the ability to jump over a tile of terrain is really valuable, and I can't wait to see what wacky plays people go for with that.

Draw Bow is no longer a skill, instead the two Longshot skills clarify that if it's Turn 1, the Archer used a skill last turn, or the Archer used MOV this turn, they will not be usable.

This means that instead of using Draw Bow, you prepare your Longshots by waiting for that turn. The bow-drawing is implicit, and you can still say that the Archer draws their bow if that's what you want.

Barbarian

To be honest, this class is the one that's bugged me the most for a long time. I've always seen Barbarian as the grappler of GoC: They are inconsistent, but they strike fear into the enemy's hearts. The threat that a Barbarian could walk up to you and deal 40 damage with a basic attack would make you run scared, and that fear could be exploited to deal a sure and devastating blow. But that's not really what's happened. People aren't picking Barbarian, because 1) the chance to deal literally 4 damage with your most powerful attack is discouraging, 2) on average the basic attack deals less damage than most good damage-dealers, and 3) in a high-movement meta it can take agonizingly long for a 5-MOV Barbarian to actually get a hit in. When even Morgyn, the player who I know as the player who likes big numbers and silly plays, thinks this class is underpowered, I have a problem here.

And I think what it comes down to is that the Barbarian doesn't have a solid "win condition" the way every other damage unit does. With Archer, your goal is to cover space, to find that perfect drawing area where the enemy is forced to step into your Longshot range. With PegaKnight, wearing multiple enemies down to end with a powerful Galeforce chain is one of the most devastating and hype victories you can get in this game. But while Barbarian has a unique movement ability in Piracy, its actual win condition is "roll high." And, you know, you can't control that! Removing this class's volatility or making it faster than other infantry units would take away what makes it special, downsides and all. But there needs to be a way for a good Barbarian player to deal consistent damage that isn't just psychological. I'm not sure if this solution will work, we'll have to try it, but you've gotta respect me for going for it.

HP is increased from 60 to 80.

My reasons will become clear very soon.

Attack and Final Blow no longer ignore barriers.

Bear with me here.

Piracy now removes movement penalties from Water.

This whole skill feels very wonky to me, because there are a good few maps where water is either minimal or nonexistent, but people play Lord on Defense so maybe a situational skill isn't *awful* design.

Final Blow costs 20 HP instead of killing the user.

I figure if it's inconsistent, it shouldn't be a death knell.

Shove is no longer usable.

It was supposed to be used for breaking up formations, low-damage Reaction fuel, and some shenanigans on maps with Abyss. But its presence didn't do much for making Barbarian feel more fleshed out or worth using. It was, at the end of the day, a weaker and still inconsistent attack.

A new Rage Mode skill has replaced it. It can only be used if the Barbarian doesn't use MOV that turn, and it costs 80 HP to use, but until the end of the user's next turn, they are unable to die, any negative HP can be healed to prevent death, and any attack the Barbarian uses will deal maximum damage, negating defensive boosts from Fortune or Charisma as well as barriers like Protect and Greatshield.

This is the Barbarian's win condition. Get too close to them and they Will kill you. This is a commitment on several levels, if you don't have proper healing it will definitely kill your Barbarian, but this gives Mend, Fortify, and Charisma's healing boost clear proactive uses. This class still requires getting into a good range to make the most of it, but that commitment makes victory all the sweeter.

Fox

Let me put the one change I am making to Fox in this patch up front:

Fight or Flight no longer gives the unit an extra turn, upon taking damage the Fox can use this skill to EITHER use Warp or Attack.

The rest of this section will be explaining how significant that change is.

Fox is the single most dominating unit in Glory of Combat, it *is* the meta. Of course, any character with a free-action warp is going to be powerful in a game with such an emphasis on positioning. But that's part of the fun of Glory of Combat, right? The way every unit embodies the extreme end of their own playstyle. It might feel like too much power for one character to have, but it's also engaging to figure out how to deal with it. From the moment the match begins, a Fox's opponent is thinking about defense, minimizing the damage and making sure the initial hit doesn't give them too great of an advantage. And it's not like attacking with Fox comes without disadvantages, either. The damage is not great, (its maximum is less than a lot of classes' minimums) and the Fox has low HP, making it not too hard to kill.

Although, there is one feature of Fox that makes killing it insufferable: a reaction skill called Fight or Flight. Whenever the Fox takes damage, they get another turn, including a Warp and a potential attack. This trickster kitsune will always slip out of your fingers when you think you've got them, and if they feel feisty they can punish your attack with one of their own. They embody the hit-and-run character, designed to deal weak damage and pester you. Now, you can counter Fox with a defensive playstyle, and Wizard's Silence ablity can negate Fight or Flight and leave them wide open for a shanking. That kind of counterplay is good for the game, it means that the community is evolving. And a game like this, small as it is, really benefits from people pushing it forward. But a few months ago, when I played with a Fox against Renn, the top player at the time, I created a new species of play that leeched off the life of every other.

The play (highly abridged version) was simple.

Turn 1, Draw Bow with my Archer. This opens them up to use Hyper-Longshot, a single-use ability with infinite range, next turn. This was a pretty big map, so it was going to be a few turns before we entered The Clash.

Turn 2, use my Soldier to attack my Fox, yes, attack *my own* Fox. This activates Fight or Flight and lets them take an extra turn to attack Renn's Pegasus Knight, before using their actual turn to attack the PegaKnight again. My Archer uses Hyper-Longshot to hit the PK for super-effective damage, killing it on turn 2.

Now I lost that match, because being a game designer does not mean being good at your own game. But that match was spectated by Ella, who went on to push Fox to its limits and become the new dominant player. This exact play, and the general concept of attacking your own Fox to get an extra turn, has been dubbed "Hyperfox." It's very fun, but also very difficult to counter. Even if you have a Wizard to use Silence, the opposing Fox can just use their extra turn to escape your range. Really, the best way to counter a Fox is to bring your own, and I hope I don't have to explain why that's a problem? 

I've explained this on the Discord already, soI'll try to explain as quickly as I can my reason for not just embracing Hyperfox. There's a concept that's common to fighting games, but applicable to most competitive games with movement, called "neutral." This is the phase where neither player is within striking distance, and both are playing cat-and-mouse to get the first hit. Fox and Hyper-Longshot skip that phase, but theoretically they're balanced by not putting the enemy at *too* much of a disadvantage. It's hard to qualify what "disadvantage" means in a tactics game, but I would broadly equate it with damage control. You've been hit, so how do you respond? Are you set up to block it, or are your weakest units vulnerable? Do you have healing to recover it? How do you maintain your own momentum while not getting killed?

The problem with Hyperfox is that it wins neutral *and* puts the enemy at a major disadvantage. It's enough to kill a PegaKnight on Turn 2, and that unit has fairly high HP. As fun as it is to exploit mechanics and break the game, the Hyperfox meta as it stands reflects a low point for Glory of Combat. It feels weird to say as the one who introduced the strategy, but the point of Fox was never to be a top-tier attacker. Hopefully this nerf that makes Fight or Flight's skill truer to its name won't be received too badly. Let's make a new future, alright?

Guardian

This class is fairly controversial. It's one of the classes that I knew from the start had to be in the game. But in practice, Guardian hasn't been used much, because a unit that can only protect allies and has the lowest movement stat a unit can have doesn't feel very useful in a high-offense meta. I saw it as potential for a defensive setup, but as Renn demonstrated in several matches against Ella, defensive setups aren't viable in this version of the game.

Now, I stressed a lot about whether this was acceptable or even good for the game. Like, the fact that high mobility and offense are so powerful makes every match feel intense and engaging. Do I want to make stalling more viable? Would that make the game fun for people? Or would players lose interest as matches take way longer to finish than anybody has fun with? Nobody likes the camper, the one who refuses to engage and gets to a place where anyone who tries gets punished. Do I want to make the next 20FF, where everyone plays Guardian and no one has fun?

But, no. Defensive play is as valid a playstyle as any other, and the fact that there's no way to do it reflects a real problem. Guardian sucks because it can only do one thing, and having a meat shield to block damage for somebody else isn't really worth a whole unit. So let's take some meat off that shield, and give the Guardian a real one to use.

Guardian's HP has been reduced from 125 to 80.

 This is enough for max-damage Final Blow to kill, but now that Barbarian's basic attacks don't ignore Greatshield, if you get hit by that, then you messed up somewhere.

Greatshield can now be used once a turn rather than once a battle, and replenishes at the start of the Guardian's turn.

Any time the Guardian gets attacked, you have the choice after seeing the diceroll of whether *this* is the damage you block this turn. This maintains the class's difficulty to kill, but in a more proactive way. Guardian is still ultimately a slow character whose main function is to not die and shield allies from attacks, but hopefully this buff will set a precedent to let defense flourish in the new meta.

Lord

Not many changes needed I don't think, this is a solid class that everyone seems to like! The one change that I've made is repositioning the skills so that Charisma comes before Capture. This is just to communicate that Charisma is an important part of Lord's kit and is not to be underestimated. Lord on Defense has been valuable in skilled hands, so I hope that more people try adopting it into their playstyles going forward.

Medic

It really stuck with me how consistently people said that Medic sucked. What it came down to every time was that none of this class's skills felt worth it. It's a healing class, that can't even recover a single hit's worth of damage. It can double an ally's diceroll values, once, for one turn, which still doesn't guarantee that the roll will be good. Really the main use for a Medic has been Sacrifice, giving up its own short life to resurrect a dead unit. This feels bad. It feels really bad, because, you know, I love support units! I feel like if the game was just about dealing damage then it would be worse, even if it was more engaging on a surface level. Healing and support should matter, but not in a way that makes Medic a requirement for any team to win. This doctor needs a new purpose in life, so let's give them one.

HP increased from 33 to 60.

This class will need to be on the front lines to succeed, so being able to take a good few hits will be valuable. It still takes the lowest damage from any attack, giving it a resistance to more volatile units but a weakness to consistently high damage.

Sacrifice has been removed from this unit, at least for now.

The implication that Medic was a unit designed to die troubled me, so I hope you understand this removal. While Sacrifice was cool as a clutch play, and I might bring it back, I want players to unlearn the idea that Medic's role is to die and bring a better unit back.

Medic now has a basic attack that deals D10 damage and replenishes their limited-use abilities.

The narrative justification for this is that the Medic is limited on supplies, and needs to extract blood to make their supplements. This weak attack also works as fuel for reaction abilities, so that's fun!

Mend now heals 20 HP instead of 10, but it's limited to 2 uses.

I feel like if healing was all this class did it would be kind of boring, so now to continue healing you have to deal some damage first. Reminder that you can still attack allies! <3

Adrenal now has 2 uses instead of 1.

This means that rather than a single game-changer, it's a consistent attack buff you can apply, which is proportional to the effect it actually has. Doubling die-rolls has the chance to do something amazing, but in practice it's just a way to tip the scales ever so slightly. This new Medic's described purpose is "For taking blood and giving it back," and I hope that this new gimmick can finally make Medic cool and fun to use.

Pegasus Knight

No changes.

This kind of surprised me, PegaKnight seems to be fine and everyone likes it. What am I supposed to say here? The one thing I've always thought was kind of clunky is the way that Archers deal double damage against them. It's such a specific and forced weakness that it makes the game design intentions obvious. Archer isn't a counter to PegaKnight due to the subtle interactions between mechanics, but a literal damage bonus designed just for interactions between these two units. I felt the same kind of weirdness about situational skills like Piracy and Capture, as well as attacks that negate Guardian's defense. But, no one complains about Archer's damage bonus against fliers. If anything, it's what makes this class work. So I guess it's okay to embrace artifice in the future, and lean into the fact that this is a game I am designing to be fun. Cool, moving on.

Rider

It's hard defining tier rankings in a game with so few characters and a low sample size for usage data, but I would absolutely put Rider as solidly one of the best characters in Glory of Combat. Having high enough movement to break through the enemy's guard and the bulk to take a good few hits, Rider is a consistently good unit who always has utility on the battlefield. While its attack is weak, it serves as something of a tank with its Rescue skill. Instead of guarding an ally who stays in place, the Rider carries the ally with them, and can use their high movement to drop them off in a place it would take ages to reach otherwise. It's very handy, it's very Advance Wars, and everybody loves it. So even though this unit definitely doesn't need a buff, I'm going to give them one, because even though Rider's a strong unit, there's one aspect of their playstyle that has always felt bad to use.

After dropping a unit, that unit can either use their MOV or take an action.

Before this, dropping simply used up both of their turns, which I thought was a fair tradeoff. But even so, everyone using a Rider has said that letting go of a unit feels too costly to feel worth the Rescuing. If a skill doesn't feel worth using, even if I can technically prove that it is, that feeling is going to stick in player's minds. So I'm buffing a character that definitely doesn't need to be stronger, because otherwise the game would feel a little bit worse to play.

Soldier

No changes.

This feels weird to me, but I can't really think of a solid reason to nerf Soldier, even if I know the direction it's probably headed. It is true that if you just get Soldier into attacking range, use an attack, and then attack the Soldier twice as Counterattack fuel, you can deal 60 damage at *minimum.* But I also don't see that reward as innately bad, as long as it's hard to set up and has counters, which it does. Soldier only has average movement, Counterattack can be Silenced, and unlike Hyperfox there are ways to win neutral against a Soldier setup. I *might* lower the Soldier's movement to 4 later, but I feel like the Soldier represents a skill check that players will have to learn the game's fundamentals to pass.

Wizard

This feels weird to explain, but Wizard has always been one of the hardest characters to use in Glory of Combat, and that is by design. It's supposed to be the unit that you need to work to make good use of, but when used well can turn the tide of the entire game. Silence is an incredibly powerful tool for countering any unit's nastiest skills, and Push is an incredibly versatile movement tool whose true power can vary based on terrain and the team composition of either player. But I feel like this class's role as a powerful support for advanced players hasn't been properly conveyed. So instead of making it easier to use, I will make it harder. Buckle up.

MOV has been increased from 4 to 5.

The Wizard already can't move and act on the same turn, so I feel it's only fair to give them an average infantry's movement speed to make up for it.

Blast has been removed.

Although I like the idea of a weak area-of-effect attack, there's not really a "good" version of it I can imagine. Either it's too weak to feel worth using, or it's strong enough to make Wizard feel more like a quirky damage-dealer with some support moves on the side. This is not the point of Wizard.

A new skill has been added, Updraft. When used, all units within a 3-space radius of the user, including the Wizard themself, will have the Flying passive until the start of their next turn. This means that they aren't affected by terrain penalties, but also that they take double damage from Archer attacks.

Archer continues to combo well with Wizard, and a well-timed Updraft can make a storm of an offensive front. I want to see the Wizard meta develop more, and I hope this patch can be the start of players' experimentation!

Copycat

Fun fact, this mimicking little meow-meow was Morgyn's idea! The idea of making a character whose sole ability is copying another class presented a lot of unique opportunities for gameplay, and the decision to make Mimic Ally choose the class randomly presented a fun unpredictability at the start of the battle. It felt weird having a diceroll that wasn't just a damage roll or picking turn order, but largely it's been received well by the community. This is a positive sign, and it signals to me that it's okay and even good to break my own rules sometimes.

Copycat will forever be a niche pick, and that's for the best. I think it'd be weird if this class were seen as necessary or overpowered: that kind of sweeping randomness is still not what the game is about, and if it were ever necessary that you have two of the same class I would call that class a problem. Having Mimic Ally be a diceroll and halve the Copycat's health is a suitable tradeoff, but Mimic Enemy is better as a choice for a variety of reasons. It forces a player to not have a team composition that Copycat can exploit, forcing a player to do a D5 roll would be awkward if GoC ever got a physical release, and being enemy-dependent is a fair drawback. But in the case of a map like Breaker's Lament, where the Defender is required to have a specific class in their squad, this gives an unfair advantage to an Attacking Copycat player. I'm hesitant to remove the ability to mimic unique characters like the Princess, so instead I'll give Mimic Enemy a real tradeoff.

Instead of halving the class's HP, Mimic Enemy will put the Copycat at full health, but prevent them from using MOV or skills on even-numbered turns.

This is actually something I wanted to do originally, but hesitated on because it seemed punitive to Copycat players. But the way I see it, if you want the privilege of using the same class twice, you've gotta WORK to make it work. On the opposing side, it's a bit like a boss fight, alternating between calm and storm every turn. This removes a lot of the potential exploits that come with Mimic Enemy, but the full HP brings in new opportunities.

I don't know if this will work to make Copycat a more interesting character, but I certainly want to try. Other potential drawbacks could include constantly losing health, needing a few turns at the start to finish the transformation, being required to use Chaotic Morph on whatever turn, and so on.

The real point here is to avoid the implications that would surround Copycat being top-tier. If a character is so good that the best plan is to have two of them, or that the best way to counter them is to bring a copy, that reflects a poorly balanced metagame. If you're using Copycat, it should be to integrate into your own strategy, not to match what your opponent is doing. Copycat will always have a weird place in the world of Glory of Combat, but hopefully this change can be the start of making that place home.

Princess

It is at this point, doing the patch notes for the last class I need to write up, that I am getting slightly annoyed at this. Why do I write so many words for these?

Okay, so the Princess is in one map right now, the Breaker's Lament. She is the required first unit on the Defender side, and the idea is, if the Attacker kills her, they win. If she stays alive for long enough, the Defender wins. I wanted Princess to be a unique class, to flesh out this character who is technically in the same universe as my other tactics game projects. To make up for her being fixed, I gave the player the choice as to which skills she has. These are mostly passives, but intended to be strong enough that they change the entire match.

To prevent the Attacker from simply counterpicking the Defender, the Princess gets her second skill after both teams are locked down. This means that some skills are "predictive," meaning the Defender picks one expecting the enemy to respond, and some are "reactive," responses to the way the enemy is choosing to play. The change I'm making to Princess is simple:

Empathic Burden (the ability to take half the damage targeted at a nearby ally) and Stifling Aura (prevents enemies within 3 spaces from using Reactions) swap positions, so the former is an option before Attacker picks team comp and the latter is an option after.

This was partly requested by Renn, and I don't think anyone will object to this change. For the record yes, you can still mimic the Princess, that match wasn't a fluke, Renn!

Thank you for reading these patch notes, have a great day!