Patch Notes for the Upcoming Stormgate Beta Phase

We made this change because the previous iteration of the Brute/Fiend mechanic felt extremely binary (100% benefit vs 0% benefit = 100% difference) due to how much of the Brute's power was gated behind whether you could hit the Z button on time. We found this approach to be extremely unfriendly to newer players, especially as a core mechanic on a tier 1 unit. Many playtesters internally could literally not play our game because the early-game was balanced around this mechanical skillcheck, and this is not the direction we want to head towards for an approachable game. Instead, we want the skill expression of this ability to be focused on the decision-making, i.e. when you decide to split your Brutes rather than if you can split them on time.

We considered a few options to address this including on-death you gain 1 fiend (100% vs 50% benefit = 50% difference) and on-death you gain 2 fiends (100% benefit vs near-100% benefit = 0% difference). We primarily went with the 2-Fiend approach in order to push the boundaries and gauge both feedback and how games played out in this completely opposite direction. (Note that you still want to manually split Brutes vs Vanguard to deny Veterancy.)

I don't think either solution is perfect yet.

My current thinking is that there's probably an ideal target % difference in the benefit you gain from the skill expression of hitting the button. At this ideal level, it not an instant loss if you don't engage with the mechanic, but you do feel a reward for showing off that skill. My gut is that that number is probably in the realm of 100% vs 80-90% or 10%-20% difference. Obviously, you can't do that with discrete numbers of Fiends, so we'd have to be a bit more creative with the solution.

yep, something like that!