Greetings everyone!
Earlier this week we discussed how you could customize your units that you’ll be able to utilize throughout your campaign in Lost Eidolons. For this blog, we’ll be covering the meat and bones of your gameplay experience–the combat!
As usual, we must leave a disclaimer that visual media shown is not representative of the final game! We’re still polishing everything!
The battle begins before you even take your first turn. The moment you’re able to see the battlefield scenario-the enemies, the terrain, and the hazards-you should be thinking to yourself which of your units you’ll field to tackle the encounter. Picking the right units with the right skills and items will be the key to winning any combat in Lost Eidolons.
Player Actions: Make Your Move
Players will levy combat orders against the opposing force in phases. You’ll issue commands to your units all at once, followed by your allied guest AI if they’re present, followed by the enemy army. A phase ends when all units in a team have taken an action and a round ends when all three phases have ended cycling back to the player.
Visualization of how enemies may react to where you move to.
Actions include attacking, using skills, incanting magic, using an item, exchanging an item from the storage, defending, or waiting. A unit’s turn has ended after taking an action. Units can move before taking an action, however they cannot move after taking an action (there is a skill to allow movement after action however).
There are also certain commands units can perform that won’t end their turn. Such actions include swapping their primary and secondary weapons or mounting/dismounting a horse.
Additionally, sometimes there are special contextual actions that are available for a unit to perform depending on the situation and environment. For example, if they come across a treasure chest, they may use a context action to open and loot it.
Units will also counterattack if they are struck while the attacker is within effective range. Counterattacks deal 50% of their basic damage and also award half the normal EXP.
Players will have to carefully make decisions on how they decide to mobilize their units and plan out their method of attack to minimalize retaliation by the enemy, as well as deny their own vulnerability as much as possible.
Types of Skills: Your Combat Arsenal
There are several types of skills that one can use to destroy their enemies and support their allies. Some are specific to certain classes and characters while others can freely be equipped by anyone.
Combat skills are divided into melee, ranged, and common skills that require you to have a certain type of weapon equipped in order to use. Magic on the other hand requires you to use a spellbook with the skill inscribed in order to cast (explained in further detail in the unit customization blog).
Among the many passive and skills that are available based on class, character, proficiency, and equipment, some are automatically equipped such as a special character-specific passive trait, while others can freely be equipped and unequipped allowing some unique skill customization. You’ll have to experiment with different combinations!
Mounts: Onward, Stallion!
Horses have advantages and disadvantages, some of which are developed as you raise your horsemanship. Riding one grants a unit additional movement power, physical attack, and the ability to move after performing actions. However the repercussions include greater vulnerability, lesser movement power against certain terrains, impossibility to move across certain terrains, and inability to use certain skills.
Gaining EXP: Let’s Level Up
Units earn character EXP for leveling up, class EXP for mastering different jobs, and proficiency EXP for individual types of arms and armors when successfully using skills or attacks against allies or enemies. Units gain additional EXP when using their abilities against higher levels targets. There is an EXP bonus for completing a combat scenario in a lesser amount of turns. By leveling up, units gain aptitude points in their different stats up to a max level of 50.
Supporter System: Reinforcements
At a certain point in the game, players will be able to select a supporter to assist them in combat. They serve as auxiliary units that don’t partake in the actual combat, but assist the units that are in combat with unique skills.
The support character must be a lower character level and class grade than the protagonist and must fulfill the requirements to be a candidate as a supporter. By being selected, they can earn character EXP, half of the proficiency EXP, and half the class EXP without partaking in combat themselves.
Terrain Hazards: Manipulate the Battlefield
Besides for being powerful invocations that destroys foes, elemental magic has additional effects on the lay of the land during combat. Tiles in Lost Eidolons are not just for show, and depending on how a tile is subjected to certain elements can leave permeating effects on it.
Because of this, we really encourage players to take time to methodically think of ways to leverage terrain and hazards to their advantage. It’s one of the many facets of strategy that can turn a daunting encounter into a manageable one.
Tiles that are on fire inflict damage to units who start their turn in it. Water can douse the fire, turning it back into a normal tile. And if poison mist is cast in an area that’s been lit ablaze, it results in an explosive detonation.
Normal tiles that have been doused will create a puddle area, inflict units with the ‘wet’ status. Casting fire on a puddle tile will evaporate it, turning it back into a normal tile. Using ice will freeze it over, turning it into a frozen tile. Lastly using lightning on connected puddles will cause the lightning spell to become an area-of-effect.
Poison fog will inflict a poisoned effect on units, causing them to take damage periodically. When a fire spell is cast in the vicinity, it explodes dealing wide area damage. Using wind magic on a poisoned fog area will cause the fog to disperse, returning it to a normal status.
Lastly frozen tiles can be thawed with fire spells to turn in a puddle area, inflicting wet on units within the area. Units who attempt to move through frozen tiles will find it especially challenging to do so, requiring additional movement power to traverse.
Synergy Effects: Power In Numbers
Lastly is the special camaraderie bonuses during combat. Units who work together bolster one another’s power when attacking enemy units. This effect is obtained at a certain point of the game and encourages you to sometimes empower units by supporting them with others when attacking enemies with careful positioning before taking action.
Synergistic effects become a key element of combat starting from the later episodes of the campaign, and won’t be present in the earlier ones.
That’s not all the news we have to share with you all today! While this is the last feature spotlight for this mini-series, we would like for you to join us next Thursday, April 15th at 7:00 PM PDT on Twitch (click) as we answer your questions about the game!
Wanna make sure that your question gets answered? Head on over to our Discord server, where you can leave your question in the designated channel for us to curate before the stream.
