Valiant Force Forum

Hello, ScherBR again

There's something I keep listening on my guild or reddit that keeps me intrigued and unease, people keep saying that you only need a SDD team and a Ranger Square (4 CRIT Rangers) to play VF. Well, the bad part about this is: they are partially right most of the time, having just those squads you can clear most content, just get the event hero and you're good. 

BUT! Valiant Force was not meant to be played that way, and well, we all know that, so I wanna suggest something to make squad diversity more interesting with the introduction of Formation Bonus to be used both on PVE and PVP content. 

The concept is, incentive new squads by making diversity rewarding, here by adding bonus to your heroes so you want to try new things.

How does it work:

Simple, you go to squad menu and start to add heroes, when you create a combination it will show to you on screen, those combinations can be formed by 2, 3 or even 5 heroes (full squad), they are:

The double hero formations are based on 2 heroes of the same class being used together, jus by placing them in your squad you will get the bonus stats for all heroes in your squad + the formation skill. 
Important Note: You can't use the same formation 2 times, so if you use 4 Ranger or 4 Guardians in your squad you will only receive one formation bonus based on this combination.


The Triple Hero Formations are based on the original Back Row or Front Row classes. 
Important Note: If you use 2 same Class heroes + 2 others, this formation will be the one active.
Example: 2 Healers + 1 Mystic + 1 Ranger - This will not make the Double Healer formation active, as no hero can be in more than one formation, so the resulting bonus will be: 1000 HP + 500 DEF + 500 MAG.



The Full Hero Formations are based on using 5 different classes on your squad, making it more diverse.
Important Note: You can't use the Triple Formation + Full Formation together, if you match two combinations only the full formation bonus will be active

I think that this system encourages diversity and more strategic options for squad build without nerfing what's being used and would be relativity easy to implement if the devs wants to

Obs. I could think of different bonuses based on combinations but the more diverse and complicated more balance work would be needed, so I choose the simple option so it could be implemented without much trouble.

Feedback is appreciated!

+1

% stats might scale better but this is a really good idea.

+1

I wonder if we could also have "Series Bonus"?
2 genesis mystics= 1 turn cd lower
1 genesis mystic + 1 summoner mystic = 500 mag
1 genesis mystic + 1 elf mystic = 500 atk
Etc.


VF, listen to this guy.

+1

This will make things slightly more interesting.

While this suggestion definitely has it's Pros and merits, I personally don't like being forced into using a fixed hero comp just for the sake of diversity. One attractive point of VF was that it is suppose to allow players to customize their teams to their preferred play-style and experiment with different combinations. Sadly, the current state of the game doesn't really promote this but your suggested idea could hopefully help or at least point the devs in a positive direction.

Double and Triple hero formation bonuses sounds reasonable and interesting but the bonus amounts definitely need further work (Yes, I understand that the figures are probably arbitrary as that's not the main point of this post).

Full formation bonuses could backfire and replace the Full-Archer/Guardian teams with yet another "must have" team. Double/triple formation bonuses still allow players to play around with the team composition while full-formation might be more of a restriction rather than encouraging diversity.

I personally think that the formation skill idea is a little excessive as the stat bonuses themselves should be enough. That and the start of battle RNG factor where it could just ruin your whole run at the beginning and make players "restart" the battle. Refer to the Camelot Heroes preview thread for more on these types of "start of battle" RNG.

All in all, I do think that this is an idea with good potential and could see this as an interesting game mechanic once it is further refined.

TL;DR - Yes to double & triple, no to full formations.

I wonder if we could also have "Series Bonus"?

Series bonuses could be unfair to players who missed out on certain units (eg. dark lords like Zoey). It could even further "constrict" team compositions to a new type of meta rather than making the combinations more diverse. I might be wrong on this though since i didn't really give it much thought.

EDIT: Grammar and cleaning up.

Despite a good suggestion, I feel that it doesnt remove the problem of SDD/Trigger Ranges being far too strong. It'll probably work well in Arena, admittedly, but it really doesnt make SDD/Trigger Rangers any weaker. In fact, they can easily utilize the Double hero formations (And triple hero formations for SDD), so it'll be a collateral buff instead. 

Accidentally buffing the most meta strategy is one of the things you REALLY need to avoid, as it really does cause a massive power creep.

That being said, it may work if the full formations are strong enough, but then, I'd feel that the game is forcing me to build a team around it. What if I want 2 healers because I need the sustain? Why should I be punished by that in the sense that I lose 3k stats on most units? 

In fact, in a roundabout way, it does more collateral damage to MANY OTHER teams. You can survive without the formation boosts using SDD and Trigger Rangers, but most other teams would become non-viable if you cannot get the full formation. This problem becomes even worse the stronger the full formations are, in fact. 

It is quite a good suggestion, honestly, but I'd downvote it. I'd rather nerf triggers to have diminishing attack damage than to try to buff other teams. I dont know. From my experience in Dragon Nest, if you try to buff everything else to be on par to the meta (Buffing other classes to be as strong as Raven), things spiral out of control VERY quickly. 

I think its pretty good!
+1
Tho how would tri guardians squad go tho? Just the double bonus and?

Series bonuses could be unfair to players who missed out on certain units (eg. dark lords like Zoey). It could even further "constrict" team compositions to a new type of meta rather than making the combinations more diverse. I might be wrong on this though since i didn't really give it too much thought.

Yep, i agree. I would not follow through.

Despite a good suggestion, I feel that it doesnt remove the problem of SDD/Trigger Ranges being far too strong. It'll probably work well in Arena, admittedly, but it really doesnt make SDD/Trigger Rangers any weaker. In fact, they can easily utilize the Double hero formations (And triple hero formations for SDD), so it'll be a collateral buff instead. 

Accidentally buffing the most meta strategy is one of the things you REALLY need to avoid, as it really does cause a massive power creep.

That being said, it may work if the full formations are strong enough, but then, I'd feel that the game is forcing me to build a team around it. What if I want 2 healers because I need the sustain? Why should I be punished by that in the sense that I lose 3k stats on most units? 

In fact, in a roundabout way, it does more collateral damage to MANY OTHER teams. You can survive without the formation boosts using SDD and Trigger Rangers, but most other teams would become non-viable if you cannot get the full formation. This problem becomes even worse the stronger the full formations are, in fact. 

It is quite a good suggestion, honestly, but I'd downvote it. I'd rather nerf triggers to have diminishing attack damage than to try to buff other teams. I dont know. From my experience in Dragon Nest, if you try to buff everything else to be on par to the meta (Buffing other classes to be as strong as Raven), things spiral out of control VERY quickly. 

Thanks for your feedback, this is more like a proof of concept.

You might be getting the wrong idea thinking I wanted to fix Rangers or SDD problems with this idea, as I've said is just to encourage new things, not to make people stop using those OP squads. For me the only way to deal with SDD and Ranger Square is to limit the trigger mechanic, there's no other way as players will find another exploit for infinite trigger, or keep using ranger square so devs will keep debuffing CRIT on every new boss till the end of the game.

On the restrictions, well, as someone suggested. maybe full formations are not needed? but if so we could create more variety on the double or tripple ones. so you can always get 2 actives.
I agree on the RNG being a bad idea, just need to find some other way or remove the formation skill if it adds another layer of RNG, the purpose here is to add another layer of strategy and not more RNG systems.

I just feel like something like this can encourage people to try something new, some members of my guild do nothing besides working on SDD and rangers, so you can see what this will do in the long run.

Thanks for your feedback, this is more like a proof of concept.

You might be getting the wrong idea thinking I wanted to fix Rangers or SDD problems with this idea, as I've said is just to encourage new things, not to make people stop using those OP squads. For me the only way to deal with SDD and Ranger Square is to limit the trigger mechanic, there's no other way as players will find another exploit for infinite trigger, or keep using ranger square so devs will keep debuffing CRIT on every new boss till the end of the game.

On the restrictions, well, as someone suggested. maybe full formations are not needed? but if so we could create more variety on the double or tripple ones. so you can always get 2 actives.
I agree on the RNG being a bad idea, just need to find some other way or remove the formation skill if it adds another layer of RNG, the purpose here is to add another layer of strategy and not more RNG systems.

I just feel like something like this can encourage people to try something new, some members of my guild do nothing besides working on SDD and rangers, so you can see what this will do in the long run.

I get that this is what you will be trying, unfortunately, similar to the conclusion of the mystic thread, I cant help but admitting that this will not solve the problem (thing? Issue?) you mentioned.

a.k.a, this will not really do the goal you are expecting, which is to try something new. What this will achieve, instead, is for players to figure out how to maximize these formation bonuses with the current meta, as in to utilize these bonuses with SDD or Trigger Rangers.


And honestly I hate the devs trying to limit trigger ranges by debuffing crit, or SDD by disabling auras. It does the job, but it hurts many other teams and it doesnt even fix the problem in the long run.