I've had the random 'luck' to run across several secret NPC rescue missions in a row while playing tonight, and I'm starting to wonder about the balance on these. I'm curious how other people feel about them. It's always possible that I'm just bad at games. I'm starting to feel like they're a little too difficult, but not in the 'challenging and interesting tactics' sort of difficult. More in the 'oh another unavoidable failure' sort of difficult.
Thus far tonight I've had one NPC die because I ran too far ahead of him just as all the monsters spawned behind me. (Which prompted me to post a mantis issue suggesting that the NPCs should probably spawn a little faster so they're ahead of you, rather than behind you) OK, I think, so I should slow down and let them stay close. Lesson learned, game!
So the next one I plod along slowly dragging my little floating NPC behind me. This doesn't seem to help either. I'm still going so slow that I'm allowing NPCs to pile up behind me and eventually they execute a pincer maneuver, killing my hapless little buddy. So the next time I decide I'll be clever and kill every monster spawner that I pass. Surely now I won't lose from a flank attack! Well, no. But the spawners have such high health, and between whacking on them and waiting for mana to regen, by the time I'm only 1/3rd or so back to the exit I'm looking at a room full of about 8 fire bats ahead of me and trying to decide how to deal with it when two slip past and eat my NPC again.
So, there are a few problems here. The NPC is very weak. I've been playing on 'Hero' difficulty, so one step over the default. Does the NPC HP scale up per difficulty level? I suppose the argument could be made that this is the challenge that I asked for, but I really only cranked it up because on the default difficulty I could pretty much just walk up to every monster and mash attack and completely ignore dodging projectiles and still be assured of coming out of every fight at 100% HP. Also, does the NPC HP scale per Civ Tier? That could be another contributing factor.
Second, almost every enemy projectile attack pierces. You can't take the hits for your buddy, because they just go right on through you. There's also no body blocking physical enemies, so bats can flutter past you and chomp your companion as well.
Third, the NPC is sloooow. They're floating, can't I just tie a string around their ankle and drag them along like a balloon?
Not only does this mean that you have to be careful not to run out of range of them (lest you leave them in the dark behind you, and they are eaten by a grue), but that the normal tactic for damage avoidance, dodging, is very hard for them to do. They emulate your movements to an extent, but their reactions are delayed and they don't move as quickly or as far. So if I just barely jump over a shot, they're still going to eat it.
And fourth, the respawning monsters. This leaves you with the dilemma of destroying spawners, which takes forever and allows monsters to queue in the halls ahead of you, or leaving them standing, opening yourself up for the inevitable back door surprise (a phrase that rarely refers to anything good).
