Now, not everything in tempest trials are exciting and good. There are some shortcomings in it. There are a few things that I don’t like. Let’s discuss them.
The Bad
Speed Bonus
Speed bonus is counted based on the number of turns of completing a map (stage). The faster (less turns) we finish the trials, the more score we get. Speed bonus gives us 50% extra score. In fact, speed bonus is the highest on any bonus available. Bonus characters is either 20% or 40%. Survival bonus is only 20%. Since the reward is based on how much score we have, it’s very important to get the speed bonus.
The draw back of the speed bonus is that it kind of forces us to use the most optimal heroes to complete the trials as fast as we can. This, in turn, leads to monotone game. Less heroes are used. Most people, including me, will opt to use the same 4 heroes to get the 705 max score with as little time as possible to obtain all of the rewards. It gets stale and boring after a while.
The developer should consider getting rid of speed as a factor in a strategy game. Make it so speed is not a factor. This will lead to more variety of heroes used.
Inflated Stats
Enemies stats are ridiculously inflated. Their stats are increased by 20%. They’re inflated so much that in order to defeat them, we need to use heroes with very high damage output. Since speed is also an issue, we can’t play any defense or turtle our way forward in this trials. We have to use an all-out attack strategy. Our heroes need to be able to defeat any enemy in 1 turn. Otherwise, we might not get the maximum speed bonus (more turns result in lower speed bonus that translates to lower overall score).
As a result, hero and skill selections are limited. Cavalry are the most optimal as they can move 3 squares. Dancers are also important to make it faster. In order to make sure our heroes can defeat the enemy, they need to be able to attack twice consecutively in 1 turn. So, either high speed heroes with desperation mode active or brave weapon heroes. High damage output heroes, such as Cecilia with gronnblade(+), Ursula with blarblade(+) can pretty much defeat most enemies in 1 turn. With horse buff, both get 24 additional damage per attack. If they attack twice, it’ll be 48 additional damage. Reinhardt with his Dire Thunder can attack twice consecutively with pretty high damage output.
The developer should consider reducing the inflated stats, so we don’t have to resort of using the same heroes over and over.
Enemy AI
It felt like the enemy AI is programmed to produce as many turns (slow) as possible, especially if they are randomly equipped with rally, ardent sacrifice, draw back, or reposition. On this map, if there’s an armor unit, it’ll intentionally get into the center where horse cavalry can’t reach (I’m using a horse emblem team). Any other map can be finished in 2 or 3 turns. On this map, it takes me an average of about 5-6 turns to complete it.
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