Unicorn Overlord: The Difficulty is Perfect, I Think 

I think the real issue with the difficulty is what old Fire Emblems solved in the first place and Tactics Ogre Reborn improved on Fire Emblem originally didn't let you repeat maps and colosseum grinding was your only option for true repeatable exp (with it's own inherent risks) and Tactics Ogre Reborn has that level cap that lets the maps be "balanced" better so that you COULD grind some, but at the end of the day you need the right strategy unless you just break the game somehow. Any game you can grind in is automatically "easy" because higher numbers beat lower numbers. I'm OCD as hell in games like this so you bet your ass I did every side mission before I progressed the story at all everytime I got to a new area. My first time through on normal I was like level 15-17 before I took on the main quest after the game opens up in the beginning and then you just shit on content for the next 20 hours. Maybe expert is harder but I didn't mess with it, I just went True Zenoiran after I beat it (thank the Unicorn for Spring Break and it's gameplay marathons) I think another issue there isn't much you can do about is that the more complicated a game is, the more ways the human can abuse the AI. You can perfectly counter units whereas the AI will just death march and can't pre-emptively counter you. You can set up your gambit system however you want and the AI just has to deal with what it was given beforehand. You can change your equipment to all magic resist to counter a mage heavy map, change your entire army's makeup, etc etc... AI can't do that. At some point the difficulty in these tactics games comes down to abusing the AI because there's no other way to win if the computer has an advantage inherent to it and you have to really ask yourself "Is this 'easy' or am I just taking advantage of my brain power?" A simple example to make there is that if you play a level and it has an ambush, that's it. One time ambush. From then on, you know that an ambush is there or what activates reinforcements. From then on regardless of if you win the map, lose, or reload a save before the ambush.... it's NEVER an ambush again no matter how many times you play. Foresight is OP and the AI will never be able to have that so it becomes "easier". You don't get to lie to yourself and forget the ambush exists whereas the CPU has to routinely lie to itself to let you have the slightest chance of victory. A more literal example of what I mean is an early one, the level 5 map with the mommy issue wizard. The first time you play it you don't know that killing towers = reinforcements, so if you don't just steamroll win anyway you can abuse that knowledge and choose not to kill the towers to prevent reinforcements or keep the killing of towers staggered to slow down the reinforcements until someone can garrison at the bridge. AI doesn't have the luxury of playing around your knowledge but you consciously/subconsciously play around the knowledge of the AI So the answer to make something actually "difficult" for me really comes down to not letting anything be repeatable/grindable, having set characters (no mercs, no extra characters beyond what can fill an army so that enemies/maps can be balanced to what options you have), no mid-battle saves and having a level cap. At the same time though I don't play these types of games to have a "challenge", I get enough dopamine hits from filling out the map, liberating the world and getting those eureka moments during battles where you figure out a good strat. Anything below Expert is probably too easy for people that are completionists, and even True Zenoiran doesn't fully deal with what makes the game "easy". It's still fun as fuck though. That all being said, I do think the difficulty is in a perfect spot for casual enjoyers who are newer to the genre (especially once you make it later into the game and Unicorn Overlord expects you to know and use all mechanics) but I think there's too much able to be abused for veterans of tactics games to make it seem easier than it actually is. It's also worth mentioning that i think the majority of the audience ARE veterans so it's just logical to think a noticeable amount of people would say this was an easy game... after all, the more options you have (AND THIS GAME HAS A BILLION OPTIONS) the more you can break it to your will. At the end of the day it's just you vs. the AI and there's no way your brain can't abuse that fact. Tactics games will always be in a weird place difficulty-wise because those who love optimization will be drawn to them for a plethora of reasons and that kind of mindframe inherently makes a Tactics based game easier than it normally would be for non-optimizers... but what's the point of playing a tactics game if you aren't gonna use tactics and optimize? It's somewhat paradoxical from an outside view but the more complicated a game is, the easier it actually can be but that's the way it is /oldmanramble

agreed, I've seen a lot of people using cheese methods in the arena as a metric, which is absurd when win conditions in the arena isn't even an outright victory like in the 99.9% of the game.

OG64 was my favorite game growing up. I've been wanting a game like it for so long. I've been adoring this game and I haven't put it down.

Loving expert difficulty. Tho I tend to get a bit too obsessive with taking little to no damage from standard units. You’d be amazed at how specific tactics can let you steam roll a unit that previously would’ve decimated you.

Been loving the difficulty thus far (about 12 hours in). At first, it’s really easy, which is great because it gave me a chance to understand the mechanics and gave me enough room to experiment with different units. Now, it’s like the game is pushing me, but not so much that I feel like I’m wasting my time. The game is giving me the chance to git gud and then testing me like an old martial arts master would. The design is exquisite, indeed.

37:27 I really love the little tiny maps. they're like little puzzle-tutorials, it's a great implementation

So I agree with the general point that the difficulty is perfect, but to play devil's advocate, a lot of the gameplay people have been running on Expert who complain Expert is too easy is vastly different than what you're showing off here. Many people who run through Expert have been running significantly leaner squad lineups (I ran 6 Units at Bastorias and even that was considered on the high end), and are usually running 5 man squads at this point which make a huge difference. Also, there doesn't seem to be that many CC or CC combos I've noticed in your team. Bastorias in particular is a very DPS/CC check heavy region, and investing wide vs tall is extremely punished for this region. UO, unfortunately, has sort of an issue where the game advertises itself as "you should be building wider" with stuff like unit counters, stamina, etc., but a lot of the best play in Expert seems to be to actually play vertically and use Valor skills to blow past issues that vertical play would normally get you, due to the number of unique items you get, and due to the presence of Equipment/Tactics switching, which lets you get past a lot of soft counters that vertical investment would normally be bad against.

Hears the youtuber mention "Empires, Dawn of the modern world". Immediately likes the video. God, that game was a hidden gem, and Yi Sun Shin's campaingn was some of the most fun I've had in a videogame ever.

One Flyer with One black mage and teleport is also highly effective for levels with closed gates and avoiding playing with battering rams. Every system in this game is interwoven into every other system its crazy.

Currently, I am playing on tactical. Just beat Drakenhold and am moving on to elfheim. I am primarily making squads based on rapport generation to unlock dialog without having to spam taverns. Difficulty is definitely in the "power fantasy" side of things, and i rarely feel like im utilizing my whole army, but if I am not paying attention, I can definitely find myself in a pretty bad situation. I find myself leaning on my cavalry more than i like, but the offensive snowball thing I have going is constantly killing things that i thought would counter it. I am noticing, however, that as map size increases and encounters are increasing in complexity, things like supports and defencive structures are making it pretty hard to steamroll.

I liked how the difficulty was created for the game. Both the AI and the player play by the same benefits and rules in the game. And, the AI is competent enough to try to beat the player. It's what I like to see. Don't hold back on any side or implement a quiet handicap for one side. Incredible feeling of resistance/competition! Makes me remember a fantasy rpg-like game I have on the Wii Nintendo with similar competitive AI difficulty that I want to boot up again just to finish some unfinished business... In Unicorn Overlord, I went with ye ol' bread and butter in my first save file: Roman legionary and Greek hoplite theme. Just your typical spears, shields, bows, infantry, and cavalry. Combined with the game's most difficult setting, it really tries to test me how far and well I can execute martial knowledge from history to defeat a fantasy war-strife world. I wouldn't recommend attempting this style on first try at highest difficulty setting while restricted to bronze or lower equipment. But the difficulty experience was worthwhile to see Alain trying to restore a kingdom from victories in battles using tried and true methods.

I'm only on tactician, but I powercrept Alain's unit so hard for the colosseum that he could solo everything in Bastorias and Albion. I don't use more than 10 items per level anyway.

I posted this on another video: You should be changing your setup battle by battle. If you're not doing that you're either overlevelled for your enemy or are fine with taking a knackering for no good reason Real combat requires an insane level of flexibility. Improvisation is constant because either side can't know everything about the other and the stakes are high. Not even the US military with all the numbers and bells and whistles have been able to completely rout the Vietnamese for example. If you've read or lived through that (or any other war) , you know tactics were constantly shifting by necessity. Trying to brute force or coast your way to victory is not only not that fun but also unrealistic. In all human and non human struggles dynamism and adaptation almost always wins. ....And then there are ranged assists

Frankly, the game could have been more difficult. The fact that they even slightly nerfed all difficulties in the game made 0 sense to me too. On another topic, wish the game had ng+ so we would gave a valid reason to use the extra characters you get on postgame.

Thanks

Really opened a can of worms with this one, Coffee Potato. There's a very insistent faction of people lamenting that the game is too easy. It's clear that people are approaching this topic from opposing perspectives and values. People who build wider and are investing in playing with all of the characters, classes and mechanics aren't complaining, while some minmaxers are seemingly upset because their focused investments are being respected and rewarded.

i beat true zenorian after 50h, and it not the hardest strategy game than i play, but i really enjoy it, 5 items cap is great and some time gonna hurt a lot, 2 squad wipe in my entry run, but easily done I need more content when you beat the game ;(

I just finished the game, charging on the final boss at level 21. With some equipment combos and team comps, there just isn't much the enemy can do, my uber squad beat the game at level 44, so I wasnt underleveled by the end. Really good game, but I am not using swordmasters again. With some items and team combos, they completely break the game. Stamina is the only thing preventing me from soloing with them. I will still do all the game has to offer ofc :) WIthout being cheeky.

I have personally found it incredibly hard to put a finger on this game's difficulty issue. While it's straight up some of the most fun I've had playing a TRPG, I think the difficulty does need a lot of fix. Health & stamina regen items really have to go since they serve as complete replacement for an important component of the game's tactical value which is rotating between units and managing your resources to endure until the end of the stage. Valor Skills are waaaaaay too powerful. The pre-promotion ones were fine but post-promotion ones turn most of them into AoE and I think it's too much of a powerspike. Ones that restore health and stamina also cheapen the gameplay on the same level as items. I had to force myself to stop using them lol Also there is currently zero tactical reason for you to actually build more than around 6 units and that I think also contributes to people optimizing the fun out of the game. Using fewer units mean they earn more xp, share more powerful equipment among each other, having more valor to spend, thus making you a lot more powerful with zero downside. Nerfing items and skills that mess with the health/stamina economy will actually fix this issue as well imo. Otherwise many maps have to be overhauled to make you split more but that would be asking for too much. And I think there are still some combos that are part of the problem. As the game progresses, the rock paper scissors nature of it start to matter less. On one hand I think it adds a lot of freedom to teambuilding, but on the other I feel having stuff like giving all classes access to True Strikes or being able to make physical attacks do magic damage definitely hurts the tactical side of things. For example I had a full cavalry team with alain +20 init for everyone and then everyone buffing 20% atk for each other consecutively that basically had zero counter at all for the second half of the game, to the point I only pulled them up for bosses. For another player with an optimal playstyle they would definitely just double down on that squad and run it all the time, so that's where complaints about steamrolling come from mostly. Not many players think of restricting themselves for the sake of enjoyment, and frankly the game shouldn't leave that to us. TZ for me feels identical to Expert, since the game is not that based on pure stat the stat increase is too minor to make a difference, the item limit doesn't really matter for me personally since I don't use them to begin with, the application of permadeath is sloppy and unnatural. The only welcome change for me is the removal of "Wait time halved" effect on Garrisons that is a great change. My desired criteria for TZ+ would be something like: items are limited to like 2-3 or something, double shop prices, halve the valor gain, double rest time, slow down restoration at garrisons, remove auxiliary battles and deliveries, make overworld enemies so hard and fast that you are actually restricted from overexploring... Just generally things that would require you to squeeze every single unit you have access to. I think Unicorn Overlord has a lot of room for it to raise its difficulty and keep the game fun so I hope the devs seriously consider it. It's one of the best TRPGs I've played and I would love to play more of it without having to resort to self-imposed challenges.

I've been loving the difficulty (on expert at least), I would say it's an evolved rock paper scissors concept. It's not as simple as "just play rock if they have scissors", the game asks questions like "how big of a rock do you want to make?" or "what if the opponent has both a bit of paper and scissors?" .This has been the best that an OB fan could have wanted from a developer that isn't associated with the Ogre Battle Saga.

I really like the difficulty in the game. I was playing on tactician and did feel like i was steamrolling with cavalry a bit, but then i bumped it up and learned for the first time there was an item limit lol. Also been limiting myself to units the story gives me since theres so many.

Finally got into this game and to me the real issue with the difficulty is with a lack of permadeath for characters when they have generics AND give you so many characters as you go. It's less that the battles can't be made difficult so you get a game over, it's more that there's no risk for losing characters you've invested in so smaller losses pile up over time. Because they give you so many characters, generic recruits don't really make any sense to even have, really. And I know True Zenoiran remedies this to a degree, since it has pseudo permadeath, but it's a half-measure. The pseudo perma-death in TZ should have been the default, with TZ just having true permadeath like in Ogre Battle or OB64 where anyone not revived when a battle ends is just gone for good, forever. If there was some kind of permanent risk for incremental failures, no one would complain about the difficulty. The systems are fine. The AI is actually pretty good, like you said. There are good enemy counters to your units and most of the missions are well designed to lure the player into traps and non-optimal situations. But because there's basically zero risk unless you get a game over, there's no emotional feeling of difficulty in a game like this. OB had this because that had permadeath. Fire Emblem had this for the same reason. It's the missing element here as a result.

The Snow Area is hard (this map specifically), I was surprised seeing everyone make all these videos saying you could run these comps that roll the game on expert (I doubt most of them are even that far into it).. lol

Anyone familiar with these types of games knows that none are difficult once you've figured them out. The group looking for brutally challenging gameplay is in the minority (this is my group as well), and anyone with experience will find ways to blow things wide open. At the same time, Unicorn Overlord gives you all the tools necessary for a certain experience. If you're min-maxing builds and teams then you'll be rewarded. If you restrict yourself to specific rules, you'll be challenged and rewarded in a different way. Which is true for every SRPG in existence. Ultimately, this isn't some revolutionary new issue. With that being said, I wouldn't mind an option that makes the battle result less accurate. Everything seems far worse when you know how combat will resolve before it's even fought; strategy goes out the window if you can simply tweak things until a puzzle is solved. The joy should come from experimenting and learning, which that specific mechanic removes.

Played on expert can finished the game with only 3 units and now playing on true zenorian and I think the difficulty just about right for me on the difficulty.

"It's not gonna be quick" lmao

The issue for me isn’t some classes being overpowered but rather all enemies being underpowered when going through the game normally on expert. I’m mostly steamrolling with any team and the only « issue » is stamina management. And I find it impossible to ignore how the omniscient battle preview leads to RNG manipulation (« I’ll do more damage if I don’t actually use support from archers ») Both engaging with it and ignoring it feel wrong. I don’t feel the game is interesting enough as is to warrant going through it once to try the harder difficulty TBH unfortunately

I think it's way too easy even on true zenorian.

I finished my first playthrough on tactician, 100% of everything except support conversations. There's no replayability as far as the story goes, but True Zenoiran difficulty is a lot more fun.

would you still recommend expert for someone who isn't a TRPG diehard?

I usually agree with your takes but on this one I think the game is exceedingly easy. The second half of Elfheim my squads were just one-shotting everything and i was simply BORED. To the point after I have finished Elfheim and I'm considering taking a break because it is simply not challenging at all. And I don't think its the grinding, I don't think it's the time limit, and to some extent I don't even think it's the items the player has (even though you get some stuff, most of the time you're outnumbered and against a clock and in disadvantageous positions). In my case it is also not me decoding quantum mechanics and figuring out broken squads. The game has some VERY hard counters, which the player can take advantage much better than the AI can. A generalist cavalry squad basically counters everything infantry. You only need to interfere with some minor tweaks against shamans or so. Another thing that might throw a wench in your plans are armor, but that has a super hard counter too. After you figure how to deal with the infantry squads and you get some anti air squads you're just breezing through stuff. The player has just too many tools the AI doesn't have or can't use. For example the exact combat preview probably should be done away with and replaced with combat odds. The AI doesn't get the ability to swap units like you do. The player can optimize tactics (and you can preview the exact result, amplifying the problem), The AI units are not even fully equipped. It is simply too much. Also the compositions are a problem. Many of them are not nearly varied enough. And thus can be easily countered. Imagine what the effect would be making some changes in just a couple of these areas. Like removing the preview (maybe for the "hard" difficulty) and having more varied compositions. Wouldn't it be much better?

The difficulty is nonexistent once you know how to build teams, you can easily get 3-4 teams that win every battle turn 1 before the enemy can even do much on true zenorian. Simply by changing the formation or changing a couple tactics you can reroll bad rng or in case of bad machups like owls removing quick impetus or albion blindness you can also just switch equipment. Higher numbers would not really raise difficulty by a lot unless its exceedingly high, what the game needs is a NG+ mode where every map is lvl 50 and better enemy squads and equipment even if just the mini bosses and bosses. If youre legit having difficulty then good for you but for those that know how to build broken squads well we want more.

What about sending two flyer squads to back each other up? I have limited understand of how the game works but suppose you either have to second squad take care of ambushes or relieve the fist squad if someone from it gets killed or let the first squad rest. It is difficult to make good AI in these games. Most hames just have AI a few level higher than what player has and it's a brute force challenge only. In that respect the AI is good in this game. I suppose some of the challenges you're having is due to the lacks or items/characters that you would normally have here. Perhaps if you were properly set up, not broken, just whatever is expected, you'd have a much easier time.

Difficulty must be a CIA sleeper agent activation phrase because it always brings out the same types everywhere. All I can say is don't pay attention to what the "people" say. When it comes to people saying things are easy in this sort of game you get about 3 types of people: 1 - People who are actually good at this sort of thing and enjoy it. They find the game "easy" because they have skill set made to break these games or make it "easy" to them. (I'm being charitable, really) 2 - People who say they find it easy to preen their egos. They are not a minority, they actually outnumber the above by about 25-1 on comments. I'm not kidding, it was around that much last time I bothered counting for the Fire Emblem fanbase. 3 - People who play on a different difficulty and have mistaken which difficulty people are talking about. They aren't necessarily playing on a lower difficulty in this case but mistakes happen. But I've seen this back-and-forth happen throughout comments everywhere from subreddits to youtube: Post: "Oh this game is soooo easy I just did this [vague thing that can't be proven or replicated, usually it's something like 'I countered squads' like they waved a magic counter wand or something]." Reply: "Oh, what specific thing did you do?" (This was posted by someone who actually likes these sorts of games, wants to explore its systems, and up their game.) Response: *crickets* I'm being nice here and assuming that these people are simply lying and they aren't looking up videos and guides where somebody else has done all the work for them and then they're calling the game "easy". I imagine everything would be easy if somebody else did all the work for you. But from the way people talk it certainly SOUNDS like that's what's happening. So in tribute to the people who are so good at the game they can't name a single specific strategy or synergy and to the people who believed them and innocently just wanted to share strategy and just have a good time with the boys; here is a framework for a setup that you will be able to adapt with as it's very simple: Any skill charges will instantly resolve with the cat-eared hood's quick impetus so the go-to is to combo an AoE with Frost Conferral from the Frostbound tome and some true strike to mass freeze the enemy. Yunifi's glacial rain can do this inherently but its low damage means you should combo her with the dancer bracelet to boost damage if you're trying to go for the one action one shot. The rest of your team can then only attack people who aren't frozen. Now all you need to worry about is owls dispelling your impetus, or an assist attack obliterating your backrow, or running out of stamina on that group and getting AoE nuked by an archer's arrow rain, or that blind shit, and on and on. I suggest elven archer for start of battle debuff immunity and crossing your fingers if you get attacked in range of an archer. "But that's just one team with six stamina (maybe), I need way more than that, this can't possibly trivialize the game on its own unless every map is just a very specific style of 1v1 in a single corridor with incredibly convenient circumstances!" Yes. I know. It's why nobody believes the bullshit of "just using one squad to sweep everything". You just play the game yourself and you can see like 50 asterisks attached to every "beat anything" squad and you go watch anyone stream this game and they're scrambling around on the highest difficulty (same as anybody else is) and they're fronting about how easy the game is like they don't remember all the stuff they had to do to get their win (newsflash: If the game wasn't challenging you then you would never have needed to do any of that). I don't know what to make of it, it mystifies me, I watch people put all this effort into playing the game and they walk away saying it was easy because... what? They didn't see a game over screen? They weren't angry or miserable? When a challenge is fun it doesn't feel like a challenge but it's a challenge all the same you know. I've never had an issue drawing or painting I find it fun but I would never walk around fronting like it was easy to do either of those things for obvious reasons. I knew I was still being challenged, I knew I was still problem solving, and just because some guy didn't put red text in front of me didn't mean I didn't know that.

I am on True Zenoiran and its like Expert but with 5 items instead of 10, its still too easy....When u understand the tactics and unit combos, i can destroy units 10 lvs above me...we need a wayy stronger difficulty. Again, if u understand the mechanics, the game becomes too easy even on highest difficulty wich sucks. Really hope we get a wayy harder difficulty in a patch cuz i want a challenge, the game is so amazing 🤩

I really wonder if your opinion on the difficulty is rooted heavily in the fact that you intentionally sequence broke. When you don't do that and you follow the regular path, I don't feel like the game was challenging, basically at all until the last handful of battles of the game. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but if I did hard to agree with you that the difficulty is well balanced. Also, I absolutely made one super squad and was able to get through the entire game with that squad with very little tooling basically start to finish so I refute your comment that you will not be able to do that on expert mode because I absolutely did with relative ease.

The cat ear hoods were a huge mistake

I can say this after being just doing this mission. I only use like 1 flier unit to quickly takes out balistas and catapults since they are annoying, but amazing to level up under powered units which I have a lot of sadly due to only using like 5 teams. I keep forgetting to use assists as most of my teams can just nuke by themselves on expert, but I just kept Alain who max level for this encounter (by max they just were not getting xp), and had him camp the command base and they kept sending out the were foxes to bum rush me as it was night and they kept going into the grinder. it was kinda funny Also you can tell if stuff is broken if you can kill stuff 10+ levels above you. Mainly applies to the colosseum, and yah I know you can just stall but getting to the the champion got me stuck a few times.

Any interest in online play? I’d be interested in seeing your answer for trinity rain spam

Also I feel bad you haven’t heard the Elheim music😂

Yeah there’s kind of an echo chamber with some guys about the difficulty and replayability. I mean they’re right, FF7 was super easy with no new game plus and nobody replays that any more, right? Not like there’s a million challenges to try with that game. Anyways: flyers are godly when they arrive but at that point the game has a lot of optional objectives that provide units so you don’t want to just immediately finish the stage, yet they’re still very strong in a fight. I feel like as the game goes on they actually become valuable for their “let’s just finish this stage” value. What do you think of Alain now?

it's too easy

sry but this games 'difficulty' is an absolute joke and makes it impossible to take anything serious or get invested

I'm sorry but the difficulty of this game is too low. It is exceptionally easy to just add up a bunch of raw stats with items on characters and chuck them into a squad and just face roll stages. One shotting enemy groups that are 5 levels higher off just raw stats. If you're familiar with common concepts and strategies in these kinds of games it gets even easier. I'm just past drakenhold a few battles into elheim and I could easily beat Bastoria the final area of the game right now. Only by challenging 8+ levels over me have I really been forced to try and even use items outside of convenience. I like the game it's a great experience but we don't have to make up shit to praise it about or pretend it's perfect to promote it as a good game. It has a couple flaws, that's OK we can talk about those while talking about how good the game is overall