Darkest Dungeon-Like Iratus: Lord of the Dead - Darkest Dungeon clone where you play the bad guy

Kabas · Aug 8, 2019

Pope Amole II said:
so they kick me and hire some gunsel and the result will be this game never being balanced 'cause they're fucking clueless on what they're doing.

I take it that it's related to the fact that some minions are of the limited usefulness now. I may not remember everything, but the skeleton was definitely way more useful in the demo than he is now and could actually survive beeing a frontliner.

And speaking of things that are of limited use, the entire destruction skill tree.
Magic tree gives you a guaranteed crit spell, summon shade and instakilling death finger, Rage gives you a lot of nice passive bonuses related to how much wrath you accumulated.
Destruction tree mostly gives you a bunch of direct damage spells that don't deal enough damage for me to consider wasting my mana on them. There is passive that gives me a bonus or something if i finish something with the destruction spell, i guess?

Pope Amole II · Aug 8, 2019

In my original designs, all skills were useful. Some of them were spammable, some of them were occasional, true, but that's just my style, I don't put any useless bullshit in my games. I don't really follow on their balance updates anymore but even if skelly was useful, he's nothing more than a perma-defender and ma-a-aybe 3x skeleton stun-charge carousel.

Destruction is something that was pretty much forced on me altogether. I've designed it but I didn't liked that concept at all because the game doesn't really need that. Pure DPS magic in such a game is boring.

If Infi will post it, I guess I can raise some drama and make a good, big post-mortem article.

overtenemy · Aug 8, 2019

Pope Amole II said:
In my original designs, all skills were useful. Some of them were spammable, some of them were occasional, true, but that's just my style, I don't put any useless bullshit in my games. I don't really follow on their balance updates anymore but even if skelly was useful, he's nothing more than a perma-defender and ma-a-aybe 3x skeleton stun-charge carousel.

Destruction is something that was pretty much forced on me altogether. I've designed it but I didn't liked that concept at all because the game doesn't really need that. Pure DPS magic in such a game is boring.

If Infi will post it, I guess I can raise some drama and make a good, big post-mortem article.

Now that I think about it, since you said you stopped working at the beginning of the year I'm now very curious as to whether or not you have anything to do with the current hard difficulty. Enemy stats are high, which is to be expected, but I have to take issue with the luck stat on enemies being to the point that I find the only reliable defense a minion can have is HP while bringing a level 1 common parts sacrifice for the lich. I once brought an all legendary dark knight with two thirds of his vigor to a fight. 14 armor and one block. I reckon I'll get wrath to heal him up long before he's threatened. What actually happened of course is a swordman crit him to death before he even got his turn. Horrible things like that being somewhat uncommon is one thing, but they are an absolute certainty every single fight. Makes armor and resistance (and by extension minions that rely on them) feel bad man.

Pope Amole II · Aug 8, 2019

Nothing at all - that was done in 3 past months or so. It's obvious that enemies with 20%+ luck (and that's only open crit rates, but I also don't know anything about hidden modifiers) are bullshit. I also think that this was implemented to make Dodge more useful - dodge was forced by this new designer and I don't think the game needed that. You're already having 2 different types of protection, why do you need more?

Also keep in mind that current iteration of wrath is also not my idea. It's profoundly dumbfuck as you're getting most wrath out of taking damage and so it creates loops like "knights take damage > wrath generated > wrath turned into hp > knights take damage". And it just pushes the player towards much fattier minions because they obviously can generate much more wrath and ults are everything, the game is overrelying on them and that kills the diversity of the combat.

Kabas · Aug 8, 2019

What was your original take on wrath/rage thing?

Pope Amole II · Aug 8, 2019

Was it ever showcased to the public? I don't think so. I'm under NDA so I can only discuss the stuff from the previous alpha/demo. And the current stuff. To put it vaguely, each of the 3 active skill schools (magic/ire/artillery) were supposed to have their own unique resource and different economy. Turning it all into mana was a part of casualisation push. Btw, yeah, I was also kicked for my designs being not casual enough.

Kabas · Aug 8, 2019

I don't remember wrath or ults being in that year ago demo, so i guess not.
Unique resource for each school sounds interesting.

overtenemy · Aug 9, 2019

Pope Amole II said:
Nothing at all - that was done in 3 past months or so. It's obvious that enemies with 20%+ luck (and that's only open crit rates, but I also don't know anything about hidden modifiers) are bullshit. I also think that this was implemented to make Dodge more useful - dodge was forced by this new designer and I don't think the game needed that. You're already having 2 different types of protection, why do you need more?

Also keep in mind that current iteration of wrath is also not my idea. It's profoundly dumbfuck as you're getting most wrath out of taking damage and so it creates loops like "knights take damage > wrath generated > wrath turned into hp > knights take damage". And it just pushes the player towards much fattier minions because they obviously can generate much more wrath and ults are everything, the game is overrelying on them and that kills the diversity of the combat.

20%? You'll be pleased to know swordsmen have 30. Hunkies have 65. I shit you not - 65.

Interestingly I launched the game to get specific numbers, but they appear to have changed much of this greatly in the new update. I was going to assuage your fears about evasion since it was practically impossible for your minions to evade when enemy accuracy was so high (miners used to have 120), but it appears to have been dropped by nearly 20% across the board, with some luck and evasion drops as well. They went so far as to give elite guards and taskmasters no luck or evasion at all. Elite hunky still has 75% luck though for Christ's sake.

Pope Amole II · Aug 9, 2019

overtenemy said:
I shit you not - 65.

You can't really surprise me with anything about this one. I know that the current designer is inept so it's only predictable.

Hunky (not my translation, btw - I write freely in english but somehow they preferred to choose another translation sort; he's supposed to be a basic worker and not a gay porn actor) is just a great example of them going for tryhard balance without even bothering to understand what was the design of a minion. He was a later addition to the game and the task was to add very basic, tutorial-level minion. If you read his flavor, you'll see that a lot is based on his belief in lantern. The joke was supposed to be that his lantern attack (which is currently quite efficient as it's a lot of accuracy penalty) would be doing nothing. You're fucking undead master, undead give zero fucks about lanterns, like, wtf. So he would be missing lots of turns, his basic attack also would be nothing to write home about and it's only his hammer throw that would be able to stun on a crit. Hence he had high basic luck (but not even half that, mind you).

Instead they did what they did (and contrary to what they asked, mind you), making some barely armed human into a legitimate threat.

As for the evasion - I'm not really saying it works, I'm saying they really want it to work. Like, that's their genius addition (so innovative too, as well as this new retreat system) and surely it must be prominent etc.

Trash Player · Aug 9, 2019

Forgive me that I thought ypu are still at the helm, good pope. I still like core gameplay loop if not the
exact mechanics in its current shape, though those are likely long decided before your departure.
While it would not be as good as it otherwise would be, a little studio out of St.Pete at least deserves
some sort of encouragement for presenting a marketable product. I am probably just finding an excuse for my lost money.

Care to elaborate on more of the non-NDA stuff? Like post-alpha design, the current balance or whatnot.

Summon Infinitron for ~~drama~~insight

Pope Amole II · Aug 10, 2019

Trash Player said:
Care to elaborate on more of the non-NDA stuff?

Sure I do, otherwise I wouldn't be posting here. But I dunno, if Infi doesn't want any hot content for the site, I'll simply do a video. I'd rather do the article as more people will read it that way but I'm fine either way. I have a great tile already - "Iratus: Lord of the Dead on Arrival".

Mastermind · Aug 10, 2019

Swapping designers on a game whose design relies so heavily on synergies between characters sounds insane to me.

Lyre Mors · Aug 10, 2019

Pope Amole II said:
Sure I do, otherwise I wouldn't be posting here. But I dunno, if Infi doesn't want any hot content for the site, I'll simply do a video. I'd rather do the article as more people will read it that way but I'm fine either way. I have a great tile already - "Iratus: Lord of the Dead on Arrival".

Why does this keep happening to codex developers? First JarlFrank, now you. Sucks, I was looking forward to see what you made as you've always had a good critical eye when it comes to RPGs. Makes me much less interested in the game knowing this went down. Very interested to find out the details.

BEvers · Aug 11, 2019

Agame said:
And thusly was a new CELERITY born...

Celerity may have made more money off Iratus than Pope so far. He's a professional Twitch streamer these days:

https://www.twitch.tv/celerity

Pope Amole II · Aug 11, 2019

That's a wholly different guy. I've confirmed that.

V_K · Aug 11, 2019

Pope Amole II said:
But no, they're too stingy to pay me any money at all, so they kick me and hire some gunsel

Ah, the joys of Russian business practices.

LESS T_T · Oct 2, 2019

https://steamcommunity.com/games/807120/announcements/detail/1599265790193378674

First content update is now live!

So, this day has finally come! Let's update the game: new minions, enemies, artifacts, and features are now available to everyone! Try, rate and share your opinion with us!
Reminding you of our discord: https://discord.gg/QbPjgCk

So, the list of changes:

New Features

Added ability to adjust the animation speed

Added ability to adjust voiceover volume

Added spells that move minions to the left/right: “step left” moves the selected minion 1 position to the left; “step right” moves the selected minion 1 position to the right

Reworked some old artifacts and added new ones

New minion added - "the Unfrozen"

New minion added in the Supporter Pack - "the Infested"

Added 3 new minions: Ataman, Shadow Elf, Gargoyle

Added an endless mode "Endless Rise"

Minion item bonuses reworked

When applying a buff/debuff now shows a tooltip with their names

When replacing a minion item now shows a confirmation window (can be turned off)

Altered the hint texts at various difficulty levels

Unused minions now only recover vigor after a victory. No vigor is gained after a defeat/retreat

Remaining achievements now works

Rewards and conditions of a few text events was changed

Iratus replicas algorithm was changed. Now the Necromancer is more silent

Added a number of minor changes

Bugfixes

[Zombie] Accurate Volley now no longer ignores Ward

[Vampire] Blood Visions and Greater Auspex: fixed a bug that made temporary debuffs not disappear at the end of their duration

[Shade] No longer counter attacks while stunned or sleeping

[Lost Soul] Sudden Reality no longer ignores enemy Ward

[Lost Soul] Sudden Reality no longer counts unremovable buffs

[Mummy] Fixed a bug that caused this minion to stay locked after unlocking

[Head Hunter] Bountiful Contract now correctly grants parts for every killed enemy

[Elite Dwarven Warrior] Character now has sounds

[Trader] Do Your Job ability now correctly redirect attacks

[Oracle] Predict ability: fixed a bug when Oracle buffs herself twice

“Renowned Researcher” achievement now unlocks correctly

Fixed a bug when summoned minions were retreating from the battle

Unstackable abilities now work correctly

Now minion retreat didn't interrupt when the enemy retreats first

Fixed minor bugs

Minion Rework

• Blood Phantasm
Phantasmal Assault and all its upgrades were reworked
Then:
Deals 75% physical and stress damage two times.
Now:
Deals 75% physical damage twice and recovers 10 Vigore for each successful hit.

• Ghoul
Butcher and all its upgrades were reworked:
All upgrades now increase the attack of the Ghoul by 2 until the end of combat after using the ability

Lunch Break and all its upgrades were reworked:
Then:
Ghoul instantly kills an ally and gains a bonus to Vigor, Attack, Dread, Luck and Evasion until end of combat
Now:
Ghoul instantly kills an enemy with less than 20% Vigor and gains a bonus to Vigor, Attack, Dread, Luck and Evasion until the end of combat.

• Shade
Pain Mirror and all its upgrades were reworked:
Then:
All successful attacks against your minions cause the attacker to take stress damage equal to 100% of the damage dealt. Ignores Ward
Now:
All successful attacks against your minions cause the attacker to take stress damage equal to 100% of the damage dealt. Minions receive 10% less damage while the Shade is in this stance.

• Skeleton
Embrace Mediocrity and all its upgrades were reworked:
Then:
Skeleton loses 30% Vigor and the target loses 30% of current Sanity
Now:
The target gains +4 Armor and +4 Resistance until the end of combat. Stacks up to 3 times.

Balance Changes

Global Changes

Enemies on the third floor are made slightly stronger on ‘More Pain!’ difficulty.

Graveyard
- Excavation: Slightly increased the rarity of received parts
- Dead Lake: The chance of uncovering artifacts for each minion increased from 15% to 20%"

Iraturs Talents
- Alchemy Doctorate: Bonus to Vigor recovery while not in battle increased from 100% to 300%
- Whip: Now grants a bonus to Accuracy to all minions, not only Bride of Iratus
- Finger of Death: selected target loses 50% of its max Vigor and Sanity and removes all Block, Ward, and Buffs

Banshee

Scream, Desolate Scream, Paralyzing Scream: No longer moves the Banshee one position forward

Desolate Scream: Upgrade bonus +1 Attack and +1 Dread increased to +2 Attack and +2 Dread

Nooo!!!: Upgrade bonus +10 Vigor increased to +15 Vigor

Absorb Fear: Restored mana increased from 20% to 25%

Absorb Terror: Restored mana increased from 25% to 30%

Absorb Wrath: Restored wrath increased from 25% to 30%

Wail: Dread gained for the next action changed from 6 to 8

Chilling Wail: Dread gained for the next action changed from 8 to 10

Deafening Wail: Dread and Attack gained for the next action changed from 4 to 5

Chilling Wail: Upgrade bonus +2 Dread increased to +3 Dread

Deafening Wail: Upgrade bonus +2 Attack increased to +3 Attack

Crescendo: Upgrade bonus +2 Initiative changed to +4 Luck

Howl, Shattering Howl, Morbid Howl: Wrath cost decreased from 40 to 35

Bone Golem

Rupture: Damage increased from 125% to 130%

Rupture: Upgrade bonus +6 Accuracy increased to +8 Accuracy

Nefarious Engine: Upgrade bonus +1 Resistance increased to +2 Resistance

Fitted Armor: Upgrade bonus +1 Armor increased to +2 Armor

Self-Destruct, I'll Be Back: Damage increased from 50% to 85% of the Golem's missing Vigor

Annihilation System: Damage increased from 75% to 127.5% of the Golem's missing Vigor

Blood Phantasm

Wrath Eternal: Upgrade bonus +6 Accuracy increased to +10 Accuracy

Transfusion, Rage Injection: Restored Vigor increased from 40% to 50%

Grand Transfusion: Restored Vigor increased from 50% to 65%

Aura of Retribution: Upgrade bonus +4 Attack decreased to +2 Attack

Moaning Chains: Upgrade bonus +4 Dread changed to +2 Attack

Bride of Iratus

Lungpiercer: Upgrade bonus +2 Luck increased to +3 Luck

Overwatch, Careful Watch, Deadly Watch: Damage increased from 50% to 65%

Flames of Passionate Love: Damage increased from 70/35% to 75/35%

Dark Knight

Hollow Stare, Stare into the Void: Damage increased from 80% to 100%

Face the Faceless: Damage increased from 140% to 150%

Futile Hopes: Damage increased from 60% to 70%

Dashed Hopes: Damage increased from 80% to 90%

No Tomorrow: Damage increased from 60% to 90%

Fallen Dhampir

Baseline Luck increased from 25 to 30

Infuriating Taunts: Counterattack damage increased from 60% to 80%

Ghoul

Savage Cunning: Upgrade bonus +3 Attack decreased to +2 Attack

Shared Satiation: Upgrade bonus +3 Attack decreased to +2 Attack

Head Hunter

Dual Cruelty: Upgrade bonus +5 Accuracy increased to +8 Accuracy

Jagged Hook: Upgrade bonus +2 Luck increased to +4 Luck

Sense ‘Em, Mark ‘Em: Damage increased from 150% to 175%

Mark ‘Em: Upgrade bonus +1 Armor increased to +2 Armor

Blind Stare: Damage increased from 85% to 100%

Blind Stare: Upgrade bonus +4 Dread decreased to +3 Dread

Seething Wrath, Sundering Wrath, Intimidating Rage: Damage increased from 100% to 150%

Abyssal Bounty: Cost increased from 80 to 100 Wrath

Lich

Command Undead, Ineffable Command: Attack and Dread increased from 12 to 14

Dominate Undead: Attack and Dread increased from 15 to 18

Command Undead, Dominate Undead: Moves the target two positions forward and no longer moves the lich one position back.

Rain of Fire, Armageddon, Bedlam: Cost decreased from 30 to 20 Wrath

Lost Soul

Benevolent Spirit: Vigor restored and damage decreased from 100/100% to 80/80%

Price of Glory: Vigor restored and damage decreased from 150/150% to 100/100%

Peace Eternal: Vigor restored and damage decreased from 100/75% to 80/60%

Dubious Boon, Enraging Boon: Wards gained increased from 1 to 2

Lucrative Boon: Decrease damage debuff from 30% to 20%

Mummy

Cursed Feast: Upgrade bonus +10 Vigor increased to +15 Vigor

Shade

Pain Amplification: Damage increased from 125% to 135%

Grand Deception: Evasion bonus increased from 25 to 30

Grand Deception: Upgrade bonus +2 Evasion increased to +3 Evasion

Black Light: Increase Accuracy debuff from 20 to 30

Black Radiance: Increase Accuracy debuff from 20 to 40

Glimpse the Dark World: Increase Accuracy and Luck debuff from 15 to 20

Skeleton

Sudden Strike: Upgrade bonus +1 Resistance increased to +2 Resistance

Bony Bully: Upgrade bonus +1 Attack and Dread increased to +2 Attack and Dread

Unnerving Fortitude: Upgrade bonus +4 Dread decreased to +3 Dread

Smite the Show-Offs: Upgrade bonus +1 Armor increased to +2 Armor

Dismissive Banger: Upgrade bonus +1 Armor and Resistance increased to +2 Armor and Resistance

Astounding Fortitude, Unnerving Fortitude: Armor and Resistance bonus increased from 6 to 8

Mystic Fortitude: Armor and Resistance bonus increased from 8 to 10

Vampire

Baseline Vigor increased from 85 to 95

Blood Strike, Returning Strike, Blood Salvo: Can now be used from 4th position

Zombie

Smoke Bomb: Upgrade bonus +4 Dread decreased to +3 Dread

Hexball: Upgrade bonus +8 Dread decreased to +6 Dread

Abyssal Bombardment: Upgrade bonus +2 Initiative changed to +6 Accuracy

This game is a "hit" according to Daedalic's press release: https://www.gamasutra.com/view/pres...te_with_New_Mode_Minions_Enemies_and_More.php

The dark fantasy roguelike RPG remained a top seller on Steam for days after its early access launch, shattering Daedalic’s own records, and will be discounted by 25% on Steam for 48 hours to celebrate the update.

Eyestabber · Oct 2, 2019

I played both the old version by Pope Amole and the new/current version and lemme tell ya: the WORSE thing for me isn't even the fact that they nerfed everything and now every minion has one, maybe two useful buttons. The worse thing is how the in-game NARRATIVE got completely and utterly BUTCHERED. In-game text blurbs and mechanics no longer see each other eye to eye. This may not sound like a big deal to some, but it REALLY is, because the thing that separates GAMES from other media is precisely their ability to present an INTERACTIVE narrative. But now shit no longer makes any sense. Let me go over some examples:

Bride of Iratus is supposed to be a backline DPS minion. Except her damage got nerfed into oblivion and she is now better used as a dread stacking minion, rather than a physical DPS. See, out of all the monster in the game the least scary is the one most effective at dealing stress damage.
Banshee is supposed to be the "default" stress-related minion. Except her stress damage dealing got NERFED and with the introduction of evasion she is much better suited for the role of frontline TANK/disabler.
While the banshee excels at tanking, the Knight sucks at it because of the poor implementation of armor. Note: I dislike armor being implemented as pure linear reduction and much prefer the DT/DR model (eg: Underrail), but linear reduction can work. Except it doesn't anymore because HP + Evasion trump armor, which is a borderline useless stat now.
The Lost Soul's description says it's supposed to seduce travellers or something. Except it looks like THIS:

. Lost Soul should switch jobs with the vampire lady, IMO
Gloom Claws and the Shade got NERFED so hard it's not even funny. Which means any hope of a "hybrid" play style has been crushed. So you either go all physical damage or all stress. Anything in-between and you're just gimping yourself for no reason. This game needed MORE bridges between HP and Stress damage, but instead the dev team decided to burn down the only bridge the game had
Crafting is so tedious and poorly balanced now. A purple part giving armor and resistance bonus while a green one gives you something useful instead goes to illustrate how the people behind this simply can't into basic math.
Minion related skills got NERFED and had their effects reduced to a single minion at best. "The Blackest Lodge" is gone, "Love Potion" gives you borderline negligible benefits to your brides (and for a stupid cost too) and the worse offender: a new 4 points skill that makes your out of combat minions heal faster. So...you pay 4 fucking points to have the same effect that the basic Morgue gives you. WHO MADE THIS CRAP? OMG...
Berserkers raging after taking stress damage + the engineer boss = stress builds are completely and utterly fucked. So while on the surface it looks like you have many options to play with, the reality is that you need damage and tanking. Tank and spank: the most BORING and generic tactic of all time is what gets you by in Iratus.
Unlocking minions over the course of multiple playthroughs is the most blatant and boring form of forcing replayability onto the player. And what's the in-game explanation for it?! I remember minion unlocking being somewhat tied to Iratus "remembering" how to craft them, but now it's literally a "sink more hours into our shovelware to unlock options to make your grinding less boring". Oh, and it makes the vampire producing skill become fucking worthless and also remove the flavor of vampires: they are no longer the one minion you can't craft, but rather have to "persuade" to your cause.
Speaking of Shades and Banshees, the game now has FIVE ghost-type enemies. How are wraiths different from shades? They're not. Not even the text blurb bothers to provide any explanation to anything.
Blood Phantasm is supposed to be a "mid-to-late game" minion, yet it sucks so hard at everything it attempts to do that you're better served making basic skeletons instead. Oh, and the text hints at their supposed hatred for Iratus, but there's no in-game mechanic that back it up in any way. Not even a bit of dialogue like with the Banshee.
Minion leveling is stupid and has no in-game justification at all. Your creatures are supposed to be literally brainless, yet they somehow manage to improve now. OH and the leveling system is utter garbage. Since most skills are useless now you level up once, maybe twice and then you just go for whatever option gives you the best passive stats, since you've no intention of pressing that button anyway.
Mummies had a nice mechanical theme of spreading misfortune while being unlucky themselves (-50 luck). Now they have the same luck as everyone else and the text mentioning their own misfortune no longer has any in-game feedback. Lol...
Basebuilding is incredibly tedious and minions being used as building materials makes no sense and also adds to the tedium of going back and forth between screens because you forgot which minion was arbitrarily chosen as sacrifice to build/upgrade X building.

Sadly, Iratus was a fun and straightforward game, but now it's an overly "balanced" (nerfed) exercise in tedium and frustration. If you can get it at bargain bin price then MAYBE you'll get a chuckle out of the voice acting, but that's pretty much it.

Kabas · Oct 3, 2019

Eyestabber said:
Gloom Claws and the Shade got NERFED so hard it's not even funny.

Is this the one that deal phys. damage proportional to how much stress the enemy lost? This sucks.

Eyestabber said:
Berserkers raging after taking stress damage + the engineer boss = stress builds are completely and utterly fucked. So while on the surface it looks like you have many options to play with, the reality is that you need damage and tanking.

Weird, Iratus has enemies that are immune to stress or who will punish you for using stress, but i can't recall the opposite examples, aka enemies who are immune to physical but vulnerable to stress.

Eyestabber said:
Unlocking minions over the course of multiple playthroughs is the most blatant and boring form of forcing replayability onto the player.

There is nothing wrong with unlocks themselves methinks, unless they're tied to something stupid like "deal 99999999999 points of damage to yourself". Ghoul was kinda fun, but this unlock of hers wasn't worth it.

Eyestabber said:
Blood Phantasm is supposed to be a "mid-to-late game" minion, yet it sucks so hard at everything it attempts to do that you're better served making basic skeletons instead.

I did found a use for them at that time, as a suicide minion who permamently stays in that "heal allies if being hit" stance to allow your more useful guys to stay longer until he releases his on death heal. Makes me wonder if that was the waste of resources, but that's still was a use nonetheless.

A shame indeed. I did get some enjoyment out of the game, but now i don't feel like continuing playing even with this new update.

Eyestabber · Oct 3, 2019

Originally the game had a tight relationship between mechanics and narrative that made it charming and interesting. You're playing as an evil necromancer who DGAF and your army of shambling corpses is expendable. They are nothing more than body parts put together, which is corroborated by Iratus lines like "you break it, you end up replacing it, GOT IT?" and "That used to be one of you, hehehhee" and "congratulations! You entertained me". All those lines point to the fact that Iratus doesn't care for his army's well being, which USED to be corroborated by the fact that high-tier minions were simply minions crafted out of better parts. And that was it. Your new skeleton will be very similar to your previous skelly and so on.

And then minion leveling was introduced.

"But Stabby, leveling up makes it moar RPG-ey!"

Except leveling mechanics run completely counter to the idea of having expendable troops. Your maxed out Lost Souls sure as fuck aren't expendable and the Lich's Sacrifice skill lost a lot of its usefulness because of it.

This game currently reminds me of one of those high school group papers where we were supposed to work together but in the end everyone was tasked with writing one chapter and the whole thing is put together the night before due date. An incoherent mess but with tons of "content" (pages) to show.