The idea is that you shouldn’t be able to beat every match up, unless you really high roll. Thats what the rerolls are for, so if you have alot of single damage you reroll when see orclings for example. With the armor/attack types change more units have different roles and matchups. Werewolfs are light armor so you might want to avoid them unless you have the set up to kill them for example. But I was a bit unsure about having archer be light damage or medium damage. We also have taunt now on the armored orcs so that might be also a thing to consider if you go up against armored orcs and werewolfs, as that could be quite dangerous. But yeah probably things still need to get tuned, but I dont feel like any unit is useless currently, i won with berserker and swordsman as carry for example.
I actually kinda like that the orcs have taunt. That way your units get forced to kill them first, so by the time the werewolves are low hp. You don't have to deal with armored orc damage on top of it. But honestly, the werewolves only felt really, really bad when I used Archers. It's just that with targeting being what it is, the difference between a wave where your units all target one werewolf (free win) and one where they go "let's be useless!" and perfectly spread their damage on, say all 3, is basically needing 3x the tank to live that. Which is a very big swing to have from RNG.
I'm not ever really sure how the targeting logic of the units work. It seems to be just attack closest, but then sometimes they stick to a target until it's dead. Regardless of proximity. I kind of wish it was just "pick closest -> stick to target until dead, unless taunted". It would feel a lot less prone to just getting got by RNGsus (and reward positioning more). But idk, maybe it would make it too deterministic? That just feels like what a unit would *actually* do. Back when I played TFT somewhat seriously, winning by correct placement was just a very rewarding aspect of the game. I feel like that's somewhat missing here. Could just be skill issue that I haven't fully figured out how to utilize it yet though.
It would also be cool if units with armor shred would prefer targeting armored units and clerics with holy water would prefer high damage units. Maybe they do? But doesn't seem like it.
The lifesteal was actually the factor making the werewolf very strong as it healed based on the damage roll and not the actual damage (after armor etc), it also healed off from overkill, which made it so strong, I changed it so its based on the actual damage it deals that for the next update. But might be a bit too weak now, but ill leave it as is for now.
In regards to targeting. Its currently: pick nearest target and stick to it until dead or invalid.
But I was considering adding targeting that's weighted towards attacking the Armor type you are strongest against, but I haven't pulled the trigger on that yet.
I also had the idea of like for example making the orc rider try to kill ranged units/backline so you have to kill it fast or have taunt.
That explains why it feels like they heal so damn much even when you're super tanky. Did they also heal on evaded attacks? Because I swear it felt like they did against my 75% evasion footmen. Or they just attacked so fast, they still got heals out that often. It's kinda hard to tell what is going on in the mosh pit.
What might make a target invalid? Because it's very common for swordmen to *not* have aggro, none of my tanks have died. Yet all of a sudden a rogue werewolf is just eating the Swordman's face. Same with archers, they swap to swordmen quite frequently.
Also the "floating blob" effect. Where sometimes the "mosh pit" of melee units fighting each other will just start drifting in a random direction slowly. Is this intended, or some weird physics interaction? Sometimes it causes my AoE units to drift into enemy archers (on those 20+ archer waves) and sometimes it causes enemy werebears to casually stroll into my backline and murder it, leading to an instant loss. It overall feels very random.
I think overall attack nearest, possibly with exceptions for units based on mutations/enemy variations is probably a good targeting. There being some way to bypass frontline to hit backline would probably require there be some reasonable counter. Not just taunt, cause taunt kind of either forces you to go knights (and imo knights are just worse footmen due to tempo loss). Or you *need* to roll a rare. Feels like it would lead to a lot of "scheduled losses" if you don't roll into specific things. And if you add it to the enemy, you really should add it for the player as well. Might give archers a niche if they are allowed to attack back to front. But overall I think being able to "cheat" the frontline like that in auto battlers usually just leads to it being mandatory you do so. Or backline units would need to get a lot tankier.