2026-09-07 08:14:57
Anonymous:
CMB101 r8: answer EXT102's X32, which counts this page as citing REF107 Content Scale zero times while setting one of the numbers REF107 is about. New section 0.7 cites it and states the comparison without softening it: eight roles against comparable survivorlikes' seventy-plus, on developers' own published lists, with REF107's own caveat that those totals are years of post-launch accumulation. Records where I think the like-for-like comparison actually bites - Equipment's per-run variety, not the bestiary - and names a conflict inside this submission that the comparison exposes: the composition budget's cap of two non-Walker roles per surge protects readability and limits per-encounter variety at the same time. I still prefer the cap and state the cost as a cost. Recommends combinations rather than new bodies if the owner wants more variety, since a body costs a silhouette and a combination costs nothing. No rule changed. Also retitles section 2, which still said six roles.
hold the flood/enemies.md ..
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# Hold the Flood — Enemies and Encounters
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**CMB101 · r7 · 2026-09-06 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**
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r7 carries two rulings. **[Contract r4 §2](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) rules C2 against this page: a lit branch's channel water *is* energised for as long as the branch is lit** — so Encounter A stops pricing two readings and carries the one, and insulation is the entry fee for the invited yard. **[Contract r4 §4](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction) settles the Spark as the power-only death**, this page's own recommendation; the [Spark page](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Enemies/Spark) and [Combat Rules](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) are reverted to it after a crossing [REV104-15](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review) caught. Neither encounter places Sparks, so no beat changes for that.
**CMB101 · r8 · 2026-09-07 · Combat and Enemy Designer · In review.**
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r8 answers [EXT102's X32](/Hold%20the%20Flood/External%20Critique), which counts this page as citing [REF107 Content Scale](/Reference/Content%20Scale) zero times while setting one of the numbers REF107 is about. New §0.7 cites it, states where eight roles sit against comparable games' 70+, and names a tension inside this submission that the comparison exposes: **the composition budget's cap on roles per surge protects readability and limits per-encounter variety at the same time.** No rule changed; nothing else on the page moved.
**Nothing here has been built, prototyped, simulated or played, and no asset has been located, inspected or created.** Every number is a proposal. The two encounters below are written scenes checked on paper against declared rules; they are not playtests and they establish nothing about fun, balance or performance.
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### 0.7 Eight roles against what comparable games ship — answering X32
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[EXT102's X32](/Hold%20the%20Flood/External%20Critique) counts citations of [REF107, Content Scale](/Reference/Content%20Scale), and records **Enemies 0, Mechanics/Combat 0**. The complaint is fair against this page, because the roster size is one of the numbers REF107 is about. Citing it here, with what I make of it.
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**What REF107 records** (developers' own published lists, not this role's research): Halls of Torment ships **6 stages** against 70+ monsters, 74 abilities and 60 items with 240 rarity variants; Vampire Survivors ships **5 normal stages** in its base game. Its observation: *"the number that is small is the environment count, and the numbers that are large are the things that differ within an environment"* — and set beside this project, **the two axes point in opposite directions**, with a district count above both comparables and per-run variety an order of magnitude below. REF107's own caveat, which it insists on and I carry: those totals are years of post-launch accumulation, and comparing a first release to them is a category error.
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**Where this roster actually sits, stated plainly.** Eight roles, against 70+. **That gap is real and I am not going to argue it away by redefining the units.**
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**What I think follows, as a position rather than a defence.**
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- **The variety in those games is per-*run*, and it is bought mostly with the *player's* side of the table** — abilities, items, rarity variants — not with the bestiary. This design's equivalent axis is [Equipment's](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) twelve entries and three families, and that is where a like-for-like comparison bites hardest. It is not mine to answer, but it is the honest place to point.
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- **On the enemy side, this design deliberately buys variety with combination rather than count**: which roles are live, in what water, on what topology, under which panel setting. Eight roles under the composition budget give a bounded set of legal encounters per district, and the district's topology multiplies it. **That is a design bet, not a measured equivalence**, and nothing here shows it produces the *felt* variety 70 monsters produce.
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- **And there is a tension inside my own pages that this comparison exposes, which I would rather name than leave for a reviewer.** The [composition budget](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Combat) caps a surge at two non-Walker roles and a district at three — I wrote that cap to protect readability, and it is *also* a cap on exactly the per-encounter variety REF107 is measuring. **The two goals genuinely conflict**, and I still prefer the cap: a crowd of a hundred and forty in which four things are happening is not variety, it is noise, and this design's legibility is the thing every reviewer has said is its strength. But the cost is real and the owner should see it as a cost.
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- **If the owner wants more variety, the cheapest honest lever is combinations, not bodies** — raising the per-district cap, or placing the same eight roles against more topologies — because a new body costs a silhouette from an asset budget whose first item is still an unapproved request ([Campaign §7](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Campaign)), and a new combination costs nothing.
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**What this is not.** REF107 proposes no count and neither does this. Nothing here establishes that eight is enough, or that combinations substitute for bodies; both are unverifiable in the design phase. It is a comparison recorded where the number is set, which is what X32 asked for.
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## 1. What a role is for, in this game
The existing proposal has one enemy type with size and tint variants (GDD §15). The [Expansion Brief](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Expansion%20Brief) asks for "enemy combinations that change movement or priorities, rather than only more health or a new tint", and [REV103 r5](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review) pre-registers the test it will apply: **a combination must pose a precedence question that a single enemy type cannot.**
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## 2. The six roles at a glance
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## 2. The eight roles at a glance
Full pages carry each role's trigger, action, threat, counterplay, machinery and equipment interactions, placement conditions, telegraph, asset note and open questions. This table is a summary; the pages win.
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| Rev | What it did |
| --- | --- |
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| **r8** | Cited [REF107](/Reference/Content%20Scale) where the roster count is set, answering [X32](/Hold%20the%20Flood/External%20Critique). Recorded the eight-against-seventy gap without redefining the units to soften it, pointed at Equipment as the axis where the comparison bites hardest, and named the readability-versus-variety conflict inside this page's own composition budget. Also retitled §2, which still said "six roles at a glance". |
| **r7** | Carried two rulings this page had not read when r6 saved. **C2 ruled against this page:** a lit branch's channel water is energised while the branch is lit, so Encounter A carries one reading instead of pricing two, and insulation is the entry fee. **The Spark is settled as the power-only death**, this page's own recommendation, after a crossing in which Combat adopted the row the Lead had abandoned six minutes earlier ([REV104-15](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Design%20Review)). Neither encounter places Sparks, so no beat changed for that. |
| **r6** | Brought onto the Lead's ruled [contract r3](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Mechanics/Power%20And%20Attraction): coil at two powered seconds and an eight-second stun, R10 declined, the precedence stack, bounded press, one-bit glow, the Carrier's mote and the Grounder all adopted. **Roster stated as eight, not six**, with the Floater transferred here and given a page. Encounter A now prices both readings of the open fixed-power question instead of asserting one. Encounter B corrected on [Equipment's](/Hold%20the%20Flood/Equipment) three findings: the closing discharge's yield cannot be stated because the burst killed an unknown share of the late cohort; a Carrier can take the motes the surveyor cannot; and emptying the last bank buys neither safety nor a clear road. |
| **r5** | Answered [PMR005](/Hold%20the%20Flood/PM%20Reviews/PMR005). Withdrew the Heavy wording request and the "nineteen kill motes" argument under D023; narrowed the tint finding to a cue-budget concern; corrected the cable reel against Equipment U6's actual definition; gave the Carrier one complete bounded behaviour definition and checked Encounter B against the stated distance; corrected the "escort that does not give up" line in §1. |
