[Suggestions] Yet another catalog of balance suggestions :)

from Elemental Forums

some random small (?) tweak suggestions that could enhance overall gameplay:

magic:

- shockwave (earth magic) seems overpriced. how about making that spell more of a melee ablity? (it's melee range only, anyway). reduce mana cost drastically and perhaps (if the game engine supports that) make the damage based on the caster's attack power instead of level (maybe 50% of attack value?). this way, earth will scale better for melee champs (i think the tree is really meant as a support tree for hybrid melee/spell characters, see verga/markin and some of the defender champions)

- thunderstrike (air magic) could be tweaked similarly - scale damage based on attack (with a small bonus from air shards). it's really just a "charge" ability that gets your warrior/assassin to the other side of the battlefield to slaughter the archers; i think making its damage based on attack would be appropriate (maybe 50% of the att value or something)

- gentle rain (city buff) and mantle of the oceans (mana discount champion buff) should trade places. this way, you'd get the city buff in the general tree (and thus, available to non-mage characters) just like pretty much all the other city buffs, and you'd give all mage champions the opportunity to get mantle of the oceans relatively early, opening up the option to use their spellcasting early in the game more liberally (feels very restrictive right now with the rather high mana cost of many spells compared with the low early mana income)

-heart of fire and aura of grace are too powerful, imo. build a fortress on a 3 essence tile, play an enchanters faction and you're looking at +4 init and +4 fire damage buffs. i think the spells are all right conceptually, but the scaling is off. how about a flat +1 boost each? this way, an "essence fortress" is still desirable and the troops built there are a bit better than basic troops. you could drop the mana cost of the spells to compensate (100 mana for heart of fire is rather expensive early game; with the change to a flat +1 damage a reduction to that mana cost would be more suitable)
you could also change the +def and +HP buffs accordingly (but to higher numbers - i think a flat +2 def resp. +3 HP would be appropriate). i think that would bring their power better in line. defensive buffs are less problematic than offensive buffs. a bit more survivability doesn't break the tactical game - a huge infusion of armor penetrating bonus fire damage and all-important initiative do.


mounted vs. infantry balance:

- there's plenty of suggestion what to do, here's mine: instead of nerfing horses/wargs, why not just add/change an item that improves the (strategic) movement of foot soldiers? i suggested this in another thread already. my idea would be to unlock an item at some point in the tech tree (like the "rations" you recently added) that bascially occupies the mount slot, doesn't require resources (just some production) and only gives a boost to movement (or strategic movement if the game engine supports that differentiation). my reasoning for that suggestion is that i think one of the main reasons people prefer mounted stacks is the strategic movement bonus of wargs/horses. if your foot men could march 3 tiles per season, this would make them more useful for later stages of the game. also, if you end up with no mount resources, you could have at least infantry that moves at "warg speed" on the overland map. i think the item should occupy the mount slot so you can't just use mounted units with that new item on top of the already existing speed bonus.

weapons:

- this might be an oversight, but please make the guillotine axe "juggernaut only". it feels just wrong to have the option to build/upgrade trog axemen dualwielding a weapon that used to have a weight of 80. and of course, the guillotine axe is on the same tech level as the battle axe, but has 4 more attack and +5 crit, which means you'd be silly to use battle axes over juggernaut axes

- consider dropping/reducing the armor penetration of spear weapons. their damage is about equal to axes of a similar level, but their armor penetration makes them superior. i think 25% armor penetration would be more in line. 50% is rough - even full plate armored units with tower shields in def stance take a lot of damage from pike attacks, while the same defender can pretty much shrug off attacks of other weapons almost completely. this would be ok, if it wasn't for the fact that those same pikes are still almost exactly as powerful as great axes against targets with no armor at all. some armor penetration is alright to give them a purpose, but 50% is too much (IMO)


unit upgrades:

- please change the upgrade priority code so scaled cloaks aren't automatically upgraded to ice warg cloaks

- likewise, it's a shame that the new soldier's boots and gloves are automatically "upgraded" to leather bracers/boots. the player can just skip the upgrade altogether, but this way they also have to pass the opportunity to upgrade the leather chest to a monk robe and to upgrade a wooden shield to a round shield/bronze shield/kite shield etc.

that's all i can think of now. hope my suggestions make sense.

9,882 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Magic dealing damage based on attack? It's true that melee spells (outside of Death's which are quite strong) don't seem to compete well with alternatives such as fireballs. This would give them a better home. I would throw Burning Hands into the pot.

Gentle Rain and Mantle of the Ocean are both very powerful, so switching them would have few balance issues. (Their flavor is also similar, so that's not an issue either.) It's true that Gentle Rain seems out of place, off among abilities that all improve hero combat effectiveness. It's also very general purpose and any mage could want it. I'd say the switch is sensible.

Can you obtain a three essence tile next to a forest? I've never seen it. That said, I've found that prioritizing essence in fortress creation really cuts into production. Perhaps, with the importance of stacks of death, it's worth it... I would try to reduce the effectiveness of death stacks, rather than reducing maximum unit power level. To do so, I would implement strategic ZoC within owned territory. I would train the AI to "intelligently" deploy its army to prevent the movement of troops too powerful to fight. (IE to stack trash in the way, thus preventing advancement.)

Also, I would modify the computer's basic methodology by which it judges unit strength. Instead of trying to weigh stats, abilities and the like, it should just surreptitiously run a few battles. (I'm not sure if everyone's computer could handle this, but I do notice that many times the computer gives ratings that just make no sense. Like medium strength stacks that, even on autopilot, can handle deadly stacks.)

I see a lot of talk about horses. I find that I don't use horses often, because I can't afford the time to research them. I agree that, when I do research horses I generally switch to a cavalry only army, which is a little silly. Historically, horses actually have no real disadvantage, once they reach the battlefield. Pikemen, and other anti cavalry defenses rarely were able to go beyond negating advantages. However, horses, like all animals, were a pain for the supply line, and ate through a nation's wealth. Also, there was rarely sufficient availability to outfit entire armies. As such, if a change to horses (and wargs) is desired I propose a high upkeep cost and a higher production cost (or lower horse output.). Doing this, it would be nice to make horse tech somewhat more desire-able, so I would move +1 army size from siege weapons to warg riding. In turn, I would move rations from craftsmanship to siege weapons and first aid kit from war colleges to craftsmanship. This does still leave all heroes on horses- that's kind of reasonable (mounts just feel heroic) but it would be nice if there were something like 2 additional extra quest mounts.

I do think spears are too strong, but wish to argue that damage should be reduced instead of armor piercing. The weapons aren't infinitely distinct as is. Also, swords are too weak. Axes seem mostly correct.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

yeah nerfing spear damage (at least T2 and T3 spears) could also work. they came out of the great across the board nerf pretty much unscathed. perhaps reducing boar spears from 10 to 8 and pikes from 15 to 12 or something along that line. the baseline spear is just 5 strength, that's ok, but the first upgrade now doubles their attack value to 10, that may be too much.

EDIT: regarding swords: i think they are fine as they are. the good thing about swords is, they are the only weapon with innate initiative boost. so you can just build swordsmen with the finesse trait (+3 damage vs. lower init troops) which will work most of the time (and it's fairly cheap - just 6 labor cost for +3 damage). in my last game, i experimented with troop builds and i found swordsmen to be excellent tanks. built with iron skin, defensive (+10 def when in defense stance) and finesse. just have one unit of them in each army. they get to move first (usually) since they will have the highest init. run towards the enemy, and let them stand there (don't attack - you don't want to lose the +20 defense). line up the axe/spear damage troops (with bloodthirsty, muscel, fury or whatever for extra damage) behind them; waiit until the enemy engages. they will usually attack the swordsmen since they are closest. the sowrds will take a little beating, but not too much (in def stance, they will ba around 30 defense with full leather armor+wood shield - that's huge). now that the enemy units are no longer in def stance, your axemen and spears can slaughter them easily. works like a charm (most of the time :) )

 

 

regarding the 3 essence fortresses - they really don't need to be next to a forest. with some earth magic, you can slap on "enchanted hammers" and "set in stone" to build all the necessary structures quickly. set in stone is a 50% production boost, this alone is already better than the extra production from the lumber yard buildings. replae one of the production boosters with "grace of air" when you start building troops and use the third slot for fire damage (or combined with enchanters, you can keep the two production boosters and use the 3rd and 4th slot for damage and initiative); later on you can also replace enchanted hammers with arcane forge if you go deep into the magic tree(one material per essence) or you just use cash (or mana with life magic 4 - "call to arms" spell) to rush troops instead of hard building them. if you get such a location, it's worth the effort. troops with +3 or +4 init and damage outclass everything else easily. i've slain dragons with nothing but basic spears and hammers built at a +3 essence fortress (epic tech pace game :) )

 

 

 

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

@ Azunai:

 

For extra fun: Play a custom Ironeer faction with Wanderlust, giving them better swords.

 

Combined with early plate armour, coming from a fortress with an infirmary level 3 upgrade and some wargs you get basically incredibly tough guys (you get like, +3 hp per level, its gets very very funny, even if someone hits you you basically just laugh, unless its a dragon), that can still attack for half damage and stay defending! (Ironeer guarded strike ability), and due to the ini bonus they are still reasonably quick!

 

You can do the same thing with Iron Golems, but the Warg Plate armour guys are much nastier brickwalls.