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Joe the Bartender
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PostSubject: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeWed Jan 28, 2015 4:37 am

These are a couple of suggestions to help make units that little bit more fun, unique or fit better. Some of this was included in the development of 1.03.25, so there could be some obsolete bits of this list, but there should also be some useful suggestions.

Allies, Siege and Misc

Air Elemental - Electrical damage. This fits in perfectly with the elemental flavour and makes the Air Elemental more interesting/fun (since there's fire and cold damage types for the elementals, there should also be electrical) DONE!
Earth Elemental - Resistant to Electrical, Vulnerable to Cold? Makes some sense due to its unconductive nature and freeze-thaw effects respectively  DONE!
Fire Elemental - cost 300 metal to match the other elementals N/A
Water Elemental - cost 300 gold to match the other elementals N/A
Bat - no vulnerability instead of piercing DONE!
Dragonfly - resistant to magic? Just to spice it up and give it some more flavour. It would be the only basic flier resistant to that damage type DONE!
Eagle - probably remove the fire vulnerability. If this thing is getting it, I see no reason why the Griffin wouldn't get it as well DONE!
Griffin - Seems to be getting -9 or -10 combat in rain at daytime (still getting -1 combat due to racial inclination?).
Lightning Hawk - This unit and a couple of others floating around seem to be getting incorrect buffs/debuffs (I can' think of all of them off the top of my head and there are likely some which have slipped through the net). The Lightning Hawk in particular is getting a combat debuff in rain (and storms).
DONE
Wasp - resistant to slashing? Mostly a flavourful change. Could also make sense, carapace is designed to help resist this sort of thing DONE!


All Catapults - half damage versus units?

All Dragons - different resource costs and resistances. This one was done in 1.03.25 because some races had unbalanced access to dragons since they all cost gold and crystal (and it also made the game much more entertaining). For example the Barbarians are probably the biggest offenders here, since they rarely use either. These were the dragon costs for 1.03.25:
Celestial Dragon - Knight, High Elf, Wood Elf, Fey
Dragonliche - Undead, Dark Elf, Plaguelord, Swarm
Fire Dragon - Knight, Dwarf, Orc, Dark Dwarf, Daemon, Ssrathi, Swarm
Frost Dragon - Undead, Minotaur, High Elf, Dark Dwarf, Empire
Storm Dragon - Dwarf, Barbarian, Minotaur, Wood Elf, Dark Elf, Daemon
Swamp Dragon - Barbarian, Orc, Fey, Empire, Ssrathi, Plaguelord
DONE

gold + metal - Frost Dragon
gold + stone - Dragonliche
gold + crystal - Celestial Dragon
metal + stone - Fire Dragon
metal + crystal - Storm Dragon
stone + crystal - Swamp Dragon
DONE

The Chaos Dragon will need special attention though since that replaces a couple of the other dragons for the Dark Elves, Daemons, Plaguelords and Swarm. On another note, I agree with Daemons and Plaguelords getting a Chaos Dragon, but I feel there's a couple of things which have been left out when it got implemented into the game. Daemons and plague (and to a certain extent, famine) are chaotic in nature, but I'm not so sure about the Dark Elves. To put it in D&D terms, the Dark Elves feel more like Lawful Evil rather than Chaotic Evil (since they assassinate specific targets and are rather orderly in their execution of evil acts). Also the Minotaurs definitely need the Chaos Dragon Smile. DONE

The dragon resistances should be changed from Fire since it makes sense that a Frost Dragon would be resistant to Cold for example and due to balancing reasons. Fire and Swamp Dragons are just useless against all Dragons. It also helps to make the Fire Dragon less hopelessly outclassed.  DONE!

All Titans - cost more, take more unit cap up and are WAY stronger (also give them spells/abilities). When I think of a Titan, I think of a big stompy demigod like in Age of Mythology. In WBC3, they're weedy little things which get killed by a handful of guys. N/A

Barbarians
Warlord - It's taken me ages to figure out what was wrong with this guy. The problem with the Warlord is that he's treated as wearing heavy armour (even by sound), but as it turns out he actually isn't wearing any. He is also at odds with his race, representing the opposite by having high armour and a resistance to Slashing. Imo, taking his armour down towards the Rider's, changing his body sound to flesh rather than plate armour and changing his resistance to something like Crushing would be better. Maybe even take the vulnerability to Fire away too. DONE

Daemon
Summoner - not sure I like it the way it is. I preferred it as the power-spellcaster general unit it was. If Summon Daemon needed to be removed, then it could've been replaced with some other summon spell. Either that or give it some sort of powerful damage spell and rename it to something like Warlock or Diabolist. DONE

Dark Dwarf
Stone Golem - Vulnerable to Cold instead of Electrical DONE

Dark Elf
Dark Infantry - Remove the 3x racial damage thing between the 3 Elf sides and the 1 Dwarf side (there are plenty of reasons why, balancing and sense being foremost) In dev log
Dark Rider - similarly with the Woodrider, the more I play the more I feel this unit needs a resistance. In this case, probably a resistance to Fire would be nice DONE!
Spider - unit count 0.5 DONE!

Dwarf
Dwarf Infantry - Remove the 3x racial damage In dev log
Get rid of the axe throwing research DONE and make the current wbc3 infantry an axe-thrower and the wbc2 infantry the basic melee unit (also make sure the axe-thrower's damage isn't upgradable via Weaponsmith/Mithril).

Empire
Swap the Archer model for the Squire one. I think the Squire may also be listed as an Imperial unit as well. I'm not completely sure and it might already be fixed in the Protectors as well for that matter. DONE
Not sure if you've fixed this in the Protectors or not, but in 1.03 the Income upgrades are mis-costed (the first one is more expensive than the second) N/A

Fey
Leprechaun - vulnerable to Fire DONE!
Oakman - combative builder. Should function as a basic Treant unit in strength. Also no debuffs for night or rain, similarly with the Treants In dev log

High Elf
Iceguard - Remove the 3x racial damage DONE

Knight
Tilt the Knights towards Metal costs instead of Gold to help differentiate them from the Empire DONE
Knight Champion -rename to Cavalier (these new names are much better than the previous and can really help to bring some differentiation to these otherwise mundane units) DONE
Knight Lord - rename to Paladin and give it the Cure spell? Also give it Electrical damage rather than Slashing DONE

Minotaur
Gnoll - requires Pen instead of Ale Store to help it actually get used. Giving it a secondary resource cost might help here (like Gold?), since lower resource values are generally easier to produce whether it requires multiple resources or not DONE

Orc
Kinda feel I'd like the Troll back. It's not exactly core to the Orc forces and if it's too tricky to balance I don't really mind its exclusion myself. That said, it's not as threatening as it looks since Orcs already have access to Crushing damage, Crushing resistance and a powerful ranged unit in the form of the Shaman. I don't really see what the problem is with this one. DONE
I think Orcs shouldn't receive a penalty to combat at night. Maybe they shouldn't get a bonus, but giving them a penalty is a bit much. In dev log

Plaguelord
Bone Catapult - access at tier 3 instead of 2 N/A
Ghoul - I've always loved this guy as a Zombie Warrior (resistance to all physical, vulnerable to all elemental). It makes him a completely unique and flavourful basic infantry unit. I don't remember whether he has the human death sound in the Protectors or not but just to be sure this guy should have the same one as the Zombie DONE
Plague Priest - not sure if this has been fixed in the Protectors or not, but captain disease here doesn't actually inflict disease in 1.03 affraid DONE
Virus research - If this stuff is coming back in 8.4, it'll either need a super duper price cut or there needs to be way less research (3 levels of Virus instead of 6) DONE!
Not sure if this has been done yet, but all Hydras should be flagged as Dragons where applicable DONE!
Zombie (same for the Undead) - combative builder. Should be much stronger than a skeleton. DONE

Ssrathi
If more units are wanted for this race, the Basilisk will fit very nicely at the Hatchery. They fit more for this race than any other in the game anyway. Either that or maybe a new (recoloured) type of Basilisk? DONE

Swarm
Ant - Considering these things are giant ants, they are extremely weak. I think these builders need to be somewhat combative. DONE
Bone Catapult - requires Dunekeep lvl 2 instead of Shrine of Melkor. This gives the rush race access to anti-building content they can actually rush with DONE
Husk - is effected by pretty much all ailments despite effectively being undead DONE
Scorpion - Slashing resistance instead of Piercing. This one was heavily discussed and tested with 1.03.25s playtesting team. With a resistance to piercing, this thing fills exactly the same roll as Husks. That's practically like having 1 less unit DONE!
All Spiders - I know these are Dark Elven monsters, but these guys really fit the Swarm well, particularly the Queen Spider which can give the Swarm its name. If necessary, it could be possible to make a new desert-based spider(s) just to help it fit into the Swarm better DONE/In dev log

Undead
Guardian Skull - maybe class them as basic missile units instead of advanced otherwise the Undead towers go a bit crazy when loads of these are garrisoned
I miss Wraiths and Shadows rather a lot Sad. They also don't seem to float properly yet
DONE

Wood Elf
Also Treants - (2 unit cap, unlocked at tier 3). On another note, personally I don't think these guys should be able to be poisoned. I don't think Treants and Ancient Treants should be getting a debuff in rain either.
Forestguard - Remove the 3x racial damage
DONE
Woodrider - Like the Dark Rider, this one has always felt like it needed Crushing resistance DONE!, also remove the racial damage thing too
Oakmen feel like they fit here more than in the Fey Wink. Possibly a new Oakman variant? DONE/In dev log
Sprite - receiving all the archery buffs could be questionable. Depends on whether these things end up getting out of hand or not


Coloured experience rings for Huge units. Blue rings when selecting an allied unit or building instead of red. DONE!

Not sure if this is possible, but if units were capable of attacking other units within the same square as themselves, it could help to prevent that multiplayer problem (if that is actually the problem anyway).

Instant Unit Speed Updates - This would be extremely useful for many different reasons, the main one being Entangle. Currently, a unit's Speed isn't updated until they are given a new order, which means if you Entangle something, it will ignore the effect until it's reached its destination, making the spell (and similar effects besides) largely pointless.

Restricted Generals - This is largely just opinion. My problem with general spamming is that it's a very boring win con, it helps to create micromanagement problems and it takes away from tactics. I'd prefer generals to be restricted in production but be very powerful (or maybe a side can only have a certain number of generals at the same time? They could all have a standard command radius and act as a mini-hero). DONE/In dev log

Blood effects - this one can wait until 9.x or even later versions of the Protectors. I'd like to see more and better looking blood effects both when a unit hits another unit and when the blood hits the floor (particularly when they die. For example, they could leave steadily expanding blood pools). I'd also like to see blood stains on unit corpses, and bodies last longer so I can see the battle's outcome for a greater period of time. I only suggest this because I feel the current blood effects are very muted at the moment (by comparison to the more satisfying blood effects in games like Diablo 2 for example). In dev log

Last thing, could units heal on level up like in 1.03.23? Currently the healing provided by levelling up or morphing can get very abusive (purposefully give all your units 1XP less than is required for a certain level, they defeat a unit/building and are automatically healed close to full hp again).


Last edited by Joe the Bartender on Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:41 am; edited 14 times in total (Reason for editing : Marking what's done)
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Patrick_the_Winekiller
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Jan 29, 2015 11:37 pm

Perhaps the dragons should each have a cost of all four resources then?
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSat Jan 31, 2015 4:03 am

That could work. I could also check to see if we can get away with the 2 resource-costed dragons too but I'd need to know if there is going to be any dragon accessibility changes for that.
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Zetoo
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSat Jan 31, 2015 4:25 pm

Joe the Bartender wrote:
All Titans - cost more, take more unit cap up and are WAY stronger (also give them spells/abilities). When I think of a Titan, I think of a big stompy demigod like in Age of Mythology. In WBC3, they're weedy little things which get killed by a handful of guys. N/A

Well, just to make it clean, this one shoudn't be open anymore:
https://the-protectors.forumotion.com/t131-titans-special-ability
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSat Jan 31, 2015 7:41 pm

Joe the Bartender wrote:
That could work. I could also check to see if we can get away with the 2 resource-costed dragons too but I'd need to know if there is going to be any dragon accessibility changes for that.

I don't know, the current setup was done by Kharn's wishes (since he is the creator of the Chaos Dragon). But I suppose it could do a more rational setup.

In total there are 7 Dragon types: fire, frost, swamp, storm, celestial, liche, chaos.
There are 16 races and each race needs 2 dragon types. That means that two dragons will be met more often (each dragon type will be met in two places normally).

I suppose we could consider lairs as well. The frost dragon gets extra notoriety, so he should be excluded from the +2 possibility (thinking random maps here). There might be future lairs, this remains open.

The rest should be considered for balancing reasons AND lore. First, we should consider damage types and resistances for every dragon type. Help me fill in the list.

Fire dragon: fire damage/ fire resistance
Frost dragon: cold damage/ cold resistance
Swamp dragon:
Storm Dragon: electrical damage/ electrical resistance
Celestial Dragon: magic damage/
Dragon Liche:
Chaos Dragon: magic damage/
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 3:13 am

We've got the 3 elemental dragons (Fire, Frost and Storm), 3 alignment dragons (Celestial, Chaos and Liche as good, neutral and evil) and the Swamp Dragon who's basically a bit of an outsider. To me it appears the Swamp Dragon was created just to supplement the Plaguelords.

The elemental ones go without saying but the other four are considerably harder to judge. It's difficult to say what they should be doing since there's no lore references to them that I know of. Is there any lore for them in the Warlords games?

The three alignment dragons could potentially do Fire (Celestial), Cold (Dragonliche) and Electrical (Chaos) damage as well as Magic. The Celestial's Fire damage could be likened to the sun whilst the chaotic, ever-changing form of electrical bolts could be shown as a form of chaos in its own way. The Dragonliche can do pretty much anything it wants since it's a liche dragon rather than a mindless necromantic bone dragon of sorts (it's like comparing a Skeleton to a standard Liche for example).

I guess the Swamp Dragon breathes acid over its enemies, which is another difficult damage type to ascertain (although for completely different reasons to the alignment dragons). It could cause Fire damage since acid can 'burn' certain substances, though personally I think I'm more in favour of it dealing Magic damage. I don't really know very much about acid, but I assume it's a special molecular reaction which essentially disintegrates/changes certain materials. As it functions very differently from fire, I'll go along with Magic since I suppose an acidic reaction doesn't necessarily produce heat (or does it?). I'm hoping someone can help me out here confused.

If I were to go out on a limb, I'd probably say:
Swamp dragon: fire damage/fire resistance or magic damage/magic resistance
Celestial Dragon: magic damage/magic resistance or fire damage/fire resistance
Dragon Liche: magic damage/cold resistance or cold damage/cold resistance
Chaos Dragon: magic damage/magic resistance or electrical damage/electrical resistance
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 4:07 am

Joe the Bartender wrote:
an acidic reaction doesn't necessarily produce heat (or does it?)
You are describing an exotermic reaction (organic Chemistry nerd stuff)


Is there any possibility to get a lair to Swap dragons? Does it fit right as Frozen dragons, to be a non dependent on racial production?
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 4:13 am

Zetoo wrote:


Is there any possibility to get a lair to Swap dragons? Does it fit right as Frozen dragons, to be a non dependent on racial production?

If by swap you mean other races get other dragons than yes, it is entirely possible. Hence the frost dragon lair also produces dragon liches ONLY if the owner is undead.

All dragons are (or should be) non dependent on racial production when you struggle to hold a lair/any other neutral building that you can only convert and it's in the middle of nowhere. Like temples, it's supposed to give an advantage over the other players.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 4:22 am

yes all that and maybe give an unique lair to SWAMP dragons (eating words) like frozen dragons. Those two to be produced only in lairs.

If you can produce frozen+liche with the current lair, then the new one could make possible production of SWAMP dragons + (other type of dragon, fill blank).
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 4:47 am

Oh, now I understand! You are hungry for letters! Razz

I intend on making a lair for every type of dragon actually, with the extra liche option only available to undead for lore reasons (though if proven unbalanced can be removed). In the present though, version 0.8.x only has frost dragon lairs spawning in random maps.

Back to damage types & resistances, if we are to make two dragons of the same kind (e.g. both have same resistance and damage type) then they absolutely mustn't be both available for a single race, otherwise there would be no use for one of them -> the mix of dragons gets limited.

On the other hand, I suppose we can have celestial/chaos/swamp/liche dragons with the same res&dtype, considering they have extra abilities like xp reduction, armor reduction or damage vs good/evil creatures. That means having a Storm Dragon and a Chaos Dragon (with electricity) available for one race would make an easy choice, the only difference being that the Chaos Dragon is slightly stronger but more expensive (in 0.8.4, special abilities are taken into consideration for balancing reasons).

Anyway, here's some info about the dragons, extracted from the Unified History of Etheria:
Spoilers:
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 5:46 am

Wow, I did not realise a comprehensive history document existed! Surprised I wish a lot more of it was actually put into the series of games, there's almost nothing on these characters in WBC3.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 6:21 am

I'm still in favor of the "acid" type damage being included. That way the Swamp Dragon can be given a type that allows it to perform different roles to the Fire Dragon. The Fire Dragon can remain being the building buster, as buildings will be weak to fire, not acid. Whereas the Swamp Dragon will be less effective against buildings, and by having a special trait to works only on infantry, would encourage the Swamp Dragon to focus purely on infantry melting. Also I think the amount for armour lowered needs to be increased, as well as lowering resistance at the same time. However, the loss of resistance can be undone by the use of any healing spell.

Also, how about making it so the Chaos Dragon deals extra damage against both good AND evil creatures? Or maybe even going the complete opposite direction and having it deal extra damage against units that are NOT good nor evil? (in other words, neutral targets.) This is so that despite following the pattern for traits with its other magic breathing kin, it doesn't share the exact same breath traits.

P.S: I've also always thought about another Dragon type, one with no breath attack and instead munches on its foe - like Lunarian's golden Dragon. I even thought about creating it from the Swamp Dragon by recolouring it yellow.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Feb 01, 2015 7:09 am

An extra dragon type would be great since all dragons would then fit the number of races (one type of dragon goes to only 2 different races)
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Feb 12, 2015 12:29 am

I think the Magic damage type needs to be fleshed-out further. In addition to an Acid damage type, I'd also be interested in a Divine damage type and maybe a Death/Dark damage type of some sort. There are a handful of reasons I don't like Magic damage. It essentially ignores armour/resistance and has no critical effect. There are also a large number of units out there which have been looking for the right damage type but some vague one was just thrust upon them instead. For example the Snakepriest and Iriki could have a ranged Divine attack (which looks like a yellowy sunbeam), the Druid could use the Acid damage type and we can fix the Leprechaun's brokenness for good. In dev log


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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Feb 19, 2015 6:13 am

Regarding the Treant, could we make it accessible at Haven level 3 instead of the Arbos rune and make it take up 2 unit cap instead of 4 to help distinguish it from the Ancient Treant in the same way the Ogre is to the Giant. DONE


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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Feb 19, 2015 7:16 am

We cannot change army cap... err, food consumption because their info image changes when selecting multiple units.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Feb 19, 2015 11:30 am

That's easy enough to change. I did this once with the Barbarian Riders quite some time ago.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeTue Mar 17, 2015 2:14 am

Alright, any thoughts on the dragons in version 0.8.4 statwise? Personally, I think the Dragon Liche is over-powered, being resistant to both arrows, fire arrows and cold damage of any kind.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeWed Mar 18, 2015 9:26 am

I've been busy recently, sorry it's taken so long for me to get back to you regarding units and mechanics.

The first thing I wanted to say was that 0.8.4 is a massive improvement. The unit balancing feels more balanced than it's ever been in the past afro.

However, I believe there are some problems introduced by the way units have been balanced. Units feel more balanced with each other, but don't really feel like they're balanced with heroes or buildings at all. I believe there may also be problems regarding certain roles for units and some seem to have incorrect stats/resource costs like the Faerie Dragon and Spider respectively. The issues mentioned in this thread are unfortunately still relevant. To clarify:
Joe the Bartender wrote:

I do like that the basic units have been brought up towards the advanced units and heroes, but few initial changes to the heroes means frailer classes end up being weaker than a single basic melee unit. Whenever I'm playing, I tend to refrain from sending my hero across the map even with a reasonable army in tow just out of fear of getting one-shotted.

This problem still exists, only it has been made even more significant since unit damage has gone up further, leaving all heroes in the dust. Even resilient warrior and chieftain classes can't tackle a small group of units let alone frailer melee-dedicated hero classes like the Assassin. The massive amount of unit power also has the side effect of making all buildings extremely fragile, most fights last a shorter amount of time, support heroes always significantly superior to combat ones and retinue units less likely and largely useless (most advanced and elite level 20 units tend to die in seconds to level 1 basics).

Joe the Bartender wrote:

As units have been empowered, tower damage has been buffed. This presents another problem to the game, as towers are now so powerful that they'll easily be able to kill any hero in one or two shots. If you're marching your hero around at the front of an army into the fog of war, you could end up instantly dead.

In addition, tower bulwarks exercise the Ranged>Melee clause, similar to 0.8.3. This problem is also worse unfortunately, since towers can now outrange non-Dwarven Catapults, Bone Catapults and Gobshooters as their ranges have been decreased. Towers may be extremely fragile, but almost nothing is ever going to reach them in the first place.

Joe the Bartender wrote:

The problem is that constructing more barracks will make up for unit production time, which ends up making the Plutocrat perk flawless. The only chance the Aristocrat has of defeating the Plutocrat is to rush on a small map. I believe the situation is better when the time cost is 300% of normal instead of 150%. Even then, there could be unforeseen problems factoring in like the size of a map.
I think a 50% cut in resources probably swings the game too much. A lighter perk will be easier to balance properly and won't have such a massive impact on the game (10-25% resource cut, 30-35% time increase maybe?).

Although not as significant as it was, this one's still lurking around, ready to rise up and strike unwary passers-by like the Watcher in the Water. geek

The Fire crit - 10% of the unit's damage per second over a 15 second period (if I understand correctly) can be a bit much. It works fine for most basic and advanced units, but some of the stronger fire damage units (particularly dragons) can be over the top. A basic unit does around 45 damage after a fire crit, whilst a (fire) dragon will currently do 150. That's pretty much certain death to most units in the game, even fire resistant ones.

Lastly, the matter with dragons is that they all have the same stats and almost the same cost totals too. Basically there's two roads to go down with this, which are:

  • Dragons all have the same stats, but some cost more than others
  • Dragons all cost the same total amount as each other, but have different stats

Personally I prefer the latter option since that doesn't change access restrictions via heavily increased resource costs (which can essentially mean only having access to one dragon in certain contexts).
ALL DONE!


Last edited by Joe the Bartender on Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:44 am; edited 1 time in total (Reason for editing : Marking what's done)
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeThu Mar 19, 2015 6:51 am

I just want to thank you, Joe the Bartender, for writing all of these long posts about units and their stats/balances. I've taken a very strong interest in this mod, especially considering that not many people play it and I feel that perhaps at some point it could get a much larger following, if only the same dedication we've seen so far continues to apply (which I am sure it will <3).

I do confess that I should probably play more of the races that I do not quite take a liking to (The Elven races, for example), but as I play this game with my fiancee and friends, we've all begun to take notice to some peculiarities amongst the units and heroes. I must second what you said about melee heroes. Warriors, chieftains and the like seem... well, to be quite honest, useless. My friend has a lvl 20 warrior which died to a few skeletons, resulting in a funny (to us) alt f4 ragequit. However, pure support heroes like the Tinker, Sage, Merchant, etc, can be a tremendous boon to their side while remaining safe and sound within the base. Since melee heroes boon to their side is supposed to be their superb ability in combat, to tear through many smaller units, and this cannot is not the case any longer. I lost my lvl 10 assassin to an iceguard just yesterday. Granted, Dark Elf assassins that go pure dex are fragile, it still feels odd that a Tier 1 HE Unit can kill a hero. This has left my friends and I to simply play with spellcaster and other support heroes, leaving my favorite classes (Paladin, Assassin, Warrior) in the dust.

Now that I'm done complaining, I want to again thank all of you for the dedication. The mod following is small, but I hope it grows exponentially! ^-^
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 20, 2015 6:35 am

Continuing on that trend, I'd like to pitch an idea for most units to follow. Since the game is essentially not designed for the super powered units, I think starting from the 1.03.26 unit and unit production base and going on from there might be a good idea (for most units, but not all. I have most of these changes in a small PatchData.xcr file made for the Protectors and can implement it easily enough).

In terms of a unit's stats;

Combat - All melee units more or less the same as in the current version of the Protectors. Helps stop crazy combat ratios and crit spams (except against ranged).
Hits - Pretty much the same as Protectors too - all units needed more hits, particularly melee units to help stop ranged>melee and make battles last longer in general.
Speed - The only thing that needed changing from vanilla was the Cavalry speed, which is more or less already done in the Protectors for the most part.
Damage - This stat is the one that needs looking into more than all others. I think it should be similar to how it was in vanilla WBC3, otherwise the game just can't handle it.
Range - Same as in the current Protectors. This needed to go down just to help stop the range>melee abuse.
Armour - Since this stat works like combat afaik (except it's damage vs armour), this needs to go up for quite a lot of units since there's loads with an unusually low armour value.
Resistance - Same as Armour really, only that there are some irregular units here and there.
Resistances and Vulnerabilities - There should be as many of these on each unit as possible, since it will help to promote tactical game play. However, that's not to say every unit should have these since it wouldn't make sense for the Thrall or Pikeman for example to be particularly vulnerable/resistant to a damage type.
View - Increase for most units, especially large and tall ones like the Treant, Ancient Treant or Giant. I feel the Protectors makes a start on this, but there's still some units with really low View stats and others with a little too much (usually Elven archers).
Build Time - Pretty much the same as vanilla WBC3. Some races have faster producing units, others shouldn't so much (the Giant Ant for example was a particularly special builder due to its low cost and really fast production times).
Resource Costs - Also should probably be similar to vanilla. Like Build Time, it needs to be enough in order to make each unit relatively valuable otherwise the game will just be resolved by spamming units which would be detrimental to strategic gameplay.

If wanted, I can provide this take on unit balancing and upload it just to provide an alternative option Smile. It could mean that the buildings and heroes wouldn't need to be changed so much if this version is used, even if it's just used as a base.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 20, 2015 7:32 am

Those all seem like excellent alterations, Joe. Truly, the greatest flaw right now is the fact that melee units and heroes cannot hold a candle to ranged spam. I also think increasing the view is a great idea, considering how low the view range is, even for something like the Forest Guard.

Build Time and Costs, most assuredly. I made a Ssrathi hero yesterday and was astounded to find the most basic unit Snakeman was 100 ore. That seems.. well, it seems extraordinary for such a simple unit, doesn't it? I understand that most units have had their costs brought up, and that makes something like aristocrat even less useful. I cannot imagine how high it would be to make a snakeman with a few points in aristocrat, even with a decent merchant skill. I would love to play without any points in plutocratic, but right now I feel that with some races it's impossible to do that and match up to another player's production.
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeFri Mar 20, 2015 7:43 am

If you look in the Manual folder, there's a balance spreadsheet file. There, I tried to create a universal cost for every stat, ability and resource in the game. It contains all the unit's stats in the game. Perhaps we can adjust those?
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Mar 22, 2015 5:46 am

Ok, I've managed to go through every unit and can provide further details if necessary (and the xcr).

A couple of things of note: I've changed the army point/cap value for 3 units (the Triceratops, Treant and Hydra). The former 2 units were removed from the patch (because their AP did not conform with their accessibility or they were conflicting with other units and simply couldn't work properly?) and the Hydra just didn't feel like it worked well without the change (it was having to compete with Cryohydras and Pyrohydras and couldn't really survive being a 4AP unit, especially at an accessibility level of 3, the Plaguelords needed a 2AP tier 3 tank). All units which get an AP change will need their icon changed though bounce.

I feel the Doom Knight could also use an AP change to 2 since it's large enough and powerful enough to be a 2AP unit. Currently, it's a hyper efficient 1AP unit (probably the most efficient 1AP unit in the game). I don't really mind if it gets left as it is though.

Out of all the units in the game, I have only found 2 or 4 which are difficult to include: Gnoll, Trolls/Kobold Snipers and Wraiths/Shadows for the Undead. Trolls are wedged in-between Kobold Snipers, Gobshooters and Goblin Shamans (I'd actually say that it could potentially replace Kobold Snipers since a ranged crushing attack fits Orcs better than a standard arrow-based piercing one) whilst Gnolls are and have always been useless for the Minotaurs. Nothing short of making them into a speedy 'cavalry' unit accessible at tier 2 (at the Pen?) would fix them in my opinion. At the moment I've changed Wraiths/Shadows into something that's more like a Sylph just so the Undead can use them (fast-producing, but somewhat fragile defence unit). Currently I've got them coming out of the Barrow which I thought fitted well Smile.

Towers - +200 hits and +5 damage. Most towers will have 450 to 550 hits and 35 to 40 damage, though I'm not entirely certain the small damage increase will be necessary.

Research - I haven't done enough testing yet, but I did find some offenders here and there. The first one that needs talking about is Crusade, which ties in with the Skeleton's morph ability too for that matter. Units need to stop getting healed upon levelling up or morphing like in 1.03.23. It's so abusable, especially with tougher units which essentially can't die under multiple circumstances. You don't even need to pay any resources to heal a unit by levelling them up at the moment. All that needs to be done is make sure all your units are exactly 1xp behind a level threshold. Once this stuff is sorted out, Crusade can stop being so crazy and can practically half in cost.

I haven't fully tested this yet, but some damage-based research could potentially have too much effect on the global damage nerf. The researches involved are:

  • Weaponsmith I & II (doubling the damage of all your weenies could get a bit strong. +3 then +6 might be better)
  • Fletcher
  • Paladin (same as Torture)
  • Grand Paladin (same as Fallen Knight)
  • Mithril (to coincide with Weaponsmith, it could do +10 damage instead of +15)
  • Dark Mithril (same as Mithril)
  • Torture (Probably one of the most broken researches in the game, made even more broken with the damage nerf. Every time you pump your Slayer/Doom Knight's damage up, that damage gets doubled so Mithril gives +20 to +30 and every level up gives 4 more damage instead of 2 etc)
  • Fallen Knight (turn target game into one of the most boring games you've ever played. I don't want a research that kills all Empire players, or forces me to have a Knight-off with all the other Knight race players)
  • Spear of Ank (Barbarians you control can blow towers up What a Face. +10 damage is nuts in this)
  • Barbarian King (depends upon whether generals have been restricted or not)
  • Iron Clad Horns (both this and Iron Shod Hooves are probably going to be crazy, possibly even worse than Shaman)
  • Iron Shod Hooves
  • Shaman (a monster of a research. Undoes almost every change I've made Sad)
  • Thump
  • Dragon Warriors (doubles damage though that said Weaponmaster doubles the damage of weenies too)
  • The Alicorn
  • Bowmaster (almost doubling the damage for all archers could reinstate the ranged>melee clause too much)
  • Thorns
  • Darkbolt (almost as silly as Shaman right now)
  • Faerie Blade
  • Faerie Fire (target pixie army burns down target player's base)
  • Shatter (golem, smash! ...everything Sad)
  • Alchemist Fire I & II (potentially puts the Flame Cannon's damage up to 60, which is probably too high even for a 4AP unit since it's ranged)
  • Might of Ctharos (only a problem because of Imps, which will no doubt find a way to throw 15 damage in your face from up above. The Summoning spell sphere is also a worthy mention here)
  • Acid I, II & III (if the Slime's damage type becomes Acid/Magic, this could become a problem)
  • Virus
  • Rage I, II & III (this is going to go crazy, potentially doubling damage for many of the dinosaurs)
  • Melkor's Blessing (same as Barbarian King)

I will probably need to test this stuff out more though before I upload it, just to make sure I haven't made any silly mistakes Rolling Eyes.
DONE DIDDLY DONE DONE DOO


Last edited by Joe the Bartender on Tue Jul 21, 2015 7:45 am; edited 1 time in total
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PostSubject: Re: Unit Tweaks   Unit Tweaks I_icon_minitimeSun Mar 22, 2015 7:37 am

I'm surprised the Ssrathi Snake Priests did not get a mention. With their range researches they raze any base in a matter of seconds! Twisted Evil
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