pve unbalanced / scaling

There are problems I see n this fashion. I will state my instance. barracks level 14, 1726 max ap for a fight.

four cav, and five light infantry.
Cavalry level 6 all wearing an uncommon armor giving armor/endurance
four light infantry level 8 with uncommon in all slots, except artifacts on 2 were common.

my ap for teh fights were 1721 / 1726, levelling for me would have been a problem.

However, in attempts to do nightmare mode, greated i didnt have the greatest army, but I am facing level 10 and 11 units most often. 3 of them hi at least, and 1 siege engine atleast in every battle, not to mention a special unit which is most often a giant or a troll and many other units besides.

for a person with level 14 barracks it was already very difficult, now adding in this gear and I will tell you my experiences.

I had a level 11 archer wearing 1 godly piece and 3 epics, fight 1v1 with my fully healed cavalry and beat it in melee.
I have had a single hi kill 2 cavalries and 2 li's wearing this gear.. while flanked.
I forget what the HI was wearing.

I lost all 11 out of 11 nm runs.

Maybe nm was a bit too easy for a person with fresh level 14 barracks and this army, with no hi's of my own at all etc, just so I could have four cavalry
but a fresh lvl 14 barracks person has almost no ability to run this, given the instant jump of equipment on ai creatures from nothing to epic/godly.

You say you will introduce two new difficulty levels, what I would suggest is this.
for nightmare, have them wear none to uncommon armors on a slot.
for teh one above, common through epic
and the last one uncommon through godly

This equipment does matter that much.

Now also take in mind the equipments now on the creatures in coop. Yes I do see a bit less godly's there thank god.

but here is an instance. I had a person that was relatively new to the game, four armies. However, there are now four more enemies on enemy side of the screen.
His armies were all level 5? i think. or 6, because of the buff. Rather nice thing.

he had 2 heroes and was a human. 1 archer and 3 normal sword people.
a single level 9 cavalry went to him and slaughtered his four units. That cavalry was wearing a full set of gear, i think uncommon and rare, something that that little guy wouldnt have been able to wear because of ap no matter what he did.
we lost that coop badly.
I was faced with a harder mission wen he was killed like that, than nightmare was all the times I had tried to run it.
five freakin decked out enemy hi heh.

at any rate...
The balancing as it stands is way off.. the drastic change the equipment has had on the creatures is so severe that it has become more rewarding (in gold and materials as far as any profit) to not do nightmare mode, or even any longer attempt it. heh.

I understand that you guys want money. Your booster packs providing equipment already made of rares and such being cheaper, and the game significantly harder without better gear, but dont you think you went overboard?

My feeling is that maybe since now AI gets a static gear amount based on level (before they did get invisible gear, based on your own gear, which I also feel is bad) the AI's level on NM should not be significantly higher than the player. Maybe insane and suicide new difficulties could increase level above the player but I feel NM and coop should probably not. That will give people just unlocking nightmare mode a bit more of a chance to win.

To the original poster: if you want to beat nightmare, I recommend gearing as well as you possibly can. If you have to remove a unit to get the AP to gear, then do it. If you need more rares/epics then do hard mode for frags and gold to buy them. Also, as soon as you get barracks level 15, buy another HI. A well geared HI goes a long way in NM mode. I assure you it is possible to overcome without paying but you may need to prepare more first before you are ready.

Are you charging at the archers and cannons on open ground. Otherwise nm is still manageable with a naked army. The lvl of the AI-units spawned corresponds with the highest lvl. unit you bring to battle. If you bring one lvl. 9 unit and all the rest low lvl. units you still have to face an AI-army on nm with units Lvl. 10 and 11.

schriftsetzer wrote:

Are you charging at the archers and cannons on open ground. Otherwise nm is still manageable with a naked army. The lvl of the AI-units spawned corresponds with the highest lvl. unit you bring to battle. If you bring one lvl. 9 unit and all the rest low lvl. units you still have to face an AI-army on nm with units Lvl. 10 and 11.

Hmm... then it would also help players a lot if it went by their average level instead of highest level. It would make more sense and make things a lot more manageable (especially for those going in with high level LI/LIA and low level cav!). Since reward would be lower since you are killing lower level enemies it wouldn't really unbalance things.

I like it that way. I can use my low lvl. units to kill off weak high level enemy units and gain a hole lot of experience.

schriftsetzer wrote:

Are you charging at the archers and cannons on open ground. Otherwise nm is still manageable with a naked army. The lvl of the AI-units spawned corresponds with the highest lvl. unit you bring to battle. If you bring one lvl. 9 unit and all the rest low lvl. units you still have to face an AI-army on nm with units Lvl. 10 and 11.

that if wasnt happening. my cavalry was level 6 with level 8 li, but all li were lvl 8, with lvl 7 and8 heroes, all with full uncommon etc et al.
charge up one side of the map, but with hi's and other units turning, especially archers, would have a small army chasing by the top i got close to teh top of the map on the side. bear in mind I am eating artillary fire. usually one does not make it
then i turn to charge the artillary, now taking all the fire from archers decked out on epics/godly items, and the artillary.
most often one or two makes it only, the others fled / dead.
i have had the rare occasion where none makes it.

also bringing less units, but higher level fragments would be helpfulmaking stronger units and less enemies. however here lay the problem.
Would get less loots from less units to the field, bringing loots / rewards barely higher than hardmode with full uncommons and full army

galkabear wrote:

schriftsetzer wrote:

Are you charging at the archers and cannons on open ground. Otherwise nm is still manageable with a naked army. The lvl of the AI-units spawned corresponds with the highest lvl. unit you bring to battle. If you bring one lvl. 9 unit and all the rest low lvl. units you still have to face an AI-army on nm with units Lvl. 10 and 11.

that if wasnt happening. my cavalry was level 6 with level 8 li, but all li were lvl 8, with lvl 7 and8 heroes, all with full uncommon etc et al.
charge up one side of the map, but with hi's and other units turning, especially archers, would have a small army chasing by the top i got close to teh top of the map on the side. bear in mind I am eating artillary fire. usually one does not make it
then i turn to charge the artillary, now taking all the fire from archers decked out on epics/godly items, and the artillary.
most often one or two makes it only, the others fled / dead.
i have had the rare occasion where none makes it.

also bringing less units, but higher level fragments would be helpfulmaking stronger units and less enemies. however here lay the problem.
Would get less loots from less units to the field, bringing loots / rewards barely higher than hardmode with full uncommons and full army

There is your problem. Dont charge, wait for them to come protected by the landscape. If you are a lightie try to take out the dark artillery with your cavs.

schriftsetzer wrote:

galkabear wrote:

schriftsetzer wrote:

Are you charging at the archers and cannons on open ground. Otherwise nm is still manageable with a naked army. The lvl of the AI-units spawned corresponds with the highest lvl. unit you bring to battle. If you bring one lvl. 9 unit and all the rest low lvl. units you still have to face an AI-army on nm with units Lvl. 10 and 11.

that if wasnt happening. my cavalry was level 6 with level 8 li, but all li were lvl 8, with lvl 7 and8 heroes, all with full uncommon etc et al.
charge up one side of the map, but with hi's and other units turning, especially archers, would have a small army chasing by the top i got close to teh top of the map on the side. bear in mind I am eating artillary fire. usually one does not make it
then i turn to charge the artillary, now taking all the fire from archers decked out on epics/godly items, and the artillary.
most often one or two makes it only, the others fled / dead.
i have had the rare occasion where none makes it.

also bringing less units, but higher level fragments would be helpfulmaking stronger units and less enemies. however here lay the problem.
Would get less loots from less units to the field, bringing loots / rewards barely higher than hardmode with full uncommons and full army

There is your problem. Dont charge, wait for them to come protected by the landscape. If you are a lightie try to take out the dark artillery with your cavs.

you say there is my problem, and then state what I am doing as a solution to the problem?
My non cav units arent chrging across the field. they are under cover, which is a total of 5 light infantry. my 4 cavs, are going up the side of the screen, safest way, to get their artillary. please pay attention man

You might need to level a little more, or adjust your tactics.
I've only lost 1 out of the last 40 battles running with only Common & Uncommon gear.

Ha! NM is actually too easy. I NEVER won a NM with 4-5 cavalry. The problem is the amount of cavalry you're using. Too much cav = loss.

Savvage wrote:

Ha! NM is actually too easy. I NEVER won a NM with 4-5 cavalry. The problem is the amount of cavalry you're using. Too much cav = loss.

my issue with cav in NM now is that my 4 lia 6 cav combination takes too much AP and leaves little AP left for gear. i think i have to take one cav out and put on more gear or something. else my NM's are a little bit too tuff.

Exactly cavs are not a fast moving Hi. Even 3 normally equipped cav units can get into serious trouble when facing one good HI. If you cant manage to avoid entanglement before killing the artillery and archers, which is very likely, cause round about 60% of your AP are moving down the map to kill the ranged units, you will experience loses. I use 3 cavs, 1 Hi, 3 LI and 2 LIA. 4 units with drop gear, the rest is going naked.
I think the LIA/cav combination was never meant to be that powerful. A little more diversity couldn't hurt your army.

schriftsetzer wrote:

Exactly cavs are not a fast moving Hi. Even 3 normally equipped cav units can get into serious trouble when facing one good HI. If you cant manage to avoid entanglement before killing the artillery and archers, which is very likely, cause round about 60% of your AP are moving down the map to kill the ranged units, you will experience loses. I use 3 cavs, 1 Hi, 3 LI and 2 LIA. 4 units with drop gear, the rest is going naked.
I think the LIA/cav combination was never meant to be that powerful. A little more diversity couldn't hurt your army.

+1

Good posts all.

After some testing with different equipment, I believe Nightmare is very properly balanced now.

I put only rare (and a few uncommon artificats) on all my heros, calvary & light infantry and tried nightmare mode.

The opponents:



The fight (my units, mostly the calvary, but also the light infantry) kept fleeing (like 5 times!!) - So I just sent them back in each time:



The result:



Notes::

• Someone said was impossible to win in nightmare mode with 10 troops.
  
• I won this easily with only rares.
  
• One troop fleed, two got slaughtered, a lot got half injured.
  
• Important: I did this on >>> super fast speed, carelessly.
  
• I could easily have done this on normal speed with way less troop losses
  
• Obviously 5 calvary & 5 light infantry is not the best team for nightmare, yet I still won easily.
  

Conclusion: Bring rare armor with high level troops & nightmare is quite doable.

---

Addendum, A second fight with the same troops (well one godlike this time, as a previous rare broke in previous fight):



I won this one also:

• But lost all my troops except for one unit!!!
  
• However, this was my own fault for being careless in >>> mode (its very hard to control the units properly in high speed mode).
  
• Still, I did win.
  
• And would have won even easier in normal speed.
  
• And again, I am not even bringing any heavies -- which would make it even easier to win.
  

---

To add to this, and make clear anyone can expect the same results: There is nothing unusual about my troops, other than a lot of experience fighting I have 216,898 conquest points -- hence the troops have lots of experience & are high level I have used the 20% bonus package; but never used any gems for experience directly for heros or troops My researches are quite normal, no extra benefits from there (that is I don't have platemail armor or forged weapons researched yet)

---

For those struggling with nightmare:

• Bring sufficiently high level troops.  Nightmare is supposed to be difficult ... its supposed to be .... a nightmare!
  
• Make sure to bring at least rares
  
• Bring Heavies!
  
• Don't use >>> mode until you are quite experienced & troops are high level
  

Previous problems:

• Nightmare was too easy & was doable with no armor
  
• That is no longer the case, reasonably so.
  
• The change was sudden & a bit of a shock to everyone ... (I think this is actually the major issue ... more than the difficultly of nightmares)
  
• So there is need to adjust, collect rares in hard mode if need be
  
• Expect that you will need ~100,000 to ~150,000 conquest points + a lot of Rares, and a good mixture of troops, and good tactics, to be able to do nightmare consistenly (which I believe is a reasonable game balance.).
  

Good post Joyce and good job on the battlefield.

Joyce wrote:

After some testing with different equipment, I believe Nightmare is very properly balanced now.

I put only rare (and a few uncommon artificats) on all my heros, calvary & light infantry and tried nightmare mode.

This is a followup to the previous which was taking five Elyrian Chariots & five Waykeepers into nightmare mode with only rares.

---

I did the same test, but this time with godlikes (~50%), Epics(~40%), and a few rares (~10%).

Due to all this equipment, I was only able to take four Elyrian Chariots & three Waykeepers.

Enemy & Result:



An easy win in >>> mode.

From the previous test with only rares:

Joyce wrote:

The fight (my units, mostly the calvary, but also the light infantry) kept fleeing (like 5 times!!) - So I just sent them back in each time:

In contrast to the previous rare test,  here with godlikes:

• My troops didn't even flee once.  They just slaughtered the opponents
  
• The two tests felt very different.  With rares units kept fleeing & had to be sent back into battle -- here with epics+ they just won (which indicates good game balance & an appropriate reward for better equipment).
  

---

Now the same test with a proper mixture of troops (calvary & light infantry is not really a proper mixture of troops in the last two tests) using same godlike/epic equipment:



One Calvary, one heavy, 3 waykeepers, 2 archers all in nightmare >>> mode.

As can be seen with a proper mixture of troops, the injuries (look at the red injury bar on each unit) are significantly lower than when taking just calvary & waykeepers.

---

So my next test will be a proper mixture of troops all in rares.  I'm confident I will win (except when its my own fault for mismanaging my troops).

I'll also test with naked troops (and expect to totally lose).

The purpose of this testing:

• See what is needed to win nightmare (as per above probably ~100,000 to ~150,000 conquest points for sufficiently high level troops with rares)
  
• Though a friend with ~100,000 conquest points tells me, he can win nightmare with uncommons consistently;
  
• Test how equipment affects difficultly -- which appears to scale quite nicely
  
• Show that proper mixture of troops does way better than just ponies & waykeepers
  
• But mostly: convince my friends & others that nightmare is not too difficult!
  

No spoilers for other players!

Joyce wrote:

[*]Though a friend with ~100,000 conquest points tells me, he can win nightmare with uncommons consistently;

[*]
I believe Joyce means me in this instance, and I fully intend to write up a guide in the Art of War section.

Since the patch I have played 66 battles and lost 2.

My lineup is 5 LI, 2 LIA & 3 Cav. (Elven), all wearing Uncommon & Commons (some not fully kitted), with 3-4 heroes (all naked), at 1920-1934 AP.

Almost all of my games I pull in an Excellent rating, some Good and very very few without. Meaning in over 80% of my games I end up with over 60% of my force intact.

It all comes down to tactics, clever formations and smart use of terrain.

XViper wrote:

I believe Joyce means me in this instance

Yes.

---

Joyce wrote:

After some testing with different equipment, I believe Nightmare is very properly balanced now.

I put only rare (and a few uncommon artificats) on all my heros, calvary & light infantry and tried nightmare mode.

Joyce wrote:

This is a followup to the previous which was taking five Elyrian Chariots & five Waykeepers into nightmare mode with only rares.

Previous two attempts were with Rares (success) & then with Godlikes (easy success).  This attempt is with troops & heroes with no armor at all in nightmare mode.

The opponent:



Within a very short time of the forces engaging in battle, my heavies flee the battle scene like unarmed cowards:



A quick & ignominious defeat:



A good mixture of troops: 3 ponies, 2 heavies, 2 light infantry, 2 archers, 7 heroes.

All useless in nightmare without armor.

Conclusion: Wear equipment in nightmare mode!

Note: I did this in normal speed mode (no >>>) - and still failed.  I did make two mistakes; however they were minor & would not have changed the outcome, was a very lobsided defeat.

ponies....?

RuneSlayer wrote:

ponies....?

Umm, well, grown up ponies ... war  horses ... Elarian Chariots ...

I guess my suggestion to be allowed to rename Elarian Chariots to Ponies isn't going to fly ...

*wanders off & remembering to call army troops by their dignified names in the future*

RuneSlayer wrote:

ponies....?

i think she means the cavalry

I know, I know...

Sawn off unicorns.

One attempt is nowhere empirical evidence for anything, even if you standardise the pattern to "no tactics at all". Full epic army may lose without tactics too, godlike probably wont, but thats why we are eagerly waiting for suicide and insane .. btw what is the higher of those two?

There are a lot of possibilities, if you master whatever format you are using and mix troops accordingly, you can win even naked. Just not as easy as before
I am trying to figure out whether drop rates really went up, running 240 dr and so far i cant say its enough to sustain a 10 epics army.