Undead Still Seems too Strong

I know this is something that's been an issue for a long time, but it still seems like it's not adequately resolved. If you need proof just check out the number of players who chose undead in the new server and undead's pvp record in the new world. I've probably lost almost 20 pvp's to various undead now and I've only won against them once (with 100 AP more than them!). Now, one might say that the undead who pvp are just good players... well, while that is true in many cases, the amounts I tend to lose by even when I have an AP advantage tell me that the matches are not balanced, and I even recently lost to an undead who brought an archer to a low AP match and didn't look like he even got a single shot with them before I got to him... and I still lost miserably even though I brought 30 more AP than him and flanked him. I don't consider myself a terrible strategist... I've won every pvp I've done against non-undeads so far, not that it is saying much since there's only a couple dark players who seem to be pvping who aren't undead... ugh...

My low AP match against an undead, in which he played pretty poorly and yet I only got 42 kills out of his army (names removed for privacy):


So my request is to take another look at balancing for undead. Since undead might be tired of getting nerfed at this point (even though they still seem to be the strongest in at least 90% of cases) a better solution may be to give more ability to the other races to fight them. My main issue being that, even with full gear score level 5/4 units and strong tactics I cannot beat a single undead player unless they give me a very significant AP advantage or play extremely poorly. I've tried many different strategies (swarming, gearing, balling up, spreading out, etc) but none of them are at all reliable against these unbreakable monstrosities. Ironically, undead is a lot easier to damage in tier 1 if they bring an HI. Their LI/LIA are much more beast than HI in tier 1, even without flanking, to the point where they feel like HI themselves sometimes.

P.S.: I've also heard dwarves can be nigh unbeatable when they have capped HI even against undead. so maybe some checks should be done that dwarf HI aren't too powerful with their max stats. I doubt they are too powerful until then though, whereas undead seems to be very powerful until they are fighting max stat units. This is all speculation as I haven't had much experience fighting with max stats, but just trying to get the ball rolling. Thoughts, everyone?

Anytime you try to suggest to nerf a race the people who have that race get really defensive. They don't want their race to be nerfed which is fair but then they are just being biased. So I would rather it if other races were tweaked. I feel like over the entire history of Battle Conquest people have been asking to have Skellies nerfed or tweaked. I don't think the last "nerf" did enough. It's like a skill that sometimes doesn't even work. Well now that all I face in pvp is skellies in BC2 it would be nice to have more of a 50/50 chance against them and then have gear and tactics helping more than just they seem to be able to overcome anything I can throw at them. So i'm sure more people would prefer that you just tweaked all the races instead of nerfing the Undead but I feel very strongly that something needs to be done.

I'm undead on both servers. Gashadokuro my name on Olympos. I begin to think you have a point. I know i'm not a bad pvp player but I cant be that superior either. Never lost a PvP on the new server. 30 PvP or even more so far.
Maybe you need to raise the initial AP values for undead significantly. But I think something needs to be done.

Correction. After posting this one I lost my first PvP on olympos, damn. Doesnt change my opinion cause i got disconnected and found myself in a rather bad situation as I managed to get back.

Claudandus wrote:

Correction. After posting this one I lost my first PvP on olympos, damn. Doesnt change my opinion cause i got disconnected and found myself in a rather bad situation as I managed to get back.

Glad to hear the opinion of an undead player as well.

Also, hey Claud, didn't realize it was you as Gasha, cool. =) You are definitely a good pvper based on our pvps in Olympus, but I don't consider myself bad either. Our matches definitely should have been closer.   

Apparently Scaren's dwarf HI got soloed by a naked skeleton LI recently also... take that for what it's worth... It seems like it's the skeleton LI/LIA that are most OP. I don't think the other undead units really need too much attention right now.

I lost in that AP range to an elf a couple times yesterday, Bobba. And I didn't have a chance against him!

And I lost many times so far.

Most of the times my enemies make mistakes in pvps, yep, you too Bobba sometimes (not that foolish ones I have to admit it, you're good). When you defeated me, you had better tactics in that battle, it was not about less AP for me at all. I would have lost that battle even with 100 AP more.
I don't say UD isn't OP, I can't tell this, don't have the sufficient data for that, I only know that the players against me usually make mistakes, go into q with wrong army compositions, can't maneuver their army efficiently, they have bad gear and many other things. And they barely realise their mistakes! It's a bias too, not only UDs defending their races...

But well, it's all about UD being OP after these battles.
It's ridiculous, because they should say: Oh you flanked me 3 times and reared me twice, that's why you won! Or: Oh you had 2 perfect gl items and I just threw some random rares onto my units. Or: you caught my units one-by-one. Or: I don't even know what's the difference between armor and endurance. Or: I didn't have a clear vision of how to beat my enemy. Or anything, but no, it's always UD is op.

I don't like this.
I don't have a chance against a dwarf with the same (or probably higher) level gear and good tactics and good army composition. So are they OP?
Nah, if I got beaten 1000 times against that dwarf, he will still say UD is op. Tiring.

And yep, probably you didn't have a chance against that skellie in that AP. But if he brought 4 lias instead, he wouldn't have a chance. So, probably in that fight you should have brought another army to beat his.
Who knows? Testers would know.

Test the races, gather large data, objective decisions and stuff.

Or if we want to be subjective, nerf the elves. I lost to that elf. And I really did my best there, you can believe me, when I went in after my first defeat. Nerf the elves (no)

Hey Ala,

I ALWAYS have more ap than you, but I always lose. We have the same number of units, 1 of my units has a higher level than your units AND I have better gear than you, but I still get totally decimated. I admit that my tactics are not perfect but every different tactic I use goes to waste.  

I think Undead should be nerfed OR all the races should be tweaked.

- Gimli
-(ign-Gimlithedrunk255)  

Ala I can see where you are coming from when you say players are using bad tactics against UD. In this match I had against Rapidindihas sorry for the misspelling. He just balled up and let me flank him. To no avail it did nothing. Barely put a dent in his HI. His HI were naked with one HI having one uncommon armor. His LI were assorted into rares and uncommons. I had multiple epics and rares on my HI along with my LI also having rares. I'm not sure how to beat skellies without artillery. Considering that is end game unit seems too long a wait to be able to stand a chance against them. After this post I won't say anymore about skellies until I reach level 8 and start using godlikes. I don't have the full view yet and so I need to see how my dwarves stand up to skellies with proper equipment and at higher stats.
http://prntscr.com/2h80s4

sorry I don't know how to make it a picture on the forum. It's also a bad picture and I shouldn't have taken better ones. But basically my 3 HI came from the south and tanked his skelly mass and my LI flanked/reared him from the west and north.

Well balls shouldn't be that strong I admit that. It is especially good for UD sometimes (but sometimes it's the worst tactics). Well I almost never use that tactics (in PVP), so I can't really talk about it.
I only know if I am late to flank (3-5 seconds) or flank with the wrong unit against such a ball of an orc, I also lose.

Gimli: You don't have better equipment. Or at least I don't know why do you think that.

In the contrary, I think you have not good gear (yet). And you don't put your gear on your units perfectly. It's not a problem, gear is bit less important now probably, but still, don't say you did have better equipment and still lost because that's just not true.
You could win however, but...I can flank you all the time (and combined with my better gear, it leads to a clear defeat). You could be a great player, you will be probably one someday, I will lose to you many times, but right now you have to learn a lot. And that's why I don't understand, how you come to statements like UD is OP. Independently from whether it is, or isn't.

I would recommend the devs to take a real life look at the PvP's going on. Cause the tests they've been running don't match the experience of the community for whatever reason.
The last UD nerf has practically no relevance for PvP. Cause most of the time an UD player is able to field just as many units or even more as his opponent, which makes it rather hard to get UD morale down by flanking or rearing.
Maybe the devs could check at least all PvP's with undeads for their outcome. That might prove nothing, but a number beyond 80% winning rate for UD should raise suspicions.

Better check it on old server. New server has only a few skellies PVPing. (before you say they are still more than other races, please note that it's independent.)

Correct statistics must be made with large enough sample. 4-6 players are not large enough sample. For any kind of statistics.

and still you have to compare player skills. On old server i had about 80% winning ratio and it was stable. I had about 80% even at the beginning where UD retreated like rest races.

Im still a little uncertain about all this skellie is OP stuff. Cause I believe Ala, Kuba and I are the ones being responsible for most of the frustration with UD. At least in PvP. So yeah maybe even a 80% win ratio and above might not tell much, if just a few players are responsible.
UD are the center of most of the complaints. So this issue definitely needs some attention.

Different races require different tactics. I Don't want to spill tactics in these forums, but UD can be rather easy to take down, if you know how to.

Wave_Rida wrote:

Different races require different tactics. I Don't want to spill tactics in these forums, but UD can be rather easy to take down, if you know how to.

Since you think it is so easy please spill the beans. Not only that but we are talking about pvp and not pve. I've had my fair share of pvps and even as an orc I had trouble going against skellies.

I think that it would really help the case if somebody would upload a video of them losing a battle that they clearly would have won if they were fighting any other race. If that can't be done then who's to say they simply didn't get flanked, or were facing a stronger army?

If you make a thread like this you should bring some evidence to the table.

Anduin wrote:

I think that it would really help the case if somebody would upload a video of them losing a battle that they clearly would have won if they were fighting any other race.  If that can't be done then who's to say they simply didn't get flanked, or were facing a stronger army?

If you make a thread like this you should bring some evidence to the table.

I also think that's a good idea. I will figure out how to videotape and yes I will show multiple videos if I have too.

As luck plays a role in the battles, you should have many-many videos.

And the real problem is, that you can't show your enemy's gear and stat distribution unfortunately.

Ala wrote:

As luck plays a role in the battles, you should have many-many videos.

And the real problem is, that you can't show your enemy's gear and stat distribution unfortunately.

Well, at least a player can show their own units' stats before the battle in the video, which will give a somewhat decent idea of how well they should be performing.

Something needs to be done about this though... I'm simply not having fun when 90% of the pvps I can find are against undead and I can never beat them no matter what tactics I try, even with good gear for tier 1. It severely limits the enjoyment I can get out of this game... I know you guys are good players, but I'm not awful either and if luck was the issue I would have won some pvps against undead by now, not be crushed every single time. Also, Ala, the 100 less AP pvp I mentioned earlier, you made a really awful mistake in, and let me take out a whole unit without attacking me. I can't expect mistakes like that from my opponent in every pvp... If I have to depend on something like that to win any pvp against undead, something is really screwed up.

As for your pvp against a low AP elf that beat you and you had no chance, I can't understand how that possibly happened, but the balance does definitely need looked at more for more than just undead. I may be slightly biased because I've fought so much undead in pvp that I can't see situations in which elf would be more powerful, unfortunately I've tried many different strategies and can't find a single one that can beat any good undead player in tier 1 without insane luck or big AP advantage. They hit me harder, die slower, never flee, and are cheaper than my units. That's my general experience with them in pvps. How can I compete with that?

Bobba wrote:

Ala wrote:

As luck plays a role in the battles, you should have many-many videos.

And the real problem is, that you can't show your enemy's gear and stat distribution unfortunately.

Well, at least a player can show their own units' stats before the battle in the video, which will give a somewhat decent idea of how well they should be performing.

Something needs to be done about this though... I'm simply not having fun when 90% of the pvps I can find are against undead and I can never beat them no matter what tactics I try, even with good gear for tier 1. It severely limits the enjoyment I can get out of this game... I know you guys are good players, but I'm not awful either and if luck was the issue I would have won some pvps against undead by now, not be crushed every single time. Also, Ala, the 100 less AP pvp I mentioned earlier, you made a really awful mistake in, and let me take out a whole unit without attacking me. I can't expect mistakes like that from my opponent in every pvp... If I have to depend on something like that to win any pvp against undead, something is really screwed up.

As for your pvp against a low AP elf that beat you and you had no chance, I can't understand how that possibly happened, but the balance does definitely need looked at more for more than just undead. I may be slightly biased because I've fought so much undead in pvp that I can't see situations in which elf would be more powerful, unfortunately I've tried many different strategies and can't find a single one that can beat any good undead player in tier 1 without insane luck or big AP advantage. They hit me harder, die slower, never flee, and are cheaper than my units. That's my general experience with them in pvps. How can I compete with that?

You really can't Bobba you just can't. They have too many factors that make them almost unbeatable. They have low ap so not only can they bring more units but they can also bring more and better gear. They have low reaction which allows them to attack fast although in my opinion without muscles they should be slower. Supposed to be a little funny but at the same time I do think their reaction is a bit too low. Their unbreakable just makes them too OP. Flanking and rearing is so fundamental and so important in pvp it has to be used in pvp unless you want to lose everytime. For skellies this is not true. Their unbreakable on all their units especially their HI allows them to not worry about flanking. In pve you can always set traps and use your HI to flank while your LI flank. A good Undead player can easily negate those advantages in any pvp. Again with their unbreakable a smart UD player would use LI. Now not only are those LI unbreakable which is a big aspect of picking LIA for other races but they can equip armor unlikes the LIA and have better stats than the LIA. Even then if their LI are losing to any other unit with their unbreakable they can still hold off that unit for their other units to win and then flank. Then my HI flee even if they have superior gear and they get simply run down my HI. If Skelly HI were reared or flanked they wouldn't need to worry about flanking. If their HI have good gear they can just continually attack not only whoever engaged that HI first but also it's flankers. It is too big of a deficit to come over in pvp and I believe it largely unbalances pvp. Now while I think that the killing of one skelly unit when it's morale drops is a step in the right direction it is not nearly enough. Not only does it sometimes not even work but it isn't big enough of a factor for the HI considering it has 25 units which is the most of all HI. Now at the same time I have no problem with other races being tweaked.

Uhm, there are several players actually not playing ud HI, due to them being terrible.

UD are very vunerable to flanking, especially since they wont retreat automatically.

Lastly, one of the standard picks in an UD army are LIA. There is still the damage difference and movement bonus between LIA and LI which you forget to mention.

In addition, I will spill a single bean. You claim any undead player can easily reduce advantages of flanking. That is total bs. You go in with HI, make him think you ball in, but keep 1 squad behind and flank. Surrendering the skellies will cost him time and troops.

Key: outsmarting your opponent in pvp.

Wave_Rida wrote:

Uhm, there are several players actually not playing ud HI, due to them being terrible.

UD are very vunerable to flanking, especially since they wont retreat automatically.

Lastly, one of the standard picks in an UD army are LIA. There is still the damage difference and movement bonus between LIA and LI  which you forget to mention.

In addition, I will spill a single bean. You claim any undead player can easily reduce advantages of flanking. That is total bs. You go in with HI, make him think you ball in, but keep 1 squad behind and flank. Surrendering the skellies will cost him time and troops.

Key: outsmarting your opponent in pvp.

1. That makes no sense. The very point of flanking is to make the enemy flee. The fact that they can't flee is what makes flanking not very effective against them. Like I said earlier the fact that one unit dies at a time is not enough especially since it doesn't even happen everytime. Now yes shiver can be useful when flanking but even then they don't need the best melee to continue to kill and hold off enemy units.
2. I never said that LIA were bad. I just said that LI was the smart pick especially since when they can craft godlikes they will be able to equip godlike armor to their LI unlike their LIA vastly improving their LI. Same with LIA movement. Simply put a movement banner on the LI and not only tha but a good pvp player can negate movement simply by positioning his units correctly. Although I would agree that more movement is never a bad thing.
3. First off I believe I have pvped a lot more than you so I can say with experience that skelly HI are in no way terrible. Any HI is better than LI or LIA. You saying it is your opinion same as me but I believe the stats would go in my favor. Leaving one unit behind to flank will do little. You forgot that not only is there a guarantee that they would also ball up their own units and engage my ball of units but they might even leave multiple units behind to flank. My one unit could easily be overtaken most likely flanked if they use multiple units to flank me but whatever units they sent against my ball of units would most likely have enough time for the flanking to happen in which case as soon as one of my unit flees it's very improbable to win at that point.

Scaren wrote:

You really can't Bobba you just can't. They have too many factors that make them almost unbeatable. They have low ap so not only can they bring more units but they can also bring more and better gear. They have low reaction which allows them to attack fast although in my opinion without muscles they should be slower. Supposed to be a little funny but at the same time I do think their reaction is a bit too low. Their unbreakable just makes them too OP. Flanking and rearing is so fundamental and so important in pvp it has to be used in pvp unless you want to lose everytime. For skellies this is not true. Their unbreakable on all their units especially their HI allows them to not worry about flanking. In pve you can always set traps and use your HI to flank while your LI flank. A good Undead player can easily negate those advantages in any pvp. Again with their unbreakable a smart UD player would use LI. Now not only are those LI unbreakable which is a big aspect of picking LIA for other races but they can equip armor unlikes the LIA and have better stats than the LIA. Even then if their LI are losing to any other unit with their unbreakable they can still hold off that unit for their other units to win and then flank. Then my HI flee even if they have superior gear and they get simply run down my HI. If Skelly HI were reared or flanked they wouldn't need to worry about flanking. If their HI have good gear they can just continually attack not only whoever engaged that HI first but also it's flankers. It is too big of a deficit to come over in pvp and I believe it largely unbalances pvp. Now while I think that the killing of one skelly unit when it's morale drops is a step in the right direction it is not nearly enough. Not only does it sometimes not even work but it isn't big enough of a factor for the HI considering it has 25 units which is the most of all HI. Now at the same time I have no problem with other races being tweaked.

Agreed, I can't understand why undead get to attack faster than Elves when they already have more units and less AP cost than elves, along with unbreakable. They have slightly lower stats but those lost stats can basically be made up with equipment using the AP difference they have to other races. It basically ends up with (at least in low-mid level play) undead being much sturdier, tactically powerful (through unbreakable), and deal more damage than any other race. Also, your point that undead LI are kind of like improved LIA that can wear armor is pretty much exactly how I feel too. They even have the reaction of LIA, being at 7. It's no wonder so many people chose to be undead in Olympus, and I can't really blame them. It might also be part of why dark is winning in the new world (because there were probably a good number of previously light players who decided to be undead on the new world as well.)

I did more pvps against undead today, mostly at an AP advantage of close to 100 AP. But the matches were very tough and I lost most of them anyways. Still, it felt much more balanced and I was having a lot more fun than in the even AP fights vs. undead... lol.

Basically, when I fight undead at a significant AP advantage (~15-20%), it feels like an even AP match with any other race... If I fight an undead at even AP however, it feels like the undead is bringing in 20% more AP of power than me and I'm still expected to try to win... This is the main issue at hand that I have. I would have better data if I had a bigger sample size of non-undead pvp's, but so far, all my non-undead pvps have been much more fun and felt more balanced than undead pvps when at even AP as the other player.

Wave_Rida wrote:

Uhm, there are several players actually not playing ud HI, due to them being terrible.

UD are very vunerable to flanking, especially since they wont retreat automatically.

Lastly, one of the standard picks in an UD army are LIA. There is still the damage difference and movement bonus between LIA and LI which you forget to mention.

In addition, I will spill a single bean. You claim any undead player can easily reduce advantages of flanking. That is total bs. You go in with HI, make him think you ball in, but keep 1 squad behind and flank. Surrendering the skellies will cost him time and troops.

Key: outsmarting your opponent in pvp.

I will agree with one thing. HI in tier 1 pvp makes undead SO MUCH easier to beat. It almost feels like a fair match when an undead opponent brings an HI to tier 1. But this isn't because undead HI are bad. It's because undead LI and LIA are so good that they put the HI to shame, at least early on. The HI will become very effective later on with some powerful gear thanks to 50 hp and unbreakable. But for tier 1 (and maybe 2 as well), LI/LIA are the king of pvp for the undead. As far as outsmarting your opponent, you can only do so much. if you fight an opponent that is good at the game, outnumbers you, and is sturdier and hits harder than you, there is very little tactics available that would give you a chance of winning without insane luck or awful mistakes on the superior player's part. An extreme example would be, "here, take this 1 LIA with no gear, and beat this level 20 cave giant." No amount of outsmarting your opponent could get you through that scenario. That's obviously an exaggeration, but it's a similar idea. The more your stats/abilities/number of squads are trumped by your opponent, the more luck and outsmarting you have to be able to do. It's simply not fair or fun if player A has to pull off crazy maneuvers and win the lottery just to stop player B from rushing in headlong with no strategy whatsoever and wiping them out. And this is typically how I feel when fighting against undead in even AP matches.

It doesn't seem right to me that undead are the only race with a second ability. I believe this where the problem lies, give the other races a second ability and it will be more balanced. Also on a side note shouldn't undead be slow seeing how they are dead and just woke up from a who knows how long nap, they are basically zombies and zombies are not fast. It doesn't seem right that they are as fast or faster than elves, elves should be in a league of their own when it comes to speed. Please take this into consideration.

Just something in favor of undead LIA which many UD players use. They move faster and they hit quicker than UD LI. Most UD players will have to craft a lot of gl banners to get their LI as fast as their LIA without overcapping them desperately on morale and still the UD Lia hits faster.

That undead dont move as fast as other races seems reasonable, but why should they hit less faster. They have no muscles and therefore no refractory period to recover there ability to move their weapons.

But still I think you are right. I pvped one especially awful UD PvP player. And I just got a good performance bonus or even none. If any other race would have played that badly I would have had won with flying colors.
But apparently i'm still the only UD player who is willing to admit that UD might very well be OP.
I recommend raising the Ap value of UD units a little further.